The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage That Forever Changed the Fate of England (29 page)

William Caxton, an old acquaintance from Anthony Woodville’s days in Bruges, had returned to England the year before and set up a printing press at Westminster, where his maiden production had been the first printed version of
The Canterbury Tales
. I was curious to see his shop, and Kate in particular had a good reason for wanting to go there: Anthony had translated a book from the French,
The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers
, and Caxton had printed it that November. It was released in the middle of that month, and naturally, we went to buy a copy.

The release was quite a family occasion: except for the queen, most of Anthony’s brothers and sisters, and some of their spouses and children, were crowded into Caxton’s shop when we arrived. I could hardly see for Woodvilles, but from the little I could tell, Caxton’s shop was a pleasing sight: the tables piled high with books, some printed by Caxton here in London, others imported from Caxton abroad.

Anthony, the man of the hour, stood in the middle of all of this, clutching a copy of
The Dictes
like a proud parent. “I came across this when I

t h e s t o l e n C r o w n 1 9 1

was on pilgrimage to Santiago,” he explained when one of his sisters asked.

Plainly, he did not need much encouragement to expand. “It was given to me by a fellow pilgrim. I’ve always cherished it, and I thought it would be an excellent work to translate for the Prince of Wales. He knows much French already, but this way he can enjoy the entire work now, and so can the members of his household.”

Edward Woodville, who was a couple of years older than Kate, picked up a copy and began reading. “‘A Wiseman ought to beware how he weds a fair woman, for every man will desire to have her love and so they will seek their pleasures to the hurt and displeasure of her husband.’” He grinned at Kate and me. “My lord of Buckingham must take care.”

“For shame, Edward!” Kate said, looking quite pleased with the implied compliment, though.

“Aye, but Lord Rivers did have a care for the sensibilities of the ladies,”

said William Caxton. He nodded toward Kate and her sisters. “The philosopher Socrates, as you may be aware, has some rather uncomplimentary and ungallant things to say about your sex. But Lord Rivers left them out.”

“And you put them back in,” said Edward. He read, “‘I find that my said Lord hath left out certain and divers conclusions touching women.

Whereof I marvel that my Lord hath not written them, ne what hath moved him so to do, ne what cause he had at that time; but I suppose that some fair lady hath desired him to leave it out of his book; or else he was amorous on some noble lady, for whose love he would not set it in his book.’ Anthony! You rascal!”

Anthony snorted. He seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly.

Soon after the new year began, I received a summons to the king. I obeyed it dutifully and not without a little dread, given my history to date with him.

I need not have worried. With money rolling in from France, the Duke of Clarence unable to make any trouble, and the Duke of York

1 9 2 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m about to marry the richest little girl in England, Edward was in fine spirits these days.

“Good to see you, cousin,” he said as if our meetings had always been the height of good fellowship. “I’ve a job for you, Harry.”

My spirits soared. A diplomatic assignment, perhaps? Well, no. But a place on his son’s council? That was certainly a possibility. “I’m happy to serve you, your grace,” I said modestly.

“Good. We’ll need you and my brother Richard for the wedding. He’ll lead the bride to the feast on one side, you on the other. It’ll be a charming sight, don’t you think?”

“Charming indeed,” I said in a voice as hollow as the honor I was receiving.

Richard raised his eyebrows when I told him later about my audience with the king. “Don’t you find that insulting, Harry? You should be on the king’s council, or the Prince of Wales’s council. Or both. Not relegated to escorting little girls to their weddings.”

“Well, I’m better off than George.” I shrugged. “What can I do about it? France put an end to any hopes I had in that direction.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that it’s more than France? Granted, you made a fool of yourself there, but it’s been over two years. Ned usually doesn’t hold grudges that long.”

“So I’m the lucky exception. Anyway, I’m used to it. Almost.”

“He should be including you instead of those lowborn relations of his wife.”

“Who include my own wife, incidentally.”

“Your wife’s not the problem, it’s the men. Anthony’s not so bad; at least he has some learning, even if he trifles it away on tournaments. I’ve never understood the point of them. But the others! The Marquess of Dorset’s a fool; if he didn’t have the queen for a mother, he’d be rotting on some obscure manor somewhere. His brother Richard Grey’s a puppy. And yet the king can find room for them in his government, but not for you,

t h e s t o l e n C r o w n 1 9 3

the third greatest duke in the land. The second, if we take George out of consideration, and we probably should.” He stared at me thoughtfully for a while. “Perhaps I should have a word with Ned.”

“Richard, please. Don’t.”

“Why?”

“Kate once offered to do the same thing with the queen for me. It would humiliate me, that’s why, having my relations pleading my case. I wouldn’t want to think that the king brought me back into favor just to humor you or Kate. I’ll have another chance to prove my worth to the king, I’m sure of it. Let me handle it myself. If that means sitting quietly and behaving myself for another two years, or longer, I shall. At least I’ll have earned my way back by my own efforts.”

“Very well, then.”

“But I do appreciate the offer. It means a great deal to me. For a while—” I decided not to complete my sentence and say that for a while, when France had made me a laughingstock in the court, I thought that Richard had lost interest in our friendship. Instead, I said brightly, “So.

Which side of the little bride shall I take?”

Kate and I at ages seven and nine had been a young enough married couple, but the Duke of York and his bride, aged four and five, made our wedding appear to be an elderly affair indeed. They got through the long ceremony with a minimum of squirming and looking about, but they were clearly at the end of their tethers toward the end. Only when it came time for the wedding feast, and the promise of sweetmeats, did the newlyweds’

faces brighten. I heard the groom announce, “I’m hungry, Mama!” and even the bride, the elder and the more dignified of the pair, would have rushed headlong to her place of honor had not Richard and I each had hold of one of her hands.

I did my duty at the feast unexceptionably, and was rewarded with the further honor of being asked to carry the Marquess of Dorset’s helmet at

1 9 4 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m the tournament that was to take place within a few days. As I had not been planning to joust myself—it was not my forte, and even if it had been, Kate’s pregnancy would have deterred me for fear of having an accident that might upset her and take our coming child—I graciously agreed, though remembering Richard’s contemptuous words about Dorset, I could have done without the privilege. For my acquiescence I received a royal smile, which I tried to tell myself might lead to some duties of some real substance.

Kate was at the feast as well, seated next to the bride’s mother, the widowed Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth Talbot. My wife was too great with child to join in the dancing and merriment that followed, and left the celebration early. When I came back to Bread Street late in the afternoon, exhausted from playing the good courtier, she was lying on the bed in our chamber, dozing with an open book—
The Canterbury Tales
from Caxton’s shop—spread next to her belly. As soon as I came in, she pushed aside the book and stretched like a contented cat stuffed with kittens. “Harry? Did I miss anything interesting?”

I clambered onto the bed next to her and patted the belly that I hoped this time contained a son, though I loved my little Elizabeth dearly. “No.

Oh, I should say that the bride’s mother was rather tipsy and began telling me all about the bargain the king struck with her for the marriage. She was quite pleased with her negotiating skills.”

Kate sniffed. “I thought her a shrew when I sat beside her this morning.

Scratch, Harry? Please?” I obeyed as Kate turned on her side. She sighed happily as I began to move my fingers over her back. “Anyway, I think the Duchess of Norfolk should take more care around wine. Do you know, she told me at the banquet that her sister had a dalliance with the king.”

“Eleanor?” I’d not thought of Eleanor Butler in years, though she and her sister the Duchess of Norfolk were relations of mine through the Bourchiers. The widow of Thomas Sudeley, she had died back in the late 1460s, still quite young. I’d never met her that I could recall. “When?”

“A year or so before he married Bessie, and after Lady Eleanor was widowed. The Duchess of Norfolk didn’t know that much, really. She just

t h e s t o l e n C r o w n 1 9 5

said that her sister had succumbed to the king’s charms and that after a few months he got bored and moved on. The way they say he often does with his lemans. Of course, one can’t call Lady Eleanor a leman, but—”

“If it’s true, she’s certainly a cut above his usual choice of woman.” Too late, I realized that this could be taken the wrong way by the queen’s sister.

“I mean—”

My wife kicked me. “Edward even spoke of marriage, but the duchess didn’t say why it never took place. The king wandered by, so she stopped talking. I’m certainly glad they didn’t marry, because then you and I would never have married, I suppose. Harry? You don’t regret marrying me, do you, instead of someone like Warwick’s girls?”

Kate when she was breeding was a moody creature, I’d discovered, apt to change emotions in a heartbeat; in the middle of this short utterance, she’d turned almost tearful. “Of course not, sweetheart.” I kissed her on her cheek and patted her belly. “I’m very thankful you’re my wife. Don’t talk nonsense.”

She sighed and lay quietly against me. I was thinking that she had drifted off when she said, “I have been thinking, perhaps it would be better if I went back to Wales. Then our next child would be born at Brecon, and we would not have to worry about traveling with him—or her—from London in winter.”

“I like the idea, but are you sure you can travel safely?”

“I will have plenty of attendants, and I do not think my time is that near yet. Even traveling slowly, I think I will have time to spare.”

I did want my son, if I were to be blessed with one, to be born at Brecon.

“All right, but I just hope to God that you’re right about the timing. I wouldn’t want the babe to be born in a manger, even if it sufficed for our Lord. Brecon is better.”

Kate laughed and rolled over—a cumbersome process—to face me. “In all honesty, Harry, there is another reason I wish to go back to Wales. This business with the Duke of Clarence saddens me.”

“Why? You’ve no love for him, I’m sure.”

“No. But I hate to see the king being forced into the position that he

1 9 6 s u s a n h i g g i n b o t h a m has been placed. He will be executed, don’t you think? It is sad to have to execute one’s brother for the good of the kingdom, especially with the Duchess of York living. And then the Duchess of Norfolk said the most unkind thing to me at table today.”

“What?”

“She said, ‘I suppose the king will do the queen’s and your family’s bidding, and put his brother to silence.’ Harry, it is not our bidding! None of us like him after Papa and John’s deaths, but we did not force Clarence to murder that poor harmless old woman. We did not cause him to spread those rumors about the king being a bastard. We did not make him associ-ate with that dreadful Stacy person. We did not entice him into plotting with the Earl of Oxford. My poor sister can’t force Edward to give up his mistresses, much as she would like to. How can people think she could force him to execute his own brother?”

“There, there.” Kate had begun to cry. “I think you’re right about leaving,” I said, stroking her hair, which she had taken down for her rest in bed. “People are always saying malicious things at court, and you shouldn’t take them to heart. But I think you would be happier at Brecon, far away from all of this nonsense. Still, you must send me word of your health every day. Promise?”

Parliament—the first in three years, for Edward was not partial to them— opened the next morning with a suitably ominous sermon by the Bishop of Rotherham, who expanded on no uncertain terms on the text, “The king does not carry the sword without cause.” There were a few days of the usual parliamentary petitions, important to those who brought them but of little interest to the rest of the human race, then an interlude for a tournament, at which I dutifully performed my ceremonial duty of carrying Dorset’s helmet. In this I must have pleased the king, for I was named as a trier of petitions from Gascony, all other places overseas, and the Channel Islands. It was, as I wrote Kate in my daily letter to her, an improvement.

t h e s t o l e n C r o w n 1 9 7

All this time, the seat normally occupied by George, Duke of Clarence was a vacant, silent reminder of why we were all there. Toward the end of January, he at last was brought in for his trial. Edward had a long list of charges against him. George had accused the king of falsely putting Burdett to death and of resorting to necromancy. He had claimed that the king was a bastard. He had accused the king of taking his liveli-hood from him and of intending his destruction. Queen Margaret had promised him the crown if Henry VI’s line failed—old business, surely, for Margaret, a shadow of the fiery queen of my youth, had been sent back to France as part of the French treaty. He planned to send his son and heir abroad to win support, bringing a false child to Warwick Castle in his place. He planned to raise war against the king within England and made men promise to be ready at an hour’s notice. In short, he had shown himself to be incorrigible, and to pardon him would endanger the realm. Sundry witnesses were introduced, who largely echoed the king’s accusations.