I don’t think this all at once. At first, I ride out of London with the sense of relief that I always have when we put the Bishop’s Gate behind us, and I go north to my boy and my little nephew and niece with my usual feeling of joy. I have an odd lingering sense that the queen’s swift glance to her brother meant no good for us, and no good for anyone outside that tight pair – but I think nothing more than this.
MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, APRIL 1483
I am in the hay meadow outside the castle walls, watching the children practising their riding. They have three strong horses, bred from the rugged wild ponies that live here on the moors, and they are trotting them over a set of little jumps. The grooms set the jumps higher and higher as each rider gets successfully clear. My task is to rule when it is too high for Teddy, but Margaret and Edward can continue, and then to declare a winner. I have picked half a dozen stems of foxgloves and I am winding them into a crown for the winner. Margaret jumps clear and throws a triumphant beam at me; she is a brave little girl and will set her pony at anything. My son follows her over the jumps, riding with less style but even more determination. I think that soon we must give him a bigger horse and he will have to learn to joust in the adult tiltyard.
The bells from the chapel start to toll with a sudden jangle. The rooks pour out of the rafters of the castle with a harsh black cawing, and I turn in alarm. The children pull up their ponies and look at me.
‘I don’t know,’ I answer their puzzled faces. ‘Back to the castle at the trot, quickly now.’
It is not the tocsin that sounds the alarm but the steady knell, which means a death, a death in the family. But who could have died? For a moment I wonder if they have found my mother dead in her rooms and ordered the tolling of the bell as if to announce a death that was actually declared years ago. But surely they would have come to tell me first? I hold my gown bunched in my hands, free of my feet, so that I can run sure-footed down the stony path to the castle gate and follow the children into the inner garth.
Richard is on the steps leading up to the great hall, and people are gathering round him. He has a paper in his hand; I see the royal seal and my first leaping hope is that my prayers have been answered and the queen is dead. I run up the steps to stand beside him and he says, his voice choked with grief: ‘It is Edward. Edward, my brother.’
I gasp but wait as the bell slowly falls silent and the household looks to my husband. The three children come at a run from the stables and stand, as they should, on the steps before us. Edward has uncovered his head and Margaret takes Teddy’s cap from his curly hair.
‘Grave news from London,’ Richard says clearly, so that everyone, even the labourers who have come running in from their fields, can hear him. ‘His Grace the king, my beloved and noble brother, is dead.’ There is a tremendous stir among the crowd. Richard nods as if he understands their disbelief. He clears his throat. ‘He was taken ill some days ago and died. He received the last rites and we will pray for his immortal soul.’
Many people cross themselves, and one woman gives a little sob and puts her apron to her eyes. ‘His son Edward, Prince of Wales, will inherit his father’s crown,’ Richard says. He raises his voice: ‘The king is dead. God save the king!’
‘God save the king!’ we all repeat, and then Richard takes my arm and turns me in to the great hall, the children trailing behind us.
Richard sends the children to the chapel to pray for the soul of their uncle the king. He is fast and decisive, burning up with the vision of what must be done. This is a moment of destiny, and he is a Plantagenet – they are always at their best in a crisis or on the brink of an opportunity. A child of war, a soldier, commander, warden of the West Marches, he has worked his way up through the ranks of his brother’s men to be ready for the moment now – the moment that his brother is no more, and Richard must protect his brother’s legacy.
‘Beloved, I must leave you. I have to go to London. He will have named me as regent and I have to make sure that his kingdom is secure.’
‘Who should threaten it?’
He does not answer: ‘the woman who has threatened the peace of England every day since the cursed May-day that she seduced and enchanted him’. Instead he looks seriously at me and says: ‘As well as everything else, I fear a landing by Henry Tudor.’
‘Margaret Stanley’s son?’ I say incredulously. ‘A boy half-bred between the Houses of Beaufort and Tudor? You cannot fear him.’
‘Edward feared him, and he was treating with his mother to bring him home as a friend. He is an heir to the House of Lancaster, however obscure, and he has been in exile since Edward took the throne. He is an enemy and I don’t know what alliances he has. I don’t fear him; but I will get to London and secure the throne for York so that there can be no doubt.’
