Richard sends me a letter as soon as he can get his reports into the hands of a ship’s captain. He writes to the king’s council – pointedly he does not address the lord protector – to say that the men cannot be commanded without wages. Without money from the treasury the merchants of Calais are forced to pay for their own defence: the garrison there regards itself almost independent of England. Richard asks the council for orders, though he points out that it is only he and Lord Welles who are waiting for orders. All the rest, the great garrison, the soldiers, the sailors in the port, the merchants and the citizens, are taking the law into their own hands. To me, he writes to say that no-one in the town accepts the lordship of the Duke of York, no-one knows what to believe about the king, and do I think Edmund Beaufort is likely to get out of the Tower and reclaim his power? At the very end of the letter he writes to me that he loves and misses me. ‘I count the days,’ he writes.

I am heart-sore without you, my beloved. As soon as I can hand over this garrison to a new commander I will come home to you, but I do believe that if I were not here now the town would fall to the French who know full well the straits we are in. I am doing my duty as best I can to the poor king and to our poor country as I know you are too. But when I come home this time I swear I will never be parted from you again.

WINDSOR CASTLE,

WINTER 1454

The Duke of York, determined to show his mastery over Calais, and to prevent a French attack, musters a small fleet and takes ship to the garrison saying he will enter it, pay the soldiers, make peace with the Calais merchants, hang any traitors and be recognised as the Constable of Calais.

Calais is formidably fortified. It has been England’s outpost in Normandy for generations, and now the soldiers have control of the fort and when they see the sails of York’s fleet they place the chain across the mouth of the harbour, they turn the guns of the castle to the seaward side, and York finds himself staring down the barrel of his own cannon, refused entry to his own city.

They bring the news to us as we are sitting with the king, one cold afternoon in November. Margaret is exultant. ‘I will see your husband honoured for this!’ she exclaims. ‘How York must be humbled! How shamed he must be! Out at sea, with a great fleet, and the city of Calais refusing him entry! Surely now the lords will put him out of office? Surely they will fetch Edmund from the Tower?’

I say nothing. Of course, all I am wondering is whether my husband will have stood by while his men mutinied, disobeying his order to admit their new captain. Or whether – and far worse, far more dangerous for us – he himself led them to defy the Duke of York, commanding them from the high tower to turn the guns on the lord regent, the legally appointed Protector of England. Either way he will be in danger, either way the duke is his enemy from this hour.