The Book of Princes and Princesses

'She could not have borne herself better had her father been a king,' they whispered one to another. 'I would that Richard had carried himself as well,' added Elizabeth, who, being six years older, felt something of a mother to him. Then the bishops and priests took their places, and the service began.

Shouts of 'Long live the bride and bridegroom!' 'Health and happiness to the duke and duchess of York!' rent the air as the procession left the chapel to attend the banquet laid out in the Painted Chamber. Great pasties were there for those that liked them, cranes, curlews, and bitterns – which would have seemed very odd food to us, and all very difficult to eat without forks, of which they had none. At the top and bottom were peacocks with their tails spread, beautiful to behold. But what pleased the children best were the 'subleties,' as they were then called – sweet things built up into towers, and ships, and other strange shapes. And the largest and finest of all, a castle with a moat and drawbridge, and surrounded by battlements defended by tiny men-at-arms, was placed in front of the bride and bridegroom.

For the next five years the lives of the princesses went on quietly enough. Two more daughters were born, Katherine, in 1479, and Bridget, who afterwards became a nun, in 1480. But troubles of many sorts were hard at hand. In 1482 Elizabeth lost her sister Mary, who had been her companion and playfellow all through their eventful childhood, and before she had recovered from this bitter grief the state of the king's health caused much alarm. Though a brave soldier and a good general, and capable in time of war of enduring hardships as well as the poorest churl who fought for him, Edward loved soft lying and good eating, which ended in his ruin. He grew indolent and fat, and his temper, which had never recovered the slight put upon him by Louis XI. in the breaking off of the dauphin's marriage, became more and more moody. At length a low fever came upon him, and he had no strength to rally. Knowing that death was at hand he sent for his old friends Stanley and Hastings, and implored them to make peace with the queen and to protect his children from their enemies. The vows he asked were taken, but ill were they kept. Then the king died, acknowledging the many sins and crimes of which he had been guilty, and praying for pardon.

During nine hours on that same day (April 9, 1483) the king's body, clad in purple velvet and ermine, was exposed to view, and the citizens of London, headed by the lord mayor, came sadly to look upon it, so as to bear witness, if need be, that it was Edward and none other that lay there dead. When the procession of people was finished bishops and priests took their places, and repeated the Psalms from beginning to end, while all through the hours of darkness knights clad in black watched and prayed. As soon as the preparations were completed, the dead king was put on board a barge draped in black, and rowed down to Windsor, as, for reasons that we do not know, he was buried in St. George's chapel, instead of at Westminster. It is curious that his son Edward, now thirteen, was not allowed to come up from Ludlow Castle, where he had been living for some time with lord Rivers, neither is there any mention of Richard attending his father's funeral. His stepsons were there, but not his sons, and the chief mourner was his nephew the earl of Lincoln. Never were people more helpless than the queen and her children. The poor queen knew not whom to trust, and indeed a few weeks taught her that she could trust nobody. Gloucester, her brother-in-law, who at first gained her faith with a few kind words, soon tore off the mask, seized the young king, and arrested his uncle lord Rivers.

'Edward is a prisoner, and I cannot deliver him! And what will become of us?' cried the queen, turning to her eldest daughter; and Elizabeth, whom these last few months had made a woman older than her seventeen years, answered briefly: 'There is still the sanctuary where we are safe.'

That evening, after dark, the queen, her five daughters, and Richard, duke of York, stole out of the palace of Westminster into the shelter of the abbot's house, which fortunately lay within the sanctuary precincts. All night long the dwelling, usually so quiet, was a scene of bustle and confusion, for every moment servants were arriving from the palace at Westminster bearing with them great chests full of jewels, clothes, hangings, and carpets. The princesses, who were for the most part young children, were running about, excitedly ordering the arrangement of their own possessions, while Richard the 'married man,' had quietly fallen asleep in a corner on a heap of wall-hangings that happened to have been set down there. So it was that the archbishop and lord chancellor, who arrived long after midnight to deliver up the Great Seal to the queen, in trust for Edward V., found her alone, seated on a heap of rushes in the old stone hall, 'desolate and dismayed,' as the chronicler tells us. The archbishop tried to cheer her with kind words and promises of a fair future, but the queen had suffered too much in the past to pay much heed to him. 'Desolate' she was indeed, and 'dismayed' she well might be, and in his heart the archbishop knew it, and he sighed as he looked at her hopeless face set in the tight widow's bands, while her hair, still long and golden in spite of her fifty years, made patches of brightness over her sombre black clothes. Yet he could not leave her without making one more effort to rouse her from her sad state, so again he spoke, though the poor woman scarcely seemed to know that he was in the room at all.

'Madam, be of good comfort. If they crown any other king than your eldest son whom they have with them, we will, on the morrow, crown his brother whom you have with you here. And here is the Great Seal, which in like wise as your noble husband gave it to me, so I deliver it to you for the use of your son.' Having done his mission, the archbishop departed to his own house close to the Abbey. The May dawn was already breaking, and as he looked on the river he saw the shore thronged with boats full of Gloucester's men, ready to pounce on the queen did she but leave the sanctuary by a foot. 'Poor thing! poor thing!' murmured the archbishop, as he gazed, 'it is an ill life she has before her. I doubt what will come of it.'

Still, unhappy though they were, the royal family were at first far better off in the abbot's house than they had been thirteen years before in the fortress itself. The rooms were more numerous and better furnished, and it was summer, and the flowers in the garden were springing up, and the air began to be sweet with early roses. Up and down the green paths paced Elizabeth and her sister Cicely, talking over the events of the last month, and of all that had happened since the death of their father.

'If only Edward were here,' said princess Cicely, 'I for one should dread nothing. But to think of him in my uncle Gloucester's power – ah! the world may well ask which is king and which is prince!'

'Yes, since Gloucester broke his promise to the council to have him crowned on the fourth of May my heart is ever fearful,' answered Elizabeth; 'of little avail was it to bring him clothed in purple and ermine through the city when he was surrounded by none but followers of the Boar' – for such was the duke's device. 'I misdoubt me that he will not long be left in the palace of the good bishop of Ely.' Then both sisters fell silent for a long time.

Elizabeth had reason for what she said, for the next day came the tidings that Gloucester had carried his nephew to the Tower, there to await his coronation. The queen turned white and cold when the message was brought to her, but worse was yet to come. At a council held in the Star Chamber, presided over by Gloucester, it was decided that as children could commit no crime they could need no sanctuary, and that therefore the duke of Gloucester, as acting regent, might withdraw his nephew Richard from his mother's care whenever he chose. A deputation of peers, headed by the cardinal archbishop of Canterbury waited on the queen to try to prevail on her to give up her boy, saying the king was wishful of a playfellow, but it was long before she would give her consent. She had no reason to love the lord protector, she said, who had ever shown himself ungrateful for all the late king had done for him; but at length she began to yield to the solemn assurances of the cardinal that the boy's life was safe.

'Pray His Highness the duke of York to come to the Jerusalem Chamber' – the words, though spoken by the queen, seemed to be uttered in a different voice from hers, and there was silence for some minutes till the white-faced, sickly boy, clothed in black velvet, walked up to his mother. 'Here is this gentleman,' said she, presenting him to the cardinal. 'I doubt not he would be kept safely by me if I were permitted. The desire of a kingdom knoweth no kindred; brothers have been brothers' bane, and may the nephews be sure of the uncle? Notwithstanding, I here deliver him, and his brother with him, into your hands, and of you I shall ask them before God and the world. Faithful ye be, I wot well, and power ye have if ye list, to keep them safe, but if ye think I fear too much, beware ye fear not too little.' So Richard bade her farewell – a farewell that was to be eternal. He was taken straight away to the Star Chamber, where Gloucester awaited him, and embraced him before them all. That night they lay at the bishop's palace close to St. Paul's, and the next day he rode by his uncle's side through the city to the Tower.

Sore were the hearts of the poor prisoners in the sanctuary, and little heed did they take of the preparations in the Abbey for Edward's coronation. In vain the kindly persons about them sought to reassure the queen and her daughters by dwelling on the orders given for the food at the royal banquet, and on the number of oxen to be roasted whole in the space before the palace.

'Banquet there may be, and coronation there may be,' was all the queen would answer; 'but Richard will never eat of that food, and Edward will never wear that crown.'

Blow after blow fell thick and fast. Everything that Gloucester could invent to throw discredit on the queen and her family was heaped upon her, and as Clarence had not feared to blot his mother's fair fame, so Gloucester did not hesitate to cast mud on that of his brother Edward's wife. Then, one day, the abbot sought an audience of the princess Elizabeth.

'Madame, I dare not tell the queen,' said he, staring at the ground as he spoke. 'But – but – the king has been deposed, and the lord protector declared king in his stead!'

Elizabeth bowed her head in silence – it was no more than she had expected, and she awaited in the strength of despair what was to follow. It was not long in coming. Ten days later Richard III. was crowned in the Abbey with great splendour, and her brothers removed to the Portcullis Tower and deprived of their attendants. Edward at least knew full well what all this meant. 'I would mine uncle would let me have my life though I lose my kingdom,' he said to the gentleman who came to inform him of the duke of Gloucester's coronation; but from that moment he gave up all hope, and 'with that young babe his brother lingered in thought and heaviness.'

Who can describe the grief and horror of the fugitives in the sanctuary when all that they had feared had actually come to pass? The queen was like one mad, and though her elder daughters did all they could to tend and soothe her, their own sorrow was deep, and the dread was ever present with them that, as children had been declared unfit persons to inhabit the sanctuary, there was nothing to hinder the usurper from seizing on them if he thought fit. And to whom could they turn for counsel or comfort? Only three months had passed since the death of king Edward, yet his sons, his step-son, and his brother-in-law, had all been slain by the same hand. The queen's other son by her first husband, the marquis of Dorset, was in Yorkshire, trying to induce the people to rebel against the tyrant, but few joined his standard; the insurrection planned by her brother-in-law, the duke of Buckingham, in the West came to nothing, while the leader was betrayed and executed. They had no money, and it is quite possible that Richard contrived that the abbot should have none to give them. The trials and privations of the winter of 1469 were light in comparison to those they suffered in that of 1483, for now they were increased by agony of mind and every device that could be invented by cruelty. What wonder, then, that, not knowing where to look for help, the queen should at last have consented to make terms with her enemy?

So, in March, 1484, she lent an unwilling ear to Richard's messenger, but refused absolutely to quit the sanctuary till the king had sworn, in the presence of his council, of the lord mayor and of the aldermen of the city of London, that the lives of herself and her children should be spared. Even Richard dared not break that oath, for there were signs that the people were growing weary of so much blood, and, in London especially, the memory of Edward was still dear to the citizens. Therefore he had to content himself with depriving the queen of the title which she had borne for twenty years, and of hinting at a previous marriage of Edward IV. She was, besides, put under charge of one of Richard's officers, who spent as he thought fit the allowance of 700l. a year voted for her by Parliament. It is not very certain where she lived, but most likely in some small upper rooms of the palace of Westminster, where she had once dwelt in splendour and reigned as queen. During the first few months she seems to have had her four elder daughters with her – Bridget was probably in the convent of Dartford, where she later became a nun; but after the death of his son, Edward, Richard sent for them to court. Their cousin, Anne of Warwick, the queen, received them with great kindness, and together they all wept over the sorrows that had befallen them. Richard himself took but little notice of them, except to invent projects of marriage between Elizabeth and more than one private gentleman – rather for the sake of wounding her pride than because he meant seriously to carry them through. At Christmas, however, it was necessary to hold some state festivals, and both Anne and the princesses put off their mourning and attended the state banquets and balls which the king had ordered to be held in Westminster Hall. It was Anne's last appearance before her death, three months later, and it was remarked by all present that the queen had caused Elizabeth to be dressed like herself, in gold brocade, which marvellously became the princess, and with her bright hair and lovely complexion she must have made a strong contrast to the dying queen.

While at court Elizabeth met and made friends with the lord high steward, Stanley, the second husband of the countess of Richmond. This lady, who had desired for years to see her son Henry married to princess Elizabeth, had been exiled from court owing to her numerous plots to this end; but Richard thought that the best means of keeping Stanley loyal was to retain him about his person, as he was too useful to be put to death. One night, however, a fresh thought darted into the king's brain. Henry of Richmond was his enemy; the Lancastrian party in England was growing daily, owing as Richard told himself quite frankly, to the number of people he had felt obliged to execute. If Henry married Elizabeth he would gain over to his side a large number of Yorkists, and together they might prove too strong for him. But suppose he, the king, was to marry the 'heiress of England,' as her father loved to call her, would not that upset all the fine plans that were for ever being hatched? True, he was her uncle; but a dispensation from the Church was easily bought, and in Spain these things were done every day. So Richard went to bed delighted with his own cleverness.

Great was Elizabeth's horror when the rumour reached her ears, told her by one of queen Anne's ladies. 'Never, never will I consent to such wickedness,' cried she, and sent off a trusty messenger to Stanley to tell him of this fresh plot by her brothers' murderer, and to entreat his help. This Stanley agreed to give, though insisting that the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary, for any imprudence would cost them all their lives. He next induced Elizabeth to write herself to his powerful brothers, and to others of his kinsmen, and despatched these letters by the hand of one of his servants. The Stanleys all agreed to join the conspiracy against Richard, provided that the princess should marry Henry, earl of Richmond, thus uniting the two Roses, and to discuss this a meeting was arranged in London. That night, when all was still, Elizabeth noiselessly left her room in Westminster Palace, and stole down a narrow stone staircase to a door which was opened for her by the sentry, who had served under her father. At a little distance off one of Stanley's men was awaiting her with a horse, and together they rode through byways till they reached an old inn on the outskirts of the city, towards the north. They stopped at a door with an eagle's claw chalked on it, and on entering she found herself in a room with about a dozen gentlemen, who bowed low at the sight of her.

'Let us do our business in all haste,' said Stanley, 'as time presses.' And he began shortly to state his scheme for sending Humphrey Brereton over to France bearing a ring of Elizabeth's as a token of his truth, and likewise a letter, which she was to write, telling of the proposal that the Houses of York and Lancaster should be united in marriage, and that Henry should be king. But here Elizabeth held up her hand, and, looking at the men standing round her, she said steadily:

'Will you swear, my lords, by Holy Church that you mean no ill to the noble earl, but that you bid him come hither in all truth and honour?'

'Ah, verily, Madam, we swear it,' answered they, 'for our own sakes as well as for his.'

'Then the letter and the ring shall be ready to-morrow night,' replied Elizabeth, 'and shall be delivered to you by lord Stanley. And now, my lords, I will bid you farewell.' And, attended as before by a solitary horseman, with a beating heart she made her way back to the palace. Only when safe in her own room did she breathe freely; and well might she fear, for had Richard guessed her absence, short would have been her shrift.

As it was the conspirators were just in time. Somehow or other the news of the king's intended marriage with his niece leaked out, and so deep was the disgust of the people that Richard saw that his crown would not be safe for a single day if he were to persist. So, in order to appease his subjects, as well as to avenge himself on Elizabeth for her ill-concealed hatred of him, he dismissed her from court, and despatched her under a strong guard to the castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, where the owner, her cousin, the young earl of Warwick, was then living. Oh! how thankful Elizabeth was to escape from London, and to know that hundreds of miles lay between her and her persecutor. To be sure, her mother and sisters were still there; but it was she, and not they, whose life was in danger, for had it not been foretold that the crown of England should rest on her head? What peace it was to roam in the castle gardens, or to sit by the window of her little room embroidering strange devices, or looking out on the broad moorland where the larks and thrushes sang all day long! Only one thing spoiled her content, and that was anxiety as to how the messenger had sped who had gone over the seas to the earl of Richmond.

That tale has been told in another place, and how king Henry sent an escort, after the battle of Bosworth, to bring his future queen to London. As she rode along, under summer skies, the nobles and people thronged to meet her and do homage, and at length the happy day came when openly and fearlessly she could join her mother in Westminster Palace. It was no light task to settle things in England after a strife which had lasted for thirty years; and besides, a terrible plague, known as the Sweating Sickness, was raging in London, so it was not till January 18, 1486, a month before Elizabeth's twentieth birthday, that the much-talked-of marriage took place. The papal legate, a cousin of Elizabeth's, performed the ceremony in the Abbey, and London, which had so long looked forward to the event, celebrated it with banquets and bonfires – rather dangerous in a city whose houses were mostly of wood. 'By which marriage,' says the chronicler, 'peace was thought to descend out of heaven into England.'

And there we leave Elizabeth, her childhood being over.

RICHARD THE FEARLESS

Nearly a thousand years ago a little boy was living in a castle which stood on the edge of a lake in the midst of a very large forest. We should have to go a long way nowadays before we could find any so big; but then there were fewer people in Europe than at present, and so for the most part the wild animals were left undisturbed. In the forest that surrounded the lake, which from the stillness of its waters was called Morte-mer, or the Dead Sea, there were plenty of bears, besides boars and deer. Of course, from time to time the lord of the castle, William Longsword, whose father Rollo had come from over the seas to settle in Normandy, called his friends and his men round him, and had a great hunt, which lasted two or three days. Then everyone in the castle would be busy, some in taking off the skins of the animals and hanging them out to dry, before turning them into coverings for the beds or floors, or coats to wear in the long cold winter; while others cut up the meat and salted it, so that they might never lack food. In summer the skins were rolled up and put away, and instead rushes were cut from the neighbouring swamps – for around the Morte-mer not even rushes would grow – and silk hangings were hung from the walls or the ceilings, instead of deer skins, and occasionally a rough box planted with wild roses or honeysuckle might be seen standing in a corner of the great hall.

But when little Richard was not much more than a year old a dreadful thing happened to him. As often occurred in those days, duke William sent away his wife, Richard's mother, who was poor and low-born, in order to marry a noble lady called Liutgarda, whose father, the rich and powerful count of Vermandois, might be of use in the wars which William was always carrying on with somebody. Although Liutgarda had no children of her own, she hated Richard, and never rested till she had prevailed on her husband to send him away to the palace of Fécamp, where he was born. William, though fickle and even treacherous to his friends, was fond of his little boy, and for a long while he refused to listen to anything Liutgarda said; but when he was leaving home he suddenly bethought him that the child might be safer if he were removed from the hands of the duchess, so he pretended to agree to her proposal. Summoning before him the three men in whom he had most faith, Botho, count of Bayeux, Oslac, and Bernard the Dane, he placed Richard in their care, and bade them to take heed to the child and teach him what it was fitting he should learn.

We know little of Richard's early childhood, but it was probably passed in just the same manner as that of other young princes of his day. We may be sure that his guardians, all mighty men of valour, saw that he could sit a kicking horse and shoot straight at a mark. Besides these sports, Botho, who loved books himself, had him taught to read, and even to write – rare accomplishments in those times – and on the whole Richard was very happy, and never troubled himself about the future.

After eight years of this peaceful life a change came. Long before his guardians had been obliged to leave him, and others, chosen by William with equal care, had taken their place. One morning the boy came in from spending an hour at shooting at a mark, and ran up proudly to tell his old tutor, who was sitting in the hall, that he had eight times hit the very centre of the target, and that his hand shook so from pulling his bow that he was sure he could not guide his reed pen that day.

'Say you so?' answered the old man, smiling, for he knew the heart of a boy, 'well, there is something else for you to do. Your father, Richard,' he continued, his face growing grave, 'is very ill, and has sent to fetch you to him.'

'My father!' said Richard, his face flushing with excitement at the prospect of a journey, 'where is he? Where am I to go? And who will take me? Is he at Rouen?'

'No, at Chévilly, and we start in an hour, after we have dined, and I will take you myself,' was the answer; and Richard hastened away, full of importance, to make his preparations. He was not at all a hard-hearted little boy, but he had not seen his father for four years, and remembered little about him.

William Longsword was lying in his bed when Richard entered the small dark room, only lighted by two blazing torches, and by a patch of moonlight which fell on the rush-strewn stone floor. In the shadow stood three men, and as the boy glanced at them he made a spring towards one and held out his hands.

'Ah, he loves you better than me, Botho,' gasped William in a hoarse voice, between the stabs of pain that darted through his lungs. 'Take off his clothes, and let us see if his body is straight and strong as that of a duke of Normandy should be.' Yes, he was tall and straight-limbed enough, there was no doubt of that! His skin was fair, as became one of the Viking race, and his eyes were blue and his hair shone like gold. His father looked at him with pride, but all he said was:

'Listen to me, boy! My life is nearly done, but I am so weary that I cannot even wait till it is over before giving up my ducal crown to you. I have done many ill deeds, but my people have loved me, for I have defended the poor and given justice to all. I can say no more now; take his hands in yours and swear!' Then the three men clad in armour knelt before the boy, and one by one, taking his hands in theirs, they swore the oath of obedience. The duke watched eagerly, and when the ceremony was over he motioned them all to leave him, murmuring in a low voice, 'To-morrow.'

The following day William was a little better. He had taken the first step towards Richard's inauguration as duke of Normandy, and his mind was more at ease. The ceremony itself was to take place on Whit-Sunday, May 29, 942, and was to be held at Bayeux, where the boy was to live. For the duke wished his son to be brought up in the full knowledge of the Danish language and customs, and Bayeux was the one city in the whole of Normandy where the old tongue was spoken and the pagan religion prevailed. At the same time he was to learn the best French of the day, that of the court of the king Louis d'Outre Mer – Louis from Beyond the Seas – and to be properly educated in the Christian faith. To this end no man was so suitable as Richard's former tutor, Botho, count of Bayeux, a man of renown both as a scholar and a warrior, and who, though a Dane by birth, had become a Christian and had adopted French ways.

By slow stages William made the journey to Bayeux, his son riding by the side of his tutor, chattering merrily all the way. In obedience to his summons, all the nobles and chieftains from Normandy and Brittany were assembled there, and met him on the day appointed in the great hall of the castle. In spite of his illness, from which he had by no means recovered, William was a splendid figure as he sat on a carved chair placed on the dais, with the ducal crown upon his head, and looked down on the stalwart men gathered before him. By his side stood Richard in a green tunic, a small copy of his father, and he faced them with a smile in his eyes, till their hearts went out to him. Amidst a dead silence, William rose to his feet.

'I cannot speak much,' he said, 'for I have been sick unto death, but I have brought here my young son, to bid you accept him as your duke in my stead, and to tell you the plans I have made for his guidance, while he is still a boy. He will live here at Bayeux, and will learn the lore of his forefathers, and three good men and true, Botho, Oslac, and Bernard the Dane, have the care of him, as before in his early years. Besides them, seven other nobles will give counsel. This is my wish. Will you swear to abide by it, and to take the oath of fealty to your new duke?'

'We swear,' they cried with one voice, and then each man in turn took Richard's hand in his, and did homage. Then father and son bid each other farewell, for William must needs go on other business.

After this wonderful scene, in which he had played so important a part, life felt for a while somewhat tame to Richard, and at first he was rather inclined to give himself airs of authority and to refuse obedience to Botho. The count of Bayeux was not, however, a person to put up with behaviour of this sort, and in a short time Richard was learning his lessons and shooting and fishing as diligently as before. But this state of things did not last long. One evening a man-at-arms rode up on a tired horse and demanded speech of Bernard the Dane. It was a sad story he had to tell; duke William had been bidden, as all men already knew, on a certain day to meet king Louis at Attigny, in order to answer some charges of murder which had been made against him. It was the custom to allow three days of grace on account of the accidents that were apt to befall travellers in those rough times, but the appointed hour was past when William rode up to the castle, and found the door closed against him. Furious at being shut out, he ordered his men to force an entrance, and, striding up to the dais, dragged his enemy Otho of Germany from the throne by the side of the king, and beat him soundly. Of course, such an insult to the ally of the king of France could not be passed over, but instead of punishing it openly, William was entrapped into going to an island in the middle of the river, and there murdered.