Treason

by Meredith Whitford

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I can.’ He stood up. ‘Very well, Martin. Go. Tell no one of this talk, especially not Richard. If necessary, say I offered you a title and you refused it. You might still get one.’

  ‘Not now, please.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said without animosity. ‘Go on, get out.’

  The messenger conducted me down into a side court with a gate to the street. It was early evening, dark and foggy, and when a dim figure popped up at my elbow I nearly screamed.

  ‘Shhh. It’s me, Jane Shore. I knew you were with Edward; no one else knows. Please, Sir Martin, listen, I can’t approach the Duke of Gloucester. But tell him I will do what I can to save his brother. You see, I love Edward, and killing his brother will ruin him. And it is wrong. I might not succeed, but I will try.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you, I love Edward. No one believes that but it’s true. Not because he’s King. I love him. Goodbye.’ Saucy frippet, she kissed me.

  I told Richard the moment I got home. I thought he should know the King’s mind, and although he would never doubt me, it’s impossible to keep a secret at Court and I didn’t want rumours flying around about my interview with the King. Besides, I would not have put it past Edward to give me a title anyway; it would suit him, or at least the Woodvilles, to have people thinking Richard couldn’t trust his closest friend.

  Richard said, ‘I don’t know what is going on. Martin, would you say – did the King seem – is it yes or no? Death or mercy? Though, Lord Jesu... life in prison, poverty... I think George would prefer death. I think I would.’

  ‘Me too. Richard, my dear, I honestly don’t know. But I think you should be prepared for the worst.’

  ‘I am. I think.’ He was close to tears. I put my arms around him, and he clutched me like a frightened child. For a moment we embraced desperately, then he said with a shaky laugh, ‘It’s come to something when I have to rely on the King’s whore to save my brother. Did she mean it?’

  ‘Do you know, I think she did.’

  ~~~

  Perhaps she did, and perhaps she did try. Perhaps many people did. But on the eighteenth day of February the Speaker of the Commons went formally to the Lords and requested that the death sentence be carried out with no more delay.

  That night, George was executed in the Tower.

  It was secretly done, by what means no one knows. Word went around that George had been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine, but surely that is only ribald comment on his drinking habits? His family was told no more than the fact of his death. The King sent a herald with a formal letter addressed to Richard – leaving it up to him, of course, to tell their mother and sister.

  I need not belabour the point. Despite everything I still had some fondness for George, and had he died a natural death I would have grieved and wished it otherwise. But like this... And almost the worst was losing all my life-time’s adoration of Edward. What had happened to the kind, glorious boy who seventeen years before had kissed away my fears?

  ~~~

  The following day I went with Richard to see the King. Clad in the black of mourning Richard strode through the rooms of Westminster as if they were empty, and this time people damn well fell back before him. No one but Hastings and Buckingham had put on mourning; in the Woodvilles it would have been hypocrisy.

  The King was alone in his rooms. He wore black, and he looked as if he had had word of his own approaching death.

  ‘Richard, Sir Martin.’

  ‘Highness.’ We bowed. Richard looked at his brother.

  ‘Dickon... ’

  ‘Your Grace asked to see me?’

  ‘I had no choice. He was a traitor.’

  ‘He was my brother.’

  ‘And mine!’

  ‘Yes.’

  The King’s shoulders slumped, then stiffened. ‘Is our mother –’

  For a moment Richard’s control cracked. ‘You dare to speak of her... She is on her knees in her chapel, Your Grace, praying for the repose of her son’s soul. And, no doubt, for the Christian courage to forgive his murderers. She will return to Berkhamsted tomorrow, and now she will take her vows as a nun. She wants no more part of the secular world.’

  ‘Richard...’ For a moment the King held out his hand, then let it fall helplessly.

  Ignoring the gesture, Richard said, speaking very fast, ‘Our mother bore eight sons – Henry, you, Edmund, William, John, George, Thomas, me. Four she buried as infants. Edmund she lost in battle. Those deaths are what happens in our world, and our mother found the courage and the faith to bear those losses. Whether she can bear the loss of a son killed by another of her sons, I do not know. So don’t dare speak to me of our mother. And take a word of advice, Highness: do not write to her or think to visit her.’

  So quietly I could hardly hear him, Edward said, ‘Has she disowned me?’

  ‘She would never do that. I mean, merely, have some regard for her feelings.’

  Still in that soft, faltering voice the King said, ‘And have you disowned me, Richard?’

  ‘You are my brother. I am Your Grace’s loyal servant.’

  ‘And with that I must be content?’

  ‘What do you think? Now, as Your Grace’s loyal servant – as your brother if that still has power to move you – I have two requests to make of you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Please put George’s children into my care, make me their guardian; that request comes not only from my heart but from Anne, their aunt. And, secondly, I wish licences to found colleges to pray for Their Graces the King and Queen, and for my dead brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Of course. Where?’

  ‘Barnard. Middleham. Your Grace, where is George to be buried?’

  ‘Tewkesbury. In the Abbey. With Isabel.’

  ‘Thank you. And the children may – ’

  ‘I have already granted their wardships to my stepson Dorset.’

  ‘To Dorset! Edward, no!’

  ‘It is done, Richard. But I have reserved the earldom of Warwick for George’s son. The earldom of Salisbury I have granted to your own son, Edward.’ Richard was staring at him incredulously. ‘And I want you to be Great Chamberlain again.’

  ‘No.’ George had held the post since 1472.

  ‘It is done. It is necessary.’

  For a moment Richard stood frowning down at the carpet. ‘Your Grace, please reconsider about the children.’

  ‘No. It is done. Although,’ dryly, ‘Dorset will not be able to play ducks and drakes with their lands.’ This was the sole concession; though we discovered later that the King had in fact kept most of George’s sequestered estates for himself and his brother-in-law Anthony.

  ‘I see.’ Richard bowed. ‘Have I your leave to depart?’

  ‘Yes. You return at once to the north?’

  ‘My mother wishes my escort to Berkhamsted. Then, yes, I go home.’

  Edward sighed. ‘Very well. Godspeed. And, Richard, keep the north for me.’

  ‘As I always have, for the King. Goodbye.’

  Twelve

  1480–1482

  It was in the spring of 1480 that our friend Louis of France tickled up that Scots fool James III to start the border raids again. Louis of course wanted England kept busy in the north while he got on with his own games, and his Scottish puppet was only too happy to oblige.

  Politics always bored me stiff. Suffice it to say that the kings of England, Scotland and France, and Emperor Maximilian and Duke Francis of Brittany, were engaged in manoeuvrings as complex as a Scottish reel as they each tried to win alliances and exclude others. Thus, both Maximilian and Duke Francis were dickering, separately, with both England and Scotland for help against France. Louis XI was desperate to prevent a triple alliance of England, Brittany and Burgundy against him. Edward was desperate to hang onto his French pension and Bess’s betrothal to the Dauphin, while at the same time he was negotiating with Burgundy for an alliance against France and
a marriage between his daughter Anne and Philip, son of Maximilian and Mary... Is that clear? No, nor was it ever to me. Richard once claimed to understand it, but he was drunk at the time. But the upshot was that with England occupied with a war in the north, the way would be clear (so Louis hoped) for him to get on with his own plans to annihilate Burgundy and Brittany.

  In the middle of 1480 Duchess Margaret came to England to negotiate with Edward on Burgundy’s behalf, and although I of course went with Richard on his hasty visit south to see her, she had little time to spare for personal matters, and her grief for George so overwhelmed her still that she could bear no recollections of happier times. Still, it was good to see her, however briefly – although it was during her visit that spies revealed to Edward Maximilian’s dealings with the Scots.

  At first the raids were intermittent and none too serious, but they could come at any point along the border so that we had little chance of preparing for them. The Scots would mass silently on their side of the border, then in the night dart into England’s part of the Debatable Lands. Sometimes it was no more than harassment, a few livestock taken, a peel tower burned, a man forced to watch his wife or daughter raped. Often, though, whole settlements were left in smoking ruins in which women searched hopelessly and abandoned children wailed in terror.

  Even after the truces of the 1460s and ’70s there had been raiding from both sides of the border, it was a local sport or natural hazard like the weather – but as 1480 went on it became clear this was an organised campaign. Edward appointed Richard Lieutenant-General, and he and the Earl of Northumberland prepared to move against the Scots.

  And then the Earl of Angus led a war-band right into English territory and torched Bamburgh. Our enemies had teased the English lion once too often, and the lion roared and bared its claws. In September Richard led an army into Scotland, chasing Angus, but the Earl and his gang fled for cover, and by October we were riding home to Sheriff Hutton. The approach of winter saw the Scots as eager to lie-up as we were. The raids ceased, and Richard took the opportunity to put Carlisle into good repair. Also he and Northumberland carried out a census of the north to determine available numbers of men, for no one believed the Scots had given up.

  And sure enough, as soon as the snows had melted they were at it again. Resignedly we packed our gear, tended our weapons and made ready. Then John asked if he could come with us.

  ‘What do you mean, come with us? It’s not a pleasure outing.’

  ‘I know. Don’t treat me like a child.’

  ‘My dear boy, you are a child! You’re only eleven. Anyway, what do you mean?’ He was helping me polish and pack my armour, something I never left to anyone else. Of course we always took full armour, because you never know, but this inconclusive warfare of fast raid and counter-raid; skirmishes and chases more than battle, usually called for brigandines and sallets; at most, the half-armour of breast-plate and greaves. Each piece as it was polished was rolled up in felt and packed in exact order, and absently I noted that John was doing all this with casual expertise. I noted too that he lifted my brigandines nearly as easily as I did myself – and the boiled leather jacket with metal plates between the layers weighed some forty pounds. John had grown lately; on his birthdays I measured him, and the new mark was four inches higher than the last. What I had not noticed was how he had filled out. Already he was moving towards the changes of adolescence; he would be a well-built man, perhaps nearly as large as his uncle Edward. He would be handsome, too, as you would expect of a child of Innogen and Richard. We had sent him to Richard’s household at Pontefract for training, but although he never complained he had pined so markedly that, softhearted, we brought him home to Middleham. He was clever at his books, and his masters spoke well of his intelligence, but he had always taken an absorbing interest in military matters.

  So now when I asked him, he gave an answer he had clearly thought out with care. ‘I’m eleven, and I’ve had three years’ henchman training. I’m a good page, I know all the duties, and I’ve squired you and my father. I’m quite bright, but not bookish like Edward or your boys. I want to serve with my father and you and be a soldier. And so I want to come with you on this campaign. Not to fight, of course, or put myself in danger; just to see it and get experience. When my father was eleven he was leading out levies for the King.’

  ‘An honorary position. Very, very different from campaign. John, it is not possible.’

  ‘Please.’ He had Innogen’s pale skin, and intense emotion always drove the colour from his face so that freckles stood out on his nose. ‘Please,’ he repeated.

  ‘John, this sort of rough-riding campaign isn’t like a set battle where we could leave you safely behind the lines. Even our base camp could easily be taken by the Scots.’

  ‘But you establish headquarters well on our side of the border. That’s all I want – to come. You take boys as runners or flag-bearers, or camp servants or to mind the baggage.’

  ‘Well, yes, but... It’s too dangerous, dear. Think of your mother.’ Innogen would take a dim view at the best of times, but a few months previously we had lost a child. Our son Peter was born in 1479 and died before his second birthday. We were lucky he was the only one we had lost, but that was cold comfort. We felt it more because our children had always been healthy. So this was the worst time to ask Innogen to part with her first-born. Nor, when it came to it, could I bear the thought. John and I had grown to love each other dearly, and he called me Papa as my own children did – yet suddenly, with this request I understood that he was not my son, but Richard’s.

  Staring anxiously up at me he said, ‘I understand about Mother and I know it is a bad time.’

  ‘Yet you ask.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it feels as if it’s time. And because I’m a bastard. I can’t explain more than that. But it is different for us – for bastards – for me and Katherine. I love you and Mother, and I love my lord father and Lady Anne, but the – the fact makes a difference. I can’t explain.’

  ‘You feel you have more to prove?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I see. Or rather I don’t see, except that it is important to you. Important enough to distress your mother.’

  ‘I don’t want to but I can’t let that count or there will always be some reason. So please let me come with you.’

  ‘It’s not up to me. As you’ve just reminded me, I’m not your father.’ John flushed. Poor child, torn between his adoring devotion to Richard and ten years’ loyalty to me. I put my hands on his shoulders to look directly at him. ‘John, dear, that’s a fact, not a matter of emotion. I made myself responsible for you when I married your mother, but in things like this the decision is not up to me. Therefore, if you can talk Richard into it, I’ll agree; and I’ll even try to reconcile your mother. Which won’t be easy.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’ He was too old for the ready kisses of childhood, but when I hugged him he returned the embrace fiercely.

  Of course I had thought I could persuade Richard to issue a flat veto, but John forestalled me, showing a tactical skill that argued well for his military future. And Richard said yes. This enabled me to earn marital good-will by standing around shaking my head, but still neither Innogen nor Anne spoke to us for days. Anne loved her stepson as much as I did, and John’s delighted preparations brought it home to her how soon her own Edward would be making the same request.

  So, when in the spring we rode out again, John came with us, and when in March Richard went south to confer with the King he took John. I didn’t go. The Clarence business had sickened me of the King. He and Richard had to work together, and somehow they had patched things up enough to meet civilly; but the King was not my brother. I couldn’t forget that strange secret interview with him – and with trust had gone all liking. So I gladly seized the excuse of overlooking our stores of arms and gear, and let Francis and Rob accompany Richard.

 
Richard returned uncommunicative, except on military matters. He said the King was busily raising taxes, and in fact had resorted to the hated benevolences which in ’75 he had sworn he would never need again, and would come north himself if real trouble threatened. As in the old days he would take the field at the head of his armies.

  ‘Though I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ Francis told me. ‘God’s bones, Martin, it would break your heart to see the King now.’

  ‘Ill?’

  ‘We-ell... it’s more that he’s fat and out of condition; he has stomach trouble. Of course those big men often run to flesh, but... wine, women, Woodvilles. I think the ’78 business with Clarence killed his heart. And he has to rely on Richard now, and he knows it.’

  ‘How does Richard – ’ I made one of those complex gestures which between friends say everything.

  ‘I think he loves his brother and wishes he didn’t, but cannot forgive him. Nor does the King forgive himself.’

  ‘He kissed me!’ Francis and I had forgotten John was in the room, so deftly quiet had he become about his page’s duties. Still, he had enough sense to repeat nothing he heard in private. ‘My father introduced me and the King said he had seen me when I was a baby and that I look like my father and he kissed me!’ The eager tone told me that Edward hadn’t quite lost the power to charm, but he damned well wasn’t going to make an acolyte of John as he had of Richard and me. ‘And I met my cousins,’ John bubbled on. ‘Lady Bess and Lady Cecily and the other girls, and Prince Richard – I like them. And I met Lord Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham and Mistress Shore.’