A Tapestry of Treason
King Richard stood at the centre of this Court of his creating. Clad in eye-catching red, his most favoured colour, his bright hair curling beneath his brimmed hat, he drew every eye. The knowledge that he had made his will was thought to be no detriment to the success of this venture, nor that his holy relics and regalia were packed up to accompany him. Now he raised his hand in farewell, so that we might admire the ring that blazed red fire from a ruby that he had once granted to the Abbot and monks of Westminster, on condition that he could resume it when he left the country. Worth the vast sum of one thousand marks, the gem once more graced his hand as he mounted and took his place in the procession.
The forthcoming victory, as predicted by the golden dice, would shower us, the royal cousins, with even greater power. King Richard smiled on us, his hands open with generosity. And how important we were to the whole enterprise. My brother Edward, Duke of Aumale, fair and well-favoured, riding at the King’s side, noted by all as the King’s most beloved companion. Then came Thomas Despenser, my husband, Earl of Gloucester, in comparison dark and sallow-skinned, one of the inner circle of Richard’s friends and companions. Two of the Holland connection, John and Thomas Holland, the Dukes of Exeter and Surrey, joined to us through my father’s recent marriage to Joan Holland, rode in close company, forming a buttress around our King.
We had not always been so ostentatiously dominant. Until Richard’s reign we had wallowed in obscurity, thanks to my grandfather King Edward the Third. My father might be his fourth surviving son, thus rich in Plantagenet blood, but he had been much neglected in the handing out of titles and land and royal office. It was not until Richard became King that my father was created Duke of York. Until then he had been simply Earl of Cambridge, poorly endowed, without the estates and wealth appropriate to an earldom. He might have hoped for an endowment from marriage to an English heiress, but instead my grandfather saddled him with Isabella, who, foreign and disinherited, brought no dowry.
Nor was my father blameless, doing little to remedy his lack. With no noticeable ability in military ventures to bring home a fortune in ransoms, with no interest in the manoeuvrings of the Royal Court, my father did not shine on the political stage. He had no ambition, but we, his children, who would inherit these meagre offerings, were driven from the earliest age by naked desire to match our influence to our royal blood.
How superbly successful we had been. We were now power personified, for with the titles had come land and castles, vast estates and the wealth of gold coin from royal patronage, all these recent ennoblements bestowed by King Richard himself. To whom did the King turn when he needed advice? To Edward and Thomas. With whom did King Richard converse at royal masques when the child-Queen Isabelle grew weary? With me, the newly created Countess of Gloucester. We were the bedrock on which Richard’s power rested, the foundation and fortifications of England. We were pre-eminent, holding dominion within our new lands, and we would serve Richard well. It might not be for me to own political influence, a woman in a world where decisions were in the hands of men, but the promotion of my family was strong in my heart.
‘The King makes a brave show. Pray God the Irish are impressed.’
A laconic comment from the man at my side; stooped with years, his face seamed with unpleasant experience, my father and the King’s uncle, Edmund Duke of York. He was to be left behind in England to uphold firm government in Richard’s name as Keeper of the Realm. Another golden stitch in the tapestry of our value to the King.
I nodded, watching the pattern of the final leave-taking as Richard consigned his wife into the care of her ladies-in-waiting; Edward bid farewell to his wife Philippa with a gesture of the rich folds of his chaperon, intent primarily on catching the interest of the crowd with his smile and his handsome flamboyance. As for Thomas, he managed a brusque inclination of his head which might have been in my direction. Dickon had taken himself off to who knew where. My father, without a word, abandoned his young wife Joan at my side when summoned by the King to receive some final instruction. Joan, now alone, made no attempt to converse with me. Likewise, I had nothing to say to her.
All told, the day had been an exhibition of absence of familial affection. Fortunately, we were bound fast together by raw ambition.
Chapter Two
31st August 1399: Palace of Westminster
‘If you are going to keep me company, I could wish you would not fidget.’
Two months. Two short months during which all the glamour of King Richard’s departure had collapsed into disaster. I could make no pretence that my mood was anything but heavy, unease sharpening my tongue. Indeed it was not an unease; by now it was rampant fear. If Dickon expected tolerance from me he would see the day pass without even a gnat-bite of it. I was held in chains of a grave anxiety.
We were still suffering the sultriness of high summer, but the heat did not penetrate to where we stood, Dickon and I, carved emblems of royal power pressing down upon us from above, enfolding us from left and right, from every angle. Such symbols of royal authority, King Richard’s authority, should have soothed and reassured. I frowned and Dickon continued to twitch and shuffle, a mess of angular limbs.
‘How can I not fidget? How long have we been waiting? You don’t even know that he will be brought here.’
‘I do know. He will come.’
‘There are twenty-six of them,’ Dickon informed me inconsequentially, squinting at the angelic band of heavenly angels, carved at the end of each hammer-beam above our heads. He had been passing the time in mindless counting, but I was not prepared to engage in ineffectual conversation. It seemed to me that my family and I were balanced like angels on the head of a pin. All we had achieved was about to be thrown into chaos.
‘How much longer?’ Dickon groaned. ‘Will he be shackled?’
When his large feet continued to scuff against the Purbeck stone, his shoulders hunched in a perpetual slouch, I pinned him with a stare of displeasure as I dug my fingers into the fine weave of his sleeve. I cared not that it was detrimental to the raised pattern.
‘Whether he is shackled or not, you will award him all courtesy. He is your godfather as well as your King.’
‘And the only source of any wealth that will come to me. I will be all courtesy, as douce as a girl, because if I’m not I’ll be cut off without a silver groat.’ Dickon’s glance was sharper and more calculating than it had a right to be. ‘Except that he may no longer have any groats to lavish on me. Will he be a prisoner?’ Dragging his sleeve from my grasp, he moved so that he could see through the carved arch of the doorway where they would eventually make an entrance.
‘I do not yet know.’
But I could not see this charade, this exchange of power from King to Invader, ending in any other fashion.
A servant entered, one I had sent on a mission, now hot from riding. He approached at a jog.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘They are here, my lady, two miles outside the city.’ He bowed then wiped his face on his sleeve. ‘They’ll be closer now. The King is here with them.’
‘Who is in command?’
The servant shrugged. He was not one of mine or he would not have dared to shrug in my presence. ‘The Mayor and aldermen have met with them, my lady. It was their decision that the King should be brought here to Westminster. The King had no choice in the matter, I’d say.’
‘And the Duke of Lancaster?’
‘He rides at the head of his army, my lady.’
‘Is he in control? Does he have an air of authority?’ I was curious. What was the demeanour of my cousin Henry of Lancaster? Had he returned as supplicant or conqueror?
Richard had banished Henry from England, ostensibly for treason. Now Henry was returned on the death of his father, to reclaim both his title and his inheritance, choosing the opportune moment when Richard was in Ireland. I had to admire his perspicacity. Many would say that Richard had been far from wise in condemning Henry to banishment for life at the same time as he confiscated all the Lancaster wealth and lands for his own use. Our cousin Henry was unlikely to accept such wilful destruction of his true inheritance with a head bent in obedient acceptance. Cousin Henry would demand what was his by right. He had landed at Ravenspur to the north in the first week of July, collecting an army which included the puissant Percy Earl of Northumberland, and now he was here in London with King Richard firmly tucked into his gauntleted fist.
The messenger broke into my thoughts. ‘The Duke of Lancaster’s armour is very fine, my lady. Italian and worth a King’s ransom, so they say. He looks like a man who knows what he wants and intends to get it.’ His face split in a wily gap-toothed grin. ‘There’ll be much changing of allegiances, I reckon, now that the King is under Lancaster’s heel.’
Heel or fist, the result could be the same. Disliking his humour, I dismissed him without further coin than I had already given. King Richard’s crown was under threat, but we would wait until all was made clear. Dickon drifted away again.
‘Do you know what I think…?’ he called across the vast echoing space.
I was never to know. The repetitive beat of marching feet intruded, the clatter of horses’ hooves, and not least the rancorous shouts of the crowd. My sole concentration was focused on the great doors, now dragged back, stirring the air. In marched an armed guard; at the centre of their protection, or perhaps their containment, walked Richard. King Richard, heir of King Edward the Third, our cousin and God’s anointed King of England, all hedged about by bland-faced soldiery. In the face of such military might, Dickon and I retreated once again to the feet of a carved and unimpressed statue.
The guard came to a halt and so did the King.
I could not take my eyes from his face. Never had I seen him so unkingly, whether in demeanour or in apparel. Pale, dishevelled, his soft lips pressed hard together, Richard stared round him as if he had still to accept where he was and why he was here, hemmed in by soldiers not in his own livery. Then he was plucking at his tunic, a garment that he might have been wearing for the whole of the journey from Wales, so travel-worn and stained as it was. His boots were covered in dust, as were his hose to the knee. Eyes wild and uncomprehending, he was hollow-cheeked, implying that he had not eaten a good meal since he had fallen into Lancaster’s hands. This man was so much changed from the crimson-clad ruler who had left London a mere few weeks ago that all I could register in that moment was shock. His youthful beauty and vibrancy had been beaten out of him. Even his hair visible beneath the plain felt cap had lost its lustre. He wore no jewels. The ruby ring had gone from his hand. There was no sword at his side. Degradation, as rank water in a thunderstorm, dripped from him.
Richard’s vacant gaze fell on me, so that I stepped forward and, through a lifetime of duty and custom, curtsied. The King might have been robbed of all royal grace, but I, clad nobly in deep blue damask with gold stitching at cuff and hem, would uphold it for him. We owed him so much. Was he not my own cousin, my own Plantagenet blood? Unfortunately so was Henry of Lancaster. As I rose to my full height, I foresaw a complex future, troubled by bonds of conflicting family loyalties.
At a glance from me, Dickon bowed.
‘Constance?’ The King’s voice trembled.
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Have you come to petition me?’ His tone was querulous.
‘No, my lord.’
I was distracted, for into the Hall had marched an escort in livery that was my own by birth, the same lions and French lilies as were carved onto Richard’s shields, and then came the Mayor and aldermen, self-important in their red robes despite having walked the distance from their first meeting with the King. It was the man at the head who was in command, a man who once had the height and bearing to be an imposing figure. Now his hair was grey, his face marked by years, his shoulders no longer braced beneath the armour plating. My father, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York.
‘My lord.’
I curtsied dutifully again. He nodded to me, ignoring Dickon, concentrating on dealing with the immediate problem.
‘Take the King to his chamber,’ he directed his serjeant-at-arms. ‘See to his comfort there, but post a permanent guard at door and window. We need no more attempts at escape as at Lichfield.’
I thought that Richard, standing silent and unresponsive in our midst, would not have the wit to escape. The Mayor nodding his approval, we watched as the King, with a light touch to his arm, was led unresisting, uncomplaining, away in the direction of the royal apartments.
My father approached, forehead thick with lines. ‘What are you doing here?’
Why would I not be here? What I found difficult to understand was why Richard’s Keeper of the Realm was acting in the role of captor, and thus I wasted no words in courteous greeting. Fear was too strong in me.
‘The King is a prisoner and suffers humiliation, sir,’ I observed. ‘Could you do nothing to stop it?’
‘It was not possible.’ My father, perhaps unaware of my peremptory demand, slapped his gloves against his thigh, raising a cloud of dust which made him cough, his gaze tracking to where Richard had just departed. ‘I am merely following orders.’ Then he added: ‘As will every one of us, if we have any sense.’
‘Whose orders? Are you not Keeper of the Realm?’
‘For the moment.’ He returned his gaze to me and it was uncompromisingly bleak. ‘Lancaster plans to ride to St Paul’s to pay homage at his father’s tomb. From there he will stay at the Bishop of London’s palace overnight, before returning here. All will be settled tomorrow. I advise you to keep your opinions to yourself meanwhile. What is loyalty in one breath becomes treason in the next.’ Which I decided was a surprisingly apposite warning from my father who was not known for his keenness of wit. I too looked to where the guard had disappeared, taking Richard with him. ‘Tomorrow I expect he will be moved to the Tower.’
‘And no good will come of that.’
He raised his brows in reply. ‘He is still King. That has not yet changed.’
Then he turned away to discourse with the importunate Mayor, before signalling to his entourage to depart.
‘Where is my brother Edward?’ I asked before he was out of earshot.
My father halted, looked back. ‘Aumale is with Lancaster, of course. Where else would he be?’ I detected more than a breath of cynicism.
‘Making himself indispensable, I expect,’ Dickon added sotto voce as the Duke of York was swallowed up into a crowd of loitering soldiery and aldermen. ‘And your most noble husband? Where will he be? You did not ask.’
I overlooked the sneer that Dickon had been practising of late. ‘I know where he’ll be. Following in our brother’s footsteps, so close that he treads on his heel. As he always does. They’ll both be waiting on the commands of the Duke of Lancaster. If Lancaster is in the ascendant, why would they throw in their lot with Richard?’
‘Why would they?’ The sneer did not dissipate. ‘I doubt you need to worry. Thomas will be polishing his armour to make the best impression in the ceremonial entry, at Lancaster’s side.’ But then his grin robbed his comment of too much malevolence. ‘And what will you do?’
I thought for a moment. Power seemed to hang as insecurely as a bees’ nest in a wind-tossed sapling. ‘Stay here at Westminster. I’ll be here when King Richard’s fate is decided, one way or another. You should do the same. It may be vitally important to us.’
Was all not still in the balance? If my father, brother and husband were cleaving to Lancaster’s cause until we were certain that Richard’s crown was lost, it might be good policy for me to show my loyalty to the man who was still the anointed King. If that was to be cunning within a cunning family, then cunning is what I would be. A York foot in both camps could prove to be advantageous. I made to follow my father towards the rabbit warren of apartments in the Palace of Westminster where the Duke of York’s family could always command accommodations. Dickon elected to accompany me.
Recalling the King’s sad humiliation amongst this regal display that he had created, I realised for the first time the enormity of what had happened. Halting at the end of the Great Hall, I took a moment to inspect the row of Kings, thirteen fine statues of Reigate stone set in carved niches, each one representing one of our past Kings from Edward the Confessor to Richard himself. Their crowns were gilded and their robes painted red and green, giving it the air of a reredos in some great church, an altarpiece to the glory of God. And before it all, there was set in place the new throne that Richard had had carved, complete with a gilded cushion. I considered whether he would ever again sit on that throne. There had been cries for his execution from some of the aldermen.
‘All will be decided on the morrow,’ I said aloud.
It seemed to me that the only hope for Richard was if some high-born family with military strength was willing to lead a resistance against Lancaster. Who better than our own? We could surely command support. But was it too late? How firm were Lancaster’s hands on the reins of power?
I walked, to halt before the finely executed statue of Richard himself.
‘Where is our loyalty?’ I asked Dickon who had come to hover beside me, not really expecting a reply.
‘Where do you think? You saw Richard. All was lost for him. I’ll stand with Edward and Thomas. I expect you will too.’
‘Are we so fickle?’
I must discover how far my family, and the Holland lords, had committed themselves to Henry of Lancaster, and how much Lancaster was prepared to forget our past allegiances. If he was unforgiving, our position at Court would be untenable, our humiliation as great as that of the King, which led my thoughts into a different path, an unpleasant one edged with thistles. If our future lay with Lancaster then we must bow and scrape. How I despised such a plan, even as I accepted that sometimes the despicable must be adopted for the future good and because, indeed, I was given little choice in the directing of my fate. I grimaced lightly. Much as in my choice of husband, where I had been given no choice at all and found him more than despicable.
I remembered Friar John, wondering where he was now. The warnings of his golden dice had proved to be more than accurate. We should have taken heed. But what could we have done?
‘If you’re going to upbraid your lord and husband for abandoning Richard, I might just come along,’ Dickon, still shadowing me, suggested in a spirit of devilry.
‘No, you won’t. I’ll see Thomas alone.’
It was early evening before the brisk tread, easily recognisable after so many years of sharing the same less than amicable space, announced the arrival of my husband. The latch on my chamber door was raised and he entered.
‘Thomas,’ I said, with a smile that could be interpreted, by the uninformed, as a welcome. ‘I expected you a good four hours ago.’
‘Constance, love of my life. They said you were here. I knew I would receive a wifely tribute to my survival.’
‘You receive the words due to you, my lord.’ The smile remained pinned to my lips. ‘They said that you had returned in Lancaster’s train.’
‘Are you going to take issue with that?’
‘Should I?’
My hours of solitude had given me no respite and my temper was warm. Thomas, only now discovering the time to visit me, had seen a need, despite the critical events afoot, to change his well-travelled garments for a figured silk-damask tunic and velvet cap. Insurrection might threaten the realm but Thomas must dress to proclaim his rank. As he closed the door behind him and leaned his compact figure against it, his chin was tilted in defiance.
I chose not to rise from my chair where I knew the light from the high window would enhance my beauty in this richly appointed room, the perfect setting, as carved gold enhanced the flawless jewel in the brooch at my breast. Moreover I had freed my hair from its confinement. The Earl of Gloucester was fortunate in his bride, both in her looks and in her royal connections. Unfortunately, Thomas would have wed me even if I were the most ill-favoured Plantagenet daughter in England.
‘A picture to welcome any man home from the wars.’
‘What have you been doing?’ I asked, continuing my cold appraisal.
‘I had matters to attend to,’ he said, walking slowly forward.
‘As I see.’ I made a languid gesture to the furred garment and the costly shoes before firing the obvious arrow. ‘To whom are we bowing the knee today? King Richard or the Duke of Lancaster?’
He was annoyed. He bent, elegantly, to raise my chin with one finger, scanning my features, as I returned the regard. Not an unattractive man with dark hair, flattened into seemly order beneath his cap, and eyes the colour of brown agates, I thought for the first time that it was unfortunate he roused no heat in my blood.
‘And good day to you too, Constance.’
‘Is it? It is not a good day for Richard.’
Thomas caught my gaze, held it. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘I have. He was under guard.’
‘So you don’t need to ask where our allegiance must be.’
I remembered Richard as I had seen him in the Great Hall. Bewildered at his change in circumstances, all his glory dimmed from his dirty shoes to his vacant expression. Yet here was Thomas, very much undimmed as he dropped his gilded gloves and chaperon onto my lap. In a little spirit of spite I allowed them to slide to the floor, ignoring Thomas’s silent snarl.
‘Have you seen York?’ Thomas asked.
‘Yes. My father was keeping guard on the man who may or may not still be King. He says he’s following Lancaster’s orders. I understand my father did not even engage with Lancaster, despite the strength of the army at his command.’ I made no attempt to hide my disgust. ‘Surely Lancaster could have been stopped when he first landed in England,’ I suggested.
‘I expect that he could, but he wasn’t, and now he’s strong enough to order up and pay the piper and we all dance.’
‘And you are garbed for dancing, my love. Lancaster cannot fail to be impressed.’
I stood and ran my hand down the length of his embroidered sleeve, but when Thomas moved away, I deliberately softened my mood, knowing from long experience that I would get nothing from him unless I appeared compliant.
‘All we can do, then, is wait,’ I offered.
‘Wait for what? For Lancaster to decide that I and the rest of your family are as culpable as King Richard for robbing him of his inheritance? Is there wine in here?’ he demanded.
I fetched the cups and a flagon from the cupboard and poured as he flung himself into the chair I had just vacated.
I chose my words carefully.
‘I know so little, Thomas, and my father was too busy with the Mayor. Put my megrims down to spending too long alone with no certain knowledge.’
Not quite true but he would enjoy informing me of his own experience.
Thomas took the cup of wine, raising a little toast at last with a show of grace. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, for what it’s worth, but it’s not pretty. York headed to Gloucester, we thought to join up with Richard when he returned from Ireland, and together they would deal with Lancaster.’
Thomas scowled.
‘But that didn’t happen,’ I prompted.
‘It didn’t happen. York went to Berkeley Castle where he just sat on his arse. When Lancaster advanced west against Richard, when your father could have stood in his way, York did nothing other than meet him in the church outside the walls of Berkeley Castle.’