Philippa Gregory - The Kingmaker's Daughter

‘You have to wade through the blood of innocent men,’ I say flatly.

He meets my eyes without wavering. ‘To get him on the throne,’ he says. ‘To make him a good king and not their cat’s-paw: yes, yes I do.’

In her dark sanctuary the queen makes her spells and whispers incantations against us. I know that she does. I can almost feel her ill-will pressing like river mist against the bolted windows of the back rooms of Baynard’s Castle. I hear from my ladies in waiting that the queen has surrendered her second son into the care of her friend and kinsman Cardinal Bourchier. The cardinal swore to her that the boy would be safe, and took the boy Richard from her to join his brother Edward in the royal rooms in the Tower to prepare for the coronation.

I cannot believe that it is going ahead. Even if we hold the boys in our keeping, even if we take them to Middleham Castle and treat them as our own children, the prince is not an ordinary child. He can never be treated as an ordinary ward. He is a boy of twelve years old raised to be a king. He adores his mother and will never betray her. He has been educated and schooled and advised by his uncle Anthony Woodville; he will never transfer his love and loyalty to us, we are strangers to him, they may have told him we are his enemies. They have held him in their thrall from his babyhood, he is absolutely the child of their making, nothing can change that now. She has won him from us, his true family, just as she won her husband from his brothers. Richard is going to crown a boy who will grow up to be his deadliest enemy – however kindly we treat him. Richard is going to make Elizabeth Woodville the mother to the King of England. She is going to take my father’s title of ‘the kingmaker’. There is no doubt in my mind that she will do just as my father would have done: bide her time and then slowly eliminate all rivals.

‘What else can I do?’ Richard demands of me. ‘What else can I do but crown the boy who has been raised to be my enemy? He is my brother’s son, he is my nephew. Even if I think he has been raised to be my enemy, what else, in honour, can I do?’

His mother at the fireside raises her head to listen. I feel her dark blue gaze on me. This is a woman who stood in the centre of Ludlow and waited for the riotous bad queen’s army to burst through the gates. This is not a woman who has much fear. She nods at me as if to give me permission to say the one thing, the obvious thing.

‘You had better take the throne,’ I say simply.

Richard looks at me. His mother smiles, and lays aside her sewing work. There has not been a good stitch put in it for days.

‘Do as your brother did,’ I say. ‘Not once but twice. He took the throne from Henry in battle not once but twice, and Henry had a far better right to it than the Rivers boy. The boy is not even crowned, not even ordained. He is nothing but one claimant to the throne and you are another. He may be the king’s son but he is a boy. He may not even be his legitimate son, but a bastard, one of many. You are the king’s brother, and a man, and ready to rule. Take the throne from him. It’s the safest thing for England, it’s the best thing for your family, it’s the best thing for you.’ I feel my heart suddenly pulse with ambition, my father’s ambition – that I should be Queen of England after all.

‘Edward appointed me as Lord Protector, not as his heir,’ Richard says drily.

‘He never knew the nature of the queen,’ I say passionately. ‘He went to his grave under her spell. He was her dupe.’

‘The boy is not even Edward’s heir,’ his mother suddenly interjects.

Richard holds up his hand to stop her. ‘Anne doesn’t know of this.’

‘Time she did,’ she says briskly. She turns to me. ‘Edward was married to a lady, a kinswoman of yours: Eleanor Butler. Did you know?’

‘I knew she was . . .’ I look for words. ‘A favourite.’

‘Not just his whore, they were married in secret,’ the duchess says bluntly. ‘Just the same trick as he played on Elizabeth Woodville. He promised marriage, went through a form of words with some hedge priest . . .’

‘Hardly a hedge priest,’ Richard interrupts from his place, glowering into the fire, one hand resting on the chimney breast. ‘He had Bishop Stillington perform the service with Eleanor Butler.’

His mother shrugs away the objection. ‘So that marriage was valid. It was a priest with no name and perhaps no calling with the Woodville woman. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was false. It was bigamy.’

‘What?’ I interrupt, grasping none of this. ‘Lady Mother, what are you saying?’

‘Ask your husband,’ she says. ‘Bishop Stillington told the story himself – didn’t he?’ she demands of Richard. ‘The bishop stood by and said nothing while Edward ignored Lady Eleanor and she went into a nunnery. Edward rewarded his silence. But when the bishop saw that the Rivers were putting their boy on the throne, and he a bastard, he went to your husband and told him all he knew: Edward was married when he made his secret agreement with Elizabeth Woodville. Even if it was a valid priest, even if it was a valid service, it still was nothing. Edward was already married. Those children, all those children, are bastards. There is no House of Rivers. There is no queen. She is a mistress and her bastard sons are pretenders. That is all.’

I turn in amazement to Richard. ‘Is this true?’

He shoots a swift beleaguered look at me. ‘I don’t know,’ he says shortly. ‘The bishop says he married Edward to Lady Eleanor in a valid ceremony. They are both dead. Edward claimed Elizabeth Woodville as his wife and her son as his heir. Don’t I have to honour my brother’s wishes?’

‘No,’ his mother says bluntly. ‘Not when he was wishing wrong. You don’t have to put a bastard on the throne in preference to yourself.’

Richard turns his back to the fire. His hand cups his shoulder. ‘Why did you never speak of this before? Why did I hear it first from Bishop Stillington?’

She takes up her sewing. ‘What was there to tell? Everyone knows that I hate her and that she hates me. While Edward was alive and prepared to call her his wife and own the children, what difference would it make what I said? What anyone said? He had Bishop Stillington silenced, why should I speak out?’

Richard shakes his head. ‘There have been scandals about Edward ever since he took the throne,’ he says.

‘And not one word against you,’ his mother reminds him. ‘Take the throne yourself. There is not one man in England who would defend Elizabeth Woodville unless he was one of her family or she had already bribed him into her service. Everyone else knows her for what she is: a seductress and a witch.’

‘She will be my enemy for life,’ Richard remarks.

‘Then keep her in sanctuary for life,’ she says, smiling, hag-like herself. ‘Keep her on holy ground, in the half-darkness, and her little coven of daughters with her. Arrest her. Keep her there, the troglodyte with her bastard breed.’

Richard turns to me. ‘What do you think?’

The room is silent, waiting for my decision. I think of my father who killed his great horse and then lost his own life fighting the battle to put me on the throne of England. I think of Elizabeth Woodville, who has been the bane of my days and the murderer of my sister. ‘I think that you have a greater claim to the throne than her son,’ I say out loud. And I think: ‘And I have a greater claim to the throne than her. I shall be, as I was supposed to be, Queen Anne of England.’

Still he hesitates. ‘It is a big step, to take the throne.’