Georgette Heyer (15 page)

But a King of England ought to show his people that he could win battles. If he did that he might afterwards do as it pleased him: until he had done it he would win no worship.

At once the King’s mind took a turn: in another year young Harry would be a man. He would hand him over to his old friend Hotspur to be taught his trade. A taste of Border warfare would blood him nicely. He had been a little too much under the influence of his uncle, Bishop Henry Beaufort, but that could be amended. The King liked the Bishop of Lincoln the least of his half-brothers. Henry was already at loggerheads with Archbishop Arundel, fast becoming the King’s dearest friend, and he had made himself the head of a Court party opposing Arundel. He would have to be watched. John Beaufort was not as clever as Henry, but far more dependable. Alone amongst the degraded nobles he had made no outcry at the loss of his marquisate: so unlike that moon-calf, Edward of Rutland, who had been sulking ever since he had ceased to be Duke of Aumâle!

Thoughts of his cousin Edward led the King’s mind to the other lords whom he had deprived of their titles, and who were not in the least grateful to him for having saved them from the axe. Huntingdon! Well, he was married to Bess, and might perhaps believe that he had only to bide his time before she won for him a place on her brother’s Council. Then there was Despenser, whom Richard had had the effrontery to make Earl of Gloucester. After Norfolk, he was the one man who could probably tell at first hand how Thomas of Woodstock had met his end. There had been little love lost between Henry and his uncle, but they were Plantagenets both, and it made Henry long to get his hands round Despenser’s throat when he thought of his share in that ugly business. He would have no compunction in dealing with Despenser after his deserts, if he gave him an excuse to do it. But would he? He was wedded to York’s daughter, the Lady Constance, and York desired peace. However, one never knew: Constance was an intriguer. She and her brother Richard of Coningsburgh favoured their Castilian mother. With all his faults, thought Henry, Edward of Rutland was more a Plantagenet than a grandson of Pedro the Cruel.

But it was Edward, not Richard, who was concerned in a new plot to murder the King and his four sons.

4

The younger princes made no bones about it: they enjoyed the affair from start to finish. Harry’s enjoyment was overcast by his fears for Cousin Richard’s safety, but the news certainly had an invigorating effect upon him. At one moment he lay wan upon a sickbed; at the next he was on his feet, tottering on his legs, but driving the physicians from his chamber, and declaring himself to be ready to do whatever might be required of him.

It all began with the arrival of the new Mayor of London at Windsor, upon a blown hackney. Master Knollys demanded audience of the King; and when he was brought to the King’s chamber he straightway disclosed a plot against the life of his royal master.

It had come from the lips of a common file, one who had lain with a man wearing Huntingdon’s livery, and had learnt from him enough to send her running to the sheriff. Huntingdon was one of the conspirators, his nephew of Kent another; and probably, since the treasonable meetings were said to have been held at the Abbey House, the Abbot of Westminster as well. The wench had not been able to remember all the names which had tripped off her lover’s tongue, but what she had recounted was matter enough for the King’s ear. Windsor Castle was to be taken by surprise, the men who were to achieve this being smuggled through the gate in the carts which carried the barrels of harness for the coming tournament.

It sounded rather improbable, but by dusk the story had received confirmation. Edward of Rutland arrived from King’s Langley on a rowelled horse, flung himself at his cousin’s feet, and poured out a tearful confession.

He had been up to the hilt in the plot. He said that he had been cozened by his sister, the Lady Despenser, and if the Abbot of Westminster thought it right to set his name to the bond, who was he to think he knew better? The Bishop of Carlisle was concerned in it too, and several lesser churchmen. Huntingdon, Kent, Salisbury, Despenser, and others had all signed the bond; and as many as six thousand of their men were mustering at Kingston at this very hour. They had with them a priest whom Richard had favoured, and who bore a remarkable resemblance to his old master; and they meant to show him to the common people, pretending that he was the King.

King Henry listened calmly to the story. His eyes scanned the blubbered face at his knee; he said: ‘And why, fair cousin, have you brought this tale to me?’

‘I repented me!’ Edward groaned. ‘I had not understood what it was that I had set my name to!’

‘You had better tell me the truth,’ said the King. ‘There may be six thousand men who have sworn to take my life, but I still have the power to take yours!’

‘Grace!’ cried Edward. ‘Very dread lord – Harry, we have hunted the hart together!’

‘The truth!’ said the King.

Out it came, Edward hanging his guilty head. My lord of York was coming hard upon his son’s heels, the traitorous bond safe in his clutch. It was he who had discovered the existence of the plot, and had dragged the details of it out of Edward; and he was riding to Windsor, not to beg for his son’s life, but to urge the King to head a cumberworld who kept faith with no man. Never had Edward seen his mild father roused to such fury! He had stood stockishly staring while my lord stamped out, calling for his horse; and he might still have been so standing but for the advice of his quicker-witted brother and stepmother. They had counselled him to fling himself astride his fleetest courser, and to ride to Windsor ahead of his father. He had done it. He added sadly that he feared he had killed that noble animal.

It was too ridiculous. The King heard Sir Thomas Erpingham choke behind his chair, and put up his own hand to hide his mouth. ‘Well, now you will come to London with me, and help me to disperse these rebels,’ he said.

Several of the King’s friends exclaimed at this, but Edward was kissing his hand, and swearing to bring the heads of his fellow-conspirators to him on pikes.

‘It would be folly to head such a stot as Rutland!’ the King said. ‘He has no more wit than a sparrow.’

‘Witless he may be,’ said Sir Peter Buckton grimly, ‘but we’ll have him under guard, my liege, or likely he’ll be off to warn his friends they are betrayed.’

‘Keep him under guard until we reach London,’ said the King. ‘After that he may warn his friends with my goodwill.’ He saw Buckton gaping at him, and added acidly: ‘If you think I mean to risk a battle against my own subjects you are as wanwitted as Rutland! Let the redeless men be dispersed! Their leaders I will take order to, content you!’

5

The royal party left Windsor at nightfall, and were met outside Ludgate by the Mayor, attended by the sheriffs and aldermen, and a company of the train-bands. The children were lodged in the Tower; and the King swept off to set on foot a number of brisk measures. He took Rutland with him as his lieutenant, an arrangement which araged no one more than my lord of York, who was so full of bitterness against the son who had done his possible to destroy his peace that he passionately urged his nephew to make an end of Edward.

The princes hoped to hear that Father had won a notable battle, but the tidings that came to them were of something quite different. Hearing that the rebels, having sacked Windsor Castle, had drawn off to Colnbrook, the King had marched to Oxford. It was said that Thomas Holland of Kent, finding Father flown from Windsor, had called him a rat who dared not face him. The princes bristled at this, but the sequel was all that could have been desired. Warned by Rutland of the failure of their plot, Kent, Salisbury, Lumley, and the Lord Despenser drew off to Cirencester, where, however, the inhabitants were so much dismayed by the arrival of a rebel force in their midst that they saw nothing for it but to take up arms against them. They barricaded the ways out of the town, and waged such a brisk war that by the small hours of the morning the lords were forced to surrender. Only the Lord Despenser managed to escape; Sir Thomas Berkeley took the other three into custody, and lodged them in the Abbey, pending the King’s pleasure. Unfortunately, a priest in their meiny fired a number of houses in the town, hoping that in the rush to put out the flames the lords might make good their escape. But the citizens, instead of running to rescue their chattels wrested the lords out of Sir Thomas’s hands, and headed them without more ado. After that, they packed the three heads in a pannier, and sent these trophies to Oxford, with their humble duty to the King. The deputation found him at breakfast in the Carmelite monastery where he was lodging; and after louting low they unpacked the pannier, and showed him its contents.

The Mayor of London delivered these tidings to Harry, as his duty was, and even Sir Hugh admitted that Harry behaved very well, considering…

It was Humfrey who was responsible for what happened. After a stunned moment, he said: ‘What – what a splendid morning-gift for Father!’

Thomas and John exploded into peals of mirth; Harry got up, and strode to the window, his shoulders shaking. The Mayor stood looking from one to the other of them, not understanding why they laughed. But the Mayor did not know Father, and probably he thought that any man would be blithe to be given the heads of his worst enemies. The princes knew their father too well to suppose that he would have felt anything but disgust. At his breakfast too, when he would have been at his most testy! ‘And what said the King’s majesty when he was given this Hanguvelle?’ grinned John.

‘My lord, his majesty was right glad, and spoke comfortable words to the men of Cirencester!’

So Father had risen beautifully to the occasion! Harry pulled himself together, and came back to his chair. He thanked the Mayor graciously, and only when the puzzled man had bowed himself out did he let go the laughter that was consuming him.

A week later Father was back in London, with the news that Despenser had been captured and headed at Bristol. The only leader of importance who had escaped was the Earl of Huntingdon; but hard on the heels of the King’s return to the City came news out of Essex. The Earl, breaking back to London, had dropped down the river in a small boat, but, being driven ashore by storms, he had landed on the Essex coast, near Hadleigh Castle; and had sought shelter with an old acquaintance, the valetudinarian Earl of Oxford, who was its Constable. Sir Aubrey de Vere was the uncle of King Richard’s dead favourite, and the guiding principle of his life was to keep away from factions and intrigues. When he beheld Huntingdon within his gates, his emotions threatened to prostrate him. Happily for him, Huntingdon had been seen near the castle. It was with relief that Oxford handed him over to the citizens who demanded him. It seemed likely that Huntingdon, like his nephew of Kent, would be headed by the mob; but before the men of Essex had reached agreement a company of men-at-arms arrived from Pleshy, announcing that my lady of Hereford had sent them to take the Earl into custody. They conducted him to Pleshy, and imprisoned him in the gatehouse. My lady of Hereford, who was born a Fitzalan, sat down to write a letter to her son-in-law, King Henry. She was as calm as ever, but her women thought that she looked happier than at any time since her brother of Arundel had met a shames-death.

6

Everyone wondered what the King would do; and even those who most condemned his clemency acknowledged that his position was awkward. Huntingdon deserved no mercy, but he was wedded to the King’s own sister, and the Lady Bess was not one to spare either effort or eloquence in her determination to save her husband from the block.

The King was rescued from his difficulty. He told his sons that he had sent a trusted officer to bring Huntingdon to London, but that before this could be done the men of Essex had taken matters into their own hands, and executed the Earl.

This statement was amplified by the princes’ cronies amongst the men-at-arms. The Earl, they said, had made a good end. If they were to be believed, he had done so under trying circumstances, for he had been disembowelled before being headed. According to one veteran, he had sat in a chair with his guts burning before his eyes, and had maintained an affable conversation with his executioner. ‘He was offered to drink,’ said the man-at-arms, ‘but, “Nay,” quotha, “I have no place, friend, to put it.” And then he forgave his enemies, and commended his soul to God, and his head was taken from him at one stroke.’

Harry, kindling to a tale of high courage, said that Huntingdon’s end atoned for all his crimes; but when Sir Hugh Waterton heard the story he said the same had been told of at least two other traitors who had suffered this particular penalty. He had seen a-many men drawn and headed, and it was his opinion that if they were not dead by the time the drawing was done they were certainly in no case to bandy words with their executioners. ‘Courage?’ said Sir Hugh. ‘Ay, no charge! A man has need of hardihood who mells himself in treason!’

Sir Hugh’s verdict was disappointing, but was presently forgotten in a fresh disclosure. Harry discovered that the trusted officer sent to bring Huntingdon to London had been none other than Thomas Fitzalan, the young Earl of Arundel, my lord’s vengeable ward. He went white when he heard the truth, and for days he could scarcely bring himself to look at his father. He said that Father had demeaned himself unknightly; and that was the worst thing Harry could say of anyone.

‘I daresay you will find yourself that knightliness and kingship can’t always be practised together,’ remarked Humfrey lightly.