Royal Mistress (31 page)

And so he wallowed in self-pity and despair, unwilling to take any blame for those treasonable crimes he had committed. Trumped-up charges, he had yelled back at his accusers during his trial. He had been stunned when Parliament had recommended death, and Edward had turned away, acquiescent, his signature all that remained to carry out the pronouncement.

He slurped the rest of his wine, which tasted bitter now, and he refilled his cup from the big butt of malmsey Edward had sent over for him after the king had answered George’s entreaty to visit him in prison. He had never seen Edward so unmoved, and despite George’s efforts to first cajole and then threaten his brother with eternal damnation, Edward had left him with no hope of freedom.

George huddled closer to the fire, trying not to think of his imminent execution. Would he show courage? Would Edward watch? He doubted his faithless brother would even drag himself away from his whore to witness his death. This made George weep further, and thus he did not hear the key in the door and visitors enter until the cleric among them spoke.

“I would hear your confession, my lord,” Father Lessey said, dismayed by the slovenly figure swaying on the stool. George turned to his mother’s chaplain in astonishment, the man coming into and out of focus at an alarming rate.

“Confession, Father? Now, at night, and”—he hiccoughed—“in my cups?” He wiped his runny nose on the back of his hand.

“Aye, your grace. Now. I beg of you.”

George was suddenly aware of the others in the room, two burly men he had not seen before, and behind him in the doorway his usual guards. He stood up, but his legs gave way, and he would have fallen had the priest not steadied him. “What is this intrusion, sirrahs? Who are you?” he slurred, feeling the walls close in around him.

Lessey eased the drugged George to his knees and began to recite a prayer for the dead. George tried in vain to control his movements and his voice, but he ended up slipping to the ground. “Oh God, have mercy on me,” he cried, and even the guards pitied the fallen duke.

Dragging the wailing, pathetic man to the large wine barrel, the two thugs pinned George’s arms behind him and, as he pleaded for his life, forced his head under the deep red liquid while he tried to make his legs fight desperately to keep him upright or to kick his assailants.

“The poison should have done its work,” Father Lessey cried to the guards. “Did you administer the poison?” The guards, fixated on the drowning, assented. Lessey tried pleading with the captors, but he saw they were intent on their duty. Whoever had given them their orders had obviously given them free rein to end George’s life as expediently as possible. The priest was sickened by it. He fell on his knees chanting as loudly as he could to cover the hideous noise of the victim’s futile efforts to survive.

When Lessey had learned that his mistress, the duchess, had won the king’s permission for a private, more humane death, he had been told poison would be administered in the duke’s all-too-familiar wine. But he had not anticipated this horrible drowning when he had acquiesced to seeing the duke shriven. He could not believe Edward had ordered such a degrading execution, but it was out of his hands now. Somewhere along the way he had learned that drowning was a peaceful way to die under normal circumstances,
but this had turned into a horrifying end to a life, even if Lessey believed the duke deserved to pay for his crimes.

The flailing and the terrible splashing ceased after an interminable minute when the chaplain heard one of the men say, “ ’Tis done. He be dead, all right.” Lessey crossed himself and sent up a miserere for Clarence’s soul, wondering what tale would be spread concerning the manner of the hapless duke’s death; he and the others had been sworn to secrecy, and Lessey was not about to jeopardize his position in Cecily’s employ. All he would say was that he had been present at the execution.

E
dward received the news with an eerie calm. He sat slumped on the canopied throne in his audience chamber at Westminster, flanked by the queen, his brother Richard, and his chamberlain. The king stared at the opposite wall. No one dared move for several minutes.

Richard was wondering if Edward had planned such cruel irony—George drowned in his favorite claret? Surely not. Richard looked sideways at Hastings to ascertain the man’s complicity, but for once Will appeared to be as dismayed as he was. Richard could not tell if Edward had ordered this atrocity or not. Like Father Lessey, Richard had believed poison would be administered as George’s merciful escape from the axe.

“Can this be true, Ned?” Richard broke the silence. He had come to dislike George more and more, but he had not wished such an ignominious death upon his brother.

Elizabeth was nervously picking at the fur on the long tippet of her sleeve, and Richard looked suspiciously at her. “You knew, did you not, Elizabeth?”

The queen turned away, unable to look at him. “Edward had been jesting,” she mewled. “He was drunk, and he was joking. Someone must have heard him say that George deserved to be drowned in his own wine.” She rose and then knelt beside Edward, taking his
hand. “You did not mean it, did you? Did you? Oh, Ned, what will you tell your mother?”

Suddenly, the king lifted his head and gave a great cry. “God have mercy! I have killed my brother and, by this heinous act, I have condemned both of us to the torments of hell.”

Richard went white, and Will Hastings fell on his knees in front of his king and wept with him.

W
hen Duchess Cecily heard the news at Baynard’s the next day, she sat rigid on the carved high-back chair that had been her husband’s favorite. The silence in the solar was broken only by the skittering of sleet on the windowpanes. Her ladies, shocked by the tale, watched her anxiously, but this proud and stoic woman had weathered many a tragedy in her sixty-three years, and she sensed her son’s hideous death would not be the last.

“Sir Henry,” she commanded her seneschal with her usual control, “make ready for our return to Berkhamsted. I am no longer needed at this court. And ladies”—she rose and led the way—“we must pray for the duke of Clarence’s soul.” She did not add, “and my other son, Edward’s,” although she was thinking it was he who was in need of salvation and not George, for since the time of Cain and Abel, fratricide was surely one of the most grievous of all mortal sins.

As Cecily fell on her knees in Baynard’s tiny chapel, she looked up at the likeness of her special protector, the Holy Mother Mary, and exclaimed: “May God have mercy on my son, because I shall not.”

What steps of strife belong to high estate?

The climbing up is doubtful to endure,

The seat itself doth purchase privy hate,

And honours fame is fickle and unsure.

Thomas Churchyard, “Shore’s Wife,” 1562

E
dward’s subjects would call it his golden age; Edward was forty, and England was prospering. For the first time in a century, a monarch had no debts and money to spare. Yet, in the autumn of ’82, Edward’s foreign policy floundered, due in part to the unexpected demise of the young duchess of Burgundy in a riding accident. Hated by her Flemish subjects, Mary’s husband, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, was unable to muster enough support from the burghers to stop France encroaching on Burgundian territory. He appealed to his brother-in-law in England for troops, but Edward, expending his forces in defending the north against a Scottish invasion, was unable to help. Who could blame the young archduke from negotiating a peace with Burgundy’s longtime enemy, Louis of France?

At home, Edward had other worries, not the least of which was the escalating feud between his faithful chamberlain, Will Hastings, and the queen’s family, notably her brother, Anthony Rivers, and her son, Thomas of Dorset. Over the summer months of that year, Rivers and Hastings exchanged slanders that resulted in a hanging of one of Hastings’s men in Calais, who confessed he had been put up to spreading a rumor that Lord Rivers was plotting to sell Calais to the French.

“He named you, Will,” Edward snapped, when the two men were left alone after a council meeting. “John Edwards accused you in front of me and Parliament. He said you threatened him with
the rack if he did not do your bidding.” Breathing hard, he sank back in his chair, as if the angry words had winded him.

“He lied!” Will cried, although he could see Edward did not believe him. He went on the defensive. “Rivers started the slanders last summer, saying I was plotting to sell Calais. Of all the despicable, implausible lies to lay at my door! But I would not put that past a Woodville.”

“Have a care, Will,” Edward warned softly. “That is my wife’s family you are accusing. Do not provoke me into choosing.”

Will felt a cold chill grip his heart. He had never before doubted Edward’s good opinion and favor. By Christ, Will thought, Ned was so much under Elizabeth’s yoke, he was now siding with that popinjay Rivers. He did not think Edward cared much for his handsome brother-in-law, but when it came to a choice between family and friend . . .

“My queen is justifiably offended, my lord,” Edward was saying. “Can it be that you are still jealous of Rivers after all these years? Why, I renewed your captaincy of Calais only recently, and now you are willing to risk your position with this constant feuding?”

Will hung his head. It was true, he did resent the brilliant courtier, Rivers, who had been given the supremely flattering position of governor of the Prince of Wales. Not that Will would have wanted to be nursemaid to a boy of twelve at Ludlow in the wilds of Shropshire, but it was a high honor indeed to be responsible for the heir to the throne. He did not dare mention, however, that he hated Thomas of Dorset even more than he hated Rivers, especially as the young puppy had managed to insinuate himself into Jane’s favor.

“I fear you must have that man’s death on your conscience for the rest of your life, Will.” Edward sighed heavily, as he did every time he thought of his dead brother. “Just as I have Clarence’s.”