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

by Lesley Nickell

  Her father took a few turns about the chamber without speaking. Had he been anyone else, she would have suspected that he did not know how to begin. At length he threw up his head and announced, ‘My daughter, you belong to a great family.’ She murmured the required response. ‘The name of Neville is respected and feared not only in England but far beyond our shores. It is the duty of every member of the family to add to its lustre. How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen, my lord.’

  ‘If you were my son, you would by now have won your knighthood.’ Anne experienced the familiar dwindling of her selfrespect. ‘But even a girl-child can be of use. Your lady mother brought the earldom of Warwick to me; your great-aunt became Duchess of York.’ He came to stand beside her stool and placed his hand on her shoulder. His voice became less rhetorical. ‘I offer you the opportunity of bringing far greater glory to the House of Neville than your ancestors have done. To be a queen, Anne. And mother of kings.’

  Anne had a sudden crazy desire to giggle. There was a farcical difference between the ways in which Clarence and Warwick had broken the news that quite destroyed its solemnity. She composed her features to listen again, but her father had been watching her, and mistook the tremor of amusement for something else.

  ‘It is a high destiny. And far from easy. I shall speak to you plainly, child, because grown as you are it may be hard for you to understand.’ The inclination to laugh had vanished, superseded by the knowledge that if she did not speak now, the chance would be gone for ever.

  ‘Father.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want to enter this convent and take my vows.’ It was the formal statement of a lost cause, and from his answer she doubted if he had even heard her.

  ‘Yes, yes. I daresay.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Now, the reasons for this alliance are too complex to explain to you. Let it suffice that we intend to right a great wrong, and that you are to be the pledge of our good faith and the crown of our success.’ He paused for her comment, but there was none. ‘Have you not guessed?’ She would not say it. Until she said it there would be no truth in the proposition that he was trying to thrust upon her. ‘You must look upon yourself as a peace offering, as a dove bearing the olive branch of matrimony. Many a feud has been buried in the marriage bed before now, but none, I think, so hard fought and so mistaken. In your union with the Prince of Wales -’

  ‘You all said she was a witch. A demon.’ Anne’s voice was so strange that for a moment Warwick faltered.

  ‘Servants’ ... women’s gossip. Queen Margaret has great strength of character.’ He found himself fixed with a stare of utter incredulity. The gossip in the castles of her childhood, she knew very well, took its impetus from nobody but the lord of those castles. Her father had been right to doubt that she would understand. ‘I’ve heard that Prince Edward is a fine lad. A little older than you. He should beget sturdy sons on you. He’s the apple of the Queen’s eye, and for his sake she will love you too.’ Although he had never expected to have to do so with his meek younger daughter, Warwick was battling strenuously against the silent intractability of her gaze. Tears he could have coped with, or protest, but not this overwhelming incomprehension. He cut his losses. ‘I go to Angers next month, to meet with Queen Margaret. You will follow with your lady mother, and the betrothal will take place there.’

  So soon! Only a few weeks more and she would enter her purgatory. Her father had resumed his pacing. She wondered why he did not dismiss her. He stopped and said, ‘Is there anything you wish to ask me?’ She had not even wanted to know what he had told her already, but out of obedience she found a question.

  ‘Will Isabel be going with us?’

  ‘Isabel remains here. With her husband.’ That information only added extra bleakness to the world ahead - for her sister as well as herself. They did not love each other, but there was a companionship between them that outweighed the alternative attractions of Prince Edward of Lancaster and George of Clarence. Again that awkward hush, with Warwick pacing.

  At last she said in a small voice, ‘May I go, my lord?’ She rose, and he came over to her.

  ‘Anne. ...’ His hand hovered by her head in an uncertain halfgesture. Then he gave a quick sigh and said, as though it were secondbest, ‘You’re a good child. God bless you.’ The hand rested on her hair in benediction, but that too was not what he had intended to do. When she had gone he stood for some minutes rubbing his chin with his fingers, lost most uncharacteristically in thought.

  The days which before had slipped peacefully one into the next, marked only by the ordered round of Prime, Sext and Vespers, became a torrent, bearing her with inexorable speed towards Angers. Although, feeling herself rejected by it, she no longer went to the abbey church, her rosary was still a refuge, and in the well-worn patterns of prayer she usually managed to ward off the impending future. It was more difficult now that her father had given a focus to the darkness. He had given it a name, and that summoned up memories which were strong and alive with terror. Queen Margaret was the shadow that had overcast her childhood, the spectre which had come in the night to shake her from sleep, which had lurked constantly in the dusty alcoves of castle chambers and the unguarded corners of her mind. She had heard her called so many foul things, attributed with such unspeakable crimes, that the Frenchwoman was more of a myth than a reality. It was perhaps this that carried her through the last weeks at Valognes. She could not believe that she would ever set eyes on Margaret of Anjou, nor that her father would bring himself to deliver up his hostage.

  But the day came, another day of cloudless blue and gold, and they left the sheltering walls of the convent in a long and glittering cavalcade, quite different from the weary line of litters which had carried them from Honfleur. Drawn up formally in the courtyard of the guest-house, the escort sent by King Louis looked on while the Countess and her younger daughter took leave of the Abbess and the Duchess of Clarence. Anne did not trust herself to speak. In kneeling to kiss the Mother Superior’s ring, she saw her dream of acceptance into the order twisted cruelly into an irrevocable farewell; in embracing her sister she could not forget that, unwilling though she might be, she was supplanting her in their father’s ambition. From the windows of the refectory the nuns were watching, and among their bobbing heads Anne could distinguish the still face of Soeur Madeleine.

  The leader of the escort approached and assisted her, with much ceremony, to mount. She wanted to shake off the long strong fingers which lifted her into the saddle; the appointment of Bertrand de Josselin to conduct her into Anjou seemed like a personal insult. He gave the signal to move, and as she walked her gelding obediently after him she caught sight of the abbey dovecote, with the birds sunning themselves lazily on the roof like small unseasonable patches of snow. Such contented and complacent creatures. Anne thought of her father’s comparing her to a dove of peace, and remembered what happened to these doves in the winter.

  2: THE HOSTAGE

  Angers was the largest town she had entered for many months. The narrow streets, the overhanging houses, the milling crowds closed in about her oppressively. On top of the long journey

  and the heat, the stink of the kennels made her head reel. Out of the cavern of the dark streets they emerged at the river, and beyond the bridge was the château, a great castle growing out of a sheer wall of rock. She was used to castles, but she rode under the portcullis with the sensations of a prisoner. This vast fortress with its girdle of round towers would not let an army in; it would certainly not let out any individual who tried to leave against its will.

  There was no welcome for them. The French men-at-arms melted away, and with only their ladies and the few English attendants who had accompanied them, Anne and the Countess were led by their guide to a small doorway, and through deserted passageways to their apartments. The chambers were lavishly furnished, there were Turkish carpets and rich tapestries on the walls. Wine and refreshments were laid, and water and clean napkins for washing. Ye
t still no one greeted them. De Josselin made himself discreetly useful, as he had done throughout the journey, but as he knelt beside Anne with the bowl of water, with the deference in which she always felt a veiled mockery, she was suddenly stung into speaking sharply to him.

  ‘Are we not to be received officially, messire?’ He smiled up at her, sidelong. ‘Officially, madame, you are not yet here.’

  ‘What do you mean? Where is my lord Earl?’

  ‘Oh, he is here. And his grace King Louis. But her grace of England

  has not yet arrived.’ Shrugging, as if he had explained everything, he handed her a towel. Despite the luxury of their surroundings and ample provision for all their needs, the claustrophobia which had gripped her on entering the town redoubled. A few hours later she was seized with violent griping pains, and for three days she took no further interest in her surroundings.

  She was on her feet again, though unsteadily, when her presence in Angers was at last acknowledged by a visit from her father. Warwick brought with him a shabby little man with a long nose. After a few perfunctory enquiries about her health - on which subject Bertrand de Josselin had evidently kept him fully informed - he turned to his companion and asked him in French if there was anything he wished to know. The man lifted his shoulders and answered in the same language, ‘She is very pale - but no doubt that is the result of her sickness.’ Anne understood French quite well, but the stranger, and probably her father also, were not aware of it.

  ‘Yes, monseigneur. The journey upset her. But she is on the mend now.’ It was odd; she had never heard her father address anyone with so high a title, and yet this was such an insignificant little man. She supposed that he was some great lord from the train of the terrible Queen, come to spy incognito on her proposed daughter-in-law. Remembering the pseudo-minstrel of Middleham Castle, Anne came to the disgusted conclusion that spying was the favourite French method of diplomacy. Her opinion of the French sank still lower with the next question, which she understood before the Earl translated it for her.

  ‘Are you old enough to bear children?’ She knew what he meant: Isabel had told her about the distasteful obstacle which lay between her and womanhood. Blushing, she said, ‘No, my lord.’

  To her further embarrassment the Frenchman laughed suddenly, a mirthless bark. Aside to Warwick he said, ‘I doubt if my cousin of England will be broken-hearted to hear that.’

  Warwick was not amused, but he answered with restraint, ‘It does not please me so much, monseigneur, as you may imagine. But my daughter is the right age. It may happen at any moment.’

  ‘Of course, my dear friend. I appreciate your eagerness to mingle your blood with royal stock to produce a little Neville princeling. I just hope for your daughter’s sake that my cousin the Queen has taught her son the art of love as well as the arts of war. His father apparently had little idea what to do when the bed-curtains were drawn although his accomplishments lay in a more holy direction than do young Edward’s.’

  Anne was squirming with shame, and she was only comforted by the double realisation that the Countess, standing nearby, had no inkling what was being discussed, and that her father was almost as uncomfortable as she. The stranger had noticed too. Laying his arm across the Earl’s shoulders, he chuckled. ‘The trouble with you is that you take life too seriously. And so does this little maid, by the looks of her.’ He shuffled towards her, and patted her cheek. ‘Lift up your heart, child,’ he said in bad English. ‘I’ve no doubt the boy will serve you lustily - if his mother will let him bed with you.’ There were small leaden images of saints stuck into the brim of his cap; Anne recognised St Paul by the sword in his hand. The small sharp eyes had seen where hers had strayed. He took off the cap, plucked one of the images from the back and gave it to her. ‘Here, take St Catherine. She hasn’t been very good to me lately, but she may be more use to you.’ Chuckling afresh, he went back to Warwick, and linking arms familiarly with him he took him out of the chamber.

  The shabby visitor was King Louis XI of France. Since her informant was Bertrand de Josselin, Anne did not ask why he affected such unkingly garb. But in the tedious days that followed she had plenty of leisure to reflect upon it. He was the third king she had encountered, and of the three only one had any appearance of royalty; her cousin Edward.

  It was not he who had suddenly assumed significance but another King of England, who had impressed himself upon her childish mind by his gentleness and his little bird. Anne had always found it hard to associate King Henry with the hated Queen Margaret, yet there was little doubt - and that expressed by his enemies - that he had fathered the boy she was destined to marry. Hitherto she had thought of Prince Edward only in terms of his mother; now she allowed herself the faint possibility that there might be in him something of the nature of his father, whom she had heard referred to as a living saint.

  If Prince Edward were fond of birds, if he smiled at her shyly as King Henry had done in the throne room at Greenwich, it would be easier to face the ordeal of her life with him. What was more, if the Earl meant what he said about righting a great wrong, then surely the holy King would be released from his prison in the Tower as part of the crusade. Perhaps, with the influence of a Princess of Wales - for the first time the title articulated itself with less than dread - she could see to his freedom and comfort. With that mission to give her courage she could almost envisage approaching the Queen herself, for surely some affection for her husband must linger still in that. ferocious heart which so doted upon her son.

  It was of King Henry that she thought as they dressed her for the betrothal. Three days before the Earl of Warwick had met Margaret of Anjou, and the momentous reconciliation had taken place. The newfound amity had its price for Warwick: the Queen had kept him on his knees for a quarter of an hour begging her pardon before she would allow her old adversary to kiss her hand. Anne did not know this. The meeting was announced to her personally by her father, and he had not mentioned it. All he had said was that Queen Margaret had graciously accepted his homage, and that the Prince of Wales was indeed a well-grown stripling, proud and good-looking. She took the opportunity of asking whether the release of King Henry would be one of the objects of his new alliance.

  ‘Why, of course,’ he had said. ‘His grace is the only true King of England. Our first purpose will be to restore him to his throne.’ That long anxious face of her early memory, transfigured by liberty and wearing his rightful crown: the distant vision sustained her throughout the long preparations.

  Her father led her to the altar steps. The ceremony of betrothal was almost as solemn as a wedding, and to Holy Church just as binding; Warwick had enlisted the aid of his friend King Louis to ensure that the promising of his daughter to the heir of Lancaster was nobly attended. Compared with the crush of ancient titles in the cathedral at Angers, Isabel’s marriage in Calais had been a hole-in-the-corner affair. Counts and princes had been waiting for some time, cheek by jowl, in a fine array of fur and jewellery. It was a hot day, and the redolent odour of sweat convinced Anne that she would once more disgrace the family and faint or vomit before she could do her duty. Leaning heavily on her father’s arm, she kept her head low and gulped down her nausea. His arm was removed and she stood for a long moment alone, quite alone as the focus of all those lordly indifferent gazes. Then a hand took hers, or rather, fingers were placed around hers. She made the expected responses and another voice, young, expressionless, also answered the priest. At the appropriate words a ring was pushed on to her finger, and it was done.

  Now she knew she must look up. The saintliness of King Henry would not help her here; she had to confront the present. She raised her eyes. A priest was before her, in the crimson canonicals for a martyr saint: today was the feast of St James. The Earl was standing near, his arms folded, clad in scarlet and white, and next to him not the Countess but another woman, olive-skinned and dark-eyed. The rich blue velvet of her robes would have dimmed any personality less strong than that
which was marked in the firm set of her mouth and the haughty carriage of her head. With a sudden pang of realisation Anne’s eyes glanced nervously away from her and met accidentally with those of the boy whose hand held hers. Black, like his mother’s, not mild and grey like his father’s. And like the ricochet of a game of bowls he too dropped his gaze, and would not look at her. Their palms were clinging stickily together. In her line of vision beyond Prince Edward was the King of France, and close by him Bertrand de Josselin. The spy was whispering in his master’s ear; Louis tilted his head to listen, and they sniggered silently together. Anne was certain that they were laughing at her.

  The ring on her finger and the place of honour at table were not the only changes in her life. When the page lit her to bed, it was not to the apartments she had shared with her mother, but to a larger chamber in another wing of the château. Her few possessions were there, including her missal on a prie-dieu cushioned in black brocade; the attendants who undressed her however were all French, and the lady who climbed into the other side of the richly-hung bed was unknown to her. Too bewildered to protest, she said her rosary under her breath until it sent her to sleep. The new waiting-women were efficient and deferential, but they showed no signs of friendship. When de Josselin came into the chamber the following morning, she was almost glad to see him. Although she distrusted him, any familiar face was welcome.

  ‘Where is my mother?’ she demanded in English, before he had even saluted her.

  ‘Madame la comtesse has not yet arisen,’ he said, his eyebrows raised in that slight arc of amusement which so irritated her. ‘Do you wish me to carry a message to her?’

  ‘No. I wish to see her. And my lord father.’

  ‘As to your lady mother, she shall be brought to your grace this morning. I regret that the lord Earl is out hawking with his grace the King.’ All those titles; meant to confuse her, no doubt. So her father had gone, and left her to strangers and his smooth-smiling minion.