Rebellion (35 page)

Then they heard that the king had betrothed
his eldest daughter,
Elizabeth, to the eldest son of John Neville, who
was Warwick's brother. This was because, Henry said, John Neville would now be required
to give up the earldom of Northumberland. The king did not want to alienate the only
Neville who had remained loyal to him through Warwick's coup, and so his son was created
Duke of Bedford, given all the lands of the Earl of Devon, who had failed to come to the
aid of Lord Herbert, and was betrothed to the Princess Elizabeth.

Margaret said nothing of her cherished
desire that her son might marry the king's daughter. Had he not almost agreed to this,
when he had visited them at Woking? At least he had given her reason to hope. Now there
was no reason to hope. They could only wait for Henry's summons to the council, which
did not arrive.

When at last a letter did come it said only
that Henry was not required immediately but should wait and make himself available at
the king's command. Nothing was said in response to the letter he'd sent.

‘I will stay in London,' Henry said. ‘You
should go.'

She didn't want to go back to Woking where
there would be no news. But Henry said he would stay close to Westminster and send news
as regularly as possible by their receiver, Reginald Bray.

He was doing this for her, of course. He had
not said one word of reproach to her for the situation they were in. So, after only
minor protests, she returned to her house in Woking. Which was close enough for her to
return in an emergency, but far enough away to seem insular and uninvolved, existing in
its own separate reality.

It was so quiet. All the hectic disturbance
of the city, all the uncertainty and anticipation had gone; she was left in this
somnolent world. The servants had managed efficiently in her absence, there was nothing
for her to do. Except to think about her son and the damage she might have done. For the
first time
she wondered how he would feel about being transplanted
from the only family he had ever known. She had taken it for granted that he would want
to return to her; now she wondered whether he would ever adjust, or forgive her, if he
was sent somewhere else.

Henry, true to his word, sent messages every
other day, conveying news from the council. The king had issued a general pardon, he
wrote, to all those who had taken part in the insurrections against him. But at the same
time he had announced that there would be two further taxes, in November and March, of a
fifteenth of all men's goods, so that the people did not know whether they were pardoned
or punished.

The following day he wrote that the king had
sent for his brother, the Duke of Clarence, and the Earl of Warwick; all London hummed
with the news of their arrival, and with speculation as to what the king would do to
them when they got there.

But when they arrived the king greeted them
peaceably enough. He was determined, he said, to abandon all disagreements. Everything
should be as it was before.

Warwick sat in council from that time on. He
was there when the king dispatched his brother Richard to Wales with Lord Ferrers to
reclaim all the castles, lands and offices that Warwick had bestowed upon himself during
the king's captivity; he was there when his most hated rival, Anthony Woodville, was
made Lord Rivers after the death of his father (no one said
murder
or
execution
) and, it was said, would soon be made governor of Calais in
Warwick's stead; he was there when Duke Charles of Burgundy received the Order of the
Garter. He sat through all of this impassively, and rose and thanked the king formally
when the council closed for Christmas, because the king had announced there would be no
further retribution. The king received his thanks graciously and said that from now on
he and the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence would be on the best of terms once
more.Then the council closed and Henry returned to Woking for
the
Christmas season. He had not heard whether Lord Ferrers had managed to speak to the king
before he left, nor had he had any response to his letter. He had heard that he was
finally summoned to the council on 5 January, when it reopened.

They spent a sober Christmas; quiet,
visiting no one, preparing for Henry's return.

And on the first day of council his younger
brother John was made Earl of Wiltshire for his support to the king.

There was no mention of any award or honour
for Henry. The council moved on swiftly to the matter of the queen's mother, Jacquetta,
who had been accused of witchcraft. She was found to have been falsely accused and all
charges against her were dropped.

The Earl of Warwick sat through all of this,
and the transfer of his lands to the Earl of Northumberland, and was even observed to
smile on occasion. Clarence did not smile, but looked mutinous throughout. At the end of
the council, in early February, they were allowed to go their own way, without
hindrance. Separately they rode out of the city and headed north.

And the mood of the people changed from
anticipation to agitation. There was almost the sense that they had been cheated.
Betrayed, even. For now something would surely happen.

And, sure enough, soon after the two lords
had left the city, news came of a rising in the north.

Sir Thomas Burgh, the king's Master of
Horse, was attacked, his house pulled down and all his goods and cattle taken, by
Margaret's stepbrother, Lord Welles, and his son. The attack had occurred on land
belonging to Clarence and the instigators were all in some way connected to Warwick. So
the king had to act. On 9 February he issued a proclamation calling for all loyal men to
muster at Grantham on 12 March,
well armed and measurably arrayed.

‘What will you do?' she asked Henry. He did
not answer. ‘You don't have to go.'

They both knew that he
did. Lord Welles was the eldest son of Lionel, Lord Welles, who had been the third
husband of Margaret's mother. Richard, Lord Welles, was his oldest son, and Sir Robert
was
his
oldest son, and Sir Thomas Delaland and Sir Thomas Dymmock were his two
brothers-in-law.

Someone had spread rumours all over
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire that the king was marching north to exact retribution for the
rebellion of the previous year. Bills had been posted on church doors and inns all over
the counties to say that the general pardon would not be honoured; the king's judges had
been instructed to
hang and draw a great number of commons.

It was widely supposed that Warwick and
Clarence had started these rumours, yet at the same time it was said that Warwick was
mustering his own troops to aid the king.

One thing was clear: Margaret's husband
would have to make a conspicuous display of loyalty to his king because her family was
so involved in the rebellion. And because she had made the calamitous mistake of
visiting Clarence after he had imprisoned the king.

Henry was still holding the summons, but his
eyes had a fixed and inward expression as though gazing at some intractable conundrum.
She sat down in front of him and put her hand over his. ‘Henry,' she said, ‘don't go. I
will write to the king and tell him you are ill.'

He stirred, as though she had recalled to
his mind the fact that he had a wife. ‘The roads are not good,' he said.

‘No, exactly –'

‘So I will need to set off soon.'

‘Henry –'

‘I will take a few men with me,' he said.
‘They will need to be armed.'

And he turned away.

Neither of them mentioned Towton, that
terrible battle after which he had been so ill in mind and body that she'd thought he
would never recover. They did not speak of it in the same way that
they did not speak of his younger brother being made earl. The fact that he didn't
reproach her for any of this did not make her feel better. She almost wished he would
accuse her so that she could justify herself. But he wouldn't say anything. Because it
was all her fault.

As the day for his departure drew closer she
saw him getting more distracted, the frown between his eyes deepening, as if he was
looking not at the things around him, the table, the hearth, but at the perpetual
mystery of life itself. She found herself hoping that he would suffer one of his
outbreaks of illness, so that he couldn't go; then knew that he would go anyway.

She feared for him. He was not a young man
any more and he was no warrior. She feared that he would get on to the battlefield and
forget what his sword was for, how to ride his horse.

Still they said nothing, because there was
nothing to be said.

On the last night she heard him crying out
from his room and knew he was having the nightmare again. The one where he was trampling
over dead bodies in the snow.

She didn't get up immediately because he did
not like it to be known that nine years after Towton he still suffered the same dream.
But when he cried out a third, then a fourth time, she pushed the covers back and
hurried to his room. He was shifting and muttering in his bed, one arm was flung out and
the coverlet was on the floor. As she drew closer she could see that his eyes were open.
‘Henry,' she said, then she sat on his bed and put her hand on his arm, and he recoiled
from her in a convulsive movement. But he was awake, breathing hard. In the glimmer of
light from the window she could see his eyes coming slowly into focus.

‘Henry,' she said again. ‘I heard – I
thought you were dreaming.'

Henry closed his eyes. His face was covered
in a sheen of sweat. ‘Dreaming,' he said.

‘You cried out,' she said, but he didn't
respond. Another man
might have wanted her to get into bed with him
and offer such comfort as she could. She knew he didn't want this.

‘Henry,' she said, and there was a catch in
her voice. She put a hand to his forehead and reflexively he moved away. He didn't want
that either. ‘Is it a fever?' she said, half hopefully. ‘Do you want a drink?'

Silence. She could hear the ruckle of his
breathing. ‘Can I get you anything?' she asked, wondering if she sounded as desperate as
she felt.

‘I'm all right.'

‘What about your medicine?'

‘I'll be fine. Go back to sleep.'

She knew that she would not go back to
sleep. She expelled a long breath. ‘Henry,' she said, ‘I'm sorry.'

When there was no answer she turned away
from him slightly and said, ‘It's my fault that you have to go – and I'm sorry.'

Still with his eyes closed, he said, ‘It's
not your fault.'

She was crying now, as silently as possible.
Only her breathing had changed. ‘I – went to Clarence. When you told me not to.' She
meant to say something about her stepfather's family but could not speak through her
tears.

He didn't turn to her, but neither did he
turn away. After a moment he said, ‘It's not your fault that kings go to war. It is what
they do.'

She shook her head. Although she could see
that in a sense it was true. As long as there were kings there would be war.

It was not her fault in the first place that
her son had been taken away from her.

She didn't know if she was comforted by
this, but what did she expect from him – absolution? She'd gone to comfort him, but he
didn't want the comfort she could give. She sat so close to him on the bed, but they
were absolutely alone. She knew that he wanted her to leave.

Alone in the dark, she nodded to herself.
She wasn't crying any
more. She murmured something to the effect that
she hoped he would sleep better now, got up swiftly and left the room, closing the door
behind her.

The next day he rode north with a small
retinue of thirty men, each of them equipped with new sallets and arrows. She stood by a
window and watched as she had watched Edmund so many times. It had rained all night and
the trees were drenched; the sky had barely lightened since dawn. She had woken with a
sensation of heaviness that had barely lightened either, now she stood reflecting on the
futility of all her efforts, her prayers and fasting. It seemed to her, as she watched
the small party leave, that she was doomed always to be swept further away from her
goal, and to injure those close to her in her pursuit of it.

She watched them until they disappeared then
retired to her chapel to pray. Because there was nothing else she could do.

When King Edward heard [of the
uprising in Lincolnshire] he chose his captains and gathered a great crowd of men
…

Warkworth's Chronicle

The rebels advancing themselves,
their cry was
A Clarence! A Clarence!
There being in the field divers
persons of the Duke of Clarence's livery, especially Sir Robert Welles himself and a
man of the duke's own that after was slain in the chase and his casket taken wherein
was found many marvellous documents containing the most abominable treason that ever
was seen … At Grantham there were brought unto [the king] all the captains
[including] Sir Robert Welles, who severally examined of their free wills
uncompelled … acknowledged and confessed the duke and earl to be partners and
chief provokers of all their treasons.

Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire

The king came to Grantham and there
… beheaded Sir Thomas Delaland and John Neile … and upon the Monday next
at Doncaster there was beheaded Sir Robert Welles and another captain. And then the
king
had word that the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick
were at Chesterfield … and upon the Tuesday the king took the field and
mustered his people and it was said that never in England were seen so many goodly
people so well arrayed … And when the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick
heard that the king was coming toward them, they departed and went to Manchester,
hoping to have help and succour of Lord Stanley, but they had little favour …
so men say they went westward.

Newsletter from London, March 1470

They fled west to the coast, boarded
ships there and went towards Southampton … However Anthony, the queen's
brother, was sent there on the king's orders. He fought with the duke and earl and
captured their ships with many men on them and the duke and earl were forced to flee
… King Edward then came to Southampton and commanded the Earl of Worcester to
sit in judgement of the men who had been captured in the ships; and so twenty
gentlemen and yeomen were hanged, drawn and quartered and then beheaded, after which
they were hung up by their legs and a stake was sharpened at both ends; one end of
this stake was pushed in between their buttocks and their heads were stuck on the
other.

Warkworth's Chronicle

The Earl of Warwick put out to sea
with the Duke of Clarence who had married his daughter … They took their wives
and children and a number of people … and appeared before Calais [on 16 April
1470]. In the town was Warwick's lieutenant Lord Wenlock and several of his
servants. Instead of welcoming him they fired several cannon shots at him. Whilst
they lay at anchor before the town the Duchess of Clarence, the Earl of Warwick's
daughter, gave birth to a son.

Philippe de Commines