The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (32 page)

Little did I know.

2 1 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Waiting for me at Northampton were Richard and Anthony—but not the king. Anthony explained that as the day had been fine, he had decided to ride on to Stony Stratford and lodge there, leaving more room at Northampton for our own followers. Tomorrow, he proposed, we could leave at first light and meet the king, then make the journey to London together. It was agreeable to Richard and me.

That little matter of business being done, it was a convivial evening, and Anthony being older and better traveled than either of us—far better traveled than me—the conversation eventually meandered toward his adventures abroad. We’d traveled around Italy with Anthony, jousted a bit, and been waylaid by bandits when Anthony smothered his second or third yawn in an hour. “Time to retire,” he said sheepishly. “For me, at least.”

Richard waited until Anthony’s small band of attendants was lost from sight. Then he said to one of his men, “Stand by the door. Let no one pass.

Station others outside the windows.”

“Richard?”

“Harry, we must talk.”

“We must?” Truth was, I’d been tempted to follow my brother-in-law off to bed. I stifled my own yawn. “About what?”

“Anthony Woodville is plotting against me—and you too, perhaps. He means to rid one, or both of us, of our lives.”

That woke me up. I stared at Richard. “What?”

“My men have intelligence that some of his men, dressed as common bandits, mean to stage an attack on the three of us as we move to Stony Stratford the next morning. I will be killed; probably you as well. It will be passed off in London as a tragic accident.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? To prevent me from serving as protector. To keep the Woodvilles in control during the king’s minority.”

“Anthony would do that? Richard, I don’t believe—”

“You doubt me?”

“No. Not you. But perhaps your spies—”

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“My spies are first rate. Think, Harry! Anthony’s no innocent beneath that hairshirt, if he’s wearing one. For all these years he’s been the most important man in the king’s household, had the virtual ruling of Wales—at your cost, I might add. Do you think he’s keen to give all that up? If he can eliminate me, and perhaps you—he may not think you’re an obstacle, being married to his sister and shut out of power for so long—then he has a few years yet to run the country. To run the country with a king who’s thought of him like a father and will give him anything he wants.”

“But—”

“Don’t you know that he just recently requested a copy of the patent Ned gave him to raise troops in Wales?”

“I heard something of that. I assumed it was in readiness to fight the French or the Scots. Or in case there was trouble in Wales.”

“You assume too readily, Harry. The man’s a danger.”

I put my head in my hands, thinking. Anthony a killer? I found it hard to believe, but the truth was, as I had told Richard a few months ago, I didn’t know Anthony all that well; I’d sometimes wondered if anyone did. There might be things going through his head of which I’d never dreamed.

But Richard I did know. We’d been friends since I was thirteen. He’d comforted me after Tewkesbury, overlooked that foolish drunken kiss I’d given him, taken me to my first brothel. I loved him like a brother, at the very least. And we were—as I recalled now—brothers in arms. He’d supported me when I needed it. Now he needed my support.

I lifted my head. “So what do we do next?”

“The two of you are stark raving mad. Mad!”

“Shackle him,” I told the guards. It was dawn. Overnight, Richard’s men and mine had blocked every road out of Northampton and put a guard around Anthony’s chamber. My men with drawn swords were the first sight his page saw when he poked his tousled head out of the door.

2 1 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “I don’t understand. Is this a peculiar joke of yours? If so, it’s gone too far. Plotting against the two of you? Is that what you said? Harry, all I want is what the two of you want! To get the king crowned and to get back to business. There’s trouble with the French, trouble with the Scots—we need to get a council in place to deal with all of this.”

“There will be a council, don’t you fear. But you won’t be on it.”

“Harry, I’ll have a chance to clear my name, I hope, and you’ll see, I’ve done nothing but my duty to the king, to the Duke of Gloucester, and to the kingdom. There’s no plot. Listen to me!”

“We need to get moving.”

“Harry! You’re fond of Kate, I know. For her sake, won’t you believe me?”

“Oh, I forgot. Kate sends you her love. Though that was before she knew you planned to make her a widow.”

“A widow? You’re well and truly mad! Why on earth would I want to kill you? What harm have you ever done to anyone?”

I stared past Anthony Woodville and thought of what Richard had said to me as we talked late into the night. “Has it never occurred to you that there was something more than your outburst in France that’s shut you out all of these years? Ned could have put you on the prince’s council; the worst that could have happened was that you’d blunder and then he could give that shrug of his and replace you. No, Harry, there was someone else who found it convenient to have you stay an outcast, and that someone was Anthony Woodville. He wanted to keep you as obscure as possible so he could build up his own power in Wales. God only knows what rot he’s talked to Ned about you all of these years.”

“As he did with Hastings,” I had said slowly. “After he was replaced in Calais.”

Richard had nodded solemnly. “Precisely. But now that Ned’s gone, mere slander’s not going to work for him any longer, is it? He has to find another solution.”

Anthony’s guards had him all trussed up now. My brother-in-law’s voice

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changed again. “By all that is holy, Harry Stafford, I swear it! There is no goddamned plot!!”

I turned on my heel and walked away.

“But why did you arrest them? My father chose these men to serve me.

He would not put evil counselors in my household. And Richard Grey is my own brother!” The young king stared at Richard and me.

I am not proud of how we seized Richard Grey, the king’s half brother, and Thomas Vaughan, the king’s aged chamberlain. We arrived at Stony Stratford, asked to see them in private, and then gave a signal for our own men to rush in and shackle them. It was done to prevent bloodshed, and also to spare the king the sight of witnessing their arrest, but knowing what I know now, I wish the men at least had had the chance to put up a fight.

“You must trust us, your grace,” said Richard in a mild voice. From the time of our arrival, he and I had been perfectly respectful to the twelve-year-old king. “There are plots afoot that threaten not only my safety and that of the Duke of Buckingham, but of perhaps your own person as well.

These two men, I fear, are implicated deeply in them.”

“I don’t believe you. And who are you to arrest my men, anyway? Who gave you authority to do so?”

This was not going to be easy. Richard himself looked a little nonplussed.

We’d expected more of a boy, less of a king. “Your grace, your late father, my dearest brother, wished for me to be your protector. I know not what you might have been told by those bearing false witness, but that is the truth. It was his dying wish that I assist your grace in governing until you come of age—”

“You weren’t even there when he died!”

“—and I intend to carry out that trust.”

“Indeed, your grace,” I put in, “before he came to Northampton, the Duke of Gloucester went to York and swore fealty to you, and had his followers do the same.”

2 1 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m The king flicked his hand as if swatting away a fly—his mother’s gesture.

Richard went on, “Your father knew that I have governed the North for him well and wisely. He would not have put you in my charge if he did not think I would discharge my duties to the best of my ability and in a manner best calculated to bring to you the most profit and honor. I have the additional advantage of being popular with the people, which can only redound to your advantage.”

“My father picked good men for my household. I have seen nothing evil in them.”

“You are inexperienced in the ways of the world, your grace, and have had little opportunity for comparison.”

Edward drew himself up taller, looking more like his father than ever.

“And what will my mother the queen have to say about this?”

“You show your youth by such a question,” I said. “Women have no business to govern kingdoms. You must not put your faith in your mother, not as an adviser anyway. You must trust to the nobles of the realm, and most particularly in your uncle the Duke of Gloucester.”

The king gave me a mulish look, then dropped into a window seat and scowled. Something else in his face made me regret what I’d just said. I had two sons of my own; I’d not want them to be in a situation like this, with all of their familiar advisers under arrest and two uncles they barely knew telling them to trust them. I sat beside Edward and said in a more gentle tone, “Your grace, we really are acting for your own good, though it may not seem so now.”

The king ignored me. “Are we leaving?” he demanded. “Or staying here?”

We both looked to Richard for an answer. “We’ll return to Northampton once I take care of a few things here. It shouldn’t take very long.”

“Where are you taking Uncle Anthony? And my brother Richard and Sir Thomas?”

“To the North,” said Richard. “They shall be comfortably housed.”

“Can I say goodbye to them?”

I was glad this was Richard’s decision to make. He made it swiftly. “No.”

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We left Stony Stratford that same morning, the king’s household and his escort, leaderless and dumbstruck, having obeyed Richard’s orders to disband. A few attendants had been allowed to stay, though, and they trailed uncertainly behind us as we made our way toward Northampton, the king, mounted on his favorite horse, riding between Richard and myself. Just the act of doing something appeared to have lifted his spirits a bit.

Richard did his best to encourage this brighter state of mind. We took a little detour to the spot where the battle of Northampton had been fought—a gloomy place for me, as Grandfather had fallen there, but the site of one of King Edward’s early triumphs in his days as Earl of March. I suspected that Edward had not been quite as key to the victory as Richard told his son—that credit would probably be due to the treacherous Lord Grey of Ruthin, who’d chosen that day to switch sides—but I dutifully played along. When we reached our lodgings in Northampton, our small sovereign was in reasonably good spirits.

We stayed in Northampton through the next day, Richard wanting to hear some news from London before we made our entry there. Meanwhile, he found the king some business to do, starting with perfecting his royal signature. “You wouldn’t want to blot it, after all, and force your poor clerks to write what you are signing all over again, now would you?”

“I’ve already practiced it,” the king confessed, in a sheepish tone that made me smile. “I’ll show you.”

I handed him a quill and spread a sheet of parchment in front of him.

Without hesitation, the king inscribed a neat “Edwardus Quintus” on the paper—evidently, he had indeed been practicing. Richard nodded approvingly. “Have you ever seen mine? Here.” He wrote, “Richard Gloucester,”

and for good measure added, “
Loyaulte me lie
.”

“You too, Uncle Harry.”

I signed “Harry Buckingham,” followed by “
Souvente me souvene
.”

“‘Remember me often,’” I explained.

2 1 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m The king frowned. “I know what it means, Uncle.” He shook his head.

“
That
’s your signature?”

It was, I admit, an elaborate one with several flourishes, almost whimsi-cal, but it was legible. Richard pulled the parchment to him and started laughing. “For God’s sake, Harry. Signing a few documents a day with that would wear a man out. And what’s that little touch here? It doesn’t mean anything, Harry. It’s an utter waste.” He squinted. “Or maybe they’re supposed to be little spectacles here?”

“I like my signature. I devised it when I was about the king’s age.”

“It shows. And what an absurd motto, Harry. ‘Remember me often!’

What are people supposed to remember? Could be your valiant deeds, but could also be that you owe them money. I’d change it if I were you.”

“I’ll consider it,” I said huffily as the king snickered with Richard as if they were old friends. You would have thought it was my idea to take Anthony Woodville and the rest into custody.

News came from London just before nightfall in the form of Francis Lovell, who had been made a viscount by the fourth Edward a few months ago. He was one or two years younger than me. I’d seen him from time to time but didn’t know him well, and was chagrined to find that he and Richard appeared to be on the best of terms. Evidently Lovell had served under Richard in the Scottish expedition from which I’d been excluded.

“Things have been wild in London,” Lovell said, settling down in Richard’s chamber. “First, Edward Woodville has taken to sea, supposedly to fight the French.”

There had been French raiders pestering the coast since the old king’s death, I knew. Richard asked, “With permission?”

“With the council’s permission, but considering… He should have waited for you. But it gets better. As soon as the news of what happened to Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan came, the queen dashed into sanctuary.”