Виктория Холт - Epitaph for Three Women

Oh Eleanor, he thought, you wanted too much for us. We should have been content with what we had. Now you have lost that … and it seems I am likely to do the same.

Henry had made it clear that he had no wish to see him. He did not trust his uncle and felt very uneasy in his presence. He had strengthened his bodyguards.

‘I have my enemies,’ he said, and everyone knew he was thinking of Gloucester.

However Humphrey still remained protector of the country; and this was a situation which could not be allowed to continue.

Parliament was meeting at Bury St Edmunds, and Humphrey had decided he would appear there and ask for the release of his wife. If he could take her away he would go and live with her in retirement.

Attended by about eight horsemen, most of whom were Welsh, he made his way to Bury to join the Parliament there. His intention was to stay the night in some lodging in the North Spital of St Saviours on the Thetford Road. It was eleven o’clock in the morning as he came through Southgate.

Rumours had been in circulation that he was gathering an army to come against the King and Suffolk. It was said that he had gone to Wales to raise this army. It was a story set about by his enemies. He had no heart for such a project. He had finished with ambition from the moment he realised where Eleanor’s had sent her.

No, his one thought now was to make peace with the King and get Eleanor released. Then they would make a new life together.

A messenger was riding towards him and he could see from his livery that he came from the King.

‘Orders, my lord Duke,’ cried the messenger.

‘Orders for me?’

‘From the King, my lord. You are to proceed without delay to your lodging and there you shall stay until made aware of the King’s pleasure.’

Gloucester had no alternative but to obey and accordingly went straight to his lodgings.

A meal was awaiting him and as he ate he wondered what his enemies had in mind for him.

One or two of his friends were with him. There were not many of them left and he contemplated how friends fell away from a man in times of disaster.

They talked of the King and the Queen who seemed to be gaining a great influence over her weak lord; and of Suffolk who with Beaufort seemed now to be ruling the country. Not for long. The Queen was showing her mettle. She was a forthright young lady although as yet but seventeen years old.

‘I shall see the King,’ said Gloucester, ‘and ask him to release my wife. Then I shall be ready to relieve myself of the trappings of office and cosset myself a little.’

‘You will soon recover your health then, my lord.’

He wondered. He had felt less well since he had arrived at the inn.

Sometimes he was nauseated and could not bear to eat the food they put before him.

Why did they keep him a prisoner here? Why could he not go to the Parliament and state his desire to hand over his power, to retire into obscurity with a wife who, if she had ever indulged in plots, had learned her lesson now?

His manservant had alarming news for him.

‘My lord,’ he said, ‘members of your household have been arrested. Your enemies are saying that they conspired to kill the King and place you on the throne.’

‘It is nonsense,’ he cried, and he thought: Oh Eleanor, how could you? See what doubts and suspicions you have set in motion!

‘Your son Arthur has been taken.’

‘No … no … He did nothing. His only fault is that he is my son.’

‘They will prove nothing against him.’

‘They will tell the world they have proved what they wish to prove.’

He rose from the dinner table. He could not eat. He wanted to be alone to think. This sudden illness was robbing him of all will to live. He, great Gloucester, brother to one King, uncle to another, was a prisoner in this lodging house. They were going to condemn him; they were going to call him traitor. What would they do to him? Cut off his head as they had those of some of his ancestors? And if they decided to they would do it quickly so that there could be no outcry to save him.

He saw it all clearly. He had too many powerful enemies. The Cardinal was benign compared with Suffolk. He had tried to influence the King … but others had done better than that and ever since Eleanor’s trial he had been suspect.

He made his way to his sleeping apartments. He felt so weak that he must die.

He was ill … close to death perhaps. There were times when he felt like it.

He lay still. Footsteps outside the room. Someone was coming. He felt too ill to care.

The door opened slowly. Someone was standing there.

They said that his health, ruined by the life he had led, had suddenly given way. He had been ailing for some time.

Yet there were still some to say that his death was very sudden.

The lords and knights of the Parliament were gathered close by and many of them came to look at his body.

They reported to the King that there were no signs of violence. He must remember that the Duke had not been in good health for some time now.

It was ordered that he should be put into a leaden coffin. He had already had a beautiful vault made for himself in St Albans. Let him be taken there and buried with the ceremony which it was proper to perform at the burial of a royal Duke.

Eleanor was stunned by the news. She knew now that she would be a prisoner until the end of her life.

She had been taken from Kenilworth to the Isle of Man, and as she looked out on the seething waters she would gaze with longing towards the mainland and think of all that she had lost.

They had murdered her husband, she was sure. She should have been with him to protect him. She was deeply touched to hear that he had been on his way to the Parliament to try to secure a pardon for her.

Sometimes at night she fancied she heard the screams of Margery Jourdemayne and the moans of agony which must have come from Roger Bolingbroke in his last moments.

And Humphrey … the mystery of his death would haunt her for the rest of her life, and she would ask herself as many people throughout the country were asking and would continue to ask for years to come: Did he die naturally? He had been ill; he was prematurely aged though he had lived fifty-six years and often riotously. Or did some assassin steal into his room on that fateful day?

She could not be sure. Only his murderers – if murderers there had been – would know.

All she could do was look ahead to the weary years which awaited her, and to contemplate how different her life might have been if she had been contented with what she had and had not attempted to stretch out to snatch a golden crown.

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