There are skirmishes between the London bands and the Tudor forces in the little villages in the countryside outside Westminster, as if every crossroads is calling out À Warwick! At Highbury there is a pitched battle with the rebels armed with stones, rakes, and scythes against the heavily armed royal guard. There are stories of Henry’s soldiers throwing down the Tudor standard and running to join the rebels. There are whispers that the great merchants of London and even the City Fathers are supporting the mobs that roam the streets shouting for the return of the House of York.

Lady Margaret orders the shutters closed over all the windows that face the streets, so that we cannot see the running battles that are being fought below the very walls of the palace. Then she orders the shutters bolted on the other windows too so that we can’t hear the mob shouting support for York, demanding that Edward of Warwick, my little cousin Teddy, come out and wave to them.

We keep him from the windows of the schoolroom, we forbid the servants to gossip, but still he knows that the people of England are calling for him to be king.

“Henry is the king,” he volunteers to me as I listen to him read a story in the schoolroom.

“Henry is the king,” I confirm.

Maggie glances over at the two of us, frowning with worry.

“So they shouldn’t shout for me,” he says. He seems quite resigned.

“No, they should not,” I say. “They will soon stop shouting.”

“But they don’t want a Tudor king.”

“Now, Teddy,” Margaret interrupts. “You know you must say nothing.”

I put my hand over his. “It doesn’t matter what they want,” I tell him. “Henry won the battle and was crowned Henry VII. He is King of England, whatever anyone says. And we would all be very, very wrong if we forgot that he is King of England.”

He looks at me with his bright honest face. “I won’t do that,” he promises me. “I don’t forget things. I know he’s king. You’d better tell the boys in the streets.”

I don’t tell the boys in the streets. Lady Margaret does not allow anyone out of the great gates until slowly the excitement dies down. The walls of Westminster Palace are not breached, the thick gates cannot be forced. The ragged mobs are kept off, they are driven away, they flee the city or they go back into sullen hiding. The streets of London become quiet again, and we open the shutters at the windows and the heavy gates of the palace as if we were confident rulers and can welcome our people. But I notice that the mood in the capital is surly and every visit to market provokes a quarrel between the court servants and the traders. We keep double sentries on the walls and we still have no news from the North. We simply have no idea whether Henry has met the rebels in a battle, nor who has won.