First of the Tudors

by Joanna Hickson

  ‘Blessed Marie! How old were you then?’

  ‘Seventeen. I was old enough and my husband much older but he was kind and did not work me too hard on his farm. He did not even mind that I did not conceive. He already had several sons – but unfortunately the eldest took a fancy to me. When my husband learned this they had a fight and the son hit his father on the head with a spade.’ She heard my gasp of horror and a bitter smile crossed her face. ‘I do not think he meant to kill him but he was drunk and did not know his own strength. It is wild country there, Jane. Then the son dragged me into his bed. He would marry me he said, but I knew it was against the law and besides I hated him. So I slipped a sleeping draught into his ale and ran away.’

  The Market Place was too busy for this kind of conversation but near the church we found a quiet corner and I asked her to continue her sad story. ‘Where did you go? How did you live?’

  ‘I ran to Denbigh, to an apothecary there who had bought some of my mother’s cures. He and his wife took me in, but I had to let them use some of the recipes. My mother would have been furious. Sometimes I think she haunts me because of it.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘She said they were more precious than her children. I was the only one who knew them and I have betrayed her.’ I could see tears in Myfanwy’s eyes.

  ‘How long did you stay with the apothecary?’ I asked.

  ‘Almost a year. Owen came to the shop for a cure and – well, at first I kept him at arm’s length but he was persistent. Being Parker of Forests for Denbigh he knew about my husband’s death. He told me that my stepson had claimed I murdered him and ran away. Then I saw my stepson in the street one day and I panicked, thinking he might set the sheriff’s sergeants on me if he found me and that they would never believe a woman over a man. There were no other witnesses to my husband’s death you see. The next time Owen came I accepted his invitation to live with him. I thought he would protect me.’

  I laughed at that. ‘The way he puts it you practically threw yourself at him, the rogue.’

  She did not laugh with me. ‘I probably did. I was terrified of my stepson. He is not a kind man like his father was – like Owen is.’ Then she did give a little laugh. ‘Or perhaps I just prefer older men.’ She patted her rounded belly. ‘And this one has given me a child. Will our babes be born at the same time, Jane?’

  I nodded. ‘Not far apart I think – before spring anyway. Will you still be here at Pembroke?’

  ‘I hope so. I feel safe here but I will go wherever Owen goes.’ Her near-black eyes lit with a fervent glow. ‘I owe him that much at least.’

  * * *

  Our babies were born within a month of one another. I think I was lucky, or else I come from sturdy farming stock, because I was scarcely aware of my pregnancy until after Christmas and suffered only a short labour, delivering my baby girl in early February without any long struggle or lying-in. Jasper defied all the midwife’s protests about men in the birthing chamber and came to my bedside almost immediately afterwards.

  ‘She is beautiful,’ he declared, cradling his swaddled daughter and gazing into her blurry blue eyes. ‘And you were so stoical, Jane, barely a moan I am told. Such a different experience from poor Margaret’s.’

  ‘Lady Margaret was thirteen and I am twenty-one,’ I pointed out. ‘She was amazingly brave but also very tiny. Harri is lucky to be alive.’

  ‘And lucky to have you to mother him – as is this one. What shall we call her?’

  ‘I should like to call her Elin but the English would call her Helen,’ I said.

  Without a marriage contract he had no legal say in what name I chose. He shot me a sharp glance, aware that his persistence in calling me Jane rather than Sian still rankled. He repeated the name. ‘Elin. What do you think, little girl?’ he held the baby up to face him, supporting her swathed head in his large, calloused hand. She blinked once or twice and then fell asleep. ‘She appears unconcerned. So Elin it is.’

  ‘Elin means bright and shining,’ I told him. ‘I thought it appropriate. You cannot see it for the swaddling but she has red hair.’

  Jasper smiled at that. ‘She is definitely mine then,’ he said.

  ‘Myfanwy has agreed to be a godmother.’ I glanced across the chamber to where Owen’s mistress was still clearing up after the delivery. ‘Also Edith, if she can get here for the baptism. Who would you like as godfather?’

  He frowned, considering carefully. ‘I would say my father but he may not be here to guide her as she becomes an adult. So Geoffrey I think if Edith is godmother. I will send to Haverford immediately. As long as the winds remain calm they should be able to cross the haven.’

  ‘Well, Elin is a healthy little thing. I think we can wait a day or so,’ I said. ‘But not too long or Myfanwy will be giving birth herself.’

  I was up and churched before Myfanwy retired to the same chamber but she, poor thing, laboured long and hard to bring her lusty baby boy into the world. I held her hand and felt my fingers crushed painfully together as she struggled not to cry out in her pain. ‘Just scream,’ I advised. ‘No one will hear you and if they do, it is too bad.’ But she would not and I believed her ordeal was made worse because of it.

  She had prepared her own concoctions to drink and rub on her swollen belly and I burnt willow wands around her bed as she asked me to but her pains remained intense. I feared it might be a grim augury when, on the second night, a gibbous moon rose high in a black, starless sky, while the midwife struggled in vain to turn a babe that seemed determined to arrive feet first. Eventually however, with a single, blood-curdling scream, Myfanwy finally managed to deliver her son, helped by the midwife’s desperate tugs on the child’s legs. As the Church allowed, if there was a danger of the baby dying unshriven, the midwife hurriedly baptized him Dafydd after the patron saint of Wales, whose Feast Day it was and perhaps it was St Dewi who miraculously blew breath into the infant’s lungs, for he took a huge gasp and turned from blue to bright pink in seconds. Myfanwy’s wounds were sewn up with the midwife’s special needle and silken thread but I would swear it was her mother’s herbal wash, used in profusion, which prevented her torn body from developing a fever.

  If Jasper had built his mansion to house his family in comfort he had certainly achieved his aim. Three young relatives now filled the nursery with their cries and gurgles – his daughter, his half-brother and his two-year-old nephew. In blood, if not legitimacy, the Tudors were flourishing.

  PART THREE

  Hostilities

  1459–1461

  23

  Jasper

  Pembroke & the northern Welsh March

  IN ORDER TO CONFRONT the rebellious Yorkists, Queen Marguerite had imported a new form of recruitment from France called conscription, which enlisted by compulsion rather than allegiance. Across the realm fields remained uncut as every town and village was required, rather than requested, to supply its quota of fighting men in support of the crown. Sending funds in lieu was no longer acceptable. The system was unpopular and many communities failed to comply, while some expressed their displeasure at the queen’s assumption of royal power in her son’s name by sending their troops to support the Duke of York instead.

  York’s declared intention was to muster enough men under his white rose banner to pressure the king into addressing their grievances, but unfortunately there had been a clash of arms between the opposing affinities at a place called Blore Heath in the Midlands, in which the royal commander, Lord Audley, had been killed. Determined to quash what she now deemed an armed rebellion, Queen Marguerite had convinced the Council to issue a charge of treason against the Yorkists and send out further commissions of array. In addition to my Welsh force, which we had delayed mustering until after the fields had been scythed, royal armies were gathering in the Midlands, the South West and Cheshire. The kingdom was shuddering under the tramp of marching feet.

  Jane came with an anxious question as Maredudd helped me into
my armour. ‘If you are injured or killed, what should I do? I can take care of Elin but who is responsible for Harri?’

  I shrugged my shoulders into the polished links of my new lightweight mail coat and shook my arms so that the sleeves fell to my wrists. I expected to be wearing it under my armour almost constantly over the next few weeks so it needed to be comfortable. ‘Geoffrey Pole has instructions regarding all the children,’ I told her. ‘He is my executor. I rely on you to keep Lady Margaret informed about Harri as usual but ultimately his future will be decided by the king.’

  ‘So if you do not return I should take him to the king?’

  ‘No, Jane,’ I replied. ‘If I am killed or injured the king will be told and he will liaise with Lady Margaret. Who knows what the future holds?’

  ‘Exactly. Supposing no one tells me anything? I may not even know you are dead.’

  ‘I would tell you, sis,’ Maredudd interjected, looking up from buckling my greaves. ‘Earls are not killed in battle without anyone knowing.’

  ‘And if I am killed I hope you might grieve for me a little and pray for my soul, if you can find the time,’ I added.

  Her responding smile was rather forced. ‘Of course you may both be killed but I would rather pray for your safety and survival, if that is all right with you.’ There was a pause then she added as an afterthought, ‘Please try very hard to come back to me, Jasper, if only to acknowledge your next child.’

  ‘You are pregnant, Jane?’ I exclaimed. ‘How far on?’

  ‘It is early days. This one should be born next spring, but as you said, who knows what the future holds?’

  Jane’s words lingered in my mind as I led my Welsh army north. My fears had been justified; the country threatened to disintegrate into the worst kind of civil conflict, with brother fighting brother and cousin, cousin. Fathers might even find themselves confronting their sons on the battlefield. I had received orders under the king’s seal to take my force to the Duke of Buckingham’s castle at Brecon, collect the troops already gathered there from among his tenants, and continue over the mountains to follow the River Wye to Hereford, a route that would largely avoid Herbert territory and the chance of a premature clash with York. Once there we learned that the Earl of Warwick had brought a large troop of crack soldiers across the Channel from Calais and marched through England to join the Duke of York at Ludlow.

  We merged with the main royal army at Ludford Bridge, a location confronting the Duke of York’s vast castle, which bristled with guns and archers and fluttered with the banners of the participating rebel lords – York’s falcon and fetterlock, Salisbury’s green spreadeagle and Warwick’s bear with ragged staff. We could glean little notion of their strength, but our twenty thousand-strong royal force occupied a host of tents under a forest of multi-coloured battle standards and hoisted high above them all were the royal leopards and lilies, flying beside the king’s gold-fringed personal symbol of an antelope. There was no mistaking the presence of the monarch in these Lancastrian lines. It would be treason for any of Henry’s subjects to attack.

  I found him in his silk-lined tent, seated in state at the head of a polished oak table conferring with his commanders. ‘This is a sorry situation, Jasper,’ he said dolefully in welcome.

  How I wished his squires would call in his armourer because, as usual, he looked swamped by his mail-shirt. However, he appeared a good deal more alert than he had at our last meeting, conscious of the tension among his companions and the knife-edge on which his kingdom was poised.

  I knelt to kiss his hand and he motioned me to rise and take a seat beside him. From his distracted expression, encouragement was badly needed. ‘Your army looks in good heart, my liege,’ I said. ‘And your commanders have the duke successfully pinned down. I would call it a satisfactory situation.’

  ‘That is what I keep telling his grace.’ The grey-bearded Duke of Buckingham, Constable of England, was seated at the king’s other hand, wearing his cuirass, mud-splashed as if fresh from the field. ‘The Yorkists are holed up like the rats they are. We have them trapped. They have been dodging about all over the country avoiding us and now they have to come out and fight.’

  ‘That is exactly the problem, Humphrey,’ complained the king. ‘York, Salisbury and Warwick are all my cousins. I do not wish to fight my own kinsmen and subjects. I want my realm to be at peace. I will offer them one more chance to come and swear allegiance and be pardoned.’

  Buckingham’s face suffused but he nevertheless spoke in a measured tone. ‘Cousin he may be – albeit a distant one – but you cannot pardon Salisbury, my liege. He has already committed treason by crossing swords with a royal army and killing your commander Lord Audley. And there can be no denying that York and Warwick have raised their standards against their king. That is surely rebellion, which requires more punishment than a kiss on the cheek and a smack on the purse.’

  ‘Yet I will offer York and Warwick pardon,’ Henry insisted, ‘and any of their captains who offer me allegiance, except Salisbury if you insist. Of course they will have to pay hefty fines in land and coin for their rebellion, which will please the Chancellor who tells me constantly that the royal coffers are empty.’

  ‘After you send out your offer of pardon, my liege, perhaps you might then show yourself walking among your troops,’ I suggested. ‘Many of York’s men may not be fully aware that they are being asked to attack the king’s person – their sovereign lord, to whom they have all sworn allegiance. If they see you they may refuse to follow the white rose into battle.’

  ‘You are right, Jasper.’ King Henry stood up. ‘Very well, bring my crown and the sword of state and I will walk among the men in full sight of the rebel army. Anyone who fires an arrow at us after that will be considered a traitor. Then perhaps they will all disperse and I can go back to Kenilworth and be granted a little peace.’

  That night, after the king’s promenade through his lines, as many as a thousand men crept stealthily across Ludford Bridge to claim his pardon, including the Earl of Warwick’s close ally Sir Anthony Trollope with his crack troop of five hundred men brought from Calais. It must have been a bitter blow to the earl and to the Yorkist cause. Soon after dawn the following day I went to the king’s tent to celebrate Mass with him and a messenger came to tell us that, far from preparing for battle, half of York’s men had vanished from their lines across the river. A little later the Duke of Buckingham brought intelligence that the Duke of York and the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick and March had fled Ludlow during the night, leaving the duchess to surrender the castle.

  I was aghast. ‘Poor lady! She will be unprotected and terrified.’

  Buckingham shrugged, as if the Duchess of York’s state of mind was of little importance to him even though she was his wife’s sister. ‘I have issued orders that the town is not to be sacked, your grace, but our men are angry that the rebels have insulted the crown and may be difficult to control. I will obtain the keys to the castle from the duchess myself and see to her protection but I have also learned that the Duke of York is heading for Ireland through Wales. I think it is Pembroke’s job to stop him taking ship.’ He glanced from me to the king for confirmation.

  King Henry’s brow knitted. ‘Humphrey is right, Jasper. York must be stopped and this time there will be no pardon. Waste no time, brother.’

  It was only after I had rounded up my father and Thomas ap Gruffydd and their choice of trackers and set off hot-foot on York’s trail that I realized I had not been able to inform the king privately, as I had intended, that he had a new niece and a new stepbrother. Royal recognition would have to wait. Being illegitimate, the births would not appear in the official court record.

  Owen, through his office as a Royal Parker, knew the northern part of the Welsh March well and when we picked up the trail of a small group of horses heading north from Ludlow up the valley of the River Onny he was certain this must be York and his band of followers heading for the duke’s favourite embarkation po
rt for Ireland at Penrhyn. It was a small harbour on the estate of one of York’s faithful followers and it was also close to Anglesey or Ynys Môn as Owen called it, the seat of our Tudor ancestors and a good source of reliable information, should we need it. We thought the York party could not have more than ten hours’ start and, being fugitives, would probably move cautiously, avoiding the towns and villages and keeping to any cover available. But even the deep valleys were peppered with farmsteads and pockets of population where people would be bound to notice a group of armed men on well-bred horses. If we asked questions, cut corners and kept up a good pace we believed we might just catch them up.

  At the end of the first day the trail branched off into the trough of an ancient earthwork, the great ditch and rampart built to mark the border between the old territories of the Welsh Britons and the insurgent Anglo-Saxons. Although its origins were unknown, on maps I had seen it marked as Offa’s Dyke, named after a mysterious Saxon lord or king. We followed it north, skirting the settlement of Welshpool and hugging the western foot of a steep, bare-topped hill, which our trackers called Long Mountain. I took a diversion with Owen to the summit of this mount, hoping it might prove a useful viewpoint from which to scan the surrounding countryside. To the east it offered a panorama over the rolling hills and forests of England through which we had just ridden and to the north-west, the direction we expected York to be taking, a commanding vista towards the high peaks of Gwynedd, but it did not grant us any sight of horsemen; the foothills were thickly wooded and the bleak summits too distant. All that the climb had afforded me was a vivid impression of the empty wilderness confronting us and a depressing hint of how small was our chance of finding anyone in it that did not wish to be found.