He pulled away from her a little. It was the first thing she had said which did not please him. ‘If you knew my brother the King, you would understand.’
‘I understand more from knowing you. I shall also pray that after you and your brother succeed in this adventure, the path of your life will not be as rough as I fear it might — you see, I said I know you a little.’
‘Then it will only be running true to previous form,’ he said sharply, uneasily aware that she thought she comprehended something he did not.
She sighed. ‘Perhaps.’
*
A few days later, Richard went on board a ship tossing in the harbour of the port of Vlissingen. He was back where he had first landed, on the island of Walcheren, in whose harbours a fleet of ships — thirty-six of them — was assembled to take King Edward back to England. March had scarcely left February behind. The bitter wind bounced and bowled over the curdled waters of the North Sea and made his clothes feel as flimsy as the cloth round a cheese, though he wore a lambskin coat with the fleece inwards.
The wind blew coldly and implacably against them, and for nine days it did not change. They could not go back on shore, for the ships were anchored too far out. Nine days seemed such a long time to be wasted in such a horrible predicament. He wondered what Bruges had been like at carnival time, having heard so many stories of what happened during this sort of revelry. In England Shrovetide was rather more sober; running with pancakes scarcely compared with the drunken orgy of mardi gras. Perhaps Thonine had taken a new lover. He was not sure of how she would be when he was not there, or even of how she had been before. She did not speak of any previous affairs. Not that it made any difference; he would never see her again, and he was in no position to give much thought to women now.
It had taken several days to stow aboard all the equipment, horses and men. Richard had on his ship 197 archers and men-at-arms and handgunners besides the crew and two boys, all more or less piled on top of one another like whitebait in a net. When he went below, there were wagons with boxes and bundles and baskets stuffed under, round and over them, barrels of arrow staves piled high — once he found himself eye to eye with chickens poking their necks out of a basket coop perched up on top of harness and armour and tubs of pickled fish belonging to the Hanse men. The men were stowed in hammocks with their feet in each other’s ears, and the stink was worse than the lion pit at the Tower. Worst of all, the 200 odd persons on the ship spoke between them at least half a dozen different languages, and tended to be quarrelsome.
Any crossing of the North Sea in late February was certain to be miserable, but nine days of monotonous heaving and rolling on the sea without getting anywhere at all did no good to the morale of the invading force, or the condition of its stomachs and bowels. Richard found himself no better a sailor than before, and shivered on deck within easy reach of the side, praying desperately that each successive dawn might bring a change of wind, listening to retching and grousing and groaning in various Dutch and German tongues. It went on from Sunday to Sunday, and they did not know whether Margaret of Anjou had been able to reach England from France and to build up a powerful resistance to their own little invasion force. Their only hope was that the Lancastrians suffered the same adverse weather, and were equally powerless to move.
9
Le Temps Perdu
March 1471
Also scripture saith, ‘woo be to that Regyon
Where ys a kyng unwyse or Innocent.’
Moreovyr it ys Right a gret abusion,
A womman of a land to be a Regent —
Qwene Margrete I mene, that ever hath ment
To governe all Engeland with myght and poure,
And to destroye the Ryght lyne was her entent,
Wherfore sche hath a fal, to her gret langour.
A Political Retrospect (c. 1462)
9
On the night of the second Sunday in Lent there was a frost, It made ice on the ship’s deck, and the sailors cut their hands on the rigging. When Richard came up at dawn, he found that they were not tossing about as much as they had during the last nine days, but he was warned that it was like glass underfoot and as easy to go overboard as winking an eye.
The captain said, ‘Wind’s changed. Due east. Should make way in half an hour, if your Grace is agreeable.’
Agreeable! The last person capable of making the decision to sail or not was himself, or for that matter his brother the King.
‘Master Lister, when you think fit.’
The captain nodded. ‘Got to move fast,’ he said. ‘Take our chance.’
On all the ships anchored near, men were at the same tasks, shouting and clambering in the frost-stiff rigging. The bare masts blossomed with sails, and the noise of wind in the canvas grew louder; it groaned and roared like lions with bellyache, flapping and straining. The anchor chains came up with a rattle, and King Edward’s fleet sailed for England.
The crossing was swift and easy, with the east wind chasing them, and by Tuesday evening they stood off the coast of Norfolk. It was a deceptively clear evening. The sinking sun danced on a sea sparkling like mackerel scales. The little fishing town on the cliffs looked only a stone’s throw distant, the boats drawn up against the jetty at the cliff foot. The captain said it was Cromer. The great lord hereabouts was John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, King Edward’s kinsman.
A boat was lowered from King Edward’s ship, and a party went ashore. It was dark when they came back, and they rowed to where King Edward waited for news, then to Rivers’ ship and then to Richard’s. Richard leaned over the side to shout down to them. Their boat was heaving and pitching under the tall wall of his ship, the sailors using rope fenders, lanterns swinging light across the grim faces of the landing party.
Sir Gilbert Debenham, who was a local man himself, and had been recognized on shore, said the Duke of Norfolk was in London, in custody; Lord Howard was in sanctuary at Colchester, and the county in the hands of the enemy. The Earl of Oxford and his two brothers had a firm grip on the east of England — it was alive with their men. To land here would mean certain disaster. The King had given orders to sail north and to try the Yorkshire coast, in the hope that Percy of Northumberland would be open to negotiations.
This meant things were about as bad as they could be. The captain of Richard’s ship, who was a Norfolk man, did not like the change of plan, and obeyed his orders to an accompaniment of protesting grunts, much hawking and spitting and glowering. The wind was freshening all the time from the east and the ship bucked like a wild colt. Richard, who clung to the side trying to stop himself shivering in case the crew thought he was afraid — which he was — hoped they knew their seamanship and were going to obey orders. If they did not, he was beginning to feel too ill to exert over them his authority and his ignorance of the sea.
Across the mouth of the Wash, the seas became rougher, and by the time the battered, straggling fleet was battling through the night up the coast of Lincolnshire, they had become monstrous. Richard, clutching the Agnus Dei which hung round his neck, huddled on deck and shut his eyes. If he were going to drown, he did not want to see the waves coming. Some of them were sluicing down over his head as it was. Most of the lanterns had gone out. He dreaded what must be going on below, but there was no point in looking, there was nothing he could do to help the suffering men and horses. The storm went on and on. Someone yelled at him that one of their ships had sunk, capsized and been swallowed by the sea. It had been full of horses, and a score of grooms and crew.
Land, when it came in sight in the murky afternoon, proved that they had by God’s guidance kept on course. There were far worse places than the long flat beach of Holderness to run aground. With the wind still whistling out of the east they would be driven ashore. The captain prayed fervently to Our Lady that the bottom would not be torn out of his ship, nor lives be lost.
The getting ashore from a grounded vessel was a hazardous operation. Boats were useless, but luckily
as the tide ran out the water was shallow enough for wading. Richard thought it his duty to go down over the side first. His fingers were so numb it was difficult to grasp the rope ladder, and at the end of it he found his shortness yet again a disadvantage and the sea came up to his neck and he had to swim. In the end he got ashore on foot and he heard a few feeble cheers as he knelt on the pebbly beach, others struggling up beside him. They probably thought he was praying, but the simple truth was that his knees had given way, before prayers for his deliverance entered his head. But now he was back in England he could not die of the effects of seasickness and icy water. There was too much to be done.
He did what he had to do all through the evening and into the dark of night. It meant going back into the sea half a dozen times, every hand being needed to help men and horses ashore. The horses, poor beasts, were lowered from the ship into the sea, splashing wildly, out of control of the men who tried to hang on to their halters. Everyone, including Richard, was kicked more than once; someone broke an arm.
At the end, when they thought that everything was ashore, some of the German handgunners came jabbering to Richard in their own language and someone had to translate for him into French. ‘Les saucissons!’ they yelled — and it seemed their tubs of sausages had been left on board. If they were willing to risk the sea again to save their sausages, Richard told them to get on with it. Most of the cheeses had been saved, and not much the worse for it, the salt beef had not suffered either, but the bread and biscuits had turned to soup. Every man ate what he could lay his hands on.
Once again Richard found himself driven onto inhospitable shores without knowing what had become of his brother. King Edward’s ships might have gone aground elsewhere along the Holderness shore, or been driven into the Humber river. If Richard had allowed himself to imagine that it had been lost, he would not have wanted to endure the night. But endure it he had to, crouching behind an almost useless windbreak of barrels, trying to make his sea-sodden brain decide what was best to do.
*
‘Madam, you will hinder your own cause if you do not return to England immediately. I have been here a week already. My lord of Warwick must be waiting at Dover now to receive us. I beg you to reconsider.’
Sir John Langstrother’s hornlike and bristly eyebrows had set into a position expressing all his anxiety, bottled-up exasperation and perplexed deference to his Queen’s wishes. His complexion, weathered by a lifetime of service with the Knights Hospitallers of St John in the sunny islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, was the colour and texture of well-used cowhide; sweat had begun to film it like oil. He could neither understand, nor condone Margaret of Anjou’s refusal to budge from France, when her presence was so urgently needed in England.
‘My lord Prior, you have heard what the Bishop of Bayeux has had to say about affairs in England. I cannot be certain yet of my son’s safety.’ Always the same answer; Margaret’s will in matters regarding her son was adamantine. She sat in the small room of the narrow house in Honfleur like a lioness guarding the mouth of her lair. But she, who had been so fierce, was now afraid. Now the moment for action had come, she could not bear to take her precious son to an England uneasy in the hands of Warwick. Mistrust and fear had robbed her of her will.
Langstrother, driven by fears of Warwick’s reaction to his failure to move the Queen, continued his efforts. He owed this much to the Earl, who had more or less forced the usurper Edward to accept his election as Grand Prior of his Order in England.
‘But madam, the mere presence of the Prince in England will rally our supporters and make our victory more certain. We must employ all our resources against the usurper Edward; he has only the one chance to invade England. He will risk all, and we must summon all our power to destroy him.’ Langstrother had long experience of land and sea warfare in the east, and had expected the Queen, who had played the soldier often enough, to have more grasp of strategy.
‘Yes, yes, of course you are right. We’ll allow just a few more days, until we have more news of Edward of March.’
A few more days! Sir John Langstrother eased his collar, which had begun to stick to his neck. Even now, Warwick would be glaring out from the cliffs of Dover, seeing no ships in the Channel bearing the Prince and his mother, and wondering if he dared to be absent from London for another day.
The Queen’s procrastination brought about nothing but violent disagreement with her son. Now that he was in his eighteenth year, the Prince did not accept meekly the rule of a woman. He loved his mother, but this did not stop him from arguing, or her from obstinately holding to her own views.
‘Madame, maman, our ships are waiting in harbour. We will be protected on the sea…’
‘England is the dangerous place. And the weather is bad.’
‘Am I to be kept from danger all my life? Do you expect La Manche to be a millpond in February? You treat me as if I were a child!’
‘I treat you as something precious, the heir of England. Your father is still living. You are not King yet, neither will you be Regent until you are of age.’
‘I am seventeen! Old enough to fight…’
‘Never! As long as my voice is heard, you will not fight in battles. You are in the same position as a king. Never risk your life fighting, it would be doing your subjects a disservice.’
‘But a king who is afraid to lead his own men in the field is always thought a weakling. You should know that, madame!’
‘There is a great deal of difference between sharing the rigours of the field with your army and risking your life in the mêlée. By all means do the first, but…’
‘But my grandfather King Harry fought! So did King Louis at Montlhéry — and I’ve spoken to men in our service who saw Edward of March fight when he was much younger than I am, and meet no match!’
‘Edward of March was an overgrown giant at fourteen, and a bloodthirsty young villain, too. Edouard, these are no arguments. I have not lived hunted and penniless for years to keep you from our enemies only to see you lose everything now through your own folly.’
‘If I agree to skulk at the back in the battle, will you order our ships to sail now?’ the Prince said, deliberately, knowing it rude to bargain with his mother like a huckster.
‘Non, non, non…non…!’ The language of their intimacy was always French, and seemed to lend volume and velocity to their speech. The Queen was becoming strident. She was beginning for the first time to doubt her command of her son, and of her own situation.
‘You keep me from my wife!’ He hurled this irrelevant accusation at her.
‘If you had a wife more suitable for you in family, I would willingly bless your union. But you have no desire for her, I know that. You use this to bait me. Edouard, I only try to make you do what is wisest.’
‘We must go to England!’
‘So we will, when I say so.’
The Queen did not say so, and the wrangling went on for a fortnight. The strain of being at odds with her son told on her more than any of her previous troubles. Anne, when obliged to wait upon her, noticed that her skin looked as if it had the winter megrims, with taut dry lines round the eyes and colourless, as if shrouded in cobwebs. Her hair, which for a woman of forty had been a pretty auburn fair colour, was streaking rapidly with grey.
The Prince, unable to get his way, retaliated by seeking the company of Sir John Langstrother, and making plans for the eventuality of his return to England. He was fretting like a high mettled horse to be at war. After he had beaten Edward of March in battle, he would lead an army against the Duke of Burgundy, and with King Louis as ally, would conquer the arrogant Duke and divide his possessions for the benefit of both England and France. After that, a crusade — maybe he would be able to make his ageing grandfather René of Anjou truly King of Jerusalem. Langstrother, regretfully knowing anything but a defensive campaign against the Turks to be the perennial dream of Christendom, smiled. To the Prince he was a fascinating figure, with his monkish Prior’s hab
it and burly military bearing. He had a Greek servant, who wore gold earrings and looked as if he had come off a Venice galley with an ape on his shoulder. The Prince dreamed of adventure beyond the sea; he had known little but penurious exile in France. Sir John was impressed by his enthusiasm for what lay ahead; the handsome, eager young man’s return to England would be the best thing that had ever happened to his father. Little good had happened to poor King Henry. Edward of March had outgrown his early promise, for which some had welcomed him to the throne. The Prince would have the same advantage of youth and vitality. That he had been born on the feast of St Edward the Confessor perhaps made him special; in him lay the hope of England’s succession.
In order to further flout his mother, the Prince kept trying to be seen in the company of his wife. The last thing Anne wanted to do was anger the Queen, so she hid in her rooms as much as possible. Not that she did not want to talk to her husband, but she became so tongue-tied in public when he approached her. Several times when they were walking from Mass, he tried to position himself at her side.
‘Sir John Langstrother says that if we don’t embark by the feast of the Annunciation, he will pack up and go back to England alone. I am needed in England. My father is not good at fighting. Have you ever talked to Edward of March?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he try to — well — touch you?’
‘No!’
‘I thought he did that to every woman. What’s he like? I can’t remember him, except that he’s very tall.’
To this Anne had no adequate answer. ‘He’s very tall.’
‘I am told he has never lost a battle. I want to make sure he loses his next one. I wish I could kill him myself, in hand-to-hand combat. All three York brothers must die, or we will have achieved nothing.’
‘But…’
‘Clarence is not with them? Well, I think he will be soon. I could see he was chafing against your father’s rule. I’d sooner not have him as an ally, he causes trouble wherever he goes. What about the other one, Gloucester?’
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