The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory
‘Don’t you complain to me,’ she says shortly. ‘I have to sit beside her mother at dinner and be chilled to my soul by that witch’s ice. Your father risked everything and lost. He could not hold the king a prisoner on his own, the lords would not support him and without them, nothing could be done. We are lucky the king did not have him executed. Instead we are in a fine place: at court, your sister married to the king’s brother and your cousin John betrothed to the king’s daughter. We are close to the throne and may get closer still. Serve the queen and be grateful that your father is not dead on a scaffold like hers. Serve the queen and be glad that your father will seek a good marriage for you and she will approve it.’
‘I can’t,’ I say weakly. ‘Really, Lady Mother, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, nor that I could disobey you or Father. It is that I simply can’t do it. My knees will give way rather than walk behind her. I can’t eat when she watches me.’
The face she turns to me is as kindly as stone. ‘You come from a great family,’ she reminds me. ‘Your father took a great risk for the good of his family and for the benefit of your sister. Isabel is lucky that he thought her worth the effort. We may now be in some discomfort but that will change. You show your father that in your turn it is worth us making an effort for you. You will have to rise to your calling, Anne, there is no point being weak and sickly now. You were born to be a great woman – be one now.’
She sees I am pale and shaking. ‘Oh, cheer up,’ she says roughly. ‘We’re to go to Warwick Castle for your sister’s confinement. It will be easier for us there, and we can stay away from court for four months at least. There is no pleasure in this for any of us, Anne. It’s as bad for me as it is for you. I will keep us at Warwick as long as I can.’
WARWICK CASTLE, MARCH 1470
I thought we would be happier every mile we were away from the court; but only weeks after we get to the castle, my father sends the groom of his chamber to tell us that he wants to see the two of us in his room. We enter his privy chamber, Isabel leaning heavily on my arm and holding her swelling belly as if to remind anyone who might forget for even a moment that she is still carrying the child of the heir of the King of England, and he will be born next month.
Father is seated in his carved chair with the Warwick crest of the bear and the ragged staff bright in gold leaf behind his head. He looks up when we come in and points with his quill pen at me. ‘Ah, I don’t need you.’
‘Father?’
‘Stand back.’
Isabel quickly releases me and stands perfectly well on her own, and so I take my place at the back of the room, put my hands behind my back and trace the linenfold panelling with my fingers, waiting until I am called on to speak.
‘I am telling you a secret, Isabel,’ Father says. ‘Your husband the duke and I are riding out to support King Edward as he marches on a rebellion in Lincolnshire. We go with him to show our loyalty.’
Isabel murmurs a reply. I can’t hear what, but of course it doesn’t matter what she says, or what I think, this is what the men have planned to do, and it will happen whatever our opinion may be.
‘When the king lines up his men on the battlefield we will turn on him,’ my father says bluntly. ‘If he puts us behind him we will attack from the rear, if he has me on one wing and George on another we will come together from both sides and crush him between us. Our forces outnumber his and this time we will take no prisoners. I shall not be merciful and try to come to an agreement with him this time. The king will not survive this battle. We will finish it on the battlefield. He is a dead man. I will kill him with my own sword, I will kill him with my own hands if I have to.’
I close my eyes. This is the worst thing. I hear Isabel’s muted gasp: ‘Father!’
‘He is not a king for England, he is a king for the Rivers family,’ he continues. ‘He is a cat’s-paw of his wife. We did not risk our lives and our fortunes to put the Rivers in power and their child on the throne. I did not throw my fortune and my life into his service to see that woman queen it around England like a drab in borrowed velvets with your ermine stitched to her collar.’
His chair scrapes as he gets to his feet and pushes it back and walks round the table towards her. Ignoring her belly Isabel drops to her knees before him. ‘I am doing this for you,’ he says quietly. ‘I will make you Queen of England, and if that child you are carrying is a son, he will be a royal prince and then king.’
‘I will pray for you,’ Isabel whispers almost inaudibly. ‘And for my husband.’
‘You will take my name and my blood to the throne of England,’ Father says with satisfaction. ‘Edward has become a fool, a lazy fool. He trusts us and we will betray him, and he will die on the battlefield like his father, who was a fool as well. Here, child, get up.’ He put his hand under her elbow and hauls her ungently to her feet. He nods at me. ‘Guard your sister,’ he says with a smile. ‘The future of our family is in her belly. She could be carrying the next King of England.’ He kisses Isabel on both cheeks. ‘Next time we meet you will be the Queen of England and I shall kneel to you.’ He laughs. ‘Think of that! I shall kneel to you, Isabel.’
The whole household goes to our chapel and prays for Father to be victorious. The whole household, thinking that he is fighting for the king against the rebels, prays without understanding the real danger he is in, the great risk he is running, challenging the King of England in his own kingdom. But Father has prepared the ground; Lincolnshire is alive with rebels, one of our kinsmen has roused the country complaining of the king’s ill-judged rule and false councillors. George has an army of his own sworn to him whatever side he takes, and Father’s men would follow him anywhere. But still, the fortunes of war are changeable and Edward is a formidable tactician. We pray for Father’s success morning and night, and we wait for news.
Isabel and I are sitting in her chamber, Isabel resting on her bed and complaining of a pain in her belly. ‘It’s like a gripping pain,’ she says. ‘Almost as if I had eaten too much.’
‘Maybe you have eaten too much,’ I reply unsympathetically.
She pulls a face. ‘I am nearly eight months into my time,’ she says plaintively. ‘If Father were not marching out I should be going into confinement this very week. I should have thought you would be kinder to me, your own sister.’
I grit my teeth. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I am sorry. Shall I call the ladies, shall I tell Mother?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I probably ate too much. There’s no room in my belly, and every time he moves or turns I can’t breathe.’ She turns her head. ‘What’s that noise?’
I go to the window. I can see a troop of men coming down the road towards the castle, out of their lines, stumbling like a weary crowd not marching together like a force, and ahead of them the mounted knights going slowly, wearily. I recognise my father’s warhorse Midnight with his head bowed, and a bleeding wound deep in his shoulder. ‘It’s Father, coming home,’ I say.
Isabel is up from her bed in a moment, and we run down the stone stairs to the great hall and fling open the door as the servants of the castle pour into the yard outside to greet the returning army.
My father rides in at the head of his troop on his weary horse, and as soon as they are safe inside the castle walls, the drawbridge creaks up and the portcullis rattles down and my father and his son-in-law, the handsome duke, dismount from their horses. Isabel at once leans on my arm and puts her hand to her belly, to make a tableau of maternity, but I am not thinking of how we appear, I am looking at the faces of the men. I can tell at one glance that they are not victorious. My mother comes up behind us and I hear her quiet exclamation and I know that she too has seen weariness and defeat in this army. Father looks grim, and George is white with unhappiness. Mother’s back straightens as she braces herself for trouble and she greets Father briefly with a kiss on each cheek. Isabel greets her husband in the same way. All I can do is curtsey to them both and then we all go into the great hall and
The ladies in waiting are standing in a line, and they bow as my father comes in. The senior men of the household follow us into the room to hear the news. Behind them come the servants, the garrison of the castle and those of the troop who chose to come to listen rather than go to rest. Father speaks clearly enough so that everyone can hear. ‘We rode in support of my kinsmen Lord Richard and Sir Robert Welles,’ he says. ‘They think, as I do, that the king is under the control of the queen and her family and that he has reneged on his agreements to me, and that he is no king for England.’
There is a murmur of approval; everyone here resents the power and success of the Rivers family. George clambers up on the dais to stand beside my father as if to remind us all that there is an alternative to this faithless king. ‘Lord Richard Welles is dead,’ Father says bleakly. ‘This false king took him out of sanctuary –’ he repeats the terrible crime done against the laws of God and man ‘– he took him out of sanctuary, and threatened him with death. When Lord Richard’s son Sir Robert was arrayed for battle this false king killed Lord Welles before the battle even started, killed him without a trial, on the field of battle.’
George nods, looking grave. To break sanctuary is to undermine the safety and power of the church, to defy God Himself. A man who puts his hand on the altar of a church has to know that he is safe there. God Himself takes such a criminal under his protection. If the king does not recognise the power of sanctuary then he is setting himself up as greater than God. He is a heretic, a blasphemer. He can be very sure that God will strike him down.
‘We were defeated,’ my father says solemnly. ‘The army mustered by the Welles’ was broken in Edward’s charge. We withdrew.’
I feel Isabel’s cold hand come into mine. ‘We’ve lost?’ she asks disbelievingly. ‘We’ve lost?’
‘We will retreat to Calais and regroup,’ Father says. ‘This is a setback but not a defeat. We will rest tonight and tomorrow we will pack up and march out. But let no-one mistake, this is now war between me, and the so-called King Edward. The rightful king is George of the House of York, and I shall see him on the throne of England.’
‘George!’ the men shout, raising their fists in the air.
‘God save King George!’ my father prompts them.
‘King George!’ they reply. In truth they would swear to anything that my father commanded.
‘À Warwick!’ My father gives his battle cry and they bellow with one voice after him: ‘À Warwick!’
DARTMOUTH, DEVON, APRIL 1470
We travel at the steady speed of the mules that carry Isabel’s litter. Father has scouts following behind our retreating army and they report that Edward is not chasing us out of his kingdom. Father says that he is a lazy fool and he has gone back to the queen’s warm bed in London. We go by easy stages to Dartmouth where Father’s ship is waiting for us. Isabel and I stand on the quayside as the wagons and the horses are loaded. The sea is so calm it could be a lake, the day is hot for April, with the white seagulls wheeling in the air and calling; there is a pleasant smell of the quayside, the tang of salt, of drying seaweed from the nets, of tar. This could almost be a summer day and Father planning a pleasure voyage for us.
Midnight, Father’s black warhorse, is one of the last to be led up the gangplank. They put a sack on his head so he cannot see the ridged plank and the water beneath. But he knows they are putting him on board a ship. He has gone criss-crossing the seas many times, he has invaded England twice. He is a veteran of Father’s many battles but now he behaves like a nervous colt, pulling back from the gangplank, rearing up so that the men scatter from his flailing hooves, until they put him in a sling and load him on board and he cannot resist them.
‘I’m afraid,’ Isabel says. ‘I don’t want to sail.’
‘Izzy, the sea is as calm as a pond. We could practically swim home.’
‘Midnight knows there is something wrong.’
‘No he doesn’t. He’s always naughty. And anyway, he is on board now, he’s in his stall eating hay. Come on, Izzy, we can’t delay the ship.’
Still she won’t go forwards. She pulls me to one side as the ladies go on board and Mother too. They are raising the sails, shouting commands and replies. The royal cabin door stands open for us. George goes past us, indifferent to Izzy’s fears, Father is giving his last orders to someone on the quayside and the sailors are starting to release the ropes from the great iron rings on the quay.
‘I’m too near my time to sail.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘You can lie in the bunk on the ship just as you would lie in your bed at home.’
Still she hesitates. ‘What if she has whistled up a wind?’
‘What?’
‘The queen, and her mother the witch. Witches can whistle up a wind, can’t they? What if she has whistled up a wind and it’s out there, waiting for us?’
‘She can’t do a thing like that, Iz. She’s just an ordinary woman.’
‘She would, you know she would. She will never forgive us for the death of her father and her brother. Her mother said as much.’
‘Of course they were angry with us, but she can’t do it, she’s not a witch.’
Father is suddenly beside us. ‘Get on board,’ he says.
‘Izzy is frightened,’ I say to him.
He looks at her, his oldest, his chosen daughter; and though she has her hand on her swelling belly and her face is white, he looks at her with hard brown eyes, as if she were nothing to him but an obstacle between him and his new plan. Then he glances back inland, as if he might see the billowing standards of the king’s army trotting down the road to the quayside. ‘Get on board,’ is all he says and he leads the way up the gangplank without looking back, and gives the order to cast off as we scurry after him.
They cast off the ropes, and the barges come and take their lines on board to tow us out to sea. The rowers in the barges lean forwards and pull as the little drummer boy starts a steady beat to keep them in time and they edge the ship away from the cobbled quayside and out into the river. The sails flap and start to fill with wind, and the boat rocks in the slapping waves. Father is beloved in Devon, as in all the ports of England, for his protection of the narrow seas and there are many people waving, kissing their hands to him, and calling their blessing. George immediately goes and stands beside him on the poop deck, raising his hand in a kingly salute, and my father calls Izzy to his side and puts his arm around her shoulders, turning her so that everyone can see her big pregnant belly. Mother and I stand in the bow of the ship. Father does not call me to his side, he does not need me there. It is Isabel who is to be the new Queen of England, going into exile now, but certain to return in triumph. It is Isabel who is carrying the child that they all hope will be the son who will be the King of England.
We reach the open sea and the sailors drop the ropes to the barges, and reef the sails. A little breeze comes up and the sails fill and then the timbers creak as the wind takes the boat and we start to plough through the blue water with the waters singing along the prow. Izzy and I have always loved sailing and she forgets her fear and comes and stands with me at the side of the boat, looking over the rail for dolphin in the clear water. There is a line of cloud on the horizon like a string of milky pearls.
In the evening, we heave to off the port of Southampton where the rest of Father’s fleet is at anchor, waiting for the command to join us. Father sends a little rowing boat to tell them to come, and we wait, wallowing a little in the swirling currents of the Solent, looking towards land expecting to see, at any moment, a moving forest of sails, our wealth and pride and the source of Father’s power – the command of the seas. But only two ships appear. They come alongside us and Father leans over the side of our ship as they bawl to him that we were expected, that the Rivers’ son, Anthony Woodville, with his family’s cursed foresight rode like a madman with his troop to get here before us, and that he has commanded the crews, arre
‘Go below!’ Father shouts furiously to me. ‘Tell your mother we will be at Calais in the morning and that I will come back for the Trinity and all my ships, and Anthony Woodville will be sorry he stole them from me.’
We will sail all evening and all night, running before the wind in the narrow seas to our home port of Calais. Father knows these waters well, and his crew have sailed and fought over every inch of these deeps. The ship is newly commissioned, fitted out as a fighting vessel but with quarters worthy of a king. We are sailing east before the prevailing wind and the skies are clear. Isabel will rest in the royal cabin on the main deck, I will stay with her. Mother and Father will have the large cabin beneath the poop deck. George has the first officer’s cabin. In a little while they will serve dinner and then we will play cards in candlelight which flickers and moves with the roll of the ship, then we will go to bed and I will sleep, rocked by the rise and fall of the waves, listening to the creaking of the timbers and smelling the salt of the sea. I realise that I am free: my time in service to the queen is over, completely over. I will never see Elizabeth Woodville again. I will never serve her again. She will never forgive me, she will never hear my name; but equally I will never again have to bear her silent contempt.
‘The wind’s getting up,’ Izzy remarks as we are taking a stroll around the main deck before dinner.
I raise my head. The standard at the top of the sails is flapping wildly, and the seagulls that were following the wake of the ship have wheeled away and gone back towards England. The little pearly clouds strung out along the horizon have massed and now lie grey and thick, like feathers.