The Tudor Rose (29 page)

“It must be because of this young man in Ireland,” said privileged Jane Stafford, who heard much outside news from her brother.

“What young man?” asked Elizabeth.

“The one all this pother is about,” said Jane, inconsequently, supposing that the two Yorkist sisters knew all about it.

“What pother? And who
is
he, Jane?” persisted Cicely.

“That is what we should all like to know, Madam,” began Jane blithely, preoccupied with setting out the Queen's embroidery silks. “At first it was believed that he was the young Duke Richard of York who—” Cicely's foot came down so heavily upon hers that she stopped short and blushed for her stupidity. “But now everyone says he is your Grace's cousin, the Earl of Warwick,” she concluded hurriedly.

There was an awkward pause during which neither of them dared to look round at the Queen, upon whose face wild hopes and painful distress were gradually blotted out by bewilderment.

“But our cousin is in the Tower,” said Cicely.

“He could have escaped,” said the Stafford girl, mulish in her embarrassment.

“Escaped—from the Tower!” said Elizabeth, trying to laugh about it. “Come, come, Jane! Once the great Byward Gate or the moat portcullis had closed upon him even the wiliest of men could scarcely hope to do that. And surely nobody in their senses would believe that so simple a soul as Warwick, who is quite honourably treated here, could effect a journey to Ireland without the King's permission.”

But it appeared that a great many people did. Perhaps only because they wanted to—or because the white rose was rooted so firmly in their hearts. All over the country there were chatalaines of manors who, symbolically, would not grow a red rose in their gardens. In spite of Henry's businesslike management of the country, they still wanted to have back the squandering charm of a Yorkist King. “Henry said there were bound to be pretenders,” said his wife, moving with dignity to her embroidery frame. She longed to ask how much he knew of the matter, but, since he had not mentioned it to her, was far too proud to seek information from a chatterbox like Jane.

Instead she went to her mother, whose interest should run closest with her own. “There can be no truth, you think, in this rumour about Dickon being alive—” she began, having thought of nothing else since Jane's thoughtless words.

“None whatever,” said the Queen Dowager, who never had believed for a moment in the ever-recurring rumours that one of her sons had been spared. “It is Warwick the young man pretends to be. And if his imposture does nothing else, it should at least make that secretive husband of yours show his hand. None of us has seen young Edward of Warwick for weeks. It is my belief that Henry is no better than your uncle and has probably had him murdered as your brothers were!”

“I am sure that he would not do such a thing,” remonstrated Elizabeth in great distress. “Henry is too—civilized.”

“Too cautious, possible,” shrugged the Queen Dowager. “Does he suspect Dorset of being in this thing?”

Seeing the anxiety in her mother's shrewd, dark eyes, Elizabeth was more convinced than ever that they both were. “He has never mentioned the matter,” she said coldly.

“Not mentioned the matter? To his own wife! Not even in the warmth of your own bed! And this play-acting upstart already crowned King in Dublin!” the Woodville woman railed disgustedly. “No wonder you cannot even get him to crown you!”

Angry and mortified herself, Elizabeth determined to force her husband's confidence. Hearing from Lord Stanley that Henry had been reviewing troops on Blackheath, she went down to the water-steps to meet him on his return. “Is it because Warwick has been crowned in Ireland that you are raising an army?” she surprised him by asking as soon as he had stepped ashore.

Henry cast her a quick look of surprise—almost of dislike. Dislike for intruding upon his reserve, perhaps. “My Deputy there, the Earl of Kildare, has seen fit to go through some kind of blasphemous ceremony with a
counterfeit
Warwick,” he said, and turned almost immediately to call a brief order to his bargemaster.

But Elizabeth was not to be shaken off. “You could have told me instead of leaving me to hear of it like any stall-keeper's wife in Eastcheap,” she said, falling into step with him as he took the garden path to the Palace.

“Why worry you when you have not been well?” he countered.

“An ague of which I am almost cured!” scoffed Elizabeth. “Do you suppose it was less harmful to my spirits to hear of it from my waiting-women?”

“It is a lot of moonshine, anyway.”

Elizabeth looked him up and down with irritating calmness. “Is that why you are wearing your armour?”

“I am arming to deal with men like Lovell and your half-brother, who have eaten my salt and who are now supporting him in this country with a horde of foreign mercenaries,” snapped Henry, without slackening his pace. “And afterwards,” he added, with a slow kind of relish, “I will have my treasurer deal with the woman whose fertile brain invented all this spiteful idiocy.”

Elizabeth knew that he spoke of her mother, and probably with good reason. So she saved her breath to keep peace with him. But once inside the garden door she caught at his arm and detained him. “Who
is
this pretender?” she asked, still thinking of her lost brother and the long months of uncertainty.

Almost to her relief, Henry seemed in no doubt at all. “A young lad of fifteen called Lambert Simnel. The son of some well-to-do tradesman in Oxford. A baker, I believe.”

“A baker's son—posing as a Plantagenet!”

“Oh, it is not the young fool's fault. I am all in favour of more learning for the masses, but his parents must have given him an education above his station. His tutor, a cunning and ambitious rogue, was probably bribed. Your aunt, Margaret of Burgundy, may even have had some thing to do with it. She appears to have loved your father so extravagantly that she would lay her hand to anything that might annoy me.”

“And people are really so credulous—”

“It is amazing what they
will
believe. Even the Londoners are beginning to be hoaxed by it, judging by the glum looks I met. It seems that this Simnel is upstanding and fair-haired like your family. Naturally, my enemies would have chosen such a lad!”

“The impertinence!” sympathized Elizabeth. “What will you do, Henry?”

“There is only one intelligent thing to do at the moment. Have the real Warwick brought here from the Tower, riding with an imposing retinue through the streets of London so that everyone may see him. And then, when the fraud is exposed, deal with his supporters who are crazy enough to try a landing in England.”

Elizabeth looked at him with half-grudging admiration. Without ever trying to be spectacular, he was ever one to apply the simplest and most sensible remedies; and if for one moment she had disbelieved his assurances and suspected him of treating her cousin as King Richard had treated her brothers, she was ashamed.

As if almost guessing her thoughts, Henry turned back to her with a twisted kind of smile. “And I shall want you to meet him here and welcome him publicly. You, who have lived with him off and on since childhood,” he said. “My subjects seem to find it difficult to believe that I do not murder people like my glamorous predecessor; but whatever
you
do or say they seem to believe in.”

At Stoke, near Nottingham, Henry defeated his Yorkist enemies and crushed the Simnel plot. Using only the vanguard of his army, he outmanoeuvred them so that all their courage could not save them. The Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovell, the Earl of Kildare and Martin Swart, who commanded their German mercenaries, all perished that day—only Dorset, who was preparing the way for them in London, persuaded the King of his innocence and escaped with a short imprisonment in the Tower. And Henry rode home more firmly established on the throne than ever; and almost casually, in his train, he brought Simon, the tutor-priest, and Lambert Simnel.

“What will you do with them?” asked Elizabeth, trying to divert attention from betrothed Cicely's uncontrollable tears for the twice-wasted gallantry of Francis Lovell.

Henry was a temperate eater, but after so much activity was enjoying his homecoming meal as much as any of them. “The priest will have to be imprisoned somewhere, of course,” he said negligently, breaking a manchet of bread.

“Not hanged?” ejaculated Treasurer Empson, with disappointment.

“And Simnel himself?” asked Stanley.

Selecting a succulent chicken bone, Henry turned to smile at his wife. “You had better have him in your kitchens, my dear,” he suggested. “Being a baker's son, he should be quite at home among the ovens.”

There were men at the table who remembered his predecessor's summary way with traitors. They sat, knives suspended, and stared; and Cicely so far forgot herself as to burst into tears. “To think that men like Lincoln and Lovell should be k-killed,” she stammered, “and this lout Simnel, who s-started it all, go free!”

Being in a good humour, Henry could afford to smile at another display of Plantagenet emotion. “Take heart, dear sister,” he teased, his sharp eyes glancing down the long table to where she sat. “Lord Welles may not have so fine a leg, but his coffers are well filled, I assure you.”

“I beg you to consider, Sir,” expostulated Stanley, bringing him back to the matter in hand, “that Simnel had the effrontery to have himself proclaimed King.”

“Then what good would it do, my dear Stanley, to make a martyr of him as well?” countered Henry pleasantly. “At the moment the Londoners must be feeling very foolish, and in that mood I am hoping they may lend me some more money.”

“How right his Grace is!” laughed handsome Jasper Tudor, surveying his nephew with affectionate pride. “The sooner all this talk of pretenders is forgotten the better. There is something very apt about the turnspit idea, although we might all prefer to see Lambert Simnel hanged. And ridicule, I do assure you, is often a surer and swifter weapon than the sword.” And because what the experienced, grey-haired Welsh chieftain said was usually worth listening to, no one discussed the matter at table any more.

But Elizabeth was more interested in the strange nature of her husband than in the fate of Simnel. “Do you really mean to make a turnspit of him?” she asked that night, when Henry came to her room.

“It should give the servants something to laugh at,” he yawned, having none of the love for the common people that she had.

“And the real Warwick?”

“He can go back to the Tower to-morrow.”

“And it really does not anger you that this baker's son dared to impersonate him?” she persisted, trying to understand him.

“As I told you before, it was not
his
idea,” said Henry. “Probably he has no idea beyond food, and I have dealt with those who
had
— quite successfully. Really, Madam, I do not see why you should concern yourself with such carrion.”

It exasperated her that he should call her Madam in the privacy of her own bedroom, and that he could neither love nor hate. Nor let anyone but his mother—and possibly that Morton man—look inside his thoughts. He would be called merciful over this rebellion business, she supposed; yet to be young and unprotected from ridicule was a cruel fate. Probably Henry would not show vengeance lest men guessed that he was afraid—that he knew the usurper's growing fear of anyone who had a better claim to the throne than himself, or who could make men believe they had. But whatever the cause, it was his uncaring mercy which was so much more terrible than rougher men's vengeance. Elizabeth knew herself to be no coward, and yet she was afraid of him. She had often stood up to Richard Plantagenet, with all his ruthlessness; but knew no way of defending herself against the impersonal civility of Henry Tudor. Gradually, as the years passed, her resistance, her very personality, would be worn down. She, whose menfolk had had passion about them, wanted no man who yawned or called her Madam in her bed—and longed to have the right to tell him so. “I am his broodmare, his chattel,” she thought bitterly, submitting to his silent, businesslike embrace. “I who, by every Christian right, am Queen of England!”

In her chapel next morning Elizabeth confessed herself an undutiful wife and prayed anew for that humility which she had taken as her motto but which, alas, came so hardly to her. And later in the day she went to console her mother, who was wildly aggrieved because the King had cut down the allowance he made her. “The crown coffers were so emptied by war when he came,” Elizabeth tried to explain loyally, “and the Commons would grant him only the half of what he asked—and then only as a loan.”

“But it is so
unjust
when I did everything I could to help him against Richard!” complained her mother.

“And have of late been doing everything secretly to harm him!” flashed out Elizabeth, angered because her mother was still pretending innocence. “I do not think anyone can accuse Henry of being
unjust
,” she added more gently, because the Queen Dowager had begun to cry. “It is probably
we
who have misjudged
him
by blaming him for delaying my coronation, when all the time he had this treacherous plot on his mind.”

“That an ungrateful daughter of mine should speak to me so!” wailed the Woodville woman. “I wish this wretched Simnel were dead!”

“I daresay
he
does, too, by now!” said Elizabeth, returning to her apartments before her patience gave out.