Paul Doherty - The Gallows Murders

‘Your Grace, we do not know. Your Grace, we do not know,' Henry mimicked. He stretched out his boot and kicked me on the shoulder. 'And you, Shallot, with your cunning face and twisted eye?' 'I am Your Grace's most humble servant.'

'Oh piss off!' Henry snorted. 'Everyone's my humble servant – ' his voice was shot through with self pity -'until I need help and assistance.'

'Are the deaths amongst the hangmen connected with this villainy?' Wolsey asked.

'Beloved Uncle, we do not know. We can't even prove that it was Undershaft's corpse taken from the cage.'

'Do you suspect anyone?' the King asked, leaning forward.

Benjamin shook his head. ‘But, Your Grace,' he added hurriedly, and glanced quickly at his uncle, 'these letters and proclamations are issued in the name of a long-dead prince, Edward V.'

Henry bared his lips, reminding me of a mastiff. The very mention of the Yorkists could send him into a paroxysm of rage. 'Continue, beloved Nephew,' Wolsey said smoothly.

'Surely the Crown and its spies at the House of Secrets must know something about the fate of these two Princes?'

We have combed the records.' Wolsey stopped speaking and looked round the darkening church.

‘Your Grace, the door is sealed.' Agrippa, standing at the back, shouted from the darkness. 'No one can hear.'

The Cardinal leaned forward. "Then listen well, Nephew. I shall tell you about those two princes. They were last seen in the summer of 1484, then they disappeared. The King's illustrious father, after his great victory against the usurper Richard the Third at the battle of Bosworth, came into London and lodged at the Tower. He announced his betrothal to the Prince's sister, Elizabeth, our noble King's illustrious mother: at her insistence, he organised a most thorough search of the Tower and its precincts.'

'Who was constable under Richard the Third?' Benjamin asked.

'Sir Robert Brackenbury,' Wolsey replied. ‘But he, too, was killed at the battle of Bosworth and could not be questioned. Now the search organised by the King's father found nothing. The most industrious of his spies, both here and abroad, could elicit little more.' Wolsey paused. He glanced at the King but Henry had his eyes closed. ‘Now, our King's illustrious father and his good wife spent twenty-four years of his reign wondering what had happened to those two Princes. Matters were not helped by a succession of pretenders, the most serious being the Flemish boy Perkin Warbeck. He claimed to be the younger prince Richard. As you know, for a while Warbeck nourished. He was supported by both France and Scotland, who accepted his explanation that he had escaped from the Tower whilst his brother had been murdered. Now Warbeck was captured and executed.'

‘Not before he confessed to being a Fleming of low birth,' Henry snarled.

‘Precisely,' Wolsey continued, ‘but the mystery still remains. Some say the Princes were murdered by their uncle, Richard the Usurper. Others that they escaped.'

'Is there any truth in the latter theory?' Benjamin asked.

‘We do know,' Wolsey replied, 'that in January 1485, Sir James Tyrrell, one of Richard's henchmen, took three thousand pounds abroad. Some people say that this huge fortune was because Richard allowed his nephew to go abroad to live a life of wealthy but relative anonymity.' Wolsey shrugged his shoulders. ‘But, there again, there are other stories that, on the morning of Bosworth, the usurper Richard was seen in his tent conversing with a young, silver-haired boy whom many thought to be one of the Princes.' 'So they could be alive?' Benjamin asked.

Tom More doesn't believe that,' Henry declared, squirming in his chair. "He learnt a different story from Cardinal Morton, my father's principal minister. According to him, the three thousand pounds Sir James Tyrrell received in January 1485 was a reward for smothering both Princes in their beds.'

Wolsey took up the story. 'Sir Thomas More believes that the usurper Richard sent his agent John Greene with orders to the constable to kill the Princes. Brackenbury refused, so Richard dispatched Sir James Tyrrell together with two assassins, Dighton and Greene, into the Tower, where they smothered the Princes and buried them in a secret place.' Wolsey smiled bleakly. (He had little love for Sir Thomas More!) There's no evidence for such a story,' he continued. 'Sir James Tyrrell was arrested by the King's father in 1502 for conspiring with Yorkists abroad. Some say he confessed to the murder of the Princes, but that is more fanciful thinking than fact.'

The Tower grounds have been searched,' Henry declared. 'No remains were ever found.'

What about those servants who waited on the Princes?' Benjamin asked.

'All are long dead.' Wolsey replied. 'And they could tell the King's spies nothing…'

They are dead! The Princes are dead! They are dead!' Henry pounded his fists on the arm of the chair. He glared at the crucifix as if he expected confirmation from God Himself.

'My Lord King.' Wolsey turned and bowed. 'I fully agree with you, but where do those seals come from? If the Princes were killed, those seals would have been destroyed. If the Princes escaped, they might well have taken them with them.'

Henry glared at his first minister, his face mottled with fury.

‘Your Grace,' Wolsey whispered, I am as desperate as you are for this villainy to be unmasked.' 'Show them the second letter,' the King growled.

The Cardinal put his hand into his silken robes and drew out a roll of parchment which he handed to Benjamin, who studied it and, ignoring the King's hiss of anger, passed it to me. The letter was couched in the same kind of language as before: the writing beautifully elegant, the bottom of the letter bore two seals. It purported to be from Edward V, King of England: it called Henry a "usurper, fulminating against his perfidy. Imperious in its demand that two thousand pounds be left in front of St Paul's Cross on 28 August, the feast of St Augustine. It closed with the arrogant phrase, 'Given at our palace at the Tower during August in the fortieth year of our reign.' Will you pay? I asked. The words came out in a rush.

Henry leaned down. ‘Pay, little Shallot! You, my little pickle onion! My little dropping! You, a stain on my court! You will take the two thousand pounds at noon on that day, but you shall arrest the villain responsible.'

The threat seemed to sweeten Henry's mood. He smiled brilliantly at Wolsey, kicked me once again and rose to his feet. He patted his stomach.

"Did you like my Mass, Shallot? Asking God's blessing on my hunting dogs?’ He patted my head. Tomorrow you shall hunt with us, but tonight we will feast.'

He swept out of the chapel. Wolsey stopped to sketch a blessing in the air above his nephew's head. He followed in a billow of scarlet silk gowns. Agrippa opened the door for them, grinned at us, then slammed it behind him. ‘I’ll kill him!' I whispered, getting to my feet. 'Benjamin, he treats me like a dog.' "Roger! Roger!' Benjamin slipped his arm through mine as we walked down the church.

‘Mind you,' I scoffed, He's frightened, isn't he? Terrified of the Yorkist ghosts? Do you think it could be a plot?' I added. ‘Remember, Master, years ago, the Brotherhood of the White Rose? Yorkists plotting against the Tudors?'

Benjamin pulled a face. Time has passed, Roger. The House of York is a withered root. No flower, no fruit grows there. The fate of the two Princes,' he added quietly, stopping to admire a tapestry hanging on the wall just above the door, 'that is of interest, but only because of those seals. Where a king is, so are the insignia of office. However, what we are hunting here, Roger, is a blackmailer and a murderer, and a very clever one at that. But come, the trumpets will bray and Uncle wishes to see us at supper.'