Queen of Trial and Sorrow (38 page)

One last sunny smile he gave us all, and as the group moved toward the door, Buckingham’s hand fell on his shoulder.  When the door closed upon him, I think I knew; something, some spirit of motherhood that lodges in the heart, told me that I had looked my last upon my little boy, for my legs gave way and I crumpled to the floor, weeping bitterly.

……….

I fell into a deep depression, which only worsened as the days wore on, for all the news that came our way boded ill for the future of my family.  That same day, the very day my son was taken from me, when his uncle met him at the door to the Star Chamber with many loving words, that very day, Gloucester moved into the royal apartments of the Tower, and my sons were moved into older apartments on the upper floor of the White Tower, which had sometimes been used to house important prisoners such as Henry Percy, and where they would be less visible both from the river and to the other denizens of the Tower.

Shortly after, there arrived in London the Earl of Warwick, Clarence’s son and heir, who was then about eight years old, and was placed in the household of the Duchess of Gloucester.  Everything pointed to the fact that Gloucester intended to have himself crowned. He now had all three York princes in his possession.  He had rid himself of his strongest opposition and the council was too frightened to oppose him.  Troops wearing the White Boar badge or the Stafford Knot were visible in the streets and word had come that more armed support was on its way from the north in response to Gloucester’s summons, causing widespread alarm throughout the city.  It was a rule of terror. 

And now he began to make his intentions plain.  It was at this time that he put aside the mourning he had worn since Edward’s death and donned purple robes and rode through the city from Crosby Place to the Tower with two hundred men in attendance, with banners flying and heralds going before blowing a fanfare and calling out his titles, and yet for all the panoply and display, which the citizens loved, no one turned out to watch; rather they turned their backs on him and spat and cursed him when he had gone by.  Every day he invited hundreds of influential city men to dine with him in order to win their favor.

His agents embarked on a whispering campaign.  Speculation and rumor ran like rats through the alleyways creating an atmosphere of tension and unease.  It was said that Lord Hastings’ men were switching their allegiance to Buckingham, and that William Catesby, the Judas, had been awarded Kirkby Muxloe, with its unfinished castle, for his betrayal, although Hastings had not been attainted and his son ought to inherit.  It was said that Gloucester had summoned six thousand men from the north.  Why did he need more troops when there was already a considerable military presence in the city?  To the citizens of London, Gloucester himself was a ‘northernman’

  Writs were sent out revoking the order for parliament to meet on the twenty-fifth, and on the same day he postponed the coronation.  No new date was set.  Two days after this Brother Adolphus, who brought our water, said he was confused.  “They are still accepting provisions at the palace.  Master Livingstone, who is a clerk of the hanap and a boyhood friend, tells me livestock is still being butchered and dishes prepared.  So I think the coronation must be going forward.”

He meant it kindly, thinking to cheer me, but his words only plunged me deeper into despair.  There would be a coronation but it wouldn’t be Ned’s.

I thought of my dear sons, shut away in the depths of the White Tower.  Were they frightened?  How much did they understand?  I longed to hold them, to keep them safe from the menace that was stalking them.  The ache in my heart was a physical and unending pain. 

……….

‘But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips, nor lay any fast foundations’ With these words Dr. Ralph Shaa, quoting from the Apocrypha, stripped me of my dignity, my daughters of their legitimacy, my son of his crown.

A pulpit stands in the angle created by the nave and the south transept of St. Paul’s cathedral where on any given Sunday any preacher who wishes to do so is at liberty to address the crowd.  If it was raining the crowd was likely to be sparse; if the speaker was poor, his rewards were likely to be rotten fruit and vegetables and even worse missiles.  Sunday, June twenty-second was a black day.  It ought to have been my son’s coronation day.  It ought to have been a day of joy and celebration for him and all our family, and for all throughout the kingdom.  It ought to have heralded a new era under an enlightened king.  Instead, it was a day of infamy.    

But it was the kind of warm and sunny day that brought people out of their homes looking for something to do, and the speaker was a popular and respected doctor of theology, who was the brother of London’s mayor.  The crowd was dense and strangely quiet as Dr. Shaa thundered that the progeny of Edward IV could not be permitted to inherit, for since he had been illegitimate, so must they be. 

‘I tell you nothing you don’t already know when I say that King Edward the Fourth was conceived in adultery.  It has been spoken of openly for years.’ Shaa asserted, waving his fist in the air to punctuate the gravity of his words. 

What was truly awful was that this was the second time that vile accusations of the Duchess of York’s supposed adultery had spewed from the mouth of one of her sons for their own purposes, and she had just arrived in London to attend her grandson’s coronation.  A nun she may be, but nun-like she was not, and her tongue had grown more acerbic with the passing years.  What she thought of these proceedings, she made clear in after times, complaining to all and sundry of the great injury done to her by her son.

Having traduced the reputation of the venerable duchess, the learned doctor, whose voice had lost some of its oratorical vigor, enumerated Richard of Gloucester’s manifold virtues and offered him as the undoubted heir of the Duke of York and the legitimate successor to the throne.

This speech was repeated in churches throughout London, where it was met with a censorious silence.  At Paul’s Cross, supporters of Gloucester mixing with the crowd shouted their approval but they were lone voices.  It was scant comfort to me that the preachers had failed to drum up any support among the people, for I knew Gloucester had gone too far to turn back now.

But the despicable Shaa was not finished yet.  Naming Edward bastard was not enough to satisfy their malice; he then called into question the legitimacy of my children by asserting that Edward and I were not properly married in the eyes of the church, because he had been pre-contracted to another lady and therefore our children could not inherit the throne!

I laughed when I first heard it.  I said: “That beast will not fly!”

I must add this about Doctor Shaa.  Because of its terrible consequences, what he did that day utterly wrecked his reputation and his death the following year was attributed to shame and remorse.

Buckingham got busy on his master’s behalf.  The day after Shaa’s speech he was at the Guildhall to address the mayor and chief citizens, and two days later, on the Feast of the death of St. John the Baptist, the members of Lords and Commons, who had already reached London or were en route when they received their writs, were summoned to Westminster.  They claimed later that it was a properly constituted parliament, even though parliament had been postponed by writ!  What little hope remained to me, I pinned on these men – the lords, the knights of the shire and the burgesses of the towns.

Buckingham spoke eloquently and persuasively.  The allegation concerning the Duchess of York had prudently been dropped (except for a reference to Gloucester as the
undoubted
son of the Duke of York.) His brother, however, being no longer able to reproach him, was fair game, and Buckingham focused only on the illegitimacy of our marriage and our children.  He claimed our marriage was invalid for four reasons: Because it did not have the assent of the magnates.  (Not a requirement for a true marriage.)  Because the king had been bewitched by my mother and me.  (They were scraping the bottom of the barrel with that weary old tale!)  Because it had been done in secret without the publishing of banns and in a profane place, not a proper church.  (I admit to the banns, but my lord of Gloucester himself was equally guilty – he didn’t want brother Clarence to find out until the deed was done.  As for the chapel in the woods, it was indeed a consecrated church.)  Finally, because King Edward was at the time pre-contracted, by which means it followed that he and I had lived together
sinfully
and in
adultery,
and the children of our
pretended
marriage were
bastards
and unable to inherit anything of royal estate, according to the customs of England.  (I do wonder what William the Conqueror would have said about that.)

By this time, some detail had been added to flesh out the fable.  The lady in question was the Lady Eleanor Butler, granddaughter of the heroic Earl of Shrewsbury who had been killed at Castillon in the last gasp of the Hundred Years War, and wife to Sir Thomas Butler, son and heir of Lord Sudeley – a lady, you will note, with considerable connections.  One wonders, first, why none of them came forward to protest when the king married me.  Certainly, they would have had the support of the Earl of Warwick and many others.  Why did they pass up the opportunity to have their kinswoman become queen? 

No proof was presented, of course, but – and here was the ingenuity of it – neither could it be disproved.

Alas, but no surprise really, the Lady Eleanor could shed no light on the matter as she had passed to a better world in ’68.

Next in line for the throne would have been the Earl of Warwick, Clarence’s son, but, Buckingham claimed, he was ineligible due to his father’s conviction and attainder.  I doubt this is true. Clarence’s attainder deprived his heirs of the right to inherit his titles and property, but did not affect the succession.  Besides, attainders were frequently reversed by parliament.  Indeed, Edward had twice been attainted and twice had the attainders reversed.  Not that such legal niceties were worth a clipped coin in those days.  If no one would champion the cause of the son of the late king, who would support the claim of the eight year-old son of a convicted traitor?  

Which meant that the only true and incorrupt blood of the Duke of York was to be found in the Duke of Gloucester, his undoubted son and heir, who was born in England, not in France like Edward, and was entitled to wear the crown.  At the conclusion of his speech, although some of Buckingham’s men threw their caps in the air and shouted “King Richard!” the rest maintained a deathly silence.  It was not enough.  Silence alone was not enough to topple Gloucester’s towering ambition.  No one spoke for my son.  No one.  No doubt they were in fear of their lives, but the lords were a power; a king needs them to support his throne.  Had only one spoken out, others would have added their support and… But what is the use?  They kept silent, fearful for their own safety.  Their silence was taken for assent.

Buckingham had in his possession a petition, which laid out Gloucester’s feigned title to the crown.  Leaving no stone unturned in his pursuit of the moral high ground as well as the crown, the petition opened with an attack on the government of Edward IV – who had been ruled and misguided by we Wydevilles – laid out the assertion of bastardy and offered Gloucester as the rightful king, an upright and moral man and a strong, wise, courageous and just ruler who could provide a stable government.

So it was this assembly of men, summoned for a parliament that had been postponed in the legal manner, that declared my marriage to the late king to have been bigamous, our children illegitimate and Edward V formally deposed.  What power they had, this illegally constituted body!

Next came a piece of supreme hypocrisy.  Buckingham then invited the lords to accompany him to Crosby Place to appeal to the duke, who, he lamented, was likely to be reluctant to take on the burdens and responsibilities of the crown but might be persuaded if they should appeal to him.  

Which proved to be the case.  The protector was surprised to see them.  Amazed by their mission, he was reluctant to take the crown unless it was that the people, represented by those present, were
certain
he was the fittest man for the job.  Again Buckingham made an eloquent speech, declaring that the people did not want the son of Edward IV to reign over them and had instead chosen him and begged him to accept the crown in order to give the kingdom the strong and stable government it needed at this critical time.  And Gloucester at last bowed to their wishes, only when his cousin warned that if he refused they would have to seek their king elsewhere.

Much of this information was related to us by the odiferous Nesfield, once more on guard.  When he had gone, I slumped in my chair, feeling as if I had taken a blow to the midriff.  Anne was at my side at once, taking my hand and pressing it to her cheek.

“It’s all a lie,” she said.  “No one will believe it.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” I said, seeing clearly.  “None of it matters.  He will have his way in the end because there is no one who will dare stand against him.” 
The name of the next King of England will begin with a G. 

“Even his most avid supporters must know that it is it a timely fable concocted to advance his claim to the crown,” she said.  “No proof was offered, nor ever can be, and the bare assertion does not truth make.”