The White Rose (34 page)

'Why didn't you tell Catesby this?'

'For the same reason I never told Uncle - something may have gone wrong. Murder is still murder, Roger. What difference does it make if it was Harrington or James?' Benjamin picked up the pieces of manuscript from the table before him.

'Don't burn them, Master!' I shouted. 'Let me have them!'

Benjamin paused and pushed them across the table.

'Take them, Roger,' he whispered, 'but hide them well. They could be your death warrant.'

We spent the rest of the day carousing. We had fought the good fight, finished the race, kept faith with our masters and, though he did not know it, with King James of Scotland. Oh, we became the Cardinal's friends, swore to be his servants in peace and war but we also secretly pledged each other to watch 'Dear Uncle' most closely. We were committed to his service and the White Rose murders were only the first of a succession of mysteries.

Epilogue

So, this story is finished, yet there's more to come: conspiracies at court, treason in both high and low places and, of course, bloody affray and secret assassination. They've dogged my steps like bloodhounds down the years. If I have time you will meet them all - subtle, crafty men and women with fire in their eyes and the devil in their hearts.

Now there goes my chaplain again, jumping up and down on his stool. 'You think every woman's a wench!' the hypocrite exclaims. 'Every girl a whore!'

He's a bloody liar! Will he mention the poor girls I feed in the village? Or that I've made many women laugh and none of them cry? No woman has received discourtesy at my hands. Nor have I broken any hearts or laughed at their tears, even though love has shattered my heart too many times to remember. He's never met Katerina. Oh, sweet Lord, there was witchcraft in her
lips
. I still weep at the very thought of her . . .

And why do I write my memoirs? To exorcise the spectres which still haunt my soul. Tonight, when the sun sets and the moon hides furtively behind the clouds, the ghosts will return, led by Murder on his death-pale horse. They will sweep up the causeway and gather once more under the casement window of my chamber.

I also tell my story as an edification for the young. To correct the laxity in morals, and as a warning against the dangers of hard drink and soft women. Oh, I wish Benjamin could tell his story. I wish I could see him just once more. He would understand. He would deplore the

depravity of our times, the allure of the flesh, the brave, empty promises of the world. Oh, the times! Oh, the festering lies! Oh, the lack of morals! Oh, for Fat Margot and a deep-bowled cup of sack!

Author's Note

We must remember Shallot is, by his own confession, a great teller of tall tales, but he may not be a liar. Indeed, many of his claims can be corroborated by historical fact. James IV of Scotland was a lusty man who had a string of paramours, and his extra-marital affairs did alienate his wife Margaret Tudor. James was warned by visions before the Flodden campaign and many historians think these visions were the work of his wife. We also know James dressed a number of royal look-alikes in his own coat of arms. A few historians mention that as many as a dozen 'fake Jameses' fought at Flodden. Surrey did find a body without the customary penitential chain around its waist: the corpse was restored by embalmers and sent south for Henry to view.

The body was never returned to Scotland. In Elizabeth's reign certain builders found it in a room in a palace and played football with the mummified head until a compassionate vicar took the remains and had them buried in the crypt of St Andrew's Undershaft. According to Walter Scott, when the moat of Hume Castle was drained in the eighteenth century, a skeleton was found with a chain wrapped round its waist. The Humes were close allies of Queen Margaret. Some historians maintain they were the actual assassins who killed James after Flodden and dumped his corpse in the castle moat. For years there were rumours and gossip that James had not died at Flodden.

Shallot is correct - Margaret Tudor was 'trouble in petticoats'. The facts of he
r passionate liaison with Gavin
Douglas are as described in these memoirs, as is his version of the events surrounding the birth of Alexander, Duke of Ross. Margaret did return to Scotland where she enjoyed many happy years, causing as much trouble as possible under the fraternal eye of Bluff King Hal. She fought for and gained a divorce from Angus and then promptly chose the Earl of Lennox as her third husband. She caused more confusion in Scotland than the combined armies of her brother!

Bluff King Hal and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey are accurately described in Shallot's memoirs. For a while, the Cardinal wielded total power in England and many alleged he used the black arts of a famed witch, Mabel Brigge, to control King Henry. Nevertheless, as Carolyn Seymour points out in her excellent biography of King Henry VIII, the prophecies about his being the Mouldwarp proved to be correct. At least fifty thousand people were executed in Henry's thirty-six-year reign. The pretensions of the House of York were also viewed as a major threat to the Tudor crown and, before he died, King Henry VIII had almost succeeded in wiping out every noble family with Yorkist blood in its veins.

King Francis I of France was as lascivious as Shallot describes. However, Shallot's remarks about his own close association with Anne Boleyn, his amorous liaisons with Queen Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici of France, not to mention his theft of the great diamond of Canterbury are, as he says, the stuff of other stories.