The Reluctant Queen

by Виктория Холт

  The grey walls, green with moss, looked impregnable, and as we went under the arch towards the castellated walls, a terrible feeling of dread came over me.

  The days that followed were some of the most unhappy in my life. More were to come as I grew older, but then I was prepared for evil; and had grown a protective shell of stoicism. At that stage I suppose life had been too easy for me ... until that terrible day when we had taken ship to France. Always my mother and Isabel had been with me. Now I was parted from them, to be in hostile company a hostage while my father redeemed his promise.

  When I heard that the Prince of Wales was not leaving for England I was dismayed, but relieved when I discovered that he was not living with his mother. He was going on a mission, with Louis' blessing, to raise men for the armies which would be needed to defeat Edward. I had thought at first that I would have to endure his presence and that had alarmed me. It was amazing what pleasure even the smallest relief could give me.

  I tried to find out all I could about this man who was to be my husband. It was not easy, for the queen's attendants regarded me with the same suspicion as Margaret did. They were very much in awe of her, which did not surprise me.

  There was one thing I heard about him which filled me with apprehension, and made me feel that I had summed up his character correctly.

  "The prince is a real warrior," I was told by one of the women who could not resist the opportunity to tell me.

  "It was after the battle of St. Albans. Two of the enemy were captured ... both men of high rank. They were brought before the queen because the king was too feeble at that time to take his place. So there were these two ... proud gentlemen ... Yorkists who had been fighting against the king and queen. It was his mother's wish that the prince should be with her in place of the king at such times, and she turned to him and said: "What shall be their sentence?" The prince was only eight years old, but his mother thought he would have to grow up quickly and he did not disappoint her.

  "They must be sentenced to death," he said.

  "By what means?" the queen asked him. And what do you think the prince said?"

  "I do not know. Tell me."

  "He cried, "Cut off their heads!" There! And him only eight. His mother said that, as he had passed sentence, he must watch it carried out."

  "And... did he?"

  That he did, my lady. He sat there clasping his hands and smiling as the blood spurted out."

  I shuddered. And this was the man they had chosen to be my husband!

  Looking back, I do not know how I managed to live through those days. I dreamed of the wildest means of escape running away, joining gypsies, casting aside everything I had ever known ... anything to be free. I was terrified of this marriage. I waited in trepidation each day for the return of the Prince of Wales and for news of what was happening in England. My father would land: he had been well supported by the King of France; he had men and money. Could he overcome Edward? And when he did? I should be married then in very truth to this young man who, in my mind, was fast becoming a monster.

  I could not bear it. I felt frustrated and so vulnerable. If only I could have talked to Isabel... explained to my mother ... pleaded with my father.

  But in my heart I knew that none of these could avail me in any way... except give a grain of comfort to share my fears and sorrow. I was doomed.

  I found a secluded corner in the grounds where no one went very much. A seat was cut into the thick stone of the castle. Overgrown shrubs surrounded it. I could be almost sure of a little solitude there and went there often to brood and ask myself if there was anything I could possibly do to avoid my fate.

  I was sitting there one afternoon, and the hopelessness of my position swept over me afresh. My father could not fail to succeed. Very soon would come the news of his victory; then this sad frustrated life would change ... to something worse.

  I could not bear it. The desperation of my plight swept over me and I began to weep silently. I sat very still and allowed the tears to trickle down my cheeks.

  Then suddenly I heard a rustle in the bushes and, to my horror, I saw the queen approaching. She stood for a moment glaring at me.

  "Why do you weep?" she asked.

  I could not answer. I could only cover my face with my hands while the sobs shook my body.

  There was silence. I guessed how she would despise me. She would be asking herself: what is this bride we have to take for my son? What sort of queen will she be? What sort of mother for the heirs of England?

  In that moment I did not care what she thought. I just sat there, holding my hands to my face, finding some small comfort in giving vent to my grief.

  After a while I let my hands drop. She was still standing there. She said in a voice I had never heard her use before: "What grieves you?"

  Before I could stop myself, I blurted out: "I want to be with my mother and my sister. It is so strange here ... so far from home."

  Immediately I had spoken I was ashamed of myself. My words sounded so ridiculously childish, and doubly so in the presence of this woman who had been my enemy before she knew me. She would deride me, despise me. Perhaps she would think me so unworthy that her son must not marry me at any price, I thought, with a ray of hope. But a crown to her would be worth any price.

  "How old are you?" she asked.

  "I am fourteen."

  Did I imagine it, or was there a slight softening of her features?

  "I was about your age when I first went to England ... to a foreign country ... to a husband whom I had never seen," she said slowly.

  "It is a fate which overtakes most of us."

  "I know."

  She spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.

  "So why must you be so sorry for yourself?"

  "I suppose because it has happened to others, that does not make it easier to bear."

  Tears never help," she said, and left me.

  Oddly enough, that was a turning point in our relationship and later I began to learn a little about Margaret of Anjou.

  It was only a few days after the incident that I found myself alone with her. She had dismissed her attendants so that she might talk to me.

  She was a strange woman dominating and single-minded. She would have been a good ruler, but she lacked that power to attract people to her which Edward had in such abundance. She was strong; she chafed against defeat. It had been an ironical turn of fate to give her Henry the Sixth as a husband. There could not have been two people less alike. Yet it emerged that in a way they had been fond of each other.

  That first occasion after that scene in the gardens was a little awkward, but during it she managed to convey to me that she was not devoid of feeling and not entirely unsympathetic towards me. She could understand the terrors of a child. After all, I was only fourteen years old and she saw that it was an ordeal to be taken from my mother and sister, the companions of my childhood, to be put with those who had been the sworn enemies of my family for as long as I could remember.

  I cannot recall much of that conversation, except that in a brusque sort of way she tried to cheer me, chiefly, I think, by letting me know that it had happened to her, and although she deplored my attitude towards what was an ordinary fate, she did understand my fears, for she had suffered them herself.

  After that I often found myself alone with her. We were anxiously awaiting news from England and, as had been the case at Middleham, we were constantly alert for messengers coming to the chateau What Margaret wanted more than anything was news that Warwick's armies were succeeding; and this would be the signal for her to return to England with her son.

  During the days that followed, I began to get a glimpse into what had gone before this terrible conflict which was called the War of the Roses and which had thrust our country into the worst of all calamities which can befall a country: civil war.

  Like myself, Margaret had had a comparatively happy childhood, although her father, Rene of Anjou, had lived in acute in
security during most of Margaret's early youth.

  She spoke of him with an amazing tenderness; in fact she surprised me as I grew to know her. Her imperious manner, her fierce and passionate nature, her capacity for hatred which she bestowed on her enemies, covered softer traits; she could love as fiercely as she could hate, and as I caught glimpses of this softer side I began to change my opinion of her.

  "When I was born. she once told me, "my father had only the country of Guise. He was of small importance. Then he inherited Lorraine, but there was another claimant who was victorious over him and as a result he was taken prisoner, and for a long period of my childhood he remained so. He was still a prisoner when he inherited Provence and Anjou. My mother was a woman of great spirit. My dear father was too gentle. All he wanted was to live in peace with the world. He loved poetry and such things." She spoke with an exasperated tenderness.

  "How different he must have been from my father," I said.

  "Ah, Warwick!" There was a hardness in her face.

  "That man, your father, ruined our lives."

  I was foolish to have mentioned him, for she told me no more on that occasion, and seemed to forget that there had been a little friendship between us. Foolishly I had reminded her that I was Warwick's daughter.

  I remembered not to do that again.

  Later it transpired that she had been brought up by her strong-minded mother, but with Rene' a prisoner, her mother must go to Lorraine to take charge there, and Margaret was sent to Anjou to be with her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, who governed that land.

  "We lived mainly in Angers." she said.

  "You remember Angers?"

  I shivered. How could I forget Angers?

  "My grandmother was a wonderful woman. My mother was a wonderful woman. There are times when I believe it should be left to women to govern."

  I looked alarmed and she gave me a somewhat pitying glance which betrayed her judgement that I was not going to be one of those.

  "I was fortunate in my mother and my grandmother." she said.

  "It was a sad blow to me when my grandmother died. But my father was free then. He came with my mother to Angers and we were all together for a while "It must have been wonderful to be united with your family."

  "Such pleasures do not last. I was your age when I was betrothed to the King of England. But I had been on the verge of betrothals many times, so I was not sure whether this one would ever come to pass. It might have been like all the others."

  "Why were you betrothed so many times?"

  "Because my father's fortunes were ever rising and falling. In the beginning I should have had a very poor match but when he inherited Lorraine and Anjou, well, it was a different matter."

  There are always such reasons why we are betrothed." I said sadly.

  "But of course. My child, marriages are the strongest of alliances. Never forget that. It is the duty we are called on to accept... whatever is best for our countries at the time."

  "I know."

  "I thought I was so fortunate." she said.

  "I was married to a man with a very gentle nature ... a good man a saint perhaps. But good men do not necessarily make good kings and saints were never meant to wear a king's crown. The outcome usually is that they have no will to keep it and do not hold it long."

  "Perhaps it is good when they marry strong wives."

  A wry smile touched her lips.

  "My mother and my grandmother taught me self-reliance." she said.

  "That is the best lesson any woman can learn."

  She looked at me a little severely, thinking, I was sure, that women who had learned that lesson did not give way to tears.

  But there was a hint of kindliness in her stern manner now and I began to look forward to these sessions with her. Oddly enough, I began to realise that she did also.

  And so I grew to know my mother-in-law-to-be and, in place of the fear and revulsion which she had at first aroused in me, there was an admiration which was tinged with affection.

  I liked to hear her talk of the past and she seemed to take a certain pleasure in doing so. Perhaps she thought it was good for me to know what had happened to others so that I might become less concerned with my own fate. I think she also wanted to stop herself starting at every sound ... to forget, even for half an hour, the desperate need to hear good news from England.

  She made me see and feel her departure for England. I could picture her as a beautiful child, for she must have been beautiful. There were still remains of beauty to be seen and sometimes when she talked of the past and her eyes would soften in reminiscence and her lips would curl into a smile of remembering happiness, I would be struck by it.

  Through her eyes I saw the brilliant cavalcade. It was a match desired by the French as well as the English.

  She said: "The King of France took me into his arms and kissed me. That was when I was formally handed over to the Duke of Suffolk who had come to collect me. My parents were there and they rode with us to Bar where I had to say goodbye to them."

  "How very sad you must have been. How frightened."

  "I was sad," she said.

  "I loved my parents dearly, but I knew it must be. We went to Paris. The people expressed their pleasure with enthusiasm. They love these marriages. They are a chance for revelry and they always think they will bring peace to the country. They called me the little Daisy." She gave a short, ironic laugh.

  "Daisy! They do not call me that in England. Little Daisy! In England, I am the hated Jezebel. And then I met the man who ... next to your father ... was to be my greatest enemy."

  "Do you mean the Duke of York?"

  "I do indeed, and as I talk to you now I can see his head in its paper crown on the walls of the city of York." She had changed. She was the vindictive hating woman when she talked of the Duke of York, father of Edward who soon, she hoped, would be replaced by her husband.

  "He was a rogue, though I did not know it then. And his wife ... she was worse. She gave herself airs even then."

  "They called her Proud Cis." I said.

  "Cecily, Duchess of York, would be mother of kings." she said bitterly.

  I might have reminded her that she was indeed the mother of a king, for Edward had reigned for nearly ten years.

  "I had no notion then what to expect from that family," she said.

  "Nor from your father. That cursed war ... the War of the Roses. Roses should be beautiful ornaments. And they betrayed their king and went to war. They are going to regret it. Edward will go the way of his father."

  "Please tell me how you felt when you first saw England."

  Her eyes were hazy and a smile touched her lips, softening her face miraculously.

  "The crossing! I thought I should die! And I was not the only one. I thought, I shall never see England. I forgot all my fears for the future. I thought: this is the end. This is death. They told me that as soon as my feet touched dry land the sickness would pass. It did ... for some of them. But not for me. It was horrific. My face and body were covered in spots. They thought I was suffering from the small pox. I pictured myself disfigured for ever. I thought: this is how my husband will see me for the first time. I was vain about my appearance. I knew that I had some beauty. Beauty is one of God's gifts. It is so useful. It wins special privileges. It is admired and treated with gentleness wherever it is. And I thought I should lose that. Beautiful people learn what a precious gift they have and once a woman has possessed it she will cling to it and cannot easily let it go. Imagine my feeling a young girl about to lose her beauty!"

  "But you did not."

  "It was not the small pox. I began to recover. My spots went as quickly as they had come, and I was myself again. I cannot The Reluctant Queen explain to you the relief, not only to me but to everyone. We disembarked at Southampton and there I was told that the king's squire had brought a letter of welcome from the king. Would I receive him, they asked? How could I not receive the king's squire? He came
in so respectfully. He knelt before me. I was still feeling very weak, I remember. I was seated in a chair with rugs about me.

  "He was a very gentle young man with a soft, sweet expression; he was most humble. He handed me the letter and I told him that when I read it I would write to the king. They said to me afterwards: "Did you like the squire?" and I said: "He seemed a most modest and worthy young man." Then they laughed. The squire, they told me, was the king."

  "Why did he come to you thus?"

  "He told me afterwards that he had feared I might be scarred by the small pox and he wanted to see me first to realise how badly I was marked. He wanted to be prepared in case he was going to be very shocked, and he did not want to betray his feeling on first sight of me. Oh, he is a very gentle, kindly man, but She was silent and for a long time sat staring into space, reliving it all, I supposed.

  At length she said: "Alas, he was not of the nature to be a king when there were others fighting for the crown."

  The softness vanished. She was thinking of those hated men: the Duke of York, his son Edward and most of all my father. Suddenly she seemed to remember who I was. She peered at me, frowning.

  "Why do I talk to you, Warwick's daughter? I hate Warwick. I hate him more than I hate the Duke of York. York is dead now. Never shall I forget that head. Have you ever seen a head without a body?"

  I shuddered and shrank from her.

  "It is a good sight when it is the head of one you hate. And the paper crown ... that was amusing. He had so longed for our crown ... Henry's crown ... and it was meet and fitting that he should die ignobly wearing a crown made of paper. I see you turn from me. I am in truth a hard, cruel wicked woman. What did they tell you of me?"

  I was silent, amazed by this sudden change in her. She was a wild and passionate woman and I did not always understand her.

  There was another time when she said to me: "Why do I talk to you as I do, Lady Anne? I do talk to you, do I not? Let me tell you this. You do not understand. To talk to a child is like talking to oneself. Perhaps that is it. Warwick's daughter! Daughter of the man who ruined my life. Oh, I had forgotten. He is my friend now." Then she fell to laughing.