An Unknown Welshman Read online

  ‘Put on his shirt, Mistress Howell,’ Jasper commanded, and when this was done he wrapped the boy in the wolfskin and carried him downstairs.

  Safe in his grasp, Henry stared at the flaming torches in their iron holders as they passed them, and made wild pictures from wild shadows. He heard the echo of his uncle’s footsteps follow; and greeted the dogs that rose from their places by the hearth and snuffled his bare feet with friendly noses.

  ‘More logs, boy!’ Jasper ordered, and watched them hoisted on the dying fire, and signalled Robin Ddu to draw his foot-stool closer and fetch his harp. ‘Now, Harry, open your heart,’ he said, ‘for tears wash clean but words heal faster, lad. And dark Robin here, and your uncle, are your good friends, Harry. And good friends listen and speak not of what they have heard.’

  Then he rested in the high chair and cradled the child, and though he was not soft and stout like Joan Howell, but hard and muscular, the strength of his arms was comforting. He listened to the long, disjointed recital of childish woes, punctuated by hiccups, with as much patience as any woman.

  ‘Now are you not the first, nor yet the last, to lose his mother,’ he said at length, and Robin nodded. ‘And the greater the lady the sooner her son loses her. My mother was a queen, Harry, and wedded my father secretly. I was but a little older than you when King Henry placed me in the care of Catherine de la Pole, that was the Abbess of Barking and sister to the Earl of Suffolk. And though she was a goodly woman, chaste and pious and well-learned, your father and I had a hard time of it. Yet here am I, in my thirtieth year, as hale as any man, and as ready to serve the king with my sword as to spit another wolf on my spear. I was this fellow’s hunter, Harry!’ And he ruffled the grey pelt with his fingers.

  The child’s eyes were round above the coarse fur.

  ‘Aye, the hunt is a fine thing, lad. With the forester and his men to see that all is ready — the people kept away, and trysts of green boughs so interlaced that all might rest in their shade, and the grooms watching that the game is not disturbed. And the mists of early morning, and the sound of horns, and the chase, and at last the quarry breaking cover. This was an old wolf, Harry, that had run wild and grown great in cunning, and he defied me with his eyes even as he died upon the steel. He lies gently on you now, Harry, but he had given you cause to weep three years since!’

  ‘Shall I hunt wolves, uncle?’

  ‘Not yet awhile, lad. We’ll begin with small beasts first, beasts of the chase and beasts of sweet flight. The buck, the doe, the fox, the hare. And those that afford great disport such as the badger, the otter and the wildcat. But you must be seasoned, Harry, to hunt the wolf and the boar, for these may kill a man and it is best that the hunter be not the hunted.’

  ‘But you were not the hunted, uncle?’

  ‘Not yet, my lord Henry,’ Robin broke in, ‘and yet, if York pleases, he may be. Then shall he be chased as cruelly as any beast, and Wales herself lie torn and bleeding.’

  Henry struggled into sitting position, looking from Jasper’s frown to Robin’s bitter smile.

  ‘What say you, dark Robin?’ the boy demanded imperiously, and both men were amused at the tone.

  ‘Why, my lord Henry, the earl must go forth to fight the king’s enemies, and leave Pembroke in your keeping,’ said Robin briskly, as though this were a normal statement. ‘And so it brooks you not to weep like a woman but to care for us like a man.’

  The child took the news with perfect seriousness, mulling it over like some old soldier who is quite prepared to shoulder the responsibility but doubts his strength to do so. They had not expected more than a boyish shout of pleasure, and watched his gravity with amazement.

  ‘How shall I order them, uncle?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Why, Harry, I’ll leave a captain with you, that shall order for you.’

  ‘I had best see to the weapons first, and tell Joan Howell not to fear for aught, since I am here.’

  ‘Captain Roberts will show you the armoury tomorrow,’ said Jasper solemnly, and Robin shook his head from side to side in astonishment.

  ‘Is it the king your brother that you fight for?’ Henry asked, the tears dry on his cheeks.

  ‘Aye, the king my half-brother. King Henry VI, whose mother was my mother, but whose father was the great warrior that brought France to heel.’

  ‘Is he a warrior also, uncle?’

  Jasper hesitated, and Robin was silent.

  ‘Nay, Harry, he is not, but he is king anointed and no Duke of York shall uncrown him. He is a goodly man that would have England at peace, but York has a proud stomach and a mighty following and he seeks to take his place.’

  ‘His queen is a better warrior,’ said Robin savagely.

  ‘Aye, but not so wise in counsel,’ cried Jasper, forgetful of the child on his knee, ‘though my sword is hers and her son’s as long as the house of Lancaster commands it. She is proud and self-willed and thinks of nothing but Prince Edward. How else would she leave the king in London at the mercy of his enemies while she raises men in North Wales?’

  ‘Nay, my lord,’ said Robin, ‘the king is even now upon his knees, I swear it, with a hair shirt grazing his royal flesh, praying that all shall be well. But Queen Margaret knows all is not well and flees accordingly, to call loyal men to her standard. What princely heart and stomach has the king shown that would barter his son’s inheritance for a poor peace in his lifetime — and leave York and York’s sons to divide England between them?’

  ‘Uncle,’ said Henry, tugging at his sleeve for attention, ‘where is England, I pray you?’

  So they drew him a map in the ashes with a stick, and showed him that Wales — which he had thought was all the world — was a part of a larger country, capped by a wilder country called Scotland and shouldered by Ireland, and all of them struggling for an independence, and yet all linked: like warring brothers under one roof.

  ‘Which while I live shall be the roof of Lancaster!’ cried Jasper, throwing down the stick.

  But Robin said that his allegiance was to the house of Owen, and he cared not a fig for England except that they ceased to meddle with Wales, and his own loyalties lay further back than Henry Lancaster.

  ‘For what is it that the Holy Book says, my lord?’ he persisted. ‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning. And so it has been since King Henry came to the throne, when he was only nine months old, and his nurse Dame Alice Butler had the ruling of him. He has been ruled always by one great lord and another. By his uncle, Humphrey of Gloucester. By the Duke of Suffolk. By the Lady Margaret’s kinsman, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset — and, save your lordship’s presence — there are those that say Prince Edward was no son of the king, but of Beaufort which is another Lancaster. For did not the king, when he had recovered his senses after many months, say that the child must have been conceived by the Holy Spirit, for he knew of nothing he had done...’

  ‘Beware, dark Robin!’ Jasper counselled. ‘Speak no treason here. Tongues clatter at court to an ill purpose. King Henry is a holy man.’

  ‘Aye, and more like a monk than a king. He confuses policy with friendship. He counsels the boys at Eton not to come to court, since it is full of bad men that will corrupt them! He grants the same office to two rivals, and writes letters of high commendation for two enemies, and then sits by while others make his errors right again. He thinks velvet and satin and fur and jewels are sinful, and one time gave his royal robes to a mendicant abbot. Would he could cast off the crown so easily. It should save all of us a bloody reckoning.’

  ‘Go you to York, Robin Ddu!’ cried Jasper wrathfully. ‘He welcomes such as you. For you speak with the tongue of York himself.’

  ‘I’ll not to England for any lord on earth,’ growled Robin, unsubdued. ‘I said my loyalties lay deeper than an English quarrel. England has milked us, and shall do, until a Welsh-born king sits on the English throne. Welshmen have died in France for her, and now die upon her so
il also. Aye, and on this soil too, my lord. Their damned wars divide one Welshman from another, even one bard from another. I know my enemy, my lord, and it is not York nor Lancaster but all England that will not let us rule ourselves.’

  The great candle, almost as thick as a man’s arm, ate steadily into the second hour after midnight, and still Jasper and Robin talked, hot and fierce, back and forth over the issue. Yet far below the present argument lay a common ground of consent. As they spoke, images rose before the child’s closing eyes. The meek King Henry with a hair shirt beneath his royal robes. The Lancastrian Queen Margaret clasping the Duke of York’s hand in seeming amity, as they trod in a love-day procession. The first clash at St Alban’s, five years earlier, when young Neville, Earl of Warwick began his rise to power. And the king upon his war-horse, tutting with horror as the hacking and hewing started, making no effort either to fight or to defend himself, so that he was grazed on the neck by a flying arrow. Afterwards he sat in the cottage of a poor tanner, to have his little wound dressed, and could only say ‘Forsooth and forsooth!’, troubled in his weak mind. The French, mindful of former wrongs, sallying across the Channel and burning and sacking Fowey before they were driven off. Then he felt himself lifted, and cried out, ‘Nay, uncle — your sword!’

  ‘He cares not a goat for your sword, my lord,’ said Robin, smiling, ‘but, like the child he is, seeks to put away the time when he must go to bed!’

  ‘What of my sword, Harry?’

  ‘I wish to — see it drawn.’

  So Jasper set him in the carved chair and reached for the weapon. But Henry cried that he must buckle it on first, and then shout as he did in battle. Then Jasper, standing well away, changed from gentle kinsman to dark warrior, flourishing the bright blade so that Henry winked with sympathy. And through the great hall rang his battle-cry. ‘A Tudor! A Tudor!’ So that the child shuddered pleasurably and opened his eyes wide, and drew his breath sharply, and dug his fingers into the wolfs grey rough pelt.

  ‘Let me see it!’ he demanded. ‘Tell me what those words say!’

  Engraved upon the blade was pro vincere inimicus meus. To conquer my enemy. Henry touched the words tenderly and fearfully, marvelling.

  ‘Now is that enough, my lord!’ cried Joan Howell from the stairs, outraged. ‘A child play with a keen edge! Why, what way is this to deal with him?’

  She hurried across the flags in her bare feet, and swept Henry up. The two men stood abashed, and Jasper sheathed the sword.

  ‘My uncle is to go to war, good Mistress Howell,’ said Henry, patting her red face. ‘But fear not, for I am in charge of Pembroke, and no hurt shall come to you.’

  ‘Such moonshine. Come to bed, Lord Henry. I bid your lordship a very good night — nay a good morning, for such is the hour!’ And she swept Jasper a curtsey that held some venom.

  ‘I crave your pardon, Mistress Howell,’ said Jasper. ‘But the boy will sleep now.’

  ‘And tomorrow I see the — the...’

  ‘Armoury,’ Jasper promised.

  The two men smiled shamefacedly as woman and boy mounted into the shadows.

  ‘I would we could send the women’s tongues to war, my lord,’ said Robin. ‘Then should we have peace both at home and abroad.’

  The Christmas of 1460 found Queen Margaret of England and her son Prince Edward hiding in Wales. The Duke of York, Salisbury and their forces roistered at Sandal Castle in Yorkshire. Close by, at Pontefract, the Lancastrian Duke of Somerset and Lord Percy of Northumberland, kept a watchful festival. In the House of Friars at Shrewsbury, York’s eldest son, Edward of March, waited with his own army. And in London, under the vigilant eyes of the Earl of Warwick, King Henry VI gave thanks for the birth of Christ and prayed for peace, which showed no signs of forthcoming.

  The Duke of York, though no more altruistic than the next man, had first of all sought national stability, when he landed from Ireland six years before. By birth, dowry and inheritance he was the richest magnate in the kingdom; by soldierly training and temperament he was fitted for power, and able to wield it. And he believed that as long as Henry VI sat upon the throne of England there would be disorder, for thirty-eight years of weak monarchy had produced an over-mighty nobility. Each lord was paramount in his own castle, with a private host of retainers who wore his livery and fed and lodged and were armed at his expense. Lesser men, those of both gentle and common blood, relied upon the patronage of a noble to keep them from harm. Justice could be bought and sold, and was. The House of Commons swayed to and fro under the command of the Upper House. No honest citizen walked or rode abroad, by day or night, without constant fear of robbery and violence. Lords picked private quarrels, solved them with private armies, and were not punished. From the highest to the lowest in the land came sounds of grievance. And John Paston, merchant of Norfolk, seeking redress for an injury was told, ‘Go, get you a lord, for thereby hang the law and the prophets!’

  So York had struggled for England and himself, and was now in the position of Protector and Heir to the realm, and his sons would rule after him. Only, just as this moment, he had a little matter of Lancastrians making local pillagings to settle; and Somerset and Northumberland had the advantage of numbers. His first decision was to send a message to his son Edward to march from Shrewsbury to his aid. But York was old in war, more used to riding than walking, and had survived campaigns of great magnitude and gained great honour by them. Irritated by the Lancastrian forces at his gates, he donned his helm and decided to cut them down himself.

  ‘Advance the standards!’ he shouted, and galloped out at the head of his men.

  His sense of destiny had clouded his judgement, for Somerset and Northumberland were drawn up to the north of Sandal Castle. To engage with them he had to wheel sharply at the foot of the hill below the main gate, and they were on his flank before he could attack.

  They put his severed head upon a pole, set it on the walls of York, and crowned him with paper and straw, who had hoped to be crowned with gold.

  Henry would not allow Joan Howell to hold him as he watched Jasper ride out, late in the January of 1461. Instead he held the hand of Captain Roberts, and felt himself to be lord of Pembroke indeed. Nor did he wave as a child would, but returned Jasper’s final salute with a raised hand as resolute as Jasper’s own. His uncle, with the Earl of Wiltshire, their own men augmented by troops from France and Brittany and Ireland, were to conquer young Edward of March on their way to London; and there meet Queen Margaret, who had raised an army in Scotland. And joining them was young Henry’s grandfather, Owen Tudor of the once-yellow hair and gallant bearing, who had wooed and won a queen and been punished for it until Henry VI treated him kindly and granted him a little pension.

  The news reached Pembroke ten days later, at night. From his room Henry heard the chains rattle as the drawbridge was let down, and then the clatter of hooves over the wood, and crept from his bed. He was not yet able to dress himself, and tugged on a curious assortment of clothes, getting them back to front and being quite unable to tie his laces. But he judged it incumbent upon him to know what was afoot, and made his way down to the great hall, where it seemed to him every man in Pembroke had gathered. From the shelter of the stairs he surveyed the messenger.

  The hand that accepted a tankard of mulled wine was white and wet with cold. There was an air of defeat about him. He had been wounded in the arm, and the bandage reddened afresh as he moved. One man who knew him better than the others came forward, and began to unwind the dirty strip of cloth and staunch the flow, while he told his tale.

  ‘We were following hard on the heels of Earl Edward, and thought to overtake him, but he wheeled and fell upon us instead. Five thousand of them had come up. Christ knows how fast they must have marched to meet us at Mortimer’s Cross. And there was a strange sign in the sky that first day of February. Three suns. A fearful omen — or so it was for us. From the highest to the lowest each man knelt and crossed himself and thought on his sins. An
d the three suns shone like the Holy Trinity.’ He bowed his head in recollection, and crossed himself again. ‘Sir William Herbert of Raglan was at his side. We fought bravely, but to no avail. Jasper, the Earl of Pembroke is fled...’

  Mishearing him Henry rose from his perch on the stairs, crying, ‘Dead, sir? My uncle dead?’

  They turned, astonished at the terrified child in his jumble of clothes.

  ‘Nay, my lord,’ cried the messenger, recognizing him, ‘the earl is not dead. He has escaped and shall fight another day. Escaped with no more than a scratch! But not so his father,’ he added in a lower tone. ‘Owen Tudor is slain.’

  Captain Roberts lifted Henry up, and would have taken him back to his bed, but the boy struggled hysterically.

  ‘It is not meet that you should hear this, my lord,’ said Roberts sternly.

  ‘Nay, let him hear!’ cried Robin Ddu, savage with sorrow. ‘The sire of the House of Owen is dead. Aye, Owen, sirs, not Tudor as the English call it. This noble boy is all that is left in Pembroke of their blood, and must avenge it in his time. So let him hear, Captain Roberts, and he will. But one tear from you, my lord Henry, and back to the women with you!’

  Trembling, the boy stood before the messenger and looked up into his exhausted face.

  ‘Your news, sir, if you please,’ he said with dignity. ‘And as you would tell it to my uncle were he here.’

  ‘My lord, among the many that were taken was your grandsire, Owen Tudor. They cut off his head, my lord, and stood it on the top step of the market cross. But when the people had done staring and murmuring, a poor silly woman came up and combed the tangled hair and washed the blood and dust from off the face, so that he was seemly. And she set a great circle of candles about his head and lit them for the good of his soul.’

  Henry knotted his hands together and compressed his lips. Robin Ddu gave a wild cry that brought the hounds to their feet, and the others spoke softly and fearfully to each other.