Jean Plaidy - The Sun in Splendour

‘Dear Jane, you are the perfect mistress but do not seek to meddle in matters of which you know nothing. I am going to instruct you and you shall play your part, I promise you.’

‘What do you mean, instruct me?’

‘I want you to do something for me. You will, won’t you?’

‘If I can I will, but what is it?’

‘Jane. Listen. We need to bring men to our side ... influential men. Men like Buckingham ... but I don’t know enough of him. There is one other whom I know very well and who is important to us. You could help me here, Jane. You could persuade him. He would listen to you.’

‘Who is this man?’

‘Hastings.’

‘Hastings! You know how I feel about Hastings.’

‘Oh come, Jane. You bear him a grudge and that is not like you. What did Hastings do but admire you? What has he ever done against you but look at you with longing? I know that at one time he tried to abduct you and take you by force. Don’t think too hardly of him, Jane. It was the sort of adventure we all indulged in.’

‘I have never forgotten it.’

‘But you have forgiven him. He has always been so eager to show you how pleased he would be for a little notice from you.’

‘You think I could persuade him to change sides?’

‘Yes, Jane, I do ... cleverly, subtly ... as you with your merry witty talk would know how to.’

‘You ask the impossible.’

He took her by the shoulders and shook her.

‘Do this for me. I want to be back in power. I do not want to skulk in Sanctuary afraid of Gloucester’s guards for ever. Come Jane, do this for me. Be my lovely little Jane. It would be a challenge. Do you fear you could not do it?

‘I have not considered doing what you ask.’

‘It would be revenge on him. He treated you with scant respect when he tried to abduct you ... aye, and would have done so but for that last minute dash of conscience which beset your maid. Have your revenge, Jane, and work for me at the same time. Help me out of this wretchedness into which I have fallen. Think of my mother, our proud Queen. Think of the Princesses and the little Duke of York. They are forced to live in Sanctuary, afraid to emerge. Afraid of their lives. Oh Jane, help me ... help the Queen who has always been your friend. You loved the little Duke didn’t you? I think you were a special favourite of his. The King once said that you had told him you looked on Richard as your own. And little Catherine and little Bridget ... Think of them.’

‘I am sorry for what has befallen the Queen, but it is not for me to meddle.’

‘So you will not help your friends?’

‘I would if I could. But Edward named the Duke of Gloucester as the Protector of the Realm and of the little King.’

‘He did not tell him to send the Queen into Sanctuary.’

‘The Queen went of her own free will.’

‘Because my brother and my uncle have been arrested. For what, Jane? For bringing the King to his coronation.’

Jane was thoughtful. Then she said: ‘Lord Hastings was the King’s best friend.’

‘And you should remember that.’

‘He never liked the Queen.’

‘Oh that was due to some silly quarrel about the Captaincy of Calais which went to Hastings when my mother thought it should have gone to my uncle.’

Jane continued silent.

Dorset drew her to him and began to make violent love to her.

‘Promise me, Jane,’ he said. ‘Swear you will help. Amuse yourself with Hastings ...’

‘What you suggest is ... is ...’

He stopped her with his kisses. He was laughing. ‘You’ll do it, Jane,’ he said. ‘You’ll do this for me.’

Jane felt half ashamed, half excited. She was glad to escape from Dorset. When she was with him he was irresistible but she fervently wished that she could fight off the violent passion which he inspired in her. She wanted love. She had it astonishingly enough from Edward. There could be none to replace him but he was gone now and it was no use brooding on the past.

Since she had left Dorset she had thought a good deal about Hastings.

She had always told herself that she disliked him. She had never forgotten that experience when she had been about to take the ale which her maid had brought; she remembered still the frightened look in the girl’s eyes and then her confession. Often she had wondered what would have happened if she had drunk the ale and gone into a deep sleep while Hastings was let into the house and carried her away.

Hastings himself had often looked shamefaced and had even told her how he repented that act. She had shrugged his apologies aside. She had told herself that was in the past and of no importance now for he would never attempt such an action with her again. The King had laughed at it. ‘Forgive poor old Hastings,’ he said. ‘He’s a good friend to me. I trust him and that means a great deal. What he did I am afraid we would all have done if the idea had occurred to us.’ She had protested and made Edward see that men who thought they had a right to treat women so were rogues. He agreed with her, and said: ‘But then you are so beautiful, Jane. A temptation to us all, and did I not take you away from that virtuous goldsmith of yours?’

She could sound Hastings. He always looked at her with a kind of brooding tenderness nowadays which made her feel differently towards him.

When she next saw him he was on the way to Westminster to talk with the Protector. They were arranging when the coronation should be, she knew. Dorset had said that the Protector would put it off for as long as possible because once the King was crowned he himself would cease to be so important.

She smiled at Hastings. He immediately hesitated. She supposed she had never done that spontaneously before.

He paused and bowed low. ‘Greetings, Mistress Shore,’ he said. ‘’Tis a fine day.’

‘It is so,’ she answered.

He was still pausing, looking at her with that obvious admiration.

‘You grow fairer than ever every time I see you,’ he said.

‘You are gracious.’

‘Jane.’ She saw the hope leap into his eyes. It had been easier than she had thought.

They supped together. He talked soberly of the death of the King. ‘A sad blow to us both, Jane,’ he said. ‘Nothing will ever be the same for either of us again. You miss him sorely do you not?’

‘Most sorely,’ she confirmed.

‘He was a great man ... a great King. He possessed all the qualities of kingship. That he should go like that ... so suddenly ...’

‘He lived too heartily,’ said Jane. ‘I often told him.’

‘He could not help it. He was made like that. Do you know, Jane, I am twelve years older than he was. Think of it, I have had twelve more years of life.’

‘My lord, I hope you have twelve more left to you.’

‘Now that you are gracious to me, I could wish it,’ he said.

That night she became his mistress.

It was easier than she had thought. He was kindly, tender and he loved her. That was obvious. He told her during that first night together how bitterly he had regretted that first approach. He had always felt that if he had tried to woo her as she deserved to be wooed, perhaps he might have been successful before Edward found her.

‘I have a feeling, Jane, that you would be faithful to the one you loved.’

‘I always was to Edward.’

‘I know it well. He knew it. He loved you for it and although he could not repay you in the same vein he often said what joy you had brought to his life. What of Dorset, Jane?’

She shivered. ‘He is in hiding. I do not want to see him again.’

‘Dorset is not a good man, Jane.’

‘I know it well. I am glad to be free of him.’

Hastings seemed well satisfied with that.

So Jane Shore was now Hastings’s mistress. It was a matter which was talked of throughout the town. Jane was popular with the citizens; so was Hastings.

Gloucester listened with distaste. He had always deplored Edward’s way of life and had on more than one occasion told his brother that it was no way for a King to live. Edward had laughed at him, had called him a monk, and said he could not expect everyone to be like himself. Hastings had been such another; it was something Gloucester had always held against him. He had reason to be grateful to Hastings for he had kept him informed of what was happening in London and in fact had been the first to tell him of Edward’s death. But now that Buckingham had joined him and had shown himself to be so single-mindedly his man he was moving away from Hastings.

His brother’s chief advisers had been Lord Hastings; Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor; John Morton, Bishop of Ely; and Lord Stanley. Rotherham had shown himself up as a weakling by handing the Great Seal back to Elizabeth when she was packing her treasures to go into Sanctuary. He was not the kind of man Gloucester wanted about him. Morton was a good man but he had been a staunch Lancastrian and had only become Edward’s minister when it was certain that there was no hope of Henry’s being restored to the throne. It was a matter of expediency and Gloucester did not like such men. Stanley had not a very good reputation for loyalty and had previously shown himself ready to jump whichever way was best for Stanley; there was one other reason why Gloucester would not trust him too far. He had recently married Margaret Beaufort, that very strong-minded woman, who was descended from John of Gaunt and was also the mother of Henry Tudor. That upstart of very questionable parentage had of late begun to hint that he had a claim to the throne as grandson of Queen Katherine the widow of Henry the Fifth through a liaison – though the Tudors called it marriage – with Owen Tudor. Royalty on both sides, said Tudor, counting Katherine of France as his grandmother and John of Gaunt through his mother.