The Rose of York: Love & War

by Sandra Worth

  “Fortune favours us, m’enfant. The midnight blue of mourning is your best colour,” Jacquetta said, removing a gown from one of the coffers and helping her daughter into it.

  Bess regarded herself in the mirror and eyed the glittering ruby at her mother’s throat with longing. “A pity I can’t wear jewels. I suppose it wouldn’t be seemly, would it?”

  Her mother fingered the necklace that had been a gift from a queen. “Ma fille, your violet hood is more flattering than any gem. Only be certain to let the King see your so lovely hair.” Jacquetta combed the abundant masses of silver-gold locks that rippled down to her daughter’s waist. “Angel hair, soft as petals of the lily.” She met Bess’s eyes in the mirror. “They say the King, he is most handsome.”

  “Theyalsosayhe’sdebauchedandsportswithwantonwomen,” Bess said, lifting her chin with disgust. “I am no harlot.”

  Jacquetta watched her daughter slyly. “Non, you are certainly not. Your head is always clear to reason.”

  “He favours merchants’ wives.” Bess lifted her chin higher. “I’m no lowly merchant’s wife.”

  “Non, indeed. He has never met anyone like you. You can manage him.”

  Bess smiled coldly. “The King is a man, and men are fools. They think with what hangs between their legs. If I play the part with timid glances and soft words, I shall get back my lands without compromise.”

  “And he can go back to his merchants’ wives,” said Jacquetta, suppressing a smile. She threw her daughter a glance that was part admiration, part pity. Admiration for the cool remoteness that protected her from the pain of emotion. Pity that she’d never know the ecstasy of passion. She tied her daughter’s hair loosely with blue ribbons to match her dress and carefully arranged Bess’s violet satin cloak over her graceful shoulders. “Alors, go now and save our fortune!”

  With a child in either hand, Bess walked the short distance to the stately oak tree, a landmark of Whittlebury forest. Massive and splendid, it stretched out its branches as if to bless the woods it dominated. Her two sons, six-year-old Thomas and four-year-old Richard, could scarcely contain their excitement at the prospect of seeing the King. Taking up her stance beneath the oak, she waited.

  The morning wore on. The children grew impatient. Bess had almost despaired when barking dogs and galloping horses emerged from the trees and headed towards her, the King alone in front, leading the hunting party. Her heart racing, she stepped out from the shade into the sun.

  Edward saw her standing there with the sun streaming through her pale gold hair and shimmering over her violet cloak, reflecting a rose aura around her so that she appeared almost an illusion. He blinked, focusing his gaze. He pulled up sharply.

  “Good God, lady! What do you here?”

  She knelt with her sons. In the sudden motion of bending her head, her cloak loosened and her glorious gilt hair tumbled out and swept the ground. She raised her head slowly and her emerald eyes met those of the King. Edward saw that her face was pure oval with a milk-and-roses complexion, the line of forehead and nose carved with perfect symmetry, her lips full as rosebuds. But it was the eyes that held him, those cool green eyes that looked at him lazily through half-closed lids and exuded an erotic magnetism. He stared, unable to drag his gaze away. Beneath his red velvet riding jacket, his heart pounded wildly.

  “Lady, I bid you rise,” he said.

  The hunting party arrived and waited nearby, exchanging covert grins. They knew how Edward felt about beautiful women. And this one was a beauty, indeed.

  Bess rose and Edward’s eyes clung to her. She looked a goddess in her simple gown with her cape flowing from her statuesque shoulders.

  “What is your name, fair creature?”

  “Lady Elizabeth Grey, my lord.”

  “Grey,” he said, noting the sweep of golden lashes against smooth skin, the lift of the red lips, the short, perfect white teeth and pointed chin. Nor did his practised gaze miss the fullness of the breasts that hugged her closely fitted gown. “And what would you have of me, my lady?”

  “Your Grace, my husband was killed at the battle of St. Alban’s and I come to beg you to restore my husband’s estates to me, and to grant my father an audience.”

  “Your father?”

  “Lord Rivers, Sire.”

  “Ah, Richard Woodville,” said Edward, who never forgot a name. He glanced around at Hastings, sitting comfortably in his saddle, leaning on an elbow, watching them. Hastings quirked an eyebrow and they exchanged an amused glance. Richard Woodville was the lowborn knave who’d managed to marry royal blood and get himself made lord. While outfitting Holy Harry’s ships in Sandwich, he and his son Anthony had been surprised in their beds and taken prisoners to Calais, where Warwick and his father, Salisbury, had given them a tongue lashing and called Anthony “a knave’s son.” All England had laughed at their shame.

  Edward turned his attention back to the widow. “Your husband and father fought against me, Lady Grey. Why should I help you?”

  “Because my father sees the error of his ways and wishes to serve you loyally, my lord, and because my children and I are innocent of any crime against you and in dire poverty.”

  Edward smiled. “Well spoken, my lady. I shall think on it.” He turned his horse. Over his shoulder he called out, “Come tonight for my decision.”

  Snickering followed this invitation and Bess blushed furiously as she watched him ride away.

  ~*~

  “You should have heard him, Maman!” Bess raged, pacing back and forth. “As if I were some merchant’s wife! And they were all laughing…”

  “We will both go,” Jacquetta said. “With me there, he would not do something rash. We royals respect one another.”

  “I don’t wish to go at all!”

  “But you will. There is money at stake.” She arranged an emerald cape about her daughter’s shoulders and, putting on her own black cloak, she tied it firmly around her chin. “Alors, let us go.”

  Escorted by a male servant, the two women rode into Stony Stratford and made for the King’s halting place on Watling Street.

  “We seek an audience with the King,” said Jacquetta.

  “Indeed?” Lord Hastings smiled derisively at Jacquetta’s accent. He glanced at the tall slender woman beside her, trying to see her face, but her head was bowed and he could make out nothing beneath the riding hood. “And what name shall I give him?”

  “The Duchess of Bedford.”

  Ah, River’s wife—the witch, Hastings thought. And this is her daughter from the forest.

  “Wait here,” he said with a smirk.

  ~*~

  Hastings entered without knocking. Clad in a loose shirt, Edward rolled on a pallet with a buxom lass. Hastings cleared his throat. Edward looked up.

  “The damsel from the forest is here to see you, my lord,” Hastings leered.

  Dismissing the girl, Edward tucked his shirt back into his hose, downed a draught of wine and smacked his lips. “By God, bring her in. I am good and ready,” he laughed.

  Surprised when two women entered, he ignored the one who bent to kiss his hand, his eyes following Bess’s every move as she dipped in and out of her obeisance. A heavy scent of lilies assailed him.

  “My lord, we are here for your decision,” Jacquetta said, rising.

  “Do I know you?” he asked, finally registering her. The woman seemed an oddity beside the girl, like a crow guarding a rose tree.

  Jacquetta smiled. “I don’t think so, my lord, but I remember you very clearly. I was attending on your mother when you were born in Rouen.”

  His face split into a wide grin. “I knew you looked familiar!”

  She laughed at his jest.

  He regarded her warmly. Her sweet French accent evoked happy memories of his childhood in France, and her grey hair and slender frame reminded him of his nurse, Anne of Caux, whom he’d loved, and who’d been French. “My first language was French,” he said. “My ladies—would you care for re
freshment?”

  “My lord King,” replied Jacquetta when Bess made no answer, “we shall be delighted.”

  As Jacquetta and Edward laughed and exchanged stories about France, Bess and Edward exchanged glances. He was clearly reluctant to let them leave, yet by the end of the night they still didn’t know his decision.

  “My lord, the hour is late and we must return to Grafton,” Jacquetta said at length. She waited expectantly.

  “I’ve never seen Grafton Manor,” the King replied, avoiding the hidden question.

  Jacquetta realised there was nothing to be done about it. They’d have to endure another evening with him. “Perhaps you will sup with us tomorrow night?” she said with her best smile. Surely that would be the end of it. He couldn’t stay forever. He had to get himself to London to be crowned one day.

  Edward glanced at Hastings, who stood with arms folded, leaning against the doorframe. “Will, do we have a battle engagement tomorrow?”

  “Not that I’m aware, my lord,” he grinned.

  “In that case, my ladies, we shall be honoured to accept,” Edward said.

  ~*~

  Before Edward started on his way back to London, he sent word to his Chancellor, Bishop Neville, that Bess’s father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, Anthony Woodville, were pardoned all offences and that the Duchess of Bedford was to be paid the annual stipend of the dower she held of the Crown—in advance.

  He returned to Grafton often during the next three years, at first with Hastings and a party of friends, later alone and in secret, but his visits continued to be unfruitful to him. He wished he were more like Hastings, who thought nothing of abducting unwilling women, but he could never resort to force. His honour forbade it, and until now—with one terrible and deeply regrettable exception—women had flocked to him willingly. At last, in desperation, he pulled Bess down on the bed in her chamber and held a dagger to her throat.

  “You may kill me if you wish,” she said, “I’m willing to die for my virtue.”

  “What do you want?” he demanded hoarsely. “You know I’m deep in love with you, Bess!”

  “’Tis best if you leave and never come back, my lord. I was a virtuous wife to my husband and I won’t be any man’s mistress. Not even yours.”

  Edward froze. He’d heard those words before. For an instant, with striking clarity, he saw her face, the face he wished only to forget. He put the dagger away with an unsteady hand. “What do you want, Bess?”

  “Nothing you can give me,” she said. “Farewell, my lord.”

  He watched her leave and he felt as though the sun had left with her, turning a bright world of blues skies and flowering fields into a grey, barren stillness. He rose from the bed and went to the open window. Linnets twilled and a soft breeze fluttered through the room. It was spring, the season of love, and the scent of flowers hung heavy on the air. He sank down on the window seat.

  Jacquetta appeared. She heaved an audible sigh and stood before him.

  “’Tis the curse of royalty to have everything but love,” she said. “Only your noble ancestor John of Gaunt was able to marry his Katrine… and Kate of Valois, she had her Owen Tudor for a time, poor soul.” She stole a sly glance at him from the corner of her eye, and sighed again. “Thanks be to the merciful God I married my knight in secret and nothing was to be done about it. But then, I was only a princess. You are King…” She turned her eyes on Edward, who was gazing at her silently. “’Tis the curse of royalty to have everything but love,” she repeated, pleased at how sad she sounded.

  ~ * * * ~

  Chapter 12

  “Thro’ the peaceful court she crept And whisper’d.”

  Edward had expected to tire of Bess Woodville once he’d bedded her. He’d expected to leave her as he’d left the others, without a backward glance. If she had tried to expose the marriage, he would have laughed her out of the hall. As far as the world was concerned, only a mad woman would dare to claim that a King stooped so low to wed her.

  To his surprise he found himself more desperate for her than ever before. She was a perfume and he was intoxicated. The more he made love to Bess Woodville, the more he had to have her. Against this frenzied, tormenting passion, he struggled in vain. Eventually he knew he had to proclaim the marriage, though it meant scandal, and worse—opposing Warwick and drawing his ire. Fortune, crown, future and soul were as nothing before the mysterious force that possessed him.

  Despite his perennial money woes, he spared no expense on his queen’s coronation, making it the most lavish in living memory in the hope that people might forget her low birth. The streets of London were hung with bright banners, rotting traitors’ heads were removed from their poles above New Stone Gate, and London Bridge was spread with sand to cover filth and feces. Tall-masted ships, carrying the Duchess of Bedford’s royal relatives from Burgundy, including the Count de St. Pol and a hundred of his knights, rocked at anchor in the sparkling Thames. Edward had stressed to Bess Woodville’s royal kin the necessity of making an extravagant display.

  After eight months of planning, two days before Whit Sunday in the year of 1465, all was ready. Bess Woodville came to London from her palace at Sheen, one of many Edward had given her. Through the gaily decorated streets she progressed to the Tower of London, past the mummers and colourful pageants, past the singing minstrels and the two angels with wings assembled from a thousand peacock feathers. On the next day, seated in a velvet litter drawn by white horses, she was led to Westminster Palace by fifty newly created Knights of the Bath dressed in blue robes with white silk hoods.

  There, on the eve of her coronation, she rewarded Edward with a night of lovemaking more violent and passionate than any he had ever known.

  ~*~

  Jacquetta watched her daughter’s graceful figure enter Westminster Abbey under a canopy of gold cloth borne on silver spears. Bess carried a sceptre in each hand and her gilt hair flowed over her ermine cloak and scarlet robe. Beaming, she followed Bess’s train, borne by the King’s sister Meg. Wariness crept into her pride when they entered Westminster Abbey and her gaze fell on the King’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence. In crimson and cloth of gold, and mounted on a stallion caparisoned with gold spangles and embroidered velvet, he rode through Westminster Hall, making way for the queen to be led before the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of the King’s two brothers, Richard of Gloucester had stayed away on some pretext or other, and though George had come, he’d been vociferous in his condemnation of the marriage. Edward’s tongue-lashing had cowed him into submission for the time being, but she feared George’s good behaviour wouldn’t last.

  Jacquetta stiffened at the moment of crowning and held her breath until she thought her lungs would burst. When the blue-veined old hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury set the crown on her daughter’s head, she exhaled with such violence that she thought all Westminster had heard. Her head swam, the light falling through the brilliant coloured windows blinded her sight, and her face felt as if it would split with the breadth of her smile. Her daughter was Queen of England!

  When she finally recovered her composure, she became aware of the dark looks around her. She glanced uneasily from the old craggy face of Archbishop Bourchier to the young Neville next to him. The new Archbishop of York was the only Neville present. Warwick was conveniently away on a trade mission to Burgundy and his brother John was chasing down Holy Harry somewhere in the North. She pressed her lips together. The Nevilles were trouble. Bess must watch them.

  In response to a gesture from her daughter, Jacquetta stepped forward and lifted the heavy crown from Bess’s brow. During the long ceremony she performed the service several times. Though Bess exchanged the crown for a coronet at the banquet, even that proved such a crushing weight that she removed it while she dined. As Jacquetta listened to the music from a hundred minstrels and tasted one of the sixty dishes served at the feast, she heard the tittering and the snickers. “The crown would not sit on her low-born head!” they whis
pered. Pardieu, people were always whispering. Not until the next day when she attended the tournament did the whispers concern her. There had been a prophecy, the whispers said, made by a ragged old woman outside the jousting ground. She gave a shudder as she took her seat in the crimson-striped royal loge with her husband. The wise woman had crossed herself when Bess had passed and said, “Where she treads, evil follows, and as the Crown tottered on her head so will England totter beneath her weight.”

  Jacquetta was superstitious, and for good reason. On several occasions she found herself foretelling events that later came true. She hugged her fur-lined mantle closer, only dimly aware of the braying of trumpets and the marshals shouting the rules for the melee. The wise woman has to be wrong, she told herself. As mistaken as those who’d foretold disaster for Edward because he’d chosen to be crowned on Childermas, the ill-omened anniversary of the massacre of the innocent babes by Herod. So unlucky was it considered that the King of France refused even to discuss business on Holy Innocents Day.

  Yet Edward was secure on the throne. All was well.

  She rested her eyes on him. He was in high spirits, laughing, making jests, and drinking frequently from a gem-studded golden cup presented by one of his Knights of the Body. Edward cared as little for unlucky days as he did for holy days, and he had insisted on being crowned on that Sabbath because it suited him.

  We worry too much, mon Dieu, she thought. ’Tis the times, they are so uncertain. She adjusted her veil to shield her from the bright sun. The heralds yelled “Laissez allez!” and scampered from the field. Trumpets brayed again and two knights rode in, one in shining black armour, the other a gigantic figure in silver. They took up their stance at opposing ends of the field, lances in hand. Hoofs thundered and dust rose as they ran the course, then came the shock of steel and groans of disappointment from the crowd, for neither knight was unhorsed. Furnished with fresh lances by darting squires, they cantered into position once more.