Виктория Холт - Passage to Pontefract

‘What means this?’ stammered Richard.

Gloucester was the spokesman.

‘My lord,’ he said, ‘we have in our possession letters in your hand, captured at Radcot. These show that you sanctioned the raising of an army to make war within this realm. You have suggested that help might be procured from the King of France for which you would barter England’s possessions in that land.’

Richard felt sick with fear. They had the better of him now.

‘How dare you break thus into my presence … arm in arm as to come against me?’ he demanded.

‘My lord,’ said Bolingbroke. ‘Come to the window. Look below. See the forces gathered there.’

‘You have raised an army against me!’

‘We have raised an army, my lord, for your preservation and that of your realm.’

Gloucester came and stood beside them at the window.

‘There below you see men determined to fight for the right,’ he said, ‘but this is not a tenth of those that have risen to destroy those false traitors who have given you such ill counsel.’

Richard was trembling. ‘What would you have of me?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘That you come to Westminster that you may hear in Parliament the accusations which shall be brought against those who have put this realm in danger by their wicked counsel.’

He knew that he was beaten. There was a cold rage in his heart against those five who had dared march towards him arms linked to show they stood firmly together against him.

I will have vengeance on them … every one of them, he promised himself. But there was nothing he could do now but obey.

‘I will come to the Parliament,’ he said.

That was triumph for his accusers. How he hated them. Particularly when they left Bolingbroke and Mowbray to guard him and kept their soldiers stationed outside the Tower.

* * *

He sat with his head buried in his hands. Bolingbroke was with him.

A curse on you, Cousin, he thought. This is what I would expect of John of Gaunt’s son.

He clenched his fists.

‘By St John the Baptist,’ he cried suddenly, ‘why should I submit to this? Why should I be forced to betray my friends … those who have served me well … Who are these men to tell me what I must do? Am I not the King?’

Bolingbroke spoke very quietly. ‘Richard, Cousin … I do not speak thus for lack of respect but to remind you of the kinship between us. You have come very near to losing your throne.’

‘That is what Gloucester wants. My uncle … and my enemy.’

Bolingbroke did not deny that. ‘I have urged him to curb his rashness,’ he said. ‘Richard, if you do not do what is asked of you they will depose you. They will set up a new king in your place.’

‘Gloucester? He is not next in line.’

‘Gloucester is here and Gloucester is strong. Listen, Richard, you must do as they wish, if you would keep your crown.’

He looked into Bolingbroke’s glowing eyes. There were thoughts there which he could not read. But he knew Bolingbroke was right.

* * *

How long that night was! Richard saw clearly now what lay before him. He would have to betray his friends or lose his crown. That was the choice.

He could not lose his crown. It was a cruel and bitter choice.

The five who were known as the Lords Appellant and the Parliament known as the Merciless Parliament had forced this on him.

He vowed vengeance on the five – but he gave way.

They were terrible days that followed. The King’s favourites were all declared traitors and condemned to death. Robert was safe and Suffolk managed to escape in the disguise of a Flemish poulterer; Neville was not condemned to death as he was an archbishop but he was outlawed and all his goods confiscated; Tresilian suffered the fearful death meted out to traitors and was hanged, drawn and quartered. His terrible fate did not arouse much sympathy throughout the country as his cruelty to the peasants was remembered.

When Simon Burley was arrested there was great sorrow in the royal household.

‘Simon!’ cried Richard to Anne. ‘What has he ever done?’

Anne was stunned. She had grown very fond of Simon Burley! He it was who had come to Prague to negotiate for her marriage; she had liked him from the moment she had seen him. He had talked so appealingly of Richard and had made her look forward to seeing her new home. He had been one of their dear friends.

‘I’ll not allow them to harm Simon,’ cried Richard.

‘We must try to stop them,’ Anne agreed. ‘Oh Richard, we can do something.’

‘Arundel always hated him. And it seems to me that on the strength of his victory at sea, Arundel feels he should rule the country.’

‘It is Gloucester I fear most.’

‘My own uncle,’ cried Richard bitterly. ‘I tell you this, Anne, it would do me much good to see his head on a lance.’

‘Hush,’ cautioned Anne. ‘People listen. What can we do about Simon?’

‘I shall tell Parliament that I’ll not have him harmed. He has been my friend since childhood.’

It was all rather ineffectual talk, Anne knew; but it soothed Richard so it achieved some purpose and he needed soothing at this time.

Simon was accused of misusing power and of promoting a corrupt Court about the young King; he had raised his income in a few years from twenty to three thousand marks; it was even said that he was planning to sell Dover to the French.

It was no use protesting that this was nonsense. They were bent on his destruction.

When Gloucester with Arundel came to the Tower to see the King, both he and Anne declared their wish that Simon Burley should be pardoned.

Anne went on her knees before Arundel and cried: ‘My lord, listen to me. This man has done no harm. Or if he has it was done in innocence. He is a good man. He is my friend … mine and the King’s. I implore you to set him free.’

Arundel was an arrogant man. He did not seem to realise that it was the Queen who knelt before him – or if he did, he enjoyed her humility.

He said: ‘I have no intention of freeing Simon Burley, Madam. He must take the consequences of his actions.’

‘It is unjust. It is cruel …’ cried Anne.

She caught at his robes but he walked on and she fell to one side.

It was unheard-of arrogance to treat the Queen so.

Richard went to the Queen and helped her to her feet.

‘These men shall learn that I am the King,’ he muttered.

His uncle Gloucester said in a loud voice: ‘It is because we wish you to remain King that we bring these charges and are determined to see them carried out.’

There it was again, the threat. He could almost hear his great-grandfather’s cries coming all the way from Berkeley Castle.

‘We cannot spare Simon Burley,’ said Gloucester firmly. ‘Your cousin Bolingbroke has soft feeling for him too. But though he has made himself our ally I could not spare this man for him.’

A further insult, thought Richard. Not even for Henry of Bolingbroke when the Queen had gone on her knees to him!

‘So you have sentenced him to the traitor’s death!’ cried Richard.

‘He is a traitor,’ retorted Gloucester.

The traitor’s death. Hanged, drawn and quartered – that venerable old friend to be so treated!

‘That,’ said Richard determinedly, ‘is something I shall not allow.’

Gloucester shrugged his shoulders. The point was that the man was removed from the sphere of influence. How he went was not all that important. It might be advisable to give way on this point. Let Burley go by way of the axe.

He died on Tower Hill, that dear old friend.

The King and Queen were plunged into melancholy. There was nothing to be done now but mourn, and, thought the King, plan vengeance.

Thomas Arundel was made Archbishop of York in Neville’s place and the government was carried on in Richard’s name.

As she sat stitching at one of her gowns in the manor of Kettlethorpe, Catherine Swynford was brooding as she often did on that period in her life which on looking back seemed so brief and so glorious.

She had been exalted then; not because she had been admired by the son of a King but because she had loved and been loved. She had believed then – and again but briefly – that the love she and John of Gaunt had borne each other was rare in the history of the world. There had been times when she had deluded herself into believing that it would go on for ever. She should have been wiser. It was true that the convent-bred girl had become the wife of an obscure knight and had lived largely away from great events. And then she had seen him. He had seemed to her like a god. John of Gaunt, the most notorious man in England, and he had been her lover.

All was over. But she would never forget; and there could never be any real contentment for her because always her thoughts would be straying back to the past with that infinite longing which would not be subdued. It imbued everything with a gentle melancholy. Yes, she accepted fate but she could never be truly happy again.

He had been good to their children. He had done what he said he would; but the fact remained that they were bastards, though bastards of royal blood. There were plenty of those about. But hers were different, she had always maintained. They had not been begotten in some hurried fumble. They had been conceived in love.

But what was the use? It was over and done.