The Red Queen

JULY 10, 1460

Even if Arthur and I had ridden out, we would have got there too late. The king had his army dug in outside Northampton, a palisade of sharpened stakes before them to bring down the cavalry, their newly forged cannon primed and ready to fire. The Yorks, led by the boy Edward, Earl of March, the traitors Lord Fauconberg and Warwick himself in the center, came on in three troops in the pouring rain. The ground churned into mud under the horses’ hooves, and the cavalry charge got bogged down. God rained down on the rebels, and they looked likely to sink in the quagmire. The boy Edward of York had to dig deep to find the courage to lead his men through ground that was a marsh, against a hail of Lancaster arrows. He would surely have failed and his young face would have gone down in the mud; but the leader on our right, Lord Grey of Ruthin, turned traitor in that moment, and pulled the York forces up over the barricade and turned on his own house in bitter hand-to-hand fighting, which pushed our men back toward the River Nene, where many drowned, and let Warwick and Fauconberg come on.

In victory they were merciless. They let the common men go, but anyone in armor was killed without offer of ransom. Worst of all, they marched into our camp and found the king’s own tent, His Grace inside, sitting thoughtfully, as peaceful as if he were praying in his own chapel, waiting for them to capture him as the great prize of the battle.

Terribly, treasonously, they take him.

Two nights later my husband comes to me in my chamber as I am dressing for dinner. “Leave us,” he says abruptly to my lady-in-waiting, and she glances at me and then, seeing the darkness in his face, flicks out of the room.

“My father is dead,” he says, without preparation. “I have just had word. England has lost a great duke in the mud of Northampton, and I have lost a dear father. His heir, my nephew, little Henry Stafford, has lost his grandfather and protector.”

I gasp as if the air has been knocked out of me. “I am sorry. I am so sorry, Henry.”

“They cut him down in a muddy field while he was trying to get to his horse,” he continues, sparing me nothing. “He, and the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Beaumont, Lord Egremont-dear God, the list is endless. We have lost a generation of noblemen. It seems that the rules of war are changed and there is no capture and ransom in England anymore. There is no offer of surrender. It is the rule of the sword, and every battle must be to the death. It is the rule of savagery.”

“And the king?” I breathe. “They have not dared to hurt him?”

“The king is captive, and they have taken him as their prisoner to London.”

“Prisoner?” I cannot believe my ears.

“As good as.”

“And the queen?”

“Missing with her son.”

“Missing?”

“Not dead. I believe run away. In hiding. What a country this is becoming. My father …”

He swallows his grief and turns to look out of the window. Outside the trees are rich and fat and green, and the fields beyond are turning golden. It is hard to imagine a field of churned mud and my father-in-law, that vain aristocrat, clubbed down while running away.

“I shall not dine in the hall tonight,” my husband says tightly. “You can go in, or be served in your rooms as you like. I will have to ride to Northampton and fetch his body home. I shall leave at dawn.”

“I am sorry,” I say again, weakly.

“There will be hundreds of sons making the same journey,” he says. “All of us riding with broken hearts, all of us thinking of vengeance. This is what I feared would come; this is what I have dreaded. It is not very bright and honorable as you have always thought it; it is not like a ballad. It is a muddle and a mess, and a sinful waste, and good men have died and more will follow.”

I hide my fears from my husband till he leaves for the journey on the high road south, but of course I am in utter terror for Jasper’s safety. He will have been where the fighting was the worst; there is no doubt in my mind that anyone going to the king’s tent will have had to get past Jasper. He cannot be alive if the king has been captured. How can he still live, when so many are dead?

I get my answer even before my husband returns home again.

Sister,

I have taken a very great lady and her son to safety and they are in hiding with me. I will not tell you where, in case this letter falls into traitors’ hands. I am safe and your son is safe as I left him. The lady will be safe with me until she can get away. It is a reverse for us, but it is not over, and she is full of courage and ready to fight again.

– J.

It takes me a moment to realize that he has the queen in safekeeping, that he spirited her from the battle and has her in hiding in Wales. Of course, the king may be imprisoned, but while she is still free we have a commander; while her son is free we have an heir to the throne. Jasper has guarded our cause, has guarded the most precious heart of our cause, and there is no doubt in my mind that she will be safe with him. He will have her in hiding at Pembroke or Denbigh Castle. He will keep her close, I don’t doubt, and she will be grateful for his protection. He will be like a knight errant to her; he will serve her on bended knee and she will ride behind him, her slim hands on his belt. I have to go to the chapel and confess to the priest that I am filled with the sin of jealousy, but I don’t say exactly why.

My husband comes home in somber mood, having buried his father and delivered up his nephew to his new guardian. Little Henry Stafford, the new Duke of Buckingham, is only five years old, poor child. His father died fighting for Lancaster when he was only a baby, and now he has lost his grandfather too. My husband is stunned at this blow to his house, but I cannot sympathize; for who should be blamed for our defeat but him and all those who chose to stay at home, though their queen summoned them and we were in the utmost danger? My father-in-law died because he was defeated in the battle. Whose fault is that but that of the son who would not ride beside him? Henry tells me that the Duke of York entered London with the king riding alongside him, as his prisoner, and was greeted by a stunned silence. The citizens of London turn out to be only halfhearted traitors, and when York put his hand on the marble throne to claim kingship for himself, there was no support for him.

“Well, how could there be?” I ask. “We have a king already. Even the faithless men of London know that.”

My husband sighs as if he is tired of my convictions, and I notice how weary and old he looks, a deep groove between his eyebrows. Grief sits heavy on him with the responsibility for his house. If our king is a prisoner, and our power is thrown down, then someone will take the little duke from us and have him as their ward for the profit of his lands. If my husband were great with either Lancaster or York, he might have had a say in the disposition of his nephew, the future head of our family. If he had exerted himself, he would now be one of the great men. But since he chose to stay home, he is of no account to anyone. He has made himself as nothing. The great decisions of the world will be made without him, and he cannot even guard his own, as he said he would.

“They have put together an agreement.”

“What agreement?” I ask him. “Who has agreed?”

He throws his traveling cape to one of the household men. He drops into a chair and beckons a page boy to pull off his boots. I wonder if he is ill-he looks so gray and weary. Of course he is very old to have made such a great journey: he is thirty-five years old. “The king is to keep the throne till his death, and then the next king is to be York,” he says shortly. He glances at my face and then looks away. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. There’s no need to trouble yourself, it probably won’t hold.”

“The Prince of Wales is to be robbed of his rights?” I can hardly frame the words, I am so shocked. “How can he be Prince of Wales and not become king? How can anyone think that they can pass over him?”

Henry shrugs. “You are all to be robbed, you who were in the line of succession. You, yourself, are no longer of the ruling house now. Your son is no longer related to a king, nor is he one of the heirs to the throne. It will be York; York, and his line. Yes,” he repeats to my stunned face. “He has won for his sons what no one would give to him. It is York’s sons who will come after the king. The new royal line is to be the House of York. The Lancasters are to be the royal cousins. That is what they have agreed. That is what the king has sworn to follow.”

He rises up in his stockinged feet and turns for his rooms.

I put a hand on his arm. “But this is just what Joan saw!” I exclaim. “When her king was put aside, and his inheritance given to another. This is just what she saw when she took her king to be crowned in Rheims, despite a blasphemous agreement that he should not be crowned. She saw that the order of God was put aside, and she fought for the true heir. This is what inspired her to be great. She saw the true heir, and she fought for him.”

He cannot muster his usual smile for me. “And so what? Do you think you can take Edward, Prince of Wales, to London and have him crowned despite his defeat, despite this agreement? Will you lead a beaten army? Will you be England’s Joan?”

“Someone has to be,” I cry out passionately. “The prince cannot be robbed of the throne. How could they agree to this? How could the king agree to this?”

“Who knows what he thinks, poor soul?” my husband says. “Who knows what he understands now, or even if he can stay awake? And if he goes to sleep or even dies and York takes the throne, at least York will be able to hold the country to peace.”

“That’s not the point!” I shout at him. “York is not called by God. York is not of the senior line from Edward III. York is not of the royal house-we are! I am! My son is! This is my destiny that the king is giving away!” I give a shaking sob. “I was born for this; my son was born for this! The king cannot make us into royal cousins; we were born to be the royal line!”

He looks down at me, and his brown eyes are for once not kindly, but dark with anger. “Enough,” he growls. “You are a stupid young woman of, what? – only seventeen years old, and you understand nothing, Margaret. You should be silent. This is not a ballad or a tale; this is not a romance. This is a disaster that is costing the men and women of England every day. This is nothing to do with Joan of Arc, nothing to do with you, and God Himself knows, nothing to do with Him.”

He pulls away from me and he goes, treading carefully up the stairs to his room. He is stiff from his long ride and he hobbles, bowlegged. I watch him go with hatred, my hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs. He is an old man, an old fool. I know the will of God better than him, and He is, as He has always been, for Lancaster.