Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

But I have also learned his tenderness, his love of his son, his dutiful powerful obedient submission to his mother, and—growing every day—his warmth towards me. When I disappoint him, when he suspects me, it is as if his whole world is uncertain once again. More and more he wants to love and trust me; and more and more I find that I want him to.

There is much to give me joy today. I have a son in the nursery and a husband who is secure on his throne. My sisters are safe and I am no longer haunted by dreams or ill with grief. But still, I have much to regret. Although it is my coronation day, my family are defeated. My mother is missing, enclosed in Bermondsey Abbey, my cousin John de la Pole is dead. My uncle Edward is high in the king’s trust, but is far away in Granada on crusade against the Moors, and my half brother Thomas is so careful around the king that every day he performs a sort of relentless dance on tiptoe to ensure that he doesn’t alert Henry’s suspicions. Cecily is a girl of York no longer, married to a Tudor supporter, never speaking a word without her husband’s sanction, and all my other sisters will be earmarked by My Lady the King’s Mother for Tudor loyalists; she won’t risk any one of them being made a focus for rebellion. Worst of all, worse than everything, is that Teddy is still held in the Tower and the surge of confidence that Henry felt after the battle of East Stoke has not led him to release the boy, though I have asked for it, even asked for Teddy’s freedom as a coronation day gift. His sister Maggie’s white face among my ladies is a constant reproach to me. I said that she and Teddy could come to London and that they would be safe. I said that my mother could keep them safe. I said that I would be Teddy’s guardian but I was powerless, my mother herself is enclosed, My Lady the King’s Mother has Teddy as her ward and has taken his fortune into her keeping. I did not allow for Henry’s secret terror. I did not think that a king would persecute a boy.

There have been triumphs for the House of York. Henry may have won at the battle of East Stoke but it was not a heroic campaign; and though most of his lords brought their men, very few of them actually joined the battle. A troubling number of them did not even attend. Henry has the crown on his head and an heir in his nursery but one of his kingdoms offered their crown to someone else—an unknown boy—in preference to him; and there is a constant continuing whisper about another heir, another heir somewhere in hiding, waiting his turn.

It is not my mother but Maggie who brushes out my hair and straightens it over my shoulders where it falls down my back, almost to my waist. Cecily puts the gold net over my head, and on top of that I will wear a gold circlet with diamonds and rubies. There are a lot of rubies, they signify a virtuous woman, and this will be my principal role for the rest of my life—a virtuous woman and a Tudor queen whose motto is “humble and penitent.” It does not matter that in my heart I am passionate and independent. My true self will be hidden and history will never speak of me except as the daughter of one king, the wife of another, and the mother of a third.

The royal barge is to take me upriver to Westminster and the Mayor of London and all the guilds will come in their liveried ships with music and singing to escort me. Yet again my mother will look from her window and see a royal procession going along the river to a coronation; but this time it will be her daughter in the barge that rows past her prison. I know that she will look out of the abbey windows to see me go by, and I hope she will take a pleasure in knowing that this plan of hers, at least, has come to fruition. She has put me on the throne of England and though the gilded barge is being rowed upstream past her without acknowledgment—and it is the fourth coronation procession without her on board—this time at least she has put her daughter on the golden throne and the people lining the riverbank will call À York.

I walk down to the pier with my ladies holding my train high to stop it sweeping on the damp carpet, and they help me on board the ship. It is magnificent, decked out for the day with flags and flowers, escorted by decorated barges and vessels of all sorts. They play music as I come on board, and a choir sings an anthem to my virtues. I take my place in the stern, a cloth of gold over my head, the gold throne cushioned with velvet. My ladies gather around me. We are a famously beautiful court and today every woman is dressed in her very best. The rowers take the beat from the drum, the other barges assemble before and behind us. I pin a smile on my face as the oars dig deep in the water and we set off.

One of the accompanying barges has a figurehead in the shape of a dragon’s head, and a coiled tail fixed on the stern. It is a Tudor dragon and every so often they light a flame in its mouth and it breathes fire over the water, so that the people on the riverbank scream and cheer. They call À York to me, in defiance of all the evidence that this is a Tudor celebration. I cannot help but smile at the faithful love that people have for my house, even as the pennants flutter white and green and the Tudor dragon gives his little sputtering roar.

The royal barge is mid-river, moving easily on the inward tide, but as we get to Bermondsey and I see the brick and flint gatehouse of the abbey, the steersman sets a course for the opposite bank so that we are as far away as possible from my mother’s prison. I can see the people waiting by the sheltering perimeter walls of the abbey, but I cannot make out the figures. I raise my hand to shield my eyes and the gold crown scratches my fingers. I cannot see my mother among the crowd, we are too far out on the river and there are too many people for me to spot her. I want to see her, I so want to see her. I want her to know that I am looking for her. For a moment I wonder if she has been ordered to stay in her cell as the barge goes by. I wonder if she will be seated in her chair, in the cool whitewashed cell, listening to the music bawled across the water, smiling at the noisy roar of the dragon vomiting fire, but not knowing that I am looking for her.

And then, suddenly, as if by magic, I see her. There is a standard, uncurling and flapping in the breeze from the river. It is Tudor green, the new color of loyalty, Tudor green background embroidered with the Tudor rose of white and red, as every sensible person would show today. But this flag is different: it’s a white rose on the Tudor green and if there is a red center to the rose, it is stitched so small that it cannot be seen. At first glance, at closer glance, this is the white rose of York. And there, of course, is my mother standing under the standard of the husband she adored, and as I look towards her and raise my hand, she gives a girlish jump of joy that I have seen her and she waves both her hands above her head, shouting my name, exuberant, laughing, rebellious as ever. She starts to run along the riverbank, keeping pace with my distant barge, shouting, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Hurrah!” so clearly that I can hear her over the noise across the water. I rise up from my solemn throne, rush to the side of the boat, and lean out to wave back at her, quite without any dignity, and shout, “Lady Mother! Here I am!” and laugh aloud in delight that I have seen her, and that she has seen me, and that I am going to my coronation with her laughing, easy blessing.

My coronation is the signal for a rash of betrothals, as Henry, in his methodical way, exploits my sisters one by one as players for the House of Tudor, and makes political matches to his own advantage. Even my mother is brought into play again. He allows me to visit her at Bermondsey with my sisters, and take her the news that she is so far forgiven by the Tudors that they have revived the idea of her marriage, and she is to go to James III of Scotland.