The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (43 page)

“I wish I could come with you and Mama and the boys.”

“And I do too. But you must take care of Anne. She would be lonely without you. And when she feels better, you must help make sure that she minds Nurse and doesn’t catch cold again.”

“Oh, I will,” Elizabeth said in a tone that made me as a fellow youngest sister feel rather sorry for poor Anne.

Harry pointed to the uppermost turret of Brecon Castle. “Now come.

You must go to the top of the castle and wave your handkerchief at me as we depart. It is what all fair maidens do.”

“I shall!” said Elizabeth. She kissed me hastily, gave Harry another hug, then scampered off.

Shortly, we saw a white handkerchief fluttering from the castle. Only then did Harry’s army begin to march. As we set off, I said one last prayer, short and simple:
God help us
.

Instead, He sent the rains.

Never before, or since, have I seen rain and wind like that which came that October of 1483. The winds whipped the Stafford banners out of their bearers’ hands, blowing them into the faces of the men who rode behind them. The rains came through the sides of the chariot, soaking me and the

2 9 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m boys to the skin. Even the very act of breathing made us swallow drops of water. To complete our misery, the chariot began to list to one side, then jolted to a halt. A wheel was stuck in the mud.

Harry got me and the boys on horses, the boys riding pillion, and we resumed our slow progress, the horses slogging through the mire. Finally, I saw the faint outlines of a manor house. I had traveled this road many a time, but such were the rain and wind that I had lost all track of my surroundings “Where are we?”

“Weobley,” said Harry. He looked around at the weary men and horses surrounding us. “We’ll stop here for the night.”

Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers, who had welcomed us to Brecon Castle so many years before, stared at the soaked crew inside his great hall. “I have heard of this mad scheme of yours, your grace. As your senior by many years, I take the liberty of speaking frankly to you. I beg you, abandon it and make your peace with the king. Nothing good can come of this.”

“It is not a good thing to remove a usurper and a child-murderer from the throne? I have heard of the murders from his own lips, sir.”

“You will throw the country back into civil war.”

Harry shook his head, spraying water as he did. “This discussion boots nothing. My wife and sons are sodden through. Give them and my party lodgings. It is all I ask.”

“Aye, and how could I refuse, with an army at your back? But as my daughter-in-law is your wife’s niece”—Cecily, standing in the hall gap-ing at our mud-splattered appearance, was my sister Anne’s daughter—“I would have agreed to shelter her in any case.”

Harry smiled his thanks. “You sheltered Henry Tudor once, too.” He had been in the care of Walter’s sister years before.

“Yes, and that is another reason I don’t attempt to throw you out of my home. Perhaps if you stay here, I can talk some sense into you.”

“Or we might be able to convert you to our cause,” put in a waterlogged

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but smiling Bishop Morton. I was beginning to learn that it took a great deal to demoralize him.

“I doubt it,” said Sir Walter with a sigh. “Come. Let me get the lot of you before a fire.”

Instead of ceasing, the storm was only worse the next day. Harry sent out men, who returned the next day in a bedraggled state to tell him that the Severn was flooded. There was no hope of crossing it. Until we could, Harry’s army would not be able to join with the rebels in the West Country.

For days upon days it rained. The flooding was so bad in spots that people claimed later to have seen babes in their cradles floating down the Severn amid the remains of their washed-out houses.

Each day more of Harry’s soldiers—billeted wherever they could beg or command a place to lay their heads, as no one could make camp—deserted.

I could hardly blame them. Harry went out daily to speak with them— sometimes ordering them to stay, sometimes begging them—but to no avail. Soon we were down to a couple of dozen men.

Then on the sixth day of our stay one of our servants from Brecon arrived, not wearing any sort of badge to identify himself. “My lord. I bear bad news. Brecon has been overrun and plundered.”

Harry went white. “Where are my daughters?”

“At Tretower.”

Tretower was the home of the Vaughan family, who had been longtime retainers of the Staffords. I clutched at Harry. “You mean the Vaughans took them into their care?”

“No, my lady. Not in that sense. It was the filthy Vaughans who overran the castle. They had a swarm of men with them—far outnumbering the garrison at the castle—who’d been promised spoils. Gloucester had spies in the neighborhood, you see, my lord, and they knew exactly when to make their move. Within hours of your departure, they marched on Brecon.

2 9 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m We tried to defend it, but there were just too many of them. Some of the garrison are dead.”

I crossed myself. Harry looked numb. “Go on,” he managed.

“Once they made it in, they had the decency to bring the young ladies out—they were screaming and crying, but not hurt. Their attendants were taken with them.”

“Anne had a cold,” I said. “Elizabeth has nightmares sometimes. Harry, we must return to them!”

“My lady, you can’t. Brecon was sacked. Looted, and all of my lord’s papers burned. All of the land around it was laid waste—at least as much as they could before the rains started. And now you could not go there if you tried. The Vaughans and their creatures, acting on Gloucester’s orders, have blocked the roads leading to and out of Brecon. Everyone who goes is being watched. I have been days trying to get here myself, and they nearly caught me once or twice.”

“But I don’t understand,” I said. “What did we ever do to the Vaughans?

They have never had trouble with Harry that I can recall.”

“I asked one of their followers myself. He cuffed me for my impertinence, but he’d been at your wine and answered readily enough. Jasper Tudor executed the Vaughans’ father back in ’71, my lady, and they are at last exacting what revenge that they can. That is why.”

The year 1471, when I was still a child and Harry only a lad of fifteen.

And my little girls were in the hands of these men. I laid my head on Harry’s shoulder and wept.

Bishop Morton, uncharacteristically grim-faced, had been standing listening to all of this in silence. Over my sobs, he said, “It’s all up here, my lord. You can’t get over the Severn, and you can’t go back to Wales, and you’ve not enough men to fight.”

“And, my lord, you can tarry here no longer.” Lord Ferrers’s voice was apologetic but firm. “It is treason to be sheltering you, and I can no longer put myself and my family at risk. Your lady, of course, is a different matter, as are the children. I’ll not turn them out. But the men must go.”

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“Then we shall be gone tonight,” said Harry calmly. He turned to Richard de la Bere, Sheriff of Hereford. “But there is one last favor I wish to ask of you.”

“Anything, my lord,” said Richard gently.

“Take my eldest son and convey him from here, secretly. You understand the necessity for this, Kate? If I am—gone—he might be the target of the king’s wrath. I cannot risk that.”

I was still sobbing for my girls, but I nodded a mute assent.

“Hal shall stay with you, Kate. I do not think his danger is as great.”

I nodded again.

“The boy had best be disguised in coarse clothing when he is conveyed from here,” said Bishop Morton. “You too, my lord. As well as myself. We shall all be out of your hair soon, Lord Ferrers.”

“I am very sorry, your grace.”

“There is always another day,” said the bishop, so brightly that for a brief moment I forgot my girls and contemplated strangling him. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let us find some clothes and go.”

In our chamber, Harry prepared to dress himself in the second-worst set of clothes that could be found at Weobley—Bishop Morton having gallantly put on the worst, which smelled not at all faintly of pig. We had sent our attendants out and were spending these last moments alone. As I helped him out of his own clothes, he shook his head. “Nothing’s gone right with this, Kate, and I’ve put us all in danger. Forgive me.”

“I should be asking for your forgiveness, Harry. I encouraged you to rebel.”

“Yes. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t.”

“It may still go well, Harry. Henry Tudor may be able to join the rebels.

Richard’s army may not be able to control the rising in the South.”

He sighed. “I hope so. Kate, if it doesn’t go well and I end up an exile, we may not see each other for years. Or—”

“Don’t say it, Harry. Don’t even think it.”

2 9 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m He pulled me against him and we embraced each other for a long time.

All of the remaining bitterness that had been between us in those last few months melted as we stood there together, our tears blending.

Finally, we pulled apart. As I wiped my eyes, Harry said, “I want you to keep something safe for me, sweetheart. Lift your skirts.”

I obeyed. Harry unstrapped his jeweled garter from his calf and gently strapped it on my own. “Do you remember? When I was eighteen and received this, I checked every hour to make sure it was still there.”

“I remember. I shall take good care of it.”

He smiled sadly. “It was Richard who first strapped it on me, did you know that? But it is where it belongs now, on the being that I love the best in all the world.” He pulled on a pair of dingy hose, then the rest of his garments, and put his arm around me. “Come, sweetheart. Let me take my leave of the boys.”

“I am to go away soon too,” bragged Edward as Hal stared sulkily at the floor.

“You must be good and mind what Sir Richard tells you. And Hal, you will have much to do as well, taking care of your mother, so don’t look so surly. But now, boys, let me have a word with each of you.”

He bent and spoke at length to one son, then to the other as Sir Walter stood uncomfortably by. I wondered if he was having second thoughts about evicting his houseguest. But Harry looked strangely calm when he stood.

“Goodbye, Sir Walter. I thank you for your kindness to my family.”

“God be with you, your grace, if not with your cause.” He hesitated.

“There’s still time to reconsider.”

Harry smiled and shook his head, then embraced me. We clung together for a short time as Bishop Morton called out his cheery farewells to our reluctant host.

Then Harry and the other men disappeared into the darkness.

xxii

Harry: October 1483 to

November 2, 1483

John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, had a saying whenever details were too unpleasant to be elaborated upon: “Why enlarge?” It had become a catchphrase among the king’s councilors, I had discovered when I at last became one, and one that could send them off in gales of laughter when used at the right moment.

And now I am eight-and-twenty, in the prime of life and the peak of good health, and I shall be dead within hours. Why enlarge? But I suppose I must.

My few followers—Bishop Morton, my physician and astrologer, Thomas Nandyke, my uncle by marriage, Thomas Knyvet, and a few others—each took a separate path when we left Weobley. Our plans were to await the outcome of the rebellion in the South and then, if necessary, to flee abroad. I chose to go north, then head east toward the coast and take ship if the rebellion proved a failure.

I had not told even Kate where I was going, thinking it best that she knew as little as possible should she fall into the king’s hands. Already he, through the Vaughans, had my daughters under his control… I put the thought from my mind, for it could only paralyze me. I had to keep moving.

I had a retainer, Ralph Bannaster, who had a good-sized house near Wem, not far from Shrewsbury. I didn’t know the man that well, but I had favored him in the past and knew his family to have long been loyal

3 0 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m to the Staffords. So it was his house to which I made my way under cover of darkness. I went by foot, as a man in my shabby garments riding a fine horse would have been too conspicuous. Besides, a horse would be just one more encumbrance.

The rain had subsided to a drizzle, just enough to make my journey a miserable and cold one. It was a distance of about seventy miles between Weobley and Wem. I did most of my walking at night; during the day, I hid where I could and slept.

On a day near the end of October, I entered Shrewsbury. It was a bustling place, and in my disguise I felt safe walking through it openly in broad daylight. In the market square some placards had been posted, and it was there that I read, with the strangest sort of feeling, that a reward of a thousand pounds was being offered for my capture. “Lucky man, to catch the duke,” a man beside me said.

“Lucky, indeed,” I agreed. It then occurred to me that I did not look the sort of man who could read, and I hastened to get lost in the throng and out of Shrewsbury.

The weather had turned dry and crisp—precisely the type of weather I could have used at Weobley—and within three hours I was at Ralph Bannaster’s manor. It took me some considerable time to be admitted to him, as I would not reveal my identity to anyone else in his household, but once I finally stood before him, I was surprised at the warmth of his greeting. I had fully expected to have to use the gold I had secreted on my person as a bribe.