‘No, I can’t,’ Warwick replied. ‘And I agree, Derry. Whatever else happens, I will not leave them alive. I made that mistake before, when Edward was my prisoner in Warwick Castle – and this is my chance to put it right. My last chance.’
‘Don’t wait,’ Derry went on. ‘He will grow stronger every day, once he lands. You know how others flock to him, all the dispossessed, all the enraged, all those knights and lords who see no special future for their families under Lancaster – they will all stand with him. So you must strike out as soon as you have word. You have made your camp here, away from London. That was wise. From here, you can summon your armies and lunge in any direction. God be with you, son. Don’t cock it up.’
‘You won’t stay then?’ Warwick asked, though he knew the answer. Derry shook his head, a smile playing at his lips.
‘I will keep King Henry company in Westminster. Where he is safe. I am too old to march and I always said that my work ends when the fighting begins. All I want now is a quiet retirement – and Edward’s head on London Bridge. I will be happy to forgive him then, but not till then.’
‘Go with my blessing, Master Brewer. I hope you’ll raise a pint to me when we meet again. And pass on my prayers to King Henry.’
‘Oh, His Highness won’t understand, Richard. Not any more. But I will raise a pint or two of London ale, that I can promise. Until we meet again, son.’
The walls of Hull were made of dark-red brick and stood forty feet high at the lowest point, with towers rising all
along the river and right around the enclosed city. Edward’s double column had trudged in from the marshes for sixteen miles, at their best estimate. They stood waiting patiently to be allowed in through the closest gate, while those who lived within the walls crowded on to every open space to stare down at them in dull fascination.
Edward’s banners flew proudly before the city walls, but the gate ahead of him remained closed. He knew his arrival had been observed, of course. The guards on those high walls could hardly have missed so many armed men approaching. Yet it seemed they would be denied entrance. As he exchanged a glance of fury with his brother Richard, a herald was let down to them on a wooden platform held out on a long beam and tackle. The man reached the ground and stepped away quickly, just in time as it was winched back up.
‘I do not imagine this fellow is coming with good news,’ Richard muttered. ‘It seems Hull will declare for Lancaster, Brother. Who would have thought that?’
The herald approached and bowed deeply. He wore the livery of the city itself and was an unremarkable man, though his neck was furred with some white crust of fungus or rash. He scratched at it as he talked, making both Edward and Richard want to back away from whatever disease had its hold on him.
‘My lords, the city council prefers to remain aside from any conflict.’
‘If you refuse me entry, you are of Lancaster,’ Edward said shortly. The man swallowed and scratched himself again, his eyes wide with fear.
‘I am a mere messenger, Your Highness, I mean no insult. We are all afraid and the gates will remain closed. That is all I have been told to say to you.’
‘Go back then. Tell your council I will not forget. I will
return here and hold them to account when I am finished. That is all I have to say to you.’
Edward whirled his horse around and jerked his head to his brother.
‘Come on, I won’t beg these people for their help. I am the king of England and they are my subjects. I have planted my fucking banners. That is all I need to do.’
Without another glance at the cringing herald, Richard rode after his brother, back to the staring faces of their Flemish soldiers. His brother rode past them, deep in his anger until he had gone a mile further down the road and dismounted.
Though there was no food to be had, Richard gave orders to camp for the night and to send anyone with the skill out to seek a local flock or catch live prey, the rest making themselves as comfortable as they could on damp ground. Only the horses would eat their fill of spring grasses. Unless they found a few sheep or cows, most of the men would go hungry, with another thirty miles or so to march the following day. Richard sent one of the captains to retrieve his brother’s banners and as he did so, grew thoughtful. He rode out along the road heading west, a wide track better than the one that had brought them in from the coast.
‘Well, what would you have had me say, Richard?’ Edward demanded when he came close. ‘Should I have begged for them to let me in, their anointed and crowned king?’
‘I do not think they would, even if you had,’ Richard said. ‘It made me think though, of Henry of Bolingbroke once again. He was refused when he came into the north. He had to stop claiming the crown.’
‘He was not king though, was he?’ Edward demanded. ‘Not then. These people would have thrown themselves at my feet less than six months ago and yet they tell me now
they will not open their gates? I will not forget it, Richard. I’ll remember this!’
‘Brother, listen to me. Old Henry of Bolingbroke told them he cared nothing for the crown of England. Instead, he claimed he had come for his personal titles. The towns and the villages could not deny him those.
There
is your gate. Raise just the banner of York and the Sun in Flames when we reach the city of York tomorrow. Leave the three lions furled and perhaps they will open the gates to us. You are the eldest son of Richard of York – no man can dispute your title.’
‘Attainted in Parliament,’ Edward said, though he had grown less flushed. His brother snorted at that.
‘Parliament which is hundreds of miles away. This is Yorkshire, Brother. A different world from all the doings down there. Raise just York and your own badge tomorrow. And pray.’
Edward could sense Micklegate Bar as it grew before him. His brother had told the captains that they would approach the city of York from the south because that was the tradition, and where they would ask the mayor for permission to enter. After the gates of Hull had remained closed, that was not something to take lightly. Yet the truth was darker and more complex. Micklegate Bar was where the heads of the old Duke of York and his son Edmund had been left to rot on spikes. For years, Edward had dreamed of taking them down and on the first morning after Towton, still spattered with blood and earth, he had come to that spot and ended the humiliation of his family.
Earl Warwick had stood with him on that day, retrieving his own father’s head. It beggared belief that Edward could find himself standing against that man, now his true enemy, after they had shared such a moment of their lives. Edward could see it as if he stood there ten years before, just by closing his eyes and letting his horse walk closer. His brother Richard looked at him in concern, but he could not understand, having been just a child when Edward broke Lancaster and avenged their father and their brother.
Edward opened his eyes. The city of York had a more intimate connection to his family than any other place in England, so that by approaching it he was dragging up his past triumphs and disasters in a great storm within. He found himself breathing harder and with warmth, though the day was cold.
The gate was closed, though that was not a surprise in itself. The walls were there for exactly that purpose, to protect the men and women and children within from being trampled by every marauding force of soldiers passing by. Massive stone towers and gates meant that cities could thrive and grow, where once they had lived in terror of Viking raiders, or the private armies of lords in dispute. The walls of York gave them confidence and pride as they stared down at the white rose banner and behind it, Edward’s Sun in Flames.
Richard of Gloucester raised his right fist to halt and the order snapped out along the column. The two brothers exchanged a glance and went forward alone, the hooves of their horses clattering and scraping, echoing back from the walls. Micklegate Bar loomed above the gate below, the broad tower pierced with windows and walkways, a symbol of power in its own right, proclaiming York as a centre of trade – and strength.
The sons of York came to a halt before the gates, reining in and waiting as a man walked out on stiff legs above them. Mayor Holbeck looked flustered, pink and shining with hands that clasped a sheaf of papers as if they would protect him. He opened his mouth, but Edward spoke before he could.
‘I come here, not as king of England, but as Duke of York. You have seen my banners. My family estates are close by. I ask only to pass these walls in peace, perhaps to purchase food and rest for my men. Beyond that, I make no claim on you, though this city bears my name and kept the heads of my father and brother on the gate where you stand, sir!’
The mayor flinched from the last, gripping his papers with even more force. Yet he was not a fool, nor a weak man. Holbeck stared down at the two brothers, seeing their
determination. Further back, their army stood like ravening wolves, looking at a city they would surely strip of food and ale. Holbeck shook his head at that thought, thinking of his daughters.
‘My lord, I know you for a man of honour. I know your word is good. If you give me an oath of safe passage, I will order the gates opened. Choose … a dozen men to enter with you and gather what supplies you need. I cannot allow more without skirting my oath to Lancaster. I cannot do more, my lord, though I might wish it.’ Mayor Holbeck clamped his mouth shut then and stood with his head bowed as Edward glanced aside.
‘Better than nothing,’ Richard murmured. His brother nodded and took a huge breath to call up his answer.
‘Very well, Mayor Holbeck. You have my word, on my behalf and all those beholden unto me. There will be no clash of arms, no injury or rude action. With your permission, I will enter with my brother and a dozen other men, to gather food and water for those who love York still.’ He filled his lungs again to make his voice carry further, to the hundreds who would be clustered close inside the walls, craning to hear every word. ‘If any man of this city wishes to join me then, I will accept him! And if there are none, I will not forget, when I return! I am the Duke of York, my father’s title. I am Edward Plantagenet, the head of my house, on my honour. I have given you my word, in the name of Christ.’
The mayor signalled to men below him and the gates were unbarred, their chains removed. Edward waited until he had a dozen of his men at his back, then rode under the tower. He did not flinch as its shadow passed across him, though he had to stop on the inner yard and turn his mount to look back at the row of iron spikes set into the stone.
‘There, Richard. That Anjou she-wolf put my father’s
head there. Dipped in tar to gape at the crowds below – and with a paper crown.’
Richard looked at his older brother, seeing his eyes shining. He wondered in that moment if the oath by which they had gained entrance would be broken. Guards watched them all around and some carried crossbows still, yet were abashed to see a man who had been king pointing to where his father’s head had been.
‘I wish I could have seen it,’ Richard said. ‘I was just a child when you won at Towton. I would give anything to have stood with you on that day.’
Edward shuddered. ‘No, if you had been there, you would not speak with such longing. That day …’ He tapped his head. ‘It remains, bright and terrible.’ He looked up at the Micklegate Bar once more. ‘And when the sun rose again, I climbed that wall and took down the heads of my father and my brother Edmund. Made black by tar, they did not look like either of them, though I could see father’s hair …’ Edward broke off, his grief enough to choke him. ‘She meant it as an insult, that such a man as our father could aspire to wear a crown, but be worth only paper. Yet I am his son – and I was crowned in gold, Richard! I have sat the throne and given battle under royal banners.’ He breathed slowly out, forcing his temper under control until he could look at Richard and around them, at the cowed guards and the mayor still waiting to be addressed. Edward ignored them all.
‘And she still lives, Richard, with her son grown to manhood – to the age our brother Edmund reached when he was cut down. Is that not a strange thing? I sometimes think we have no more say in our life’s events than you and I had in that storm at sea. We are just thrown and battered back and forth. Some sink and are lost – and some rise up on
great waves, all undeserving.’ His voice had grown somehow to fill the enclosure by the walls, so that every man and woman watching had their gaze fastened on to him.
‘Yet I am one who stands
before
the wave that will engulf him and I am not afraid! I am the house of York, Brother. I am the ancient line. I will not turn from the storm, though it blasts me down. And if it does, I will rise to my feet once more!’
There were some in that city who had not lost their love of Edward as king. They cheered his words, from the windows and in the streets leading deeper into the city. Richard joined them, raising his arms and roaring with the rest.
Through sheer labour and pain, his brother had remade the ruin he had been. It was a moment of clear joy and Richard was still chuckling as he dismounted and clapped the stunned and appalled mayor on his back.
‘Come, sir. We have a loyal army of York in need of a hot meal – and there was talk of ale. Come, break out your stewpots and your casks for us, there’s a good fellow.’
The mayor flinched under the slap, still looking around at those cheering Edward of York and feeling himself flush. He had given his personal oath to a herald bearing the seal of Lancaster. That had seemed only right a few months before, though he had not expected to have King Edward himself return to test his word, standing there for all the world as if he had never left. Well, he would do what he could.
‘Follow me, my lord. I will have carts and sides of beef brought, you’ll see. Your men will eat well tonight.’
The small army of York had marched thirty miles that day and were footsore and starving. They gave a great cheer when the gates opened once again as the sun set, revealing a train of carts and steaming cauldrons. The captains were hard-pressed to stop the rush forward, bawling and laying
about them with sticks. Those who had been born in England took some pleasure in pressing forward as one group, holding the rest back so that the queues could form. Otherwise, it would be ‘bleeding chaos’, as they explained slowly and loudly to the men of Burgundy and Flanders.
There was enough for all and more, so that they filled flasks and added dozens of carts to their baggage, enough for other meals to come. Some women of the town came out to walk with them, arranging to be paid by the captains or lords for their labour. In truth, all those men were grateful for their presence and there was no question of respectable women being insulted or treated roughly. They would cook and mend and any man fool enough to say a cross word to them was likely to take a beating from his mates.
The column was made greater by almost a hundred of those ladies of York, with their sleeves rolled to their elbows and their caps and shawls tied tight as they clambered aboard carts and took up the reins of sleepy old ponies. The entire setting took on the appearance of an army on the move rather than the column of refugees it had resembled before.
There could not be a general call to arms, after Edward had agreed not to summon them as king of England. Yet even so, they came. As the evening turned to darkness, men left the city in twos and threes and groups, in mail and with what weapons they had, walking out proudly to join the camp. They were greeted with humour and satisfaction, fresh ale pressed into their hands. Their names were assigned to the captains who would command them, with some new men promoted from among those born on English clay. It was true the newcomers were only three hundred or so by morning, while the rest of the city stayed safe behind their walls. Yet it was a beginning and Edward put a brave face on his disappointment. At sunrise, he marched the men south,
with drummer boys rattling away and every horn blown. He needed to be seen.
Behind them, pigeons clattered into the air, released from private mews in the city. The birds found their bearings in great wheeling circles above the walls, then responded to some ancient sense and headed south, carrying news of the landing of York. Edward and Richard watched them pass with expressions of foreboding, the birds too high even for archers. It made their stomachs clench to think of word spreading ahead, bringing the news to Warwick and to London.
From York, they followed the road south for a time, passing Towton with heads bowed for all those who had left their bones there. When they reached Ferrybridge, Edward rode over a crossing he had seen destroyed and rebuilt, lost in solemn memory.
The road was of good stone as they passed Pontefract. By then Richard had scouts out in wide lines, riding miles beyond the marching ranks. It was they who reported the banners of Montagu flying over the battlements of Pontefract Castle.
Edward did not know how many men lay safe within those walls, but even so, he rode to the edge of arrow-shot and challenged Montagu to come out. There was no reply. Some of Edward’s men showed their bare buttocks to the walls. The action amused Richard, though his brother was tight-faced and smiling falsely as he gave the order to march on. John Neville, Lord Montagu, had played his part in their humiliation the previous year. It would have been a grand beginning to have caught Warwick’s brother beyond his walls and strung him up by his entrails. That would have rung the bell Edward wanted. Instead he could only ride past, looking back over his shoulder at the banners still flying on the battlements there, as if to spite his ambition.
Sandal Castle was a place of special pilgrimage for the sons of York, where their father and brother had been murdered by a French queen fighting with Scots against better men. Edward and Richard knelt on cloaks and prayed for the lost souls of that place, and for the guidance they would need to exact a vengeance long overdue. It was not too much to ask, not in Sandal, close by the city of Wakefield. At least there, so close to their father’s estate, they were not refused at the walls. Edward put his ring to a loan of a thousand gold angel coins, then changed most of them to silver to pay his followers for their service.
Another eighty men joined him when they saw that generous act, ten knights among them, and a dozen smiths and farriers with blades of forge iron in their hands. It was such a small number that Edward came close to despair, though he greeted them as brothers and spoke to all he could. In private, he told Richard he was dreading the sight of the first army to move against his little force. He would be overwhelmed and cut down. England drowsed and Edward could not see how to wake her, or her people.
Each day brought a greater sense of spring and growing in the land. Richard sent men out ahead of them to carry word, but the people were cold and dark of heart. Few came in and it seemed they had turned their faces from the house of York.
The news of them began to spread, so that each town and city they reached knew York had returned. Some were hostile and jeered as they passed or used slings to clatter stones against armoured knights. Edward resisted the desire to leave those villages and towns in flames behind him. He was the king returned, not some brutal usurper. It galled him more than he could express, but he allowed only stern and dignified rebuke in his dealings and not the hand round their throats he would have preferred. He and his brother felt
alone in the evenings, though the army grew around them like callus or armour, in dozens and scores at a time. In Doncaster, an old hunting friend brought out two hundred men, well armed and equipped. William Dudley also brought a huge quantity of claret on a cart, though he was astonished to find Edward would not touch a drop of it. His vow of abstinence was holding still, though Richard saw how his brother licked dry lips at the sight of such fine skins and casks. Perhaps because he felt Richard’s probing gaze, Edward did not weaken.