To Hold the Crown: The Story of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online

Arthur and that was not going to be of much help to him. Every time anything went wrong the magical name would be recalled. Oh no, Arthur was not going to find life easy with a name like that and it was a great error of judgment to have saddled him with it.
    If only they had taken her advice. . . .
    But they would never do that.
    She was in a very disgruntled mood when she heard that a priest was asking for an audience with her. He came on the recommendation of the Earl of Lincoln.
    The Earl of Lincoln had been a firm adherent of Richard, and she was not sure how he regarded her. One of the most shocking moments of her life had been when she heard that Richard was declaring her children to be illegitimate. He had revived that absurd story of Eleanor Butler’s marriage with Edward and as Eleanor Butler had been alive when he had married her, Elizabeth, that meant
their
marriage was invalid and her children illegitimate.
    Nonsense! Nonsense! she had wanted to cry; but it had been accepted as fact and Richard therefore became the King; he had behaved as though her two sons, young Edward and Richard, did not exist as claimants to the throne. He had considered Clarence’s son, the young Earl of warwick, as his heir but because he was only a boy and the country needed a strong man he had named Lincoln.
    She could imagine how Lincoln was feeling now . . . ready for revolt against the Tudor, she did not doubt.
    Well, that gave them something in common for she felt the same.
    Therefore she was ready to receive the priest who was Lincoln’s protégé.
    Richard Simon was overawed. Elizabeth Woodville could be very regal when she wished; but that she was eager to hear what he had to say was clear.
    He came quickly to the point and told her that he had seen a boy whom he had reason to believe was the Earl of warwick. He was at the moment working in a baker’s shop. He had reported his discovery to the Earl of Lincoln who, as she knew, had suggested that the matter be imparted to her. The Earl had left for the Continent. He was going to see the Duchess of Burgundy, so strongly did he feel that this matter should not be brushed aside.
    The priest was aware of a terrible fear in that moment. There was a cold glitter in the Queen Dowager’s eyes. What a fool he had been to come! True, she was of the House of York, having married the great Yorkist King—but her daughter was now the wife of Henry Tudor. Would she work against her own daughter?
    For a few moments he visualized himself seized, dragged away to a dungeon, tortured to reveal things he did not know. Fool . . . fool that he had been to deliver himself right into the lions’ den.
    But he was wrong. Elizabeth Woodville had always reveled in intrigue ever since she and her mother had plotted to entrap Edward in Whittlebury Forest. She was furiously angry with the Countess of Richmond, who treated her as though she were of no account at all. Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth herself, was treated as though she were merely a puppet by these Tudors.
    Of course Henry was an impostor. What of her own little boys? Where were they? Sometimes she dreamed of them at night. They were stretching out their arms to her, calling for her. She kept thinking of the last time she had seen the younger of them, little Richard, who had been taken from her to join his brother in the Tower. “I should never have let him go.” How many times had she said that?
    And where were they now? She never mentioned them to their sisters. The Queen never wanted to talk of them. There was that horrible slur of illegitimacy which King Richard had laid on them and which Henry had ignored. And if he ignored it . . . then the true king was little Edward the Fifth. But where was he? And where was his brother?
    When she thought of her boys she thought of Henry Tudor and that he had no right to be on the throne. If he had been humble, a little grateful because she had allowed her daughter to marry him, she would have felt