The Red Queen

SPRING 1471

I say nothing of these thoughts of mine to Sir Henry, who is so gloomy through the dark, wintry days of January and February that one would think he was mourning the exile of his king. One evening at dinner I ask him if he is well, and he says that he is much worried.

“Is Henry safe?” I ask at once.

His weary smile reassures me. “Of course, I would have told you if I had any bad news from Jasper. The two of them are at Pembroke, I don’t doubt, and we can visit them when the roads are clear of all this rain, if there is no more trouble.”

“Trouble?” I repeat.

Sir Henry glances at the server of wine, who stands behind us, and then looks down the great hall where the servants and tenants on the nearest tables can overhear our speech. “We can talk later,” he says.

We wait till we are alone in my bedroom, with the hot-spiced wine served, and the servants gone for the night. He sits before the fireside, and I see that he looks weary and older than his forty-five years.

“I am sorry for your unease,” I say; but he is of an age when a man makes a nonsense out of a nothing, and if my boy Henry is well, and our king on the throne, then what trouble need we fear? “Please tell me your worries, husband. Perhaps we can put them to naught.”

“I have a message from a man loyal to York, who thinks that I too am loyal to York,” he says heavily. “It’s a summons.”

“A summons?” I repeat stupidly. For a moment I think he means to serve as a justice, and then I realize he means that York is recruiting again. “Oh, God spare us! Not a summons to rebel?”

He nods.

“A secret plot of York and they have come to you?”

“Yes.” He sighs. For a moment I lose my fear and am tempted to giggle. His correspondent cannot know my husband very well if he thinks he is a Yorkist. And not well at all if he thinks he will arm to command, and joyously ride out to war. My husband makes a most reluctant soldier. He is not made of heroic stuff.

“Edward is planning to invade and take back his kingdom,” he says. “We will have the wars starting again.”

Now I am alarmed. I grip my chair. “It’s not his kingdom.”

My husband shrugs. “Whoever has the right of it, Edward will fight for it.”

“Oh no,” I say. “Not again. He cannot hope to come against our king. Not now that he has just been restored. He has been back on his throne-what? – five months?”

“My friend who wrote me to turn out for Edward said more,” my husband goes on. “My friend is not just Edward’s man, he is a friend of George, Duke of Clarence.”

I wait. Surely, George of Clarence cannot have turned his coat. He has staked everything on being his brother’s enemy. He is in thrall to Warwick, married to his daughter, standing in line for the throne only second to our Prince of Wales. He is a key member of the court, a most beloved cousin of our king. He has burned his boats with his brother; he cannot go back. Edward would never have him back. “George?” I ask.

“He is to join his brother again,” my husband tells me. “The three sons of York are to be reunited.”

“You must send this at once to the king, and to Jasper,” I insist. “They have to know; they have to be prepared.”

“I have sent messages to both Wales and the court,” my husband says. “But I doubt I am telling either of them anything that they don’t already know. Everyone knows that Edward is arming and raising an army in Flanders-he would be bound to come again to reclaim his throne. And the king …” He breaks off. “I don’t think the king cares for anything anymore but his own soul. I truly think he would be glad to surrender his throne if he could go into a monastery and spend his days in prayer.”

“God has called him to be king,” I say firmly.

“Then God will have to help him,” my husband replies. “And I think he will need all the help he can get if he is to hold off Edward.”

The king’s need for help is spelled out for us when my cousin, the Duke of Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, announces he is coming for a visit. I send to the town of Guildford and even to the coast for delicacies for the table, and His Grace sits down to a small banquet every day of his visit. He thanks me for my hospitality when we are by the fire in my presence chamber, my husband Sir Henry out of the room for a moment. I smile and bow my head, but I don’t think for a moment that he has come to stay for the pleasure of oysters from the Sussex coast or potted cherries from Kent.

“You have entertained me royally,” he says, tasting a sugared plum. “These are from your orchards?”

I nod. “Last summer’s crop,” I say, as if I care one way or another for household things. “It was a good year for fruit.”

“A good year for England,” he says. “Our king back on the throne, and the usurper driven away. Lady Margaret, I swear, we cannot let these scoundrels back into the country again to drive our good king from the throne!”

“I know it,” I say. “Who should know better than I, his cousin, whose son was given into the charge of traitors? And now I have him restored to me like Lazarus from death.”

“Your husband commands much of Sussex, and his influence goes into Kent,” the duke presses on, disregarding Lazarus. “He has an army of tenants who would turn out for him if he commanded. It might be that the York fleet will land on your shores. We have to know that your husband will stand loyal to his king and that he will call his tenants out to defend us. But I am afraid that I have reason to doubt him.”

“He is a man who loves peace above all,” I say lamely.

“We all love peace,” my cousin asserts. “But sometimes a man has to defend his own. We all have to defend the king. If York makes it back to England with an army of Flanders mercenary soldiers and defeats us again, we will none of us be safe in our lands, in our titles, or”-he nods at me-“in our heirs. How would you like to see young Henry brought up in yet another York household? His inheritance used by a York guardian? Married to a York girl? Don’t you think that Elizabeth Woodville as queen, restored to her throne, will turn her greedy gray eyes on your son and his inheritance? She took your little nephew the Duke of Buckingham and married him to her own sister Katherine for profit-a shocking mismatch. Don’t you think she will take your son for one of her endless daughters if she comes back to power?”

I stand and walk to the fireplace. I look down at the flames and wish for a moment that I had the Sight to foretell the future like the York queen. Does she know that her husband is coming to save her, to rescue her and his new baby son from their prison? Can she tell if they will succeed or fail? Can she whistle up a storm to blow them onshore as they say she whistled one up to blow him safely away?

“I wish I could promise you my husband’s sword and fortune and tenantry at your service,” I say quietly. “Everything I can do to persuade him to ride out for the king, I do already. I make it clear to my own tenants that I would be pleased to see them form into bands for their true king. But Sir Henry is slow to act, and reluctant to act. I wish I could promise you more, cousin. I am ashamed that I cannot.”

“Does he not realize that you stand to lose everything? Your son’s title and wealth will be taken from him again?”

I nod. “Yes, but he is much influenced by the London traders and his business friends. And they are all for York because they believe Edward makes peace throughout the land, and because he makes the courts of law work so that a man can have justice. My husband is influenced too by the greater men among his tenants, and by the other noblemen in the area. They don’t all think as they should. They favor York. They say he brought peace and justice to England and that since he has gone, there has been trouble and uncertainty. They say he is young and strong and commands the country and that our king is frail and ruled by his wife.”

“I can’t deny that,” my cousin says briskly. “But Edward of York is not the true king. He could be a very Daniel bringing judgment, he could be Moses bringing fine laws, and he would still be a traitor. We have to follow the king, our king, or be traitors ourselves.”

The door opens, and my husband comes in, all smiles. “I am sorry,” he says. “There was trouble in the stable; some fool tipped over a brazier, and they were running around putting out the fire. I just went down to check that it was thoroughly out. Don’t want our honored guest to be burned in his bed!” He smiles pleasantly at the duke, and in that moment, in his smiling, honest warmth, in his lack of fearfulness, in his confident sense of his own rightness-I think that we both know that Sir Henry is not going to ride out for the king.

Within days we have the news that Edward of York has made landfall, not where anyone expected him, but in the north of England, where the witch’s wind blew him to safe harbor, and he has marched on York and asked them to open their gates to him, not on his own account as king, but so that he can take up his dukedom again. The city, persuaded like a set of fools, lets him in, and at once the York supporters flock to their leader and his traitorous ambition is plain. George, the turncoat Duke of Clarence, is among them. It has taken some time, but even stupid George finally realizes that his future as a York boy would be brighter with a York king on the throne, and suddenly he loves his brother above any other and declares that his loyalty to the true king and to his father-in-law Warwick was a great mistake. I suppose from this that my son has lost his earldom forever, as everything will belong to the York boys again and no pleading messages from me to George, Duke of Clarence, will make him give Henry’s title back. All at once everything is golden daylight, and the three suns of York are the dawn over England. In the fields the hares are fighting and leaping, and it seems as if the whole country has gone as mad as hares this March.

Amazingly, Edward gets to London without a single obstacle in his path, the gates are thrown open for him by the adoring citizens, and he is reunited with his wife, as if he had never been chased from his own land, running for his life.

I take to my chamber and pray on my knees when I hear this news from Somerset’s hard-riding messenger. I think of Elizabeth Woodville-the so-called beauty-with her baby son in her arms, and her daughters all around her, starting up as the door is thrown open and Edward of York strides into the room, victorious as he always is. I spend two long hours on my knees, but I cannot pray for victory and I cannot pray for peace. I can only think of her running into his arms, knowing that her husband is the bravest and most able man in the kingdom, showing him her son, surrounded by their daughters. I take up my rosary and pray again. The words are for the safety of my king; but I cannot think of anything but my jealousy that a woman, far worse born than me, far worse educated than me, without doubt less beloved by God than me, should be able to run to her husband with joy and show him their son and know he will fight to defend him. That a woman such as her, clearly not favored by God, showing no signs of grace (unlike me), should be Queen of England. And that, by some mystery-too great for me to understand-God should have overlooked me.

I come out of my chamber and find my husband in the great hall. He is seated at the top table, his face grave. His steward, standing beside him, is putting one sheet of paper after another before him for his signature. His clerk beside him is melting wax and pressing in the seal. It takes me only a moment to recognize the commissions of array. He is calling up his tenants. He is going to war; at last he is going to war. I feel my heart lift like a lark at the sight; God be praised, he is owning his duty and going to war at last. I step up to the table, my face glad.

“Husband, God bless you and the work you are finally doing.”

He does not smile back at me; he looks at me wearily, and his eyes are sad. His hand keeps moving, signing Henry Stafford, time after time, and he hardly glances down at his pen. They come to the last page: the clerk drips wax, stamps the seal, and hands it in its box back to his chief secretary.

“Send them at once,” Henry says.

He pushes back his chair and steps off the little dais to stand before me, takes my hand, and tucks it in his arm and walks me away from the clerk, who is gathering up the papers to take to the stables for the waiting messengers.

“Wife, I have to tell you a thing which will trouble you,” he says.

I shake my head. I think he is about to tell me that he is going to war with a heavy heart for fear of leaving me, and so I rush to reassure him that I fear nothing when he’s doing God’s work. “Truly husband, I am glad …” He stills me with a gentle touch on my cheek.

“I am calling up my men not to serve King Henry, but to serve King Edward,” he says quietly.

At first I hear the words, but they make no sense to me. Then I am so frozen with horror that I say nothing. I am so silent that he thinks I have not heard him.

“I will serve King Edward of York, not Henry of Lancaster,” he says. “I am sorry if you are disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” He is telling me he has turned traitor, and he thinks I may be disappointed?

“I am sorry for it.”

“But my cousin himself came to persuade you to war …”

“He did nothing but convince me that we have to have a strong king who will put an end to war, now and forever, or he and his sort will go on until England is destroyed. When he told me that he would fight forever, I knew that he would have to be defeated.”

“Edward is not born to be king. He is not a bringer of peace.”

“My dear, you know that he is. The only peace we have known in the last ten years was when he was on the throne. And now he has a son and heir, so please God the Yorks will hold the throne forever and there will be an end to these unending battles.”

I wrench my hand away from his grip. “He is not born royal,” I cry. “He is not sacred. He is a usurper. You are calling out your tenants and mine, my tenants from my lands to serve a traitor. You would have my standard, the Beaufort portcullis, unfurled on the York side?”

He nods. “I knew you would not like it,” he says resignedly.

“I would rather die than see this!”

He nods as if I am exaggerating, like a child.

“And what if you lose?” I demand. “You will be known as a turncoat who supported York. Do you think they will call Henry-your stepson-to court again, and give him back his earldom? Do you think Henry the king will bless him as he did before, when everyone knows you have shamed yourself, and shamed me?”

He grimaces. “I think it is the right thing to do. And, as it happens, I think York will win.”

“Against Warwick?” I ask him scornfully. “He can’t beat Warwick. He didn’t do so well last time, when Warwick chased him out of England. And the time before that, when Warwick took him prisoner. He is Warwick’s boy, not his master.”

“He was betrayed last time,” he said. “He was alone without his army. This time he knows his enemies, and he has summoned his men.”

“Say you win then,” I say, the words tumbling out in my distress. “Say you put Edward on my family’s throne. What happens to me? What happens to Henry? Will Jasper have to go into exile again, thanks to your enmity? Will my son and his uncle be driven out of England by you? Do you want me to go too?”

He sighs. “If I serve Edward and he is glad of my service, then he will reward me,” he says. “We might even get Henry’s earldom back from him. The throne will no longer run in your family, but Margaret, dear little wife, to be honest with you: your family does not deserve to own it. The king is sick, to tell the truth; he is mad. He is not fit to run a country, and the queen is a nightmare of vanity and ambition. Her son is a murderer: Can you think what we will suffer if he ever gets the throne? I cannot serve such a prince and such a queen. There is no one but Edward. The direct line is-”

“Is what?” I spit.

“Insane,” he says simply. “Hopeless. The king is a saint and cannot rule, and his son is a devil and should not.”

“If you do this, I will never forgive you,” I swear. The tears are running down my face, and angrily I brush them away. “If you ride out to defeat my own cousin, the true king, I will never forgive you. I will never call you ‘husband’ again; you will be as if you were dead to me.”

He releases my hand as if I am a bad-tempered child. “I knew you would say that,” he says sadly. “Though I am doing what I think best for us both. I am even doing what I think best for England, which is more than many men can say in these troubled times.”