The White Queen

SUMMER 1468

Edward trusts Warwick with an embassy to France, and Warwick seizes the opportunity to get away from England and away from court. He cannot bear the rising of our tide and the slow decline of his own hopes. He plans to make a treaty with the King of France and promises him that the government of England is still in his gift; and that he is going to choose the husband for the York heiress Margaret. But he is lying, and everyone knows that his days of power are over. Edward listens to my mother, to me, and to his other advisors, who say that the dukedom of Burgundy has been a faithful friend, where France is a constant enemy, and that an alliance with Burgundy could be made for the good of trade, for the sake of our cousinship, and could be cemented with the marriage of Edward’s sister Margaret to the new duke himself: Charles, who has just inherited the rich lands of Burgundy.

Charles is a key friend to England. The Duke of Burgundy owns all the lands of Flanders, as well as his own dukedom of Burgundy, and so commands all the lowlands of the north, all the lands between Germany and France, and the rich lands in the south. They are great buyers of English cloth, merchants and allies to us. Their ports face ours across the English sea; their usual enemy is France, and they look to us for alliance. These are traditional friends of England and now-through me-kinsmen to the English king.

All this is planned without reference to the girl herself, of course; and Margaret comes to me when I am walking in the garden at Westminster Palace, all in a fluster, as someone has told her that her betrothal to Dom Pedro of Portugal is to be put aside and she is now to be sold to the highest bidder, either to Louis of France for one of the French princes, or to Charles of Burgundy.

“It’ll be all right,” I say to her, tucking her hand in mine so she can walk beside me. She is only twenty-two, and she was not raised to be the sister of a king. She is not accustomed to the way that her husband-to-be can change with the needs of the moment, and her mother, torn between her divided loyalties to her rivalrous sons, has quite failed to care for her daughters.

When Margaret was a little girl, she thought she would be married to an English lord and live in an English castle, raising children. She even dreamed of being a nun-she shares her mother’s enthusiasm for the Church. She did not realize, when her father claimed the throne and her brother won it, that a price must always be paid for power, and it will be paid by her as well as the rest of us. She doesn’t realize yet that though men go to war it is women who suffer-perhaps more than anyone.

“I won’t marry a Frenchman. I hate the French,” she says hotly. “My father fought them; he would not have wanted me to marry a Frenchman. My brother should not think of it. I don’t know why my mother considers it. She was with the English army in France; she knows what the French are like. I am of the House of York. I don’t want to be a Frenchwoman!”

“You won’t be,” I say steadily. “That is the plan of the Earl of Warwick, and he no longer has the ear of the king. Yes, he takes French bribes and he favors France; but my advice to the king is that he should make an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, and that will be a better alliance for you. Just think-you will be my kinswoman! You will marry the Duke of Burgundy and live in the beautiful palace at Lille. Your husband-to-be is an honored friend of the House of York, and my kinsman through my mother. He is a good friend, and from his palace you will be able to come on visits home. And when my daughters are old enough I shall send them to you, to teach them the elegant court life at Burgundy. There is nowhere more fashionable and more beautiful than the court of Burgundy. And as Duchess of Burgundy you shall be godmother to my sons. How will that be?”

She is partly comforted. “But I am of the House of York,” she says again. “I want to stay in England. At least until we have finally defeated the Lancastrians, and I want to see the christening of your son, the first York prince. Then I shall want to see him made Prince of Wales…”

“You shall come to his christening, whenever he comes to us,” I promise her. “And he will know his aunt is his good guardian. But you can further the needs of the House of York in Burgundy. You will keep Burgundy a friend to York and to England, and if ever Edward is in trouble, he will know that he can call on the Burgundy wealth and arms. And if ever again he is in danger from a false friend, he can come to you for help. You will like to be our ally over the sea. You will be our haven.”

She drops her little head on my shoulder. “Your Grace, my sister,” she says. “It is hard for me to go away. I have lost a father and I am not sure that my brother is not still in danger. I am not sure that he and George are true friends; I am not certain that George does not envy Edward, and I am afraid of what my lord Warwick might do. I want to stay here. I want to be with Edward and with you. I love my brother George; I don’t want to leave him at this time. I don’t want to leave my mother. I don’t want to leave home.”

“I know,” I say gently. “But you can be a powerful and good sister to Edward and to George as the Duchess of Burgundy. We will know that there is always one country that we can depend on to stand our friend. We will know that there is a beautiful duchess who is a Yorkist through and through. You can go to Burgundy and have sons, York sons.”

“D’you think I can found a House of York overseas?”

“You will found a new line,” I assure her. “And we will be glad to know that you are there, and we will visit you.”

She puts a brave face on it, and Warwick puts a two-faced face on it and escorts her to the port of Margate, and we wave her away, our little duchess, and I know that of all of Edward’s brothers and sisters, George the unfaithful and Richard the boy, we have just sent away the most loving, the most loyal, the most reliable Yorkist of them all.

To Warwick, this is another defeat at my hands and at the hands of my family. He promised that Margaret would have a French husband, but he has to take her to the Duke of Burgundy. He planned to make an alliance with France and he said that he had control of the decision making in England. Instead, we are to marry into the royal House of Burgundy: my mother’s family. And everyone can see that England is commanded by the Rivers family and that the king listens only to us. Warwick escorts Margaret on her wedding journey with a face as if he is sucking lemons, and I laugh behind my hand to see him overpowered and outnumbered by us, and think myself safe from his ambition and his malice.