This Sun of York

by Susan Appleyard

  This Sun of York

  By Susan Appleyard

  Published by Susan Appleyard

  Copyright 2015 Susan Appleyard

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  Chapter 1

  February 1452 – Blackheath near London

  In the dreary chill of a dark winter morning, two horsemen picked their way carefully over the brittle furze, bracken and tussocky grass that lay between two army camps. They wore gleaming cuirasses without scratch or dent; full armour was so cumbersome it was worn only at the onset of battle. Under their furred cloaks, they had swords strapped to their hips and silver spurs attached to their heels betokening knighthood. In his gloved fist, the younger man held an ash rod upon which a white flag hung limply in the still air.

  “What’s this place called?” he asked, guiding his horse around a bare and stunted bush.

  “Blackheath,” the elder replied. His voice was coarse, like the rustle of dry leaves. “Some history here. You’d know this was where King Richard II met the mob during the Peasant’s Revolt if you paid more attention to your lessons.”

  “They’ll have a different name for it if we can’t make him see sense. They’ll call it Bloody Heath.”

  “Pickets ahead.”

  They did not anticipate treachery but proceeded even more slowly. The younger man waved the flag so the sentries could plainly see it. Behind the picket lines was a sprawl of tents with a cloud of smoke hanging over it. The points of two halberds were levelled in the general direction of their mailed chests.

  “Hold! Stay where you are!” A voice barked, and when they had come to a standstill: “State your business.”

  “I’m the Earl of Salisbury. This, the Earl of Warwick,” the older man said. ´Take us to the Duke.”

  He was Richard Neville, a stocky northerner, whose mounting years had produced iron grey hair and a weathered face. The younger was also Richard Neville, his eldest son. Both men had keen brown eyes and a distinctive nose: a bump at the bridge gave it the aspect of a bird of prey.

  The two sentries exchanged a quick glance, and the halberds went down. “This way, my lords.”

  Weapon shouldered, he led them into a camp they estimated to contain about two thousand men, roughly the same number as their own. The Duke had arrived first, and his men had had time to settle in. Tents were up, rough shelters built for those without, the detritus of camp living lying around. A few fires gave off more dismal smoke than warmth or light and men stood or sprawled around them. From somewhere nearby came the thin wail of a flute.

  Ahead was a large tent, with a banner above drooping from the centre pole. Two soldiers sprang forward to hold their bridles as the earls dismounted. The sentry had a brief conversation with a guard stationed outside the tent, who ducked inside and returned a moment later to hold the flap for the visitors.

  A brazier warmed the inside of the tent. Several men crowded the interior, some of whom they recognised: William Oldcastle and Davy Hall, knights in the duke’s household and Lord Cobham, a Kentishman and suspected Lollard. The surprise inclusion was the volatile Earl of Devon, usually found in his own west country engaged in his favourite form of recreation: feuding with the Bonville family.

  Ignoring the rest, the two newcomers dipped their heads in deference to the greater rank of the one they had come to see: Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. The Duke was not a very prepossessing man; a little under average height but solidly built, with no fat on him. Fit and trim, he had grey eyes with straight brows that gazed upon his world with a certain chill disdain. Generally, he looked as if he had just come from the funeral service of his entire family. Two deep creases were carved into his brow, and the downward turn of his mouth proclaimed a rather dour and pessimistic disposition. The worse things were going for him, the more his mouth tended to resemble an inverted ‘U’. He was Salisbury’s brother-in-law, wed to the earl’s youngest sister.

  “You’re looking well,” Salisbury said. He offered his hand, but York turned away as if he hadn’t seen it. Nor were they offered a drink, letting the two earls know that he viewed them as adversaries and not kinsmen. They, in turn, judged his mood to be hostile.

  “The King sent you, I suppose,” York said. “Because we’re kin or because of Warwick’s silver tongue?”

  Warwick was the only one to laugh. His tongue was sharp, and he used it as a weapon, to goad, to threaten, to wound, only occasionally to persuade.

  “Because we bear you no ill will,” Salisbury replied. “He sent us to tell you that if you disband your army, he will receive you and hear your petition and he is sure you will go away content.”

  “My army?” York snorted. “I have no army! Those men out there are an escort to protect me against my enemies. It is untenable, but it is a fact, that I cannot move around the kingdom without a strong guard to protect me. If I send them away, what happens to me?”

  “If you don’t, what happens to us all?” Salisbury said grimly. “You’re not a warmonger. You can’t want this to end in bloodshed.”

  “I don’t, but what will be required of me to end it?”

  “Your oath.”

  York looked frankly sceptical. “Already given.”

  “You don’t trust me,” said Salisbury, sounding genuinely hurt.

  Without answering, York paced slowly over to a small table and poured a measure of golden ale into a pewter maser. “All right, you have precisely as long as it takes me to down this ale to persuade me why I must disband my ‘army.’”

  Salisbury jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction from which they had come. “Over there they are saying your success in Ireland has given you grand ideas. Words like rebel and traitor are flying about like dead leaves in the wind. Over there the King also has an army – about the same size as yours, I’d say, also assembled for his protection. So the armies are gathered. Some are itching to take up their weapons. Henry doesn’t want a battle, we all know that. He would rather end it peacefully if possible. If you provoke one – no, if there is a fight, provoked by you or not – you may tell yourself it’s Somerset you’re fighting. But while Henry is over there, while the royal standard of England is flying, it is the King you’ll be fighting. Win or lose the only way you’ll come out of it is covered in so much shit you won’t be able to stand your own stink.” His gaze flickered over the cluster of knights. “As will everyone with you.”

  “Here’s another cogent reason,” Warwick said. “You are playing directly into Somerset’s hands. The perception is that he’s the loyal one supporting his king. You’re the disloyal one confronting the King with an army at your back. He smells of roses; you stink of shit. What kind of vitriol do you suppose he is pouring into the king’s ears at this moment? Reminding him that you returned from Ireland without being summoned, before your term as lieutenant governor was up? Reminding him that you are suspected of being complicit in the Jack Cade rebellion? Perhaps even,” he added, “reminding him that you are the son of a traitor and blood tells?”

  The Duke took a long drink from his cup before answering. “As to Ireland, that was a ploy by my enemies to get rid of me. Ten years! Unheard of! I never had any intention of enduring such an exile for ten long years while England under Somerset’s hand went to the dogs.” He paused for another drink and gazed at the wall of the tent. “I did good work while I was th
ere, though. The Irish will tell you that. I reformed the administration. I arbitrated longstanding disputes between English settlers to the satisfaction of both parties. And the machinery of justice is rolling along smoothly as never before. I didn’t just abandon the place. I left good men in key offices. It was time to come home. As to the Jack Cade rebellion, I emphatically deny any involvement.”

  “So it is mere coincidence that the rebels, among other demands, called for your return,” Warwick drawled.

  “It was neither a coincidence nor an indication of my complicity.” York glowered at his nephew. “What is was, as any man of sense ought to know, was a great shout that the commons are outraged by our losses in France and fed up of the corrupt and abominable government that is bringing England to her knees. I speak of a bankrupt Crown, a slump in trade, highways and forests infested with outlaws, roads and bridges not kept up, parliament frustrated in its efforts to improve matters. I could go on, my lords, to speak of other evils but you know them as well as I, and you also know that many members of the government are more concerned with stuffing their purses than solving problems.”

  Warwick had, in fact, a good deal of sympathy for his uncle. The Duke’s position was untenable. The fact was he didn’t know what to do to save face. He couldn’t just creep off into the night, and yet Warwick suspected he didn’t want to provoke a fight against the king. Salisbury was right about that: he would cover himself in odium.

  Nor did Henry want a battle. Not only was he a peace-loving man, but most of the commons and many of the lords too acknowledged that York had been a good servant to the Crown and had been shabbily treated in return. To attack him would have been seen as another injustice against a loyal man pushed to the brink by the many assaults on his dignity as a peer.

  “If you want something,” Salisbury said, “there is a right way to go about getting it and a wrong way. Resorting to arms is not the right way at this juncture. No matter why you left Ireland without being recalled, no matter the truth of Jack Cade’s rebellion, with this act you have given your enemies a weapon to use against you, and even your friends reason to suspect your motives.”

  “His Grace has just grievances,” Devon remarked. “Is he not the premier peer of the kingdom and the nearest in blood to the King? And yet he holds no office of the Crown, not even a minor one. He doesn’t have a seat on the council, no voice in the government, while thrice-cursed Somerset, who cravenly lost Normandy, all but runs the kingdom with the Queen’s help.”

  “You need Thomas Courteney to speak for you?” Warwick demanded of York.

  Down went the corners of York’s mouth. “The truth is, as you well know, I stand virtually alone. The more who are prepared to speak for me the better.”

  “You are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this miscreant,” Warwick said. “He will add no lustre to your cause.”

  Devon’s hand went to his sword hilt. “You dog, Warwick!”

  “Your Grace!” Salisbury barked, claiming York’s attention while Devon glared at his son and Warwick replied with a supercilious sneer. “You have got yourself into a bad position. You are not going to win. Your only chance is to dismiss your men and submit to Henry. He has said he will give you a hearing.”

  “You are asking me to put myself in the hands of my enemies.” York took another drink from his cup.

  Salisbury shook his shaggy grey head. “Not so. It is true that Somerset is your enemy and will do you harm if he can, but the rest only want this impasse resolved without bloodletting.”

  “I want more than a hearing. I want Somerset disgraced and out of the government. I want him arrested as a beginning. Then we can talk.”

  “You’ll get nothing from Henry but platitudes,” Salisbury insisted. “He remembers Suffolk. How he too was blamed for our losses in France and impeached by Parliament. Henry sent him into exile to save his life, but it didn’t save his life, did it? Caught by common men and his head hacked off with a rusty axe. Henry isn’t going to chance something of the sort happening to another of his favourites.”

  “I like him no better than you do, Uncle,” said Warwick. “He is venal and corrupt. Perhaps these things are excusable in an officer of the Crown, but he’s also incompetent, which is not. The day will come, I guarantee it, when you will be in a position to bring him down, but not today. He’s too firmly entrenched in the affections of both our sovereigns.”

  The two earls chipped away at York’s objections like master masons tapping with chisels and mallets at a block of resistant stone. Finally acknowledging that their tools were ineffective against such adamantine resolution, they rode back to the King’s camp for further instructions and returned some time later.

  “The King,” Salisbury said, “has empowered us to say that Somerset will be arrested as you wish and, once you have disbanded your army, Henry will receive you and hear your grievances.”

  York smacked his hands together in elation.

  “This easy capitulation is suspicious,” Devon said.

  “When it comes to treachery,” Warwick sneered, “we must all bow to your superior knowledge.”

  Once again Devon’s hand went to his sword, Warwick’s too. But the Duke intervened with a gesture. “Enough! Do you, my lords, guarantee my safety?”

  “We do,” they said in unison, and Salisbury added, “And so does the King.”

  From the other men in the tent, there arose a chorus of protesting exclamations. Devon shouted down the rest to demand how far the King’s word could be trusted if Somerset was bending his ear. York silenced them and spoke to his chamberlain.

  “Dismiss the men, Sir William, and have my horse fetched.”

  Good servant that he was, Sir William Oldcastle did not mention his own anxieties and strode from the tent. York made a slow business of strapping on his sword and settling a cloak around his shoulders. Like his brother-in-law and nephew, he was harnessed only in a cuirass. “All right, I’m ready,” he said and led the way out. As they were waiting for his horse, Sir William returned.

  “Will you allow me to accompany you, Your Grace?”

  York nodded without consulting his escort. “The rest of you stay here and see that the men get on their way.”

  They rode in silence through the camp, unaware of the glances that followed them from parties of men already beginning the laborious business of packing up. Word had gone around and the general feeling was one of relief. They were oath-bound to follow and obey their lord, but no one wanted the odium of fighting the King.

  Salisbury and Warwick took their places on each side of the Duke with Oldcastle bringing up the rear. The two earls had to hold their horses back to keep pace with the Duke who rode so slowly that Warwick was afraid he would take fright and bolt back to his own camp. They crossed the scrubby heathland between the two armies and then they were through their own picket lines. Ahead they could see the King’s pavilion. Warwick thought that the royal arms hanging limply and ineffective in the breathless air was a fitting symbol of Henry and his reign.

  Men suddenly blocked their way, with pikes and drawn swords, men wearing the Portcullis badge of Somerset on shoulder or breast. Noises behind them alerted Warwick that they were effectively surrounded, and then Somerset himself appeared, and seized the bridle of the Duke’s horse. The horse shied, startled, but Somerset held on, and the Duke struggled to control his mount or tumble from the saddle.

  “Get down, traitor,” Somerset snarled.

  Warwick reached for his sword but, before he could clear it of the scabbard, a pike was levelled at his chest, and its owner said, low-voiced, “Don’t do it, my lord.” Other men jostled him and his father away from the Duke’s horse and they could do nothing but roar in outrage as York was dragged from the saddle and hustled away.

  Smiling, Somerset said: “I’m obliged, my lords. A job well done.”

  “You filthy swine!” Warwick was beside himself with fury. “We gave our word! The King gave his word!”

 
; “I think you’ll find the King not displeased with my handling of the affair.” With a nod, he turned and strode after his men.

  Oldcastle dismounted and hurried after his master. Warwick dug in his spurs and rode to the royal pavilion, sliding from the saddle before his horse had come to a complete halt. As he approached the tent flap, two guards crossed their halberds barring his way.

  “You may not enter, my lord,” one said. “His Grace is at his devotions.”

  Oh, he would be, Warwick thought sourly. There was an emperor of Rome who supposedly played the lyre while the city burned. Henry was the sort who would be on his knees in prayer while his world turned to ashes. When faced with a crisis or a confrontation he didn’t want, you could be sure to find him communing with the Almighty. Prayer was the answer to everything. Warwick didn’t bother to argue. He strode away to his tent.

  Salisbury limped after him. A wound taken in France had left him with a gimpy leg. As he entered the tent, a flying campstool just missed him.

  “Calm down, lad.”

  But Warwick wasn’t ready to calm down yet. He repeatedly slammed his fist into the cup of his other hand, the knuckles cracking. Pacing the cramped confines of the tent like a caged animal, he felt as if he was about to explode with the rage building inside him and no way to vent it. His hands tingled for the feel of Somerset’s throat.

  “He used us! He used us to do his dirty work! That whoreson! That devil’s spawn! He dragged our honour down into the dust. That’s what I can’t stomach.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s right about Henry, isn’t he?”

  Salisbury nodded. “He’ll be grateful that the affair ended without bloodshed, no matter how it ended.”

  “He’s weak. He hasn’t the mettle to govern a nunnery.”

  “True, but he’s our King. We owe him duty and – Wait! Where are you going?”

  But Warwick was gone. He was making for Buckingham’s tent when he spotted the Duke beside a smoking fire with his frail looking son, Lord Stafford. Betrothed to a daughter of Somerset, Warwick remembered. Not that it signified an affiliation. Land, status, money, these were the reasons people wed. Political alliance was a long way down the list. Generally respected, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was another of Warwick’s uncles, having wed his father’s sister Katherine. He was a tall, very lean man with a face so thinly veneered by flesh it was almost skeletal. His eyes, bulbous, the only fat thing about him, fixed warily on his nephew.