It is hard to get everyone to act: the lords and the gentry have to be summoned, the plan has to be explained, so that everyone understands the Duke of York is to be ill paid for loyal service to the country, his achievements traduced, and he and his allies are to be excluded from the council and the country turned against them.

The king is so slow to leave for Leicester that he comes to bid farewell to the queen, Edmund Beaufort on his right, Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, on his left, on the very day that he had said he would arrive in Leicester. His nobility behind him are dressed for the road, some wearing light armour, most of them dressed as if riding out for pleasure. I look from one familiar face to another. There is not a man here who is not either kin to the House of Lancaster, or paid by the House of Lancaster. This is no longer the court of England, drawing on the support of many families, of many houses, this is the court of the House of Lancaster, and anyone who is not part of it is an outsider. And anyone who is an outsider is an enemy. The king bows low to Margaret and she formally wishes him a safe journey and prosperous return.

‘I am sure it will be easily done and peacefully concluded,’ he says vaguely. ‘My cousin, the Duke of York, cannot be allowed to defy my authority, my authority, you know. I have told the Yorkist lords that they are to disband their armies. They can keep two hundred men each. Two hundred should be enough, shouldn’t it?’ He looks at the Duke of Somerset. ‘Two hundred is fair, isn’t it?’

‘More than fair,’ replies Edmund, who has about five hundred men in livery, and another thousand tenants that he can call up at a moment’s notice.

‘So I shall bid you farewell, and see you at Windsor when this work is done,’ the king says. He smiles at Beaufort and the Duke of Buckingham. ‘My good kinsmen will take care of me, I know. You can be sure that they will be at my side.’

We go down to the great doorway to wave as they ride by. The king’s standard goes in front, then the royal guard, and the king comes next. He is wearing riding clothes for the journey, he looks thin and pale compared to the two most favoured dukes on either side of him. As they go by, the Duke of Somerset pulls off his hat to Margaret, and holds it to his heart. Hidden by her veil, she puts her fingers to her lips. The lesser noblemen, then the gentry, then the men at arms follow. There mut be about two thousand men riding out with the king and they rumble past us, the great war horses with their mighty hooves, the smaller horses carrying goods and gear, and then the booted tramp of the foot soldiers who march in disciplined ranks, and the stragglers who follow.