Queen of Trial and Sorrow (19 page)

He would have landed sooner, except that the winds failed to blow for him just as they did for Margaret and kept him stalled at Flushing.  But luck favored him.  After more than a week of painful inactivity, the wind veered to the east and on March eleventh his invasion force of some fifteen hundred men in eighteen ships was able to set sail for England. 

By now I suspect everyone who can read has read the official version of Edward’s return to his kingdom, so I will only say that in little more than two weeks he marched nearly a hundred and fifty miles and circumvented three armies without a head broken or a heart skewered!  He had nullified the threat of York by displaying about his person the Three Feathers device of the Prince of Wales and announcing that he came only to claim his own duchy of York.  This was a position every landed man could sympathize with and the men of York accepted it not so much as a literal truth as a practical solution to a thorny situation, and allowed him to enter.  Lies, he said to me later, what would the world be without them? They save lives, crowns even.

John Neville and Henry Percy let him march by unopposed; the Duke of Exeter, (who had now arrived with Somerset) the Earl of Oxford and Lord Beaumont had a force waiting for him at Newark, but took fright when he appeared in the vicinity and disappeared into the night.  Even Warwick, inexplicably, declined to fight and retreated behind the strong walls of Coventry.  Perhaps he was waiting for Clarence to join him – as was the king. 

And with Warwick’s desertion the way to London lay open!  What fools our enemies were.  With all their resources, how
could
they have let him get that far without any resistance? 

Learning that the Duke of Clarence was on the Banbury Road, the royal army packed up its gear and moved off.  Three miles down the road it halted, only half a mile from the duke’s army.  The king, Gloucester, Rivers and Hastings, with a few others rode forth, while George of Clarence accompanied by some of his men rode to meet them.

For almost a year Clarence had been the subject of an unrelenting campaign designed to bring him back into the fold.  From Burgundy Lord Hastings had written warm and sympathetic letters, as did the Duchess Margaret, his favorite sister.  In England he was subjected to the exhortations of his mother, his other two sisters, his Bourchier aunt and uncles, the Earl and Countess of Essex, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and others.  Probably none of it was necessary, as it was Warwick himself who determined Clarence’s future actions by convincing him how little he meant in the earl’s scheme of things. 

The Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Stanley, who had hurried to meet Warwick when he landed, had now disappeared westward.  Somerset and Devon went tearing off to the coast to greet Margaret when she landed.  So good of them to leave London unprotected!

There was another stormy session of the common council resulting in a decision to send word to the king that the city would submit to his pleasure. 

Henry was led out in procession in a final effort to stir a semblance of loyalty in the citizens.  On his usual ambling nag, looking sadder and sorrier than ever, he followed Archbishop Neville in his gorgeous robes and with his horse almost as gorgeously attired.  There were so few soldiers left in the city that his escort was equally uninspiring, and Walter said they weren’t turned out nearly so smartly as the soldiers of a royal escort ought to be. 

On Maundy Thursday, one month after landing in Yorkshire, Edward entered London.  His first stop was St. Paul’s where he paused to make a thank-offering at the north door, trailed by adoring crowds all the way.  Then he crossed to the Episcopal Palace, where George Neville brought forth Henry, his pathetic, ineffectual rival for the crown, who seemed able to cause him no end of trouble.  Edward ordered them both to the Tower.

That business over, he rode out of the city through Ludgate and followed the curve of the river to Westminster.  The first order of business was to demonstrate his humility by thanking God on his knees and allowing the Archbishop of Canterbury to place the crown briefly on his head to signify that he was once more king.

Hearing the bells ringing in the city welcoming the king home, we threw the windows open and hugged one another.  I saw him in my mind’s eye: riding through the streets, sitting easily on his big horse, one hand holding the reins, the other resting on his thigh, inviting comparison with the man who had been led out in procession the previous day. 

Bessie was the first to see him when the door opened and he strode in, arms wide.  “Papa!” she shrieked, and launched herself at him as if shot from a catapult.  Scooping her up, he kissed her repeatedly all over her ecstatic little face. 

“How is my lovely Bessie?” he asked tenderly, but all she was capable of saying was: “Oh, Papa!”

Balancing Bessie, he lifted Mary and gave her solemn face the same treatment.  Cecily was clamoring at his knee.  But when he tried to put Bessie down, she tucked her head into his shoulder and wound her arms so tightly round his neck that he had no choice but to release Mary so Cecily could have her turn.  With the two girls in his arms, he gazed at me in such a way that my insides melted.  My mouth was trembling and my eyes were brimming with helpless tears.  Leaning forward, he kissed me softly on the mouth.  Cecily giggled and put a finger in his ear.  Down went Cecily.  Down went Bessie.  He had to gently disengage her arms, which she promptly clamped to his leg.  Taking me in his arms, he kissed me thoroughly.

“Did you miss me, sweetheart?” he murmured. 

“Does a flower miss the sun?  And you?”

“Every day.  I never stopped thinking about you.” His smile was tender.  “Where is he?”

I turned to give an order but my mother had anticipated me and was just emerging from the bedchamber with a linen-wrapped bundle, which she reverently placed in the king’s arms.  The new arrivals gathered round.  Young Edward was awake.  He had big blue eyes in a perfect pink and ivory complexion and regarded his father with an incurious yet lucid gaze.  The king drew a finger along the curve of a plump cheek.

Peering down at him, Richard of Gloucester said: “Saints, he looks long!  He’ll have your height.”

Long, yes, but what a small bundle to hold the hopes of the royal house of York!

I gave my hand to the rest of the king’s company, including the vile Clarence, and managed a few words with Anthony amid the hubbub.  Edward handed the prince back to his grandmother and swung Bessie into the crook of his left arm, while holding me against him with his right.  “Well, my ladies” he said, “can I presume you don’t want to spend another night in this place?”

“Can we go, Papa?  Can we really go?”

“Yes, and you need never come back again.”

“I knew everything would be all right once you came home!” Bessie sighed, giving his neck an extra hard squeeze.

Feeling that his family would be more secure inside the city walls than at Westminster, Edward had us, our attendants and necessary belongings loaded into carriages and conveyed to London just as dusk was falling on that most wonderful day.  My mother took her two eldest grandsons with her to the Poor Clares, while the rest of us went on to Baynard’s Castle.

Thus the Duchess of York was interrupted at her private devotions by a commotion in her hall.  Standing at the top of the stairs she looked down to see her servants with their heads bent nearly to the floor, and in the midst of them stood the reason for all the bustle: her son the king, still possessed of his youthful good looks and irresistible smile, cuddling Bessie in his arms, with me at his side holding the hands of Mary and Cecily, and behind us a nursemaid carrying the sleeping infant.

George of Clarence hung at the back of the crowd, as if trying to efface himself behind larger bodies.  What, I wondered, would mother and erring son have to say to one another this night?

“Greetings, my lady Mother,” said Edward, smiling up at her. “Do you, by chance, have a bed to spare? We find ourselves in need of a place to stay.”

……….

There was a fragrance of lavender in the air, and the heavy musky scent of sex.  I lay upon the length of my husband’s body, fevered skin to fevered skin, almost pasted together by the sweat of our exertions.  I could feel the soft stickiness of his flaccid penis against my thighs and hear the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat under my cheek as his breathing slowed and his pulse returned to normal.  

“Were you afraid when I was gone, Bess?” he murmured, sliding his hands over my buttocks to hold me there. 

“Never.  I knew you would be back.”  It was the politic answer; there had been times when I was desperately afraid. 

“You have never doubted me, have you?”

“Never.” That at least was true.  I always believed he would win in the end.  I lifted my head to gaze into eyes that, even now, after seven years of marriage, could ignite heat in my loins with a calculated look or a certain smile.  “And you?  Were you ever afraid?”

“When I was seventeen I thought myself indestructible.  When you’re young and life is sweet and privileged and full of promise, as it was for me, it’s hard to conceive of its abrupt and senseless termination; although,” he added, a smile in his voice, “I am willing to allow that there are probably many seventeen year-olds who cherished that groundless faith rotting under the sod of old battlefields.  I don’t think of myself as indestructible now, but it was never for myself that I feared.  The worst was when I learned of the birth of our son, and I not there to protect him.  For you to be alone at such a time, a time of great joy and great triumph, to have no one to share it with…  How I wish I could have been with you, my darling, to take you in my arms, to share your joy as I shared your disappointments.  I prayed daily that Margaret would delay her departure and she did, but how different things might have been had she found the courage to give Warwick the support he was counting on.”

This was my opportunity.  I said hesitantly: “When you beat Warwick, will you pardon him again?”

He heaved a long measured sigh.  “I swore that when I returned to England, I would remember that I not only fight for my crown but for our son’s.  When I pardon my enemy I pardon his.  When I fail he will suffer for it.   So… no more clemency for those who prove themselves my enemies and threaten the safe inheritance of our son. I will crush them all.”

The buoyant youth I had first met had, of necessity, succumbed to adulthood’s greater responsibilities, but even as king he had retained a greater measure of idealism than most of us; and now it seemed that from the crucible of strife and betrayal a more ruthless man had emerged.  Well, we are all shaped by life’s lessons, are we not, and his had been harsh.  I could not be sorry.

“And your brother of Clarence?”  Having an acute eye for his own welfare, the perfidious duke had kept his options open to the very last, only going over to his brother when Edward looked to be winning. 

“He has realized the error of his ways. I expect no more trouble from that quarter.”

My mother often said: Words are easily spent and have little value.

“Might I offer a little unsolicited advice, Sire?”  He merely sighed, so I gave it anyway.  “When you join battle keep your brother where you can see him.”

“Redundant.”

“He’s your enemy and always will be,” I said softly.  I feared to rouse his anger, so I said nothing more on that matter.  Nor did he.  I changed the subject and the moment passed.

“Tell me about Bruges.”

“It’s a very attractive city.  Even the canals are relatively clean and sweet smelling.”

“Unlike the Fleet River, where the stench is appalling.”

“Years ago I was told that in any cloth-making town in Flanders the clacking of the heddles make an unholy racket and it’s true.  Only by day though.  City ordinances forbid noise from industry between Vespers and Prime.  They also make lace in Bruges – a much quieter industry.”

I could well imagine him playing the tourist, wandering the streets, a luxury his rank denied him in his native land, talking to the people, poking into nooks and crannies, observing the differences in architecture.  He had gone boating on the canals, heard mass in the magnificent Basilica of the Holy Blood and visited other churches.  He spoke of the marvelous altarpieces by Hans Memling and other artists. 

“This visit to the continent was a revelation to me,” he said with enthusiasm.  “In Flanders even rich merchants and their families are having their likenesses preserved for posterity.  While all we see in England are paintings in churches, generally frescoes of scenes from Hell, intended to warn sinners of the horrors that await them if they don’t amend their ways.  Inspirational art comes in the form of stained glass windows and embroidered work.”

“But England leads the way in music.  The motets and choral works of the royal chapel are famous and admired throughout Europe.”

“Yes,” he conceded. “But, Bess, I am determined that the flowering of the arts that is sweeping Europe must make the jump across the Narrow Sea.  You should speak to Anthony.  In Bruges, he became entranced with a most interesting fellow, William Caxton, governor of the Merchant Adventurers of the Netherlands.  He was no stranger to me, although we’d never met.  I had employed him on several occasions as an envoy in negotiations with Burgundy relating to the cloth trade.  But of Caxton’s other interests I had no knowledge until we met in Bruges.  He is a translator and advocate of the English language, and he’s presently engaged in translating
Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes
into English.”