Seduced by Grace (27 page)

“You wanted me all along?”

“Have I not been saying so? My need for you was so fierce that I set myself to seduce you in all but deed, to force from you the words I needed to hear, had to hear before I could make you mine.”

“That I release you from your vow.”

“Just that, no more.”

She shook away the excuse with a twist of her head, her voice thick as she replied, “You could have asked. The release would have been freely given. Freely.”

“To ask would have been to negate the vow, to make it worthless in the sight of God. The release had to come from you, as a sign of your favor, your need. Even…even your love.”

“It was. Oh, it was,” she whispered.

He caught her against him, whirled her down the corridor for a few dizzying turns. “Say it,” he demanded when he came to a halt. “Say you love me.”

“Yes,” she said her eyes burning with tears for his exultant happiness, the bright hope and the love that was in his face. “I do love you, have loved you since we were a lad and lass sitting in the clover. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” he said, his voice so gruff it was hard to understand him. Releasing her, he reached for the bag that still hung from his waist. From it he took a square of silk wrapped around another of parchment. His hand shaking a little, he unwrapped it, took from it a circlet that formed a crown of dry and crumbling clover.

“Oh, David,” she said with love aching in her voice. A crown of clover. The crown she had made him so long ago. It was, she saw with sudden, poignant clarity, the very base of his pennon of pale blue marked with a leafy crown, the symbol of who and what he was, and all he had become by his own merit. “You kept it all this time.”

“It is the only crown I have ever valued, all I ever wanted or needed.” Handling it with the care he might give a precious relic, he took her hand and placed it
upon the palm. “Crown me once more, consort of my heart, my secret queen. Be my wife.”

“As you will, Your Majesty.” She placed the clover circlet gently upon his bent head then offered him her mouth, her heart, her life. “As you will.”

The eternal question used when plotting a story is “What if…?” David’s birthright as the eldest son of Edward IV and rightful king of England was constructed in this time-honored tradition.

History records that Edward IV was already married by legally binding contract to a young widow, Lady Eleanor Talbot Butler, at the time of his secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, the woman who became his queen. A priest identified as Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, swore he also performed the rite of marriage between Edward and Eleanor. On Edward’s death in 1483, his brother Richard used this information to declare the marriage to Elizabeth Woodville invalid and the children from it illegitimate. His subsequent seizing of the crown as Richard III was based on this legal maneuver.

Henry VII invaded England and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. To strengthen his grasp and unite the warring factions of York and Lancaster, Henry then married Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. The finding of illegitimacy for the children of Edward IV was revoked on his order and the papers pertaining to it
destroyed. This move returned his queen to legitimate status.

Edward IV was a notorious womanizer known to have fathered a number of illegitimate children, among them one or two who have traceable modern descendants. It’s claimed that he proposed to Lady Eleanor because she refused to have sex with him without marriage. It seems reasonable to assume that Edward, having met her terms, received his reward. There is no evidence to show that Lady Eleanor ever had a child, but she did enter a convent near the time that Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was made public, and died there some four years later, in 1468. No birth date is given for her, but as women were considered ready for marriage at fifteen, and she was left a widow after ten years with her first husband, she could well have been only thirty years old, or less, at her death.

If Lady Eleanor was indeed the legal wife of Edward IV, and if she chanced to retreat to a convent in order to give birth to a son, that child would have been the rightful heir to England’s throne. From this intriguing “What if…?”
Seduced by Grace,
and its hero, was born.

The Perkin Warbeck insurrection was a lengthy affair, beginning in 1491 and ending in 1497 with Warbeck’s defeat by the forces of Henry VII. A number of modern scholars and novelists like to point to the backing of this would-be prince by James IV of Scotland, Charles VIII of France and the duchess of Burgundy as proof that the royal houses of Europe recognized and accepted him as the fifth duke of York, or Richard, second son of Edward IV. They contend that he was removed from the Tower for safety by his uncle, Richard III,
and surfaced again at his propitious time. This has never been proven. Moreover, the politics of the time were rife with alliances that had more to do with territorial concessions and ancient feuds than royal birthrights. And in fact, Warbeck penned a full confession after his capture. In it, he admits to being an imposter and gives his surname and humble origins.

Henry’s treatment of the defeated Warbeck was humane compared to the retribution handed out for treason by his predecessors. He took Perkin Warbeck and his wife into his household, making them members of his court in a form of house arrest. It was only two years later, after an escape by Warbeck and another attempt at rebellion hatched with the earl of Warwick, that this pretender to the throne was finally hanged.

In 1501, Sir James Tyrell confessed to arranging the murders of the princes in the Tower—though no confirmation exists as he was executed for treason before evidence could be introduced at trial. With this public acknowledgment of the demise of Edward IV’s sons, the danger of insurrection from those backing another pretender to the throne declined. It did not end, however, until the Yorkist line was nearly extinguished during the reign of the next Tudor king, Henry VIII.

Jennifer Blake
March 24, 2011