Time passed, and soon we forgot we had ever known another life. Letters from London, although gladly received, could have come from a foreign country.
Quite often it was George who brought us the letters, along with scraps of news. If Warwick was at Middleham we could be sure that soon enough George would join him. Much as Richard and I enjoyed his visits – for George was good company when he dropped his airs, and, after all, we loved him – we soon realised that he came more for Isabel’s sake than his brother’s. What we had thought a girlish infatuation on Isabel’s part had become a real love between them.
I saw them together once, in Lady Warwick’s knot-garden. I had been sent with a message, so it wasn’t that I intruded on their privacy; in any event, they were doing nothing the whole world could not have seen. But just the same my breath caught in my throat at the way they looked at each other. George had just given Isabel a sprig of rosemary he had plucked from a bush, and their fingers twined together. ‘For remembrance,’ George said, and all Isabel’s gentle, simple heart was in her face as he brushed his lips on hers.
I had reached an age where I longed to know what it was like to kiss a girl. To do more than simply kiss. The sight of a laundry maid with her bodice loose and her skirts kirtled up for work could cost me hours of penance when I confessed my lustful feelings. Warwick saw to it that we were all instructed in the bodily facts when we turned thirteen, but the Middleham emphasis was on resisting unclean thoughts as much as deeds. Nothing had prepared me for the sad, lonely longing I felt as I witnessed that innocent kiss.
They saw me standing there, abashed, and they parted without embarrassment. I croaked out my message, and George gave me a mischievous grin and they linked their arms with mine to go inside. They had nothing to be shy about, theirs was no slinking, difficult love. It was in the open, and Isabel’s parents approved.
Not so the King, I came to learn. Not long after that little scene – I speak now of 1467 – Warwick went to France on an embassy. He came home delighted and proud at King Louis’ favour, and he rushed to tell Edward of the promising trade agreements he had won. But Edward inclined more and more to Burgundy and was determined to tread warily with France, and Warwick found London full of Burgundian courtiers and ambassadors. Worse, some of them were the Queen’s St Pol connections. Charles, Count of Charolais, was among the visitors, I believe, and there was a great ceremonial joust or some such thing between the Queen’s brother Anthony and one of the Burgundian gentlemen. All well and good; that is the usual way of treating foreign guests. In the middle of it all, news came that Duke Philip of Burgundy was dead, and Charles, now Duke in his turn, had to hurry home. Warwick never liked him, so I daresay he shed no tears at seeing the back of him. But the thing was, Warwick had brought a train of French officials, ambassadors in fact, and Edward gave them short shrift, housing them meanly in quarters prepared for the Burgundians and barely sparing time to see them. Warwick and Edward quarrelled over the matter, and Edward said, among other things, that if Warwick thought he could marry his daughter to the King’s brother he was much mistaken. It was about that time, too, that Edward stripped Warwick’s brother George Neville of the Chancellorship. I daresay he had good cause, but it was the last straw for Warwick.
I know all this because Warwick came home to Middleham in a rage and took it out on Richard. I remember sitting there at the supper table, hoping I would do nothing to draw attention to myself, while Warwick lambasted Richard. Pale, and angry in his turn, Richard said only that he understood Warwick’s concern but he could not discuss his brother. It ended with Lady Warwick and her daughters in tears, and Warwick stiffly dismissing us from table. Nothing more was said of it, or not in public.
And from then on we could never dismiss the creeping, back-of-the-mind knowledge that Warwick was turning gradually against the king. To a certain extent we could ignore the knowledge, for in fairness to him Warwick, for a long time he never discussed such matters or spoke to us of the King without affection and respect. But as time went on we knew, and could ignore it no longer.
~~~
Why did Warwick rebel? With George it was largely cupidity and spite – he wanted to marry Isabel, and he wanted to be King. But why did Warwick take it so far? Was it, as many people thought, sheer hubris? He was what had come to be called an over-mighty subject, but so were others, who stayed loyal. He genuinely believed he had made Edward King, and he genuinely believed Edward had a duty to be guided by him. And let’s not forget that Edward was only in his early twenties and not born to be king. Probably to his seniors he seemed a callow boy; and he made dreadful mistakes. But I think that in Warwick’s eyes Edward had debased his royalty by bestowing it on Elizabeth Woodville, and therefore forfeited the right to it.
Of course all this was meat and drink to Louis of France, nothing pleased him more than the chance to drive a wedge between the King and his mightiest subject. No one realised for a long time how deftly Louis worked on Warwick, sending him loving messages, soothing his pride, flattering him; treating him, in fact, as if he were the true ruler of England.
And Edward did little to soothe Warwick. He could have, had he willed, but I think he was sick of Warwick’s vaunting king-maker airs, and aware of the danger of concentrating power in any one small group, his own family or not. He had ended the civil wars, united the kingdom, established England again as a steady international power, he had seen that trade prospered. He was personally very popular, the people loved their young, handsome, soldier king, and they would take a good deal for the sake of peace. Yet the marriage was not popular. It was the stuff of romance, the king marrying a beautiful, penniless widow – and between the covers of a romance was where it belonged. The king’s marriage was the country’s greatest political asset, and Edward had thrown it away on a blonde beauty. Still, a Queen’s duty was to bear heirs, and with two strapping sons and that horde of siblings Elizabeth Woodville should be fertile if nothing else, and she was probably better than some French virago. So people accepted what could not be changed, came to terms with the Woodville faction, and waited confidently for the birth of a Prince of Wales. Unfortunately, when the queen’s first child arrived, in February 1466, it was a girl. Called Elizabeth, of course.
No doubt Edward saw his marriage as a chance to build up a new group, a faction who would be entirely dependent on him – and had Warwick and George stayed solidly loyal, the Woodvilles might have gained much less power. By the time Warwick became truly disaffected, the Queen’s siblings had been married into all the great, ancient families. For instance, the Queen’s sister Margaret married the Earl of Arundel’s heir; Anne Woodville married the Earl Essex’s son; Elinor married Kent’s; Mary married Lord Herbert’s. Most shocking of all, at least for a time, Catherine married the King’s cousin Harry Stafford, the young Duke of Buckingham. All the Woodville brothers did well; they were made knights, promised bishoprics, given military commands. Eldest brother Anthony was even made a Knight of the Garter, and I’ll spare you George’s comments on that. And the Queen’ brother John Woodville was married to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the king’s aunt. She was in her sixties; he not twenty. That marriage shocked even the most cynical, it was called the diabolical marriage, and what the Duchess of York said to her son on the matter I’d give my back teeth to know. The Queen’s father was made an Earl and soon Constable of England and Treasurer.
And, as if deliberately to alienate Warwick, Edward allowed the Queen to buy the marriage of his niece Anne Holland, daughter of his sister the Duchess of Exeter, for the Queen’s son Sir Thomas Grey. (He and his brother had been knighted, of course.) And the point about that marriage is that little Anne Holland, an immensely rich and high-born heiress with a good claim to the throne in her own right, had been promised to the son of Warwick’s brother, the faithful John, Earl of Northumberland.
None of this happened all at once, of course, but it was not long before people were pointing to a complete Woodville domination.
Whatever Edward intended, there is such a thing as subtlety, there is such a thing as going slowly. So perhaps it is not so hard to understand Warwick.
And so, I suppose, Warwick’s great scheme began, although no doubt it originated with Louis of France. He would overthrow Edward, put George on the throne and see his daughter Queen; and I wonder if he saw that he would thus create a puppet state controlled by France? Make no mistake, George honestly loved Isabel, he would have married her whoever she was – so when the king flatly refused to permit the marriage, that was the end of George’s frayed loyalty to his brother. He and Warwick sulked and plotted. And, with one of the King’s brothers in his pocket, Warwick set out to secure the other.
One day I said thoughtfully to Richard, ‘Next Warwick will be wanting you to marry Anne.’
‘Yes. He does.’
‘He has said so?’
‘Hinted. Of course he would love to see both daughters married to the king’s two brothers. Edward still has no male heir.’ (The second child, recently born at the time of this conversation, late in 1467, was also a girl – Mary). ‘If anything happened to Edward, I can’t see the country accepting a baby girl as monarch. And who would be Regent? Warwick? George? No, George would be king, God help us. George and I are the heir and the spare until Edward has sons, and Warwick likes the prospect of one of his daughters being Queen.’
‘Do you want to marry Anne?’ I said curiously.
‘Well, I like her, and I hate the idea of having to live abroad, which I would have to if I married some European princess. But it is not going to happen. And nor is George marrying Isabel, and the sooner he accepts the idea the better. And I wish he’d stop coming here, he drives me mad, whining and whinging.’
We left it there and got on with our lives, politics in the background. But after that conversation I noticed how Warwick was working on Richard. He treated him more and more as a son, as an equal. He began to talk as if it could be assumed they agreed on everything. And, dangerously, he began to drop hints about the King: really quite unwise of Edward to raise the Woodvilles up so high and so fast (now he always called him by his name, never said ‘the king’)... Richard was lucky Edward hadn’t married him to a Woodville, ha ha!... Lucky we were not at war with France... Edward would be running into real money troubles soon... Thank goodness Edward still had his family...
~~~
Early in 1468 Edward concluded treaties with Burgundy and Brittany against France. You can imagine how the rabidly Francophile Warwick took that. Part of the deal with Burgundy was that Margaret was to marry Duke Charles. More sulks from Warwick, but Margaret was happy; Edward would never have married her against her will, and Duke Charles was handsome, learned, and an accomplished fighter with the nickname ‘Charles the Bold’. Well, he was if you choose to translate téméraire thus; many people called him Charles the Rash. Later, Edward called him other things.
Trying to be tactful and show he still honoured Warwick as his greatest subject, Edward gave him prime position at the celebrations, and it was on his horse that Margaret rode with her brothers to Margate, from where she was to embark for Burgundy. As her cousin I had a small part in the proceedings. Although I had out-grown my crush on Margaret I loved her deeply, and out of fondness I wrote her a letter wishing her well. It was a boy’s foolish effort, packed with high-flown attempts at elegance, but she replied, and she kept my letter. She showed it to me a few years ago, crumpled and yellowed but put fondly away with the letters from her brothers. Thirty years she had kept it. My darling duchess.
The day after Margaret sailed I happened to see the King go into the garden. He was alone. I had been looking for just such a chance, and quick as a flash I ran after him. Hearing me, he looked up with a smile. He saw me, and the smile faded.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Please may I speak with you, Your Grace? It is important.’
He frowned, but seeing my anxiety said, ‘Oh, very well, but make it quick.’
I had meant to ease into the matter, but in the face of his resigned impatience I said bluntly, ‘I think you should take Richard away from Middleham.’
No doubt Edward had been expecting some private boy’s trouble. Astonished, he said, ‘Do you just! Why?’
‘Because Warwick is – Sire, please understand that I make no accusation against him.’ I waited for his nod. ‘But he is – discontented.’
‘I know. He’s acting like a spoilt brat who cannot believe he is not getting his own way. Martin, I have Warwick’s measure; don’t worry.’ His tone was dismissive, and he glanced past me.
‘It’s more than that. He’s got Clarence won over to him and between them they are making Richard’s life a misery. So I think you should take him away. He’s sixteen soon and he has been at Middleham four years; no one would wonder at your making a change.’
‘No? Well, Warwick would take it as an insult, and it might be the thing that tips him from discontent into real trouble. I admit I’m sick of their sulks and tantrums, and sick of Warwick thinking he is King of England, but while I don’t believe they’d ever turn against me, they could cause me a lot of trouble. Therefore I am at pains to placate them. That way they will become reconciled.’
He said all this like an adult flattering a child with grown-up secrets. Thinking, Here we go, I said, ‘Have you Merlin’s magic wand, sire, to turn back time? Because the only thing that would placate or reconcile Warwick and Clarence would be for you to divorce the Queen, pack her family off back to obscurity, marry some French princess and let Warwick and Louis of France rule your country. Or of course you could abdicate in favour of George.’
I had his attention now, and to spare. ‘And Richard?’
‘Sire, Warwick thinks Richard a gullible boy who can – must – be persuaded to his view. Persuaded or bullied.’
Giving me an odd look he snapped, ‘Are you in trouble up there? You or Richard?’
‘Trouble?’ I wasn’t used to a devious mind, and when I understood, I was offended and hurt, and also annoyed at his refusal to see. ‘No, we are not in trouble. We like Middleham and the other boys and could have no better training anywhere. We are fond of Lord Warwick and have had nothing but kindness from him. I thought I could talk to you about your brother without you thinking me the spiteful sort who would concoct a reprisal or try to blacken Warwick to get out of a mess. It’s as I say. Please, Edward!’ In my earnestness I seized his hand, a bit of boyish lèse-majesté that seemed to impress him more than my words.
‘I believe you’re overstating things, Martin, but I shall consider what you’ve said. Now run along, people are coming, and you are much too pretty for me to be seen holding hands with you in a garden. Off you go.’
‘You won’t tell Richard or Warwick what I have said?’
‘No, no. Now go.’
Looking back I saw two ladies entering the garden. Pretty ladies, of course, and dressed to kill. I wondered which was Edward’s choice – perhaps both. I was young enough for the idea to shock me. And I wondered if I had achieved anything besides that dubious compliment on my looks. The saying goes that cheats never prosper; well, nor do well-meaning meddlers.
~~~
I still think Edward might have ignored my warning, had it not been for the incident at that night’s supper.
Richard was serving at the royal table. It was an everyday courtesy expected of a boy of fifteen, but it marked his position as youngest and least significant of his family, and because he resented it his mind was elsewhere. Serving with him I covered one or two small mistakes he made, but I could do nothing when he spilt Warwick’s wine.
Warwick hit him.
It was little more than a casual clip over the ear, and at Middleham we would have thought nothing of it; we were there to learn perfect service and he often cuffed a clumsy boy. But this was in public, and Richard was the King’s brother and greatly Warwick’s superior in rank. It looked as if Warwick was demonstrating both his disdain for that rank and
his assumption that he could treat the King’s family as he chose.
Richard’s only visible reaction was a tightening of the lips as he hastened to wipe up the spilt wine. Warwick had forgotten it already and was deep in talk with Clarence. Edward frowned, and I looked away before our eyes could meet; that was the sort of thing Warwick noticed.
The meal progressed. Bored, I fell to counting the jewels Clarence wore (I had long since perfected the servitor’s out-of-focus gaze that lets you see what you want without being accusing of impertinently staring). A ruby and two diamonds on his right hand, two of each on his left. In his doublet...
Something close to an argument had sprung up as they talked of the uprising in the west, and I heard the name Jasper Tudor. ‘Who he?’ I murmured to Richard.
With lipless skill he answered, ‘Henry the Sixth’s half-brother. Oldest of the bastards Queen Katherine bore her Welsh lover.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘Mmm. Hush.’
The King was saying, ‘William Herbert will put Tudor down – ’
‘Herbert!’ Warwick sneered. ‘That upstart!’
That should do it, I thought: first you hit the King’s brother, now you insult one of his closest friends.
Very levelly Edward said, ‘Lord Herbert is a capable man and a loyal friend who has served me well and kept Wales for me these seven years. And I shall reward him with Tudor’s old Earldom of Pembroke. But speaking of these bothers reminds me – Cousin, I think Richard’s been long enough in your care.’ Richard looked up sharply, and Edward saw the relief in his eyes before his lashes veiled them. ‘He is sixteen in October and I was going to make that the time to bring him to Court, but why not do it now? Save him travelling all that way north merely to return.’
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