A Dangerous Inheritance

‘He is weighed down with the cares of his office,’ she insisted to her stepmother. ‘His very life is in danger. I’m sure he truly believed that those weapons would be used against him. And maybe – maybe – he believes too that there is truth in the slander against my granddam. Wicked people may have persuaded him …’

‘He is no fool,’ A

‘How can you say such a thing of my father?’ Kate retaliated, weeping. ‘He is a good man, and you should know! And maybe it istrue about my granddam and that archer!’ And she hurried from the solar to the sanctuary of her chamber.

Kate did not see her grandmother until di

The mood in the house did not lighten that week. The Duchess Cecily would not be drawn on what had happened in the Tower – ‘That is between the Duke and me,’ she said reprovingly – and A

There had still been no word about the coronation. London seethed, packed with restless, suspicious citizens, and lords and gentlemen, up from the country, complained about the delay and the ruinous cost of staying indefinitely in the capital. When Kate and Mattie gave their elders the slip, and slunk past the gateward to go to the market at Smithfield, even though they had been warned it was not safe to go out, they became aware that the City was alive with rumours and gossip. The latest word was that the Duke of Buckingham had gone to the Guildhall to address the Mayor, and many Londoners were making their way there to find out what was going on. Kate and Mattie went along with them, and were among the crowds who watched Buckingham emerge and go his way. Then the Mayor and his aldermen and sheriffs came out, and were immediately besieged by the mob, demanding to know what the Duke had said. But Kate hung back. She was afraid of being crushed in the press – and of what she might hear.

Mattie had no such qualms. She pushed her way nearly to the front, and because she was so pretty, most of the men let her through, one or two pinching her bottom as she sidled past. Kate’s last view of her maid was of the girl giving a saucy grin to an apprentice. But when Mattie came back, she was no longer gri

‘Let’s go somewhere quiet, my lady,’ she urged. ‘There are things you should know.’ Something in her face made Kate catch her breath; she guessed that what Mattie had to tell her would not be easy to hear.

They escaped into the quietness of the nearby church of St Lawrence Jewry. There was no one there except for an old woman on her knees near the altar, so they sat on a bench at the back and Mattie talked in hushed tones.

‘The Lord Mayor said Buckingham had come to tell them that my lord of Gloucester should be their rightful king.’

Kate clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp, and Mattie laid a kindly hand on hers. ‘There’s more, my lady. The Mayor said my lord of Buckingham had spoken so well that all who heard him marvelled, and that he said that he wasn’t going to say anything about the bastardy of King Edward, since the Lord Protector bore a filial reverence towards his mother. Then he said that King Edward had been secretly precontracted to another lady when he wed the Queen, so that the marriage to the Queen was no lawful marriage, and their children are bastards, so the poor little King in the Tower has no right to the crown. You can imagine the uproar when the crowd heard that.’

Kate could not take this in. ‘Who was the lady to whom King Edward had been precontracted?’

‘Lady Eleanor somebody,’ Mattie supplied. ‘I couldn’t hear properly, as people were muttering all around, some saying it couldn’t be true.’

It couldn’t be, could it? But surely her father would not have made this public without knowing it to be an indisputable fact?

They hastened back to Baynard’s Castle. Kate was coming to terms with what she had learned, and she could also feel a rising sense of excitement, even relief. For at thirteen it was a fine prospect to be the daughter of a king, and bastard though she was, she would still be a very important young lady. At last all had been made clear: the reason for her father’s long absence in the Tower, when he had surely been investigating these matters; the worrying rumours she had heard, which she now knew to be based on ignorant people’s mistaken assumptions; and the reason why the Duke’s enemies had feared him. It was no wonder, for they had had much to hide! He had uncovered a dreadful scandal, but his ascension of the throne would put everything to rights, restoring the legitimate heir and retrieving the honour of the House of York.

She had been right not to doubt her father.

*

That evening, the Duke of Gloucester came to Baynard’s Castle to dine with his family. He was once again wearing sober black garments, although they were of the most sumptuous velvet and damask. He looked tense, but was clearly making an effort to be good company. Towards the Duchess Cecily, he was more than courteous and considerate, as if to make amends for the injury he had done her, but the Duchess remained frosty. A

No sooner had di

‘They must believe it, for it is the truth,’ the Duke said.

‘That does not answer my question. A king must be accepted by his people. If they question his title, how is he to command their obedience?’

The Duke was visibly riled by that. ‘You think I am seeking a crown,’ he said. ‘I assure you, I know it is no child’s office. I do not want it, but I will accept it if the people press me to it.’

‘Buckingham urged them to do so – at your bidding. He even got his men to throw their caps in the air and shout “King Richard!”’

‘Buckingham is convinced of my right to it.’ The Duke was tight-lipped.

‘And what of your right to it, my son?’ His mother turned to face him, her expression cold. ‘Suddenly we are hearing of this precontract, of which I never heard before. Obviously the people did not believe that calumny about me, so another pretext had to be thought up.’

‘Believe it or not, the precontract existed,’ Richard replied tautly, drumming his fingers on the polished wood of the table. ‘Bishop Stillington came to the Council two weeks ago and said he had some important information to disclose. I saw him in private, and he told me that my brother King Edward had been much enamoured of Eleanor, Lady Butler, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter, and had promised her marriage if he might lie with her. She consented, and the Bishop has deposed that he married them afterwards, without witnesses. But there had been an earlier promise to marry that waswitnessed, and constituted a precontract and a barrier to marriage with anyone else. Stillington showed me the relevant passages in canon law, as well as legal instruments and the depositions of witnesses.’