Royal Mistress

by Anne Easter Smith

  Richard slept badly. He rose before the cock crowed and called for John Kendall, his faithful secretary. After answering Jack Howard’s call to action, the second letter he dictated was to Chancellor Russell, in which he graciously thanked the bishop for the kind welcome the prelate had arranged at his cathedral and city the day before, despite being indisposed at Westminster, and wished Russell a speedy recovery. Then he proceeded to reassure the chancellor that he was fully informed in the matter of the insurgency.

  But, I pray you send the Great Seal to me at once; I have much to do before the rebellion can be put down.

  He finished with the usual salutations and watched as Kendall put the final flourish on “written this twelfth day of October at Lincoln in the first year of our reign,” before dribbling wax upon the parchment. As he pressed the royal seal into the hot liquid to make the document official, Richard suddenly snatched the quill out of the secretary’s hand, dipped it in the inkwell, and handwrote a postcript:

  Here, loved be God, is all well and truly determined, and for to resist the malice of him that had best cause to be true, the duke of Buckingham, the most . . .

  He paused and looked at Kendall. “I know not what to say of him,” Richard said sadly, and Kendall was moved to see tears in his king’s eyes. Brushing them aside, Richard dipped the pen again and nodded to himself.

  . . . the most untrue creature living; whom with God’s grace we shall not be long till that we will be in those parts, and subdue his malice. We assure there was never false traitor better purveyed for, as this bearer shall show you.

  Ricardus R.I

  John Kendall carefully folded the missives, assigned more wax to seal them, and left the room without a word to put them personally into the hands of the waiting messenger. He closed the door quietly behind him.

  Alone in the room, Richard went to stand by the window, the same dark thoughts running around in his head. Why had he not immediately denounced Harry upon hearing of the unspeakable crime the man had committed? His reasonable mind told him that there was not anyone who would have believed the order to kill the two boys had not come from him. With men already calling him usurper, his fragile hold on the crown would be wrenched from him with an accusation of murder—and of his brother’s children, no less.

  But by keeping silent, he would have to bear the guilt alone and remain in a living hell. Neither way was acceptable, he concluded as his unabashed tears spilled down his cheeks as freely as the rain upon the windowpanes.

  London was on high alert. Not since King Edward had regained his throne in ’71 had so many armed soldiers filled the main thoroughfares, preparing the capital for a possible attack, this time from Kentish rebels.

  “We had begun to believe we were safe at last,” Jehan grumbled to his wife and Jane, who was once again welcomed into the Vandersand household. The two women were busy chopping leeks, onions, and cabbages for the customary pottage that percolated over the fire, their sleeves rolled up and their aprons smeared with blood from the rabbit that had gone into the pot first. Jehan was sharpening a stave he kept handy to ward off intruders and was ready to defend his family if the need arose.

  “How close are the rebels to the city?” Jane asked. “That must be why I saw Lord Howard ride by in the Chepe yesterday.” She did not tell her friends that he had waved at her; she tried to avoid reminding them of her previous royal connections.

  Sophie had, of course, consoled Jane after Tom’s desertion. She was not surprised by his behavior but was glad to know Jane had come to see him for the bum-bailey he was. Nay, worse than that, he was a romancer, a liar, and a thief. And so Jane had taken up residency on Sithe’s Lane once more, playing aunt or nursemaid to Sophie’s two younger children and taking over kitchen duty from Sophie, allowing the hardworking spinner to produce more thread for sale. During her two stays, she had also taught her friend to read.

  “Vhy are the men of Kent rebelling?” Sophie asked, throwing the last handful of cabbage into the pot.

  Jehan shrugged. “It is in their nature,” he said. “It would seem most rebellions I remember hearing about began in Kent. The drawbridge is raised on London Bridge, and all boats have been moved to the city side of the river. I heard last night in the Pope’s Head that Lord Howard’s troops are already on their way to halting the rebels before they get to Southwark.”

  “Then ve are safe, husband, ja?” Sophie said. “You vill not need your stick.”

  “Let us hope not,” Jane agreed, and then recited:

  “The weaver dropped his trusty weft

  To sharpen up his stave,

  We hope he never uses it

  For the consequence is grave.”

  Even Ankarette caught the double meaning and crossed herself.

  The day planned for the simultaneous strikes by the rebels was the eighteenth of October, but those in the west and Wales were unaware the men of Kent had not waited and had been already thwarted in their bid to capture London.

  The unrelenting rain of the past week still sheeted in drenching torrents as Buckingham and his erstwhile prisoner and now fellow conspirator John Morton, bishop of Ely, started for Hereford, thirty miles away. Morton looked around at the force Harry had assembled and told himself it would have to do. It seemed the duke did not have the sway with the Welsh he had boasted of, and the men trudging behind their captains did not appear to be relishing a long march in abominable conditions to fight for a cause that did not concern them. With luck, Morton thought, those leaders in the west country and the southeast will have gathered larger and more willing armies to join with Henry Tudor when he landed somewhere on the south coast with his force from Brittany, weather permitting. On the appointed day, the four arms of the insurrection would move toward London and trap Richard coming down from the north. Morton had prayed hard the night before that the weeks of planning would reap the sought-after rewards.

  Buckingham, however, was in fine spirits, laughing with his squires and knights as they moved toward the Severn. His unruly curls, dancing like coiled dark springs, sprayed droplets of rain around him as he turned his head this way and that. He was behaving as though he were king, Morton noted, the man’s vainglory evident in every loud command, booming laugh, and dramatic gesture. Morton would rather put up with Richard as king than this buffoon, he had long ago decided, and, staring at a spot between his horse’s ears, he fell back to avoid communication with the man.

  The proclamation Richard published soon after leaving Lincoln condemned Buckingham and his rebels and was affixed to every church door and market cross in England. Those who read it marveled at the extraordinary news that the rebel leader was the duke of Buckingham. Richard exhorted his subjects to be ready to fight for their king, but he made clear that none of the duke’s followers who resisted this treason must be harmed or taken. In the meantime, Richard began assembling a host of his own at Leicester, while Jack Howard gathered a large number of troops and stationed them at Guildford. His quick action of the previous week had allowed London’s defenses to be strengthened, and by blocking the crossing at Gravesend, the Kentish rebels were unable to join those from East Anglia.

  It was while bartering for a large mullet that Jane learned how close London had come to being overrun by the rebels. After Tom deserted her, she returned a little chastened to the Vandersands, and she was grateful Sophie had never resorted to saying “Did I not warn you?”

  She listened as the skinny wife of the fishmonger told her husband the latest news from that wellspring of all wisdom, the Great Conduit in the Chepe, where brewers, cooks, and others who fetched fresh water for their businesses exchanged gossip and information.

  “Who would’ve thought that high and mighty duke of Buckingham would turn traitor,” the woman was saying, prompting Jane to eavesdrop. “Wants to be king I wouldn’t wonder, now that them poor boys are dead and gone.”

  “Aw, shut yer mouth, wife,” the fishmonger said. “Who sez them boys are dead? ’Ave you seen the
bodies then?” And he laughed. “Aye, mistress, this mullet is a fine one. And ’cos you’re so pretty, I’ll give it to yer for a shilling.”

  “I’ll give you two groats and not a penny more,” Jane retorted, and the fishmonger relented and took the silver coins. “What else have you heard, goody,” she asked his wife after safely stowing the fish in her basket.

  “That Jack Howard saved London, mistress. Always did like ’im. My sister lives in Stepney and he gives generously in the parish,” the woman confided. “He’s now the duke of Norfolk, did you know?” she said, proud of her knowledge of those far above her.

  Jane pretended to be surprised but was wanting more pertinent information. “Is anyone else charged in this rebellion, have you heard?”

  The goodwife scratched her armpit, making Jane move a step away. “Well, wot I heard was them rebels want to put somebody called Tidder on the throne. I dunno who that is, but I don’t like his name. ’E beds down in France somewhere. Why should we want a Frenchie on the throne? Can’t abide ’em.”

  “I think they mean Henry Tudor, who is the countess of Richmond’s son,” Jane told her. She pulled the woman aside and asked, “Why do you think the princes are dead? Do you know someone in the Tower?”

  “Nah,” the fishwife said through her nose. “But ’tis said the king had them murdered.” She leaned forward, her eyes as big as the mullets in Kate’s basket. “Smothered them, they say, with ’is own ’ands.”

  “Nonsense!” Jane could not help snapping, although why she would defend Richard she did not pause to ponder. “The boys were seen playing after the king left on his progress. And he has not been back to London since. It must be he has sent them somewhere safe after that failed attempt to spirit them away from their apartments. Besides, why would the king want to murder his own nephews? They are bastards now and cannot inherit the throne.”

  The goodwife looked askance at Jane. “ ’Ere, who are yer then that yer know so much? Come to think of it, where’ve I seen yer afore?”

  “Why, I come here to buy fish every week, mistress,” Jane said airily. “I am just a Londoner like you.” And she nodded good-bye and sauntered back into Fish Street Hill.

  She wondered if Tom had joined the rebels, although she could not imagine why; she knew he and his mother looked on Henry Tudor as a threat not an ally. As she did not see any signs of Londoners concerned for their safety, she assumed the king was a long way from here dealing with the uprising.

  Jane was correct. The rebellion fizzled when the duke of Buckingham was caught on the wrong side of the River Severn, which was in flood and all its bridges sabotaged by the king’s commanders. Morton escaped first to sanctuary in his own cathedral of Ely and then to Flanders, while poor, duped Harry of Buckingham was discovered hiding in a barn a hundred miles from his disbanded army, disguised as one of his own soldiers. He was taken in chains to Salisbury, where he awaited King Richard’s justice.

  In the meantime, Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, his little fleet battered by storms and unable to arrive on English shores and unify the rebels in the Southwest, returned to France, unaware the rebellion he had instigated had already collapsed.

  Sophie stared at the proclamation nailed to the church door of St. Anthony’s in Watling Street on her way home from the Mercery. London had ceased to be worried about an attack by rebels; King Richard’s army had swiftly moved south from Coventry, and Londoners were certain Buckingham’s rebellion, as it was being called, would be quickly put down.

  The beginning of the document praised the pardons Richard had given the followers of the rebel leaders when they had first laid down their arms against him. But then the language of this second edict became less about treason and strangely, Sophie noted, about morality:

  His grace, in his own person, as is well known, has addressed himself to divers parties of his realm for the equal administration of justice to every person, having confidence and trust that all oppressors and extortioners of his subjects, horrible adulterers and bawds, provoking the high indignation of displeasure of God, should be reconciled and reduced to the way of truth and virtue . . .

  Sophie shook her head in disbelief, but then something caught her eye in the next paragraph and she skipped on:

  This not withstanding, Thomas, lately marquess of Dorset, who not fearing God nor the peril of his soul, has many and sundry maids, widows and wives damnably and without shame devoured, deflowered and defouled, holding the shameless and mischievous woman called Shore’s wife in adulteryII

  “In Godsnaam!” Sophie whispered. “Jane!” She peered closely at the cramped script, unsure of her new reading skills. Ja, there was her friend’s name, accused of adultery—again. Checking that no one was watching her, she tore the paper from the door, and ran back to the house, where she found Jane playing hide-and-seek with Pieter. Jane’s face was flushed from laughter as, with noisy excitement, Poppy gave away the little boy’s hiding place, and Sophie opined for the hundredth time how tragic it was Jane had not had children of her own.

  “Pieter, take Poppy in the garden, alstublieft—please, but keep her out of the midden today,” Sophie told her son, who obeyed happily, her tone immediately warning Jane that something was amiss.

  “What is it, Sophie?” she asked, glancing at the parchment Sophie was clutching.

  Sophie thrust the proclamation at her friend and sat down heavily on the bench. When Jane came to her own name, she gasped and turned pale. “What can this mean?” she cried. “I have not seen Tom since he left in September. Who even knew we were together?”

  “You mean others besides those in this house? Ach, niet, no one here vould betray you.”

  Jane nodded. “Certes, I know that. Nay, it must be one of the men who visited Tom that day I retrieved my treasure. Tom told me to stay away because he wanted no one to tell his mother or his wife he was with me. I forgot his command, and they saw me.” She sank down on the bench next to Sophie and read the rest of the document, which condemned the duke of Buckingham, the bishops of Ely and Salisbury—Tom’s brother, and other followers who were, according to Richard,

  intending not only the destruction of the royal person of our sovereign lord and his true subjects, breaching the peace, tranquility and common good of this realm, by abandoning virtue and the damnable and maintaining of vices and sin, as they have done in times past, to the great displeasure of God and as an evil example of all Christian people.

  Jane let out an unladylike whistle. “Did you read all of this, Sophie?” she asked. When Sophie shook her head, Jane read aloud the final paragraph, which told the whole world what Richard’s people could expect from its king.

  “Wherefore the king’s highness, of his tender and loving disposition that he has shown to the good of his realm, and putting down and rebuking of vices, he grants that no yeoman or commoner thus abused and blinded by these aforesaid traitors, adulterers and bawds . . .”III

  Jane paused to contemplate the extraordinary language used by this king in his mission to purify the realm. He was obsessed with men’s morals, she decided, and from reading this proclamation, it would seem Richard was more concerned with punishing adulterers and bawds than traitors. No wonder he had come looking for her.

  “Go on,” Sophie urged her quietly. “Is there more?”

  “Oh, forgive me. Aye, there is.

  “Those traitors and bawds shall not be hurt in their bodies nor goods if they remove themselves from their false company and meddle no further with them.”IV

  She looked up at her friend and saw the question in Sophie’s eyes. “You think I should give myself up to the authorities, confess that I lay in adultery with Thomas Dorset, and expect Richard to pardon me again? I think not.”

  “But, Jane . . .” She got no further as Ankarette came huffing through the door laden with food from the market.

  “Such a crowd at St. Paul’s today, mistresses,” she said, beaming at both of them. “But no one bargains better than Ankarette Tyler. E
ven one of the carters told those around me so.” She began taking the food out of the baskets and remembered the scene with a proud smile. “I told him my mistress taught me,” she boasted as Sophie and Jane helped stow the vegetables and bread. “ ‘And who might that be,’ the carter asked. ‘Why, Mistress Jane Shore,’ I proudly announced to all who would listen.”

  Jane and Sophie froze midtask, and Sophie was incredulous. “Ah, Ankarette. You told everyone you were Jane’s maidservant?”

  Mortified, poor Ankarette whimpered, “Did I do wrong? ’Tis no secret.” She looked miserably at Jane. “I am so—”

  She got no further as a furious thumping on the door made Sophie drop her cabbage and Jane break two eggs she had been trying to place carefully in a pail. Ankarette went to the door and opened it a crack. “Who is it who makes such a racket?” she demanded. She was roughly pushed aside by two men-at-arms, who thrust open the door and stepped over the threshold.

  “Mistress Shore?” one of them addressed Ankarette.

  Ankarette tried to hide her mistress behind her larger bulk, but Jane gently pulled her aside and answered the man. “I am Jane Shore. What do you want of me?” She was astonished how calm she sounded, for her legs felt limp.

  “You are to come with us to be charged on suspicion of harboring a traitor,” the man replied, looking around the simple house and wondering if they had the right woman. There was nowhere to hide a fugitive, he thought. And at that moment Pieter and a neighbor’s boy came charging into the house pretending to be knights with sticks for swords and followed by a barking Poppy.

  “Are these your children?” the man-at-arms shouted at Jane over the din. Sophie stepped forward and claimed them as hers.

  “Mistress Shore has been living with us for many veeks, sergeant,” Sophie volunteered. “You may search my house, but you vill find no hiding traitors. She is innocent.”