Philippa Gregory - The Red Queen

“You’ll get no help from the merchants and the City lords,” my husband warns him. “They are all for York. They cannot do business while the king cannot keep the peace, and that’s all they think of.”

Jasper nods. “That’s what I heard. I will overrule them. I am ordered to recruit men and build ditches. I will turn London into a walled town for Lancaster, whatever the citizens want.”

Sir Henry takes Jasper into an inner room; I follow, and we close the door behind us so that they can speak privately. “There are few in the whole country who could deny that York has just cause,” my husband says. “You know him yourself. He is loyal to the king, heart and soul. But while the king is ruled by the queen and while she conspires with the Duke of Somerset, there will be no peace and no safety for York nor any of his affinity.” He hesitates. “No peace for any of us in truth,” he adds. “What Englishman can feel safe if a French queen commands everything? Will she not hand us over to the French?”

Jasper shakes his head. “But still she is Queen of England,” he says flatly. “And mother to the Prince of Wales. And the chief lady of the House of Lancaster, our house. She commands our loyalty. She is our queen, whatever her birth, whatever friends she keeps, whatever she commands.”

Sir Henry smiles his crooked smile, which I know, from a year of his company, means that something strikes him as overly simple. “Even so, she should not rule the king,” he says. “She should not advise him instead of his council. He should consult York and Warwick. They are the greatest men of his kingdom; they are leaders of men. They must advise him.”

“We can deal with the membership of the royal council when the threat from York is over,” Jasper says impatiently. “There is no time to discuss it now. Are you arming your tenants?”

“I?”

Jasper shoots a shocked look at me. “Yes, Sir Henry, you. The king is calling on all his loyal subjects to prepare for war. I am recruiting men. I have come here for your tenants. Are you coming with me to defend London? Or will you march to join your king at Coventry?”

“Neither,” my husband says quietly. “My father is calling up his men, and my brother will ride with him. They will muster a small army for the king, and I would think that is enough from one family. If my father orders me to accompany him, I will go, of course. It would be my duty as his son. If York’s men come here, I will fight them, as I would fight anyone marching over my fields. If Warwick tries to ride roughshod over my land, I will defend it; but I won’t be riding out this month on my own account.”

Jasper looks away, and I blush with shame to have a husband who stays by the fireside when the call to battle is heard. “I am sorry to learn it,” Jasper says shortly. “I took you for a loyal Lancastrian. I would not have thought this of you.”

My husband glances towards me with a little smile. “I am afraid my wife also thinks the less of me, but I cannot, in conscience, go out and kill my own countrymen to defend the right of a young, foolish Frenchwoman to give her husband bad advice. The king needs the best of men to advise him, and York and Warwick are the best of men, proven true. If he makes them into his enemies, then York and Warwick may march against him, but I am sure that they intend to do no more than force the king to listen to them. I am certain they will do nothing more than insist on being in his council and having their voices heard. And since I think that is their right, how can I, in conscience, fight against them? Their cause is just. They have the right to advise him, and the queen has not. You know that as well as I.”

Jasper leaps to his feet in a swift, impatient movement. “Sir Henry, in honor, you have no choice. You must fight because your king has called on you, because the head of your house has called on you. If you are of the House of Lancaster, you follow the call.”

“I am not a hound to yelp at the hunting horn,” my husband says quietly, not at all stirred by Jasper’s raised voice. “I don’t give tongue to order. I don’t bay for the chase. I will go to war should there ever be a cause I think worth dying for-and not before. But I do admire your, er … martial spirit.”

Jasper flushes to the roots of his ginger hair at the older man’s tone. “I think this is no laughing matter, sir. I have been fighting for my king and for my house for two years, and I must remind you that it has cost me dear. I lost my own brother at the walls of Carmarthen, the heir to our name, the flower of our house, Margaret’s husband who never saw his son-”

“I know, I know, and I am not laughing. I too have lost a brother, remember. These battles are a tragedy for England, no laughing matter. Come, let us go in to dine and forget our differences. I pray that it will not come to a fight, and so must you. We need peace in England if we are to grow strong and rich again. We conquered France because the people were divided among themselves. Let us not lose our way, as they did; let us not be our own worst enemies in our own country.”

Jasper would argue; but my husband takes him by his arm and leads him to the great hall, where the men are already seated, ten to a table, waiting for their dinners. When Jasper comes in, his men hammer the table with the hilts of their daggers as applause, and I think it a great thing that he is such a commander, and so beloved of his men. He is like a knight errant from the stories; he is their hero. My husband’s servants and retainers merely bow their heads and doff their caps in silent respect as he goes by. But no one has ever cheered Henry Stafford to the rafters. No one ever will.

We walk through the deep rumble of male noise to the high table, and I see Jasper glance over at me as if he pities me for marrying a man who will not fight for his family. I keep my eyes down. I think that everyone knows I am the daughter of a coward, and now I am the wife of a coward, and I have to live with shame.

As the server of the ewery pours water over our hands and pats them with the napkin, my husband says kindly, “But I have distracted you from the great interest for my wife: the health of her son. How is young Henry? Is he well?”

Jasper turns to me. “He is well and strong. I wrote you that his back teeth were coming through; they gave him a fever for a few days, but he is through that now. He is walking and running. He is speaking a lot, not always clearly, but he chatters all the day. His nursemaid says that he is willful, but no more than befits his position in the world and his age. I have told her not to be too severe with him. He is Earl of Richmond: he should not have his spirit broken, he has a right to his pride.”

“Do you tell him of me?” I ask.

“Of course I do,” he says with a smile. “I tell him that his mother is a great lady in England and will come and see him soon, and he says ‘Mama!’ just like that.”

I laugh at his impression of a two-year-old’s fluting voice. “And his hair?” I say. “Is it coming through red like Edmund’s?”

“Ah no,” Jasper says with a disappointment that I don’t share. “We did not breed true in that, as it turns out. His hair is in ringlets and brown, like a bright bay horse. His nursemaid thinks he will go more fair in the summer when he is out in the sunshine, but he won’t be a brass head like us Tudors.”

“And does he like to play? And does he know his prayers?”

“He plays with his bat and his ball, he will play all day if someone will throw a ball for him. And he is learning the Lord’s Prayer and his catechism. Your friend Father William sees him every morning for prayers, and his nursemaid sets him at the foot of his bed every night and makes him stay there. He is ordered to pray for you by name.”