We Speak No Treason Vol 2 Read online

  While Richard waited, we were mindful that the Parliament could no longer support this obloquy upon its being and, further, that the King waxed sorrowful without my lord of York. Thus we delivered little Dick to Edward’s apartments at the Tower, and saw the young King step down from his dais to embrace the younger boy; the joy on each face lit smiles like lamps.

  So it was that both awaited the coronation there, while the gowns were fashioned, the bidding letters written to the gentlemen whom King Edward would honour with knighthood, and the cloth of gold, the satin, velvet and sarcenet cut and slashed and broidered for the banners and the hangings and the horses’ trappings. And the Nativity of St John Baptist drew near, and with it came a knocking on the Privy Council door which split our destiny down the centre, as a thunderbolt an oak. I remember well the place of revelation, and even the one who kept the door that day. For we attended the Protector in the Star Chamber, and William Colyngbourne, Gentleman Usher, stood guard.

  Richard had the great Book of the Household open before him, and was dictating to Kendall, at times snatching a pen to add some postscript, smiling, knitting his brows over a wardrobe account, a jeweller’s bill. He looked up at Colyngbourne of the white face and twitching hands, asking: ‘Who comes? Can they not wait?’

  ‘My lord,’ said Colyngbourne, strangely unquiet, ‘the Bishop of Bath and Wells seeks audience.’

  ‘Stillington?’ Richard set down his quill. ‘Is he in London? I have not seen him since Clarence... I have not seen him for years.’ Musing, he said: ‘We are hard pressed—’

  ‘He has waited long, your Grace,’ answered Colyngbourne. ‘He begs...’

  ‘A boon, I doubt not,’ laughed Buckingham. ‘We have had our fill of Bishops, ha, Dickon?’

  Buckingham waxed hourly more stout and proud; his body in its peacock raiment was bloated by arrogance.

  ‘Some feud in his diocese, I’ll warrant,’ he went on. ‘Some brawling, of priests. So he comes to the Council as a last resort. He must be three score years at least.’

  Richard got up instantly. ‘Let him enter.’

  Sir Robert Stillington came in, and he took long to approach the Council bench, for he was verily an old man, who seemed to have gathered many years in the two months since I saw him last. Then, outside King Edward’s chamber of death, he had grieved to excess, and that sorrow was still with him, mingled with a kind of bitter desperation. His cheeks were grey, his hair stark white, and the hand extended for the Protector’s salutation fluttered and shook. Buckingham offered wine.

  ‘I will not drink,’ said the Bishop in a voice like crackling leaves. ‘Neither drink nor meat before I have spoken. For speak this day I must, or die.’

  Waveringly he seated himself, and passed a hand before his eyes.

  ‘Come, my lord,’ said Buckingham. ‘Do not talk thus of death.’

  ‘Is your Grace sick?’ asked Richard. ‘The fault is mine; we have delayed you overlong.’

  ‘Not you, my lord,’ said the Bishop, with a faint smile. (The pallid smile of Fortune.) ‘Mine the delay, mine the fault and mine the reaping.’ A cloud settled on his face, leaving it drawn. ‘I hope only that God will not judge me for this same delay.’ With this he ceased, clamping his mouth, while his glance roamed over Buckingham, Lovell, John Howard, Catesby, Ratcliffe, Kendall, Brackenbury; Piers Curteys, standing with a bolt of green silk in his arms, Lord Scrope of Bolton, the two men in the livery of the Goldsmiths’ Gild, myself, Colyngbourne and the henchmen. Then his eyes returned to Richard Plantagenet, and stayed there.

  ‘Well, my lord Bishop?’ said the Protector.

  And Stillington was dumb, and I began to wonder whether age would addle my wits too, and mused if it were not better to die young, with all the senses sharp and clear, then Harry Buckingham coughed loudly, and the Bishop’s eyes fastened on his face.

  ‘I would speak with my lord Duke of Gloucester,’ said Stillington gravely.

  ‘He awaits your words,’ smiled Buckingham.

  ‘Alone,’ said the Bishop.

  Almost before the flame of anger rose on Buckingham’s face, Richard leaned over to lay his hand upon the Bishop’s sleeve.

  ‘Your Grace knows that all here are my good friends and advisers,’ he said gently.

  The Bishop looked down at his velvet lap.

  ‘Speak, my lord, for Jesu’s love,’ said Buckingham harshly. We are not here to judge your Grace. If ’tis some boon, I doubt not it will be granted. If some error, the lord Protector will no doubt be lenient. He loves loyalty’—with a flashing glance at Richard—‘and you come as a loyal subject of the Crown of England, do you not, your Grace?’

  ‘Ah, certes,’ said the Bishop heavily. ‘In truth, I do.’

  ‘Gentlemen, good day,’ said Richard to the goldsmiths, at the same time nodding dismissal to his henchmen. They withdrew, looking wonderingly at one another.

  ‘Now, sir,’ said Buckingham.

  ‘I have sinned,’ said the Bishop softly.

  Buckingham’s lips made a hard line. ‘Why are you come before us, my lord? Would you bring wisdom to the government? Or have you some request? For you make us your confessors—how can we offer penance to a Bishop?’ Then in a voice wily with friendship: ‘Was your Grace not once immured by King Edward? If my memory serves me, I knew not why.’

  The Bishop began to shake, and not only his hands. His voice was a breath as he answered: ‘For speaking words defamatory to the King’s Grace.’

  Buckingham became an inquisitor. ‘Words, my lord? But were you not the tutor of Bishop Alcock?’

  The Bishop said quietly: ‘He was indeed pupil to me, sir; he rose to great estate. He kept me close to him.’

  By now the chamber was full of muttering; I heard the hiss of ‘Woodville-lover’ from one corner.

  ‘He kept you close, my lord?’ cried Buckingham, incredulously. ‘What a world is ours, when pupil can bid master come and go? Or was there’—his tone became harsh again—‘was there some bond betwixt the two of you... some privy tithe he owed you, or you owed him?’

  The Bishop’s eye roved wildly again to the Protector.

  ‘My lord of Gloucester,’ he said faintly, ‘I bear news which may set our world upon its head. God has moved me to come here this day. But all this is for one only. He of the old royal blood.’

  Richard spoke quietly. ‘My cousin here is Plantagenet, your Grace, and without these my councillors I am as naught,’ he said.

  I saw the gleam of a tear in the Bishop’s eye.

  ‘Sir, you are true brother to our late sovereign lord,’ he said. ‘I am an old man. Full heavy with this burden that I bear.’

  Even Richard’s patience was waning. ‘Your Grace forgets that we are busy men,’ he said shortly. ‘Each hour is precious. The time is short until my nephew’s coronation.’

  Stillington drew a great breath.

  ‘There can be no coronation,’ he said. ‘I have toiled long with this secret. While King Edward lived, I could only hold my peace. But now...’ and the tear in his eye started its journey down. ‘I cannot see a bastard receive sacred the Chrism. I cannot see a bastard on the throne of England.’

  Piers Curteys dropped his bale of silk and it spread out, richly green over the lozenged tiles. The sound of its fall was like a corpse upon hard ground. And there was an end to quiet. Amid the gasps, the stifled oaths, I heard the word ‘Blayborgne’ and an old image leaped to my mind: the leering face of a French ambassador’s henchman, with whom I had once passed an hour, an hour that had ended in blows when he, drunken and tongue-loose, had whispered of our King’s own parentage, as it was sung in France.

  ‘Le fils d’un archier,’ he had sniggered, swaying on his bench. ‘So tall, so blonde, that Blayborgne... so low, so dark, the Duke of York, God him pardon. Proud Cis was not too proud...’‘Then it was that I struck him, to rob him of three teeth and send him asprawl and bloody... Buckingham had heard of it too. For Buckingham, drunk with a kind of madness, w
as daring to voice it. Through the confusion of my own stunned dream I heard Richard’s answer, and trembled for fear of him.

  ‘May God forgive you, cousin,’ he said, on his feet and stumbling with rage. He turned savagely to the Bishop.

  ‘And you, my lord? Would you impugn our royal line? Do you prate of old, vile rumour in this Chamber? Do you question my late brother’s ancestry? Mine too? For you but lately called me true brother to his Grace. We, who are descended by pure blood from Edward Third? Would you cast filth upon the name of Plantagenet?’ The blood left his face and with a gasp he caught at the throat of his own doublet.

  ‘I lie at Baynard’s Castle,’ he said, in a choking voice. ‘Think you that I can brook such evil and kiss my mother’s hand this night?’

  For the first time, Buckingham looked uneasy, and glanced towards the door, perchance wishing he were hunting, or drinking. And the Bishop stayed calm, old, and far beyond passion.

  ‘My lords, you misconstrue my words,’ he said with a ghostly smile.

  Next instant, Buckingham was babbling to the Protector. ‘Your Grace, forgive my folly! Am I not your true friend and lover? It is but that you, my lord, resemble in face and body both, your father Richard, whom God assoil. Aye, you, sir, more than any other man.’

  The Protector’s breathing shuddered and slowed. His eyes were still fixed on the Bishop.

  ‘Have done with this,’ he said in a tight voice. ‘Speak now. And, by the Blood of Christ, speak plain.’

  Stillington bowed his head. ‘I do not, dare not, question the royal lineage of King Edward the Fourth,’ he said. ‘The bastardy is rooted in his heirs. The young Princes, and the maidens. Bastards all, and unfit to reign in the sight of God and man.’

  ‘Unfit to reign?’ whispered the Protector.

  The Bishop’s eyes were closed. ‘How should they reign, my lord?’ he asked. ‘They are all issue of an unholy union, contracted in a profane place, between Elizabeth Woodville and a man already trothplight to another. The King, my lord, was wedded when he took Elizabeth to wife.’

  ‘Say on,’ said Richard in a frozen voice.

  ‘Her Grace the Duchess of York wrought all she could to prevent it,’ said Stillington gently. ‘I have myself seen letters where she implores the King not to commit this sin. For the sake of his immortal soul and for his heirs.’

  ‘And for England,’ said Richard dully. ‘Yet he would have his way. Always...’ He looked sharply at the Bishop. ‘What proof have you of this union? There are ever strumpets ready to court perjury for gain. Who was the woman? Was it Elizabeth Lucey? She bore him children... O, Jesu!’ he laughed harshly. ‘Not the creature Shore! Nay, she would be but a little maid... who was this wife of Edward? And who the priest that joined them?’

  Smiling faintly, Stillington opened his eyes.

  ‘No strumpet, your Grace,’ he said. ‘None but Great Talbot’s daughter, the Lady Eleanor Butler.’ Under the burden of gasps ringing round the chamber he said: ‘And I it was who, in the first year of Edward’s reign, bound them until death.’

  Sir John Howard spoke, harshly. ‘The mighty Talbot’s wench,’ he said. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Dead, these fifteen years,’ answered the Bishop. ‘In the house of the Carmelites at Norwich, of a strange melancholy.’

  ‘Was he mad?’ said Richard softly, as if to himself. ‘Some battle-blow at Towton might have loosened his senses for a while... How could he do this thing? Tell us, my lord Bishop. Tell us all.’

  ‘He was bewitched,’ answered Stillington. ‘By Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, mistress of the Black Art, and her daughter. They fed him potions to drive reason out and lechery in.’

  ‘Who knows of this?’ said Richard, crossing himself.

  ‘There are half an hundred witnesses whose lips were sealed,’ said the Bishop steadily. ‘Persons of no account, clerks and nuns—but men have died by this knowledge... Elizabeth was sore afraid.’

  Richard looked straight at the Bishop’s eyes.

  ‘My brother...’ he said haltingly.

  ‘Yea, my lord,’ Stillington nodded. ‘Your brother of Clarence knew all. I was more fortunate, being cast in gaol.’

  The ruby upon Richard’s finger struck spears of light as he twirled it round. ‘By God, this is an evil day,’ he said.

  Upon this hill I found a tree,

  Under a tree a man sitting;

  From head to foot wounded was he;

  His hearte blood I saw bleeding.

  A seemly man to be a king,

  A gracious face to look unto.

  I asked why he had paining:

  Quia amore langueo.

  XIVth century: Anon.

  Now, strangely, only swift bright thoughts like birds. For the days thereafter moved too fast, though I lived through them as knowingly as he did, and heard the same voices; above all, the brassy note of glowing Buckingham, come into his own at last. Buckingham, now no longer dead Clarence, but dead Warwick, the makers of kings. Buckingham’s marvellous address to the mayor and burgesses of London, eloquent, and florid as a pierced vein’s yield.

  ‘Know you not, good citizens, that this noble Prince is true son and heir of Richard, Duke of York? That he, England-born, is by blood and birthright truly English!’ Lightly he leaped on Edward’s evil diet, then as the wine of oratory touched his soul, he gave them Stillington’s sad secret, like one who throws a whole fresh beast to starving dogs.

  The witchcraft moved them. Powerful fear lashed the stout merchant men; they muttered.

  ‘Know you not that there is none other to defend this realm against such evil than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, most mighty Prince, skilled in wise counsel, and in battle Hector’s kin?’

  There were men in Gildhall who had fought by him, at Barnet, at Tewkesbury. The murmurings swelled; there came bench-rappings, shouts of ‘Yea, yea!’ and ‘Bene!’ from the lettered, as if they attended a tutorial in dialectics. My sight grew keener. The conserve of rue I habitually ate strengthened not only my eyes, but gave me an inner seeing. Thus, watching Buckingham, I saw not only his bright mouth and blazon of the flaming wheel, but also the grants which Richard had already heaped upon his loyalty. Constable of Shropshire, Hereford, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire was he; Chief Justice and Chamberlain in the north and south parties of Wales; Constable and Steward of all the Welsh manors of Lancaster and March. I saw his eyes on the Protector, saw his greedy love.

  ‘The great wit of this Prince, the prudence, justice and noble courage!’ On and on. And Richard, unsmiling. I saw his brows draw up once, when Buckingham alluded to Edward’s past lecheries and unwisdom, and to Clarence’s attainder for high treason...

  ‘There is none other living who is fit to rule! The issue of George, Duke of Clarence; attainted in the sight of God and man...’

  Young Warwick at Baynard’s Castle. Frail Isabel’s child, clinging to his aunt, the spittle dripping off his chin. His vague, empty laughter. Anne Neville’s soothing hand upon the overlarge skull. And little Edward, Richard’s son, a faery child, looking up amazed from the lessons that Warwick could not grasp. Young Warwick, screaming in fright before the motleyed fool who sought to cheer him.

  Richard had not his Middleham fool with him; the one whom I had ever reckoned so wanton and dangerous a fellow, and marvelled that he kept his head—that one had gone, all fury, to sit at the feet of Princess Elizabeth in Sanctuary. He vowed he loved her more now she was bastard; he caused much mirth among the other players by his departure.

  A hot July the first, licked by the smouldering heat of June’s last day, and bursting into flame. Anne Neville paler, with a dangerous bright spot on each fair cheek. Her cough, dry as the roads. Her swoon one evening at the feasting board; the white neck snapped forward, a broken flower. And Richard himself lifted her in his arms, leaving the Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors and his stern old mother. He carried her weightlessly away, pursued by anxious, twittering gentlewomen. Her pale returning; and his
kiss upon her hand, that left a mark...

  Bishop Shaw’s sermon from the erection on Paul’s Cross: ‘Bastard slips shall take no root.’ The people. Scrivener, cordwainer, fletcher, cooper, lodging-house keeper, tapster, silversmith, mercer and cook. Whore and beggar and cutpouch. Gaping, gaping upward. Alderman and priest and friar. Black gown, red and grey. The turnings and noddings as they, good London folk, sucked in the sense of their country’s new design.

  The men of York, four thousand strong, who came at Richard’s bidding—the Londoners jeered at their ramshackle harness, their outlandish speech. Yet the tongues were hushed when Richard rode out to greet them. They were all drawn up in a great circle in Moorfields. He passed among them on foot, with bowed head. Some towered over him. I saw their looks of love. ‘Dickon, God bless him!’ they said.

  And the long bright hill down which we all rushed, into the unknown enclosure of a new reign. Margetta and I went out in it, to catch its humour. Into seething London.

  ‘King Edward kissed me once—he said I was fair, a hinny.’ Stout bosom heaved with old conceits.

  ‘And took twenty marks from your pouch straightway, for his archers’ folderols.’ Blue buskins beneath a worsted gown. Squinting eyes, one looking east, the other west.

  ‘This one’s a sober man. There’d be no kissing...’

  ‘Well, mayhap no benevolences!’ said the squint-eyed witch gaily.

  ‘Bastard slips shall take no root,’ said her husband, and spat.

  ‘What of Clarence’s son—he’s no bastard, is he?’ demanded the fat one.

  ‘He is an idiot—and attainted—by your King Edward,’ said the witch-woman with triumph.

  ‘Did we but know Gloucester... he was ever up in the north country.’

  ‘Dust’a speak of my lord?’ enquired a grim voice. ‘I’m from Knaresborough. I know him. The best good lordship York ever had...’

  At court, an emissary from King Louis, sent obviously to spy. And the French chronicler, Commynes, scratching away like a clerk, watching everything and everybody, and suiting it doubtless to fit the designs of his spiderly master.