The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (50 page)

Later that evening, we were sitting in the solar my sister and I shared when one of the guards came in, his face pale. “Queen Anne is dead,” he said. “She died almost at the same time the sun was blotted from the sky.”

We learned later that the queen had died of consumption, having dete-riorated rapidly after the Christmas festivities. Richard, it was said, had hastened her demise by refusing to share her bed, although in all fairness to him, a king with no heir could hardly risk the contagion from her illness.

We at Hertford were not invited to the funeral, although I daresay we would have mourned as sincerely as anyone else there, for the queen had been kind to us. Instead we had to rely on the account of Bess. She wrote to us that the Duchess of Suffolk, Richard’s only sister left in England, had served as the chief mourner—it being the custom, of course, for a king not to attend his consort’s funeral—and that Bess herself had followed the queen’s hearse along with Anne’s ladies in waiting. The queen had been buried with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey.

And then came the question of what would happen to Bess. The queen’s household would soon be broken up, once her ladies and damsels and servants went back to their families or found new positions. Bess could hardly stay at court with her widowed uncle—a widowed uncle who was rumored to lust after her. Would she stay with Richard’s mother or the Duchess of Suffolk, or would she be sent back to Hertford? We had no idea, for no letter from Bess came after the one she sent about the funeral.

3 4 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m It was plain that something was going on in London, but what? Nesfield was annoyingly circumspect, as were all of his underlings.

I was sitting in the solar one rainy day just after Easter, pondering the question of how to get some information, when I saw my daughter Elizabeth poring over a book. And there I had my solution.

“I am requesting permission to visit William Caxton’s shop,” I said, batting my eyes at Nesfield in hopes that I still retained some feminine wiles.

“My oldest daughter is a great reader of romances, and I confess, Master Nesfield, I am rather fond of them myself. And I would also like to acquire a good history for my sons,” I added primly.

“Women and their romances,” Nesfield said indulgently. “Well, I see no harm in it. But who shall escort you, and where shall you stay?”

“With your permission, I shall take Richard Wingfield with me. He is acquainted with London, and he has relations there who can put us up for an evening. We shall be gone no more than two days.”

Nesfield hesitated. I dared not bat my eyes again. There was such a thing as being too blatant, and I did not want to flirt my way into this man’s bed.

“Oh, very well,” he said after a long interval. “But to Caxton’s, and to the lodgings young Wingfield shall tell me of, and to nowhere else.

Understand, my lady? I am trusting you.”

“I shall not abuse your trust. Thank you.”

Now I just had to hope that William Caxton would remember that my brother Anthony had been his first and greatest patron in England. And that when I asked him for news, he had some to give.

I proved lucky on both counts.

“Your brother was a fine man, Duchess,” William said, crossing himself in his shop at the sign of the Red Pale. He sighed. “The mirror of chivalry.”

He hesitated. “At the risk of causing you pain, where does his body lie?”

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“Somewhere at Pontefract Castle, I believe, with that of my nephew Richard Grey. I suppose there is no monument, and doubtless will never be.”

“I beg your pardon. I have caused you pain. But, my lady, you are wrong about there being no monument.” He picked up a copy of
The Dictes and
Sayings of the Philosophers
and spread it open tenderly. “This is it, along with the other books he translated for my press. They will be passed from generation to generation and live on, long after we all have turned to dust.”

I pulled the book to me and read:

Whereas it is so that, every humayn creature by the sufferaunce of our
Lord God is born and ordeyned to be subject and thralled unto the storms
of fortune, and so in divers and many sundry wayes man is perplexed with
worldly adversities, of the which, I, Antoine Wydeville, Erie Ryuersj Lord
Scales, &c. have largely and in many different manner, have had my parte,
and of him releived by the infinite grace and goodness of our said Lord,
through the means of the mediation of mercy, which grace evidently to know
and understood hath compelled me to set aparte all ingratitude, and droofe
me by reson and conscience as far as my wretchedness would suffice to give
therefore singular lovynges and thankes, and exhorted me to dispose my
recovered lyf to his service, in following his lawes and commandements, and
in satisfaction and recompense of mine iniquities and fawtes before donn, to
seke and execute the workes that might be most acceptable to hym…

Had Anthony recalled these words as he awaited his turn to die at Pontefract? I brushed at my eyes. “My own copy was left at Brecon Castle.

I doubt I shall ever see it again.”

“But there you have the beauty of printing, my lady. You shall take one with you when you leave here today, as my gift in memory of that fine man, your brother.” I smiled my gratitude. “Now, what brings you here, my lady?” He himself smiled. “Earl Rivers once told me that you were not a great reader, so you will forgive me if I think you might have other business with me.”

3 4 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “You are quite right, Master Caxton. I do wish to purchase some books—my children, you will be pleased to hear, are more appreciative of the written word than I—but I also want some information. What are they saying of my niece Elizabeth?”

“Why, you’ve not heard?” I shook my head, and Caxton said, “They do isolate you, don’t they? It is notorious in the city, my lady. Well, then, this is what happened: immediately before Easter, the king called many lords and the mayor and aldermen and most of the merchants here—including myself—into St. John’s Hospital and claimed that it had never entered his mind to marry the young lady. He declared that he was not glad of the queen’s death and that he was in fact grieving for her. He charged the people not to speak of such things, and ordered that anyone who does be seized and taken before him.”

“The king had to say that?”

“Aye.” He shook his head. “The graybeards there said that they had never seen anything like it. A king having to stand in front of the people and deny that he lusted after his niece!”

I tried in vain to picture any other king—even wicked John or the second Edward with his favorites—having to make such a speech. Caxton continued, “It was felt necessary, I’m told, because the king’s advisers told him that if the northerners thought he had caused the queen’s death so that he could marry his niece, they would turn against him, and they are the chief friends that he has. Indeed, the king had to out-and-out deny poisoning his queen.”

“
Poisoning
her?”

“I can’t believe that even of him, but that’s the gossip that’s been going around, your grace. Many believe it, after the young king and his brother disappeared.” He crossed himself. “If things were different, people might have excused this as a lonely man making a fool of himself over a pretty lass, and indulged him. But as it stands—”

“He has dug a hole for himself,” I said with satisfaction.

“Aye,” said Caxton. He gently closed
The Dictes and Sayings of the

t h e s t o l e n C r o w n 3 4 7

Philosophers
and handed it to me. “In confidence, my lady, I hope it turns into his grave.”

We finally heard from Bess after I returned to Hertford, having visited only where I promised Nesfield that I would visit and having arrived home well within the scheduled hour, dutifully bearing several printed books as well as Caxton’s gift to me. Bess and Cecily, who was to wait a year before consummating her marriage, were to be sent to Sheriff Hutton, where the Duke of Clarence’s son and daughter resided. Uncle Richard, Bess wrote grumpily, had promised to try to marry her to the Portuguese heir, but who wanted to go to Portugal? It was
so
unfair that she had to leave court because of some stupid gossip.

Meanwhile my brother Richard had made his peace with the king and had been pardoned his life in exchange for a hefty bond, although he had not been restored to his estates and had to live with one of the king’s men, just as Bessie and I had to live under the supervision of Nesfield. Though we had heard that my nephew Dorset would accept Richard’s hand of peace, Dorset himself had yet to appear in England. Whether he had changed his mind or whether he had not been able to get out of France, we did not know.

The king had more to deal with than the gossip that still circulated about him and the death of the queen: Henry Tudor, with the backing of the French, was all set to invade. As my own brother Edward was expected to be with him, Nesfield had been less than forthcoming about this, but when the king began to issue proclamations against Henry Tudor and his followers, it could hardly be kept secret.

“A ragtag army they say that Tudor has collected,” Nesfield informed us before he at last set off in August to join the king at Leicester, word having arrived that Henry Tudor had landed in Wales. “Most of them Frenchies, and mercenary Frenchies at that. And some motley Scots as well, plus a few hundred English traitors and some Welsh scum that he’s picked up

3 4 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m along the way. A scurvy lot indeed. Whereas our king has the cream of the nobility assisting him. The Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, the Earl of Northumberland—”

“The Stanleys?” I asked. Thomas Stanley, after all, was Henry Tudor’s stepfather, although the men had never met. Harry had hoped that he would join his own rebellion.

Nesfield scowled. “They’ll turn up if they know what’s good for them.

Lord Strange is in Richard’s custody to ensure their good behavior.” Lord Strange, Thomas Stanley’s son, was married to Joan, the only daughter of my long-dead sister Jacquetta. Our custodian put a hand to his throat. “For if they don’t turn up, the king will have Lord Strange’s head.”

Bessie and I shuddered, and Nesfield turned jauntily on his heel. “Behave yourselves, ladies. Until the Tudor scum is vanquished, I have given orders that you be kept close. I trust you understand the necessity.” He nodded toward a pair of his sulky deputies, whose expressions made it clear that they were unhappy at the prospect of missing battle in order to guard two Woodville women and their collection of children. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long before we’ll be back.”

“Under the circumstances, we can hardly wish you Godspeed,” my sister said. “But we will pray that God will lead the proper side to victory.”

“I’m sure he will,” said Nesfield affably. “After all, the North loves the king, and they say that the Lord is a Yorkshireman.”

God’s regional affinities aside, I did not dare hope for much from Henry Tudor’s invasion. That he was ashore was an improvement over 1483, but Nesfield’s reports, which I had no reason to doubt, made it appear that he would be sorely outnumbered if battle were joined. And if my brother Edward—singled out for special attention in the king’s latest proclamation, along with Henry himself, his uncle Jasper, the Earl of Oxford, and the Bishop of Exeter—were captured instead of falling in battle, beheading was the very best that he could expect. I thought of my youngest, wildest

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brother suffering the fate of poor William Collingbourne, and I shivered in the August sun.

My worries were for myself as well. If Henry Tudor were vanquished, what need would a triumphant Richard have to court the favor of the people, especially if he married a foreign princess and had the backing of her country?

He would be able to do as he pleased with us remaining Woodvilles and with the old king’s daughters. And what might happen to my sons, bearing as they did a claim to the throne not far after Richard’s? The older they got, the more dangerous they would grow in Richard’s mind, especially if he were unable to sire an heir to replace the son who had died the year before.

I shivered again. Suddenly these last few months of my life seemed almost carefree.

No matter what the state of my mind, my garden had to be weeded.

I got down upon my knees one afternoon near the end of August and yanked at the latest crop, trying to focus my thoughts on matters hor-ticultural. Bessie, who did not share my taste for the physical aspect of gardening, sat on a bench nearby, trying to train her own thoughts on the altar cloth she was embroidering.

From our vantage point, we could see some men riding over the moat and to the guardhouse, but what of that? A lot of local business took place at this castle, and the men did not seem agitated. I went back to my weeds, and Bessie back to her stitches.

Just a moment later a trumpet sounded, emitting blast after insistent blast, summoning everyone inside the castle to the gatehouse. Bessie and I followed the procession slowly, dreading the tidings that lay there. Then Bessie froze and pointed. “Mother of God! Can it be?”

Side by side on good horses, waiting at the gatehouse, were two men whose surcoats bore the Woodville arms.