I, Richard Plantagenet: Book One: Tante le Desiree

by J. P. Reedman

  Frowning, I left the banquet hall and hastened for the freedom of the streets beyond. I did not know or care if any remarked on my early departure, but I doubted anyone paid much heed; the room was mainly full of Woodvilles and their supporters, and I was just the King’s unsmiling, insignificant and rather dull younger brother, the small, crooked son of York who lived with the wild men of the north and was not at ease in a glittering, modern court.

  Outside I drank in gulps of the night air despite the fact the physicians said it was bad for your health. It seemed to clear my head. Leaning against a wall, my worried squires around me, I gasped like some fish drawn from the Thames, my eyes cast heavenwards to where the stars twinkled like hard gems in the black vault above, their rays piercing my brain like silver swords. George, oh damn you, George…this cannot be real! Tomorrow they will try you…

  “My Lord. My Lord.” A little page, Jolyon I think his name was, grabbed my sleeve and swung upon it, braver than the rest. “Are you hurt in some way, my Lord?”

  I brushed him off, but made my manner kindly. “No, boy. I am fine now. If I am hurt, it is in a way that no one can help. Let us be off now. I have a long, hard day on the morrow.”

  As Parliament convened, George was brought from the Tower. He was dressed simply, his clothes dangling on him due to weight loss. Manacles bound his wrists and his hair hung down uncut around his shoulders. He wore a hunted look.

  Glancing neither right nor left, he approached Edward, who sat before him on a dais, cold-eyed and stern-lipped. This was not a meeting of brothers, even brothers at odds; it was the meeting of an angry monarch and a known rebel and traitor.

  Shifting nervously in my long, black parliamentary robes, I was silent, praying inwardly that all could be put aright, that George would hurl himself at Edward’s feet, beg forgiveness and mean it, and that Edward, one more time, would forgive. Just one more time. The threat had been made, George had spent months locked away considering his actions…Surely it would be enough!

  “Remove his manacles.” Edward’s voice was cold steel.

  Two gaolers unlocked George’s wrists. He rubbed them as if to restore sensation, than raised his head to gaze at the King.

  “Clarence, on this day I will speak to you and none other,” said Edward. “You shall answer to me and me alone.”

  George nodded. “I would answer to none but you, your Grace, for to you alone do I owe such words.”

  The trial commenced. From a parchment, Edward read out the list of charges against George: rebellions, insolence, unlawful behaviour, murder of the King’s subjects, tainting the King’s good name with charges of sorcery and bastardy. Witnesses came forth by the dozen, filing into the chamber, each one testifying to the hotheaded words they had heard from Clarence’s lips on many occasions.

  Unmoving, George did exactly as he had sworn he would do, and answered these charges on his knees before the King. “I deny these things. Your Grace, so much has gone on of which you have no knowledge. Give me a fair hearing, let me defend my cause, and you will see…”

  “No more wasted words,” said Edward. “I know enough—have heard enough. What can you say to me now that will not incriminate you further? You seem to think my memory is short; it is not. Already I have been unduly generous and merciful towards you. My Queen is fearful that you even plot against our children as you plot against me, that you will predict their deaths just as you sought to prophecy mine!”

  Gasps from many throats rippled throughout the room.

  George sank down, pathetic. Cold sweat broke out on my body and ran in rivulets beneath my robe.

  “The court will decide,” said Edward, his voice emotionless and cold as the winds that howled outside. “They will decree what will be done with you, my faithless brother of Clarence.”

  The decision was made. It was as inevitable as time. Harry Buckingham, my bright companion of the wedding feast, had been appointed Lord Seneschal just for the occasion—the only important role Ned had ever given him. As the highest peer in the land, that role would have been granted to me under normal circumstances…but Edward mayhap did not wish to lay the duty of pronouncing the sentence upon my shoulders.

  Harry Stafford stepped into the centre of the chamber, shining in the way George used to, handsome, suave, and confident. I wondered once again why Edward had never given him any position in Government before, then let the thought pass as he bowed to the King, and said, “The court is almost unanimous in its decision, my Lord King. The Duke of Clarence is guilty of all charges and stands convicted of high treason against your noble person. The sentence upon him…will be death.”

  My breath railed through my teeth. Knuckles white, I clutched the wooden railing where I stood at the side of the hall. It was going to happen, the unthinkable….God, it would kill our mother, she had lost one son to violence and now another.

  Edward’s face was a grey slab, drooping; he looked as sick as I felt. I willed him to rise from his high seat, wave his hand, and say, “One more chance…just one,” but it was truly too late for George. Edward would look a fool if he pardoned him, a weak king, as the charges were so grave. There would be no reprieve for George of Clarence.

  My brother’s manacles were replaced on his wrists and he was marched from the chamber, armed guards thronging him. His head hung low, that of a doomed man, and still he did not glance up. I dared not call to him but in my mind beseeched him to look at me, as I swept alongside the soldiers in my heavy parliamentary robes. He did not glance up though his lips moved; maybe he was praying.

  Instead of George, it was the Duke of Buckingham who glanced in my direction, meeting my tortured gaze—my cousin Harry Stafford, so like George without the stain of his greed and jealousy. Harry gave me a wan smile as if in apology for what he had done that ill-starred day; it was not his fault, he did what he must.

  I could bear no more. The room seemed to darken along with the sky outside the windows. Blood roared in my head. Thrusting men aside with my elbows, I pushed through the shocked assembly.

  I had to tell my mother, waiting for news at Baynard’s castle. I wanted to be the first.

  Duchess Cecily screamed. It was a terrible sound, an old woman’s cry of utter disbelief and anguish. Then she fell into a terrible rage born of terror and despair, hurling platters around the chamber, smashing goblets on the flagstones, and toppling the candelabras to the ground. Her hands were twisted into claws and I fear she would rend her own gown, or her face, had I not grabbed her by the wrists and restrained her. “Madame, get a hold of yourself!”

  “How dare you tell me what to do?” She snatched her hand from mine and swung back her arm, and for a moment, I thought she would strike me as she had done when I was insolent as a boy.

  Then her hand dropped and her shoulders slumped, defeated. “I cannot believe he will do this deed. His own brother.”

  “George has pushed him too far,” I murmured. I dared not say to her that her coddling of George had inflamed the situation, perhaps even made it. Margaret was likewise to blame.

  Mother drew herself up to her full height and tried to restore her dignity. “I will petition the King. Surely, he will listen to his mother. Will you join me in this, Richard?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I fear it will do no good. Edward’s mind is made up and he would look weak should he not go ahead.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed. “Edward should have never married that Lancastrian bitch. She is behind this outrage. She secretly wants to destroy the House of York so that the places meant for men of high lineage are filled with her dreadful kin!”

  I said nothing. I know Elizabeth hated—and feared—George, perhaps with good reason. But Dame Cecily’s words were wild, mimicking George’s own—Elizabeth was of our House now, her brood of children with Edward its heirs.

  Mother had never approved of Dame Grey, however…when she first found out about Edward’s clandestine marriage, contracted on the first of May, the old feast when
men and women coupled openly in the greenwood and produced scores of merrybegots, she had fallen into a frenzy. “He’s no true son of York!” she had screamed. “I will swear an oath that he is a bastard and no fit heir!” Why she tarnished herself with this story I do not know, for it gave fuel to those who would stoke the fires of rumour, and soon even the French King was mockingly calling Edward ‘Blaybourne.’ However, my mother seemed to hate the Woodville clan more than she even loved her own honour.

  Mother came up to me, anger leaving her visage to be replaced by desperation. “We must send a plea to the King this very night, Richard. Please say you will stand by me in this matter.”

  “Of course I will, my Lady.”

  “You are a good boy….you were always the quiet good one. If you have any need in the future, my support is yours,” she whispered, taking my hand in a rare maternal show of affection and pressing it to her cheek. Her skin felt like old dried parchment; in the fluttering torchlight, I could see the lines that criss- crossed her face, robbing her of her once-great beauty. Beneath, in the structure of bone and skin, vestiges of that beauty remained, glimpsed in the subtle play of light and shadow.

  “Call your secretary then, Madame and let us try our best for George.”

  Our petition went to the King before the moon had set that night. I returned to Crosby Place, to Anne, who had heard the news about the verdict from couriers riding abroad. She knew not what to say to me to bring me comfort, and I could not speak; it felt as if I had been struck dumb.

  No reply came from the King at Westminster. For the next few weeks, I walked around in a state of anxious tension, unable to sleep at night, scarcely able to taste the food on my table. Anne dutifully cared for me, almost as if I were a child; she would let no other near me, not even my faithful young esquires. She sat at my meals and tempted me with sweet fancies, she read scripture to me and of Tristan and Isolde’s tragic love, she put me to bed like a child and when I got feverish, tossed, and turned, she bathed my forehead with scented water from a silver ewer.

  I gave her naught but grief in return; I could not even give her of my love so distraught were my thoughts as I lay abed, alone, watching the cold moon sink outside the window, wondering if George too, in his prison cell, could see its cold white face sinking down into the darkness.

  Gradually, despite my own gloomy thoughts, a horrible faint hope became to blossom inside my breast. The execution had not yet happened; no word one way or the other had come from the King. Was he reconsidering? Did he regret his decision? The more time that went by, the more likely it seemed that George might be spared, even if he remained imprisoned for many years.

  Then one morning that little child, Jolyon, that loyal little page who had assisted me after my nephew’s nuptial banquet, came running into my chamber, all a-fluster. “Your Grace! My Lord Duke!” His eyes were wide saucers in his flushed face, “There is talk in the street. I think you had better come.”

  Throwing a marten cloak about my shoulders, I strode to the main gate that protected the hall from the rabble in the London streets. A wooden door, barred, exited into Bishopsgate, beyond which I could hear murmuring and raised voices, the clop of hooves; ordinary morning noises in London…but with an edge, a certain frenzied excitement that struck fear into my heart.

  “Open the door,” I ordered, and the porter pulled the great bar aside to allow me to step into the street.

  Outside crowds jostled, men and women and beasts, a donkey, a snapping dog. A one-eye rogue who looked like a sea-pirate even had a monkey on a lead; the beast was picking a fat, red-hatted merchant’s purse. They took no heed of me, not expecting a great lord to be standing out amid the press of ordinary folk going about their daily toil.

  I listened to their excited babble and shards of words struck into me like bright blades, and whirled together to form a dreadful tale, dark as any legend told round the evening fires. “The Speaker of the Commons, ‘e went to the King and told ‘im ‘e needed to get a move on with that bastard, Clarence! Finish the matter” “Aye, so they put him in a barrel of Malmsey I tell ye!” “Nah, surely not…surely the King ‘ad ‘is head off as befittin’ for a noble!” “Nay the Malmsey it was…they toppled the poor fellow in head first and drowned him. He thrashed like a fish!” “Aye well, that Duke of Clarence, he were a sot, weren’t ‘e? Best way for a wastrel like that to die!”

  Reeling back into the safety of the yard, I slammed the gate, and motioned for the porter to put the bar across once again.

  Then I staggered against the wall and began to retch—I, a man who had fought many battles, who dealt death as well as witnessed it. But this was my brother, as fickle and foolish as he had been. Despite our battles, we had also shared much; I thought back to Burgundy when we were little boys in exile, our father and brother slain, our mother and Edward far away. George was often cruel, even back then, but sometimes he softened, and I remembered him once saying to me, “Don’t cry, Richard. It is not manly to cry, and we are now both men of the House of York. And don’t worry; I know you are small, as long as you do what I tell you, I shall do my best to look out for you…”

  A man and royal Duke, I had not been able to look out for him. “Jesu,” I cried in torment, my words imprudent but heartfelt, “I swear that one day I will avenge myself on those who conspired to bring about George’s death!”

  The wind rose, tearing my troubled words from my throat with icy claws, and I stumbled back into Crosby Hall, wounded with injuries none could heal.

  I had to see the King. A terrible question ate at me, gnawed my innards; it had to be answered. I arrived in his halls early; he had not yet risen. His esquires and guards looked confused and disorganized; all around I could see the detritus of raucous feasting and drunkenness. It was not how a King’s hall should look; normally there was at least some order during a feast, the tablecloth kept clean, the detritus taken away in the voider afterwards…but not in this instance. Bones lay strewn on the floor, gnawed by dogs, and there were trenchers flung about and stale soup puddling on the tiles. It was but two days since George’s death…had Ned held such festivities because he did not care, or because he was pretending all was well, and forcing himself forget what had been done?

  “He’s still abed, milord,” said one servant tremulously when I asked where the King was.

  “I will see him nonetheless,” I said.

  “Your Grace, the King will not thank…”

  “He may not, but I am the Duke of Gloucester, his brother, and if he is much offended, let him punish me. Stand aside, all of you!”

  I pushed past the lot of them, my robes of deep mourning blue flapping around me like wings. I wrenched the ring on my small finger until it cut into my skin, drawing a bead of blood—the bezel was a grinning skull, a reminder that all men died. Appropriate.

  Grasping the handle on Edward’s chamber door, I turned it, flung the door open, and went inside. The shutters were still fast; the air reeked of stale sweat and candle tallow.

  I could see Edward’s huge bed; tall, gold hangings embroidered with fleur de lys and the Lions and Leopards of England. I could hear sonorous snoring too, and then, as rich quilts shuffled, I saw a foot flop out the side.

  It wasn’t Edward’s.

  I cursed under my breath. He had some doxy in there!

  The curtains parted and I saw the King’s bleary, unshaven face appear, scowling. “Gloucester…what is it? Why are you here, so early?”

  “It’s not early, Your Grace,” I said. “It has gone terce…”

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “I would rather speak in private,” I said coolly.

  “Go, Jane, I will see you anon.” I head the sound of Edward’s hand slapping something…probably a buttock… and then the infamous Jane Shore, in truth one Elizabeth Lambert, slid from the king’s bed.

  She was small, red-haired, and rounded. A pretty face, green-eyed, smooth and bow-lipped, but it was, I thought, a smug, knowing face.
She held a coverlet around her in the pretext of some modesty, but she held it so loosely it gapped open to allow me to see her marble-white thighs, her large over-ripe breasts.

  I suspect she thought I would react with outright lust; she appeared to have a high opinion of her own desirability, and it was rumoured she slept not only with my brother, but Hastings and Dorset as well, though she claimed to love Ned the most. For reasons known only to himself, he was said to love her in return.

  I felt no lust, only contempt; scathingly I let my gaze travel over what was on show then flicked my hand dismissively. “Cover up, Madame. This is not the stews.”

  Adjusting the coverlet, she slunk away and Edward rolled onto the side of the bed, big broad legs hanging down. I feared he might roar at me for chiding his favourite leman, but he did not….perhaps he saw the look on my face and decided better of it, King or no.

  “Speak, Richard, and make it quick. You’ve already spoiled my morning.”

  “My Lord King, I have come to seek your permission to return to the north at once.”

  “That’s it? Yes, yes, permission is granted, Gloucester.” Edward’s voice was peevish.

  “I also beg permission to ask one question before I go. One very important question.”

  Ned folded his arms. “Whether you will receive an answer depends on what the question is.”

  I took a deep breath. “Is it true? What they say in the street? That our brother was drowned like some unwanted pup in a barrel of malmsey?”

  “Richard!” He stared at me as if I had gone mad, and I thought now he might truly explode in anger. Then he quieted, reining his anger in, and said softly. “Don’t be a fool. Of course a royal Duke was not executed in such a manner.”

  “How then? And why this vile rumour? It is spoken all over London!”