The Fate of Princes Read Free

himself as Protector, whispering fiercely to me how he would have to defend himself against the Woodvilles. They would have him arrested and secretly done to death as they had Clarence who dared to conspire and whisper against the Queen. Richard never forgot Clarence, nor did he forget the whispers. He remembered them. Oh, yes. One in particular, brought to him by Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells. A curious story. How Edward IV’s marriage to the Woodville was null and void for Edward had already been betrothed to the Lady Eleanor Butler. If this was so, and I could imagine Buckingham with the silver whispering and golden arguments, Edward IV’stwo sons were bastards. They were illegitimate stock and could never wear the crown of England. Richard had believed this. He proclaimed his brother’s marriage bigamous, seizing the two princes, locking them in the Tower and taking the crown himself.
    There was no other way. True or false, what did it matter? If Richard had not become King, sooner or later the Woodvilles, because of their hold over the young princes, would have destroyed him. What man wants to live his life in the shadow of the axe or the nightmare of dreadful death in some secret dungeon? But murder? Infanticide? I knew Richard well. A man of sharp contrasts. On his orders the Bishop of London had forced Mistress Jane Shore, his brother’s paramour, to walk through the streets of London dressed only in her shift, carrying a candle, as public atonement for her fleshly desires. Yet Richard was no stranger to such lusts. He himself had a bastard son, the Lord John, and at least one other illegitimate offspring. He was a master actor, cautious and subtle, able to mask his true feelings behind conceits and stratagems. When Lord Hastings fell, Richard had staged a masque as cunning as anything devised on some town stage. A hot, sweaty summer day in the council chamber in the Tower; Richard, pulling back his jerkin sleeve showing his arm, thinner, more emaciated than the other, a defect from birth. Richard, however, accused Hastings of withering it by witchcraft, saying he would not dine until the traitor had lost his head. In a few violent bloody minutes Richard had Hastings executed and others of his coven, Morton and Rotherham of York, placed in custody.
    There had been other guises, other conceits: Buckingham offering him the crown at Baynards Castle and Richard reluctantly accepting it. Oh, I had seen it all. Now, was this Richard play-acting again? The role of the anxious uncle, when he knew full well the true fate of his nephews? I rose and began shouting for servantsto prepare for my departure. Secretly, in my heart, I swore an oath: if Richard had slain his nephews and dragged me into some deadly masque, I would leave him and flee beyond the seas.

Two
    Two days it took, two days of frenetic packing of trunks, chests and coffers. After a secret council with the King, I made to leave Minster Lovell, accompanied by six retainers and my faithful steward, Thomas Belknap. Ah, Belknap, a great scurrier and spy. An able clerk, a former priest who had been dismissed by Bishop Morton from his prebend in Ely. A secretive man, Belknap; he burned with a lasting hatred, or so he said, against his former bishop and anything to do with the House of Lancaster. He and I left the courtyard of Minster Lovell on a cool, clear summer morning. Behind me stood Anne, in a sea-blue dress fringed with gold, her black hair unveiled, falling down around her sweet face like some cloying mist. Above her, staring out of the window of the solar, King Richard watched me impassively, his hand half raised. His sombre stare troubled me as we made our way along the rutted tracks, dried hard by the sun, before reaching the old Roman road south to London.
    We entered the city by the north gate, skirting Smithfield and the stinking messes around Newgate. They say London is a wondrous city but I could see why Richard hated the place; it made me