Anne O'Brien - A Tapestry of Treason

‘Could we not have done better than this?’ my mother asked under cover of a ceremonial blast of a trumpet as King Richard arrived late, but still to grace us with his presence.

‘The lad is a ward of the King. How much better do you want?’ My father was trenchant.

‘Despenser! His family is mired in past scandals. There are still treason judgements against his ancestors for corruption and misplaced ambitions. Are we not worth a more advantageous alliance?’

My mother’s voice was still heavily accented from her Castilian birth, but her words were clear to those who eavesdropped, as I did while I washed my hands in a silver bowl.

‘ Your mother was a whore,’ my father said. ‘Before your father made her respectable and married her. How much scandal do you lay claim to, Isabella?’

It meant little beyond the shock of his use of that word in polite company.

‘But a royal whore, and to your advantage. You only wed me because of my royal Castilian blood.’

There was no love lost between them.

‘I wed you, Isabella, because my father the King insisted on it and for no other reason,’ was the brusque reply. ‘Both Castilian heiresses married to two of his sons. As my wife, no one can use you to make a claim against your sister Constanza, who as the elder has the claim to the Castilian throne. If anyone will be King of Castile it will be my brother John of Lancaster who had the privilege of wedding her. I will not challenge him.’

This was not new to me, that my uncle John of Lancaster hoped to lay hands on the Kingdom of Castile for himself in his wife Constanza’s name, although then, in my childhood, it was beyond my true understanding. My mother and her sister were the heiresses of King Pedro of Castile, recently stabbed to death by his half-brother Enrique of Trastámara. Through their blood ran the claim to the kingdom even if their mother Maria de Padilla had been Pedro’s mistress, her secret marriage to Pedro repudiated in favour of a more well-connected legitimate bride. Thus the legitimacy of the two girls was open to dispute, but my mother was a woman of some importance, particularly in her own mind.

‘You have water in your veins,’ she announced to anyone who wished to hear. ‘I would have liked you better if you had refused me.’

They detested each other.

My mother caught me, now patting my fingers dry on a length of fair linen, at the same time watching and listening.

‘Go and sit with your husband.’

Thomas was engaged in fighting imaginary battles or tilting at famous opponents, in company with some of my cousins. He had not turned his head in my direction for the whole of that interminable feast.

‘He has no interest in me, madam,’ I said.

She leaned and whispered, lips thin: ‘You will do well to make him have an interest in you, child.’

‘Why, madam?’

‘Don’t question everything, Constance.’ She was always impatient. ‘You’ll learn soon enough. Just do it.’

But how to achieve the impossible? Thomas Despenser regarded me as a possession to stamp respectability on his name.

‘What does mired in scandal mean?’ I asked my brother Edward, for with two more years than I, he would surely know.

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing good, I’d say.’

So I asked my nurse.

‘Nothing you will ever be accused of, Constance. You will be the perfect daughter. The most acclaimed wife. Look how pretty you are. And how pretty your young husband is.’

‘Will I see him again?’

‘When you are a young woman grown.’

‘When will that be?’

‘When you have reached your fourteenth year.’

It seemed an age away. ‘I don’t think he will miss me.’

‘No, I don’t think he will.’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘No. You are royal, my child. And he is not.’

‘Will he like me?’

‘It matters not whether he does or does not.’

It was an unsettling day after which I returned to my life of prayer and learning and skills appropriate to a daughter of Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, fourth son of the old King Edward the Third and soon to become Duke of York. My parents returned to their own interests which, with deliberate intent, did not often bring them into each other’s company, nor into that of their children. We had no memory of maternal love during our childhood years. If we had, it might be that we would have become a less rancorous brood.

As for Thomas Despenser, Lord Despenser, I had wanted more than the hostility that sparked between my father and mother, whether he was worthy of me or not. It was not to be. I might have loved him. I might have experienced at least an affection for him, but Thomas admired my dowry and my Plantagenet blood far more than he admired me, and for the most part ignored me except for the need to produce an heir. In the end, it did not matter. We were man and wife and, as many another ill-matched pair, we would live out our days together.

Early September 1399: Tower of London

‘Where is Mathes?’ King Richard demanded as soon as I set foot within the confines of his room. ‘What have you done with Mathes?’

‘Who?’ For a moment I was nonplussed. Of all the opening commands or pleas I might have expected from Richard, this was not one of them.

‘Mathes. My greyhound. I wish him to be here with me. Where is he?’

‘I don’t know, my lord.’

It seemed to me that there was far more serious content for this discussion between us than the whereabouts of Richard’s favourite greyhound.

‘Bring him to me. I command it.’

But how could I?

I had awoken that morning, Thomas long gone on his own affairs, with one clear thought leaping fully fledged into my mind. I must go to Richard. Waiting for Henry of Lancaster to show us the length and breadth of his ultimate goal toward Richard and the kingdom was all very well, but I could not rest. The one memory I could not shake free from my mind was that of Richard standing in the Great Hall, alone, isolated, even though he was surrounded by my father’s retainers. It had touched my heart with a deep compassion of which I had thought myself incapable. I could not abandon my cousin.

Richard commanded our duty and our loyalty. He was our King, anointed with holy oil, crowned and invested with the sacred regalia of kingship. Casting off such a loyalty was not a simple matter. Nor, for me, was it only a matter of loyalty to my King. Thomas would not understand, but Richard was my cousin. I had known him from birth, enjoyed his hospitality and his patronage, but also his kindness, which had not been merely an extension of his power. Were we not close by blood?

I recalled him drawing me into the intimate circle around his first much-loved wife Anne. I had clear memory of his dancing with me when my steps were still unsure. A collector of fine jewels, he had given me the heraldic brooch of a white hart, bound with gold and rubies, that I pinned to my bodice every morning.

With no need to inform anyone of my movements, for the Countess of Gloucester was beyond criticism, I arranged to travel by river from Westminster to the Tower in my father’s barge. Enjoying the luxury of the scarlet-cushioned seats with their gold-embroidered lions, I made good time for the tide had just turned, the strengthening current aiding the oarsmen. Once there, entering by the Watergate, I acknowledged, as I often did, that the bulk of the Conqueror’s White Tower would intimidate any visitor, its shadow causing me to shiver despite the warmth of the autumn sun reflecting from the stonework.