The Daughter of Time (14 page)

'Yes? I don't know as much as you about what stands up in court and what won't, but it seems to me that that snail's trail is a very allowable deduction – if you'll allow me. I don't suppose Morton waited till he was overseas before beginning his undermining.'

'No. No, of course he didn't. It was life and death to Morton that Richard should go. Unless Richard went, John Morton's career was over. He was finished. It wasn't even that there would be no preferment for him now. There would be nothing. He would be stripped of his numerous livings and be reduced to his plain priest's frock. He, John Morton. Who had been within touching distance of an archbishopric. But if he could help Henry Tudor to a throne then he might still become not only Archbishop of Canterbury but a Cardinal besides. Oh, yes; it was desperately, overwhelmingly important to Morton that Richard should not have the governing of England.'

'Well,' said Brent, 'he was the right man for a job of subversion. I don't suppose he knew what a scruple was. A little rumour like infanticide must have been child's play to him.'

'There's always the odd chance that he believed it, of course,' Grant said, his habit of weighing evidence overcoming even his dislike of Morton.

'Believed that the boys were murdered?'

'Yes. It may have been someone else's invention. After all, the country must have been swarming with Lancastrian tales, part mere ill-will, part propaganda. He may have been merely passing on the latest sample.'

'Huh! I wouldn't put it past him to be paving the way for their future murder,' Brent said tartly.

Grant laughed. 'I wouldn't, at that,' he said. 'What else did you get from your monk at Croyland?'

'A little comfort, too. I found after I had written that panic wire to you that he wasn't at all to be taken as gospel. He just put down what gossip came his way from the outer world. He says, for instance, that Richard had a second coronation, at York; and that of course just isn't true. If he can be wrong about a big, known, fact like a coronation, then he's not to be trusted as a reporter. But he did know about Titulus Regius, by the way. He recorded the whole tenor of it, including Lady Eleanor.'

'That's interesting. Even a monk at Croyland had heard who Edward was supposed to have been married to.'

'Yes. The sainted More must have dreamed up Elizabeth Lucy a good deal later.'

'To say nothing of the unspeakable story that Richard based his claim on his mother's shame.'

'What?'

'He says that Richard caused a sermon to be preached claiming that Edward and George were his mother's sons by some other father, and that he, Richard, was the only legitimate son and therefore the only true heir.'

'The sainted More might have thought up a more convincing one,' young Carradine said dryly.

'Yes. Especially when Richard was living in his mother's house at the time of the libel!'

'So he was. I'd forgotten that. I don't have a proper police brain. That's very neat, what you say about Morton being the carrier of the rumour. But suppose the rumour turns up somewhere else, even yet.'

'It's possible, of course. But I'm willing to lay you fifties to any amount that it won't. I don't for one moment believe that there was any general rumour that the boys were missing.'

'Why not?'

'For a reason that I hold to be unanswerable. If there had been any general uneasiness, any obviously subversive rumours or action, Richard would have taken immediate steps to checkmate them. When the rumours went round, later, that he was proposing to marry his niece Elizabeth – the boys' eldest sister – he was on to it like a hawk. He not only sent letters to the various towns denying the rumour in no uncertain terms, he was so furious (and evidently thought of it such importance that he should not be traduced) that he summoned the "heid yins" of London to the biggest hall he could find (so that he could get them all in at one time) and told them face to face what he thought about the affair.'

'Yes. Of course you're right. Richard would have made a public denial of the rumour if the rumour was general. After all, it was a much more horrifying one than the one that he was going to marry his niece.'

'Yes; actually you could get a dispensation to marry your niece in those days. Perhaps you still can, for all I know. That's not my department at the Yard. What is certain is that if Richard went to such lengths to contradict the marriage rumour then he most certainly would have gone to much greater lengths to put a stop to the murder one, if it had existed. The conclusion is inevitable: there was no general rumour of disappearance or foul play where the boys were concerned.'

'Just a thin little trickle between the Fens and France.'

'Just a thin little trickle between the Fens and France. Nothing in the picture suggests any worry about the boys. I mean: in a police investigation you look for any abnormalities in behaviour among the suspects in a crime. Why did X, who always goes to the movies on a Thursday night, decide on that night of all nights not to go? Why did Y take a return half as usual and very unusually not use it? That sort of thing. But in the short time between Richard's succession and his death everyone behaves quite normally. The boys' mother comes out of sanctuary and makes her peace with Richard. The girls resume their court life. The boys are presumably still doing the lessons that their father's death had interrupted. Their young cousins have a place on the Council and are of sufficient importance for the town of York to be addressing letters to them. It's all quite a normal, peaceful scene, with everyone going about their ordinary business, and no suggestion anywhere that a spectacular and unnecessary murder has just taken place in the family.'

'It looks as if I might write that book after all, Mr Grant.'

'Most certainly you will write it. You have not only Richard to rescue from calumny; you have to clear Elizabeth Woodville of the imputation of condoning her sons' murder for seven hundred merks a year and perks.'

'I can't write the book and leave it in the air like that, of course. I'll
have
to have at least a theory as to what became of the boys.'

'You will.'

Carradine's mild gaze came away from the small woolly clouds over the Thames and considered Grant with a question in it.

'Why that tone?' he asked. 'Why are you looking like a cat with cream?'

'Well, I've been proceeding along police lines. During those empty days while I was waiting for you to turn up again.'

'Police lines?'

'Yes. Who benefits, and all that. We've discovered that it wouldn't be a pin's-worth of advantage to Richard that the boys should die. So we go on looking round to see who, in that case, it
would
benefit. And this is where Titulus Regius comes in.'

'What has Titulus Regius got to do with the murder?'

'Henry VII married the boys' eldest sister. Elizabeth.'

'Yes.'

'By way of reconciling the Yorkists to his occupation of the throne.'

'Yes.'

'By repealing Titulus Regius, he made her legitimate.'

'Sure.'

'But by making the children legitimate he automatically made the two boys heir to the throne before her. In fact, by repealing Titulus Regius he made the elder of the two King of England.'

Carradine made a little clicking sound with his tongue. His eyes behind their horn-rims were glowing with pleasure.

'So,' said Grant, 'I propose that we proceed with investigation along those lines.'

'Sure. What do you want?'

'I want to know a lot more about that confession of Tyrrel's. But first, and most of all, I'd like to know how the people concerned acted. What happened to them; not what anyone reported of anyone. Just as we did in the case of Richard's succession after Edward's unexpected death.'

'Fine. What do you want to know?'

'I want to know what became of all the York heirs that Richard left so alive and well and prosperous. Every single one of them. Can you do that for me?'

'Sure. That's elementary.'

'And I could bear to know more about Tyrrel.'

'About the man himself, I mean. Who he was, and what he had done.'

'I'll do that.' Carradine got up with such an on-with-the-charge air that for one moment Grant thought that he was actually going to button his coat. 'Mr Grant, I'm so grateful to you for all this – this – '

'This fun and games?'

'When you're on your feet again, I'll – I'll – I'll take you round the Tower of London.'

'Make it Greenwich-and-back by boat. Our island Race have a passion for the nautical.'

'How long do they reckon it will be before you're out of bed, do you know?'

'I'll probably be up before you come back with the news about the heirs and Tyrrel.'

Grant was not, as it happened, out of bed when Carradine came again, but he was sitting up.

'You can't imagine,' he said to Brent, 'how fascinating the opposite wall looks, after the ceiling. And how small and queer the world looks right way up.'

He was touched by Carradine's obvious pleasure in this progress and it was some time before they got down to business. It was Grant who had to say: 'Well, how did the York heirs make out under Henry VII?'

'Oh, yes,' said the boy, pulling out his usual wad of notes and drawing up a chair by hooking his right toe in the crossbar. He sat down on the chair. 'Where shall I begin?'

'Well, about Elizabeth we know. He married her, and she was Queen of England until she died and he made a bid for the mad Juana of Spain.'

'Yes. She was married to Henry in the spring of 1486 – in January, rather; five months after Bosworth – and she died in the spring of 1503.'

'Seventeen years. Poor Elizabeth. With Henry it must have seemed like seventy. He was what is euphemistically referred to as "unuxorious". Let us go on down the family. Edward's children, I mean. Fate of the two boys unknown. What happened to Cecily?'

'She was married to his old uncle Lord Welles, and sent away to live in Lincolnshire. Anne and Katherine, who were children, were married when they were old enough to good Lancastrians. Bridget, the youngest, became a nun at Dartford.'

'Orthodox enough, so far. Who comes next? George's boy.'

'Yes. Young Warwick. Shut up for life in the Tower, and executed for allegedly planning to escape.'

'So. And George's daughter? Margaret.'

'She became the Countess of Salisbury. Her execution by Henry VIII on a trumped-up charge is apparently the classic sample of judicial murder.'

'Elizabeth's son? The alternative heir?'

'John de la Pole. He went to live with his aunt in Burgundy until –'

'To live with Margaret, Richard's sister.'

'Yes. He died in the Simnel rising. But he had a younger brother that you didn't put in that list. He was executed by Henry VIII. He had surrendered to Henry VII under a safe-conduct, so Henry, I suppose, thought that it might break his luck to ignore that. In any case he had about used up his quota. Henry VIII took no chances. He didn't stop at de la Pole. There were four more that you missed out of that list. Exeter, Surrey, Buckingham, and Montague. He got rid of the lot.'

'And Richard's son? John? The bastard one.'

'Henry VII granted him a pension of £20 a year, but he was the first of the lot to go.'

'On what charge?'

'On having been suspected of receiving an invitation to go to Ireland.'

'You're joking.'

'I'm not. Ireland was the focus of loyalist rebellion. The York family were very popular in Ireland, and to get an invitation from that direction was as good as a death warrant in Henry's eyes. Though I can't think why even Henry would have bothered about young John. "An active, well-disposed boy", he was, by the way, according to the
Foedera
.'

'His claim was better than Henry's.' Grant said, very tart. 'He was the illegitimate only son of a King. Henry was the great-grandson of an illegitimate son of a younger son of a King.'

There was silence for some time.

Then Carradine, out of the silence, said: 'Yes.'

'Yes to what?'

'To what you are thinking.'

'It does look like it, doesn't it. They're the only two who are missing from the list.'

There was another silence.

'They were all judicial murders,' Grant said presently. 'Murders under the form of law. But you can't bring a capital charge against a pair of children.'

'No,' agreed Carradine, and went on watching the sparrows. 'No, it would have to be done some other way. After all, they were the important ones.'

'The vital ones.'

'How do we start?'

'As we did with Richard's succession. Find out where everyone was in the first months of Henry's reign and what they were doing. Say the first year of his reign. There will be a break in the pattern somewhere, just as there was a break in the preparations for the boy's coronation.'

'Right.'

Did you find out anything about Tyrrel? Who he was?'

'Yes. He wasn't at all what I had imagined. I'd imagined him as a sort of hanger-on; hadn't you?'

'Yes, I think I did. Wasn't he?'

'No. He was a person of importance. He was Sir James Tyrrel of Gipping. He had been on various – committees, I suppose you'd call them, for Edward IV. And he was created a Knight Banneret, whatever that is, at the siege of Berwick. And he did well for himself under Richard, though I can't find that he was at the battle of Bosworth. A lot of people came too late for the battle – did you know? – so I don't suppose that means anything particular. Anyhow, he wasn't that lackey-on-the-make person that I'd always pictured.'

'That's interesting. How did he make out under Henry VII?'

'Well, that's the really interesting thing. For such a very good and successful servant of the York family, he seems to have fairly blossomed under Henry. Henry appointed him Constable of Guisnes. Then he was sent as ambassador to Rome. He was one of the Commissioners for negotiating the Treaty of Etaples. And Henry gave him a grant for life of the revenues of some lands in Wales, but made him exchange them for revenues of the county of Guisnes of equal value – I can't think why.'

'I can,' said Grant.

'You can?'

'Has it struck you that all his honours and his commissions are outside England? Even the reward of land revenues.'

'Yes, so they are. What does that convey to you?'

'Nothing at the moment. Perhaps he just found Guisnes better for his bronchial catarrh. It is possible to read too much into historical transactions. Like Shakespeare's plays, they are capable of almost endless interpretations. How long did this honeymoon with Henry VII last?'

'Oh, quite a long time. Everything was just grand until 1502.'

'What happened in 1502?'

'Henry heard that he had been ready to help one of the York crowd in the Tower to escape to Germany. He sent the whole garrison of Calais to besiege the castle at Guisnes. That wasn't quick enough for him, so he sent his Lord Privy Seal – know what that is?'

Grant nodded.

'Sent his Lord Privy Seal – what names you English have dreamed up for your Elks officials – to offer him safe conduct if he would come aboard a ship at Calais and confer with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.'

'Don't tell me.'

'I don't need to, do I? He finished up in a dungeon in the Tower. And was beheaded "in great haste and without trial" on May 6th 1503.'

'And what about his confession?'

'There wasn't one.'

'What!'

'Don't look at me like that. I'm not responsible.'

'But I thought he confessed to the murder of the boys.'

'Yes, according to various accounts. But they are accounts of a confession, not – not a transcript, if you see what I mean.'

'You mean, Henry didn't publish a confession?'

'No. His paid historian, Polydore Virgil, gave an account of how the murder was done. After Tyrrel was dead.'

'But if Tyrrel confessed that he murdered the boys at Richard's instigation, why wasn't he charged with the crime and publicly tried for it?'

'I can't imagine.'

'Let me get this straight. Nothing was heard of Tyrrel's confession until Tyrrel was dead.'

'No.'

'Tyrrel confesses that, way back in 1483, nearly twenty years ago, he pelted up to London from Warwick, got the keys of the Tower from the Constable – I forget his name –'

'Brackenbury. Sir Robert Brackenbury.'

'Yes. Got the keys of the Tower from Sir Robert Brackenbury for one night, murdered the boys, handed back the keys, and reported back to Richard. He confesses this, and so puts an end to what must have been a much canvassed mystery, and yet nothing public is done with him.'

'Not a thing.'

'I'd hate to go into court with a story like that.'

'I wouldn't even consider it, myself. It's as phoney a tale as ever I heard.'

'Didn't they even bring Brackenbury in to affirm or deny the story of the keys being handed over?'

'Brackenbury was killed at Bosworth.'

'So he was conveniently dead too, was he.' He lay and thought about it.'You know, if Brackenbury died at Bosworth, then we have one more small piece of evidence on our side.'

'How? What?'

'If that had really happened; I mean: if the keys were handed over for a night on Richard's order, then a lot of junior officials at the Tower must have been aware of it. It is quite inconceivable that one or other of them wouldn't be ready to tell the tale to Henry when he took over the Tower. Especially if the boys were missing. Brackenbury was dead. Richard was dead. The next in command at the Tower would be expected to produce the boys. When they weren't producible, he must have said: "The Constable handed over the keys, one night, and since then the boys have not been seen." There would have been the most ruthless hue and cry after the man who had been given the keys. He would have been Exhibit A in the case against Richard, and to produce him would have been a feather in Henry's cap.'

'Not only that, but Tyrrel was too well known to the people at the Tower to have passed unrecognised. In the small London of that day he must have been quite a well-known figure.'

'Yes. If that story were true Tyrrel would have been tried and executed for the boys' murder, openly, in 1485. He had no one to protect him.' He reached for his cigarettes. 'So what we're left with is that Henry executed Tyrrel in 1502, and then announced by way of his tame historians that Tyrrel had confessed that twenty years before he had murdered the Princes.

'Yes.'

'And he didn't offer, anywhere, at any time, any reason for not trying Tyrrel for this atrocious thing he had confessed.'

'No. Not as far as I can make out. He was sideways as a crab, you know. He never went straight at anything, even murder. It had to be covered up to look like something else. He waited years to find some sort of legal excuse that would camouflage a murder. He had a mind like a corkscrew. Do you know what his first official action as Henry VII was?'

'No.'

'To execute some of the men fighting for Richard at Bosworth on a charge of treason. And do you know how he managed to make it legally treason? By dating his reign from the day before Bosworth. A mind that was capable of a piece of sharp practice of that calibre was capable of anything.' He took the cigarette that Grant was offering him. 'But he didn't get away with it,' he added, with sober joy. 'Oh, no, he didn't get away with it. The English, bless them, drew the line at that. They told him where he got off.'

'How?'

'They presented him, in that nice polite English way, with an Act of Parliament that said that no one serving the Sovereign Lord of the land for the time being should be convicted of treason or suffer either forfeiture or imprisonment, and they made him consent to it. That's terribly English, that ruthless politeness. No yelling in the street or throwing stones because they didn't like his little bit of cheating. Just a nice polite reasonable Act for him to swallow and like it. I bet he did a slow burn about that one. Well, I must be on my way. It's sure nice to see you sitting up and taking notice. We'll be having that trip to Greenwich in no time at all, I see. What's at Greenwich?'

'Some very fine architecture and a fine stretch of muddy river.'

'That's all?'

'And some good pubs.'

'We're going to Greenwich.'

When he had gone Grant slid down in bed and smoked one cigarette after another while he considered the tale of those heirs of York who had prospered under Richard III, and gone to their graves under Henry VII.

Some of them may have 'asked for it'. Carradine's report had, after all, been a précis; innocent of qualification, insusceptible to half-tones. But it was surely a thundering great coincidence that all the lives who stood between the Tudors and the throne had been cut short so conveniently.

He looked, with no great enthusiasm, at the book that young Carradine had brought him. It was called
The Life and Reign of Richard III
; by someone James Gairdner. Carradine had assured him that he would find Dr Gairdner well worth his while. Dr Gairdner was, according to Brent, 'a yell'.

The book did not appear to Grant to be markedly hilarious, but anything about Richard was better than something about anyone else, so he began to glance through it, and presently he became aware just what Brent had meant by saying that the good doctor was a 'yell'. Dr Gairdner obstinately believed Richard to be a murderer, but since he was a writer honest, learned, and according to his lights impartial, it was not in him to suppress facts. The spectacle of Dr Gairdner trying to make his facts fit his theory was the most entertaining thing in gymnastics that Grant had witnessed for some time.

Dr Gairdner acknowledged with no apparent sense of incongruity Richard's great wisdom, his generosity, his courage, his ability, his charm, his popularity, and the trust that he inspired even in his beaten enemies; and in the same breath reported his vile slander of his mother and his slaughter of two helpless children. Tradition says, said the worthy Doctor; and solemnly reported the horrible tradition and subscribed to it. There was nothing mean or paltry in his character, according to the Doctor – but he was a murderer of innocent children. Even his enemies had confidence in his justice – but he murdered his own nephews. His integrity was remarkable – but he killed for gain.

As a contortionist Dr Gairdner was the original boneless wonder. More than ever Grant wondered with what part of their brains historians reasoned. It was certainly by no process of reasoning known to ordinary mortals that they arrived at their conclusions. Nowhere in the pages of fiction or fact, and certainly nowhere in life, had he met any human being remotely resembling either Dr Gairdner's Richard or Oliphant's Elizabeth Woodville.

Perhaps there was something in Laura's theory that human nature found it difficult to give up preconceived beliefs. That there was some vague inward opposition to, and resentment of, a reversal of accepted fact. Certainly Dr Gairdner dragged like a frightened child on the hand that was pulling him towards the inevitable.