by Anne O'Brien
‘We think it proper that we enrich you, our most dear cousins, who are begotten of royal blood, with the strength of our royal prerogative of favour and grace…’
We emerged into the same antechamber we had left only an hour before, newly resplendent with legitimacy. The sapphires stitched on my bodice glimmered as I drew in a breath of sheer delight at the sweeping away of all the shadowy illegalities of the past. My life with John had been given legal sanction and I could ask for nothing more. Unable to express my sense of ultimate fulfilment, I simply smiled at my children.
‘You now legitimately exist as dear cousins to the king,’ John remarked with not a little cynicism. ‘And your mother is very happy.’
‘I have always existed.’ Young John did not recognise irony.
‘And I doubt Richard is any more a dear cousin than he has ever been. He has a chancy temper,’ Henry added, who did.
‘What more do you want?’ Joan asked. ‘Letters Patent, a white and gold care-cloth and an Act of Parliament promised for tomorrow.’
The delight that bubbled within her was catching. Wedded, widowed and wedded again, even though only nineteen years old, mother of two tiny daughters and stepmother for the past year to the twelve children of Ralph Neville, Baron Raby, Joan had become a woman in her own right and I admired her composure. It took much to rattle my daughter’s stalwart heart encased today in embroidered damask.
John and I looked at each other. We wanted nothing more. Not for us. We had all we needed in each other. But for this quartet of handsome Beauforts, born out of love and sin? There would be no obstacle for them now.
It was for me a ceremony of great joy.
‘I’m hungry,’ Thomas announced.
‘Then we must eat,’ John laughed. ‘Are we not worthy of a celebration?’
It was a happy day. What would life hold for these Beaufort children? Not the crown, of course, for royal inheritance was barred to them, but what did that matter? The world of power and politics was theirs for the taking, and I could not have asked for more. John the soldier, Henry the cleric, Joan the managing wife and Thomas—who knew what fate would hold for my youngest child?
How transitory is happiness. It would be the last time I was so free from anxieties, so caught up in my family’s recognition. I did not know what lay in wait for me or for John. I thought we had been fully blessed, and could see no end to the blessings.
‘John!’ I leaned forward, elbows planted on the wall coping, narrowing my eyes at the road, which was obscured by morning haze. I was standing on the wall-walk at Kenilworth, looking out towards the south, leaving John to the detailed—and tedious—inspection of a section of crumbling stonework, deep in conversation with his Constable.
‘John!’
I raised my voice, informal in sudden concern. I was not mistaken. There was a cloud of dust, heralding a fast-travelling retinue.
What was it that made me alert John? Some presentiment, perhaps, for it brought a strange sharp jolt to my heart. ‘My lord,’ I called out again, but there was no need. John and the Constable were at my shoulder, the expression on John’s face indicating that he was already alert for trouble of some kind.
‘It’s the Earl of Derby, my lord.’
The Constable confirmed what we could now make out in the pennons and banners bearing Henry’s deer and swans. Henry was travelling fast.
‘Something’s afoot.’ John was already halfway down the steps before I hitched the fullness of my skirts and followed him.
We met Henry in the Great Hall. Eyes still wide with bafflement despite the hours spent in the saddle, voice raw with patent disbelief, he had not even taken the time to divest himself of hat, gloves or weapons, but stood there in the centre of the vast room, feet planted, spine braced, one hand clenched on his sword hilt. Making no attempt to mute his voice, he brought every servant within range to a halt.
‘There’s a plot, father. Murder. And it’s Richard.’
‘A plot to murder the King?’ I asked, astounded. Voices might be raised in criticism of Richard’s use of power, but this uncontrolled announcement presaged treason.
‘No!’ Henry dragged in a breath to make sense of what held no sense for any of us. ‘There’s a plot to destroy Lancaster.’ He flung out his hand to encompass the three of us. ‘A massacre, by the Rood! You, sir. Me—you too, my lady—and probably my sons if he can get his hands on them. It’s to happen on the road to Windsor, when we go there in the New Year.’
The moment of silence in that vast space disintegrated into impassioned response.
‘No!’ I heard myself breathe as my belly clenched.
‘On what grounds would he plan this?’ John snapped. I noted that he did not ask the owner of the hand behind this outrage.
‘He accuses us of treason,’ Henry responded. ‘But there’ll be no arraignment before a court, sir. He’ll kill first and question later.’
Nor did John question this interpretation. ‘Who told you this?’
‘Thomas Mowbray. I’d not cast aside his warning lightly,’ Henry replied.
Thomas Mowbray, the powerful Duke of Norfolk, together with Henry, was of the dangerous coterie of Lords Appellant with Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford and royal favourite, in their sights. Was Mowbray to be believed? Henry thought so, but I looked to John, to test my own reaction. It had caused him to frown, but he was not a man given to foolish rumour. Perhaps it was nought but a piece of mischief, to stir up more strife between John and the King.
‘Do you believe it?’ I asked Henry now that he had recovered some of his equanimity along with his breath.
‘Mowbray believed it. He stopped me on the road to Windsor to tell me. To warn me.’ Shaking his head, Henry, gloves now cast onto a bench with his hat and sword, stretched out his hands palm up, as if he might divine the truth there, before he clenched them into fists. ‘What do we do?’
John studied the floor at his feet. Then: ‘Come. We’ll talk about this in private.’
And when the door of an inner chamber was closed.
‘We tell Richard what you’ve heard,’ John stated.
Henry’s grunt of dissent was answer enough. ‘If Richard’s hand is on it…’
‘If it is.’ As he gripped his son’s arm I saw that the bones of John’s face were stark beneath his skin, despite the authority in his decision. ‘If Richard thinks to turn against his own flesh and blood, the fact that we know his plan might give him pause. We offer him a chance to see sense and draw back. I think Richard’s courage is a finite thing and unpredictable. Given the incentive, he might enjoy the opportunity to turn about, to dispense royal justice with an easy hand and win goodwill all round, including that of Lancaster. He might pronounce that he knows nothing of it. And that could be the end of the matter. If he knows that we are forewarned and so forearmed, it might conceivably force him to realise that to declare war on his own family will raise a storm that he cannot ultimately control. And might conceivably damage him.’
It seemed to me to be good sense, but I could see the troubled working of Henry’s mind. It flitted like shadows over his features.
‘Would he back down? I wouldn’t wager my life against it. Richard puts no value on family loyalty if he sees it as a threat to his own power, or a chance to pay back past grudges. He had my uncle of Gloucester murdered quick enough.’
‘For which I blame myself with every breath I take,’ John growled, sinking back into a chair, the sudden expression of grief in his face so tangible that I had to resist moving to stand behind him, my hand on his shoulder. Then I did not resist at all. How could I? The muscles in his shoulder taut, John looked up at me with a glimmer of a smile but the regret was still there in his words and I knew the guilt would always lie on his heart. ‘I should have done something to stop it and instead I turned my back and hoped it was just Richard demanding attention, as he does. And I was wrong. My brother paid with his life for my inaction. You are not telling me anything I do not know, He
nry.’
It had been a time of simmering danger, Richard claiming that Gloucester was plotting against him and begging John for advice. John had tried to pour oil on troubled waters with stern words: Gloucester would never harm either the King or the little Queen Isabella of France. But Richard had had the suspected plotters, Gloucester together with Warwick and Arundel, arrested, and his uncle of Gloucester done to death, smothered in his bed in Calais.
‘Do you believe the evidence that Gloucester was plotting against Richard?’ Henry demanded, taking a seat opposite.
‘No,’ John responded softly. ‘I think it a ruse by Richard to be avenged. Because my brother Gloucester was one of the Lords Appellant.’
Henry raised his eyes to John’s face.
‘So was I one of the Lords Appellant.’
And I felt the muscle in John’s shoulder tense further, and in that tension, which he made no attempt to disguise, I learned the depth of John’s fear for Henry, for all of us.
‘I know you were involved. Why do you think I played the diplomat—or some would say the coward—and made little comment on Gloucester’s death? Why do you think I tread carefully now? Every day I await the next step in Richard’s plotting to rid himself of every man in the kingdom who has the blood and the strength to challenge his power. And most of all I fear that Richard has his next arrow trained on you, my son. He’ll never forgive you for what happened at Radcot Bridge.’
This was Richard, who smiled on the Beauforts, who granted land and an Earldom to my son, John, approved a new and most valuable jointure for me for the term of my life so that I should never suffer hardship, who gave office to Henry as Chancellor of Oxford and recognition to Thomas who was retained for life by the King himself. All of this with one generous hand, whilst vicious and spiteful retribution was enacted with the other. Richard, God’s anointed King, who abandoned all compassion, all loyalty, out of revenge on those who had dared to stand against him. Those who had rid him of his fawning and much-loved favourite Robert de Vere in the hope of restoring good government to England.
And one of these Lords Appellant, appealing to Richard to restore good government, taking a stand against their King, which some might construe as treason, was Henry who had joined up with the lords of York, Nottingham, Warwick and Arundel to push the issue by raising an army. At Radcot Bridge de Vere had been defeated and forced into banishment.
Richard’s wrath was stirred to a new level, and so was his desire for revenge. Richard declared war against Henry, and against John, the one man in the kingdom who had guided and guarded him from childhood.
Now John’s words were like the tolling of a bell to signal a death as his hands fisted to match those of his son. When John moved under my hand, I found that my fingers were digging hard into the cloth, into the flesh beneath. I flexed them, but I would not break the contact. All we had built together, of love and family, was suddenly in danger from Richard’s revenge. Even our lives.
‘You are in no danger,’ John said, looking up at me. ‘I’ll not let you come to harm.’
My own response leaped into life.
But how can I save you?
How would I live out my days if I lost him now, after so little time together? My heart thudded hard. John might hope for Richard’s good sense, but the conviction in his earlier words did not balance against the worry I now read in his eyes. We were threatened with death on the road, to all intents at the hands of some enterprising footpads, in truth paid for by the King.
‘I am so sorry…’ was all I managed at John’s ruthlessly painful evaluation of his family’s veracity. Of Plantagenet unity and loyalty.
His shoulder lifted under my renewed grip. ‘It is a burden I must bear.’
‘That we must bear…’
Which prompted him to close his hand over mine and press it hard against his chest where his heart beat with a steady rhythm. His gaze was wide and level, calming my rising panic. When he smiled with complete understanding, I found myself responding, the terror in my heart less fierce. We had an understanding, a link that would hold firm under all tribulation. Nothing would destroy that. I would not allow it.
But a murderer’s dagger might—
Henry interrupted my thoughts, a little gesture of impatience. ‘I came here for your advice. What do I do, my lord?’ In his anxiety he became increasingly formal.
John stood. ‘We call his bluff. We tell the King what we have heard, and deny that there could be any possible truth in it. We convince the King that we have utmost trust in his love for his family. We will not, God forgive us, make mention of my brother Gloucester.’
He looked down at me. ‘Do you agree?’
He so rarely asked my opinion. It was a mark of his concern, despite his reassurance.
‘Yes, I do,’ I responded. I could think of no other way forward out of this lethal mire.
‘Do you travel to London? Or shall I?’ Henry was already on his way to the door with energetic strides. Since Mary’s death I thought he had aged, no longer the young boy I had known. Still young in years, his capacity for clear thought and prompt action was impressive.
John’s smile was wry. ‘I think the old lion has had his day. You go, my son. I have confidence in you.’ They embraced. ‘But keep your temper.’
So Henry went to Windsor to disrupt the so-called plot, John brooded behind a wall of silence and I cursed Richard to the fires of hell for his destruction of our happiness.
‘Take care,’ I whispered in Henry’s ear as he prepared to mount. ‘Come back to us.’
For I knew that if his beloved son came to harm, John would be broken. I would have to be strong for both of us.
I would never forgive Richard. I would despise Richard until the day of my death.
September 1398: Gosford Green, Coventry
Holy Mother, I prayed silently, my palm hard around the coral beads restored to my belt. Cast your divine protection over these two men. If Henry dies on this field, it will surely break John’s heart. I cannot bear the anguish for him. And my own…
If I was to act, it must be now.
Seated on the dais, clad in the white and blue of the heavy damask gown I had worn for our mantle ceremony when we had rejoiced in the favour of God and the lords of England, I absorbed the magnificent scene that Richard had created for this day. No one could fault his imagination, or his sense of the dramatic. Or the quality of mischief that rendered him dangerous to the existence of Henry of Derby.
I was close enough to touch Richard’s ermined robe, if I stretched out my arm, and wondered momentarily if he could sense my thoughts. What John’s were I had no idea behind his harsh features. Richard’s were pure malevolence disguised by the benign smile.
I tensed my muscles to obey me.
We were hemmed in by flags and pennons, stamped with the heraldic devices of the aristocracy of England, all overlaid with a wealth of royal symbolism and Richard’s own smoothly smug, gold-coroneted white hart. The canopy over my head fluttered with Plantagenet leopards and Valois fleur-de-lis, casting mottled shadows over my veils and on those of Richard’s French child bride, resplendent in a gown she was clearly delighted in. Her little hands smoothed her velvet skirts in pleasure. Mine clenched, white-knuckled, until I remembered and stretched them, hot palmed against the stiffly embroidered cloth.
At my side, between me and Richard, was John, darkly formal, bejewelled yet austere, every inch King’s counsellor, royal uncle and Duke of Lancaster and Aquitaine. He would not dishonour his dignity or his name by a show of emotion on this terrible day. We were here to witness the quality of royal justice, with fear in our hearts. Richard’s justice could not be trusted. I shivered in the heat, for who could determine the outcome of what we would witness today? I could not. This was to be no formal jousting to entertain the court, no ritualised sword against sword to exhibit the skill of the two combatants. This would be a contest unto death, and it might be that the one to perish was John’s beloved so
n, Henry of Derby.
How had it come to this? Everything had fallen perfectly into Richard’s hands when Henry and Mowbray had faced each other. Presented with the knowledge that Henry had leaked his confidence to the King, Mowbray in a fit of self-preservation, had promptly accused Henry of treason. Henry had retaliated in kind. A ferocious stand-off ensued which Richard leaped on like a hunting cat. Our puissant king had pronounced that Henry and Mowbray would meet in trial by combat at Coventry, before the whole court. Trial to the death to apportion guilt. Death for one, banishment for the other. Two Lords Appellant obliterated at one blow, to Richard’s seething delight.
So here we sat to witness the culmination of Richard’s plotting.
The two combatants were introduced. Henry and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, the highest and best of England’s blood, each man furnished with a lance. Despite the warmth of the day, I felt the blood drain from my skin, so much that I thought my face must be white with fear. No whiter than John’s whose expression was carved from granite.
If I was to act it must be now. If John would not petition for mercy for his son, then I must.
‘Will you not appeal to Richard?’ I had asked.
‘No, I will not.’ John had been adamant. ‘I will not impugn my son’s honour, or mine. I will not grovel in the dust when we are innocent of the charges laid against us. Plantagenets do not bend the knee in supplication when the King overrides the law.’
So I must do it.
There, on the dais, skirts billowing, I stood.
Only to find a hand around my wrist, hard and relentless.
‘No.’ John’s denial might reach no one’s ears but mine, but it was formidable.
‘Someone must.’ I would not sit.
‘No.’ How bleak his tone. ‘I know why you wear this today—but it will not serve.’
He touched the solid gold livery collar that lay impressively on the damask, not my own of red and gold, not John’s blue and silver, but Richard’s own, displaying Richard’s white hart on my breast, given to me by the King as a symbol of his high regard, to wear at his wedding to the French girl who sat at his side with such innocent enjoyment when all around her was unbearable tension.