It was certainly, as young Carradine had said, ‘more in sorrow than in anger’. Indeed, considering that it was written about a woman who had done him a deadly wrong, its kindness and good temper was remarkable. And this was a case where no personal advantage could come to him from magnanimity. The broad mindedness that had sought for a York-Lancaster peace might not have been disinterested; it would have been enormously to his advantage to have a united country to rule. But this letter to the Bishop of Lincoln was a small private matter, and the release of Jane Shore of no importance to anyone but the infatuated Tom Lynom. Richard had nothing to gain by his generosity. His instinct to see a friend happy was apparently greater than his instinct for revenge.
Indeed, his instinct for revenge seemed to be lacking to a degree that would be surprising in any red-blooded male, and quite astonishing in the case of that reputed monster Richard III.
11
The letter lasted Grant very nicely until The Amazon brought his tea. He listened to the twentieth century sparrows on his window-sill and marvelled that he should be reading phrases that formed in a man’s mind more than four hundred years ago. What a fantastic idea it would have seemed to Richard that anyone would be reading that short, intimate letter about Shore’s wife, and wondering about him, four hundred years afterwards.
‘There’s a letter for you, now isn’t that nice,’ The Amazon said, coming in with his two pieces of bread-and-butter and a rock bun.
Grant took his eyes from the uncompromising healthiness of the rock bun and saw that the letter was from Laura.
He opened it with pleasure.
Dear Alan (said Laura)
Nothing (repeat: nothing) would surprise me about history. Scotland has large monuments to two women martyrs drowned for their faith, in spite of the fact that they weren’t drowned at all and neither was a martyr anyway. They were convicted of treason – fifth column work for the projected invasion from Holland, I think. Anyhow on a purely civil charge. They were reprieved on their own petition by the Privy Council, and the reprieve is in the Privy Council Register to this day.
This, of course, hasn’t daunted the Scottish collectors of martyrs, and the tale of their sad end, complete with heart-rending dialogue, is to be found in every Scottish bookcase. Entirely different dialogue in each collection. And the gravestone of one of the women, in Wigtown churchyard, reads:
They are even a subject for fine Presbyterian sermons, I understand – though on that point I speak from hearsay. And tourists come and shake their heads over the monuments with their moving inscriptions, and a very profitable time is had by all.
All this in spite of the fact that the original collector of the material, canvassing the Wigtown district only forty years after the supposed martyrdom and at the height of the Presbyterian triumph, complains that ‘many deny that this happened’; and couldn’t find any eyewitnesses at all.
It is very good news that you are convalescent, and a great relief to us all. If you manage it well your sick leave can coincide with the spring run. The water is very low at the moment, but by the time you are better it should be deep enough to please both the fish and you.
P.S. It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don’t want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed.
Very odd, isn’t it.
More Tonypandy, he thought.
He began to wonder just how much of the schoolbook which up to now had represented British history for him was Tonypandy.
He went back, now that he knew a few facts, to read the sainted More again. To see how the relevant passages sounded now.
If, when he had read them merely by the light of his own critical mind, they had seemed to him curiously tattling, and in places absurd, they now read plain abominable. He was what Laura’s small Pat was in the habit of calling ‘scunnered’. And he was also puzzled.
This was Morton’s account. Morton the eyewitness, the participant. Morton must have known with minute accuracy what took place between the beginning and end of June that year. And yet there was no mention of Lady Eleanor Butler; no mention of Titulus Regius. According to Morton, Richard’s case had been that Edward was previously married to his mistress Elizabeth Lucy. But Elizabeth Lucy, Morton pointed out, had denied that she was ever married to the King.
Why did Morton set up a ninepin just to knock it down again?
Why the substitution of Elizabeth Lucy for Eleanor Butler?
Because he could deny with truth that Lucy was ever married to the King, but could not do the same in the case of Eleanor Butler?
Surely the presumption was that it was very important to someone or other that Richard’s claim that the children were illegitimate should be shown to be untenable.
And since Morton – in the handwriting of the sainted More – was writing for Henry VII, then that someone was presumably Henry VII. The Henry VII who had destroyed Titulus Regius and forbidden anyone to keep a copy.
Something Carradine had said came back into Grant’s mind.
Henry had caused the Act to be repealed without being read.
It was so important to Henry that the contents of the Act should not be brought to mind that he had specially provided for its unquoted destruction.
Why should it be of such importance to Henry VII?
How could it matter to Henry what Richard’s rights were? It was not as if he could say: Richard’s claim was a trumped-up one, therefore mine is good. Whatever wretched small claim Henry Tudor might have was a Lancastrian one, and the heirs of York did not enter into the matter.
Then why should it have been of such paramount importance to Henry that the contents of Titulus Regius should be forgotten?
Why hide away Eleanor Butler, and bring in in her place a mistress whom no one ever suggested was married to the King?
This problem lasted Grant very happily till just before supper; when the porter came in with a note for him. ‘The front hall says that young American friend of yours left this for you,’ the porter said, handing him a folded sheet of paper.
‘Thank you,’ said Grant. What do you know about Richard the Third?’
‘Is there a prize?’
‘What for?’
‘The quiz.’
‘No, just the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity. What do you know about Richard III?’
‘He was the first multiple murderer.’
‘Multiple? I thought it was two nephews?’
‘No, oh, no. I don’t know much history but I do know that. Murdered his brother, and his cousin, and the poor old King in the Tower, and then finished off with his little nephews. A wholesale performer.’
Grant considered this.
‘If I told you that he never murdered anyone at all, what would you say?’
‘I’d say that you’re perfectly entitled to your opinion. Some people believe the earth is flat. Some people believe the world is going to end in A.D. 2000. Some people believe that it began less than five thousand years ago. You’ll hear far funnier things than that at Marble Arch of a Sunday.’