Jean Plaidy (31 page)

“Edward's real concern is not so much with trade and the pension, for he believes he can keep trade going and still have a hold on Louis. But our sister of Burgundy is trying to arrange a match between Mary and George.”

“But Isabel…”

“Isabel is conveniently dead. If I know our brother, he will be on the look-out for a convenient match…and what could be more so than this? Burgundy is one of the greatest estates in Europe. Clarence is avid for power. He wants the throne of England, of course. In his heart Edward knows that. But there is another matter. Burgundy has always believed it has a claim to the English throne. What do you think would happen if Clarence married Mary of Burgundy?”

“I think in the first place that Edward would never allow it.”

“You are right. I know he seems easy-going, but when it is necessary, he can be strong. He likes peace. He is affable almost to a fault and it will need a good deal to provoke him. But in a matter like this he will stand firm.”

“Margaret, your sister, wants it.”

“Margaret always loved George dearly. I was so jealous of him when we were young. As I have told you, to Margaret he was always her dear little brother, so handsome and charming. Edward was the same as far as George was concerned. But Edward will certainly not allow this Burgundian marriage.”

“And Clarence?”

“I am afraid he will be vengeful.”

“Against the king? Will he dare?”

“When he is in one of his impulsive moods, he will dare anything. He does not look beyond the immediate present. He sees his wild dreams come true. I'll swear that now he is seeing himself Lord of Burgundy and doubtless…in due course…conqueror of England.”

“He frightens me, Richard.”

“He frightens us all. If he were not the king's brother—and Edward were not the man he is—Clarence would have lost his head long ere this. Margaret stresses the point that Mary should marry an Englishman to ensure that the ties between us are kept intact. We all agree. But what Englishman? Not Clarence. Not Rivers.”

“Rivers?”

“The queen's brother. Edward had allowed his name to go forward as a possible husband. It is only because the queen has pleaded for it. Everyone knows how she constantly puts forward members of her family. That has been one of the main troubles since Edward married her. Edward placates her, particularly when he knows there is not a chance of her attaining her ambitions.”

“You mean that Edward has actually allowed Rivers to seek Mary's hand in competition with George?”

“He will not allow Clarence to be in the running.”

“Yet Rivers is there?”

“Rivers has not a chance. Mary would laugh at the suggestion. So would everyone else…except the queen, who is robbed of her good sense where the promotion of her family is concerned. She thinks that because she, a woman of no standing, succeeded in marrying a king, she can pair off members of her family with all the great houses, not only in England but in Europe.”

“And your sister Margaret favors Clarence! Does she have much influence with Mary?”

“She may have, but Mary is a strong-minded young woman. She will have her own views, I doubt not. What she needs is a strong man beside her and neither Clarence nor Rivers would fit the role. She would, of course, reject them both. But, in view of Margaret's preference for George, Edward says he cannot allow his name to go forward.”

“I can see why he is worried. But what will Clarence say when he, the king's brother, is rejected by the king while Rivers is offered?”

“He will be furious. There is no doubt of that.”

“And say that the king favored his wife's brother and rejected his own.”

“He will say a great many things, then lose his senses in his favorite malmsey and think up some ambitious project.”

How I wished we could leave court and all the intrigues. My heart was in Middleham. I think Richard's was, too.

I was with Richard when Clarence stormed in. Richard dismissed everyone else and I was alone with him and his brother.

“I will endure this no more,” burst out Clarence. “There is a conspiracy against me.”

“That is not so, George,” began Richard. “And if you are referring to this Burgundy matter…”

“My brother would not allow me to accept the offer. Yet that nobody…that upstart, prancing Rivers…”

“George, Edward knew from the beginning that Rivers would be unacceptable.”

“He has insulted me. I am not good enough. I, the king's brother, the Duke of Clarence of the House of York…yet that ninny…just because he is the brother of that…witch! God give me patience. How much longer shall I endure these insults? I…who have every right to the crown of this land…”

“George, be careful,” said Richard.

“You, brother. You are a toady. Edward is the king, you say. You dance to his tune. You are his favorite brother because you have no spirit. We should stand against him…both of us.”

“This is treason,” said Richard.

George laughed at him. “The good little brother. Was it not always so? Edward is right. Edward is wonderful. We must obey Edward, even when he marries a witch. Edward could never leave women alone…and he learns nothing. He is duped by that witch who would set her family up against us. This is the end.”

“Have a care, George, lest it should be the end of Edward's leniency toward you.”

“I shall endure no more.”

“You have endured nothing. Mary herself will choose her husband. If she wants you, the offer will be made, and rest assured she will laugh the idea of Rivers to scorn.”

“Our brother must be mad to allow his name to be suggested.”

“Only because it will not be received with any seriousness.”

“Our sister Margaret wants me. She has said so.”

“George, if Mary wants you, rest assured there will be a match for you with Burgundy.”

“Edward will try to stop it.”

“Wait and see.”

“You and I should stand against this tyranny. Oh, I know you, little Gloucester. You would never stand against Edward…treat you how he would.”

“I have never had anything but love and kindness from him.”

“That's because you toady all the time.”

“Would it not be better if you were a little more loyal to the king?”

George stalked impatiently from the chamber.

When he had gone, Richard said, “You see how indiscreet he is? I only hope he does not destroy himself.”

“If he is destroyed, he will have none but himself to blame.”

“He is inflamed by wine. He will calm down in time.”

“I hope it will be soon. He seems very eager to marry again although it is only a short time since Isabel died. I thought he cared for her. I know she cared for him.”

“A lot of people have cared for George. We all did. I have told you often how Margaret and Edward doted on him. George cares only for himself. He is a dreamer of wild dreams. He sees a consummation of these dreams but he refuses to accept what is necessary to reach it. That is his trouble. He has already had a try for the throne with your father. He refuses to see that Edward has been amazingly kind to him, to take him back…to treat him like a brother. Anyone but George would have learned his lesson. But George never learns. I fear for him and for us.”

“Richard, you have so many cares,” I said. “I wish we could go home and live quietly.”

Richard sighed and I knew he shared my wish.

Clarence was certainly in a wild mood. His anger was directed mainly against the Woodvilles, and he decided to take the law into his own hands.

At first there were rumors that shocked me deeply.

I heard two of the women who had accompanied me from Middleham discussing Isabel and I wanted to know what they were saying about my sister. They were loth to tell me at first, but I insisted.

“They are saying that she was poisoned, my lady,” said one.

“Poisoned! My sister! That is not true.”

“My lady, it is what is said.”

“I want to know more of this.”

“The duke, my lady, is prostrate with grief.”

Prostrate with grief, I thought! It did not seem so since he was proposing to marry Mary of Burgundy.

“They say he is determined to find the culprits.”

They could tell me no more. I asked Richard about it.

“There will often be such rumors,” he said. “One should not take a great deal of notice of them. It may be that someone was saying Isabel was young to die and the rumor starts. People are always ready to suspect poison when someone dies.”

“Isabel was never strong.”

Richard looked at me anxiously. I guessed what he was thinking. Why should Warwick, the strong man, and his healthy wife, produce only two delicate daughters? I guessed that thought had often been in his mind. With Isabel's death, his anxiety about my health had been increased.

I went to him and laid my hand on his arm.

“I am going to live for a long time,” I said. “I must…for you and Edward. As for Isabel…that last child, little Richard, was too much for her. She was not well before. She had already had three children…the last two too soon together. This rumor of poison is nonsense.”

On Isabel's death Ankarette Twynyho had returned to her native village in Somerset and decided that she would settle there among members of her family. I am sure Ankarette would have been very contented and would have become quite a figure in the village with her anecdotes about the court and people in high places.

She had served the queen as well as my sister and therefore Clarence turned his attention to her.

He must have been the one who set in circulation the rumors that his wife has been poisoned, and as his hatred against the Woodville family had been intensified by this recent rivalry for the hand of Mary of Burgundy, he decided he would find a way of calling attention to their villainy.

With a company of guards he rode down to Somerset and there found Ankarette. His men seized her and took her off to Warwick to be tried for the murder of my sister and her baby son.

Clarence implied that she was a servant of the queen and that the queen had sent her to my sister with instructions to poison her and her child.

He set up his own judge and jury who, on his orders, found her guilty of the crime and condemned her to death by hanging.

The sentence was carried out without delay.

When I heard the news I was overcome with horror. I had known Ankarette well. She was quite incapable of such a deed. She had been very fond of Isabel and had loved all children.

Clarence was crazy. Why should she want to poison Isabel? Clarence hinted that the woman was obeying the orders of her mistress, the queen.

Richard was both bewildered and shocked.

“What a fool my brother is!” he cried. “He acts without thinking. He just wants to strike a blow at the Woodvilles and he does this terrible thing to an innocent woman. After this, they will work against him more than they ever did before. He has proclaimed himself not only their enemy but as a reckless, foolish man, a creature of no judgment. He will destroy himself.”

I thought perhaps that would be the best thing…for him and for us all.

“You see what he has done?” went on Richard. “He has not only murdered this innocent woman, but he has behaved in a manner that would only be permissible if he were king. He has taken the law into his own hands, which no subject must do. He must stop this rash behavior or he will certainly find himself in such danger from which even the king will not be able to save him.”

As for myself, I was shocked beyond measure. I could only think of poor Ankarette, that chatty, lovable woman, hanging lifeless from a rope.

MYSTERY IN THE BOWYER TOWER

I
t was a great relief to return to the sanity of Middleham. How thankful I was that Richard was lord of the northern marches, so that we could live there in the free fresh air.

There was a great welcome for us. The children were waiting to greet us. My anxious eyes went immediately to Edward. His cheeks were pink because he was excited and that gave him a healthier look. I was eager to discover how he had been while I was away. As for the other two, they were clearly in good health and spirits. I saw the pride in Richard's eyes as they rested on them, and also the faint anxiety when his eyes turned to our son.

Isabel's death and that of Ankarette had upset me a great deal. Isabel had never been robust but her daughter, Margaret, appeared to be a fine healthy child. I had heard that Edward, the Earl of Warwick—for the title had gone to Clarence—was quite healthy but lacking, so it was said; slow to speak, slow to walk. My Edward was bright enough; it was just that he was a little frail compared with his half-brother and -sister.

I must stop worrying about his health, I chided myself. I must stop thinking about Ankarette. I must stop that dread I was beginning to feel concerning my brother-in-law. But having once been the victim of one of his mad schemes made that difficult. He was ruthless in his quest for power.

I wondered how long the king would allow him to go on wreaking havoc on the lives of those about him; and once more I rejoiced that we were removed from court and such intrigues.

Those were uneasy months. We had the occasional visitor from court and when we learned what was happening there my relief was intensified.

We heard that there appeared to be open hostility between the king and the Duke of Clarence, and that Clarence made a point of staying away from court as much as possible. On the rare occasions when he was at the royal table he ostentatiously inspected each dish that was put before him and refused all drinks. It was a studied manner of implying that he suspected poison. He talked openly about the manner in which his wife had been poisoned and the wicked woman who had been sent by the queen to perform the dastardly deed. She had been rightly punished, but it was those who paid her to commit the crime who were the true culprits.

Such talk was very dangerous.

“It is said,” our visitor told us, “that the king is fast losing patience with the duke. As for the queen and her family, they are determined to be rid of him. I am sure some charge will be brought against him ere long. They do not take the accusation of being involved in his wife's death lightly.”

Richard said little to our guest, but afterward he confided in me that Edward must be realizing at last that he would have to take some action against George. Who could guess what mad scheme was on his mind?

Even in the north we heard of the trial of Dr. John Stacey. In fact the whole country was soon talking about it.

Stacey was an astronomer at Oxford who was accused of witchcraft. He was arrested and under torture admitted that he dabbled in the evil arts and implicated a certain Thomas Burdett who was employed in Clarence's household.

That was when interest in the case became so widespread, because under torture Burdett admitted that they were studying the stars for the purpose of reading the fate of the king.

Even Edward must take note of this. He had set up judges to discover the nature of these investigations and the verdict was that these people had been concerned in prophesying the death of the king and, moreover, using their arts to bring this about. This was treason and sentence was passed on all the men involved. They were taken to Tyburn and hanged.

This should have been a warning to Clarence, as one of the accused was a member of his household.

Clarence never learned lessons. He railed against the injustice done to innocent men. He blamed the Woodvilles. They controlled the king. The king had no power over his wife and her rapacious relatives were running—and ruining—the country.

Every day we waited to hear of some outrageous act. Edward's patience was at an end.

It was a June day when a messenger came to Middleham from the king. Clarence had been committed to the Tower and Richard was commanded to come to court without delay.

The king's younger son, Richard, Duke of York, was to marry Anne Mowbray, heiress of Norfolk, and Richard must play his part in the ceremony.

“Marry!” I cried, when Richard told me. “He is only a child.”

“I believe all of four years old and his bride is six. But she is one of the richest heiresses in the country. This will be the queen's contriving.”

I was horrified to contemplate such a marriage. Why, the boy was much the same age as my own son Edward.

However, for such an occasion, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester must be present.

It was a long and tiresome journey and I knew Richard's heart was heavy. Clarence was a menace and there would be no peace while he was allowed to pursue his rebellious ways—but for a brother to be a prisoner in the Tower was something Richard found hard to accept. I was sure the king felt the same.

When we arrived in London, Richard went at once to the king. He was with him for a long time and when he came back he was very sorrowful.

“I think Edward is probably going to forgive him,” he said. “He cannot bear to think of the little boy whom he used to love so dearly as an enemy. He said to me, ‘He wants my crown, Richard. I believe nothing else will satisfy him. He is so wild…so foolish. How long does he think he would last as king? He never thinks beyond the moment. There is more to being a king than wearing a crown and smiling at the loyal shouts of the people. George will never understand this.' I said, ‘You have done the only thing possible by sending him to the Tower. He will come to his senses there. It seems the only way to make him realize the dangerous position he has put himself in.' I think he agreed with me but he is wavering.”

It was shortly after that when Cecily, Duchess of York came to visit us. The duchess, Richard's mother and my father's aunt, was a lady of great presence. She was indeed one of the most regal persons I have ever met; and I believe that since her son Edward came to the throne she behaved as though she were a queen, demanding homage from all those who came into contact with her.

In her presence one felt impelled to show the respect due to royalty.

She was a very handsome woman. In her youth she had been noted for her beauty and known as The Rose of Raby; but now her face was ravaged by sorrow. I had heard that she had never recovered from the death of her husband, for they had been a devoted couple and she had accompanied him on many of his campaigns even when she was pregnant, which she invariably was at that time.

Seeing her now in her old age, but still a commanding figure, I could imagine how angry and humiliated she had felt when her husband's head, adorned with a paper crown, had been set on the walls of York. It must be a consolation for such a woman that her son, Edward, was now King of England.

I went to her and knelt, which seemed the natural thing to do in her presence. She bade me rise.

She said, “I am in great distress. I would speak with Richard.”

“My lady,” said Richard. “Anne and I have no secrets from each other. You need have no fear to speak before her.”

She looked at me intently. Then she said, “Very well. Stay here. It is of George I wish to speak.”

“George is the king's prisoner,” said Richard in dismay.

“His own brother!” cried the duchess. “There should not be quarrels within the family.”

“George has been behaving very foolishly,” said Richard. “He has done so many reckless things damaging to the king. And now he has allowed himself to be involved in this witchcraft plot against the king's life.”

“George is a little careless. He means no harm, I am sure.”

Richard looked faintly exasperated. I guessed he had heard that said so often in his childhood.

“My lady mother,” he said, “you must know that George has committed many acts for which other men would have lost their heads.”

She looked at him disbelievingly. “I know he has a streak of mischief.”

“Mischief indeed! Do you know he shut Anne up in a cookshop and left her there to work in the kitchens? Do you call that a streak of mischief? He should have lost his head for that alone.”

“Richard! You are speaking of your brother.”

“I know it and I wish he were any man's brother but mine.”

“You must not talk thus of George. Anne, you must persuade him. You must understand that this is his brother…my son!”

“Could
you
not speak to the king, my lady? George's fate is in his hands.”

“I have spoken to the king. Naturally I spoke to him first.”

“And did he not listen?” asked Richard.

“He listened. He was all charm and sympathy, but there was a hardness in his face. It was that woman.
She
is against George. Edward should never have married her.”

“I believe that at this time it is not the queen but Edward himself who is beginning to realize what a danger George is to him.”

“Listen to me, Richard. Edward is fond of you. You are his favorite. You always adored him so blatantly. Edward is a fine man…a great king…but he grows hard. And we are speaking of his brother.”

“Edward is the most forgiving man I know. He has forgiven George over and over again. But this time George has gone too far.”

“But you will speak to him, Richard. I, your mother, beg you to. No…I command you to. George is mischievous. Edward knows this. It is not to be taken too seriously. If you will talk to Edward…explain he means no harm…he will listen to you.”

“I think he will make up his own mind in this matter. George has been judged a traitor and you know the penalty for that, my lady.”

“Edward cannot allow his own brother to be put to death!”

“I am sure he will not allow that. He will soften toward him as he has done so many times before.”

“Richard, you must speak to your brother. I beg you to.”

“Then I will speak to him.”

“Remind him that George is his brother.”

“He is not likely to forget that, my lady.”

“I rely on you.”

“I will tell him of your feelings, but it may be that this time George has gone too far.”

He would promise nothing more.

She was displeased. She was one of those women who expect immediate obedience from everyone around them, and that includes their own children.

         

The wedding of the Duke of York to the little Norfolk heiress was a grand affair. The bridegroom was very handsome—as all the king's children were—with his sturdy young body and fair looks. The king was clearly proud of his family and he had good reason to be, and so had the queen. She was very contented. There was no question about her beauty; she was dazzlingly so, even now. But there was something very cold about her; she was statuesque and her perfect features might have been cut out of marble. She was clearly proud of her achievements—widow of a humble knight to become Queen of England and moreover hold her place in the heart of the philandering king all these years. Of course, she was clever. Many still said she relied on witchcraft and her mother had undoubtedly been a witch. A strong woman, the queen's mother. She had been married to the mighty Duke of Bedford and had become a widow when she was only seventeen years old; and then she had fallen passionately in love with Sir Richard Woodville, had married this comparatively humble man and had remained in love with him, it was said, all through their married life. She was an exceptional woman and belonged to the royal house of Luxembourg. She was the one, it was said, who had bewitched the king into marrying her daughter.

And now here was Elizabeth Woodville, proud of all she had achieved. Her eldest son Edward was now Prince of Wales and his brother, the little bridegroom, Duke of York. There was one of her children whom I noticed particularly. This was Elizabeth, the eldest of her daughters, for whom she demanded great homage because of the proposed union with the Dauphin of France, which had been one of the results of the Treaty of Picquigny. Elizabeth was addressed as Madame la Dauphine, which I thought a little premature, remembering what often happened to these proposed alliances.