The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (15 page)

She patted Harry on the cheek with affection. “You would have made him a better son-in-law.”

I was beginning to wonder if I should take a walk somewhere, such an intruder did I feel. Then a genial-looking man entered the room unannounced and pecked Margaret on the cheek. I could only assume that such a liberty meant that he was Henry Stafford, her husband, and sure enough, I was right. He embraced his nephew Harry and then brought my hand to his lips. “The Duchess of Buckingham,” he said gallantly. “And a lovely one she is.”

I curtseyed. The Countess of Richmond looked at her husband fondly, then shook her head. “The worst thing about my jaunt to Clarence’s is that it angered the king once he was released and found out about it. I don’t know why—would not any mother do the same? But it did anger him.

And now my husband’s younger brother is to be Earl of Wiltshire, and my husband is to have nothing.”

“You are a Beaufort, my dear,” said Henry. “That’s cause for suspicion

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enough in King Edward’s mind. Hardly your fault. Don’t fret about John’s earldom. He deserves it well.”

Margaret sighed. She looked at Harry again. “So, Harry, you never told us. How are matters between Warwick and the king?”

“They are friendly and were planning to celebrate Christmas in great fashion together. But—”

“But what? You notice things, Harry, always have, because you keep quiet while others chatter. But what?”

“I believe that they hate each other, and would destroy each other if they could.”

“And I believe, boy, that you are probably right.” Margaret Beaufort rose.

“But come now! It is time we began the Christmas festivities ourselves.”

viii

Harry: October 1470 to April 1471

The rapprochement between the king and the Earl of Warwick was doomed to failure, as even I had predicted.

All seemed to go smoothly at first, though. The king’s council, Warwick among them, cleared the Duchess of Bedford of the charges against her, much to my wife’s relief. (I for one had never believed there was anything in them; the only thing the poor duchess was guilty of was speaking English with a much too pronounced French accent and of breeding an eldest daughter who was too beautiful for anyone’s good.) The king’s oldest daughter, the Lady Elizabeth, was promised in marriage to Warwick’s small nephew George, who stood to inherit the Warwick estates entailed in the male line. Little George was made the Duke of Bedford, and his father, John Neville, Earl of Northumberland, was made Marquess of Montagu, though he lost his Northumberland earldom when it was restored to the Percy family. That pleased at least some of the northerners, who had risen previously on the Percy heir’s behalf, though there were whisperings that John Neville himself did not think much of the lands he was given in compensation for losing those attached to the Northumberland earldom. But John, who had never joined his brother the Kingmaker in intriguing against King Edward, made no complaint. The king himself, while devoting most of his time to putting his government back in order, did not neglect his marital duties or (so I heard) his extramarital affairs. England, in short, as the new year of 1470 came and went, appeared to be on the mend. I felt rather foolish for having told my elders at Guildford otherwise.

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Then this tranquil state of affairs vanished almost overnight. An incident in Lincolnshire, seemingly a private quarrel involving one of the king’s servants, turned into another uprising—led from behind the scenes, it turned out, by Warwick and Clarence. This time, there was no doubt of their intentions. They meant to depose Edward and place Clarence on the throne.

On this occasion, though, Edward, marching north, was far too wary to be trapped. Instead, it was Warwick and Clarence who ended up fleeing the country in April, their wives and Warwick’s younger daughter, Anne, in tow. Aboard ship, the young Duchess of Clarence gave birth to a stillborn child, who had to be buried at sea. Nothing daunted by this, Warwick alternated between playing pirate in the Channel and negotiating with the French king, Louis, for his assistance. Soon, shocking news arrived in England: Warwick had formed an alliance with none other than Margaret of Anjou herself. Gone was the talk of putting Clarence on the throne. Instead, Henry VI would be restored and Edward, his son, would regain his position as rightful heir. He was also to get a bride: Anne, Warwick’s daughter.

Soon there were new risings, coordinated from abroad by Warwick, who arrived back in England himself in September, accompanied by a sulky Clarence and a radiant Earl of Oxford and Jasper Tudor, delighted at this Lancastrian turn of affairs. Edward might have dealt with this yet, but then the unthinkable happened: John Neville, who’d been utterly loyal to King Edward, suddenly turned his coat and joined his brother the Kingmaker.

Facing an attack he knew he could not win, Edward saw it was now his turn to jump on a ship. Together with the Duke of Gloucester, Anthony Woodville, Lord Hastings, and a handful of other stalwarts, Edward fled to Holland. Queen Elizabeth—heavily pregnant—took herself and her daughters to sanctuary at Westminster.

It was October 1470. Henry VI was back on the throne as King of England—and if you understood the twists and turns of fate that had returned him there, I probably have confused you.

9 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m King Henry’s return to the throne came just weeks after my fifteenth birthday, and flush with this new manhood, I had outright refused to accompany Queen Elizabeth into sanctuary. The thought of being cooped up there was grim enough, but being shut in with three little girls, and probably a fourth girl on the way, was downright unbearable.

Rather to my disappointment, as I had wished for more of an argument, the queen acquiesced readily—not, I realize now, out of respect for my fifteen years but because she had no more desire to share close quarters with a bored boy of my age than I had to share lodgings with the queen’s girls.

Because my grandmother was staying at her house in Bread Street, as was her custom this time of year, it was arranged that I would go to her.

Kate insisted on going with me—a surprise, for I thought for sure she would want to stay and help with the baby, whose arrival was expected in a matter of weeks. But she said that it was her marital duty to accompany me. Perhaps Kate, loyal sister though she was, had also thought life in Bread Street preferable to life in sanctuary.

We had just settled into Bread Street in early October when Warwick made his grand entrance into London. I could not resist seeing this sight, and I took Kate along.

That was a mistake. I had been as glad as anyone else when Kate, who at first had slunk around like a little wraith following the deaths of her father and her brother, had begun to return to her former talkative self, but now I wished she had had a temporary relapse. No sooner did the first sign of Warwick’s army appear than Kate decided it was time to speak her mind. “Wicked traitor!” she muttered. Then, evidently finding that she had made herself insufficiently clear, she raised her voice. “How can he live with himself, knowing that he betrayed his king? The real king.

King Edward!” she added helpfully, in case anyone around us was in any doubt as to her loyalties.

We were not inconspicuous to begin with. As Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, we were probably the best-dressed couple within the confines of the city, even wearing everyday attire as we were. And Kate, who

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was about twelve and a half, was no longer the skinny, sharp-faced little girl I’d married. Like all of the Woodville sisters, she had developed early and amply, and I realized that she had become quite pretty. So, too, did most of the men standing around us, judging from the admiring glances they shot her, even as she made remark after remark that would probably have got anyone other than a lovely young girl thrown into Newgate.

“Kate, I told you. It’s a complicated business.”

Kate ignored the low tone I’d spoken in as a hint. “And poor King Henry! I heard that when he was taken out of the Tower, he was in a frightful state—all dirty and ill-clothed, without much idea of what was happening. It is cruel to put him back on the throne. Cruel! Warwick just seeks to use him.”

“Kate, you must be more dis—”

“He should be ashamed of himself! All last year, when King Edward had forgiven him—which he never should have—to be thinking of turning traitor all along. What a blackguard! And look—there he is!”

Sure enough, there was the blackguard himself, the Earl of Warwick, magnificent on his black charger. He acknowledged the cheers of the crowd, managing neatly to look triumphant and benevolent at the same time (not a mean feat—I have since tried it). Beside him rode the Duke of Clarence, nodding condescendingly at the bystanders as if it had not yet occurred to him that he was not a bit closer to the throne than he had ever been.

The shouting had even drowned out Kate’s Yorkist rants. She tensed as Warwick drew nearer, and for a horrid instant I feared that she would spit on him. Instead, in that faintly French-accented voice of hers that carried so nicely, she shouted piercingly, “Long live the King! King—”

As her husband, I could slap Kate, or I could kiss her. Having the instincts of a gentleman, I kissed her, and kept kissing her until Warwick rode serenely by, utterly unaware of this treason within feet of him. I probably kissed her longer than was strictly necessary. At last I pulled back, and I saw with gratitude that I had reduced my wife to utter silence. “Let’s go,”

I said as Kate stared at me.

9 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “That was our first kiss since our wedding,” Kate said finally as we left the throngs behind. “It was
hard
.”

“Watch what you say in public, or I may have to give you another such,”

I said, realizing as I did that I had not put this as well as I could have.

The next few months were, I must admit, some of the best of my life.

The queen had kept a close eye on me as her ward, and much to my chagrin, the king when I arrived in his household had turned out to be no better. Like many licentious men, he was a strict guardian. Under his regime, I’d had very little chance to wander about London unaccompanied. Now, as my elders were preoccupied with other matters besides my upbringing, I was virtually my own man. For the first time I enjoyed idling in taverns and gambling with the ample allowance my grandmother allowed me. I was not naturally dissolute, so my adventures were of the mildest sort, but it was nonetheless a heady time for me.

My pocket money was sufficient to take me into the best brothels of Southwark had I chosen to go there, but something made me turn back on the one or two occasions my feet (urged forth by another appendage) took me in that direction. Richard had promised to take me there when I was sixteen, and I felt that if I went now instead of waiting, I would almost be disloyal to him, living in Holland as he and his brother Edward were. In any case, I felt like a bit of a fool going on my own. What would I say? Would it be painfully obvious that I had never been with a woman before? What if I made an utter ass of myself? So I resisted temptation and waited for Richard’s return, being confident that he would somehow make his way back to England. I missed him a great deal; it was the one blot on the sunshine of my days then.

In the meantime, in late October I was invited—if my aunt Margaret Beaufort’s peremptory message could be deemed an invitation—to sup with her and my uncle. There, my aunt wrote, I would at last have the chance of beholding my cousin Henry Tudor, whom his faithful uncle Jasper had recently brought from Wales.

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Kate frowned when I told her of the news. “Am I invited?”

“Of course. You are my wife.”

“I don’t know if I want to come. Your aunt didn’t seem to care for me, and there will be so many Lancastrians there.”

“You may have to start getting used to that,” I said, not unkindly.

My aunt, however, was in such a transport of good spirits when we went for supper the next day that she even parted with a smile and an embrace for Kate. “Well! Things have changed since we last met, have they not, Harry?”

“Indeed they have.”

“My son and Jasper will be here presently. Do you know, yesterday my son had an audience with the king? It went very well, I thought. Of course, King Henry is always kind; it is Warwick and Clarence with whom we must deal, though. I would like to see my Henry get his title and lands restored to him, but Clarence may be difficult. We shall see. Ah! There you are!”

My uncle Henry came in, along with a boy a little younger than myself— he was a couple of months shy of his fourteenth birthday—and a man of about forty. Kate’s eyes widened at the pair, who could be no other than Henry and Jasper Tudor, but she greeted them politely enough. Then Jasper Tudor, whose father, after all, had managed to get himself into the bed of a queen, said something about English roses that made my wife blush rather prettily. For a man who’d spent most of his time on the run, he seemed quite at home.

While Jasper made inroads with Kate, I greeted my cousin. “What was the king like?”

“Not what I expected, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was a little worried that he might be—well, you know.”

“Mad,” I agreed.

“He wasn’t, not as you would think a madman would be, anyway. He didn’t talk gibberish or anything. He knew Uncle Jasper perfectly well, and he knew who everyone around him was. But sometimes he would