Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

However, generally speaking we have been treated with courtesy by the Yorkists and allowed to rent a substantial dwelling in a street called Lombard Street (it takes its name from the Milanese merchants who have settled there), hire servants and so forth, and all with the money we can get from selling the precious stones we brought with us. Rubies and pearls are especially valued and sell for prices that would amaze you, especially the former. They have hardly seen true rubies before and cannot believe the brightness of their colour or their hardness. Indeed the King's crown was reputed to have one set in it, very large, which once belonged to the Black Prince, the great-great-grand-uncle of the present king. I was shown this 'ruby', a dull, brownish stone, almost certainly a garnet.

Where was I? Tournaments and hunting. And also a lot of dancing, something, would you believe? the lords and ladies do together rather than watching trained professionals. The result is, as you would expect, a certain lewdness of behaviour that leads to worse, especially when it is compounded with the drinking of vast amounts of alcoholic beverages.

It has not all been pursuits of this sort. During this time the Yorkists, under Warwick, have consolidated their relationship with the City of London, giving the merchants more and more privileges and rights, restoring old ones taken by the Queen, and withdrawing those given, or rather sold, by her to the foreigners who trade here, especially the Germans of the Hanse.

But what of York? Well, nothing, not for three months. This great man, this magnate, this man who had ruled before as Protector during an earlier fit of madness suffered by the King and who, it was said, would be king himself, on whose behalf great men had stirred themselves and many small men have been slain or maimed, remained in Ireland. But a week ago he came at last and. with one throw of the dice, seems to have lost it all.

I have told you how much these superstitious people revere kingship, and what they call the Lord's Anointed. Well, Henry remains King Henry, and Richard Plantagenet remains merely Duke of York, however good his claim to be king. And duke he remains until he is anointed. Yet he came to London with trumpets before him, the sword of state unsheathed in front of him. This is a gigantic, ornamental affair of, again, mystical significance for these strange people. No one will deny, while barbarians exist, the necessity of swords, but to make a revered fetish out of such ugly things bespeaks psychopathology. Worst of all, banners were displayed with the lions and lily flowers that, undifferentiated with any other mark, are the King's alone. Thereby he lost the support of half his followers or more, who, fearing the fires of everlasting torment, would no longer side with him. Indeed this whole business led to a near terminal falling out between York and Warwick…

At this point a page ended and I turned it over on to the pile of those I had already read. As I did so a splash of monsoon rain plopped on the comer furthest from me. I looked up. Ali had arrived by my side, was looking down at me with his one good eye gleaming in his destroyed face against a background of dragon eaves and purple sky. He was rubbing the swollen knuckles of his good hand against the cloth that covered his pigeon chest, while the claw of his left hand endeavoured to scrape bent nails through his ragged goatee beard.

'You've no idea,' he rasped, 'what October was like in Ingerlond.'

And he pulled up a cushioned chair and sat beside me, eye now almost sightless as it looked out across his garden, which seemed to burgeon even more beneath the evening downpour. He was high, high on bhang, I could smell it. He leant into the table between us and, taking a small hashish cake between his thumb and finger, popped it in his mouth. His eye glittered.

He turned over the page of Prince Harihara's dispatch that I had just read, swallowed, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his bad arm. Nodded to himself a little. 'Read it,' he said, 'aloud. I'd like to hear it all through again.' I picked up the next sheet and, returning to the Prince's account, did as he asked.

Warwick and his brother Thomas Neville were actually at our lodging in Lombard Street, buying pearls for his wife Anne. He had a jeweller with him who was picking out what he needed to make a coronet for the Countess, when a squire came banging through the doors demanding to see the Earl.

York, he said, had arrived in Westminster, with a vast retinue, trumpeters and the offensive banners. Since it was known he had been at Abingdon, not far from Oxenford, only two nights earlier, he had not been expected before evening at the earliest.

Well, I was curious to know what this Dukc of York, who had caused so much trouble, was like, so Anish and I. with Ali too, all bundled behind Warwick to Westminster Hall, at the other end of the track called Strand, a distance of a couple of miles or so, and got into Westminster Hall, where Parliament was met, just ahead of the Duke.

I think I told you in an earlier letter that I would explain what Parliament is when an appropriate time came, and this would seem to be it.

Parliament is a large gathering, first, of all of the lords and magnates of the realm, then of the knights of the shires, as they arc called. These are landowners or holders, often chosen by their neighbours, a certain number from each shire or county, and all having a fair amount of wealth, which expressed in terms of income is at least forty pounds a year. Such is the general poverty of the country compared with ours, the buying power of forty pounds is about the equivalent of what a good temple dancer might earn in Vijayanagara, or a holder of a market stall. Yet in Ingerlond it is thought of as a noteworthy fortune. Anyway, these people are gathered together usually once every year by the King to ratify whatever laws he wants to have passed, or taxes raised, and so on. It is rare that any objection is made to what the King wants since those who come have been summoned by the King himself and it all seems something of a waste of time. It dates back. I believe, to customs that were in force and meant something before the Norman invasion four hundred years ago and was a sop to the Inglysshe sensibilities and traditions.

Anyway, Parliament usually assembles at Westminster, where the last but one Inglysshe king before the Normans had built a great hall and a big church, and was now in session, having been summoned under the seal of King Henry, once he had been brought down from Northampton. It had been summoned with the view of ratifying the Protectorship of York and the placement of Yorkist supporters in all the principal posts of government.

The hall has a throne at one end and many handsome windows down the sides. There is also a minstrels' gallery at the back above the large doors and it was there that we were allowed to sit with ambassadors from other lands. Trumpets sounded and in came York, his sword of state still carried in front of him. making his way through the crowd beneath us, straight up to the throne. He stood for a moment, turned, and put his hand on it. The gesture was clearly proprietorial and drew a sort of sigh and moan from all there.

This York, whom we were seeing at last and for the first time, was a big, proud man but already fifty years old or thereabouts, dark hair grizzled, broad-shouldered, large-chested with big hands and strong thighs. But his face was lined, even wrinkled, and his mouth wore an unchanging expression of dissatisfaction. One felt that here was a man capable of almost anything that would not injure his self-esteem to perform. And claiming the throne did not come under that heading.

Clearly he expected applause, acclamation. None came. After that first sigh, like wind through trees, there was silence, scarce broken by the jingle of a spur or a cough.