‘A bad business.’ She shakes her head. ‘A good estate should never be broken up. You should make an agreement with him, Richard. You are the younger son after all. You should give way to your brother George.’
This favouritism is less amusing. ‘I follow my own counsel,’ Richard says stiffly. ‘George and I will agree to share the Warwick fortune. I would be a poor husband to Anne if I let her inheritance be thrown away.’
‘Better to be a poor husband than a poor brother,’ she says smartly. ‘Look at your brother Edward, under the cat’s-paw and betraying his family every moment of the day.’
‘Edward has been a good friend to me in this,’ Richard reminds her. ‘And he has always been a good brother to me.’
‘It’s not his judgement I fear,’ she says darkly. ‘It’s Hers. You wait till your ambitions run counter to hers and then see whose advice Edward will take. She will be his ruin.’
‘Indeed, I pray not,’ Richard says. ‘Shall we dine, Lady Mother?’
Her theme, the ruination of the family by the scheming of Elizabeth Woodville, is a constant one throughout our visit, and though Richard silences her as frequently and as politely as he can, it is impossible to deny the many cases she cites. It is apparent to everyone that the queen gets her way and Edward allows her to put her friends and family into places that belong to other men, she exploits her royal fees more than any queen has done before, and favours her brothers and sisters. Richard will not hear a word said against his brother the king; but at Fotheringhay nobody loves Elizabeth Woodville and the radiant young woman that I first saw on the great night of her triumph is quite forgotten in the picture of the grasping ill-wisher that the duchess describes.
‘She should never have been crowned queen,’ she whispers to me one day when we are sitting in her solar, carefully embroidering the cuffs of a shirt which the duchess will send to her favourite, George, for Christmas.
‘Should she not?’ I ask. ‘I remember her coronation so well, I was only a little girl and I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.’
A scornful shrug shows what this ageing beauty now thinks about good looks. ‘She should never have been crowned queen because the wedding was never valid,’ she whispers behind her hand. ‘We all knew that Edward was secretly married before he even met her. He was not free to marry her. We all said nothing while your father planned the match with Princess Bona of Savoy because such a secret marriage could be denied – must be denied when such a great chance presents itself. But the oaths Edward swore with Elizabeth were just another secret marriage, actually a bigamous marriage – and it should have been denied too.’
‘Her mother was witness . . .’
‘That witch would have sworn to anything for her children.’
‘But Edward made her queen,’ I point out. ‘And their children are royal.’
She shakes her head and nips off the thread with her sharp little teeth. ‘Edward has no right to be king,’ she says, speaking very softly.
I drop my work. ‘Your Grace . . .’ I am terrified of what she is going to say next. Is this the old scandal that my father circulated when he wanted to drive Edward from the throne? Is the duchess about to accuse herself of wanton adultery? And how much trouble will I be in if I know this enormous, this terrible state secret?
She laughs at my aghast face. ‘Oh, you’re such a child!’ she says unkindly. ‘Who would trust you with anything? Who would bother telling you anything? Remind me, how old are you?’
‘I am sixteen,’ I say with all the dignity I can muster.
‘A child,’ she mocks. ‘I’ll say no more. But you remember that George is not my favourite because I am a doting fool. George is my favourite for good reason, very good reason. He was born to be a king, that boy. That boy – and no other.’
WINDSOR CASTLE, CHRISTMAS 1472
The season of the Christmas feast is always a great one for Edward and this is the year he celebrates his greatest triumph. Back at court Richard and I find we are caught up in the excitement of the twelve days. Every day there is a new theme and a new masque. Every dinner there are new songs, or actors or jugglers or players of one sort or another. There is a bear-baiting, and hunting in the cold riverside marshes every day. They go hawking, there is a three-day joust where every nobleman presents his standard. The queen’s brother Anthony Woodville holds a battle of poets and everyone has to present a couplet, one after another, standing in a circle, and the first person to stumble over his rhyme bows and steps back, until there are only two men left, one of them Anthony Woodville – and then he wins. I see the gleam of his smile to his sister: he always wins. There is a mock sea battle in one of the courtyards, flooded for the occasion, and one night a dance of torches in the woods.
Richard, my husband, is always at his brother’s side. He is one of the inner circle: comrades who fled with Edward from England and returned in triumph. He, William Hastings, and Anthony Woodville the queen’s brother are the king’s friends and blood brothers – together for life; they will never forget the wild ride when they thought that my father would catch them, they will never forget the voyage when they looked anxiously back over the stern of their little fishing boat for the lights of my father’s ships following them. When they speak of riding through the dark lanes, desperate to find Lynn and not knowing whether there would be a boat there that they could hire or steal, when they roar with laughter remembering that their pockets were empty and the king had to give the boatman his furred gown by way of payment, and then they had to walk penniless in their riding boots to the nearest town, George shuffles his feet and looks around, and hopes that the conversation will take another turn. For George was the enemy that night, though they are all supposed to be friends now. I think that the men who thundered along the night roads in darkness, pulling up in a sweat of fear to listen for hoofbeats coming behind them, will never forget that George was their enemy that night, and that he sold his own brother and his own family, and betrayed his house in the hopes of putting himself on the throne. For all their smiling friendship now, for all the appearance of having forgotten old battles, they know that they were the hunted that night, and that if George had caught them he would have killed them. They know that this is the way of this world: you have to kill or be killed, even if it is your brother, or your king, or your friend.
For me, every time they speak of this time, I remember that it was my father who was their enemy, and their comradeship was forged in fear of him, their good guardian and mentor who suddenly, overnight, became their deadly enemy. They had to win back the throne from him – he had utterly defeated them and thrown them out of the kingdom. Sometimes, when I think of his triumph and then his defeat, I feel as alien in this court as my first mother-in-law, Margaret of Anjou, their prisoner in the Tower of London.
I know for sure that the queen never forgets her enemies. Indeed, I suspect that she thinks of us as her enemies now. Under instruction from her husband she greets me and Isabel with cool civility, and she offers us places in her household. But her little smile when she sees the two of us seated in stony silence, or when Edward calls George to bear witness to a battle and then breaks off realising that this was one where George was on the other side – those moments show me that this is a queen who does not forget her enemies, and will never forgive them.
I am allowed to decline a place in the queen’s household as Richard tells me that we will live in the North for much of the time. At last, my share of the inheritance has been given to him. George takes the other half, and all Richard wants is to take up the great northern lands that he has won and rule them himself. He wants to take my father’s place in the North and befriend the Neville affinity. They will be predisposed to him because of my name, and the love they had for my father. If he treats the northerners well, openly and honestly as they like to be treated, he will be as grand as a king in the North of England and we will make a palace at Sheriff Hutton, and at Middleham Castle, our houses in Yorkshire. I have brought him the beautiful Barnard Castle in Durham too, and he says that we will live behind the mighty walls that look down to the River Tees and up to the Pennine hills. The city of York – which has always loved the house that shares its name – will be our capital city. We will bring grandeur and wealth to the North of England, to a people who are ready to love Richard because he is of the House of York, and who love me already, for I am a Neville.