Mistress to the Crown (36 page)

If you grind Faith down to its essence, it is not based on knowledge but the trust of one’s instincts. As for trust. I felt a terrible sense of unease. How had Buckingham once phrased it?

Trust is an old-fangled word
.

V

I took a boat to Westminster on the King’s errand and was surprised to find how many onlookers were gathered about the ring of pikemen surrounding the sanctuary. When I stated my business to the sergeant in charge, he took me to his captain, John Nesfield, a strapping fellow with a thick Yorkshire brogue and a keen eye.

‘Eh, not another launderer of the royal linen?’ he challenged as I was compelled to stand before his board like a prisoner and then, glancing up, he realised the quality of my apparel and his curiosity quickened. ‘State your purpose, Mistress …?’

‘Jane Sands,’ I lied. ‘I am a former tiring woman of her grace Princess Elizabeth.’

To my relief, Nesfield agreed that I might enter. Under his supervision, two soldiers searched me with such uncommon diligence – one would have thought they were looking for veins and arteries. Then the pair accompanied me into the ground floor of the sanctuary where a monk received us and carried my request to the Queen.

The room where I was bidden to wait was spacious in construction but you could hardly see the flagstones. A staircase occupied
one wall and the others were obscured by wooden chests carelessly piled high with bed hangings, footstools, games boards, cushions, pillows, crucifixes and rolls of stained wall cloths. I recognised the curtains from Ned’s state bed stashed beneath a tangle of silver candlesticks. We waited; the soldiers with folded arms, and I with trepidation.

There were hasty feet on the stair. ‘A visitor!’ exclaimed Princess Bess, prancing down. ‘Mistress … Sands.’ Clever maid, she instantly played along and more besides. ‘One moment,’ she exclaimed excitedly. ‘I must fetch the others. They will be so pleased.’

‘My lady,’ protested the youngest soldier, but she flashed him a look from behind her lashes and disappeared up the stairs. A few moments later, three princesses and Prince Dickon galloped down, followed by little three-year-old Bridget. Bess must have primed the older ones. After they had politely exchanged the time of day with me, those wicked darlings grabbed the pillows to wallop each other and gave chase, screaming and dodging around the soldiers.

‘Your brother sent me,’ I whispered, clasping my hands before my chin so Bess might see his ring.

She kept her smile merry but her tone was anxious. ‘How is he?’

‘Fretful. He asks to know your mother’s plans.’

‘Lord! I’m afraid there aren’t any. None that she’s told me. DICKON, stop making so much noise! I doubt she will come out until my brother’s in the abbey with the crown on his head. CECILY, tell Kate to stop that squealing. I can’t hear myself think.’

‘And my lord of Dorset?’

‘Tom’s going berserk stuck in here with us. ANNE, you cat!’

‘What shall I tell your brother, then?’

‘I don’t know. Can you come again? I can ask Mother. Sorry! SOMEONE stop Bridget putting sticky on Papa’s chair.’

I shook my head. ‘We can’t risk this a second time.’

‘Why ever not? We are not criminals and it’s my uncle who’s Lord Protector, not some enemy. Cecily, entertain our visitor. I have to fetch something.’

I heard her feet on the floorboards above and a man’s voice, and then she was back, holding something up her sleeve. Cecily deftly moved in front of us and I found myself seconds later clutching a necklace.

‘Tom says tell him to be patient.’

‘But—’

Sunlight fell across us and Nesfield stood in the doorway. ‘Such a caterwauling!’ he chided, scooping up Bridget who was about to totter out between his legs.

Bess took her sister from him. ‘Thank you for letting us see Mistress Sands, captain. You will observe and witness that I have given her a necklace. It belongs to her. I borrowed it some time ago and I shall swear so on a stack of Gospels if you require it of me, so you are not to take it off her, you understand. It is rightfully hers.’

‘Eh up, let’s have a look, then.’

I reluctantly opened my hand and probably looked astonished as he to see the confusion of sapphires. It was my precious collar.

He took it and whistled. ‘This isn’t some bauble.’

‘I do not wear baubles, Nesfield,’ retorted Bess haughtily. ‘If my Uncle Gloucester wishes to make an issue of this, let him come and raise the matter himself. I think you’ll find he will not dispute me.’

Her confidence awed him. ‘I shall have to make report of this,’ he warned.

‘Of course, I should not expect otherwise but if I hear your men have taken this from Mistress Sands, you will find yourself with a very uncertain future.
I
have no quarrel with the Lord Protector.’

Nesfield let me keep the necklace but his men searched me, even more thoroughly, if that was possible. Thankful to be allowed to depart, I took a circumambulatory journey home in case ‘Mistress Sands’ was followed. I was angry that the errand had achieved nothing except that I had my necklace back and now knew for certain that Dorset had been behind the theft.

‘Tell him to be patient.’ What was that supposed to mean? Quite honestly, I believe Bess spoke the truth and they were all like insects sitting on leaves waiting for the wind to blow or leaf fall to arrive.

Next day I returned to the Tower only to find my way into the royal lodging barred by the sergeant in charge of the King’s bodyguard. He demanded to know my business.

‘Sirrah, when last I spoke with the King’s grace, he commanded me to attend him again.’

‘Well, I am afraid you are not regarded as worthy to come into the royal presence, Mistress Shore. The new High Constable’s orders.’

Buckingham! After much argument, I had to retreat. Oh, I was shaking and my face was hot with fury, but Hastings was not at the Tower that morning and could not take my part. I’d have to confide in him, I decided.

Hastings was right wrathful when I came clean about my mission next day.

‘I’ll return the poxy ring and give the King your message. Young fool! He should have consulted me first, and you should not have meddled, damn it! If Richard and Buckingham want to make trouble for you, you’ve given them every reason to suspect you’re thick with the Woodvilles.’

‘I was obeying the King,’ I snapped back, my breath short. ‘We do have one, in case no one has noticed.’

We glared at each other and then the fierce ridges of his face softened.

‘My kind Elizabeth,’ he exclaimed, gathering me into his arms. ‘But I want your promise. No more meddling.’

Three is a difficult number unless you are fortunate enough to be God, Christ and the Holy Ghost. History is spattered with messy triangles. Marcus Antonius, Octavius and Lepidus; Arthur, Guinivere and Lancelot; Ned and his two brothers; and now the triumvirate of Gloucester, Buckingham and Hastings.

The first week in June, as we walked in my garden, surrounded by the bees in busy hum as they milked the lavender and marigolds, Hastings admitted that he was beginning to feel superfluous. Now that the fine stitches of the coronation were in hand, he had lifted his head up for air and grasped that he was no longer part of the inner sanctum at Crosby Place.

‘Look,’ he said, breaking off a dead rose head. ‘I’m the last one to want to hang about like John of Gaunt when I should be in my coffin and, yes, these younger men want to do things their way, but Buckingham has nothing on his ledger. He doesn’t know a shovel from a sword. He’s never dealt with the French or the Scots, what’s he going to do – dance with ’em? Richard should be working with me, not him. And I’ve been given nothing for my support. He could have given me some reward for taking his side against the Queen.’ He sniffed, like a neglected child. ‘I should have been made High Constable.’

‘Yes, you should have been,’ I agreed sweetly, ‘but I think Gloucester showed good sense in making Buckingham Justiciar of Wales. Coming from Brecknock, he knows it well. You’ve never set foot there, have you?’ I received a growl for my pains.

‘I suppose you’ve heard the rumours that are flying around?’ he muttered, as I led him into the shade of the loggia, where Isabel had set out ale and freshly baked gingerbread for us.

I had heard. Useless chaff! The old scandal that Ned had been sired by a common archer called Blaybourne and the gossip that Ned’s secret marriage to the Queen had been unlawful. But the rumour that really dinged with the ring of truth was that Gloucester wanted to depose his nephews. Well, yes, he probably did after years of watching Ned, but it didn’t mean he was going to tip Ned’s son off the throne. How could he?

As if Hastings was reading my thoughts, he at last came to the core of his worries. ‘Listen, I hesitate in worrying you with this, but Catesby came to see me yesterday evening. He truly believes that Richard will make himself king.’

My blood ran cold. Here was the Lord Chamberlain giving this nonsense credence. For a moment I made no answer. I knew the arguments. Child kings weakened a kingdom and my merchant friends were saying England needed a strong man to counter the grasping schemes of King Louis, especially now Ned’s free trade agreement with France was in tatters. Surely young Edward, with his intelligence, would soon be old enough to lead the kingdom?

‘Well,’ I said aloud, trying to reassure myself. ‘My Lord Protector will need a lawful reason.’

‘That’s the thorn, Elizabeth,’ Hastings said, turning his face to me. ‘I think he has one.’

‘Oh, not that ridiculous archer nonsense. Why doesn’t her grace of York make a public declaration denying the smears and.’ I faltered in my babble. Something in his face frightened me. ‘Oh God,’ I whispered.

He rose to his feet, strode across the grass and slapped an angry hand against the pear tree before he turned. ‘Remember how determined Ned was to have you? He was like that about Elizabeth Woodville, willing to make her queen so he could get his leg over. Well, I remember that before he became king when he was about eighteen, he was hot as mustard for another young widow,
Eleanor Talbot, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. A very pretty girl. He was always galloping off to see her just like he did later when he was trying to lay Elizabeth, but on one occasion when he visited Eleanor, there was a priest among his escort.

‘Ned had a wild, rebellious look that day. I asked him if he wanted me to ride with him as well. He laughed and said he was going to the gates of Paradise and St Peter only allowed one man in at a time.’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘What does that sound like to you?’

‘A betrothal,’ I whispered dully. Just as binding as my betrothal to Shore had been.

‘Exactly. If it’s true, Elizabeth, it makes Ned’s sons bastards unable to inherit.’

His mouth a grim pleat, he stared upwards, where a flock of jackdaws made a black whorl against the wild sky.

I pressed my fingers to my lips and stood up, my mind running amok with the implications, past and future. ‘George knew, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, he knew, Elizabeth. He was threatening to beat the matter into the open. That’s the main reason Ned had him sentenced to death. To protect the succession.’

‘But if this first betrothal took place, what, in 1459 or ‘60, why did Lady Eleanor never speak out?’

Hastings shrugged. ‘She took the veil. Maybe she loved the Lord Christ better. Anyway, she’s long dead, but the priest who rode with Ned is still kicking, oh yes. Did well for himself with Ned’s patronage. First, bishop and then Chancellor of England.’

‘Not Bishop Rotherham!’

His laughter was wry. ‘No, my sweet goose, Bath and Wells! Robert Stillington. You’ve probably never set eyes on him. Ned had him imprisoned after George’s trial and for the last few years Bishop Alcock’s had charge of him.’

No, I had never set eyes on Stillington nor did I want to. A loss of temper was imminent; I felt like I had as a child when my brothers left me out of their secrets. ‘You’ve always known this?’

‘
Guessed
,’ he corrected. ‘If Stillington testifies, it places Richard in a hellish quandary. The duke’s a stickler for upholding the law. If the law says the princes are bastards – and, of course, no one wants George’s boy – then Richard is legally obliged to take the crown. Catesby thinks he will.’

‘Does that mean that Stillington has spoken out?’

‘What do you reckon, my dear? I know he’s been to Crosby Place.’

It is an understatement to say I felt sympathy for Gloucester’s dilemma and plentiful compassion for Ned’s sons. I was remembering the Queen’s fury with me for my part in freeing Stillington. It all made sense now.

I had one question left: ‘What are you going to do?’

Rebellion relies on arithmetic. Numbers on the board. Numbers in the field. Hastings had already done his sums.

‘Even if I can muster two thousand, I haven’t sufficient support among the nobility to protect the princes. Stanley may stand by me, and a few of Ned’s household knights, but that’s it.’

‘What about Lord Howard?’

He made a face. ‘No chance there. He’ll claim the Duchy of Norfolk if Prince Dickon is disinherited.’

‘And Buckingham will support Gloucester?’

‘Does the Earth move round the sun? Harry wants the Bohun inheritance returned to him. Only a king can grant that.’

‘There is still the Queen and her affinity,’ I muttered, but imagining Hastings giving the kiss of peace to Dorset was like expecting a couple of snarling dogs to share a bone. Besides, one sinister move from the Queen and Gloucester might behead his hostages.

‘I have affection for Richard. I’ve known him since he was
scarce out of swaddling, but to stand by and see Ned’s children pushed aside, that’s a great matter.’

‘Oh dear,’ I sighed. ‘Look, Catesby could be wrong. Stillington may have said nothing at all and if he does, Gloucester may still honour Ned’s will.’

Hastings wrapped his arms about me and drew me close. ‘Let us be realistic, my dear. Would you?’

History is full of times when people sit on their hands. Gloucester did nothing untoward or in haste, so on the second Thursday in June, Hastings and I risked a late supper together at my house. He did not tell me whether he had been in secret communication with the Queen. Nor did I ask. If the Lord Protector was going to continue purring like a contented uncle, there was no reason to unsheathe the daggers.