The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (31 page)

in London, where she was said to divide her time between entertaining the king and doing good works for the poor. Buxom and cheerful, she was the sort of harlot whom even men who did not like harlots liked. I smiled.

“There are worse things.”

Richard, however, was one of the rare holdouts against Mistress Shore’s charms. “The creature’s got even the Marquess of Dorset panting after her.”

“I hope for his sake he isn’t trying to poach on the king’s territory.”

“He’s stupid enough to try, even though it irks William Hastings as much as the king.” Dorset was married to Hastings’s stepdaughter. Though Dorset was not a model of fidelity, he certainly could not be accused of avoiding his wife’s bed; I’d long since lost count of their offspring. My household had practically a standing order to send a christening cup to Dorset each year. “Two enemies for the price of one. The man’s an utter fool. How the queen produced him is beyond me, for she has some sense.”

I felt like a boy asking the next question, but I could not stop myself from asking it. I said quietly, “But fool or no fool, Dorset served on your Scottish campaign. So did Edward Woodville; you even made him a banneret. I wasn’t asked to go. Why, Richard?”

Richard sighed. “I thought you would ask that sooner or later. Harry, I had no choice with Dorset; the king thinks he should work for his keep, and he has the peculiar idea that he’s capable of it. And Edward Woodville is capable. Foolhardy sometimes, but at least he gives his men a fighting spirit.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Harry, between my troops and those of Northumberland and Thomas Stanley, there were quite enough of us when Dorset and Woodville were added in; we didn’t need you as well. Besides, you’ve not much presence in the North. It wasn’t your fight. And—” He hesitated.

“And?”

“You’ve no experience in battle, Harry, save for that little bit at Barnet and Tewkesbury. You’ve never led men in a fight. The Scots would have

2 0 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m made a dog’s breakfast of you and of your men. Frankly, you would have been a liability.”

“I see.”

“You’ve other abilities, of course.”

“Oh? Catching rats, mayhap?” I took a sip of ale. “Well. Let’s change the subject.”

“Harry, you shock me. I thought you would have swept everything off the table in anger.”

“No. I’m not the fool I was at nineteen, as I said earlier. You’re right. I lack military experience. Why should I be angry when you spoke the truth?”

Inside, of course, I was hurt. But I was seven-and-twenty, and it was time to stop playing the fool.

Richard continued to look at me quizzically for a moment or two, unconvinced of my calmness. Finally, he shrugged and said, “I think Hastings was rather hoping that Dorset might get at the wrong end of a Scottish sword. Aside from Dorset’s wenching about under his stepfather’s nose, they just rub along together the wrong way. Of course, Hastings isn’t fond of Anthony Woodville, either. Too different, and Hastings has always suspected Anthony of slandering him to the king after Hastings replaced Anthony as Captain of Calais. Is the feeling mutual, do you know?”

I shook my head. “Kate and I visit Ludlow once in a while, but Anthony and I are not confidants. I don’t know of anyone who is, really. Not even Kate, who can talk to anyone. He’s perfectly friendly, but he’s always at a remove, it seems. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on the Prince of Wales. He’s intelligent, but he likes horses and dogs more than the contemplative life, though he’s certainly fond of his uncle Anthony.”

“Is it true that Rivers wears a hairshirt? Ned said something of the sort once.”

“I don’t know. He’s never shared a bath with me for me to see him strip, and if there’s a hairshirt, I’d just as soon not have the privilege. For his wife’s sake, I hope he’s abjured it for the time being.” Anthony had

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recently remarried. I sometimes felt sorry for his young bride, who seemed almost an afterthought to her husband’s duties as the prince’s governor.

“Well, he wasn’t wearing one when he fathered his bastard daughter, I suppose.”

“Neither were you,” I said sweetly. “Or your bastard son.”

Richard grinned at me. “Touché.”

“How do the two of them fare?”

“Both John and Katherine are thriving. They’re at Middleham now with my son Edward. Anne put up a bit of a fuss about them coming, but she gave in soon enough. She’s become quite fond of Katherine in particular, as I knew she would, not having a daughter of her own. And they’re good company for Edward; even Anne says so now, especially as they’re likely to be the only brother and sister he has. Anne’s not conceived in years.”

“I’m sorry, Richard.”

“That’s what I get for marrying an heiress, I suppose. Have you ever noticed that either women are heiresses or they’re good breeders, but almost never both? Like your wife. No dowry, but five children, one after an—Christ, Harry, I’m sorry. I forgot you lost Humphrey just a short while ago.”

“Even with four healthy children left, I still mourn him.”

“I know, old man. Forgive me.”

He touched my hand gently. After we had both concentrated on our food for a while, he said, “Well, let me tell you what our cloth merchants have begged Parliament to enact. No one below the estate of lord is to wear any gown or cloak unless it covers his genitals and buttocks while he is standing upright. A beneficial piece of legislation, no doubt, but who wants to be the fellow who has to check?”

“Not me,” I said, my good humor restored.

Though Edward as king could have worn his gown or cloak as short as he pleased, I found myself thinking with some gratitude that he had not

2 0 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m exercised this prerogative, for the last couple of years had not been kind to him—or he had not been kind to himself. He was still a good-looking man, but he’d added to the extra weight he already carried back at the time of the Treaty of Picquigny. Going to war would have done his physique wonders.

Yet he still cut an impressive figure, dressed in robes that surpassed in magnificence anything that had been seen in England, and he dealt with his Parliament as briskly and as efficiently as he ever had.

Therefore, I received the shock of my life when, back at Brecon in April, I was riding back from an afternoon of hunting when I saw my wife and some of my men riding toward me at a fast pace. I galloped to meet them.

“Kate? Are the children well?”

“Yes. It is the king.” She stared at me as though not believing the words that came out of her own mouth. “He’s dead, Harry.”

“Dead?” Edward was just under one and forty. For all that he was no longer the fine-looking man he’d been in his youth, he’d never had a day of ill health.

“He caught a chill. For a while it looked as if he were shaking it off, and everyone thought he would recover—but then he suddenly took ill again and failed rapidly. Harry, it is so sad! The king had faults—I never liked his spending time with harlots—but who does not? And he did love Bessie truly, for all that; she told me he never had an unkind or hasty word to say to her in his life. He was kind to all of us Woodvilles, never making us feel unwelcome like some did. I am so sorry for Bessie!”

“I’m sad to hear about it too,” I said, and crossed myself.

My thoughts—God curse me for them—were anything but the kind, though. I did pity my wife, who aside from her sympathy for the queen was probably half in love with the king, as most women seemed to be; I even pitied the queen and the king’s children. But I knew this: with the king gone, my own time had come.

Young Edward—I would have to think of him as King Edward now, I realized with a jolt—was but twelve years of age. There would have to be a protectorate, and there was no better choice for protector than the old

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king’s brother—Richard. My friend, who had so often commented on my exclusion from anything of real importance. With Richard guiding the king, I would no longer be a nonentity; I would be a man of importance, like my grandfather the first duke. And I would make the most of my new responsibility, so by the time the king came of age, I would be indispensable to him. Why, he might even give me my share of the Bohun inheritance— if Richard didn’t give it to me before that.

It was the beginning of a brand-new life for me—and for my children, for that matter. I would leave a legacy of not only land but also power to my own Edward. There might even be an earldom for my younger son, great marriages for my daughters. And Kate, though she might not appreciate her good fortune now, would enjoy it with the rest of us. It was a pity, I’d often thought, for her beauty to be wasted on our estates in Wales when she could be shining at court.

Richard’s court, in all but name.

I hoped I wasn’t smiling as I took Kate’s hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart; I know you were fond of him. I shall miss him, too.”

The king had died on April 9, not too long after midnight. For much of the day, he had been displayed naked from the waist up at Westminster, where various church and city dignitaries had dutifully filed by to view his body—probably not, I thought rather disrespectfully, the most pleasing sight in the world, seeing as the king had carried so much of his weight in his belly. From there he had been taken to the chapel to lie in more dignified state.

That was the news that the king’s messenger brought us before he took some refreshment and rode on to his next destination. Just a few hours later, a second messenger arrived. He came from Lord Hastings. God rest his soul.

I liked Hastings, though we were dead opposites in personality and years separated us. For those very reasons, though, we weren’t close, so I was

2 1 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m surprised when the messenger handed me a letter. “Your grace, my lord wishes you to read this in privacy.” He hesitated. “Out of the company of the duchess.”

“Why?”

“Your grace, it will be apparent from the letter.”

I shrugged and broke the seal. It was addressed to both me and to Richard, and appeared to have been dictated hurriedly. Hastings was convinced that if the Duke of Gloucester did not bring men with him to London in sufficient numbers, the queen’s relatives, especially the Marquess of Dorset, would take the rule of the realm into their own hands, excluding the deserving, such as Gloucester and me. Already the king’s councilors who were there in London had set a date for the coronation, and when it had been urged that this decision wait until Gloucester had arrived, the arrogant young fool, as Hastings told it, had replied, “We are so important that even without the king’s uncle we can make and enforce these decisions.” The only way the disaster of a Dorset rule could be avoided, Hastings had concluded, was for Gloucester and me to bring a strong force with us. The queen, Hastings added, had seen reason and had asked her brother Earl Rivers, who would be escorting the young king to London, to limit his escort to two thousand men. If he did not, Hastings was fully prepared to take ship to Calais, where he would have no difficulty raising a force to thwart Dorset’s fool ambitions if necessary.

I put down the letter with a frown. Did Dorset really think that he could take Richard’s rightful role from him? Edward would have certainly wanted him to guide his young son through his early years of kingship, and as the man who’d soundly defeated the Scots, the man who was virtually king in the North, there was no better man suited for the task. No wonder Hastings was threatening to take off for Calais! Dorset, whose only talent was in the begetting of children, would be bad enough merely as a member of the king’s council. As its leader, he would be sheer disaster. Given the choice between him and Louis of France running the government, many an Englishman might wish for Louis.

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Clearly, this fool had to be stopped.

I sent Hastings’s messenger back with assurances that I understood the import of Hastings’s news and would assist Richard in every way possible.

To Richard, I sent a letter assuring him of the same. I was apprehensive about what might happen next, yet oddly exhilarated. Here, at last, was what it felt like to be of importance!

In a few days, I heard from Richard, not in the form of a letter but from the mouth of his messenger, who told me that Richard had arranged to meet the king and Anthony Woodville on their way to London. Would I join them?

Of course I would.

Richard told me that Anne was staying behind for the time being, though she would likely join him later, and I decided to have Kate do the same.

Kate didn’t object; she liked Brecon and our estate in Gloucestershire, Thornbury, particularly well and had our children and her ladies to keep her company. “What a fine sight all of your men make,” she said fondly as they all assembled to begin our journey. “So many Stafford knots!”

“And Richard will be bringing even more men with the badge of the white boar.”

“Northerners,” said Kate, wrinkling her pretty southern nose. “You’ll give my sister my love when you see her, Harry? And my brother Anthony?”

“Of course.”

I hugged my children—all of them doubly precious to me since poor Humphrey’s early death—and gave Kate one last, long embrace. She’d been too grieved at the old king’s death to show any enthusiasm for my advances over the last few days, but finally, the night before, we’d given each other a proper farewell. Perhaps, I prayed, she’d soon quicken with child again. Between Humphrey and the king and my elderly great-uncle, the Earl of Essex, there’d been too much death lately among us; we needed a respite.