Succession (38 page)

[And King Edward] returned to London again and there he was crowned the 28th day of June in the year of Our Lord 1461. Blessed be God.

Gregory’s Chronicle

 

Margaret Beaufort was certain in her own mind that her husband was dead. Henry was no warrior, she knew he would not return. She saw him stumbling around the battlefield in his ill-fitting armour. Mentally she prepared herself for the role of widow again; made plans to resist being married off once more.

She could not weep for him in the way she had wept for Edmund, but she did feel a crushing weight of sorrow. She was surprised at how much sorrow she felt. She hoped he had not suffered much, that he had not lain awake and wounded through the night, waiting for his throat to be cut in the morning.

Above all, she worried for her son, who was still at Pembroke Castle, as far as she knew, though nobody knew where Jasper was. Jasper who had taken her son
into safekeeping
, he had said.

She could not sleep. She could only lie in bed going over her anxieties as though probing a sore tooth with her tongue. Had her son’s nurse stayed with him? Who was left to defend the castle? What would the new king do to those who had opposed him?

There was the sourness of anxiety in her mouth; her stomach was tight like a knotted rope.

Gradually the snow melted and there came news of the dead. So many lords were killed and their line ended. Her stepfather Lionel,
Lord Welles, was dead. She went to Maxey Castle to comfort her mother, who would not be comforted.

All the time she was waiting for her turn; preparing for her role as widow.

Then he returned.

She was so surprised to hear from him that she had to read the message twice, and felt a rush of blood to her head. She was not a widow. And she was glad. She had not known she would be so glad.

She ran to meet him when he arrived, to help him from his horse, and saw immediately that he was ill; not wounded, his squire told her, but ill. His eyes were entirely glazed. The affliction he intermittently suffered from had flared in him just as she had thought it would: great red welts had appeared on his face and body; he shook convulsively and cried out in his sleep; he thought he was being roasted in eternal fires.

She attributed the rash to the armour that had chafed his skin. But his breathing was laboured and his teeth chattered so that he could hardly speak. She sat with him and pressed damp cloths to the top of his head, which was sweating, and made compresses and cooling potions for his flesh. She believed herself to have healing hands. Sometimes when she passed her fingers lightly over a broken limb or a diseased organ she could tell where the problem was, as though her fingers were her eyes. There was a sense of trapped heat here, an absence of heat there. In another life she might have been a surgeon.

But she couldn’t seem to heal Henry, though he had no physical wounds. When the fever passed he sank into an exhausted melancholy. Sometimes, while being fed or bathed, he would turn his face away and weep. His skin was still too painful for him to be held.

She stayed with him, hoping that when he recovered he would accompany her to find her son. Gradually he got better, but still he would say nothing about the battle itself, except that the wind had turned against them, blowing all their arrows back. ‘The wind,’ he said wonderingly. And the snow, through which they could hardly see.

Once he said he had been stumbling over dead bodies for what seemed like hours. The snow had filled their open mouths, covered their exposed eyeballs. Gradually it had covered the corpses themselves, and still he had gone on, slipping and stumbling over them, trampling on their faces and hands, without knowing which way to go.

That was what he dreamed about, when he cried out in his dreams.

The king and queen had escaped, he believed, but he had fallen behind and got lost. All he could think about was home. He had spent several days in hiding in woodland, or begging for bread from local farms, always doggedly returning home.

She rested her hand on his. ‘You are home now,’ she said, but she could see in his eyes that he was not home; he did not know what home was any more.

In May the king returned to London and received a hero’s welcome. He made a proclamation promising good and just government, an end to the oppression of the people, the manslaughter, extortion and robbery of the old regime. But it was said that there would be further executions, that all those who had fought against him would be attainted and dispossessed.

In June the queen led an army of Scotsmen into England and attacked Carlisle, but they were driven back by the Earl of Warwick’s brother, John Neville. Then King Henry rode south with an army to Durham, but they were driven back by Warwick himself.

King Edward promised pardons for all those who had fought with King Henry, who would now submit to him, and at last Margaret’s husband roused himself.

‘I should go,’ he said.

Margaret wanted to go with him, but he said it was too dangerous. Everywhere there were uprisings and rebellions. For all they knew it was a trap.

In the end she accompanied him as far as London, and then he set
off alone, with the pink welts still fading on his face, and begged on his knees for pardon, while she waited fearfully in their lodgings – without telling him she had written in advance, expressing her hopes and good wishes for the new king’s future reign, that they could all live in peace now, as his loyal subjects, and that she would soon be reunited with her son.

When Henry returned he seemed surprised by the reception he’d had. The king had been most conciliatory, he said. They were invited to the celebrations following his coronation.

He sat down, still looking surprised.

‘We must go,’ she said.

‘I suppose we must.’

‘I want to speak to the king about my son.’

He looked at her.

‘I do not think we can ask for any more favours.’

‘I have to ask.’

The great hall was packed. Hundreds of burning torches were reflected in the golden ceiling, the polished floor. There were many ladies dancing for the king, in vivid colours, peacock blues, violets and saffron yellow. The king danced with some and watched several others from a long chair draped in velvet.

He looked magnificent, and at ease.

She did not dance, because Henry said, quite accurately, that he couldn’t, but she watched the king closely, waiting for a moment to approach. He spoke to one courtier after another. His attention was caught by two of the ladies in particular, she noticed, one of them very young and dressed in a modest, peach-coloured robe, the other older and married, wearing a low-cut gown.

She edged closer, ignoring her husband’s warnings. By the time she had pushed through the press of people, the king had moved, and was standing with a group of friends. She located him without difficulty – he was nearly a head taller than everyone else – and she manoeuvred herself towards him like a small, burrowing animal until she was standing quite close, but not in his line of vision. The king did not turn
towards her. He continued to watch the dancing, making occasional comments to his companions, at which everyone laughed.

At last she stood by his side, feeling shorter than ever next to his great height, and waited for him to finish his conversation.

His hands, she thought, were very red.

Finally he looked at her, as a man looks and does not look at a woman who is not attractive to him, and she sank into a curtsy.

‘The Countess of Richmond,’ he said.

She made all the proper replies, and then rose. She had to angle herself backwards to look at him. If she looked downwards in proper humility he would not hear what she was saying because of all the noise. Conscious of this difficulty, she asked if he had received her letter.

‘I have received many letters,’ he said.

‘I was writing about my son.’

‘Your son …’ he said vaguely.

‘My little boy, Henry. I was hoping for your permission to see him again.’

‘The young Earl of Richmond,’ the king said, holding out his goblet to be filled.

‘I have not seen him for some time.’

‘He is with his uncle, is he not?’ said the king blandly.

‘I do not know where he is.’

‘Do you know where his uncle is?’

‘I have not heard, your majesty.’

‘If you did hear I am sure you would tell me. I am almost certain of it.’

‘I don’t know where his uncle is – that is the problem –’

‘It is a problem for me too. But I am hoping to remedy it soon.’

Before he could turn away again, she said, ‘I was hoping that my son could be returned to me.’

‘To you?’ said the king, as if surprised. ‘That is one possibility.’ He looked at her consideringly, then said, ‘How old is your son?’

‘He is just four years old.’

‘Just four. And heir to so many estates.’

‘I have not seen him for so long – I do not know who is looking after him, or where he is …’

‘He is in Wales, is he not?’

‘When I last saw him he was at Pembroke.’

‘We are having a little difficulty in Wales. Some dispute about the rightful lordship of the land. But I intend to resolve that as quickly as possible.’

‘He – it is just that – I do not know what has happened to him.’

‘We will find that out when we have reclaimed our castles there.’

She tried again. ‘Your majesty, I would dearly like to see him again. I pray for him daily – that he will be returned to me.’

‘Or to some suitable guardian.’

‘I think that I would be his most suitable guardian – while he is so young.’

The king did not answer immediately and she was afraid that she had said too much, but then he smiled at her, that charming smile that did not charm her.

‘You can be sure that I will give it my full consideration,’ he said. And she knew she had been dismissed, that there was nothing more to say.

10th August 1461: Commission to William Herbert, knight, to take into the king’s hands the country and lordship of Wales and all castles, lordships, manors and possessions late of Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, a rebel …

Calendar of Patent Rolls

 

4th October 1461: All the castles and strongholds in north Wales and south Wales are given and yielded up to the king’s hands. And the Duke of Exeter and the Earl of Pembroke are flown and taken to the mountains and several lords with great power after them.

Paston Letters

 

12th February [1462]: Grant to William Herbert, king’s knight, for £1,000 in hand, paid for the custody and marriage of Henry [Tudor], son and heir of Edmund Earl of Richmond, tenant in chief of Henry VI, in the king’s hands by reason of his minority.

Calendar of Patent Rolls

 

She sat by the window of her room with her eyes closed as though she were praying, but she was not praying. She had used up every prayer she had. In her hands she held the book of hours given to her by Margaret of Anjou, so long ago. She remembered, even now, feeling disappointed by the gift.

When you write in it, think of me
, the queen had said. But she had not written in it. And now she wanted to write, but she did not know what, or how. So much had happened, she did not know where to begin.

They had not been able to travel to Wales, because of the fighting there. Jasper had fought a battle near Caernarvon and lost, and not been heard of again. Then, in the king’s first parliament that November, her mother’s husband, Lord Welles, had been attainted posthumously and all his lands and possessions had reverted to the king. But Margaret’s own possessions had been protected.

The parliament had dragged on, and it was not until February that the blow fell. That ‘cruel man, prepared for any crime’ now had possession of her son.

When she closed her eyes she could see an image of a little boy wandering along the corridors of a great house, alone and frightened. He was about the same age as she had been when she had met the Duke of Suffolk. But she could not bear to think of him in that way. She of all people knew what it was to be alone, without a mother, at that tender age.

The hiss of rain at the windows reminded her of that earlier room that she could not quite remember. Where the duke had shown her his map of the world.

And now that world had changed. England had changed. So many of the ruling dynasties of the land had been wiped out, the relationship between the north and south of the country permanently altered – the border with Scotland had changed. And all the territories in France were lost.

She ran her fingers round the edges of the book. They were not quite steady, her fingers.

Her lips pressed together in an uneven line. She opened the book at the last page, which was blank, feeling the texture of the paper, which was not quite smooth.
feeling the texture of the paper, which was not quite smooth. She picked up the quill and dipped it into the pot of ink. Because her hand was not steady, a small scatter of droplets flew across the page. She looked at them with a pang of self-reproof as they sank into the paper, then wiped her eyes and pressed the quill down a little harder than was necessary.