To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (18 page)

As I was readying him to go with his uncles Gloucester and
Buckingham, he talked endlessly about the wild animals he would
visit every day at the menagerie. He seemed very happy to be going.

Mother is in such a state of fury at her impotence that she can
hardly pass a civil word with anyone. I know ’tis a sin to dishonor a parent, but I can say to you in all honesty that right now
I hate the woman. Never has there lived a more selfish and self-serving person in all the world as Elizabeth Woodville. You must
promise to tell me if I ever begin demonstrating those traits. If I
do, then you have my permission—no, my
command
—to slap
me silly and shout at me to come to my senses.

As for my ill-fated love for Uncle Richard, I have nothing but
doubt and confusion and fear. I try desperately to forget him, to
hate him, but the vision of his beautiful face swims before me,
both waking and sleeping. I’m guilty of a further sin, to covet
another woman’s husband, but as time goes by I find myself a
girl rife with sinfulness and shame.

The only ray of pure sunshine is the prospect of seeing you at
the coronation. I can almost feel the warmth of your arms about
me, see the sparkle in your eyes, for I know that in all the world,
you are the one person who loves me as sincerely as I love back.

So on that light note (they have been very few and far between, I fear) I shall end this letter with hopes of receiving the
same from you in the next day or two.

Your dearest friend and confidante,
Bessie. . .

ell.” It was Edward’s voice calling from outside her Nchamber door. She was still abed, even at seven in the morning, though lying awake as she had the whole night through. Sound sleep had evaded her since Lord Hastings’s execution, and a shroud of worry lay heavy over her heart and mind.

Now King Edward the Fifth was tapping at her door. “Nell, are you awake?” His voice was feeble, yet she knew it was the voice of doom. Knew it with great certainty. Yet she must call him into her chamber. Call horror to herself. Agony.

“Come in, Edward.” For some time now the two of them had, in private, ceased the formality of “Your Majesty” and “Mistress Caxton.” They had lived through terrible times together.

Held each other trembling. Wept together. They were family.

The door creaked open and Edward entered. The ravaged, tearstained face was all she needed to know the worst had come to pass. She struggled to sit up in bed and opened her arms for the boy to come into. He moved with the pace of a funeral procession, for that was what this was.

News of Antony’s death. His execution.

Edward reached the bed and, sitting heavily, folded himself into her arms. He was silent, and all his tears had dried. She wondered if he refrained from open weeping now for her sake.

It would be like him, so magnanimous and compassionate a young man.
I must stop calling him a boy,
she told herself. He was King of England, and here he was coming to bring her both dreadful news and comfort, on the death of her beloved Antony.

Edward himself must be dying inside.

Nell too remained dry-eyed, but her body began to tremble violently in great waves that rushed over her, then receded.

“Oh, Antony,” she heard herself moan aloud. “Oh, my love.” Edward pulled from her arms so that he might see her face, allow Nell to see his. See pain mirrored in each other’s eyes.

Share the grief. Begin to feel their loss.

“I’m so sorry, Edward,” she finally whispered.

He leaned to kiss her cheek.

“As am I,” he said. “As am I.”

ell was raw, as though her skin and soul had been flayed.

NSince news of Lord Rivers’s death had been made public she had dropped all pretense that they had been merely friends and cohorts in service to Prince Edward at Ludlow. News had also come that the queen dowager’s son, Lord Grey, had been executed at the same time.

Reckless though she knew the action to be, Nell marched, the next day, into Richard of Gloucester’s office unannounced, and demanded his attention.

“I wish to know why Lord Rivers was executed,” she said, doing all she could to keep her voice steady and emotionless.

Richard answered in a mild and respectful tone, one that he might use with a peer of England, not with a commoner, a woman. A young woman at that.

“ ’Twas necessary, Mistress Caxton, for the good of the realm. He was a traitor. The Hastings plot—”

“He was hundreds of miles from the Hastings plot!” she rudely interrupted Gloucester. “He had no contact with Hastings or Lord Stanley or Bishop Morton!” These were the others who had been arrested that fateful morning in the midst of a council meeting at the Tower from which Hastings was uncere-moniously dragged to his beheading on the Green. “Or do you have
proof
that he was part of that conspiracy?”

Richard remained calm and dignified throughout Nell’s tirade, and she was conscious and very grateful that Buckingham was nowhere in sight. Was that, she wondered, the reason she felt she could speak so boldly to the protector?

“You are correct in that I have no direct proof of Lord Rivers’s involvement in the Hastings plot. But he was warned, as was his sister, that any conspiracy involving any member of the Woodville family would provoke the severest consequences for himself.”

“But the queen dowager took no part in the plot!” Nell cried, realizing too late that she had revealed information she had no business knowing.

Gloucester looked at her with more interest now. His small, wiry body seemed to tense, and he came to stand directly before Nell.

“How is it that you are so sure of the queen’s innocence?”

“I . . . I . . .” Nell’s brazen confidence suddenly failed her.

“And did you really believe that no one knew about your love affair with Antony Woodville?”

Nell felt her body go rigid with anger.

“The truth, Mistress Caxton, is that Rivers did not die so much for his part in the Hastings plot as for his involvement in the original Woodville treachery when my brother died. The queen attempted a coup against myself, and against her own husband’s will.”

“But Antony knew nothing of the original plot either!” Now Richard was genuinely surprised.

“The queen simply wrote and told Lord Rivers to bring the king to London, quickly, with a large army. I saw the letter,” Nell continued, her voice trembling with passion. “She
never mentioned
to Antony
that you had been named protector in her place.” Gloucester looked suddenly stricken. He sat on the edge of his desk and was silent for a long moment, his eyes darting as he considered the shocking information that he was clearly hearing for the first time.

“So you are saying,” he finally began, “that his own sister allowed Rivers to step into the deadliest of situations without even a warning?”

“That is precisely what I am saying.”

Gloucester was clearly upset. “Thank you for coming, Mistress Caxton. You have . . . you are . . .” His stuttering unnerved Nell. Angry as she had been on her arrival, now she could see that Richard of Gloucester was grap-pling with the most horrifying mistake—what he had previously viewed as a justifiable state execution was little more than murder.

“I wish to see my father,” Nell said, more a demand than a request. “Lord Rivers was my father’s dearest friend, and he will need my comfort.”

“Yes, of course. But a day. No more.” Gloucester had gone very pale.

Clearly the man had a conscience, thought Nell. There was decency in him. But neither Gloucester’s conscience nor decency would bring Antony Woodville back to life.

One of the greatest men that England had ever produced was gone forever.

t was late when the carriage finally clattered to a halt be-Ineath the sign of the Red Pale. Nell stood on the cobblestones, still as a statue, numb and staring. It wasn’t until the coach had rumbled out of Westminster Gate that she realized the bookstore and printshop were brightly illuminated within.

What can be happening?
she wondered. Her prudent father, unlike some merchants, never wasted candle wax lighting the shop windows after business hours, and he never worked but by the light of the day, as the smallness of the type sorely tested his old eyes. But now Nell could see the place was ablaze with light, like a castle hall lit for a Christmas ball.

She crossed the cobbles to the door. Her alarm grew when she found it unlocked, and the cowbell clanking above her head seemed, for the first time, ominous, a very death knell. The can-dlelit bookstore was empty and silent, as was the printshop, except now, as she drew closer to the archway between the two, she heard the faint click of metal on metal—type being set. A moment later her father, whose presence she had not enjoyed for almost five months, came into view.

He looked a man possessed.

Somehow, even in the utter silence, he had not heard the cowbell, as though he were existing in another world, with its own sights and sounds and smells, quite apart from the one in which Nell moved. She could see that William Caxton was carrying a long, narrow box—a line of type—which, with the greatest of care, he set into a larger oblong box in the middle of his press—a page about to be printed. When he turned again, she saw that tears glistened on his cheeks and wet his beard.

Her sob of pain at the sight wrenched the printer from his solitary world. As though with sudden recognition of an angel standing before him, he opened his arms, and without a word, Nell went into them. All his love and joy at seeing his daughter flowed into her, warming and comforting her. Yet his steely grip told the story of his wretchedness. They parted reluctantly.

Then, steeling himself against further emotion, Caxton picked up the inking ball and began to swab the finished plate.

“What is this, Father?” Nell was staring down at the broadsheet, a public announcement.

“On the table in the back” was all he said, continuing his work.

In the back room, Nell found a parchment covered with her father’s writing surrounded by a halo of candles just next to his boxes of lead type. Here was where her father had transposed the handwritten word to the printed word, finally to become the published word. She leaned down and began to read.

This day of Our Lord, 25 June, 1483, we have heard news of
a most tragic death. Antony Woodville, Lord Rivers, has been executed in the yard of Pontefract Castle, York, at the pleasure of
England’s protector, Richard of Gloucester.

My Lord Rivers was a man of intellect divine, of beauty in
face, form, and soul. A shining knight of chivalry, worldly
charms, private piety.

We will ask ourselves in the coming months and years why he
died. What evils coalesced to consequence the obscenity of his
unnecessary death. Are we not inured to deaths in all forms—by
accident, illness, old age? Do we not take in stride the passing of
parents, brothers and sisters, most especially the loss of children
at all ages. These are expected occurrences, and whilst painful,
are borne patiently, as the true nature and progression of things.

’Tis only
needless
death that is unbearable. It robs the mind
of equanimity, the nights of sleep, and the soul of peace. ’Tis a
monster that haunts us ceaselessly.

Why did Antony Woodville die, his head shorn from his body
in Pontefract Castle’s yard? Whose betrayal caused this? Whose
jealousy? Whose hatred set the blade swinging? What petty lies
built that scaffold?

Nothing is so frightening as power in the hands of a tyrant.

Our protector—perhaps more the minions round him—blazes
with his strength, wielding it like a great sword. Limbs bleed, 
heads roll. Fortresses are lost and won with a splash of ink on
parchment. We, the people of England, have been powerless in
the shadow of these few dark creatures called noblemen.

But now perhaps this blessed machine will crush the despot’s
sword ’tween its metal frame and plate of leaded words. Will press,
for posterity into the pages of books and broadsheets—finally
readable by masses of Englishmen and -women—knowledge,
ideas,
truth
.

Behold the printed word! ’Tis a weapon in our hands, and before our eyes! Soon a man will not die for imagined treason with
no one the wiser of its folly. We shall read on a street corner, or
in a history, the mad machinations of kings and counselors and
bishops, their unbridled suits for power and more power still.

Their rivalries, their revenges, their stupidities and outrages.

Antony Woodville’s royal murder is one such outrage . . .

Nell could not go on reading. She turned to see William Caxton at his press, standing rigid, with his hand on the lever, the first clean sheet of paper waiting for its imprint.

“Father,” she said quietly, though she knew he could hear.

“Father, you cannot print this.”

“I can,” he insisted, his voice quavering with defiance. “I will print it, and treason be damned!”

Nell walked slowly to her father, but before she reached him his arm descended forcefully. When the press top lifted, Nell could see the sheet had been perfectly printed.

As though utterly spent, Caxton sat heavily on a wall bench.

His shoulders sagged visibly.

“I shall print it,” he said dispiritedly, “though I can never publish it.” He looked up at Nell with a father’s loving eyes. “I care too much for your life to make it public.” A rare bitterness creased his features. “Once again our Fates are ruled by the few.”

His fisted hand smashed the bench beside him. “Fie on their claims of royalty! The ‘chosen of God on earth’! I say God
cries
seeing our famous sovereigns. Idiots! Monsters and idiots!”

“Father, come, please.” Nell put out her hand and he let her help him up. “We’ll go back to the house. Talk there. Let us put out the lights in the shop. They’re a beacon that can draw nothing but suspicion.”

“They killed Antony,” he said, distraught, refusing to move.

“The finest intellect in England. My friend. Your beloved.”

“I know, Father, I know—”

“Nell?” It was Jan de Worde. He came up quietly behind her.

“Jan,” said Nell, relieved for the help, “extinguish the candles. I’m taking Father home. Pull the sheet out of the press and bring it back to the house. But first disassemble the tray.”

“What is it?” Jan asked. “What has he printed?”

“Our death warrants,” she said.

ou will order a thousand barrels of ale for the city’s tav-Yerns,” Nell heard Richard of Gloucester say through the partially opened door to an anteroom adjoining his office. She had just scooped up a pile of documents Edward was meant to sign, when Richard and another man entered the outer office.

They were yet unaware of Nell’s presence.

“We cannot appear to be stingy at Edward’s coronation,” the protector insisted.

“No, my lord. ’Twill be a splendid occasion, and long remembered” came the deferential answer.

It was Lord Stanley, Nell realized with no little amazement.

It had taken hardly a week after Stanley’s arrest for his part in the Hastings plot, as it was now known, for Richard’s steward to regain his master’s trust. Though most were outraged by Hastings’s horrific killing and, like herself, saddened by Rivers’s execution, some whispered that the protector had treated far too leniently the other members of the conspiracy.

Bishop Morton had been sent to live in Harry Buckingham’s Welsh home at Brecnock.

Thomas, Lord Stanley, was placed under house arrest in one of his own houses. Gossip had it that Margaret Beaufort had added a few mea culpas of her own, admitting that she and her husband
had
been loyal to Hastings, but only because they believed that
he
was faithful to Richard’s brother the king. That their heads had been turned by Hastings’s clever tongue, and the frightening assertion that Richard was planning to usurp young Edward’s throne.

Now here, a week later, was Stanley groveling at Richard’s feet. Nell guessed the wily conspirator was back in the protector’s service, more for need of his help than because of Richard’s belief in his apologies. Stanley was the finest adminis-trator in London, and organizing to perfection a weeklong celebration for the coronation of a king, done in a manner befitting both the memory of Richard’s brother, Edward, and the honor of his nephew Edward was no small matter.

Nell, still unnoticed by the men, was moving toward the adjoining door when she heard a third voice join Gloucester’s and Stanley’s.

“Richard.”

It sounded like Harry Buckingham. He was the only man left in London, Nell knew, in whom the protector placed his complete trust.

“Can it wait, Harry?” said Gloucester. “I must finish London’s provisioning—”

“It cannot wait,” Buckingham said with what Nell perceived as excitement.

“What is it?”

“Will you leave us, my lord?” she heard Buckingham say to Stanley.

Nell could not see, but as the office door shut, she was sure that Stanley would be seething with indignation at his dismissal by his arrogant nephew.

“What
is
it?” Gloucester demanded as soon as Stanley was gone.

“Stillington is back. The Bishop of Bath and Wells must have a private audience with you.”

Quiet as a cat, Nell moved closer to the anteroom door.

“I sent him away once—politely,” Nell heard Richard say. “I have no interest in hearing false claims about my mother’s adultery. This time—”

“This time,” said Harry Buckingham, “you must not send him away at all.”

Now Nell heard the office door open again. Someone was being shown in.

“My Lord Protector.” The voice sounded old and feeble.

“Bishop Stillington,” Richard greeted him. “Come, sit.”

“Show him what you have,” Buckingham instructed their visitor.

Nell heard the sound of a parchment being unrolled.

“Is that your brother Edward’s signature?” Stillington demanded in a querulous voice.

There was a long moment of silence in which, Nell imagined, Gloucester examined the document Stillington had brought.

“It is, yes,” Richard finally answered.

“Then your brother the king was already a married man when he took Elizabeth Woodville as his wife,” Stillington said with a tone of authority tinged with disapproval. “This is a precontract of marriage with Lady Eleanor Butler.”