After John’s death, I was sorely tempted to choose the peaceful cloister where I might return to the past and be with him, if only in my thoughts, but, then, what would become of the children? They would be given over to a guardian who would one day sell their marriage to the highest bidder—and what if that guardian were the Woodville queen? I could not abandon my precious girls to such a fate. For in many ways, Elizabeth Woodville had proven herself more vile and hateful than Marguerite, so much so that Warwick’s parting words to Edward had held a dire warning: “Your queen is a woman so reviled throughout the land that no blood of her ilk will be permitted to mount the throne of England!” A dread prophecy, for kings were not cast out without a heavy price paid in blood, as our lives bore testament.
After Barnet, William Norris came to pay his respects to me at Seaton Delaval. He told me he loved me—’tis why he had never wed, he said. He knew I didn’t love him, but he claimed that mattered not. If I would marry him, he vowed I’d never regret it. And I never had. He was a good man, William, and well I knew the pain of love denied, for I remembered those days after Tattershall as clearly as if they had transpired yesterday instead of years ago.
We were married a year later, on May Day after the first anniversary of John’s death. May the Blessed Lord forgive me, but during my wedding service with William, I silently renewed my own vows to John and reminded him, wherever he was, why I was doing this, and of what he had often said when he walked this earth with me: “In last year’s nest, there are no eggs.”
We must go forward, my dearest love, and do our best for those who need us, I whispered in my heart. Ever mindful of his last words to me, I added, Until we meet again.
As we journeyed over the lovely meadows and fields blooming with wildflowers, I thought about William. I felt badly leaving him without a proper farewell, knowing I would never be back, but I did it for his sake. It would have distressed him too much to know how ill I really was…so ill, I wasn’t certain I’d make it to Bisham alive. The sickness sapped my strength daily.
The knowledge that I had done my best for William gave me comfort now. I had cared for him tenderly, and if I could never replace the one to whom I had given my heart at Tattershall Castle, at least I had made certain that William had never felt unloved, by word or deed. I also found comfort in the knowledge that this good and honorable man would see to it that my girls made suitable—perhaps even happy—marriages. But he was not powerful enough to protect my eleven-year-old George from those who would seek his wardship for the few pounds of inheritance he held. To safeguard my precious son from the Woodvilles, I had to seek out the highest reaches of power. Fortunately I was not left friendless. John’s niece, Warwick’s daughter Anne, had wed at last her childhood sweetheart, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Now I could die in peace, leaving my George in their loving care, where he would be safe.
A smile came to me as I thought about my beautiful son. For certain he would be romping somewhere with Roland now. The two were as inseparable as John and Rufus had been.
As soon as I arrived in Bisham, I wrote William as I had promised. Then I wrote Nan. She now lived with her daughter Anne at Middleham, since she had no residence of her own and was a virtual pauper. For she had been deprived of her worldly possessions by her dreadful son-in-law, the traitor Clarence, Dickon’s greedy brother, who had gone over to Edward just before Barnet. He would come to no good end, of that I had no doubt.
When my letter was safely on its way to Anne and her mother, I took to my bed. For sleep, I had great need, but for food, none. That was most unusual, for I had always enjoyed a good appetite, but I knew I had to preserve my strength, and so I forced myself to take broth every day. Thus I waited, inquiring each day whether my Anne and her mother had arrived, and when I was told that they had not yet come, I drank my broth and closed my eyes, and fell asleep again until the next day.
Finally, on the twentieth of May, Anne and her mother arrived at Bisham. I was deeply grateful to have lived long enough to see them again, for little Anne’s voice stirred memories, and I was reminded of the happy three-year-old child who used to call out after me each time I left her castle.
Fighting a terrible weariness, I tried to open my eyes and welcome them, but my lids proved simply too heavy this morning. The physician’s voice droned on at my bedside. Thinking I didn’t comprehend, he didn’t trouble to lower his voice, and I heard every word. “’Tis her heart. ’Tis very weak. At thirty-five she is not truly old, and certainly she is strong enough to recover, but she seems to have lost the will to live.”
“Does Norris know?” the countess asked softly.
“We have sent him word in London. He is on his way, my lady.” Ursula’s voice. Dear Ursula. How glad I am that she found love!
“She is so lovely…and she looks so young, Mother,” said a gentle voice I had trouble identifying. Then I realized it had to be little Anne. With great effort, I willed my eyes open.
“Dear Anne…you’ve grown…sweet child….” Then, depleted by my excitement and the effort it had taken to get out the words, my lids closed again on me. I heard murmurings and suddenly realized the error I had made. I forced my eyes open once more. “Forgive me…Your Grace…. I forgot you…are grown…and a duchess now….”
A hand stroked my hair with a tender touch, soothing my spirit.
“Aunt Isobel, it is just me, just your little Anne,” she whispered. “Aye, I am grown, and I have a son of my own now, like you….”
How could I have forgotten why I wished to see her—why I so desperately needed her here at Bisham, why I had written as soon as I had arrived and asked her to come? If I died before I spoke to her about George, how would my soul ever find repose? My lids felt like stones on my eyes, and my arms lay like boulders beside me, but I heaved up the stones and found the strength to seize her hand, even more to raise myself on an elbow. “George—don’t let them get my George—” I panted. My breath caught again, but fear made me labor hard. I devoured another intake of air into my lungs and tightened my grasp of her hand—she had to understand, I had to make her understand how important it was, what was at stake! “Take him with you—raise him as a Neville—” I forced more air into my body. “Don’t leave my George to their mercy, I pray you!” My strength left me. I could no longer hold up the stones and boulders that oppressed me. I collapsed on the pillow and closed my eyes, heaving for breath.
“Aunt Isobel, you need have no fear. We shall get his wardship and raise George with us at Middleham. He shall have every benefit we can possibly provide him. He shall know what a noble and honorable knight his father was—”
I heard muffled sobs in the background, and I knew they cried for me, but I had been given what I had asked for, what I had so desperately needed, both at the beginning of my journey at fifteen and now, at its end, and my heart lay content within my breast. I smiled.
A familiar voice reached my ears. “John?” I murmured. How can that be? With great effort, I turned my head and forced my eyes open again.
John stood in the corner of the room, near the chamber door, gazing at me. He wore the same green doublet and high boots he had worn at Tattershall Castle, and he looked so young, so handsome, just as he had looked on the night of the dance…the night of the pavane…. Suddenly I felt a burst of energy surge from my heart to my lungs, and I cried out in joy, “Oh, John, my love, is it truly you?”
John smiled. “It is, my angel.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed through tears of joy. “I keep telling you, angels have golden hair, as any painter or colored-glass maker will tell you.”
“My angels have chestnut hair—don’t you know that by now, Isobel?”
“I only know that I am the most fortunate of women, beloved.”
“I have been waiting for you. Come, my love, ’tis time for us to be together.”
“Oh, John…gladly, my dearest love…Oh, so gladly!”
The stones that held down my body lifted, and I
rose easily from the bed and glided to him. I put my hand into his, and we smiled at one another, bathed with a light beyond my understanding. Behind me I heard sobbing, louder now, and I looked back.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, the young duchess folded my hands across my chest, while her mother and Ursula sobbed uncontrollably. I wanted to tell them it was all right, that I was happy, that all was well, but I knew they wouldn’t hear me.
So I blew them a gentle kiss farewell and turned back to John.
Author’s Note
THIS NOVEL IS THE FIRST FICTIONAL EXPLORATION of the very troubled period of English history that led up to the change of dynasty in the Wars of the Roses. Of Isobel virtually nothing has survived, while the Kingmaker’s brother, Sir John Neville, flits through the accounts of contemporary chroniclers and the pages of historical texts, making and changing history, but leaving behind few of his thoughts. In his Memoires, the great statesman Philippe de Commines, who knew Sir John Neville personally, calls him “un très vaillant chevalier.” No biography of him exists as of this date, but his actions are well documented and give us glimpses into the man he was. Handwriting analysis has also provided valuable insights into his character.
Isobel and John’s love story is based on the known facts. Sir John Neville did pay the incredible sum of one thousand pounds to marry sixteen-year-old Lady Isobel Ingoldesthorpe of the Lancastrian camp. As to the ambushes laid by Lancastrians against the Yorkist leaders, these are recorded by several contemporary sources. In each case, the Yorkists were forewarned by an unknown source. Here, I brought my own motivations and interpretation to the story, but I trust they are legitimate and might have happened as I have depicted. I plead dramatic license for the date given for King Henry VI’s “love day,” which took place on March 25, 1458.
The identity of Sir Thomas Malory remains in dispute, and all that is known for certain is what he himself says in his book—namely, that he was a knight and a prisoner who finished his tales of King Arthur’s court between March 1469 and March 1470. I have used P. J. Fields’s identification for the writer of Morte d’Arthur as Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel, who spent ten years or more in captivity without trial, but Malory’s identification as a Yorkist who died in Warwick’s cause is entirely mine. For the ease of the modern reader, the quotations attributed to Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur come from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.
The tombs of John and Isobel at Bisham no longer survive. The abbey was destroyed during the sack of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. That Isobel chose to be buried with John evinces her love and regard for her first husband.
From John and Isobel through their daughter Lucy are descended both President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, who, five hundred years later, turned back the dark forces of Nazi tyranny and saved free Europe from Adolf Hitler during World War II.
Please note: The poem attributed to Thomas Neville on page 135 is entitled “The Vision of Viands” by Aniar MacConglinne, Irish, twelfth century.
Sir John Neville’s letter to Isobel on pages 381–82 draws from a letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou to his wife, Sarah, on July 14, 1861, during the American Civil War.
Throughout this novel, the Percy family name has been pluralized to “Percies” so as to be consistent with the version used by all historians in the numerous historical texts and articles on this family and in this period; see, for example, Ralph A. Griffiths, “Local Rivalries and National Politics: The Percies, the Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter, 1452–55,” Speculum 43, no. 4, October 1968.
For those readers interested in pursuing further reading, an abbreviated reading list relevant to the portrayal of events in this book is provided below. A more complete bibliography follows.
Field, P. J. C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer Ltd., 1999.
Flenley, Ralph, ed. Six Town Chronicles of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911.
Gairdner, James. The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century (Containing William Gregory’s Chronicle of London). London: Camden Society Publications, new series 17, 1876.
Griffiths, Ralph A. “Local Rivalries and National Politics: The Percies, the Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter, 1452–55.” Speculum 43, no. 4 (1968): 589–632.
———, The Reign of King Henry VI. Thrupp, England: Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1998.
Johnson, P. A. Duke Richard of York 1411–1460. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
MacGibbon, David. Elizabeth Woodville. London: Arthur Barker Ltd., 1938.
Maurer, Helen. Margaret of Anjou. Rochester, New York: Boydell Press, 2003.
Mitchell, R. J. John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938.
Ramsey, James Henry. Lancaster and York: A Century of English History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892.
Scofield, Cora. The Life and Reign of Edward IV. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1923.
Storey, R. L. End of the House of Lancaster. New York: Stein and Day, 1967.
Historical Figures
Henry VI: England’s mad, meek, good-hearted Lancastrian king, content to live a monk’s chaste life of prayer. His marriage to Marguerite d’Anjou seals his fate.
Marguerite d’Anjou: England’s fiery French queen. Wed at fifteen to mad King Henry VI of Lancaster, lonely in a foreign land. All her love and future hopes dwell in Edward, her only child. For him she will fight to the death.
Somerset: The king’s cousin of the House of Lancaster. Young, rash, and violent. His charm captures the heart of a queen, but not the heart of the one he loves.
York: The king’s cousin of the House of York. Prudent, able, and beloved by the people for his compassion and dedication to justice. The queen’s enmity and mismanagement of the realm force him to remember he owns a better title to the throne than do her husband, King Henry, or her son, Edward.
Salisbury: Cousin to King Henry and brother-in-law to York, he stands with York when no one else dares.
Warwick: Salisbury’s son. Ambitious, flamboyant, brave, and dashing, he wins the admiration of England and the enmity of two queens.
Edward of March: York’s golden warrior son, who wrestles the throne from the House of Lancaster. Irresistibly charming, brilliant, and courageous. England’s future seems bright under King Edward IV until he reveals his secret marriage to the lowborn beauty Elizabeth Woodville.
Elizabeth Woodville: Edward’s ambitious and detested Yorkist queen. Gilt haired, cunning, and vindictive, she has a heart as dark as her face is fair.
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester: Isobel’s uncle. Renowned scholar and man of piety, he leaves England to avoid taking sides and returns a hardened admirer of Vlad Dracula, Prince of Transylvania.
Sir Thomas Malory: A knight. His experiences color the tales of King Arthur’s court that he writes as he languishes in prison first under Lancaster’s queen, then under York’s.
Ursula: Malory’s daughter, friend to Isobel.
John: Warwick’s younger brother. A valiant, true, and honorable Yorkist knight, he falls in love with Isobel, the ward of his father’s mortal foe, Marguerite d’Anjou.
Isobel: Ward of the Lancastrian queen Marguerite d’Anjou. In love with John, a Yorkist knight.
Bibliography
The following is an addendum to the reading list given in the author’s note.
Nonfiction
Armstrong, C. A. J. England, France, and Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century. London: Hambledon Press, 1983.
Barber, Richard. The Paston Letters. London: The Folio Society, 1981.
Bennet, H. S. The Pastons and their England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Chrimes, S. B., C. D. Ross, and R. A. Griffiths, eds. Fifteenth-Century England, 1399–1509: Studies in Politics and Society, 2nd ed. New York: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1997.
de Commynes, Philippe. The Universal Spider: The Life of Louis
XI. Trans. and ed. Paul Murray Kendall. London: The Folio Society, 1973.
Hicks, Michael A. False Fleeting Perjur’d Clarence: George, Duke of Clarence. London: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1980.
———, Richard III and His Rivals: Magnates and Their Motives. London: Hambledon Press, 1991.
———, Who’s Who in Late Medieval England 1272–1485. London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1991.
Kendall, Paul Murray. Richard the Third. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1956.
Miller, Michael D. Wars of the Roses. http://www.warsoftheroses.co.uk.
Myers, A. R. England in the Late Middle Ages. London: Penguin Books, 1952.
———, English Historical Documents. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969.
Rawcliffe, Carole. The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham, 1394–1521. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Richardson, Geoffrey. The Hollow Crowns. Shipley, England: Baildon Books, 1996.
———, The Lordly Ones: A History of the Neville Family. Shipley, England: Baildon Books, 1998.
———, The Popinjays: A History of the Woodville Family. Shipley, England: Baildon Books, 2000.
———, A Pride of Bastards: A History of the Beaufort Family. Shipley, England: Baildon Books, 2002.
Storey, R. L. The Reign of Henry VII. New York: Walker and Company, 1968.
B0010SEN6I EBOK Page 41