His mother’s chamber is empty now; the cot that held his baby sister for the few short days she lived is still in its place, close to the bed. But his sister’s cries are silenced now and his mother breathes no more.
The room is bleak, the fire cold, and the table at the bedside is littered with an array of medical instruments; a small glass phial, a knife, and a stone bowl. He wrinkles his nose at the acrid, bitter smell pervading the air and knows it for the aroma of death.
Empty of feeling, Harry steps further into the room and stares at the empty bed. Someone has tidied it; the lace-trimmed pillows are plumped, the rich velvet coverlet has been smoothed. At the foot, his mother’s prayer book is open, the bright illuminated page a gay mockery of his bewildered sorrow. Her robe is folded across a chair, her slippers partnered neatly beneath. A white scrap of embroidery has fallen to the floor.
Only his mother is not here. She has abandoned him.
He reaches out, tentatively rubbing the soft fabric between his fingers, and her fragrance wafts from the disturbed folds. Lifting it to his face, he buries his nose in the fur collar, and, as if some giant has taken hold of his heart and is squeezing it dry, his tears erupt.
The heir to the English throne drops to his knees and casts himself onto the bed. He pushes his face into the counterpane, smearing it with tears. To escape the terrible ache in his heart, he squirms, consumed by sharp twisting agony. He bunches the coverlet in his hands, screwing it between his fingers, and sends a gasping prayer to God.
“Bring her back, God. Please, just bring her back. I need her. I want my mother.”
But God doesn’t answer; He is deaf to the pleas of children. Boys, even princes, even kings, cannot counter-command death, or dictate the will of God.
Author’s Note
I have always been fascinated by the idea of Perkin Warbeck being one of the Princes in the Tower but I never thought I’d have the pleasure of imagining it in detail. The true identity of the man hanged at Tyburn in 1499 will now remain a mystery. It seems incredulous that a foreign commoner would be able to pull off a credible impersonation of a royal English prince. He gained the support of half of Europe which, to me, suggests either his claims were true, or people really didn’t like Henry.
To create this story I have ignored Warbeck’s confession, which seems to have been largely a construction of Henry VII’s. Most of The Boy’s story is the work of my imagination, aided only by a few recorded facts. Please bear in mind that it is a work of fiction. There are some easily accessible non-fiction books detailing every perspective of the story, which I list below.
Elizabeth was a much easier character to access. She is well documented and the few portraits that do survive show a pretty, confident and quietly determined woman. On the surface she may seem to have deferred to all that life threw at her, but it was part of a princess’s training to conceal her feelings and I prefer to think that is precisely what she did.
She was family orientated. David Starkey is quite convinced that Henry VIII’s handwriting proves that his mother had a direct hand in his education. Throughout her life she supported her sisters and remained close to her cousin, Margaret Pole. Margaret is, of course, the Countess of Salisbury whom her little cousin Henry VIII executed for treason in 1541 when she was in her late sixties. A fact that makes the scene in the nursery when she dandles little Harry on her knee that much more poignant. As to Elizabeth, as is often the way with women, I think history has undervalued her place in world events.
Unlike her son, Henry VIII, and the granddaughter named in her honour, Elizabeth of York isn’t a household name. When viewed against the backdrop of other Tudors she is far less splendid than her children; she is conventional, and appears obedient, even cowed perhaps. Her portraits show a pretty, plump and resigned-looking woman who doesn’t adhere to our imagined picture of the mother of a king, the grandmother of a king and two queens. Her husband is usually given the credit for founding the Tudor dynasty, but he could not have done it alone. He needed her Plantagenet blood.
Elizabeth was born on February 11th 1466, into the bloody era now known as the Wars of the Roses. She was the first child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. To everyone but the couple involved, it was an unconventional and unpopular match, but unlike other queens, Elizabeth Woodville was to prove satisfactorily fertile.
It was a time of upheaval and when Edward was forced to flee the country to Burgundy, the child Elizabeth joined her mother and sisters when they fled into Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. There, safe from conflict but estranged from the exiled king, the first of Elizabeth’s brothers was born. (Edward would later earn his place in history by ‘disappearing’, along with his brother Richard, from the Tower of London, igniting a mystery that continues to burn today.)
Meanwhile, the exiled king gathered his forces and with the aid of his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, returned to England to resume the battle for his throne, finally defeating Warwick and Margaret of Anjou, and having the old king Henry VI murdered. This initiated a time of relative peace.
For Elizabeth, now five or six years old, it was time for her education to begin. As well as the skills of running a huge household, she was also taught to read and write, and given some instruction in accounting. Contemporary reports describe her as pious, obedient and loving, and dedicated to helping the poor.
In 1475, when Edward made his peace with France, it was arranged as part of the treaty that on her twelfth birthday she would go to France to prepare for marriage to Dauphin Charles. But before this could take place, France reneged on the deal and married Charles instead to Margaret of Austria.
Things ran smoothly for a while, or as smoothly as they ever do in royal circles until, on the unexpected death of the king in 1483, the queen, taking her children with her, fled once more into Sanctuary at Westminster. Richard of Gloucester took his place as Lord Protector, and her brother, the Prince of Wales, was brought to London to await his coronation, as was tradition, in the royal apartments at the Tower.
Shortly afterward it emerged (whether true or not is another question) that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous due to a prior contract of marriage. All children of the union between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville were pronounced illegitimate. As we all know, Gloucester was declared King Richard III and at some point between 1483 and 1485, Elizabeth’s brothers disappeared from the record. (That is not proof however that they disappeared from the earth – there are any number of possible explanations).
How must it have felt to one moment be the princess of the realm, Dauphine of France, and the next an illegitimate jilted nobody living in exile from court in the squalor of Sanctuary?
And what of her brother’s fate? Elizabeth would have been ignorant of that, and the resulting uncertainty, mixed with grief for her father, would have been terrible. It is possible that her mother knew, or at least believed, the boys were safe. Why else, after scurrying into the safety of Westminster in fear of her life, would she suddenly hand her daughters into the care of the very man suspected of injuring her sons? We cannot know the answer to that, and that lack of historical clarity provided the catalyst for this novel. The numerous ‘what ifs’ in this period are invaluable for an author of historical fiction.
Elizabeth and her sisters returned to court to serve Richard’s queen, Anne Neville, where they were treated with every courtesy. Queen Anne was ailing and clearly dying. It was at this time that rumours emerged of a relationship between Richard and his niece, Elizabeth. It is now impossible to be certain of the truth behind the allegation, but at the time gossip was strong enough for Richard to publically deny the accusation. Whether the claim was true or not, Elizabeth would have suffered some degree of shame, but she seems to have continued to be prominent at court, serving the queen until her death in March 1485.
In August, when invasion was looming, Elizabeth and other children from the royal nursery were sent north for safety while the king
dealt with the threat from Henry Tudor.
Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian heir, was aided by his mother, Margaret Beaufort, in England. Margaret had devoted her life to her son’s cause. She served at court but untiringly devised methods to secure the throne she saw as rightfully her son’s. In order to muster support from the Yorkist faction, Henry promised that, if he became king, he would marry Elizabeth of York and unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster, putting an end to the Wars of the Roses forever.
After Richard III’s defeat at Bosworth in 1485, Elizabeth was taken to Margaret Beaufort’s house at Coldharbour but Henry was slow to marry her, and slower to crown her. This can be seen as reluctance, but we should consider the logistics of arranging a royal wedding, although his son never seemed to find it an obstacle. To some it is almost as if the king wished to deny that she had any influence on his claim at all.
They were married in January 1486. Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, a son whom they named Arthur, in September of the same year, scarcely nine months later. She had no further children until two years after her coronation, which took place in November 1487.
Henry Tudor’s reign was fraught with rebellion. Pretenders emerged throughout; some were swiftly dealt with but one in particular, Perkin Warbeck, claiming to be Elizabeth’s younger brother, Richard, harried the king for years. We will never know his real identity, although the king went to great lengths to provide him with a lowly one.
Elizabeth is always described as a dutiful wife and devoted mother. She took no part in ruling the country and there are no reports of her ever having spoken out of turn or ‘disappointing’ the king. Henry appears to have been a faithful husband; his later relationship with Catherine Gordon, wife of Warbeck, was possibly no more than friendship, but she did very well at his court.
Although Prince Arthur was raised, as convention dictated, in his own vast household at Ludlow, Elizabeth took an active role in the upbringing of her younger children, teaching them their letters and overseeing their education.
When Arthur died suddenly in 1502, both Henry and Elizabeth were distraught, the king thrown into insecurity at having been left with just one male heir. Reports state that the king and queen comforted each other and, although there are some hints of a possible estrangement between the royal couple, Elizabeth promised to give Henry another son. She fell pregnant quickly and gave birth to a girl, Katherine, ten months later, but succumbed to puerperal fever and died on her birthday, 11th February 1503.
I believe Elizabeth deserves more credit. There is as much strength in resilience as in resistance, and I believe she was both strong and resolved, bound by duty to serve her country as best she could.
Her union with Henry negated the battle between York and Lancaster, and the many children she bore provided political unions with France, Scotland, and Spain. If a king dies dutifully on the battlefield, serving his country, he is usually credited with heroism. Ultimately, Elizabeth died in exactly the same manner, doing her duty to England.
Further reading
Alison Weir: Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen
Amy Licence: Elizabeth of York
Lisa Hilton: Queen’s Consort
Christine Weightman: Margaret of York
Elizabeth Norton: Margaret Beaufort
David Baldwin: Elizabeth Woodville
D.M. Kleyn: Richard of England
Ann Wroe: Perkin
Ian Arthurson: The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy
David Baldwin: The Lost Prince
Elizabeth Jenkins: The Princes in the Tower
Michael Hicks: Edward V: The Prince in the Tower
Peter Hancock: Richard III and the murder in the Tower
Ketih Dockray: William Shakespeare, The Wars of the Roses and the Historians
Williamson: The Mystery of the Princes
Thomas Penn: Winter King
James Gardiner: Henry VII
Robert Hutchinson: Young Henry
David Starkey: Henry, Virtuous Prince
Desmond Seward: The Last White Rose
Also see http://www.richardiii.net/ for countless articles on the era and the people.
For more information and articles visit my website http://www.juditharnopp.com
Scroll down for an excerpt from Intractable Heart: the story of Kateryn Parr
England, 1536.
As the year to end all years rolls to a close the Holy Roman Church reels beneath the onslaught of the reformation. And, as quickly as the vast abbeys crumble, so do the royal coffers begin to fill.
The people of the north, torn between their loyalty to God and their allegiance to their anointed king, embark upon a pilgrimage to guide their errant monarch back to grace.
But Henry is unyielding and sends an army north to quell the uprising. In Yorkshire, when unrest breaks out again, Katheryn, Lady Latimer and her step-children, Margaret and John, are held under siege by the rebels at Snape Castle.
Part One
Margaret Neville
January 1537 - Snape Castle
“There she goes, grab ‘er!”
As they lunge for me I dive into the bushes and scramble up the incline toward the house. The ground is damp. Wet slippery leaves hinder my progress but I struggle onward, desperate to reach home. Katheryn, my step-mother, told me not to come. I should have listened but, resentful of her taking my own mother’s place, I ignored her and came outside to spite her.
I hate it in the castle; the heat of the fire, the chattering of the women, the never ending unpicking and re-stitching of the tapestry I am working. Usually I like it in the woods; I feel free. I can breathe and run, and love the sensation of the wind on my face but now I am sorry I disobeyed. The stifling women’s quarters are suddenly a haven. I wish I’d never left it. I should have remained at the fireside and attended to my detested needlework as I’d been told.
“Oh dear God,” I gasp. “I promise, if you just help me get safely home, I will never be bad again.”
At last, the angry voices behind me begin to dwindle, and the pain in my side forces me to stop, just for a moment. I am not far from the hall now. Through the branches I can just glimpse the red brick walls of Snape Castle. Hiccupping in fear, I crawl on until I am close to the drive where, gathering all my courage, I throw myself from the safety of the covert and dash beneath the gateway into the barton.
There are men massing before the house. Not soldiers, not gentlemen, but peasantry. Ordinary men who, on a normal day, would pull their cap and treat us with respect. But yesterday I saw their leaders bear my father away, leaving us defenceless and the castle to be ruled by rough-clad farmers, millers, dispossessed monks and the like.
They are angry, shouting, waving their arms at the blank castle windows. Keeping my head down, I sneak along the wall, sidle up the steps to the hall where the bailiff, Layton, is bravely trying to contain their anger. I duck behind him and almost fall over the threshold. The warmth of the hall engulfs me.
“Miss Margaret, where have you been? You were told not to leave the house.”
“I’m sorry,” I wail. Relieved beyond words to have escaped, the terror turns to tears on my cheek. I cling to Dorothy. “I really am so very sorry. I will never disobey again.”
I am trembling, overwhelmed to be safe, and yet perhaps not as safe as I would have it.
“Look at your gown, look at your shoes.” Dorothy slaps at the filth on my skirts as she scolds me, and for once I do not resent it. I am glad of her rough nurturing, glad that there is someone bigger and wiser than myself. Dorothy’s reproaches are cut short by a footstep behind us, and I hear my step-mother’s voice.
“Oh, Margaret, thank God you are safe.” She swoops toward me, sinks to her knees and holds out her arms. For the first time I fall into them, lose myself in the comfort of her bosom. Katheryn smells of rose water and camomile.
Scents of summer.
“I am sorry, Mother. I will never disobey you again.” My nose is running all o
ver her fine brocade gown but she doesn’t appear to notice. She cradles my head beneath her chin, her hand on my hair and makes the soft motherly noises that I have missed so much. My brother John is scowling at us from the stairway; he will punish me later for this show of affection.
“Did they hurt you?” Her voice seems to come from far away. I shake my head.
“No, but I am sure they would have had they caught me. I had to escape through the shrubbery. I am sorry, Mother, but I lost my hood.”
She holds me a little away, plucks a few twigs from my hair and looks at me, her heart shaped face warm with affection. “What does a lost hood matter when it might have been you, Sweet-one? Come, let me take you to your chamber. Dorothy, see that warm water is brought up, Margaret will want a bath and an early night.”
An hour later, although it is just a few hours past noon, I am tucked up in bed while Mother spoons broth into my mouth and Dorothy tut-tuts over my ruined clothes. The servants come one by one to take away the dirty bath water. They tread softly, their eyes averted while Mother holds the spoon beneath my nose, tempting me to eat.
Although I am not hungry I open my mouth obediently. I have so many questions, so many doubts. I swallow the broth, lick my lips.
“Who are those bad men, Mother? What do they want?”
“They are not ‘bad men’ my sweet-one. They are frightened, angry men who urge the king to change his mind.”
“Change his mind about what? And why are they here bothering us? What have we to do with the king?”
She replaces the spoon in the half empty bowl and hands it to Dorothy, tucks the sheet higher about my chest.
“So many questions.”
A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck Page 35