The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (48 page)

Catesby flushed, and I wondered if I had been unnecessarily rude.

“Whatever you think of me, or my profession, or of the king, I’d take his offer, as I choose to call it. As I said, he’s promised to provide marriage portions for the old king’s daughters, and as your girls are his kinswomen, he might someday do the same for them, provided that you’ve stayed out of trouble. And he might eventually be willing to grant your eldest boy some of his father’s forfeited land, and help establish the younger boy in a profession. Perhaps even the law.” Catesby smiled archly at me. “One never knows.”

“True.”

3 3 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “There might even be the possibility of a second husband for you, my lady. No more dukes, I daresay, but you’re still young, and would be quite pretty with some more meat on your bones. The king might put a knight in your way, or even a lord.”

“We can leave my bones out of this conversation, Master Catesby, if you please, and a marriage to a man of that creature’s choosing does not enthrall me nearly as much as you might think. But I will accept this offer, as you call it, for my children’s sake.”

“Good. Though I normally approve of plain speaking, as you know, I would suggest that as part of your good behavior, you refer to the king as ‘his grace’ or even simply ‘the king’ instead of ‘that creature,’ by the way.”

“Point taken, Master Catesby.”

“And who knows? Perhaps if the right man comes along, the king might even allow you your jointure.” He shrugged. “Or part of it, anyway.”

Bessie and her five girls were already settled into Hertford Castle when I and my brood joined them. My sister and I had not seen each other for many months, and we had a long, tearful reunion while our nine children got acquainted with each other. Final y, Bessie stood back. Taking her prerogative as the ex-queen and as my elder sister, she said, “Kate, you look horrid.”

I shrugged. Catesby had been right about me needing more meat on my bones. But Bessie looked far worse than I; the last year had aged her a decade. Seeing that Nesfield was occupied with directing my servants and belongings to the suite of rooms that had been set aside for us, I took her hand. “Bessie—the boys…”

She said quietly, “I have come to terms with it. There is nothing more to be done. I tell myself that God must have had some reason to take those innocent children.”

“Bessie, please believe me. Harry did not know what Richard’s intentions were. I have heard him weeping himself to sleep, from regret for what Richard did. He was guilty of much, but not that.”

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“I know, Kate. And he has paid dearly for what he did do. I have forgiven him.” She sighed as I watched my eight-year-old Elizabeth gazing worshipfully at my sister’s eighteen-year-old Bess. “I still wake at night, though, thinking it has all been a terrible dream. Who could have thought it? Ned loved Richard, trusted him, denied him nothing. He died thinking that the kingdom would be in the best possible hands until our dear son came of age. And in less than twelve weeks—”

“I shall never understand it myself.” I glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. “I have heard rumors that at Christmas, Henry Tudor took a great vow at Rennes that he would marry your Bess.”

My sister nodded. “I heard it too—we had a friend or two among the monks who reported such news to us. I believe that is why Richard offered us such comparatively generous terms. He is hoping to gain the hearts of the people to stave off future trouble, and being kind to us is one such way. The people were fond of Ned, and they are fond of the girls for his sake.” Bessie smiled for the first time since my arrival. “I will tell you, though, whatever his motives, I was happy to accept his offer, for the girls—especially Bess and Cecily—were miserable in sanctuary. The king has sent them material for new dresses, and they are ecstatic. The queen has even offered to have them stay with her when they return from their travels.” The court was headed north again.

“They wish to go? But surely they know about the boys?”

“They do. But they are young and eager to have some pleasure again; they have convinced themselves that some underling overstepped his authority and that Richard told your husband that he was responsible because he was ashamed to admit that he had so badly lost control over the situation. Their story gets more elaborate and their uncle saintlier each day.” Bessie shook her head. “I cannot blame them at their age for wanting to think what they want to think, and for wanting to be where they can meet eligible men.

After all, you and I were married and mothers at Bess’s age.”

“You don’t fear for them in Richard’s court?”

“No. They are girls, which is their best protection. It would be suicidal

3 3 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m for Richard to harm them. Besides, he took a public oath that they will be in surety of their lives and that he will not imprison them in the Tower or any other prison. And the queen is kind—”

A loud quarrel had erupted between Bess and fifteen-year-old Cecily, who moments before had been chatting with every semblance of amicabil-ity. My sister laughed. “Wait until your girls reach their age, Kate! No, if they come to stay at Richard’s court, I think it is Richard who may be getting more than what he bargained for.”

The next few weeks at Hertford were pleasant ones, so much so that at times it was easy to forget that we were living under supervision and that our futures depended on the whim of the king. Though our correspondence—mostly to and from our sisters—had to be read by Nesfield, and we were accompanied by his men whenever we ventured off the castle grounds, our freedom was not otherwise restricted. My boys took up fishing in the River Lea, and Nesfield allowed them the use of a horse. The girls and I planted a little flower garden together. My sister and I taught our younger children their letters and worked on everyone’s French conversation, and the castle chaplain proved wil ing enough to instruct the boys in Latin. My Elizabeth slowly lost her stutter, and in the Hertfordshire air all of us women began to bloom and fill out again.

We had all gone for a long walk one sunny April day when we returned to find a grim-faced Nesfield waiting for us. “The Prince of Wales has died at Middleham, following a short illness. The king and queen are said to be half mad with grief.”

I am not a woman to rejoice in the death of an eight-year-old boy.

Neither was my sister. We crossed ourselves and even shed some tears for the sake of the poor child and his bereaved mother. But as we filed silently into our chambers and made ourselves seemly to attend chapel to pray for the lad’s soul, I knew that my sister was thinking the same thing I was.

Richard had killed to take the throne.

Now, at last, the Lord had exacted a price.

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In November, the bereft king and queen settled at Westminster, and it was then that the long-awaited invitation for Bess and Cecily arrived at Hertford. They left in the midst of a fine quarrel, this one over whom Uncle Richard would find a husband for first. “I am the oldest,” said Bess, tossing her head. “Why would our uncle arrange your marriage before mine?”

“He might if he finds someone closer to my age than to yours first.”

“Yours can wait.”

Cecily narrowed her eyes, which I had learned was a sign of danger.

“True,” she said sweetly. “After all, you’re almost nineteen. You’ll be leading apes into hell if you don’t get married soon. Maybe our uncle—“

Bess found a stray strand of Cecily’s hair and yanked it as hard as she could before my sister leapt into the fray. Dealing them each a smart slap on the cheek, she said, “If the two of you act like hoydens and speak like fishwives, neither of you will find a husband, not through your uncle or through anyone else!” She shook her head. “I’ve a mind to tell the king that you are unfit to be at court.”

“No, Mama, please!”

“We will be good!”

“Very well,” said Bessie. She shook her head as the girls departed at last, amicable at least until they moved out of earshot. “I do think court is the best place for them,” she said gloomily. “Here with no society but each other and the garrison they have lost all of their manners and graces of which their father was so proud. As I fear we all shall.”

I glanced down at my skirts, muddy from my riding with the boys, and could not muster an argument.

Bess and I heard sad news just a couple of weeks later: our brother Lionel died at Beaulieu Abbey, where he had been in sanctuary since Harry’s rebellion. We had but two brothers left now: Richard, in sanctuary himself,

3 3 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m and Edward, living in exile with Henry Tudor. I often wondered if I would ever see them again.

Then, in December, we heard news of our brother Edward from an unexpected source: the king. Through a proclamation in which Edward, the Bishop of Exeter, my nephew Dorset, and Jasper Tudor were denounced as rebels and traitors, I learned that the exiles had moved with Henry Tudor into France, where they had been taken under the protection of the government. Somehow even the long-imprisoned Earl of Oxford had ended up a free man and had joined what seemed to be a rival court to Richard’s.

I pondered the subject of the proclamation as I lay in bed one night in mid-December. Barely over a year ago, Richard had crushed his opposition and taken my husband’s head. Now he was plainly expecting another invasion—and this one backed by the might of England’s greatest enemy.

That summer, William Collingbourne had pinned a rhyme on the door of St. Paul’s:

The Cat, the Rat and Lovell our Dog

Rule all England under a Hog.

The rhyme referred to Richard Ratcliffe, who’d supervised Anthony’s execution, and to Catesby and Francis Lovell. Richard had not found it amusing. Still less amusing had he found the fact that Collingbourne had been attempting to send a message to Henry Tudor to invade England on October 18, a date that too neatly coincided with the rebellion of the year before. Poor Collingbourne—who had once served Richard’s own mother—had been hung, drawn, and quartered on Tower Hill just a couple of days earlier this December. The crowd had not jeered but stood silent, mourning, as Collingbourne managed his last words, “Oh, Lord Jesus, yet more trouble,” in the instant that his entrails were ripped from his belly. I shuddered to think of the death of that brave man.

And yet men kept on plotting against Richard, inside and outside of England. There was hope yet that this king might fall.

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I smiled. “Yet more trouble indeed, Gloucester,” I whispered. Then I turned over and fell into a sweet sleep.

A week from Christmastide, an invitation arrived from the king for Bessie and me to join the festivities at court. Lest we be tempted to plead the time-honored woman’s excuse of having nothing to wear, it was accompanied by bolts of fine fabric from the queen, in subdued but attractive colors appropriate for us in our widowhood.

I must admit that I did not even consider refusing, even if such a refusal would not have been wildly impolitic in my position as a royal pensioner.

Though I said a treasonous little prayer each night that Henry Tudor—or anyone—would overthrow Richard, I was not entirely sure on which side the Lord’s sympathies lay. Therefore, if ingratiating myself with Richard meant that someday Edward would be restored to his father’s title and lands, that Hal would find a wealthy bride, and that my girls would make good marriages, I was willing to plaster on a smile for the king, and this was a good opportunity to do it. In addition to that, I was curious to see his court.

Richard was not impolite to Bessie and me at these festivities. Indeed he rather suavely complimented each of us, as well as our other sisters, who had also been invited. As far as we were concerned, and probably the king too, the gallantries couldn’t have been over fast enough.

Bessie and I, a former queen and a disgraced duchess, were not the only curiosities at court. After my nephew Dorset had fled from sanctuary, Elizabeth Shore, accused of aiding him and concealing his goods, had been locked up in Ludgate prison, where, everyone had assumed, she would end her days. Instead, she had had the extraordinary luck of attracting Thomas Lymon, the king’s solicitor, who instead of merely dallying with her in her cell had proposed marriage to her. The king after some grumbling had, in his new mode of benevolence, granted permission for the couple to marry.

A beaming Lymon had brought his new bride to the festivities, where she

3 3 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m sat demurely with the wives of other officials, looking as staid and as prim as if she’d never been a king’s mistress.

There was only one lady who shone at the Christmas court, however, and that was my niece Bess. Now that she was out of the everyday clothing she had worn with us at Hertford, I realized for the first time that she was a beautiful girl. Like Queen Anne, she was tall and fair complexioned, but the resemblance ended there, for the queen, despite her bright smile, showed every sign of her recent bereavement, whereas Bess was flitting around the court as if she did not have a care in the world. It was more than that, though, I realized as I studied the two of them together. The queen, always pale, looked downright wan, as if she were not only grieving but ailing.

“They say that if the queen dies, the king will marry Bess in a trice,”

my sister Margaret, Lady Maltravers, said to me in a low voice as we sat in my chamber together that night. Margaret’s husband, Thomas Fitzalan, the son of the elderly Earl of Arundel, was on good, though not intimate, terms with the king, and because of that I was allowed to talk freely with my sister. Fortunately Lord Maltravers did not stint in his duty of bringing his wife gossip from court.