The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  'Yes, if I've finished my work,' the artist answered smiling, 'which I shall not do if you don't go away and leave me in peace.'

  Elys laughed and thrusting his arm through Arthur's went to spend a pleasant hour in the park with his young sons.

  When they reached Oxford the Chancellor, John Norton, was awaiting them at Queens College where they were to lodge, his gown flapping about spindly legs, his bow so low that his cap slipped from wispy hair. Elys grinned at Arthur, but Humfrey dismounted and raised the Chancellor with a kindly hand. After dinner in the hall he ordered a chest to be carried in and his secretary, Antonio, began to lay a number of volumes on the table.

  'The works of Athanasius, sir,' the dark-eyed Italian indicated a book bound in red leather, 'the new translation of Ptolemy, a copy of Boccacio's Decameron that I made myself, and here are the fables of Aesop, beside several lesser works.'

  Norton turned gratefully to his patron. 'My lord, we are once again in your debt. We must certainly set about the plans for a larger library to hold all our books.'

  Humfrey glanced round the hall of this college founded by his great-grandmother, Queen Philippa. 'Well, there's little enough space here. Had you a place in mind?'

  'We thought, sir, of building above the Divinity school, a great chamber that would have more light for the students, being raised higher.'

  'A good thought, and if my memory serves me it would have fair proportions there. I shall send you a purse towards the cost. It must not be skimped. The best materials and the best workmen only, Master Norton. Pray inform me of how much it is likely to involve.'

  'Your generosity overwhelms, my lord!' The Chancellor paused, smiling, for he had a personal fondness for his benefactor that had nothing to do with patronage. 'Indeed from the first your interest has been our inspiration.'

  After the visit to Oxford Humfrey took his retinue south to Penshurt Place. He had invited the Duke and Duchess of York to visit him and Eleanor had already gone ahead to prepare for their entertainment.

  His guests arrived only a few hours after himself and he sat that night at the head of his high table enjoying their company. He and Richard had grown closer over the years since the death of his friend Mowbray, and with the passing of his last brother, Richard was at least one of the family on the side totally unconnected with the Beauforts. Richard's wife he found not only lovely with a fair slender beauty and a skin of transparent pink and white, but also lively and intelligent, and very like her mother, Humfrey's Aunt Joan. She had a way of carrying herself and of speaking that made Humfrey understand why she was nicknamed 'Proud Cis'. His own daughter, Antigone, made one of the company, her young husband attending Parliament in London, and to Humfrey she seemed so like his sister Philippa had been in youth that her baser origin was forgotten. And she adored him which gave him much pleasure, her eyes, large and grey like his, so often smiling at him.

  The talk tonight was at first only of the plans for their visit, the hunting, a mock joust, a picnic to be taken in the woods, players who had come to perform to them, and this evening George Ashley was to read them one of Master Chaucer's tales.

  'We are near enough to the pilgrim's road to Canterbury to make it most appropriate,' Humfrey said.

  'When I went there I made my offering at St Thomas's shrine,' Richard remarked in his pleasant voice, 'but I must admit, cousin, that it was another effigy that drew me most. There was never so great a warrior as the Black Prince, except perhaps your brother.'

  'If Harry had lived to finish his work,' Humfrey agreed.

  'Fortune was not kind to either,' the Duchess Cicely put in. She was breaking her bread with long delicate fingers, her every movement fastidious. 'Prince Edward died with so much undone and before his time.'

  'As Harry did.' Her husband was so deep in love he found it hard to look elsewhere but at her. 'But how few men can die saying they have done what they set out to do. It was denied him.'

  'To my lasting sorrow.' Humfrey was lost for a few moments in the past. He was thinking also how little he had finished of what he wanted to do. Please God he would see his library built at Oxford but as far as France was concerned nothing was achieved. 'I cannot imagine,' he added candidly, 'that my nephew is likely to continue what Harry began. He says openly he hates fighting.'

  Richard gave him a suddenly youthful grin. 'As he hates a good many other things. Do you recall that night you brought those Spanish dancing girls to perform for him?'

  Humfrey threw back his head and laughed. The incident reminded him of Hadleigh Castle long ago. 'Aye, and his face went scarlet when they threw off their silks and thrust bare breasts towards him. How he scuttled away and would not look! By God, I had not had such amusement for a long time.'

  'He does not have a man's pleasure, poor fool,' Eleanor said scathingly. 'No wonder people snigger when he passes by. Can no one make him wear suitable clothes for a King? I swear he looks as if he should be behind a market stall.'

  'He is very holy,' the Duchess Cicely remarked. 'Perhaps he does it for a penance. They say he wears a hair shirt even at feasts.'

  'It is no way for a King to behave,' Humfrey said scathingly, 'and God knows I've told him so. He's no match for the Dauphin when it comes to statecraft and he's certainly no soldier. Richard, is it true that ambassadors from France are come yet again?'

  'Aye, they're talking with the Cardinal but nothing will come of it.' Richard glanced at his cousin, 'Of course, you should have been there, Humfrey, but I fear you were not consulted because everyone knows you are against peace with France on French terms.'

  'I am,' Humfrey retorted with sudden violence. 'As our position grows worse the terms grow more humiliating. Are we to throw away all Harry did achieve? All John tried to hold? I say no, and no!'

  'You're right,' Richard agreed but he added gloomily, 'there's no money for a campaign. God knows how much was wasted over that wretched Council at Arras – twenty thousand pounds, I heard, enough to equip an army.'

  'I'll go to London,' Humfrey said, 'see the King, make sure the damned Frenchmen are sent packing.'

  Eleanor laid her hand on his arm, knowing it was the last thing he really wanted to do. 'My love, let us leave politics and talk of war at least for a few days. The summer weather is so delightful and we have much planned for our guests.'

  He relaxed, the tension slowly leaving him, and as Eleanor called for Ashley to read to them both he and his cousin banished their concern. But after a few pleasant days spent out of doors in the unbroken sunshine, a letter arrived from Sir Henry Grey, Humfrey's son-in-law, to inform him that the Council were proposing to release the Duke of Orléans as a sop to the French.

  'By God!' Humfrey was on his feet. He had been sitting with York in his library while waiting for the ladies to go hawking and as he read the letter his anger had grown. 'This they shall not do. It would be the height of folly.'

  'Let me see.' Richard took the crumpled parchment and smoothed it out in his careful manner before he read it, while Antigone who had entered with the letter gazed across the table at the as yet unfamiliar hand. 'It seems the offer had already been made and accepted.'

  'But not carried out, nor will be while I am the King's heir!' Humfrey burst out. 'Orléans is a card in our hands we dare not part with. Christ's wounds, what would we have to bargain with if we gave him up?'

  'But we've held him these twenty-five years and it has done us little good,' Reginald Cobham pointed out. Since his sister had become the wife of so great a man he had of late taken to speaking his mind more loudly. 'I thought you liked him, my lord?'

  'I do,' Humfrey brushed the irrelevance aside. 'But that's nothing to the point. He cannot be released without something in return and as far as I can see that we have not got. I ask your pardon, Richard, and yours, my lady,' he gave Cicely a swift absent smile, but I must leave in the morning and put a stop to this business at once.'

  He beckoned Antonio to follow him to his solar and was closeted with him unt
il two o'clock in the morning. When he went at last to bed Eleanor stirred and asked sleepily what he had been doing. 'Composing an indictment that will show my uncle in his true light,' Humfrey said. 'Everyone shall know he is not fit to order England's affairs and that I disassociate myself from his folly. I will make my nephew see sense if I have to shake it into him.'

  'He is such a gullible young man. I wish he would go and be a monk as he is more fitted to do, and leave the throne to one who would better become it. Master Bolingbroke had a dream a few nights ago that the King lay upon the floor and another sat in his place.'

  'Dreams!' Humfrey got into bed. 'You listen too much to that foolish priest. He searches in things that are best left alone.' But he was too tired to talk any more, even to think. And if the crown were held out to him now, would he want it? He was not sure for himself only that for Eleanor it would be a consummation.

  In the morning he and Richard left for London, slept that night at Greenwich and the following day Humfrey stormed into the Painted Chamber where the King sat at the head of the Council table. The men gathered about it looked up, startled; someone moved as if to proffer a chair but Humfrey did not appear to see this. Disregarding the Cardinal's protest that they were in the midst of business he proceeded to read from the paper he and Antonio had so laboriously composed.

  Calling himself by all his titles, adding Count of Hainault and Flanders for good measure, he condemned the recent conduct of the Council in their dealings with France and denounced his uncle for sins past and present.

  'You, my lord,' he said, standing at the end of the table nearest the King and facing the ageing Henry Beaufort, 'are steeped in guilt, from many years since. You had no right against the wishes of my late brother when he was King, to accept the Cardinal's hat. He forbade you, by our law, to continue to act as Bishop of Winchester yet you have done so. The country grows weaker with war, yet we all see you grow richer – you have dabbled fingers that dare to hold the Host in too much gold and I swear there is not a thing done in this Council, indeed in the country but you must know of it and say yea or nay. It is wrong, it is against our law, and I, Humfrey of Gloucester, protest against it with all the power I can bring to bear.'

  The Cardinal's puffy red face turned a deeper shade of crimson. 'No! It is I who will protest. Sire,' he turned to the King, 'this is beyond bearing. Have I not laboured all my life to serve first your father and now you? I say it is the Duke who has offended, not I. He has wasted the nation 's treasure in fruitless projects or to benefit his own state –'

  'Stop,' Humfrey commanded. 'I did not bring about this situation. You, my uncle, and the Archbishop here who has also taken the pallium and yet holds his office still against our law, you offend by your very presence here.'

  Kemp began a loud protest but the King held up his hand. 'My lord of Gloucester, your words are harsh and offensive. I do not like unseemly talk at my Council table, nor should you speak so against men who hold such high office in Holy Church.'

  Humfrey folded his arms and looked down at the fair thin young man. Where was one spark of Harry's likeness? 'Sire,' he said, 'You have let yourself be influenced because of the places they hold, not because of what they are. I honour Holy Church, as God Himself knows, I make many gifts to religious houses, I send alms to many churches, but I say there is no place for the Pope's Cardinals at our Council table. If my uncle or John Kemp wish to sit here – as they have a right to do as bishops – let them renounce their hats. If they cannot do that then let them leave.'

  The King was shocked. 'Uncle, I will not have such a suggestion even considered. I rely utterly on Uncle Henry and on Cardinal Kemp.'

  'I know,' Humfrey retorted bitterly, 'and they have turned you against me, against your cousin the Duke of York, against my lord of Huntingdon and even the Archbishop of Canterbury! And why is he not here?'

  Lord Cromwell said, 'He was informed of the meeting. Ill health perhaps keeps him away.'

  'Or you saw to it that he was invited too late. I swear he would not approve this mad notion to free the Duke of Orléans and nor do I.'

  'Nor I,' Richard of York agreed. 'Are we to give up all we fought for in France?'

  'I do not wish to fight,' Henry said. 'I wish to make peace with my uncle Charles.'

  Humfrey laughed harshly. 'Good God, he will not keep any treaty you make. He is a half-mad slobbering oaf and I for one –' he stopped abruptly for he saw the King's face and remembered he spoke of Henry's mother's last remaining brother.

  'We in Council are already agreed,' the King said coldly. 'Your outburst has offended us, my lord Duke, and we wish you to know that the release of the Duke of Orléans has already been decided on. The order is signed.'

  The Duke of York, never the most tactful of men, perched on the edge of the table, his back half turned to the King.

  'You betray yourselves, my lords. If the matter were open for discussion you would not have acted in such haste and secrecy.'

  'Nor without asking my advice.' Humfrey looked from one to the other of the Council members, from his angry uncle to the other Cardinal; he saw the stubborn look on Cromwell's face, Stafford staring impertinently at him, the Duke of Somerset arrogant as always.

  Somerset's brother Edmund Beaufort said suavely, 'You have been so little at Westminster lately, cousin. We hear your palace at Greenwich is full of scholars and meddlers in strange sciences and therefore assumed you had no further interest in state affairs.'

  'Then you assumed wrongly,' Humfrey snapped. 'As far as the honour of the realm is concerned I am very greatly interested.'

  'And I,' York added, 'say those who make peace with France at any price are traitors.' There were shocked exclamations and Cardinal Beaufort rose from his seat.

  'Be careful,' he said in a loud voice, 'think well on what you have said, Duke Humfrey. Would you accuse all here, even the King?'

  'My nephew,' Humfrey retorted, 'is not to be held responsible for what he is forced to do. I only say if the cap, nay if the red hat fits, my lord, then you must wear it and take the consequences.'

  Henry sat bolt upright. He was trembling. 'Leave us, uncle. You have no right to attack my ministers – I’ll not believe you mean to attack me – but go before worse befalls you.'

  'Aye, before the accusation turns on me,' Humfrey could not keep the sneer from his voice, 'but I'll have it set down, under the great Seal, that I, Humfrey of Gloucester, never have been, nor am, nor will be, consenting to the release of the Duke of Orléans which will be to the discredit of this realm and against the last Will of my brother, the late King.'

  He turned on his heel and followed by the Duke of York left the room.

  He had the document drawn up and set the Seal to it that all men might know where he stood, but it made no difference. On All Saints Day, when a white mist hung over the city and the air was sharp with the first onset of winter, the King attended by the lords and bishops and city aldermen rode to St Pauls accompanied by the French prisoner. Twenty-five years of captivity had given Charles d'Orléans an air of gentle weariness, his pale eyes tired, but today he held himself proudly, relief at the thought of going home clear in his face.

  Humfrey was in a place in the chancel and there watched as Orléans mounted the altar steps. A great gold monstrance held the Host and kneeling the French Duke laid his hand on it and swore never again to bear arms against England. A barely perceptible sigh seemed to go round the church as he rose, genuflected and then retreated down the steps. The choir began an anthem and then Cardinal Beaufort approached the altar to begin the Mass.

  Suddenly there was a clash of steel against stone and every head turned as Humfrey left his place. He knelt briefly to the Host and then turning walked down the central aisle between the rows of men and women and out of the church into the cold damp morning.

  'Why did you do it?' Eleanor asked. 'Is that the way to keep our place?'

  For once he felt irritated with her. 'Leave me to guard what is mine.' />
  'I would see you in greater state than you have now.'

  'I know, I know – dear God, do I not know! But in this I did not study aught but what I deemed to be right.' He looked down into her tense face, at her dark brooding eyes, and catching her hand, he put it to his lips. 'Yet I know you think always of me.'

  'Yes,' she said and touched his hair, 'always of you.' She did not add, nor did she need to, that where he was there would she be also. 'I wish I knew more,' she added fiercely, 'I wish I could read the future for us both.'

  'We are not meant to know,' he answered and when an hour later he went up the stair to change his clothes, he saw her in the small solar bent over the table. On it was an unrolled parchment covered with drawings and signs. He gave a heavy sigh and wondered why she could not leave the uncertain future to Providence.

  Three nights later Richard of York supped with him alone, the two of them seated before the fire in Humfrey's library at Greenwich.

  'No one will ever doubt your feelings in the matter,' Richard said with a faint smile. 'It was a gesture that will not easily be forgotten, Humfrey. And as for striking the pillar with your sword – you should have seen some of the faces around me!'

  Humfrey grinned back at him somewhat in the manner of his youth. 'It was an accident, I assure you, but I don't regret it. The odd thing is that my saintly nephew seems now to want to appease me – I am to be Chief Justice in Wales which will be no sinecure considering how much disturbance there has been there of late. And I spoke to him concerning you.'

  'I know,' Richard said, 'and I am grateful. If I am Lieutenant for the King in Normandy at least I can keep Calais and our other Norman holdings from Burgundy's rapacious fingers. And if the Council think that the ceremony in Paul's on All Saints Day will make peace I beg leave to doubt it.'

  'Releasing Orléans will do no one any good, except perhaps the Duke himself. I am sorry we go in opposite directions, Richard, but perhaps we'll meet again soon.'

  'I hope so. It's always a pleasure to be here. You have made this the finest palace in the Kingdom.'