26
Richard of Gloucester paced the length of the table, so that the six seated men had to turn their heads back and forth to watch him. They had come at his summons to the Palace of Westminster and its Painted Chamber. Despite their great status, therefore, they waited on the Lord Protector’s pleasure. Richard strode up and down before them like a schoolmaster, with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a fine doublet of gold and black over hose, with a silver-hilted sword at his waist. At thirty years of age, he could still stalk like a furious swordsman, threat radiating from him. The Archbishop of Canterbury was put in mind of his cat and almost looked for a lashing tail as Richard passed by. He kept his peace however.
As Lord Protector, Richard of Gloucester had been given royal power with no clear limits, or rather limits he could define himself in emergencies, which amounted to the same thing. The documents with his brother’s Great Seal had been lodged with Parliament and the Tower archives days before the king’s death. Richard’s authority could not be denied. His source of irritation was that somehow it had been denied even so. Three of the Council at that table answered to a higher authority even than the Seal of England and the Lord Protector.
Richard stopped suddenly, his glare an accusation in itself. Archbishop Bourchier of Canterbury was eighty if he was a day, an ancient who seemed to have retained his wits, with enormous white eyebrows. The archbishop could communicate much with just a glance at Archbishop Rotheram of York. It was rare for the two most senior churchmen in England to be summoned to the same room, unless it was to crown a king. Both of them seemed to understand very well what was at stake.
Lord Buckingham was there to support Richard against the others, to cast a vote or simply provide another voice to win a point. At twenty-nine, young Buckingham had simply appeared around the new heart of power in London. He seemed willing enough to be led by the nose. He and Richard had been born around the same time, the archbishop decided. Perhaps they shared a sensibility, a kinship or an awareness that some of the whitebeards in that room had forgotten. Or perhaps Buckingham merely saw an opportunity to rise, like a man putting all his wages on a particular dog in a fight.
Neither Richard of Gloucester nor Archbishop Bourchier liked the Bishop of Ely, John Morton. The man was too worldly to please the archbishop – and too religious to please the lords. Either way, Morton was certainly too clever for his own good.
In the same way, Richard had little sense of support from Baron Hastings, still his brother’s Lord Chamberlain until a new king chose another. Hastings had been there for the battles of both Barnet and Tewkesbury. The old sod really should have been on Richard’s side, arguing for him, not crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes like a suspicious old washerwoman. It was infuriating.
The last of the men at that table was Thomas, Lord Stanley, with a beard that was still dark brown, though it rested on the table and was at least as long as those of the archbishops. Richard smiled on him as a man of great wealth who had been one of his brother’s supporters in the later years of his reign. Stanley had secured a French payment of seventy thousand each year in return for not invading them again. The baron liked nothing more than to speak of his private force of men, which he maintained all year round as Warwick had done years before. It cost Stanley a fortune but he had been unusually skilled at the gathering of wealth to his coffers. For his understanding of finances alone, the man deserved respect and Richard intended to flatter Stanley to his side, so that he might benefit as his brother had.
The Painted Chamber was some eighty feet long and thirty wide, with enough space up to the vaulted ceiling to echo back the sounds of conversation. It was odd then to have so many men of power and influence look uneasily at one another in silence rather than answer his points. Hastings and Stanley in particular seemed willing to defer to the men of the cloth, though the three of them had proven quite unable to answer him.
‘In this room,’ Richard said, ‘I see assembled before me some of the most senior men of the Church in England. The Archbishops of York and Canterbury – and a bishop renowned for his fine understanding! I would have imagined I’d be spoiled for learned opinions and rulings, not forced to endure this awkward hush. Perhaps I should have asked how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, or the exact nature of the trinity. You would not have been so quiet then.’ Richard leaned over the table and it was no accident that he had come to rest opposite the Bishop of Ely. Of all the men there, Morton had the sharpest mind. Richard had heard he was tipped for Archbishop of Canterbury when the post came free, perhaps even to become a cardinal in Rome.
The bishop cleared his throat under the pale scrutiny of the Lord Protector. Morton had no desire to make a ruling that might later be shown to be wrong or illegal, but it was also clear that no one else would be drawn on the matter.
‘My lord, it is my understanding that there are no exceptions to the protections of sanctuary, not that I have ever heard. You say you have been informed of a threat to the young Prince of York in Westminster Abbey with his mother and his sisters.’
‘I say that because it is true, Your Grace,’ Richard replied sharply. He could see the objection coming as the man formed it.
‘Yes, so you have said. The difficulty is not in my assessment of that threat, as I am trying to explain. There are no exceptions in canon law over sanctuary, not once it has been granted or accepted. Even if the prince is truly in danger and that danger might be averted by taking him out of sanctuary … I’m sorry, my lord. The means to do it do not exist. I would be happy to write to Rome, of course, to seek advice and guidance in this matter.’
‘I rather think it will have been resolved by then, one way or another,’ Richard snapped. He found he was breathing hard in his anger. He watched as the bishop spread his hands as if in apology.
‘The boy is nine years old,’ Richard added suddenly. ‘He was taken into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey by his mother, without any sense of the dangers they might face. At the Tower, I have hundreds of guards and high walls – at the Abbey, why that small stone block could be overrun with half a dozen men. So tell me why I cannot remove my own nephew for his safety? If you need a decision from the authority of the Crown, I rule that his mother protected herself when she ran to that place. Her children are not included in the shadow of sanctuary, how could they be?’
‘They are inside,’ the Archbishop of Canterbury said suddenly, sitting up. ‘They have crossed the boundary. It matters nothing whether their mother intended them to come along or sought to protect them. Sanctuary is consecrated ground, intended as a place of safety for those who are oppressed by enemies. It is an ancient and valuable tradition and certainly not one that can be set aside when it is merely inconvenient.’ His mouth worked in anger, as if he teased a piece of meat from between his back teeth. ‘If there is so terrible a threat to the boy, you may try to persuade his mother to give him into your care. You may not enter yourself, however. Nor any man bearing a weapon. You may certainly not bring out the boy by force.’
Richard shook his head, half exasperated and half amused at the source of the resistance. He was a little surprised to have such an old man wake up long enough to challenge him in anything.
‘Your Grace, I have a son of my own, not far from the same age. If he was surrounded by men intent on his murder, and if I had a chance to save him, I would dare anything. I would take him from his mother’s own arms.’
‘And you would be damned for all eternity.’
‘Yes, Your Grace. I would be damned, but I would have saved my son, do you see? This Richard is my brother’s son. Every day that passes brings whispers of new plots. Yet I cannot keep him safe in a place where only good men fear to tread! I have young Edward behind the Tower’s walls, aye, and with a hundred men to watch those walls and each other. The most skilful assassin could not reach Edward where he lays his head tonight, but his brother? A few monks will not stop evil men, Your Grace.’
‘I under
stand what you have said, I think,’ the old man answered. He pulled at his beard, tugging unconsciously at the locks in old habit. ‘You wish to protect the boy – and perhaps to give both sons the comfort of one another’s presence.’
‘In the safest fortress in England, yes, Your Grace. My brother Edward made me his Lord Protector and left all he had to that protection: his goods, his heirs and his realm. All I ask is that you retrieve the missing part, before more blood is shed.’
The old man blinked at the last of Richard’s words, not quite ready to ask if it was a threat or a reference to the plots Richard had mentioned. The archbishop could only imagine the horror and condemnation he would face if he refused and then the child was slaughtered with his mother and sisters. Yet even to allow that sanctuary could not protect the family without armed men was to weaken the authority of the Church.
He was silent a long time, so that the others fidgeted. At last, Archbishop Bourchier nodded into his beard and his hands became still.
‘I will enter Sanctuary, my lord. I will enter and I will speak to Queen Elizabeth about her son. If she refuses, I can do nothing more.’
‘Thank you, Your Grace. I am certain that will be enough,’ Richard replied.
In the darkness, the Archbishop of Canterbury found his path lit by men bearing torches. He could not carry a crozier, with its shepherd’s crook. The weight had become too much for him over the previous year. Instead, he rested on a walking stick of oak. The tip was of coiled leather and he tap-tapped along the damp and shining stones, looking ahead to Sanctuary with the Abbey at his back.
Archbishop Bourchier had found little to like in Richard of Gloucester, though he supposed the fellow was admirable enough for the care he was taking to protect his nephews. It troubled some part of the old man how little mention had been made of Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters. They could not inherit, of course. The female line was the weaker of the two, as it had been since Eden. Archbishop Bourchier nodded his head as he followed the stone path, thinking of all the evil seeds women had created since then. Poor benighted creatures, he thought. His mother excepted, of course. She had been a stern and wonderful woman, free with her backhand, but so proud when her son had taken holy orders that she could hardly see for tears.
Ahead, Archbishop Bourchier saw the glint of men moving in armour, like beetles creeping away, over and under each other as the lamplight came close. He hesitated, unwilling to approach and pleased to take a moment to just stand and catch his breath before all the young men around him who had never known weakness or old age.
‘Who is that there?’ he said, pointing with his stick. ‘By the Abbey Sanctuary? What violent fellows are those?’
‘Lord Gloucester’s men, Your Grace,’ one of those around him replied. ‘There is word of an assassin from the land of the Turks or the Tartars.’
Archbishop Bourchier touched a hand to the crucifix at his throat. It contained a tiny fragment of the true cross and he took comfort from it. He had read much in his lifetime and had heard of such men and their cruelty. He set his jaw, taking a firm grip on his stick. He could play a part, still.
‘Lay on, gentlemen,’ he said, shuffling ahead.
The archbishop approached Sanctuary with bulldog stubbornness, bent over his stick, but never slowing until he reached the door and saw the young monk watching from inside. Two men-at-arms in mail stepped back as he approached, waiting patiently. Archbishop Bourchier saw the Lord Protector’s men were two or three deep in all directions. There had to have been two hundred soldiers around that Sanctuary, presumably with more nearby for when the shifts changed. The old man understood afresh what it cost the Lord Protector to split his resources between two parts of London, each a mile from the other.
Archbishop Bourchier looked up at the stairs in concern as he entered. He was relieved when a monk ushered him along a corridor on the ground floor, panelled in some dark and polished wood. The old man had never before entered that place and he was intrigued by it. Most small churches or chapels set some constraint on giving refuge to criminals. It was usually a month or forty days, after which they could choose exile. Such things had to be, he knew, or they would have been overrun each winter with poor men who had fallen foul of the law. Yet the Abbey at Westminster was the greatest church in the land. Sanctuary there had no limit, once admitted. Such a place was a hallmark of civilisation, he thought, a shining light.
The archbishop clenched his jaw at that thought, recalling the abbey at Tewkesbury, where King Edward had broken faith with one of the oldest traditions of the Church and sent men to murder his cowering enemies. The entire building and grounds had needed to be reconsecrated after that. It was not just the blood that had to be scrubbed from the stones, but the mortal sins committed within its walls. Edward had paid a fortune in reparations in the years afterward. Archbishop Bourchier had been rather disappointed when the Church had accepted those vast sums. It seemed to him to have been a rather tawdry exchange for the breach of trust.
Such were the archbishop’s thoughts as he entered through a door held for him into the presence of Queen Elizabeth and her children. The old man’s gaze flickered from one to the next until it rested on the nine-year-old Richard of York. The boy’s status had been recognized by his father from birth. Young Richard had been the recipient not just of the Dukedom of York, but of the Earldoms of Norfolk and Nottingham as well.
The child was well made, the Archbishop noted, without pox scars or any sign of diseases. It meant perhaps he would endure them yet, of course. That was the great balance-scale of a life, that to be marked was to survive. Those who were not marked could yet be snatched away in the night. Death was always there in the laughter of children. Every parent knew that only too well.
Those particular children were a most attractive group, the archbishop saw. A chair was brought for him by a crackling fire and he sank into it gratefully. With a smile, he accepted a bowl of walnuts and a glass of brandy against the night’s cold. He sat back and remembered when he’d had enough blood in him to sweat instead of being the dry old bone he’d become.
‘Your Grace, you are most welcome,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Do you have word of those men who are ringed around this place? They will not speak to me, nor will they let anyone in or out for days now. I have had no news at all of the world.’
‘Perhaps you should send these dear, delightful children away, my lady, yes? I think that would be best.’
Elizabeth’s face grew strained at that, but she did as he asked, sending them all to other rooms so that she was alone with the old man. She cracked another walnut for the archbishop and placed the pieces where he could easily reach them.
‘Richard of Gloucester is a most determined young man,’ Archbishop Bourchier said into silence broken only by flames and crackling sap. ‘It is not easy to discern his most secret heart. I offered to hear his confession, but he said he uses some country priest for such things. That is a shame. It would have helped me decide what I have to say to you.’
‘He wants my son,’ Elizabeth said, her face crumpling. ‘That much I learned before the soldiers came here.’
‘He wants to keep him safe, my lady,’ the archbishop confirmed, chewing carefully on a piece of nut.
‘From whom? His own men? Who else could come against me here, with all his soldiers clanking and muttering all night? I tell you I have not slept a wink since they surrounded Sanctuary. If this place can deserve such a name when it is encircled by iron and cruel soldiers!’
‘Be calm, my dear. There is no point in … shrill voices. There is no need to panic and allow our thoughts to run to madness. No. Let us decide instead what is best for your boy. To remain here, at a cost I can barely imagine, taking vital men from the defence of the city and England, or to go to the Tower to be with his brother Edward.’
‘You have seen him?’ Elizabeth broke in. The old man nodded.
‘I insisted on it, yes. Your son is in good health and spirits, though lone
ly. He sees no one and though he reads, there are only a few of his father’s books there. He is enjoying some history of the Caesars, I believe. Such terrible lives of violence and betrayal! Yet boys feast on such things, of course. There is no harm in it.’
Some tension went out of Elizabeth at his words.
‘Would you trust Gloucester in this, Your Grace? To put my son on the throne and keep safe the other? That is the heart of it, is it not?’
The old man looked into the flames for a time. His mouth worked all the while and he spat a small piece of shell on to his palm when he was done.
‘I do not see that you have a choice, my lady. The Lord Protector was insistent and you’ll recall that his brother did not hold back from entering consecrated ground before. It grieves me even to say such a thing, my lady, but I fear for your son if he remains here. It has become an obsession of Gloucester’s to bring him out. Listen to me. You must trust someone. I will be there to see all is well, never fear for that.’
Elizabeth glanced at the white-bearded old man, wondering what hindrance Archbishop Bourchier thought he could possibly be to violent men. She had not said how close the soldiers came at night, when the monks were all asleep. They truly were creatures of blood and filth and violence and they stood beneath her window and crept about, clanking and whispering threats until she thought they would surely come in. She knew they could, that such things had happened and been covered up. She feared for herself, but also for her daughters. The men at her window made worse and worse threats. She had told no one of that, but she could not bear it any longer. Elizabeth could hardly remember when she had slept for more than a few moments, startled awake by calling voices and ugly laughter.
She stared back at Archbishop Bourchier as he reached for the nutcrackers and fumbled them in his old hands. The decision was hers, though she felt squeezed as well, gripped perhaps to breaking. Sanctuary was surrounded by armed men and it was too easy to imagine an assassin amongst them, a man run berserk for some old imagined slight or injury. If she was murdered, if her daughters were injured and killed like lambs, it would be the talk of the realm and all fingers would point to the Lord Protector – but that would not undo a single wound.