by David Field
‘Did I say that?’ Henry spat back. ‘You may convey him to the Tower, if it makes your mind any easier, but he is not to be harmed in any way. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Jasper replied humbly, and gestured to the Earl of Oxford, with a slight jerk of the head, that it might perhaps be best to withdraw. Oxford bowed and walked away, shaking his head in disbelief, and Jasper ventured to take Henry’s arm.
‘Your Majesty, let us withdraw to Leicester, where we may refresh ourselves. This charnel house is no place for a gentle soul such as yours.’
Henry was weeping silently as he was helped onto his horse and escorted to Leicester Castle, where he spent his first night kneeling in prayer for the souls of the slain.
Early the next day, Jasper found him seated at one of the lesser tables in the Great Hall, staring into a cup of wine; it was already half-empty, even though the sun had not yet made its appearance.
‘Richard may not have destroyed you, but that poison will. They tell me that Gloucester drank all the passable wine in the cellars; perhaps they put into casks what he later pissed into his garderobe.’
Henry looked up with the best smile he could manage, although it was a thin one, from a face that looked to have aged ten years.
‘Uncle, I owe you a deep and heartfelt apology for my manner after the battle, but in truth it was the worst thing I have ever had to endure. I would sooner pluck out my eyes than witness anything like it again.’
‘God willing, you will not. But neither will your reign be a peaceful one if you show such weakness as you did toward Northumberland.’
‘You did not harm him?’
‘No, Your Majesty, as I must now remember to call you. He bides in the dungeons beneath us, and I gave instruction that he be fed.’
‘I will forfeit his estates, but not his life, and if I am to be King, this is the way that the nation must be governed. What I witnessed yesterday was the whirlwind that a monarch reaps when he allows his leading nobles to become too strong and ambitious. We must adopt policies that prevent such men becoming all-powerful and over-weaning in future.’
While he was speaking, Stanley had entered the room.
‘I hope that does not include me,’ he said with a grin.
Henry looked across at him. ‘If I begin to make exceptions on my very first day at the head of the nation’s affairs, how firm will my policies be adjudged to be? But no, I cannot bite the hand that delivered me that power. Your estates are safe.’
‘Talking of which, I hope I do not need a king’s permission to withdraw from the royal presence in order to be reunited with my wife?’
Henry smiled properly for the first time since Atherstone. ‘Indeed not. I am not yet a king, and you are my father. By all means withdraw and advise my mother that we are both safe.’
‘Messengers have already been sent ahead with those glad tidings, but I would most joyfully confirm them with my own presence. The only remaining resistance to your victory is likely to be from the north anyway, and as a true Lancastrian I would be more than happy to cross the Pennines to suppress any rumblings in Yorkshire, so I am as well sent forth in your name for that purpose.’
‘Before you go, my lord,’ Henry said, ‘I would have your counsel regarding what should be my first actions. The Earl of Pembroke here — who, incidentally will also be confirmed in his estates ere long — can only advise me regarding the quality of the wine, it would seem.’
‘You must first send out heralds to proclaim your victory, and to claim the throne. Then you must closely confine those who might be minded to challenge that right. Since Gloucester’s son, the Prince of Wales, died some months ago, the only remaining Yorkist heir is the young boy of the late Clarence. He is Edward, Earl of Warwick, but he is only ten years old, and no doubt playing with his toy soldiers at Sheriff Hutton.’
‘Sheriff Hutton?’ Henry mused. ‘Is that not also where Gloucester sent Princess Elizabeth of York, that she might be safely out of my way?’
‘Indeed, Majesty. It might be convenient to have them both brought south under the same escort. You must be eager to be reunited with your future Queen.’
‘In truth, we have never met,’ Henry admitted, ‘nor do I intend that we shall while I am in this humour. Is there ought else I must consider?’
‘None that I can bring to mind. I would, however, counsel that you halt your progress towards London until I can return with a strong company of my own men. The London mob can be fickle, and we know not what poison may be tipped into their ears ere we can reassure them that you mean their city no harm.’
‘Wise counsel,’ Henry replied with a smile. ‘It shall be as you advise, and since you are up so early, I divine that you wish to return to your estates without delay. You may leave us, and remember to mind me to my mother.’
Stanley gave a slight bow and left the hall.
Jasper turned to Henry. ‘I have been giving some thought to what Earl Stanley said. You intend only to deprive Northumberland of his estates, as I recall?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Upon what charge?’
‘Treason, clearly.’
‘And yet, when he took to the field of battle, he was merely performing knight service for his lawful king.’
‘Richard was a usurper of the throne.’
‘Yet he was lawfully crowned. When the crown of England is placed upon your head, may it not be said of you also, that you are a mere usurper?’
‘You clearly have some device in mind to prevent this — what do you suggest?’
‘If you declare yourself King before Northumberland, and others like him, took to the field, and then if your claim to the throne be upheld by Parliament and confirmed by God through the hand of the Archbishop at your coronation, those who stood against you at Sutton Cheney could be adjudged traitors, could they not?’
Henry thought for a moment, and a smile lit up his face. ‘As ever, your mind races ahead of mine.’
‘By this means, you also remain innocent of the lives that were lost on the field, but may add their estates to your own.’
‘Excellent! Proclaim that I became the lawful King of England on whatever day it was that we rode from Atherstone.’
‘It shall be done. May I now withdraw?’
‘You may, but send me someone suitable to lead an escort to Sheriff Hutton.’
Jasper bowed out.
A few moments later there was a heavy thump on the door, and Robert Willoughby strode in, dressed as if for hunting. He looked hungrily at the side table, and Henry invited him to help himself, then take a seat across the table from him.
‘The Earl of Pembroke bid you attend me?’ Henry asked.
‘Indeed, Your Majesty. I believe you wish me to journey to Yorkshire?’
‘That is correct. You will bring back from Sheriff Hutton two persons who are to be conveyed separately once you reach Newark. The young Earl of Warwick is to be conveyed to the Tower directly, under great show of arms. Then the Princess Elizabeth of York may be escorted with all due courtesy to Eltham Palace, where she is to be reunited with her mother, the Queen Dowager Elizabeth. Should the last-named not be at Eltham, but still in sanctuary at Westminster, give her my best regards and advise her that she is once again a free woman.’
Willoughby looked doubtful. ‘It shall be done as you command, but wish you not to have your future queen lodged here at Leicester?’
‘No, this is a royal fortress which currently has within it men upon whom the blood of others may still be smelt. It is not fitting for a royal princess to be in such company, nor do I wish her to meet her future husband before he has been striven of his sin in that regard. Those are my orders, and once you have satisfied your hunger and thirst, I would that you leave for Yorkshire without further delay.’
Willoughby bowed from the royal presence carrying a chicken leg and a cup of wine, leaving Henry to walk to the window and look down over the narrow streets of Leicester, deep in thou
ght, before sending for Reginald Bray.
The stocky little Gloucestershire scribe finished off the remains of the pork when invited to help himself, and belched quietly before looking up to apologise, and asking if he might take a cup of wine in order to wash down the meat still left on his knife, which had begun to curl up at the sides.
‘You may, but pray tell me why your name has changed from “Reynold” to “Reginald” as the years have passed.’
‘It was because the name by which I was christened made me sound too much like a fox, Your Majesty.’
‘Yet it is your fox-like qualities that I would employ,’ Henry replied with a reassuring smile. ‘You will not have forgotten those dark days in London, when you revealed to me how Warwick had been lining his pockets at the Treasury’s expense? I would employ your skills in that regard once more.’
‘You have some accounts you wish me to review?’
‘Indeed I do. The accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster, no less. They are now mine.’
‘And you will provide me with a note of authority that I may hand to the Chancellor?’
‘There will be no need, since you will be my Chancellor, should you accept. You will of course be knighted for that purpose at my coronation, which is why I enquired regarding your preferred name. Your service to the young Henry of Richmond that dreary night all those years ago, when you were “Reynold Bray, Comptroller of the Accounts of the Earl of Stafford” has earned you the new title of “Sir Reginald Bray, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster”. Do you accept?’
‘With all my heart, my lord. Oh, my apologies — “Your Majesty”.’
‘Excellent. Take up the position without delay, since it is my intention to combine the Crown revenues with those of the royal household, which shall also fall under your husbandry in due course, in my dispensation as the head of the Duchy.’
Bray bowed out with the facial expression of a man who had just been handed a bag of gold coins, and Henry sighed with satisfaction. There was a man he could trust, he assured himself, and once there were others such as he in positions in which such trust would be essential, the security of his throne would be all the greater.
On the fifth day of their residence at Leicester, word came by fast horse that Earl Stanley was expected late the following day, and Henry ordered that a banquet be organised to celebrate both his return and the long-delayed progress back to London. As the sun’s rays began to sink in the west on the sixth day, adding a golden glow to the flag of St. George that was flying from the main flagpole at the top of the ancient tower, Henry sat grumpily in a corner of the Withdrawing Chamber next to the Great Hall, from which came the sounds of pages laying the trestles and serving girls giggling as they went about the task of putting out the trenchers. He was hungry and anxious to complete the main business of the evening, which would be to bestow further titles and honours on the man who had handed him the crown of England, but who was now keeping him from his supper.
An usher knocked respectfully on the chamber door, entered, and bowed.
‘Earl Stanley has returned, Your Majesty, and seeks your presence in his chambers.’
‘In future,’ Henry responded testily, ‘it shall be his place to answer to my summons, but tell him that I shall attend upon him shortly.’
Henry checked his dress in the long mirror, took a final swig of wine, and strode purposefully down the hallway that gave rear access to the guest apartments. He hammered impatiently on the chamber door and walked in. Stanley stood up as Henry walked in, a sly smile on his face.
‘It would seem,’ Henry muttered, ‘that Earl Stanley has a habit of being late for everything. He arrives late on the field of battle, and now late for a banquet held in his own honour. May we now eat?’
‘Mind you do so slowly, that your stomach be not discomforted,’ came a voice from the adjoining room that he had not heard for fourteen years, and there stood his mother in the doorway. They raced towards each other and embraced warmly, before Margaret stood back to take a better look at him, a tear forming in each eye.
‘When last I saw you, it was in the company of your uncle, and you were running for France, a fresh-faced youth who had not then begun to grow a beard. Now you are a man, a king, and you need a barber to your face.’
‘I am King thanks to you, and my father here. You are forgiven your lateness, Earl Stanley, since you bring me such company. Were I not a king, I would have tears of joy rolling down my face.’
‘I shall, with your leave, withdraw,’ Stanley said with a beaming smile, ‘that the mother and child reunion may be more private.’ He bowed, but before leaving the room he looked back with a mischievous grin. ‘Do not delay too long, Your Majesty — I also am hungry.’
Henry hugged his mother to him again, and kissed her on both cheeks.
‘Dearest mother, how can I thank you? Through all the years that have passed so fretfully, you have ever worked for this moment, and now it has arrived. No longer Dowager Countess of Richmond, nor even simply Countess of Derby, but Royal Mother. Is that how you wish to be styled?’
‘“My Lady the King’s Mother” would seem to have the appropriate ring to it,’ Margaret replied with determination. ‘And if you would truly reward me for all that I have done, might you make it a royal order that I live separately from Earl Stanley?’
Henry’s face fell. ‘You love him not?’
‘Love is one thing,’ his mother replied, ‘but wifely body service is another. Since your uncle assures me that you go not to your marriage bed a virgin — although thank God he spared me the detail — you will perhaps be able to imagine how such activities might weigh heavily on a woman of my age, with my slightness of body, and given the long service that my womb has performed for England. Were I to live separately, his lordship might feel more free to take a mistress, lusty old goat that he seems to have become in his later years.’
Henry was embarrassed by all this confidence, but managed a smile.
‘It shall be as you wish, if it be possible. Leave it with me, and let me escort you to supper.’
Over an hour later, fortified by several goblets of wine, Henry rose to his feet at the high table, and a herald called for silence. Henry cast his eyes slowly around the assembled company, and summoned up the words he had been practising for several days.
‘My lords, ladies, and most esteemed Mother. We are here this evening because God has smiled upon our enterprise. Thanks to you all, I will tomorrow progress to London to claim my rightful crown.’
He paused for a few moments, then raised his hands to quell the loyal cheers that had greeted his opening words. As the noise subsided, he picked up his theme again.
‘I would not be in that happy position without all of you. I cannot take the time to do full honour to you all, else there would be insufficient time for you to drink yourselves into a stupor, but there are some whose faithful service I must acknowledge, if I am to be accounted a grateful monarch. First, there is my most beloved mother, who has spent the best years of her life working for the moment when Lancaster and Tudor combine together with York to rule England in peaceful perpetuity. She has chosen as her title “My Lady the King’s Mother”, and it would be deemed a courtesy were you all to commence using it even before the tables have been cleared this evening.
‘Secondly, my uncle, Jasper Tudor, who is confirmed in his Pembroke estates, and further created Duke of Bedford. He was my constant guide and protector during my years in exile, and taught me all that I require to know in order to rule the nation, in addition to certain matters of which my mother disapproves.’
He paused for the chortles, then continued.
‘Finally, Earl Stanley of Derby, who is confirmed in all his lands and titles. Likewise, his brother Sir William Stanley. Their forces were the ones that drove Gloucester and his men from the field, and saved me from almost certain death at the hands of a devil wielding an axe with the same bloodlust with which he attempted to rule this nation. Those days
have now been consigned to history, and I would ask you all to stand and toast Earl Stanley, Lord High Constable of England, and Sir William Stanley, Royal Chamberlain.’
II
Late on the afternoon of 3rd September it was the newly-created Constable of England who led the massive procession through the streets that formed the northern approaches to London. It proceeded with great pomp, with an entire company of heralds blowing their hearts out, all the way down to the Western Postern of the Tower of London, where Henry was to take up residence until his coronation, provisionally planned for six weeks time, on 30th October.
There were two more senior appointments to be made, and Henry had decided to combine them in the one person, since that was the tradition. Bishop John Morton had been continuing his duties as Bishop of Flanders since the day after the battle, when he had returned to tend his Flemish flock, and he was now summoned back across the water to attend Henry in the royal apartments in the Tower.
Henry welcomed him warmly into his reception chamber.
‘Now, there are two things I must ask of you.’
‘Certainly, Your Majesty.’
‘The first is whether, in keeping with all such men as yourself, learned in religious matters, you also have skill in the law.’
‘Some, certainly, Your Majesty. I studied Civil Law at Oxford, and I also have familiarity with the canon law of the Church that I serve.’
‘My question is whether it is the law of the land that a woman must give her estates over to a man upon matrimony, or whether, instead, she may hold her own property in her own right.’
‘The so-called law that you cite is custom only,’ the clergyman replied. ‘Custom may be overridden by royal decree, or by Act of Parliament. It is so across the Channel, where such fortunate women are said to be ‘femmes sole’, and are held in great esteem.’
‘Thank you,’ Henry replied, greatly reassured, ‘and now to my second question. Would you accept office as Archbishop of Canterbury when the see next becomes vacant?’