A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck (24 page)

The door opens and I turn back once more before I pass through it.

I can never bring Margaret here. She would never forgive me if she knew the truth and I cannot bear to lose another cousin, another friend.

The relief after Blackheath does not last long. Henry is soon deep in negotiation again. Spain is still refusing to allow Caterina to come to us until the Pretender is apprehended. They will not marry her to an unstable prince; they want Arthur’s future as king assured before they risk their daughter to the voyage. Henry is furious but I do not blame them. If I were Isabella and it was Margaret or Mary about to set off to a new kingdom, a new life, I’d want to be very sure as to her future stability. All Henry can do is be satisfied with a new treaty in which they promise to send her to us in December 1499 — providing Perkin Warbeck no longer poses a threat.

Aware that Warbeck is even now sailing with a fleet toward the south coast, Henry gives his promise. In a few weeks a formal betrothal is to take place. Arthur is almost eleven now, tall for his age and well-schooled in leadership and etiquette. When he arrives from Wales for his betrothal at Woodstock, I am shocked by how tall he has grown. He bows formally over my hand and for a moment I am afraid that my boy has gone forever to be replaced by this tall solemn man. But the moment we are alone he puts my mind at rest and engulfs me in his arms.

“You are looking bonny, Mother,” he says. “That shade of blue suits you.”

It is strange to have a young man with Henry’s eyes and Henry’s build play the gallant to me. Apart from a few exceptions, my husband keeps his affections for our private times, but I can see Arthur will be different. I watch him with the court ladies; it seems he already has an eye for them but, in the presence of the king and his grandmother, he manages to keep his interest decorously within bounds. Young Caterina is a lucky girl, I tell myself. If Arthur is as gallant and attentive to her as he is to me, she will think herself well-blessed.

In September, with the betrothal festivities at Woodstock now over, we prepare for a formal reception of the ambassadors from Venice and Milan. Henry is eager to make a good impression and show that he is unconcerned by the pretender who is buzzing about his shores like an angry hornet. Arthur has returned to Ludlow, but I order new clothes of cloth of gold and a matching set for Harry, who will be present in a formal capacity in his brother’s absence.

Usually I would not be required but since the negotiations concern Caterina, my feminine presence is necessary. I dress with great care, ordering my women to brush my hair to a high sheen before they cover it with my hood. My eyebrows are plucked, my nails scrubbed and my entire body is drenched with aromatic oil. My gown is stiff with golden braid, the petticoat heavy enough to stand alone, and I am lost amid the splendour of my jewels. My ladies follow me along the corridor, giggling and gossiping with excitement, but when we near the great hall they quieten down, and I pass into the room amid a fanfare of trumpets.

Little Harry is waiting beside the king, he is clad head to toe in gold, a brocade hat and a golden feather, golden buckles on his shoes. He is turning his foot this way and that so the buckle catches the sun and sends a shaft of light to dance upon the wall. He stops when he sees me and grins, his chin high and his hands placed grandly on his hips. I hide my smile and greet the king, sinking to my knees in a full curtsey.

I take my place and the court relaxes a little, their chatter rising to a babble from which I can barely discern an odd word or phrase. I can hear the musicians tuning their instruments in the next room, a cacophony of discords and displeasing sharps. Beside me Henry waits, a benign smile pasted to his face, his fingers playing on the arm of his chair. I suppress the urge to cover his fingers with mine and stretch my own smile wider.

Harry is fiddling with his sleeve, tracing the line of seed pearls around his cuff; if they come loose they will spill across the floor like a forbidden secret. I want to instruct him to leave them alone but I cannot catch his eye and his nurse is looking the other way, her eye on a group of courtly gentlemen way above her station.

At last the ambassadors are announced and I breathe a sigh of relief, clear my throat gently to warn Harry to sit up and play the part of a prince as he has been taught.

The Venetian ambassador, Treviso, bows before the king and after his greeting turns his attention to me. He bends over my hand, a glint of admiration in his swarthy eye, and I feel the beginnings of a blush. It is a long time since I have been openly admired. I hope Henry does not notice, but it is not in my husband’s nature to lust after a forbidden woman so he is unlikely to notice it in another. I raise my chin haughtily and hope my blushes do not show. I greet Soncino, the ambassador from Milan, and he offers me letters from his mistress, Beatrice d’Este, the wife of the Duke of Milan.

They then move on to greet Harry, who instantly strikes up a conversation in French that I cannot follow. I watch in bemusement as he uses his hands to illustrate his words. What on earth is he telling them? Beside me the king is scowling, his lips a thin tight line at Harry’s indiscretion, but then Soncino throws his head back and laughs. I relax a little and Henry smiles, but his eyes remain anxious.

When the ambassador has stopped laughing, I beckon to him and ask what Harry said that was so funny. He frowns a little and tries to reply in stumbling English. In the end I summon Thomas Savage, the Bishop of London, who is nearby and ask him to translate for us.

He bows, one hand to his breast, and closes his eyes. Then he clears his throat and gives an embarrassed cough. “Your Grace, it seems the prince has been discussing your beauty with the ambassador and says he won’t consider marrying anyone who cannot match your grace, beauty and wisdom.”

I bite my lip. I should be angry. In discussing me so lewdly with foreign visitors to our court
,
Harry has flown against convention and should know better. He is watching me with an uncertain smile that speaks more of anxiety than glee. My heart softens.

His face is flushed, there is a smudge of something on one cheek and, as I had feared, he has dislodged the pearls on his sleeve and his discarded hat is on the floor at his feet. A glance at the king assures me that Henry has either decided to be oblivious to the incident or hasn’t noticed. I make a face at Harry, rolling my eyes and silently begging him to behave.

As the dancing begins and I relax in my seat, there is a disturbance at the other end of the hall. A messenger pushes his way through the crowd. I lift my chin and look over the heads of the gathering. Henry hasn’t noticed, he is still deep in consultation with Treviso. It is not until the envoy is at his elbow, bowing so low that he sweeps the floor with his hat, that Henry sees him

“Your Grace,” the messenger keeps his head low until bidden to rise. “I bring news from the Duke of Bedford.”

“Jasper? My uncle? What is it? Give me the letter.” Henry excuses himself from the ambassador and turns away, bending his head over the scrawled message. I wait in agony, my fingers digging into the arms of my chair. Then he looks up, his eyes finding mine. His face is white, his lips colourless and his eyes glinting dark and angry. In two steps he is before me, he leans close to speak into my ear. “The Pretender has landed in Cornwall.”

This is not news. We have known for days this was going to happen. I frown and shake my head as if to help clarify his concern.

“But we knew he was coming, Henry.”

“Yes,” he replies through clenched teeth. “What we didn’t anticipate was that he would have himself crowned king in Bodmin.”

A merchant vessel, a small unarmed craft, sails south toward the Cornish coast flanked by two Irish ships. The day is bright, the ship buoyant in the clear blue sea, the sails full as the prow cuts cleanly through the water. On deck, Richard squints into the sunshine. On a day like this it is hard to bear a heavy heart. but he is as despondent as the day Brampton first carried him from the Tower.

For months he has lived at King James’s expense; housed, clothed and fed while the heads of Europe conspired to possess him. His liberty means uncertainty for England, insecurity for the king who is desperate to form an alliance with Spain. The joining of Arthur, the Prince of Wales, and Caterina of Aragon is delayed and his very existence a thorn in the side of the English king. The resulting war between Scotland and England has made him an uncomfortable guest. Since Henry is demanding that James hand his friend over, Richard is grateful and agrees to leave when James requests it. Ashamed now for having doubted him, the boy’s friendship with James strengthens. In refusing to give him up and allowing him to leave, the Scottish king preserves the honour of York.

Richard departs with far more than he arrived. His wardrobe is that of a prince, the trappings of his horses are those of a noble, and his wife, the cousin of a king, is the fairest in Christendom. For weeks they have been in Ireland, marking time until it was ripe to leave for England.

Catherine stands beside him, clinging to his elbow, her beauty untarnished by the rigours of childbirth. Their son, Richard, is sleeping below deck, watched constantly by his nurse. Richard is proud of his son who is a mixture of his parents; his fair hair and bright blue eyes equally Plantagenet and Gordon. When he sleeps he takes on the charms of an angel; peaceful, cherubic and good. But on waking, he casts off those virtues and leads his elders a merry dance. Before he was mobile, the swaddling bands restricted his natural curiosity, but now he can crawl and nothing and no one is safe.

A sailor calls out that the coast of England is in sight, a green haze on the horizon beneath a bank of cloud. Richard peers across the sea, the sense of longing increasing as his confidence descends. James has assured him that once he lands in Cornwall where the feeling runs high against the king, supporters will flock to his side to swell his band of mercenaries. He can rely on the few noblemen left in his train but he is uncertain if the Cornish will join him. He suspects the English people have forgotten him. Why would they follow an exile who has no way of proving his identity?

“It is a shame that royal princes are not stamped in some way, marked at birth as a legitimate son.” He speaks without intending to and Catherine laughs.

“Like a potter inscribes his pot, you mean, or a carpenter leaves his mark? An extraordinary idea, my love, but I think you should not worry, you are marked very well. Made in your father’s image, so they say.”

Richard allows himself the pleasure of looking at her. She is waiting for his reply, her face tilted to his and the sunshine, bouncing from the surface of the sea, would reveal every imperfection, if she had any. Her skin is smooth like cream, and her lips as finely shaped and as delicately hued as a petal. She is his single token of good luck. He lifts a hand and traces the line of her cheek.

“Unfortunately, Catherine, my father was … indiscriminate when it came to women. He left many sons in his own image and all but two of us illegitimate.”

“What was Edward like?”

Richard’s face clouds, he looks away and shrugs.

“I hardly know. He was raised at Ludlow, as befits the Prince of Wales, while I remained at court, in the care of my mother and sisters.”

“But you were together in the Tower … at the end?”

“Yes. We were becoming acquainted. Edward had ambitions to be a good king. He hoped to embrace the new learnings, the new style of art emerging in Europe. He was disdainful of the raucous nature the court had adopted under our father and meant to change things. He was educated by our uncle Anthony who was a poet and a scholar as well as a soldier.”

With a rustle of skirts she moves to perch on a pile of hogsheads beneath the mast.

“What happened that night? Why was Edward not rescued with you?”

Richard snatches off his cap, engrosses himself in examining the fine white feather. It takes him some time to find his voice.

“He thought we were under attack. London was in uproar, we’d seen the furore from our window, so later that night when cloaked and masked men stole into our chamber, we took them for murderers and fought hard against them. Edward screamed and kicked and while they were trying to overcome him, he tripped and fell, knocked his head. He didn’t get up again.”

Catherine touches his knee, her face swathed in pity.

“You were such a little thing, you must have been terrified.”

“I didn’t know what was going on. I thought they were assassins too … at first. Since that day, since the time we realised that Edward’s throne was lost, I have hardly known a moment’s security. All my life I’ve been looking over my shoulder, wary of spies, afraid of a cloaked dagger.”

“I know …” Her voice is soft, full of tears. Richard takes a deep breath, tries to dispel his remembered grief. He clasps both her hands in his.

“Catherine, if this next attempt fails, and if I escape with my life, we will sail away and forget England, forget the crown. I swear it. We will find a dwelling somewhere and live an ordinary life; a family of cottars. Can you love me if I am not a king? Can you love an ordinary man?”

Her face widens into a smile, her eyes brimming with tears.

“You are a fool, my husband. You can never be ordinary, not in my eyes.”

*

Richard is friendless now, or at least the heads of Europe who do back him do so quietly, promising support should he prove successful. It is now he needs their aid, but even those who secretly detest Henry and want to see Tudor overthrown, bide their time and wait for the outcome. When darkness falls and they are alone in their cabin the boy unties his wife’s lacing, lets down her hair and makes love to her as if it is the first and last time. She undulates beneath his touch, weeps at their climax and clings to him when it is time to rise.

With a sense of fate, Richard allows the weeping Catherine to help him buckle up his armour. He puts on his sword, tucks his helmet beneath his arm and looks at her for possibly the last time. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“When I am gone the ship will take you along the coast to safety. I will send for you when it is safe to do so. Have good care of our son.”

She nods, her words stolen by the tears that drench her face. He steps away, their fingers still clasped, and with a heavy heart wrenches away his hand. He knows she is watching from the deck, he wants to turn, to see her one more time, to wave, but fears it will unman him. He sets his sight on the shore and closes the door on his emotions.

A white stretch of sand draws closer. Already there are small boats on the beach, and men, some eighty Irishmen that accompanied him over the sea, are swarming toward the dunes. The sun is hot on his back, cooking him in his armour as the launch grates onto land, jolting him. He steadies himself, stands tall to scan the horizon for possible foes, and places one foot over the edge of the boat and onto the beach. His boot sinks in Cornish sand. Water, English water, floods between his toes.

England. This is England.

Richard has come home.

It is not a place the boy recognises. He has never been to Cornwall before but he knows it, or a place very much like it, from the Tales of Arthur. He always imagined it to be a land of magic and myth. He expects kings and dragons, green men and knights, but the men who emerge from their humble homes are rough, their tongue strange to his ears. Instead of mythical castles and jousting, he finds tin mines and fishing. The life here is harsh and the people as dark and resilient as the wiry heather that clings to the cliff face.

Richard is bright-haired and tall, and stands out among them like King Arthur come again; a man worth following even if his words are foreign to their ears. But he looks at his followers with a twinge of regret. They are simple men, strong men and honest, but they lack the power he needs. They lack war skills and they lack money. It is the great landowners he needs behind him, the churchmen and the gentry, but they are sworn to Henry and too fearful of Tudor retribution should they show support for a Pretender.

Richard marches his rabble across the rocky moor. At Penzance, when they raise his standard and when he sees it leap and snap in the brisk blue sky
,
his heart swells. Three thousand more men flock to his cause and with little trouble they capture St Michael’s Mount. He sends word to Catherine, tells her to go to the monastery there for safety, and in return she sends him a kerchief. He holds it to his nose, inhales her scent and tucks it beneath his tunic.

It is too easy
, he thinks as he marches across country to Bodmin, where the people proclaim him King Richard IV; King of England, Wales and Lord of Ireland. For a while he basks in glory; women throw flowers at his feet, men cheer and children race beside the cavalcade as he marches through town.

It is too easy,
he tells himself again as they cross the Tamar and enter Devon. He sends out stern orders that there is to be no looting, no pillage or rape. These are his beloved subjects and everything his army uses is to be paid for. His numbers are steadily swelling and when the sheriff of Devon orders his men to stand against him, they refuse to fight. They throw down their weapons and cheer the conquering King Richard.

The boy smiles. He uses his charm and makes magnanimous speeches full of wild promises of prosperity for all. If they will only help him overthrow the Tudor, he will give them anything. He swears the first English town to admit him will be made into another London, promises unimagined prosperity. He boasts of his son, his heir, and another soon to follow. Sons who bear the good blood of York, untainted by bastardy, untainted by Tudor.

News slowly filters to him. The Tudor king is at Woodstock and offers Perkin Warbeck a pardon if he will surrender.

“I know nobody by that name,” Richard declares and marches on, the king of York.

Henry then puts out a reward, promising one thousand marks if the Pretender is taken alive. The Tudor is desperate to have Richard in his power, but the boy sees through Henry’s trickery and knows that once in enemy hands his days of liberty will be short.

Richard and his army surge like a tide across the West Country, but at Exeter his path is blocked. The city holds firm and King Richard halts at the gates, almost perplexed at this delay. He takes a few moments to collect himself and then, undeterred, he surrounds the city. While the good men of Exeter turn their guns upon his army, he fires back with rocks, tries to batter down the defences and orders his men to set fire to the north gate. The fight is long and desperate, his eyes sting with smoke, his stomach groans from lack of food. Each time one of his men is stricken down he bites his lips, sends up a prayer.
Let it be quick, Lord. Send me victory but let it be swift.

Richard urges his men on, spurs them on to breach the wall
s
but slowly, inexorably, they are beaten back. Although they put up a desperate fight, no impact is made on the stout defences. It seems they have lost until, on the eighteenth of September, they finally break through the barricades and flood into the high street.

Later, he snatches some time to write to Catherine.

Dear heart,

A fierce battle at Exeter, where Courtney held fast against us and there was much loss of blood. My men were exhausted by the time the walls were breached, as were the enemy. But Courtney and I have reached a truce, a chance to recoup.

It goes hard with me to shed the blood of my own countrymen, my own subjects, but the Tudor forces my hand. I learned in Northumberland that softness wins nothing; I must show myself to be a hard leader if I am to lead at all. But if they would only join me and turn against Tudor, I would pardon them all. Life would be sweet for all of us.

I hope you keep well, sweet wife. You can go to your rest knowing that I will send for you soon.

A strange state of calm washes over him, a sense of fate. Richard shrugs off Henry Tudor’s promise of pardon. He knows the usurping king will never show him leniency. He surveys his army, now eight thousand strong. These are men who are prepared to fight for his cause, prepared to die for it.

It is now or never
, he thinks.
By the end of this day I will either be king or I will be dead.

The thought does not alarm him. He is detached from himself; it is as if he watches his massing army from above, as if his real ‘self’ is suspended some way above the earth, watching from the sky. He can see his own men, a rabble of mercenaries and disaffected Cornish with no heavy guns, patchy armour, and some without boots.
Can we really overcome the royal army?
He pushes the thought away and squints into the distance.

The royal cannon have been ringing out across the valley all morning in demonstration of Tudor’s greater strength. Richard looks toward the opposition where Henry’s standard snakes threateningly in the darkening sky, and shakes off fear.