Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

“I am your wife,” I say quietly. “I promised to love you on our wedding day and since then I have come to love you. Once we were glad that such love had come to us; I am still glad of it. I am your wife and I love you, Henry.”

“But before that, you were his sister,” he says.

KENILWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE, SUMMER 1493

Once again Henry moves the court to Kenilworth Castle, the safest in England, centrally placed so that he can march out to any coast to meet an invasion, easily defended if everything goes wrong and an invasion sweeps inland to him. This time there is not even the pretence of being a carefree court in summertime; everyone is afraid, certain that they are attached to a king who is facing invasion for the second time in only eight years, convinced that a better claimant to the throne is gathering his forces against Henry Tudor: a pretender now as he always has been.

Jasper Tudor, grim-faced, rides out to the West Country and Wales to uncover the dozens of local conspiracies that are joining together to welcome an invasion. None of the people of the west is for Tudor, they are all looking for the prince over the water. Henry himself opens other inquiries, riding from one place to another, chasing whispers, trying to find those who are behind the constant flow of men and funds to Flanders. Everywhere from Yorkshire to Oxfordshire, from the east to the central counties, Henry’s appointed men hold inquiries trying to root out rebels. And still the reports of treasonous groups, hidden meetings, and musters after dark come in every day.

Henry closes the ports. No one shall set sail to any destination for fear that they are going to join the boy; even merchants have to apply for a license before they can send out their ships. Not even trade is trusted. Then Henry passes another law: no one is to travel any great distance inland either. People may go to their market towns and back home again, but there is to be no mustering and marching. There are to be no summer gatherings, no haymaking parties, no shearing days, no dancing or beating of the parish bounds, no midsummer revels. The people are not to come together for fear that they make a crowd and raise an army, they are not to raise a glass for fear that they drink a toast to the prince whose family’s court was a byword for merrymaking.

My Lady the King’s Mother is bleached with fear. When she whispers the prayers of the rosary her lips are as pale as the starched wimple around her face. She spends all her time with me, leaving the best rooms, the queen’s apartments, empty all day. She brings her ladies and the members of her immediate family as the only people that she can trust, and she brings her books and her studies, and she sits in my rooms as if she is seeking warmth or comfort or some sort of safety.

I can offer her nothing. Cecily, Anne, and I barely speak to one another, we are so conscious that everything we say is being noted, that everyone is wondering if our brother will come to rescue us from this Tudor court. Maggie, my cousin, goes everywhere with her head down and her eyes on her feet, desperate that no one will say if one York boy is on the loose, then at least the other one could be put to death and so secure the Tudor line from his threat. The guards on Teddy have been doubled and doubled again, and Maggie is sure that he does not get his letters from her. She never hears from him and now she is too afraid to ask after him. We all fear that one day they will get the order to go into his room while he is asleep and strangle him in his bed. Who would countermand the order? Who would stop them?

The ladies in my rooms read and sew, play music and games, but everything is muted and nobody speaks quickly or laughs or makes a joke. Everyone examines everything they say before they let one word out of their mouths. Everyone is watching their own words for fear of saying something that could be reported against them, everyone is listening to everyone else, in case there is something that they should report. Everyone is silently attentive to me, and whenever there is a loud knock at my door, there is an indrawn breath of terror.

I hide from these terrible afternoons in the children’s nursery, taking Elizabeth onto my lap and stretching out her little hands and feet, singing softly to her, trying to persuade her to show me her faint, enchanting smile.

Arthur, who has to stay with us until we can be certain of the safety of Wales, is torn between his studies and the view from the high window, where he can see his father’s army growing in numbers, drilling every day. Every day too he sees messengers coming from the west, bringing news from Ireland or from Wales, or from the south—from London, where the streets are buzzing with gossip and the apprentices are openly wearing white roses.

In the afternoons I take him riding with me but after a few days Henry forbids us to go out without a fully armed guard. “If they were to snatch Arthur then my life wouldn’t be worth a groat,” he says bitterly. “The day that he and Harry die is the day of my death sentence and the end of everything.”

“Don’t say that!” I put out my hand. “Don’t ill-wish them!”

“You’re tenderhearted,” he says grudgingly, as if it is a fault. “But foolish. You don’t think, you don’t realize what danger you are in. You cannot take the children out of the castle walls without a guard. I am beginning to think that they should be housed separately—so that anyone coming for Arthur couldn’t get Henry.”

“But my lord husband,” I say. I can hear the quaver in my voice, I can hear the whine of reasonableness against the clarity of a madman.

“I think I’ll keep Arthur in the Tower.”

“No!” I scream. I cannot contain my shock. “No, Henry. No! No! No!”

“To keep him safe.”

“No. I won’t consent. I can’t consent. He’s not to go into the Tower. Not like . . .”

“Not like your brothers?” he asks, quick as a striking snake. “Not like Edward of Warwick? Because you think they are all the same? All boys who might hope to be king?”

“He is not to go into the Tower like them. He is the proclaimed prince. He must live freely. I must be allowed to ride out with him. We cannot be in such danger in our own country that we are prisoners in our own castles.”

His head is turned away from me so I cannot see his expression as he listens. But when he turns back I see his handsome face is twisted up with suspicion. He looks at me as if he would flay the skin from my face to see my thoughts.

“Why are you so determined upon this?” he asks slowly. Almost, I can see his suspicions gathering. “Why are you so determined to keep your sons here? Are you riding out with Arthur to meet with them? Are you hoodwinking me with this talk of safety and riding out? Are you planning to take my son out to hand him over? Are you are working with the Yorks to steal my son from me? Have you made an agreement? Forged a deal? Your brother as king, Arthur as his heir? Will you put Arthur in his keeping now, and tell him to invade as soon as the wind turns against me and he can sail?”

There is a long silence as I realize what he has said. Slowly, the horror of his mistrust opens like a chasm below my feet. “Henry, you cannot think that I am your enemy?”

“I am watching you,” he says, not answering. “My mother is watching you. And you will not have my son and heir in your keeping. If you want to go anywhere with him, you will go with men that I can trust.”

My rage leaps up and I round on him, shaking. “Men you can trust? Name one!” I spit. “Can you? Can you name even one?”

He puts his hand to his heart as if I have rammed him in the chest. “What do you know?” he whispers.