The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1)

by Lesley Nickell

  ‘No, no, cousin. No kneeling, I implore you. It is I who have come to do homage.’ Looking through her lashes Anne watched the Duke raise Isabel and press her hand to his lips. Her murmured reply was lost in a musical flurry of wings as the goshawk bated, disturbed by its master’s sudden movement. ‘Peace, Ganymede!’ The Duke gentled the ruffled feathers of the falcon’s breast, until it subsided into a faint jingling of the bells on its jesses. ‘He’s jealous of you, Lady Isabel. No doubt his namesake disliked Jupiter’s attentions to the nymph Callisto so.’

  ‘You must not flatter my daughter, your grace,’ said Warwick indulgently, ‘or I shall have to remind her of Callisto’s fate.’

  ‘If I recall, she was turned into a bear.’ Clarence made a gesture of touching her cheek. ‘That would be a most unlikely end for one as slender as my cousin.’

  ‘Your grace is very kind,’ said Isabel. Her self-possession was restored, and although her hair modestly concealed her face Anne could hear a little smugness in her voice.

  Belatedly the Earl remembered his younger daughter, who was still kneeling in the grass. ‘Your cousin the Lady Anne.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ The Duke withdrew his attention from Isabel and came towards her. There was in him, she had quickly noticed, the likeness to King Edward that was so blessedly lacking in their youngest brother. She steeled herself for the embarrassing mockery she had endured from the King. But as she kissed his gloved hand his eyes, lighter blue than Edward’s, flickered over her without interest. ‘Lady, I am enchanted.’ A polite smile touched his mouth as he brought her to her feet, and then he returned to Isabel. ‘I was flying Ganymede in the Forest of Arden, and found myself near your father’s estates. Since I had heard that you were removed here, and have long cherished a desire to meet the illustrious Lady Isabel, I rode over on the chance that you were in residence.’

  ‘A happy impulse, your grace,’ remarked Warwick. ‘We are most honoured by your presence. And the Lady Isabel, I suspect, more than honoured. I believe your wish to meet was not one-sided, eh, my child?’ Isabel simpered. ‘But if your grace would deign to excuse me, I have a pressing matter to attend to. May I leave my daughters to entertain you for a while?’

  ‘Without any disrespect, my lord, I was wondering how I might contrive that very situation.’ The Duke bowed towards the confessor. ‘After all, we have Holy Church as our chaperon.’ Holy Church, which had been wavering between disapproval of the improper classical allusions and deference to the distinguished visitor, came down on the side of the profane and beamed at the King’s brother. With a gracious nod the Earl left them, taking in tow two of the loitering gentlemen. Clarence assisted both girls to settle back on to their tapestry cushions facing the river. Then, asking the priest for the loan of his book, he reclined on the grass in front of Isabel and proffered it to her. ‘You would make me very happy, cousin, if you would read to me. I find great comfort in the pages of Boethius, and your voice would add to their inspiration.’ Isabel demurred that she was a poor reader, but without much persuasion she yielded and took up the book.

  It had not been false modesty. She pronounced the Latin without much regard for sense, stumbling several times over long words. The Duke, however, appeared to be listening with rapt attention, and the confessor followed his lead, apart from an involuntary grimace now and again at a particular mangling of the text. Having no need to please either her sister or her cousin, Anne did not feign interest. Idly she watched the great goshawk, crowned with the ludicrous tuft of feathers on its hood, turning its blind head sharply from side to side. Occasionally its master stroked its plumage or spoke a word to it; which was more than anyone did to her. She should have been grateful to be left in peace, especially after her fear that the Duke would take too much notice of her. Perversely she was not. The spectacle of his absorbed profile and Isabel’s head bent demurely over her book left Anne outside and disconsolate. There was a pair of swans on the river with their family of half-grown cygnets. She followed their progress downstream, and forlornly compared the smooth Avon with the shallow rumpled waters of the Ure.

  The tête-a-tête did not last long. A messenger from the Earl begged his grace to take some private refreshment with him before leaving, and Clarence leapt to his feet exclaiming at how late it was. Hastily, but with perfect courtesy, he took his leave of Isabel, promising to send her a copy of the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, which she did not know. ‘All the ladies at court have read them,’ he had declared with a sidelong glance at the confessor. As an afterthought he kissed Anne as well, ‘For she’s my cousin too, cousin,’ he said roguishly to Isabel. Then he strode away towards the castle, Ganymede bating excitedly at the prospect of fresh sport.

  Isabel slept little that night, and consequently so did Anne. Every word of the interview had to be rehearsed and commented on and Anne, her eyelids leaden with drowsiness, was called upon for a full contribution. Despite her own lack of enthusiasm for the Duke of Clarence she was glad for her sister’s happiness, and had to admit that not only was he uncommonly handsome, but also already a most ardent suitor. But when Isabel had fallen at last into beatific slumbers, Anne lay staring into the darkness, the distant rush of the weir in her ears, and could not recall Clarence’s face at all, but only the high curved beak of the goshawk, and the long talons gripping the leather gauntlet.

  He came again several times, casually and without ceremony; Isabel was convinced that it was because he could not wait for formal meetings to be arranged. Under the influence of Chaucer’s tales she was beginning to see herself as a heroine of courtly love, instead of the subject of a marriage alliance. She played and sang to him, and they went out riding on the Warwick estates. Anne was always with them, not so much tolerated as totally disregarded. But she became used to it, and as Isabel invariably recounted their conversation in full she did not miss much. The confidences were a burden, but rather a flattering one. Whenever she felt especially left out she crept into the bedchamber and pored over her pendant and Richard’s latest letter.

  And before long she had her compensation. The Earl and his family paid a visit to their kinsman the Archbishop at his manor of The Moor in Hertfordshire. This was within a short day’s ride of London, and Isabel nursed high hopes of presentation at Westminster. Instead, Clarence came for a day’s hunting, and brought Gloucester with him. As usual they had no notice of his coming, but were just walking their horses from the stable yard when a small party rode up at great speed to join them. There was much flourishing of caps and exclamations of surprise and the milling of people and horses. Anne had hardly time to register Richard’s presence before he was alongside. Away ahead Warwick and his brother and elder daughter were listening raptly to the brilliant discourse of the Duke of Clarence; the leashed hounds were yelping and scrabbling in their impatience; Richard smiled and Anne smiled back, and they set off together.

  When the view-halloo was given and the dogs streamed away down the hill they made little attempt to keep up with the pack. It was growing too hot for exertion, and by mutual consent they slowed their pace, dropping back from the other riders until, apart from a couple of attendants, they were alone. As the noise of the hunt faded, the peace of the high summer day flowed over them. The valleys of the Chilterns rippled with the gold of ripening crops and the sun drained the colour from the sky with its heat, so that the still green band of the beechwoods was a relief to the eye. They ate their dinner, produced from the saddlebag of Richard’s unobtrusive squire, at the edge of a copse, sitting on a carpet of last year’s leaves and looking down on the thatched roofs of a hamlet far below them in the hollow. The strips of cultivated land ran neatly in all directions, making an intricate pattern of varying shades from the cream of oats to the honey of wheat.

  ‘It’s like an arras,’ said Anne. ‘And the village is part of the design.’

  ‘Look.’ Richard pointed to two grazing cattle, tiny and motionless on their patch of green. ‘On the common land beyond the church tapestry
cows!’ Their game was spoiled by a man and his dog, crawling blackly along a chalky track to the village. ‘Did you ever finish sewing your popinjay, by the by?’

  ‘Yes, I gave it to one of my ladies as a wedding gift.’ Brushing the crumbs of an eel pie from his thighs, Richard lay back on the dry leaves and crossed his arms behind his head.

  ‘Frank is going to be married soon.’

  ‘Is he?’ She would have liked to ask his wife’s name and when it was to be, for she was interested in Francis Lovel’s welfare. But it did not seem the right time to talk of marriage, and she did not pursue it.

  Her companion was squinting up at the filigree ceiling of beech leaves and azure sky through half-closed eyes. She returned to her contemplation of the somnolent valley. Out of earshot their attendants chatted quietly until, taking advantage of the inactivity, they fell asleep. The sun burned an arc across the sky and the shadows of the miniature cottages sidled lazily across the fields. Once or twice they spoke to each other, but it was unnecessary. They were complete without speech, as much here in the rolling farmland of the Chilterns as on the sparse dales of Yorkshire. When the sun began to turn to evening copper they rode leisurely back, falling in with the hunting party at the junction of two dusty bridle paths. Hounds, horses and riders were wilting from their exercise, and they had little to show for it, but the Duke of Clarence, fanning himself with his embroidered cap, was still talking. Nobody made any comment as the two truants joined them; Anne thought that perhaps their absence had not even been remarked.

  A lavish supper awaited them. The Archbishop apologised for its simplicity, pleading lack of time for preparation; nevertheless there were ten courses, and cool gallons of wine from his cellars. Afterwards the two dukes disappeared with Warwick and his brother, and although both girls hoped that they would re-emerge they were still closeted at bedtime. Lying naked on their bed with the coverlet thrown back, Isabel languorously scratched her gnat bites and described the day’s adventures. Tonight Anne was not listening. Her closed eyes were full of the sun, and her heart full of happiness.

  Throughout the autumn Clarence continued to visit Warwick, and he was accompanied more than once by his younger brother. There was, however, no repetition of the day in the Chilterns, and the young Nevilles met the young Plantagenets only in company. Anne could not be quite easy with Richard in George’s presence. He never ignored her, as Isabel did, but his allegiance was divided. Like her sister, he could not resist the allure of Clarence’s conversation, and would sit mute for an hour, drinking in the stream of light witticisms from that gifted tongue. And there was a deeper reason for her disquiet, which she did not admit even to herself: a resentment of the elder brother’s beauty, which threw the younger into shadow. Richard was so thin and sallow beside him, and each time she saw them together Anne felt a distant stab of that old compassion which had first drawn her towards the boy striving with the outsized sword at Middleham. But Richard with George was infinitely better than no Richard at all, and she willed herself into gratitude to Clarence for thinking of bringing him.

  But after the beginning of Advent there were no more visits. The barrage of gifts and messages for Isabel ceased also. No explanation was forthcoming, either from the Duke or from Warwick. The first two weeks Isabel endured in hopeful anticipation; during the third she began to grumble half seriously to Anne about the inconstancy of suitors. By Christmas she was thoroughly piqued. The gift of a cask of rhenish to the Earl and his family from his grace of Clarence did not mend matters: there was no special mention of her in the greeting that came with it. Her nightly plaint to her sister grew more intense and sometimes tearful. The dearth of news drove her at Epiphany to the temerity of tackling her father about it. He had remained aloof throughout the festival, perhaps because the Countess was absent with a chill, but she chose a moment when, mellow from a recital of carols by his private choir, he should have been approachable.

  ‘My lord, why is his grace neglecting me? Has anything happened?’ Her back was very straight and her head up, but her voice trembled a little.

  Warwick turned to her slowly, his eyebrows raised and his expression as distant as if he had never seen her before. ‘That is no concern of yours, daughter,’ he said coldly. Her defiant attitude crumpled. As if suddenly focusing on her, his face relaxed. ‘The Duke has many duties. He cannot spend all his time a-courting. Hold your tongue, child, and be patient.’ Backing away from him to her stool, she nearly tripped over her crimson train.

  She sobbed long into the night, wetting Anne’s pillow as well as her own. Her father had been telling her, she insisted, that George had tired of her and was looking elsewhere for a duchess. Anne did her best to offer comfort and assurance that she was mistaken. But she was nursing a quiet sorrow of her own which inclined her to join Isabel rather than to console her. There had been no word from Richard for six weeks. The monthly letter which had never failed since his departure from Yorkshire had not arrived, and he had sent her nothing at Christmas. What made it worse was her nagging sense of selfreproach. She had not lost sight of her father’s admonition in the solar at Middleham. ‘Study to like him better,’ he had commanded, but she had not been able to change her feelings for Richard, had not known how. She had fallen short, and first he had left Yorkshire and now he had broken off contact. In some way Isabel too must have failed in her instructions and Warwick had taken steps to punish her also. Although she would not have dared stand up to their father as her sister had done, Anne took Isabel’s advice to herself. If she held her tongue in patience, the Earl might relent.

  Soon afterwards they moved back to Wensleydale, which threw Isabel deeper into despair. ‘So far from London - how can he come even if he would!’

  Clarence certainly did not materialise, but in February the Duke of Gloucester was reported to be coming north on official business. As the Earl left to join him in York he hinted that he might bring a guest back with him. Fortunately Anne did not raise her hopes too high, because he returned alone, briefly, before setting off himself for London. He brought a letter for Isabel from Clarence.

  It set a pattern for the next two years. Although they saw neither of the royal brothers, Isabel received an occasional letter or gift; Anne heard nothing. At first her heart constricted when a messenger rode through the gatehouse, just in case he should be wearing the white boar of the Duke of Gloucester, but gradually her hopes died.

  In her magnanimous moods - when George had just written to her

  - Isabel was sympathetic. ‘It’s probably because you’re the younger daughter,’ she offered helpfully, ‘and his grace has thought better of it. The King’s sister Margaret is betrothed to the new Duke of Burgundy. It wouldn’t be fitting for their brother to marry beneath him.’

  The pendant he had given her lay in its hiding place, and whenever she thought of it a faint voice of persistent loyalty assured her that Richard would not have deserted her of his own free will, that it was not in his nature to break a pledge. It made no difference; whatever the reason, she was alone.

  Larger issues also were going awry. All was not well between King Edward and his greatest subject. Since his marriage Edward had been chipping away at the foundations of the privileged position occupied by the Earl who had given him his throne. Petty slights and the promoting of the Queen’s grasping relatives at the expense of the Nevilles were followed by more serious affronts. The King with his own hands had taken the Great Seal away from Archbishop Neville. High indignation was voiced by Warwick’s household about the rapaciousness of the Queen, who was evidently behind the whole policy, and in more discreet tones there were whispers about the ingratitude of the King. Warwick, of course, held aloof from the gossip, and appeared unperturbed by each fresh check to his dignity. But Anne noticed what others, busily mulling scandal, had probably missed: the men-at-arms were drilling more frequently, there were mutters of a rising in the far north, and whenever the Earl was in residence there were important strangers coming and
going. Something was in the air, and in the chapel at Warwick, or in whichever of the Neville castles they were living at the time, Anne prayed that it would not happen. Especially under the stained glass picture of St Anne and St Joachim in Wensleydale she prayed also for Richard.

  Anne’s thirteenth birthday was approaching when Isabel had a message from her father which made her excited and secretive. Lately, in one of her periodic bouts of depression, there had been gloomy bedtime monologues about unmarried maidens dying of grief at seventeen. Anne expected early enlightenment on her change of mood, but there was nothing except pregnant hints and Isabel starting at every hurried footstep. This only fed her uneasiness. Rumours of an insurgent called Robin of Redesdale were growing louder, and the fact that he was on the Scottish border and they were at Warwick did not help.

  It was to Warwick that the summons came, in the burly shape of their uncle Lord Fauconberg. Within an hour of his arrival the castle was alive with activity, and Anne was disturbed to hear that they were all leaving that same evening. Her immediate guess was that they were fleeing before the rebels, but the bustle was not that of panic. It was more stealthy than frightened, and Isabel, breathing ‘At last, at last!’ as she was dressed, told her that this was what she had been waiting for.

  The sky was still pale green when they cleared the barbican and rode through the homegoing town. It was a small cavalcade with an escort of less than twenty men-at-arms, and intended to travel fast, since there was only one light chariot in case the Countess or one of her handful of ladies should need a respite. She and her daughters were mounted behind gentlemen of the household, and well wrapped against the dangerous night air, although it was as mild as a spring afternoon. Anne was happier on horseback than shut in when she was on the road, and despite the anxiety of an unknown destination there was something exhilarating about the steady rush of the horses along roads which wound into the night, barely reflecting the thin sliver of a moon that swam between the stars. On either side shouldered the companions of all her travels, the retainers in their bear and ragged staff livery, drained now to sable and argent. There was haste about them, but still no fear, and one or two of them sang softly as they rode. Catching a glimpse of Isabel where she clung to her horseman, one cheek pressed into his back, she saw that her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, her eyes wide and dark.