Treason
Page 41
He came. He had heard her – or he had heard the bells and thought he read their message. He had been in a Council meeting, and in terror he had run the length of Westminster Palace, half the Council behind him. Shoving everyone aside he swept Anne into his arms, kissing her frantically, calling her darling, lovey, hinny, sweet.
‘The bells! They’re saying I am dead! The bells are for me! Richard! Richard!’
Richard shouted at the top of his voice, ‘The bells mean nothing! Anne, be quiet. It’s stupid boys ringing the bells, the bells are not for you! Be quiet! Darling, I’m here, I love you, it’s all right, be quiet, hush, I love you, I’m here.’
‘Richard!’ Her voice broke, she coughed, then blood gushed from her mouth, bright scarlet frothy blood from the lungs. Richard lifted her onto the bed, and her blood stained them both. Doctor Hobbes came then, and between them they made Anne quieten down, they made her understand. Someone had got the bells stopped, and Anne lay limply against her pillows.
‘Damn all bell-ringing fools!’ Hobbes grumbled. ‘Would you believe it, a couple of apprentices made a fool bet they could ring the Westminster bells and get away with it! Boys today, I don’t know, no discipline. Sore bums tonight. Now drink up your medicine, Your Grace, there’s a good girl.’
His matter-of-fact explanation, and his way of mixing formality with endearments, soothed Anne. Eyes closed, her hand clutching Richard’s, she drank the draught he gave her, and a moment later was asleep.
~~~
That was the last time I saw Anne alive. Terror, the strength with which she had fought, the bleeding – they were the end of her. She died a day later, on the sixteenth of March. She was only twenty-eight.
I can write no more of it, for I loved her – except to say that as she died the skies darkened as if in sorrow and the sun ceased to be. It was what they call an eclipse of the sun, and for all that learned men say such things have a natural cause, it seemed that the very heavens shared our mourning. People who know less than the learned men said it was an evil omen, and who can say they were wrong? Call it sin or call it chance, we were under Fate’s displeasure.
~~~
Barely a week later the scandal broke. I was leaving a Council meeting when a hand hooked around my arm and I was swept deftly into a side corridor. ‘My lord,’ said Richard Ratcliffe, ‘a word with you, please. In private, and quietly. It concerns the King.’
‘He’ll be looking for me.’
‘It is taken care of. Sir Robert is with him. Please, Lord Robsart, this is very urgent.’
Dick Ratcliffe was far from a panicky sort, so, puzzled and alarmed, I followed him to his room. There I found Sir William Catesby and Francis Lovell, and irreverently I thought of Colingbourne’s rhyme:
The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our Dog,
Rule all England under a Hog.
I’m ashamed to say I had been amused by it when Colingbourne pinned it up on the door of St Paul’s Church the previous year. I had thought it witty for all its cruelty; Francis’s badge was a hound, while the ‘hog’ was Richard’s White Boar. (Either the conspirators couldn’t work my hart’s head badge into the rhyme, or they knew my utter lack of interest in influencing government.) None of the principals had been amused, and of course while the rhyme itself was harmless, the malice behind it was quite the opposite. Colingbourne was one of Tudor’s agents, and in December he’d been executed for treasonable correspondence with the Welshman – advising him where to land when he invaded England, if you please, and, more dangerously, telling him to tell the French government that Richard intended to make war on France.
The Duke of Norfolk came in behind me. Dick shut the door. ‘Lord Robsart,’ Catesby abruptly began, ‘have you been aware of any rumours circulating? About the King?’
‘Rumours? You mean something particular? Or new? Because there are always rumours. Has he murdered his nephews again?’
‘No. This is much more serious than that nonsense.’
‘More serious than murder? No, I’m aware of nothing, but I’ve hardly left the Palace since Anne’s death, I have been with Richard most of the time. You’d better tell me.’
‘The rumours say the King is going to marry Lady Bess.’
I stared stupidly. ‘Marry Bess! His niece? What nonsense! She’s the last person... You’re not taking this rubbish seriously?’
But they were, and as I looked at their grave faces I knew this was real trouble. Catesby said, ‘The story’s everywhere. It is being put about deliberately; we are not sure by whom. Go into any inn and you’ll hear it.’
The first shock over, I had got my mind working. ‘And of course people are saying the Queen was... hurried to her end. That Bess has been Richard’s mistress.’ They nodded. I felt sick. ‘But it’s such arrant nonsense! Very well – people who don’t know the King as we do would believe it; a King with a barren, ill wife... But he couldn’t marry Bess without legitimating her, and that would legitimate her brothers – same problem Tudor apparently can’t see he would have. Oh but I’m forgetting, Richard’s murdered those boys. This story must have originated with Tudor’s cronies, they’re afraid Richard will marry Bess and they’re getting in first by slandering him with the story.’
‘To look at both sides of the matter,’ said Catesby the lawyer, ‘I think the story might have begun with the Archbishop of York. Apparently the King said something to him in his dry way, and old Rotherham has no sense of humour – ’
‘Silly old fart,’ muttered Francis.
‘Indeed. And, having no humour, he took the King’s remark seriously and passed it on. He mentioned it to me, and although I laughed it off and tried to explain, he was worried. He’s a fool, of course, but fools do more damage than clever men. After all, it was Rotherham who blabbed to Doctor Morton about the King’s plans to capture Tudor with the aid of Duke Francis of Brittany last year. If he’d kept his mouth shut the Welshman would never have escaped to France.’
Jock Howard stirred, wrapping the skirts of his gown over his knees. ‘There is more to it, unfortunately. Martin, it’s Bess herself. She has been – indiscreet. I suppose you’re aware she fancies herself in love with the King?’
‘Yes. That was why my wife took her north last year. What do you mean, indiscreet?’
‘She’s been writing to me about it.’
‘Writing to you?’
‘Yes. A most unpleasant, foolish letter. Jesu, Martin, I’ve been fond of that girl from the day she was born, I was her father’s good friend – ’
‘What did she say in this letter?’
With a grimace of distaste Jock said, ‘She dared to write asking me to intercede for her with the King. She wrote that she loves him – I won’t quote her actual words – and wants to marry him, and that the Queen – she wrote this in February – that the Queen was a long time dying. Words to that effect.’
None of us cared to break the silence his words caused. We were all friends of Richard’s, most of us had loved Anne, had seen Bess grow up and been fond of her. Vaguely I recalled someone – Innogen? – saying that perhaps Bess had inherited from both parents the bull-headed determination to get her own way. Sick, I recalled Anne’s kindness to the girl, her gentle sympathy, her gifts, her affection.
‘What do we do?’ I asked.
‘Richard will have to know, and soon.’
‘Don’t ask me to tell him!’
‘No,’ Jock sighed, ‘that’s how we all feel. We’ll tell him together. I’ve talked to Bess, of course; in fact I tore a strip off her. Damn near put her over my knee. I think I’ve shut her mouth. Richard should marry her off, of course, doesn’t matter to whom, get her married.’
‘He won’t, of course. It would look as if he were taking this seriously. Look, give it a day or two. I’d like to get a feeling for myself of how far this thing’s gone.’
That evening I repeated my actions of two years ago. I put on plain clothes and my childhood country accent and went out into London, d
oing the rounds of the principal inns. In each place I sat and listened, struck up mildly drunken conversations, bought a few rounds of drinks, and by the time I reeled home I had well and truly plumbed the London gossip. The story was everywhere, and most people blindly credited it. The King was a man – and remember his brother, eh, and he’s got all them bastard children – and Bess was a young and pretty girl, and she’s probably as randy as ‘er dad, eh? Quod erat demonstrandum.
I told Innogen when she was sarcastic about her husband stinking of cheap ale and cheaper perfume (I’d been well and truly propositioned by a couple of London whores). She said, ‘So that’s it.’
‘You’ve heard things?’
‘More a matter of the odd look. I was one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting and known to be her friend, so no one would dare repeat the slander to me. But yes, I think it is all through the Palace.’
‘And all through the city. I hated London tonight. Petty, small-minded, smug people. In the same breath they admire Richard as King, they talk about his good laws and his efforts to bring peace, yet credit every filthy rumour about him. Few could care whom he took as a mistress, but they don’t see what it means that it’s Bess they talk about. I don’t think many believe Anne was – was hastened to her death, but they believe the gossip, and they repeat it. And it’s too widely spread not to have been deliberately put about.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘We have to tell Richard.’
The following day we did so. At first he refused to believe us. He kept saying, ‘Marry Bess?’ until at last he absorbed it, and all its filthy implications. Only if you knew him very well would you have seen how angry he was, and what effort it took to control that anger. Sick with disgust he said, ‘I’ll deny it. Publicly deny it.’
‘No one believes anything until it’s officially denied,’ said Norfolk. ‘Best let it die of its own accord.’
Yes, we all urged, that’s sense, don’t fuel the fires of gossip. But Richard saw it otherwise. It was the insult to Anne he minded, the smear on his love for her and his fidelity; and, I think, although he didn’t admit it, he resented being taken for such a fool.
And on the second last day of March, exactly a fortnight after Anne’s death, he assembled his Council, the officers of his Household, the lords spiritual and temporal, the Mayor and Aldermen and chief citizens of London, and in the Hall of the Hospital of the Knights of St John, in Clerkenwell, he spelled out to them the rumours, and formally denied them. In the voice with which he addressed armies he charged the gathered men to pay no credence to any part of the slander, and to take all steps to deny it on his behalf and to arrest anyone heard spreading the gossip.
That same night he wrote to the Mayor of York to publish his denial; he knew his northerners would be loath to believe it, but it’s the sort of dirty story that sticks in people’s minds, and the people of the north would be sorely offended at the slight to their Anne.
~~~
And then he had to deal with Bess. In vain did I offer to speak to the girl – and Norfolk, Francis, even Innogen did, too – no, Richard had to do it himself. And when I saw her come glowing and starry-eyed to his audience chamber, I knew he was right. I don’t know what passed between them. I lingered only long enough to hear her say, ‘Richard?’ and to hear his cold reply that she could call him Uncle Richard or Your Grace. Then I made myself scarce until I saw Bess run sobbing from the chamber.
I found Richard slumped over his table, his fists pressed against his temples as if his head ached. Seeing me he said drearily, ‘Well, it’s done. I came close to hitting her. There’s nothing so disgusting as being offered love you don’t want. And she did offer. Offered me everything. Why did none of you tell me what she thought she felt for me?’
‘I’m afraid we thought a childish infatuation could do no harm.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Innogen talked to her, so did her sister and Katherine, we got her out of the way last year. I’m afraid we thought it was over. Or that she’d have the grace and the guts to suffer in silence.’
‘I was shocked that she could believe it was possible. Do you suppose she put the story about? With some stupid idea of forcing me into marrying her?’
‘I think she stopped at confiding in Jock Howard. But of course people knew how she felt. I think it was the Tudor lot, trying to discredit you. Or perhaps they believed it. They’ve got nothing else they can use against you. What will you do?’
‘Pack the wretched girl off up to Sheriff Hutton.’
‘Marry her off to someone, Richard. Doesn’t matter who.’
‘No. It would look as if I took the business seriously.’ He saw my expression. ‘I know, I know, I did take it seriously, I proved that by denying it publicly. I suppose that was a mistake. But I will not have my wife’s memory discredited like this. Martin, I was glad when Anne’s suffering ended, but O Lord, I miss her! I miss her company, and her love, her friendship; I miss the past. I would give anything for the power to turn back time, to make time stop so we could live forever at Middleham: Anne and Edward, all of us, happy. It’s not two years since my brother died, and in those two years I have lost everything. Sometimes I wonder if I have the heart to go on.’
‘You have to.’
‘I know. But I wonder how. Anne had a special prayer, before she died she gave it to me so I could take the same comfort from it she did. And for a while it did comfort me. No longer.’
‘Perhaps it will again, with time. Because that’s all that can help you. Time. And it will help. I wish I had more comfort for you.’
‘I know. I said to you before, didn’t I, that at least I have your friendship. I’ve many friends.’ He rubbed his hands over his pallid face and said wryly, ‘Oblivion would help. Even sleep would help. I can’t sleep, or only briefly and with such dreams that I wake... I dream of the past, I dream Anne and my son are alive and well and happy, that we’re at Middleham and the worst trouble is the Scots. And then I wake, and for a moment the dream holds and I reach for Anne. Then I remember, and I don’t sleep again. They offer me drugs, but they don’t help; the dreams are worse and I walk around dazed. And there is no respite when you are king. No respite.’
‘I can help there, a little. Come on.’ And against his will I gathered Rob and Francis, had our horses saddled, and took him out into the country, into the fresh spring air and made him ride as we had done in the north, for hours, until he was so tired he could hardly sit his horse. Then we took him back to Westminster, fed him, and poured so much drink into him he staggered off to bed three-quarters drunk. And that night at least he slept. It was a prosaic remedy, but it worked.
~~~
With the spring came definite news of the lurking Henry Tudor. Somehow he had scraped together enough cash to outfit an army, though a sad little rabble it was by all reports: some Breton or French archers; mercenaries, prisoners who would rather serve under Tudor’s banner than stay in gaol. Without the French government’s hysterical conviction that England would any moment declare war on their old enemy, Tudor would not have received the time of day, let alone the small amount of active aid he did get. But there, old Louis had rooted that conviction into his descendants’ minds and nothing would shift it.
This positive threat was something Richard knew how to deal with – just as he did not know how to counter the creeping fog of slander and misinformation. Briskly he set about disposing his forces. Francis Lovell went to Southampton to oversee the refitting of the fleet and to lead the men of the southern counties if Tudor invaded there. Norfolk and Surrey made their preparations over in East Anglia. Wales, which seemed a likely entry point for a man who boasted of his Welsh descent, was reinforced, and Richard’s son-in-law William Herbert held the Chief Justiceship there. Also, the Crown’s York and Mortimer lands, Richard’s possession now, lay along the Welsh border: a firm barrier. The Stanleys held the area from Wales to the north. Everything seemed secure, and in May Richard left London and moved to Nottingham again.
Still, as time went on, it seemed he had not given up altogether, and by mid June Richard had taken what steps he could. Through the summer heat of 1485 we waited at Nottingham.
Twenty
Summer 1485
Lord Stanley was ill. Or so he said. Certainly he didn’t look well as he faced Richard to ask permission to go home.
‘Is it so unreasonable a request?’ he said when Richard looked stonily at him.
‘Not unreasonable. Untimely.’
Stanley wiped sweat from his face. ‘Your Grace, I have been with you constantly since your coronation. In two years I have not been home. This weather disagrees with me, and I would not infect you or your men with some disease.’
‘No, we would not want that.’ Richard threw down the pen he had been pulling to pieces. ‘My lord, Tudor is your stepson.’
‘And therefore you doubt my loyalty.’
‘I have not done so.’
The words seemed to hang in the air between them. At last Stanley said, ‘You need not do so now.’
‘What of your brother Sir William?’
‘I feel no doubt of his loyalty.’
‘A two-edged answer.’
‘Not meant as such.’
‘But this is a time when loyal men should be with me.’ Richard picked up the mangled pen, stared at it, threw it down again. ‘I am sick of this Tudor’s pretensions and his vaunting claims to my throne. He is nothing and he has none of the rights he claims, but for the two years of my reign he has been a thorn in my side. I am going to end his menace once and for all and then I will be able to rule this country as I should, for the benefit of my people. If Tudor does in fact invade it will no doubt come to battle. I have never been defeated in battle and I doubt Tudor and his ragbag army will manage it. Treachery could overcome me, of course. Anyone in doubt of his loyalty should consider his prospects under an unknown Welshman whose rule would be unacceptable to the people of England. You and your brother have been loyal to me and I have made it plain I reward loyalty. I have been lenient with traitors, as your wife Lady Margaret has cause to know. I may in future be less lenient.’