Revenge (6 page)

6.

Westminster Palace, London, May 1460

The King of England sat in a private chamber of his palace, gazing at an allegorical figure of Winter painted on the wall above the hood of the fireplace. Winter was in the form of an old man, wrapped shivering in a thin cloak against the blast of storms and cold winds. Henry empathised, though the storms he had to endure were of a different nature.

“It is always winter in England,” he murmured to himself, “nothing but rain and cold and darkness. The crops rot in the field, a murrain strikes down our sheep and cattle, and the starving people look to me for salvation. I look to God, but He turns from me.”

Henry uttered a little groan and covered his face with his hands. He knew it was not an impressive face. His smooth rounded features, placid blue eyes and perpetually earnest expression gave him the appearance of a keen, if slightly vapid, monk or a scholar. To be either instead of a king was his fondest wish, never to be fulfilled.

He would prefer to be in the adjacent room – known officially as the Painted Chamber – where he could take comfort from the vast painted murals of scenes from the life of his idol, Edward the Confessor, but his wife had insisted on conferring with him here. Queen Margaret was strong where he was weak, a lioness to his lamb, and he rarely defied her will in anything.

She was standing inside one of the deep window embrasures, reading a letter by the pale light streaming in through the glass. Her brow furrowed, and the hard little lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes deepened as she digested the contents. They were lines of care and determination engraved onto the face of a woman who often found herself obliged to play the man, since her royal husband was incapable of doing so.

Henry dreaded what the letter had to say. It would not be good news. It was never good news. After a few brief months of peace the carrion birds were again circling over his head. They would not be so easily dispersed this time.

“I should very much like,” he said mournfully, “to withdraw to a private place, and be a private person. I could do that, and be no more trouble or disappointment to anyone. Then my son could have my throne, or the Duke of York, or a cow-herd. Any one of them would be better suited to kingship than I.”

Margaret wasn’t listening. She finished reading the letter and folded it in half as she gazed reflectively out of the window. “Warwick has sailed from Ireland,” she said, “and returned to Calais, where he is busy re-fitting his fleet.”

“Calais?” Henry said, looking baffled, “but Calais is mine. He can’t go to Calais. Can he?”

“Calais is indeed yours, husband, but only in theory,” she replied with steady patience. “Currently it is held by the Earl of Warwick, and has been for some time. Our ally the Duke of Somerset is valiantly trying to dislodge him, but so far without success.”

Henry massaged his forehead. He had no aptitude for politics, and a severe bout of mental illness had affected his memory.

His recollection of the illness was vague, but enough to fill him with sick horror. The endless run of English military disasters in France, culminating in the loss of Bordeaux in the late summer of 1453, had precipitated it. Shortly after receiving news that the province was lost he had fallen into a catatonic stupor, unaware of anything happening around him.

Even the birth of his son and heir, Prince Edward, had passed him by, and when he recovered his wits he was shocked to be presented with a strong, healthy boy that was apparently his own flesh and blood. The conception, his wife assured him, had occurred before he fell ill. Henry had no memory of it.

The initial madness had lasted eighteen months, and since then he had lived in terror of relapses. Occasionally he sank into black moods that robbed him of what little energy and purpose he naturally possessed, but thankfully never threatened to plunge him back into his former helpless condition.

Still, the shadow lingered. He was all too aware of the insanity that had afflicted his grandfather, Charles VI of France. Charles had died strapped to his bed, screaming that he was made of glass and would shatter if anyone touched him. Henry spent long hours on his knees in church, praying to be spared such a fate.

“There are two Dukes of Somerset,” he said wearily, “father and son. Which one do you refer to?”

“For God’s sake, Henry!” snapped Margaret. “There is but one living. Henry Beaufort. His father Edmund was killed in the fighting at St Albans, five years ago. Can you not even remember the names of those who have died in your service?”

He thought for a moment, staring blankly at the wall. Half-suppressed memories of men fighting and dying flickered through his mind, making him shudder. He was a gentle man, and could not abide the sight of blood.

His own blood had been shed at St Alban’s, the first of the armed clashes between Lancaster and York. Henry had insisted on wearing no armour, and an arrow had sliced into his neck as he sat under a tree in the market square, patiently awaiting the battle’s outcome. The wound had healed well enough, but he still felt a sharp ache in his neck on cold nights.

“Yes,” he said, “I remember now. Edmund was my friend. The traitors butchered him when he tried to take refuge inside an inn. I was very angry. Wasn’t I?”

Margaret crossed to a table beside the fire and poured wine into a goblet from an elegantly fluted jug. “You were furious,” she said, taking a long drink, “and swore never to forgive York, Warwick and Salisbury for their crimes. Yet they still live, and plot fresh treasons against you. Young Lord Audley has defected to them.”

She drew in a long, shuddering breath, and with a sudden oath hurled her goblet into the fireplace. “Defected!” she screamed, her mood changed in an instant, “and thrown in his lot with the same traitors that killed his father at Blore Heath! What manner of people are you English, who can turn your coats so easily, and enter into conspiracies with those who murder your own kin?”

The flash of rage died away into a choking sob. Now it was Margaret’s turn to hide her face in her hands. Feeling that he ought to comfort her, Henry rose and tried to put his arms about his wife’s shoulders. She roughly pushed him away.

“I don’t want your soothing words and embraces,” she hissed, baring her teeth at him. “What good are they? I want a King and a husband who acts, instead of spending half his days weeping and staring at the wall, and the other half on his knees in prayer. Audley would never have dared to betray your father. You must
deal
with these vermin, Henry. Smoke them out; destroy them!”

Henry, staggered back a few paces and threw up his hands. “I cannot smoke anyone out in Calais from Westminster,” he said helplessly. “And as for my father, he had a gift for inspiring respect. I don’t. People pity me, nothing more.”

His wife stared at him with loathing and contempt. He tensed, expecting a blow. It would not be the first time Margaret had struck him.

Instead she turned away and took another drink of wine, straight from the jug. “I will send word to Buckingham,” she said, wiping the spillage from her chin with the back of her hand, “and order him to muster our forces near Coventry.”

“Coventry?” Henry echoed, looking puzzled. “Why Coventry? If Warwick sails he will surely try to land on the south coast. We should order Buckingham to muster at Sandwich.”

“You forget, my husband, as you forget most things,” she replied, “Warwick is still wildly popular in Kent and London, and the darling of the merchants. If he gets past our fleet and succeeds in landing troops on the mainland, the people will flock to join him. That will leave us isolated in the middle of hostile territory. The Midlands, however, are a different matter. They love us there.”

“That’s true,” Henry said, nodding happily, “I recall our last progress. The people lined the roads and shouted ‘Long Live the King!’ They cheered our son. He was very young then.”

“Which is why we must make ready to withdraw to Coventry,” Margaret said. “So we are prepared to face Warwick, if and when he lands.”

Henry made an effort to concentrate. “What of York?” he asked. “He is in Ireland, I think. Yes, Ireland. What if he invades at the same time Warwick lands?”

“He won’t,” Margaret said airily. “The Earl of Wiltshire is our Lieutenant in Ireland. His task is to prevent York from leaving, and I have every confidence in his ability. Warwick is the main threat.”

“Therefore…” Henry pulled at his nether lip as he willed his thoughts into a coherent pattern, “we should gather our forces in the Midlands. Near Coventry. That is the right thing to do. Isn’t it?”

His wife smiled, all her anger dissipated, and cupped his face in her hands. “Yes, Henry,” she said, placing a rare kiss on his brow, “indeed it is.”

7.

Mary was married to Henry of Sedgley, the Bastard Stafford, on the first of March 1460. The marriage took place at All Saints Church, where her father had been buried the previous autumn.

Their wedding was a happy affair, and did much to expel the sadness that had descended on Heydon Court since Blore Heath. Mary would come to remember it as a rare shaft of light in the grim darkness of that era.

It was a happy affair, but an ill-attended one. Few of their Yorkist neighbours were invited or attended, save two old men of the Ramage clan who had been friends with Edward and served with him in France. Dame Anne suffered the presence of these broken-down old men for her late husband’s sake, though they were obliged to stand at the back of the church, and she ignored them throughout the ceremony and the wedding feast at Heydon Court that followed.

Mary’s feelings for her husband were mixed. She was fond of him, and held him in greater esteem than John Huntley. Huntley had a cruel wit and always made it plain that his only interest in a union lay in Mary’s dowry, which included Grisham House, the smallest of her family’s three manors.

But fondness is not love. Try as she might Mary could not imagine harbouring any deeper feelings for Henry, even though he was kind and gentle and brave and loyal, and deeply attached to her. She spent long hours in the private chapel at Heydon Court, begging God to make her love him, but the spark refused to kindle.

She confessed as much to her mother, who shrugged away the problem. “What type of ideal world do you think we are living in, Mary?” she said. “Do you think I loved your father, at first? We were betrothed as children, but he was sixteen and I was just twelve when we first saw each other. He was a stranger, an overgrown, clumsy youth who blushed when he looked at me and tripped over his own feet. But we made the best of it. In time I grew to love him, or something similar.”

She put down her sewing and gazed bleakly out of the solar window, at the roe deer peacefully cropping the grass in the park. “We were a partnership,” she said distantly, “with duties and cares that went beyond selfish personal desires. Every day I feel his loss keenly, and wake up in a cold bed.”

Her words humbled Mary. She went to her wedding less like a sacrificial lamb, and more like a sensible young woman who realised her good fortune and thanked God for it.

James presided over the ceremony, and made a far better showing than he did at their father’s funeral. Dame Anne wrote him a long letter spelling out the consequences if he did not, and he appeared sober, washed and in a tolerably clean surplice.

As for Richard, he had to be carried to and from the ceremony in a litter. He was still too weak to stand, though the danger to his life had passed. Master Shipton had assured the family that he would soon be whole again, though the scar of Blore Heath would stay with him the rest of his days. The scar was an ugly thing, a livid purple mark the size of Mary’s thumb near the base of his spine, where the point of the blade had entered.

Richard stubbornly refused to let his injury rule him. He had inherited their mother’s strength of character, and vowed to be on his feet again before Christmas. Mary often saw him limping about at the garden at Heydon Court, supported by Mauley at his left arm and a crutch under his right, white-faced and gasping in pain with each tentative step.

The stab-wound had damaged his kidney, and he was condemned to experience intolerable pain if he drank anything stronger than watered ale or wine. Pain was his constant companion during those first few months of recovery, though in time the spasms grew less frequent, and by the spring of the following year he was strong enough to sit on a horse again.

The grace of God restored Richard’s strength, but to Mary’s lasting sorrow did nothing to remove his desire for revenge. Revenge became his obsession, driving him on whenever his failing body confined him to bed and rest – revenge on his treacherous neighbours, on the Duke of York and his adherents, maybe even on God. The Boltons were an unforgiving brood, and Richard had inherited his full share of that trait.

While he brooded and slowly recovered, Mary concentrated on negotiating a safe passage through the first few months of her marriage. Henry was as devoted and loving as she expected, and she was patient with him in return, despite the initial difficulties experienced in consummating their union. When that trial was over, and they had achieved a degree of physical complicity, she had leisure to attend to her new home.

Sedgley manor was pleasant enough, a stone farmhouse and a grange with the little village of Sedgley close by, surrounded by some four hundred acres of forest and good farmland. Local rumour had it that the Duke of Buckingham had given Sedgley to Henry’s mother, a widow in the household of Buckingham’s wife, as the price for keeping quiet about their brief affair. Henry’s mother had died two winters previously. He seldom spoke of his father, whom he had never met and only ever seen from a distance.