Rebellion (31 page)

Send me an heir to rule this country after me.

He did not consider himself to be especially
good at prayer. Nothing happened when he closed his eyes; he felt no sensation of either
censure or benediction. But he made his requests dutifully before passing to the next
shrine.

A king did not need to be good at prayer.
There were other men for that. The previous king had been good at prayer and where had
that got him? He, Edward, was good at other things. More earthly things perhaps, but God
had made him as he was. There must be some room in God's vision for the carnal man.

In the chapel at Walsingham he had lit
candles for his wife and children, the son he wished to have, and for the souls of his
father and brother. And a small wind had blown them all out.

He shrugged this off. He was not given to
looking for signs or portents. The holy man, he was fond of saying, would see God's face
in a tankard of ale, while another man would have drunk it first.

Even so he felt somewhat oppressed as he
left the chapel. He went from Walsingham to Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire, where the
monks, who were better informed than any man in the kingdom, told him of the uprising in
the north. The people were complaining of the tax, the abbot said, and his pale eyes in
their bony sockets looked straight at the king.

Edward was inclined to play this down. There
had been so many uprisings and he was certain that his men could suppress this one.
Still, he stayed only one night at the abbey before travelling to his queen at
Fotheringhay and sending out his agents. They returned to tell him that this particular
uprising might be more serious than he had thought. So from Stamford he wrote to the
mayors of various towns commanding them to supply him with armed men. And at Newark on
10 July he sent to them again, more urgently.

Then he wrote in a friendly way to the Earl
of Warwick. He would not credit what he'd heard, he said. He did not believe
that the earl was
of any such disposition toward us as the rumour here
runneth.
But instead of a reply there was a proclamation from the earl, his
brother and the Duke of Clarence. The king's true subjects, it said, had called upon
them
with piteous tormentation
to remedy the evils that had fallen upon this
land. The king was deceived by deceitful and covetous persons, and it mentioned by name
most of his wife's family, William Herbert, the Earl of Devon and others. It accused
these people of debasing the coinage, imposing extortionate taxes and enriching
themselves to the utter impoverishment of the king's true commons, and said that the
nation had now fallen into great poverty, misery and lawlessness such as that found in
the reigns of those other deceived and misadvised kings, Edward II, Richard II and Henry
VI.

Finally it summoned all true subjects to
meet them at Canterbury on the following Sunday.

The king read this proclamation twice with
deepening outrage. The three kings mentioned had all been deposed, and two of them
killed. He gave it to Lord Hastings and his brother Richard, who were in the room with
him. Hastings read the proclamation with eyebrows raised, while his brother remained
watchful and wary.

‘My lord – this is treason,' Hastings
said.

‘What would you have us do?' his brother
said, but the king hardly heard him. He was thinking of his other brother and his cousin
the earl. He could feel the muscles of his neck contract like taut cords; blood infused
the tiny capillaries of his eyes.

On Hastings' advice, he sent a copy to Lord
Herbert and the Earl of Devon, bidding them to come to him with as many men as they
could muster, and then he went to Nottingham to wait for them.

More news followed. Crowds of armed men had
flocked to Canterbury to join the king's brother and the earl. And Clarence, it seemed,
was already married to Isabel, Warwick's daughter.

The man known as Robin of Redesdale was
marching south
towards the men of Calais and Kent and all the king
could do was to wait, hoping to intercept the two armies at the point where they might
meet. His brother Richard and Lord Hastings both advised him against doing anything else
until Lord Herbert and the Earl of Devon arrived. They did not have nearly enough men,
they said.

But Herbert did not arrive. And the king,
growing impatient of waiting at Nottingham with no reinforcements, moved towards
Northampton in the hope of meeting Herbert's army. He stayed at Olney, where he learned
what had happened to Herbert, who had been on his way to meet him when he was attacked
by Warwick's men.

The Earl of Devon had fled, or not turned
up, leaving Herbert to face the onslaught. And he had fought, and lost. More than five
thousand men were dead. Herbert and his brother had been executed by Warwick, who now
planned to execute the queen's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, at
Kenilworth.

The messenger looked grim, as well he might;
as if he anticipated execution himself for bringing such appalling news.

Hastings asked gently what the king would
have him do.

‘Do?' he said. ‘What is there to do? You can
dismiss my men – they are easy targets here. Tell them to go home. I will wait here
alone for my cousin.'

He said this in the heat of the moment and
was to regret it, for almost immediately his remaining lords deserted, taking their
troops with them.

But his young brother stepped forward. ‘I
will not leave,' he said. His chin jutted forward, his grey eyes were hostile and cold.
He hated Clarence – they had never been close as the king and his brother Edmund had
been, because Clarence had tormented Richard when he was young.

He looked very young now, like a mutinous
child. He was not yet seventeen. When Edward was that age, he thought suddenly, he had
still had a father, and a younger brother who was his greatest friend, and none of the
burden of kingship had fallen on him.

Now his greatest friends
were his youngest brother and this older man, Hastings, who would not leave him. ‘I am
going nowhere, either,' Hastings said, and the king laughed shortly. ‘Well then, there
are three of us,' he said. And felt a surge of emotion; not anger, nor gratitude, nor
the desire for revenge, nor love, but some combination of all of these. It moved him
powerfully so that he stepped forward and embraced his brother, holding him for longer
than he liked, feeling the stiffness in his shoulders and chest, the slightness and
toughness of his build. He always held himself thus, as though in preparation, or
training.

Then he released his brother and clasped his
face, looking into his eyes where he could see himself reflected. ‘Thank you,' he said.
‘You at least are loyal to me.'

Richard stared back at him. ‘You are my
king,' he said.

‘I am your brother,' Edward said, and he
clasped his shoulders once more and shook him briefly, then turned to Hastings and
clasped him also. But his emotions ran too high to speak.

They prepared themselves for the night they
must spend in Olney.

It was Lammas Eve, the night sacred to the
Old God, when men
reap what they sow.
And it was sultry, without a breath of
air. The king removed his outer clothing then said he would go out alone.

They argued, of course, then said they would
go with him. But he wanted to be alone.

And there, in the street, under the night
sky, he understood fully what that meant. Stripped of kingship, robes and all the
trappings of state. No men, no weapons, nothing.

He turned round slowly, looking up at the
stars.

Here I am
,
he said in his
heart, and,
Do what you will.

He felt the silence pressing in on him from
the walls and houses of the street. It came to him that he was, in this solitary state,
quite free. He might walk away from this inn, this village, taking nothing with him,
leaving everything behind. He had never had that thought before.

But the moment passed. He
went back inside. And slept more soundly than he had ever slept.

Until the knock came.

The king was captured at a village
near Coventry … and he was sent to Warwick Castle where he was held prisoner.
This calamity had been brought about by his own brother, George, Duke of Clarence,
Richard, Earl of Warwick and his brother George, Archbishop of York … In case
his faithful subjects in the south might be about to avenge the great insult
inflicted on the king [they] transferred him to Middleham Castle in the north.

Crowland Chronicle

The news from Edgecote pierced her like an
arrow. She knew at once that her son must have been there.

‘Herbert will have taken him,' she said.

‘You don't know that,' said her husband.

‘I do.'

‘Why would he take him?'

‘Why would he not?'

She sent a party of men to find him under
the leadership of William Bailey, wearing armour and carrying weapons under their
cloaks. They were to go first to Raglan to see if her son was still there and, if not,
to find him whatever it took. She gave William Bailey money for the journey, and for her
son, and to reward anyone who might have helped him. She did not say,
If he is not
alive then the money must be used to bring him back to me
, because she couldn't
speak those words.

After they had gone she picked up her quill
and wrote another letter to the king, urgently requesting permission for her son to be
returned to her. It was not right, she said, that he should be caught up in these
wars.

She did not consult her husband about this
letter since he had advised saying nothing. She dispatched it secretly with a different
servant who was going on an errand to the city.

Then all she could do was wait in silence
because there was
nothing to say; sleepless because she spent her
nights staring into the darkness.

Oh God, let him be safe.

Dear God, thy will be done.

But she did not trust the will of God.

She could not comprehend the enormity of
living in the world without her son.

She had lived without him for many years, of
course, but not without the hope of him.

She could not live without that hope.

Oh Lord, return him to me
, she
prayed.
Sweet mother of Jesu
,
send him back.

But the news that reached them at Woking was
not good. They heard there had been more than 40,000 men at Edgecote and half of them
were dead. Then that only 5,000 were dead, then 10,000. Warwick was even now rounding up
and executing the others. All the captains were executed.

That might mean that William Herbert, the
man who had been her enemy for so long, was also executed. But there was still no news
of her son.

If her son had been with his guardian,
Warwick would have him now.

She did not want Warwick to have control of
her son.

She considered sending another party of men
to the battlefield and to the surrounding area, asking for news. Then she thought that
she would go herself.

Henry came on her as she was getting ready
to leave. ‘What are you doing?' he said. When she did not answer he said, ‘No. It is out
of the question.'

‘I can't sit here waiting.'

‘It isn't safe for you to go. I can't allow
it.'

She glanced away so he wouldn't see the
expression in her eyes. He was always there; older, wiser, telling her what to do.

‘When your son is found,' he said, ‘safe and
well as he will be,
do you think he will want to hear that his mother
has gone risking her life on some foolish errand?'

She clutched her cloak to her. ‘I can't
stand it,' she said.

He came up to her, taking the cloak from her
hands. ‘Listen to me,' he said. ‘Henry is safe, I know it. There will be news, any day
now. And when it arrives you will want to be here to hear it, will you not?'

She couldn't help it, she cried. He didn't
like it when she cried and neither did she. But she felt so powerless.

Henry would not physically stop her from
going – he had never physically restrained her in their married life. Even so, somehow,
he was impossible to gainsay. He sat down on the bed, drawing her to him awkwardly,
patting her shoulder. He would not let her leave.

That night, after taking one of her own
herbal brews, mixed with wine, she fell into a heavy, troubled sleep. And had an old
dream: that she was a child again, hurrying along an endless corridor, and at the end of
it was the devil, waiting for her.

He had always been there, waiting for
her.

She woke with a sensation of pain in her
sternum, as though an arrow was stuck there. She was convinced that she was feeling in
her own body the shaft that had pierced her son.