Prologue:
I was born on the 21st June 1442, had a
wonderful childhood, an adventurous and dangerous life, two wonderful wives,
lived in the most beautiful homes and held the highest offices in the
land. On the 25th June 1483, four days
after my 41st birthday, I walked out into the bright summer sunshine to lay my
head on a block in order to have it severed from my body. I thought it then; I've said it since; that
is one messy way to die. Blood
everywhere; very undignified. They tell
me it's an execution reserved for aristocrats.
I say, bring on the peasantry, hanging would have been better, less
gore.
That's a summary of
my life. But, like most people, you'll
want to know more than that; you'll want to know the whys and wherefores, the
whole scenario of 15th century England. So that is what I'll give you.
England at that time was a divided nation;
aristocracy and the rest of the population and never the two shall meet. Peasants, working people, went about their
lives as they had always done, farming the land, scraping a living, being born,
being buried, no matter who 'owned' the land they farmed or the houses in which
they gave birth, lived their lives and died.
Allegiance to their lord, the owner of the land, came as standard: they
paid their rent to his rent collector and answered his call to arms when an
array was issued because that was the way of life. If they died in battle for their lord, well,
that too was part of life. You went to
fight, you expected either to go home rich with looted items or to die, but at
least you died a hero's death even if it was through being hacked to pieces by
another Englishman. It seems
incomprehensible to me now, at this distance of time, that major battles could
be fought with hundreds if not thousands of men in armour or as armed as best
they could be with bows, axes and spears, charging into the affray, hacking at
their fellow men, bringing them down, suffocating them by fighting on and over
their fallen bodies. All this whilst
people in the surrounding countryside carried on their lives, not knowing - or
caring - that such life and death confrontations were taking place.
Craftsmen pursued
their many trades, blacksmiths, carpenters, mercers, cooks and many others, making
a living in a time when a living was precarious for the political climate was
ever changing and taxes could be imposed or increased at any moment, damaging
livelihoods. Guilds were set up to
protect the craftsmen as best they could, but even they were powerless before
the sweeping changes brought in by a change of monarchy and a new set of laws.
The aristocracy, with
their fine clothes, big houses and seemingly immense wealth were a world away
from the average land-working people of England. The aristocracy fought each other, sometimes
politely, sometimes savagely, for land, positions, money and possessions. Great homes, castles, estates, were sometimes
the gift of the reigning monarch, sometimes deeded by family, sometimes
acquired by marriage settlements.
Catching the king's attention, being on the winning side in one of the
many battles fought across the land or marrying well to gain property and
titles was a way of life. Fashion was
slavishly followed even if it appeared foolish, for example, the long pointed
toes on men's shoes and the plucked hairlines to create very high foreheads for
ladies seem strange even by medieval standards.
Yet we went along with it, because it was wise to do so. The one thing
you didn't do was stand out.
A strict hierarchy
was in place among aristocrats: the king's permission had to be sought for a
marriage and there were rigid rules about who took precedence over whom at
banquets and State occasions. The person
appointed to carry the train of a queen or to hold a child at a christening
told the rest of the society how high you were in the king or queen's
favour.
Once there, once
breathing the heady atmosphere that was the intrigue of court, people were
almost prisoners, having to seek the king's permission to be excused Court to
attend to business, for example, or go on a pilgrimage. Life was controlled to a very great degree by
the reigning monarch. Families relied on
him for their income, for clothing, for shelter and support and in turn he
dictated their lives in many respects.
Kings were expected
to marry well, with the intention that the marriage should create or reinforce
treaties with other countries, cement relationships between monarchs to avoid
future problems and bring wealth and power to both sides. Dukes and Earls likewise were expected to
marry into money or landed wealth to bring greater prosperity to the
family.
Loyalty to one's lord
and one's liege lord, the king, should have been taken for granted but
unfortunately human beings are fickle creatures, led by many different
emotions, everything from lust to jealousy.
The best-laid plans of many an aristocrat were often overturned in a
moment. Executions were considered normal
and death was a constant, either through disease or fighting. Battles were a way of gaining glory, if you
were on the winning side. Assignations
were indiscreet and all but expected if you were a real 'man-about-Court'.
The ruling monarch at
the time this story begins was the devout and mentally unstable Henry VI, a
Lancastrian monarch, a man more fitted to the life of seclusion in the
cloisters than the ravages of monarchy with all its many problems. These problems were enhanced by his powerful,
ambitious, scheming wife, Margaret of Anjou, who held the monarchy together but
whose machinations caused many difficulties.
There were ambitious claimants to the throne of England; they too added
their share to the difficulties besetting the royalty and aristocrats of
England.
Taken overall, it was
a time of courtly courtesy and conspiracy, power play and paranoia, chivalry
and charlatans, knights and knaves, masques and manoeuvrings, dances and death.
Chapter 1 - Early life and
family
I came into this uncertain, ever-changing
world on the 21st June 1442: born to Richard Wydeville,
Knight, and his wife Jacquetta of Luxemburg, dowager Duchess of Bedford, in a
manor house in the sleepy village of Grafton in Northamptonshire. It didn't feel like a sleepy village to me
for some years, but then, for some of it I was nothing more than a sleepy baby.
I think of tiny me,
wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in my cradle in the corner of the room
while the midwife and ladies attended to my mother. I didn't know I was
destined for high rank and power in the medieval world, someone who would
become a person demonstrating a startling array of talents (I say this with all
modesty) and one who, ultimately, would clash with the person who could - and
did - order my death. But that was in
the future. Before then I could sleep
without fore-knowledge of the great state occasions, the tournaments, the Court
celebrations, the countries to be visited and the translating work to
come. In many ways it was just as well I
did not know that the 'storms of fortune' - to quote words from my book - would
crash over me. Sometimes I feel it is
best that people do not know what lies ahead of them, for surely they would not
wish to walk the path of Life if they did.
This book is a chance for me to set the
record straight on about a million mistakes which have crept into history books
- all right, that might be a small exaggeration, we are not that well known a
family - or are we? Let's make it
500,000 mistakes then, certainly it feels that way when I look at the books and
sigh over yet another error, another mis-spelling of my name or another set of
dates which don't match up with a) common sense and b) known facts.
We are Wydevilles. We are
known as popinjays, traitors, usurpers and ambitious schemers. The name has
come down through your history in a variety of ways and with a variety of
descriptions attached to it:
Sympathetic: the
hapless beautiful Elizabeth, Queen to Edward IV and her tragic sons who were
lodged in the Tower and never seen again, creating a mystery which has blighted
the reign of Richard III ever since;
Hostile: Wydevilles everywhere, taking over the court, having the
king's ear and confidence, taking honours and positions which others thought
were due to them;
Upstarts:
power-hungry schemers, plotters and planners, having their hand in the effort
to out-flank Richard of Gloucester and get the young Edward V to London for his
coronation;
Misunderstood: in
truth only obeying Edward IV's wishes and instructions. Whatever part of Edward IV's reign anyone
reads, a Wydeville will be there. How they are perceived depends on the bias of
the historian who is writing at that time.
Our name was written
in a variety of ways: Wydvill, Wodeville,
Wouldwithe, Oudeville and Wydeville. No one
paid much attention to standardising words, names and spellings back then, it
was an accepted fact that you could read whatever someone wrote and make sense
of it without worrying about such things.
We wrote with quills, a slow, laborious, tedious way of writing, not
like the speed with which my words are currently being translated into 'print'
on a bright screen. We just got the
words down whichever way we could and if that meant taking a wild guess at the
spelling of someone's name, that's what happened.
We were initially
loyal Lancastrians, poor by the standards of the aristocracy of our time, rich
in ambition and endlessly power hungry.
There was little room in our lives for anything but the pursuance of
power, without it money would be in short supply and many would go
without.
We had a proud history. My grandfather, Richard Wydvill,
was Esquire to the Body of the Duke of Bedford, a prestigious position that
brought honours and some wealth. These
positions were highly prized and coveted by many because once among the rich,
famous and influential at Court, a courtier had the chance to make contacts,
curry favours, carry out favours and use the influence gained to further the
family's cause at all times. From this
honoured position it could be seen that the family had some standing in court,
or he - Grandfather - would not have been there. Where and how we gained the status does not
seem to be recorded anywhere and no one said anything about it, not in my
hearing anyway. Maybe an earlier Wydeville bought
their way in through favours and chivalric acts of some kind or a fortunate
marriage, of the kind which happened later in our family. Luck, fate, that most capricious of things,
no doubt had a good deal to do with it.
What I am about to
say here is background for what is to come in my life story. It took me a long time to work out the
balance of power, the reason for the addiction of court life, the way to handle
it. I almost came unstuck a few times,
if I can use that expression in a historical book. It was not easy and took some understanding,
but this is how a medieval court worked.
A court centres
itself round the central figure, be that king, queen or whoever. Around the royal family are the courtiers and
servants and theirs is, in truth, a tricky balancing act. Serve the king or queen with a degree of
submission but not so much that the others around you notice and move in to
depose you in some way. Walk the
tightrope of perfect servility whilst ensuring others did not notice your
attempts to curry favour. And so the
velvet glove was always used: you flattered as you trod heavily on toes or
apologised as you shoved someone aside, you smiled as you killed, in such a way
that it looked to be the epitome of elegance on your part. Those who did not learn very quickly to be
duplicitous were trodden on and thrown out with the rushes when the floors were
cleared every Spring.
Court was a seething
hotbed of paranoia, gossip, slander and innuendo: the trick was to sieve the
information and take from it what which was truthful, ignoring the rest unless
it was choice enough to be passed on to someone who would be eager to hear
it. Favours for favours and they could
be achieved in many ways.
It was a way of life
that for some became addictive, whilst others yearned for and longed to escape
to the sanctuary of their country homes where they were the lords and ladies
and others deferred to them. But even
away from court it was necessary to keep up standards, to follow the fashion of
the day, to be abreast of the gossip - for which read slander - so you were not
caught out when you went back into the hothouse once more. Everyone had their ordinary informants; those
who could afford it set up an extensive spy system as well to ensure nothing
escaped their attention that would damage their reputation, their wealth or
their life.
Now you can begin to
see what I mean. It was a very strange
way of life.
Court life also meant
a good deal of travelling abroad, especially to France. The marriage of John of Bedford to Anne of
Burgundy was just one of the great state occasions at which a Wydeville was present: Grandfather Richard Wydvill was part of the duke's retinue of trusted
friends. But there was also work to be
done in England; among other honours, he held the position of Governor of the
Tower of London. He had plenty to do in
the service of the crown.
My father, also
called Richard, was so good-looking that I heard it said some declared he was
the most handsome man in England. In a
time when everyone at court was handsome or beautiful, he had to be outstanding
for this accolade to be given to him. We
were - and are - a most handsome/good-looking family. I do wonder if some of
the seemingly universal dislike of the Wydevilles
stems from the jealousy our good looks, natural good manners and ability to
make our way in court life generated.
Just a thought.
Father too had a
place in the hothouse of court, as esquire to the Duke of Bedford. This gave
him considerable standing and would have made him a desirable bachelor. A man of many skills and high chivalric
values, my father. He was knighted by
Henry VI at Leicester in 1426 when he was just 21. He served the duke in France and thus knew,
and served, the duke's second wife, the young, vibrant, beautiful, ambitious
Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford.
We were referred to
as upstarts but my mother, Jacquetta of Luxemburg, was of noble descent; her
father was Peter of Luxemburg, Count of St Pol and her mother was Margaret del Baizo, daughter of Francis, Duke of Andria. The addition of Luxemburg to her name
indicates she was part of one of the great European families of the time. In an age where lineage, blood and property
were everything, the young Jacquetta was a magnet for every bachelor who
aspired to further his station in life.
It was a known fact in the family that she was just seventeen when she
was introduced to the Duke of Bedford, by then an elderly, lonely widower and
an alliance was made which led to their marriage. This was a political move: it cemented one
treaty between England and Burgundy, whilst upsetting another between England
and France. In a time when treaties were
regularly made and broken, this was no great surprise. My mother came to England for the first time
in 1433 to secure her dower, then returned to France with her ageing husband to
arrange his household to suit herself. That is not part of family lore but I
know my mother...
My father, being part
of the household, no doubt cast covetous eyes in the direction of the new
bride, possibly envying the old man his youthful, exuberant wife. At least, that's the way I see it. I picked much of this up from overhearing the
idle chatter of servants. Mother and
Father never spoke of the way they met.
They were just - there.
The age difference
between the duke and his new wife was considerable and, as it was the duke's
household, it is likely that there was not much in the way of entertainment,
dances and so on, for his young duchess to enjoy. Politically it was a good marriage, but may
not have been so good in terms of romance, courtship and delights. Mother did so like her gifts, her parties,
her friends and - I have to say this - her intrigues.
So we have this
scenario.
Richard Wydeville, my handsome father, part of the duke's
household.
Jacquetta, my
beautiful mother, a beautiful seventeen year old girl, ripe for romance, when
she marries the ageing infirm duke.
It is not hard to
envision the most handsome man in England taking every opportunity to be in the
presence of the Duchess of Bedford, being of service to her, without making it
too obvious.
The duke was not a
well man and his health quickly declined after the wedding. He lived for a further two years, that's
all. Yes, you can devise all manner of
reasons why he did not last very long... and you may well be right. I am not going to speculate, not in print
anyway and certainly not when my mother is around to exert her considerable
influence on me, even now! After his death in 1435, Mother became one of the
most desirable widows in Europe: she was not only beautiful, she was
wealthy. Father was part of the escort
which brought her to England to settle her late husband's affairs. I am speculating here, because I do so love a
romance, that there would have been opportunities on the journey to the port,
then on the seemingly endless sea journey to England, for the two young people
to begin to get to know one another.
Although Mother had an entourage of ladies, there were surely moments
when eye contact could be made and equally it can be imagined her ladies
fluttering their eyelashes and fans at the handsome knight, which would have
drawn Mother's attention to him again if she had not already noticed him. He would be more than familiar to her,
someone she had perhaps secretly desired but not dared to express any feelings
because of her position.
No matter what
preceded or indeed happened on this journey to England, the facts are that a
courtship began and, love and lust overcoming common sense - when has it ever
been otherwise? - they were secretly married in 1436. It had to be a secret marriage as royal
permission would not have been given for someone of Mother's rank to marry
someone of Father's much lower standing.
Two things come out
of this: first, I reiterate that the Wydevilles were
not the upstarts everyone thought we were, not a lowly penniless family
dragging itself into Court by holding on to Edward's cloak as many books make
out and second: it shows my parents had a love match, they knew there would be
repercussions when the news broke and there were, but they went ahead anyway
and the dowager Duchess of Bedford, the most desirable widow in Europe, became
the wife of Sir Richard Wydeville, Knight. For that I am eternally grateful, or I would
not be here and nor would all my siblings.
There are those out there who will say 'good job too' but let's face it,
if it wasn't the Wydevilles it would have been some
other family who had a remarkably beautiful daughter of marriageable age to
thrust in front of a Yorkist king who was queen-less at that time. We got 'lucky'. It happened to be us. But consider; you could be busy denigrating
the name of just about any other aristocratic family of the time whom Edward
had visited on his Progress around England.
Now there's food for thought, which other (un)fortunate could have
become involved with the Yorks and had their name go
down in history as upstarts, popinjays and the like? Anyone would think we didn't work. Some of
us, I would have you know, had to work damned hard for the positions we had,
quite apart from walking the silken tightrope I mentioned when talking about
life at Court.
Back to my life story. I love family history, don't you? Even better
when it's your own parents you're writing about and you know that at least one
of them is going to tell their side of the story as well. Fortunate public, getting an overload of Wydeville lives.
Well overdue, I am saying as loudly as I can. Time we put our version across ourselves,
rather than waiting for sympathetic historians to do it. Sad to say they are somewhat thin on the ground...
It was unfortunate
that my parents had neglected to obtain the king's permission for their
marriage because Father was imprisoned for a short time and ordered to pay a
fine of £1,000. This was a great deal of
money for a newly married knight to find.
In the end a deal was struck, Cardinal Beaufort paid the fine in
exchange for some of the land held by Mother.
This diminished their resources a little but did at least remove the
heavy burden.
The scandal
surrounding their marriage rumbled on for some time but they ignored the
comments and scandal-mongers and settled down to country living. It could be that the 'love story' aspect of
their relationship appealed to Henry VI as he eventually took Father fully into
his favour, granting him the title of Earl Rivers and then, two years later,
making him a Knight of the Garter. We
were pretty well on our way by then, weren't we? Edward who?
I did ask Father why
he chose the name Rivers. Being a
sensible, down to earth type of person as he was/is, the answer was: Rivers is
a short name, no one can mangle it, no one is likely to forget it and there
were no other 'Rivers' around at the time.
It seemed a sensible name to take.
I guess it was. I quite liked being called Rivers, when I got
to inherit the title. I just didn't
appreciate the way I inherited the title, but Clarence and I have long since
resolved that one between us.
Right, I've tackled a
few false facts about their meeting and their marriage, now to tackle another
one.
The Bury was not part
of my mother's dowry.
Why anyone should
think it was is beyond me. Those who
said it was didn't have to look very far to find out the truth. The facts are:
the land and house at Grafton was granted to the Wydevilles
in 1440 by the Earl of Suffolk and his wife. So, it was not part of Mother's
dowry or settlement when she became a widow.
Father held land in the area, but not the actual property until this
time. Is that so difficult to
accept? Not that it matters, it is a
comparatively trivial piece of information but it adds up when included with
all the other mistakes written about us Wydevilles.
Our home was - a
comforting, comfortable place bursting at the seams with children of all ages.
Father was often away for long periods of time, but that didn't seem to stop
the babies arriving as a legacy of each of his periods at home. Search the records if you wish, there is no
word of either of them going outside their marriage vows and that is something
they preached to us children, too. Vows
once made were forever. Not all of us
kept to that, as I will mention later, at the right time. Before you get any ideas, though, one of them
was not me. I adored my wife - then and
now - and had/have no intention of straying outside my vows.
Mother's marriage to
the Duke of Bedford was childless. It
says much about Father's virility and Mother's fertility that in all sixteen
children eventually arrived and most of them survived. Being born of parents both handsome and
beautiful respectively, we were good-looking and, with Mother's driving
ambition and Father's contacts, went on to make very good marriages. But that was later. Much later.
A quick sideline: I've not said anywhere how I felt about my
parents as people, not as aristocrats with this background or that. Behind the titles and the façade of court,
they were people who laughed and cried, got sick and did all the things people
do.
Father was a proud
man. His loyalty to his king was total,
whilst it was expedient to be loyal to a Lancastrian, anyway. When the tide
turned he became a Yorkist very reluctantly and with much sorrow. His loyalty to his family came second;
furthering the family's fortunes was an important aim at all times, as it was
with Mother. He was a good father, ever
there to listen, advise, share a jest, to bring down the wrath of Heaven on
your head if you stepped out of line but he never, ever, physically punished
any of us. The nursemaids and tutors had
Father's permission to do that and they did, regularly. But Father never did. One of his rages was enough to stop any child
in their tracks and they never ever repeated the offence. I learned from him that sometimes words are
more effective than violence. Not always
but often enough to validate his lesson to me.
I looked up to him and followed his example throughout my life. His unfortunate end - execution after the
battle of Edgecote - was a wound I carried for many
years, one I believed would never heal.
Mother was
revered. Mother was sharp tongued,
impatient, demanding, never still, eyes, fingers and mind in every corner of
the Bury, even when she wasn't there.
Letters would be delivered to the house with instructions for each and
every one of us. It was as if she had
some scrying mirror or ball to look into, to see what each of us was doing and
either praise or condemn us for it. It
was frightening! We revered her and we
adored her, every one of us. She was a
powerhouse of energy, a never ending source of advice, wisdom and love. The more I learn of other people's lives, the
more I realise how fortunate we were to have parents like this.
I need to say here
that long before King Edward was a force to be reckoned with, long before the
sister who would capture his heart - well, his lust anyway - got to be that
beautiful, my mother was welcomed at court and was a favourite of Queen
Margaret of Anjou. Mother was often at
Court, where she was indulged and given jewels, where she had the ear and often
the mind of many different people, where schemes were schemed and plans were
planned and seeds of ambition sown which would reap us great rewards in the
future. I need to say this because there
are those who even now think we really did end up in Court by holding on to
Edward's cloak. We were there before
that. We were there as a force to be
reckoned with long before the Yorks got serious about
their claims to the throne, serious enough to do something about it, that
is. The Wydeville
side might have been considered lowborn, but Mother came from a sufficiently
royal background to give her status and standing in court. We were not allowed to forget it. Our tutors and nursemaids lectured us
endlessly on our position in the hierarchy of English society and what we had
to do to maintain that position.
Which leads me on to
another topic. Growing up.