by Robert Irwin
Warwick seems bewildered. It had not occurred to him (or to Anthony) that it was actually possible not to believe in God. Looking at him, Anthony realises that, while Warwick hates and despises him and his father, Warwick is actually afraid of Jacquetta.
Then Edward demands that, before proceeding into the Abbey for mass, the assembled lords and knights should take an oath, ‘Never to do outrageously, nor murder, and always to flee treason; also by no means to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asks for mercy. Also that no man takes battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law.’ This is the revival of an ancient custom, for Arthur had his knights swear just such an oath. After the oath and mass, the courtiers proceed to the Palace for the Pentecostal feast. At the door of Westminster Hall pages stand and hold out bowls for the washing of hands.
The seat on Edward’s left is vacant, a sign that England still has no queen. Henry Beaufort Duke of Somerset sits on Edward’s right, for he is in high favour since he has been won over from the Lancastrian cause. Grace is said, food brought in to drums and pipes and everyone is about to sit down, but then it is seen that Edward is still standing and he now declares that he will not sit nor eat until he hears of an unusual adventure or of some wrong that must be righted. No sooner has he announced this than the door is flung open and a woman comes rushing in. Her hair is loose and she is barefoot. Three children, also barefoot, follow her. She throws herself at Edward’s feet and begs for his grace and justice. Her name is Alice Lytton and she is a widow, for her husband was killed at the Battle of Palm Sunday when he fought for King Henry, and being a widow of a man who fought for the wrong side, she has no means to defend herself against the depredations of her neighbours and they have forcibly occupied her house, the Manor of High Selling, and left her and her children homeless and penniless. Edward smiles and raises her to her feet. He declares that he will make sure that justice will be done and that swiftly and he summons over John Tiptoft, who as President of the Court of Chivalry will deal with the matter. It can be seen that the sun of royal justice shines equally over those loyal to the house of York and over former partisans of Lancaster and their dependents. Anthony guesses that this perfunctory little play has been arranged by Hastings in consultation with Ripley.
Now they may sit down, but Warwick is annoyed at being displaced from the King’s side by Somerset. And there is more. At the far end of the table Warwick mutters angrily about all this mock Arthurian mummery, ‘I know little about Arthur, but from what I know I say that, since he was cuckolded by Lancelot and lost the allegiance of half his knights, before being fatally wounded by Mordred, he was a King who failed. All this play at being paladins and knights errant is just for the amusement of women. I say that we can worry about the giants and the dragons that may beset our land after we have dealt with Henry and that harridan, Margaret. Indeed where is Henry lurking? We sit here drinking ourselves senseless, discussing ancient chivalry, when we should be talking money, munitions, foreign alliances, mercenaries and subsidies. This pageant is all a monstrous folly.’
‘Of course it is folly,’ replies a smiling Hastings. ‘But we cannot always be worrying about commissions of array, bombards, entails and bills of lading. There must also be feasting, dancing and pageants, or what is the point of being alive? This evening there are fireworks and dancing yet to come – and here is Scoggin to make us merry!’
Warwick growls. He is under some strain, for he sees it as his task to detach the French and Scots from their support of the House of Lancaster and that will not be easy.
Scoggin has indeed presented himself before Warwick’s table. Anthony notes that, since he last saw him, the jester walks with a limp, has lost some teeth and seems to have difficulty getting his jokes out. He will not be doing cartwheels anymore.
‘How many calves’ tails does it take to reach from the earth to the sky?’ he wants to know.
The diners profess their bafflement.
‘Just the one, so long as it is long enough!’ is the answer. Then, ‘What beast is it that has her tail between her eyes?’
Again Scoggin has to provide the correct answer, which is ‘A cat when she licks her arse!’
With this and other jolly quips the diners are royally entertained, except that Warwick and Rivers, though divided on so many other issues, look on the jester stonily.
‘I hate jokes,’ says Earl Rivers. ‘Jokes feed on ugliness, stupidity and misfortune. I would much rather encounter a footpad than a clown.’
The firework display is mounted by Ripley in the courtyard. Edward looks on as the heavens open with crimson rain and emerald serpents run along the ground, but he is as dissatisfied with the evening as is Warwick, though for different reasons.
‘All this is very well,’ Edward says. ‘But I want a real adventure. I want magic. I want to see something marvellous.’
‘Your Grace must come to Grafton,’ says Jacquetta. ‘And I swear to you that you will behold something truly marvellous.’
And her husband adds that the hunting in Northamptonshire is exceptionally good. Edward nods distractedly. Jacquetta is still beautiful and her gaze on him is fierce. Finally Edward says that he may come to Northamptonshire some time soon for the hunting.
The day after the Pentecostal Feast Anthony travels with his parents for a brief stay at Grafton. It will be the first time in four years that he has seen his sister Elizabeth who, since her husband’s death, has moved back to be with her parents. The Woodville Manor of Grafton, on the road from London to Northampton, has been built on the ruins of an old monastery. It is evening when they reach it. They find Elizabeth waiting for them in the great parlour. She, Earl Rivers and Anthony sit at a trestle table at one end of the room. Though Elizabeth asks a few questions about Anthony’s experiences in the north, it soon becomes clear that talk about fighting and munitions bores her and she really wants to discuss money and properties with her father. Jacquetta sits apart from them on a high carved chair in the shadows of one of the far corners, contentedly muttering to herself as she plays with her set of lead dolls and has them speak to each other in rhyme. When she was younger she assisted her husband John of Bedford in the management of his vast estates in England and France and, then until a few years ago, she was the trusted confidante and adviser of Margaret of Anjou. Yet, despite all this, there has always been something childlike about Jacquetta, for she still believes in the reality of the fairy folk that she was told about when she was little, even though, according to her, full-blooded fairies went into exile long ago and the place they now inhabit is hard even for her to reach. It needs a special sort of squinting and letting one’s eyes focus beyond what is in front of them. When, soon after Rivers married Jacquetta, he asked whether she really believed in fairies, she replied that they had a very poor reputation for telling the truth.
Elizabeth must find a new husband who will be a father to her two boys, Thomas and Richard, to secure the property that is rightly hers as a result of her husband’s death. The dower shares and property valuations at issue are complex and Anthony cannot get interested in these matters, but as he watches Elizabeth he notes how the excitement of all this talk of money and property makes her blush and seem more beautiful than ever. This somewhat resembles the charm of a small child who demands more sweets. Jacquetta has often spoken of Elizabeth’s glamour and described it as a kind of witchery. Her dower manors – Newbottle and Brington in Northamptonshire and Woodham Ferrers in Essex – should provide ample income for her and her sons. But Lady Ferrers has recently wed Sir John Bourchier and it appears that the two of them are plotting to entail what should have been Thomas’ inheritance from his father. Her father advises Elizabeth that she must seek protection at court from someone more powerful than himself and he proposes that she should write to Lord Hastings offering half the value of her dower estates in exchange for an indenture of covenant and a favourable settlement. Clearly this will be expensive but needs must when the Devil drives. Her father will dictate the le
tter that Elizabeth must write to Hastings.
Jacquetta, who has always been rich, does not see money as so important and she finds all this talk about dowers and entails as boring as Anthony does. She would rather talk about love and romance, but for now she sits at a small octagonal table and continues to move the small lead figurines about on a chequered tray that somewhat resembles a chess board. One by one these manikins are brought before a slightly larger figure who is crowned and they are tilted to bow before him. Watching this, Anthony guesses that these little people stand for fairies in Jacquetta’s imagination and that they are being made to pay obeisance to Oberon, the King of the Fairies.
At length her father and Elizabeth have finished their talk of money and properties. Then it is time for Jacquetta to tell one of her ghost stories. This really happened, she says, to one of the reeves in the service of her previous husband, John of Bedford.
This man’s wife had just given birth to a stillborn son. So then the reeve decided to go on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella to pray to St James that his wife might have better fortune next time and they might be blessed with a son and heir. While he was on the road he was overtaken by a great procession of people riding horses, oxen, sheep and other animals. But then he saw in the middle of the procession a tiny child wriggling along the ground in a stocking. He asked the little creature what it did there and it replied, ‘It is not right for you to adjure me, for you were my father and I am your miscarried son, buried without a name and without baptism.’
So then the father wrapped his shirt around the child and baptised and named him. Then the infant rejoined the procession, this time joyfully toddling on his two legs. The man kept the stocking. Back in England there was a party to celebrate the reeve’s return from pilgrimage. Then the reeve produced the stocking and demanded an explanation. The midwives admitted that they had wrapped the infant in the stocking and buried him without baptising him or giving him a name.
It is of course a moral tale. That is the way with ghost stories. Since sheriffs, magistrates and beadles do not suffice, ghosts must walk our streets and enter our houses to issue warnings and enforce law and morality. A ghost, any ghost, should be the friend of a virtuous man, and one should take comfort from ghost stories, yet Anthony finds the image of a child in a stocking slithering along the road to be a sinister one. He finds it difficult to sleep that night.
A few days later Anthony has to make his farewells before he rides off to Scales Hall. He finds the women in the parlour where Jacquetta is braiding Elizabeth’s hair. He waits until this is over and listens to them speculating about what sort of man might serve as Elizabeth’s second husband. This chatter is all quite ordinary, but then suddenly Jacquetta, standing before Elizabeth intones the words, ‘As the raven desires the cadavers of dead men, so should he desire you.’ It is almost as if a curse has been uttered and it brings the women’s chatter to an end.
In the months that follow Anthony only receives a few letters from his father. Mostly his father writes about his manoeuvres to secure Elizabeth’s dower property and his meetings in London with Lord Hastings on that subject. A couple of lords with estates in Northamptonshire have visited Grafton ostensibly to discuss matters relating to the keeping of the peace in the county, but Rivers suspects that their real motive was to inspect his daughter and consider her as a possible wife, though he has heard nothing more from either of them. The winter has been mild and the harvest is expected to be better this year, though of course it is far too early to tell. The King, who has been staying at Stony Stratford, has also visited the Manor of Grafton a few times at the end of a day’s hunting in the area and on one occasion has invited Rivers to join him on the hunt. Edward seemed to enjoy talking to Jacquetta. The northern fortresses that Warwick, Tiptoft, Anthony and others spent so long besieging are once more in the hands of the Lancastrians. The Earl of Warwick is in France where he is negotiating for a marriage alliance with Bona of Savoy. The wedding, once it takes place, will tie England to France in an alliance against Burgundy. The chief advantage of this marriage is that it will cut off French support for the armies of Henry of Lancaster and Margaret of Anjou. (Simply because Warwick is for a French alliance, Rivers is of course set upon one with Burgundy.) Somerset, who so recently sat at Edward’s side at table, has betrayed his trust and once more commands the Lancastrian forces.
These are distant matters and Anthony only worries that he may be summoned to lead levies from Norfolk to pursue Somerset or to besiege once more the northern fortresses. He tries to keep busy in Beth’s absence. Then on May 10th 1464 while Anthony is about on the estate supervising the replacement of thatching on some of the cottages, he receives a letter that changes everything. It is covered by an unusual number of seals. Moreover the messenger who delivers it has an escort of four mounted men-at-arms. Anthony’s first thought is that Warwick has accused him of treason and has had new evidence forged to that effect and his hands tremble as he reaches for the letter, but then he sees that the seals are those of his father. His father’s letter, which is very brief, contains no details, but from it Anthony learns that his sister and the King were secretly married near Grafton on May 1st.
Anthony’s first thought is that his father must be joking, but he immediately recalls that his father is not fond of jokes. Then Anthony is angry that all this has been kept secret from him, Elizabeth’s brother, but as he studies the letter more carefully he realises that his father only learnt of this after the ceremony had been performed and the marriage consummated. The whole business must be kept secret for some months more, for Edward fears that Warwick, once he returns from France, will try to find some means to challenge the validity of the ceremony and overturn the marriage. The ground must be prepared before Edward can reveal to Parliament that he has a wife and only after that can Elizabeth be crowned Queen. All this news is so unexpected and so strange that Anthony once again wonders if he has been resurrected in another world in which the normal considerations of probability do not apply.
It is of course Ripley who prepares the ground and it is Ripley’s version of events that eventually will circulate throughout England. How much of it is true, it is impossible to say. It is said that Edward became lost while hunting in the forest of Wychwood, near Grafton, and, while still lost, he encountered a beautiful young woman with blonde hair and the look of faery about her. Flanked by her two small sons, she stood under an oak tree. When she recognised the King, she ran forwards to grab at the bridle of his horse and began to pour out the story of the dispossession of the estates that were rightly hers. Edward leant over his saddlehorn to hear her long and complex saga all about money and lands, though he paid little attention to the details of this story, for he was thinking that she, who looked so beautiful standing in the dappled sunlight and dressed in russet and green, was like a spirit of the woods. Finally he dismounted and sat with her under the oak, and once he had assured her that her wrongs could easily be set at right, they talked at length of other matters, until Edward’s officers of the hunt found him and he was obliged to leave her. But he arranged to meet her again under that same tree the following day and he asked that she should come without her children.
Now Edward put the hunting of wild animals out of his mind. The following day he rode out alone to the assignation at the oak tree. This time Elizabeth wore a cloak of vermillion velvet over a yellow dress. For a little while they talked about the estates in Essex and Northamptonshire that should by rights be Elizabeth’s and, as they talked, she allowed him to hold her hand. Finally they kissed and she allowed him to stroke her breasts. But that was as much as she would allow him. Then he respectfully proposed that she should become his mistress. If she became the royal mistress, she would enjoy an honourable status at court and would be richly rewarded. She replied, ‘Though I am not highborn enough to be your Queen, yet I am too modest to be your concubine.’
Elizabeth’s virtue only increased Edward’s ardour and, after a third meetin
g, he resolved to marry her. She should be his Queen. He told no one about their meetings except his mother, Cecily of York, who was angry and told him that, ‘Though there is nothing about Elizabeth to be disliked, nevertheless she is doubly unsuitable, for she has been married already, which is a great blemish to the majesty of a prince. Moreover she is your subject and of quite humble birth, rather than some noble progeny out of this realm.’
‘That she is a widow and already has children bodes well for the succession of the realm,’ Edward replied and continued, ‘By God and his blessed lady, I am a bachelor who has also fathered children, and so each of us has proof that neither of us is likely to be barren. That her kin were formerly supporters of Lancaster may help heal the divisions of our nation. That she is English is a great advantage, for it is the loyalty and love of my own countrymen that I most desire. One of my brothers must marry a foreign princess, if our politics requires it. I shall marry whom I like.’
‘Warwick will not care for this,’ said Cecily quietly.
‘I am sure that Warwick does not dislike me so much that he will begrudge me marrying for love, nor is it so unreasonable that I should choose my own wife rather than be governed by his eye. It is not as if I am his ward and he is my guardian. I am King and free to marry whom I choose. As for foreign marriage alliances, they are often more trouble than they are worth. We should be content with what we have.’
Elizabeth had decided to tell no one about her meetings with the King except her mother, but it seemed that Jacquetta knew all about the romance already and it was she who was to arrange the secret ceremony. Having set out from Stony Stratford late on the evening of April 30th, Edward arrived at Grafton very late. Beltane fires burning in the village lit his way to the Manor. Rivers, who still knew nothing of this high affair, was away on business in London. It was past midnight when Edward and Elizabeth were married in the Manor’s private chapel. The priest who officiated was accompanied by a boy who helped him in the singing. Otherwise the only people who attended the service were Jacquetta and two of her gentlewomen. Straightaway afterwards Edward took Elizabeth to bed. The following morning they rode out into Wychwood and, as they did so, they passed many young men and women walking out from the forest. As was the custom, these folk had gone out first thing in the morning a-maying to pick flowers and greenery while the dew was still upon them. It was a joyous morning. Elizabeth and Edward kissed farewell under the oak tree before he rode back alone to Stony Stratford.