by Jean Stubbs
‘The wheel of fortune!’ cried Jasper, and then with some irony, ‘And is Lord Stanley, your new stepfather, with the queen or with the duke?’
‘Why, with the Duke of Gloucester, for the late king made him an executor of his will in place of the queen.’
‘Then my nose tells me that the wind lies in Gloucester’s quarter.’
‘My mother speaks of the Duke of Buckingham, that has supported Gloucester, and is a nephew of her late husband Henry Stafford. I know nothing of him.’
‘Nor I, except that the queen made him wed her sister Catherine Woodville when he was but twelve years old, and that he hates her for it — aye, and hates his wife, for all that they have five children. I thought he lived at Brecon and was not much seen at court. His father died for Lancaster. What else says the Lady Margaret?’
‘She waits and watches and knows not what will happen.’
‘Then shall we do likewise, Harry, for now the scorpions are ringed with fire, and sting themselves to death. Mark me, lad. We shall see Yorkist against Yorkist until the last is slain, for they are proud and stately of stomach. And each one longs first to be next best to the king, then equal to, and at last chief and above the best. And when they have done slaughtering one another we may go home again! I pray that the Lord Stanley chooses his sides to some good purpose, and finds employment for us.’
‘And the Duke of Gloucester has arrested the young king’s uncle, Lord Rivers, and his half-brother Lord Richard Grey, and old Sir Thomas Vaughan, saying that they conspired against him and the nobility of the realm.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Jasper, enjoying himself, ‘I dare swear they would have done the same to him had they moved faster!’
‘And here is Buckingham again, that rode to meet the Protector, and is ever close to him in council, and like to supplant the Lord Hastings in favour.’
‘He springs on every page, Harry. We must mark his progress! But then the Duke of Gloucester was never very merry with Lord Hastings, for the duke is a prudish man and Hastings always loved a trollop in his bed. What more?’
‘They say that Dorset stole the treasure from the Tower, and that Sir Edward Woodville escaped with the royal fleet.’
‘Now they are rightly matched,’ said Jasper, growing more and more cheerful as the news unfolded. ‘And we may watch them, Harry, as we watch a play. Seeing first one side act and then the other, and I am not sorry for any save the young king. And when they have done playing we can step forward, with Lord Stanley’s help, and bowing to the ruined house of York, in humble-wise, commend our services. I like Lord Stanley better, Harry, he promises very well. And Bishop Morton is another that sniffs a change in the winds of state. Wise men both, after their fashion, that can turn their coats in a night, and come up smiling on the morrow.’
‘My mother says the young king is nothing content, for he was reared among the queen’s relatives and knows not Gloucester and his father’s friends, but it boots him not — though Gloucester and Buckingham are kindly to him.’
‘And when shall the young king be crowned?’
‘The date set by the queen has been altered.’
‘Aye, and shall be again. Mark me. Oh, Harry, this is the finest letter that ever your lady mother penned with her fair hand. And now I got to try my armour on, and see if I have grown too stout for it and must have a piece or two let in. And practise sword-play, horsed and armoured, in lieu of preferment at court.’
Henry put down the letter and laughed aloud.
‘Set not your hopes too high,’ he cautioned. ‘And what is this of sword-play? I thought you peaceably prepared to take up some little post in government when England settled.’
‘Why, so I am,’ Jasper retorted, grinning, ‘but when I sup with Yorkists, Harry, I take a sword to help me with my meat — and let another try the supper first, lest it be poisoned!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Buckingham: This noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defac’d with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants.
Richard III, Act III, Scene VII, William Shakespeare
England was rich and beautiful: her rivers and streams abundant with fish, her trees heavy with fruit and foliage, her open fields gold with grain or white with sheep — the backbone of her prosperity. Monasteries kept their own fishponds and vineyards and dovecotes, and opened their doors to all who needed succour or shelter. The belly was considered as religiously as the soul, and the Abbot of St Alban’s dined daily and well at his table in the middle of the hall. Fifteen steps high he sat above the rest, and his monks sang a hymn on every fifth step as they bore his food upwards. But he lodged and fed countless humble pilgrims, at no cost to themselves, for three days at a time. And each evening the poor came for the great baskets of broken bread and meats, and blessed him for his charity.
Bricks, which had first come into the country from Flanders a century before, were now manufactured of local clay, and a host of private and public buildings sprang up. Merchants and noblemen built fine houses and palaces that glowed russet and rose. Splendid guildhalls, intricate chantries, dignified colleges, magnificent churches, testified to England’s prosperity. Grammar schools were now more frequently endowed than nunneries. Good churchmen urged the education of the sons and wards of yeomen, burghers and the lesser gentry, as well as the nobility. And boys were beaten or praised, according to their abilities, to speak and write and translate Latin as though it were their mother-tongue. Without it no boy could hope to enter the Church, to practise medicine or the law or undertake civic duties. Eton and Winchester, the great public schools, drew pupils from the south to the north of England, to board and flog and instruct them into Oxford or Cambridge. Books were the perquisites of the rich; but a lighter education by word of mouth — the singing of ballads, the telling of stories — circulated among all classes. And William Caxton, setting up his printing press in Westminster in 1477, had the patronage of the court, and from his press poured translations of Cicero, of Aesop’s Fables, and the popular works of Chaucer.
Suburbs spread from London, the flower of cities, and over fifty goldsmiths and silversmiths displayed wares worth a king’s ransom, in the Strand leading to St Paul’s. The wharves swarmed with ships of many nations. The Worshipful Companies of Mercers, Grocers, Drapers and Fishmongers conserved and extended their wealth — and supported each government as it came into power. On London bridge the houses rose tall and fine and crowded, and above the Tower rose the traitors’ heads — rotting upon their poles.
The labourer, though his hours were long and his work hard, enjoyed good wages and full employment, due to the combination of war and plague. By command of the Church he could not be employed on Sundays and Saints’ Days. He had his wakes and revels. Pageants trundled on wooden stages from place to place in the towns. The village procession to the butts for an archery competition was led by men disguised as Robin Hood and Little John. He laid wagers, wrestled, fan races, played hand-ball and foot-ball, threw the bar or the stone, and relished a little secret poaching in the woods and streams. The glut in land, and some thriftiness on his part, could buy him a few strips of his own to cultivate. Then, if a red-cheeked wench caught his fancy he courted her as he pleased; for the poor were richer than the rich in love, and having no material wealth to bargain for could indulge the wealth of the heart. Over him the landlord had power, and over the landlord the nobleman, and over him the king.
True, the roads were nothing more than muddy lanes, pitted with holes, water-logged in winter, reeking of dung and garbage in summer. But bushes were lopped for a distance of two hundred feet on either side of the main highways, so that no robbers could hide and spring out unnoticed by travellers. And yet, though Edward had enforced the public peace as his predecessor could not, every man rode warily, and every letter could not be sure of reaching its destination. The bridges were in no better state, and bishops granted indulgences and pardons to men wh
o bequeathed money or materials for their repair. So each journey was a hazardous venture, to be alleviated only by fine weather and a local guide — who would know the driest ford and the safest road. In the best conditions a man reckoned to cover between thirty and forty miles a day; in poor conditions perhaps twenty to thirty. But a messenger on important business would ride fifty hard miles in that time, and a king’s messenger could perform feats of horsemanship that verged on the impossible.
On humbler, domestic missions, the professional carriers gave good service from one part of England to another, though sometimes the winter rendered that service immobile. The long-distance carrier jogged from London to such distant places as Norfolk, Shrewsbury and Exeter, and back again, bearing money and valuables, letters and goods. The short-distance carrier would travel more frequently, but on a half-day circuit which enabled him to reach home the same night.
In spite of these conditions the government and daily round of England rolled inexorably on. Judges made their usual itineraries; merchants rode with their trains of laden pack-horses; pilgrims trudged to Canterbury, to Walsingham and other shrines; friars and pardoners exchanged the mercy of God for a groat; and armed retainers trotted to and fro on their lord’s personal errands. Pausing and gaping as they passed, the peasant bent again to his endless tasks of hoeing and sowing, or licked his toiling oxen with a whip, turning the fruits of the earth to other men’s profits. And in the green forests the hunting horn sounded and the falcon soared, and the wild boar and gentle hart turned at bay.
Above all this wealth and power loomed the pestilence, capricious and despotic, bred in the ports and cities, spreading to the countryside. Flea-bearing rats were its messengers, the gutters laden with refuse and running with sewage its good friends, the close dark houses its patrons. Democratic in aspect, it made no distinction between the mighty and the lowly, and all fell or fled before it. Then as suddenly as it had begun it ceased, passive but unconquered. And the people buried their dead and thanked God for their deliverance.
The messenger who galloped into Westminster from Stony Stratford had stopped only to change horses. He brought news that would set the palace in an uproar. For the Duke of Gloucester had arrested the young king’s guardians, Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, and taken the king into his personal custody.
Wailing and wringing her hands the queen gathered children and servants and baggage about her, and once more sought sanctuary. But this time there would be no warrior husband to fetch her out again, and no infant son to cheer her exile.
A different messenger reached Hastings, bearing Richard of Gloucester’s letter to the Council, and Hastings sent another man to knock up the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York. At first the Archbishop’s servants refused to wake him, but the man was so adamant that they finally conducted him to the bedside, where Rotherham heard the tale in astonished silence.
‘Notwithstanding, my lord,’ said the messenger, ‘my Lord Hastings sends your lordship word that there is no need to fear. For he assures you that all shall be well.’
‘I assure him,’ the archbishop replied gravely, ‘that be it as well as it may, it will never be so well as we have seen it!’
For a short time he sat up in bed, thinking things over, and then made up his mind. Calling his servants and bidding them arm themselves, he took the Great Seal that was in his keeping and personally delivered it before daybreak to the queen.
There she sat on the floor rushes, rocking to and fro with grief. She had not had time to dress properly or to cover her head, and the grey hair straggled over her shoulders, giving here and there a gilt-and-silver gleam of its former glory. Around her men jostled and argued and fetched and carried: a hive of bees bereft of their queen. Boxes and bundles and packs were hauled off carts, pulled out of carriages, spilling and tumbling their contents as they were thumped down. Rolls of cloth of gold and velvet and rich brocade. Carved chests, chairs covered in embroidered leather. Featherbeds, hangings, cushions and tapestries. Silver and gold cups and platters. Head-dresses sewn with pearls. Sumptuous pieces of armour. And still the queen moaned and hid her face in her hands, and did not know how to command her servants. So each man ordered the other, and countermanded orders, and sent one this way and the other that. While some sturdy fellows, who could find no means of moving the bulkier pieces of furniture, were knocking a hole in the wall to make a passage.
‘Madam,’ said Rotherham gently, stooping over her, ‘be of good cheer. I trust the matter is nothing so sore as you take it to be. And the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings, has sent me a message that puts me in hope and out of fear.’
He spoke more optimistically than he felt and she was not misled.
‘Ah, may evil befall him!’ she said, weeping, ‘for he is one of them that labours to destroy me and my blood!’
‘Madam, I assure you that if they crown any other king than your son, whom they now have with them, we shall on the morrow crown his brother — whom you have here with you!’
And he patted Prince Richard’s shoulder as the boy stood watching his mother in bewilderment and terror.
‘Madam, here is the Great Seal. That noble prince your husband delivered it unto me, so here I deliver it unto you — to the use and behalf of your son.’
She took the Seal and thanked him, and he kissed her hand. But even as he took his leave of her she crouched over the Seal, and wept aloud.
By first light the Thames was swarming with boats full of Gloucester’s retainers: sent to search any who passed, and to prevent the queen going into sanctuary. And once more the citizens of London murmured among themselves, and no man left his house without a knife in his belt.
Hastings, endeavouring to improve the appearance of the situation, summoned the Council to St Paul’s for conference, but the damage had been done. The royal family were under the protection of the Church, the queen’s relatives under close guard at Pontefract, and Sir Edward Woodville had taken to the sea with the fleet. Still, Hastings lauded Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s loyalty to the young king, and put out the news that the queen’s brother and son had been arrested to prevent their assassinating Richard. This was further underlined by the duke’s riding south, preceded by four carts and armour which had been stored for wars with the Scots, or possibly the French.
‘Lo! Here be the barrels of harness seized from these traitors who planned to destroy the noble lords withal!’ proclaimed the street criers, as the company passed.
Many wondered, but all had sense to hold their tongues, unless they went further and cried, ‘Hang the traitors!’
On 2 May Rotherham received a letter signed by King Edward V, commanding him to see to the safeguard and sure keeping of the Great Seal of the realm, preparatory to the king’s arrival in London. Uncertain now as to the wisdom of his action, and realizing that the queen’s party was in eclipse, Rotherham retrieved the Seal from Elizabeth. Then he resigned his office and hoped that no one would punish his lapse of judgement. On 4 May Edmund Shaw, mayor of London, on horseback, with sheriffs and aldermen in scarlet, and five hundred citizens in violet, met the new king at Hornsea and conveyed him through the city to the Tower, to await his coronation.
Gloucester, gracious and soldierly and genial, officially took upon himself the role of Protector and added another title to it — Defender of the Realm. He undertook the charge and care of the young king’s person, and gave himself permission to act for him. Then he set about the task of government.
Sir Edward Woodville escaped with his followers and two ships to the nearest safe foothold; Brittany, where Jasper and Henry welcomed him.
‘Poor England is riven once again,’ said Sir Edward over his wine.
‘And this time you cannot blame Lancaster for it!’ Jasper observed, finding it difficult to accept a former enemy as a present friend.
Sir Edward looked at him shrewdly, unprovoked.
‘I would not quarrel with you, Pembroke,’ he said courteously, out of
good manners, giving Jasper the title that was not his. ‘We are mewed up here as close as cats in a sack and must hope for better fortune. And when the young king comes to power he will not forget his mother’s family, and I shall not forget that you befriended me.’
‘Then here’s my hand upon it, sir,’ said Jasper, ‘and my sword should you need one.’
‘My uncle’s sword itches to be free of the scabbard,’ Henry observed, smiling, and they all laughed.
Lady Margaret’s pen had never been busier, and they read Lord Stanley’s opinions in every letter, though as usual they inclined to leave an opening for change. That May of 1483 was a turbulent one, with every man looking to his own protection, and praise of Gloucester’s efficiency mingled with doubts as to the queen’s future. For she had fled to sanctuary but one could not stay there for ever.
By the middle of June the picture had darkened, and now Henry scanned his mother’s letters three and four times over, in an attempt to read more into them than she had written.
‘What do you know of Buckingham?’ Jasper asked Sir Edward, hearing the name linked with that of the Protector again and again.
‘Only that he is proud and makes much of his descent from the youngest son of King Edward III, and mislikes our family. And he is comely and has a ready tongue, and keeps great state in his castle of Brecon. But he knew little of the Duke of Gloucester, I swear it, before King Edward died, and must have seized upon the opportunity to make himself an ally of the duke — nursing plans of his own.’
‘Yet has he a long inheritance of Lancaster,’ Henry broke in. ‘Does he seek to be king?’
‘I know not. I think not. Forgive me, my lords, but Lancaster’s cause is long buried. Perchance Buckingham thought so, too, and so sought a high place at court by befriending Gloucester. But that other plotter Hastings will not like this, for he was always closest to the late king, and he and Buckingham may quarrel.’