It is another tableau, played out by the House of York for the benefit of the citizens of London. The Queen of England, Elizabeth Woodville, stands on a great wooden stage that they have built before the door of the White Tower, her three daughters beside her, her baby son in a gown of cloth of gold, held lovingly in the arms of his grandmother: the named witch Jacquetta. Isabel stands beside the queen, I stand beside Isabel. The queen’s brother Anthony Woodville, who now inherits his father’s title and is Lord Rivers, who rescued his sister when she was besieged in the Tower and defeated the remnants of the Lancaster forces, is at the head of his personal guards, drawn up at the foot of the steps. The queen’s own guards are on the other side. Behind railings of blue and murrey, York colours, the people of London wait for the show as if they had come to see a joust and are cheerfully impatient for it to begin.
The great gates in the Tower wall creak open, the drawbridge goes down over the moat with a heavy thud, and in rides Edward, gloriously dressed in enamelled armour with a gold circlet around his helmet, on a beautiful chestnut warhorse, at the head of his lords, his brothers on either side of him, his guards behind him. The trumpets sound, the York banners ripple in the wind that blows off the river, showing the embroidered white rose of York and their insignia of the sun in splendour: the three suns together, which signify the three reunited sons of York. Behind the victorious York boys comes a litter hung with cloth of silver, drawn by white mules, the curtains tied back so that everyone can see, seated inside, the former queen, my mother-in-law, Margaret of Anjou, in a white gown, her face utterly devoid of any emotion.
I look at my feet, at the rippling standards of the sun in splendour, anywhere but at her, for fear of meeting her blank furious eyes. Edward dismounts, hands his warhorse to his squire, and comes up the steps of the Tower. Elizabeth the queen comes towards him and he takes both her hands and kisses her on her smiling mouth. Jacquetta steps forwards and then there is a great bellow of applause as he takes his little son and heir and turns to the crowd and presents him. This will be Edward, Prince of Wales, the next King of England, Prince Edward of Wales, a baby to take the place of the dead Lancaster prince that neither his mother nor I saw buried. This baby will be king, his wife will be queen. Not me, not Isabel.
‘Smile,’ Isabel prompts me softly and at once I smile and clasp my hands together as if I too am applauding the triumph of York, so thrilled I can barely speak.
Edward hands his baby to his wife and goes down the steps to where the litter has halted. I see the oldest princess, little Elizabeth, aged only five years old, press close to her mother and clutch a handful of her gown for safety. The queen puts a gentle hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The little girl will have been haunted from the cradle by tales of Margaret of Anjou, just as I was; and now the woman we so feared is imprisoned, and enslaved. Edward the victor takes her by the hand to help her from her litter, and leads her up the broad wooden steps to the stage where he turns her, as if she were a captured animal brought to join the collection of wild beasts at the Tower. She faces the crowd and they yell in triumph to see the she-wolf finally brought in.
Her face is quite impassive as she looks over their heads at the blue May sky, as if she cannot hear them, as if nothing that they can shout could ever make any difference to her. She is every inch a queen before them. I cannot help but admire her. She taught me that to fight for the throne may cost you everything, may cost your enemy everything. But it is worth it. Even now, I imagine she regrets only losing; she will never regret fighting and going on fighting. She smiles slightly at her defeat. Her hand, held firmly by Edward, does not shake, not even the veil from her high headdress trembles in the wind. She is a queen of graven ice.
He keeps her there, to make sure that everyone can see that he has her captive, while every boy in the crowd is raised in his father’s arms to see that the House of Lancaster is reduced to this: one powerless woman on the steps of the Tower and hidden inside like an old bat, in his rooms, a sleeping king. Then Edward bows his head slightly, chivalrously, and turns Margaret of Anjou towards the entrance door to the White Tower and gestures that she shall go in to join her husband in prison.
