Free White Boar and the Red Dragon, The by Margaret W Price Page A

women!’
    ‘But she had been alone in Rouen a long time, while Father was away fighting.’
    ‘No, it’s impossible! Our proud mother, so aware of her royal blood, going with an archer? It’s just not true. I will never believe it! I will visit her at Fotheringhay and beg her to retract her words.’
    ‘But whether she does or not, I cannot have her here any more. That would be like accepting what she said as the truth. She must never come to court again! Anyway, she was quite happy to go. She said she no longer wished to live in a “den of iniquity” and that Elizabeth’s coronation was the last straw!’
    ‘Give out a proclamation saying that the Duchess Cecily is taken with a fever of the brain and that her words were wild ramblings in her delirium. How are the people to know any different? They will believe what they are told. Say that she has been sent to her old home in the country to rest and recover her senses. Meanwhile, I must in all haste to Fotheringhay!’
    Fotheringhay Castle, Northants, June 1465
    ‘But, Mother, surely you can see that what you have said will cause Edward a great deal of trouble?’
    ‘That is what I intended. He has been wayward and self-willed all his life, going his own way in spite of the wisest advice. He lives in an immoral, selfish way and is not fit to be king. I have loved him dearly, but I no longer approve of him! I have kept this knowledge to myself all these years, as I never wished to hurt your father, who loved me as much as I did him. But now I feel compelled to tell the truth!’
    ‘But what about your reputation? And the honour of the House of York?’
    ‘At my age, there are more important things than my reputation. And it is because of the honour of the House of York that I have revealed my long-kept secret!’
    ‘I do not understand. This can hardly do it any good?’
    ‘I want you to be king, my son! You are the only one worthy. Edmund was good, but unreliable. George is not fit in any sense, and Edward, as I have said, cannot rule his own passions. How can he be fit to govern?’
    ‘He is the first-born, which makes him king by divine right. Also, he is a human being, with a human being’s faults and failings. He cannot be a paragon of virtue, because you will it so! You must accept him as he is. There is little you can do about it anyway, now he is king.’
    ‘You think not? Then you do not know me, my son. You always did stand up for him.’
    ‘He has always been so good to me. And there is something else. You may not have heard, being so far away from the court now, but it is rumoured—though not confirmed—that the queen is with child.’
    ‘Perhaps God will be good to us and it will die!’
    ‘Mother, how can you say such things? I am sure you do not mean it.’
    ‘It would solve a lot of problems! If she were barren—which it seems she is not—or the child was stillborn, it would be easy to get Edward to put her aside and marry a princess who would bear him an heir of royal blood! That is necessary for the continuation of the House!’
    ‘But he loves her to desperation. He would never put her aside.’
    ‘That is not love, not real love, but lust. He has been lusting all his life—why should this be different? He soon grows tired of his women. He only married her because she put a spell on him. That mother of hers, Jacquetta, the French whore, is a witch! One of the queen’s maids of the bedchamber told me in confidence that Elizabeth would never sleep with him—on the advice of Jacquetta. She gave her daughter love potions to put in his wine at night to make him so mad with lust that he would agree to anything—even marriage! That is how it came about. This maid also said that one night she saw Elizabeth put a dagger to her own throat and threaten to slit it herself—if he tried to force her! Now, what do you think of that? The king is in the grip of witchcraft!’
    ‘I do not believe in witchcraft, Mother, and I am amazed that