Succession (15 page)

She knew, of course, what Warwick was saying about her. That same day she had retrieved her son from his nurse; insisted on holding him alone.

He had been washed and was wrapped in blankets. His eyes were closed.

He looked unbearably cross.

That was the first thing she had thought about him: how angry he seemed to be. Angry at her, she thought, for bringing him into the misery and cruelty of this world.

Her second thought was that he was much darker than his father; he had a tuft of blackish hair, on a head that was substantially bald. On closer inspection she could see that his face was a blotchy, yellowish red, his lips already full. He did not resemble his father.

It was unfortunate, perhaps, given what the serpent Warwick was saying, yet secretly she was glad.

He was like her.

He was hers.

He would have all her fighting spirit. Which he would need, because it seemed that he would have to fight – for two nations.

Now, as she held him, he pulled his full lips apart into a resentful, straining cry. His fingers peeked out of his blanket, splayed and closed again. They were so wrinkled, like the fingers of a tiny, ancient man. She felt a sudden fierce compassion for this child who in his infancy had inherited the full weight of the crowns of England and France.

But he would never be alone, not while he had her. She would keep him with her, always by her side. She did not like to give him back to his nurse, even while he fed.

The Duke of Somerset was in the Tower. Her father had still not replied to the letters she had sent to him, to the news that he had a grandson. And her husband – her husband had not responded either.

But she had her son.

Everything had changed now, with his birth.

She folded his wrinkled fingers back into the blankets.

‘As soon as I am churched,’ she said, ‘we will visit my lord the king. He will recover,’ she said, ‘when he sees his son.’

At the prince’s coming to Windsor the Duke of Buckingham took him in his arms and presented him to the king in goodly wise, beseeching the king to bless him, and the king gave no manner answer. Nevertheless the duke abode still with the prince by the king, and when he could no answer have, the queen came in and took the prince in her arms and presented him in like form as the duke had done, desiring that he should bless [the child] but all their labour was in vain, for they departed thence without any answer or countenance, saying only that once he looked on the prince and cast down his eyes again without any more.

Paston Letters

 

She knelt before him as if in prayer. ‘Henry,’ she said. ‘This is your son – your beautiful son.’

She could not for the moment say anything else, but then she continued in a lower voice.

‘If you ever loved me – if you ever loved God – you must come out of this. Please.’

His eyes were entirely opaque to her. He had many small scars around his head, which was still shaved, and there were traces of blood beneath his nose. He was so, so thin. But his eyes were still the most troubling thing to her; it was as if he had been removed from his eyes.

She did not know where he might have gone. She wondered briefly whether it was better for him there.

She couldn’t seem to stop her own mind racing. Or her heart.

She put out her hand and touched his, which was cold and limp.

O my husband.

For the first time it came to her that he might die, without ever acknowledging his son.

If the king
did
die they would never accept an infant prince.

The prince burbled, and a small thread of milk spilled from the corner of his mouth. She wiped it quickly with the edge of her sleeve.

‘Henry,’ she said, ‘you must come back to us. You must.’

Nothing.

It occurred to her that she had been a long time on her knees, and had achieved nothing. She gave her husband’s hand a final squeeze, which was not returned, then stood up and faced the Duke of Buckingham.

‘When does parliament begin?’ she said.

The Duke of Buckingham said it would be in the next month. All the lords had been summoned, he said; he did not know how many would attend.

‘You will present a bill for me there,’ she said.

‘A bill?’

‘I wish to be made regent,’ she said. ‘I will look after the interests of my son.’

The Duke of Buckingham looked as unhappy as a man could.

‘It is usually the king’s council who elect a regent,’ he said.

‘But I will save them the trouble,’ she said. ‘You must put it to them that my son the prince must be provided for. He must receive his titles – he must be made Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester – and acknowledged heir to the throne.’

The duke’s long face looked even longer. ‘There are those,’ he said, with extreme caution, ‘who say that the king must recognize him first.’

She looked up at him then, stung.

‘My son –’ she said, then stopped and corrected herself. ‘The
king’s son
is heir to this realm, and the king would know that if he were well. Do you think for one moment that he would doubt it?’

The duke hastened to assure her that he thought no such thing.

‘Then you must act in the king’s name,’ she said, and she left the room without looking back at her husband, still carrying the prince in her arms.

The queen hath made a bill of five articles, desiring these articles to be granted. The first is that she desireth to have the whole rule of this land, the second is that she may appoint the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Privy Seal and all other officers of this land, the third is that she may give all the bishoprics of this land and all other benefices belonging to the king’s gift, the fourth is that she may have sufficient livelihood assigned her for the king, the prince and herself. As for the fifth article I cannot yet find out what it is.

Paston Letters

 

… it is a right great perversion

For a woman of this land to be regent –

Queen Margaret, I mean, that ever has meant

To govern all England with might and power,

And to destroy the right line was her intent

Yorkist ballad

 

Through all the furore that followed her bill, the queen remained in her rooms. She received messages from the outside world: that a great fight had broken out in parliament, that she had brought the city to warfare; that Cardinal Kemp had hired an army and paid every man, so they could arm themselves with all the weapons of war and patrol the streets of London; that the Duke of York’s own army was approaching the city, with the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick supporting him; that the Duke of Somerset, from prison, had sent out spies to discover the movements of his enemies and warned his own men to be ready to meet them when they came.

In February she heard that her bill had been utterly rejected by parliament. Power had been granted to Richard, Duke of York, to hold parliament in the king’s name. In March she was told that yet another delegation had gone to the king to plead with him on their knees, and exhort him to speak, because without him the Duke of York would be made governor of the country. When they had failed to provoke any response, the Duke of York had indeed been declared Protector and Defender of the Realm ‘during the king’s infirmity’.

In April the duke had made great changes to the king’s council and government. That same month, he sent a message to the queen instructing her that she would take no further part in the affairs of the realm, but remain in her rooms at Windsor with her husband and her son. She would not be allowed to leave the palace until her husband recovered.

That summer the duke successfully repressed all rebellions against him and for the queen. He imprisoned the Duke of Exeter
in Pontefract Castle; the Duke of Somerset was still in the Tower and was discharged from all his offices.

Through all this the queen remained in her rooms, watching her son grow into the kind of prince he would need to be.

The king was in the same palace, but in different quarters, sequestered with his physicians. She visited him less frequently these days, relying on regular medical reports. She had stopped presenting the prince to him because she did not want to expose her son to the terrifying emptiness of his father’s gaze.

Every day the little prince grew more wonderful in her eyes. He was so alert – all her ladies agreed that they had never seen an infant so young noticing so much. He responded equally to all things: laughter, a rustle of skirts, the bright flags flickering in the wind, an insect on the window – all were treated to the same questing stare, the same rapid, birdlike movements of his head.

And he had such determination. By the time he was seven months old he was attempting to pull himself upwards using a table leg or his nurse’s skirts.

He couldn’t quite manage it, of course. His little face would turn pink with the effort, then his legs would buckle and he would give vent to his frustration with his straining cry. But even as he struck the floor again he would do his best not to topple over completely. His head would wobble and she could see all the muscles in his back working to keep him upright before his nurse scooped him up to prevent a further fall. Then immediately he would struggle to be set free.

And his nurse, a round-cheeked, beaming woman, would say, ‘He is a fighter, my lady,’ and the queen would correct her, ‘He is a warrior,’ and hold out her hands to take him and feel how, even in her arms, he seemed to hold himself erect. She could not help thinking how well he would look on a horse.

Also, he was astonishingly handsome, with dark, intent eyes, a small, pointed chin and strong dark hair that curled round his ears.

He looked nothing like his father – Warwick was right in that
respect. It was as though he had no father; he was wholly hers, as if she had willed him into being.

She had not missed a single stage of his development: his first tooth, the moment he could grasp and point, the first time he successfully hauled himself to a standing position, took his first step, said his first word. Which was not ‘mama’ or ‘nurse’ and certainly not ‘papa’. It sounded like ‘gnu’, but his nurse swore later that he had pointed to the bible and said ‘book’.

Her ladies compared him to his grandfather, Henry V, the warrior king. They rarely mentioned his father.

Most of the time it was easier not to think about the king, who had still not recognized his son, or taken any part in the affairs of the nation for more than a year.

Who had let the would-be usurper, Richard of York, take his place, and confine her, the queen, in this castle.

With each day that passed the king seemed further away. Which was why, when the messenger came, her first response was not pleasant; she felt a kind of sickening jolt.

He knelt before her, spreading his arms wide, an expression of theatrical joy on his face.

‘The Lord be praised,’ he said.

And she half turned away from him; she could hardly hear the rest of what he said for the rushing noise in her ears.

Her ladies made little gasps and cries of delight. Elizabeth Butler stepped forward and took hold of her hands, smiling.

‘It is a miracle,’ she said, but the queen felt something inside her closing.

Then, rapidly, her mind began to work. There was so much to do, so much that could be done. York could be dismissed, imprisoned – preferably executed, along with that lying whelp Warwick. The Duke of Somerset could be released at once.

So many thoughts, vying for ascendancy in her mind. She touched her hair, her face, then spoke a little breathlessly.

‘We must prepare ourselves,’ she said. ‘We must dress the prince. We must go to the king.’

Blessed be God, the king is well amended, and has been since Christmas Day, and on St John’s Day commanded his almoner to ride to Canterbury with his offering and commanded his secretary to offer at St Edward’s shrine. On Monday afternoon the queen came to him and brought my lord prince with her …

Paston Letters

 

Her ladies walked ahead of her, carrying the prince, but as they reached the doors they parted seamlessly to allow her to pass before them.

She had drawn her hood up, partly because it was cold in the palace, and partly because she did not want them to see her face. A kind of numbness had spread down one side of it to her lips, and her vision was slightly blurred, though not with tears.

What if?
she couldn’t help thinking.

What if the madness has done permanent damage? What if he refuses to recognize the prince?

‘Wait,’ she said. She had not walked far, but she felt as though there was a stitch in her side.

They will all be watching
, she thought. All the king’s attendants, and her own, to see how the king responded to his son. If he did not recognize the prince, her son could not be named heir to the throne.

She could not do it, she thought. She could not walk through the doors.

And then they opened.

And so she walked in, blinking rapidly.

She saw him at once, despite the blurring of her vision: his shaved head propped up by pillows; the long gown, from which his legs protruded like yellow sticks.

She hesitated only a moment, then hurried forward, putting her hood back, sinking into a curtsy just moments before she reached him, so that he could not see her face and she did not have to look at his.

‘My lord,’ she said.

‘You have come to me,’ he said in a voice that was strained and
creaking from disuse.
But at least he recognized me
, she thought. And still she dared not look at him for fear that she would weep uncontrollably at what she saw.

‘I have come,’ she said unsteadily and now at last she was able to look up. Past the skull-like contours of his face to his eyes. Which were filled with an ethereal light as though his soul shone out of them. Because for so long he had been so near death.

He was trying to speak again. His mouth worked strangely to frame the words. The muscles were wasted, she realized; all those muscles in the face and throat that we do not even know we have. But at last he said, ‘It has been a long time.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ she said, and now the blurring of her eyes was due to tears. ‘It has been a very long time.’

‘More than a year,’ his physician said.

‘But you have come back to me,’ he said, as though it were she who had left. But she didn’t contradict him. He extended his wasted fingers and she pressed them to her lips.

And at that moment the prince, tired of being held in his nurse’s arms, gave a strained, impatient cry.

‘Who is this – a child?’ the king said.

‘Yes, my lord,’ the queen said, and she rose and took the prince from his nurse, then sat with him on the couch beside the king.

She had never been so aware of the gaze of so many people.

Nervously, she took the prince’s cloak off and stroked his fine curls. The king watched as though mesmerized, and the little prince, who seemed at first as though he would cry, gazed solemnly into his father’s face. For a moment she thought that the muscles of her own throat would not work, but then she managed to say, ‘He is your son.’

‘My – son?’ said the king wonderingly, and she nodded emphatically.

‘Yes, Henri – your son. I was with child when you – fell ill – if you remember.’

‘I do not remember,’ said the king, and a soundless ripple passed around the room.

Her chest felt tight, as though there were a band round it.

But the king had extended a finger to the prince.

‘What is his name?’ he asked, and he touched the prince’s petal-soft face, and the prince did not shy away or cry but gazed wonderingly at his father with eyes as dark as his father’s were light.

‘His name is Edward – after your patron saint. He was born on St Edward’s Day.’

‘In October,’ the king said at once.

‘On the thirteenth of October,’ said the queen.

‘Why, then,’ he said, looking around the room. ‘I have a son!’

His face was lit by an unearthly smile.

It was as though the whole room exhaled.

Awkwardly, the queen put the prince on his father’s knee, and the king placed his hands on the child’s head as he squirmed.

‘It is a miracle,’ he said. ‘We must give thanks for so great a miracle.’

The queen wished that he would not use that word; there had been nothing unnatural in the birth of the prince. But she bowed her head and prayed with him.

Then he asked who the godparents were and she told him and he seemed pleased.

‘My – son,’ he said, ‘is very handsome,’ and the queen felt almost that she could have loved her husband again, in that moment.

They wept together a little, for joy, but the queen’s mind was already working furiously.

‘Henri,’ she said, wiping her eyes, ‘there is so much to do.’

She told him briefly about the many changes that had been made, that the Duke of York was still ruling the country and must be dismissed. And the Duke of Somerset was still in prison and must be released.

But the physician was stepping forward, and telling her not to overtire the king. He said it with a kindly smile, so that she knew he had registered the king’s acceptance of his son.

‘There will be time enough for all that very soon,’ he said, ‘once the king is well.’

[And in December] by the grace of God, King Henry was restored to full health at Greenwich. And on the 6th day of February the Duke of Somerset was liberated from the Tower of London …

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who during the king’s illness, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than a year and ten weeks … has been set free.

Calendar of Patent Rolls

 

… and immediately afterwards the Duke of York resigned his office to the king at Greenwich … who had governed the whole kingdom of England in the best and most noble way, and had wonderfully pacified all rebels and malefactors according to his oath but without undue harshness … And the Duke of Somerset again resumed the role of the principal governor under the king, when he had previously through his bad regime, almost destroyed the whole of England.

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

Once the king recovered his physical and mental health, and resumed the government of the kingdom, he immediately released the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter and the Earl of Devon from prison [as a result of which] Richard Earl of Salisbury resigned the chancellorship. The king, on impulse, created Thomas Bourchier Archbishop of Canterbury chancellor of England. The Duke of York, and the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, finding these changes unacceptable, left the royal household and council …

Chronicon Angliae

 

This same year in the month of May the king would have rode to Leicester for to have held a council there, and he rode by the town of Watford abiding there all night …

An English Chronicle

 

Because of [this] … the Duke of York and with him the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick approached London with 7,000 well-armed men. When the Duke of Somerset heard this news he suggested to the king that York had come to usurp the throne.

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

[The duke and earls] realizing that they might not prevail against or withstand the malice of Duke Edmund, who daily provoked the king to their final
destruction, gathered secretly a power of people and kept them covertly in villages near the town of St Albans. When the king was there they encircled the town and sent to the king, beseeching him to send out to them their mortal enemy and enemy to all the realm, Edmund Duke of Somerset; if he would not they would seize him by strength and violence. The king, by the advice of his council, answered that he would not deliver him.

An English Chronicle

 

I, King Harry, charge and command that no manner of person abide not, but void the field and not be so hard to make any resistance against me in mine own realm; for I shall know what traitor dare be so bold to raise a people in mine own land, wherethrough I am in great disease and heaviness. And by the faith that I owe to St Edward and the crown of England, I shall destroy them, every mother’s son, and they be hanged drawn and quartered that may be taken afterward, of them to have example to all such traitors to beware to make any such rising of people within my land, and so traitorly to abide their King and Governor. And for a conclusion, rather than they shall have any lord here with me at this time, I shall this day for their sake, and in this quarrel, myself live and die.

Rotuli Parliamentorum