Harri crawled to where his mother was sitting and pulled himself up on her skirt so that he stood before her, unsteady but smiling triumphantly. She laughed and swung him up onto her knee, hugging him tightly. Then she shifted her gaze to her sister and let it rest thoughtfully on her for a moment before nodding reluctant agreement. ‘You are right, Edith. I should be grateful that it is Lord Jasper and not some total stranger that the king has chosen to be Henry’s guardian. He will never allow my son to forget me because he loves me as much as Lord Edmund did.’

Clearly I had been wrong to think Lady Margaret too young to understand Lord Jasper’s position. Inside that gracefully inclined head resided a firm belief that God’s Will would be done – and an exceedingly sharp insight.

When the time came to bid farewell and mount up, I stood ready to move forward and take Harri from his mother’s arms. But instead of giving him to me she kissed her infant son firmly on his lips and told him gently, ‘Now go to your Uncle Jasper, Henry, and be a good boy.’ As she passed him over she smiled bravely but I could see tears welling in her eyes. ‘Take care of him, my lord.’ Her voice broke on the words. I could not see Lord Jasper’s expression but I watched Lady Margaret go on tiptoe to kiss him too. It was a kiss of forgiveness. ‘Remember, he is my beloved son.’

‘I will never let him forget it,’ he said.

18

Jasper

London & Pembroke Castle

THE KING WAS BACK in London. I was crammed among a crowd of crimson-robed peers at the foot of the altar steps of St Paul’s Church, where King Henry sat, crowned in state on a gilded throne, lost in the purple folds of his ermine-trimmed mantle. Five hundred candles lit the cold, cavernous setting, but the atmosphere in the chancel was oppressive and my companions as tense as the strings on a gittern. Beside the king stood the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham, propped on their ornate croziers, the gold thread glittering on their lavishly embroidered copes and mitres. Fumes belching from censors swung by over-enthusiastic acolytes hung in clouds around us as one by one, willingly or unwillingly, dukes, earls and barons queued to make their vows of peace before God and king.

In the two months since King Henry had summoned his leading nobles to a Great Council at Westminster the city had become a cauldron of contention. Anticipating conflict, leading lords had come accompanied by huge private armies and antagonism between the two main affinities had festered so fast and so violently that an edict was issued, ordering supporters of York to reside within the city walls and supporters of Lancaster to stay without. Armed royal guards had been placed at the gates to keep the two sides apart.