The Midsummer Crown (37 page)

Three days after my ordeal I stood pressed against one wall of the great hall of Baynard's Castle while a great concourse of nobles, both spiritual and temporal, packed it to capacity and listened to the Duke of Buckingham make the case for offering Richard the crown. And when, finally, the duke himself appeared at the head of the marble staircase, accompanied by his mother (who looked, I may say, far more triumphant than he did) they went wild with enthusiasm, waving their hats in approval and falling to their knees while their spokesmen – the Archbishop of Canterbury and half-a-dozen others – begged my lord, with tears in their eyes, to accept the throne.

He made a little show of reluctance for modesty's sake, but he would have been a fool to carry it too far. The upshot was that he descended the stairs, mounted his horse, White Surrey, which had been led indoors, and rode off to Westminster Hall where, so I was later informed, he seated himself on the marble chair of the King's Bench and formally laid claim to the crown as his father's rightful heir. Again, the acclamation of the crowd was overwhelming. He then sent for Sir John Fogge, a close relative of the Woodvilles and one of his own deadliest enemies, gave him the hand of friendship and appointed him Justice of the Peace for Kent, a gesture of reconciliation which the crowd cheered to the echo. (But over which those of us who knew my lord well shook our heads despairingly. It was the same old story: he was clever, but too often not wise, letting his heart rule his head.) He then rode on to the abbey to make an offering at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor.

On the eve of his coronation, I was among the cheering, excited crowds who watched him ride from the royal apartments of the Tower to Westminster, dressed in blue cloth of gold embroidered all over with golden pineapples and with a purple velvet mantle trimmed with ermine. His seven pages wore white cloth of gold and crimson satin. The overall effect was magnificent. Two things bothered me, however. First, Queen Anne was being carried in a litter, obviously too frail to ride the distance on horseback. Second, the Duke of Buckingham was also wearing blue, blazoned all over with a design of golden cartwheels. There was a similarity between his and the king's costume that I found vaguely disturbing.

The following day, I was squashed into a corner of the abbey to watch the crowning. (Well ‘watch' is an exaggeration. I didn't see much of the actual ceremony from where I stood, but it was described to me by various people afterwards.) And then it was off to Westminster Hall where I, along with hundreds of others, gorged ourselves on enough food to have kept the entire population of Bristol in victuals for a month. Probably longer. I have never, before or since, seen so many varieties of soup, joints of meat, roasted birds, pies, jellies, syllabubs, spiced fruits, nuts, fish – fried, boiled and baked – all crowded together on one table at the same time. As for the wines, I never knew the names of a quarter of them. All I do know is that it took me two whole days and nights to recover.

Then I went home.