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

by Lesley Nickell

  London was apparently as usual a hotbed of intrigue and discontent. Richard told her little of what had occurred, but she gleaned the information that her bête noire the Duke of Clarence was still making trouble about the division of her mother’s lands. That perhaps was why the King, anxious for the Countess’s safety, had kept her confined ever since the battle at Tewkesbury in Beaulieu Abbey. The subject of Richard’s recalcitrant brother was a delicate one, never raised willingly between them, but because in this case it was Anne’s portion that Clarence was coveting they could not entirely ignore it.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself,’ said Richard. ‘The King my brother will find an equitable solution. And you will lose no jot of what is yours. Any legal quibble there might be about your right to inherit is fortunately nullified by my having married you. Nobody can dispute his gifts to me - and what is mine is yours.’ Anne thanked him, although in fact she cared nothing for titles and possessions, as long as she was allowed to live at Middleham in peace. But something else was nagging at her conscience.

  ‘What will become of my mother, Richard? When all the arguments are over?’ He had not really considered it, assuming that, like many widowed or dispossessed ladies, she would exchange one religious retreat for another and pass the rest of her life in seclusion.

  But Anne had not forgotten her brother-in-law’s threat when he committed her to the household of Francis Twynyho. Isabel, permanent hostage to her own husband, was beyond help, but once the Countess of Warwick was released from the protection of the King’s troops, Anne did not think that any convent wall would be thick enough to keep out the vengeance of the Duke of Clarence. Secure and beloved in Wensleydale, she was out of reach; she did not doubt that he would vent his spite where he could. She brooded upon it in spare moments, comparing all she had with the destitution and danger of her mother. Christmas approached, and she lighted on a possible remedy. It would depend entirely on Richard’s charity and co-operation. For some reason inexplicable to Anne, her husband maintained a steady affection for his brother George, despite all that he had done to ruin his hopes of happiness, and the request would have to be framed carefully. Christmas would be a good time to approach him, she decided, when the combination of her imminent confinement and seasonal goodwill would work for her.

  Preparations buzzed all around her; the Yule log was hauled into the great hall, and the pages swarmed up the walls to deck the torchcressets and windows with boughs of ivy and holly and bay leaves. Her childhood Yuletides in the North had been spent as guest of the Augustinian monks in York, but the winter roads might prove too risky for her present condition, and she and Richard had agreed to brave the wilds of Wensleydale for their first Christmas as lord and lady of Middleham. So they heard midnight mass on Christmas Eve in their own chilly little chapel in the keep, and afterwards broke their fast by torchlight in the great hall, where the ruddy smiling faces round the fire almost compensated for the positive gale of draughts that swept through the chamber. Presiding with her husband over the twelve days of junketing that followed, Anne knew herself to be the happiest woman in the world - were it not for the plight of her mother plucking at her conscience.

  Not until the concluding celebrations of Twelfth Night did she find the opening or the courage to broach the matter. They were watching the mummers who had travelled all the way from Leyburn to perform for the Duke and Duchess, and as the hilarity reached its height, the child kicked violently in Anne’s womb. Never quite accustomed to the amazing vigour of her unborn baby, she started and gasped in surprise. Richard was immediately distracted from his enjoyment of the pantomime and gripped her hand.

  ‘Is it coming, love?’

  ‘No, no. But he struck me so hard.’ Her husband’s rare grin flashed across his face.

  ‘He wants to see St George and the dragon, I daresay. Tell him that next year he can share Christmas with us from a better vantage-point.’ Sharing Christmas next year. Anne laughed and seized her opportunity. She did not express herself very well, and half-way through they were interrupted by Martin, their new fool, who waved his inflated pig’s bladder in his mistress’s face and saucily demanded a fine from her.

  ‘Why, Martin?’ she asked, humouring him. ‘What have I done to displease you?’

  ‘Madame, you are setting yourself up as a rival to my bauble,’ he replied, indicating the swollen lap of her green velvet gown. She could not be angry with any impertinence that referred to her proud burden, so she gave him a mark as earnest of her intention to reform before another month was out. When he had pranced away to make fun of someone else, Anne returned to her plea. Richard had been considering it during the interlude.

  ‘Would she wish to come back to a secular life?’ he queried. ‘You see, her ... misfortunes ... have deprived her of any status and she will have only the income the King allows her. Would she not be demeaned by living as my dependant?’

  ‘We should have to ask her. She has no one to protect her now, and I think she must be very lonely. And I would ... I would like to have her here, Richard. To help with the baby.’ It was the right note to strike. The friendless lady in distress, the coming child, his wife’s comfort: no more was needed to sway Richard’s chivalrous and loving heart. Before St George had slain the dragon, he had promised to mention the matter to the King in his next letter, and to follow it up in person when he went south in the spring for the next session of Parliament.

  The mummers from Leyburn found themselves no longer the chief attraction as the household of the Duke of Gloucester observed with benevolent curiosity the Duchess flinging her arms round her lord and kissing him in full public view.

  Her pregnancy had been so free from trouble that she had hardly anticipated any difficulties in the birth. If she did give any thought to it, it was to assure herself that the bearing of Richard’s child, like her union with him, was bound to be blessed with the same good fortune. And therefore she was unprepared for the pains that gripped her one afternoon as she stood talking to her chamberlain in the solar. Lady Lovel and Margaret Cropper, who were with her, helped her to sit on a nearby chest, and instantly recognising what their mistress did not, told the alarmed official to send a page for the midwife. Before the midwife could be fetched from the town, where she was gossiping with a cousin, Anne was in bed, with her ladies trying vainly to soothe her. She was afraid, and the arrival of her nurse did little to reassure her.

  ‘You’re early, lady,’ remarked the midwife cheerfully, breathing heavily from all the stairs she had climbed. ‘A good thing too, as like as not. It will make the lying-in easier.’ But Anne was not listening.

  ‘My lord. I want my lord.’ Richard was over in Wharfedale at Bolton Abbey and was not expected home until after dark. So insistent was the Duchess on her need for him that a messenger was despatched to meet him on the road and hasten him.

  Until he came, Anne lay in inconsolable agony. It was not the pain she feared, nor the possibility of death which had suddenly approached very close. It was the prospect of dying without Richard beside her that terrified her into believing that every pang could be her end. Her chamber was bright with candlelight, the January evening excluded with arras drawn tight over the windows, a seacoal fire in the hearth and braziers by the bed, but to her the castle was as cold as it had been in the winter after young Richard had left her to serve his brother, as cold as the cabin where she had delivered her sister’s dead child amid the stench of seasickness. And to make it worse she found herself betrayed by her own people.

  ‘Oh, no madame. My lord cannot possibly come in here. Not until the child is born. It’s not the custom.’

  ‘But I must see him. I must.’ He was no good to her pacing the next chamber for hours, waiting for bulletins from her female jailors. She needed his hand to clutch as the pain came, his face to be there as she opened her eyes at its ebbing. They were all adamant; the idea of a man in a confinement chamber was shocking; and she began to doubt if they would even tell her when he ar
rived.

  They were given no chance to keep it from her. Still booted and spurred, he strode into the room, and the women fell back before him with scarcely a murmur of protest. As he sat beside her and took her hands, Anne could smell the frosty air that still clung to him.

  ‘I wish I had been here,’ he said, sensing immediately her state of near-hysteria. ‘Is all well?’

  ‘Yes … yes, now you’re here. Richard -’ At that moment the next contraction ripped through her, and for its duration her only anchor on life and safety was her husband’s handclasp. But as she emerged, she found that he as well was perturbed, almost scared.

  ‘Anne - you must let your women help you. They know what to do. I shall stay within earshot.’

  ‘You’re not leaving me?’

  ‘Yes, dear love, I must. It isn’t the custom for men to be present. Besides, I would be in the way.’

  ‘Richard!’ Her frantic strength restrained him from going. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, now, when she might not see him again; she could not remember one. But he was talking to her, willing courage into her, and endurance, for the sake of their son, and soon she was ashamed of her cowardice, surrounded as she was by capable friends and well-wishers.

  ‘And I shall come at once if you need me.’ She allowed him to disengage his hands, and with a kiss and a reassuring smile he left her.

  Several of his gentlemen were waiting in the antechamber, with the slightly embarrassed air of males on the fringe of a purely feminine mystery. Richard told them curtly that the Duchess was well and dismissed them, before throwing himself into a chair and passing a hand over his eyes.

  A giant merciless hand was crushing her in its grasp. Sometimes it loosened its hold, but only so that the renewed constriction would be harder to withstand. Yet always in the depths of her tired mind was the sure knowledge that Richard was near, and even in the midst of her struggle it gave her strength to go on.

  Long since she had lost touch with the reactions of her attendants, and she did not hear the whispers that asked if my lord should be sent for. The labour was taking too long; none of them spoke of their ultimate fear, but the strain told in their faces and the silence that fell as for the second night candles were lighted in the lying-in chamber. Through the eternity of her ordeal Anne could feel that every time the pain clutched at her body her resistance to it grew less. But she clenched her teeth upon the welling cries of terror and suffering. It was her duty to give birth to a healthy son, whatever it might cost her, and she would do it without complaint. Her tenacity amazed the women who served her. From blind instinct she continued to strive when those with far more natural vigour would have surrendered.

  And at last she was triumphant. Although she felt only an intensification of the pain that had been possessing her for as long as she could remember, a babble of excitement broke out among the anxious attendants, and a flurry of activity. Then its grip relaxed far enough for her to open her eyes, and through blurred vision she made out a cluster of women bending over her, and then one lifting something up. Again she was back in the ship, a frightened girl with a small limp body in her hands, and with an agonising effort she cried out, ‘Dear Mother of God, is he living?’

  They were the first words she had spoken for hours, so intent had she been upon her task, and the women started guiltily. They had forgotten about the mother in their concentration upon the child. One of them - it was Margaret - came to her side and said tremulously, ‘It is a boy, madame, and soon you will hear him cry.’ She laved her mistress’s damp face.

  ‘Why is he not crying now? He is dead, isn’t he, and you are afraid to tell me.’

  ‘No, madame, no. Sometimes it takes minutes ...’ Margaret glanced over her shoulder, and there was no conviction in her voice. Anne could hear it, and with her hopes her remaining strength was draining away.

  ‘Meg,’ she murmured, ‘let no one go to my lord. I must break the news myself. It is my fault.’ Her eyes were closing over the hot sting of defeated tears, when a thin mewling came to her from far away. ‘It must be Kat asking to be let in,’ was her weary thought, but Margaret was shaking her hand and speaking in a different tone.

  ‘There, madame, you hear?’ The plaining was repeated, a small noise, but persistent, and hope flooded back into her heart.

  ‘Let me see, oh, let me see him!’ And they placed him in her arms, a tiny bundle of swaddling clothes with red wrinkled face like the monkey her mother had once kept as a pet, but its mouth was open in a little round O, crying its humanity to the circle of delighted women, and most of all to its mother. They called for the Duke and he came swiftly, hollow-eyed and unshaven. For a moment he stood silent, looking down on his wife and child, unable to find words. It was Anne who spoke.

  ‘It is a boy, Richard.’

  ‘Yes, of course, love. Did you doubt it?’ And then he kissed her and inspected his son, pushing back the shawl with two tentative fingers. Glancing back at Anne, he found her eyes fastened on him, big, greyshadowed eyes, yearning for his approval, and with tears in his own he said what she wanted to hear. ‘He’s a fine lad. Thank you, dear heart, for giving him to me.’ The radiance in her face momentarily obliterated the exhaustion, but almost at once her lids drooped, and the greyness came back. Turning for help, he encountered the midwife, who had been keeping watch on her charge from a respectful distance.

  ‘She must sleep, my lord. The lying-in would have taxed the endurance of a far lustier girl.’ Obediently Richard went.

  It was more than mere fatigue that oppressed Anne. Had it not been for the thoroughness of her nurse, she might have bled to death from an undiscovered haemorrhage. As it was she lost a great deal of blood before it was checked, and for days she was too feeble even to sit up without aid. Richard was not allowed to see her, and set the castle by the ears with his unusual bad humour. In a private interview with his doctor, who had examined the Duchess and her infant, he had been told that if the child had been larger, or even if it had been female, Anne would probably not have survived the birth. The baby also, some weeks premature, was very frail, and would need exceptionally careful rearing.

  ‘He shall have it,’ said Richard brusquely, and dismissed the doctor. He required no instructions from a physician on how to cherish his own son. The crease between his brows was deep as he went about his duties with punctilious efficiency, and night and morning he paid a visit to the round tower on the south-west corner of the castle curtain, where his son’s nursery was established.

  The wet-nurse was a young woman from Middleham town who had lost her own son at birth. Jane Collins never spoke of the dream she had nourished, as her pregnancy kept pace with that of the Duchess, of suckling a baby at each breast - one the child of a tiler, one the heir to a royal prince. She gave all her attention to the delicate little boy who had to be coaxed into taking each drop of her milk. And watching her dedication, Richard’s mood lightened whenever he went to the nursery, certain that Jane would not allow his son to ail.

  With February, Anne was pronounced well, and Richard began to smile sometimes again and to talk to his friends. To Anne it was another return to life, like her escape from the kitchen into the haven of St Martin-le-Grand, but to a far fuller life. Her son’s name, she discovered, was Edward. Richard had chosen it, and had assumed that she would agree, since it was in honour of the King. The name held no happy associations for Anne, and some unhappy, and she would naturally have preferred another Richard, for her husband and her father. But since her husband wished it, she reconciled herself quickly. After all, this Edward was, and would be, like no other.

  It was even more of a wrench this time for Richard to quit Yorkshire for the south. He was expected to attend Parliament, however, and his personal feelings must not be consulted. At least he was able to leave some consoling news with Anne. The King had replied favourably to his brother’s request for custody of the Countess of Warwick. Practical details would be settled when they met in Londo
n, and by the summer, Richard predicted, Anne’s mother might be travelling to her new refuge.

  He was true to his word. In the spring James Tyrell brought tidings that King Edward had consented to release the Countess into Richard’s care. In June Tyrell returned as her escort. For over two years Anne and her mother had not met. In the early summer brightness of the inner bailey the Duchess of Gloucester embraced the Great Earl’s widow and led her to the apartments made ready near her own. There was no perceptible change in the Countess; the soft features had displayed little of the beauty of youth, and they retained little mark of loss and adversity. Perhaps she was pleased to see her daughter again, no longer a humiliated princess but a happy wife and the mistress of a great castle; she showed no sign of it. Anne was disappointed for the first few hours. She realised that, once her embroidery frame was set up, her mother would fade into the background of life at Middleham just as she had done at Warwick and Calais and Amboise. And for an illuminating instant, Anne glimpsed how she might have become the same, if destiny had given her the kind of masterful lord who had shaped her mother’s existence. She had been foolish to expect companionship where she had never found it before, and she must take comfort in the salving of her conscience.

  Anne had perforce to be contented with the company of son and mother throughout that spring. There were murmurings of revolt in the south, stirred by that inveterate Lancastrian the Earl of Oxford, and the King needed his younger brother’s presence. When he did return to Wensleydale he assured his wife, who had been beset by fears of renewed warfare, that it was not a serious alarm. The people were too weary of strife to give widespread support to Oxford. The fires he lighted would soon go out from lack of fuel. But King Edward had no intention of being caught defenceless as had happened three years before. Richard was to hold himself in readiness to raise men and march south at short notice if necessary. Meanwhile he was based at Middleham, and ready between his duties to be suitably impressed by the amazing progress of his son, as related to him with a wealth of detail by his wife.