Kate Sedley: The Tintern Treasure

And they were still not clear when I finally climbed the inn stairs to bed. The intervening two hours had been spent in fruitless discussion of the news with Master Heathersett and Oliver Tockney — the landlord had been called away by his irate wife to deal with some emergency, either real or imagined — but I was perfectly satisfied in my own mind that the rumour was false and would soon be quashed by the king’s public denial.

In spite of this conviction, however, I found it hard to fall asleep, and for this, my unruly thoughts were as much, if not more, to blame than the storm still raging outside. (There would be some loose tiles and missing thatch come daybreak.) The news of the uprisings had disturbed me and, for a while, I stubbornly refused to acknowledge the cause. Instead, I feigned astonishment that a king so universally acclaimed — from all I could gather — wherever he had been received on his royal progress, whose coronation had been among the best attended for a hundred years or more, whose acceptance of the throne, in place of his twelve-year-old nephew, had been hailed with apparent relief by everyone of note, could so soon be facing rebellion. But in the end, I forced myself to face the truth.

The fact was that by no means had everybody been happy with the change of sovereign. There were many people who remained dubious about the legitimacy of King Richard’s claim. Even I, with the knowledge gleaned from my journey to Paris the previous year, was uneasy. Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, had sworn that he had betrothed the late King Edward to the Lady Eleanor Butler well before the former’s wedding to Elizabeth Woodville, and there seemed no reason to doubt his word. In the eyes of the Church, the bishop had maintained, a betrothal was as good as a marriage. Maybe it was, but it should have had the endorsement of a papal court before declaring King Edward V and his siblings bastards. Besides, I had heard it argued, if the children of everyone who broke off a betrothal to marry elsewhere were declared illegitimate, half the population would be bastardized.

Then there was the uncomfortable fact of the young Earl of Warwick, who came before King Richard in the line of succession, but who was barred from the throne by the fact of his father’s attainder. But an Act of Attainder was easily reversed, and considering King Richard had always stoutly declared that George of Clarence’s execution had been entirely due to the machinations of the Woodvilles, why did he not choose to right this apparent wrong? The answer to that, unfortunately, was all too obvious. .

Here, I abruptly got out of bed to use the chamber pot. As I relieved myself, I could see clearly where my thoughts were leading me. After all these months, I was forcing myself to accept what, deep down, I had felt all along: that I was not entirely convinced by the validity of Richard’s right to be king. And what was more, as I climbed back into bed, I perceived with a sudden, startling clarity that he might not be entirely convinced, himself.

And with this thought in mind, I fell asleep and slept uneasily until morning.

With the coming of daylight, I suppressed the whole idea as nonsense. Of course, King Richard was rightfully king and I was one of his most loyal subjects. Moreover, as I cautiously opened the shutters and looked out on a wet and bedraggled world, the reason for the rumour about the deaths of the princes struck me with the force of a sledgehammer. If the Welsh were rising on behalf of Henry Tudor, what better way to get the dissident Yorkist supporters on their side than to persuade people that Richard had villainously had his nephews murdered? I trusted that the king would be swift to deny it.

Here, a knock on the door heralded a chambermaid with a jug of hot water for me to wash and shave. I also cleaned my teeth with my customary piece of willow bark, fished out of my pack my one spare shirt which I had resisted putting on until now, having noticed at supper last night that I was beginning to smell, and descended to the ale-room where Oliver Tockney was awaiting me.

‘Has Lawyer Heathersett gone?’

It was the landlord who answered as he bustled in with a tray of hot oatcakes and small beer. ‘He’s a busy man. He has several days’ business yet to complete in the town. He’ll be back tonight, but you two will be gone by then, I daresay. You’ll be wanting to be on your way. And now the weather’s improving a little, trade’s bound to pick up again.’

The Yorkshireman grinned at me and winked. ‘I might stay around for a day or so and try selling some o’ my wares in this town. What about you, Master Chapman?’

‘A good idea, Master Tockney,’ I concurred.

‘Then you must both find other accommodation,’ the landlord declared, finally showing his hand.

We didn’t hurry our breakfast and by the time we finally left the inn, the weather had improved yet again. What clouds there were, shuttling busily across the face of a watery sun, were thin and transparent, like gossamer. It seemed at last as though the gods were smiling and that the terrible storm had blown itself out.

So Oliver Tockney and I spent a couple of days touting our packs around the town, making sure that we didn’t tread — literally — on one another’s toes, and doing a surprising amount of business among the goodwives of Hereford who had been housebound for too long by the inclement weather and were in urgent need of spending a little money. And for the hours of darkness, which were growing longer with each passing day, we found an ale-house tucked away in Bye Street, where we were offered a couple of verminous blankets and the use of the ale-room floor when the locals had departed. Both Oliver and I suspected that it was something of a thieves’ den, but we didn’t let that worry us. We were strangers and it was none of our business.

On the third day, we decided it was time to move on. We had covered most of the streets pretty well between us and in any case, I was anxious to start for home as the weather again seemed to be deteriorating. We were a little later setting forth than we had intended, and I noticed anxiously that the whole of the eastern sky appeared to be on fire, banks of grey cloud against the red which burned and smouldered as the sun rose. ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning,’ my mother had often quoted to me when I was young, and frequently it had proved to be true. My companion appeared undeterred by these signs and portents, declaring himself firm in his resolve to get as far south as Bristol if he could.

As we approached the marketplace, wrapped warmly in our cloaks and hoods, we could hear the town crier’s stentorian voice demanding our attention. We paused on the edge of the crowd that had gathered about him and so heard the first official confirmation of the rebellions that had broken out in the south-west and in Wales. But the news that sent me rocking back on my heels, that set my senses reeling, was the information that the Welsh uprising was being led by no less a person than the Duke of Buckingham himself.

Buckingham!

Henry Stafford, the one man who had done more than any other person to set the crown on his cousin Richard’s head had turned against him, was even now raising his tenantry in rebellion against their lawfully crowned king.

As we left the town behind us and began to walk southwards, Oliver Tockney could barely contain his anger and bewilderment. What could possibly have provoked this act of betrayal and treachery from one on whom King Richard had heaped reward after reward for his loyalty and friendship? And when, on the second day, an itinerant ladies’ tailor, whom we encountered sheltering in a barn during a heavy rainstorm, suggested that the duke’s defection was because he had learned of the young princes’ murder and was horrified by it, it took all my strength to prevent my travelling companion from attacking him with his knife.