The White Rose

by Michael Clynes

  ' "Know you that on that same night we reached Kelso Abbey, we were joined by Sir John Harrington, knight banneret and one of those the King had chosen to wear his colours during the battle. Now the King, Harrington and I took secret lodgings in the abbot'- house and planned counsel on what we should do next. His Grace and Harrington decided that they should stay whilst I would take a letter from the King to his wife, Queen Margaret, at Linlithgow, asking for her help. His Grace, however, seemed most reluctant. Indeed, he confessed that before the battle his mind had been turned by the phantasms he had seen as well as secret and malicious gossip regarding his Queen." '

  I stopped and looked at Benjamin. 'Master, we have read this before.'

  'Roger, please keep reading. You may jump a few lines.'

  I hurriedly scanned the page. ' "I arrived at Linlithgow," ' I continued, echoing the dead Scotsman's words,' "and delivered His Grace's message. The Queen was closeted with the Earl of Angus and I was surprised for the Queen had already received news from the battle field about her husband's death. I was ordered to take refreshment in the hall. An hour later the Earl of Angus came down and said riders had been despatched to collect the King and bring him to the Queen. I must confess I was ill at ease. The Queen's demeanour had surprised me: she was not a distressed widow who had lost her husband or a Queen who had seen the flower of her army massacred. Sick at heart, I hurried back to Kelso. I arrived early in the morning and, after diligent enquiries, learnt that Harrington had fled whilst men from the Hume and Chattan clans, common soldiers, had taken the King away." '

  I looked up in astonishment.

  'But, Master, in the confession you showed me in the tower, Selkirk claimed Harrington was also taken by the soldiers.' I snatched up the second piece of cream-coloured parchment and scanned it quickly. 'Yes, look, it's written here!' I threw it back. 'So, what is the truth?'

  Benjamin grinned and picked up Selkirk's secret confession.

  'The truth is in this: Selkirk confessed that Harrington had fled. I translated it but then began to wonder. So I copied it out again, only this time changing it slightly to make it appear that Harrington, too, was captured.' Benjamin tossed Selkirk's confession on to the charcoal brazier. I watched the flames lick the corners of the paper and turn it to smouldering black ash.

  'Why?' I asked. 'What's so important about Harrington?'

  'Well,' Benjamin leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, 'when I was studying Selkirk's original poem, I remembered certain letters in particular had been capitalised. Now,' he continued, 'when I talked to Selkirk in the Tower, he said that he was a good poet, and so was the King. He also mentioned a court troubadour called Willie Dunbar.' Benjamin stared across at me. 'Have you ever read any of Dunbar's poetry?'

  I shook my head.

  'I did,' Benjamin answered, 'when I was in Scotland. Now Dunbar is one of these crafty fellows who likes to garnish his verse with subtle devices and secret codes which hold special meanings to the chosen few. Selkirk's poem borrowed such a device.' Benjamin picked it up. 'I have looked at this again,' he continued. 'I find it strange that the following letters in certain words were capitalised: the "L" in lion; the "N" in Now, the "S" in Stands, as well as the first letters of "In Sacred Hands". Put all these words together and you get "The Lion Now Stands In Sacred Hands." '

  'That's not possible!' I whispered.

  'Oh, yes, it is.' Benjamin tossed the poem across and I perceived the cunning subtlety of Selkirk's verse.

  'But Selkirk said men from the Hume and Chattan clans took James away?'

  Benjamin rose and clapped his hands. 'No, he doesn't. All he repeats is what he was told at the abbey. This confession was to demonstrate James survived the battle as well as the evil intentions of Queen Margaret and the Earl of Angus. However, the message left in code in the poem is for the close friends of James who would realise that the King had fled abroad.'

  'In other words,' I interrupted, 'Margaret's soldiers, mere commoners who would keep their mouths shut, took from Kelso Abbey a man dressed in royal armour. Of course,' I murmured, 'Sir John Harrington!'

  Benjamin nodded. 'Who knows? James may have given him the chain round his waist as well as other royal insignia. Harrington sacrificed himself for James!'

  'And the King?' I interrupted. 'What did happen to him?'

  Benjamin made a face. 'What could he do? Announce that he had survived the battle? Who would believe him? The royal corpse was supposedly in England. James had been rejected by his wife and, even if he did come forward, he would have only been arrested as an imposter and secretly executed in some dungeon. Don't forget, Roger, James had just suffered one of the most disastrous defeats in Scottish history. He would not be popular.'

  'But where is he?' I asked. 'What are these "Sacred Hands"?'

  'When I was in Scotland,' Benjamin replied, 'I heard stories about James's romantic dreams of being a crusader. God knows, he may have gone to Outremer and joined one of the crusading orders.'

  'So you changed the confession to protect him?'

  'Of course. Uncle is very cunning. He may have begun to speculate on who actually did escape from Kelso. Our noble Henry had a passionate hatred for the Scottish King. If he even half-suspected James had survived and might still be alive, his agents would hunt him down.'

  'I wonder if Queen Margaret really knows the truth?'

  Benjamin shrugged. 'Perhaps she suspects it. The soldiers she sent would have killed the man they took from Kelso. Perhaps her exiled husband sent her a secret message.' He stirred excitedly in his chair. 'That's why,' he whispered, 'she was frightened: the reason she fled Scotland — not because she murdered her husband, but because she has a suspicion he may still be alive!' Benjamin refilled his cup. 'Do you remember when we left the Tower for St Theodore's? I said I had been to see the Queen about Sir John Harrington - I acted the hypocrite, the dumb fool. I claimed that the Regent had asked me if I knew of Harrington's whereabouts. Had he fled to England? I put this to the Queen. My God, you should have seen her pale!' Benjamin beat the top of the table excitedly. 'The bitch may think it's safe now to return to Scotland but the fear will never leave her.'

  'Why didn't you tell Catesby this?'

  'For the same reason I never told Uncle - something may have gone wrong. Murder is still murder, Roger. What difference does it make if it was Harrington or James?' Benjamin picked up the pieces of manuscript from the table before him.

  'Don't burn them, Master!' I shouted. 'Let me have them!'

  Benjamin paused and pushed them across the table.

  'Take them, Roger,' he whispered, 'but hide them well. They could be your death warrant.'

  We spent the rest of the day carousing. We had fought the good fight, finished the race, kept faith with our masters and, though he did not know it, with King James of Scotland. Oh, we became the Cardinal's friends, swore to be his servants in peace and war but we also secretly pledged each other to watch 'Dear Uncle' most closely. We were committed to his service and the White Rose murders were only the first of a succession of mysteries.

  Epilogue

  So, this story is finished, yet there's more to come: conspiracies at court, treason in both high and low places and, of course, bloody affray and secret assassination. They've dogged my steps like bloodhounds down the years. If I have time you will meet them all - subtle, crafty men and women with fire in their eyes and the devil in their hearts.

  Now there goes my chaplain again, jumping up and down on his stool. 'You think every woman's a wench!' the hypocrite exclaims. 'Every girl a whore!'

  He's a bloody liar! Will he mention the poor girls I feed in the village? Or that I've made many women laugh and none of them cry? No woman has received discourtesy at my hands. Nor have I broken any hearts or laughed at their tears, even though love has shattered my heart too many times to remember. He's never met Katerina. Oh, sweet Lord, there was witchcraft in her lips. I still weep at the very thought of her . . .

&n
bsp; And why do I write my memoirs? To exorcise the spectres which still haunt my soul. Tonight, when the sun sets and the moon hides furtively behind the clouds, the ghosts will return, led by Murder on his death-pale horse. They will sweep up the causeway and gather once more under the casement window of my chamber.

  I also tell my story as an edification for the young. To correct the laxity in morals, and as a warning against the dangers of hard drink and soft women. Oh, I wish Benjamin could tell his story. I wish I could see him just once more. He would understand. He would deplore the

  depravity of our times, the allure of the flesh, the brave, empty promises of the world. Oh, the times! Oh, the festering lies! Oh, the lack of morals! Oh, for Fat Margot and a deep-bowled cup of sack!

  Author's Note

  We must remember Shallot is, by his own confession, a great teller of tall tales, but he may not be a liar. Indeed, many of his claims can be corroborated by historical fact. James IV of Scotland was a lusty man who had a string of paramours, and his extra-marital affairs did alienate his wife Margaret Tudor. James was warned by visions before the Flodden campaign and many historians think these visions were the work of his wife. We also know James dressed a number of royal look-alikes in his own coat of arms. A few historians mention that as many as a dozen 'fake Jameses' fought at Flodden. Surrey did find a body without the customary penitential chain around its waist: the corpse was restored by embalmers and sent south for Henry to view.

  The body was never returned to Scotland. In Elizabeth's reign certain builders found it in a room in a palace and played football with the mummified head until a compassionate vicar took the remains and had them buried in the crypt of St Andrew's Undershaft. According to Walter Scott, when the moat of Hume Castle was drained in the eighteenth century, a skeleton was found with a chain wrapped round its waist. The Humes were close allies of Queen Margaret. Some historians maintain they were the actual assassins who killed James after Flodden and dumped his corpse in the castle moat. For years there were rumours and gossip that James had not died at Flodden.

  Shallot is correct - Margaret Tudor was 'trouble in petticoats'. The facts of her passionate liaison with Gavin Douglas are as described in these memoirs, as is his version of the events surrounding the birth of Alexander, Duke of Ross. Margaret did return to Scotland where she enjoyed many happy years, causing as much trouble as possible under the fraternal eye of Bluff King Hal. She fought for and gained a divorce from Angus and then promptly chose the Earl of Lennox as her third husband. She caused more confusion in Scotland than the combined armies of her brother!

  Bluff King Hal and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey are accurately described in Shallot's memoirs. For a while, the Cardinal wielded total power in England and many alleged he used the black arts of a famed witch, Mabel Brigge, to control King Henry. Nevertheless, as Carolyn Seymour points out in her excellent biography of King Henry VIII, the prophecies about his being the Mouldwarp proved to be correct. At least fifty thousand people were executed in Henry's thirty-six-year reign. The pretensions of the House of York were also viewed as a major threat to the Tudor crown and, before he died, King Henry VIII had almost succeeded in wiping out every noble family with Yorkist blood in its veins.

  King Francis I of France was as lascivious as Shallot describes. However, Shallot's remarks about his own close association with Anne Boleyn, his amorous liaisons with Queen Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici of France, not to mention his theft of the great diamond of Canterbury are, as he says, the stuff of other stories.