Treason

by Meredith Whitford

  ‘Of course not.’ Richard managed to sound quite convincing, but his sister stared at him, biting her lip.

  ‘Did Edward tell you he would not?’

  ‘Oh, he was on his high horse – you know, Liz. Touchy. He has done what he should have done years ago and taught George a lesson by popping him into prison, and now he has to find a solution that pleases everyone.’

  ‘If he’s trying to please the Queen’s bloodsucking family – and of course they have never forgiven George for executing her father and brother back in ’69 – they’ll see to it that George – ’

  ‘Has a good long spell in prison,’ interrupted Lincoln, ‘and comes out a sadder but wiser man. Perhaps, Uncle Richard, you could offer to stand surety for him in some way, get the King to place him in your custody for a while, something like that.’ Quicker than the rest of us, he had heard the Duchess of York in the corridor outside. ‘Now, what of this new printing business of Master Caxton’s? I think it’s a marvel – printed books! Do you realise it means that everyone will be able to afford books? More and more people are learning to read, there are more schools and quite ordinary people read, and now they’ll be able to buy anything they want. I think it’s the marvel of our time. A new age is starting, and who knows what inventions we might see next?’

  Clever boy: this was a subject after Richard’s own heart – and his mother’s – and everyone had an opinion. What of the copyists it would put out of work? Surely printing would be all very well for common works but not for books of religion? Just how cheap could printed books be? Who cares, I’m buying all I can. And Lincoln won the day by saying, ‘Well, I hold it’s a marvel – for now everyone can read my great-great-grandfather!’ Who was, of course, Geoffrey Chaucer.

  That night when I went up to bed I found all the women in my room, Innogen, Anne and the two duchesses. I was for it. ‘Now, Martin,’ said the Duchess of York, folding her hands on her knee, ‘we want to know exactly what passed between Richard and the King today. All of it, please. Richard’s putting a good face on it to soothe us, which is very dear and kind of him, but we know things are much worse than he is saying. So tell us.’

  Cravenly I said, ‘You won’t tell Richard I told you?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘But he’ll know!’ I whined. ‘For instance, where does he think you all are at the moment?’

  ‘Comparing gowns for that wretched Court wedding banquet,’ Anne snapped. ‘Tell us, Martin. I can’t look after Richard unless I know.’

  So I told them. I even told them of Jane Shore, and Dorset’s insolence (I left out the bum-boy remark) and I gave them a tactful version of our talk with Buckingham.

  ‘So it is the Woodville influence,’ the Duchess of York said when I finished.

  ‘Probably. Although, Madam, remember George has committed serious crimes.’

  ‘Oh yes, but there’s more to it. Ten years ago Edward would have seized him, tried him, and sentenced him to a clearly defined term of imprisonment. Cut and dried. There would have been none of this shilly-shallying. At its best it seems like revenge, not justice. For, Martin, Edward has refused to answer my letters. Margaret’s too.’

  I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. The silence held. At last Anne said the unspeakable. ‘High treason means the death penalty. Would the King let it go so far?’

  ‘I think he would have done it already. Therefore, he neither wants to nor will.’

  ‘Then,’ Anne said sadly, angrily, ‘it will be up to my poor Richard to find a way out. As usual.’

  ~~~

  Richard tried, but as November turned into December he gained no ground. In between Council meetings and the other official business of the realm the King gave him short shrift, either refusing to see him or granting him only the briefest audience. In the end he prepared what was in effect a legal brief, setting out every point of George’s undoubted crimes, citing precedents of punishment, suggesting an acceptable penalty. Whether the King ever read it, I don’t know. He would not let any of the family visit George, and although he eventually allowed them to write, George was not permitted to reply.

  Speaking of writing, one of the first books to come from William Caxton’s printing shop at the Sign of the Red Pale was Anthony Woodville’s translation of a French manuscript, The Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers. Credit where it’s due, it wasn’t bad, though I doubt it will last.

  And while the King’s brother languished in prison, all was merriment at Court, the usual Christmas festivities plus the celebrations for the Prince’s wedding. Parties, banquets, jousting, games, at which everyone was extremely cordial and polite. Let the Woodville faction make of it what they liked: unusually, the King’s entire family was there. Even the Duchess of York attended every event, and although she wore her usual widow’s black her gowns were exquisite brocade or velvet with sable trim. For the first time since her husband’s death she wore her magnificent jewels, and made the Queen look like trash.

  No one spoke of George. On the twentieth day of November the King had issued writs calling a Parliament. The implication was clear: George was to be tried by his peers. Already all his estates and possessions had been sequestered to the Crown.

  On January the fifteenth came the wedding. I liked the little Duke of York, the dearest, merriest boy you could hope to meet – pure Plantagenet, nothing Woodville about him. I don’t think he had a clue what the wedding was about; he looked on his bride as a new playmate, but confided to me at the banquet after the ceremony that she was too old and girls were boring. He had too many sisters, he said, and would like to live with his older brother at Ludlow. Overhearing, Richard told him he knew Ludlow, and talked of first meeting Edward there. At once the boy was on fire with interest, and nothing would do but for Richard to tell him the whole story. His sister Lady Bess came to listen too; near twelve now, she was a pretty girl, bar a bit of puppy fat. But no sooner were we deep in talk than the Queen rustled over and said the Prince must not bore his uncle and must talk to his bride. Sulking, the poor boy was led firmly away, Bess too. The Prince of Wales, a tall weedy boy who looked as if he had been grown under glass, watched everything with a bread-and-circuses air.

  ~~~

  Next day George was tried before Parliament. The charge was high treason, the penalty death. Richard had asked to be excused from attending. The King refused.

  Francis, Rob and I dressed Richard that morning, acting as the body squires we no longer officially were. He needed us, you see, he needed his friends, and not only because his hands shook so much he couldn’t fasten a button. Trembling with tension, he was as deadly white as before a battle, and we had to stand over him like children’s nurses to force him to eat something. He said not one word, not even when Anne kissed him goodbye or when his mother with tears in her eyes held his hand and blessed him as if for a journey. In its way it was a journey; to the end of his childhood, to the end of his adoring love for the big brother who had been his idol.

  I had no business in Parliament, but I was not going to let Richard be alone that day. If you look confident people think you’ve a right to be where you are, so, clasping a book or two, I strode busily into the building and insinuated myself into some sort of ante-room to the main chamber. I could hear what passed and, if I was cautious, see much of it.

  And so I heard and saw the House of York destroying itself. I saw that gross, concupiscent swine King Edward IV accuse his brother George of ‘conduct derogatory to the laws of the realm and most dangerous to judges and juries throughout the kingdom’. I saw the so-called witnesses, all of whom added to the so-called evidence against George. I saw George, thin, haggard, hopeless, yet with a dignity and calm unusual in him, stand alone in the middle of the chamber and answer his brother’s accusations. He did it well. His answers were cogent, sensible, deferential. Of course he was fighting for his life, but I thought, yes, he has learnt his lesson, he has in fact matured at long last; let that be enough punishment.


  But of course it was a foregone conclusion. No one accused but the King. No one was allowed to speak in George’s defence but himself. And soon the Duke of Buckingham, High Steward for the occasion, and nearly as ashen as the King’s two brothers, pronounced the death penalty.

  Richard had sat through the proceedings as still and pale as a marble effigy, looking at no one but George. The moment the sentence was pronounced he rose and strode out of the chamber. The unceremonious exit, the refusal to bow to the King, was the only protest he was allowed to make.

  I found him outside. He was crouched in the street, his velvet Parliament robe spread around him, puking his heart up. A Royal Duke, vomiting into the public drain while passers-by watched curiously.

  Careless of who might see, I crouched down and held him as I do my children. There was nothing to be said, so I kissed him and helped him up. He looked at me vaguely, then said, ‘I’m glad it’s you. Get me home.’

  Everyone was gathered waiting in the hall at Baynard’s Castle. We did not have to tell them. The Duchess of York cried, ‘No!’ and shoved her knuckles hard against her mouth. It was the only time I ever saw her cry.

  Elizabeth said in disbelief, ‘The death sentence?’ Richard nodded, once. In the silence Anne came and took him in her arms and led him away upstairs.

  ~~~

  But the death sentence was not immediately carried out. The King held off. I believed – I hoped – that when it came to it, he couldn’t after all kill his brother. Nor could he, now, refuse to see his family. What passed between him and his mother I don’t care to imagine. Elizabeth of Suffolk had an audience with him that left her weeping helplessly, with hope as much as anger. Lord Hastings did his best; so did Lord Howard. Harry Buckingham too, I believe. From Burgundy Duchess Margaret wrote imploring Edward to commute the sentence. Richard saw the King twice, briefly, and came away hopeful. A week passed, and still the King held off.

  And in that week the wedding celebrations continued unabated. There was a great joust, for example, a Woodville affair from start to finish, Dorset and Rivers pretty as pictures in their velvet tents and decorative armour. Richard didn’t bother to attend. Buckingham told me that the King watched it all expressionless, and never said a word.

  Then the King sent for me. The written message said only, ‘Pray heed the bearer of this,’ with the meat in the oral message. Which was: come now, come alone, tell no one. If the messenger, some anonymous fellow in plain clothes, had not shown me the King’s ring as proof, I’d have thought I was being lured to my death. Well, I don’t say I really pictured myself being kidnapped or secretly murdered – why would I be? – but I made the excuse of fetching a cloak, and told my wife. ‘Say nothing – but it looks so odd... Be discreet.’

  The messenger led me not to any part of the Palace that I knew, but to a room high in a tower. Bidding me wait, he left me alone, and I heard him lock the door on the outside. The room was furnished as a bedchamber, the bed neatly made. A table held a lute, wine flask and cups, and a few books, the two I glanced at of such a filthily erotic nature that the purpose of this secret room was clear.

  I waited almost an hour before a concealed door in the panelling opened and the King entered.

  With no more greeting than a nod he told me to sit down. There was nowhere to sit but the bed, and from sheer terror I had the frivolous thought that the King’s new depravities included sodomy and I was in for it. But he remained standing, staring down at me from a distance. ‘Martin. I know you for an honest man. Are you still?’

  ‘Yes, Sire.’

  ‘You are Richard’s friend. Since you were children. You love him?’

  ‘Yes. All our lives. Yes, I love him dearly.’

  ‘If you had to choose between him and your wife, which would you choose?’

  Thinking, Oh Christ, I said carefully, ‘Circumstances alter cases, Your Grace, so how can I say?’

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘Well then – my wife, because she is my wife, because we love each other, we are dear companions and she is the mother of my children.’

  Without expression the King said, ‘You would choose your wife. Yet you are loyal to Richard and you love him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though he bedded your wife?’

  I don’t know how I kept from showing my reaction. ‘That was long ago, before she was my wife.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Probably it was beyond his brutish comprehension that two people who had been lovers could shake down into an almost fraternal relationship, that their spouses could trust them. ‘Yes I am sure, because I know them both. They both love me. Richard loves Anne and would never hurt or dishonour her. He believes in the Commandments.’ I thought, if he mocks or makes a joke I’ll hit him. But he said, still without expression,

  ‘Give me your opinion of my brother George.’

  ‘Sire, I really knew him only as a child – ’

  ‘People don’t change. You have observed him since. Tell me.’

  ‘Well then, he strikes me as vain, ambitious, rather foolish though not unintelligent, a fickle sort of man, yet capable of kindness and love. Most people can reason from A to B. George can’t reason from B to C.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Well, take the events of 1469 and ’70. ‘A’ is that George wants the Crown: ‘B’, so he rebels. Most people could see as far as ‘C’: that he would have to give in and return to you, or encompass either his death or yours and Richard’s. But George couldn’t see that. Nor could he reason ahead to ‘D’, which is exactly what did happen.’

  ‘Well put. You would make a good schoolmaster, Sir Martin. You’ve been loyal, Richard could not have achieved all he has without you and the others like you. I’ll make you a baron, I think; even a viscount. Or why not an earl?’

  In for a penny, in for a pound, I said: ‘That’s crude, Edward. Whatever you want, you can’t bribe me.’

  He nearly hit me, pulling the blow at the last moment. I remembered how back in ’70, hearing of Warwick’s pact with Lancaster, he had broken up the room in his rage. But he calmed himself and said, ‘So you are the one man in England who can’t be bought.’

  Beyond caring what I said to this man I answered, ‘No I am not. And what have you become if you can think that, even in mockery? Now tell me what it is you want of me!’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Tell me your opinion of Richard. And don’t worry, he’s not hidden on the other side of the door with his ears flapping. It’s no test.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ But he only gestured impatiently for me to go on. ‘Very well. Richard is loyal, clever, honest, diligent, kind. He’d never betray anyone to whom he’s given his loyalty, his friendship or his good-lordship. He’s a brilliant general and fighter, and no one can lead men like he can. In the north he is very much loved as well as admired and respected.’

  ‘And his faults?’

  ‘He can be stubborn, contrary, dogmatic, naïve, uncompromising, and often thinks too well of people.’

  The King sat down. ‘If I put George to death, will Richard still love me?’

  Suddenly we were talking as equals, even friends. ‘How should I know, I’ve no brothers, I’ve no idea how far fraternal love goes. He will despise you. And, if it matters to you, you’ll have destroyed something in him. Will you put George to death? Must you?’

  ‘God above, why can no one see it! List his crimes – rebellion, treason, subversion of justice, inciting others to those same crimes, executing an innocent woman, necromancy, spreading lies and slanders about me and my family, putting it about I was base-born, slandering my mother, the Queen, my children, her family, my marriage... And people expect me to spare him?’

  ‘He is your brother. Take Isabel’s death into account. Imprison him for a good long time. Be merciful. Please.’

  The King took my chin in his hand, turning my face towards him. ‘Why do you care? I thought you never liked George?’

 
‘He’s my cousin. A remote one, I admit, but I’ve few kin, so I care about that. And I care for Richard’s sake and for your mother’s; your sisters’ sakes, too. And yours. I remember a little boy at Fotheringhay. I remember an eleven-year-old boy who was seasick with me going to Burgundy, and who looked after me and Richard there and told us not to fear because his wonderful big brother Edward always won battles and could do anything. I remember him kissing Richard when your armies met at Coventry.’ My voice was trembling with emotion, I was nearly crying. ‘I’ve often disliked him, true, yet I just as often liked him. I’m not sure I’d ever trust him far, and I don’t love him, yet it’s not entirely for others’ sake that I don’t want him dead.’

  There was a long silence. ‘Could George keep his mouth shut?’

  Christ, about what? I have always regretted I didn’t ask precisely that, for in this mood Edward just might have told me, and all our lives might have been different. ‘No.’

  ‘Could Richard?’

  ‘Yes, unless you mean about some – I don’t know – some vicious crime, some great wrong it was possible to right.’

  For a moment Edward put his hands over his face. ‘People don’t know what it is like for the King. What I suffer. I spoke before of choosing between your wife and your friend – a metaphor – a King is married to his country.’ He spread out his hand, the Coronation ring glinting in the candlelight. ‘Married to his people, his country. Responsible. What would be a sin in a private person cannot be in a King if he does it for his country. I, as King, cannot say “I love my brother, therefore let him go free”. And anyone but George would have gone to the block years ago.’

  ‘You said something like that the night before the battle of Barnet. And in that battle George fought for you, out of love. Edward, I admit his crimes, but must it be death?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Prison,’ I repeated. ‘Or ship him off abroad, strip him of his titles and lands, make him powerless, disgraced. Or put him into Richard’s custody, he’ll stand surety for him and I think George loves and respects him enough to behave. And Richard is the one person George could never corrupt or suborn.’ Edward looked at me out of his bleared, bloodshot eyes. He really was suffering, and that knowledge gave me the courage to say, ‘Don’t do it, Edward. You’ll never forgive yourself. Nor will Richard, or your mother, or your sisters. If it counts, nor will I. And if you do decide for mercy, don’t they deserve to think it was because of them? Out of your love for them?’