Authors: Sandra Worth
Tags: #15th Century, #England/Great Britain, #Royalty, #Tudors, #Fiction - Historical
The hillsides I passed through lay so pastoral with sheep, nut trees, and the occasional stone cottage that if I hadn’t witnessed for myself the turbulence of life, I could be fooled into believing all the world was at peace. But, God be praised, when we arrived at Bisham, we found good news awaiting us. Warwick had passed through Coleshill safely, for Somerset had arrived too late to ambush him. We laughed at Somerset’s fury at yet another of his failures, but our celebration proved brief. For it was here, to Bisham, that the news came about Ludlow.
WHEN THE LONE MESSENGER RODE UP ON ST.
Ursula’s Day, the twenty-first day of October, I was seated in Bisham’s elegant wood-paneled council chamber with Nan, celebrating Ursula’s name day. The minstrel played merry tunes while we sipped wine and ate sweets and spiced fruits, including marchpane, which was Ursula’s favorite, and dried figs, which was mine. Nan’s girls lay at our feet, munching cookies, chattering, and playing with their dolls. Across the way, the black-garbed monks of Bisham passed serenely across the grounds of their beautiful priory on the River Thames, which was drenched in autumn colors, providing for us a sense of deceptive tranquility as we made merry on Ursula’s birthday.
Even from the window we knew something was terribly wrong. I laid down John’s cloak, which I had been embroidering with his emblem of the griffin, and rose to my feet. We hurried into the quadrangular cloister that enclosed the manor’s graceful courtyard. The messenger, dusty and weary, dropped out of his saddle and knelt before us, lifting anxious eyes to our faces. Warwick’s two daughters, who had run out with us, pressed themselves against their mother’s skirts.
“My ladies,” he said, “I fear the tidings I bring are not good.”
Nan turned ashen and drew her children close. I laid a hand on my stomach, as if that would shield my own unborn child. Around us had gathered all the household staff, from kitchen scullion to bailiff.
“The king replied to my lord of Warwick’s manifesto by issuing a general pardon to everyone except the Yorkist leaders, my ladies. Again the Yorkist leaders asserted their loyalty and their desire to avoid force, but the king refused to meet with my lord of Warwick, and the royal army moved on Ludlow. As night fell, the two armed camps faced one another across the bridge on the River Teme. The Yorkists waited behind the fortified trench they had built—” The messenger hesitated. “But no trench could protect the Duke of York and his men from the real danger that threatened them…treason.”
I heard myself gasp.
“As day broke, it was seen that Andrew Trollope, the leader of the Calais regiment who had been guarding the bridge, had absconded to the queen’s side, taking with him the Duke of York’s battle plans.”
I remembered the fearsome one-eyed soldier with the kerchief knotted around his head, who had swaggered, grinning, at the head of Warwick’s procession.
“The Yorkist leaders were forced to flee for their lives, my ladies. My lord of Warwick went to Calais with his father and York’s eldest son, Edward of March.”
Beside me, I heard Nan’s labored breathing. I encircled her shoulders with my arms.
“By God’s grace, the Duke of York and his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were able to get away. They have fled to Ireland with Lord Clinton. However, York’s duchess, Cecily, and her two small boys, George and Richard, age ten and seven, were captured and made to watch the queen’s revenge on Ludlow…. After plundering the town, Yorkist soldiers who had surrendered were hung, drawn, and quartered, and the queen gave the wild horde she calls an army—filled with Scotsmen and ruffians—permission to sack the village as cruelly as if it belonged to a foreign land. Her men, in their drunken orgy, raped women and set the church afire, burning those who had taken refuge inside, children and livestock among them.”
The shock of this report must have proved too much for me in my condition, for the next thing I remember was a sharp pain in my abdomen, and nothing afterward. I awoke to find Ursula mopping my brow in my bedchamber.
“My baby—” I cried in alarm, my hand going to my stomach as I rose on an elbow to check.
“’Tis well, Isobel, dear,” Ursula said, pushing me back down gently and drawing the coverlet up to my chin. “You had a nasty fright, is all.”
I lay back down, but the nagging doubts at the back of my mind would not be stilled, and many times during the nights that followed, I rose from fitful slumber to pray at my prie-dieu for my unborn child.
Soon another messenger arrived with orders from Warwick that, for safety’s sake, his countess and their two daughters be taken to Calais to join him. In heavy rain, I took bitter leave of them, crushing little Anne in my arms as I knelt down on the wet, sharp pebbles of the courtyard. “Fear not—I be back!” Anne said, as was her wont. But instead of evoking laughter, this time it brought me tears. I watched the small party gallop off into the twilight, and misery engulfed me like a steel weight. Marguerite was tearing the country in two as every village, every household, every manor house, and every convent became divided against itself, and here I was alone, my husband and his brother imprisoned, his other brothers and kin driven from the land. Never had I felt so destitute, so bereft.
Where should I go? What to do? And what does anything matter anymore?
I banished my moment of self-pity. I had to be strong. I was a mother now, and even if the whole world were lost, I had to survive for my girls and for the new life I carried.
The next morning, Ursula packed our few belongings, Geoffrey saddled the horses, and we set out north to Middleham. Many of the Bisham household staff came with us, fearful of staying behind in the unfortified manor house now that their lord could no longer protect them. Along the way, we passed traders, wool merchants, and farmers driving livestock to market. Everywhere doubts were expressed, more loudly than ever, that Henry was Prince Edward’s father, and I heard more people refer to the queen by the nickname Warwick had given her:
bitch of Anjou
. Much of the talk centered on the ballad that had appeared nailed to the gates of Canterbury Cathedral, placing Prince Edward at the root of the trouble for being a false heir born of false wedlock. The Duke of York was the true King of England, it said. For his blood—he was descended from an elder son of Edward III and Henry from a younger son—was the more royal.
The sun was setting when we arrived at Middleham two days later after a hard journey. Maude and Countess Alice greeted me with the joyous news that Warwick had arrived safely in Calais, and the duke safely in Ireland, dispelling some of my tension. After supper, with my Annie asleep in my arms, and Ursula carrying Izzie, we gathered around the hearth with Nurse and baby Lizzie, and several highly placed servants of the Salisbury household, as the countess read us Warwick’s letter, for the October night was cold and damp.
My gracious lady mother,
You surely know by now the events of Ludlow brought you by York’s own messenger. For the first few days after Trollope’s treachery, we were not certain we would be able to flee with our lives, for we had no money. However, with the help of a Devonshire gentleman who bought us a ship, and his widowed mother, who risked life and limb in protecting us and obtaining for us the provisions we needed, we put out to sea.
Fearing the sentiment of the Calais garrison after our heinous betrayal by one whom I had trusted and treated as friend, I was unsure whether to attempt to go there. However, our beloved cousin Lord Thomas Fauconberg wrote us from Calais that all was well and we should come. The garrison received us with every sign of joy, and I am now safe in my stronghold with my lord father, my countess, and our two girls, so concern yourself not about us. As you know, Edward of March is also with us.
Likewise the Duke of York was received in Ireland as if he were the Messiah, crowds of people running to him and declaring that they would stand by him unto death. By all accounts, the Earls of Desmond and Kildare vie with one another to see which can do the most for him, and the Irish parliament is said to be willing—nay, eager!—to do his bidding. I shall go soon to meet with him and finalize battle plans, for it is too dangerous to entrust them to messengers who may be captured and put to torture. One such sad report which may have not reached you yet, and which shall cause you much grief now, is the death of our kinsman Roger Neville. His head is impaled on London Bridge and his torso is sent to Warwick town, so I am given to understand. His was a fine legal mind, and he never did harm to another, but only attempted to secure for them a measure of justice in the courts. When you pray for his soul, also pray for us that we may avenge his death in a manner most fitting.
For revenge we shall have, by the grace of God Almighty.
Given the twenty-fifth of October, 1459, on St. Crispin’s Day, at Calais.
Your devoted son,
Warwick
The apple-bobbing celebrations of All Hallows’ Eve, which followed the earl’s letter, were brief, joyless, and held only for the children, and the feasting on All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day also was meager and brief, for no one had heart for much else besides prayer. In mid-November we learned that in Coventry, the queen called a parliament stacked with her adherents, and attainted the Yorkist leaders.
Countess Alice herself poured ale for the messenger who brought us this news. The man, a Benedictine friar, recited the details without faltering over a single word, for he had evidently repeated it many times along his journey north from Coventry.
“Attainted: Sir John Conyers, Lord Clinton, Sir Thomas Neville, Sir John Neville—”
My stomach churned violently, and a stabbing pain came and went.
“Attainted: the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Warwick—who is also replaced as Captain of Calais by the Duke of Somerset. Attainted: the Duke of York; his sons Edward, Earl of March, and Edmund, Earl of Rutland; his duchess, Cecily—”
“His duchess?” the countess exclaimed, staring blankly at the friar.
The friar heaved a sigh. “Aye, ’tis unusual to attaint the wife. But these days—” He shrugged and resumed. “The bitch of Anjou wanted the duchess attainted, claiming the duchess incited her husband to revolt. But that’s not the worst of it, m’lady—nay, ’tis not…. The bitch also attainted the duchess’s two little sons, George and Richard—”
I closed my eyes on a breath.
Dear God, has Marguerite lost her mind?
“George and Dickon?” demanded Countess Alice, her voice trembling. “But they are mere children—what hand could they have had in their father’s treason?”
“None, m’lady, and all the world knows it. It seems she wants to depose all male children of the York line. That’s why they’re calling it the Devil’s Parliament.”
I bit my lip until it throbbed like my heart.
“But—b-but…” the countess stammered in bewildered confusion, pushing herself into a standing position. “But if she does this, w-what will she n-not do?”
The friar gave her a look of surprise. “Why, she is French—who can say? But for myself, I fear there is nothing she will not do, m’lady.” He gave a sigh. “Nothing.”
ANOTHER MISSIVE ARRIVED SHORTLY AFTER THE
friar’s visit, brought by a messenger disguised as a pilgrim who begged harborage for the night. It was for the countess, from the earl:
My well-loved lady wife,
As you are sure to know by now, we have been attainted by parliament, even York’s duchess and two small boys. Clearly, ’tis the work of Holy Harry’s foreign woman, who knows not honor and hesitates at nothing. The duchess Cecily and her children have been given into the custody of the Duke of Buckingham and his duchess, our sister, and by all accounts they are well treated at present. But their situation is perilous, as this can change at any moment, given the queen’s passion and temperament. For this reason, I beg you to consider flight. You are not safe in England any longer. While I should like to have you in Calais with our Warwick, ’tis better that you head west for Ireland, so as not to arouse suspicion. The bearer of this missive shall guide you as to the timing and preparations.
York is also concerned for his duchess and children and searches for a way to free them from Duke Humphrey’s custody and bring them out of England, so that they not remain at the mercy of Harry’s queen. However, Isobel’s safety is not in question, due to her previous long association with Marguerite. Therefore, at this time and given her delicate condition, we consider it advisable for her to remain at Middleham.
These are perilous times for us, dear wife. May the Lord have you in His keeping until He sees fit to reunite us.
Written this day the twenty-fifth of November, St. Catherine’s Day, at Calais.
Your loving lord and husband,
Richard of Salisbury
With a trembling hand, the countess showed this letter to Maude and me before burning it. As I read, a shiver of black fright ran through my spine, and fearful images built in my mind. I turned respectful eyes on the pilgrim, whose identity was kept even from us. That men dared the terrors of the torture chamber in order to honor their convictions was not something I had been accustomed to dwell on, until now.
We soon learned that the bishop Dr. Morton had a special hand in drafting the bill of the Devil’s Parliament. I remembered the bishop’s fish-eyes. Whenever he had turned his gaze on me, my flesh had crawled. Yet I suspected that women were not his interest, for I had seen his expression when he looked at the choirboys. His eyes had lit, and it was not their angelic singing he admired. The thought, singularly distasteful, sent disgust into the pit of my stomach. I felt the babe lurch.
My poor little one,
I thought, stroking my womb gently.
I shall not think of it again
.
More tidings arrived. The queen had commissioned Lord Rivers to seize all Warwick’s ships that remained on the English coast, and Somerset to assemble a large force that included Andrew Trollope and others of the Calais regiment, along with angry young men whose fathers had been killed at Blore Heath. Somerset then sailed to take Calais from Warwick, but matters had not gone well for him.
“What are you smiling about?” Maude demanded as we sat before our broidery looms in the Lady’s Bower.
“Imagine Somerset’s surprise when he approached Calais and they fired on him with their guns.”