White Boar and the Red Dragon, The (41 page)

‘True, but why this particular group altogether? I am suspicious by nature, you well know. Life has taught me to be so! I do not like what the meetings might infer. They want to assure themselves of continued power under the new king, I am sure, as you say. At the moment, they have rivals for power in my Protectorate and have had to take more of a back seat lately, which they probably do not like! Anyway, I have instructed Buckingham to find out what they are up to by chatting with them in a friendly fashion out of the Council Chambers. In this way, he may discover their true intentions and then tell me about them!’

‘I pray all will be well and that your suspicions are unfounded, my lord.’

‘So do I, Francis, but I must confess that it is not so much Hastings alone whom I worry about, but the fact that I have had reason to distrust the other men in his group, at other times. Stanley, in particular! I cannot be certain of them, unfortunately. Bishop Morton is another one—devious in the extreme, I would say!

‘That Hastings should mix with them so much and show that he resents Buckingham—and my trust in Buckingham—is what disturbs me most! Buckingham has proved his loyalty and goes on doing so. He is a steadfast rock to me at this difficult time—as you have always been, as my dearest friend. I have to trust someone, and I trust him! And, as you know, I have always believed that loyalty, once declared, should be maintained. Buckingham has given me no reason to doubt his, so I must maintain mine towards him also! If Hastings resents that, so be it!

‘And now, my dear Francis, I must go to Anne. I shall be glad to throw off these weighty problems for a few hours in her calming company!’

Francis Lovell, Crosby Place, London, 18 June 1483

‘My Lady Anne, I fear Lord Richard has become possessed. I have never seen him in such a great rage. He was beside himself. He seemed to lose all control! He has done a terrible thing! I would never have believed it possible of him. I am still shaking from the horror of it!’

‘Dear Francis, you terrify me! What has he done?’

‘If I had not witnessed it, I would not believe it!’

‘What? Tell me!’

‘Lord Hastings. He is dead! Richard had him summarily beheaded, no trial, no chance to defend himself, hardly a moment to make peace with his Maker! Just bundled straight out of the White Tower on to Tower Green and executed! The executioner did not even have a proper block for him. They used an old piece of wood left lying around there from some recent building works.’

‘How dreadful! And Richard ordered this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why, by all the saints?’

‘Because Hastings was a traitor to Richard and the Protectorate. Richard accused him bluntly in the middle of the council meeting, then had him dragged out. There were soldiers waiting behind the door. Richard must have planned it!’

‘He was driven to it, I’m sure! He did tell us that he suspected Hastings. And the others of his group—Bishop Morton, Stanley, Bishop Rotherham. I liked Hastings. Everyone did. I am amazed at his duplicity! But I know Richard would not have done this without real proof and good cause. I trust his motives, though the deed itself is horrific. He believed Hastings to be his friend!’

‘I trust Richard too, but it is so unlike him. I have never known him to do anything like this without careful thought. He seemed to be a slave to an overwhelming passion!’

‘Betrayal is a terrible thing. Especially in one’s friends or in those one believes to be one’s friends! What happened to the others?’

‘All arrested and imprisoned!’

‘Then they were all plotting against Richard!’

‘It would seem so. Though I confess, I do not really know all the ins and outs of it. Richard did not tell me any more than you beforehand and certainly nothing of what he felt compelled to do to Hastings if he were proved disloyal. Apparently, he and his group joined up with the Woodvilles, and they planned to overthrow Richard and take the boy king Edward back into their protection by force! Hastings was to be his new Protector! Buckingham obtained irrefutable proof of this plot for Richard.’

‘So, what else could Richard do? I am sure he was driven to it, could see no other solution.’

‘And with the rest of the council and Parliament agreeing to Richard’s continued Protectorship, the plotters would have had to act quickly. But Richard struck a blow against them first. He was always one for making pre-emptive strikes! He often did against enemies in battle, and avoided endless trouble later. I can see his reasoning, Anne, but I could not have done it. Not to Hastings anyway. He seemed to be everyone’s friend, such a genial fellow! And all the time…’

‘He was plotting Richard’s downfall!’

‘And the others—I am not surprised! Stanley, he was never one to know which side he was on—unless it was on the winning side. Bishop Rotherham had openly professed for the queen all along, but had seemed to acquiesce to Richard’s rule. Bishop Morton is a deep one. No one can fathom his mind! He is extremely clever, but also very unscrupulous!’

‘Poor Richard! What he has done is so out of character. To be forced to execute his dear brother’s closest friend! Where is Richard now?’

‘I do not know. He went off by himself after the execution. I could only think to come and tell you what had happened, so it would be less of a shock to you later. Richard will need your support, I am sure of it.’

‘He will have it, though I liked Hastings. It is a wife’s duty to support her husband, whatever he does, even if she is unhappy inside about it. And I am.’

‘There is more on his mind too, my lady, I know it. Something to do with the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bishop Stillington. The old man came to see Richard a day or two since and was closeted privily with him for a long time. When they emerged, the bishop was visibly shaking, and when Richard came out to the rest of us in the anteroom, he was so white-faced and drawn and as strung-up as a bowstring. He said nothing then but was obviously under a terrible strain. What it can have been that caused this he has not divulged yet, even to his closest friends and supporters. But he has clearly many troubles weighing him down!

Also, he suddenly sent away to the north by special messenger—one Richard Ratcliffe—commissions of array. He obviously expects trouble and wants the soldiers of the north to come down to London as soon as possible to be on hand for it. He trusts them. They are utterly loyal to him. Richard was always a close one, keeping his own counsel and often betraying little of his plans and thoughts even to me, his closest friend! I long to know what is going on in his head.’

‘I am sure we will both find out soon enough. Now, try to forget the terrible events of the morning, Francis! Come and drink a cup of wine with me. We must both try to relax, to prepare for Richard’s homecoming.’

Richard, Crosby Place, London, Night, 15 June 1483

‘My dear lord, you have slept but ill these past two nights. Does the death of Hastings still weigh heavily on your spirits?’

‘Aye, I regret my actions, in spite of his obvious treachery! And I am right weighed down with many other troubling thoughts besides.’

‘Can you not confide in me and ease your mind? If not me, your loving wife, then who can you confide in?’

‘Anne, if you only knew how I long to unburden it all. But my mind is such a maze of indecision and unsolved problems. I have to decide what to do. There is so little time!’

‘Do? I thought that you had dealt with the biggest problem—the plot against you? Surely now you can go ahead with the young king’s coronation on 22 June, and when Parliament convenes immediately after and ratifies you officially as the boy’s Protector until he comes of age, then will not all be plain sailing again for you?’

‘If only that were true! No. My Anne, something has reared its ugly head, which I had knowledge of years ago, and which I ignored for Edward’s sake, as it concerned him so intimately. It has to be dealt with urgently, for the sake of the realm! Or all may be plunged into chaos again!’

‘Whatever can that be? Pray tell me. Maybe I can help you decide for the best?’

‘Only I can make the ultimate decision, unfortunately. It is possible that the boy’s coronation will not be able to take place at all now, if I make known what the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Robert Stillington, lately told me!’

‘The Bishop of Bath and Wells? Francis did tell me you were closeted with him for a long time recently.’

‘Yes, and what he had to reveal could rend the bedrock of the whole Yorkist succession! His secret is out at last. And I feel I should reveal it to the nation. It was this secret that led to poor George’s death! Edward discovered that he had knowledge of it when he was imprisoned in the Tower and so felt compelled to sign George’s death warrant, for the sake of this. George could have revealed all at any time.’

‘What is this terrible secret?’

‘Well, Bishop Stillington was a close friend of George and must have told him—though he swears he did not—about the plight-troth ceremony he carried out many years ago between Edward, then twenty, and a high-born lady, Eleanor Butler. In this, he promised her marriage. She would not bed with him else. And Edward was young and lustful and did not consider the consequences. She gave in, of course—Edward always got what he wanted—then he deserted her. She died only a few years later in a nunnery near Norwich.’

‘Poor lady!’

‘Yes. When Edward met Elizabeth Grey and married her in 1464, he actually committed bigamy, according to the law. He had no right to marry her, but he chose to ignore this inconvenient fact! I don’t suppose he even told Elizabeth about it at the time, knowing him, though he might have told her later.’

‘This is appalling! Do you think the bishop is telling the truth? Has he any proof?’

‘If one cannot trust the word of a man who has dedicated his whole life to the service of God, then who can one trust? And why would he lie about such a thing? He said it had burnt in his brain for years, and he was grateful to be rid of the burden of it now. Apparently, proof did exist—a parchment signed by all three parties at the time and witnessed by one of Stillington’s priests, but Edward insisted on keeping it—a mistake, obviously. I expect he destroyed it when he married Elizabeth or maybe straightaway? Who knows?

I loved my brother dearly and looked up to him in all things all his life, but now I must admit he could forget about morality when it suited him, or got in his way!’

‘What a dreadful story. And what a dreadful situation it must put you in! Does it not mean that all Edward’s children are bastards because of this, and that the little king is not king at all and has no right to be crowned?’

‘Exactly. That is the nub of the matter. And his coronation is exactly one week off! All is nearly prepared; hundreds have been invited to attend. The Lords are travelling from all parts of the country now to attend both the Coronation and the Parliament immediately after. Am I to blow it all apart with this bombshell news? Am I to go to this poor lad and tell him that he is not to be king after all? How can he possibly understand? How could I do this to my dear brother’s child? It seems like an unforgivable betrayal of the loyalty I always swore to Edward! That is what is causing me this terrible indecision! Anyway, I have called a meeting of the Council tomorrow morning. But if I tell them what I have learnt from the Bishop, though I myself heard something of it years ago from my mother, but kept it to myself then for Edward’s sake, as I did not really believe it anyway—then I feel I will be set upon a course of action from which there is no turning back!’

‘Dear Husband, you frighten me!’

‘I am afraid of the terrible consequences myself! And what a viper’s nest Edward’s marriage to that awful woman Elizabeth caused at the time too: Warwick’s anger and his disaffection; George’s disaffection—and much more! Stillington swears that he never revealed the plight-troth secret to George, ever. But nevertheless, George had apparently known of it for years, according to the bishop. But he does not know from whom.’

‘Could it have been from the priest who was a witness, think you? He was the only other one there.’

‘Possibly, I suppose. Who knows? Perhaps we shall never find out exactly how the secret got to George. But it did. And he lost his life because of it!’

‘Oh, Richard, none of this dreadful situation is your fault! “The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children” it does say in the Bible, and this is a terrible example of that. Edward was to blame and no one else.’

‘I know. But I am the one who has to deal with it. I still have to sort out Edward’s problems, even though he is dead—which I always did for him in life. Whatever I do will cause endless repercussions and complications. If I decide to ignore Stillington’s revelations and let the coronation go ahead, then I am remaining loyal to my dead brother but not to the realm. I have never broken a trust in my life, knowingly. I have always tried to keep to my motto “Loyalty binds me!” Am I to abandon my principles now for expediency, to avoid trouble?

I believe Stillington. I feel he has spoken nothing but the truth, as compelled to by his unquiet conscience! Knowing Edward through and through as I did, this was typical of his thoughtless, selfish ways, unfortunately.

Stillington’s conscience is clear now, after unburdening himself to me, but he has unloaded the unwanted burden of knowledge on to me!

I have written to my mother to ask her advice. I expect an answer tomorrow, as I have stressed the urgency of it. Then I will make my decision—the hardest one of my life!’

‘I know that you will do the right thing, my dear lord. I trust you to do that.’

‘Yes, but what is the right thing to do in these terrible circumstances? Am I to let the coronation take place? Or bring all down like a pack of cards? Whatever I do, it must be done quickly!’

Richard, Baynard’s Castle, London, 16 June 1483

Today, I met my privy council at the Tower, and we were rowed upstream to Westminster. My armed men surrounded the sanctuary. We had determined to get the erstwhile queen’s youngest son, Richard of York, removed from her care and out of the sanctuary. It was vital to get her consent this time, by one means or another, if not for herself and the girls, at least for young Richard.