Mistress to the Crown (40 page)

My pride, false and treacherous, armoured me as far as the west door, but when I glimpsed St Paul’s Yard and heard the roar that went up from the mob, I nearly retched in shock. It was my childhood horror of Tower Hill come alive. This was no ordinary Sabbath crowd such as pelted my father’s mistress, but a rabble, already five or six deep, surrounding the great yard. The lords’ and guilds’ stands, set either side the cathedral’s southern door, were filling fast. My horror grew. The open space that I must walk was vast, about four hundred paces in length; God knows how wide.

The circle of soldiers was struggling to hold back the crowd as more people poured in through the archways. Faces packed the windows of every house and turret. Some youths were clambering across the roofs of the shops and gatehouses. Others were straddling tree branches, hanging onto ladders or perched on barrels and crates. Making the round where I must walk were barrow-men, ladling out excrement into pails and selling bags of stones.

As if to torment me further, the sheriff’s men hauled me aside, hiding me within a thicket of pikes while the worthies hastened from the cathedral. Then came the blare of trumpets and I heard curses and hooves. Had Lord Protector Gloucester come to see me shamed? I knew then the price of my years of glory was this: Gloucester’s retaliation against the Woodvilles for thieving his brother. I was the whipping child, the abscess of Ned’s adultery that must be aired and cleansed by public scorn. This wasn’t about me, I tried to tell myself, but it was no comfort. The baying crowd would not care. They were here to mock and make sport.

However, it wasn’t Gloucester causing the upheaval but his bootlicker, Buckingham, and in his fulsome retinue I glimpsed faces from Beaumont’s Inn. Curse them! More than a score of Hastings’ henchmen.

There were angry shouts. The soldiers about me craned to see the quarrel. Buckingham’s pack must be forcing their way into the crowd about the nobles’ stand.

I was trembling. Wretchedness overwhelmed me. Mourning the men I loved, what did pride matter? Let the people spit and hurl piss at me. If public repentance was what God wanted, shouldn’t I welcome it? Call it expiation. And yet? And yet degradation before hundreds of people?

About me, my guard slammed their halberds in attention. That whoreson Mathew had ridden across to see if I was still standing. His smile was cruel. Mine was icy and resolute. The essence that makes us what we are, that won’t let go against the odds, kept me on my feet.

Mathew deliberately withheld me as if I was the fiercest bitch at a dogfight, all to whet the people’s appetite, and when the rabble’s impatience was ratcheted to breaking, he spurred his horse forward into the centre of the yard and held up a gauntlet for silence. I heard my name and the monstrous epithets that followed. The crowd roared its hunger.

My guards, feeding on the jeers and huzzahs, made great show of stepping aside and lowering their pikes to prod me forwards. A cluster of churchmen was waiting. One gave me a fresh-lit taper. Another raised the brass processional cross. I was to walk behind him with two priests following me swinging censers and chanting prayers.

I crossed a heart that was trying to flee my ribs, and took the first step. The gritty cobbles made me totter and it was hard to retain any dignity. I fixed my gaze on the rope sandals of the
cross bearer. The priests were keeping their distance, ensuring that I could be easily pelted without the filth spattering them.

God was in no mood to forgive. This might be June, but a sharp breeze stabbed west across the open yard. It smacked the blood into my cheeks and tossed my mantle of hair back from my breasts. No longer shielded, I felt my nipples chill and pucker against the thin cotton so I lifted the taper higher trying to hide my breasts with my elbows. I almost set fire to my hair, my hands were trembling so.

O Christ, is this where life had brought me? All effort, forethought, charity to others, loyalty and love to Ned and Hastings, all gone for this? I hadn’t been capricious or vengeful or greedy or— O Jesu, forgive my sins! Redeemer, stretch out Your hand to me. I have sinned. I have sinned. I have sinned.

My body was tense, ready to flinch at the first stone, but the people close by fell eerily silent as though bewitched. Eyes glassy and wide, lips gargoyle slits of indecision, they stared as I passed, the pails of shit and piss hanging in their hands, their children tugging at them in puzzlement.

Maybe I could survive this? Maybe there was respect for Ned left in their hearts, but men in black and scarlet were moving through the crowd, ahead of me – Buckingham’s dogs, inciting the people to stone me.

‘Your taxes went to clothe this slut!’ bawled one of them, lobbing a stone over the people’s heads. It fell short and a child started screaming. The crowd turned, snarling.

‘The bread from your children’s mouths. Stone the old goat’s wh—’ The man was sucked down into the heaving mass. Fists rose and descended.

The cross bearer, knowing his duty, swung round on me.

‘Witch! Fornicator!’ he snarled loudly, brandishing his cross to stir the people, but they still stood stunned as though I was some
exotic beast parading past. I could only thank God as I reached the south-east corner unscathed. Facing me now was the nobles’ stand.

A pailful of piss and turds splashed my path. I faltered.

O Ned! Help me!

‘
Heigh, what’s a bit of muck?
’ I remembered his laughter in Eltham meadows as I fell from horseback into a ripe cow turd. ‘
Gold comes from muck, Jane. Adam came from muck
.’

But my heart knew he lay lifeless, walled in beneath his chantry. And my beloved Hastings, neck severed, eyes open in shock, lying at his feet.

I’m alone. There’s no one to care anymore.

Mathew’s horse danced beside me. ‘Keep moving, strumpet! You want this to take all day?’

I shook my hair forwards and with my eyes downcast, I walked towards hateful Buckingham.

‘God save young King Edward!’ yelled a brave woman’s voice. ‘When’s the crowning?’

‘Where’s good Lord Hastings?’ shouted another voice. Boos and hissing came from the crowd. Through my strands of hair, I glimpsed the duke rise. His companions sprang to their feet, jeering and fisting the air at me.

Dared I? Yes, I lifted my head, stared at Buckingham as I passed and holding my right hand at my side, lifted my third finger.

The common people who saw cheered. The rest watched in silence.

I reached the cathedral’s south door and lowered my eyes again in penitence, relief flooding my soul – until a giggling child threw a spatter of pebbles. No, it wasn’t over. I still had to pass the guilds’ stand.

Was Jack here to witness my humiliation? Had he told Father and Mama?

I’d broken God’s commandments, defiled my family, shamed my husband and the guild, striven for luxury and riches. For what? To die a street slut? How Margery Paddesley must be smirking.

I looked up and saw her ahead, watching me. Margery, the Lord Mayor’s daughter, hefty, scarlet clad, white jowled, staring, drawing breath. Paddesley and Shelley either side her, making haste to stand, saliva ready in their mouths.

Now it comes
. I stumbled, missing my foothold on the uneven ground.
Keep walking, count. Try not to think
.

Margery shifting to— My breath snagged.

Dear God, she was jabbing the men back with her elbows, standing up to –
Clap
?

Margery? Applauding me? Paddesley trying to pull her down, her slapping him away, her face anxious, earnest, defiant. Around her, guildsmen’s backs stiff with shock.

Dame Juliana Shaa heaving herself up and, O Lord, regardless of her husband’s reputation, clapping as well. Alys and the Shelleys’ daughter. The men outraged. Merciful God, other guild wives, each pair of hands beginning to move. Applauding.

Applauding
? They’re applauding me!

Tears choked my throat. Gratitude almost burst my heart asunder. Then the stand was behind me. Paddesley yelling, Juliana serene as an ancient keep.

Passing the common people again. A few more steps. One, two, keep counting, three, four.

I collapsed on the cathedral steps. Mathew was shouting orders. The soldiers grabbed my arms and hauled me towards a cart. Hell erupted around us as they flung me face first into the back. Yells and shouting, Mathew trying to control his horse, its hooves rearing and crashing. I shrank back as a pack of youths fought towards the cart. They were knocking the soldiers aside, unyoking the horses. Then they seized the pole and swung the cart around.

Numb with horror, I was on my knees, gripping the wooden sides as the cart hurtled at the archway to Carter Lane. Women and children scattered like terrified chickens. The soldiers were giving chase, their voices hoarse.

But this wasn’t a mob wanting to burn me, I realised, my heart lifting. The youths running beside the cart were the street lads for whom I had found apprenticeships, and they were laughing, urging each other on, high as kites on ale and exuberance.

I struggled to keep my balance as we rattled into Creed Lane. This was wild, insane. Maybe tomorrow Gloucester would have me burnt, but I was laughing with triumph and a prayer of gratitude for God’s mercy as we reached Ludgate.

The gaoler’s jaw almost hit his bootcaps. ‘Was there a postponement?’ he demanded, marvelling at my unscathed bosom as he unlocked the gate.

‘Like the coronation?’ I retorted tartly, and my escort cheered.

That evening my foreign friends arrived with firkins, capons and minstrels. Greased with bribes, the gaolers let them in.

‘Today was quite remarkable,’ Caniziani remarked as he and Sasiola stood with me upon the city rampart that was part of the prison. They had watched my penance together from a friend’s house in New Change.

‘All beyond my understanding,’ I murmured, savouring my wine. Tonight I rejoiced; tomorrow fear would return in cruel measure.

Caniziani liked to put matters in perspective.

‘In my opinion, two things saved you, Elizabetta. Firstly, the people’s love for Eduardo and his sons, who I think will never wear the crown.’ He set a finger upon my lips. ‘Let us say no more on that for you are not yet out of danger, hmm? And, secondly, your beauty and humility.’ He read my astonishment.

Beside him, Sasiola nodded. ‘People see beauty as the sign of a pure soul.’

‘But—’ I protested.

‘No more, Elizabetta. You wish your head to swell?’

‘No, but …’ I could only shake my head in disbelief for words were beyond me.

Defiance comes in many guises: like the laughter and music in the yard below. I hoped some doughty soul would brave the dukes tomorrow and tell them how last night we danced the
saltarello
in the yard of Ludgate Gaol.

HERSELF

I

Ned’s upright brother left me in prison. I daresay he had other matters on his mind, like thieving his nephew’s crown. The morrow after my penance, the Queen foolishly surrendered little Prince Dickon to him. Perhaps she thought he might release Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, but the child joined young Edward in the Tower, and the following Sunday Sir Edmund Shaa’s brother, Friar Ralph, gave a sermon at Paul’s Cross implying the boys were bastards.

I still had the charge of treason hovering over my head like a monstrous bird of prey, and Ludgate, with the gaoler eyeing me like a cat with a titmouse, was no Paradise, so I decided to send a petition to Lady Anne, Gloucester’s wife, begging her to intercede.

‘Waste of time,’ groaned Will, as he watched me sign the letter to her grace. ‘She’s Lady Hastings’ niece, and seeing that you were fornicating with—’

‘Oh, hush,’ I chided, heating the sealing wax he had brought to seal it. ‘If you don’t ride at a quintain, you’ll never hit it.’

Gloucester hit his quintain. The third week in June, Buckingham addressed anything that could be addressed: the Lords, the Common, the Guilds – and the rats from the sewers, I daresay – and on the Thursday he led a long crocodilus of lords and citizens to Baynard’s Castle where he petitioned his cousin of Gloucester to accept the crown. With an army of northerners freshly arrived from York camped out at Smithfield, and the news that Rivers and Grey had been executed, no one was going to speak up for Ned’s young boys in the Tower. This time the coronation would go ahead – with a different king. I wept when I heard, but there was nothing I could do.

I do not know if the queen-to-be was moved by my petition, or whether Gloucester was so euphoric at his new fortune that he could be merciful, but he agreed to my release providing it was into my father’s care.

‘I am past thirty,’ I exclaimed to the sheriff’s sergeant when he came to oversee my release. ‘I do not need to be handed back to my family like a disgraced child.’

‘Mistress Shore, if you are over thirty, I’ll eat my hat. You don’t look a day past five-and-twenty.’ That buffeted the wind out of my indignation.

In Father’s absence, it was Jack who arrived to take custody. We had not spoken for seven years. He was so like our father at the same age save he wore his hair longer and he’d acquired a stomach to match the stout pouch on his belt.

‘This is a disgrace,’ he muttered to Will as the three of us walked to the gate under the stares of the other prisoners. ‘I run a respectable household.’

‘It’s a disgrace that a grown woman cannot be treated with dignity,’ I retorted, my spirits bolstered by my return to freedom.

‘What are you going to do – lock me in your cellar if I try to return to my house?’

‘You haven’t got a house, Elizabeth, neither have your silkwomen. The crown has seized all your possessions.’

‘WHAT!’ I squealed. I could have scratched Gloucester and Buckingham’s eyeballs out and hurled them to the nearest pig.

‘What did you expect, sister? Traitors’ possessions became the property of the crown. Even the clothes you are wearing are borrowed from my wife.’

‘Jack, no! Surely my release means I’ve been acquitted?’

‘Acquitted! Don’t make me laugh, Elizabeth. Why do you think I have charge of you? One false step and you’ll be back in Ludgate. I’m standing warranty for you, didn’t you know that?’