Philippa Gregory - The Red Queen

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the king’s own brother, swearing absolute fealty to his nephew Prince Edward, has brought the boy to London and housed him in the king’s rooms in the Tower with full honor for his coronation which is to be next month. There was some squabble with the young prince’s guardians and Anthony Rivers, his uncles, and Richard Grey, his half brother, are held by the duke. Elizabeth, the queen, has taken to sanctuary with the rest of her children, swearing that Richard is a false friend and an enemy to her and her own, demanding that her royal son be released to her.

The city is in uproar, not knowing who to believe or whom to trust. Most think that the queen is trying to steal the royal treasure (she has taken as much as she can carry) to defend her own power and family. Her brother is gone with the fleet and has stolen the rest of the treasure of the realm, and is likely to make war on London from the river. Overnight she is an enemy to the kingdom, and even to her own son, since everything is in train for the young prince’s coronation and he himself is issuing writs under the joint seal of himself as heir and his uncle as protector. Will the queen’s brother bombard her royal son in the Tower? Will she fight him if he is the duke’s ward? Will she hide from his coronation?

I will write more as soon as I know more. Stanley says to wait and watch, our time may be now.

Margaret Stanley

My husband Lord Stanley is now Duke Richard’s trusted advisor, as he was once King Edward’s. This is as it should be; he serves the king, and Richard is now the lord protector of the king for these short weeks before the boy Edward is crowned. Then Richard must give up everything, throne and power, and the boy will rule as King of England. We will see then who can survive the reign of a child of the Rivers family with the greatest crown in the world on his head, utterly commanded by his mother: a faithless witch in hiding. There are few men who will trust the boy, and nobody will trust his mother.

But anyway, what son of the House of York could ever give up power? What child of the House of York could ever bring himself to hand over the throne? Richard surely will not hand the crown and scepter to the son of a woman who hates him? But whatever doubts we feel, we are all measured for our coronation robes, and they are building the walkway at Westminster Abbey for the royal procession-the widowed Queen Elizabeth must hear the hammering and sawing above her, as she skulks in her sanctuary in the low chambers beside the abbey. The Privy Council went to her in form and demanded that she send her nine-year-old son Richard to join his twelve-year-old brother in the Tower. She could not refuse, and there was no reason for her to refuse, except her own hatred of Duke Richard, and so she had to give way. Now the two royal boys wait in the royal apartments for the coronation day.

I am responsible for the wardrobe for the coronation, and I meet with the wardrobe mistress and her maids to see what robes will be provided for the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, the princesses, and the other ladies of court. We must prepare the gowns assuming that the queen will come out of sanctuary for the coronation, and that she will want to be dressed exquisitely as usual. We are supervising the brushing of the queen’s ermine robe by the maid of the wardrobe and watching the seamstress sew on a mother-of-pearl button, when the wardrobe mistress remarks that the Duchess of Gloucester, Anne Neville, Richard’s wife, has not ordered her gown from the wardrobe.

“Her command must have gone astray,” I observe. “For she cannot have what she needs to wear for a coronation at her castle at Sheriff Hutton. And she cannot be ordering something to be made-it will never be ready in time.”

She shrugs as she pulls out a robe trimmed with velvet, shakes off the linen cover, and spreads it out for me to see. “I don’t know. But I have no order for a gown from her. What should I do?”

“Prepare one for her, in her size,” I say, as if I am not much interested, and I turn the talk to something else.

I hurry home and seek out my husband. He is writing out the warrants that will summon every sheriff in England to London to see the young king crowned. “I am busy. What is it?” he asks rudely as I open the door.

“Anne Neville has not ordered a gown for the coronation. What d’you think of that?”

He thinks as I did, as swiftly as I did. He puts down his pen and beckons me in. I close the door behind me, with a little thrill of joy at conspiring with him. “She never acts on her own account. Her husband must have ordered her not to come,” he says. “Why would he do that?”

I don’t answer. I know he will be thinking fast.

“She has no gown, so she cannot be coming to the coronation. He will have told her not to come for he must have decided that there will be no coronation,” he says quietly. “And all this”-he gestures at the piles of paper-“all this is just to keep us busy and to fool us into thinking that the coronation will happen.”

“Perhaps he has warned her not to come because he thinks London may riot. Perhaps he wants her safe at home.”

“Who would riot? Everyone wants the York prince crowned. There is only one person who would prevent him becoming king, just as there is only one person who would benefit.”

“Duke Richard of Gloucester himself?”

My husband nods. “What can we do with this precious information? How shall we use it?”

“I’ll tell the dowager queen,” I decide. “If she is going to muster her forces, she should do it now. She had better get her sons away from Richard’s keeping. And if I can persuade the York queen to fight the York regent, then there is a chance for Lancaster.”

“Tell her the Duke of Buckingham might be fit for turning,” he says quietly, as I am halfway out of the door. I stop at once. “Stafford?” I repeat incredulously. This is my second husband’s nephew-the little boy who inherited the title when his grandfather died, who was forced into marriage with the queen’s sister. He has hated the Rivers family ever since they forced him to marry into them. He cannot abide them. So he was first to back Richard; he was first to his side. He was there when Richard arrested Anthony Rivers. I know he will have loved the humiliation of the man he was forced to call brother-in-law. “But Henry Stafford cannot bear the queen. He hates her, and he hates her sister, his wife Katherine. I know it. I remember when they married him. He would never turn against Richard in their favor.”

“He has his own ambitions,” my husband remarks darkly. “He has royal blood in his line. He will be thinking that if the throne can be taken from Prince Edward, then it can be taken from Richard too. He would join with the queen, pretending to defend her son, and then take the throne for himself when they have victory.”