The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (47 page)

I obeyed and asked the queen about the Prince of Wales, a subject, I soon found, on which she was inexhaustible. He was not in London with his parents, I knew, but at Middleham in the North. As the queen chattered on about her son’s intelligence, precociousness, and charm, I wondered whether he had remained at Middleham for reasons of state, as had been the case with the fourth Edward’s heir being sent to

3 2 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Ludlow, or whether his health kept him from traveling long distances, but it was not a question I could presume to ask. As if sensing it, Anne said, “I do wish my Ned could be with us this Christmastide; he loves the festivities. But his father does not believe he should hazard the journey to London, for he is a bit delicate. Next year, we trust, will be different. He only needs to get through this growing spell he is having, I think.”

“I pray for his robust health,” I said. To give myself due credit, I did wish the best for the little boy.

Anne rose, and I knew she would shortly be dismissing me. I was sorry to have our encounter come to an end, for the other ladies at the Minories kept a distance from me because of my husband’s treason, and I had not many opportunities for conversation these days. Impulsively, I asked, “Your grace, do you ever wonder what would have happened if you had married my husband?”

The queen looked shocked. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I was told as a child that your grace’s father would have liked to marry your grace or the Duchess of Clarence to my husband, had not my sister arranged for him to marry me.” I smiled ruefully. “It would have all turned out quite differently had your grace done so, would it not have?”

“Differently indeed,” said Queen Anne. Her voice turned brisk. “I will lend you a Book of Hours, my lady. That will help you keep your thoughts better occupied.”

A few days later, I had my reply: the king, remembering that it was the season of the birth of our Lord and a time in which Christians should show clemency to their fellow Christians, had granted the queen’s request.

Messages, at the king’s expense, were sent to Tretower and to Kinnersley, Sir Richard de la Bere’s residence. Early in January, Edward and the girls, escorted by Sir Richard himself, stood before me.

I burst out weeping for joy and tried to embrace them all at once. When

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I had finally hugged them all to my temporary satisfaction, I turned to take a second look at all of them. “Edward? Good Lord, you did dress him as a girl!”

Sir Richard grinned. “Aye, we wondered when you’d notice.”

Edward’s eyebrows had been plucked to thin lines and his forehead shaven bare. The hair had just begun to grow back. “When the king’s men came looking for the boy—which happened almost as soon we left Weobley—we decided the only way to keep him safe was to disguise him as a lass. My daughters’ governess—who is to be my wife—made him into the perfect little gentlewoman. She dressed him in my older girl’s clothes and shaved his forehead and plucked his eyebrows—my, what a howling there was that day! I don’t know how you ladies bear it. His own father, God rest his soul, wouldn’t have recognized him. But the boy was brave and played his part well, even when the king’s men were within a foot or two of him. He bore his womanhood like a man, you might say.”

Richard smiled and tousled Edward’s hair. Then he glanced around. “My lady, might I see you alone?”

I nodded and led him to an adjoining chamber. Sir Richard said in a low tone, “My lady, I have taken the liberty of telling the children of their father’s death, though not of its cause. When I fetched the young ladies from Tretower, you see, I learned that they were expecting his return any day. Lady Elizabeth was praying for it as much as an hour on end. It broke my heart to see that.”

I looked though the door at Elizabeth, who stood to herself clutching her doll, and my own heart broke, too. Sir Richard continued, “I did it as gently as I could, and I told them only that he had fallen ill and died suddenly. All three cried a great deal at the time, but I think the eldest lass took it harder than the rest. Pray forgive me, my lady, if I presumed.”

“There is nothing to forgive. I am grateful for all of the kindness you have shown.” What if Harry had taken refuge with this loyal man at Kinnersley, I wondered, instead of going to that scoundrel’s at Wem?

3 2 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Perhaps he would still be alive. Disguised or exiled, but still alive. I pushed the thought from my mind. “How could the Vaughans be so cruel, to let them hope like that?”

“I don’t know whether it was cruelty or whether they didn’t want to break the news to them. Guilt, perhaps, as your husband had favored the Vaughans and they repaid him so treacherously. They didn’t treat the young ladies ill, from what I could tell—they brought them away before they laid the insides of Brecon waste, and the Vaughan women seemed kindly enough disposed to them. But just in taking them, the whoresons did frighten the little lasses. Lady Elizabeth has nightmares about being snatched out of Brecon, her attendants tell me.”

I wiped at my eye as a series of thumps and footsteps announced the arrival of more people and goods into our rooms. The king had allowed several servants to accompany the children, but there was an unexpected face among them that made me blink. “The Wingfield boy?”

Sir Richard followed my eye. “Another liberty of mine, your grace.

The lad begged to be allowed to join you when he heard you were here.

I found it hard to say no, as his older brother may be attainted for supporting your husband and the rest of the brood may suffer as well, but I can take him back with me if you wish. I know there’s not much need for a page here.”

“No, leave him with me.” I smiled. “I am very glad to have him here.

Aside from the fact that he is dear to me, he will be good company for my sons. Sir Richard, will you be attainted?”

He shook his head. “I was under suspicion for a short time, but it appears that I am forgiven and will be left alone.”

“We can thank the queen for that, and I shall. What of Sir William Knyvet?”

“Being your husband’s uncle by marriage, I doubt he will escape attainder. They say nearly a hundred will be attainted at Parliament. But they are lucky; that is all that will probably happen to them. Several of the king’s yeomen were hung here in London.”

I crossed myself in memory of the poor men. “So all was for naught.”

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“Don’t be so sure of that, my lady. The day after the duke—God rest his soul—died, Henry Tudor was proclaimed king at Bodmin by the men there. And many men have joined him in his exile. Men have got the idea of deposing Richard in their minds, and he may find it more difficult than he expects to get it out.”

“We shall see,” I said dubiously.

After we had arranged our lodgings to accommodate all of the newcom-ers, I took Edward aside and asked if he wanted to speak about his father.

He shook his head vigorously and instead launched into an account of his adventures with Sir Richard de la Bere and his wife-to-be. I decided not to press the matter, knowing that he would mourn his father in his own fashion and in his own time. Besides, Sir Richard said he had wept. Perhaps he had cried his fill of tears already.

Anne was quieter than usual, but Hal’s company seemed to do her good, as her company did Hal. Soon they were bickering as of old.

Elizabeth was a different matter. She helped us rearrange our quarters but said nothing, not even to boss her younger brothers and sister. When the others went outside to explore their surroundings, she remained sitting in a window seat, staring into space. “Don’t you want to go with the others?

You must have had a long and dreary ride here, and will want to move about a little, surely. It will be growing dark soon.”

“N-No.”

This stutter was new also. Even when Elizabeth was just a toddler, her speech had been remarkably clear. “Well, good. There is something I want to give you in private.”

Elizabeth gasped as I took an object from a coffer and handed it to her.

“P-papa’s garter?”

“Yes. Before he left, he gave it to me and told me that you should have it if he could not come back.”

“But w-won’t Edward want it?”

3 2 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “Edward is a boy. He will have his own garter when he becomes a man,”

I said firmly, though the possibility of this seemed slim to nil. “Your papa wanted his most special lady in the world to have this, and you were his most special lady. Anne, too,” I added hastily. “But she could not take care of this properly as you will.”

Elizabeth lovingly stroked the garter as I held her close to me. “Mama? The V-Vaughans said that Papa was a traitor. That is a b-bad man, is it not?”

I mentally heaped yet another curse upon the Vaughans. “Your papa was not a bad man. You must never believe that. He thought he was doing the right thing for England, and I believe that he was.” I ran my hand through my daughter’s curls. “But we must not say that here, or we will not get to leave. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama.” Elizabeth was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “I m-miss him, Mama.”

“I know you do, sweetheart. I miss him, too.” I paused before saying, “And I know what it is like to lose a father, for when I was not so much older than you, my own papa died, and so did my dear brother John.”

Elizabeth looked startled, as do all children when realizing that their parents were once young. “Were you sad? D-did you cry?”

“Yes. All the time. But a very wise man, the old King Edward, told me something I shall never forget. He told me to remember them at their best, and to keep that picture in my mind, and that it would ease me. And it did. It still does today. Oh, you mustn’t think that it will cure your grief. It won’t. Only time does. But it will make it easier to bear.”

I fell silent, realizing that I needed to take my own advice. I’d eaten little lately and spent much of the time when Hal was asleep brooding about Harry and nursing my hatred for Gloucester. But now that my children were here, we could heal together, I hoped.

That night, my girls and I shared a bed, while everyone else doubled or tripled up as well. I watched as Elizabeth settled Harry’s garter carefully under her pillow and said a prayer. She frowned as Anne, lying between us, squirmed. “It’s too c-crowded in here,” Elizabeth said.

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I smiled to hear the sweet sound of my daughter grumbling again. It was true, what had been spacious accommodations had suddenly turned quite cramped, but I shook my head. “To me it can never seem so,” I said. “Not now that we are finally together again.”

xxiv

March 1484 to August 1485

On the first day of March, William Catesby, one of the king’s chief councilors, paid a visit to me. I greeted him less than warmly, for he had been the speaker at the Parliament that had just met. There, word had reached me, my sister’s marriage to the king had been declared void on the grounds that the king had been precontracted to Eleanor Butler, that the marriage had been made without the consent or knowledge of the lords of the land, that it had been conducted in a private and profane place without banns, and—the accusation that I sincerely hoped would follow Richard to the gates of hell—that it had been procured by witchcraft and sorcery on the part of my mother and my sister.

“I come here with an offer for you from the king,” Catesby informed me after I shooed all of the children outside to play. “Today, your sister Lady Grey agreed to leave sanctuary, along with her daughters.” I blinked before remembering that “Lady Grey” was the new official title for Bessie, who could no longer be called queen thanks to Richard. “The king has provided a pension for her and has promised to provide for each of her daughters, and he has also pledged to marry the girls to gentleman born and to give them each a portion.”

“Why would they need portions if my sister can work her magic to find them husbands, Master Catesby?”

Catesby scowled at me. “They shall be living under the supervision of John Nesfield, one of the king’s squires of the body, at Hertford Castle, where he is constable. The king is proposing to allow you and your

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children to join them there. You will be allowed a generous pension of two hundred marks a year, at the king’s pleasure”—Catesby gave an emphasis to the last phrase—“from the issues of your husband’s former property of Tonbridge.”

“That hardly seems generous to me, Master Catesby, as I was given to understand some time ago that my jointure would be a thousand marks.

Harry made a will, did he not?”

“He did, but he died a traitor. The king has nonetheless arranged to have his debts paid out of the revenues of some of his lands. I am among those who have custody of them for that purpose.”

I wondered if Harry’s creditors would ever see any of their debts paid.

“I do know a little of the law, Master Catesby. Even though Harry was attainted, I am entitled to jointure, am I not?”

“You’ll get what the king allows you to get, my lady, which is the two hundred marks he is offering you.”

“With all due respect, Master Catesby, I don’t see how this is an offer.

I may live at Hertford Castle under the eye of one of the king’s creatures, with a modest sum to live upon, one that is much less than my jointure, or I may rot as a virtual prisoner here. An offer implies some bargaining power on my part; I have none.”

“You have a lawyer’s mind, my lady.”

“No. I am not devious enough.”