Anthony Woodville, the queen’s brother, seemed to be ahead of his time in regard to education and culture. What more can you tell us about him? Was Elizabeth honoring his memory by becoming a patroness of Queens’ College Cambridge?
Elizabeth took over the role of patron of Queens’ College from her predecessor Margaret of Anjou, but her interest in education and culture may have been inspired and would certainly have been encouraged by her brother, who was a true Renaissance man: spiritual, martial, thoughtful, and innovative. He brought the printer William Caxton to England and sponsored the first printed book; he was famous for his ability in the joust; and he was a loyal brother to Elizabeth and a devoted uncle to her son. The poem I quote in the book was indeed the poem he wrote the night before he died. We can only speculate as to the sort of man he can have been that he should spend his last hours on earth, not in rage or grief, but in crafting a poem of such detachment and clarity.
If you could go back in time and live in any of the royal courts you’ve written about, which one would it be and why?
I would be absolutely mad to want to be a woman of any of these times. A Tudor or Plantagenet woman was wholly ruled by men: either father or husband. She would find it difficult to seek any education, make her own fortune, or improve her circumstances. Her husband would have a legal right over her that was equal to his ownership of domestic animals; and the chances of dying in childbirth were very high. If one could go back in time and be a wealthy man, these would be times of adventure and opportunity but still tremendously dangerous. I think I would prefer the Tudor period to diminish the danger of being killed in battle, but there were still regular plagues and foreign wars to face. I cannot sufficiently express my enthusiasm for modern medicine, votes for women, and safe contraception.
The younger Elizabeth emerges as quite a vivid and spirited character. Will we be seeing more of her in a future book?
Elizabeth, the Princess of York, goes on to marry Henry VII and so is mother to a royal dynasty, just as her father and mother hoped they were creating a royal dynasty. She is, of course, mother of Henry VIII, and her granddaughter is England’s greatest queen—Elizabeth I. Elizabeth of York will be the subject of the third book of this series, to be called The White Princess. But coming next is the story of the mother of Henry VII, the indomitable Margaret Beaufort, whom you may have glimpsed in this novel but who deserves a book all to herself. It is called The Red Queen.
Work in Progress
1453
The light of the open sky is brilliant after the darkness of the inner rooms. I blink and hear the roar of many voices. But this is not my army calling for me, this whisper growing to a rumble is not their roar of attack, nor the drumming of their swords on shields. The rippling noise of linen in the wind is not my embroidered angels and lilies against the sky, but cursed English standards in the triumphant May breeze. This is a different sort of roar from our bellowed hymns, this is a hungry howl of people who are hungry for death: actually, for my death.
Ahead of me, towering above me as I step over the threshold from my prison into the town square, is my destination: a wood stack, with a stepladder of rough staves leaning against it. I whisper: ‘A cross. May I have a cross?’ And then louder: ‘A cross! I must have a cross!’ And some man, a stranger, an enemy, an Englishman, one that we call a ‘goddam’, for their unending blaspheming, holds out a crucifix of rough whittled wood, something of his own crude making, and I snatch it without pride from his dirty hands. I clutch it as they push me towards the wood pile and thrust me up the ladder, my feet scraping on the rough wood, as I climb higher than my own height, until I reach the unsteady platform hammered into the top of the bonfire, and they turn me, roughly, and tie my hands behind me around the stake.
It all goes so slowly then, that I could almost think that time itself has frozen and the angels are coming down for me. Stranger things have happened. Did not the angels come for me when I was herding sheep? Did they not call me by name? Did I not lead an army to the relief of Orléans? Did I not crown the dauphin and drive out the English? Just me? A girl from Domrémy, advised by angels?
They light the kindling all around the bottom, and the smoke eddies and billows in the breeze, then the fire takes hold and the hot cloud shrouds me, and makes me cough, blinking, my eyes streaming. Already it is scalding my bare feet, I step from one foot to another, foolishly, as if I hope to spare myself discomfort, and I peer through the smoke in case someone is running with buckets of water, to say that the king I crowned has forbidden this; or the English who bought me from a soldier, now acknowledge that I am not theirs to kill, or the Church knows that I am a good girl, a good woman, innocent of everything but serving God with a passionate purpose.
No one. The noise of the crowd goes on: a mixture of shouted blessings and curses, prayers and obscenities. I look upward to the blue sky for my angels descending, and a log shifts in the pyre below me, and my stake rocks, and the first sparks fly up and scorch my gown. I see them land and glow like fireflies on my skirt and I feel a dry scratching in my throat and I cough from the smoke and whisper like a little girl: ‘Dear God, save me, your daughter! Dear God, put down your hand for me. Dear God, save me, your maid…’
There is a crash of noise and a blow to my head and I am sitting, bewildered, on the floorboards of my bedroom, my hand to my head, looking around me like a fool and seeing nothing. My lady companion opens my door, and seeing me, dazed, my prayer stool tipped over says irritably: ‘Lady Margaret go to bed. It is long past your bedtime. Our Lady does not value the prayers of disobedient girls. There is no merit in exaggeration.’
She slams the door shut and I hear her telling the maids that one of them must go in now and put me to bed and sleep beside me to make sure I don’t rise up at midnight for another session of prayer. They don’t like me to follow the hours of the Church; they stand between me and a life of holiness because they say I am too young and need my sleep. They dare to suggest that I am showing off, playing at piety, when I know that God has called me and it is my duty, my higher duty to obey.
I cannot recapture the vision that was so bright, just a moment ago; it is gone. For a moment, for a sacred moment, I was there: I was the Maid of Orléans, the sainted Joan of France. I understood what a girl could do, what a woman could be. But then they drag me back to earth, and scold me as if I were an ordinary girl, and spoil everything.
‘Our Lady Mary, guide me, angels come to me,’ I whisper, trying to get back to the square, to the watching crowds, to the holy moment. But it has all gone. I have to haul myself up the bedpost to stand. I am dizzy from fasting and praying, and I rub my knee where I knocked it. There is a wonderful roughness on the skin of my knee, and I put my hand down and pull up my nightgown to see them both, and they are the same. Saints’ knees, Praise God, I have saints’ knees. I have prayed so much, and on such hard floors that the skin of my knees is becoming roughened, like the callus on the finger of an English long-bowman. I am only nine years old, but I have saints’ knees. This has got to count for something, whatever my old lady governess may say to my mother about excessive and theatrical devotion. I have saints’ knees. I have hardened the skin of my knees by continual prayer, these are my stigmata: saints’ knees. Pray God I can meet their challenge and have a saint’s end too.
I get into bed, as I have been ordered to do; for obedience, even to foolish and vulgar women, is a virtue. I may be the daughter of one of the greatest of English commanders in France, descendant of the great Beaufort family and so an heir to the throne of Henry VI of England, but still I have to obey my lady governess and my mother as if I were any other nine-year-old girl. I am the ward of the Earl of Suffolk, the greatest man in the kingdom after the king, and betrothed to marry his son John de la Pole, and yet still I have to do as I am told by a stupid old woman who sleeps through the priest’s homily and sucks sugared plums through grace. I count her as a cross I have to bear, and I offer her up in my prayers.
I have been betrothed to John de la Pole for three years, and we will complete our marriage in another three years and live together as man and wife when I am old enough, at twelve; but the very next morning at breakfast, I learn that this is to change. My mother tells me to prepare for a journey. ‘We are going to London,’ she says calmly. ‘To court.’
I have to take care not to exult like a vain proud girl. I bow my head and whisper: ‘As you wish, Lady Mother,’ but inside my heart is thudding with excitement. This is the best thing that could happen. My home at Bletsoe is so quiet and dull and studious that there is no chance for me to resist the perils of the world. There are no temptations to overcome, and no one sees me but servants and my half-brothers and sisters, and they all think of me as a little girl, next to nothing. I try to think of Joan, herding her father’s sheep at Domrémy. She did not complain of being bored in the country, she waited and listened for the voices to summon her to greatness.
I wonder if this command to go to London is the voice calling me to greatness now. We will be at the court of the sainted Henry VI. He must welcome me as his nearest kin. Surely, he will recognise in me the light of holiness that everyone sees in him? He must claim me as both kin and kindred spirit. What if he decides I shall stay at court with him? Why not? What if he wants to take me as his advisor, as the dauphin took Joan of Arc? I am his second cousin and a girl granted visions of the saints. I am only nine years old but I have trained myself in a spiritual discipline. If I had been born a boy I would be practically the Prince of Wales now. Sometimes I wonder if they wish I had been born a boy and that is why they do not see the light that shines within me. Could it be that they are so filled with the sin of pride of our place that they wish I was a boy, and ignore the greatness that is in me as a holy girl?
‘Yes, Lady Mother,’ I say obediently.
‘You don’t sound very excited,’ she says. ‘Don’t you want to know why we are going?’
Desperately. ‘If you wish to tell me.’
‘Your guardian, the Earl of Suffolk, has been accused of betraying England’s interests in France. He is determined to have peace between England and France, and he has all but sold Maine to our enemies. He is disgraced and your betrothal to his son must be ended. You will face a panel of judges who will ask you if you wish your betrothal to be ended and you will say “Yes”. Do you understand?’
This sounds very alarming. ‘But I won’t know what to say.’
‘I will be there. You will just consent to the end of your betrothal. You will just say “Yes”.’
‘And then what will happen?’
‘His Grace the king will appoint a new guardian, and, in turn, he will give you in marriage to the man of his choice.’
‘Another betrothal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I not go to an abbey?’ I ask very quietly, though I know what the answer will be.
‘Your son will inherit the throne of England if the king has no child of his own,’ she says. ‘Of course you cannot go to an abbey, Margaret. Don’t be stupid. Your duty is to bear a son and heir who will be King of England, a boy for the house of Lancaster. God knows, the house of York has boys enough. We have to have one of our own. You have to give us one of our own.’
‘But I think I have a calling.’
‘You are called to be mother of the next king of England,’ she says briskly. ‘That is an ambition great enough for any girl. Now go and get ready to leave. Your women will have packed your clothes, you just have to fetch your doll for the journey.’
I fetch my doll and my book of prayer too. I can read in French of course, and also English, but I cannot understand Latin or Greek and my mother will not allow me a tutor. A girl is not worth educating, she says. I might wish to read the gospels and prayers but I have to wait for someone to translate them, and then to get hold of the rare handwritten copies. Boys are taught Latin and Greek and other subjects too; but girls need only be able to read and write, to sew, to keep the household accounts, to make music and enjoy poetry. If I were an abbess I would have access to a great library and I could set clerks to copy the texts that I wanted to read. I would be a woman of learning instead of an untaught girl, as stupid as any ordinary girl.
If my father were alive perhaps he would have taught me Latin himself. He was a great reader and writer, I know. He spent years in captivity in France when he studied every day. But he died just days before my first birthday; he did not wait even to see me through my first year. My birth was so unimportant to him that he was in France on campaign, trying to restore his fortune, when my mother was brought to bed, and he came home just before my first birthday. France was the graveyard of his hopes, as it has been for generations of Englishmen who are now losing the land that we once called our own. Now my guardian too, has been defeated by France where he thought he had conquered.
It will take us three days to get to London. My mother will ride her own horse, but I am to ride pillion behind one of the grooms. He is called Wat and he thinks himself a great charmer in the stables and kitchen. He winks at me as if I would be friendly to a man such as him, and I frown to remind him that I am a Beaufort and he is a nobody. I sit behind him, and I have to take tight hold of his leather belt and when he says to me: ‘Right and tight? Righty Tighty?’ I nod coldly, so as to warn him that I don’t want him talking to me all the way to Ampthill.
He sings instead, which is just as bad, he sings love-songs and hay-making songs in a bright tenor voice and the men who ride with us, to protect us from the armed bands who are everywhere in England these days, join in with him and sing too. I wish my mother would order them to be silent, or at least command them to sing psalms, but she is happy, riding out in the spring weather and when she comes alongside me she smiles and says: ‘Not far now, Margaret. Are you not too tired?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I am all right. Shall we see the Earl of Suffolk at court?’ I cannot imagine him as a man disgraced. I first met him at his great house when we went to visit so he could see that I was strong and suitable as a wife for his son who would be a duke one day. Everyone wants to be sure that I am able to bear a son who could be king. So I had to stand straight before him and answer his questions and then he asked me did I have anything to ask him? I opened my mouth, but did not dare say a word, and he said kindly: ‘What is it, little maid? You can ask me.’
I was only six years old then, but I had heard of the Maid of Orleans, and I knew he had seen her. ‘I wanted to know about Jeanne d’Arc,’ I said, taking courage from his smile. ‘Do you know about her, Sir?’
He glanced with a smile at my mother. ‘Well here is a surprise,’ he said. He gestured that I should come closer, and when I stood at his knee he put his arm around me. ‘What d’you know of her? Who has been talking to you?’
‘I heard a ballad,’ I said. ‘A song about her. It said that you captured her and burned her for a witch.’
He nodded. ‘I captured her,’ he said. ‘But it was the churchmen who said she was fit for burning. They released her to us English, and then, yes, we did as we were bound to do. She was a great enemy to us, the English, and to our allies, the Burgundians. Some would say she was our downfall in France.’
I stirred with questions, and he smiled at me. ‘Shall I tell you all about her at dinner?’
I nodded, and that night, at dinner, he told me of the English army at siege before Orléans, certain of victory, as they had won every other battle in France. ‘We had the longbow, and they didn’t,’ he said simply. ‘Nobody could defeat our archers, their range, their accuracy…’ He broke off when he saw my puzzled face. ‘Ah but you only want to know about the Maid,’ he said. ‘But you have to realise that she was just a girl in a country which had been absolutely defeated, which had no chance of winning, and wiser and better men than her knew they were lost.’
‘But she?’ I whispered.
‘She claimed she heard voices, angels talking to her. They told her to go to the French king??
?a worthless man, a weak man, a nothing–to go to him and have him crowned as king and then drive the English from our lands in France. Her cousin took her to his lord, he took her on to another. She found her way to the king. He thought she might have the gift of prophecy, he didn’t know–but he had nothing to lose. Men believed in her. She was just a country girl, but she dressed as a man at arms, she had a banner made that was embroidered with lilies and angels. She sent a messenger to a church and they found an old Crusader sword where she said it would be–hidden for years.’
‘She did?’
He laughs at my widened eyes. ‘So they said. Perhaps there was some truth in it. Of course men believed in her. They thought she was called by God to save France from us English. They thought she was invulnerable to mortal weapons. They thought she was a little angel herself.’
‘And what was she like?’
He thought for a moment. ‘A girl, just a girl like you. Small, bright-eyed, full of herself.’
My heart swells. ‘Like me?’
‘Very like you.’
‘Margaret is obedient,’ my mother murmured. ‘She knows her duty.’
He laughs shortly. ‘Joan of Arc wasn’t obedient,’ he said. ‘Except to her own vision of herself. She led an army of more than four thousand to where we were camped outside Orléans and she had them pull down our earthworks and break down our palisades and we did not dare to engage, so we withdrew. You couldn’t order men forward to fight her, they were terrified of the very sight of her. The men thought she was unbeatable, a witch. I took my men to Jageau and she chased after us, on the attack, always on the attack. My men were afraid of her. She defeated us. She captured me. Yes indeed, she captured me, and I had to wait for my ransom in prison. I remember her riding through the gates; she rode like a prince. If I had to be taken in battle by anyone, I would have been taken by her. She was…remarkable.’