The young Prince held his head high and retorted: ‘I am here to recover my father’s crown and my own inheritance to which you have no right.’
Edward was incensed by those words. He had convinced himself that he had the greater claim, but this captive boy was telling him that he was the son of Henry the Sixth who had to be held captive because the man who had usurped his throne knew that the people were with him.
In a sudden rage he struck the young Prince in the face with his gauntlet.
Those about him saw in this a signal.
The Prince had insulted the King and the King wanted vengeance.
Six or seven of them moved in on him, their daggers raised.
Prince Edward gasped and as he fell to the ground his last thoughts were of his mother.
So there was nothing now to live for. She was in a state of daze. She did not hear what was said to her. She had only one wish and that was for death.
Her gentle daughter-in-law tried to comfort her; but she too was plunged into deepest melancholy. It had been a brief marriage but she and her Prince had begun to love each other.
‘We must fly from here,’ Margaret’s friends had said. ‘Edward will not rest until you are his prisoner.’
‘I care not,’ she answered.
‘It is important. There is the King to think of.’
But she could think of nothing but her dead son.
They left—she and Anne and it was inevitable that they should be captured sooner or later. They had no heart for the flight, no desire to survive.
They were taken at Coventry.
Edward had decided that she and Anne should travel together in the same chariot and take part in his triumphant procession through London. The people would see that they were his prisoners and that the war was over. Right had prevailed and the strong King was on the throne. The Londoners would welcome that. They had always been for Edward.
It might have been humiliating but she no longer cared. She could see nothing but Edward her son...Edward as a boy...growing up and Edward during those last meetings... How right she had been to suggest they go to France. It must have been some premonition.
And she had lost him...lost him. Why should she care that Edward of York sought to humiliate her before the people of London? She had never cared for them before.
So they were at the Tower. Henry was there in that one they called the Wakefield. Would she see him? She doubted it. They would not let them be together.
They separated her and Anne and sent them to different prisons in the Tower.
‘Oh God,’ she thought. ‘You have deserted me. ‘Why did you not let me persuade him to go to France? If only my son could be restored to me I would ask nothing more. Crowns...kingdoms...what do they matter to me now? If I could but live in peace with my dear son I would ask nothing more.’
The door was shut on her. There were guards outside.
Alone! A prisoner!
If I could but have my son back alive and well I would ask nothing more, she mourned.
Edward of York was flushed with triumph. The people of London welcomed his victory. This would mean peace and peace meant trade. The hated Margaret was in the Tower; the so-called Prince of Wales had been slain in battle; this was the end of the Lancastrian cause. The red rose was trampled in the mire and the white one was victorious.
‘Let us have an end of wars,’ said Edward. ‘Let us seek to make our country great through peaceful means.’
His brother Richard listened to him, his admiration shining in his eyes.
Edward laid his hand on his arm. If only he could trust George as he could Richard.
As they sat at the table with their most trusted friends Edward talked of the future. ‘The country is being crippled by wars. We have enough enemies overseas. They rejoice in the conflicts which torture our realm. There must be an end to them.’
There was agreement all around the table.
‘Margaret is subdued at last. The death of her son has done more to bring her to reason than any battle could.’
‘It is time she realized she has no chance of ousting you from the throne,’ said Richard.
‘She will never realize that...while Henry lives.’
There was a hushed silence round the table.
Henry rose from his knees. His long hair fell about his face and he pulled his tattered coat closer about him.
It was cold in the cell at night. The thick stone walls shut out the warmth of the day. Not that he noticed much. As long as he could pray and meditate and take comfort from the spiritual experience he could live.
The food they brought him was often inedible. He did not care very much. Occasionally he ate and that was enough to give him the strength to pray.
He went to his bed and lay down.
He found comfort in thinking of his beautiful colleges at Cambridge and Eton. He hoped the boys were managing to live in some comfort there. If he were stronger, if he were free he would like to build more colleges. That was the happiest time of his life when he had first married Margaret and they had had those meetings with the architects...Perhaps it would come again.
He did not want all the tribulations of kingship. He wanted peace. That time when he had been in the monastery in hiding...that had been a happy time. How he had loved to mingle with the monks, to sit at their table...to meditate and pray.
Someone was in the cell.
They did not usually come at this hour. There were several of them.
They were standing round the bed.
He knew suddenly that they were going to kill him.
He was murmuring something. One man leaned forward and heard him mutter: ‘May God give you time for repentance whoever you are who lay your sacrilegious hands on your Lord’s anointed.’
Then he thought: Into Heaven, O Lord, receive your servant.
Life was flowing out of him. It was not very difficult. He was so weak and fragile. He did not fight. Pillows over his face...and so drifting into eternity.
So King Henry was dead.
He had died of a broken heart, said Edward and his friends. It was reasonable. It was the end of hope for him. The battle of Tewkesbury lost. His son slain in battle. There had been nothing left for him to live for.
‘Let his body be exposed and lie in St. Paul’s where all may see it,’ commanded Edward. ‘There will be people to say that he met his death by foul means. That is something we must avoid at all costs.’
He was right. People did say it. It was so strange that he should die on the very night when Edward entered London, when Margaret and Anne Neville should have been sent to the Tower.
Others—Yorkist supporters—said that it was precisely due to the shock of all that had happened that he had died.
The King, however—firm on the throne now—insisted that all honour should be done to Henry.
His body was taken by barge to Chertsey and with great respect buried in the lady chapel in the abbey there.
FINALE
The years were slipping past – the long, meaningless years. Life had been harsh to her, or was it as her sister Yolande had said, that she had never understood how to live. Yolande was happy with Ferri and her children, never seeking to extend her ambitions. Yolande had never had any patience with her. Perhaps she should have listened to her sister.
It was all too late now, although they could have lived together. No, they would never live in harmony. Better to be lonely and at peace.
She supposed she could not complain of Edward’s treatments. He was now securely on the throne, popular with the people, still possessed of that charm even though he had grown obese and was as lecherous in his maturity as he had been in his youth.