The White Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  I fold my lips together, shaking my head. “How could he be?”

  He is horrified. “I was asking you.”

  I draw a breath. “Surely, no one can think that this boy is my cousin, Edward of Warwick. Everyone knows that Edward of Warwick is in the Tower. We showed him to everyone. You made sure that he was seen by all of London.”

  He smiles grimly. “Yes. I had him walk side by side with John de la Pole, my friend and ally. But now John de la Pole who knelt at Mass beside the real Edward has taken a boy he claims is Edward to Ireland. The very show that we put on to tell everyone that Edward of Warwick was in London they are repeating, to tell everyone that he is in Ireland, summoning an army. John de la Pole walked with this boy to Dublin Cathedral, Elizabeth. They took him to the cathedral and they crowned him king of Ireland, England, and France. They have taken a boy and made him king. They put the crown on his head. They have set up a rival king to me and they have touched him with the sacred oil. They have crowned a new King of England. A York king. What d’you think of that?”

  I grip the embroidered cover on the bed as if to hold myself in the real world and not drift away into this illusion laid upon illusion. “Who is he? In real life? This boy?”

  “It’s not your brother Edward. And it’s not your brother Richard, if that’s what you’re hoping,” he says spitefully. “I have spies all over this country. I found the true birth of this boy ten days ago. He’s a nothing, a common lad that some priest has coached for the part, for spite. The priest will be some sort of malevolent old trickster who longs for the old days again, who wants the Yorks back. Your mother must see ten of them a day and give half of them the pension that I pay to her. But this one matters. He’s not acting alone. Someone has paid him to put this lad up as a pretend prince so that the people will rise for him. When he wins, they bring out the real prince, and he takes the throne.”

  “When he wins?” I repeat the betraying words.

  “If he wins.” He shakes his head as if to resist the dangerous vision of defeat. “It’ll be close. He has a good-sized army paid for by your aunt the duchess and by others of your family: your mother of course, your aunt Elizabeth I suspect, your grandmother for certain. He has mustered the Irish clans and my uncle Jasper tells me they are wild fighters. And, we shall see: he may have the support of the people of England. Who knows? When he raises the standard of the ragged staff they may turn out for him. When he cries, À Warwick, they may answer for old times’ sake. They may be all for him. Perhaps they have tried me and find me wanting; now they want a return to the familiar, like a dog eating its vomit.” He looks at me, as I sit in a heap on the bed. “What d’you think? What would your mother say? Can a York pretender command England still? Will they all turn out for a counterfeit prince under the standard of the white rose?”

  “They will bring out the real prince?” It is what he said. It is what he himself said. “The real prince?”

  He doesn’t even answer me, his mouth twisted in a sort of snarl, as if he has no means to explain what he has just said.

  We fall silent for a moment.

  “What will you do?” It comes out as a whisper.

  “I shall have to muster all the troops I can, and get ready for another battle,” he says bitterly. “I thought I had won this country but—rather like being married to you, perhaps—a man can never be quite sure that the job is done. I won a great battle and was crowned king here, and now they have crowned another and I have to fight again. It seems I can be sure of nothing in this country of mists and cousins.”

  “And what will they do?” I whisper.

  He looks at me as if he hates me, me and all of my unreliable family. “When they win, they’ll change boys.”

  “Change boys?”

  “This pretender will slip away, and a real boy will take his place, step up to the throne. A boy who is safe in hiding now, biding his time, waiting to be embodied.”

  “Embodied?”

  “Out of thin air. Back from the dead.”

  “Who?”

  Spitefully, he mimicks my horrified whisper, “Who?” and goes to the door of my room. “Who d’you think? Or should that be, who do you know?” When I say nothing he laughs shortly, with no humor. “So I will bid you farewell now, my beautiful wife, and hope that I will return to your warm bed as King of England.”

  “What else?” I ask stupidly. “What else could you be?”

  “Dead, I suppose,” he says bleakly.

  I slide off the bed and step towards him, stretching out my hands. He takes them but does not draw me close. He holds me at arm’s length and scrutinizes my face for deceit.

  “D’you think the duchess has your brother Richard in hiding?” he asks me, matter-of-factly, as if it is a question of mild interest. “The trophy of a long plot between her and your mother? D’you think your mother sent him to her the moment that he was in danger, and sent a pretend prince into the Tower? D’you think he has been there for these four years? A pretender waiting for the battle to be fought for him, before he springs out, triumphant? Like Jesus from the tomb? Naked but for his winding sheet and his vanquished wounds? Triumphing over death and then me?”

  I can’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know anything. Before God, Henry—”

  He checks me. “Don’t be forsworn,” he says. “I have men swearing lies to me ten times a day. All I wanted from you was the simple truth.”

  I stand before him in silence, and he nods as if he knows there can never be a simple truth between us, and he goes out.

  COVENTRY CASTLE, SUMMER 1487

  Henry tells his mother and me that we are to act in his absence as if we are on a royal progress, enjoying the early summer weather, free of worries. We order musicians and plays, dancing and pageants. There is to be a joust, the lords are to gather with us at Coventry as if for revels. But they are to bring their men, clothed, booted, and armed for war, ready for an invasion from Ireland. We are to demonstrate confidence while secretly preparing for war.

  My Lady the King’s Mother cannot do it. She cannot act as queen of a happy court when every day another rider comes from Ireland with more bad news. John de la Pole and Francis Lovell have landed in Ireland with a massive trained force of two thousand men. My Lady walks everywhere with her rosary in her hands, telling her beads and whispering prayers for the safe deliverance of her son from danger.

  We learn that, just as Henry told me privately, they have crowned a boy king in Dublin and declared that he is Edward of Warwick and the true king of England, Ireland, and France.

  My Lady stops speaking to me; she can hardly bear to be in the same room as me. I may be her daughter-in-law, but she can only see me as the daughter of the house that has raised up this threat, whose aunt Margaret is pouring money and weapons into Ireland, whose aunt Elizabeth provided the commander, whose mother is masterminding the plot from behind the high walls of Bermondsey Abbey. She will not speak to me, she cannot bear to look at me. Only once in this difficult time she stops me as I walk past her rooms with my sisters and my cousin on my way to the stables for our horses. She puts her hand on my arm as I walk by, and I drop a curtsey to her and wait for what she has to say.

  “You know, don’t you?” she demands. “You know where he is. You know he is alive.”

  I cannot answer her white-faced fears. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know very well what I mean!” she spits furiously. “You know he’s alive. You know where he is. You know what they plan for him!”

  “Shall I call your ladies?” I ask her. The hand that grips my arm is shaking, I really fear that she is going to fall down in a fit. Her gaze, always intense, is fixed on my face, as if she would force her way into my mind. “My Lady, shall I call your ladies and help you to your rooms?”

  “You’ve fooled my son, but you don’t fool me!” she hisses. “And you will see that I command here, and that everyone who has treasonous thoughts, high or low
, will be punished. Treasonous heads will be cut from their corrupt bodies. High and low, nobody will be spared at Judgment Day. The sheep will be parted from the goats, and the unclean will go down to hell.”

  Cecily is staring at her godmother, quite horrified. She steps forwards, and then she shrinks back from the woman’s anguished dark glare.

  “Ah,” I say coldly. “I misunderstood you. You are speaking of this pretender in Ireland? And whether you command here, or whether you have to flee from here in terror, we will know very soon, I am sure.”

  At the very word “flee,” she tightens her grip and sways on her feet. “Are you my enemy? Tell me, let us have honesty between us. Are you my enemy? Are you the enemy of my beloved son?”

  “I am your daughter-in-law and the mother of your grandchild,” I say as quietly as her. “This is what you wanted and this is what you have. Whether I love him or hate him, that is between ourselves. Whether I love you or hate you, that was your doing too. And I think you know the answer.”

  She flings my hand away as if my touch is repellent. “I will see you destroyed the day that you raise him up against us,” she warns me.

  “Raise him up?” I repeat furiously. “Raise him up? It sounds like you think we would raise the dead! What can you mean? Who do you fear, My Lady?”

  She gives a racking sob and she gulps down an answer. I sweep her the smallest curtsey, and I go on my way to the stables. I duck into my horse’s stall and slam the stable door behind me to rest my head against his warm neck. I take a shuddering breath and realize that she has told me that they believe my brother is alive.

  KENILWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE, JUNE 1487

  The court gives up the pretence that we are enjoying the summer, staying in the midlands of England for the beauty of the forests and the quality of the hunting. The news comes that the Irish army has landed and is sweeping across the country. The Irish troops travel light, like savage marauders. The German mercenaries who have been paid to win England back for York march at speed, earning their bounty. Duchess Margaret has hired the very best, commanded by a brilliant soldier. Every day another spy, another lookout, comes riding into court and says that they have gone past like an unstoppable wave. They are disciplined, they march with scouts before them and no baggage train trailing behind. There are hundreds of them, thousands, and at the head is a boy, a child, Edward of Warwick, and he marches under the royal standard and the ragged staff. They have crowned him King of England and Ireland. They call him king and he is served on bended knee and everywhere he goes people come out into the streets and shout, “À Warwick!”

  I hardly see Henry, who is closeted with his uncle Jasper and John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, forever sending messages to the lords, trying their loyalty, asking them to come to him. Many, very many, take their time in replying. Nobody wants to declare as a rebel too soon; but equally, nobody wants to be on the losing side with a new king. Everyone remembers that Richard looked unbeatable when he rode out from Leicester, and yet a small paid army confronted him, and a traitor cut him down. The lords who promised their support to that king, and yet sat on their horses and watched for the outcome on the day of battle, may decide to be bystanders once again and intervene only on the winning side.

  Henry comes to my rooms only once during this anxious time, with a letter in his hand. “I will tell you this myself so that you don’t hear it from a York traitor,” he says unpleasantly.

  I rise to my feet and my ladies melt away from my husband’s temper. They have learned, we have all learned, to keep out of the way of the Tudors, mother and son, when they are pale with fear. “Your Grace?” I say steadily.

  “The King of France has chosen this moment, this very moment, to release your brother Thomas Grey.”

  “Thomas!”

  “He writes that he will come to support me,” Henry says bitterly. “You know, I don’t think we’ll risk that. When Thomas was last supporting me on the road to Bosworth, he changed his mind and turned his coat before we even left France. Who knows what he would have done on the battlefield? But they’re releasing him now. Just in time for another battle. What d’you think I should do?”

  I hold on to the back of a chair so that my hands don’t tremble. “If he gives you his word . . .” I begin.

  He laughs at me. “His word!” he says scathingly. “The York word! Would that be as binding as your mother’s word of honor? Or your cousin John’s? Your marriage vows?”

  I start to stammer a reply but he puts up his hand for silence. “I’ll hold him in the Tower. I don’t want his help, and I don’t trust him free. I don’t want him talking to his mother, and I don’t want him seeing you.”

  “He could . . .”

  “No, he couldn’t.”

  I take a breath. “May I at least write and tell my mother that her son, my half brother, is coming home?”

  He laughs, a jeering unconvincing laugh. “D’you think she won’t know already? D’you think she has not paid his ransom and commanded his return?”

  I write to my mother at Bermondsey Abbey. I leave the letter unsealed for I know that Henry or his mother or his spies will open it and read it anyway.

  My dear Lady Mother,

  I greet you well.

  I write to tell you that your son Thomas Grey has been released from France and has offered his service to the king, who has decided, in his wisdom, to hold my half brother in safekeeping in the Tower of London for the time being.

  I am in good health, as is your grandson.

  Elizabeth

  P.S. Arthur is crawling everywhere and pulling himself up on chairs so that he can stand. He’s very strong and proud of himself, but he can’t walk yet.

  Henry says he must leave me and the ladies of the court, our son Arthur with his own yeomen of the guard in his nursery, and his frantically anxious mother behind the strong walls of Kenilworth Castle, muster his army, and march out. I walk with him to the great entrance gate of the castle, where his army is drawn up in battle array, behind their two great commanders: his uncle Jasper Tudor and his most reliable friend and ally, the Earl of Oxford. Henry looks tall and powerful in his armor, reminding me of my father, who always rode out to battle in the absolute certainty that he would win.

  “If it goes against us, you should withdraw to London,” Henry says tightly. I can hear the fear in his voice. “Get yourself into sanctuary. Whoever they put on the throne will be your kinsman. They won’t hurt you. But guard our son. He’ll be half a Tudor. And please . . .” He breaks off. “Be merciful to my mother, see that they spare her.”

  “I’m never going into sanctuary again,” I say flatly. “I’m not raising my son inside four dark rooms.”

  He takes my hand. “Save yourself at any rate,” he says. “Go to the Tower. Whether they put Edward of Warwick on the throne or whether they have someone else . . .”

  I don’t even ask him who else they might have to serve as a prince for York.

  He shakes his head. “Nobody can tell me who might be in hiding, waiting for this moment. I have enemies but I don’t even know if they are alive or dead. I feel that I am looking for ghosts, that an army of ghosts is coming for me.” He pauses and composes himself. “At any rate, whoever they are, they are of the House of York and you will be safe with them. Our son will be safe with you. And you will give me your word that you will protect my mother?”

  “You are preparing to lose?” I ask incredulously. I take his hands and I can feel the tight sinews in his fingers; he is rigid with anxiety from head to toe.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Nobody can know. If the country rises up for them then we will be outnumbered. The Irish will fight to the death and the mercenaries are well paid and have pledged themselves to this. All I have now is the men who will stand by me. My army at Bosworth has been paid off and gone home. And I can’t inspire a new army with the promise of fresh gains, or rewards. If the rebels have a true prince to put at their head, then I am probably lost.
”

  “A true prince?” I repeat.

  We step out of the shadow of the great arch of the portcullis gate and his army raises a deep cheer as they see him. Henry waves at them and then turns to me.

  “I shall kiss you,” he warns me, to ensure that we make an encouraging picture for his men. He puts his arms around me and he draws me to him. His light battle armor is hard against me; it is like hugging a man of metal. I look up into his scowling face and he brings his head down and kisses me. For a moment, uncomfortably pinioned in his arms, I am overwhelmed with pity for him.

  “God bless you, my husband, and bring you safe home to me,” I say shakily.

  There is a roar of pleasure from the army at the kiss, but he does not even hear it. His attention is all on me. “You mean it? I go with your blessing?”

  “You do,” I say in sudden earnestness. “You do. And I shall pray that you come safely home to me. And I shall guard our son, and I shall protect your mother.”

  For a moment he looks as if he would stay and speak with me. As if he wants to speak gently and truthfully to me, for the first time ever. “I have to go,” he says unwillingly.

  “You go,” I say. “Send me news as soon as you can. I shall be looking for news from you, and praying that it is good.”

  They bring his great warhorse, and they help him into the saddle, his standard bearer riding up beside him so the white and green flag with the Tudor red dragon ripples out over his head. The other flag is unfurled: the royal standard. Last time I saw that above an army, the man I loved, Richard, rode beneath it; and I put my hand to my heart to ease the sudden thud of pain.

  “God bless you, my wife,” Henry says, but I have no smile for him anymore. He is riding the warhorse he rode at Bosworth when he stood on a hill and Richard rode to his death. He is under the Tudor flag he unfurled there, that Richard cut down in his last fatal charge.

  I raise my hand to say farewell, but I am choked, and can’t repeat my blessing, and Henry wheels his horse around and leads his army out, east to where his spies tell him the great York army has taken up their position, just beyond Newark.