Джозефина Тэй - The Daughter of Time

‘His claim was better than Henry’s.’ Grant said, very tart. ‘He was the illegitimate only son of a king. Henry was the great-grandson of an illegitimate son of a younger son of a king.’

There was silence for some time.

Then Carradine, out of the silence, said: ‘Yes.’

‘Yes to what?’

‘To what you are thinking.’

‘It does look like it, doesn’t it. They’re the only two who are missing from the list.’

There was another silence.

‘They were all judicial murders,’ Grant said presently. ‘Murders under the form of law. But you can’t bring a capital charge against a pair of children.’

‘No,’ agreed Carradine, and went on watching the sparrows. ‘No, it would have to be done some other way. After all, they were the important ones.’

‘The vital ones.’

‘How do we start?’

‘As we did with Richard’s succession. Find out where everyone was in the first months of Henry’s reign and what they were doing. Say the first year of his reign. There will be a break in the pattern somewhere, just as there was a break in the preparations for the boy’s coronation.’

‘Right.’

‘Did you find out anything about Tyrrel? Who he was?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t at all what I had imagined. I’d imagined him as a sort of hanger-on; hadn’t you?’

‘Yes, I think I did. Wasn’t he?’

‘No. He was a person of importance. He was Sir James Tyrrel of Gipping. He had been on various – committees, I suppose you’d call them, for Edward IV. And he was created a Knight Banneret, whatever that is, at the siege of Berwick. And he did well for himself under Richard, though I can’t find that he was at the battle of Bosworth. A lot of people came too late for the battle – did you know? – so I don’t suppose that means anything particular. Anyhow, he wasn’t that lackey-on-the-make person that I’d always pictured.’

‘That’s interesting. How did he make out under Henry VII?’

‘Well, that’s the really interesting thing. For such a very good and successful servant of the York family, he seems to have fairly blossomed under Henry. Henry appointed him constable of Guisnes. Then he was sent as ambassador to Rome. He was one of the Commissioners for negotiating the Treaty of Étaples. And Henry gave him a grant for life of the revenues of some lands in Wales, but made him exchange them for revenues of the county of Guisnes of equal value – I can’t think why.’

‘I can,’ said Grant.

‘You can?’

‘Has it struck you that all his honours and his commissions are outside England? Even the reward of land revenues.’

‘Yes, so they are. What does that convey to you?’

‘Nothing at the moment. Perhaps he just found Guisnes better for his bronchial catarrh. It is possible to read too much into historical transactions. Like Shakespeare’s plays, they are capable of almost endless interpretations. How long did this honeymoon with Henry VII last?’

‘Oh, quite a long time. Everything was just grand until 1502.’

‘What happened in 1502?’

‘Henry heard that he had been ready to help one of the York crowd in the Tower to escape to Germany. He sent the whole garrison of Calais to besiege the castle at Guisnes. That wasn’t quick enough for him, so he sent his Lord Privy Seal – know what that is?’

Grant nodded.

‘Sent his Lord Privy Seal – what names you English have dreamed up for your Elks officials – to offer him safe conduct if he would come aboard a ship at Calais and confer with the chancellor of the Exchequer.’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘I don’t need to, do I? He finished up in a dungeon in the Tower. And was beheaded “in great haste and without trial” on May 6th 1502.’

‘And what about his confession?’

‘There wasn’t one.’

‘What!’

‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not responsible.’

‘But I thought he confessed to the murder of the boys.’

‘Yes, according to various accounts. But they are accounts of a confession, not – not a transcript, if you see what I mean.’

‘You mean, Henry didn’t publish a confession?’

‘No. His paid historian, Polydore Virgil, gave an account of how the murder was done. After Tyrrel was dead.’

‘But if Tyrrel confessed that he murdered the boys at Richard’s instigation, why wasn’t he charged with the crime and publicly tried for it?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

‘Let me get this straight. Nothing was heard of Tyrrel’s confession until Tyrrel was dead.’

‘No.’

‘Tyrrel confesses that, way back in 1483, nearly twenty years ago, he pelted up to London from Warwick, got the keys of the Tower from the constable – I forget his name –’

‘Brackenbury. Sir Robert Brackenbury.’

‘Yes. Got the keys of the Tower from Sir Robert Brackenbury for one night, murdered the boys, handed back the keys, and reported back to Richard. He confesses this, and so puts an end to what must have been a much canvassed mystery, and yet nothing public is done with him.’

‘Not a thing.’

‘I’d hate to go into court with a story like that.’

‘I wouldn’t even consider it, myself. It’s as phoney a tale as ever I heard.’

‘Didn’t they even bring Brackenbury in to affirm or deny the story of the keys being handed over?’

‘Brackenbury was killed at Bosworth.’

‘So he was conveniently dead too, was he.’ He lay and thought about it. ‘You know, if Brackenbury died at Bosworth, then we have one more small piece of evidence on our side.’

‘How? What?’

‘If that had really happened; I mean: if the keys were handed over for a night on Richard’s order, then a lot of junior officials at the Tower must have been aware of it. It is quite inconceivable that one or other of them wouldn’t be ready to tell the tale to Henry when he took over the Tower. Especially if the boys were missing. Brackenbury was dead. Richard was dead. The next in command at the Tower would be expected to produce the boys. When they weren’t producible, he must have said: “The constable handed over the keys, one night, and since then the boys have not been seen.” There would have been the most ruthless hue and cry after the man who had been given the keys. He would have been Exhibit A in the case against Richard, and to produce him would have been a feather in Henry’s cap.’

‘Not only that, but Tyrrel was too well known to the people at the Tower to have passed unrecognized. In the small London of that day he must have been quite a well-known figure.’

‘Yes. If that story were true Tyrrel would have been tried and executed for the boys’ murder, openly, in 1485. He had no one to protect him.’ He reached for his cigarettes. ‘So what we’re left with is that Henry executed Tyrrel in 1502, and then announced by way of his tame historians that Tyrrel had confessed that twenty years before he had murdered the princes.

‘Yes.’

‘And he didn’t offer, anywhere, at any time, any reason for not trying Tyrrel for this atrocious thing he had confessed.’

‘No. Not as far as I can make out. He was sideways as a crab, you know. He never went straight at anything, even murder. It had to be covered up to look like something else. He waited years to find some sort of legal excuse that would camouflage a murder. He had a mind like a corkscrew. Do you know what his first official action as Henry VII was?’

‘No.’

‘To execute some of the men fighting for Richard at Bosworth on a charge of treason . And do you know how he managed to make it legally treason? By dating his reign from the day before Bosworth. A mind that was capable of a piece of sharp practice of that calibre was capable of anything.’ He took the cigarette that Grant was offering him. ‘But he didn’t get away with it,’ he added, with sober joy. ‘Oh, no, he didn’t get away with it. The English, bless them, drew the line at that. They told him where he got off.’