The White Princess Read online

  “A sack?”

  Henry nods. He is watching me carefully. “A sack of seals. Everyone who is plotting for the boy in England, everyone who ever sent him a letter closed it under their seal. The boy received the letter and cut the seal from it, he kept the seals, by way of a pledge. And now, Sir Robert brings me the sack of seals. I have every seal. A complete collection, Elizabeth, that identifies everyone who is plotting for the boy against me.”

  His face is jubilant, like a rat catcher with a hundred rat tails.

  “Do you know how many? Can you guess how many?” I can tell by the tone of his voice that he thinks he is setting a trap for me.

  “How many?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “Hundreds? He has hundreds of supporters?”

  “But now I know them all. Do you know the names on the list?”

  I have to bite my tongue on my impatience. “Of course I don’t know who wrote to the boy. I don’t know how many seals and I don’t know who they are. I don’t even know if it is a true collection,” I say. “What if it is false? What if there are names on it of men who are faithful to you, who perhaps wrote long ago to Duchess Margaret? What if the boy has sent you this sack on purpose, and Sir Robert is working for him, to fill you with doubt? What if the boy is sowing fear among us?”

  I see him catch his breath at a possibility that he had not considered. “Clifford has returned to me—the only one who has returned to me!—and brought me information as good as gold,” he says flatly.

  “Or false gold, fool’s gold, that people mistake for the real thing,” I say stoutly. I find my courage and I face him. “Are you saying that any of my kinsmen or -women, or ladies, are on the list?” Not Margaret! I am thinking desperately. Not Margaret. God send that she has had the patience not to rebel against Henry in the hopes of freeing her brother. Please God none of my kinswomen have played their husbands false for love of a boy that they secretly think is my brother? Not my grandmother, not my aunts, not my sisters! Please God that my mother always refused to speak with them, just as she never spoke to me. Please God that no one I love is on Henry’s list and that I shall not see my own kinsmen and -women on the scaffold.

  “Come,” he says suddenly.

  Obediently, I rise to me feet. “Where?”

  “To my presence chamber,” he says, as if it is the most ordinary thing in the world that he should come to my room to fetch me.

  “I?”

  “Yes.”

  “What for?” Suddenly my rooms seem very empty, the door to the children’s schoolroom is shut, my ladies sent away. Suddenly I realize that the Tower is very quiet and the prisons for traitors are just a half a dozen steps away, as Henry reminded me just a moment ago. “What for?”

  “You can come and see Clifford brought before me. Since you are so astute about whose name might or might not be in his bag of seals, since you are casting doubt on it, you can see it for yourself.”

  “It’s a matter for you and your lords,” I say, hanging back.

  He puts out his hand, his face quite determined. “You had better come,” he says. “I don’t want people observing your absence and thinking anything of it.”

  I put my hand in his, feeling how cold he is as he grips me, and I wonder if it is fear that makes his fingers so icy. “Whatever you wish,” I say steadily, wondering if I can get a message to Margaret, if anyone in the presence chamber will be close enough for me to whisper a request that she bring me something, a shawl or a cape against the cold of the room. “My ladies must come with me.”

  “Some of them are there already,” he says. “I particularly wanted them to be there. Some of them have to be there, some of them have questions to answer. You will be surprised at how many people are waiting for us. For you.”

  We enter the presence chamber of the Tower hand in hand as if we are in a procession. It is a long room that runs the length of the Tower, dark as it is lit only by narrow windows at either end, crowded this afternoon with people pressing themselves back against the cold walls to leave a space before the banked fire for the table, the great chair, the cloth of estate hung high over the chair. My Lady the King’s Mother stands on one side of the empty throne, her husband Lord Thomas Stanley beside her, his brother Sir William beside him. She has my sisters Cecily and Anne beside her, and Margaret my cousin is there too. Maggie shoots me one frightened look, her eyes dark, and then drops her gaze to the ground.

  Sir Robert Clifford, Richard’s friend and loyal companion at the Battle of Bosworth and long before that day, bows as we come in. He looks strained, a leather sack like a pedlar’s pack in one hand, a sheet of paper in the other, as if he were coming to market to deal with a difficult trader. Henry takes the great chair under the cloth of gold, and looks him up and down, as if taking the measure of the man who has turned his coat twice.

  “You may tell me what you know,” Henry says quietly.

  My Lady steps a little closer to her son’s chair and puts her hand on the carved back, as if she would show them as inseparable, conjoined. In contrast, I find myself shrinking away. Margaret looks at me quickly as if she is afraid that I might faint. The room is stuffy; I can smell the nervous sweat of the waiting lords. I wonder who has good reason to be fearful. I look from Cecily to Anne to Margaret and wonder if they are about to be entrapped. Sir Robert Clifford dabs his damp upper lip.

  “I have come straight from the court . . .” he starts.

  “It’s not a court,” Henry corrects him.

  “From . . .”

  “From the feigned lad Warbeck.” Henry speaks for him.

  “Warbeck?” Sir Robert hesitates as if to confirm the name, as if he has never heard it before.

  Irritated, my husband raises his voice. “Warbeck! Of course! Warbeck! That’s his name, for God’s sake!”

  “With this.” Sir Robert holds out the sack.

  “The seals of the traitors,” Henry prompts him.

  Sir Robert is pale. He nods. “The proof of their treachery.”

  “Cut from their treasonous letters to the boy.”

  Sir Robert nods nervously.

  “You may show me. Show me one at a time.”

  Sir Robert steps up to the table, within reach of the king, and I see Jasper Tudor raise himself up on his toes, as if he is ready to spring forwards and defend his nephew against some trick. They are afraid, even now, even in the heart of the Tower, that Henry may be attacked.

  It is like a children’s game as Sir Robert plunges his hand in the bag and hands over the first seal. Henry takes it, turns it around in his hand. “Cressener,” he says shortly.

  There is a little murmur from one corner of the court, where the absent young man’s kinsmen are standing. They look utterly shocked. A man drops to his knees. “Before God, I knew nothing of it,” he says.

  Henry just looks at him, as the clerk behind him makes a note on a sheet of paper. Henry holds out his hand for another seal. “Astwood,” he says.

  “Never!” a woman exclaims, and then bites back the denial, realizing that she does not want to be seen defending a traitor.

  Henry holds out his hand, disregarding the gasp from the lords. I see the seal as it comes from the bag, almost as if by magic, as if I suddenly have the eyes of a hawk that can see far, far below the crouching mouse, the dash of a pheasant chick. As Sir Robert hands over the small red seal, I recognize the imprint of my mother’s ring.

  Sir Robert knows it too. He hands it over without saying a name, and Henry takes it without comment, turns and looks at me, his gaze absolutely expressionless, his dark eyes as flat and unloving as Welsh slate. Silently, he puts it on the table, beside the seals of the other traitors. Uncle Jasper glares at me, and his mother turns her face away. I meet my sister Cecily’s frightened gaze but I dare not signal to her to say nothing. I keep my face perfectly still; the most important thing is that we none of us confess to anything.

  Another seal comes from the bag. I find I am holding my
breath as if preparing for something yet more terrible. Henry puts it on the table without saying the name, and the whole of the court cranes forwards as if they would read it, despite him.

  “Dorlay,” he says bitterly. There is a low moan from one of my ladies as he names her brother.

  Sir Robert passes another seal from the bag, and I hear My Lady gasp in horror. She reels back, grips the chair to steady herself as Henry rises to his feet. His hand is on the seal, I can’t see the inscription, and for a moment, in my terror, I think he will turn to me, I think he will name me as a traitor. I think it is my seal in his hand. The court is breathless, looking from the king’s shocked face to the pallor of his mother. Whatever Henry was planning in this ordeal, it was not that he should find this seal in the bag. His hand shakes as he holds out the seal with the familiar crest.

  “Sir William?” he asks, and his voice falters as he looks past his mother to her brother-in-law, the trusted beloved brother of her husband, whose army saved Henry’s life at Bosworth, who handed him the crown of England and was made Lord Chamberlain, the highest position in the kingdom, and given a fortune as a mere part of his reward. “Sir William Stanley?” he repeats, disbelievingly. “This is your seal?”

  “It’s not possible,” Thomas, Lord Stanley, says hastily.

  Terribly, at that moment, a laugh forces its way out of my mouth. I am so horrified and so shocked and so startled that I laugh like a fool and bury my face in my hands and find I cannot catch my breath for wanting to laugh, laugh out loud at the madness of this moment. I choke and peal after peal of laughter escapes me.

  It is because I see, so blindingly clearly, that yet again the Stanleys have put a man on either side, as they always do, as my mother herself warned me they always do. There is always a Stanley on either side of the battle, or one who has sworn he is on his way, or one promising an army but unfortunately failing to deliver. Whenever there is a moment that a family must choose a side, the Stanleys are always to be found on both sides at once.

  Even at Bosworth, though they were to be found on the winning side at the very end, they had promised their loyalty and their army to Richard. At the start of the day they were sworn to be his allies. Richard even had Thomas Stanley’s son as a hostage, to prove their goodwill. He was certain they would ride to his aid even as they waited on the hill to see which way the battle was going, and then thundered down to support Henry.

  And now, they have done it again. “Sans changer!” I choke. “Sans changer!”

  It is the Stanley motto: never changing. But they are only unchanging in the pursuit of their own safety and success, and then I feel Maggie at my side and her fingers pinching the inside of my arm as she whispers urgently, “Stop it! Stop it!” and I bite the back of my hand and choke into silence.

  But as my laughter drains away, I realize how powerful “the boy” has become. If the Stanleys have divided—one to Henry’s side, one to the boy’s—then they must know that he will invade and they must think that he might win. To have a Stanley on your side is like a pedigree—it shows that your claim is a good one. They only ever join a winning side. If Sir William is backing the boy it is only because he thinks he will triumph. If Lord Thomas has allowed it, it is because he thinks the boy has a good chance and a better claim.

  Henry glances at me as I struggle to compose myself. He turns back to Sir William and his face is blank. “I gave you everything you asked for,” he says flatly, as though loyalty should be bought.

  Sir William inclines his head.

  “You yourself handed the crown of England to me on the battlefield.”

  It is terrible how the people have fallen away from Sir William as if they have suddenly seen on him the pockmarks of the plague. Without seeming to move, everyone has receded from him by a clear pace and he stands alone, facing the king’s horrified gaze.

  “You are my stepfather’s brother, I have treated you as an uncle.” Henry looks at his mother. She is swallowing convulsively as if bile is rising in her throat and she is going to vomit. “My mother assured me that you were her kinsman, you were a man we could trust.”

  “A mistake,” Thomas, Lord Stanley, says. “Sir William can explain, I know . . .”

  “There are forty important men promised with him,” Sir Robert prompts unasked. “He has recruited supporters. Between them they have sent the boy a fortune.”

  “You are of the royal family of England and yet you side with a pretender?” Henry struggles with the words as if he cannot believe that he is saying this to his uncle. He had thought to shame me with the proof of my mother’s disloyalty, he had thought to shock the court with half a dozen names that he would send to the hangman to teach the others to be loyal in future. He did not think that in this theater of asserting his power he would find a traitor in his own family. I look at his mother, who is clinging to the back of his chair as her knees give way beneath her, looking with staring eyes from her husband to his brother as if they are equally faithless. At that horror-stricken glance from her I realize that they probably are. The brothers never act without each other. Perhaps they decided that Sir William would back the pretender and Thomas, Lord Stanley, maintain his fatherhood of the king. Both of them waiting to see who would win. Both of them determined to be on the winning side. Both of them judging that Henry Tudor was likely to lose.

  “Why?” he asks brokenly. “Why would you betray me? Me! After you supported me? Me! Who gave you everything?”

  Then I see him snap off the questions, as he hears in his own voice the weakness in his tone. It is the whine of a boy who was never loved, who was always in exile hoping one day to come home. The boy who could never understand why he should be far from his mother, why he should have no friends, why he should live in a foreign land and have only enemies at home. Henry remembers that there are some questions which should never be asked.

  The last thing he wants his court to hear is why Sir William was ready to risk everything for the boy, to throw away everything he had gained from the king. Why Sir William would take that choice could only be for a residual love and loyalty for the House of York, and his belief that the boy is the true heir. Henry doesn’t want to hear this. The last thing he should invite is a justification from the Stanleys. Who knows how many people would agree with them? He slams his hand flat on the table. “I won’t hear a word from you.”

  Sir William shows no intention of speaking. His face is pale and proud. I can’t look at him without thinking that he knows his cause is a good one. He is following a true king.

  “Take him away,” Henry says to the guards at the door and they step forwards and Sir William goes with them without a word. He does not ask for mercy and he does not try to explain. He goes with his head held high, as if he knows he will have to pay the price for doing the right thing. I have never seen him, in all my life before, walk like a proud man. I have always thought of him as a turncoat, one who would go from one side to the other for the winnings. But today, as they take him out as a traitor, when he is going to his death, when he is utterly lost for supporting the boy who says he is my brother—Sir William goes gladly, his head held high.

  Sir Robert, whose family lands were confiscated by Sir William and who has borne him a grudge since then, watches him go with a broad smile, and reaches into the sack of seals as if to give us all another surprise.

  “Enough,” Henry says, looking as sick as his mother. “I will inspect them on my own, in my rooms. You can go. You can all go. I want no one—” He breaks off and looks past me as if I am the last person who might give him comfort in this moment of betrayal. “I want none of you.”

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, FEBRUARY 1495

  Henry’s suspicion of me and all Yorks drives him onwards to find a husband that he can trust who can marry my sister Anne and thus eliminate her as a center for rebellion. His choice falls on Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who has been punished long enough for being loyal to the House of York and is released from the Tow
er. He was Richard’s man; but made it clear to Henry that his loyalty was always only to the crown. Once the crown was on Henry’s head he followed it. Henry has doubted this, and suspected him, but his faithful waiting in the Tower, like a dog for the return of his master, has convinced Henry to take the risk. So Thomas is betrothed to my sister Anne, takes his title back into his hand, and has every reason to think that the Howard dynasty will rise under the Tudors as it was set to do under the Yorks.

  “Do you mind?” I ask Anne.

  She gives me one level look. She is nineteen, and has been proposed as a bride all around Christendom.

  “It’s time,” she says shortly. “And it could be worse. Thomas Howard is a coming man, he will rise in the king’s favor. You’ll see. He’ll do anything for him.”

  Henry wastes little time on the wedding that he has ordered; he can think of nothing but the sack of seals and the names of the men who have been betraying him ever since he took the crown on his head.

  Jasper Tudor, the only man in the world that Henry can trust, heads a commission to try the traitors and with eleven lords and eight judges, drags into court anyone who has ever spoken of the boy or whispered the name Prince Richard. Before Jasper come priests, clerks, officials, lords, their families, servants, sons, a terrible parade of men who had taken the Tudor shilling, sworn the Tudor oaths of loyalty, but then decided that the boy was the true king. Despite their position, despite the wealth that Henry had given them, these lords have gone against their own interests, drawn to the boy as if they could not help themselves, following a brighter star than their own selfish good. They are like martyrs for the House of York, pledging their faith, gambling their own safety, sending words of love and loyalty in their own hands sealed with their family crests.

  They pay a heavy price. The lords are publicly beheaded, the common men hanged, gutted while they are still alive, their bellies and their lungs dragged out of their sliced bodies and burned before their glaring eyes, then finally they die as they are cut into pieces, quartered like a carcass, their mangled bodies sent around the kingdom to be displayed at city gates, at crossroads, at village squares.