The White Princess (61 page)

The king keeps all England informed as the rebellion disappears, and then melts away, before his carefully slow advance. The Cornishmen slip away every night as they realize that not one, not two, but three armies are mustered and slowly marching on them, and one night the boy goes too, taking a wild ride with only two companions, escaping the teeth of the trap that Henry has set for him, gaining the coast, learning of the ships waiting offshore to capture him, and plunging into the sanctuary of Beaulieu Abbey.

But England is not as it was. The king’s writ runs up to the high altar now, his mother and her friend the archbishop have made sure of that. There is no sanctuary for the boy though he claims it as a king ordained by God to rule. The abbey breaks its own time-honored traditions, and hands over the boy. Unwillingly, he has to come out to make his surrender to a king who rules England and the Church too.

He came out wearing cloth of gold, and answering to the name of Richard IV
—a hastily scribbled note which I guess is from my half brother, Thomas Grey, is tucked under my stirrup when I am taking the children out on their ponies. I did not see the hand that tied it to the stirrup leathers and I can be sure that no one will ever say that I saw it and read it.
But when the king questioned him, he denied himself. So be it. Mark it well. If he himself denies it, we can deny him.

I scrunch the paper into a tiny ball and tuck it in my pocket to burn later. It is good of Thomas to let me know, and I am glad that the boy saw one friendly face in a room full of enemies, before he denied himself.

The rest of the news I have, as the court has it, as England has it, in long triumphant dispatches from Henry that are written by him personally, to be read aloud, throughout the country. He sends verbose announcements to the kings of Christendom. I imagine Henry’s words bawled out at every village marketplace, at every town cross, on the steps of country churches, at the entrance to staple halls. He writes as if he were creating a story, and I read it almost smiling, as if my husband were setting up to be a Chaucer, to give the people of England a tale of their beginnings, an entertainment and an explanation. He becomes the historian of his own triumph, and I cannot be the only person who thinks that he has imagined a victory that he did not experience in the windswept fields of Devon. This is Henry the romancer, not Henry a true king.

Henry’s story is that there was once a poor man, a man who kept the watergate at Tournai in Flanders. He was a weak man, a bit of a drunkard, married to a common woman, a bit of a fool, and they had a son, a silly boy who ran away from home and fell into bad company, serving as a page to someone (it doesn’t matter much who or why) and went to the court of Portugal and for some reason (for who knows what silly lads will say?) passed himself off as a prince of England and everyone believed him. Then, suddenly he became a servant for a silk merchant. He learned to speak English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese (which is a little surprising but presumably not impossible). Dressed in his master’s clothes, showing off the goods for sale, parading himself like a May Day pageant in Ireland, he was again mistaken for a prince (don’t pause to ask if such a thing is likely) and was persuaded to take on the
pretense all across Christendom—to what end and why is never discussed.

How such a poor ignorant boy from a common home should fool the greatest kings of Christendom, the Duchess of Burgundy, the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of France, the King of Scotland, should delight the court of Portugal and tempt the monarchs of Spain, Henry does not say. It is part of the magic of the fairy tale, like a goose-girl who is really a princess, or a girl who cannot sleep on a pea even when it is covered by twenty feather mattresses. Amazingly, this common, vulgar, ill-educated boy, the son of a drunkard and a fool, engages the richest, most cultured men in Christendom, so that they put their wealth and their armies at his disposal. How he learns to speak four languages and Latin, how he learns to read and write with an elegant hand, how he learns to hunt and joust, hawk and dance so that people admire him as a courageous graceful prince, though he was raised in the backstreets of Tournai, Henry doesn’t say. How he learns the royal smile, the casual warm acknowledgment of homage, Henry does not even consider in his long account, though of all the men in the world he would have been the most struck by this. This is a story of magic: a common boy puts on a silk shirt, and everyone falls for the illusion that he has royal blood.

As my half brother wrote to me that one time:
So be it.

I receive only one private letter from Henry during this busy time as he writes and rewrites explanations of how the boy, John Perkin, Piers Osbeque, Peter Warboys—for Henry offers several different names—made his transformation to prince and back again.

I am sending his wife to join you at court,
Henry writes, knowing that there is no need for him to say whose wife is joining me.
You will be surprised at her beauty and elegance. You will oblige me by making her welcome and comforting her in the cruel deceit that has been played on her.

I hand his letter to his mother, who stands with her hand out,
waiting impatiently to read it. Of course, the boy’s wife has been cruelly, amazingly deceived. Her husband wore a silk shirt and she was blinded by beautiful tailoring. She could not see that beneath it he was a common little boy from Flanders. Easily deluded, amazingly deluded, she saw the shirt and thought he was a prince, and married him.

PALACE OF SHEEN, RICHMOND, AUTUMN, 1497

I sit in my rooms waiting for the woman that we are to call Lady Katherine Huntly. She is not to be known by her married name; I suspect that no one is yet quite sure of her married name, whether it is Perkin or Osbeque or Warboys.

“She is to be considered as a single woman,” My Lady the King’s Mother announces to my ladies. “I expect the marriage will be annulled.”

“On what grounds?” I ask.

“Deception,” she replies.

“In what way was she deceived?” I ask demurely.

“Obviously.” My Lady snubs me.

“Not much of a deception, if it was obvious,” Maggie whispers tartly.

“And where is her child to be housed, My Lady?” I ask.

“He is to live away from court with his nursemaid,” My Lady says. “And we are not to mention him.”

“They say that she’s very beautiful,” my sister Cecily volunteers, sweet as Italian powders.

I smile at Cecily, my face and my eyes quite blank. If I want to save my throne, my freedom, and the life of the baby of the boy who calls himself my brother, I am going to have to endure the
arrival of Lady Katherine, a beautiful, single princess, and much, much more.

I can hear the noise of her guard outside the door, the quick exchange of passwords, and then the door is thrown open. “Lady Katherine Huntly!” the man bellows quickly, as if they fear that someone might say: “Queen Katherine of England.”

I stay seated, but my Lady the King’s Mother surprises me by rising from her chair. My ladies sink down, as low as if they were honoring a woman of full royal blood, as the young woman comes into the room.

She is wearing black, in mourning as if she is a widow, but her cape and gown are beautifully made, beautifully tailored. Who would have thought that Exeter had such seamstresses? She is wearing a black satin dress trimmed with rich black velvet, a black hat on her head, a black riding cloak over her arm, she is wearing gloves of black embroidered leather. Her eyes are dark, hollowed in her pale face, her skin utterly clear, like the finest palest marble. She is a beautiful young woman in her early twenties. She curtseys low to me and I see her scanning my face, as if she is looking for some resemblance to her husband. I give her my hand and I rise to my feet and I kiss one cool cheek and then another for she is cousin to the King of Scotland, whoever she married, whatever the quality of the silk of his shirt. I feel her hand tremble in mine and again I see that wary look as if she would read me, as if she would know where I stand in this unfolding masque which her life has become.

“We welcome you to court,” My Lady says. There is no careful reading needed for My Lady. She is doing what her son requested, welcoming Lady Katherine to court with such kindliness that even the most hospitable host would have to wonder why we are making such a fuss of this woman, the disgraced wife of our defeated enemy.

Lady Katherine curtseys again and stands before me as if I am going to interrogate her. “You must be tired,” is all I say.

“His Grace the King was most kind,” she says. She speaks with such a strong Scots accent that I have to strain to understand her soft voice with the enchanting lilt. “I had good horses and we rested on the way.”

“Please be seated,” I say. “We will dine in a little while.”

Composedly, she takes her seat, folds her hands in her black silk lap, and looks at me. I note her earrings of black and the only other piece of jewelry that she wears, a gold brooch that is pinned to her belt: two gold hearts entwined. I permit myself a small smile, and there is an answering warmth in her eyes. I imagine that we are never going to say more than this.

We line up to prepare to enter the hall for dinner. I go first as queen, My Lady walks at my shoulder, slightly behind me, and Lady Katherine Huntly must come next, my sisters taking one step down the order of precedence. I glance back and see Cecily’s pale face, her lower lip pressed tight. She is now fourth behind me, and she does not like it.

“Is Lady Huntly going to return to Scotland?” I ask My Lady the King’s Mother, as we proceed into dinner.

“Surely she will,” My Lady replies. “What would she stay here for? Once her husband is dead?”

But apparently she is in no hurry to leave. She stays until my husband has completed his slow progress from Exeter to the palace. The outriders come into the stable yard and send a message to my rooms that the king is approaching and expects a formal welcome. I order my ladies to come with me and we go down the broad stone stairs to the double entrance doors, which are held wide open, welcoming the return of the hero. We arrange ourselves at the head of the steps. My Lady the King’s Mother’s ladies stand beside us, she makes sure she is on the same step as me so that I am not more prominent, and we wait in the bright autumn sunshine, listening for the clatter of the horses’ hooves.

“Has he sent the boy directly to the Tower?” Maggie asks me as she bends to pull out the train of my gown.

“He must have done,” I say. “What else would he do with him?”

“He hasn’t . . .” She hesitates. “He hasn’t killed him on the way here?”

I glance at the boy’s wife, all in black like a widow. She is wearing her black velvet cape against the cold and the gold brooch of twin hearts is pinned at the neck.

“I haven’t heard,” I say. I cannot help a little shiver. “Surely he would have sent word if he had done that? To the boy’s wife if not to me? Surely I would have known?”

“Surely he wouldn’t have executed him without a public announcement,” she says uncertainly.

Behind us, in the darkened hall, I hear the constant ripple of noise as the servants come through and run down the stairs to the stable yard so that they can line the road to watch the king come home in triumph.

First we hear the king’s trumpets, a victorious bray of sound, and everyone cheers. Then there is another noise—a ridiculous “tootle-toot-toot!” from someone on the roadside, and everyone laughs. I feel Maggie stand a little closer, as if we are somehow threatened by the “toot-toot” of a toy trumpet.

Around the corner come the first riders, half a dozen standard bearers carrying the royal standard, the cross of St. George, the Beaufort portcullis, and the Tudor rose. There is a red dragon on a white and green ground, and a red rose for Lancaster. Only the Round Table of Camelot is missing from this ridiculous display. It is as if the king is showing all of his badges, naming all of his antecedents, as if he is trying to demonstrate his claim to the throne that he only won by force of arms, as if he is trying once again to convince everyone that he is the rightful king.