Succession

by Michael, Livi

  Queen Margaret, I mean, that ever has meant

  To govern all England with might and power,

  And to destroy the right line was her intent

  Yorkist ballad

  32

  The Queen Receives a Message

  Through all the furore that followed her bill, the queen remained in her rooms. She received messages from the outside world: that a great fight had broken out in parliament, that she had brought the city to warfare; that Cardinal Kemp had hired an army and paid every man, so they could arm themselves with all the weapons of war and patrol the streets of London; that the Duke of York’s own army was approaching the city, with the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick supporting him; that the Duke of Somerset, from prison, had sent out spies to discover the movements of his enemies and warned his own men to be ready to meet them when they came.

  In February she heard that her bill had been utterly rejected by parliament. Power had been granted to Richard, Duke of York, to hold parliament in the king’s name. In March she was told that yet another delegation had gone to the king to plead with him on their knees, and exhort him to speak, because without him the Duke of York would be made governor of the country. When they had failed to provoke any response, the Duke of York had indeed been declared Protector and Defender of the Realm ‘during the king’s infirmity’.

  In April the duke had made great changes to the king’s council and government. That same month, he sent a message to the queen instructing her that she would take no further part in the affairs of the realm, but remain in her rooms at Windsor with her husband and her son. She would not be allowed to leave the palace until her husband recovered.

  That summer the duke successfully repressed all rebellions against him and for the queen. He imprisoned the Duke of Exeter in Pontefract Castle; the Duke of Somerset was still in the Tower and was discharged from all his offices.

  Through all this the queen remained in her rooms, watching her son grow into the kind of prince he would need to be.

  The king was in the same palace, but in different quarters, sequestered with his physicians. She visited him less frequently these days, relying on regular medical reports. She had stopped presenting the prince to him because she did not want to expose her son to the terrifying emptiness of his father’s gaze.

  Every day the little prince grew more wonderful in her eyes. He was so alert – all her ladies agreed that they had never seen an infant so young noticing so much. He responded equally to all things: laughter, a rustle of skirts, the bright flags flickering in the wind, an insect on the window – all were treated to the same questing stare, the same rapid, birdlike movements of his head.

  And he had such determination. By the time he was seven months old he was attempting to pull himself upwards using a table leg or his nurse’s skirts.

  He couldn’t quite manage it, of course. His little face would turn pink with the effort, then his legs would buckle and he would give vent to his frustration with his straining cry. But even as he struck the floor again he would do his best not to topple over completely. His head would wobble and she could see all the muscles in his back working to keep him upright before his nurse scooped him up to prevent a further fall. Then immediately he would struggle to be set free.

  And his nurse, a round-cheeked, beaming woman, would say, ‘He is a fighter, my lady,’ and the queen would correct her, ‘He is a warrior,’ and hold out her hands to take him and feel how, even in her arms, he seemed to hold himself erect. She could not help thinking how well he would look on a horse.

  Also, he was astonishingly handsome, with dark, intent eyes, a small, pointed chin and strong dark hair that curled round his ears.

  He looked nothing like his father – Warwick was right in that respect. It was as though he had no father; he was wholly hers, as if she had willed him into being.

  She had not missed a single stage of his development: his first tooth, the moment he could grasp and point, the first time he successfully hauled himself to a standing position, took his first step, said his first word. Which was not ‘mama’ or ‘nurse’ and certainly not ‘papa’. It sounded like ‘gnu’, but his nurse swore later that he had pointed to the bible and said ‘book’.

  Her ladies compared him to his grandfather, Henry V, the warrior king. They rarely mentioned his father.

  Most of the time it was easier not to think about the king, who had still not recognized his son, or taken any part in the affairs of the nation for more than a year.

  Who had let the would-be usurper, Richard of York, take his place, and confine her, the queen, in this castle.

  With each day that passed the king seemed further away. Which was why, when the messenger came, her first response was not pleasant; she felt a kind of sickening jolt.

  He knelt before her, spreading his arms wide, an expression of theatrical joy on his face.

  ‘The Lord be praised,’ he said.

  And she half turned away from him; she could hardly hear the rest of what he said for the rushing noise in her ears.

  Her ladies made little gasps and cries of delight. Elizabeth Butler stepped forward and took hold of her hands, smiling.

  ‘It is a miracle,’ she said, but the queen felt something inside her closing.

  Then, rapidly, her mind began to work. There was so much to do, so much that could be done. York could be dismissed, imprisoned – preferably executed, along with that lying whelp Warwick. The Duke of Somerset could be released at once.

  So many thoughts, vying for ascendancy in her mind. She touched her hair, her face, then spoke a little breathlessly.

  ‘We must prepare ourselves,’ she said. ‘We must dress the prince. We must go to the king.’

  Blessed be God, the king is well amended, and has been since Christmas Day, and on St John’s Day commanded his almoner to ride to Canterbury with his offering and commanded his secretary to offer at St Edward’s shrine. On Monday afternoon the queen came to him and brought my lord prince with her …

  Paston Letters

  Her ladies walked ahead of her, carrying the prince, but as they reached the doors they parted seamlessly to allow her to pass before them.

  She had drawn her hood up, partly because it was cold in the palace, and partly because she did not want them to see her face. A kind of numbness had spread down one side of it to her lips, and her vision was slightly blurred, though not with tears.

  What if? she couldn’t help thinking.

  What if the madness has done permanent damage? What if he refuses to recognize the prince?

  ‘Wait,’ she said. She had not walked far, but she felt as though there was a stitch in her side.

  They will all be watching, she thought. All the king’s attendants, and her own, to see how the king responded to his son. If he did not recognize the prince, her son could not be named heir to the throne.

  She could not do it, she thought. She could not walk through the doors.

  And then they opened.

  And so she walked in, blinking rapidly.

  She saw him at once, despite the blurring of her vision: his shaved head propped up by pillows; the long gown, from which his legs protruded like yellow sticks.

  She hesitated only a moment, then hurried forward, putting her hood back, sinking into a curtsy just moments before she reached him, so that he could not see her face and she did not have to look at his.

  ‘My lord,’ she said.

  ‘You have come to me,’ he said in a voice that was strained and creaking from disuse. But at least he recognized me, she thought. And still she dared not look at him for fear that she would weep uncontrollably at what she saw.

  ‘I have come,’ she said unsteadily and now at last she was able to look up. Past the skull-like contours of his face to his eyes. Which were filled with an ethereal light as though his soul shone out of them. Because for so long he had been so near death.

  He was trying to speak again. His mouth worked strangely to frame the word
s. The muscles were wasted, she realized; all those muscles in the face and throat that we do not even know we have. But at last he said, ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ she said, and now the blurring of her eyes was due to tears. ‘It has been a very long time.’

  ‘More than a year,’ his physician said.

  ‘But you have come back to me,’ he said, as though it were she who had left. But she didn’t contradict him. He extended his wasted fingers and she pressed them to her lips.

  And at that moment the prince, tired of being held in his nurse’s arms, gave a strained, impatient cry.

  ‘Who is this – a child?’ the king said.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ the queen said, and she rose and took the prince from his nurse, then sat with him on the couch beside the king.

  She had never been so aware of the gaze of so many people.

  Nervously, she took the prince’s cloak off and stroked his fine curls. The king watched as though mesmerized, and the little prince, who seemed at first as though he would cry, gazed solemnly into his father’s face. For a moment she thought that the muscles of her own throat would not work, but then she managed to say, ‘He is your son.’

  ‘My – son?’ said the king wonderingly, and she nodded emphatically.

  ‘Yes, Henri – your son. I was with child when you – fell ill – if you remember.’

  ‘I do not remember,’ said the king, and a soundless ripple passed around the room.

  Her chest felt tight, as though there were a band round it.

  But the king had extended a finger to the prince.

  ‘What is his name?’ he asked, and he touched the prince’s petal-soft face, and the prince did not shy away or cry but gazed wonderingly at his father with eyes as dark as his father’s were light.

  ‘His name is Edward – after your patron saint. He was born on St Edward’s Day.’

  ‘In October,’ the king said at once.

  ‘On the thirteenth of October,’ said the queen.

  ‘Why, then,’ he said, looking around the room. ‘I have a son!’

  His face was lit by an unearthly smile.

  It was as though the whole room exhaled.

  Awkwardly, the queen put the prince on his father’s knee, and the king placed his hands on the child’s head as he squirmed.

  ‘It is a miracle,’ he said. ‘We must give thanks for so great a miracle.’

  The queen wished that he would not use that word; there had been nothing unnatural in the birth of the prince. But she bowed her head and prayed with him.

  Then he asked who the godparents were and she told him and he seemed pleased.

  ‘My – son,’ he said, ‘is very handsome,’ and the queen felt almost that she could have loved her husband again, in that moment.

  They wept together a little, for joy, but the queen’s mind was already working furiously.

  ‘Henri,’ she said, wiping her eyes, ‘there is so much to do.’

  She told him briefly about the many changes that had been made, that the Duke of York was still ruling the country and must be dismissed. And the Duke of Somerset was still in prison and must be released.

  But the physician was stepping forward, and telling her not to overtire the king. He said it with a kindly smile, so that she knew he had registered the king’s acceptance of his son.

  ‘There will be time enough for all that very soon,’ he said, ‘once the king is well.’

  [And in December] by the grace of God, King Henry was restored to full health at Greenwich. And on the 6th day of February the Duke of Somerset was liberated from the Tower of London …

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who during the king’s illness, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than a year and ten weeks … has been set free.

  Calendar of Patent Rolls

  … and immediately afterwards the Duke of York resigned his office to the king at Greenwich … who had governed the whole kingdom of England in the best and most noble way, and had wonderfully pacified all rebels and malefactors according to his oath but without undue harshness … And the Duke of Somerset again resumed the role of the principal governor under the king, when he had previously through his bad regime, almost destroyed the whole of England.

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  Once the king recovered his physical and mental health, and resumed the government of the kingdom, he immediately released the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter and the Earl of Devon from prison [as a result of which] Richard Earl of Salisbury resigned the chancellorship. The king, on impulse, created Thomas Bourchier Archbishop of Canterbury chancellor of England. The Duke of York, and the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, finding these changes unacceptable, left the royal household and council …

  Chronicon Angliae

  This same year in the month of May the king would have rode to Leicester for to have held a council there, and he rode by the town of Watford abiding there all night …

  An English Chronicle

  Because of [this] … the Duke of York and with him the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick approached London with 7,000 well-armed men. When the Duke of Somerset heard this news he suggested to the king that York had come to usurp the throne.

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  [The duke and earls] realizing that they might not prevail against or withstand the malice of Duke Edmund, who daily provoked the king to their final destruction, gathered secretly a power of people and kept them covertly in villages near the town of St Albans. When the king was there they encircled the town and sent to the king, beseeching him to send out to them their mortal enemy and enemy to all the realm, Edmund Duke of Somerset; if he would not they would seize him by strength and violence. The king, by the advice of his council, answered that he would not deliver him.

  An English Chronicle

  I, King Harry, charge and command that no manner of person abide not, but void the field and not be so hard to make any resistance against me in mine own realm; for I shall know what traitor dare be so bold to raise a people in mine own land, wherethrough I am in great disease and heaviness. And by the faith that I owe to St Edward and the crown of England, I shall destroy them, every mother’s son, and they be hanged drawn and quartered that may be taken afterward, of them to have example to all such traitors to beware to make any such rising of people within my land, and so traitorly to abide their King and Governor. And for a conclusion, rather than they shall have any lord here with me at this time, I shall this day for their sake, and in this quarrel, myself live and die.

  Rotuli Parliamentorum

  THE DUKE OF YORK

  ‘Now we must do what we can,’ he said, and pulled on his helmet. He ordered his trumpeter to sound the alarm, and then made a speech to his men. Together, he said, they would overcome Somerset. He referred to himself as Joab, and King Henry as King David, but he did not dwell on this, because he was not good with words, and because there was no need; his men were keen for the fray. And, besides, he had already spoken to some of them, instructing them about the real purpose of this battle. Then he took up his position and reined in his horse.

  He could feel the tension in his horse, an alertness, a readiness or acceptance of this mission, which until the last few days the duke had hoped to avert. His horse knew; he had always believed that a horse knew in advance whether a battle would be won or lost, and now he could sense a quiver of eagerness, not fear, in its flanks. He spoke to it reassuringly.

  High above, in the blue air, a hawk wheeled then hovered. It was a good sign, he thought, because his own symbol was the falcon and the fetterlock. He pulled his visor down.

  THE DUKE OF SOMERSET

  From this distance he could not see what kind of hawk it was, which was a pity, for he was always interested in birds. As a child he had been fascinated by their flight; by the way their wings lifted and spread. He had watched them, feeling his own shoulder blades arch in sympathy.

&
nbsp; Once he had come across a dead bird, and had opened out its wings. He thought he had seen nothing so beautiful as the arrangement of feathers spreading out from the spine to the tip. He had gathered leaves together, arranging them in the same pattern, thinking to make wings for himself. But then his brothers had come upon him and mocked him. His older brothers, who were now dead.

  With an effort he brought his mind back into focus; now was not the time to be distracted. He put on his helmet – there was nothing like a helmet for making you sweat – and pulled the visor down. In his mind’s eye he could still see an image of the bird, wheeling in the still air. It was a good sign, he thought, because he had always been fascinated by birds.

  The First Battle of St Albans: 22 May 1455

  The alarm bell was rung and every man went to harness …

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  The battle started on the stroke of 10 o’clock, but because the ways were narrow few combatants could fight there …

  Dijon Relation

  THE DUKE OF YORK

  The narrowness of the lanes meant that only a few men could engage in fighting at any time, and they presented an easy target for the king’s archers. Time after time his men were driven back by a hail of arrows so thick it was hardly possible to see.

  It seemed to Duke Richard that his battle was lost before it had started, that he would never even get to fight; he would be executed as a traitor without striking a single blow.

  It was Warwick, of course, who changed the course of things; Warwick who led his men through the gardens at the back of Holywell Street and instructed them to break down the doors of the houses and then their walls. And his men set to with their pickaxes and rams until a great section of the street collapsed in a pile of smoking rubble.

  For it was Warwick’s great virtue as a fighter that he knew no limits.

  Through the noise and confusion the trumpets sounded, and all of Warwick’s army burst through the barriers and poured into the marketplace, taking the king’s army entirely by surprise.

  [The Earl of Warwick] took and gathered his men together and furiously broke into the town by the garden sides between the [inns] of the Key and the Checker in Holywell Street. His trumpet sounded and his men cried out with a great voice ‘A Warwick! A Warwick!’