The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (7 page)

“I told them I didn’t need to have you show me around, but they said I should go anyway,” said Harry a while later. “You see, I’ve been here

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before with the Duchess of Exeter. I probably know this place better than you do, actually.”

As the youngest of twelve children I was well used to being told that other people knew things better than I did, so I merely shrugged and said, “Probably.”

Harry Stafford looked somewhat perturbed by my lack of opposition.

“But I suppose your sister wouldn’t know that.”

“My sister the
queen
,” I reminded him loftily.

“Well, anyway, I’ve been to most of the royal palaces. I’m a ward of the king, you see, and I’ve been in the care of the Duchess of Exeter.”

“I know. The duchess mentioned it when she was at court for Christmas.”

I felt that I had scored a point here, and being naturally magnanimous, I added, “I suppose you are a ward because your father is dead?” I had begun to understand how these things worked.

The boy nodded. “My father and my grandfather, the first duke. My father died a couple of years before Grandfather was killed at Northampton.”

“How was he killed?”

“Why, in battle in 1460, of course. He was guarding King Henry’s tent and some knaves killed him. He was outnumbered badly or he would have slain the cowards.” The duke’s eyes narrowed disdainfully, not at the knaves but at my ignorance. “Don’t you know anything?”

“I can speak French.”

“Well, so can I. Anyone can.”

“But not like this.” Thanks to my mother, I spoke French as easily as English and with no trace of an English accent. I launched into some prayers in my mother’s tongue, at top speed—but not, I am afraid, with the proper reverence due to the words I was speaking—and saw to my satisfaction that I had left the boy far behind me, so fast and fluent was I.

“Well, that’s not so much,” he said when I finally stopped for air. “The French are our enemies, after all.” He frowned. “You sound
too
French, I think.”

Youngest as I might be, I could be pushed only so far. “I was born in

3 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m England, for your information. And the king says I have a lovely speaking voice; just you ask him! And what is it to you how I sound?”

“Because—”

I stomped off in high dudgeon before the Duke of Buckingham could finish his sentence.

“What do you know about the Duke of Buckingham?” I asked Cecilia, my nurse, that evening as she braided my hair for the night.

“Little Duke Harry? Oh, my.” Cecilia gave my half-formed braid an emphatic tug. “When he’s of age, he’ll be the richest person in England other than royalty, at least once the dowager Duchess of Buckingham dies and he gets her dower lands. Of course, he’s close enough to royalty himself.

A descendant of Thomas of Woodstock, the third King Edward’s youngest son, and of his second oldest son John of Gaunt, if you please, through Katherine Swynford. John and Katherine had the Beaufort babes when he was married to someone else, mind you, but then they tidied things up right well after he was widowed by marrying themselves. So the duke has royal blood on both sides of the blanket. His Beaufort relations are Lancastrians through and through, and so were the young duke’s Stafford father and grandfather. I don’t know if little Harry has an opinion on the matter.”

“Oh, I think he has an opinion on everything,” I muttered.

“Eh? The young duke didn’t make a good impression?”

“I thought he was very rude. How am I to know about Northampton, with so many battles to keep straight?” I sulked for a moment or two. “Is his mother alive?”

“Yes, but as the Buckingham heir, young Harry was taken to live with his grandparents when his father died. Then the king bought his wardship from his grandmother the Duchess of Buckingham, and he was put in the Duchess of Exeter’s household to be raised, and now in the queen’s to be raised. It’s a great deal of shunting around for a boy his age, but such is the lot of the rich.”

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“Why’d they take the boys from the Duchess of Exeter’s household and put them in my sister’s?”

“My, you’re full of questions, aren’t you? Well, it’s the only way to learn things, they say.” Cecilia stepped back to admire her handiwork, as she always did. “Well, I’ve a notion, but as it’s no more than that, I think I’d best keep it to myself for now.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s my notion.”

The next day I was told that my sister had a visitor of some importance, who particularly wished to see me. After some delay, during which more fuss had been made than usual about my clothing, I was sent to my sister’s chamber. There sat a lady who, though somewhat younger, reminded me a bit in appearance of the Duchess of Norfolk. With her was my mother, newly arrived from Grafton, where she traveled to and from court from time to time.

“Hello, my dear,” said Mama, giving me a kiss after I dropped a curtsey to them all. “This is the Duchess of Buckingham. We have known each other a very long time, since we were often at court together during the time of Margaret of Anjou. The Duchess of Buckingham is sister to the Duchess of York, the king’s mother, and to the Duchess of Norfolk, John’s wife.”

Momentarily overwhelmed by all of these duchesses, I merely nodded, then remembered that I had been told by the Duchess of Norfolk that her father, Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmorland, had sired nearly two dozen children, including the Kingmaker’s late father, by his two wives. I wondered how he had kept their names all straight. Perhaps he couldn’t, and had assigned one of his servants to this task exclusively.

“She’s a little thing,” said the Duchess of Buckingham. “Why, the title will be longer than the girl!”

“But very healthy. Katherine has hardly had a sick day in her life.”

3 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m “That’s certainly to be desired. Tell me, child. I hear that you met my grandson Harry yesterday. Did you like him?”

I was still indignant about being called too French, but I could hardly tell this to Harry’s grandmother, especially as I was puzzling over this exchange between her and Mama. “Yes, your grace,” I said in a rather flat tone.

“Good. It has been arranged that you are to marry him. The wedding will take place just before the queen’s coronation. So you and I shall share a title. Duchess of Buckingham.”

I rocked back on my heels.

Since coming to court I had learned a great deal about matters of precedence, and I knew that as Duchess of Buckingham, I would be one of the greatest ladies of the land. Only a few women, such as the queen and the king’s sisters, would outrank me. Sakes alive, my own sisters—except for the queen—would have to give way to me! I would wear a gold circlet on my head. Save for one of the king’s brothers, I could not have made a grander match in all of England.

And the young duke was rich. How many castles and manors would he have to call his own when he came of age? I would have my own household, my own servants, my own ladies. In time, I would surely have my own children, set to continue this grand lineage down through the generations.

I came out of my ducal ruminations to see that my mother was staring at me with amusement. “I don’t believe our Kate has ever been so quiet for so long.”

“I am most honored,” I managed.

The Duchess of Buckingham—soon to be the dowager Duchess of Buckingham, I thought dreamily—chuckled and patted me on the head.

“Mind you, child, one of my nephews won’t be happy to hear about this.

You might as well know.”

“The Earl of Warwick?”

“My, she is a sharp little thing, isn’t she?” The Duchess of Buckingham gave me another pat. “Yes. He has two girls of his own, you see, both

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of whom would have done quite nicely for Harry with all that they will inherit, and I daresay Warwick had hopes in that direction. But we women have decided that you will suit better, and the king has given the match his blessing. So that is that. Nephew Richard will just have to fume. And fume he shall, I’ve no doubt.”

I was on the way to becoming a duchess, and I had made the Kingmaker angry. What more could a child of seven have accomplished in one day?

When I left my sister’s chamber, I saw that my betrothed was waiting for me—a bit of a jolt, for in my excitement I had forgotten that Harry and I had not made a sterling impression on each other. “So they told you?”

“Yes. I hope I shall be English enough for you.”

“I told Grandmother when she talked to me this morning that I thought you were too French,” Harry said solemnly. “But she told me that I was being foolish, that when I was older I would be delighted with your French ways. She didn’t say why. Anyway, she told me that it was either you or the Earl of Warwick’s girls and that if I married one of them, he would probably insist that I go to the North and live with him—I wouldn’t want to do that, my lands are in Wales and nearby, and a man should live on his own lands—and he would try to rule me as he tries to rule the king even when I came of age. She thought I’d enjoy marriage to you more. And she said that you would probably be a better bearer of children for me. The Earl of Warwick’s countess has only had the two, and lost others, they say, and the Duchess of Bedford your lady mother has had so many healthy ones. So I said that I guessed that you would do, and Grandmother said that I was shaping up to be a man of sense after all.”

“Oh,” I said, my mood somewhat dampened.

“And better yet, Humphrey and I are to become Knights of the Bath soon after you and I marry, right before the coronation. We might have had to wait if I weren’t going to be your husband. So I’ve decided that marrying you isn’t such a bad thing as I thought at first.”

“I am glad to hear that,” I said hollowly, and continued walking toward my chambers.

3 8 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m My spirits, however, were usually pretty resilient back then—indeed, they still are today, I think—and I soon regained them in full force. As the days before my wedding passed, I played Duke and Duchess with my dolls, letting the least feminine looking of them stand in for the duke—not that I intended any disrespect toward my fiancé. Because their play consisted mainly in saying what my dolls usually said to each other, with the added novelty of them addressing each other as “your grace,” I tired soon enough of this, after which I would count up the duchesses of England and never cease to find the figure gratifyingly low, even on the occasions when I realized I had missed one or two. There was the Duchess of York, the Duchess of Norfolk I knew, and the wives of her late son and her living grandson as well, the Duchess of Exeter, the Duchess of Suffolk, her motherin-law the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, Mama the Duchess of Bedford, and the Duchess of Buckingham. Eventually, I supposed, there would be a Duchess of Gloucester and a Duchess of Clarence. It was a select company indeed— and joining it would be me.

I soon had no need to while the hours away, for there was the matter of my wedding dress, not to mention the dress for my sister’s coronation, in which I as duchess would get to take a prominent part. As a result, my sister’s tailors were always coming and measuring me, or holding bits of cloth against me, and the days passed quickly.

John, hearing the news—he was my sister’s Master of Horse and often around—visited one morning in my chamber immediately after the queen’s tailor had finished one of his visits. As soon as I saw him, he fell to his knees, then prostrated himself. “My duchess, do have consideration on us poor lowly peasants from time to time, won’t you?”

“Oh, John,” I giggled. “Do get up.”

He did, and cut me a low bow. “So, you have met young Buckingham, I presume? Does he suit?”

“He did not want to marry me, but he will not have to go to the North if he does, and his grandmother says I am likely to be a good breeder, and he will be knighted soon as well. So he is content.”

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John laughed. “The unappreciative puppy! I am to be made a Knight of the Bath with him. Shall I drown him in his for you?”

“No, John! No! I would not want to hurt him—and then I would be a widow.”

“Very well, I’ll keep my hands off the young fool. He’s but a lad, after all. Someone older would be able to see your potential for beauty and be well content.”

“Beauty?”

“Poppet, I am old enough to remember our sister Bessie when she was not so much older than you are now. You are the image of her then, skinniness and all. And now look at her. Buckingham has a treat in store for him, ill as he deserves it.”

I pondered this possibility and found it incomprehensible. “Anyway, his grandmother is very kind to me. I like her, and she likes me, I think.”

“Yes, and so does
my
duchess. Here is something from her for your wedding apparel. She wore it when she was a girl, I believe.”

I gasped at the gold ring he held out to me. It was sized for a child and fit snugly on my right fourth finger when I slipped it on. “John, it is beautiful!

I will write to her and thank her straightaway,” I added, for my handwriting had improved immensely since I had joined the queen’s household.

“She thought you might enjoy it.”

“It is so kind of her,” I said. My lip began to wobble, just as my sister’s did when she began to lose her composure. “John, what if I can’t be a good wife to him?”

“Kate?”

“I mean, what if I can’t bear him children, or run a household, or do all I will have to do? They will send me back! We will all be in disgrace!”

John put his arms around me and let me cry upon the fine new doublet he was wearing. “Wedding nerves, even at your age, sweetheart,” he said, patting my head. “Do you think our sister and our mother won’t have taught you how to do all you need to know when you begin to live together as husband and wife? And as for children—goodness knows there