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

by Lesley Nickell

  ‘Why have my apartments and my women been changed?’

  ‘To fit your new state, madame. And to place you nearer to the suites of your lord and your royal mother. But the Earl ordered me expressly before he left to attend to your comfort in any way within my power.’

  ‘Then ask him for an audience. As soon as he returns.’

  ‘At your command, madame.’ She dismissed him, deciding now that mute indifference from the attendants was preferable to his unctuous courtesies.

  In one matter at least he did not fail her. Within two hours the Countess joined her, but Anne was rather shocked when her mother sank into a deep reverence.

  ‘Madame, you shouldn’t be kneeling to me....’ She had witnessed her parents’ change in attitude to Isabel when she became a duchess; she had never imagined that the rules of precedence would apply to her too. The Countess replied that it was most appropriate, and waited for her daughter’s permission to sit.

  De Josselin escorted them both to hear mass, said by Queen Margaret’s chaplain, and afterwards Anne was dismayed to find herself led in the Queen’s wake to her private chamber. She was given a stool on Margaret’s right, the Countess a slightly lower one on her left. She was marooned on an island of silence. The Queen talked incessantly, in rapid French which Anne could not always follow, but it was far from the aimless gossip which she had been used to in feminine circles. Men were coming and going all the time, bringing her messages and taking orders, and the Queen’s hands were busy, not plying a needle, but turning over papers and signing letters. Her ladies were clearly accustomed to the carrying on of business in this inappropriate setting. They took little notice of it, and even less of Anne.

  In the afternoon Prince Edward, who had been at his lessons before dinner, spent some time with his mother. He acknowledged his fiancée on arriving and leaving with an embarrassed bow, still avoiding her eyes. Otherwise he was absorbed in conversation with the Queen. Yesterday’s ceremony had not inspired Anne with any curiosity about her future husband, but for lack of anything better to occupy her she observed mother and son together. Subconsciously she searched for some resemblance between the adolescent and the man sitting uneasily in that musty hall of long ago. There was none that she could discern. Neither was there a likeness in this plump handsome matron to the fiendish monster-queen of the legends. But Anne was not much consoled. Margaret in the flesh possessed other qualities which were at close range as alarming: energy, vigour, vitality - just the qualities which brought out all the shyness and clumsiness in Anne’s nature. She knew that when the Queen did inevitably come to speak to her, she would be tongue-tied and blushing and her father would be ashamed of her.

  But her father was not to witness that particular humiliation. During the week in which Warwick stayed in Angers, he was hardly ever in the Queen’s company, and she did not deign to pay attention to Anne at all. The Earl seemed to have passed the entire responsibility for his wife and daughter to Margaret. He had not done so, however, as he explained to Anne when he called her to his private closet. As always he looked to be on the point of departure, and in fact he was leaving the next day for Valognes.

  ‘My army requires my presence,’ he said. ‘The preparations for invasion must be accelerated now. I leave you here under the protection of King Louis.’

  ‘Am I in need of protection, sire?’ faltered Anne.

  Warwick smiled briefly. ‘We are all in need of protection, daughter. Whether that of God, or our King, or our liege lord. As I told you once before, you are my surety of good faith. When I hold England for Queen Margaret, your marriage will be solemnised and you will of course become subject to your husband and while he is under age to his mother - and father,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Until then, you are nominally in their household but actually the guest of the King of France. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘I leave Messire de Josselin to watch over you. Should you have any complaints about your treatment, take them to him. He is in the King’s confidence as well as mine.’ Anne grimaced inwardly; she could not fathom the qualities in de Josselin which made great men place such trust in him. ‘I understand that the Queen is at present affording you your correct position?’

  What could she say? On her stool at Margaret’s right hand she had been afforded a week’s indifference and stultifying boredom. Yet she could scarcely complain that nobody had offered her a friendly word or even a smile. Her father would not consider that important. Besides, the attention of the Queen would probably prove worse than her neglect. Weakly she returned the easiest answer. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  He was running through a pile of letters, appending his signature, ‘R. Warrewyke’, and sealing them with his signet; he had evidently finished with her. The pleasant odour of hot wax came to her, and before it cut her off from him she felt some compulsion to say more, to appeal for something to sustain her through the loneliness ahead. Her father was still remote to her, a figure of awe almost as much today as in the infrequent visitations of her childhood. But even in his absence the stamp of his personality had been firm upon the routine of his ménage. Near or far, he had defended them against the worst of the outside world. Now he was giving her into the keeping of someone else and, King of France or Queen of England, she had no confidence in either.

  ‘My lord?’ she said timidly, and Warwick glanced up in mild surprise. He had indeed forgotten about her. ‘Shall I shall I see King Henry?’

  ‘No doubt. When you come to England.’

  ‘And shall I be in his household?’

  ‘At first, possibly. But the Prince of Wales will be given his own establishment, perhaps in the Welsh Marches or in the North, and you will be your own mistress.’ Although he intended to be reassuring, Anne did not much like the prospect of being shut up in a distant castle with the cold young man who worshipped only his mother. ‘There’ll be children soon enough, and you will have the satisfaction of rearing them as heirs to the kingdom.’ She knew that in his matter-of-fact way her father was trying to be kind. The inadequacy of his efforts brought tears to her eyes. Fearing that he would see them, she fell on her knees for his blessing. When he had pressed his signet on to another letter, he came over to her. ‘They will be Nevilles as well as Plantagenets. Never forget it, Anne. You are a Neville and will remain so.’ Once more his hand weighed on her head, and unusually he raised her. ‘You must do that no more. The Princess of Wales kneels to nobody except her husband and to princes of the blood royal.’

  She kept her eyes lowered, summoning the control to speak steadily. But she was saved from it by the entry of one of Warwick’s captains. The Earl’s thoughts were immediately deflected, and she was allowed to withdraw with her dignity intact.

  He went without further farewell. Anne returned to the routine which became daily more oppressive. She had not appreciated before the amount of freedom she was allowed within her father’s establishment. No one had taken much account of her doings, as long as she was in the right place at the right time for meals and other formal occasions. At Valognes particularly she had been left to herself. Gazing at the shafts of dusty sunlight that penetrated into the Queen’s stifling chamber, she thought of the herb garden in the convent and the clapping of the doves’ wings as they flew from the roof of the dovecote. Had God listened to her instead of to her father, she might by now be robed as a novice, subject to the daily order which meant so much more than this barren existence.

  Occasionally they did go out. The Prince was fond of hunting, and when he could spare time from his studies, and his mother from business, they rode together. With Margaret went her ladies, and so perforce did Anne. Anjou in the summer was very hot. The grapes in the vineyards were swelling, but she did not enjoy the countryside lying fertile under the shimmering heat. Prince Edward took a special delight in making the kill personally, and he liked his skill to be applauded by a large audience.

  It was at one of these spectacles that Margaret first
spoke to her son’s fiancée. Edward was laughing, smearing his hands and face with the blood of the fallen deer, while the huntsmen hacked off the antlers as his prize. As usual Anne was gripping the pommel of her saddle, her eyes closed, swallowing back the bitter taste that rose into her mouth. A horse drew alongside, and a brisk voice said in accented English, ‘Retching, madame? You will need a stronger stomach if you are to be the wife of a Lancastrian king.’ The Queen was staring at her with hard black eyes. There was no mercy in them. Anne was incapable of answering, even if she had known what to say. She saw Margaret’s fine eyebrows flicker upwards in a subtle mixture of resignation and contempt before she hung her head and heard the Queen leave her. At least the shock of the encounter was sufficient to cure that day’s sickness.

  At the Queen’s side, she watched the solitary successes of her betrothed at the quintain and the butts - for there were no royal henchmen to share his training. Only at such times, as the arrow with a swish and a slap struck the target, was she assailed by a sudden glimpse of the past, a memory of the practice-yard at Middleham so sweet that she forced it out of her mind hastily lest it should make the present unbearable.

  The summer ripened, and news came that Warwick, with Clarence and a handful of faithful Lancastrian lords, had landed in Devon. There were covert glances at Anne as the messenger made his announcement: dove of reconciliation, pledge of faith she might be; she was also a hostage. If her father’s invasion failed, she would need the protection of King Louis. But his progress was exemplary. By the end of September his army had advanced close to London, and King Edward, away in the North, seemed to be asleep to the rape of his country. Warwick’s brother John, now Marquess Montagu, had joined his side, and it was said optimistically around the little exiled court that England was on the point of rising for its rightful king.

  She was sitting one morning soon after the first fires had been lighted in her usual place of chilly honour beside the Queen when Prince Edward came in. Following the other women she rose from her knees at the given signal to find that the Prince had stopped in front of her. In her surprise she was staring him full in the face. He held her gaze for the first time and smiled, but more in insolence than friendship.

  ‘Your cousin Edward of York has fled the country,’ he said loudly, and paused, waiting for a reaction that did not come. ‘It is reported that he was drowned in a storm off the coast of Norfolk. With his brother the Duke of Gloucester.’

  She sat down abruptly on her stool. No etiquette in the world could have kept her on her feet. Her fiancé went on talking, about Warwick’s entry into the capital and the release of King Henry from the Tower, but she took in none of it. When she had recovered her faculties, the Prince was leaning on his mother’s chair discussing a despatch. Mechanically she continued her embroidery, not heeding the redoubled fierceness of many meaning glances.

  For several days the petty slights and isolation of her life ceased to hurt. The bewildered blankness in her heart outweighed everything else. She dreamed of weeping, and woke with wet cheeks. It was Bertrand de Josselin who brought her the truth of the matter, and such was her suspicion of him that he had to give her exhaustive details before she would believe him. King Edward and Richard of Gloucester had landed destitute but safe in Holland, and had gone to ask help of the Duke of Burgundy their brother-in-law. She sent him away and celebrated secretly the good luck of Edward of York which had embraced and saved his brother also.

  This was not her only disloyalty. She could not rejoice over her father’s success, because it brought perilously closer the final sealing of the contract between herself and Margaret’s son. The false report of his death had brought Richard painfully back to her mind. Although she fought hard to dismiss him again, she could not help comparing him with the boy she was destined to marry. Hitherto she had regarded the Prince with wary indifference, never quite relinquishing the hope that he might possess something of his father’s goodness. Now she knew otherwise. Nobody good could have taken pleasure in bringing her such tidings. From that day dislike of Edward took firm root.

  Unhappily the hardening of her heart coincided with a change of attitude towards her. She was made to take a more active part in court procedure, and when de Josselin informed her that they were moving to Amboise, she knew that that was the place chosen for her marriage. Warwick had fulfilled his side of the bargain; Queen Margaret would not fail to fulfil hers.

  It was a wretched journey, through the mud and drizzle of late autumn, yet for Anne the rigours of the road were preferable to what lay at the end of it. The château of Amboise, even under the slush of melting snow, was less forbidding than Angers. It was one of King Louis’ favourite residences, de Josselin volunteered as they approached, subtly reminding her that here also she was the French King’s protégée. Here too her apartments were richly furnished, and everything provided for her comfort except company and friendship. They arrived at the beginning of December and at once an army of dressmakers and seamstresses appeared, armed with ells of velvet and brocade for her wedding gown. There was something sinister about the quiet efficiency with which they set about their task, as if they had waited there, scissors and pins in hand, since the beginning of time, for Anne’s fate to lead her to them. She let them mould the magnificent robes about her, picturing as they did so an arch-fiend with a marked resemblance to the King of France presiding over a convocation of demons who were planning the career of Anne Neville.

  The day appointed was the Feast of St Lucy, and the morning before a gift arrived from her father: a great ruby set in a gold clasp, enamelled with the red saltire of the Nevilles. His message was clear. She was to use it to fasten her mantle at her wedding, and everyone would see that she stood for her family, now holding England in the name of King Henry. Warwick also sent her several lengths of fine English woollen cloth, to make her warm gowns against the winter. Both gifts were noticeably grander than those she received from her fiancé and his mother. Anne did not particularly care, but Bertrand de Josselin was incensed.

  ‘The Queen is insulting my lord Earl with such paltry offerings,’ he said to her in an indignant undertone. ‘Of course, if she were challenged she would plead poverty, and all Europe knows she lives on the charity of our lord King Louis. But she was willing to pawn Calais to gain his help. Her credit would stretch if she wanted it to do so.’ It was the first Anne had heard of Margaret’s desperate gambit, and she was far more shocked by the idea of Calais being betrayed to the French than by the poor quality of her bridegifts. She wondered if her father, Captain of Calais through many stirring years, knew about his allies’ bargain.

  At all events, he was powerless now to prevent the fruition of his scheme. On 13 December his younger daughter married Edward of Lancaster and became Princess of Wales - discounting the fact that six weeks earlier, in sanctuary at Westminster, the wife of Edward IV had given birth to his heir, another Edward Prince of Wales. Anne’s only hope of reprieve, she told herself bitterly as she took her place beside her impassive bridegroom, was that God would strike her down for perjury as she gave her consent. But she said ‘Volo’ and heaven was silent. In the abbey church of Valognes she had cried out to the summer night against her father’s will ruling her life. Now it had bound her irrevocably to a young man who despised her, and she could do nothing.

  And slowly, as the day and the wedding festivities wore tediously on, her fatalistic mood was succeeded by something far worse. The great ball at Amboise, filled with the babel of a hundred conversations and with sweating servants plying constantly to and fro, brought back to mind her sister’s wedding feast, in the fortress of Calais. She thought of touching dignity submerged in-tipsy coquetry, beautiful clothes spoiled, the obscene glances of her brother-in-law, and was more and more afraid. She recalled with growing clarity the aftermath of that feast: the dimming of Isabel’s personality, the horrific tales told in the darkness, worst of all the stinking cabin and the dead child in her arms. After the meal there wa
s dancing, and somehow Anne stumbled through the figures, praying that she might faint or be taken suddenly ill, and remaining obstinately on her feet.

  The winter evening closed over the dutiful revels; a select company assembled to escort the bridal pair to their chamber.

  Queen Margaret, the Countess of Warwick, Bertrand de Josselin, the priest who had married them ... only from her mother might she hope for sympathy, and she seemed determined to keep her head averted. Almost in silence they were disrobed and laid together in bed. The appropriate blessings and charms were muttered over them, and then they were left alone. As soon as the door closed, Edward sat up. Stricken with terror, Anne watched him reach to the shelf above their heads, and light a second candle from the single one burning there. His bedgown was open to his smooth chest, and there was a carefully darned tear in its satin revers. He leaned back against the bolster, and with a glance at Anne he suddenly raised his voice.

  ‘Messire de Josselin!’ After a brief pause, the curtains at the end of the bed twitched apart.

  ‘Monseigneur?’ enquired the Frenchman blandly.

  ‘Which of your masters are you spying for tonight?’ said the Prince, speaking in English so that Anne should understand. Clutching the sheets convulsively to her chin, she was for an instant united with her husband in abhorrence of the official eavesdropper. He smiled noncommittally and did not answer. ‘We do not require your assistance,’ said Edward. ‘Leave us, messire.’

  ‘A thousand apologies, but I was given instructions −’

  ‘You will take your instructions from me. Leave us.’ Accepting his defeat with the slightest lifting of his shoulders, the spy bowed, wished them good night, and disappeared. Imprisoned again within the heavy bed-curtains, Anne shrank from the Prince’s next movement. But it was away from and not towards her. He threw back the coverlet, swung his legs to the floor, and put on the fur-lined robe which lay beside the bed. Then he turned and looked down at Anne, his lips still curled in the disdain he had shown to de Josselin.