Succession

by Michael, Livi

  Paston Letters

  The fighting was furious …

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  I saw a man fall with his brains beaten out, another with a broken arm, a third with his throat cut and a fourth with a stab wound in his chest, while the whole street was strewn with corpses …

  Whethamsted’s Register

  Four of the king’s bodyguard were killed by arrows in his presence, and the king himself was wounded in the shoulder by an arrow … At last when they had fought for three hours the king’s party, seeing they had the worst of it, broke away on one wing and began to flee. The Duke of Somerset retreated into a house to save himself by hiding but he was seen by the Duke of York’s men who at once surrounded the house … York’s men at once began to fight Somerset and his men who were within the house and defended themselves valiantly. In the end, after the doors were broken down, Somerset saw he had no option but to come out …

  Dijon Relation

  THE DUKE OF SOMERSET

  He came out fighting, flinging the door open and instantly impaling the man who rushed through it on his sword. All that mattered to him was that his son should escape by the back way, while he kept his enemies occupied at the front.

  He struck out blindly at first, but a grimness overtook him, and he fought with greater focus, feeling the cut and thrust, the sensation of death when someone dies so close to you that their blood spurts across you and might as well be your own.

  It was as if he knew there was a reason his heir would need to survive. He fought harder and with more concentration than he could usually summon.

  And the second man fell, then the third.

  He could feel the pumping of his arteries; all the force and will of life itself concentrated in the muscles of his arm. There is nothing like such force and concentration, and nothing like the suddenness with which it leaves.

  The first blow of the axe.

  It did not fell him, but it made him miss his mark, and a second blow hacked into his shoulder and a third split his face. Still he struck out blindly, until a fourth blow severed the tendons of his knee.

  Then the fall, and the world upending itself around him. No sky, just faces contorted above him, then blood in the eyes so that he couldn’t see at all, and the violent quivering of his legs.

  Blades piercing downwards like the beaks of so many birds.

  Thus all who were on the side of the Duke of Somerset were killed, wounded, or at the very least, despoiled. The king, who was left on his own, fled into the house of a tanner to hide. And to this house came the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Warwick, declaring themselves to be the king’s humble servants.

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  [The Yorkist lords] fell on their knees and besought him for grace and forgiveness of that they had done in the king’s presence, and besought him, of his highness, to take them as his true liegemen, saying that they never intended to hurt his own person …

  Paston Letters

  THE DUKE OF YORK

  He had thought to deliver the death blow himself; he had envisaged it often enough, thrusting into Somerset’s stomach then winding out the intestines like the traitor he was. But in the end he had decided that it would not be a good thing for him to kill the duke personally, considering what he hoped to achieve afterwards. Anyway, there was no time, for someone was shouting that they had found the king.

  He was in a tanner’s house, propped up on a bench, having a wound between his neck and shoulder tended. His eyes were closed and he did not look up at first as the duke approached.

  Behind him the door opened again, and Salisbury came in, followed by Warwick. Richard of York got on his knees, clumsily, for one of them was hurting. And he was sweating, and streaked with blood and dust.

  One by one they spoke, saying that they had never intended any wrong to the king; that they wished only to serve him, as his true liegemen. No one was more grieved than they that matters should have come to this pass.

  Warwick said also that if they had gone to Leicester as summoned, they would have been taken prisoner and suffered a shameful death as traitors, losing their livelihood and goods, and their heirs shamed for ever.

  Silence.

  The king opened his eyes and closed them again. The silence extended itself while they all remained kneeling on the dusty floor.

  Richard of York’s thoughts were cramped; his mind over-stuffed with them. If the king did not accept their obeisance, they would have to take him as their prisoner to London. Also, he would have to tell the king about the Duke of Somerset, before the rumours started; before people could blacken his name further.

  There was no precedent that he knew of for this situation.

  The king cleared his throat.

  ‘You must cease your people,’ he said. York glanced up. ‘You must stop the fighting,’ he said, ‘and then no more harm will be done.’

  Warwick, in particular, was profuse in his thanks. They all proffered their loyalty and their devoted service once again. But Duke Richard still had to tell the king that his favourite cousin and dearest friend was dead. He did not want to be seen to be responsible for any harm coming to the king; he certainly didn’t want the king to fall into another attack of grief, or dementia, or whatever it was. He considered one way of breaking the news, then another, but when he finally raised his eyes, the king was already looking at him with a mixture of fear and revulsion on his face.

  ‘Where is my Lord of Somerset?’ he asked.

  The Duke of York shifted uncomfortably on his wounded knee. ‘Your majesty –’ he started, but Warwick interrupted: ‘Alas, my lord the duke has fallen,’ he said smoothly. ‘He died nobly, I believe. None of us here were present.’

  The king’s face turned very pale. He lifted his eyes as if to heaven, then they rolled back as though he might faint. The three lords got up at once.

  ‘Look to the king,’ Salisbury said, and York said that he should be taken to the abbey, for safekeeping, where the monks would tend him. Then, as if this brief interview had been more than he could bear, he left the cottage and went back on to the street; back into the clamour and stink of battle, to stop his men looting, and call them from the fray.

  On 23rd the king and York and all returned to London. On 24th they made the solemn procession and now peace reigns. The king has forbidden anyone to speak about it upon pain of death. The Duke of York has the government and the people are very pleased at this.

  Milanese State Papers: newsletter from Bruges, June 1455

  PARDON FOR THE YORKISTS

  AND THEIR RENEWAL OF ALLEGIANCE,

  24TH JULY 1455

  We [Henry VI] declare that none of our cousins, the Duke of York and the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, nor any of the persons who came with them in their fellowship to St Albans on 22nd May, be impeached, sued, vexed, grieved, hurt or molested for anything supposed or claimed to have been done against our person, crown or dignity.

  In the great council chamber, in the time of parliament, in the presence of our sovereign lord, every lord spiritual and temporal freely swore: I promise unto your highness that I shall truly and faithfully keep the allegiance that I owe unto you and do all that may be to the welfare, honour and safeguard of your most noble person, and at no time consent to anything to the hurt and prejudice of your most noble person, dignity, crown or estate …

  Rotuli Parliamentorum

  PART III: 1455–58

  Margaret Beaufort Travels to Wales

  They travelled first in a boat, then a carriage. Betsy clung to her most of the way, convinced that at any moment they would be killed and eaten, for the men of Wales were all cannibals, she said. Or shape-shifters, turning into wolves at night and howling at the moon. And there were some, she said, as they passed through a dark ravine overhung by rock, that didn’t change shape at all, but always had the bodies of men and the heads of dogs, and lived in little villages where the houses were like kennels, clustered to
gether in a pack. And all day long they went about their work, scything and brewing and herding sheep, just like humans, only when you got up close you could see the fearful fangs and bristles, the long, lolloping tongues.

  They passed through a forest, which stirred and moaned as the wind blew. Leaves rustled and black branches dripped overhead. When a fox barked, her nurse cried, ‘Save us!’, and at the call of the screech owl she clasped her hands round Margaret’s ears, and Margaret felt at once the thrill of fear and the assurance of God’s protection, for at that time she thought that the amount of time she spent in prayer bore a direct relationship to the amount of protection God would give. And so she took Betsy’s hands from her ears – they were very cold, and trembling – and told her not to worry, they would say their prayers together. And Jesus would protect them both.

  On the other side of the forest there was a landscape of black slate, spindly trees made ghostly by cloud, and scraggy sheep perched on the crags. Then came the first settlements, a few huts clinging to the base of the mountains, and Betsy clapped her hands over Margaret’s eyes this time for fear that she would see the dog-headed men. But when she prised her nurse’s fingers open Margaret could see only a muddy old woman bent almost double to the earth, and a younger man, bent forward similarly, carrying sticks.

  The road was bumpy and uneven, and her nurse complained that all their bones would be broken. But even she stopped complaining when they saw the sea.

  As soon as she laid eyes on it, Margaret understood how the land was haunted by the sea; a silent grey expanse, dissolving into sky. Between earth and sky there was a no-land of mist where the sun and moon glowed palely, exactly similar in size and luminosity. As they drew closer, she saw that the sea was not still, but like a great grey muscle, swelling and contracting around the earth, glistening and sleek. Then that it wasn’t grey, but shifting rapidly between one colour and another. As they veered off the coastal road, she twisted round in her seat as far as she could, trying to keep the sea in her eyes.

  Now the landscape was windswept and treeless, with scattered farmsteads and strange black cattle, then there were trees once more, and a grey town spilling from the trees, and finally, jutting into an estuary, a tower of grey stone. It reared above the town and cast its shadow like a spine along the straggling streets. Trees clustered round the walls and great circular towers surmounted them.

  Pembroke Castle. Here she would meet Edmund at last, and they would stay a little while until a new home was prepared.

  It was no home, but a fortress. She knew immediately that she would not want to live here. Their carriage rose up a steep path to a massive gatehouse. A steward met them, and then the great gates opened, and there, beyond them, was an immense line of servants.

  But it was Jasper who came out to greet them, stern, sallow-faced and gaunt. He welcomed them stiffly; Edmund wasn’t there, he said, but he would be back soon.

  He was quelling riots in the surrounding hills and valleys. Some of the local people had organized themselves into armed gangs who lived in the hills, raiding cattle, setting fire to the lands of the English lords. But she was not to worry, he told her, seeing a shade of anxiety cross her face. The Welsh people loved Edmund and were loyal to him. They looked to him to bring peace to their divided nation. Many sought his lordship and had flocked to his affinity. He was their one great hope, because Edmund’s father was Welsh, yet he was half-brother to the English king. And Jasper, too, of course. But already the bards were composing songs to Edmund; their golden-haired warrior, radiant as a shining shield, fleet as a stag or the wind’s breath.

  Jasper smiled stiffly. His own hair was thinning and brown.

  He had a note for her, from Edmund.

  My own swete Lady Margrete, it said. Of your grete curteyse forgyve me my absence. I will cherish the moment that we may mete, by the grace of God …

  She folded up the note, suppressing her feelings of dismay. Did she really have to stay here with Jasper?

  Jasper was watching her with a quizzical expression on his face.

  Was that when she first decided she did not like him?

  She had to walk past the long line of servants, who looked at her with curiosity, pity or amusement. She was so small, their new mistress, looking younger, even, than her twelve years. She walked as tall as she could and stared into each of their faces until, in some cases at least, the amusement or pity disappeared.

  There was food in the great hall – salmon stuffed with wild berries, a plate of eels – though Margaret hardly ate at all. And then they were shown to their rooms. Betsy had a separate, small room, with a truckle bed, though she soon abandoned it. ‘Not for my old bones,’ she said, and Margaret was glad not to be left alone. So she slept with her nurse, in the large oak bed.

  And in the morning Jasper showed them round the castle. Spray blew up almost to the castle walls and the seagulls circled and cried against a sulphurous sky.

  The great keep was five storeys high; you could see the whole county from its dome.

  ‘This tower and the walls make the castle impregnable,’ Jasper said. ‘We could withstand any siege for more than a year. Because of the keep and this other thing – I will show you.’

  He took them down the stairs again to a vast cavern set deep in the rock beneath the castle, a shelter for cave-dwellers since the dawn of time.

  ‘No other fortress has this,’ he said, looking almost happy, or as happy as Jasper ever looked. ‘People say that on the eighth day, God’s finger pressed into the earth at this point, forming the cavern, and at the same time a great voice spoke, saying where the fortress of Pembroke was to be.’

  Bones had been found there, and tools from ancient men, yet now it was used mainly for storage.

  ‘This is where we would take refuge under siege,’ he said, but Margaret shuddered at the thought of hiding in this dank and dripping place.

  The steward of the castle lived in the gatehouse with his family, Jasper in his private mansion to one side. In the inner ward there was the chancery with its justices and clerks, and also a chapel and kitchens, workshops for carpenters and masons. There were stables and pens full of livestock, and a dovecote containing pigeons for winter meat. And a dungeon tower. Until recently there had been a man, John Whithorne, who was imprisoned in the dungeon at the bottom of the tower for seven years and more. He had lost the sight of both eyes and suffered other incurable ills. They could see the dungeon room through a grille, which would have been the only access of light to that prisoner. All those years he would have been close enough to the kitchens and halls to hear the noises of the castle, feasting and toil, and at the thought of it Margaret was stricken with a piercing sorrow, for she had not yet become hardened to the misery of the world.

  They stayed in the castle for several days, waiting for Edmund. Each day Margaret and Betsy walked the walls, which were patrolled by guards, but there was little to do. It was not her own household and she could not give orders, or even familiarize herself with the working of it, though as they passed through the kitchens she watched people pounding herbs, or making soap from fat and lye, or scouring dishes with sand.

  All the time she was building up a vision of Edmund in her mind: handsome, heroic, the subject of epic lays. He would take her from the castle, and her whole life would be transformed, though she did not know when, or how. But the consciousness of him followed her around; in her mind he was following her with his gaze.

  Then one day she was reading her copy of Aesop’s fables in the garden, when a shadow fell across her, and she looked up and there was a tall man bending forward.

  She could not see him properly because of the sun, yet she knew who he was. He dropped on to one knee before her, and her heart quickened. She looked round automatically for her nurse, who was beaming and making gestures that signalled to Margaret she should curtsy.

  But she could not move. Edmund kissed her hand and there was a fluttering in her stomach.

  ‘My
Lady of Richmond,’ he said. He was not exactly smiling, but there was a hint of a smile in his eyes. And still she couldn’t speak.

  She didn’t know if he was as handsome or more handsome than she had imagined him. His features were thinner than she had imagined, his cheekbones higher, his hair not so much golden as light brown. He sat down beside her on the rock, stretching out one leg with a casual elegance.

  ‘Is that a good book?’ he asked her, and she stared down at it, disconcerted, then finally managed to speak.

  ‘It is a very good book,’ she said, ‘though not so good as Tristan and Isolde.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that a better book?’

  She was comically earnest. ‘I think it is better in its composition,’ she said, ‘though it does not have the same philosophy.’

  ‘I see I shall marry a scholar,’ he said. Instantly, she felt a complicated pride, as though she had said the wrong thing. But he extended his hand and she rose and walked with him, and her nurse dropped into the deepest curtsy as they passed.

  He asked her about her studies, and about the garden, and how she was adapting to the weather. Her answers were so constrained; she could not believe that she could not remember all the conversations she had prepared for him, which were witty and fluent. She did not know how to ask him what he had been doing, or whether he would think that proper. She was conscious all the time of the great difference in their heights, but he acted, at least, as though he were oblivious of this.

  In the great hall she sat at his right hand and Jasper at his left, and he behaved towards her as though she were his lady, presenting all the food to her from his own plate first, and sharing the goblet of wine.

  Later, she thought that might have been the moment she fell in love with him: for his courtesy, for treating her as if she were truly his sweetheart, his lady-love.

  But all his conversation was with Jasper. She listened to him telling his brother that some of the local lords were feuding and stealing one another’s cattle, that there were many tenancy disputes. She did not know whether she could say anything, or interrupt him while he talked.