And now, this was the reward of his folly. This was the end.
There was no executioner’s block but men had been working at the Tower and they found a piece of wood which would serve.
The soft and balmy air caressed his face as Hastings laid his head on the hastily improvised block and died.
The cries of treason had been heard in the city and the apprentices had come running into the streets brandishing any weapon they could lay their hands on, while the merchants were prepared to protect their shops, and the mayor was ready to marshal his forces. If there was treason in the air, if there were to be battles then London must protect itself.
Richard immediately sent a herald into the streets who rode along sounding his trumpet and asking the people to listen to what he had to tell them. There was no cause for alarm. All that had happened was that a conspiracy had been discovered and those responsible had received their just rewards. Lord Hastings had plotted to destroy the Protector and the Duke of Buckingham and had himself been beheaded. All knew that Hastings had lured the late King to live licentiously and Hastings was at this time the lover of the late King’s mistress Jane Shore – a whore and a witch; he had been with Jane Shore on the previous night and the woman was disclosed as one involved in the conspiracy.
‘Put away your weapons, good citizens,’ cried the herald. ‘Danger has been averted by the prompt action of the Protector.’
The Londoners were delighted to do this. Trouble they did not want. But the crowds stayed in the streets to ask themselves what would happen next. It was an uneasy situation. A King who was a minor was always a source of trouble. The Queen was in Sanctuary and the Woodvilles in decline. That was good. The Londoners had never liked the rapacious Woodvilles. There was the Lord Protector who had proved himself a worthy ruler in the North to look after the country.
‘If the Lord Protector took the crown,’ said some, ‘it would not be a bad thing.’
‘There is the little King,’ replied some of the women.
‘Little Kings cause trouble,’ was the answer.
But they were all delighted that there was to be no fighting in the streets.
Richard immediately called a meeting of the Council to explain the reason for his prompt action. It was always dangerous to execute men without trial.
There was not a man among them who did not realise the need for prompt action. Many of them knew that Hastings had deviated from his loyalty to Richard; they knew too of his association with Jane Shore and it was a fact that the goldsmith’s wife visited the King and the Queen. It was all very plausible. Gloucester had done what any strong man would.
Richard was anxious to show that he bore no personal venom towards Hastings. The late King had asked that Hastings be buried beside him so Richard ordered that the body should be taken to Windsor and there buried close to Edward in that chapel of St George’s which Edward had started to build and which was as yet incomplete. As for Hastings’s widow, Katherine, she should not be deprived of her goods, and Richard would take her under his protection.
Jane Shore, he said, was of little importance robbed of her protectors. She was a harlot and as such should do penance and be deprived of her possessions. He would pass her over to the Church which could decide what her penance should be, and when it was performed she should be forgotten. He would take no action against her. She had been loved by his brother and he would remember that. The penance and the loss of the goods his brother and others had bestowed on her would be punishment enough.
Now to more serious business.
Elizabeth Woodville must be persuaded to come out of Sanctuary. If she would do this she could reside with the King and he and the Duke of York could be together as they wished; and so could the King’s daughters.
If, however, the Queen refused to leave Sanctuary – and she could not be forced to do so – then the Duke of York must be taken from her.
The Council agreed that the choice should be put to her.
There was a great deal of rumour flying round not only London but the entire country.
First there was the spectacle of Jane Shore’s walking through the streets barefooted wrapped in a worsted robe, a lighted taper in her hand.
It was the ultimate degradation. They had sought to humiliate her and this they had done indeed.
She was stricken with grief. She blamed herself for the death of Hastings. She had brought him into the conspiracy with the Queen. But for her he would be alive today.
She could see the people as she walked; they crowded about her, eyes filled with curiosity, with malice, and with pleasure! They had envied her once when she was the adored mistress of the King. They had cheered her often. She had always tried to do what she could for the people. They had known it and loved her for it. But on occasions like these it was not those people who came out to gloat; it was the malicious, the envious, those who considered themselves virtuous.
‘Harlot,’ they called her. Well, she supposed she was. A whore was not a better one because she was a King’s whore.
No. She had loved the King; she had loved Hastings. The goldsmith ... no she had never loved him but she had been forced into that marriage by her father. The relationship with Dorset had not been a good one. She was ashamed of that. But where was Dorset now ... plotting somewhere against the Protector.
The Protector despised her. She believed he always had. She knew he had deplored the King’s fondness for her. The Protector was cold, aloof but just, she believed. He might have sentenced her to death himself instead of handing her over to the Bishop of London.
She was sure that remembering his brother’s fondness for her he had been lenient.
This horror would pass.
Her feet were bleeding for the cobbles were sharp; she was aware of the eyes that followed her. Into the Cathedral she went with her taper; and then out once more to make confession at Paul’s Cross.
Eyes watched her. All marvelled at her; because she who had so much had sunk so low.
Jane was desolate. Edward was gone; Hastings was gone.
What was there left for her?
Chapter XIII
‘MY LIFE WAS LENT’
It was three days since the death of Hastings. The Council had decided that a proposition must be put to the Queen. With an armed guard they rode up the river to Westminster.
It was decided that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier, should head the deputation to the Queen and that Lord Howard should go with him.
Richard and Buckingham would await their return in the Palace.
Elizabeth received them with great misgiving. She had heard of Hastings’s execution and that Jane Shore had been set to do penance; she had also heard that Jane had been deprived of her worldly goods.
It was a great setback. Elizabeth had been hoping for a great deal from an alliance with Hastings. She and he had always been such great enemies and the fact that he had sought a reconciliation had been particularly pleasing to her.
Elizabeth had always enjoyed intrigue, and from the moment she and her mother had set out to capture the King and succeeded in doing so, she had believed she had a special talent for it.
She had looked forward to Jane Shore’s visits and now of course someone had betrayed them.
She wondered what this deputation meant. That it was of the greatest importance was obvious from the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.