He Who Plays The King

by MARY HOCKING

  If King Richard and Henry Tudor could find cause to thank God for watching over them, the Duke of Buckingham had no such comfort. He saw only the works of the Devil in his sudden fall from the dazzling heights of power to the wretchedness of shelter in one of his tenant’s homes. He had never learnt, as Richard and Henry had learnt, to deal with the rightabouts of fortune. His situation was desperate but he still refused to believe it and managed to convince himself that he could be reconciled with Richard just as Warwick had been reconciled with King Edward. His moods fluctuated between periods of despair when he would sit for hours staring at the wall opposite and moments of wild excitement when he thought of how Richard would forgive him and he would fall at his feet, crying for joy. Tears gushed down his cheeks as he pictured the scene. It was very exhausting and made him hungry. Arrogantly he insisted on more food than the household could supply. Perhaps the family tired of this, or perhaps others noticed that they were living rather better than usual. In a few days Buckingham was found and taken captive to Salisbury.

  He confessed to all the charges put to him; he seemed to feel that the more complete his confession the more completely would he be forgiven. He spoke with that boyish frankness which was a part of his charm; his one concern was that nothing should be left unrepented. When he was sentenced he seemed amazed as though it was he whose trust had been betrayed.

  ‘I will speak to the King,’ he said. ‘I have things for his ear alone.’

  Even when the priest came to him at the end, he still said, ‘There is no need of this. The King will see me.’ As they led him to the scaffold, he screamed, ‘You will be punished if you do not take me to the King. I tell you, he WILL see me!’

  Richard had no intention of seeing him. There was too much blood between them. Buckingham was beheaded in the market place at Salisbury on the second of November.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1

  The brown hillsides and the copper and gold leaves of trees signalled the hard times ahead with no hopeful green shoots to delight the eye and no fresh food to fill the belly. By Martinmas, the cattle would be slaughtered and from then to late spring there would be only salt meat and a little butter or milk.

  ‘I hated Martinmas when I was a child; you wouldn’t think that, would you, a farmer’s daughter like me?’

  Ormond waited while the old woman talked. He was lodging with her son who was the sheriff and a distant relative of John Morton.

  ‘There was a white cherry in the orchard,’ the old woman said, while Ormond listened, waiting his opportunity. ‘It was said that some years it blossomed red and this betokened war; but I thought it blossomed red because the earth was saturated with blood after Martinmas and the tree sucked it up. I had this vision of the ground running red with blood . . .’

  ‘Your tree must have blossomed red this year.’ Ormond did not think he would have a better opportunity than this. He told his story. Although he had told it many times by now, the hearers were always new and this gave it freshness. He had wondered if this old woman was too concerned with the past to care very much about breath so lately stifled, but as he talked he saw that this was not the case. She was horrified, and eager to share her horror. He had found the bearer of his tale in this village and must now move on.

  ‘You have not slept and you have hardly eaten,’ they protested when he left. He said that he had pressing business to which he must attend. He was long past sleep by now.

  He rode past fields where the oxen pulled the plough and birds hovered above the furrow as the seeds were sown. Further on, he passed fields which were running to wilderness because there were no men to work the land. He came to a village where no one stirred and the houses crumbled into the grass; here, the Black Death had struck in days long before he was born. His horse stumbled, picking its way over the broken stones, and the wind soughed, hungry for something else to wear and break down.

  2

  ‘The Countess of Richmond to be stripped of her titles and her lands to be given to her husband! Is this punishment?’ The Princess Elizabeth did not reply since it was obvious that her mother intended to supply the answer herself. ‘And not only is Lord Stanley to have her lands, but he is created Constable of England in place of Buckingham. What does King Richard think to gain by such folly? Or is he mad, like Henry the Sixth, and forgives for the love of it! He cannot be fool enough to imagine that generosity will win Lord Stanley’s affections; Lord Stanley is so perfidious as to be beyond price.’

  Princess Elizabeth gazed out of the window, making little secret of the fact that she was bored. At seventeen she had reached an age when even the most good-natured girl finds her mother excessively irritating.

  ‘You are never to trust the Countess of Richmond,’ her mother said sharply, aware that she was losing not only her daughter’s attention but her habit of filial obedience. ‘For all her saintliness, Margaret Beaufort is the most ambitious of all women.’ It was the saintliness she could not forgive. ‘That pious woman will sacrifice anyone to put her son on the throne, as we have cause to know.’

  Princess Elizabeth’s jaw set mutinously. She mourned the death of her two young brothers but resented the way in which they were introduced into a conversation whenever her mother wanted to shame her into attention. Her mother talked all day; she had little else to do since she had been forced to exchange the sumptuous royal apartments for confinement in the Abbey. Life had been pared away to the meagre bone of existence. Small wonder that she was ruthless in the exercise of what little power remained to her. Her daughter was reminded at every hour of the day how well-informed her mother was on any subject one might care to name. Elizabeth could not be frivolous, but her mother must be more so. A comment on the brevity of a man’s doublet would inevitably give rise to recollections that when she was young the amorous courtier wore his doublet so short it did not conceal the privy parts. At such times. Princess Elizabeth was afraid she would be bored with talk of seduction ere ever she suffered it.

  ‘. . . privy . . .’ Dame Elizabeth said. Princess Elizabeth, surprised into attention, found that her mother was accusing Margaret Beaufort of being privy to the death of the two princes. Princess Elizabeth bit her lip. When she thought of her brothers the world grew so dark that she could hardly bear it. Nor could she bear to think how time was wasting away her life so that at seventeen she had had no other taste of pleasure than to contemplate the brevity of a man’s doublet, and even in this she was, it seemed, denied the delights which had been available to her mother. Her hands clenched on the window sill in an agony of mingled grief and frustration.

  ‘Is he attractive?’ she asked her mother, thinking of Margaret Beaufort’s son.

  ‘Lord Stanley? Where are your eyes, girl, you’ve seen him! All arse and a bag of wind.’ She continued talking about Margaret Beaufort whom she hated because she was free to plot and scheme, which were the only interesting things left to an intelligent woman of mature years; and who had a son through whom she hoped one day to rule the land, just as she, Elizabeth, would have ruled had her son survived. ‘I have no quarrel with ambition,’ she said. ‘Only let it be open, unashamed, not secret, prim-lipped. It is whey¬faced creatures like this who commit the greatest crimes.’

  Princess Elizabeth continued to gaze out of the window; the sun had come out and her young breasts ached. When her mother showed signs of putting Margaret Beaufort to rest for the day, she said, ‘And her son, this Henry Tudor, what is he like?’

  ‘An idle, paltry creature who fawns on the Duke of Brittany for his very existence! A man who has done nothing and knows nothing. A straw king he would make!’

  A straw king. Princess Elizabeth sighed; well, that was better than all arse and a bag of wind.

  ‘Life,’ her mother said, aware of her daughter’s mood though not of her thoughts, ‘is not all honey, my child.’

  But my life will be happy, Elizabeth thought; it will be happy because I WILL have it so!

  3


  The womere water ran throughout the country. It welled up from the ground like a running sore oozing through the common meadows. In the village of Foxlow in Gloucestershire the reeve’s wife heard the babe in her womb begin to cry. This was Martinmas and a busy time for country folk. The cattle must be slaughtered and the meat salted; it wasn’t a time when men wanted to be involved in woe of any kind. The stranger who now rode out of the village had found scant welcome here.

  It was towards evening. The outline of distant hills had lost its sharpness although the houses in the village stood out clearly in the blue-grey twilight. The moon was small and a little out of shape and only one star ventured near it. A querulous wind blew the branches of the trees this way and that and swirled dust in the face of the tired rider. There was a stream which divided the priory grounds from the common land. Christopher Ormond stopped and looked across the stream at the priory. He had decided that if he arrived here before vespers he would go on to the nearby town, some ten miles away. But the dwindling light told him it was nearer compline than vespers.

  Before he set his horse across the stream, he reined in and looked back the way he had come. The village was hidden behind a bank of trees and there was no sign of human habitation, no homely inn or comforting smoke rising from a fire. A lonely place. The soil was poor and thorns and small trees bore witness to some loss of heart in those who strove to cultivate this land. ‘I might be looking back on the whole of my life,’ Ormond thought. Well, it was late in the day for self-pity. Even so, he asked, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ It wasn’t an idle question, he was going to need the answer soon if he was ever to have it. Fear kept him constant company now. It was not to descant upon a life ill-spent that he had paused beside the stream, but to listen. For days now as he had ridden he had fancied that he heard the drumming of horses’ hooves close behind him, but whenever he turned to face his pursuers there was no one there. Now, there was only the restlessness of the wind and the distant lowing of cattle. He closed his eyes, waiting for relief to come. The horse moved uneasily beneath him. He steadied it, stroking gently until he felt the taut muscles relax. ‘I can soothe you, but not myself,’ he said. He turned the horse into the stream.

  ‘I was priest at Foxlow, many years ago, when Dame Alice was prioress,’ he said when he was with the prioress. ‘I used to come here often.’

  At first, the prioress thought that curiosity had brought Dr Ormond back here. ‘He wants to know what changes I have brought about since Dame Alice died.’ On close inspection, however, she decided that the Devil had driven him, there was such a darkness about this gaunt, ill-favoured man.

  ‘You may stay here as long as you like,’ she said kindly.

  ‘You would rue that offer were I to accept it.’

  The prioress, young and self-assured, was not impressed by his sombre tone. Ormond cried out passionately, ‘I have a sickness. I have been spreading my sickness around the country and now I have brought it to you.’ He leant towards her and she drew back, unable to conceal her distaste. ‘If you do not want to be contaminated, you must turn me away.’

  ‘We will see about this in the morning.’ She spoke coolly, displeased by this ranting.

  In the morning, Ormond was quite out of his mind. The prioress, hastily summoned, bent over him. He stared up at the cold, resolute face. ‘Where am I?’ he screamed. She told him that he was at Foxlow Priory. ‘I had a bad dream,’ he said confusedly. For a moment, he was quiet, then he said, ‘When I was a young man I had such wonderful dreams. I dreamt I would bring back the age of Abelard. But God doesn’t love proud people, so don’t you be proud; and whatever you do, don’t go whoring after learning. God loves a fool. Make me a fool, God; take my mind away.’ Behind the prioress stood the youngest nun, round eyes staring from a flat, owlish face. Ormond suddenly beat his fist between his eyes and cried out, ‘Take my brains away, tear them out!’

  They had to take hold of his hands to prevent him from digging the nails into his eyes. When he was exhausted and ceased to struggle, they bandaged his fingers together.

  It was three weeks after his arrival that a man came to the priory to take Ormond away. The portress to whom he spoke hastily summoned the cellaress who fetched the prioress. The man had a red face threaded with purple veins and eyes small as currrants. He breathed heavily while he looked about him. In an alcove to his right the Virgin clasped her child; her face, illuminated by a candle, gazed down with a small, seraphic smile which seemed to make the man uncomfortable. He tried guile, which ill became him. ‘Dr Ormond be troubled in mind and I be sent to take him . . .’ Destination presented difficulty and he finished lamely, ‘where he will be safe.’

  ‘He is safe here,’ the prioress said.

  Something moved in the shadows on the staircase. The man and the three nuns had their backs to the staircase and could not see Ormond’s scarecrow figure.

  ‘Sheriff sent me to take him,’ the man told the prioress resentfully. ‘The Sheriff has no authority here.’

  The man rubbed a hand round his jowls wondering how to talk to such a foolish creature. ‘I can’t tell Sheriff that!’

  Ormond spoke from the stairs. ‘Then tell him that I have been granted sanctuary here.’

  The Sheriff’s man spun round. ‘You’re to come with me. Sheriff will have me split in two if I go back without you.’ His hand went to his sword.

  Ormond spoke in a terrible voice. ‘If you draw a weapon in this house, God will strike you dead where you stand.’

  The man removed his hand from his weapon in order to cross himself. His predicament, menaced by an ever-present God and an absent sheriff, was one of great difficulty. He looked from one to the other of the nuns. They were frightened but used to immobilizing their features and in the muted light the little white faces seemed inhuman as turnips. In the alcove, the light from the candle flickered in a draught; the Virgin’s eyes grew dark. The man turned and stumbled down the corridor. The prioress said to the portress, ‘Make sure that he leaves.’

  Ormond collapsed on the stairs, his head bowed to his knees. The prioress breathed a long sigh. ‘What have you done?’

  He told her his story. ‘I should have told you before, but I was too sick.’ He is still sick, she thought, looking down at his thin, ill-made body; a sick old man whose diseased brain has surely conjured up this grim fantasy. But what of the King? This new, unknown King would not be pleased by this fantasy. His wrath would fall on them all. She felt it quiver in the air even now. The cellaress was moaning, ‘What will become of us?’ The prioress sent her about her business.

  Ormond suddenly hauled himself to his feet and lurched down the stairs; he fell clumsily on his knees before the prioress, gabbling, ‘I pray you will not deliver me up to them. I am not ready for death, I haven’t lived a good life. I am not worthy.’ He crouched before her, panting with fear and talking for all the world as though the martyr’s crown was to be his. Certainly, he was not worthy; the prioress was surprised that the question of worthiness should ever have occurred to him. His fingers plucked at her robe. ‘I am at your mercy.’

  ‘We are all at God’s mercy,’ she rebuked him, firmly shaking free her robe.

  In the distance, the bell was ringing for Nones. The prioress walked thoughtfully towards the chapel.

  4

  Richard took two decisions with regard to the fate of the young Princes and then put the matter behind him. The men who had been arrested in London pleaded that they were innocent of the crime, having fled when they realized what was intended. They were persuaded, however, to locate the place where the children had been slain. ‘While these innocents lie in such a place I shall know no peace,’ Richard thought; and being anxious for peace he instructed his Master of the Royal Henchmen, Sir James Tyrrell, a man whom he had long known and trusted, to arrange for the pathetic remains to be reclaimed and conveyed secretly to the Tower where they were to be lodged in a place of concealment until in a kinder time they could be buried with the
honour due to them. The same need for secrecy prevailed in the case of the priest, Ormond. He was in sanctuary and Richard was prepared to play a waiting game. When the man came to trial he thought it better that the charge should not relate to the Princes. ‘The people murmur still,’ he said to Lovell who well understood his mind. ‘Murmurings, however can be silenced easily enough and often die away from lack of nourishment. But publish this news throughout the country and who can tell when the reverberations will cease? It is too soon, there is too much to be done, to allow for this distraction.’

  He bent his mind and will to the work to be done, and during the next few months he devoted himself to measures aimed at bringing justice to the realm and, most dear to his heart, peace to the north. It would take time to translate his ideas into statute and institution, but he was now confident that time would be vouchsafed to him. The country was more settled. Those who had fought for Buckingham, or risen for Henry Tudor, or rebelled for the sake of rebellion, made their way to their homes grumbling that it would be a long time afore they took arms again!

  Robin Prithie fell in with some of these men. They would walk together for a time but Robin could not keep up with them. Once he had had no difficulty in keeping himself alive on the road; but years as another man’s servant had unfitted him for being his own master.

  In the pale November light Robin’s face seemed smaller, compressed by cold, the features drawn together by discomfort. His breath whistled through the gaps in his teeth. He had done a lot of walking, trying to keep clear of Buckingham’s men. In the end he had come close to Buckingham himself, for he had seen him executed in Salisbury. ‘Now, here’s a thing!’ he thought as he saw the Duke’s head fall. ‘First this man is for King Richard, and then he is for the Earl of Richmond, and where does it all lead?’ He had never been given to philosophical enquiry, but he came near to it as he limped from one hamlet to another, begging and stealing and doing a bit of tinkering when all else failed. The Duke of Buckingham had come to a sorry end, and perhaps something was to be learnt from that. Did people who didn’t turn and turn¬about fare any better? When he was a lad he had had two great gifts, a fine body and a quick wit. So many paths had been open to him then he had scarce known which to follow, nor did it seem to matter for every way was sweet. But at some time, without his realizing what was happening, he had been cheated of his inheritance. Other men, plodding stolidly like great yoked oxen, had grown prosperous ploughing a single furrow. Robin had neither their fortune nor their strength; his body had become soft and could not be relied on when conditions were harsh. He had but the one gift now, his wit.