“Fortune has turned her wheel and smiled on us again,” my grandmother marveled. “Welcome, King Edward!”
My mother held up my brother. “Behold thy son!” she said. “I have named him Edward!”
I shall never forget the look of joy on my father’s face as he saw my brother for the first time.
WE MOVED INTO THE PALACE THAT NIGHT. HOW good it felt to have sweets, and soft sheets, and to be surrounded by velvet again instead of straw! Gathered around the fire, seated in my father’s lap, my brothers and sisters at his knees, we learned what happened at the Battle of Barnet.
“We were outnumbered, as usual,” my father laughed. “But we were victorious—as usual!”
“How, Papa? Tell us how!” I insisted, bobbing up and down in his lap, and then all my sisters and brothers chimed in to demand the same.
“You will not believe it. ’Twas almost supernatural!” my father said, a look of wonder in his eyes. “On Easter Sunday, just before we gave battle, a great mist came down from the sky. It descended over the field of Barnet and confounded my enemies, so they did not know who was their foe and who their friend. And they slew one another, not knowing who they slew. That’s how we won!”
A strange chill stole over me.
“And Warwick?” my mother asked quietly.
“Warwick is dead.”
My mother smiled. “And his brother, John Neville?”
“Dead.”
My father put me down and rose abruptly, the smile gone from his face.
He left before dawn the next morning. There was another battle he had to fight.
CHAPTER 2
King Edward’s Court, 1471
WE WATCHED OUR FATHER’S VICTORY MARCH INTO London from the window of our chamber in Westminster Palace. The people were beside themselves with joy. They cheered and threw white roses, danced and sang, and drank wine poured from kegs that stood at each street corner. My grandmother watched, smiling, seated at my side by the open window.
“Are my father’s enemies all dead now?” I asked.
“Aye,” she said. “King Henry’s son, Prince Edward, died in battle.” She exchanged a look with my mother.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the news of his son’s death kills Henry,” my mother replied with an odd smile.
My father appeared. He was riding his shining black horse, surrounded on either side by his brothers, my uncles George of Clarence and Richard of Gloucester, and a host of nobles. Behind them a column of soldiers trailed into the distance.
“Papa! Papa!” I called, waving wildly. But he couldn’t hear me over the tumult of the crowd. He was dressed in armor, without his helmet. A broad smile lit his face as he waved to the people. He caught a white rose from the shower that rained down on him and threw it to someone in the crowd. “Who’s that girl?” I asked Grandmama Jacquetta.
“Nobody,” my mother answered.
“She’s pretty,” I said.
Suddenly the mood of the crowd changed and beneath the cheering I caught boos and an ugly hissing. “What’s happening?” I cried.
“The people have caught sight of Henry’s queen, Marguerite d’Anjou,” my grandmother said. “See, she rides at the back of the procession, in the wooden cart.” She pointed into the distance.
“Why are they throwing things at her?” I demanded.
“Because they hate her. She did bad things to England.”
“What bad things?” I asked. I was fascinated now, but my grandmother just said, “It’s too hard to explain. You’ll know when you grow up.”
The jeering of the crowds grew so loud, it hurt my ears. I left the window seat. My father was arriving in the palace courtyard, and I couldn’t wait to greet him.
LIFE WENT BACK TO NORMAL. MY FATHER GAVE ME a terrier pup that I named Blossom, and she followed me everywhere I went. Music, feasting, and laughter filled all our days, except when my uncles came to court, for there was fighting between them. One day after my uncle George of Clarence had left, I found my father standing alone by the window in a chamber full of people. Everyone was silent and the minstrels had stopped their music. He was clutching a book. I went to him. Papa swung me up and sat me down on the window seat, but he didn’t smile.
“Why are you sad, my dear lord father?” I asked.
“This prophecy, sweet child,” Papa whispered, his voice cracking in a way I had never heard before. He showed me the book. “Can you read?”
I shook my head. “I am only six, my lord father.” I didn’t remind him that I’d had no schooling in sanctuary.
My father looked like he was going to smile, and then the sad look came back. “It says, my dear child, that no son of mine shall be crowned king, but that you shall be queen and wear the crown in their stead.”
The warm feeling wrapped around my heart again. My father loved me so much that he even worried about my happiness when I was grown! “My lady mother likes being queen,” I said, wanting to put his mind at ease,“so maybe I shall like it, too, Papa.”
Papa smiled. Gently, he stroked my hair.
But my uncles kept coming back. That made my father sad again, and my mother angry. Nurse said my uncles were mad at one another because my uncle Richard of Gloucester wanted to marry Anne Neville, the sister of Uncle George’s wife, Bella, and George didn’t want him to.
“Why not?” I asked my nurse, as I stroked Blossom in my arms.
“If your uncle Richard of Gloucester marries Anne, your uncle George of Clarence will have to share Bella’s inheritance with him, and he doesn’t want that. He wants to keep all his wife’s money. Your Uncle George loves money.”
“So does Mama,” I said.
Nurse smiled, but she didn’t say anything more.
“I like my Uncle Richard better than Uncle George,” I said.
“So does your father, my sweet,” Nurse replied. “Now, put down your dog so I can plait your hair.”
I did as I was told. “I like Uncle Richard because he brings me gifts and plays with me when he’s here,” I went on.
“He loves children,” Nurse said as she combed my hair.
“You like him, too, don’t you?” I said, suddenly aware of the different note in her voice.
“Your uncle Richard of Gloucester is a generous prince,” she said with a smile. “Always gives me a gold piece when he comes.”
My mother grew big with another child and we moved to Shrewsbury for the birth. She kept to her chamber and we didn’t see her much. While she was confined, my father’s mother, Cecily, Duchess of York, made an unexpected visit to us from her castle of Berkhamsted. I was playing with my new puppy. There was a huge commotion outside in the courtyard and I heard my father calling out from down the hall. I ran out of my chamber. A maiden was fleeing my father’s privy suite and my father came out after her, hopping on one leg as he tried to get his boots on. His shirt hung out over his hose.
“God’s balls, don’t just stand there!” he called out to his Knights and Squires of the Body, who had panicked looks on their faces. “Get this place in shape—you know how she is! Elizabeth—” he cried, catching sight of me. I went to him and he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Be a sweetheart and do your papa a favor?”
I nodded firmly.
“Go and forestall your grandmother—talk to her, do something, anything, stand on your head—whatever it takes to delay her getting here!”
He returned to his chamber and I scrambled toward the tower stairs without further ado, Blossom at my heels, barking wildly. My father needed my help, and I’d do anything for him.
“Grandmama! Grandmama!” I cried, seizing her hand as she emerged from the tower staircase. I curtsied before her. “Oh, Grandmama, ’tis so good to see you!”
“Elizabeth,” she said. “As disheveled as always. Does your mother ever bother to order a new gown for you?”
“Grandmama, I just got this last month,” I said, looking down in disbelief at my beautiful blue silk dress trimmed in beaver.<
br />
“Then you’re growing too fast. Stop eating so much.”
I curtsied. “Aye, Grandmama.”
Unable to think of anything else to delay her with, I stepped aside. She swept past me down the hall. “And have your dog groomed once in a while,” she called out, without turning to look at me again. “He’s scruffy.”
Mary and Cecily appeared at the threshold of the nursery, hand in hand with their nurses, who fell into deep curtsies before Grandmama.
“Do you not have a comb in the entire castle?” Grandmama demanded, addressing Mary’s nurse.
“Indeed we do,Your Grace,” she replied from the folds of her curtsy.
“Then use it. The children look like urchins.” Cecily began to cry. Grandmama ignored her and turned her attention to the men who had fallen to their knees before my father’s chambers as if they would guard him from her with their lives.
“My son’s royal attendants, I presume?”
There was a murmur. “You smell like a guild of tavern-keepers. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” Grandmama pointed at one of the knights with her silver-tipped cane. “You’re as scruffy as Elizabeth’s hound. Who are you?”
“Sir William Norris,Your Grace.”
“Oh, a Lancastrian,” she sniffed. “Well, you’re not with Henry VI now. Get yourself bathed and properly attired.”
“Aye, Your Grace,” replied Sir William, coloring as others tittered.
“I shall never fathom why my son insists on surrounding himself with such rabble, Lancastrians and—” She was about to point to someone else with her cane when Papa appeared.
“Ah, Mother,” said my father cheerfully. He was clad in a rumpled scarlet velvet doublet and high black boots. He advanced to embrace her. “How pleased I am to receive this gracious and unexpected visit!” he said with a big smile.
“No, you’re not,” she said. “You’ve been drinking. Your breath reeks of wine. You always were a lush, Edward. The castle is a disgrace. You should know better. You’re far too indulgent.” Her eye caught on my fifteen-year-old brother,Tom, trailing Papa. “So you’re Earl of Huntingdon, now, Thomas? You and your endless relatives will soon have devoured all the wealth and honors in the land and left nothing for anyone else.”
Tom gave her a bow.
“Come along, Edward. I have serious matters to discuss with you. Richard and George are at each other’s throats over Anne Neville. Incidentally, what’s this I hear about your new harlot?”
My father froze in his steps and exchanged a shocked look with my brother. All the knights and squires stared at Papa with their mouths open.
“What’s a harlot?” I asked my nurse.
“ ’Tis time to play in the garden,” she said, taking my hand and dragging me along. The other nurses followed with my sisters and baby brother, little Edward.
Six weeks later, on the seventeenth of August, 1473, my mother gave birth to another son. We moved back to London and the palace filled with rejoicing. My brother was named Richard for our uncle of Gloucester and our two “Richard” grandfathers, Richard, Duke of York, and Richard Woodville. My father was so pleased with my mother that he gave her something he had refused to grant her till now. He appointed her brother, my uncle Anthony, Lord Rivers, guardian to my little brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, and they left for Ludlow.
THE SEASONS PASSED. I FROLICKED ON THE FROZEN Thames in the winter with my sisters, Mary and Cecily, and picnicked on the castle lawns in summer with the court, and rode my palfrey through the woods of Windsor in the autumn. Life was sweet. Laughter was everywhere, and wherever we went, the loud cheering of the people followed us. But today, as I stood in the summer sunshine at the castle gates with my sister Mary, and my sister Cecily, and my two-year-old brother, Dickon, everyone was silent and my heart was heavy as a lead ball in my breast. Papa was leaving for war. He was going to fight King Louis of France.
His armor glittered in the sun and his crimson plumes nodded in the breeze as he led his men down the hillside, Uncle Anthony at his side. Papa sparkled like a god as he moved, but with every stride of his horse, the tears at the back of my eyes stung more sharply. Dickon bawled, but Mary and I did not dare weep. Mary was eight years old now, and I was nine, and we had to behave like princesses and not show emotion or my brothers Tom and Dick Grey would tease us mercilessly. So would Cecily, who watched me quietly and did not cry.
It seemed odd to me that my mother stood alone to wave Papa off, but Grandmother Jacquetta had passed away soon after Papa’s victory against the Kingmaker.
“Is Papa going to die?” Cecily demanded, directing her question to me. “Will the French slay him?”
I didn’t understand my sister Cecily. She had such an uncanny knack of giving voice to my worst fears that sometimes it seemed to me that she said and did things just to spite me. Had she seen the tears in my eyes and wanted to make them roll down my cheeks? I turned my back on her and headed toward the chapel without a reply. My sister Mary’s voice floated to me on the summer breeze. “Papa is the greatest warrior in the world and has never lost a battle. The French can’t hurt him. No one can.” She was my good friend, as well as my sister.
Mary was proven right. Papa returned in September, sooner than anyone ever expected, and he bore wonderful news.
“My ladies,” he said, laughing as he flourished me and my sisters and my mother a grand bow, “I return to you a rich king, having won the war against France!”
“Rich?” my mother repeated, her face breaking into a rare smile. “What do you mean, Edward?”
“You, madame—you and I shall dance away the days of our lives in ease and comfort, for Louis was so afraid of me that he paid me a king’s ransom to leave France in peace, and return to England! A king’s ransom—” He laughed with abandon at his own jest. “And he shall keep paying for another twenty years!”
“How much, how much?” demanded my mother, her eyes sparkling.
“Fifty thousand gold crowns a year!”
A disbelieving look took hold of my mother’s features, and she put out both hands to my father in stunned surprise, words failing her. Laughing, they swung around together as I had done with Mary as a child. Giddy and happy, my mother fell into a chair, holding her sides with laughter. It was a strange sight to see her like that. As if she were a girl.
“As for you, my princess,” Papa said, bending a knee before me and taking my hands into his own, “I have brought you a most splendid gift.”
My heart went fluttering in my breast and my lips broke into the widest of smiles. “What, Papa? What could you bring me that is better than having you back?”
“Ah, my beloved daughter, ’tis a jeweled crown of your own that I bring you!”
My mother gasped, pushed out of her chair. “A crown of her own? What do you mean, Edward?”
“To seal my treaty with Louis, I promised Louis’s son the hand of our daughter, Elizabeth.” He rose to his feet and beamed at me like the sun that was his emblem. “I have betrothed you to Charles the Dauphin. You will be Queen of France one day.”
My mother’s hand went to her heart. “Queen of France? I shall be the mother of the Queen of France?” She turned her glittering eyes on me. “Then she must learn French! And from now on, she must be addressed as Madame la Dauphiness!” I looked at both of them in bewilderment.
“But don’t you remember? I am betrothed to George Neville, Duke of Bedford.”
My mother gave a snort of laughter. “Did no one tell you? That betrothal should never have been. The young Neville has no means. We even had to take his dukedom of Bedford from him because he couldn’t sustain it. We can’t have you marrying a nobody.”
“Come, Blossom,” I said, scooping up my dog in my arms.
“Her name is Jolie.”
“What?”
“I just renamed her. It’s French for ‘pretty.’ ”
Mother gave birth to another babe, named Anne, in November 1475, bringing us more to celebrate,
but my betrothal to the dauphin did nothing to endear me to Cecily. She stepped on the hem of my gowns more frequently than usual as she walked behind me.
Each time Mother caught Cecily failing to address me as “my dauphiness,” she gave her a scolding. To repay me, Cecily would hide behind my chair and pat my dog as I studied my French lessons, hissing softly to herself, “Ma dauphin-ess; notre dauphin-ess; votre dauphin-ess . . .”
“Hush, Cecily! I can’t concentrate.”
“I wasn’t doing anything,” she’d say, “except practicing my French on your dog.”
One day, I finally objected when my mother gave Cecily a tongue-lashing. “Mother, leave her alone, I pray you! I don’t mind her not addressing me as dauphiness.”
My mother slapped me hard across my cheek. “You may not mind, but I do. Let this be a lesson to you. We must demand respect from everyone, or we shan’t get it. And while it’s on my mind, ’tis time you addressed your brother Tom by his new title, Marquess of Dorset. Is that understood?”
I curtsied mutely, nursing my cheek, which smarted. It was no use. Mother loved titles too much, for her father had never had one until he’d married my grandmother, Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford. I decided to lodge a complaint against her with Papa.
“Papa, I pray you to stop Mother from insisting that even Mary and Cecily address me as dauphiness. They don’t like it, and Cecily is making my life miserable because of it.”
“Dear child,” Papa said with a sigh, “you must learn to humor your mother, as I do. She’s so strong-willed that she will have her way, come wind or high water. Fighting her is useless.”
He looked so sad again that I went to him as he sat at his desk over his papers, and gave him a tight hug.
THE YEAR OF 1477 WAS USHERED IN WITH MUCH REJOICING. In February, I celebrated my eleventh birthday, and soon afterward in March, another brother was born. We feasted and held a masked banquet. I danced with Papa, and laughed a great deal.
My parents named my new brother George for Uncle George, and gave him the title of Duke of Bedford, which Papa had taken away from my former betrothed, George Neville. Uncle George of Clarence, who had been deeply offended when my second brother was named for my uncle Richard of Gloucester, didn’t even seem to notice the honor that my parents did him now. Each time he came to court, he brought his own cook and food tasters and raised a terrible fuss, yelling and shouting at my father and mother. He claimed my mother had tried to poison him on a previous visit.
The King's Daughter (Rose of York) Page 3