The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (26 page)

“His household is said to be very well organized,” I said stiffly.

“Perhaps you could profit from the example. You are a little lacking in that, you know.”

1 7 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Kate said a few things in French that were spoken too quickly and eloquently for me to grasp, which was probably just as well. That night she shut me out of her bedchamber, from which I was usually barred only when she was having her monthly course.

But on the day Richard was due to arrive, everything was in order— minstrels in tune, old rushes replaced with new, adequate plate for all, servants functioning perfectly. Not a minute too soon, for just minutes after I had ascertained all of these things, the Gloucester horses were spotted at a distance.

Richard having brought Anne along, as I had hoped, the ladies went after supper to Kate’s chamber, while Richard and I decided to ride off our meal.

“I suppose you’ve heard about Ned’s and George’s children,” he said.

I nodded. Just three days apart, the Duchess of Clarence had given birth at Farley Castle to a girl, Margaret, and the queen had given birth at Shrewsbury to her second son, Richard. We had sent a gold cup in honor of little Richard, a silver one in honor of little Margaret. Without thinking, I said, “I suppose it’s your turn next.”

“I won’t be obliging this year. Anne had a miscarriage a couple of months ago.”

I winced. “I—”

“Don’t say she’s still young, or that we’re likely to have more, or that it’s God’s will.”

All were true, though. I said quietly, “I wasn’t going to say any of those things. Only to offer my sympathy. Kate hasn’t conceived either,” I offered as a consolation. “With her being one of twelve, I thought we’d have a child well under way by now. But she’s shown no sign of quickening with one. Her old nurse Cecilia thinks she might need a year or two.”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “You’re bedding with her? I thought for sure the queen would make you wait until she was a safer age.

Twenty, perhaps.”

“She doesn’t meddle in that sort of thing. In any case, Kate didn’t want to wait. She seduced me, you might say.”

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Richard snorted as I smiled dreamily, remembering not that night but the one just past. Kate and I had made up our quarrel over the management of our household in the most satisfactory way possible. “You certainly seem content with yourself these days.”

“I’d be more so if you were happier. What ails you? You’ve been irritable since you arrived here.” I frowned. “Is it the food? My servants? We tried to make everything right.”

For the first time since his arrival, Richard laughed. “For God’s sake, Harry, don’t start turning anyone out of doors. Your food and your people are fine. I have been irritable, you’re right. More George, I suppose. It’s what I came to see Ned about.”

“He’s still not satisfied with his share of the Warwick lands?”

Richard nodded. “Anne’s been wanting to have her mother out of sanctuary, so I finally gave in and asked Ned for permission to bring her out. He’d have soon let her stay there for life, I think—he doesn’t trust any of the family after Warwick betrayed him. Not even Anne, really. But I told him that we would make sure the countess didn’t get up to trouble, and he finally agreed. Anyway, George took it very badly. He decided that I’d brought the countess out as a means to having Ned give her all of her land back, so that she could convey it all to me. Why he just didn’t offer to bring her out himself first is beyond me, but you know how George’s mind works. Or maybe you don’t, having been spared him as a brother. This is what you get from trying to please your wife, Harry. Remember that when your pretty Kate bats those Woodville eyes at you.”

“So what is the king going to do about it?”

“Placate him, as he always does, I suppose. And what’s worse, I think George is turning traitor again.”

“How?”

“Plotting with Oxford.”

Whatever you could say about the Earl of Oxford—and the king had plenty to say about him, none of which need be repeated in polite company—he was not one to give up easily. After Barnet and Tewkesbury,

1 7 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m a different man might have either resigned himself to life in exile or thrown himself on the king’s mercy, but Oxford had doggedly continued to harass Edward. Just last year, he had been plotting with the Archbishop of York, who was the last of the Kingmaker’s brothers and who had been sent a prisoner to Hammes Castle for his pains. With French help, Oxford had attacked Calais several times, and he had managed to land in Essex in the spring. He had been repelled, but completely unbowed, had turned to piracy and was said to be quite successful at it. Secretly, probably for my uncle Edmund’s sake, I rather admired the man, though it was a sentiment I naturally kept to myself. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m not sure. If I were, I’d make certain Ned knew of the details.” Richard shook his head. “All I have is suspicions.” He brightened.

“At least Oxford’s old mother can’t send him any aid. Did I tell you I’ve acquired her lands?”

“How?”

“Got the old lady to sign them over to me, last Christmas as a matter of fact. Ned had sent her to live in London, in a convent there. Stratford le Bow. With her son up to no good, he wanted to keep a close eye on her.

I told her that she was the mother of a traitor and that she could either sign them over to me, for a fair consideration, or I’d get them some other way and she’d get nothing. She’s a reasonable enough lady and agreed to sign them over to me, though not without putting up a bit of a fuss. I had to threaten to take her to Middleham. What is it about some people that the thought of going to the North scares them so?” Richard pitched his voice to resemble an old lady’s quavering tones. “‘To Middleham, my lord? In all this great frost and snow? I would surely die!’ So I saved her from a fate worse than death, to hear her tell it.”

“Was that quite necessary? The woman must be in her sixties. She can’t be in the best of health.”

“Now you sound like Ned, Harry. Not everyone is an eldest son like you; some of us have to expand our holdings by other means. It’s not that she got such a bad bargain; I agreed to pay her an annuity of five hundred

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marks, to pay her debts, and to promote her youngest son who’s studying at Cambridge. Odd place for the Earl of Oxford’s brother to be studying, by-the-by. And in any case, what’s good for me is good for the realm, for with the countess in the convent, where were her revenues going to go?

Straight to her pirate son and his brothers, or to Louis over in France. I’ll put them to much better use than any of them, I’ll wager. Not that I have them yet. Her feoffees are dragging their heels; I’ve had to go to Chancery to get them to turn them over. I’ll win, but it’s another irritation I don’t need.”

I absently stroked my horse’s mane, not knowing what to say. Richard’s behavior with the Countess of Oxford struck me as less than chivalrous, and not quite worthy of him. For all that the old lady’s son was a traitor, she was an old lady.

“Well, I do intend to uphold my share of the bargain,” Richard said irritably.

“Yes, of course.” I decided to change the subject. Waving around me, I said, “Have you spent much time in these parts?”

“Not all that much. Have you trouble keeping order?”

“A bit,” I admitted. “Everyone does here, though. That’s one reason why the king’s moved the Prince of Wales’ household to Ludlow. Well, of course, you know that. You’re on the council, right?”

“Nominally. I have a man who attends it.” He frowned. “But you’re not on the council, are you? Why not, with all your holdings here?”

It was a question that had occurred to me also, though only fleetingly. “I suppose because of my age.”

“You’re almost eighteen. I was commanding armies when I was eighteen, Harry.”

“The king has appointed me to some commissions here,” I said lamely.

“That’s hardly the same, though, is it? You need to keep a lookout, old man, that he doesn’t shut you out.” He waved a hand as if to indicate the landscape through which we were riding, all of which belonged to me. It was a thought that still made me giddy at times. “Don’t let yourself get complacent here in Wales. It’s easy enough to do when you’re far from court.”

1 7 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “I won’t,” I promised. For a few moments, I brooded on my not being a member of the prince’s council. Then I brightened. “We have fine minstrels, Richard. Just wait until they play for us tonight.”

I didn’t forget Richard’s words to me about the council, but a rumor soon reached Brecon that when there came a vacancy in the Order of the Garter, I would be elected to it. This was far more appealing to me at eighteen than sitting on the council of a small boy, albeit a very important small boy, so when the rumors proved to be true, I forgot for the time being all about the matter of the council.

In anticipation of this great occasion, I applied to the College of Arms to be allowed to use the undifferentiated arms of my great-grandfather, Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. My grandmother, visiting us in the spring of 1474, shook her head when I showed her a copy of the decision in my favor. “I’d not remind the king of your royal ancestry, Harry.”

“Why? He’s got two sons now, and two brothers as well. I’m no threat to him.”

“Still and all, there’s no need to provoke him.” She sighed. Last year, her youngest son, my uncle John, who’d helped tend me after I was injured at Barnet, had died, survived by a little son. He and I were the only male Staffords now. “I’ve not got any Stafford men to spare, Harry.”

“That’s why I wanted to bear Thomas of Woodstock’s arms. To pay tribute to them. Nothing more.” I was sorry to see that age seemed to be turning the Dowager Duchess of Buckingham into a somewhat nervous old lady. I smiled at her with all of the superior wisdom of my eighteen years.

“Grandmother, it won’t bother him in the slightest.”

And it didn’t seem so, either, for I was indeed elected a Garter knight.

My only regret was that my mother was not alive to see me in my Garter robes, my new arms duly mounted in my stall at the Chapel of St. George at Windsor Castle. I wore gowns over my doublet as seldom as possible so that

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the world could all the better admire the jeweled garter that rested under my left knee. Kate was ecstatic the first time she saw me in it, and what happened after the first time she took it off me was indescribably pleasant.

To cap it off, we were heading toward war again with France, a prospect that all of us younger men regarded with delight. After years of fighting each other with nothing to show for it, it was time for us Englishmen to fill our castles with French booty and to gain some glory.

I spent the late months of 1474 and early 1475 raising troops, as did virtually every other man of quality in England. When in April I arrived at Barham Downs in Kent, riding at the head of more than four hundred men wearing the Stafford knot, I could not have been happier. Only Richard and George (for the time being, not quarreling with each other over their lands) had done better.

By July we had landed in Calais, where we tarried awhile, awaiting the arrival of our ally the Duke of Burgundy. It was not the duke who first appeared, however, but his duchess, of whom I’d been quite enamored as a boy. She had not worn well, I thought with great disappointment. Like her mother Cecily of York, she had become overly pious, though she unbent somewhat at the sight of the Duke of Clarence, always her favorite brother. Margaret and the Duke of Burgundy had no children, which was not surprising since it was said that his martial activities preoccupied him so that the two of them were hardly in each other’s company. Looking at her, still pretty but too prim, I compared her smugly to my delicious Kate and congratulated myself on my good fortune.

After Margaret left Calais, her husband arrived—without the army we all had expected. There were some who were ready to give up the campaign then and there, including, I suspected later, the king himself. But Charles, though he had come without men, had not come without plans. He suggested breezily that the English forces conquer Normandy and then move into Champagne. There they would be met by the Duke of Burgundy himself and his men, fresh, as the plan went, from conquering Lorraine. In Rheims, Edward would be duly crowned as the King of France. It seemed

1 7 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m like a reasonable enough plan, particularly the crowning part, for which the king was rumored to have brought a magnificent garment along just in case.

So by July 18, our army was marching at last, led by the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy.

The best that can be said about the days that followed was that we spent two nights encamped at Agincourt, where our forefathers had fought so nobly.

From there, it was all downhill. King Louis of France, having at last learned of our whereabouts, began moving toward Compiègne. Our ally the Duke of Burgundy would not let our army into any of his towns, much to the disgust of some of the common soldiers, some of whom began raiding as far off as Noyon and who got killed by King Louis’s men for their trouble. The Count of St. Pol having promised to deliver St. Quentin into English hands, yet another group went there, only to be greeted by a cannon blast that kil ed several more men. In a drenching rain, the miserable party marched back to St.

Christ-sur-Somme, where we had an excellent view of the gates of Péronne, shut as firmly against as the rest of the Duke of Burgundy’s towns.