The Sun in Splendour - Plaidy Jean (электронную книгу бесплатно без регистрации .txt) 📗

She laid a hand on his arm. 'Richard, that is all over now. Don't let us brood on the past.'

'You are right. But let me say this one thing, Anne. I was begged by the lords to take the crown. I hesitated but I saw my duty, though if the people had raised a voice against me I would have refused.'

'Of course the people did not raise a voice against you. They want you, Richard. They want what you can give them ... a stable, prosperous country . . . the kind they had when Edward ruled. They cannot get that without you. If it were not for you the Woodvilles would rule the country now. All know their cupidity. They had done nothing but enriched themselves since Edward made Elizabeth his Queen. They want you, Richard. They are determined to have you. And do not forget, because of Edward's previous contract, you are the rightful King.'

'I know it, Anne. It is for this reason that I have taken the crown.'

'Then, let us give our thoughts to the coronation for there is very little time.'

On the day before that fixed for the coronation ceremony the people crowded out on the river bank to see the King with his Queen and his son go by water to the Palace of the Tower.

Edward the Fifth and his brother Richard Duke of York had been transferred from the royal apartments as soon as they had been declared illegitimate and lodged in the Garden Tower. They did not, of course, attend their uncle's coronation.

There in the precincts of the Tower the son of Richard and Anne was formally created Prince of Wales, and the next day the coronation took place.

It had been short notice but as a great many preparations had

been made for the coronation of Edward the Fifth it had been possible to make use of this. A coronation and its festivities would not have to change because the King to be crowned was not the same one for whom all the pomp had been originally created.

The Duke of Buckingham carried Richard's train while the Duke of Norfolk bore his crown before him. Then came the Queen with the Earl of Huntingdon bearing her sceptre and Viscount Lisle the rod with the dove while the honour of carrying her crown was assigned to the Earl of Wiltshire.

Anne splendidly clad, weighed down with jewels, felt tired before the ceremony had begun. Walking under a canopy, to each comer of which had been attached a golden bell which tinkled as they moved, she hoped that she did not show how she was longing for it all to be over. But it had only just begun. The anointing had to take place and afterwards the crowning.

'God Save the King. God Save the Queen.'

The cries rang out clearly and Richard was straining his ears to hear one dissenting voice. There was none.

Afterwards they dined in Westminster Hall, Anne and Richard seated on a dais overlooking the rest of the guests at their tables while the Lord Mayor himself served the King and Queen with sweet wine as a sign of the capital's desire to do homage to them.

When the champion of England rode into the hall and challenged any to combat who did not agree that Richard was the rightful King, Anne was aware of her husband's tension; and when there was not a single voice raised against him, she was aware of his sinking back into his seat with an overwhelming relief; and she hoped that had silenced his fears for ever. The people had chosen him. The people wanted him. He was the rightful King; and he must stop thinking of those little boys in the Garden Tower. Their claim to the throne was null and void. The rightful King was at last crowned.

Darkness fell and the torches were brought in and one by one the nobles and their ladies came to the dais to pay homage to the King and Queen.

And when that ceremony was over they could retire to their apartments and make their preparations to depart for Windsor where they would go when the festivities were over.

Richard was already planning a tour of the country. They

would go to the North. He had no fear of what his reception would be there. The North was his country. He had served it well and they were with him to a man.

BUCKINGHAM

The Duke of Buckingham was displeased. The excitement which he so enjoyed had abated considerably. Richard was King and he had been accepted by a docile people. Secretly Buckingham had been hoping for trouble. He revelled in trouble. He found life dull without it.

Moreover Richard had angered him. It was over the matter of the Bohun estates. These had come to the crown on the marriage of Mary de Bohun and Henry the Fourth and now that he was Lord High Constable of England which was the ancient hereditary office of the de Bohuns, he believed he had a right to the estates.

Instead of enthusiastically agreeing to this, Richard had demurred; and that angered Buckingham. He looked upon himself as a Warwick, a Kingmaker. Who had suggested that Richard should claim the throne? Who had made the announcement at Paul's Cross and whose men had shouted for Richard at the Guildhall? The answer to that was Buckingham's, and Richard it seemed, now he had achieved the goal, was ungrateful and was reminding him that he was King. Richard would do well to remember his old friends. In a fit of pique Buckingham left Court and decided to go for a while to his Castle Brecknock on the borders of Wales and which had come to him with his post of High Constable of England. He was looking forward to having conversarion with a most interesting guest . . . well hardly a guest, a captive in fact.

He was thinking of John Morton the Bishop of Ely who had been arrested at the same time as Hastings during that fateful meeting in the Tower. Morton with Rotherham had been confined for a while in the Tower and being interested in the

man—for they had love of plotting in common—Buckingham had asked Richard if he might take care of Morton. The Bishop could not stay all the time a prisoner in the Tower and his rank as churchman demanded that certain respect be shown to him, so Richard agreed that Buckingham might make him a sort of honoured captive in his castle of Brecknock.

This Buckingham had done and had become on good terms with the Bishop. He enjoyed his conversation. Morton was a clever man—shrewd and devious, and as such he appealed to Buckingham.

That he was at heart a Lancastrian, the Duke knew; he also knew that he was not averse to changing sides when expediency demanded it, but he would be pleased of course to put forward the side he really supported while he tried to live amicably with its enemies.

In spite of this he had been one of the last King's chief advisers; he had helped to arrange the treaty of Picquigny which had brought such good fortune to England at the expense of the French; he had negotiated for the ransom the King of France had paid for Margaret of Anjou. Edward had thought highly of him. Of course Edward had a habit of believing the best of everyone until their perfidy was proved. Morton had gone from strength to strength until the meeting in the Tower.

That his head was full of plans, Buckingham had no doubt, and that they were not for the good of Richard the Third he was certain.

That suited him in his present mood, and so he was looking forward to seeing the Bishop at Brecknock.

When he arrived he went to the Bishop and greeted him warmly, asking if he lacked anything he needed for his comfort.

The captive has nothing of which to complain,' the Bishop told him.

'You must not think of yourself as a prisoner. Bishop.'

'My lord Duke, you are kind. But what else am I?'

'A friend I hope.'

'I doubt a friend of Richard of Gloucester would be a friend of mine.'

Buckingham sent for wine and they drank together. The wine was good and warming and Buckingham enjoyed his wine.

The Bishop watched him closely. He knew that something had happened between the two who had been so close together.