Rebellion (12 page)

The attack at Northampton had shaken the
duke. He had watched from one side of a small window as the king had talked them down,
and seen their faces, ugly with rage.

‘They will forget,' the king had said to him
afterwards, explaining to him that it might be better if he went away for a little
while; in any case, he needed someone in Wales to calm the rebels there. That would be
his life now, in hiding.

The king's compassion had
been almost worse than the antagonism of the commons. It was a crushing thing, rendering
him impotent. Once he was in Wales, free of this weighty benevolence, his mind had
cleared. He thought more and more about his old allegiance, and his sleep was
interrupted by dreams of the Northamptonshire mob. In their faces he saw himself
revealed: cowardly, shameful. But what were the options, to save one's own skin at the
expense of others or to pin one's colours to a dying cause? To go down with it or to try
to turn that cause around?

He knew that the queen had gone to France,
but King Louis had refused to see her. He had also refused to receive the Earl of
Pembroke and John Fortescue, sent by King Henry to add their supplications to the
queen's. The conference at St Omer had resulted in a truce between France and Burgundy
and England. King Louis wanted to recover his lands in the Somme that had been ceded to
Burgundy some thirty years before, and also to pursue an alliance with England.
Accordingly, he had withdrawn all support from King Henry and had also given up his
protection of Scotland.

Scotland was dismayed by this, and by the
damage that continued to be done by Edward's ally, the Earl of Douglas. Also, there was
the threat of invasion from England. Even Bishop Kennedy was prepared now to make a
truce with England, the terms of which included offering no further aid to King Henry,
Queen Margaret or their adherents.

Queen Margaret, using the little money given
to her by the Duke of Burgundy, had set up a small court at Koeur-la-Petite, where he'd
heard they all lived in great poverty. It could truly be said that Lancastrian fortunes
were at their lowest ebb.

If the duke stayed loyal to King Edward,
more honours might be heaped upon him; the promised pension might finally materialize.
He would be dependent on the favour of the king, but Edward was not a man who lightly
changed his favour.

The duke had been ordered to renew the
attack on Harlech,
which he had not done. Because it had occurred to
him that now, at their lowest point, King Henry and Queen Margaret might be prepared to
forgive him, and accept his aid.

But what could he tell them? That Edward was
no longer as popular as he had been, and his government even less so. They had demanded
excessive taxes from the people to fund the war in the north, without bringing that war
to a conclusion. And certainly if the king went ahead with his foolish notion of
marrying the daughter of a knight, the people might turn against him completely.

Would he do it? Would he turn traitor again?
He sat a long time staring at the paper in front of him, the blank sheet that contained
as yet no treacherous words.

What did it mean to be a traitor? He no
longer knew. What did words like
truth
,
honour
, really mean? True to
yourself, to your family, to an ancient allegiance begun before you were born? He
remembered again the faces of the crowd at Northampton. They would not forget, whatever
the king said. Had he forgotten seeing his father hacked to death at the first battle of
St Albans?

He picked up his quill and began to write,
humbly begging the forgiveness of his king. But which one? By the time he got to the end
of the letter he hoped he would know.

He wrote for some time and it was a good
letter; there was no need to read it through. Hopefully he had struck the right note of
confidence, assuring his majesty that many of the chief men in Wales and others in the
south and west of England would be ready to rise on his behalf. He went so far as to say
that he believed he could orchestrate rebellions in fifteen counties, from Kent to
Cornwall, if his majesty gave the word. He swore that in his heart he had never been
unfaithful, never given up his love for his true king, and he hoped that his most
gracious sovereign would find it in his heart to accept the service of his most penitent
subject, who would lay down his life in his cause.

He wrote all this rapidly, without pause.
When he'd finished,
he saw that there was another sheet of paper left.
An image of the Yorkist king came powerfully to his mind.

What could he say to this king?

That he appreciated his kindness and his
many qualities – in every way he was a fine king. And he did not doubt the reality of
his affection, no, but it tormented him; it was killing him more surely than the sword.
He could not be the person the king wanted him to be. And he could hardly wish him luck,
as from now on he would bend all his efforts towards destroying him.

The Duke of Somerset sat with his eyes
closed, feeling the rough grain of the paper in his hands. It seemed that it was no
longer possible to live without regret. The Yorkist king loved him, that was the truth.
As he apparently loved this woman. These two loves would undo him if anything would.
Perhaps he should just warn the king against himself. He loved wrongly, he could say,
and too well.

The king was moved to love her by
reason of her beautiful person and elegant manner, but neither his gifts nor his
threats could prevail against her jealously guarded virtue. When Edward held a
dagger to her throat in an attempt to make her submit to his passion, she …
showed no sign of fear, preferring rather to die than to live unchastely with the
king.

Dominic Mancini

He would not do it, of course he wouldn't. I
wasn't even afraid, though he had locked the door and I did not know that anyone in my
family would come if I called for help.

He had drawn his short sword. He said,
Now, lady, you must give up this game.

And he advanced towards me, his eyes never
leaving my face.

Why do I remember it so clearly if I wasn't
afraid?

I still remember the look on his face when I
seized the blade. It cut my hand as he tried to pull it away; he flinched when the blood
came. Yet still I held it, pressing the tip of it towards my own throat.

‘Kill me, then. It is the only victory you
will have this day.'

I could see his eyes startle and falter, his
throat work strangely. For this fearless warrior, this bloodstained killer of men, would
no more have taken me by force than he would piss on his own crown.

I blame his mother, the
she-wolf.

Since he had nothing to say, I spoke for
both of us. Did he think I was going to become another of his cast-offs? Passed on to
his friends perhaps? Or bearing his bastards and receiving from him his token purse of
gold? I would rather die, I said.

The look in his eyes was terrible, as if I
had just stabbed him. He lowered the sword; I thought he would weep. Then he was full of
remorse, kissing my hand where the blade had cut it, and the place on my throat where I
had pressed the tip, saying that I was the only true person in his realm.

‘As God is my witness,' he whispered
hoarsely, ‘I will have you for my wife.'

He took the ring from his finger, the great
ruby set with pearls, and slipped it on mine, holding it, because it was too large.
Still he looked at me with those haunted eyes, then he fell to his knees and buried his
face in my gown, and I clenched my fist swiftly to stop the ring slipping off.

‘Lady Elizabeth,' he said, ‘will you marry
me?'

Later, years later, he would say I had given
him nothing – I who had borne him ten children – and asked for everything. While she who
was at that time his mistress asked for nothing and had given him all.

Easy to give something of so little
worth
,
I spat at him.

And he was angry then, and stood very close,
so that I could not help but feel a qualm of fear, though he had never, in all the years
I knew him, offered me violence, apart from that one time in my father's house.

And you, who kept me waiting so
long
, he said softly in my ear.
What was that worth in the end? What was it
worth?

But that earlier time, in my father's house,
he knelt and kissed me through my clothes and said that if I would only agree to marry
him he would not ever wish for more.

In that moment I could see my father's face
and my mother's and each of my sisters' and my brothers' faces. They had urged me on
as honours and rewards had been conferred upon them. And I was proud,
I suppose – pride is what I remember most clearly. For I knew I had him then, when he
thought he would have me.

In most secret manner … King
Edward spoused Elizabeth, late the wife of Sir John Grey, knight, which spousals
were solemnized early in the morning at a town named Grafton near Stony Stratford;
at which marriage was no person present but the spouse, the spousess, the Duchess of
Bedford her mother, the priest, two gentlewomen and a young man to help the priest
sing … in which season she nightly to his bed was brought in so secret manner
that almost none but her mother was of counsel.

Robert Fabyan

In April the Scots sued unto our
sovereign lord King Edward for peace and Lord Montague was assigned to fetch the
Scots and took his journey towards Newcastle. [He] rode to Norham, fetched the Scots
and there was concluded a peace for fifteen years. On 14th May Lord Montague took
his journey toward Hexham …

Gregory's Chronicle

An exceedingly great number of men
[led by the Duke of Somerset, Lord Hungerford and Lord Roos] assembled quickly so
that for force King Henry was thought not much inferior to his enemy. And everywhere
they went they wasted, plundered, and burnt town and field. Thus robbing and
destroying they came to a village called Hexham where they met and encountered Lord
Montagu [on 15th May].

Polydore Vergil

Lord Montague, who was at that time
Earl of Northumberland, attacked them with ten thousand men. The commoners fled and
the nobles were captured.

Warkworth's Chronicle

Henry VI with continual flight
retreated to Scotland and others by similar means saved themselves, but there were
taken Henry, Duke of Somerset, Robert, Earl of Hungerford and Thomas Roos.

Polydore Vergil

The Duke of Somerset was led, none too
gently, before a line of jeering men, wearing only his shirt and breeches. He would not
look at their faces; he glanced upwards at the sky.

It seemed to him that it had never been so
blue; pristine, as if it had been washed by all the bloodshed of a few hours ago.

It was nine years ago, almost to the day,
that his father had been killed. Had the sky been as blue then? If so he had missed it,
as he must have missed many things in the course of his life.

In fact, he remembered little of that day,
which was the day of the first battle he'd ever fought. The sense of excitement, of
trepidation, and the smell of his horse, he remembered that. His horse had seemed also
to be in a state of nervous excitement. He could not remember if he'd felt then the same
feeling of nausea as he felt now.

All the men fell silent as John Neville,
Lord Montague, approached. He looked very like his brother, the Earl of Warwick; a
little smaller than the duke, chin lifted, that same wide smile.
He
came close to the duke as though he would kiss him and said, ‘Well, traitor and thief,
what have you to say to his majesty, King Edward?'