More than twenty-one years had passed since Marguerite d’Anjou had surrrendered the border fortress of Berwick to the Scots as the price demanded for Scottish assistance against the Yorkists. In the intervening two decades, Edward had made sporadic attempts to regain Berwick, the most strategic of the border outposts. By late July, Richard had taken the town and set about besieging the castle in earnest.
James hastily gathered a force and marched south. An unpopular King who had twice been censured for dereliction of duty by his own parliament, he now discovered that he had as much to fear from his own barons as he did from the English Duke besieging Berwick. He’d gotten no further than Lauder, twenty-four miles from Edinburgh, when he was overtaken by his rebellious lords.
Among the grievances they counted against James was one particularly unforgivable to a nobleman of the era; he’d surrounded himself with men of modest birth, preferring the company of architects and artisans to that of the arrogant and high-born Earls of Angus and Lennox. At Lauder, these disaffected aristocrats gave him an ultimatum: dismiss the masons and musicians from his court and show himself amenable to governing by their counsel.
However democratic James was in his friendships, he was a confirmed believer in the Divine Right of Kings. He indignantly spurned his barons’ demands. They promptly took matters into their own hands by seizing six of James’s favorites and hanging them from Lauder Bridge. James himself was taken under guard back to the capital and imprisoned within Edinburgh Castle.
The success of their coup seemed to take even the conspirators by surprise. They retreated to the town of Haddington to confer on what to do next, and thus left the way clear for an English advance upon Edinburgh.
Upon getting word of the startling events at Lauder Bridge, Richard left four thousand men under command of Lord Stanley, instructing them to continue the siege of Berwick. The English army then swept north, burning towns and villages in an attempt to provoke the Scots into taking the field. But the Scottish lords thought it prudent to keep to Haddington, and the people were too demoralized by the capture of their King to offer effective resistance. On July 31, Richard entered Edinburgh in triumph. Two days later the Scottish nobles sued for terms and the war was over.
It took no more than one meeting with the insurgent lords of Scotland for Richard to realize that Edward’s plan to depose James with the more pliant Albany was doomed to failure. However little the Scots liked James, Albany had irretrievably compromised himself by his collaboration with the hated English, the Sassenach. Even if it had been possible to shove him down the throats of an unwilling people, Richard knew it would have been impossible to keep him on so shaky a throne. Albany himself was not long in reaching the same conclusion, and with uncharacteristic common sense, showed himself willing to settle for the restoration of his estates and a chance to play an active role in the government now being formed by the Scottish Earls.
Richard was not completely satisfied by this outcome. But for the time being, he’d won a Scottish pledge to repay Edward the money paid out for his daughter’s dowry, and the Scottish people would not soon forget the smoke-filled skies over Berwickshire. He had one more objective to achieve and then he would be content. By August 11, he was once again at Berwick, where he set about winning back the castle that for twenty years had held out against the most stubborn of English assaults.
It was no easy thing for Edward, having to admit he no longer had the stamina to lead his own army. For most of his life, he’d done with ease what other men strained to match; he’d worked hard, played hard, and took for granted the boundless energy with which he’d been blessed. But as he drifted into his late thirties, he found his will being sapped by physical ailments hitherto unknown to him. He was winded now with astonishingly little effort. Always an aggressive and energetic tennis player, more and more he’d found himself panting and sweat-drenched after a set, and had finally been forced to give it up for less strenuous amusements. In the same way, day-long deer hunts had to be curtailed, and for the first time in his life, he could not eat anything and everything he liked; certain foods were too highly spiced, and Dr Hobbys had begun to fret about these recurring attacks of indigestion.
But he’d continued to delude himself that he would be able to take command of the Scots invasion. It was only at Fotheringhay that he’d been brought face-to-face with the truth, that he would have to depend now upon Richard to do what he could no longer do for himself.
Well, so be it then. Dickon was a damned fine battle commander in his own right; he’d be able to bring the Scots to terms. And once this campaign was over, he could see about losing some weight, getting back into shape again. That would please old Hobbys, in truth. And it wouldn’t be all that difficult, surely. Jesú, he was only forty.
To keep in close contact with Richard, Edward resorted to a courier system in use on the Continent, setting up relays of riders to cover the 335 miles between Berwick and London. So successfully did it serve him that when Berwick Castle fell to Richard on August 24, he had the news by the following day.
As delighted as Edward had been by the capture of Edinburgh, the recovery of Berwick meant far more. By nightfall, bonfires were burning in celebration of the English victory, and Richard’s name was being drunk in all the alehouses of London, Westminster, and Southwark. It was a much-needed triumph for Edward, for his foreign policy was presently in disarray.
That past March, Marie, the young Duchess of Burgundy, had died in a tragic fall from a horse, leaving as her heir a small son not yet four. Her husband, a foreign Prince not loved by the people of Burgundy, and Edward’s grieving sister Margaret both appealed urgently to him for aid, but the English army was by then committed to war with the Scots. Edward could do little beyond advising Maximilian and Margaret to seek a truce with Louis and hope he would soon die; the French King had recently suffered two strokes and his hold on life was said to be precarious.
Richard’s success in Scotland came, therefore, at a most opportune time. Edward was jubilant, lavishing praise upon his younger brother all throughout dinner and on into the afternoon and evening. Coming now into his private chamber, Elizabeth found his elation had yet to fade. He’d been about to write a letter of celebration to the Pope when interrupted by his daughters, and they were with him still, Cecily hanging on the back of his chair and Bess perched on a footstool at his feet.
Elizabeth was not pleased to find them here, not pleased by the way they felt free to intrude upon Edward at any time, careless of formality or court protocol. They were no longer little girls, were young women of thirteen and sixteen, and she felt they should begin to act like it. In this, she got little support from Edward, thought he indulged them outrageously. All the more so since Mary’s death.
Mary was not, of course, the first child they’d lost. A baby daughter had died in her cradle and their third son had been stricken by plague only days away from his second birthday. But it was all too heartbreakingly common to have a child go to God before he could learn to walk; parents grieved but they were not surprised. It was different, however, with Mary. She was no longer a child, had been a beautiful young girl just three months shy of her fifteenth birthday, and her sudden death had stunned her family.
At sight now of her daughters lavishing such loving affection upon Edward, Elizabeth felt a small dart of jealousy. In the shocked aftermath of Mary’s death, the older children had turned to Edward for comfort. To Edward, not to her. It had ever been that way. They were dutiful children, gave her respect and obedience. But there was no doubt whom they preferred. Whom they adored.
“I remember being told what horrors the soldiers of Lancaster did when they came south after the battle of Sandal Castle, how they pillaged churches and ravished unwilling women and gave great suffering to the innocent. Yet Uncle Dickon did forbear to sack Edinburgh, did forbid his men to harm the citizens. I think that was a most Christian act, Papa, in truth I do.”
Edward smiled down at his eldest dau
ghter. “I thank you for the compliment, sweetheart.”
“But it was Dickon who spared Edinburgh, Papa,” Bess protested, and he laughed.
“Aye, and who do you think taught him what he does know of war? He had a first-rate instructor, poppet…me! No, Bess, I saw with my own eyes the havoc wrought by Marguerite d’Anjou. The people never forgave her for the excesses of her soldiers, which did win more hearts for York than ever I could have done myself.” He shook his head, said, “No, in war you do what must be done, but no more than that. Be too brutal and you push the people into resisting you unto death, for what do they have to lose?”
Cecily had been listening intently. Now she leaned forward, spoke softly in Edward’s ear.
“I, too, am glad, Papa, that Uncle Dickon did spare Edinburgh. But what of the villages burned between Berwick and Edinburgh? What of the people who lived in those hamlets? I know you said they were not put to the sword, were given time to flee ahead of our troops. But where will they live come winter, with their houses burned and their crops destroyed? Won’t many die of hunger or cold?”
Bess was irked; she wanted to think of the Scots campaign as a glorious triumph, and now Cecily was tarnishing that brightness with morbid talk of starving women and children.
“For pity’s sake, Cecily, of course they won’t! They’ll just go elsewhere, make new homes for themselves.”
“Will they, Papa?” Cecily alone of his children had the blue-grey eyes of his brothers Edmund and Richard, eyes full of utter trust, ready to believe whatever he might say.
“For certes, some will find kin to give them shelter. But I’ll not lie to you, sweetheart. There will be others who’ll take ill and die.” Edward shifted so he could better see her face, said with sudden seriousness, “The innocent will always suffer in the time of war, Cecily. That just be the way of it. Your pity does you credit, but tell me this. Would you rather the homeless and hungry be English women and children?”
“No, Papa,” she said dutifully.
“Now, if the both of you can keep still for a few minutes, I’ll let you listen while I do write to His Holiness the Pope. Fair enough?” Signaling to a waiting scribe, he began to dictate:
Thank God, the giver of all good gifts, for the support received from our most loving brother, whose success is so proven that he alone would suffice to chastise the whole kingdom of Scotland. This year we appointed our very dear brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to command the same army which we ourselves intended to have led last year….
Elizabeth did not dare linger, knew she’d not be able to hold her tongue if she did. To hear Richard of Gloucester lauded to the skies was to pour salt into an already festering wound and she saw no reason to subject herself to it. She backed out quietly, and it did not escape her that they did not even notice her departure.
On the same Sunday that Edward learned Berwick Castle had surrendered to Richard, Marguerite d’Anjou was breathing her last in the modest château of Dampierre in her native Anjou. Her death came eleven years after the battle of Tewkesbury, came for her eleven years too late, and was the occasion for little comment, either in England or in France. Upon hearing of her death, Louis at once wrote and demanded that all her dogs be sent to him. He was her heir, he said, and the dogs were all he’d be likely to get from her estate.
20
Westminster
December 1482
Richard’s barge had just tied up at the wharf known as the King’s Stairs. He was still standing on the dock when a shrill cry of “Dickon!” came cutting through the usual clamor of passing river traffic. He jerked his head around, startled, for although he could imagine no woman he knew screaming out a private family name in so public a place, the voice had sounded remarkably like that of Bess, his brother’s eldest daughter. But almost at once, he dismissed the thought as unlikely in the extreme. Even Bess, free spirit that she was, would hardly be guilty of so eye-opening a breach of etiquette.
One of his men was pointing. “Your Grace…. Up on the river gate!”
Richard glanced upward, said, “Good Lord,” for it was, indeed, his niece, leaning precariously over the parapet of the river gate, gesturing down to him. Her appearance was scarcely less cause for comment than her astonishing behavior; she had a cloak drawn carelessly around her shoulders but no headdress, and bright blonde hair was escaping its constraints, being blown about untidily by the wind gusting off the river.
Seeing she had his attention, she leaned over still farther. “Wait there! I’ll be right down!”
By now she’d attracted the eye of every man on the dock. Most were grinning up appreciatively at her; not only was Bess an uncommonly pretty girl, but she’d long been a favorite with Londoners. Richard was grinning, too, amused in spite of himself. It truly wasn’t funny though. He supposed he ought to talk to her. Even Ned, who was most assuredly no stickler for protocol, even he would take it amiss that Bess should be hanging over river parapets, looking like a hoyden, and shrieking like a fishwife. As for the haughty Elizabeth…praise God if she’d not be like to have an apoplectic fit at the very thought! Richard laughed and moved forward to meet his niece, just now reaching the bottom of the steps.
An instant later, he was running toward her, all else forgotten but the look of fright on her face. Throwing her arms around him, she clung like a small, fearful child, and from her muffled torrent of words, all he could make out clearly was “Papa,” and “Thank God you’ve come!”
“Bess…. Bess, you’re making no sense. Take a deep breath, and tell me what be wrong.”
She obediently did as told, straightened away from him, and said, more coherently, “I’m being silly, I know. But I was just so frightened…. And seeing you brought it all back….”
“Fearful of what, Bess? I still don’t know what you be talking about. Is it Ned?”
She nodded and for the first time seemed to take note of their extremely interested audience. She swallowed, tugged at his arm. “Come,” she urged. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Has Ned been taken ill? How serious is—”
“He’s all right now, Dickon,” Bess interrupted hastily. “Truly he is. Dr Hobbys swears so. I should’ve told you that at once. More fool I, for not thinking first. But when I saw your barge dock, all else went from my head. I’m so sorry!”
“Bess, you still haven’t told me a damned thing! I don’t understand. Ned was fine when I did see him last night!”
“He was fine this morning, too, until Jack came.”
“Jack Howard? You mean he be back from France?”
“He did arrive back this noon, came to Papa in the Prince’s Chamber. They spoke apart for a little time and suddenly Papa was shouting, was calling Louis the vilest names…‘Hell-spawn’ and ‘misbegotten son of Satan’ were but the mildest ones! It was dreadful, Dickon. Never have I seen Papa so wroth. He…he frightened me a little,” she confessed. “He did frighten all in the chamber, I think. Papa is usually so…so much in control.” She swallowed again, said, “He did go on like that for some moments, damning France and Louis and none but Jack knowing what it was all about, and then he did send to Crosby Place for you. His messenger didn’t find you?”
“I was at the Tower all morn. Go on, Bess. What then?”
“Papa had been breathing in gasps, like men do when they be angry. But all of a sudden, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He grabbed Jack for support and his face got red, like it was on fire. He said to get a doctor, but his voice sounded so queer, all choked up….” She was trembling again and Richard put a steadying hand under her elbow.
“I was so frightened, Dickon. So very frightened. We all were. People just lost their heads entirely. Dr Hobbys came on the run and Dr Albon, too. They did help Papa into the White Chamber, were in there with him for what seemed to be forever, and the only one they let in was Mama. But a few minutes ago, Dr Hobbys came out and said Papa was fine, that his blood had gotten overheated. I wanted to see for myself t
hat Papa was all right, and Dr Hobbys would’ve let me, but Mama said no. So I came down to the river gate to wait for you….”
At first glance, it looked as if half the court had congregated in the royal chambers. Just as Richard and Bess reached the door of Edward’s bedchamber, Elizabeth came out. She stopped short at sight of Richard, and then extended her hand for him to kiss. He did, but with such obvious reluctance that those watching smothered smiles.
“He’s resting now,” Elizabeth said coldly. “I think it would be best if you not disturb him.”
“He did send for me, Madame,” Richard said, no less icily, and moved past her into the bedchamber. Bess seized her chance, and slipped quickly in behind him.
Edward was as pale as Richard had ever seen him; there was a queer greyish cast to his complexion that was far from reassuring, and his eyes were rimmed in red. But he was sitting up on the bed, buttoning his shirt, and to judge from the way he was arguing with Dr Hobbys, whatever had afflicted him was of passing moment.
“Of course I do respect your medical judgment. But you’d have me roped to the bed if you had your way and I—Dickon! I’d just about given up on you. How did you come, by way of the Welsh Marches?”
“What happened, Ned? Bess did tell me—”
“Nothing happened. I suffered from a brief indisposition, no more than that.” Seeing that Richard was about to press him further, Edward said impatiently, “Dickon, let it lie. There be more important matters to discuss. Jack Howard is back from France and he brought me word that Burgundy has come to terms with France. Maximilian and Louis did sign a treaty at Arras on Monday last, a treaty that does amount to a virtual sellout to that whoreson on the French throne.”
“As sorry as I am to hear that, Ned, it comes as no surprise. Since Marie died, Burgundy’s been in turmoil. It was bound to come to this. Maximilian was backed to the wall.”