The Tudor Rose by Margaret Campbell Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

is only the legitimacy of Edward and Richard that really matters to him.” Elizabeth of York sank down upon a stone bench and drew her mother down beside her so as to put an end to the distraught pacing. In the noonday heat the combined scent of box and full-blown roses almost made both women swoon; but neither of them could bear to be cooped up with prying attendants within four walls. They had to voice the thoughts which were tormenting them. “Who was this Butler woman whom they now pretend my father married first?” asked Elizabeth, who had never dared to speak of so intimate a thing before.

    “One of the King's earlier loves,” shrugged his widow, inured to his infidelities.

    “Was she—long before you?”

    “Only a few months. She was just Joan Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury's daughter, when I first knew her. She was very pretty and Edward very ardent, no doubt. If he could not get his way he may have promised to marry her.”

    “But at the time of your coronation surely the Council satisfied themselves that you were his wife?”

    “They saw my marriage lines,” stated the woman who had been enterprising enough to insist upon more than promises.

    “And you had witnesses?”

    “Only my mother and two waiting-women. But the testimony of my mother—Jaquetta, Duchess of Bedford—cannot be lightly set aside. That is why, for all their talk of secrecy, the only hope of my enemies is to prove that the late King married Joan Butler first.”

    “But surely after we have lived among them for so many years the people will never tolerate such lying injustice!” protested Elizabeth. “For whatever my father's faults, he was brave and open-handed and unbelievably popular.”

    “Whatever he was, it is only his sons who matter now,” said the Queen wearily; and suddenly she covered her face with both hands and began to sob uncontrollably.

    “My poor sweet, you have scarcely slept through all this terrible time!” comforted her daughter, kneeling on the grass to put strong young arms about her. “Let me ask the good Abbot's physician to prepare a soothing draught for you.”

    “What can that old dodderer do for me? It is Life which has already done so much!” wept the Queen. But Elizabeth produced a handkerchief with which to dry her mother's cheeks, and held still her pathetic, fluttering hands. “There is that clever Doctor Lewis who attends the Countess of Richmond,” she suggested. “You remember how highly she speaks of him, and since he is a priest as well there will be no difficulty about his visiting you here.”

    “The Richmonds are Lancastrians,” objected the exhausted Yorkist Queen.

    “But now that the Countess has married Lord Stanley she is always received at Court.”

    “Yet her son is still an exiled traitor to our house.”

    “I am not asking you to see Henry of Lancaster, whom men might call our arch-enemy,” smiled Elizabeth, “but this man Lewis who is reported to be so clever.”

    “Then perhaps to please you I will,” conceded the Queen, bending to stroke her daughter's bright hair. “You are very good to me, Bess. You always did take other people's sorrows to your heart— even the younger children's small disasters. But I do assure you I am not sick. It is only that I am crazed with anxiety about the boys. God knows I should never have let them take Richard from me!”

    It was the same useless lament with which Elizabeth Woodville had wearied herself and others for days. “Well, at least let us go in out of the sun so that you may rest,” coaxed the younger and more practical Elizabeth. And when they came into the house they found the Queen's eldest son, Dorset, booted and spurred as for a journey and talking earnestly with Thomas Stafford, Buckingham's son, who had been brought up with them in the late King's household since he was a page.

    Seeing a visitor from the outside world, the Queen stopped in the doorway. “It is true, is it not, that Gloucester