by Mike Voyce
Chapter 3 – Edward
I’d started with the boy in the courtyard, and now I needed to go back to little Edward and what happened to him after the arrest. Again, in my comfortable chair, one evening as dusk began to fall, I did it.
In the background was a sense of the ominous presence of Richard III. Yet still I doubted that Richard was a bad man, it wasn’t him I felt but little Edward’s fear of the “bad king”. Somewhere in the Buckingham rebellion things were horribly wrong. It was part of the whirlwind that first threw up and then threw down Richard III as king of England, and threw out of sight his nephews, Edward and Richard, the Princes in the Tower. But the vortex of evil that touched our little Edward was so much more immediate. The scenes I saw lasted long after I got up from my chair and tried to go on about my ordinary life. Somewhere in my mind a pit had opened and whenever my thoughts were idle images would arise, like foul vapours that took days to clear.
(Past)
I can see as Edward saw, almost lying on the ground, half covered by leaf mould, shivering and clinging to a tree; on that night of running from the wood store. It’s as if my own little fingers were clutching into the hard tree bark, till it filled my World; silently repeating, over and over,
“Don’t let Papa be gone!”
It was like a prayer, permitting no other thought all that long night.
At another time there are local men, hollering to each other, their breath hanging in the damp air. It’s as if they’re dragging through the woods to find me. I see it all, crouching down in some bracken, brown and dripping; I can smell the damp earth, and feel my own body shivering like a frightened rabbit. Then, eyes tight shut as they pass nearby, breath freezes in my lungs, willing them to go away. It takes ages before they go, out of sight, still hollering and calling to each other. Papa would be pleased. I can still hear him saying,
“Run, boy, hide till you know you’re safe amongst friends.”
A thought hangs in the air, left in place of those searching men,
‘Perhaps, if I’m very good, Papa will come back.’
Who can say if they were Richard’s men or friends with Papa? Just try and try the very best and the World must come right again.
Then there’s an orchard full of apples, with the sun streaming into it, as the last of the morning mist curls away from between the trees. The shining dew makes it seem like fairyland and there must be elves behind every tree. Yet there’s no one here and there’s a tight knot of pain in my stomach. Then I think of Papa and remember he’s gone.
I felt little Edward’s pain entering my body, when he could no longer believe in Papa coming back; behind it washed the aches of forty eight hours in the open without sleep. He might have wept with the sharpness of it, and I would have cried with him, but by now he was too sunk in misery. You could call the drops that leaked down his pink cheeks tears of despair; Edward had no name for them. Days of wandering had left him totally lost and helpless.
He would find Papa. He would. He Would!
Some sense of purpose made him set out to search the scattered buildings in that country landscape. And some other sense told him he needed food for the searching. There was the mounting tension of fear before stealing into a farm kitchen where Edward thieved a pie. He stole it for Papa. Not till later did hunger force him to eat it himself.
The countryside was still sodden from the rains. There was nowhere to find dry shelter and the cold and damp were penetrating. Edward shivered almost constantly. I see him crouched down behind a dry-stone wall on a hillside with open grass fields all around him.
There’s no one around, anywhere I look, only me. There’s the pie, I tried to carry it in my tunic but it stuck to the wet wool and it’s left a soggy mess in my clothes. Carrying it in my hands it’s crumbled and I shan’t be able to give it to Papa, and I’m hungry.
On the other side of the wall it goes downhill and you can see for miles. If I sit against the wall I can look up to the woods but it hurts my back. The stones are hard and shaking makes me bump into them. Away from the wall the wind blows me and it’s cold and I feel dizzy. I wish I could lean on the wall and not bump into the stones, just sit here and think about Papa. It wouldn’t be wrong to eat half the pie, would it? Papa would make me eat it if he knew.
The pie was in Edward’s hand and there was torment in his whole being. Cramps knotting his stomach warred with guilt as he ate it all, knowing he’d left nothing to give to Papa. It burned in his mind as the indigestible pastry burned in his belly.
In all these scenes there was a running from all human life, and bile that was the bitter taste of fear. Exhaustion dulled the mind, from the strain of starting at every sound. It was amazing that one so young could show such wariness, like some wild animal, some hart pursued from its ground by the chase.
Edward’s only thought was to find Papa. He didn’t know how or where to look nor who to ask.
It must have been exhaustion that finally ended it. It’s truly amazing that one so young could have evaded capture so long.
One day Edward lay down on the soft moss of a woodland clearing, stretched out in the warm sunshine, he fell asleep. He meant only to rest but the warmth of the autumn sun lulled him and time passed dreamlessly away. When he awoke a man was kneeling over him. The man smiled as he picked him up. Edward was too weak to struggle, almost too weak to cry. His heart pounded and his eyes fixed on the man’s face. He couldn’t speak, knowing it was over.
Later Edward was on the floor of a cart. A herdsman was sitting over him, a great big man, the leathers he wore making the small space below the sacking cover stink of animal. Edward could just see, through a flap in the cover, the man who picked him up; he was walking his horse by the side of the cart, using a whip to guide the ox that pulled them. The cart moved ponderously on, falling into every pothole along the road. Every bone in Edward’s body jarred, yet he could barely feel it for dull stupidity, the senselessness of loss. The journey went on forever.
Later still there’s a cottage. It’s more than a cottage, a fair house, yet secluded in remote parkland. There’s a large, smiling woman, she welcomed Edward with open arms.
“This is Mistress Elizabeth More. She is servant to Sir Richard Delabere.”
She gave Edward a bowl of porridge. It was hot and sweet and he wolfed it. It burned his mouth and his throat as it went down. When he fell asleep she tucked him into her own bed and he slept deeply, a dreamless sleep, the first time he’d lain in a bed since Papa was taken away.
There was no sense of time, no order, in these scenes. They rose up as feelings, an image to put to fear, another to put to exhaustion and so on. I only knew such forceful feelings must be true; there was such vividness, as if every ounce of personality was stripped away and what came to me was the pure experience of being.
Mistress More was plump and reassuring. She reminded Edward of the nurse he still remembered from when he was very young. In time the strain began to leave him and he cried and began to talk a little instead of just nodding and shaking his head. The man who found him was still there, strong and kind.
I saw him as Edward first saw him, in the woodland clearing; the sun behind his head shining through his hair, highlighting the planes of his cheek. There was kindliness even then. That big face looking down from just a few inches away was one of the first images. Was it Thomas? I’d seen Thomas in that vision of the courtyard. I couldn’t be sure but I thought it must be him.
“This is Kynnardsley Park, whose master serves the King, but by Mistress More Sir Richard will keep faith with King Richard’s enemies.”
There was a twist of irony in Thomas’ smile as he spoke to Edward.
“I shall leave you with her while she gives you fitting disguise.”
And with that he was gone for days and weeks to prepare their escape.
For as long as King Richard lived there would be danger but it must have seemed greatest so soon after the rebellion. The news that came was of a
rrests and searches, of threats made if rebels were not surrendered; though little was said of it in Edward’s presence.
Edward’s first disguise was to have his long blond hair shaved to his head and be dressed as a girl. It was so, in long curtil and mounted side-saddle; he rode out of the park with Mistress More, in the broad light of day.
There was Sir William Knivet there on that ride; he had been one of Duke Henry’s counsellors, and William ap Symon, one of Henry Tudor’s agents. They had all sought sanctuary in Kynnardsley, and all rode out to Hereford now, to make their separate escapes. They went at a forced, leisurely walk, as if a family party with no business more serious than a family holiday. Every time strangers greeted them, or soldiers stopped them in the road, there was the temptation to set spurs and break into a full gallop. Even little Edward felt the tension of that journey, but Thomas would be waiting for him in Hereford.
After that there was constant movement, sometimes in covered wagons, sometimes walking, dressed as an urchin in rags. A long roundabout route was taken to come finally to a Welsh monastery, in Brecon, just a little way from where the rebellion had started.
It was just a few days after Christmas when they arrived. The pure, golden glow of the candles complimented the singing of the monks as they called the faithful to vespers.
Tell me this is all imagining!
There’s nothing to these images at all like that vision of the courtyard. I started by deliberate channelling, it gave me Duke Henry’s arrest; yet so much of this was just there in my head. Surely I must have made it up, mustn’t I?
And yet...
I felt a sense of panic when I let myself think about it all. Yet, if I were to take the advice of friends, if I were to “pull back the screens”, then I must go on, gritting my teeth and persisting, trying all the while to carry on my normal life.
(Past)
The monastery was too small to boast an abbot and there were no more than a dozen of the brothers, ruled over by a bent old father, but they were generous and gentle to Edward. The whole place was less than two acres in size, and it was sparse and worn, but it was built on a hillside and caught the winter sun. The monks took time to show Edward the healing herbs in their kitchen garden and the apothecary’s shop and how to milk goats and their pride and joy, the illuminated texts in their great bible.
The kaleidoscope of these scenes, spinning between each other and shifting into each other brought every attempt at ordered meditation to confusion. There was no firm ground at all for Edward, nor for me, till he came to the monastery. Only then did the World begin to spin round his head more slowly. Some coherent sense of this place did stick to my mind, and so it should, for it is here Edward spent his time in exile, away from the wrath of a king. Here winter turned to spring, then to summer and finally to a full year, while the outside World followed its course.
Edward’s exile went far beyond anything I’d imagined when first I started channelling, and still I was no nearer knowing what it meant; the monastery remained as if in a mist. Images of it receded into the distance, in stately procession.
Yet two pictures stand out. For the most part days merge into each other and images dance away from me whenever I try to catch them. They leave a sanctified reassurance, stuck like a plaster over an awful, aching loss. Yet these two remain.
(Past)
First was Thomas. He spoke little to Edward before he left; yet I remember him talking to one of the brothers.
“You will hold England in your hands.
I charge you, Joseph, by your vows.
Treat him as a brother, your own special brother.”
The monk listened solemnly, but when he spoke his face lit with a smile.
“You know me. You trust our brotherhood; none here shall fail the boy or the man.”
And he clasped Thomas by the hand and shook it firmly. After that Thomas left.
This monk was still very young, yet he had a presence and authority you wouldn’t expect. It was as if Thomas transferred his cares to him, for Joseph gave up all other work to watch over Edward.
Brother Joseph made Edward feel a child again, indeed special, no longer alone. They would play together at marbles and he’d let Edward win. When bad dreams would shake Edward’s sleep Joseph would comfort him, he would listen to all Edward’s childish hopes and fears. Yet, after leaving the monastery, Edward would forget him, for a long time, like all the rest.
Second was a tall, distant and beautiful noblewoman. But before her presence there were letters between her and the monks. The brothers would argue almost for days about what they should send to her; then pour avidly over her replies. There was much talk of whether she should come, whether the danger would be too great, of diplomacy at court, and if she should come how and when.
She, herself, had run. After the rebellion she’d been captured at Weobley and taken to the Tower of London. Only now had she been released and she was still nervous of the King’s men.
As further weeks passed in peace, eventually, she came. I can see her still, standing cool and tall, still in her riding habit, framed by the arch of the refectory door. There was a moment of stillness and silence before Edward ran to her, to be folded into his mother’s embrace. When she left she took Edward with her.
There!
Surely the pit in my mind should now be dry and empty. I’d seen Edward on the run and what became of him.
Yet, it’s such a fragment of his story.
Can you imagine how I felt, having gone through all those pictures of sorrow? There should have been relief to see the duchess, his mother, take Edward away. I could even pick out her name, it was Lady Katherine. Could I at last return to real life, my work and even my project with Sarah?
Yet…
I was sure there was more to the monastery than my dull wits had shown, some meaning I missed. So little had been explained: not the vision of the courtyard, not Richard; nor what any of this had to do with me. It left me unsatisfied. I kept remembering the words Thomas spoke to Joseph,
“You will hold England in your hands.”
What had he meant?
Or the words Duke Henry spoke to his son,
“You are to live! You are de Stafford’s heir and maybe England’s too.”
I thought of the Richard III Society; all those people interested in these times, all these centuries later. It sent a shiver through me, but still there was no answer.
As Edward’s rescue came to me less and less, a hush descended. It was like the tension at the eye of a storm and I began to realise there would be more to come. As the days passed, with no further sign of Edward, a sense of expectancy grew in the air.
***