The Red Queen

by Philippa Gregory

  “Yes. I made it clear to yours that I want to be at court. It is only with the king’s favor that I can bring my son home.”

  “You will be required to come to court with me, to take up a place in the queen’s chamber, to support me in my work as their preeminent courtier and advisor, and to be to all appearances a loyal and faithful member of the House of York.”

  I nod, not taking my eyes from his face. “This is my intention.”

  “There must be no shadow of doubt or anxiety in their mind from the first day to the last,” he rules. “You must make them trust you.”

  “It will be an honor,” I lie boldly, and I see from the gleam of amusement in his brown eyes that he knows I have steeled myself to come to this point.

  “You are wise,” he says so softly that I can hardly hear him. “I think he is invincible, for now. We will have to cut our coats to suit our cloth, and wait and see.”

  “Will he really accept me at his court?” I ask, thinking of the long struggle that Jasper has waged against this king, and that even now Wales is still uneasy under the York rule, and Jasper waiting in Brittany for good times to come, guarding my boy who should be king.

  “They are eager to heal the wounds of the past. They are desperate for friends and allies. He wants to believe that you have joined my house and his affinity. He will meet you as my wife,” Lord Stanley replies. “I have spoken to him of this marriage, of course, and he wishes us well. The queen too.”

  “The queen? She does?”

  He nods. “Without her goodwill, nothing happens in England.”

  I force a smile. “Then I suppose I shall have to learn to please her.”

  “You will. You and I may have to live and die under York rule. We have to come to terms with them, and—better yet—rise in their favor.”

  “Will they let me bring my son home?”

  He nods. “That is my plan. I have not asked for it yet, and I won’t for a while—until you are established at court and they start to trust you. You will find them eager to trust and to like people. They are truly charming. You will find them welcoming. Then we will see what we can do for your son, and what rewards he can offer me. How old is he now?”

  “He is just fifteen,” I say. I can hear the longing in my voice as I think of my boy growing into manhood unseen. “His uncle Jasper has him safely in Brittany.”

  “He will have to leave Jasper,” Lord Stanley warns. “Edward will never reconcile with Jasper Tudor. But I would have thought they would let your son come home, if he was ready to swear loyalty to them, and we gave our word he would cause no trouble, resign his claims.”

  “George, Duke of Clarence, has taken my son’s title of Earl of Richmond,” I remark jealously. “My son must come home to his rights. He has to have his title and lands when he comes home. He must come home as the earl that he is.”

  “George has to be kept sweet,” Lord Stanley says bluntly. “But we might buy him off in some way, or make some arrangement. He is as greedy as a boy in the pastry kitchen. He is disgustingly venal. And he is as trustworthy as a cat. We can no doubt bribe him with something from our shared fortune. After all, between the two of us, we are very great landowners.”

  “And Richard, the other brother?” I ask.

  “Loyal as a dog,” Lord Stanley replies. “Loyal as a hog. Loyal as the hog of his badge. Heart and soul, Edward’s man. He hates the queen, so there is the one small crack in the court, if one wanted to find a fault. But you would be hard put to force the sharpest tip of a dagger in there. Richard loves his brother and despises the queen. William Hastings, the king’s great friend, is the same. But what is the use of looking for cracks in a house so staunch? Edward has a handsome, strong boy in the cradle and good reason to hope for more. Elizabeth Woodville is a fecund wife. The Yorks are here to stay, and I am working to be their most trusted subject. As my wife you must learn to love them as I do.”

  “From conviction?” I ask, as softly as he.

  “I am convinced for now,” he says, quiet like a snake.

  1482

  I learn a new rhythm of life with this new husband, as the years go round, and though he teaches me to be as good a courtier to this royal family as I and mine always were to the true royal house, I never change; I always despise them. We have a great London house, and he rules that we will spend most of the winter months at court, where he waits daily on the king. He is a member of the Privy Council, and his advice to the king is always cautious and wise. He is highly regarded for his thoughtfulness and his knowledge of the world. He is particularly careful always to be as good as his word. Having changed sides once in his life, he wants to make sure that the Yorks believe that he will never do it again. He wants to be indispensable: trustworthy as a rock. They nickname him “the fox” in tribute to his caution, but nobody doubts his loyalty.

  The first time he took me to court to present me, as his wife, I was surprised to find that I was more nervous than when I went to court to meet a real monarch. She was nothing but the widow of a country squire; but this usurping queen has dominated my life, and her fortunes have risen unstoppably while mine have struggled. We have been on opposite sides of fortune’s wheel, and she has risen and risen while I have fallen. She has overshadowed me; she has lived in the palaces that should have been my homes; she has worn a crown that should have been mine. She has been draped in ermine for no better reason than she is beautiful and seductive, whereas those furs are mine by right of birth. She is six years older than me, and she has always been ahead of me. She was on the side of the road when the York king came riding by. The very year that he saw her, fell in love with her, married her, and made her his queen was the year that I had to leave my son in my enemy’s keeping, live with a husband whom I knew would not father my son, nor fight for my king. While she wore headdresses that grew higher and higher, draped them with the finest lace, commissioned gowns trimmed with ermine, had songs dedicated to her beauty, rewarded winners of tournaments, and conceived a child every year, I went to my chapel and got to my knees and prayed that my son, though raised in my enemy’s house, would not become my enemy. I prayed that my husband, though a coward, would not become a turncoat. I prayed that the power of Joan would stay with me and I would find the strength to be constant to my family, my God, and myself. All those long years, while my son Henry was raised by the Herberts and I was powerless to do anything but be a good wife to Stafford, this woman spent planning marriages for her family, plotting against her rivals, consolidating her hold over her husband, and dazzling England.

  Even in the months of her eclipse, when she was in sanctuary and my king was back on the throne and we sailed down the river to the king’s court and he recognized my boy as Earl of Richmond, even in that darkness she snatched her moment of triumph, for there she gave birth to her first boy, the baby whom we are now to call the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, and so gave hope to the Yorks.

  In everything, even in her moments of apparent defeat, she has triumphed over me, and I must have prayed for nearly twenty years that she should learn the true humility of Our Lady that comes only to those who suffer, and yet I have never seen her improved by hardship.

  Now she stands before me, the woman they call the most beautiful in England, the woman who won a throne on her looks, the woman who commands her husband’s adoration and the admiration of a nation. I drop my eyes as if in awe. God Himself knows that she doesn’t command me.

  “Lady Stanley,” she says pleasantly to me as I curtsey low and rise up.

  “Your Grace,” I say. I can feel the smile on my face stretched so hard that my mouth is drying with the effort.

  “Lady Stanley, you are welcome to court on your own account, as well as that of your husband, who is such a good friend to us,” she says. All the time her gray eyes are taking in my rich gown, my wimplelike headdress, my modest stance. She is trying to read me, and I, standing before her, am trying with every inch of my being to hide my righteous hatred of
her, her beauty, and her position. I am trying to look agreeable, while I can feel my proud belly turn over with jealousy.

  “My husband is happy to serve his king and your house,” I say. I swallow in a dry throat. “As am I.”

  She leans forwards, and in her readiness to hear me, I suddenly realize that she wants to believe that I have turned my own coat and am ready to be loyal to them. I see her desire to befriend me, and behind this, her fear that she will never be wholly safe. Only if she has friends in every house in England can she be sure that the houses will not rise against her again. If she can teach me to love her, then the House of Lancaster loses a great leader: me, the heiress. She must have broken her heart and lost her wits in sanctuary. When her husband had to flee for his life and my king was on the throne, she must have been so frightened that now she longs for any friendship: even mine, especially mine.

  “I shall be glad to count you among my ladies and my friends,” she says graciously. Anyone would think she was born to be a queen instead of a penniless widow; she has all the style of Margaret of Anjou, and far more charm. “I am glad to offer you a position at court, as one of my ladies-in-waiting.”

  I picture her as a young widow, standing at the roadside waiting for a lustful king to ride by, and for a moment I fear that my contempt will show in my face. “I thank you.” I drop my head as I curtsey very low again, and get myself out of her presence.

  It is strange for me to smile and bow to my enemy and try to keep the resentment out of my eyes. But over ten years in service to them I learn how to do it so well that no one knows I whisper to God that He must not forget me in my enemies’ house. I learn to pass for a loyal courtier. Indeed, the queen grows fond of me and trusts me as one of her intimate ladies-in-waiting, who sit with her during the day, dine at her ladies’ table at night, dance before the court, and accompany her to her gorgeously furnished rooms. Edward’s brother, George, plots against the royal couple, and she clings to us, her ladies, when her husband’s family are divided. She has a nasty moment when she is accused of witchcraft and half the court are laughing up their sleeves and the other half crossing themselves when her shadow falls on them. She has me at her side when George goes to his death in the Tower, and I can feel the court shudder with fear at a royal house divided against itself. I hold her hand when they bring news of his death, and she thinks that at last she is safe from his enmity. She whispers to me, “God be praised he is gone,” and all I think is: yes, now he is gone, his title, which once belonged to my son, is free once more. Perhaps I can persuade her to give it back?

  When the Princess Cecily was born, I was in and out of the confinement chamber, praying for the queen’s safety and for that of the new baby; and then it was me she asked to stand as godmother to the new princess, and it was I who carried the tiny girl, in my arms, to the font. I, the favorite of all her noble ladies.

  Of course, the queen’s constant childbearing, almost every year, reminds me of the child I had but was never allowed to raise. And once a month, through the long ten years, I have a letter from that son, first a youth, and then a man, and then, I realize, a man reaching his majority: a man old enough to make good his claim to be king.

  Jasper writes that he has maintained Henry’s education; the young man still follows the offices of the church, as I ordered. He jousts, he hunts, he rides, he practices archery, tennis, swimming—all the sports that will keep his body healthy and strong and ready for battle. Jasper has him study accounts of wars, and no veteran soldier visits them but Jasper has him talk to Henry about the battle he saw, and how it could have been won or done differently. He has masters to teach him the geography of England so that he may know the country where his ships will land; he studies the law and the traditions of his home so that he may be a just king when his day comes. Jasper never says that teaching a young man in exile from the country that he may never see, preparing him for a battle that may never be joined, is weary work; but as King Edward of England celebrates the twenty-first year of his reign with a glorious Christmas at Westminster Palace, attended by his handsome and strong son, Prince Edward of Wales, we both sense that it is work without purpose, work without chance of success, work without future.

  Somehow, over the ten years of my marriage with Thomas Stanley, my son’s cause has become a forlorn hope even to me. But Jasper, far away in Brittany, keeps the faith; there is nothing else he can do. And I keep the faith, for it burns inside me that it should be a Lancaster on the throne of England, and my boy is the only Lancaster heir, but for my nephew the Duke of Buckingham, left to us. And the duke is married into the Woodville family and so yoked to York, while Henry, my son, keeps the faith—for though he is twenty-five, he has been raised in hope, however faint, and though he is a man grown, he has not yet the independence of thought to tell his beloved guardian Jasper, or me, that he will deny our dream, which has cost him his childhood, and still holds him in thrall.

  Then, just before the Christmas feast, my husband Thomas Stanley comes to my room in the queen’s apartment and says: “I have good news. I have made an agreement for the return of your son.”

  I drop the sacred Bible from my hands and snatch it before it slips from my lap. “The king has never agreed?”

  “He has agreed.”

  I am stammering in my joy and relief. “I never thought he would—”

  “He is determined on war with France. He doesn’t want your boy rattling round on the border as a rival king, or a hostage, or whatever. He will let him come home, and he can even have his title. He will be Earl of Richmond.”

  I can hardly breathe. “Praise God,” I say quietly. I long to get to my knees and thank God for sending the king some sense and mercy. “And his lands?”

  “He won’t let him have Wales as a Tudor, that’s for sure,” Stanley says brutally. “But he will have to give him something. You might give him something from your dowry lands.”

  “He should have his own,” I say, resentful at once. “I should not have to share my lands. The king should give him his own.”

  “He will have to marry a girl of the queen’s choosing,” my husband warns me.

  “He is not to marry some York makeweight,” I say, instantly irritated.

  “He will have to marry whomever she picks out for him,” he corrects me. “But she has an affection for you. Why don’t you talk to her about who you would like? The boy has to marry, but they won’t allow him to marry anyone who would strengthen his Lancaster line. It will have to be a York. If you were to put your mind to it, he might have one of the York princesses. There are enough of them, God knows.”

  “Can he come at once?” I breathe.

  “After the Christmas feast,” my husband says. “They will need to be reassured, but the main work is done. They trust you, and they trust me, and they believe we would not introduce an enemy into their kingdom.”

  It has been so long since we discussed this that I am not sure that he still shares my silent will. “Have they forgotten that he might be a rival king?” I ask. We are in my own room, but still I drop my voice to a whisper.

  “Of course he is a rival king,” he says steadily. “But while Edward the king lives, there can be no chance of a throne for him. No one in England would follow a stranger against Edward. When Edward dies, there is Prince Edward, and should anything happen to him, Prince Richard to come after him, beloved boys of a strong ruling house. It is hard to imagine how your Henry could step into a vacant throne. He would have to walk past three coffins. He would have to see the death of a great king and two royal boys. That would be an unlucky set of accidents. Or would he have the stomach to enact such a thing? Would you?”

  APRIL 1483

  WESTMINSTER

  I have to wait till Easter for Henry to come home, though I write to him and to Jasper at once. They start to prepare for his return, dispersing the little court of York opportunists and desperate men who have gathered around them, preparing themselves to part for the first ti
me since Henry’s boyhood. Jasper writes to me that he cannot think what he will do with himself without Henry to guide, advise, and govern.

  Perhaps I will go on pilgrimage. Perhaps it is time I considered myself, my own soul. I have lived only for our boy and, far from England as we have been, I had come to think that we would never get home. Now he will return, as he should, but I cannot. I will have lost my brother, my home, you, and now him. I am glad that he can come back to you and take his place in the world. But I shall be very alone in my exile. Truly, I cannot think what I shall do without him.

  I take this letter to Stanley, my husband, where he is working in his day room, papers piled around the table for his assent. “I think Jasper Tudor would be glad to come home with Henry,” I say cautiously.

  “He can come home to the block,” my husband says bluntly. “Tudor picked the wrong side and clung to it through victory all the way to defeat. He should have sought for pardon after Tewkesbury when everyone else did, but he was as stubborn as a Welsh pony. I’ll use no influence of mine to have him restored, and neither will you. Besides, I think you have an affection for him which I don’t share, nor do I admire it in you.”

  I look at him in utter amazement. “He is my brother-in-law,” I say.

  “I am aware of that. It only makes it worse.”

  “You can’t think that I have been in love with him for all these years of absence?”

  “I don’t think about it at all,” he says coldly. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want you to think about it. I don’t want him to think about it, and especially, I don’t want the king and that gossip his wife to think about it. So Jasper can stay where he is, we will not intercede for him, and you will have no need to write to him anymore. You need not even think of him. He can be dead to us.”