A Princely Knave

by Philip Lindsay

  A man in love was only half a man and could be easily broken. Here was the blade he needed to prise the rascal open. When the Lady Katherine arrived he must plumb her heart and find whether she would work for him against her husband. But surely so great a lady could not love this lying adventurer? Yet with women, no man could be certain, and when they loved, often they loved despite of rank or honour or family pride.

  “Let this Perkin Warbeck be brought before me,” he said.

  When Perkin entered that warm room, courtiers stood by the doors and clustered around him, while the king watched his approach, his eyes unblinking, seeming dull, almost colourless, and he did not speak until the prisoner stood close to him. Then he stretched feet and hands towards the fire in the brazier and said pleasantly, as though speaking to a friend:

  “Master Warbeck, why is it that you would have brought evil into my kingdom?”

  Ashley had been right in his advice. So long as he stood erect, reminding himself continually that he was not Perkin Warbeck but King Richard IV, his courage would support him. Nevertheless, although his voice was steady, he trembled when he answered:

  “You are mistaken, sir. I am not Perkin Warbeck. I am your cousin, son of Edward of England, come to claim my inheritance.”

  There was a movement barely heard, a rustling as of leaves, amongst the men gathered in that chamber, but the king showed no sign of interest. Only the lazy lids of his eyes lifted a little as though he were amused, yet sad.

  “You have learned your lessons well, my boy,” he sighed, “but, of course, you had a clever instructress. Her grace of Burgundy has her spies everywhere to root out any dupe she thinks might injure me who has no hate of her. Poor old lady! that is natural enough and we honour her for it. She is a woman, a sister, loyal to her brother’s memory even in her treacheries, and women have not men’s notions of honour and truth and they must be forgiven as one forgives a child malicious without knowing its cruelty. And as I said, she loved her brothers, difficult though that is to believe …” Deeply he sighed. “ … she loved even that tyrant who, by the grace of God, I and the people of England slew at Bosworth. The nation was weary of his rapacity and blood-letting and murders and extortions and it craved for peace. And peace it is our task and joy to keep within our realm. Yet you, silly boy, tempted by our country's enemies, thought to disturb us here. Again, we ask you — why?”

  Had he been insulted or beaten, Perkin would have remained bravely defiant, but this gentle reception unmanned him, depriving him of the heroic speeches he had rehearsed within himself. This king seemed gentle, kindly, even frail. The pale blue eyes were small and wide apart, the nose largish, a fleshy beak, the mouth lipless and wide, and the chin heavy. Seeming weary yet faintly amused at mankind’s foolish antics, Tydder slouched in his chair, dressed in a dark blue houppelande with little ornament, the velvet cap drawn forward over the brow. Perkin had come prepared for insults, ready to spit on the tyrant. Now he felt that he was only a petulant child being mildly rebuked by an indulgent elder: not that the king was old, he was in his early forties, in his prime, but a hunted youth with years of scheming had made him wrinkled, while his lust for gold had brought the sympathetic yellow to his skin, keeping him indoors with parchments, tally-sticks and checkerboards.

  “You are silent, boy,” said the king at last while Perkin blushed and looked down at the floor. “We hope that is for shame of having brought unrest into this land with the death of many silly, misguided folk. We will not be harsh towards you; so have no fear. We know that you are not so greatly to be blamed as those who thought to use you in your ignorance for their base treacheries … All we ask in return for our forgiveness is your confidence. Tell us the truth. Who were those who inspired you towards treachery? We mean not the duchess or King James, or those wretches we took with you out of sanctuary: we mean those traitors now in England who called you hither.”

  So deep was the silence in that chamber, each man holding his breath while watching Perkin, that it could almost be felt like something solid pressing through the air. Even, it seemed, the hangings ceased to whisper on their tenterhooks and the loose window no longer rattled in its frame. Everyone and everything became silent and still, only the fire in the brazier appearing to remain alive, panting, glittering, winking.

  “I am Prince of England,” croaked Perkin; and thin and unconvincing bounded his voice, even to his own ears. “I am King Richard IV.”

  Sighing, the king moved, raising his brows at those about him.

  “Away with him,” he said; “guard the fool well yet give him aught he might desire for the refreshment of his body and the comfort of his souk Unhappy youth, we leave you to your conscience. Think well and remember that I am a merciful prince, ready always to forgive and even to reward those who repent what evil they have wrought against me and my kingdom … God be with you, boy.”

  Bewildered, Perkin looked about him as an usher tapped his arm with his wand of office; and he felt angry and close to tears. The king treated him as though he were a child who could not be blamed or even punished for insubordination. That was an insult intolerable to his manhood. Even torture would have been preferable to this contemptuous dismissal of him as a child who could work no harm now that he had been separated from his masters.

  He wished to shout, to tell this dull-eyed king that he was the real usurper, the thief of England; but his throat felt dry and he could not speak. He dared not try to speak lest he break into tears and show himself as, indeed, a frightened boy. Already had the king turned his back that he might lean over his chair-arm to talk to the aged cardinal in his red robes at his side. Forgotten in a blink, a weakling with the wish but without the power for mischief, Perkin turned at the usher’s touch and strode out of the chamber, keeping his chin erect while praying that the tears would not come before he was far from that man’s accursed, taunting presence.

  With a shrug as the curtains fell behind the prisoner within his guard, the king turned to Cardinal Morton who had sat, staring with scarcely a wink at Perkin. Now, as the king turned to him, he turned to the king his solemn, wrinkled face.

  “The likeness is there,” he said quietly, “but I doubt if he has the courage of Edward or Richard. More likely he’s a second Clarence, for Clarence at heart was a coward … not that it matters. Most probably, he does not know the truth himself.”

  “Whatever he knows,” said the king, “he must confess in public that he’s no sprig of York. We must work without torture or secrecy. Men must never say that we feared this changeling, yet an example must be made of him. There have been too many rumours, too many so-called sons of York for the disturbance of our realm. Burgundy is behind them all.”

  “Burgundy … and others,” said the cardinal. “France, Spain, Scotland, Burgundy, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Denmark … they all conspire to injure you, your graces as you, for the safety of your realm, must conspire to injure them should opportunity offer. This fool must somehow be forced to tell the truth. From his own lips, the world must learn that he is no Plantagenet and we must find who are his friends in England; only, no torture should be used. Nay. But I don’t believe, your grace, that this cockerel should prove difficult. We’ll quickly make him crow. Did you not note the trembling of his lip when he sought to act bravely, thinking himself a paladin defying death? Such fellows are too much the dreamer to prove dangerous; but there are others, cunning rogues and envious followers of the house of York who yet ape friendship. Those are the men, the pretending friends, whom we must ferret into the open. Meanwhile, in some fashion this mammet must be made to confess his mummery that we might confound the plotters. Let him continue to live for a year or two, even cherish him a little, your grace, as you would a silly child that has lost its way; do not degrade him as we degraded Simnel. Give him every opportunity to conspire again. In himself he is a nothing, but there are others … or — should I say? — one other …”

  “Yea,” s
aid the king, “others … and the brows drew together, the lips tightened, the eyes narrowed. “These others,” he said, “must have their fangs drawn as though they were mad dogs; as for this impostor … if we can make him speak, in the end he might prove valuable to us … Is it not said that he’s enamoured of his own wife, this Scottish Kate? She is, I do believe, a proud woman who can twist him on a word and beat him with an eyelash. We must meet this Lady Kate. Report gives her beauty and a queenly manner.”

  “So is it said,” murmured the cardinal, watching him curiously. “Scotland, it seems, must have had some faith in his tale, else James, no fool, though a Scot, would never have made the marriage.”

  “Women when they are loved can shake the stars,” said the king. “And when they hate …” He shrugged, the lean fingers stiffening, “when they hate, they are powerless unless we become the dupes of their beauty and deliver ourselves unto their cruelty. If Perkin loves this lady … well, we must see. I confess myself to be curious about her. We must greet her with royal honours after we reach Exeter, for we must win her to our side.”

  “That,” smiled the cardinal, “should not prove difficult. Being a woman, she will have small love for failures. Love in a palace … to such a prospect will they graciously resign themselves and even condescend to like and to be kind to their husbands, but life with a coward and a fugitive, a liar with no longer any hopes of winning the crown … Nay, I cannot believe that this lady should be difficult. She is young and must fret in the bonds of a marriage that is now no marriage, her husband, although a pampered prisoner, kept away from her in her freedom; and there are handsome men at court, poets and skilled lechers. Widowhood will certainly grace her in her own eyes more pleasantly than marriage to a failure with whom she’ll never bed again.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  KATHERINE MEETS THE KING

  THE trees in front of the treasurer’s house in the cathedral close of Exeter were chopped down by King Henry’s orders. Lodging in that home of luxury, he did not want the trees to come between him and the captured rebels when they were brought, halters about their necks, to implore his mercy and his pardon. At right angles to the northern tower of the cathedral, this house stood, and from a newly pierced window he could have a clear and cheering view of the supplicants when they knelt to him. He intended them no harm. As, slyly smiling, Cardinal Morton said: heads can pay no taxes when they’re lopped and mercy can win friends when those heads were not seriously dangerous. Poor men, dreamers mostly, heavily taxed and miserable, they had risen for no other cause than their unhappiness and a hope of freedom, and they could not, he argued, be truthfully called followers of the White Rose. To take cruel revenge on them would bring no good but would stiffen hatreds and make future rebels less likely to surrender, while an act of gracious clemency would work against his reputation of being cruel and ungenerous. Only a few of the leaders, men like this Heron, and this Skelton, and this Ashley, should be executed that others might not think to imitate their treason. Only, however, there remained the chief traitor, Perkin Warbeck, who called himself Prince Richard. But if he were to be hanged, his death might conjure more evil than he could ever work while living as a captive in the court. Treat him, advised the cardinal, as a bait for a more dangerous captive.

  O, groaned the king to the cardinal, he was weary to the heart’s root of all these conspiracies, these treacheries, these ghosts of Edward’s sons and nephews. Would these accursed English never realize that he was now their master and that they could not shake him off? He had agreed to marry their damned princess, yet still they remained unsatisfied, ever asking where her brothers lodged. Her brothers …

  Bad King Richard had murdered them in the Tower, said the new king’s minions, talking in shop and tavern, in church and churchyard, in markets and archery-butt and bowling-alley, wherever men and women gathered to gossip or to drink. The tale was believed by few, only by those in distant towns and hamlets who had little or no knowledge of the dead king; and the mass of the people remained convinced that their king had been betrayed and barbarously murdered and his nephews smothered in the Tower by Henry Tudor because their right to reign was truer than his own. Many amongst them, the king and cardinal knew, would believe that Warbeck was the second prince, as he claimed, because in hatred of Henry they would want to believe it. Only from the counterfeit’s own lips could the tale be answered. He must be made to speak, freely and as though of his own will; therefore he must not be tortured or ill-treated.

  From Taunton, the king had carried his prisoner, not hiding him but having him ride in a cart, with men-at-arms each side of him, and ahead of and behind him, that there might be no rescue. Not that the fellow made any attempt to escape or to kill himself, as one might have expected. He moped and rarely spoke, nor, to the king’s exasperation, would he confess to his imposture.

  “I am told,” said the cardinal, smiling over the chessboard while he played with the king at chess, “I am told that the silly mammet is quite besotted with his Scottish lady. Our friend there writes to say that there’s no doubt of it … At first, he took her at King James’s suggestion, then grew to love the creature so immoderately that he became a jest at court; and this Lady Katherine is a great lady and sib to the king. Often must it have made her belly wamble with disgust at having to admit this menial to the secrets of her chamber. I cannot doubt, sire, that you will find a useful ally in such a woman.”

  “I have small trust in any woman,” said the king. “Their minds are too often swayed by their eyes and they will love a rascal to the death for some strange womanly reason … because he is courteous and crushed the lice on her neck; because he ogles them in such fashion that the marrow melts in their bones and their knees give; because he is abused by other men, who therefore must.be jealous, or because he be over-loved by other ladies, and therefore must be skilled in amour; because he frightens them titillatingly, or became he does not frighten them and they feel motherly towards one so childlike and so useless that he must be cherished; or he looks so stern and grown up that he seems their father born again to whom it would be wanton disobedience to say Nay … They have a thousand reasons to suit their appetites and know not themselves the true one which is often that they are idle and that the day is warm … Doubtless, being a great lady, this Kate loves her limmer because he is despised.”

  “That does not matter. It may work for the best. Women have lied and cheated, ay, and have dishonoured themselves, to aid the man they love for the moment … You should make this lady very welcome, your grace.”.

  No need to remind the king of that. All that could be devised to make Katherine richly welcome had been done. Women had been taken from the wealthier citizens’ homes, wives and daughters and sisters of some breeding, to act as her attendants and to prepare the kind of garments she might need, and such things as women consider necessary for their beauty’s aid and body’s comfort.

  Tight was the rein that Henry kept on his desires. He was at heart a passionate man but he had curbed his passions until now he had no longer any fear of them surprising him and he had no terrors of being alone with women, no matter how tantalizing their behaviour. Delighting in their company, in the essence of femininity distilled around their presence, he had taught himself to hide his thoughts and to avoid perilous intimacies. All dreams and ambitions in him had he wrought to one determination only, the seizing and then the holding of the English throne, and he was not one to risk its loss by angering mere fathers and husbands.

  By remaining hidden and by employing spies did he rule the country. Not like the old kings who would delight in showing themselves in rich raiment before their people, but by remaining concealed behind his ministers on whom the people’s hatred was directed did he rule. The frailties of humanity must be put aside lest they weaken him towards pity, although, while draining wealth from rich and poor, it gratified his vanity and was, he hoped, pleasing to heaven, that he was charitable towards the very poor
, redressing their wrongs at small cost to his privy purse. Having dispensed pennies, in pride of generosity, he could with lighter conscience strip the wealthy as naked as he dared.

  Amongst the many unremunerative pleasures which he had forced himself to set aside was love, love being dangerous, opening a man to unexpected weaknesses, to misjudgements and indiscretions, while extorting from him gifts and promises which no one in his sanity would make. But what the mind wills is not always obeyed by the body. He had shut love out, yet sufficient of love remained to fret him to feelings of futility and of wasted efforts because he could not share the greatness he had achieved. No longer was there any pretence of affection between him and his queen, Elizabeth. As the murderer of her brothers and the destroyer of the uncle whom she had loved so greatly that with her mother she had even conspired to marry him, and might have married him, mayhap, had he not died at Bosworth, she could not mimic liking for this cold-eyed, long-faced, selfish schemer who had destroyed her world for his and his mother’s traitorous ambitions. Yet she had had to marry him. Knowing him to be cold-hearted and merciless, she had realized that if she refused, both she and her mother would have been imprisoned and doubtless later murdered as he murdered her brothers in the Tower. Neither of them had pretended love. On their wedding night he had told her that he had married her for two reasons only: firstly, because she was her father’s daughter and her lineage was valuable to him; and secondly because he must breed sons if he would make certain that his crown did not descend to strangers.

  .That she detested him had delighted the king because he loathed her family which he had destroyed; and by humiliating her, by forcing her acceptance of his mastery in marriage, he felt he took a sweet revenge on those accursed Plantagenets whom the people loved as though they had been King Arthurs or King Charlemagnes. There was more of rape than of love in that union. Her fair beauty, her queenly dignity, her placid uncomplaining nature but fed his exasperation and dislike which found ecstatic satisfactions in making her his slave. Tall, fully as tall as he — added fuel for his animosity — she had long yellow hair, so long that she could sit on its ends, and huge hazel eyes that seemed to have no depth, unreflecting mirrors, not even showing hatred at his calculated cruelties. It was as though she understood that she could hurt him most by her indifference, by her submission and her unspoken hatred.