He had never heard such a solid, deafening clap of sound in all his life, though he was really soon going to be eight years old. It went off with a single bang like a cannon: a crash of people’s voices. There had been lots of cheering ever since they first came to York, but not like this. The sunshine made him dazzle and blink; but past the steps that Father and Mother were going down he could see the men-at-arms. They were not standing and facing into the street, which was what they were for, but had turned their backs on the grand procession and got their pikes in both hands and were pushing and pushing. What they were pushing against was a solid mass, to the end of his sight, of people: faces piled one on top of the other and all with mouths open. Red faces in thousands were heaving and cramming and trying to come in over the shafts that the men-at-arms held like rails in a fence against them. He could see their shoulders straining as they pushed them back. It was like being between high walls that were going to fall down.
Oh, he thought, I really am frightened. I don’t want to go out. I don’t.
This was the first step that his foot was reaching down over, and in just a minute he would be right in between those clamouring walls. I am Prince of Wales and a knight, he said to himself, as my Father is King Richard III of England and France. Being frightened is all right if I have to be frightened: but showing it would be wrong. He took another step down and then another, and then the din soared up to its worst again, and men and women were heaving and surging against the pikestaffs and stretching hands out between the men-at-arms so that they nearly touched him. He had gone several steps between them, deaf and with his nose full of their smell, before he realised that they were making all this noise at him because they were glad that he was Prince of Wales.
*
The October sky was so low that it appeared possible to reach it with a hand. Northward, it was the colour of an old bruise, blue-black and morbid, paling unwillingly toward the South to a kind of lucid grey. The cold was winterish. It was a sky from which snowflakes might fall. The threat and oppression of it overcame the city as though a host of utterly silent riders charged down on Yorkshire through the air, cold sheen on their harness, their axes swinging for a melee and their vizors shut: the devil’s weather. The thick concourse of citizens whom the ringing of the common bell had fetched together wore cloaks and shuffled. Alderman Wrangwysh in his scarlet felt chilled and sickly. He had volunteered for this duty because he could not bear to be idle; had to do something under this feeling of calamity and unnaturalness that had descended on them all. He fidgeted and wrinkled his nose whilst the Serjeant of the Mace called for silence; then unrolled the parchment he had in his hand; looked over it at the chilled anxious faces, blockish and a little resentful, that looked back at him; cleared his throat; read:
“By the King:
“Forasmuch as the King our Sovereign Lord Richard III, by the grace of God King of England and France and Lord of Ireland, understands for certain that …”
Aye, he thought, I must say it now. It is past belief or anything that could have been feared, but I must say it to them.
“ … that the Duke of Buckingham traitorously is turned upon him, contrary to the duty of his allegiance, and intends the utter destruction of our said Sovereign Lord, the subversion of his realm and the utter disheriting of all his true liege people: our said Sovereign Lord therefore, considering the weal and surety of his royal person, the tranquillity and peace of his said realm and subjects, takes and reputes the said Duke as his rebel and traitor, and charges and commands all his true subjects so to take him.
“Also our said Sovereign Lord charges, and upon pain of death commands, that no manner person, of what estate, degree or condition he be, at the commandment or desire of the said Duke, or any other in his name, arouse, assemble or make any manner commotion other than accords with our said Sovereign Lord’s law and peace; but that they and every one of them be ready to attend upon our said Sovereign Lord, or such as he shall command them, for the repressing and subduing of the traitorous intent and purpose of the said Duke.
“And over this, our said Sovereign Lord straitly charges and commands that no manner person, whatsoever he be, in any wise attempt or presume to rob, spoil or hurt any of the tenants, officers or other persons belonging to the said Duke, his rebel and traitor — so that they rise not nor make commotion or assemblies of his subjects against his peace; and if the said Duke’s tenants, officers or other do, then they to be taken as the King’s enemies and traitors.
“God save King Richard!”
A kind of gritty murmur, like waggon wheels in shale, grew up from the crowd when he had finished speaking and loudened into a crackle of shouts. “King Richard!” “God save King Richard!” He thrust the parchment into the Serjeant’s hands and went quickly away; did not want to talk the news over with anyone.
A month ago, after the grand procession when he had knighted the Prince, and a week’s more solemnities, King Richard had called the Mayor and Aldermen to him into the Chapter-House. Very small and splendid in purple cloth-of-gold he sat in the Archbishop’s throne and reminded them, in his low voice, of the part they had played in his Scots wars. No one had petitioned him for what he did next. Only of his most abundant grace, as they told the clerk to inscribe it in the record afterward, he relieved them forever of the annual fees they owed the Crown, so that the merchants coming in from the country would be toll-free now; appointed the Mayor ex-officio his chief Serjeant-at-Arms at a salary of a shilling each day, and promised the city a yearly grant of forty pounds for its relief. That had been his last public act in his city of York. He went on his way then to rejoice other places; was at Lincoln now; and hardly two weeks after he had left they had news that the rabble of Kent were up in arms, making politics, as was their habit, an excuse for setting out to plunder London. Lord Howard, whom King Richard had created Duke of Norfolk, was ready to handle them, and it did not seem that any plant more fruitful than a gallows-tree would grow out of their wickedness. But there was a stranger rumour than that of follies in Kent. It was said the old Earl of Richmond’s son, the Welch brat whom a few soured eccentrics in corners still spoke of as the heir of Lancaster, was taking ship from Brittany; was coming — it seemed the ultimate distillation of moonshine, but those who knew best swore it to be true — to claim the throne of England. The Courtneys in Devonshire had risen for him. After twelve years, the ghost of the house of Lancaster stalked out of its grave to trouble peace. The very curse of civil war that King Richard had promised his people he would crush down forever like a nettle had begun to sting.
That was not the worst. Messengers from the King’s kinsman, Duke Henry of Buckingham, had appeared in Derbyshire and Yorkshire summoning all well-disposed persons to get into their harness and follow the badge of the Stafford knot. At first, they thought he was raising his forces like an honest man for the King. Now the murder was out. The Duke of Buckingham, the most untrue creature living, had declared for Lancaster against the King whose life he had saved from the Wydvylles, whose train he had carried at the coronation and who had rewarded him with the offices of Constable of England and Chamberlain of Wales and with more lands than any Stafford had owned since the Conquest.
What has possessed the man? wondered Mr. Wrangwysh, walking up Micklegate to his own house in the boding weather. Have his wits been turned? A traitor bringing back all the old troubles on us, the rumours and garboyles we hoped we’d done with forever now: oh, God curse you, my Lord of Buckingham: you to bring this on us just when the sun was shining at last. We were happy a month ago; had got a King we wanted. You did not stop to consider that when you turned the world upside-down. It was not much of a matter to you that we, the middling sort of folk who don’t live in London, were drawing breath and beginning to hope for good times at last. We only want what King Richard’s promised us, only a little justice, a little security, a little refuge from extortioners and court-understrappers who’d draw blood from a turnip. What does it matter to
you, now you’ve chosen to play at Kingmaker? God punish you the way you deserve.
He turned into his own door in a bitter temper. The strange, cold and discoloured sky joined with his fears to give him a feeling as though the world were on the edge of calamity. Lancaster out of its grave again, as though a rotten corpse should walk; Duke Henry of Buckingham a traitor to his own King and cousin: the world was mad. It was too much for him to understand. He felt as he might have done if his ambling horse had suddenly become a dragon.
Standing in the middle of his great hall he lifted up his voice and yelled for his sons, his apprentices and his wife. Doors sounded and people scurried. He eased the trouble of his mind a little by barking orders.
“Walter, go up to the loft and letch down my harness. Ralph, where’d we put my sword last time? Don’t know? Think, you fool, think. Where’s your mistress? St. Anthony’s fire burn you, Walter, will you be moving? Miles, get your harness too. You’ll ride with me. Ralph, when you’ve found my sword go in a hurry to Mr. Marston and ask him courteously to step round.”
His wife arrived in the long gallery above the hall. She was a tall, fat woman with yellow hair gone grey in the front, and she began to talk as soon as she set eyes on him.
“Swords, harness, oh Lord Jesus, what’s to do now? You’re never going on a journey, Thomas? Oh God, you’ll be the death of me. Swords, he says, harness, he says, as if he were Captain of Calais, and never a word to his wife. Mr. Marston’s to hear it all, but not me. You’ll break my heart. Are we never to have peace in the world?”
“I might ask that,” said Mr. Wrangwysh. “Hold your clack, woman. There’s three hundred to ride from York and Ainstey to uphold our good King against the rebels, and I’m chosen Captain: now then.”
Mrs. Wrangwysh stopped at the foot of the stairs with her hands on her hips.
“You’re chosen Captain,” she said slowly, “and didn’t shave this morning. You’ll go and disgrace the city of York in southern parts: a captain with two days’ beard on his chin.”
“I will not, woman,” bellowed Mr. Wrangwysh, comforted already by the safe, familiar atmosphere of a domestic brawl. “I’m not to set out before the day after to-morrow. I’ll shave when I please.”
“You’ll shave now. I’ll shave you. Ralph, put that sword down. It’s a razor your master needs now. Fetch it and the lather-bowl. You, an Alderman and a Captain, to be walking the naked streets with that face on you: I’m ashamed to my heart.”
“I’ve no time to be shaved now. I’ve a hundred things to contrive. How am I to attend to King Richard’s business—”
“He wouldn’t desire you to in that villainous condition. Cower down on the stool while I get to work on you.”
“The devil fly away with the stool and all pestering women along with it.”
“Cursing and banning: reach me those things here, Ralph.”
Mr. Wrangwysh, feeling almost warm in his soul again, squatted down on the stool. His wife rubbed the lather into his face with the hard edge of her hand. As she worked she talked.
“The bare, shameless notion: sending for Mr. Marston in such a condition, to say nothing of sitting at the Council like a crying disgrace: God knows I’ve tried to make you value yourself, but pains are clean wasted on you. A woman could talk for a year …”
“I do believe it.”
“Don’t babble, man, or the soap’ll be in your mouth and then we’ll hear more rusty words. So three hundred are going: and not too many. They should arm us women against that Duke. We’d show him a thing with a besom, the wicked, vile, ungrateful, treacherous viper. We’d show him what it amounts to turning against our blessed King. If it should come to a field and you should come close to him, Thomas, though God knows I doubt if you will, you’ll bang him for me. Hold your chin up. Blessed Mother of God, Walter, take care with that harness, will you? That’s your master’s good jack that he bought in London. The foul thieves to rise against our kind King Richard: but no good ever came from those South parts. Three hundred, you said. How much money are they giving you in hand?”
“Twenty pounds.”
“Twenty pounds: it’s a deal of money. You must keep it carefully. Miles, you’ll see your father takes care of his twenty pounds: and scour your jack, boy. It was a cruel disgrace with rust when you rode to London. If we’re to fight great wars and bloody battles we’ll fight them decently from this house. God have mercy, Walter, have your feet grown into the floor? Sand and lamp oil and help scour Mr. Miles’ jack, or do you want me to lay a strap to your rump? There, wipe your face, man, and you’ll do.”
“Loved be God.”
Miles was examining the leather padding of his sallet. He was a big boy, rising seventeen. He said:
“Where do we meet the King, Father?”
“Salisbury, lad: he’s making haste there across England now, from what I hear.”
“And there’ll be a field?”
“Aye, by God, I think so. That devilish Duke’s raised a great army of the Welch on Severn-side and they say he’ll cross over and join the other rebels. God mend the world.”
“It’s a cruel wickedness,” said Mrs. Wrangwysh bitterly, “now, when we thought there’d be some decency in England.”
Mr. Marston came in, wearing a winter coat lined with budge: a tall, serious-looking man. His face had a deep expression of anxiety and he said his good-days as though he were at a funeral. He and Mr. Metcalfe were chosen as Vice-Captains under Mr. Wrangwysh. Mrs. Wrangwysh bustled him into a chair as though she were shooing a hen.
“Ah, dear Lord God, Mr. Marston, aren’t they horrible times? Into this house my husband comes and calls for his harness and sets us all by the ears. No words of mine he’d listen to, but he must be off to-morrow to fight for the King and take our poor boy along with him; and my heart breaking in silence. The wickedness of those rebels who’ll turn poor folks’ houses upside down: what do they care who’s burned when they go about to set the world on fire?” “You may say so, Mrs. Wrangwysh,” said Mr. Marston seriously. “It’s the most damnably wicked and senseless uprising I ever knew. The Duke of Buckingham must be mad, I think; and to call in Lancaster, to want to bring this little Welchman over that we none of us ever heard of: it’s past understanding.”
“But what I can’t comprehend,” said Mr. Wrangwysh, feeling his chin with his fingers, “is that the Queen’s friends have joined him, or they say so. If they’d risen for Edward the Bastard I could find sense in it. But what have they to do with Lancaster?”
“God knows, Thomas. It’s a wicked world.”
“It is that, William. Is there any more news?”
“I heard someone say Lord le Strange, the Lord Stanley’s son, was raising ten thousand Lancashire and Cheshire lads to go to the King.”
“God reward him.”
“Why are we for Salisbury, Father?” asked Miles.
“Nay, boy, I couldn’t be certain. But as I see it, that’s a grand middle place to meet the damned Duke when he crosses the water of Severn or the Courtneys if they come up from Devonshire, and break one or tother of them before they can join their forces.”
“Aye,” said Mr. Marston.
“Then we’ll happen light two fields,” said Miles, with his clear grey eyes bright.
“God forbid, lad. D’you want to kill more Englishmen than need be? That’s not King Richard’s teaching.”
“I want to kill all the damned southern traitors who’ve turned on him; show the South what we think of it. He’s our King, King Richard is, and that’s why the whorson Southerners want to pull him down.”
“There is truth in that, I do believe,” said Mr. Marston in his deep, oracular voice. “There’s not one hand been lifted against his good Grace North of the Trent and never will be.”
“I should kindly hope not,” said Mrs. Wrangwysh. “We’re honest in these parts.”
“We can tell a monk by his frock, too,” said Mr. Marston. “Our good King, God save him, he’s sho
wn us a blessed disposition. We know lie’s our hope for fat days and quiet living. He’s the one to protect us against the nobles who’ll spill the blood of a thousand of us only to advance their own cursed quarrels.”
“I heard him in London,” said Mr. Wrangwysh, “in the Court of King’s Bench before he was crowned. I heard him say to us all: There’s no nobleman in the realm who’d not be better to starve than to arm Englishmen against Englishmen whilst I’m King.”
“Ah, that’s blessed language,” said his wife.
“But won’t we have to fight two fields?” persisted Miles. “You’ll not rhyme so gaily about that when you’ve fought one,” his father told him.
“We should not need to, from what I hear,” said Mr. Marston. “If the King’s Grace can but strike one party of rebels before they join with the other, the world’s ours.”
“God send he does, then.”
“Amen.”
“Walter,” said Mrs. Wrangwysh, “stir your great lazy feet and bring us some pudding-ale. You’ll take a sup, Mr. Marston. It’s most unnatural weather.”
“Unholy, I’d call it. I thank you for your kindness. There was a wind getting up as I came down the ’gate.”
“Ah, they’re bad times in all ways.”
“That’s a true word.”
Mr. Wrangwysh’s faint cheerfulness evaporated again. New wars, he thought, new bloodshed: and there’s no one can tell but what it’ll be my blood or even young Miles’ that is shed this time. God have mercy on poor folk and God save the King who cares for them, says Thomas Wrangwysh.
The ale was brought and poured into the mazers. Miles, who had ridden in harness to London when King Richard summoned his Northern friends to overawe the Queen’s following six months ago, and whose mind had been full of soldiering ever since, lifted his bowl and proclaimed extravagantly:
Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III Page 46