A Rose for the Crown: A Novel

  TOUCHSTONE

  Rockefeller Center

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

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

  Copyright © 2006 by Anne Easter Smith All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Jaime Putorti

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Easter Smith, Anne.

  A rose for the crown / Anne Easter Smith.

  p. cm.

  “A Touchstone Book.”

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7687-0

  eISBN-13: 9-781-43914-4-497

  ISBN-10: 0-7432-7687-6

  1. Richard III, King of England, 1452–1485—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Richard III, 1483–1485—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3605.A84R67 2006

  813’.6—dc22 2005052300

  For my daughters, Joanna and Kate,

  my editor and my muse respectively

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been attempted without the love, encouragement and support of my husband, Scott Smith. Thank you for bringing home the lion’s share of the bacon while I indulged in my fifteenth century fantasy. It also could not have been finished without the help of many, including: my sister, Jill Phillips; my oldest friend and medieval and renaissance musician, Roxana Gundry; my elder daughter, Joanna Currier, who edited the first two versions; my godmother, Pauline Evans, who lives in the Ightham/Tonbridge area; Joann Buccigrosso; and my good friends and midwifery experts Claire Denenberg and Maryann Long.

  Others who helped with research, hospitality and specialized knowledge are: Paul Harris of Toronto; Pat Gondris of Ipswich, Suffolk; Patty Judge at Ightham Mote; John Wallace at Stoke by Nayland; the late Geoffrey Richardson; Maria Torres of Brooklyn; Amber Baylis at the Tonbridge Library; Lorraine Pickering; Kathy Gore; Carol Bishop; Pamela Mills; Richard III Society Listserv; Richard III Society Library; Late Medieval Britain Listserv; the New York Public Library.

  Thanks to Edith Heyck of Newburyport for the map and genealogy chart. And last but not least, I would like to thank my patient agent, Kirsten Manges, who babied me through three edits before allowing my editor, the discerning Trish Todd, the chance to look at and publish the book.

  Contents

  Genealogy of the Plantagenet Houses of York and Lancaster

  Dramatis Personae

  Map of England

  Prologue

  Part One: Confort et Liesse

  Part Two: Tant le desirée

  Part Three: A vous me lie

  Part Four: Loyaulté me lie

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Genealogy of the Plantagenet Houses of York and Lancaster

  Dramatis Personae

  *Historical Persons

  IN KENT

  John Bywood, farmer

  Martha Bywood, John’s first wife

  Kate Bywood

  Johnny

  their children

  Geoffrey

  Matty

  Joanna, John’s second wife

  Joan, John’s niece

  Margery, Johnny’s wife

  Jane, Geoffrey’s wife

  *Richard Haute, Esquire, owner of Ightham Mote, carver to Princess Elizabeth

  Elinor Haute, Richard’s first wife

  *Anne Haute, Richard’s daughter

  *John Gaynesford, Anne’s husband

  *Lady Elizabeth Darcy, Richard’s second wife

  Brother Francis, Ightham Mote chaplain

  Edgar, Ightham Mote steward

  Ralph, groom

  Thomas Draper, merchant of Tunbridge

  Molly Miller, Kate’s servant

  IN SUFFOLK

  *Martin Haute, kinsman to Richard Haute, owner of Haute Manor, usher to the queen

  Philippa Haute, Martin’s wife

  Young Martin, their oldest son

  George, their second son

  Robert and Maud, their other children

  *Katherine Plantagenet, Kate’s daughter with Richard of Gloucester, wife of William Herbert, earl of Huntingdon

  *John Plantagenet (also known as John of Gloucester or John of Pontefract), Kate’s son with Richard of Gloucester

  *Richard Plantagenet, (also known as Richard of Eastwell), Kate’s second son with Richard of Gloucester

  Magdalena, Young Martin’s wife

  Amelia and Adam Jacob, Philippa’s parents in Lavenham

  Simon and Gareth, servants of Haute Manor

  *Sir John Howard, owner of Tendring Hall, Stoke-by-Nayland, later duke of Norfolk

  *Margaret Chedworth, John Howard’s second wife

  *Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, elder son of John Howard and first wife, Catherine

  *Catherine (Cat) Howard, daughter of John Howard and Margaret Chedworth

  *Edith, Agnes and Rose, gentlewomen in Margaret Howard’s household

  *John Braham and John Bliant, stewards to John Howard

  *Thomas Moleyns, squire to John Howard

  *Wat (Smith), groom in the service of John Howard

  *The children of John Howard and the late Catherine Moleyns, and their husbands

  *The children of Margaret Howard by her two previous husbands, and their husbands

  AT COURT

  *Richard, duke of Gloucester, later king of England

  *Edward IV, earl of March, later king of England

  *Elizabeth Woodville, Edward’s queen

  *Sir Robert Percy (Rob), close friend of Richard III

  *Viscount, Lord Francis Lovell, close friend and Richard III’s Lord Chamberlain

  *Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham

  MISCELLANEOUS

  Walter and Alice Cheney, kin of Elinor Haute in London

  Janet, Kate’s cook at Dog Kennel House

  *Roger Wygston, wealthy wool merchant of Leicester

  Places Referenced in A Rose for the Crown

  Prologue

  London, 1491

  Traitors!” shrieked an old crone from the midst of a large crowd swarming around the base of the crude platform in the Smithfield marketplace. Her voice joined the cacophony of cries of those selling pies, ale and trinkets; of neighbors hailing neighbors; and here and there coarse, lewd laughter. Every now and again, an agonized scream emanated from the scaffold, followed by wild cheers from hundreds of leering faces. Acrid smoke hung like a stifling mantle over the square.

  Half hidden on a stone ledge behind an abutment, a widow shielded her eyes from the scene.

  “Is it finished, my son?” she whispered to the young man next to her. The stench overpowered her—a sickening mix of burnt flesh, spilled blood, singed hair and hundreds of sweaty, unwashed bodies. It was like nothing she had ever smelled, and her stomach heaved.

  Her son, who was less squeamish, stood on tiptoe and stared in fascinated horror at the grisly spectacle. “Nay, Mother. There is one more nearing the scaffold.” He turned his head to look at her, his chestnut hair a mirror of what hers once had been, and saw her pain. “I should take you from this place,” he said with concern. “ ’Tis not seemly that you bear witness to such cruelty. Why are we here?”

  “How is the last one, Dickon? I
s he young? Do they call his name?” He did not have a chance to answer.

  “Death to the traitor! Death to the traitorous bastard!” shouted a man at the front of the crowd.

  “Why, ’tis Richard’s bastard. ’Tis John of Gloucester. Why were we not told?” a large man called to the captain in charge of the prisoners. The soldier shrugged and turned away. “A king’s son should have a private execution. ’Tis customary,” the man grumbled.

  A moment of silence followed as the surprising information was passed back. Many in the crowd were puzzled. They had no quarrel with John. They had come to witness the death of three men accused of treason. King Henry seemed bent on purging his kingdom of anyone he believed a threat to him.

  “What treason has John committed?” asked another man. “And who saw the trial?”

  Silence.

  “Too close to Richard for comfort,” yelled a woman near the widow, and many laughed, relieved to have the tension broken.

  But the onlookers were no longer concerned with past transgressions, only with present consequences. They had come to see three men dispatched by the most grisly method of execution: hanged until almost dead, taken down, their entrails ripped from them and burned, and finally hacked into quarters. The heads would be set upon London gate, a warning to all prospective traitors. That one of these condemned turned out to be royal—albeit a bastard—was all the more titillating. Out for blood, the crowd’s hush gave way to howls of derision for the third prisoner. Surging forward, it met a wall of soldiers, who kept them from tearing the calm, dark-haired man to pieces before the hangman and disemboweler could do their work.

  The son of dead King Richard was given the last rites at the base of the scaffold, a few paces from the drawn and quartered remains of another so-called traitor to Henry, the new king. He mounted the stairs and was led forward on the platform to the last noose. The crowd pelted him with clods of earth, rotten vegetables and the occasional stone until the hangman held up his hand for it all to stop. John looked out on the expectant faces in front of him and acknowledged the hate in them. A mere eight years earlier, these same faces were smiling and cheering at him and the brightly colored cavalcade on its way to his father’s coronation. Now they stared at him, anticipating a cry for mercy or an admission of treachery. He was searching the crowd in vain for one friendly face when something made him look at a woman standing on a low ledge, her hand tightly entwined with that of a young man with chestnut hair. Her hood had fallen back, revealing a sad face with tired eyes.

  The ugly masses melted into memories of long ago: a fire-lit solar where a voice like an angel lulled him with a song about knights, ladies and love; tawny eyes anxiously watching him sweat out a childish fever in her luxurious tester bed; warm arms holding his six-year-old body close on a summer day when the air was filled with farewells; and more recently, a touch of her hand briefly through the prison grille when she had come for the last time.

  “Mother!” The single word came as a groan, and shameless tears welled.

  The woman heard his cry and reached out her hand to him, not heeding the danger. He averted his eyes, afraid of implicating her.

  “He cries for his mother, the baby!” shouted one of King Henry’s plants in the throng, eliciting more cruel guffaws from those near him. A few in the crowd turned to stare curiously at the woman in the black cloak. She instantly let her arm drop. It was as though she had heard a silent plea from the prisoner, and before the crowd’s interest became a threat, she got down from her ledge and, still clutching the young man’s hand, ran down an alley away from the smell, the jeers and those haunting gray-blue eyes.

  When she was away from the sight and sound of the scene, she stopped to take a breath, tears streaming down her face. Dickon stared at her. The errant wisps of hair around her widow’s wimple were white, and her forty-year-old face was lined with suffering. She who had looked after him now needed his care. His mother was growing old.

  “Mother, why are you so distressed? Why did we have to attend?” he asked again, taking her shoulders and giving them a gentle shake.

  She looked full into his eyes. “Because he is my son.”

  Dickon’s jaw went slack. “Your son? But . . . I do not understand. I am your son!” His strong chin jutted forward, reminding her so much of his father that she choked. He took her arm. “The air has addled your wits. Come, sit down, and I will find you refreshment.”

  Dickon led her to a stone bench in deserted Cheapside. With no one to stop them, dogs roamed in and out of open doors, mangy cats ranged rubbish heaps looking for scraps, and a rat scuttled across the street. The sun glinted off the puddles of sewage all along the wide thoroughfare.

  There can be no greater grief than a mother’s, the woman thought, her head in her hands, remembering, too, the death of her daughter from the sweating sickness not six years since. And such a death as this . . . Her sobs came harder.

  “Dear God, I pray you took him quickly!” she called to the heavens, as Dickon stood by, perplexed. She looked down at the whitened skin at the base of one of her fingers and prayed that the missing ring had bought John death by strangulation from the hangman before the disemboweler did his work. Ah, Richard! I hope with all my heart your precious gift has helped our son heavenward with little pain. Of all its uses, this must be the crown.

  After a while, the woman allowed herself to be led, as if in a trance, the short distance to where the Cheap Cross marked the entrance to the Mermaid Inn. Once through the courtyard and in the safety of their chamber, Dickon washed her face and hands and made her lie on the bed to rest.

  “Please try and sleep, Mother. I will be out in the courtyard if you need me.”

  “Nay, Dickon. I pray you, do not leave me!” Her tone was urgent and her eyes implored him to stay. “There is much I must tell you, and now is a good time. I cannot bear to be alone. Come and sit by me, my son.” She patted the bed and took his hand, already calloused from stoneworking. She held it to her cheek.

  “John of Gloucester is . . . was my son.” She saw the disbelief in his look. “Aye, he was your brother. Bear with me, Dickon, and I will tell you all.”

  She tore her eyes from his troubled face and looked towards the window, not knowing where to start, her thoughts still with the scene at Smithfield. She knew she owed him the truth after all this time.

  Dickon stroked her hair, hating to see the tears that flowed unheeded down her cheeks. Why was he surprised? His mother had suddenly come to claim him when he was thirteen, a little time after the new King Henry had taken the throne. Until then he had believed she was his aunt. She had never given him a satisfactory explanation for all their years apart, and it had taken him a long time to love and accept her as his mother. But now the mystery was deepening, and he was almost afraid to know more.

  Thus they sat, mother and son, both lost in their own thoughts, as a bird’s fluting warble began in a tree in the central courtyard.

  The birdsong awoke something in her. He saw her eyes soften, her mouth curve into a smile as she whispered, “Listen, Dickon! I can hear a blackbird.”

  PART ONE

  Confort et Liesse

  (Comfort and Joy)

  —MOTTO OF KING EDWARD IV

  1

  Kent, Spring 1459

  Kate squinted up at the sky. Her nine-year-old imagination raced as fast as the woolly clouds that floated above her. A lamb, a dragon—and that big one, surely that was a giant with a horrid hooked nose. She inhaled deeply and savored the experience of the early summer day: the rich, warm earth in the fields, fern fronds unfurling in the sun, and the heady scent of bluebells. She luxuriated in the bright green grass that cushioned her, wriggled her bare toes and felt the sun’s rays warming her young body through her homespun gown. In the woods, a blackbird sent forth its sweet song, as if to give voice to her feelings.

  “Aye, Sir Blackbird, ’tis a glorious day,” she called, with a child’s belief the bird would understand her. “Sing
away!”

  Bored with the cloud game, she rolled over onto her stomach to study nature closer at hand. An ant was busy moving a particle of leaf six inches from her nose.

  “It be hard work, bain’t it, Master Ant?” The ant took no notice and went on with his task. A few yards away, a bumblebee was worrying a clover flower, too busy to pay Kate any attention. Then, just as she was thinking of making a daisy chain, she heard her name echoing through the woods.

  “Kate, Kate! Where are you, Kate Bywood, you lazy girl?” It was her mother.

  Suddenly aware that she had been gone a long time, Kate jumped to her feet, strapped on her pattens and raced through the bluebells back to the farmhouse.

  The Bywood farm stood a few miles from the Kentish market town of Tunbridge close to where the River Medway flows under the old Twyford Bridge. It boasted a dozen acres of fields, an orchard, two healthy cows, a small flock of sheep and some poultry. John and Martha Bywood lived a comfortable existence in the thatched farmhouse. The one room downstairs served as both kitchen and living area, and recently John had constructed a rough wooden floor over the packed dirt previously underfoot. The cheery room was constantly filled with the sounds of children’s squeals and laughter, while Martha cleaned, spun, mended clothes or prepared the daily meal. A ladder on the east wall led to the loft above, where a heavy curtain separated the big bed that John and Martha used from the three children’s pallet of straw.

  When Kate returned from the field, Martha was pulling up the wooden pail from the well. “Kate! Where have you been, you naughty girl? Lying on the grass, daydreaming again, I have no doubt, judging by those grass stains on your kirtle. And your hair! You look as if you have been pulled through a bush backwards!”

  Kate had the grace to look shamefaced but not for long. She knew her mother’s admonishments were half-hearted. The two of them shared too great a bond for Martha to be cross for more than a moment.

  “I be sorry, Mother,” she murmured, brushing the grass off her gown and wiping more dirt onto her nose than off with the back of her hand.