The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (27 page)

I can recount all of these circumstances jadedly enough now, yet at the time I saw them only as minor annoyances. I was ready for war and glory, and was convinced that soon all would fall into place and we would be soundly defeating the French. I actually daydreamed, as I sat in my tent at St. Christ-sur-Somme, of which French castles I might beg of the king. I’d heard of several that would suit me perfectly.

Then on August 12, the Duke of Burgundy left us to join his own forces.

The king called his captains to the little wooden house, covered in leather, that had been made for the king’s lodgings and could be hauled from place to place. “Louis has made it known to me that he wishes to treat for peace,”

he said. “His real quarrel is with the Duke of Burgundy, not England, and he is offering to make terms.”

I snorted with laughter. Terms! Plainly the man was worried.

“It could be worth our while,” Edward continued, glancing in my direction with the trace of a frown, for no one else had made a sound. For the first time, I realized that Edward was putting on weight. “His envoy was

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vague, but it appears that Louis is prepared to pay quite generously for a treaty. And having been dealing with Burgundy lately and seen the results, I’m ready to listen to his terms. In short, I will be sending a delegation to treat with him. We shall draw up our proposals tonight.”

“Edward?” asked Richard. “You truly mean this?”

“Brother, I know this is not to your taste, but it’s best for us. We’ve seen how useful an ally Burgundy is; he appears with no men, and he won’t let us into his towns. We saw how mighty the Count of St. Pol was. What can we expect if this continues? More of the same. I’ve had my doubts from the start, and they’ve only been confirmed. Don’t worry, England shan’t be the worse for this.” He smiled charmingly. “We won’t be bought cheaply, rest assured.”

“But, brother—”

“But you will be bought.”

“Ah,” said Edward. His smile was thin. “Young Harry.”

Richard opened his mouth, then closed it as I stood, so angry I was trembling. The greatest army that England had ever sent abroad, by all accounts, had been amassed for this venture, and what was it coming to? “All of this preparation, will it go for nothing? Why, we could win this. We have the men, the determination, the equipment—everything! It’s true it might look grim now, but it has before. Think of Crécy, of Agincourt. All we need is the will, the will and the leadership.”

Edward said politely, “Oh? Tell me, Harry, about your vast military experience, if you please. Tell all of us.”

The men around me were looking at this exchange with interest, caught, no doubt, by the novelty of seeing a man digging his own grave. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, which has never been my constant companion, would have stopped then and there. But I was only getting started.

“Of course I don’t have vast military experience, and I never will, because you’re going to sell us out! To sell yourself! It’s prostitution, that’s what it is. We’ll be no better than those strumpets parked outside our camp. No better than common whores.”

1 7 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “Holy sh—” whispered Richard, and William Hastings stared studiously at his rings.

“We’ll never achieve the glory of England as it once was at this rate,” I said, not unwisely changing tack. “We’ll be the laughingstock of Europe if we enter into a treaty, and what makes you think the French will honor it?

And we’ll be letting down the Duke of Burgundy. Your own brother-in-law,” I added helpfully, in case the king had somehow forgotten this fact. “I know he hasn’t been entirely reliable, but what makes you think Louis will be any better? All we’ll do is alienate Burgundy; we’ll gain nothing.” It was time for a breath. “England’s honor will be tarnished because of this, don’t you realize? Yours most of all. Why, if you enter into this treaty, you’ll be disgracing your forebears, and disgracing yourself most of all. You won’t be fit to be remembered alongside the third Edward and the fifth Henry.

Please! Don’t do this to yourself, to us, to England! Don’t treat with Louis.

Fight him. That’s what we all came here for, wasn’t it?”

“Have you finished?”

“Yes.” After a beat, I added submissively, “Your grace.”

“Good. I’ve borne with your ranting and your slanders because you’re my kinsman and you’re young, though your time for giving that excuse is beginning to run out, don’t you think? But my patience has reached its limit. Tomorrow morning we’ll be sending men to treat with Louis. I think it’d be best for all concerned if you were gone by then.”

“Gone?”

“I mean packed and headed back to England. Take yourself out of my sight now and do your best to keep yourself there. I’ll give you until dawn to break camp. Oh, and your men will be joining you. You can regale them on the way home with tales of Agincourt and Crécy.”

I stood and walked out. It was the loneliest walk I’d taken since that time I’d begged for my uncle’s life at Tewkesbury, but this time, Richard didn’t follow me. No one did. No one spoke to me that entire miserable night as my men and I prepared to leave. I was utterly alone.

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The less said about my journey back to England, the better. My men were baffled by our sudden departure and sullen about missing the action they still hoped would transpire.

Once in Calais, I had to borrow money to pay our expenses home and to pay the men. I was already heavily in debt, both from setting up my household and from this present expedition. Revenues from my Welsh estates were always difficult to collect, and I’d been at considerable expense to equip my men properly. I had hoped that this trip would be the making of my fortune.

Having beggared myself, I then had to wait around while I scrambled to find ships to take us all home. If there was any bright spot to this, it was that while we were idling in Calais, the news reached us that the treaty had been signed at Picquigny near Amiens—so at least my men could no longer silently accuse me of having blighted their prospects. There was another bright spot: when I at last rode into the courtyard of Brecon Castle, Kate, bless her, greeted me as joyously and as sweetly as if I’d come home laden with glory and booty.

By early September, our men began coming home from Calais. With them came the news of the terms of the treaty, which made more lips than mine curl in disgust. Edward had been bought off with a promise of fifteen thousand pounds within fifteen days of the signing, with an additional ten thousand pounds each year for the rest of his life. Ample pensions were to be given to Lord Hastings and to a number of others, and the king’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was betrothed to the Dauphin Charles. Richard, I’d heard, had refused to be present when the treaty was signed, and was not among those getting pensions, but even he had not escaped unsullied: he’d visited Louis at Amiens and had received fine horses and plate.

Some disgruntled soldiers had not returned with the rest of the army, but had taken service with the Duke of Burgundy, who was rumored to have been so angry at Edward’s conduct that he’d torn his Garter into pieces with his teeth. (I’d settled for slamming mine against the side of my pavilion.)

1 8 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Another man would never return: my kinsman Henry Holland, the attainted Duke of Exeter. The king had released him from the Tower with the promise that if he conducted himself well on the French expedition, he would be restored to some of his lands. Instead he drowned on the voy-age home, a victim of one of the wine-soaked brawls that had broken out between the soldiers again and again since the French treaty. I had hardly known the duke, but the pity of his life—he’d spent much of his adult-hood as a prisoner or an exile, and had been deprived of his daughter and his spouse before meeting his lonely end at sea—added to my melancholy that autumn of 1475. It was with trepidation, then, that one day around Christmastide, I looked up from my accounts (a gloomy enough sight) to find Kate standing over me. “Harry. I have some news for you.”

“The tenants are revolting?”

“Don’t be so silly. Here. Feel.” I put my hand on her belly, and my eyes widened as I realized from its roundness what a less oblivious and more experienced husband would have guessed weeks ago. “I wanted to be absolutely sure before I told you. I am with child, Harry.”

xiv

May 1476 to February 1478

It was in early May of 1476 that i nearly dragged Grandmother out of her antelope-and-Stafford-knot-covered chariot as it lumbered into the courtyard of Brecon Castle. “Harry, patience! My bones are older than yours.” She and her ladies (utterly ignored by me) adjusted her dress as I danced a little jig of impatience. “I gather Kate has begun her labor?”

A blood-curdling scream answered her question. She cocked her head and listened dispassionately. When a second scream followed, accompanied by words that I was unaware were in Kate’s vocabulary, Grandmother nodded approvingly. “A woman who can scream and curse like that isn’t weak, Harry, and it’s when they get weak during birth that you have to worry. As I said when the marriage was arranged, the girl’s mother was a good breeder, and she probably will be too.” She glanced around at Brecon Castle. “You’ve made some improvements here, it appears.”

“Never mind the improvements. Go to Kate. Now.”

One of Grandmother’s older ladies chuckled, and I gave her a freezing look.

The castle was already full of women. My aunt Joan, Grandmother’s only living daughter, had arrived the day before, and several of Kate’s sisters—I never could quite keep them all straight—were here also. The queen had sent her own midwife, who, according to reports coming out of Kate’s chamber, was feuding with the local midwife. (I could only hope that they didn’t come to blows in the middle of the delivery.) But it was Grandmother I wanted by Kate’s side, though as she disappeared behind the door of the birthing chamber, I wished she were by mine as well.

1 8 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m William Knyvet, Aunt Joan’s husband, was the only male guest at Brecon Castle. He clucked at me sympathetically as I returned to my chamber.

“Perhaps a game of tennis to pass the time?” I’d had a court installed so that my expected son could play, and Knyvet, who’d never tried the game, had been admiring it wistfully since his arrival.

“Perhaps,” I said, and kept my seat in front of the fireplace, the best place at Brecon Castle by which to brood, I’d found.

Six hours later, I heard a cry from poor Kate that shook the foundations of the castle, then a piercing wail, followed by a bang on my chamber door.

Grandmother, looking wrung out, but not as wrung out as I from sitting and waiting, smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “You have a lovely little girl, Harry. Kate is tired, but well. They will clean them and bring the baby to you shortly.”

Girl? It was not quite what I had expected. But presently the local midwife, trailed by the wet nurse Kate had engaged, came into the room (it was kind, I supposed, for the royal midwife to let her have the honor) and with Grandmother’s assistance, put my daughter into my arms.

Like all good subjects, we had never been in doubt what to name our first child: Edward for a boy, Elizabeth for a girl. I held little Elizabeth gingerly, scared to death that I might drop her, and cautiously kissed her on the forehead. Men begat these tiny creatures daily, in and out of wedlock, yet I could still scarcely believe that I had managed this feat myself. I wondered whom she would favor, Kate or me. I could have kept holding my child forever and smiling foolishly at her, except that after a few minutes she started whimpering and the wet nurse instantly reached for her.

Grandmother smiled as I reluctantly gave up my precious burden, having first whispered, “Papa’s pretty little love,” in a voice that I hoped no one else had heard.

“I was going to tell you not to let Kate see your disappointment over her being a girl. But I don’t think I need to now, do I?”

I shook my head and watched, enthralled, as the wet nurse settled on a

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stool with Elizabeth. After worshipfully watching my daughter make her first acquaintance with the breast, I went upstairs to see my wife.

Kate lay dozing in her great bed, her eyes ringed with dark circles. She had been laboring for four-and twenty hours, at least. Her sister Anne, whom I knew better than the other Woodville sisters because she was married to the Earl of Essex’s son, sat by the bed, embroidering. I’d not expected to see my wife looking so peaked. “Is she going to recover?”

“She’s not ill. Just exhausted, and a little inclined toward being tearful.

Some women get that way after childbirth. I wish Mother were here for her, poor lamb.”

Anne gave her place to me and I sat there looking at my wife, now the mother of my child. At my command, my page went on an errand, and when he returned, I took the bracelet he had brought from my chambers, where it had been stored up for several weeks, and fastened it onto Kate’s wrist. She opened her eyes then. “Harry? What is this?” She lifted her wrist, and sapphires sparkled. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a gift of thanks for giving me such a beautiful daughter.”

“Harry…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I wish I had borne you a son.”

“Why? Elizabeth is lovely. She’s sweet. Just like her mother.” I kissed her. “Go back to sleep, and when you wake, the three of us—we and Elizabeth, that is—will sit a while together. And we’ll have your favorite dishes brought to you and plan your churching and what you’ll wear. I want you to look more beautiful than ever for it.”

She smiled wanly and obediently closed her eyes. Lying still on her back, pale from her recent ordeal, she looked like a lovely corpse, and my blood chilled.
Don’t die
, I thought, and I must have said the words, for Kate opened her eyes. “Don’t be silly, Harry,” she murmured before falling asleep again. “I’m fine. Just very tired.”