‘Watch out for pickpockets,’ Bertram said as we passed through its gate.
But I had no need of his advice. I knew this place of old. The London thieves and cutpurses, fast and nimble-fingered though they might be, were mere novices compared with those who frequented Westminster. The latter would take anything that was portable and in such quick time that the unwary stranger found himself stripped almost naked before he had been five minutes inside the walls. The Flemish merchants who thronged its streets were little better, picking on the small and weak and forcing sales of their wares at knife-point.
Today, however, unlike its larger neighbour, the city of Westminster was quieter than usual, an air of enforced calm pervading its streets. For this, the presence of a substantial number of armed men was responsible. Officers of the King’s household were patrolling every alley and byway, and had been doing so since dawn judging by the bleary-eyed look of them. The cookshop stalls that normally proliferated around Westminster Gate had been moved elsewhere, much to the annoyance of owners and customers alike.
Before we had been there many minutes, a royal messenger arrived in a flurry of sweat and horse’s hooves, disappearing inside the palace, presumably to announce that the Duchess was on her way. The crowd buzzed with anticipation, and Bertram dragged me round into Westminster Yard and thence into the great hall where the royal family was beginning to assemble.
The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, Lincoln’s parents, had already taken their places – he an aggressive-looking, bull-necked man, totally unlike his eldest son, she a proud Plantagenet with something of the appearance of her late brother, the Duke of Clarence, about her. The King’s two stepsons, the Marquis of Dorset and his younger brother, Lord Richard Grey, were glancing about them and occasionally whispering together behind their hands. (I don’t know that I should have recognized them if Bertram hadn’t reminded me who they were.)
After that, the hall began to fill up faster than I could take note of who was and was not present. Nobility and clergy, the great and the not so great, the good and the definitely not so good, crowded around the empty thrones at the far end of the hall. Bertram, as he had promised, had managed to squash me in among the lowliest ranks of the Gloucester retainers to the left of the door. My ribs felt as though they might crack beneath the pressure of other bodies. My bad mood was returning.
Foreign dignitaries and their attendants arrived just before the bulk of the royal party, by which time I had given up even trying to guess or remember who was who. I had just decided that there were far too many high and mighty pomposities in this world who served no useful function, when a louder fanfare than normal assaulted my already protesting ears. This, however, finally heralded the entrance of the King and his immediate entourage.
Duchess Cicely, matriarchal in royal purple and stiff-necked with Neville pride, preceded the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, both of them resplendent in cloth of gold and silver, the Duchess looking so fragile that it seemed a puff of wind could blow her away. The six-year-old Duke of York walked with his slightly older duchess and was followed by four of his sisters, Elizabeth, now a lovely young woman of fourteen, Mary, Cicely and Anne. The baby, Katherine, born the previous year, was carried in the arms of her nurse. And then, finally, King Edward, wearing the insignia of the Golden Fleece, and Queen Elizabeth entered the hall.
I was shocked on two counts – well, perhaps not shocked, but certainly surprised, to see that the Queen was pregnant yet again; not far gone as yet, but showing enough belly to leave little room for doubt. Elizabeth Woodville – Lady Grey, as she had been when the King married her all those years ago – must, I reckoned, be well over forty, her two first-marriage sons being themselves married men. But it was really King Edward who commanded my attention, and, in his case, shock at his appearance was too mild a word to describe my emotions.
When young, this magnificent, golden-haired giant had been dubbed ‘the handsomest man in Europe’. Even when I had first set eyes on him five years earlier, it had still been possible to understand why, although the effects of drink and dissipation were already beginning to make themselves apparent. But now his features had coarsened and thickened out of all recognition. His height (much the same as mine) was of course the same, but his girth weighed him down and made him round-shouldered. His jaw hung slack and heavy and his complexion was moist and pale, like uncooked dough. But then he smiled at someone in the crowd, and I could see that the old charm and humour still wove their magic. My instincts warned me that here was a sick man; but I was unwilling to accept the evidence of my eyes and dismissed the thought.
After the King and Queen were seated on their thrones, there was a delay while we all awaited the arrival of the Duchess, whose progress had no doubt been hindered by the cheering crowds. I caught a glimpse of Timothy, standing not far behind Duke Richard’s chair and, from time to time, signalling vigorously to other men stationed at various strategic points around the hall. I wondered what they thought would happen. Did they seriously expect the French ambassador to leap forward and attack Duchess Margaret with his poignard? Or was it, as I suspected with my usual cynicism, self-importance for its own sake?
Suddenly I found Timothy directly behind me, panting heavily after having forced his way through the press to my side of the hall. He dug me painfully in the ribs. Before I could protest, he hissed in my ear, ‘Directly in front of us. Front row. Black gown, heavily embroidered. Judith St Clair. The man on her left is Godfrey.’
I craned my neck, trying to get a better view across the intervening two ranks, but the women’s hennins with their floating scarves made it impossible to see anything from where I was standing. It was like peering through a forest of flags all flying from the tops of steeples. (And it confirmed me in my belief that the current crop of women’s fashions were being designed by madmen.)
‘I can’t see–’ I was beginning, but just at that moment the trumpeters went wild with a fanfare that made even my teeth hurt. Timothy gave a strangled cry and set off to fight his way back to his official position, while I suppressed a desire to burst out laughing. All the same, I had managed to catch a glimpse of a heavily embroidered black sarcenet sleeve and a white hand resting on a wrist cuffed in black velvet. At least I knew roughly where to look for my quarry once the present ceremony was over. Moreover, two people in deepest mourning stand out in a crowd of popinjays.
My travelling companion of the last three days, the young Earl of Lincoln, resplendent in white and gold, proudly led his aunt towards the thrones at the far end of the hall. As she passed, I saw enough of the Dowager Duchess to realize that the slender, vibrant, twenty-two-year-old girl, who had set sail for Sluys twelve years previously to become the third wife of Charles of Burgundy, was now a matronly woman in her mid-thirties with a thickening waistline. But she was still attractive enough, with her pale skin and Plantagenet red-gold hair, to send the waiting crowds into a frenzy of adoration. Their cheers rolled in through the open doorway, and probably drowned out the King’s initial greeting to his sister. (I saw her lean closer to him, as though she had difficulty hearing.)
Edward had risen at the Duchess’s approach and embraced her lovingly. Then, after greeting the Queen and making suitable obeisance to her mother, Margaret was passed from one sibling to another, one in-law to another, rather, I reflected irreverently, like a bolster full of feathers.
I touched Bertram on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get out now,’ I whispered, ‘before everyone has the same idea.’