The Red Rose of Anjou - Plaidy Jean - Страница 55

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It was agreed that such a progress would be beneficial to the Lancastrian cause and the Queen would be able to assess what subject she could rely on. She dreamed ol leading a triumphant army against York.

With characteristic energy she set about planning the tour. They would ride slowly through the country, pausing at great manor houses and castles on their way where they would stay a few days and let the people see them. I hey would make their way to Coventry which had always been a loyal city. And when the time had come...when the country was behind her she would strike.

So the progress began. The King was sincerely welcomed; the little Prince was cheered wherever they went; and if the greeting for Margaret was less exuberant, she could bear that. These people would understand in the end, she promised herself.

They came to Coventry and there held Court. The ladies of the castle worked a tapestry in honour of the visit. It was beautiful and depicted Margaret at prayer in a head-dress decorated with pearls and a yellow brocaded dress edged with ermine. The King was shown beside her and the tapestry was hung in St. Mary’s Hall as a token ol the town’s loyal regard for its sovereigns.

While they were at Coventry Margaret advised the King to send for York, Salisbury and Warwick to come to them there. They all declined, sensing trouble. How could they go, asked York, without taking an armed force with them? And if they did that it would not look as though they came in peace. Salisbury agreed with him. As for Warwick, he was too busy in Calais where his duties would not allow him to leave.

‘They are afraid to come,’ exulted Margaret, and from what was to be called the Safe Harbour of Coventry she went on with her plans.

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Steeped as she was in plots for revenge she could still spare time for romance. She liked to discuss her plans with Henry because he always agreed and smiled at her tenderly calling her the Royal Matchmaker.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘now that dear Edmund has been murdered...’ She always referred to Somerset’s death in battle as murder and the murderer-in-chief as York—’I feel it is my duty to look to the welfare of his sons.’

‘I think you could have been said to have done that, Margaret,’ replied the King.

‘They are good boys. If Edmund had lived they would have been married by now.’

‘I daresay they will in due course.’

‘They should have the best possible matches and I think I have found the answer. The King of Scotland has two daughters. I thought it would be a good idea if they were married to Henry and his brother Edmund.’

‘King’s daughters!’

‘Well, why not? The Beauforts are royal are they not? The family has been legitimized and they are in a direct line from John of Gaunt.’

‘Yes, but what will James say...?’

‘James of Scotland could, I am sure, be persuaded. We owe it to Edmund, Henry, to look after his sons.’

‘My dear Margaret, if this were acceptable to the King of Scotland I would raise no objection.’

‘I should think not,’ cried Margaret. ‘Such marriages could bring us nothing but good.’

‘I do not think the King of Scotland would agree.’

‘He certainly cannot if he does not know what is proposed.’

‘My dear, if it is your wish...’

‘It is and it should be yours. Have you thought what these marriages could mean to us? There is always trouble on the Border’ With Henry Beaufort up there and his brother with him, we should have friends, not enemies, in the Scots.’

‘If it would mean peace, my dear lady, I would give every encouragement to it.’

Margaret was pleased. The King’s approval was not necessary to her but she always felt that she liked to have it.

She set negotiations in motion. It was a disappointment that there was a lukewarm response from the King of Scots which might well mean ‘Don’t meddle in these matters and keep your matchmaking schemes within the bounds of your own country.’ If she was proposing a match with the Prince of Wales that would be another matter.

Margaret was obliged temporarily to shelve the matter. There was something of great importance with which to occupy herself, and this she determined to carry on without consultation with Henry.

She had always kept in touch with her uncle the King of France and her father the titular King of Sicily and Naples. If Rene was rather frivolous, the King of France was far from that. Margaret was eager to make the throne safe for Henry and she felt it could never be that while York lived. She would not be happy until she saw York’s head displayed on some prominent edifice for all to witness his defeat and humiliation. Vengeance was like a burning fire within her which could only be doused by horrible death. It did not occur to her that for the Queen of England to indulge in correspondence with an enemy of England was more than incongruous. It could be construed as treachery and in view of her unpopularity, which was already overpowering, Margaret was playing a very dangerous game.

There was one whom Margaret hated almost as intensely as she did the Duke of York and that was the Earl of Warwick. It was Warwick’s tactics which had achieved victory at St. Albans for the Yorkists. He was as dangerous as York. The only difference was that he laid no claim to the throne.

Warwick—with characteristic shrewdness—had taken over the governorship of Calais, which some said was the most important port in Europe, and if it had not been quite that before, Warwick was certainly making it so now. He was turning himself into a kind of pirate king of the Channel, and making it impossible for French ships to pass through with safety.

Margaret had already written to her uncle explaining that she did not want Warwick back in England. He was too clever, too important to the Yorkist cause and while he was in Calais he was kept out of the way. Would the King harry the port a little, making Warwick’s presence in Calais absolutely necessary to its safety. Threaten it. Make a determined set at it. At all costs keep Warwick out of England.

Again it did not occur to her that to ask an enemy of her country to attack one of its possessions was treachery of the worst |l kind. Margaret was single-minded. She wanted Henry safe on the throne and that could only be brought about by the death of York and she did not care what means she employed to bring that about.

Charles VII had changed since those days when as Dauphin he has listlessly allowed his country to slip out of his grasp. He was now reckoned to be the most astute monarch in Europe. He wanted to help his dear niece, he wrote, and he was authorizing Pierre de Breze, the Seneschal of Normandy, who had always been one of Margaret’s devoted admirers, to prepare a fleet for the purpose of destroying Warwick’s fleet and immobilizing the port of Calais so that—so said the King of France—Warwick would be unable to use it for attacks on Margaret and Henry. He did not add that Calais was the town he most desired to get his hands on.

Margaret was delighted. Warwick would never be able to stand out against a French fleet.

It was summer when the fleet was ready. De Breze sailed along the coast looking for Warwick’s fleet. But a heavy mist fell and visibility was poor and there was no sign of Warwick and his ships. It was a pity, thought de Breze, for he had sixty ships manned to the strength of four thousand and he contemplated an easy victory.

Land came into sight. He was puzzled. It could only be England. He lay off the shore for a while and when the mist lifted a little he knew with certainty that he was close to the English coast.

He landed some of his men in a quiet bay and then sailed along until he came to the town of Sandwich.

He then set the rest ashore. The people of Sandwich were taken unaware. When they had first seen the ships they had thought they were Warwick’s and were prepared to give them a good welcome, for Warwick was regarded as a hero in Kent.

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