Yes, I began to see more and more how the House of York had scythed the Houses of Lancaster, Beaufort and Stafford. Events that had been distant to me as a child, I could now understand as a man. Of course, Morton was trying to draw me back to my family’s traditional loyalty but he constantly sang a counter tenor of rather agreeable flattery in descant to the plainsong gossip. Eventually I put an end to the game and asked him outright whether he would support me, the heir of the House of Lancaster, as claimant to the throne.
He beamed at me as though I had just been on the road to Damascus.
‘My lord, I have been waiting on this day. God be praised that he has given you both courage and wisdom.’ From the purse on his belt, he flourished a small sealed square of paper. ‘I have had in my keeping this letter from Lady Margaret. Read it at your leisure, my son, and you shall see that since last you spoke with her, she has been praying that our Lord God might bless you with enlightenment.’
I took it without smiling and dropped it into the slit of my hanging sleeve.
‘It would be a very dangerous gamble, bishop. Let us be frank here. I do not have the King’s military experience if I have to meet him on the field.’
‘My gracious lord, I assure you if you were to raise your banner, you would find friends aplenty. Not only has this tyrant lost the common people’s trust, but he has remorselessly made enemies of those who loyally served his brother.’
But so had I. Yes, certainly, several score of Hastings’ men now wore my livery, but it would take some mighty laundering to wash me white as snow again.
‘Strange isn’t it,’ I remarked. ‘I paid my cousin homage at his coronation and pledged him fealty, yet you counsel me to perjury and treason. In your book, it looks as though an oath doesn’t amount to much and I find that a rather unsettling thought. Just suppose I risk my neck and raise a rebellion, succeed even, how do I know that Tudor and Pembroke won’t break their oaths to me at some opportune moment.’
‘Your grace, it is—’
‘No, let me finish, Morton. You can play the serpent to my Adam for all your worth, seduce me from my alliance with Richard, but the worst that could befall you is exile or being booted back into the Tower whereas I….’
‘My lord duke, if you are leading a cause that is both true and just, God will protect you.’ He grasped the velvet epaulettes on my shoulders and peered into my face so close I could smell the perfumed comfits he liked to suck. ‘Seek out a mirror, my lord. Can you not discern how much you have changed since King Edward’s death? The realm needs your vision and guidance. You are the heir of the House of Lancaster and the blood of the victor of Agincourt flows in your veins seeking vengeance and justice.’ He shook me gently before he let go. ‘I promise you Almighty God will give you the courage, Harry.’
I stood staring down at him. There was a seriousness in his face that I had never glimpsed before. Even compassion. He reached up and thumbed an invisible cross upon my forehead. ‘May your soul find light in the darkness that surrounds you. Be at peace, my son.’
I swallowed and stepped back. How did he know? But before I reached the door to flee that penetrating scrutiny, he called out to me. I turned round with the greatest reluctance and saw his fingers were tightly clasping his cross above his heart.
‘If you decide this cup is not for you, my son, I swear by the Blessed Christ that Lady Margaret and I will accept your decision and not a word of our conversations here will go beyond these walls.’ As I nodded gravely, he added, ‘But all I ask is that you think hard but not long, my lord. If this enterprise is to take place, there is no time to fritter.’
I had to show that I was not lightly led. All men have their price. For the last ten years Morton had enjoyed high office under Yorkist rule.
‘I suppose a cardinal’s hat would suit you, Morton?’
‘Your grace, I think it would suit me very well.’
MY LUST to prove myself further warred mightily with my fear of failure and vanquished sleep. In the morning I was still hesitant in yoking myself to the Tudor arms wagon, but Morton conjured up more weaponry. This time it was missives from acquaintances across the Channel: Archbishop Angelo Cato, physician to King Louis; Adam Redesheff, a scholar at Louvain and Giovanni de Giglis in Rome, each reviling Richard as a child murderer. Pah, what of it? The foreign courts tittle-tattled like whores waiting for takers. Maybe I was a fool to listen further, but then my wily prisoner began to speak of redemption. One pebble may not bring a man to his knees but a stoning will and Morton bombarded me.
Why did I agree to play his game at last? Because the Devil inside the ermine wanted to be king; because, above all, restlessness was eating into my skin like leprosy. I no longer felt alive in Brecknock, more like some poor beaten donkey yoked in a treadmill, but every time I thought about becoming king, my imagination flared brightly and the darkness lifted.
THE HOUR after I gave my consent to captain Margaret’s rebellion, Morton’s prison began to resemble the Chamber of the Privy Seal. The bishop wrote letters like a man obsessed. The tip of his third finger grew swollen where he held the quill against it. The missives – shafted not only at Margaret’s allies but also the men who had served Dead Ned – were cunningly worded and I suppose he had already crafted the phrases during his solitude.
I appreciated his haste. By Jesu, a woman with a babe beneath her girdle had more time than us. The rebellion had to take place before Richard returned to Westminster. Less than two months to topple a king.
He applauded the agendum I had facetiously suggested to Margaret. We would raise our banners in Prince Edward’s name then give out the boys were dead. Without them, the Woodville affinity would be crazed and hot to follow us.
It was not easy doing the webspinning from Brecknock but much had already been done by Margaret. Now she wasted no time but straightaway sent her receiver, Reginald Bray, a blunt-spoken man who had worked for my uncle, to visit us at Brecknock. I told him my terms to carry to Henry Tudor.
Meantime, I dispatched Nandik with a letter to John Russhe, my merchant friend, who replied that he would sound out his wealthy acquaintances. Cat wrote to Elizabeth of my miraculous conversion to the Woodville cause, and Nick Latimer, who had ever been loyal at heart to Lancaster, visited his native Dorset and found friends there who would uphold our enterprise.
Since I held so many offices, neither the increase in couriers nor the commissions given to blacksmiths, armourers, fletchers and lorimers roused any suspicions. I sent my servants to make purchases at the horse fairs and every day I practised a full hour at single combat.
The rebellion, like a bear cub, was gradually licked into shape. Bray returned from Brittany with the news that Edward Woodville had yielded the treasury money to Henry Tudor so he now could buy mercenaries, and on 24 September I received a letter from Tudor giving me his sworn word that he would land at Poole Harbour in mid-October. I wrote back that day.
Other reassuring news trickled in: Morton’s friends, the Brandons and the Cheneys agreed to fight for me and Russhe wrote that many of the London merchants considered I should make a worthy king. It only remained for Elizabeth Woodville to commit her followers. Without them we did not have the numbers.
It was because of me that Elizabeth baulked. That stubborn she-devil wanted to do her own scheming. News reached us that fifty of her friends had made a fresh attempt to rescue the boys from the Tower and Howard now had the conspirators under arrest. Of course, when we heard that, we renewed our assault on her. Tudor’s youngest uncle was a monk at Westminster, so Morton wrote to him begging him to intercede with Elizabeth, and Margaret’s physician, Dr Lewes, made another visit to the sanctuary. I confess by now I was growing edgy. The sand of the glass was starting to run out.
Finally Elizabeth gave an ultimatum. She requested proof of my change of heart: firstly, that I must sign a warrant for the day of the rising giving her servants safe passes in and out of the Tower. Secondly, I was required to write a letter
to the Lieutenant of the Tower ordering him to release her sons. If I refused to supply either, she would take it as proof of my treachery and forbid all the Woodville loyalists in the southern shires to join us.
I knew the boys were not there so as High Constable of England I willingly signed the authority and gave the documents to Bray to deliver to Dr Lewes.
My compliance won her over. Within two weeks, families related to the Woodvilles, such as the Guildfords and the Lewkenors, not to mention Richard’s forgiven sinner, Sir John Fogge, promised support. The Marquis of Dorset was still at large and he went from friend to friend with news of the rebellion. In the west, Cat’s brother, the Bishop of Salisbury, who was still being pursued by the King’s officers, wrote to me that he hoped the St Legers, Courtenays and Bourchiers would join the rising. I promised him refuge at Kimbolton. Thence he fled and my cousin’s soldiers never thought to look for him on my land.
Morton wrote both to the King of France (reminding him how hungry Richard had been for battle during Dead Ned’s invasion of France back in ’75), and to his Holiness Pope Sixtus IV, promising more contribution to the papal coffers once King Richard was deposed.
Do not think I did not have doubts. Sometimes I would dream that I was fighting Richard again in the practice yard and wake up sweating and fearful with his blade at my throat.
‘Are you sure that Lady Margaret is not using you?’ asked Uncle Knyvett, when I first discussed my plans with him. ‘I can’t see she would want you as king if there’s a chance in friggin’ hell she could become queen-mother.’
‘She needs a captain for her army before her son lands. I’m supposed to be overcome with shame for my sins and anxious to depose the tyrant.’
‘You do realise you are risking everything you’ve gained.’
‘Well I am not, am I? If things go awry, I shall pretend I was stringing them along to lure Tudor home. But if everything shapes up, I shall be king and you can be Chamberlain of England.’
‘I haven’t the rank.’
‘You will if I make you a baron.’
He chuckled. ‘I’ve the greatest respect for Lady Margaret but yonder bishop…’
‘He’s my hostage for Margaret’s compliance.’
‘Aye, but in peril his cloth will save him. Nothing will save you unless you’ve become a closet Franciscan since I last saw you.’ He plucked at my collar lacing. ‘No hair shirt? I thought not.’ He was right to warn me. Fire burns when you meddle with it.
‘I am not a fool. I read every one of the letters that Morton sent out.’
‘No code words saying: “Huzzah, we’ve gulled Buckingham”?’
‘God’s Sake, give me some slack, uncle.’ The trouble was that he voiced my own fears. ‘My claim to the throne is better than Tudor’s. What’s more I’ll marry my little Bess to Richard’s boy. Hell take it, I could even put Edward V back and marry her to him. Tudor can have his earldom back and he’ll be happy with that.’
‘And what about Jasper Tudor, who styles himself Earl of Pembroke? What about Stanley? They will want power in Wales.’
‘If I secure the crown, they can stuff Wales up their arses.’
He pulled a face.
‘Not a blow was struck at Stony Stratford and yet we gained a kingdom, see,’ I exclaimed in the local dialect. He did not laugh.
‘But this time, Harry, Richard of Gloucester will be your enemy.’
PEPPERED with Woodvilles and buttered with Beaufort money, the date of the rebellion was fixed for 18 October and there was to be a rising on that day throughout the south. My only fear was that so great a number – and we are talking about a conspiracy stretching from Maidstone to Exeter – could keep so great a secret. My anxiety turned out to be better founded than the rebellion: before September was out, I received a letter from Richard, saying that Howard had heard all manner of wild tales and that some of them implicated me. My cousin suggested that I should meet him in the Midlands on his return from York so we could demonstrate that this talk of rebellion was idle nonsense.
I took his letter with me to the little private garden that I had made within my castle walls and set Bannaster on guard outside the gate to preserve my solitude.
I had planted the garden some years before. Like the great sightless ridge of Pen-y-Fan, it gave me solace. I sat down upon the turf seat and stared about me. It was well tended now but when I had returned in August, milkweeds had stood high between the clumps of lavender, and ivy had crawled amok among the speckled musk and orange marigolds.
I sighed and idly tugged a sowthistle out from here, a dent-de-lion from there. Out in the fields harebells and eyebrights, purple mallows and the white sprays of fool’s parsley flowered at no man's bidding, while within my little kingdom the dead petals already clung to the spent daisyheads and the best was over.
Desperate, I thought of Meg. I clothed her before me in a robe of lustrous green satin and fastened about her neck a collar of jewels that matched her eyes and upon her head I set a duchess’s diadem. ‘Be mistress to a king,’ I whispered but before I could bare her shoulders and worship her breasts with my lips, she faded. Burning against my fingers, I felt the parchment of my cousin’s letter.
It was in his neat hand and I let my eye trace once more the familiar signature. It was not too late to ride to him with my list of traitors save that I knew my new allies were keeping close watch on me for signs of second thoughts. I buried my head in my hands and wished that the world would heave me off its back.
The rustle of damask disturbed me. For an instant of madness, I believed that Meg had come to me, warm and desirable. But when I raised my head from my clasped knees, it was to recognise the straight folds that fell from the girdle of my wife’s gown; threads that elderberry and catkin, blackberry and medlar could bewitch into subtle colours danced before my eyes. I turned my face away to hide from her my tears.
I heard her pick up Richard’s letter from where it had fallen at my feet.
‘You have not answered him.’
‘No, I cannot. Not yet.’
‘Don’t be a damnable fool! You must reply. Nothing else will content him. Say you are sick and cannot come.’ She watched me haul myself to my feet. ‘You must right the wrong you have done and free my nephew, the rightful king.’
Rightful king? She had forgotten that the boys’ father stole the crown.
CHAPTER 14
You think, Saints of Heaven, that I should have kept faith with my cousin Richard, but you are not sealed within my skin. The Plantagenet blood does not congeal in the sores of the dying; it is passed on with the ambition that made our first great-sire a king. That is why we rebel; Henry II and his restless prodigy, Bolingbroke, Prince Hal, Humphrey of Gloucester and Richard of York. We are all kickers against the rut. Even that pious, monkish Henry VI was as perverse as the rest. Being born a king, he did not desire to be one. As for Edward, George and Richard? Just like the rest! Contrary, wilful, we are never content with our rank at birth but need must fight with teeth and claws to swing our fortunes up a notch. And now? And now, Richard, being king, is not truly happy for he has betrayed his brother's trust and his subjects will never live up to his ideal world. And I, rich in offices and lands, must fulfil my destiny.
BY THE EVE of the day appointed for my army to march from Brecknock, I had over four hundred footsoldiers, including twenty-five Russhe had brought from London (I had expected more but others were pledged to join the Kentish rebels), fifty mounted knights and eleven arms-and-supply wagons. Several hundred archers and halberdiers were to meet us at Hereford and I could rely on a hundred more from my manors across the River Severn to come to my banner once we reached England. Together with the Woodville affinity and Tudor’s mercenaries, we should be an army fit to hold off an impassioned and unprepared Richard while the Cheshire men of Margaret Beaufort and her Lancaster adherents closed in on him from the north.
I DID not like the temper of my army. The harvest had arrived late and the men
had been loath to leave the binding of the sheaves to the women. Only bribes had drawn them away from the prospect of the harvest home, the corn dolls and the ale.
My other anxiety was the weather on the morrow; louring clouds bruised the sky above Pen-y-Fan. Water cascading from the mountains had swollen the bellies of the streams. Already, the roads streaking out from Brecknock were too syrupy for my peace of mind.
‘What do you think, Nick?’ I stared at my precious guns that had been delivered in great secrecy earlier in the week. Latimer, standing alongside me in the barn, heaved a deep sigh and pulled the canvas down to conceal them.
‘I reckon they’re too heavy for the road as it is, my lord, let alone if there’s more rain blowing up. We can have them follow us as soon as maybe, but it will mean leaving two dozen men behind to manage them. Shall I see to it?’
I nodded. ‘A cursed shame.’ I could take the risk but if the carts sunk in to their axles, digging them out would be Herculean, and they were worth a fortune.
Ah, misgivings! They skittered across my mind, gnawing at my fear. Still, if aught went wrong, I should be able to talk my way out of the mess.
‘What did your astrology chart foretell for October?’ I asked Nandik, summoning him to my chamber that evening. He seemed surprised at my renewed interest.
‘By my very soul, the death of a king, your grace.’
‘All very well, Nandik,’ I answered, trying not to wince at his pied hose. ‘But how precise are your calculations? I am told King Louis no longer enjoys good health. The planets may be predicting a new occupant for a tomb at St Denis.’
He grinned. ‘Oh no, your grace, definitely England.’
I never knew with Nandik how much was buttering and how much truth but I believed him. It is well, I reflected, as the door closed behind him. No man, not even a king, can withstand his destiny.
The Devil in Ermine Page 26