“It was good of you. I know how busy you are,” Cecily said, taking his cloak from her steward and draping it around his shoulders.
“As a matter of fact, I’m on my way to the docks. A cargo has arrived for me from the city of Lubeck. That’s in Germany and one of the towns of the Hanseatic League,” he added for Meg’s benefit. “The Germans are leading the rest of Europe in weapons-making and my cargo consists of an amazing new weapon. It’s a handheld miniature cannon and is fired in much the same way as its big brother. It discharges a lead ball about the size of a pea at a much faster speed than either arrow or crossbow bolt. And here’s the interesting part,” he said with mounting enthusiasm, unaware that the interest of the two ladies was merely politeness and entirely feigned, “the shot can actually pierce armour!”
“I cannot see why better weapons are needed to help men kill each other,” Cecily said tartly. “They are doing a splendid job with the ones they have.”
“What is to protect our knights?” Margaret asked, her cornflower blue eyes wider than ever.
Realising his mistake, Warwick said weakly, “I expect someone will produce better armour or… something. That’s the way it usually goes.” He started for the door but then turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot. Anne wants to know if she can come here and stay with you while I’m gone.”
“Of course, she may. But is that for the best? She must get used to you going off to war. It is, unfortunately, the lot of women.”
“Yes, you’re quite right. It’s just this business at Wakefield has unsettled her. And I’d feel much happier knowing she was here with you.”
Cecily stiffened. This business at Wakefield, indeed!
Chapter 55
February 1461 – St. Albans
Warwick was a whirlwind; wherever he struck he left people in a spin. As soon as it was light he was on his way to attend meetings with this body or that man in his attempts to obtain loans and raise an army, arm, supply and provision it. Often he did not return home until well after dark, to wolf down a late supper and then closet himself in his study to go over requisition lists and write letters to friends at home or abroad. He had in fact been recruiting since York left London but, with the addition of the Scots, he had no choice but to call upon the London trained-bands, which responded with alacrity.
Throughout all this frenetic activity, Warwick was strangely happy. Grief for his father and his brother was kept within strict limits. He wore mourning, ordered masses said, accepted condolences with a grave face and occasionally let a tear fall. But his grief was alleviated by the fact that his brother was so much younger that they hadn’t really been close, and his father was an old man whose years had about run their natural course. The fact that York had shared their fate was a matter of profound and secret gladness to him. When he had declared his need to dissociate himself from the Duke and his folly, he had not expected this solution, so neat, so final, so inexpressibly right that he just knew it was one of those occasions when God had stretched out a hand to set the world on its proper course. Everything that he had ever wanted would fall to him, just as soon as he had smashed this northern army.
After delivering his fretful wife to his aunt’s house, Warwick left London accompanied by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who couldn’t abide each other, the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Essex, his brother John, who had lately been created Lord Montagu. To promote the fiction that he was the nominal head of the army, King Henry was carried along. Behind him, he left a city praying desperately for his success.
At St. Albans he decided to make his stand and wait for the Queen to come to him. “I can’t help feeling St. Albans is lucky for me,” he said, reminiscing about the first battle.
Around the clock tower just south of the abbey, he stationed a large body of archers. They were joined by a few of the townsmen who had chosen not to flee but to stay and protect their town and abbey from the ravages that had been committed on the towns along the Queen’s march. The abbey girded its loins as best it could, simply a matter of bolting and barring every door and gate and hiding all the precious things that had been collected and housed there in the last thousand years.
The rest of his army Warwick formed into two divisions. About two miles north of the town was a ditch, part of the defensive ramparts of the old Roman town of Verulamium. One division, under the command of his brother John, went behind this ditch, facing north-west, ready to come to Warwick’s aid if needed. Warwick’s own command was another two miles north on Sandridge Common also facing west, the direction of the anticipated attack. Having made his dispositions, Warwick introduced some novel innovations. To protect their fronts and to damage the feet of an oncoming foe, both divisions were provided with spiked balls called caltrops and shields bristling with nails which they sowed into the ground. Pointed staves stuck in the bottom of pits were then covered over with nets and the sod put back in place, so the hazard was invisible. As well as these devices, he had the usual artillery borrowed from London and the new-fangled handguns, which he believed would inspire terror in the enemy, never having been used on an English battlefield before.
Having thus prepared himself, as he believed, for every contingency, everything that could go wrong did so.
The scouts Warwick had sent out returned with the information that Margaret was still at Dunstable, twelve miles away, and there he assumed she would stay until morning, allowing her army a good night’s sleep after their march. But in the chill dawn of Shrove Tuesday, there was her army approaching from the west as expected but far to the south of the two Neville brothers’ positions.
Warwick realised at once what must have happened. A night march along Watling Street – a risky business that might have resulted in utter confusion. Warwick ground his teeth.
The route through the town was blocked by the archers stationed by the clock tower, who poured such a furious volley of fire on the enemy that the whole mass of some twenty-five thousand men were held in check.
He sent a runner to John to apprise of the situation, but the runner came back with word that his brother believed it to be a diversion to draw him from his position and leave Warwick exposed to an attack by the main body of the enemy army. John was advised to stay put and stay put he did.
The archers put up a tremendous fight. Only when Andrew Trollope, the Calais man, took a leaf from Warwick’s own book and led a troop of men around the precincts of the abbey and into St. Peter’s Street cutting the archers off from their comrades to the north, did the unequal fight start to turn.
It was nearly noon before the archers were overwhelmed and the Lancastrian advance roared onto the heath where John Neville’s division, armed and in battle array, was facing west instead of south and ready to be rolled up. By this time, John had come to the belated realisation that this was no mere diversionary tactic but was, in fact, the main brunt of the Lancastrian attack. His left flank was trying to turn, a difficult manoeuvre at the best of times and consequently was in total disarray when the enemy struck. To make matters worse, the foot soldiers became the victims of their own defences, stepping on the caltrops and falling onto the buried stakes. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the handguns that Warwick had distributed often exploded, blowing the heads off those who fired them.
Warwick responded to the messenger his brother sent him with the same kind of disbelief with which John had received the archers’ alarm.
“Tell Lord Montagu it is not the main force. It cannot be.”
John had to be wrong. Warwick was certain that at any moment, he would face an attack on his own division and, if he was not in position to repel it, it would come up in his rear and both he and John would be caught in a pincer. No, he dared not risk it. He gazed south from a small eminence, but falling snow cloaked visibility and muffled sound, making it impossible for him to judge what was happening. After receiving a second desperately worded message from his brother, he finally realised that he was operating with a paucity of intelligence.
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“Will somebody get out there and please tell me what is going on!” he barked at no one in particular.
Had the snow not obscured his vision, Warwick would have seen his brother’s division fighting a brutal hand-to-hand battle against a vastly superior force. John had not shared the news that Warwick couldn’t be persuaded of their desperate plight and, as they were expecting support at any moment, his men fought valiantly, when otherwise they might have turned and fled. In the end, however, sheer numbers overwhelmed them.
Finally convinced that the main battle was going on a stone’s throw away, Warwick gave the order to march south to his brother’s aid, only to be met by insubordination. Some of the lords adhered to the military maxim that you do not reinforce failure, but cut your losses. Montagu’s division was demolished, and there was no putting it back together again. Warwick was furious, but there was nothing he could do about it. With the force remaining to him, which included Norfolk’s men, he hurried south and had not gone very far when he met the fugitives of his brother’s division, who swore or wept or glared accusingly, according to their lights, because he hadn’t come to their succour. Soon after he collided with the triumphant Lancastrian army and had the pleasure of seeing his old comrade Andrew Trollop, apparently wounded in the leg or foot, being helped off the field by two others. Of John, there was no sign.
It was at that point that a Kentish captain named Lovelace went over to the enemy. His name went near the top of the list of those who Warwick intended to be revenged upon, right below Trollop himself. But this was the final straw. Montagu’s division had collapsed, and his own men had lost their courage. He didn’t want any others going over to the enemy. Darkness was falling, and under its cover he managed to extricate the remainder of his men and fled northward, leaving King Henry behind in a tent on Sandridge Common.
Chapter 56
February 1461 – London
In the darkest hours of a Saturday morning, Duchess Cecily with Anne of Caux, her children’s nurse, both fully dressed, entered the chamber where her sons were sleeping.
Richard shivered when his mother pulled his nightgown over his head. The fire had gone out hours ago and the room grown chill. His eyes – grey like his father’s – met his mother’s fearfully. Though she had spoken calmly as she always did, his ears had detected a slight edge in her voice.
“Has the Queen come?” he whispered. Richard still suffered nightmares about the time in Ludlow when the Queen had almost trampled him under the hooves of her horse.
Cecily thrust his thin arms into his shirtsleeves. It was like dressing a manikin, so little help was he. Anne was kneeling beside the bed helping George on with his boots.
“No, dearest, the Queen is still far away.”
When the boys were dressed, booted and wrapped in warm cloaks, the two women took them by the hands. A servant carrying a torch lit their way down the stairs and across the quiet hall. It was so early that the rest of the servants were still sleeping. Snores and other night sounds rose from the great hearth where the lowliest huddled in their tattered blankets for warmth.
Outside in the cobbled courtyard, the duchess’s carriage stood waiting. Baggage was strapped to its roof. A small escort was assembled, before and behind it, with torches held aloft. The night was shrouded in a chilly fog. Richard’s cold hand tightened in his mother’s as they climbed into the carriage. George sat next to his mother too, while Anne took the seat opposite.
Once the carriage lurched into motion, the duchess heaved an audible sigh and began her explanation. “My dear ones, I have decided to send you away to safety. In a very short time, you will board a ship that will take you across the sea to the court of Duke Philip of Burgundy. Duke Philip is a good man and an excellent prince. You’ll want for nothing in his care. He is a steadfast friend to our house and has graciously agreed to receive you. You will stay there until it’s safe to come home again.”
For once George was stunned speechless. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He glanced at Richard to see what his reaction might be, but the younger boy was silent, gaping at his mother as if expecting more. George said in a small voice, “But why, Mama?”
Before the duchess could answer, Richard said: “It’s because of Edmund, isn’t it, Mother?” He turned his small pale face to the window and gazed out at nothing.
Though she wasn’t normally a demonstrative woman, Cecily put an arm around each of them and drew them close against her. “It’s because I want you two safe,” she said, concealing her heartbreak.
“But I don’t want to go!” George wailed. “I’m not afraid of the Queen. I want to stay and fight her. I want to help Father as Edward does –” Realising what he had just said, he broke off and burst into noisy tears.
The duchess hugged him closer. “I know you’re not afraid, my son. But I am very much afraid. You must do this for my sake.”
George continued to sob and protest in turn, while Richard made of his corner of the carriage a cocoon of isolation. After a while of this, Anne of Caux began to speak of the marvels they would discover at Duke Philip’s court.
“Did you know that in one of his great palaces he has a golden tree, and by some mysterious means that has his guests scratching their heads in wonder, the golden birds that sit on its golden branches sing just like real birds? But better by far is the bridge at his castle of Hesdin that can be collapsed by means of levers and pulleys, dropping his guests into the moat. You must be careful of that bridge!”
Clever Anne. Richard turned his face from the window. George stopped crying and wiped his nose on his gloved hand. “Is it true, Mama?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said the duchess, sharing a smile with the nurse. “But these things must be marvellous to behold. You must tell me all about them when you write.”
It was a speedy journey, as there was no other vehicles on the streets to impede them. The carriage rolled past the darkened warehouses of St. Katherine’s Wharf. Now and then a torch flared, muted by the fog, illuminating the ships rocking gently at the docks, bales of merchandise, tall cranes towering overhead, and the silhouettes of men moving about. Soon now Cecily would have to put her boys on board ship and watch them sail away, not knowing when she would see them again. Margaret was all she had left. Anne had gone to the odious Exeter; she never saw her anymore. Elizabeth had married the stolid Suffolk. Edward was in constant danger. Edmund – Oh, Edmund, my poor son – gone forever. Five children had she buried already. One became inured to the pain of losing little ones, but the pain of losing a grown son and in such dreadful circumstances was one she knew she would take to her own grave. And now she must send these two away. Worst of all, Richard, her beloved companion of twenty years, the rock upon which she had built her life, was no more, his dear body desecrated, dishonoured…
She would bear it because she must. For Margaret, for Edward and especially for George and Richard. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for two little boys still trying to come to terms with the loss of father and brother, to be plucked from their beds and all that was dear and familiar to be put on board ship and sent away to live with strangers. They would have to be very brave little boys, and if she expected them to be brave, she must also be.
No one had seen her weep. Not even when Warwick had come to give her the news personally. She was sure, almost sure, that she had taken the twin blows with the kind of dignity and composure for which she had always striven. The idea of baring her private emotions, her anguish, her deep, deep grief to the scrutiny of others was excruciating to her. So she had been able to accept the well-intentioned condolences without breaking down; and she had been able to tell Margaret, George and Richard how their father and brother had been slain in a manner intended to soften their grief. Without shedding a tear herself, she had answered their questions and held their shuddering bodies. And she had put the house in a state of mourning and went to St. Paul’s to buy masses without ever once losing control.
Only when she retired to her bedchamber, after she had said her prayers and climbed into the bed she had shared with her husband for so many satisfying years did she turn her face into the pillow and weep for all that was lost. She did what she had to do to get through the day, until that time in the night when she could just let go.
Too soon, the carriage rolled to a stop beside a ship with a single tall mast that rose so high its top disappeared into the fog. Two men swarmed up the rigging as if they were being hauled up on pulleys. Riding lights flickered gloomily fore and aft. George and Richard’s baggage came down from the roof of the carriage. As well as necessities, Cecily had been sure to include those possessions her children couldn’t do without: George’s toy soldiers and wooden sword, the stuffed donkey Richard always took to bed with him.
There was a short delay while the ship was made ready, during which they ate a quick breakfast from the basket they had brought. No sooner were the napkins packed away than the call came from the ship that it was ready to get under way. Everyone alighted from the carriage.
George bowed. “Farewell, my lady mother, Mistress Anne,” he said, very correctly.
Cecily leant down to cup his face in her hands and kiss him, and then Richard, who tried to cling to her. Gently she pushed him away. “God be with you, my sons. Go.”
They turned from her and looked at the ship. After some moments George took Richard’s hand and said heartily, “Come on, Dickon, let’s go aboard. It seems a fine ship. Look how high that mast is. You can’t even see the top of it!”
The entire ship’s company bowed to the two young lords as they climbed the gangplank in the wake of their luggage and the trusted squire who was to accompany them. Before long George’s voice could be heard asking questions. Cecily remained on the wharf, and the two boys appeared at the rail, waving, waving. Once the mariners completed their preparations, they freed the mooring ropes. The oars came out, nudging the ship away from the dock until she was out into the channel and the sails billowed, wind and tide speeding her toward the open sea. The two little figures at the rail disappeared into distance and fog. Cecily waited until she could no longer see the ship’s lights before returning to the carriage.
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