This Son of York Read online

  This Son of York

  Anne Easter Smith

  About the Author

  Award-winning author Anne Easter Smith’s books “…grab you, sweep you along with the story, and make you fall in love with the characters…” (Historical Novels Review) and Kirkus Reviews called her best-selling debut A ROSE FOR THE CROWN “Remarkably assured…a delightful, confident novel…a strong new voice in the field of historical romance.”

  THE KING’S GRACE won the 2009 Romantic Times Best Historical Biography award, and QUEEN BY RIGHT was nominated in the same category in 2011.

  Romance Reviews Today gave ROYAL MISTRESS “A perfect 10! Entertaining, informative, and impeccably researched. I highly recommend this wonderful book.”

  Anne is a native of England who has resided in US for fifty years. She lives in Newburyport MA with her husband, and when not writing can be found directing or acting in community theater.

  Visit Anne at:

  www.anneeastersmith.com for blogs and Book Group Discussion topics

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anneeastersmith/

  Twitter: @anneastersmith

  Instagram: anneeastersmith

  Books about the Wars of the Roses by

  Anne Easter Smith:

  A Rose for the Crown

  Daughter of York

  The King’s Grace

  Queen by Right

  Royal Mistress

  Bellastoria Press

  P.O. Box 60341 Longmeadow, MA 01106

  bellastoriapress.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Anne Easter Smith

  All rights reserved, including the reproduction in whole or in part in any form without the written permission of the publisher, Bellastoria Press, P.O. Box 60341, Longmeadow, MA 01116.

  This Son of York is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Sanford Farrier

  Cover Illustration by Frances Quinn

  Inside Boar Illustration by Kirsten Moorhead

  First Edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1-942209-64-5

  Table of Contents

  THIS SON OF YORK

  About the Author

  Books by Anne Easter Smith

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Genealogy Chart

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART TWO

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  PART THREE

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PART SIX

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Partial Bibliography

  Dedication

  For Scott,

  whose patience with my passion for Richard enabled this book.

  Dramatis Personae

  York family

  Richard Plantagenet, duke of York

  Cecily Neville, duchess of York, his wife

  Edward (Ned), earl of March, later Edward IV, their oldest son

  Edmund, earl of Rutland, their son

  Margaret (Meg), their daughter

  George, duke of Clarence, their son

  Richard, duke of Gloucester, their youngest son

  Edward of Middleham (Ned), Richard III and Anne’s son

  Young Edward, Edward IV’s heir

  Young Richard, Edward IV’s younger son

  Lancaster family (descended from John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster)

  Henry VI, only child of Henry V

  Margaret of Anjou, his wife

  Edouard of Lancaster, prince of Wales, his only child

  Neville Family

  Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, Cecily of York’s brother

  Richard, earl of Warwick (“The Kingmaker”), Salisbury’s oldest son

  Anne Beauchamp, countess of Warwick, Warwick’s wife

  Isabel Neville, later duchess of Clarence, Warwick’s daughter and heir

  Anne Neville, later duchess of Gloucester, Warwick’s daughter

  The court

  Margaret Beaufort, countess of Derby, descended from John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford

  Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, Margaret’s son

  Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, Margaret’s third husband

  Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, Richard’s cousin

  Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s queen

  Jacquetta Woodville, duchess of Bedford, Elizabeth’s mother

  Anthony Woodville, Elizabeth’s brother

  William Hastings, Edward IV’s councilor/chamberlain

  John (Jack) Howard, later duke of Norfolk, councilor

  Margaret Howard, his wife

  Thomas Howard, later earl of Surrey, Howard’s son

  Francis, Lord Lovell, Richard’s friend

  Sir Robert Percy of Scotton, Richard’s friend

  Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Richard’s friend and councilor

  William Catesby, lawyer and Richard’s councilor

  John Kendall, Richard’s secretary

  John Parr, Richard’s squire

  Miscellaneous (*fictional character)

  *Kate Haute, Richard’s mistress

  Katherine, Richard and Kate’s daughter (later countess of Pembroke)

  John, Richard and Kate’s son (known as John of Gloucester)

  Dickon, Richard and Kate’s son (known as Richard of Eastwell)

  Anne of Caux, the York family nursemaid

  *Constance LeMaitre, Cecily’s attendant and physician

  *Piers Taggett, Richard of York’s falconer

  Gresilde Boyvile, Cecily of York’s attendant

  *John Lacey, master of the Middleham henchmen

  *Geoffrey Bywood, Kate Haute’s brother

  Now is the winter of our discontent

  Made glorious summer by this son of York…

  —Richard the Third, William Shakespeare

  Prologue

  Bosworth, August 21, 1485

  The night before a battle affected men in various ways. Some spent it drinking and carousing with the camp followers; some spent it hiding in the woods and nervously emptying their bowels; others passed the time playing dice; others in prayer; and still more, like Richard, in contemplating the insignificance of their earthly lives. “No matter what the priests tell you about each of us being important to God,” Richard had once said to his wife, “How can one life mean any more than another among so many throughout the history of mankind? As an anointed king, I must be more important than the beggar in the street, but in truth, I know I am not. When we die and molder in our graves, who will remember us then, one any more than another?”

  “God will,” Anne had said simply, “you must believe He will. And because you are a king, your grave will be marked by a fine tomb annou
ncing to the world who you were.” She had laughed then. “If I am lucky, I will lie with you and be remembered, too.” Dearest Anne, he thought guiltily as he lay on his elaborate camp bed, I must see to it that you are remembered.

  The night was warm, and his tent was open to any welcome breeze that might waft by. In the past on the eve of battle, Richard had recited his prayers, had a cup of wine with fellow commanders, and slept well. Tonight, he knew, was different. Tomorrow he must fight for his crown as well as his life. He could not quite believe it had come down to this moment. He had acted honorably all his days, he thought, done his duty to his family, England and, lately reluctantly, to God.

  A remark of the earl of Warwick’s occurred to him: “Scheming is a virtue if kings are to survive.” Is that what I have done—schemed? Nay, it is not, he reassured himself, it is not. The other part of his mentor’s homily had warned: “To be a great leader, you must learn the skills to be flexible in wooing allies to your side.” It was a skill that had come easily to Edward, but Richard’s reticence to trust had not charmed those he should have sought as allies. Was that where he had gone wrong? Instead of winning with words, friendship, and diplomacy, he had tried to buy men’s trust with land and offices. How many of his men understood him, he wondered.

  Richard gave up examining his flaws, failures, and missteps, knowing he must concentrate on the morrow. He tried to close his eyes to the pricks of light from the hundreds of campfires and his ears to the drunken shouts, laughter and singing of the soldiers, the stamping and snickering of a thousand horses, and the clinking of the armorers and smiths making last-minute adjustments or repairs to harnesses. Everyone faced death in his own way, and Richard had no illusions that this might not be his time. He had a fifty-fifty chance, because in the end it would come down to him or Henry. Only one of them would wear the crown after battle, because the other would be dead—either in the field or later by the axe.

  Part of him wished the two of them could fight it out alone and let all others return to their homes. He had no doubt he would run the Tudor through. Richard had trained hard since boyhood and fought in many battles to become the experienced soldier he was now; Henry of Richmond, wrongly claiming the crown, would be seeing battle for the first time, and, as Richard had heard, had not enjoyed the rigors of knightly training while languishing at Brittany’s court. Another part of him relished the thought of a glorious military victory and of extinguishing Lancastrian hopes forever.

  He was suddenly jolted back to the other time he and Edward believed Lancaster had been vanquished, and, as was their wont, his thoughts returned to King Henry’s demise. Son of the great victor of Agincourt and Edward’s predecessor, Lancastrian Henry VI had played a part in Richard’s life since he’d been in swaddling bands, Richard mused. He sat up, pushing black thoughts back into hell, and reached for his book of hours—the very one given him as a gift by Henry when Richard was but a lad. How I wish I had listened to your advice, Your Grace, and never agreed to wear a crown. He groaned. Sweet Jesu, how has it come to this, he asked himself yet again. Paging idly through the prayer book, the gold and silver of the illuminations glinting in the candlelight, he indulged in pondering his life and began to wish he could return to the days when the worst of his troubles was being called the runt of York’s litter.

  PART ONE

  Dickon, York’s Youngest

  Leicester, August 25, 2012

  I arrive at the car park just as the 360-degree excavator is ripping into Trench One, and the first piece of the tarmac is removed. The machine will very shortly be going right over the painted letter ‘R’, close to where my instinct told me Richard’s remains lay when I first came here. I still believe it. Nothing has changed my mind….

  I can’t take my eyes off the excavator and have to pinch myself as I watch….

  The scoop arm drops down and begins to lift out giant clods of earth, debris and rubble, swinging them on to the spoil heaps. I check my watch. It’s 2:15 p.m….

  Suddenly Mathew Morris’s hand shoots into the air. The excavator stops and Morris jumps into the trench. He looks up at me.

  There’s a bone.

  —Philippa Langley, The King’s Grave

  Chapter One

  Summer 1459

  Runt.

  When was the first time Richard became aware the unsavory word was being used to describe him? Possibly as early as age seven, and it was then he began to understand he would have to fight for his place in his illustrious family and indeed the world. Far too young, in truth.

  It did not help to dispel the cruel moniker often given to a last-born that Richard, nicknamed Dickon to avoid confusion with his father, the duke of York, had a short, skeletal stature and had succumbed to frequent childhood illnesses. However, not long after Richard’s birth, when King Henry had happened by Fotheringhay, principal residence of the house of York, the king had raised the infant Richard high and proclaimed him, “A perfect prince!

  “He shall be king some day,” the king had declared. Duchess Cecily’s smile had frozen on her beautiful face as attendants gasped their horror. Not that the statement was untrue, but no one present could possibly have guessed Richard’s destiny. He was the fourth son of a duke—of royal blood, it needs to be said—but he was no king’s heir. Certainly there was mounting conflict between Henry’s house of Lancaster and the house of York as to which had the better claim to the Plantagenet crown, but war between these cousins was far from anyone’s mind. No, poor befuddled Henry had simply and sadly mistaken this child for his own, as yet, unborn son—although the queen was indeed pregnant. The king had had lapses of sanity of late, it was true, but he appeared perfectly well, and thus the York courtiers could be excused for believing the king’s words, which they thought tantamount to treason. But how could a king speak treason against himself? Or, more intriguing, was the king’s gaffe an omen? Being superstitious, many of them crossed themselves.

  But Cecily knew better; she recognized the blank stare with which Henry gazed on her son and knew the king’s fragile mind had drifted. She realized he had no inkling of his lapse, and she felt sorry for him. Despite their quarrels, she and Henry had always liked each other—Cecily’s feelings more of concern, to tell the truth—and now to silence the murmurings around the room, she swiftly came to the king’s rescue.

  “Your Grace, this is my son Richard,” she had declared brightly. “Let me take him from you before he pulls off that pearl button. We cannot have him swallowing such a treasure! I see he already has good taste,” and she chuckled. “Your son will be born soon, I hear,” she had run on smoothly. “Such happy news!” Turning to her steward she asked that he escort the king to his chamber. “I can see you are weary, Your Grace. I pray you allow Sir Henry to make you comfortable.” And with her gracious and quick-witted intervention, the duchess dispelled what had been an embarrassing but prophetic slip of Henry’s tongue. Looking down at her child, gurgling in his cradle, she could not possibly have dreamed what Fortune had in store for him.

  Dickon was told this story years later by his nurse, Anne of Caux, when he was old enough to understand it, and it became their little joke whenever Dickon broke a nursery rule. She would click her tongue and reprimand him: “Not such a perfect prince now, are you?”

  However, Nurse Anne was his champion whenever he came running to her for sympathy during his first half dozen years of trying to learn his place. His brother George, three years older, and his playmates had used the delicate child for target practice during “who-can-kick-the-ball-and-hit-Dickon first” game they had invented, as Dickon scampered around the inner bailey avoiding the inflated pig’s bladder. George would leave Dickon far behind while the bigger boys streaked on longer legs through boggy fens around Fotheringhay to hunt for tadpoles and frogs on fine spring mornings. George callously dubbed the lad “babykins” when Dickon ran to hide from the taunting or cried when George wrestled him easily to the ground. How he hated that name.

 
Then one day, a day four-year-old Dickon would never forget, George lost his temper with his young brother over a missing toy knight. Nurse Anne was out of the room when George, his face white with rage, plucked a pillow from the bed and, holding Dickon down, pushed it over the terrified little boy’s face.

  “Where is it, you thief? You stole my soldier. Give it to me or else!” he hissed.

  “I can’t breathe!” Dickon’s muffled voice was desperate. “Please George, I can’t breathe.” He flailed his little arms and kicked at George while trying to take in air. Panic set in and he saw lights behind his eyes and heard his own heart thumping unnaturally. When he thought his lungs would burst through his chest, George came to his senses. He released the now-limp Dickon and threw the pillow back on the bed.

  “Serves you right, you little monster,” he muttered and then threatened his sobbing brother further: “Stop blubbering. You say one word to anyone about this, and I’ll do worse to you.” Then as though nothing had happened, he went back to his miniature army. Dickon, crawled beneath the bed and curled up into a ball. Puzzled, Nurse Anne found him there later, fast asleep. George lied and feigned ignorance.