Death and the Chapman Read Free Page A

heir was his cousin, Roger Mortimer, grandson of Edward the Third’s third son, Lionel. Henry was the son of John of Gaunt, a younger son of that same monarch, and from this situation there arose, half a century later, a bloody dynastic struggle. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, direct descendant of Roger Mortimer, claimed the crown from his cousin, King Henry the Sixth, Bolingbroke’s grandson. York was driven to it by the unrelenting enmity of Henry’s Queen, Margaret of Anjou, and was supported by his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury’s eldest son, the Earl of Warwick.
    The first blow was struck on May 22nd, 1455, and, five years later both York and Salisbury lost their lives at the battle of Wakefield. Six months after his father’s death, York’s eldest son was crowned King Edward the Fourth in Westminster Abbey.
    At first, all went well, and this apparently easy-going young man of eighteen showed proper gratitude and respect for the architects of his victory, his mother’s family of Neville, chief of whom was her nephew, the mighty Earl of Warwick.
    In the year 1464, however, while Warwick worked tirelessly to bring about a French alliance through Edward’s marriage to Bona of Savoy, Edward secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of the Lancastrian Lord Grey; a woman five years his senior and already the mother of two sons.
    The marriage estranged not only the Earl of Warwick, but also Edward’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence. The King’s youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, remained loyal, in spite of his hatred of the Woodville family.
    Eventually, in 1469, the Nevilles kidnapped the King and attempted to rule the country through their prisoner. When this failed, Warwick tried to adduce Edward’s bastardy and put the Duke of Clarence, who had married the Earl’s elder daughter, Isabel, on the throne instead.
    When this plan also foundered, Warwick, Clarence and their wives, together with Warwick’s younger daughter, Anne, fled to France. Here, the Earl, completely changing his tactics, made peace with the exiled Margaret of Anjou and agreed to restore the imprisoned Henry the Sixth to the throne. Anne Neville was married to Edward of Lancaster, Henry and Margaret’s son.
    In the autumn of 1470, the year before my story opened, three months before my mother died, eight months before I walked from Wells to Bristol, Warwick and Clarence returned to England with men and money supplied by King Louis of France. Partly through King Edward’s own folly, he was out-generalled and caught in a trap. With the Duke of Gloucester and a handful of loyal friends, he fled to Burgundy, throwing himself on the mercy of Duke Charles, his sister Margaret’s husband.
    Elizabeth Woodville and her three little daughters, together with the Duke of Gloucester’s two young children, sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, where the erstwhile Queen gave birth to a boy, named after his father.
    Then, in March of the following year, Edward of York returned to reclaim his throne. Landing at Ravenspur, he and his youngest brother marched south almost without opposition. At Banbury, the Duke of Clarence joined them, deserting his father-in-law, and by early April Edward was in London.
    Warwick, who had been in Coventry, suddenly moved against them, but on Easter Sunday was defeated and killed at Barnet. The next day, Margaret of Anjou, her son and daughter-in-law, landed at Weymouth to be met by the terrible news. Instead of attacking London, the Queen and her army marched north-west in an attempt to link up with King Henry’s half-brother, Jasper Tudor, in Wales, entering Bristol at the end of April. A few days later she learned that King Edward was already at Malmesbury, racing across country to intercept her, and on May 2nd, that warm, sunny Thursday when I first heard the name of Clement Weaver, she and her troops left the city in a hurry; in a frantic bid to outpace King Edward.
     
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