In the few biographies of Elizabeth Woodville, she is shown either as a helpless woman subject to the terrible vicissitudes of fifteenth-century fortune, or as a cruel dynast obsessed only by the welfare of her own faction.
In this novel I have endeavoured to portray her as the victim of circumstances, no worse and no better than many others of her time; a woman blessed with outstanding physical beauty and incredible luck. She gambled, won and lost, and was often influenced by others more evil than herself.
Acknowledgement should be made to the Reverend S. Baring Gould’s book: Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, in which he touches briefly upon the legend of Melusine, the water-witch from whom the Woodvilles claimed descent. Whether this was merely wishful thinking on their part is immaterial. Few can quarrel with Elizabeth’s fitness for the role of enchantress.
All characters, with a few minor exceptions, really existed. ‘Mistress Grace, a natural daughter of King Edward’ is mentioned in contemporary records as the chief mourner at Elizabeth’s funeral.
R.H.J.
The little flame burned beneath a gilt-headed statue of the Virgin. It quivered in the draught that crept in the corners of the great chamber; it burned up and down, shining upon worn tapestries. At times its radiance stung the eyes of the woman in the bed. She gazed feebly away and up to the dim, vaulted ceiling, then down again at the two or three weary faces that had come to watch her dying.
Then she gazed at the statue until her sight was tired. They had begged her to sleep, but there would be time enough, an eternity of black, velvet sleep. If God were merciful. No stars for her, no gold crown. And, cried her consciousness, O Holy Virgin, O blonde, remote-faced Virgin! No Hell.
The time was near and she knew it. During the long weeks on the hard bed of the Abbey guesthouse at St. Saviour, Bermondsey, an unseen stranger had stood in shadow, courteously waiting, like a foreign emissary. Now, he made his subtle presence known. She saw how his breath stirred the little flame. She moaned and closed her eyes and immediately there came vision after vision, clearer than truth. A procession of ghostly beings, a pale lisping child who plucked at her gown and offered a nosegay; a blind boy, singing. A priest who fumbled with his breviary and cast a frightened glance towards her. A gypsy woman with her throat torn out by hounds, blood dropping like slow rubies.
A tall man, roaring with laughter, and a fair-haired girl, weeping. Then a beloved face, a face long-dead, with a tender mouth and eyebrow quirked in sweet good humour. Next a black-clad knight, his face resolute and stern. Lastly, a thin face beneath rich jewels. Famished eyes and a tight line of mouth. It smiled so dreadfully that she dragged herself from the vision with a cry. One of the watchers sprang out of a doze, embroidery slipping from her lap.
‘Madame, only a dream …’
‘A dream,’ she repeated weakly, as they raised her on stonehard pillows, proffered an undrinkable tisane of reeking herbs. Then, lucidity struggling to return: ‘What time is it? What month? What year?’
‘Past midnight, Lady. They’ll soon be ringing Matins.’ And, as if obedient, a bell shattered the feverish quietness.
‘Tis June, Madame. The seventh year of his Grace King Henry the Seventh.’
‘His Majesty,’ reproved another. Kings had a new title now, fitting the divine dynasty of Tudor.
‘And who am I?’ – fixing the speaker with glittering blue eyes that were oddly alive in the perished face.
‘Why, Madame, who but our dear lady Elizabeth,’ said the woman.
‘Plain, unadorned Elizabeth?’ A mechanical touch of the old hauteur here; enough to make the flame shiver and sigh.
‘The Queen’s very dear mother, Madame. Queen-Dowager, no less, sovereign lady of King Edward Fourth, whom God assoil.’ Queen-Dowager, Queen-Dowager. The title was mouthed, breathed, with a snigger in the breath, half-hidden. They whispered it in a dying fall of whispers, and she sank back on memory. With her own painful breath, the light beneath the fair pale Virgin guttered and rose. Hearing the sparse, obsequious voices she thought: I am Elizabeth, one-time Queen of England, and these wenches are all I have left to cherish me on this last journey. Once there were a thousand to do my bidding alone. The flame muttered of death’s inexorable advance, and of times older than any of those remembered by the vigil-weary women about the bed. Times sweet and sour; times lived through, somehow, with a divided heart.
She was Elizabeth, dying. She of many names would be but a cold inscription, and soon forgotten. What did they call me? She mused. Elizabeth Woodville; and then, the widow of the virgin’s face. Later, it was Bessy; lovesome, bedsome Bessy. A King called to her; she saw the great golden face engorged with longing, felt the striving hands. She thought: in the time before the heart ceased to have any value, I had another name.
A dead Queen, faery-like, danced before her closed eyes. The frozen tears of pearls garlanded her hair. ‘I shall call you Isabella!’ – a phrase like a song. ‘And you shall choose your own husband, ma toute belle!’ Consciousness waxed and ebbed; her life’s review. So, I was Dame Isabella Grey. Grey, that most beloved name, so cruelly translated into a jest by the common folk. They never loved me, as they loved the King. Her hands clutched air; old thoughts of vengeance renewed, shaming her in a fresh vision’s sad, drawn face. Ah, she thought: he was handsome, but he mocked me too. The face advanced, in time with the sonorous plainsong from the chapel nearby. ‘You destroyed me, Elizabeth,’ the face said, softly.
Shifting like mist, the years crept back. Unheralded there came another name, black with heresy, and with it, her mother’s face, whose ancient raddled beauty the grave had left unmarred. Together they stood beside a forest pool. Under a little moaning wind, the mother’s insistent voice spoke.
‘See, child, see! Remember her! She’ll never fail us, so pray to her …’
The water rippled. All around trees seemed to shrink in fear, shrouding their trunks with foliage. In the depths of the pool, something evil, beautiful, rose darkly, and the old voice said: ‘She lives in us. From time’s beginning, we have shared her power.’
Elizabeth, one-time Queen of England, shrieked aloud, then, swiftly as it had engulfed her, the elemental terror withdrew. Dimly she knew that someone prayed; through tear-stung lashes she looked to see who had come to kneel by the bed. Gold hair shimmered in her sight, green eyes, a fresh young face, tragic, loving. She tried vainly to sit upright.
‘Majesty …’ she said. ‘My daughter?’ The ill-matched words tailed off, suffused by the mumble from the corners of the room, the click of rosary beads. They were all praying. Jesu, mercy. Jesu, mercy. Ave Maria, gratia plena. Mercy everlasting, on her soul.
‘She thinks you to be the Queen!’ said one, breaking off her prayer. Mirth tinged her voice as she spoke to the newcomer, who leaned forward, frowning, bending near the stricken face.
‘Sweet Madame, ’tis Grace,’ she murmured. ‘Sleep a little; I’ll not leave you.’ And she blinked tears away so that the others should not see, for they were gossips, jealous, fickle, and iron-hearted for all their feigned duty. And the Queen-Dowager was sleeping, the anguish passing from her face like a rain-cloud from the stars. She was growing young again, a child greeting womanhood, when each morning, hung with birdsong, brought her to the eager day, and each day was itself the morning of life. Death’s pale flame swirled about her, but she knew nothing of it. She was fifteen years old.
Part One The Flower of Anjou
Part Two The Rose of Rouen
Part Three The Boar of Gloucester
Part Four The Dragon of Wales