The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (49 page)

“Marry her? But she’s his niece! And he declared her a bastard!”

“They are saying that a dispensation might be got for enough gold. And what’s her bastardy to him when she can give him a son? The poor queen’s quite beyond that, it seems. Even in her prime she brought only one babe into being, and that was years ago. And you saw her tonight. She’s not long for this world. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

I crossed myself. “The king might need a son, but there are surely other women who could do that just as well.”

“True, but what better way to make peace with those who loved the old king than by marrying his daughter? And it would foil Henry Tudor’s hopes, too. Not to mention satisfying the king’s lusts. He can’t take his eyes off the girl. For all he rails against his enemies as adulterers in those proclamations of his, he’s got a prick of his own, and it’s given him two bastards already.”

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“What do his advisers say?”

“Tom says they are appalled. They don’t think the people would stand for it, especially the northerners, who would consider it an affront to the queen’s memory. But what can the king’s advisers say, with the queen still alive? They can only hope that if he becomes a widow, Richard will act like a man of sense and look abroad for a wife.”

“Poor Bess. And poor Anne.” I snorted. “And poor Richard, if this marriage goes through. How will he live down the shame of having a Woodville for a motherin-law? Not to mention a passel of Woodville aunts.” I made my voice even lower. We were alone, but one never knew at Richard’s court. “Has there been news of Edward?”

Margaret shook her head. “No, but they say the king is desperate to win men back to him. I suppose you have heard about the Earl of Oxford.”

“Something of him. Didn’t he escape from Hammes Castle?”

“Not escaped. The constable, Thomas Blount, turned against Richard.

Abandoned his post and took Oxford and the garrison with him straight to Henry Tudor. That was a sore blow to the king, they say, for Oxford has known battle and is still popular in Essex. Anyway, Tom says that the king has asked him to make overtures to our brother Richard, to see if he will pledge good behavior in exchange for a pardon, and I believe he is going to ask Bessie to invite her own Tom to come home.”

“What could possibly induce Bessie to agree to that?” I asked.

“Love,” said Margaret flatly, and I realized how stupid my question had been. She sighed. “Remember, he is the only son she has left now.”

The next evening, Anne and Bess appeared in matching robes. It was a common enough honor—I had had such garments made for myself and my own ladies to wear at festivities—but Anne and Bess wore masks, so that it was hard to tell them apart except when they stood together. Then the differences in their appearance became cruelly apparent, for Anne was thin where Bess was nicely rounded, and Bess’s cheeks bloomed where Anne’s were deathly pale.

3 3 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Richard, however, appeared to be completely baffled about which woman was queen and which was bastard niece. Challenged by his fool after a round of dancing with both ladies to kiss his consort, he spent a long time looking at one, then the other, until the fool finally suggested that the court help him by yelling out each lady’s name. Yet though far more people yelled that the lady on his left was his queen, he kissed the lady on the right first. Only when both ladies swept off their masks did he realize his mistake and bestow his kiss on his left.

Nearby me, John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, shook his head. “Frivolous!

Shameful!” he muttered under his breath. “The queen ailing, and the prince dead just eight months before!”

Shameful? It struck me more as sad, for the gaiety of this court had something very forced about it. Except for Bess and Cecily and some other young people, everyone here would have rather been somewhere else—Bessie and I with our children at Hertford Castle; the courtiers in the privacy of their own homes, where they did not have to watch every word they said; the queen in the comfort of her chamber, where she could mourn her young son and not have to pretend she enjoyed cavorting next to a girl of eighteen; probably even the king among his loyal subjects in the North, where no one whispered behind his back or prayed nightly for his destruction. Even the fool had the appearance of a man whose mind and heart were elsewhere.

If I hadn’t hated Richard so, I could almost have felt sorry for him.

The next morning, the day before we were to depart for Hertford, Bessie and I were summoned to the queen. Anne looked tired from her exertions of the evening before, and her eyes had an unnatural glitter that reminded me uncomfortably of Harry’s younger brother in the last months of his life.

Yet she was not giving in to her illness meekly: she had been dressed with great care and looked every inch a queen.

“I have called you here at the king’s request to discuss a delicate matter,”

Anne said after we had given our condolences for the loss of her son and

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she had asked us about the welfare of our own children. “Perhaps you have heard something of it already. The king wishes your brother Richard to accept his pardon, and he wishes the Marquess of Dorset to abandon Henry Tudor’s cause and to return to England. If the marquess does so, the king will publicly extend his hand in friendship to him and allow him to return to his wife and children. The king hopes that you will encourage your brother and the marquess to accept these kind offers.”

Bessie hesitated. “Your grace, I must speak frankly in order to discuss this matter. May I?” The queen nodded. “His grace has treated my daughters well and honorably, as promised. I am grateful, and I know Bess and Cecily are happy here. But my son the Marquess of Dorset is a different matter.

He is a man grown, and he has conspired against the king. Worse, my son Richard Grey died at the king’s orders for a crime that he never committed, whatever the king might have believed at the time or might believe now.

As for my other boys—” My sister paused, then plunged ahead. “I make no accusations, but your grace must know what is said, and no one has given me any reason to believe that what I have heard is false. Can I trust his grace to allow my son Tom his freedom if he returns? Can I trust his grace with my son’s life?”

“I will do you the honor of speaking frankly too, my lady. My husband—”

Anne began coughing. “What a nuisance,” she said brightly when she ceased, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth. I thought I detected a spot of red on it when she brought it down again. “My husband has done much good,” she resumed. “It was his intent when he became king to see that the laws were administered more fairly, and he has done much toward that in the short time he has been king. He has taken steps to make juries less corrupt, and he has made it easier for men to get bail. He has even set up a means by which poor men can get legal redress. And that is not al that he has done. He has set up a Council of the North, which is much needed now that he is no longer resident there. He has abolished benevolences and protected English merchants.”

“I do wish Edward had given more thought to such matters,” Bessie admitted. “But—”

3 4 0 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m Anne raised a hand to cut off my sister’s speech. “But despite the good my husband has done, and that he intends to do in the future, the Lord is displeased.” The queen looked directly into Bessie’s eyes. “I need not tell you, of all people, why. He has shown his displeasure by taking our only son. The king has felt this blow deeply. So have I.” The queen’s face shadowed, but she went on calmly, “He will not risk the wrath of God further by pledging to pardon your only son and then betraying his promise. That is provided, of course, that your son solemnly swears off Henry Tudor’s cause and pledges to be his faithful subject, and that he keeps his own word.”

“I will give the matter serious consideration, your grace, and will have my answer for the king shortly.”

“Good.” Anne rose to dismiss us, only to have another long fit of coughing. “Do think hard upon what I have asked you to do,” she said quietly after catching her breath. “The king does mean well. The dead cannot be brought to life, not on this earth, but justice can be done for the living. Let my husband do the good he intends for our country—and for your own family. He needs to do it. It may save his soul.”

“I have agreed to write to Tom,” Bessie said to me later that evening.

“I trust the queen, and believe that she was sincere. But can you truly trust the king?”

“I would not have said so a year ago, but I believe I can now.” She saw my look. “You are thinking of when I delivered my little Richard to him.”

“Yes,” I said gently.

“Believe me, I never will cease to relive that moment. If only I had refused!”

“I do not think you could have refused for long, with the might of Gloucester and the rest against you. After all, you handed him over to the Archbishop of Canterbury. What man could you have trusted more?”

“I know.” My sister brushed at her eyes. “Poor old man, he meant

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well, I know; he was duped, too. But Richard is not the man he was just months ago. He knows now that he cannot trifle with the lives of others and go unpunished.”

Bessie sighed and studied her wedding band. I broke her reverie by saying, “Our brother Richard?”

“I am to write to him, too. I have even been told that my letters to them need not be read by John Nesfield.” She gave me an arch look. “That will disappoint you.”

I smirked. Though Nesfield and his deputies were not unkind to us, I resented having my perfectly innocuous correspondence read and for that reason always penned my missives in a tiny, cramped handwriting that bedeviled our nearsighted custodian and that made my wrist hurt afterward. “It saves on paper,” I had explained sweetly when Nesfield complained to me. “Parchment is dear, and I am a royal pensioner of limited means.”

“And the king told me when I gave him my answer that he will soon arrange a marriage for Cecily, too,” my sister said. “He is considering young Ralph Scrope. They are of an age.”

Poor Bess, I thought, married after her younger sister just as predicted.

“Did he say anything about a marriage for Bess?”

Bessie looked around her swiftly and dropped her voice. “I believe he is deliberately keeping her single for now.”

“Do you think it possible that he could marry her if, God forbid, the queen dies? Could she bear to make such a marriage?”

“She likes him, she tells me. He has been very kind to her. So has the queen, but I fear he has made more of an impression.”

I knew all too well from Harry’s case that Richard could make an impression on one’s heart, even when he didn’t try. And perhaps with Bess he was trying. My sister went on, “You saw how he has treated her during our stay here—it has been that way since the very start. Showering her with pretty clothes, dancing with her, putting her in a place of precedence. Cecily too, but not nearly so much as Bess.” Bessie shook her head.

3 4 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “Indeed, she is more spoiled by him than she was at her father’s court, I fear. Because this king can look at her as a woman, and Bess is all woman.

I see her eyes wandering; she needs a husband. I regret every day that the French marriage never came through.”

“What of Henry Tudor?”

“What of him? I have prayed that his cause would succeed, as I know you have also, and our prayers have not been answered thus far. Perhaps it is not meant to be.” Bessie rose and kissed me on the cheek in good-night.

“I do not like the fact that King Richard sits on the throne. But I cannot ignore the possibility that he may be on it for as long as I live, and I must consider the future of those children who remain with that in mind. I cannot make them hostages to an eventuality that may never take place.”

“But I will keep praying for it.”

Bessie smiled at me. “In truth,” she admitted, “so will I.”

It was the day after the ides of March, and my daughters and I were working in our garden when I noticed the sky blackening, but not the type of blackening that meant a storm was coming on. Instead, the sun was being blotted out, bit by bit.

I stood transfixed, unsure of whether to run for my life, drop down to my knees and pray, or simply stare at this horrifying yet strangely alluring sight. Then Richard Wingfield, who had been shooting at butts with my sons nearby, hurried up beside me. “’Tis an eclipse of the sun, I think,” he said in an awe-stricken voice. “Thomas Nandyke told me of such things, your grace.”

“But what does that mean? Will the sun come back?”

“Yes. They have happened before, he said. Sit down, my lady.”

I shakily did as I was bidden, clutching the children close to me and trembling as Richard Wingfield and a few other brave souls stood around and pointed. Soon we were plunged into utter blackness. Someone screamed (I am not at all sure it was not me), but just as I was expecting

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the devil himself to rise up, a chink of light appeared and slowly dilated.

Soon the sun was shining down on us in Hertfordshire as brightly as if it had never left.

“We may never see one of those again, your grace,” said Richard proudly. He helped me to my feet. “Some say they are a bad omen, but I thought it a marvel.”

I stared at the sky nervously, thinking that marvelous as such a sight might be, I would be well content to have seen it just once.