Rebellion (37 page)

He put his hand on
Clarence's shoulder. The younger man was shaking, from fear or cold. ‘Come with me,' he
said. Together they descended the steps to the lower deck. He told Clarence to go to his
wife, speaking sternly for he knew that Clarence did not want to go. His younger
daughter still remained on deck, watching the little boat row away like a symbol of
everything they had lost, or that had come to nothing. But
the earl
was not a man to be governed by the tyranny of symbols. He went to the captain and gave
him his instructions for the ship to be turned towards Normandy. Then, with his heart
considerably hardened towards God and fate, he went to stand with his younger daughter,
to watch the little boat until it disappeared.

[The Earl of Warwick and the Duke of
Clarence] took to sea. Wherever they encountered merchants or other subjects of the
Duke of Burgundy they robbed them of their possessions, merchandise and vessels,
considerably increasing the size of their fleet, and so … they crossed to
Normandy.

Crowland Chronicle

The Duke of Clarence and the Earl of
Warwick arrived … on the 8th [June] and were received by the most Christian
king [Louis] in the most honourable and distinguished manner imaginable …
Every day his majesty has gone to visit them … and has remained with them in
long discussions while he honours and feasts them, giving them tournaments and
dancing … Today they have left [because of] the arrival of the queen and the
Prince of Wales. The Earl of Warwick does not want to be here when the queen first
arrives, but wishes his majesty to shape matters a little with her, and induce her
to agree to an alliance between the prince, her son, and a daughter of Warwick
…

Newsletter from Amboise, 12 June 1470

Up to the present the queen has shown
herself very hard and difficult …

Newsletter from Amboise, 29 June 1470

Margaret of Anjou was looking at Louis as if
he'd punched her in the stomach. ‘You cannot be serious,' she said.

‘It's your only hope,' he replied.

‘Hope?' she said.

‘I will supply the Earl of Warwick with
ships and men, and he will sail to England to restore your husband to the throne. That's
what you wanted, is it not?'

She walked away from him then, a breach of
protocol so severe that in other circumstances he could have had her arrested.
‘
Hope
,' she said.

He waited.

‘You hand me over to my enemies, and call it
hope,' she said.

The king of France said that if she had a
better idea he would be happy to hear it. She turned back to him then. ‘Send
me
,' she said. ‘Give
me
men and ships.'

The king said he had done that before, and
it had failed.

‘This will fail!' the queen said. ‘Warwick
fights only for himself. Whose idea was it,' she said, approaching him now, ‘for his
daughter to marry my son?'

When the king did not answer she gave a
short, incredulous laugh. ‘I knew it!' she said. ‘Why did he not simply propose himself
as king?'

‘That was never an
option,' said the king. ‘If you would like to consider what options there are –'

But the queen had turned away from him
again. ‘His daughter,' she said, ‘and my son!'

‘They are of an age,' he said, ‘and not
incompatible status.'

‘My son is the prince!'

‘Warwick is of the royal blood, is he not?
He will be duke here.'

The queen shook her head in disbelief. ‘My
son should marry some princess of Italy or Aragon or Bohemia …'

‘You are welcome to try those royal houses,'
said the king. ‘Offer them your exiled son, who has no crown, no money, no estate.'

‘He will be king!'

‘Not without Warwick.' The king stood and
walked towards her in his measured way. ‘Your son needs to make an alliance in his own
land,' he said. ‘What do they know of him there? They have not seen him since he was an
infant. They will say that he is not even English – he has spent the greater part of his
life in France. They know him as your son – son of a foreign princess – they do not know
him as the king's.'

Her face changed instantly. ‘Yes – because
of Warwick!' she cried. ‘Warwick spread those lies about him!'

The king tried to speak but she continued on
a rising note. Through Warwick's pride and insolence, she said, she and her son had been
attainted and driven out to beg their bread in foreign lands. Not only had he injured
her as queen but he had dared to defame her reputation as a woman by false and malicious
slanders, which she could never forget.

‘If you would care to shout a little
louder,' he said, ‘there are servants in the far part of the castle who haven't heard
you.'

Now the queen approached him, her face pale,
her head shaking. She spoke in a low, trembling voice. ‘Warwick,' she said, ‘has pierced
my heart with wounds that can never heal – they will last
to the Day
of Judgement, when I will appeal to God for vengeance against him.'

And without waiting for a response or asking
his permission to leave, she walked swiftly from the room.

Left alone, the king tapped his index
fingers against one another. ‘Well, I think that went as well as could be expected,' he
said to no one in particular.

His majesty has spent and still
spends every day in long discussions with the queen to induce her to make the
alliance with Warwick and to let the prince go with the earl to the enterprise of
England.

Newsletter from Amboise, 29 June 1470

‘The Countess of Warwick and her daughter
wish to be presented to you,' said the king.

‘I'm sure they do.'

‘Come,
madame
,' he said. ‘This is
not wise. It is foolish. It's time to accept this new situation.'

‘There is no situation,' she said, starting
to pace. ‘I can never agree to this – farce.'

‘All your councillors see the wisdom of this
alliance. The Earl of Oxford, Dr Morton – even your father. They are all agreed that
it's the only way.'

‘They are bargaining with the devil.'

‘It is an extreme situation and it requires
extreme measures. The Earl of Warwick is ready to agree to the alliance on your
terms.'

‘What?' she said. ‘Will he indeed agree to
give his daughter to the offspring of adultery or fraud? And am I meant to be
grateful?'

‘It is time,' said the king, ‘to put such
things behind us, and welcome the new order. Or if we cannot welcome it,' he said, as
she started to speak, ‘then face up to it at least.'

‘I would rather die.'

‘That,
madame
,
would be the least expensive and least troublesome option.'

He saw that he had stung her, but he did not
care. He was tired of repeating the same arguments. The queen looked away. He thought
that she would cry. In his heart he was resigned to it.
She will cry
, he
thought,
and then it will be over.

But she did not cry. She looked out of the
window, across the lawns.
It has come to this
, she thought. She was forty years
old and had spent almost half her life battling for her son's kingdom. She was an exile
from two nations. But she had not lost yet. ‘I have a letter,' she said, ‘from King
Edward.'

If Louis was surprised he didn't show it.
‘What letter?' he said. She held it out to him.

The king read it, shaking his head. But if
it was a forgery it was a good one.

‘The Princess Elizabeth is already
betrothed, is she not?' he said. ‘To Warwick's nephew?'

The queen shrugged. ‘He has declared himself
king,' she said flatly. ‘I daresay he can make what arrangements he likes.'

‘You don't think,' said Louis, ‘that this is
a ruse to bring your son back to England? Where he will be instantly executed?'

The queen was silent. That was exactly what
she thought.

‘Well, you are free to go,' said the king.
‘Give the English king his chance to exterminate the Lancastrian line.'

The queen closed her eyes.

‘She is very young, is she not, this
princess?' Louis continued. ‘What is she – four years old? And your son will need an
heir, when he attains the throne.'

The queen bowed her head. She knew that
Louis was right. Edward of York would take any chance he could to eliminate the House of
Lancaster. The only reason her husband was still alive was because he had a living
heir.

Are there so few choices?
she
thought.
In the end there is only life or death.

‘Let me send for the earl
and countess,' Louis said.

In the end she consented to grant Warwick an
audience. But she stiffened like a hostile cat when she heard his footsteps
approaching.

Without saying anything she walked over to
her chair and sat in it rigidly. He stopped a little way from her, lowered his gaze to
the floor and got to his knees,

addressing her in the most moving
manner he could devise, begging her pardon for all the wrongs he had done her and
humbly beseeching her to pardon and restore him to her favour. The queen gave him no
answer, and kept him on his knees a full quarter of an hour.

Georges Chastellain

*

Within myself I suspended all thought. If I
had begun to think of my position now, abasing myself before this woman whom I had
regularly described as a she-cat from hell, I could not have gone through with it.

An earlier Warwick would have risen after a
moment's silence and left the room. A still earlier one would not have been there at
all.

One minute lengthened into two, then
three.

I forced myself to concentrate on other
things. The pain in my knees to begin with – when did that stiffness start? Soon my neck
and shoulders began to ache and then I had to concentrate differently: on the silence
itself, though that was scarcely comfortable, then on the pattern on the folds of her
dress. More than one thread had come loose and there were other places where the
stitching was frayed.

A small cluster of fluff and dust blew
gently, hesitantly, across the floor between us.

There were distant sounds, the noises of the
palace; a boy
leading horses across the yard. But I could feel silence
expanding in my head and heart. It seemed to me that if anyone had asked me in that
moment what I was doing there, I could not have told them.

Then an image rose in me unbidden of that
little coffin being lowered into the boat and tears pricked my eyes.

Somewhere outside a bird began to sing; a
fluting, melancholy song to welcome the evening.

Then at last I thought I should have to
move, when Louis himself stepped forward.

*

‘Enough,
madame
,' he said. ‘I
myself will guarantee the fidelity of this earl.'

And Queen Margaret broke her silence at
last, addressing the king rather than the earl. The prince, she said, would not go to
England, but remain with her in France. She demanded that Warwick should publicly
withdraw his slanderous remarks about the paternity of her son, and the earl assured her
he would do this, both in France and England once he had conquered it for her. He looked
up for the first time as he said this, and saw them both misinterpreting the redness of
his eyes. The part of his mind that was detached in any circumstances knew that this was
no bad thing.

And the queen, after a further protracted
silence, extended her hand.