First of the Tudors

by Joanna Hickson

  After another moment’s hesitation Maredudd slipped around the table, went down on one knee and placed his hands between those of the new Earl of Pembroke.

  * * *

  Looking back I can see that this was the start of a subtle change in my own sense of duty and at the earliest opportunity I sought out Maredudd, anxious to gauge his true attitude towards Jasper. Shortly after pledging his new allegiance, he and Hywel had gone back to the sheepfold so it was not until near dusk that I spied him from the hall window, alone and bare-chested, standing over a pail by the dairy cistern. Knowing that he would once more be covered in sheep-grease, I took soap, rough linen rags and a jug of hot water from the hearth kettle and carried them down to him.

  He was appreciative but puzzled. ‘This is an unexpected kindness, sis,’ he said, immediately making use of all three items, scrubbing at his hands and arms. ‘Any particular reason?’

  I dragged a milking-stool from the dairy and sat down. Maredudd was nearing his eighteenth birthday and I noticed how muscular his torso had become since I had last seen him shirtless during the previous year’s sheep-walk. ‘I wondered how you felt now that you are Lord Jasper’s man,’ I replied. ‘What did our father say to you?’

  His teeth gleamed in the twilight. ‘Probably the same as you are about to say now.’

  ‘You do not know what I am going to say,’ I protested.

  ‘I can guess though. You are going to accuse me of disloyalty, of abandoning my blood ties.’

  I shrugged. ‘If that is what our father said I am not surprised, but it is not what I would say.’ Maredudd paused in his ablutions, one eyebrow raised in query. I continued, ‘I asked how you felt with your hands between Jasper’s while you made your oath of allegiance. Did you feel as if you were betraying your family?’

  ‘No, I did not because I regard him as family. His father and mine are of the same blood and becoming a squire in Jasper’s retinue is a means of improving my status. I do not want to remain a yeoman farmer all my life, as our father obviously does.’

  At this I detected a hint of scorn in his voice and I could not let it go unchallenged. ‘I think he regards himself as a gentleman farmer and sees a wider picture. As a boy he heard the stories of Glyn Dŵr’s rebellion and his own father’s struggle to rebuild his life and he blames the Lancastrian kings. Jasper is brother to a Lancastrian king.’

  ‘Half brother,’ Maredudd corrected me. ‘And the other half is Welsh and our blood relative. He straddles the two nations and so can I. Perhaps Lord Jasper is Y Mab Daragon as some bards sing. Perhaps he truly is the Son of Prophecy come to restore the pride of the Welsh nation. People are beginning to think so.’

  I had always seen something special in Jasper Tudor but it was not that. My reasons for favouring him were more personal, more heartfelt than lodged in legend, but I was not going to reveal my heart to my brother, who would only mock me for it. ‘Who are these people?’ I asked. ‘Ruffians and hotheads from the Abermaw taverns?’

  Maredudd shook his hands and drops of water flew in all directions, some of it sprinkling my face and cap. ‘There is a poet,’ he said defensively, grabbing a dry towel he had draped over the dairy door. ‘His name is Lewys Glyn Cothi and he is a farmer’s son like me but he has the bard’s gift of song. He is making a name for himself among the local gentry and I have let it be known that he would be welcome here.’

  ‘Really?’ Bards travelled the country singing and reciting legend, verse and polemic of varying literary, musical and political merit. We had never received a visit from one, Hywel being uninterested in such ‘riff-raff’ as he called them. ‘When will he come, do you know?’

  ‘As soon as he gets wind of Lord Jasper’s presence I should imagine,’ said Maredudd. ‘Bards like to sing for people with money and influence and at present they do not come any richer or more influential in Wales than the Earl of Pembroke.’ He aimed an entreating smile at me. ‘Be a good girl, Sian, and fetch my best blue doublet. I do not like to parade through the dairy half-dressed in front of Mair – it gets her far too excited. By the way, I hope the fact that you are loitering down here does not mean that supper will be late.’

  Incensed by this lordly attitude I picked up the pail of warm water, now containing only tepid dregs, and threw them at him, soaking his braies. He objected loudly and made fruitless efforts to dry himself off but I ignored him, declaring, ‘There will be no supper until our father and Lord Jasper have finished talking about money in the hall. But I will fetch your doublet, my lord Maredudd –’ I bobbed him a sarcastic curtsy ‘– if you fetch the cask of wine Jasper says his men unloaded earlier. It should be down at the stables somewhere. It seems Father wants to toast your departure!’

  In fact, Mair was no longer in the dairy but I could hear footsteps descending the steep stair from the hall so I dumped the pail in the stone sink and hurried to see who it was, hoping to encounter Jasper. Sure enough he was striding out of the farmhouse entrance as I scurried up behind him.

  ‘Lord Jasper, I was hoping to catch you.’

  He spun around, smiling. ‘Jane – never far away!’

  ‘You will stay here with us I hope – not ride off to Abermaw with your entourage.’

  ‘Your father has just invited me. He offered to vacate the solar in my favour but I said that a pallet on the byre floor would be perfectly adequate, as it was before.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said with relief. ‘That means I can sleep in the hall as usual. I will start supper directly. We have some little birds that Evan netted this morning.’

  ‘You are never at a loss, Jane, are you?’ he remarked, fixing me with his laughing blue eyes. ‘I think you could victual an army in a desert. If you were a man I believe I would make you Steward of Pembroke Castle.’

  I felt my knees become suddenly unreliable and clutched at the doorpost for support, inwardly ordering my wayward female instincts to behave. This charming, snake-hipped, copper-topped cousin might once have been within my reach but now that he was a belted earl he had soared way above it. I might look and I might yearn but I told myself sternly that I had to keep my feelings under control, like the household I ran so proudly.

  I managed a balanced curtsy and a modest bow of the head. ‘And I would gladly serve you, my lord,’ I said.

  7

  Jasper

  Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire; Dinefŵr Castle, South Wales

  WE HAD BEEN TAKING a break at Clarendon Hunting Lodge during another royal progress when the sickness came on. The king had enjoyed a good day’s sport: he was weary but cheerful after a strenuous day in the saddle. Queen Marguerite was close to giving birth, an event Henry awaited with joyous trepidation. The child must have been conceived, I secretly congratulated myself, within weeks of our hippocras-fuelled Christmas tête à tête. But Henry’s contentment on that evening in Wiltshire was to be short-lived. An urgent letter was brought for his immediate attention just before supper was due. I noticed that as he perused the letter his body seemed to shrink within his doublet, his face drained of colour and his eyes grew wide, the lids blinking frantically as if his mind could not comprehend the contents of the page. I rushed forward to catch him as his knees buckled, the letter falling to the floor …

  My first thought was that the queen had suffered a stillbirth but as I frantically loosened the neck of Henry’s chemise I was vaguely aware that someone had snatched up the letter and was muttering details from it. ‘Disastrous defeat in Gascony … army routed … Shrewsbury killed. Jesu save us – France is lost!’

  Terrible news indeed – the room erupted around me – but my chief concern was Henry’s extreme reaction to it and for several heart-stopping moments I feared he was dead. I searched desperately for signs of life. ‘Send for the Physician!’ I yelled over the confusion, patting my brother’s chalk-white cheeks and putting my fingers under his nose to check for breathing. Bending closer, I detected a sigh of air escaping from his nostrils and began to breathe more steadily myse
lf. Whatever fit or apoplexy the king had suffered he was not dead, it was his sovereignty over France that had suffered a fatal blow.

  England’s defeat by French forces outside a town called Castillion added the loss of Aquitaine to that of Normandy, Maine and Anjou, and with it the city of Bordeaux and the all-important wine trade. The dreadful realization of the almost total loss of his father’s glorious French legacy seemed to have robbed Henry of his wits; somehow his mind had become frozen and refused to function. His doctors over the coming days were utterly perplexed, unable to offer any remedy except for the usual cuppings and bleedings, which achieved little other than to render him more feeble and listless. He ate and drank if nourishment was put before him but was otherwise unresponsive and had to be guided from room to room, apparently unaware of where he was or who was with him. After extensive discussion within the Royal Household, we took him in a closed carriage to the security of Windsor Castle, where I left him in the care of two long-standing and faithful servants and hurried to Westminster to call an emergency meeting of the Privy Council in the king’s name.

  I could have done with Edmund’s support at this time but he had taken himself off and left no word as to where he had gone and so I was alone in attempting to arbitrate between the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of York, who exploited the absence of the king and all the force of their superior age and rank to pursue their private war. Somerset insisted on keeping to the king’s policy of peace at all costs whereas Richard of York, a soldier as much as a diplomat, had always favoured pursuing an aggressive military policy, admittedly with an impressive past record of success, which fed his lip-curling disdain for Somerset, whom he held entirely responsible for England’s ignominious loss of France. York’s habit in Council was to bully his way through an argument, whereas Edmund of Somerset had been accustomed to gentlemanly debate, relying on his close relationship with the king to drive his point of view. With the king indisposed and the queen in confinement awaiting the birth of her child he floundered under the lashing of York’s scathing tongue. I found it impossible to mediate in a poisonous debate that triggered bitter exchanges and further widened a rift between the two dukes that seemed likely never to be closed.

  As the meeting disintegrated and York departed in red-faced fury, his parting words to me were delivered with unwarranted spite. ‘Well, you tried, young Pembroke, but you would do better watching your own back. While you played nursemaid to your witless half-brother, your full flesh and blood was plotting to cut you out. Next time you see Richmond, ask him where he has been. I guarantee you will not like the answer.’

  Later that day I was still seething over the sneering laugh that had punctuated York’s parting jibe, when my brother Edmund burst into the Westminster Palace armoury where Maredudd was helping me into the old hauberk I wore for my daily arms practice. ‘Ah, here you are, Jas! God’s greetings, brother. You may offer your congratulations to a married man – well, as good as married anyway.’

  My already low spirits plummeted further and I stared at him, speechless. He cackled – there is no other word for it. ‘Ha ha! Do not tell me you still harboured hopes for Margaret yourself? She was always meant for the eldest you know. We make the perfect combination – I am handsome and royal and she is rich and willing. Well, why wouldn’t she be? Willing, I mean.’ He spread his arms wide to display his undeniable charms.

  ‘Perhaps because she has good taste.’ My voice grated from my constricted throat. Edmund was right. I had harboured high hopes for Margaret, had even broached the subject again with Henry before his malady took hold but he had given no hint that he had already granted the marriage to Edmund.

  My brother shrugged. ‘I will allow your sour grapes because I understand that you are a bad loser but there will be another rich bride for you, Jas.’

  I raged inwardly. As if riches were the only reason for coveting Margaret! At this juncture my thoughts were of a murderous intent.

  ‘How about Elizabeth of York?’ he added. ‘You can be sure that her father will endow her well. Or the Earl of Warwick’s little sister, Katherine? There are plenty more like Margaret Beaufort.’

  I had turned away, hiding my dejection in the rattle of chainmail as Maredudd hauled the hauberk over my head. Edmund was wrong; the delicate and graceful Margaret Beaufort could not be outshone in my estimation and definitely not by a daughter of York. In hindsight, I had put Margaret on a pedestal and allowed myself to see her as my perfect honoured lady and me as her gentle knight. I had been captivated by her elfin charm and her engaging manner but I think I can truthfully state that my thoughts had been entirely chaste. She was too young to be the subject of lustful urges but pure fascination has an equally strong pull and in Margaret’s case I doubted if I would ever be entirely free of it.

  After my mauling at the Royal Council and Edmund’s devastating betrothal my instinct was to get away. It was a long ride to Pembroke, across half of England and the widest part of Wales but I took with me only a small troop of mounted retainers. I wanted nothing like the long column of guards and courtiers, cooks, clerks and house-carls, such as accompanied the king on his interminable progresses. Long-suffering Henry bore the tedium of these cavalcades with saintly forbearance but I insisted that my tight-knit retinue covered at least thirty-five miles a day and preferably forty, depending on the terrain and the weather conditions. However, having crossed the Severn by ferry below Chepstow, we rested two nights at my nearby castle of Caldicot so that I could meet the constable and inspect its demesne and defences.

  Caldicot manor had been part of our mother’s dower lands so King Henry had thought it fitting to add it to my lordships, but until this visit I had not realized what superb hunting was offered by its extensive parkland and made a mental note to come back at a convenient time and take advantage of it. On the other hand the castle itself was a disappointment. It had been built to monitor the river traffic on the lower Severn and to enforce Norman rule in the area and as such it was a very basic fortification consisting of a moated curtain wall around a large bailey, a ramshackle old keep, a gatehouse and a random trio of defensive towers, all of which were in a state of neglect. I deduced that it could probably just about withstand a siege and provide a refuge for local farmers and their stock but its domestic arrangements offered little comfort for any noble companions I might wish to invite for the excellent hunting and wildfowling. I resolved to have plans drawn up for improvements.

  From Caldicot we took the high route through the Black Mountains, avoiding Glamorgan in the southernmost part of Wales, where I knew trouble was brewing. The pugnacious Earl of Warwick was in violent conflict with one of his Lancastrian cousins over the lordship of Abergavenny and was also disputing possession of Cardiff Castle with the Duke of Somerset. I had already learned at court that where Warwick disputed mastery it was best not to venture, unless you had a troop of lawyers at your side and an army at your back. Moreover there was a convenient string of lordships and manors belonging to Welsh gentry located in the green rolling hills further north, where comfortable accommodation might be obtained and useful connections made. I was eager to introduce myself as the new Earl of Pembroke and to seek their counsel and advice.

  As it transpired, although the servants in each house we visited hosted us generously, only one of the landholders was in residence, but my meeting with Gruffydd ap Nicholas at Dinefŵr Castle was a fruitful and fortuitous one. When I was at Tŷ Cerrig, Hywel had described this powerful clan leader as a warmongering old rascal with questionable morals and no respect for authority and I found this to be true in many respects; he was ageing and boisterous, with a bald pate, a grizzled beard and a loud voice. However, even on this first brief encounter we somehow established a rapport that made nothing of the forty-year difference in our ages and the fact that his English was badly mauled by the loss of his front teeth in a skirmish. My foolish attempt at Welsh almost prompted an apoplexy on his part but after a few false starts I managed to get the h
ang of his lisping English.

  ‘I have sons of about your age, Lord Jasper,’ he told me jovially. ‘Thomas and Owain, and there is never a cross word between us – as long as they do exactly as I tell them!’ His laugh was like the crackling of a log fire, cheerful and warming, but the steely glint in his grey eyes revealed his iron will. I was to learn that arguing was the sport he and his sons relished most and quickly came to the conclusion that I would prefer to stand beside him rather than confront him on a battlefield.

  ‘I have heard that you are a patron of the arts,’ I remarked early in our meeting, ‘and that you hold festivals here at Dinefŵr.’

  I had found his favourite subject. ‘Yes indeed, in the spring we held an eisteddfod; at least that is what the bards called it. There was singing and music and poetry; performers came from all over Wales. It lasted two weeks and they ate and drank me out of all supplies, but it was worth it for the entertainment and the comradeship. They held a competition to see who could deliver the best praise poem and there was even one to you, Jasper Tudor!’ His laugh boomed out again. ‘It was soon after you had been made Earl of Pembroke and I suppose the bard thought it topical. It was not strictly a praise poem but then he knew next to nothing about you – ha, ha!’