by Paul Doherty
‘He has his reward,’ Cuthbert snapped. ‘Now bury him with the rest.’
PART ONE
‘When both armies were too exhausted and thirsty to march any further, they joined battle near Tewkesbury.’
Crowland Chronicle
‘Bless me, Father, for I have truly sinned. It is a month, yes, it was on the second Sunday of Lent that I was last shriven of my sins.’
Margaret of Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, widow of Edmund Tudor, mother of Henry, their only son, and now wife to a very frail Henry Stafford, paused in her prayers. Margaret crossed herself and desperately tried to recall her examination of conscience. She had sat in the lady chapel judging herself, weaning out her faults, but now she could not recall them.
‘My Lady?’ Brother Ambrose, priest-monk of the Benedictine community of Tewkesbury Abbey, was now quite alarmed. He moved the shriving veil which hung between the mercy pew where he sat and the prie-dieu against which the young countess leaned. Ambrose scrutinised Margaret’s thoughtful face. She was not beautiful or even pretty, but she had a look of considerable charm; her complexion was pale and clear, her eyes grey as a morning mist beneath dark, arched brows. She was full lipped and generous mouthed; other monks judged her to be solemn, even severe. Brother Ambrose, however, could detect good humour, even merriment beneath that studious face, ever ready to smile even as the world turned against her. Ambrose realised that was now happening as Fortune’s fickle wheel was about to be given another cruel spin.
‘My Lady,’ he whispered, ‘I shall pray for you.’
The countess abruptly rose. She clutched a pair of doeskin gloves and used these to smooth down her fur-trimmed red dress. She touched her dark-auburn hair, as if to make sure it was almost hidden by the exquisitely bejewelled and embroidered headdress.
‘My Lady?’ Brother Ambrose rose but then fell silent as Lady Margaret raised a hand.
‘Can you hear it,’ she whispered, ‘the noise of battle?’
‘My Lord Edward of York and his brothers, Richard of Gloucester and George of Clarence are moving swiftly,’ Brother Ambrose replied. ‘Abbot John receives a constant flow of intelligence from the battlefield. York intends to put Queen Margaret of Anjou, the Angevin she-wolf and her son Edward to the sword. My Lady, our prayers are with you. I understand that your kinsman, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, also intends to end all troubles and bring this war, short and cruel, to an end.’
Lady Margaret, however, was no longer listening, but moved to the window of the guesthouse chapel deep in the enclosure of Tewkesbury Abbey. Margaret pulled back the shutters; she turned slightly. ‘What date is it?’ she murmured.
‘Saturday the fourth of May. The feast of St Pelagia and Florian …’
‘… The year of our Lord 1471.’ Margaret finished the sentence. ‘Truly a day of destruction,’ she added.
The countess broke off as a chapel door was flung open. Reginald Bray, accompanied by Margaret’s chancery clerk, Christopher Urswicke, hurried into the small chapel. They paused just within the doorway and Margaret heard the distant but chilling sound of mortal combat; the vengeful, vicious crash and clash of steel. Sharp bursts of cannon echoed above the murmur of men roaring their hate and screaming their pain on this hot, early summer’s day around the village and abbey of Tewkesbury.
‘What is it?’ Brother Ambrose demanded.
‘Madam,’ Urswicke ignored the Benedictine, ‘madam, you must come now. We have news from the field. Somerset has broken. He and his army are in full flight.’
Margaret swallowed hard, the pain at what she’d just heard, despite her own secret dreams and ambitions, was a blow to both body and soul.
‘How can that be?’ she demanded.
‘Urswicke is correct,’ Bray declared, his harsh voice rasping and loud. ‘Madam, do not busy yourself in prayer, but come.’
‘To do what?’ Ambrose protested.
‘What can be done?’ Margaret glanced to all three men. ‘What can be done when worlds collapse and chaos sweeps in?’
‘Come, madam.’ Urswicke grabbed his mistress’s hand: he nodded at Ambrose and hurried the countess out of the guesthouse chapel. They hastened along paved alleyways where stone-faced saints and angels peered down at them from corners and enclaves. On the tops of pillars, the gargoyles, with their monkey-faces and snarling mouths, seemed to mock Margaret’s mood. She decided not to look but kept her gaze down on the ground as they swept around the small cloisters. Here the air was sweet and heavy with the constant tang of incense and the flow of fragrant smells from the abbey kitchens. The day was drawing on and the abbey bells would soon toll, summoning the brothers to break their hunger before returning to the church for another hour of prayer. The battle raging in the fields around the great abbey was certainly making itself felt. Black-garbed monks, hoods pulled close, hurried backwards and forwards, caught up in a panic-growing fear. Margaret glimpsed Abbot John Strensham, deep in conversation with other senior monks in the small rose garden which stretched in front of the chapterhouse.
‘Ignore them,’ Urswicke whispered. ‘Mistress, ignore them! Play the part! Play it now, for the game is about to change if York carries the day.’
Margaret stopped. She squeezed Urswicke’s arms and stared into his face. He always reminded her of a choirboy, an impression heightened by his soft, precise speech. Urswicke was smooth-shaven with pale, almost ivory, feminine skin, light-blue eyes as innocent as any child’s, merry-mouthed with a mop of dark-brown hair which he apparently never combed. ‘A simple-faced clerk’ was how someone had described Christopher Urswicke, son of Thomas Urswicke, Recorder of London. Margaret smiled faintly as she held Urswicke’s innocent gaze. She looked at him from head to toe. He dressed like a clerk garbed in a dark-brown gown over a jerkin and loose-fitting hose, yet beneath the gown were dagger and sword, and the boots on his feet were spurred as if he was ready to ride at a moment’s notice.
‘My Lady?’
‘I must remember,’ she replied. ‘There is more to a book than its cover, and that certainly applies to you, Master Christopher. But come …’
All three hastened down the cloistered walk and out into the warm sunshine. They approached the abbey church and entered through a postern gate, climbing the rough-hewn steps leading up into the great tower. Bray was insistent that they reach the top to see precisely what was happening. The steward’s sallow, close face, pointed nose, thin-lipped mouth and square chin were laced with a fine, sweaty sheen. Hot and exasperated, Bray plucked at his chancery robe, running a finger around the neckline of his cambric linen shirt to clear the sweat coursing down his neck. Margaret noticed the cut marks on Bray’s cheeks, a sure sign of her steward’s agitation when Bray had shaved that morning. Margaret paused on the first stairwell.
‘The page boy, Lambert, who brought messages from kinsman Tudor,’ she whispered, ‘how goes he in all of this?’
‘Safely ensconced with the grooms in the abbey stables. Ignore him,’ Bray hissed, ‘and everyone else will. Start fussing and the world will fuss with you. Isn’t that right, Christopher?’
Urswicke just pulled a face. Reginald Bray, chief receiver and principal steward in the countess’s household, was regarded as most skilled in his trade, but his dark humour and blunt speech were equally well known. They continued to climb, becoming more aware of the strong breezes piercing the lancet windows. The horrid din of battle was also becoming more pressing. Lady Margaret, still praying quietly that her own boy would stay safe, listened to the gasping breath of her two companions, aware of the sweat now soaking her own clothes. She tried to distract herself by glancing at the bosses carved in the different stairwells and turnings. Most of these were heavy-winged angels, each carrying a musical instrument, be it the bagpipes, flute or trumpet.
‘We need the protection of St Michael and all his heavenly cohort,’ Urswicke exclaimed, following her gaze.
‘I am sorry,’ Lady Margaret paused, resting one hand on his shoulder.
Bray stood just behind her ready to help. ‘You are limping, Christopher?’
Urswicke turned and grinned. ‘My ankle is slightly twisted but I am sure you have other concerns. Madam, we live in hurling times. Kingdoms are now lost and won in a day.’
They continued on till they reached the top of the tower, pushing back the heavy trapdoor, helping each other through the hatchway to stand on the gravel-strewn top. They crossed this and leaned against the moss-encrusted crenellations. All three stared out over the murderous mayhem spreading out across the abbey’s great water meadow, fed by the twisting Severn glinting sharply in the early afternoon sun. The Lancastrian battle phalanx had buckled and broken; already both foot and mounted were streaming away in retreat, pursued by the fast-moving, vengeful Yorkists in full battle array. Even from where she stood, Margaret could glimpse the Beaufort standards and pennants quartered with the royal arms of both England and France. Other standards were also visible: those of Beaufort’s allies such as the Courtenays of Devon and the De Veres of Oxford. The Lancastrian banner bearers, standards held high, were desperately trying to make a stand to mount a defence. The Yorkists, however, were pressing hard, breaking the Lancastrians up, filleting their battle formation like a butcher would a slab of meat. The bitter sound of the bloody conflict now carried stronger: shrill cries and screams, bellowed curses, shouts of defiance and the heart-stopping groans and moans of the wounded and dying. Margaret also glimpsed the streaming banners of Edward of York as well as those of his two brothers, Gloucester and Clarence, a host of Yorkist insignia, be they The Sunne in Splendour, the Bear of Warwick or the Boar of Gloucester. These billowed around the royal banner, which rippled in a gorgeous sea of colour: blue, scarlet and gold. The Yorkists had unfurled the sacred standard of England, usually kept behind the high altar of Westminster Abbey. Edward of York was using this to emphasise his right to the Crown, as well as his solemn assurance that he would show no mercy or pardon to the enemy fleeing before him. The course of the battle was becoming more distinct as the Lancastrians retreated even more swiftly and the Yorkists followed, spreading out to curve inwards so as to complete their encirclement.
The fresh, green grass of the great meadow was now decorated with the colours of the fallen; their tabards, pennants, shields, banners and standards. Columns of smoke smudged the horizon as other Yorkists broke off from the pursuit to pillage and burn the Lancastrian camp. Margaret shaded her eyes and prayed for her kinsman, Beaufort. Early that day Margaret had learnt how the Lancastrians had camped the previous evening at Guphill Farm, in a stretch of the twisting Gloucester countryside known as the Vineyards. The Yorkists were now pillaging this and Margaret wondered what had happened to the Angevin queen and her son. The roar of voices, men screaming their pain or laughing in their victory, made her close her eyes and whisper a further prayer. Beside her, Urswicke was threading his ave beads whilst Bray quietly cursed. A blood-chilling roar forced Margaret to open her eyes and stare down. The Lancastrian line had buckled and snapped completely. Any resistance had collapsed. Men were now retreating across the great meadow and the thick press of the Yorkist banner bearers were surging forward.
‘They are fleeing,’ Urswicke exclaimed. ‘My Lady, your kinsmen are desperate to seek sanctuary here. Come, they will soon be below us.’
Margaret followed her two henchmen down from the top of the tower. She tried to curb the sheer terror welling within her. They reached the shadows of the northern transept. Lancastrian knights and footmen were already thronging through the main entrance, desperate to shelter in the abbey’s cool darkness. Monks came hurrying along the nave, hands fluttering in agitation at the first sharp echoes of weaponry just outside the main door. The Yorkists had dismounted, fully intending to continue the slaughter even in these sacred precincts. Urswicke, quick-thinking and eager to escape what could be a bloody massacre, pushed Margaret towards a doorway, beckoning at Bray to follow them through into a musty, cobwebbed chamber, with steep steps leading up to a small choir loft. Urswicke turned the key in the lock and placed the bar in its slats before leading the countess and Bray up the narrow, spiral staircase. The choir loft was small and cramped, angled into the wall so the singers and trumpeters could clearly see what was happening just within the main doorway below, as well as the porch beyond: here processions would assemble before sweeping up the long, cavernous nave towards the majestically carved rood screen which shielded the sanctuary and choir beyond. No such procession would assemble now. Margaret stared pitifully down at the frightened, blood-streaked men surging through the main door, desperate to escape their furious pursuers who now edged in, shields locked, swords flickering out like the poisonous tongues of a host of vipers.
The fighting below grew more intense. Margaret glimpsed her kinsman Edmund Beaufort, helmet cast aside, as he backed further up the nave, his gloriously embroidered tabard with its glowing colours drenched in blood. On either side of the duke, his remaining household knights were desperate to mount a defence, but they broke up as the Yorkists pursued them further down the nave, hacking and hewing so blood swirled along the ancient paving stones. The struggle often became solitary, individual Lancastrians being surrounded by Yorkist knights. No mercy was shown. Margaret watched as one of Beaufort’s banner knights fell to his knees in abject surrender. His tormentors simply tore his armour and weapons from him, pushed down his head and severed it with one clean blow. The Yorkists laughed as the head bounced across the paving stones, whilst the still upright torso spouted blood like a fountain before toppling over. The nave was no longer a Benedictine house of prayer, more like a butcher’s yard in the Shambles.
Men shrieked in their death agonies under a hail of cutting blows from mace, sword and axe. The Lancastrians tried to hide in the chantry chapels along each transept, but the trellised screens of such small shrines proved to be no protection. Nor were the tombs of the former lords of Tewkesbury such as the Despensers and the Fitzalans. Margaret, standing in the corner of the choir loft, gripped the balustrade in sweaty fear as more and more vengeful Yorkists poured through the main entrance, as well as through the Devil and Corpse doors along the transepts either side. Abruptly trumpets shrieked, their noise braying along the nave.
‘The King, the King!’ a harsh voice bellowed.
Margaret peered down, twisting to see the three men who now strode into the church, all armoured and visored for battle. They stood like spectres from a nightmare; each of them had removed their war helmets, thrusting these into the hands of one of the squires milling about them. The central figure, his blond hair shimmering in the sunlight, lancing through the great windows of the nave, turned slightly. Margaret narrowed her eyes as she recognised the smooth, tawny features of Edward of York, Edward the King, the great killer of Margaret’s kinsmen, the Beauforts. Beside Edward stood his two brothers: on his left George of Clarence, thinner than his brother, his wine-fat face laced with sweat. On the King’s left, the small, wiry, sharp-featured youngest brother, Richard of Gloucester, his long, reddish hair framing an unusually pallid face. All three princes were armed with sword and dagger. Edward raised both hands in a sign of victory before lowering them, pointing both sword and dagger down the nave.
‘Kill them all!’ Clarence bellowed. ‘Show no quarter, give no mercy!’
A scream answered his words as a Yorkist squire, holding a dagger to his prisoner’s throat, now drove it in. More shouts of despair and cries of triumph broke the stillness, followed by a clatter of weapons. This abruptly ceased as the abbey bells began to toll, crashing out their peals as a deep-throated chanting rose from the sanctuary. The heavy curtain across the rood-screen entrance was abruptly pulled back. A hand bell rang as a line of monks, cowls pulled close, left the sanctuary and processed into the nave. A cross bearer and two acolytes together with three thurifers preceded Abbot John Strensham who, garbed in all his pontificals, walked slowly down the church. He had removed the golden pyx from its silver sanctuary chain and now held this up
in both hands.
‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ he intoned in a hollow-sounding voice. ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ He walked on, holding the pyx high as he gazed directly at the King. ‘I hold here,’ he declared, ‘the body and blood of the Risen Christ. I hold it here in this terrible place which is supposed to be the House of God and the Gate of Heaven. Yet you, your Grace, have turned our abbey into a butcher’s yard. Look around you, do not pollute these sacred precincts. Desist! The killing must end.’
Margaret could only agree as she murmured a prayer in reparation at the abomination which now stretched along that shadow-filled nave: wounded, tired men, broken in body and shattered in soul, clinging to the pillars and trellised screens of the different chantry chapels. Some of the wounded, terrified at the prospect of immediate slaughter, crawled across the blood-drenched floor in a vain attempt to hide amongst the long line of black-garbed Benedictines.
‘Look,’ Urswicke hissed, Margaret did so. George of Clarence was now walking forward, pointing his glistening, blood-wetted sword at the abbot.
‘Be careful,’ Strensham warned. ‘These are sacred precincts, God’s own sanctuary.’
‘Tewkesbury,’ Clarence bellowed back, ‘does not possess such a right. It cannot grant sanctuary. The men who shelter here are traitors taken in arms against their rightful King, who has unfurled his sacred banner and proclaimed his peace. They have insulted that. They are blasphemous liars.’ Clarence edged forward. ‘These miscreants have sworn, on other occasions, to be loyal and true to my brother the King. They are oath-breakers as well as traitors and so deserving of death.’
‘They are also,’ Richard of Gloucester stepped forward to join his brother, ‘murderers. They have the blood of our House and kin on their hands, including the unlawful slaying of our beloved father and brother after Wakefield fight.’