Philippa Gregory - The Kingmaker's Daughter

Nobody even asks after the boys that we have left in the Tower in London. Nobody wants to remember them or their mother, who still skulks in the darkness of sanctuary. It is as if the whole country wants to forget that there were months of fear about what might happen, and weeks when nobody knew who would be king. Now we have a king crowned in the sight of the people and ordained by God, and he and I ride together through England at the very height of summertime, picnic under clumps of trees when the sun is hot, and enter the beautiful towns of England where they welcome us as their saviours.

Only one person asks me about the Rivers boys, left behind in the quiet Tower of London, asking for their mother in sanctuary, just three miles upriver. Sir Robert Brackenbury, now made Keeper of the Exchange and Constable of the Tower, has responsibility for guarding them. He is the only person to say to me in his blunt Yorkshire way: ‘So what’s to happen to the Rivers bastards, Your Grace? Now that we have them and they are in my keeping?’

He is an honest man, and I would trust him with almost anything. I take his arm as we walk in the courtyard of the beautiful college at Oxford. ‘They have no future,’ I tell him. ‘They can be neither princes nor men. We will have to hold them forever. But my husband knows, as I do, that they will be a danger forever for us. They will be a danger just in their being. They will be a threat to us for as long as they live.’

He pauses and turns to me. His honest gaze meets mine. ‘God save you, would you wish them dead, Your Grace?’ he asks simply.

I shake my head in instant revulsion. ‘I can’t wish it,’ I say. ‘Not a couple of boys, not a pair of innocent boys.’

‘Ah, you’re too tender-hearted . . .’

‘I can’t wish it – but what life can they have? They will be prisoners forever. Even if they were to give up all claims to the throne there will always be someone who would claim it for them. And what safety can we have while they live?’

We are going to York where our son – Prince Edward as he now is – will be invested as Prince of Wales. It is a compliment to the city that has supported Richard from first to last and where he is loved better than in any other part of the country. We get a welcome into the walled city greater than anything we have yet seen. In the high-vaulted York Minster my boy Edward walks forwards, watched by his cousins Edward and Margaret, and takes the golden wand and little gold crown of the Prince of Wales. The cheers when he comes out on the steps of the Minster to greet the crowds send the birds whirling into the sky. I cross myself, and whisper, ‘Thank God.’ I know that my father is watching his grandson invested as Prince of Wales, and that in heaven he knows that his struggle has ended, at last, in victory. The kingmaker has made a prince of his grandson. There will be a Warwick boy on the throne of England.

We will stay in the North for some time, and this will always be our home, as we are happier here than anywhere else. We will rebuild the palace of Sheriff Hutton where the children will live, safely away from the diseases and plagues of London, safely distant, I think, from the brooding presence of the defeated queen in her damp holt under Westminster Abbey. We will make this a new palace in the North of England, a place to rival Windsor, or Greenwich, and the wealth from the court will spill out to our friends and neighbours, the northern affinity that we trust. We will make a golden kingdom of the North, great enough to rival the City of London itself. The heart of the country will be here, where the king and queen – northern by birth and inclination – live among the high green hills.

My son Edward and his cousins Margaret and Teddy and I go to Middleham, riding merrily together, as if we are out for pleasure. I will stay with them for the rest of the summer, Queen of England and mistress of my own time. In winter we will all go back to London and I shall have the children with me at Greenwich. Edward will have to have more tutors and more training in horse-riding; we have to build up his strength for he is still a slight boy. He has to be prepared to be king in his own turn. In a few years he will go to live at Ludlow and his council will rule Wales.

As we take the road north for Middleham, Richard leaves us and starts the journey southwards once more with a tiny escort around him, among them our longstanding friends Sir James Tyrrell, now made Master of Henchmen, Francis Lovell, Robert Brackenbury and the others. Richard kisses the children and blesses them. He holds me in his arms and whispers to me to come to him as soon as the weather turns. I feel my heart warm with love for him. We are at last victorious, we are at last blessed. He has made me Queen of England, as I was born to be, and I have given him a prince and an heir. Together we have fulfilled my father’s vision. This is victory indeed.

On the road going south, Richard writes me a hasty letter.

Anne,

The Rivers like a scotched snake are up and more dangerous than ever. They mounted an attack on the Tower to rescue their boys and were narrowly beaten off in a desperate battle. We can arrest no-one – they have melted away. Anne, I tell you, I had her so closely guarded that I thought that no-one could get in or out from her dark sanctuary but she somehow raised a small army up against us. Her army without livery or insignia came and went like ghosts, and now nobody can tell me where they are. Someone mustered troops and paid them – but who?

We still hold the boys, thank God. I have moved them into inner rooms in the Tower. But I am shocked at the extent of her hidden power. She will be biding her time and then she will flare up again. How many can she recruit? How many who cheered at our coronation sent men and weapons to her? I am betrayed and I don’t know who to trust. Burn this.

‘What is it, Your Grace?’ Little Margaret is at my side, her dark blue eyes puzzled at my aghast face. I put my arm around her and feel her warmth and softness and she leans into my side. ‘Not bad news?’ she asks. ‘Not the king, my uncle?’

‘He has worries,’ I say, thinking of the wickedness of the woman who hides in the darkness and made this little girl an orphan. ‘He has enemies. But he is strong and brave and he has good friends who will help him against the bad queen and her bastard so-called sons.’

MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, OCTOBER 1483

I speak to Margaret with confidence but I am mistaken. My husband has fewer friends than I thought, than he thought.

A few days later comes a hurried scrawl:

The falsest of friends, the most wicked of turncoats – the Duke of Buckingham is the most untrue creature living.

I drop the page for a moment, and can hardly bear to read on.

He has joined with two evil women, each as bad as the other. Elizabeth Woodville has seduced him to her side, and she has made a hags’ alliance with Margaret Beaufort, who carried your train at our coronation, who was always so good and loving to you, the wife of my friend, the trusted Lord Thomas Stanley, whom I made Lord Chamberlain.

Falseness upon deceit.

Margaret has betrothed her son, Henry Tudor, to Elizabeth, the Rivers girl – and they are all up against us, mustering their affinity, sending for Henry Tudor to sail from Brittany. Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham, the one man I would have trusted with my life, has turned his coat and is on their side. He is now raising his forces in Wales, and will march into England soon. I leave at once for Leicester.