The Red Queen

SPRING 1461

I think, like everyone else of any sense, that with the death of the Duke of York the wars are over. His son Edward is only eighteen years old and all alone on the borders of Wales, where all the men follow Jasper and the House of Lancaster. His mother, the Duchess Cecily, knowing that this is her final defeat, wearing black in her widowhood, sends her two younger sons George and Richard into hiding in Flanders, with the Duke of Burgundy. Duchess Cecily must fear the arrival of the queen in London, at the head of her army of wild men, demanding vengeance for this second failed rebellion. Her oldest son she cannot save; Edward will most probably die in the borders of Wales, hopelessly outnumbered, fighting for his dead father’s lost cause.

My brother-in-law Jasper will be defending his own; his father Owen Tudor marches with him. They cannot fail against an army led by a boy, who has just lost his brother, his father and commander, as Jasper confirms:

We will have to kill the cub to scotch the family. Thank God that the lion is gone. My father and I are mustering against the new Duke of York, young Edward, and will meet him within days. Your son is safe in Pembroke Castle. This should be easily done. Fear nothing.

“I think there may be another battle,” I say tentatively to my husband Henry when he comes to my bedroom. I am seated at the fireside. He drapes his gown on the end of the bed and slides between the sheets. “Your bed is always so comfortable,” he remarks. “Do you have better sheets than me?”

I giggle, distracted for a moment. “I shouldn’t think so. It is your steward of the household who orders everything. My sheets came with me from Wales, but I can tell him to put them on your bed, if you think them finer.”

“No, I like to enjoy them here, with you. Let’s not talk of the troubles of the country.”

“But I have had a letter from Jasper.”

“Tell me of it in the morning.”

“I think it is important.”

He sighs. “Oh, very well. What does he say?”

I hand him my note, and he glances at it. “Yes. I knew this. I heard that they were mustering in Wales. Your old enemy William Herbert has changed his coat again.”

“Never!”

“He will wear a white rose once more and fight alongside the York boy. He was not a friend to Lancaster for long. It must rile Jasper that Herbert rides out against him once more.”

“Herbert is quite without honor!” I exclaim. “And after the king himself pardoned him!”

My husband shrugs. “Who knows why a man chooses one side or another? I hear from my cousin, who is with the queen’s forces, that they will mop up the remnants of the York threat and then come to London in victory.”

“Can we go to court, when she gets to London?” I ask.

“A celebration feast?” he asks wryly. “Certainly there will be work for me in parliament. Half of England will be designated traitors and fined of their lands. The other half will be paid them as reward for their part in murder.”

“And we will be neither,” I say sullenly.

“I would rather not have the lands of a man accused of treason because he tried to give good advice to his king,” my older husband says quietly. “And you may be well assured that half of the lands will be returned to their owners when the king returns to his power and issues pardons. He will forgive all his enemies and return them to their homes. His allies will find their service to him is ill rewarded. There is neither profit nor true honor in following this king.”

I fold my lips together to stop my retort. He is my husband. What he says must be the rule in our household. He is my lord under God. There is no point in disagreeing with him aloud. But in my heart I name him a coward.

“Come to bed,” he says gently. “Why would you care either way as long as you and your son are safe? And I keep you safe, Margaret. I keep the war away from our lands, and I don’t widow you for a second time by riding off to glory. Come to bed and smile for me.”

I go to bed with him as it is my duty, but I don’t smile.

Then I get the worst news possible. The worst news, and it comes from Jasper. I had thought him invincible; but he is not, he is not. I had thought it impossible for Jasper to lose. But terribly, it turns out that he can.

Sister,

We are defeated, and my father is dead. He went to the scaffold with a joke, not believing they would do it; but they took his head off and set it on a stake at Hereford.

I am going to fetch your boy from Pembroke and I will take him with me to Harlech Castle. We will be safer there. Don’t fear for me, but I think our cause is lost for a generation, perhaps forever. Margaret, I have to tell you the worst: there was a sign from God here at Mortimer’s Cross, and it was not for our house. God showed us the three suns of York in the sky above the battlefield, and the one son of York in command on the field below laid utter waste to us.

I saw it. It was without doubt. Above his army there were three brilliant suns, each as bright as the other. They beamed through the mist, three of them, and then they came together as one and shone down on his standard. I saw it with my own eyes, without doubt. I don’t know what it means, and I will go on fighting for my cause until I understand. I still trust that God is with us, but I know for a certainty that He was not with us this day. He shone the light of His countenance on York. He blessed the three sons of York. I will write again as soon as we are safe at Harlech.

– J.

My husband is away in London, and I have to wait days before he comes home and I can tell him that Jasper says the war is finished and we are lost. As I greet him in the stable yard he shakes his head at my babble of anxious news. “Hush, Margaret. It is worse than you know. Young Edward of York has claimed the throne, and they have lost their minds and made him king.”

This silences me completely. I glance around the yard as if I would keep it secret. “King?”

“They have offered him the throne and say that he is the true king and heir. He need not wait for the death of King Henry. He has claimed the throne and says he’ll drive our king and queen out of England and then have a coronation, take the crown, and be ordained. I have come home only to gather my men. I am going to have to fight for King Henry.”

“You?” I ask incredulously. “At last?”

“Yes. Me, at last.”

“Why would you ride out now?”

He sighs. “Because it is no longer a subject trying to bring his king to account, where I might find my mind divided, where a subject should advise his king against evil council. Now it is nothing but rebellion, open rebellion, and the posing of a false king against the true. This is a cause I must follow. It was not a cause that called me until now. York is fighting for treason now. I must fight against treason.”

I bite my tongue on the reproach that if he had gone before, we might not have got to this terrible pass.

“There has to be a Stafford in the field, fighting for his king. Our standard has to be there. Before it was my poor brother, then it was my honored father, who gave his life in this brew of wars. Now it is me who has to stand beneath the Stafford banner, perhaps halfhearted, perhaps uncertain, but I am the senior Stafford, and I have to go.”

I have little interest in his reasons. “But where is the king?”

“The queen has him safely with her. There was a battle at St. Albans, and she won and took him back into her keeping.”

“The York army was defeated?” I ask, bewildered. “But I thought they were winning?”

He shakes his head. “No, it was little more than a scrap in the town center of St. Albans between Warwick’s men and those fighting for the queen, while Edward of York marched in triumph on London. But Warwick had the king with him, and after the Yorks ran away, they found the king, sitting under an oak tree, where he had been watching the fighting.”

“He was unhurt?” I ask.

“Yes, he had been well guarded throughout the battle by two lords of York: Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriell. They kept him safely. He was as quiet as a child. They handed him over to the queen, and now he is with her and their son.”

“And is he …” I hesitate to choose the word. “Is he in his right mind?”

“So they say. For the time being.”

“So what is the matter? Why look like that?”

“A story that was doing the rounds of the taverns in London. Perhaps all untrue. I hope so.”

“A story about what?”

“They say that the lords who guarded the king and kept him safe through the battle, York lords, were taken before the queen and her son, little Prince Edward, seven years old.”

“And?”

“They say that she asked the little prince what should be done with the York lords, Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who had guarded his father during the battle, and kept him safe, and handed him back with honor, in safety, to his own people. And the prince said-take off their heads. Just like that. So they beheaded the two of them on his word, the word of a boy of seven, and then they knighted him for his courage. Margaret of Anjou’s son has learned the trade of war indeed. How will he ever rule a country at peace?”

I hesitate and look at my husband’s grimace. “That sounds very bad.”

“They say that the son is as vicious as the mother. All of London is for York now. Nobody wants such a boy as Prince Edward on the throne.”

“What happens next?”

He shakes his head. “It must be the last battle. The king and the queen are reunited and at the head of their army. Young Edward of York and his father’s friend Warwick are marching on them. It is no longer an argument about who should advise the king. It is now a battle about who should be king. And finally, I will have to defend my king.”

I find that I am shaking. “I never thought you would go to war,” I say, my voice trembling. “I always thought you would refuse to go. I never thought you would go to war.”

He smiles as if it is a bitter jest. “You thought me a coward, and now you cannot rejoice in my courage? Well, never mind. This is the cause that my father died for, and even he only rode out at the last possible moment. Now I find that in my turn, I will have to go. And I too have left it to the last possible moment. If we lose this battle, then we will have a York king and his heirs on the throne forever; and your house will be a royal house no more. It is not a question of the rights of the cause, but simply on which side I was born. The king must be the king; I have to ride out for that. Or your son will no longer be three steps from the throne; but a boy without a title, without lands, and without a royal name. You and I will be traitors in our own lands. Perhaps they will even give our lands to others. I don’t know what we might lose.”

“When will you go?” I ask tremulously.

His smile is without humor or warmth. “I am afraid I will have to go now.”