Anne O'Brien - A Tapestry of Treason

And so I did dance, when Henry occupied chambers in the Palace of Westminster, summoning the magnates who had accompanied him to London to join with him there in an informal evening of wine and music, of dancing and celebration to mark his return to don the mantle of his hereditary dukedom. If I was uneasy at being invited, I masked it with flamboyance in my execution of the stately promenades. After all, there was no need to exchange any dangerous conversations; no need to even voice the perilous words ‘crown’ and ‘throne’. I would play my unusual role of peacemaker with all the subtlety that my mother had never learned at the English Court.

Henry smiled. ‘You are as comely as ever, Constance.’

‘I am honoured to meet with your approval.’

His gaze was flattering. Wear the yellow damask , Thomas had ordered. It’s guaranteed to win Henry’s approval. But in perverse fashion, and since I disliked the ochre hue and the quality of the pale vair, I had chosen instead a new gown of Burgundian cut with trailing hem and high waist. The deep-patterned azure-blue silk and sable furs at cuff and neck was far more becoming to my fair colouring. It was not difficult to ignore Thomas’s displeasure.

‘You don’t need my approval,’ Henry said. ‘You, of all women in this room, know your own worth.’

More flattery. ‘We are pleased to welcome you back, Henry.’

‘It is good to see so much welcoming. I have need of good friends.’

Henry exhibited every quality lacking in the imprisoned Richard. Assurance blended with authority. Any observer might be drawn into the mummers’ play that Henry would be the better man to wear the crown. Moreover I sensed no hostility in him. Confidence fell gently over me, a silk veil. Until, that is, when, the slow steps of the measure bringing us together, Henry observed with gentle insouciance:

‘I am told, Constance, that you visited Richard.’

I inhaled slowly. ‘I did.’

‘Against my orders.’

‘What harm could I do?’

We parted, reunited. My heart began to beat as if the dance were an energetic one. Henry’s sword-calloused fingers were firm and rough around mine, destroying all semblance of urbanity.

‘I trust that you will not make a habit of it, cousin.’

I smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Habits can be hard to break, Henry.’

The music died away. He bowed. I sank into a curtsey. When I stood, he was looking at me, his expression uncommonly stern.

‘My advice: break this one, for your own good.’

To visit Richard or to obey orders? It was a warning and I would be a fool not to heed it.

All we had to do, when not dancing, Edward had advised, was keep our shields raised, our daggers honed and our swords sharp. There were enough enemies around us to take the opportunity to blacken our name and defile our reputation in the eyes of the one man who now dictated the order of events.

But Thomas, unconvinced, continued to expand on the unfortunate resemblance of our present status to the frailty of precious vessels. ‘One mistake, one fumble, one twitch, and they all crash to the floor and shatter into pieces.’ He considered the prospect. Then changed the image. ‘Our security is as fragile as a pheasant chick in the jaws of a fox. Its neck can be snapped before we can blink.’

‘Then we must ensure that we bear no similarity to either priceless vessels or chicks,’ I said. ‘We will be the sure and certain underpinning to this new power that Henry’s building. We will be as watchful as raptors.’

It began with much negotiation with Richard in the Tower, to encourage him to resign his crown to his cousin to make the transition easy and legal. My family of York, Aumale and Gloucester were part of that august gathering who presented themselves before him in a spirit of solemn persuasion.

And Richard?

Richard signed away his birthright for a mess of political pottage, becoming once more Richard of Bordeaux. My advice to him to sign nothing, to agree to nothing, had fallen on deaf ears. What choice did he have, when it was as clear as dawn that the majority of magnates and clerics stood solidly behind Lancaster? So we must stand behind him too. If Lancaster became the new King, how blunderingly inept it would have been if the family of York had resisted. It would have been to cut our own throats.

If there was any regret, any fear for the future at Lancaster’s hands, we hid it behind a screen of fluent knee-bending and hand-kissing.

Thus the Duke of York and his heir and his son by law were part and parcel of the procession through the streets of London on the thirtieth day of September when Lancaster took his place in the Great Hall at Westminster. Richard’s Great Hall, but what good repining? Richard’s empty throne was draped in cloth of gold, ready for its new occupant who was led in by the two Archbishops and Sir Thomas Erpingham bearing a new sword of state, the jewelled Lancaster Sword that Henry had carried at Ravenspur on his landing. Behind him marched the two Holland Dukes of Exeter and Surrey as well as my brother Aumale. Thomas played his role as one of the seven commissioners appointed to witness the pronouncement of Richard’s deposition. When Lancaster was ultimately proclaimed King of England by the lords and clerics in the Hall, it was our father of York who committed us to the new regime by leading Lancaster to the throne to take his seat.

Thus we were shackled and bolted to the new King for all time. Thus we disavowed Richard. Thus we were all brought neatly into the Lancaster fold, a little flock of important but impotent sheep, chivvied by the sheepdog named Ambition.

‘Can we all breathe easily again?’ I asked in a hiatus between signing documents and celebrating the auspicious events.

‘We have cut our cloth to suit the occasion.’ The Duke of York might regret the outcome but he had embraced his nephew with admirable fervour when Lancaster had acknowledged him, as we had hoped, as a father figure.

‘And a fine cloth it is, too,’ I remarked, and indeed nothing could have heralded our pre-eminence at the coronation more than the cost of our garments. Clad in silk damask and satin and sumptuous fur, provided for us by the new King as befitted our Plantagenet rank, we gathered in a little smoothly expensive knot as the feast was drawing to a close, to raise our cups of fine wine in private recognition of what we had achieved. At the beginning of August we had been the most loyal of subjects to King Richard the Second. By this day, a mere two months later, we had made the transition to supporters of Lancaster. The connections of the past could be forgotten, masked in the well-seasoned dishes and outward show of this royal feast. The future of Richard, still in the Tower with the prospect of a trial hanging over him if our new King gave his consent, must not be considered as we gorged on roast cygnet, venison and a multitude of game birds, the subtleties, fantastic creations sculpted from hard sugar, stuffed and enhanced with preserved fruit, their carved crowns and eagles sending out the pertinent message to all who dipped their spoons. King Henry the Fourth demanded our fealty and obedience and we gave it with much flamboyance.

Why had we ever doubted our ability to step unchallenged from one loyalty to the next? We allowed a collective sigh of silent relief.

‘I did think that at the eleventh hour he might order the arrest of the lot of us,’ Thomas remarked. ‘Even when I knelt to take the oath, I could feel the kiss of an axe against my neck, but it seems that we are still in possession of our titles, and our heads.’

I could not be so sanguine, but masked the persistent fear. ‘Edward says that Henry needs us, and thus our future is secure.’