The Red Rose of Anjou - Plaidy Jean (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗

Edward was at Gloucester when he heard the news of his father’s defeat and death. He was completely stunned. He could not believe this was possible. He stared blankly at the messenger and then a terrible grief overcame him.

He wanted to be alone, to think of his father. He had always admired him so much, always looked up to him, seen him as a King, invincible. And now…defeated…dead, and his head on the walls of York surmounted by a paper crown. The ultimate mockery.

A great rage overtook him then. Those who had jeered at his father should pay dearly for their mirth.

‘What are we doing waiting here?’ he cried. ‘We must march…march against them. We must inflict such slaughter upon them that they scream for mercy.’

He thought of Warwick, his hero. Where was he now? Still in London. Warwick would say: Be calm. Do not scream Revenge! just for the sake of revenge. Let it be revenge tempered with reason. They shall pay, yes, but in a manner best suited to our cause.

He thought of his mother, proud Cis, who was certain that before long she would be Queen of England and the boys too…the Princes. And what of Rutland?...dead with his father. Father and brother slain on one field. He could almost hear the quiet tones of Warwick: ‘Alas, my lord, that is war.’

Then the understanding came to him in a blinding realization of what this would mean to him. When he contemplated it he could for a few moments, in spite of his grief, think of nothing else.

He, Edward, no longer merely Earl of March but Duke of York, could be King of England.

That was something to fight for...to live for. My God, he thought, they will not long be laughing at my father’s head. King Edward! It would come. Something within himself assured him of that.

Even as he mourned several of his friends came to him to tell him that they could no longer stay in Gloucester. They were Humphrey Stafford, Walter Devereux and Devereux’ son-in-law Herbert of Raglan.

They knew he was staggering under the terrible blow the revelation of his father’s death had been; they were aware that the defeat at Wakefield was the most significant setback the Yorkists had suffered as yet—but the result of it was to place a heavy burden on Edward’s young shoulders and into their manner there had crept a certain respect which had not been there before.

Even through his grief Edward was aware of it and exulted in it.

‘Friends have come in with news from the Marches,’ said Devereux. ‘Jasper Tudor is in England and has brought with him French Bretons and Irish, enemies all. He is preparing to march against us. And Margaret when she hears of what has happened at Wakefield will be marching south.’

‘Let them come,’ cried Edward. ‘The .sooner the better. Praise God we have an army of stalwart men. I yearn for battle. I swear by God it will not be long before the blood of my father and my brother are avenged.’

‘Amen,’ murmured the others.

‘Then why do we wait? Let us prepare now to march.’

Edward’s mood communicated itself to all those about him. Men looked at him and saw in him the leader which his father had never somehow managed to be. Edward was so tall, so handsome, so Plantagenet, that men said it was as though Edward Longshanks walked again. He looked invincible. The determination to avenge his father was clear to all who beheld him.

He halted his army at Wigmore where he had his own castle. Here he saw that the men were adequately lodged and fed. They

would go into battle fighting fit; and the memory of Wakefield was with them every inch of the way.

Between the valleys of Brecon and Hay came Jasper Tudor, with his father, Owen Tudor, riding beside him. This was a great day for the House of Lancaster. The Duke of York was dead. What better news could there be? The throne had been saved for Owen Tudor’s half-brother Henry. Owen was confident that now the Yorkists would accept defeat.

‘There is still Edward of York,’ Jasper reminded him.

‘A braggart boy.’

Jasper was not so sanguinary. He had seen Edward. There was a certain regality about him. ‘He has the look of a King.’ he said.

‘Oh, you are bemused by the height of him, by those golden good looks. I’ve heard they’ll be the death of him. He is too fond of good living.’

‘Kings often are,’ said Jasper.

‘Jasper, my son, what has possessed you this day? I tell you we are riding high. Imagine that head on the walls of York. A paper crown, ha ha.’

‘I am imagining it,’ said Jasper. ‘I doubt not Edward is too.’

‘It will unnerve the boy,’ said Owen.

Jasper did not answer. He marvelled at his father. He was a man of great charm and good looks, a man who walked through life without seeing the dangers. Perhaps that was what had brought him through a dangerous marriage with a Queen, which had endured for several years, escape from the Tower, and living a dangerous life in the Welsh mountains to serve his half-brother. Sometimes it seemed to Jasper that Owen Tudor did not see the realities of life. Fortune had favoured him, had brought him through danger time and time again so that he believed she always would.

The two armies were close now. Edward had the advantage because he knew the ground so well and he was impelled by such an urgent desire for revenge that he knew he could not fail.

He was going to avenge his father or die in the attempt; and he was as certain in his own heart that he was going to live to be King of England.

He had decided that the battle should take place at Mortimer’s Cross and there he camped his army round about the village of Kingsland.

It was Candlemas Day and about ten o’clock in the morning when there was a sudden shout from one of the soldiers. He was standing as though struck dumb, staring up at the sky. Everyone looked up and there was a shocked and terrible silence. Above them was not one sun but three. None of them had ever seen such a rare phenomenon as a parhelion before, and they did not know that it was caused by the formation of ice or snow crystals in the atmosphere and being hexagonal in shape produced a double refraction which took the form of a halo.

More and more men came out to gaze up at the sky and when Edward came out and looked he was filled with dismay but even more so to see the effect it was having on his men. He looked up defiantly to the sky.

‘Yes,’ he cried, ‘it is an omen. It indicates that the Trinity is with us, God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost will be beside us this day.’

It was amazing how words spoken by a strong man in such tones of authority could have such an effect on an army. They now looked up at the sky and they marvelled. Edward had convinced them that there would be victory this day.

Jasper’s troops had arrived and the battle began. Edward was in the thick of it, remembering all that he had learned from his father and particularly from Warwick. ‘The Trinity is with us,’ he cried. ‘Revenge for Wakefield.’

He had taken on a new stature. He was the King already. It was as though Edward Longshanks had come back to earth. The result seemed inevitable. They were gaining ascendancy over the enemy.

‘Spare the commoners, kill the leaders,’ he cried. Warwick had taught him that. It was the leaders they must rout out.

Jasper was dismayed. He could see defeat staring them in the face. This Edward was a new leader to conjure with. He had ceased to be a boy when his father died.

The Earl of Wiltshire was beside Jasper. ‘It is time to get away...’ cried the Earl. ‘It is either flight or death. Come...if you want to live to fight another day. There’ll be no mercy for us if we are captured.’

It was true. All hope was gone. The battle of Mortimer Cross had been fought and won by Edward and the Yorkists.

‘Where is my father?’ said Jasper.

‘He will defend himself. He always had the luck.’