assassin,’ came the cool reply. ‘You see, my Lord, you do not know your friends from your enemies. I merely come to tell you this, to make you think. To consider wisely whether Richard of Gloucester is as sure on this throne as he thinks he is.’
‘You are Percivalle, are you not?’
‘Yes, I am Percivalle, my Lord, and perhaps we shall meet again.’ The candle was suddenly extinguished. I heard the room door open and close. I jumped from my bed but, fumbling around in the dark, by the time I opened the chamber door and looked along the darkened passageway, there was nothing but the usual creak of timber and the howl of a dog in the far distance of the night. I went back, lit the candles and, taking pen and a scrap of vellum, began to itemise what I had learnt.
Item
– Richard of Gloucester had seized the throne. He proclaimed his own brother’s marriage as bigamous and therefore his nephews, the young princes, were bastards with no claims to the throne.
Item
– Richard had brutally executed all those who dared oppose him: Lord Hastings and leading members of the young prince’s council; and the Earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir RichardHawkes, who were beheaded at Pontefract, their naked bodies thrown into a common grave.
Item
– The two young princes had been placed in the Tower, given a certain amount of freedom but eventually shut up in the keep.
Item
– The Princes had been withdrawn from public view, their servants had been dismissed. They were confined to a chamber in the turret in the White Tower, being served by only one man, William Slaughter, a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk.
Item
– Sir Robert Brackenbury seems to be innocent of any violence against the bastard princes, yet he is evidently ill at ease and appears to be concealing something.
Item
– The Tower was visited by three members of Richard’s council: Norfolk, Buckingham and Sir James Tyrrell, the King’s Master of Horse, his principal henchman, who came to the Tower some days before Brackenbury noticed the princes had vanished.
Item
– There are rumours about the Princes being dead but the agent Percivalle evaded this issue whilst the Woodville woman, their mother, seemed not too distressed. Surely, if the Princes were dead and such information had been communicated to her, she would have become hysterical?
Item
– Finally, is this all a travesty? Has my master the King had the Princes executed? Is he, as Percivalle maintains, an assassin, and has been one from the start? Was he responsible for the murder of his own kin, laying down a well devised stratagem to remove his brother and then his nephews from the throne?
I sat back on the bed, looking up at the red-gold canopy above me. I thought of Richard, not as a King but as my fellow-squire years ago at Middleham Castle. Perhaps that was my weakness, I constantly saw the boy and not the man. I thought of Richard as I had last seen him at Minster Lovell, his face pale and pinched,gnawing his lower lip, the eyes hooded, the small wiry body tense with nervous energy. Did Richard also put his trust in the bonds of boyhood? Did he believe I could be duped, using me as a pawn to show his household and Court that he was no murderer, no spiller of innocent blood? Events earlier in the year crossed my mind. They seemed an age away, in that happy time when I was a henchman in the Duke of Gloucester’s household and happy to be so. Oh, we all knew Edward was dying. His great frame sodden by drink, his belly sagging like a pregnant woman’s, but his brain had still been razor-sharp, the cornflower blue eyes confident and assertive. But then he died suddenly. Had it been poison? Was Richard responsible? The conversation between Potyer and Mistlebrook could have been treasonable but, there again, Richard had no choice but to assert himself. He openly told us so in those secret council meetings held in Middleham Castle after the news of his brother’s death. Time
‘You are Percivalle, are you not?’
‘Yes, I am Percivalle, my Lord, and perhaps we shall meet again.’ The candle was suddenly extinguished. I heard the room door open and close. I jumped from my bed but, fumbling around in the dark, by the time I opened the chamber door and looked along the darkened passageway, there was nothing but the usual creak of timber and the howl of a dog in the far distance of the night. I went back, lit the candles and, taking pen and a scrap of vellum, began to itemise what I had learnt.
Item
– Richard of Gloucester had seized the throne. He proclaimed his own brother’s marriage as bigamous and therefore his nephews, the young princes, were bastards with no claims to the throne.
Item
– Richard had brutally executed all those who dared oppose him: Lord Hastings and leading members of the young prince’s council; and the Earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir RichardHawkes, who were beheaded at Pontefract, their naked bodies thrown into a common grave.
Item
– The two young princes had been placed in the Tower, given a certain amount of freedom but eventually shut up in the keep.
Item
– The Princes had been withdrawn from public view, their servants had been dismissed. They were confined to a chamber in the turret in the White Tower, being served by only one man, William Slaughter, a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk.
Item
– Sir Robert Brackenbury seems to be innocent of any violence against the bastard princes, yet he is evidently ill at ease and appears to be concealing something.
Item
– The Tower was visited by three members of Richard’s council: Norfolk, Buckingham and Sir James Tyrrell, the King’s Master of Horse, his principal henchman, who came to the Tower some days before Brackenbury noticed the princes had vanished.
Item
– There are rumours about the Princes being dead but the agent Percivalle evaded this issue whilst the Woodville woman, their mother, seemed not too distressed. Surely, if the Princes were dead and such information had been communicated to her, she would have become hysterical?
Item
– Finally, is this all a travesty? Has my master the King had the Princes executed? Is he, as Percivalle maintains, an assassin, and has been one from the start? Was he responsible for the murder of his own kin, laying down a well devised stratagem to remove his brother and then his nephews from the throne?
I sat back on the bed, looking up at the red-gold canopy above me. I thought of Richard, not as a King but as my fellow-squire years ago at Middleham Castle. Perhaps that was my weakness, I constantly saw the boy and not the man. I thought of Richard as I had last seen him at Minster Lovell, his face pale and pinched,gnawing his lower lip, the eyes hooded, the small wiry body tense with nervous energy. Did Richard also put his trust in the bonds of boyhood? Did he believe I could be duped, using me as a pawn to show his household and Court that he was no murderer, no spiller of innocent blood? Events earlier in the year crossed my mind. They seemed an age away, in that happy time when I was a henchman in the Duke of Gloucester’s household and happy to be so. Oh, we all knew Edward was dying. His great frame sodden by drink, his belly sagging like a pregnant woman’s, but his brain had still been razor-sharp, the cornflower blue eyes confident and assertive. But then he died suddenly. Had it been poison? Was Richard responsible? The conversation between Potyer and Mistlebrook could have been treasonable but, there again, Richard had no choice but to assert himself. He openly told us so in those secret council meetings held in Middleham Castle after the news of his brother’s death. Time
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