The Red Queen Read online

  “They are in the hands of God,” I reply steadily. “As are we all. My son too. These are dangerous times, and the princes are in the hands of God.”

  That night we hear news of the first uprising. It is mistimed; it comes too early. The men of Kent are marching on London, calling on the Duke of Buckingham to take the throne. The county of Sussex gets up in arms, believing they cannot delay a moment longer, and the men of Hampshire beside them rise up too as a fire will leap from one dry woodland to another. Richard’s most loyal commander, Thomas Howard, the brand-new Duke of Norfolk, marches down the west road from London and occupies Guildford, fighting skirmishes to the west and to the east, but holding the rebels down in their own counties, and sending a desperate warning to the king: the counties of the south are up in the name of the former queen and her imprisoned sons, the princes.

  Richard, the battle-hardened leader of York, marches south at the fast speed of a York army, makes his center of command at Lincoln, and raises troops in every county, especially from those who greeted his progress with such joy. He hears of the betrayal of the Duke of Buckingham when men come from Wales to tell him that the duke is already on the march, going north through the Welsh marches, recruiting men and clearly planning to cross at Gloucester, or perhaps Tewkesbury, to come into the heart of England with his own men and his Welsh recruits. His beloved friend, Henry Stafford, is marching out under his standard, as proudly and as bravely as once he did for Richard; only now he is marching against him.

  Richard goes white with rage, and he grips his right arm, his sword arm, above the elbow, as if he were shaking with rage, as if to hold it steady. “A man with the best cause to be true,” he exclaims. “The most untrue creature living. A man who had everything he asked for. Never was a false traitor better treated; a traitor, a traitor.”

  At once he sends out commissions of array to every county in England demanding their loyalty, demanding their arms and their men. This is the first and greatest crisis of his new reign. He summons them to support a York king; he demands the loyalty that they gave to his brother, which they have all promised to him. He warns those who cheered when he took the crown less than sixteen weeks ago that they must now stand by that decision, or England will fall to an unholy alliance of the false Duke of Buckingham, the witch queen, and the Tudor pretender.

  It is pouring with rain, and there is a strong wind blowing hard from the north. It is unnatural weather, witch’s weather. My son must set sail now if he is to arrive while the queen’s supporters are up and while Buckingham is marching. But if it is so foul here, in the south of England, then I fear the weather in Brittany. He must come at exactly the right moment to catch the weary victor of the first battle and make them turn and fight again, while they are sick of fighting. But—I stand at my window and watch the rain pouring down, and the wind lashing the trees in our garden—I know he cannot set sail in this weather, the wind is howling towards the south. I cannot believe he will even be able to get out of port.

  The next day the rains are worse and the river is starting to rise. It is over our landing steps at the foot of the garden, and the boatmen drag the Stanley barge up the garden to the very orchard, out of the swirling flood, fearing that it will be torn from its moorings by the current. I can’t believe that Henry can set sail in this, and even if he were to get out of harbor, I can’t believe that he could safely get across the English seas to the south coast.

  My web of informers, spies, and plotters are stunned by the ferocity of the rain, which is like a weapon against us. The roads into London are all but impassable; no one can get a message through. A horse and rider cannot get from London to Guildford, and as the river rises higher, there is news of flooding and drowning upstream and down. The tides are unnaturally high, and every day and night the floods from the river pour down to the inrushing tide and there is a boiling surge of water that wipes out riverside houses, quays, piers, and docks. Nobody can remember weather like this, a rain storm that lasts for days, and the rivers are bursting their banks all around England.

  I have no one to talk to but my God, and I cannot always hear His voice, as if the rain is blotting out His very face, and the wind blowing away His words. This is how I know for sure that it is a witch’s wind. I spend my day at the window overlooking the garden, watching the river boil over the garden wall and come up through the orchard, lap by lap, till the trees themselves seem to be stretching up to the heavy clouds for help. Whenever one of my ladies comes to my side, or Dr. Lewis comes to my door, or any of the plotters in London ask for admittance, they all want to know what is happening: as if I know any more than them, when all I can hear is rain; as if I can foretell the future in the gale-ripped sky. But I know nothing, anything could be happening out there; a waterlogged massacre could be taking place even half a mile away, and none of us would know—we would hear no voices over the sound of the storm, no lights would show through the rain.

  I spend my nights in my chapel, praying for the safety of my son and the success of our venture, and hearing no answer from God but only the steady hammer of the torrent on the roof and the whine of the wind lifting the slates above me, until I think that God Himself has been blotted from the heavens of England by the witch’s wind, and I will never hear Him again.

  Finally, I get a letter from my husband at Coventry.

  The king has commanded my presence, and I fear he doubts me. He has sent for my son Lord Strange too and was very dark when he learned that my son is from his home with an army of ten thousand men on the march, but my son has told nobody where he is going, and his servants only swear that he said he was raising his men for the true cause. I assure the king that my son will be marching to join us, loyal to the throne; but he has not yet arrived here at our command center, in Coventry Castle.

  Buckingham is trapped in Wales by the rising of the river Severn. Your son, I believe, will be held in port by the storm on the seas. The queen’s men will be unable to march out on the drowned roads, and the Duke of Norfolk is waiting for them. I think your rebellion is over; you have been beaten by the rain and the rising of the waters. They are calling it the Duke of Buckingham’s Water, and it has washed him and his ambition to hell along with your hopes. Nobody has seen a storm like this since the Queen Elizabeth called up a mist to hide her husband’s army at the battle of Barnet, or summoned the wind to blow him safely home. Nobody doubts she can do such a thing, and most of us only hope she will stop before she washes us all away. But why? Can she be working against you now? And if so, why? Does she know, with her inner sight, what has befallen her boys and who has done it? Does she think you have done it? Is she drowning your son in revenge?

  Destroy what papers you have kept, and deny whatever you have done. Richard is coming to London, and there will be a scaffold built on Tower Green. If he believes half what he has heard, he will put you on it and I will be unable to save you.

  Stanley

  OCTOBER 1483

  I have been on my knees all night, but I don’t know if God can hear me through the hellish noise of the rain. My son sets sail from Brittany with fifteen valuable ships and an army of five thousand men and loses them all in the storm at sea. Only two ships struggle ashore on the south coast, and they learn at once that Buckingham has been defeated by the rising of the river, his rebellion washed away by the waters, and Richard is waiting, dry-shod, to execute the survivors.

  My son turns his back on the country that should have been his and sails for Brittany again, flying like a faintheart, leaving me here, unprotected, and clearly guilty of plotting his rebellion. We are parted once more, my heir and I, this time without even meeting, and this time it feels as if it is forever. He and Jasper leave me to face the king, who marches vengefully on London like an invading enemy, mad with anger. Dr. Lewis vanishes off to Wales; Bishop Morton takes the first ship that can sail after the storms and goes to France; Buckingham’s men slip from the city in silence and under lowering skies; the queen’s kin make
their way to Brittany and to the tattered remains of my son’s makeshift court; and my husband arrives in London in the train of King Richard, whose handsome face is dark with the sullen rage of a traitor betrayed.

  “He knows,” my husband says shortly as he comes to my room, his traveling cape still around his shoulders, his sympathy scant. “He knows you were working with the queen, and he will put you on trial. He has evidence from half a dozen witnesses. Rebels from Devon to East Anglia know your name and have letters from you.”

  “Husband, surely he will not.”

  “You are clearly guilty of treason, and that is punishable by death.”

  “But if he thinks you are faithful—”

  “I am faithful,” he corrects me. “It is not a matter of opinion but of fact. Not what the king thinks—but what he can see. When Buckingham rode out, while you were summoning your son to invade England, and paying rebels, while the queen was raising the southern counties, I was at his side, advising him, loaning him money, calling out my own affinity to defend him, faithful as any northerner. He trusts me now as he has never done before. My son raised an army for him.”

  “Your son’s army was for me!” I interrupt.

  “My son will deny that, I will deny that, we will call you a liar, and nobody can prove anything, either way.”

  I pause. “Husband, you will intercede for me?”

  He looks at me thoughtfully, as if the answer could be no. “Well, it is a consideration, Lady Margaret. My King Richard is bitter; he cannot believe that the Duke of Buckingham, his best friend, his only friend, should betray him. And you? He is astonished at your infidelity. You carried his wife’s train at her coronation, you were her friend, you welcomed her to London. He feels you have betrayed him. Unforgivably. He thinks you as faithless as your kinsman Buckingham, and Buckingham was executed on the spot.”

  “Buckingham is dead?”

  “They took off his head in Salisbury marketplace. The king would not even see him. He was too angry with him, and he is filled with hate towards you. You said that Queen Anne was welcome to her city, that she had been missed. You bowed the knee to him and wished him well. And then you sent out messages to every disaffected Lancastrian family in the country to tell them the cousins’ war had come again, and that this time you will win.”

  I grit my teeth. “Should I run away? Should I go to Brittany too?”

  “My dear, how ever would you get there?”

  “I have my money chest; I have my guard. I could bribe a ship to take me. If I went down to the docks at London now, I could get away. Or Greenwich. Or I could ride to Dover or Southampton …”

  He smiles at me and I remember they call him “the fox” for his ability to survive, to double back, to escape the hounds. “Yes, indeed, all that might have been possible; but I am sorry to tell you, I am nominated as your jailer, and I cannot let you escape me. King Richard has decided that all your lands and your wealth will be mine, signed over to me, despite our marriage contract. Everything you owned as a girl is mine, everything you owned as a Tudor is mine, everything you gained from your marriage to Stafford is now mine, everything you inherited from your mother is mine. My men are in your chambers now collecting your jewels, your papers, and your money chest. Your men are already under arrest, and your women are locked in their rooms. Your tenants and your affinity will learn you cannot summon them; they are all mine.”

  I gasp. For a moment I cannot speak, I just look at him. “You have robbed me? You have taken this chance to betray me?”

  “You are to live at the house at Woking, my house now; you are not to leave the grounds. You will be served by my people; your own servants will be turned away. You will see neither ladies-in-waiting, servants, nor your confessor. You will meet with no one and send no messages.”

  I can hardly grasp the depth and breadth of his betrayal. He has taken everything from me. “It is you who betrayed me to Richard!” I fling at him. “You who betrayed the whole plot. It is you, with an eye to my fortune, who led me on to do this and now profit from my destruction. You told the Duke of Norfolk to go down to Guildford and suppress the rebellion in Hampshire. You told Richard to beware of the Duke of Buckingham. You told him that the queen was rising against him and I with her!”

  He shakes his head. “No. I am not your enemy, Margaret; I have served you well as your husband. No one else could have saved you from the traitor’s death that you deserve. This is the best deal I could get for you. I have saved you from the Tower, from the scaffold. I have saved your lands from sequestration; he could have taken them outright. I have saved you to live in my house, as my wife, in safety. And I am still placed at the heart of things, where we can learn of his plans against your son. Richard will seek to have Tudor killed now; he will send spies with orders to murder Henry. You have signed your son’s death warrant with your failure. Only I can save him. You should be grateful to me.”

  I cannot think, I cannot think through this mixture of threats and promises. “Henry?”

  “Richard will not stop until he is dead. Only I can save him.”

  “I am to be your prisoner?”

  He nods. “And I am to have your fortune. It is nothing between us, Margaret. Think of the safety of your son.”

  “You will let me warn Henry of his danger?”

  He rises to his feet. “Of course. You can write to him as you wish. But all your letters are to come through me, they will be carried by my men. I have to give the appearance of controlling you completely.”

  “The appearance?” I repeat. “If I know you at all, you will give the appearance of being on both sides.”

  He smiles in genuine amusement. “Always.”

  WINTER 1483–84

  It is a long, dark winter that I face, on my own at Woking. My ladies are taken from me, accused of plotting treason, and all of my trusted friends and messengers are turned away. I may not even see them. My household is chosen by my husband—my jailer—and they are men and women loyal only to him. They look at me askance, as a woman who has betrayed him and his interests, a faithless wife. I am living among strangers again, far from the center of court life, isolated from my friends, and far—so very far—from my defeated son. Sometimes I fear I will never see him again. Sometimes I fear that he will give up his great cause, settle in Brittany, marry an ordinary girl, become an ordinary young man—not a boy chosen by God for greatness and brought into the world by his mother’s agony. He is the son of a woman who was called to greatness by Joan of Arc herself. Can he become a sluggard? A drunkard? A boy who in the pothouses tells people that he might have been a king but for bad luck and a witch’s wind?

  I find a way to send him one letter, before Christmas. It is not a letter of goodwill or Christmas cheer. The days are too dark for the exchange of gifts. It has been a bad year for the House of Lancaster. I have no joy to wish anyone. We have long, hard work to do if he is to reach his throne, and Christmas Day is the very day to start again.

  My brother-in-law Jasper and my son Henry

  I greet you well.

  I understand that Elizabeth the false queen and Richard the usurper are talking together about her terms for release from sanctuary.

  My wish is that my son Henry should publicly announce his betrothal to Princess Elizabeth of York. This should prevent any other marriage for her, remind her affinity and mine of his claim to the throne, demonstrate their previous support for him, and reestablish his claim to the throne of England.

  He should do it on Christmas Day in Rennes Cathedral, just as Joan of Arc declared the King of France in Rheims Cathedral. This is my command as his mother and the head of his house.

  Greetings of the season,

  Margaret Stanley

  I have time to meditate on the vanity of ambition and the sin of overthrowing an ordained king in the long winter nights of a miserable Christmas and a cheerless new year, as the impenetrable dark yields slowly to cold gray mornings. I go on my knees to my God and ask h
im why my son’s venture to gain his rightful place in the world was not blessed; why the rain was against him; why the wind blew his ships away; why the God of earthquake, wind, and fire could not calm the storm for Henry as He calmed it for Himself in Galilee? I ask Him that if Elizabeth Woodville, Dowager Queen of England, is a witch as everyone knows, then why should she come out of sanctuary and make an agreement with a usurping king? How can she get her way in the world when my own is blocked and mired? I stretch out on the cold tiles of the chancel steps and give myself up to holy and remorseful grief.

  And then it comes to me. In the end, after many long nights of fasting and prayer, I hear an answer. I find that I know why. I come to an understanding.

  At last I recognize that the sin of ambition and greed darkened our enterprise, our plans were overshadowed by a sinful woman’s desire for revenge. The plans were formed by a woman who thought herself the mother of a king, who could not be satisfied to be an ordinary woman. The fault of the enterprise lay in the vanity of a woman who would be a queen, and who would overturn the peace of the country for her own selfish desire. To know oneself is to know all, and I will confess my own sin and the part it played in our failure.

  I am guilty of nothing more than a righteous ambition and a powerful desire to take my rightful place. It is a righteous rage. But Elizabeth Woodville is to blame for everything. She brought war to England for her own vanity and revenge; she it was who came to us filled with desire for her son, filled with pride in her house, puffed up with belief in her own beauty; and I should have refused to ally with her in her sinful ambition. It was Elizabeth’s desire for her son’s triumph that put us outside the pale of God’s patience. I should have seen her vanity and turned from it.