Westminster Palace, Summer 1436 #2
He turns back to the mirror; I stand beside him.
We look magnificent; nobody could deny us.
‘It is in God’s hands,’ my husband says, shifting the responsibility as usual.
‘God will guard the boy and provide. If He calls me to greatness, I will answer. But in the meantime, I’ll order their arrest.’ He raises his hand in a kingly wave.
‘I shall order the arrest of them both for breaking the law on a dowager queen’s marriage.
While we are at dinner celebrating my victory, I’ll send the captain of my guard and have them arrested. Tonight.’
OUR PERSONAL GUARD rides through the grey light of a summer evening from Westminster to Bishop’s Hatfield as we process into dinner.
We are drinking toasts as they hammer on the doors of the manor house at Bishop’s Hatfield and break in to find the pregnant queen dining in her privy chamber with her husband, and their little boys at their places at the dining table.
My husband’s commander shows them the warrant and orders her mules to be harnessed to her litter.
She protests that she cannot be moved, and he laughs disrespectfully and says she should have thought of that nine months ago.
He tells Owen Tudor to get a horse saddled and that he too is under arrest. I have ordered the ill-begotten boys to be taken to Barking Abbey for safekeeping, while their parents are brought to Westminster.
The little boys stand by their chairs and say nothing, with their frightened eyes on their father’s face.
They tell me later that the queen makes no protest; she is magnificent in her icy dignity.
She says that her husband Owen will see to the packing of the boys’ goods and the saddling of their ponies; she will order her own maids to make her ready.
She obeys Duke Humphrey’s warrant; her household will not resist; they are innocent of everything and accept that they are under the law of the land.
But she must be served as a dowager queen, and she must have her linen and her furs and her jewels.
My lord’s men, invited to the kitchen of the manor, go to eat and drink while the queen gets ready for her journey – eat and drink well, fools that they are – and when they come to saddle up and part the little family, one from another, they find that Owen Tudor is gone, vanished into the darkness of the night.
‘How could you lose him? He’s the only one we wanted!’ I cry out when the officer reports to us in the morning at Westminster.
My husband glances at me. ‘The important one is the queen,’ he corrects me.
I stammer; I must not break down before these men. ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘It is the queen who must be arrested for her own protection. But we should have laid hold of Owen Tudor, who is the guilty one and fit for hanging.’
‘He served with some of my men,’ the officer excuses himself. ‘He told them that he surrendered; he gave them his sword. They thought they could trust him to come with them.’
This is a faithless man who could bed one woman while courting another.
Why would they trust his word? Why even let him speak?
I should have told them to throw him in chains at his dinner table.
I should have taken a man to the side and told him to stab Owen to the heart and say he was resisting arrest.
‘But the queen is safely in the Tower?’ my husband confirms. ‘She can’t get away? In royal rooms but with a guard on her door?’
The man looks awkward. ‘She insisted on going into confinement, that she was near her time. She is dowager queen – we could hardly disobey. We took her to Bermondsey Abbey for her lying-in.’
‘Very good,’ my husband says. ‘That was right.’
‘We’ll send the best midwife, Margery Jourdemayne, to attend her,’ I say sweetly, as my husband nods.
‘You set a guard to protect her door from anyone who might interrupt her. Keep her at the abbey. And we’ll go at once, together, to tell the young king.
He must hear the news from us, his nearest kin.
I pray to God it is not too much for him. ’
‘We’ll go now,’ my husband rules, and I take his hand and we walk together to the royal apartments, slowly, sorrowfully, like people unwillingly bringing bad news.
THEY TELL US the king is at prayer with his confessor all morning, and my husband says he has grave news and begs an audience. He glances at me. ‘At prayer!’ he says with contempt. ‘Would I have saved Calais if I’d been at prayer all morning?’
We wait for a little while, and then the door opens and the king, slight and shy as ever, comes in. We bow and curtsey as we should, and he kneels for my blessing as if I were his mother. I put my hand on his head, and he rises up and invites us to sit.
‘Is this bad news?’ he asks, his voice a little quavery with appre-hension. ‘Please tell me at once. Not more bad news from France? Please tell me quickly and quietly.’
‘Not from France, no,’ my husband says. ‘My victory there will stand us in good stead for years, and I have put my own commander, Richard of York, into Normandy. You need have no fear of news from France while I am in command.’ He pauses. ‘I’m sorry to say, it is nearer to home.’