Today the final jewel was to be set in their combined diadem.

The official awaiting us at the door cleared his throat loudly. Joan smiled complacently. Young John—with all the dignity and importance of being a knight as well as a new husband to royally connected Margaret Holland—firmed his shoulders. Henry looked for a moment uncomfortable out of clerical garb, before grinning at me with a little shrug. Thomas was simply Thomas, irreverent and still growing into his limbs with all the adolescent grace of an autumn crane fly.

The pride in John’s face echoed mine. He took my hand, bowed and led me forward.

The Lords, fully assembled in the Parliament chamber, were waiting for us, every seat occupied, the whole assembly gleaming with a patchwork of colour beneath the boldness of the arches. Forcing my fingers to lie lightly in John’s hand, I inclined my head left and right, acknowledging the faces I knew. And there Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury, waited to receive us, ushering us into the centre of the chamber where we made our obeisance to the Lords. The silence of solemnity fell on us as four lords approached at a signal from the cleric, one of them holding the folds of a mantle over his arm.

‘We are here this day to perform this heavy and age-old ceremony granting legitimacy to these mantle-children.’

The mantle, of white damask to signal purity, gold fringed and banded with ermine to speak of royal authority, was spread, a corner to be taken by each of the four lords, who lifted it high above our heads on gilded poles, until we were entirely covered by its shadow.

‘Richard by the grace of God, King of England and France to our most dear cousins…’

John was looking at me. The Archbishop, his voice suitably sonorous, was using the words from the King’s own Letter Patent. There would never be any doubting the authority of this ceremony. Our children would be fixed into the legal structure of England for all time.

‘We think it proper and fit that we should enrich you…’

For here was the case. His Holiness’s recognition ultimately in writing, might have removed the taint of bastardy from our Beaufort children, but that was insufficient to give them any position under the laws of inheritance. If they were ever to have the right to inherit land or title, to establish their own families with provision for their own children, they needed this ceremony under the spread of this mantle.

‘We think it proper that we enrich you, our most dear cousins, who are begotten of royal blood, with the strength of our royal prerogative of favour and grace…’

We emerged into the same antechamber we had left only an hour before, newly resplendent with legitimacy. The sapphires stitched on my bodice glimmered as I drew in a breath of sheer delight at the sweeping away of all the shadowy illegalities of the past. My life with John had been given legal sanction and I could ask for nothing more. Unable to express my sense of ultimate fulfilment, I simply smiled at my children.

‘You now legitimately exist as dear cousins to the king,’ John remarked with not a little cynicism. ‘And your mother is very happy.’

‘I have always existed.’ Young John did not recognise irony.

‘And I doubt Richard is any more a dear cousin than he has ever been. He has a chancy temper,’ Henry added, who did.

‘What more do you want?’ Joan asked. ‘Letters Patent, a white and gold care-cloth and an Act of Parliament promised for tomorrow.’

The delight that bubbled within her was catching. Wedded, widowed and wedded again, even though only nineteen years old, mother of two tiny daughters and stepmother for the past year to the twelve children of Ralph Neville, Baron Raby, Joan had become a woman in her own right and I admired her composure. It took much to rattle my daughter’s stalwart heart encased today in embroidered damask.

John and I looked at each other. We wanted nothing more. Not for us. We had all we needed in each other. But for this quartet of handsome Beauforts, born out of love and sin? There would be no obstacle for them now.

It was for me a ceremony of great joy.

‘I’m hungry,’ Thomas announced.

‘Then we must eat,’ John laughed. ‘Are we not worthy of a celebration?’

It was a happy day. What would life hold for these Beaufort children? Not the crown, of course, for royal inheritance was barred to them, but what did that matter? The world of power and politics was theirs for the taking, and I could not have asked for more. John the soldier, Henry the cleric, Joan the managing wife and Thomas—who knew what fate would hold for my youngest child?

How transitory is happiness. It would be the last time I was so free from anxieties, so caught up in my family’s recognition. I did not know what lay in wait for me or for John. I thought we had been fully blessed, and could see no end to the blessings.

‘John!’ I leaned forward, elbows planted on the wall coping, narrowing my eyes at the road, which was obscured by morning haze. I was standing on the wall-walk at Kenilworth, looking out towards the south, leaving John to the detailed—and tedious—inspection of a section of crumbling stonework, deep in conversation with his Constable.

‘John!’

I raised my voice, informal in sudden concern. I was not mistaken. There was a cloud of dust, heralding a fast-travelling retinue.

What was it that made me alert John? Some presentiment, perhaps, for it brought a strange sharp jolt to my heart. ‘My lord,’ I called out again, but there was no need. John and the Constable were at my shoulder, the expression on John’s face indicating that he was already alert for trouble of some kind.

‘It’s the Earl of Derby, my lord.’

The Constable confirmed what we could now make out in the pennons and banners bearing Henry’s deer and swans. Henry was travelling fast.

‘Something’s afoot.’ John was already halfway down the steps before I hitched the fullness of my skirts and followed him.

We met Henry in the Great Hall. Eyes still wide with bafflement despite the hours spent in the saddle, voice raw with patent disbelief, he had not even taken the time to divest himself of hat, gloves or weapons, but stood there in the centre of the vast room, feet planted, spine braced, one hand clenched on his sword hilt. Making no attempt to mute his voice, he brought every servant within range to a halt.

‘There’s a plot, father. Murder. And it’s Richard.’

‘A plot to murder the King?’ I asked, astounded. Voices might be raised in criticism of Richard’s use of power, but this uncontrolled announcement presaged treason.

‘No!’ Henry dragged in a breath to make sense of what held no sense for any of us. ‘There’s a plot to destroy Lancaster.’ He flung out his hand to encompass the three of us. ‘A massacre, by the Rood! You, sir. Me—you too, my lady—and probably my sons if he can get his hands on them. It’s to happen on the road to Windsor, when we go there in the New Year.’

The moment of silence in that vast space disintegrated into impassioned response.

‘No!’ I heard myself breathe as my belly clenched.

‘On what grounds would he plan this?’ John snapped. I noted that he did not ask the owner of the hand behind this outrage.

‘He accuses us of treason,’ Henry responded. ‘But there’ll be no arraignment before a court, sir. He’ll kill first and question later.’

Nor did John question this interpretation. ‘Who told you this?’

‘Thomas Mowbray. I’d not cast aside his warning lightly,’ Henry replied.

Thomas Mowbray, the powerful Duke of Norfolk, together with Henry, was of the dangerous coterie of Lords Appellant with Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford and royal favourite, in their sights. Was Mowbray to be believed? Henry thought so, but I looked to John, to test my own reaction. It had caused him to frown, but he was not a man given to foolish rumour. Perhaps it was nought but a piece of mischief, to stir up more strife between John and the King.

‘Do you believe it?’ I asked Henry now that he had recovered some of his equanimity along with his breath.

‘Mowbray believed it. He stopped me on the road to Windsor to tell me. To warn me.’ Shaking his head, Henry, gloves now cast onto a bench with his hat and sword, stretched out his hands palm up, as if he might divine the truth there, before he clenched them into fists. ‘What do we do?’

John studied the floor at his feet. Then: ‘Come. We’ll talk about this in private.’

And when the door of an inner chamber was closed.

‘We tell Richard what you’ve heard,’ John stated.

Henry’s grunt of dissent was answer enough. ‘If Richard’s hand is on it…’

‘If it is.’ As he gripped his son’s arm I saw that the bones of John’s face were stark beneath his skin, despite the authority in his decision. ‘If Richard thinks to turn against his own flesh and blood, the fact that we know his plan might give him pause. We offer him a chance to see sense and draw back. I think Richard’s courage is a finite thing and unpredictable. Given the incentive, he might enjoy the opportunity to turn about, to dispense royal justice with an easy hand and win goodwill all round, including that of Lancaster. He might pronounce that he knows nothing of it. And that could be the end of the matter. If he knows that we are forewarned and so forearmed, it might conceivably force him to realise that to declare war on his own family will raise a storm that he cannot ultimately control. And might conceivably damage him.’

It seemed to me to be good sense, but I could see the troubled working of Henry’s mind. It flitted like shadows over his features.

‘Would he back down? I wouldn’t wager my life against it. Richard puts no value on family loyalty if he sees it as a threat to his own power, or a chance to pay back past grudges. He had my uncle of Gloucester murdered quick enough.’