Philippa Gregory - The White Queen

I give my hand and he draws me to him and kisses me warmly on both cheeks. “I do truly wish you much joy,” he says cheerfully. “My brother is a fortunate man indeed. And I am happy to call you my sister.”

I turn to the Earl of Warwick. “I know that my husband loves and trusts you as his brother and his friend,” I say. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is all mine,” he says curtly. “Are you ready?”

I glance behind me: my sisters and mother are lined up to follow me in procession. “We are ready,” I say, and with the Duke of Clarence on one side of me and the Earl of Warwick on the other, we march slowly to the abbey chapel through a crowd that parts as we come towards them.

My first impression is that everyone I have ever seen at court is here, dressed in their finest to honor me, and there are a few hundred new faces too, who have come in with the Yorks. The lords are in the front with their capes trimmed with ermine, the gentry behind them with chains of office and jewels on display. The aldermen and councillors of London have trooped down to be presented, the city fathers among them. The civic leaders of Reading are there, struggling to see and be seen around the big bonnets and the plumes, behind them the guildsmen of Reading and gentry from all England. This is an event of national importance; anyone who could buy a doublet and borrow a horse has come to see the scandalous new queen. I have to face them all alone, flanked by my enemies, as a thousand gazes take me in: from my slippered feet to my high headdress and airy veil, take in the pearls on my gown, the carefully modest cut, the perfection of the lace piece that hides and yet enhances the whiteness of the skin of my shoulders. Slowly, like a breeze going through treetops, they doff their hats and bow, and I realize that they are acknowledging me as queen, queen in the place of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, the greatest woman in the realm, and nothing in my life will ever be the same again. I smile from side to side, acknowledging the blessings and the murmurs of praise, but I find that I am tightening my grip on Warwick’s hand, and he smiles down at me, as if he is pleased to sense my fear, and he says, “It is natural for you to be overwhelmed, Your Grace.” It is, indeed, natural for a commoner but would never have occurred to a princess, and I smile back at him and cannot defend myself, and cannot speak.

That night in bed, after we have made love, I say to Edward, “I don’t like the Earl of Warwick.”

“He made me what I am today,” he says simply. “You must love him for my sake.”

“And your brother George? And William Hastings?”

He rolls onto his side and grins at me. “These are my companions and my brothers-in-arms,” he says. “You are marrying into an army at war. We cannot choose our allies; we cannot choose our friends. We are just glad of them. Love them for me, beloved.”

I nod as if obedient. But I think I know my enemies.

The king decides that I shall have the most glorious coronation that England has ever seen. This is not solely as a compliment to me. “We make you queen, undoubted queen, and every lord in the kingdom will bow his knee to you. My mother-” He breaks off and grimaces. “My mother will have to show you homage as part of the celebrations. Nobody will be able to deny that you are queen and my wife. It will silence those who say our marriage is not valid.”

“Who says?” I demand. “Who dares say?”

He grins at me. He is a boy still. “D’you think I would tell you and have you turn them into frogs? Never mind who speaks against us. They don’t matter as long as all they do is whisper in corners. But a great coronation for you also declares my position as king. Everyone can see that I am king and that poor thing Henry is a beggar somewhere in Cumbria and his wife a pensioner of her father in Anjou.”

“Hugely grand?” I say, not wholly welcoming the thought.

“You will stagger under the weight of your jewels,” he promises me.

In the event, it is even richer than he predicted, richer than I could have imagined. My entrance to London is by London Bridge, but the dirty old highway is transformed with wagon on wagon load of sparkling sand into a road more like a jousting arena. I am greeted by players dressed as angels, their costumes made from peacock feathers, their dazzling wings like a thousand eyes of blue and turquoise and indigo. Actors make a tableau of the Virgin Mary and the saints; I am exhorted to be virtuous and fertile. The people see me indicated as the choice of God for Queen of England. Choirs sing as I enter the city, rose petals are showered down on me. I am myself, my own tableau: the Englishwoman from the House of Lancaster come to be the Queen of York. I am an object of peace and unity.

I spend the night before my coronation at the grand royal apartments in the Tower, newly decorated for my stay. I don’t like the Tower: it gives me a shudder as I am carried shoulder high in a litter under the portcullis, and Anthony at my side glances up at me.

“What’s the matter?”

“I hate the Tower; it smells damp.”

“You have grown choosy,” Anthony says. “You are spoiled already, now that the king has given you great places of your own, the manor of Greenwich, and Sheen as well.”

“It’s not that,” I say, trying to name my unease. “It is as if there are ghosts here. Are my boys staying here tonight?”

“Yes, the whole family is here in the royal rooms.”

I make a little grimace of unease. “I don’t like my boys being here,” I say. “This is an unlucky place.”

Anthony crosses himself and jumps from his horse to lift me down. “Smile,” he commands me under his breath.

The lieutenant of the Tower is waiting to welcome me and give me the keys: this is no time for foreseeing, or for ghosts of boys lost long ago.

“Most gracious queen, greetings,” he says, and I take Anthony’s hand and smile, and hear the crowd murmur that I am a beauty beyond their imaginings.

“Nothing exceptional,” Anthony says for my ears only, so that I have to turn my head and stop myself giggling. “Nothing compared to our mother, for instance.”

Next day is my coronation at Westminster Abbey. For the court herald, bellowing names of dukes and duchesses and earls, it is a roster of the greatest and most noble families in England and Christendom. For my mother, carrying my train with the king’s sisters Elizabeth and Margaret, it is her triumph; for Anthony, a man so much of the world and yet so detached from it, I think it is a ship of fools and he would wish himself far away; and for Edward it is a vivid statement of his wealth and power to a country hungry for a royal family of wealth and power. For me it is a blur of ceremonial in which I feel nothing but anxiety: desperate only to walk at the right speed, to remember to slip off my shoes and go barefoot at the brocade carpet, to accept the two scepters in each hand, to bare my breast for the holy oil, to hold my head steady for the weight of the crown.

It takes three archbishops to crown me, including Thomas Bourchier, and an abbot, a couple of hundred clergy, and a full thousand choristers to sing my praises and call down God’s blessing on me. My kinswomen escort me; it turns out I have hundreds of them. The king’s family come first, then my own sisters, my sister-in-law Elizabeth Scales, my cousins, my Burgundy cousins, my kinswomen that only my mother can trace, and every other beautiful lady who can scrape an introduction. Everyone wants to be a lady at my coronation; everyone wants a place at my court.

By tradition, Edward is not even with me. He watches from behind a screen, my young sons with him: I may not even see him; I cannot catch courage from his smile. I have to do this all entirely alone, with thousands of strangers watching my every movement. Nothing is to detract from my rise from gentry woman to Queen of England, from mortal to a being divine: next to God. When they crown me and anoint me with the holy oil, I become a new being, one above mortals, only one step below angels, beloved, and the elect of heaven. I wait for the thrill down my spine of knowing that God has chosen me to be Queen of England; but I feel nothing but relief that the ceremony is over and apprehension at the massive banquet to follow.