A Tapestry of Treason

‘Enough!’ My father raised his hand, but Thomas’s ire was in full flow.

‘You have all the perfect explanations, like honey on your tongue.’ Thomas showed his teeth in the leer of a wolf before attack. ‘We can’t wait to hear. How did you explain to Lancaster, when you knelt before him with promises of fealty, that you had been given a large part of his Lancaster inheritance, which Richard had confiscated and portioned out to those he loved best? Have you actually told him? He might not be so keen to have you as an ally if he knows you’ve been living richly off his land.’

‘Of course I’ve told him. I said that I would happily restore all his inheritance to him. I said that I had drawn no money from it.’

Edward’s response was fast and smooth, without decoration, punctuated by a yawn as if it were all of no importance. I could not resist the accusation – if only to ruffle his magnificent feathers.

‘Only because you did not have the time to get your hands on it,’ I said.

‘Whereas you, dear sister, would have made all speed to spend a good portion of it, would you not? All that wealth at your fingertips? How could you have resisted?’

He was not ruffled at all. I waved away the presumption of my extravagance as I looked at my father. Someone must make an attempt to untangle all these threads that were being woven into a tapestry of mutual hatred. ‘Why are we here, sir? We have heard much discussion of loyalty and treachery, but what is our position now?’

‘We are here, as must be obvious to you all, to decide what we will do next.’

‘Do we have a choice?’ Edward asked but needing no answer since he supplied it himself. ‘We do what we must. We become unimpeachable supporters of the new order of things.’

A silence filled the room, broken only by the hound scratching for fleas. Joan remained at her chosen distance, silently stitching as if none of this was her concern, stabbing the linen with her needle. A grey kitten had joined her from some previously hidden refuge to entangle her embroidery silks. Her trivial occupations continued to irritate me beyond measure.

‘You say that we give our allegiance to our cousin Henry,’ I said.

‘Yes. Is it not obvious?’

‘Will he accept it?’ I was unsure. ‘He might consider our loyalty suspect.’

‘It will all hang in the balance. But I fear Richard’s days are numbered.’ My father’s face set in doleful lines. ‘There have already been cries for his execution.’

‘Lancaster will not scatter patronage in our direction with the same easy hand,’ Thomas repeated. ‘With four sons and two daughters of his own, and a drain on his finances if the kingdom is uneasy, his purse will be empty soon enough. I doubt he’ll look to us for friendship or counsel. He’s more likely to banish us to our estates, as soon as he gets his lands back from you, Aumale.’

‘I think you are wrong. He needs all the friends he can get.’ Edward stirred himself so that the hound took its chin off his foot and sat up. His advice was the epitome of fair reason. ‘I for one see nothing to be gained by opposing him and much to be lost. And yes, I will willingly restore the Lancaster estates to him. And you, Despenser, will be a fool if you do not meet him at least halfway. Richard can give us nothing, but Henry can and must be persuaded that we have his best interests at heart. Who will be closer to him than us? No one. We are his blood and his family. You, my lord,’ – he bowed his head to my father – ‘are the only royal uncle he has left, the only connection with his royal forebears. He might, if encouraged, see you in the role of his own father. Of course he will not turn us away. He needs to win us to his side, and we must be willing to be won.’

During this masterful speech, I became aware of the dog, its eyes fixed in canine adoration on Edward’s face.

‘I recognise that animal,’ I said.

‘So you should. It’s Richard’s.’ Edward laughed. ‘Or was Richard’s. Mathes.’ He snapped his fingers and the hound subsided once more against his feet. ‘It transferred its allegiance to Lancaster. Clever animal, I’d say.’

I remembered Richard, his pining for this creature that had been quick to betray him. Were we not following in its footprints?

‘Will Lancaster take the crown?’ I asked Edward, already knowing the answer.

‘Of course. I would, in his shoes.’

‘I don’t like the thought of leaving Richard to Lancaster’s tender mercy,’ Thomas stated.

‘What would you do?’ For the first time Edward’s patience seemed worn. ‘Launch an attack, snatch him up out of the Tower, and get him to France?’

‘I could think of worse.’

‘What do we have with which to launch such an attack? No one would be willing to commit to such a hopeless scheme, and your retainers won’t do it.’

Thomas flushed. ‘Better to try than to turn traitor!’

Without further comment, Thomas marched from the room, the door thudding behind him. I watched him leave. Wifely duty might suggest that I accompany him but I was not inclined, choosing to stay with my family by blood despite some antagonism, much hostility and all fair planning for the future now in pieces.

‘Is it impossible to rescue Richard?’ I asked, again with that sense of guilt that we had abandoned him in his hour of need.

‘From the Tower? Under guard?’ replied Edward. ‘You know better than that.’

‘He misses the hound.’

Immediately I had spoken I realised that it would drop me into a morass of explanation that I could well do without. Not for the first time I wished that I had been born another Yorkist son, my participation accepted, weight given to my words, at the centre of events rather than on the edge of it all like Joan, unless I fought to make my voice heard.

‘And how would you know that?’ Edward asked.

I could have lied but I was not in the habit of dissimulation. Instead I raised my chin in a challenge. ‘I have been to see him. I felt sorry for him.’

‘Sorry you may be, but stay out of this, Constance.’ My father’s response was unequivocal. ‘It is no business of yours. If you wish to be useful, go and talk some sense into your husband.’

‘How do you know that I do not agree with him? We seem to have abandoned Richard as fast as that hawk would relinquish a mouse for better prey. At least Thomas sees that we owe him some fidelity.’

‘You are a daughter of York. We are masters of the art of pragmatism.’ Edward stood again, clicking his fingers for the hound to join him, which it did. He had a gift for winning the affection of both animals and men. ‘Let us prepare to smile and bend the knee on all occasions.’ His eyes touched on mine, held them in severe discourse. ‘For what other can we do, in the circumstances?’

‘Nothing,’ I admitted.

So it was decided.

‘Not one of you has talked of my position in all this.’ Dickon, who had been silent and motionless throughout all the previous exchanges, so that we had all but forgotten his presence, now lurched to his feet. ‘What will be my future? You don’t speak of it. I have nothing and we all know why.’

‘We will continue not to speak of it.’ The Duke of York was emphatic in his denial.

‘I will speak of it.’ Voice breaking on a croak, it was rare for Dickon to be so openly dissenting in the Duke’s company. ‘It is only thanks to my mother that I have anything at all to my name.’

Which was true enough. It had been left to our mother, in her will, to persuade King Richard to grant Dickon an annuity of five hundred marks. With great foresight she left all her jewels to Richard, to aid her cause, and thus Dickon received a royal annuity but nothing more. Our father had settled neither land nor title on him. He was merely Richard of Conisbrough, to denote where he was born.

‘I have not even been knighted, which is my right,’ Dickon growled. ‘Am I not worthy of a title of my own as a son of York? Without Richard’s acknowledgement I am destined to penury. What happens to me now?’

‘You had nothing much to lose in the first place, little brother.’ Bitterness was beginning to drip through Edward’s earlier facade. ‘Do you think I have enjoyed this change of fortune? By God, I have not. All I had achieved, all I had worked for at Richard’s Court, flattering him, winning him round to see me as the most loyal friend he had ever had. And now with Lancaster’s victory, even though the crown is not yet his, most of those gains are already lost to me.’

Edward flung out his arms in pure performance.

‘Do you think that I enjoy the consequences of this usurpation? I am no longer Constable of England. That position was stripped from me at Flint. Now I am called upon to surrender the Constableship of the Tower of London. I doubt it will be my last loss unless I can match Lancaster guile for guile.’ Irritation was a river in spate to sweep away any good humour. ‘And you, Dickon, complain about a paltry sum of an annuity that might dry up. I am still Admiral of England, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Warden of the West March.’ He ticked the offices off on his supremely capable fingers. ‘All in the gift of King Richard. How long will Lancaster allow them to remain with me? I am Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumale. Much of the Arundel lands came to me after Arundel’s execution two years ago. Will Lancaster allow me to keep them? I would have been heir to the English throne, after my father. I can say farewell to that! And you think you have all to lose? You don’t know the half of it.’

Dickon, face mottled with pent-up rage, was not to be diverted. ‘But you are our father’s heir. Even if you lose all the titles Richard gave you, one day you will be Duke of York. You will never remain in obscurity, while I will be invisible until the day of my death.’

Hearing the disenchantment, seeing the rank fury glitter in Edward’s eyes, watching my father struggle to rise to his feet to take issue, I grasped Dickon’s arm and drew him, still protesting, from the room, pulling him into a deserted window embrasure in the antechamber, where I constrained him to face me, my hands on his shoulders.

‘Listen to me, Dickon.’ At least here was a role I could play.

‘Why should I? You cannot help me.’

I shook him, fingers hard in his young flesh. ‘No, I can’t, but still you will listen.’

‘And will you give me fair advice?’ His lips curled in very adult mockery.

‘All is not lost for you, Dickon.’ I stared down the challenge in his eye. ‘You did not raise arms against Lancaster. You had no influential involvement in Richard’s Court. Your position is more secure than for any one of us.’

Dickon’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not raise arms either.’

‘I, my foolish brother, will stand or fall with my husband’s decision. If Thomas is punished, then so will I be.’

A thought that might just keep me from sleep, if I allowed it.

‘I may not be called to account, but I have no call on Lancaster’s patronage or his good will,’ he snapped. ‘As Thomas said, he has four sons to provide for.’

Here was the old problem, yet I put my arm around his shoulders as I guided him from the embrasure and through the connecting antechamber, all but dragging him when he resisted.

‘I’ll never allow you to become destitute.’

‘My brother wouldn’t care.’

I felt the line of a frown develop between my brows. Did it never strike Dickon that, unless Edward produced an heir, which appeared more and more unlikely as the years passed and Philippa aged, that he, the younger brother, would inherit the Dukedom of York? Dickon’s future was not as black as he frequently painted it.

‘Your brother suffers from intense disappointment,’ was all I said, adding in an attempt to lighten the burden on my brother’s brow: ‘Edward will have to abandon his plans to build a new house outside Temple Bar, paid for with coin from Lancaster’s inheritance. A house of some ostentation, for I have seen the plans. It will hit him hard.’ I hugged Dickon closer, even when he resisted. ‘I will not leave you to beg in the gutter.’

‘Unless you are begging in the gutter at my side.’ Sometimes he was percipient beyond his years. ‘Most likely we will all become so.’

What none of us had mentioned was the looming danger from our past, a threat to us that could not be buried in obsequious language and actions. The attack on the Lords Appellant, two years ago, when Thomas and Edward had received their new enhanced titles in reward for their participation in the bloody events, was sure to raise its head when parliament met again. We were all involved to one extent or another. We might try to be pragmatic; Lancaster, who had suffered exile in that clash of power, might have no intention of allowing us to be so. It was an anxiety that rumbled constantly, a sign of a brewing storm.

‘We will try to be optimistic,’ I advised laconically, since there was no good reason to encourage Dickon’s dissatisfaction. ‘We are Lancaster’s noble cousins. We will make the new kingdom our own and come out covered with glory. He will realise that he cannot do without us.’

‘And God help us if he rejects us.’

‘God help us indeed.’

And God help Richard, I thought, for we could not.

Chapter Four

‘It’s like juggling with a set of priceless goblets,’ snarled Thomas, never amenable to direct orders, after he had been sent by Lancaster as part of a deputation to visit Richard in the Tower. He was dragging on a high-necked, calf-length garment, soft as a glove, fixing a jewel in his cap.

‘Then I advise you to learn to juggle. And fast.’

What could we do in the forthcoming days when Henry of Lancaster took control? We could play the most prominent role, whether it be a heavy decision or a light festivity, as if our loyalty to Lancaster was not, and never had been, in question.

All through those weeks of September, weeks that were tension-ridden and full of latent anxiety, we had learned to step to a different rhythm, a more complicated dance tune played at his behest by the personal minstrels of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. It was not difficult. We were masters of concealment, adapting to political necessity like a goshawk flirting with wind patterns. We accepted the change with slick acumen, even Dickon keeping his complaints to himself. So that our commitment could never be questioned, we were evident at every step of the way. Even if I in person was not. There was no public role for me except as a silent and smiling witness, but I could dance as well if not better than any one of them. I had danced with Richard; I would dance with Henry. Nor would I always be that silent witness, for it was not in my nature to allow such crucial events to flow past me, unacknowledged.

And so I did dance, when Henry occupied chambers in the Palace of Westminster, summoning the magnates who had accompanied him to London to join with him there in an informal evening of wine and music, of dancing and celebration to mark his return to don the mantle of his hereditary dukedom. If I was uneasy at being invited, I masked it with flamboyance in my execution of the stately promenades. After all, there was no need to exchange any dangerous conversations; no need to even voice the perilous words ‘crown’ and ‘throne’. I would play my unusual role of peacemaker with all the subtlety that my mother had never learned at the English Court.

Henry smiled. ‘You are as comely as ever, Constance.’

‘I am honoured to meet with your approval.’

His gaze was flattering. Wear the yellow damask, Thomas had ordered. It’s guaranteed to win Henry’s approval. But in perverse fashion, and since I disliked the ochre hue and the quality of the pale vair, I had chosen instead a new gown of Burgundian cut with trailing hem and high waist. The deep-patterned azure-blue silk and sable furs at cuff and neck was far more becoming to my fair colouring. It was not difficult to ignore Thomas’s displeasure.

‘You don’t need my approval,’ Henry said. ‘You, of all women in this room, know your own worth.’

More flattery. ‘We are pleased to welcome you back, Henry.’

‘It is good to see so much welcoming. I have need of good friends.’

Henry exhibited every quality lacking in the imprisoned Richard. Assurance blended with authority. Any observer might be drawn into the mummers’ play that Henry would be the better man to wear the crown. Moreover I sensed no hostility in him. Confidence fell gently over me, a silk veil. Until, that is, when, the slow steps of the measure bringing us together, Henry observed with gentle insouciance:

‘I am told, Constance, that you visited Richard.’

I inhaled slowly. ‘I did.’

‘Against my orders.’

‘What harm could I do?’

We parted, reunited. My heart began to beat as if the dance were an energetic one. Henry’s sword-calloused fingers were firm and rough around mine, destroying all semblance of urbanity.

‘I trust that you will not make a habit of it, cousin.’

I smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Habits can be hard to break, Henry.’

The music died away. He bowed. I sank into a curtsey. When I stood, he was looking at me, his expression uncommonly stern.

‘My advice: break this one, for your own good.’

To visit Richard or to obey orders? It was a warning and I would be a fool not to heed it.

All we had to do, when not dancing, Edward had advised, was keep our shields raised, our daggers honed and our swords sharp. There were enough enemies around us to take the opportunity to blacken our name and defile our reputation in the eyes of the one man who now dictated the order of events.

But Thomas, unconvinced, continued to expand on the unfortunate resemblance of our present status to the frailty of precious vessels. ‘One mistake, one fumble, one twitch, and they all crash to the floor and shatter into pieces.’ He considered the prospect. Then changed the image. ‘Our security is as fragile as a pheasant chick in the jaws of a fox. Its neck can be snapped before we can blink.’

‘Then we must ensure that we bear no similarity to either priceless vessels or chicks,’ I said. ‘We will be the sure and certain underpinning to this new power that Henry’s building. We will be as watchful as raptors.’

It began with much negotiation with Richard in the Tower, to encourage him to resign his crown to his cousin to make the transition easy and legal. My family of York, Aumale and Gloucester were part of that august gathering who presented themselves before him in a spirit of solemn persuasion.

And Richard?

Richard signed away his birthright for a mess of political pottage, becoming once more Richard of Bordeaux. My advice to him to sign nothing, to agree to nothing, had fallen on deaf ears. What choice did he have, when it was as clear as dawn that the majority of magnates and clerics stood solidly behind Lancaster? So we must stand behind him too. If Lancaster became the new King, how blunderingly inept it would have been if the family of York had resisted. It would have been to cut our own throats.

If there was any regret, any fear for the future at Lancaster’s hands, we hid it behind a screen of fluent knee-bending and hand-kissing.

Thus the Duke of York and his heir and his son by law were part and parcel of the procession through the streets of London on the thirtieth day of September when Lancaster took his place in the Great Hall at Westminster. Richard’s Great Hall, but what good repining? Richard’s empty throne was draped in cloth of gold, ready for its new occupant who was led in by the two Archbishops and Sir Thomas Erpingham bearing a new sword of state, the jewelled Lancaster Sword that Henry had carried at Ravenspur on his landing. Behind him marched the two Holland Dukes of Exeter and Surrey as well as my brother Aumale. Thomas played his role as one of the seven commissioners appointed to witness the pronouncement of Richard’s deposition. When Lancaster was ultimately proclaimed King of England by the lords and clerics in the Hall, it was our father of York who committed us to the new regime by leading Lancaster to the throne to take his seat.

Thus we were shackled and bolted to the new King for all time. Thus we disavowed Richard. Thus we were all brought neatly into the Lancaster fold, a little flock of important but impotent sheep, chivvied by the sheepdog named Ambition.

‘Can we all breathe easily again?’ I asked in a hiatus between signing documents and celebrating the auspicious events.

‘We have cut our cloth to suit the occasion.’ The Duke of York might regret the outcome but he had embraced his nephew with admirable fervour when Lancaster had acknowledged him, as we had hoped, as a father figure.

‘And a fine cloth it is, too,’ I remarked, and indeed nothing could have heralded our pre-eminence at the coronation more than the cost of our garments. Clad in silk damask and satin and sumptuous fur, provided for us by the new King as befitted our Plantagenet rank, we gathered in a little smoothly expensive knot as the feast was drawing to a close, to raise our cups of fine wine in private recognition of what we had achieved. At the beginning of August we had been the most loyal of subjects to King Richard the Second. By this day, a mere two months later, we had made the transition to supporters of Lancaster. The connections of the past could be forgotten, masked in the well-seasoned dishes and outward show of this royal feast. The future of Richard, still in the Tower with the prospect of a trial hanging over him if our new King gave his consent, must not be considered as we gorged on roast cygnet, venison and a multitude of game birds, the subtleties, fantastic creations sculpted from hard sugar, stuffed and enhanced with preserved fruit, their carved crowns and eagles sending out the pertinent message to all who dipped their spoons. King Henry the Fourth demanded our fealty and obedience and we gave it with much flamboyance.

Why had we ever doubted our ability to step unchallenged from one loyalty to the next? We allowed a collective sigh of silent relief.

‘I did think that at the eleventh hour he might order the arrest of the lot of us,’ Thomas remarked. ‘Even when I knelt to take the oath, I could feel the kiss of an axe against my neck, but it seems that we are still in possession of our titles, and our heads.’

I could not be so sanguine, but masked the persistent fear. ‘Edward says that Henry needs us, and thus our future is secure.’

‘Edward says whatever suits him best. He’s as slippery as an eel resisting being dropped into a pot of boiling water.’

‘Are we not all carved from the same wood? Self-interested to the last?’

Thomas emptied his chased and enamelled goblet with some satisfaction. ‘Of course. We’ll all perjure ourselves if necessary.’

Our thoughts, which it seemed were for once in unison, were interrupted by a great crash of wood against stone, as the doors of the feasting chamber were flung back and a knight in full gleaming armour, on horseback, rode in. Around us many voices were raised, but no one seemed too perturbed. There was some laughter, some groans. Thomas sighed as the knight lifted his visor to announce his name: Sir Thomas Dymoke. His voice, raw as a jackdaw’s croak, bounced from the stonework.

‘I am here by right of inheritance through my lady mother. I am the King’s Champion. I challenge to a duel any man who doubts King Henry’s right to the throne.’

Spurring his horse to a brisk walk he made a circuit around the hall, brushing against the tapestries to release clouds of dust. The preparations for this festivity had been hasty. One circuit and then another. And another, by this time raising some ribaldry.

‘Is there no one here who will challenge the right of our King to wear the crown? If there is any such, then I will fight him, sword against sword.’

‘For God’s sake, someone challenge him and put us out of our misery.’ Thomas had no patience, while Edward, who had been dispensing wine to the new King from a silver flagon, strolled over to replenish our cups with what remained in the vessel.