Philippa Gregory - The White Queen

“It is a cover, a mumming,” he says. “Don’t regard it. It is the usual song of this not being a rebellion against the king but against his evil advisors. I sang this song myself as did my father, as did Warwick against Henry. Then, we said that it was all the fault of the queen and the Duke of Somerset. Now, they say it is your fault and your family around you. It is easy to blame the wife. It is always easier to accuse the queen of being a bad influence than to declare yourself against the king. They want to destroy you and your family, of course. Then, once I am alone before them, without friends and family, they will destroy me. They will force me to declare our marriage a sham, our girls all bastards. They will make me name George as my heir, perhaps to cede my throne to him. I have to drive them to open opposition, where I can defeat them. Trust me, I will keep you safe.”

I put my forehead to his. “I wish I had given you a son,” I say very low. “Then they would know that there could be only one heir. I wish I had given you a prince.”

“Time enough for that,” he says steadily. “And I love our girls. A son will come, I don’t doubt it, beloved. And I will keep the throne safe for him. Trust me.”

I let him go. We both have work to do. He rides out from Fotheringhay behind a harshly rippling standard and surrounded by a guard ready for battle to go to Nottingham to the great castle there, and wait for the enemy to show himself. I go on to Norwich with my daughters, to act as if England is all mine, as if it is all still a fair garden for the rose of York, and I fear nothing. I take my Grey sons with me. Edward offered to have them ride with him, for a first taste of battle, but I am fearful for them and I take them with me and the girls. So I have two very sulky young men, aged fifteen and thirteen, as I make my progress to Norwich, and nothing will please them, as they are missing their first battle.

I have a state entry and choirs singing and flowers thrown down before me, and plays extolling my virtue and welcoming my girls. Edward bides his time in Nottingham, summoning his soldiers again, waiting for his enemy to land.

While we wait, playing our different parts, wondering when our enemies will come, and where they will land, we hear more news. In the city of Calais, with special permission from the pope-which must have been sought and gained in secret by our own archbishops-George has married Warwick’s daughter, Isabel Neville. He is now Warwick’s son-in-law and, if Warwick can put George on Edward’s throne, Warwick will make his own daughter queen, and she will take my crown.

I spit like a cat at the thought of our turncoat archbishops writing to the pope in secret to aid our enemies, of George before the altar with Warwick’s girl, and of Warwick’s long slow-burning ambition. I think of the pale-faced girl, one of the only two Neville girls, for Warwick has no son of his own and cannot seem to get any more children, and I swear that she will never wear the crown of England while I live. I think of George, turning his coat like the spoiled boy he is, and falling in with Warwick’s plans like the stupid child he is, and I swear vengeance on them both. I am so certain that it will come to a battle, and a bitter battle between my husband and his former tutor in war Warwick, that I am taken by surprise, just as Edward is taken by surprise, when Warwick lands without warning, and meets and smashes the gathering royal army at Edgecote Moor near Banbury, before Edward is even out of Nottingham Castle.

It is a disaster. Sir William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, lies dead on the field, a thousand Welshmen around him, his ward the Lancaster boy Henry Tudor left without a guardian. Edward is on the road to London, riding as fast as he can to arm the city for siege, about to warn them that Warwick is in England, when armed figures block the road before him.

Archbishop Neville, Warwick’s kinsman appointed by us, steps up and takes Edward his own king prisoner, telling him, as he is surrounded, that Warwick and George are already in the kingdom, and the royal army has already been defeated. It is over, Edward is beaten, even before battle is declared, even before he had his warhorse harnessed. The wars, which I thought had ended in peace, our peace, are over with our defeat, without Edward even drawing his sword, and the House of York will be founded on the puppet plaything George and not on my unborn son.

I am at Norwich, pretending to confidence, pretending to queenly grace, when they bring me a mud-stained messenger from my husband. I open the letter:

Dearest wife, Prepare yourself for bad news. Your father and your brother were taken at a battle near Edgecote fighting for our cause and Warwick has them. I too am a prisoner, held atWarwick’s castle of Middleham. They took me on the road on my way to you. I am unhurt, as are they. Warwick has named your mother as a sorceress and he says that our marriage was an act of witchcraft by you and her. So be warned: both of you are in grave danger. She must leave the country at once: they will have her strangled as a witch if they can. You too should prepare for exile. Get yourself and our daughters to London as fast as you can, arm the Tower for a siege, and raise the city. As soon as the city is set for siege you must take the girls and go to safety to Flanders. The charge of witchcraft is very grave, beloved. They will execute you if they think they can make it stick. Keep yourself safe above anything else. If you think it best, send the girls away at once, secretly, and place them with humble people in hiding. Don’t be proud, Elizabeth, choose a refuge where no one will look. We have to live through this if we want to fight to claim our own again. I am more grieved at bringing you and them into danger than anything else in the world. I have written to Warwick to demand to know the ransom that he wants for the safe return of your father and your brother John. I don’t doubt he will send them back to you and you can pay whatever he demands from the Treasury. Your husband, The one and only King of England, Edward

A knock at the door of my presence chamber and the flinging open of the door makes me leap to my feet, expecting, I don’t know, the Earl of Warwick himself, with a bundle of greenwood stakes for burning my mother and me; but it is the Mayor of Norwich, who greeted me with such rich ceremony only days before.

“Your Grace, I have urgent news,” he says. “Bad news. I am sorry.”

I take a little breath to steady myself. “Tell me.”

“It is your father and your brother.”

I know what he is going to say. Not from foreknowledge, but from the way his round face is creased with worry at the thought of the pain he is bringing me. I know it from the way that the men behind him gather together, awkward as people who bring the worst tidings. I know it from the way that my own ladies-in-waiting sigh like a breeze of mourning and gather behind my chair.

“No,” I say. “No. They are prisoners. They are held by Englishmen of honor. They must be ransomed.”

“Shall I leave you?” he asks. He looks at me as if I am sick. He does not know what to say to a queen who came into his town in glory and will leave it in mortal danger. “Shall I go, and come back later, Your Grace?”

“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me now, the worst there is, and I will bear it somehow.”

He glances at my women for help, and then his dark eyes come back to me. “I am sorry, Your Grace. Sorrier than I can rightly say. Your father Earl Rivers and your brother Sir John Woodville were taken in battle-a new battle between new enemies-the king’s army against the king’s own brother George, the Duke of Clarence. The duke seems to be in alliance now with the Earl of Warwick against your husband-perhaps you knew? In alliance against your gracious husband and you. Your father and brother were taken fighting for Your Grace, and they have been executed. They were beheaded.” He snatches one quick look at me. “They would not have suffered,” he volunteers. “I am sure it was quick.”