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Contents ( 61)
  1. The Lady of the Rivers
  2. CASTLE OF BEAUREVOIR, NEAR ARRAS, FRANCE,
  3. ROUEN, FRANCE,
  4. CASTLE OF ST POL, ARTOIS,
  5. PARIS, FRANCE,
  6. CASTLE OF CALAIS, FRANCE,
  7. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  8. PENSHURST,
  9. PARIS, FRANCE,
  10. GISORS, FRANCE,
  11. ROUEN, FRANCE,
  12. ENGLAND,
  13. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  14. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  15. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  16. LONDON,
  17. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  18. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  19. NANCY, FRANCE,
  20. TITCHFIELD ABBEY, HAMPSHIRE,
  21. LONDON,
  22. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  23. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  24. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  25. LONDON,
  26. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  27. PLYMOUTH,
  28. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  29. LONDON,
  30. THE WEST OF ENGLAND,
  31. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  32. PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH, LONDON,
  33. THE TOWER OF LONDON,
  34. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  35. CLARENDON PALACE, WILTSHIRE,
  36. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  37. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  38. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  39. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  40. THE PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH, LONDON,
  41. HERTFORD CASTLE,
  42. GROBY HALL, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  43. HERTFORD CASTLE,
  44. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  45. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  46. KENILWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE,
  47. ROCHESTER CASTLE, KENT,
  48. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  49. WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
  50. ON CAMPAIGN,
  51. SANDWICH, KENT, AND CALAIS,
  52. COVENTRY,
  53. NORTHAMPTON,
  54. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  55. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  56. ON THE MARCH,
  57. ST ALBANS,
  58. YORK,
  59. GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
  60. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  61. BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Hmm?’ I am absorbed in the clenching of her tiny fist.

‘We have to leave her, for only a little while.’

Now he has my attention, I turn towards him in his grip. ‘How so?’

‘We are to go to France with a great party to fetch home the king’s bride.’

‘It has been decided?’ The marriage of Henry has been a long time coming. My own first husband, Lord John, was picking out French princesses for him, when I was a new bride. ‘At last?’

‘You have missed all the gossip while you were in confinement, but yes, it is decided at last. And she is a kinswoman to you.’

‘Margaret!’ I guess at once. ‘Margaret of Anjou.’

He kisses me as a reward. ‘Very clever, and since your sister is married to her uncle, you and I are to go and fetch her from France.’

At once I look towards my sleeping baby.

‘I know you don’t want to leave her,’ he says tenderly. ‘But we will do our duty for Henry, fetch the bride, bring her home and then we will come back here. I am summoned by the king to serve him. I have to go.’

‘You are asking me to leave a nursery with six babies,’ I say. ‘How can I go?’

‘I know,’ he says gently. ‘But you have to do your duty too. You are an English duchess and my wife, and the head of our house is asking you to fetch his bride. When they marry it will bring peace to England and France – the one thing my lord wanted when he died. We have to go, my love. You know that. It is a service to the king and to him, your first husband and my good lord, it is a service to him too.’

NANCY, FRANCE,

SPRING 1445

I am not the only unenthusiastic member of the marriage party. Our leader, William de la Pole the Earl of Suffolk, is said to be so mistrustful of the French and so unimpressed with the fortune that Margaret of Anjou brings that, before he left England to start the negotiations last year, he had the king swear that nobody should ever blame him for bringing the French princess to England. Cardinal Beaufort, who now rules everything, may see this as the way to lasting peace; but Duke Humphrey of Gloucester swears that the Valois king will just buy time with this marriage and come against our lands in France. I know my late husband would have feared above everything else that this is a n ruse by the French to make us hand over Anjou and Maine to René of Anjou: the new queen’s father. Almost everyone left behind in England, while we spend a fortune on a progress to France, regards the deal that we are making as utterly uncertain to bring peace, costly to make, and most likely to be to our disadvantage.

The bride is brought by her mother from Anjou, and they say that she too is far from enthusiastic for a marriage which will put her in the bed of the king who has been an enemy of France ever since she was a baby.