We will stay in the North for some time, and this will always be our home, as we are happier here than anywhere else. We will rebuild the palace of Sheriff Hutton where the children will live, safely away from the diseases and plagues of London, safely distant, I think, from the brooding presence of the defeated queen in her damp holt under Westminster Abbey. We will make this a new palace in the North of England, a place to rival Windsor, or Greenwich, and the wealth from the court will spill out to our friends and neighbours, the northern affinity that we trust. We will make a golden kingdom of the North, great enough to rival the City of London itself. The heart of the country will be here, where the king and queen – northern by birth and inclination – live among the high green hills.

My son Edward and his cousins Margaret and Teddy and I go to Middleham, riding merrily together, as if we are out for pleasure. I will stay with them for the rest of the summer, Queen of England and mistress of my own time. In winter we will all go back to London and I shall have the children with me at Greenwich. Edward will have to have more tutors and more training in horse-riding; we have to build up his strength for he is still a slight boy. He has to be prepared to be king in his own turn. In a few years he will go to live at Ludlow and his council will rule Wales.

As we take the road north for Middleham, Richard leaves us and starts the journey southwards once more with a tiny escort around him, among them our longstanding friends Sir James Tyrrell, now made Master of Henchmen, Francis Lovell, Robert Brackenbury and the others. Richard kisses the children and blesses them. He holds me in his arms and whispers to me to come to him as soon as the weather turns. I feel my heart warm with love for him. We are at last victorious, we are at last blessed. He has made me Queen of England, as I was born to be, and I have given him a prince and an heir. Together we have fulfilled my father’s vision. This is victory indeed.

On the road going south, Richard writes me a hasty letter.

Anne,

The Rivers like a scotched snake are up and more dangerous than ever. They mounted an attack on the Tower to rescue their boys and were narrowly beaten off in a desperate battle. We can arrest no-one – they have melted away. Anne, I tell you, I had her so closely guarded that I thought that no-one could get in or out from her dark sanctuary but she somehow raised a small army up against us. Her army without livery or insignia came and went like ghosts, and now nobody can tell me where they are. Someone mustered troops and paid them – but who?

We still hold the boys, thank God. I have moved them into inner rooms in the Tower. But I am shocked at the extent of her hidden power. She will be biding her time and then she will flare up again. How many can she recruit? How many who cheered at our coronation sent men and weapons to her? I am betrayed and I don’t know who to trust. Burn this.

‘What is it, Your Grace?’ Little Margaret is at my side, her dark blue eyes puzzled at my aghast face. I put my arm around her and feel her warmth and softness and she leans into my side. ‘Not bad news?’ she asks. ‘Not the king, my uncle?’

‘He has worries,’ I say, thinking of the wickedness of the woman who hides in the darkness and made this little girl an orphan. ‘He has enemies. But he is strong and brave and he has good friends who will help him against the bad queen and her bastard so-called sons.’


MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, OCTOBER 1483

A few days later comes a hurried scrawl:

The falsest of friends, the most wicked of turncoats – the Duke of Buckingham is the most untrue creature living.

I drop the page for a moment, and can hardly bear to read on.

He has joined with two evil women, each as bad as the other. Elizabeth Woodville has seduced him to her side, and she has made a hags’ alliance with Margaret Beaufort, who carried your train at our coronation, who was always so good and loving to you, the wife of my friend, the trusted Lord Thomas Stanley, whom I made Lord Chamberlain.

Falseness upon deceit.

Margaret has betrothed her son, Henry Tudor, to Elizabeth, the Rivers girl – and they are all up against us, mustering their affinity, sending for Henry Tudor to sail from Brittany. Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham, the one man I would have trusted with my life, has turned his coat and is on their side. He is now raising his forces in Wales, and will march into England soon. I leave at once for Leicester.

Worst of all – even worse than all of this – Buckingham is telling everyone that the princes are dead and by my hand. This means the Rivers will fight to put Tudor and Princess Elizabeth on the throne. This means that the country – and history – names me a murderer, a killer of children, a tyrant who turns on his brother’s son and takes his own blood. I cannot bear this slur on my name and honour. This is a slander which will stick like pitch. Pray for me and for our cause – Richard.

I do as he bids me. I go straight to the chapel without a word to anyone and I go down on my knees, my eyes fixed on the crucifix above the rood screen. I gaze at it unblinking, as if I would burn away from my sight the letter which told me that the people we had counted as friends – the handsome and charming Duke of Buckingham, the winner Lord Thomas Stanley, his wife Margaret who was so kind and welcoming to me when I first came to London, who took me to the great wardrobe and helped me to pick out my coronation gown – all these are false. Bishop Morton, whom I have loved and admired for years – false too. But the one sentence that stays with me, that rings in my ears through my muttered Ave Maria, which I repeat over and over again as if to drown out the sound of the few words, is – Buckingham is telling everyone that the princes are dead and by my hand.