Free The Fate of Princes by Paul Doherty

about my whereabouts. The only person beside the King who seemed genuinely joyful was Richard’s ubiquitous and loyal secretary, John Kendall; he informed me how the burgesses of York had been preparing for a month to welcome Richard, how the mayor and aldermen had already sent the King gifts of wine, cygnets, herons and rabbits.
    On Saturday, August 30th, King Richard and Prince Edward, with a huge retinue, myself included, entered York. We were preceded by two sheriffs of the city who rode at the head of a long procession, each bearing their silver wands of office. At Breckles Mills, just outside the city walls, the mayor, aldermen and councillors, dressed in a wild profusion of red and scarlets, greeted the royal family. They took us into the city through Micklegate to be cheered by a mass of citizens clad in blue and gold velvet, the favourite colours of the city. As we went under the gate I saw Richard look up; for a moment his face went grim as he remembered his own father, Duke Richard, and elder brother, Edmund, who had been caught and trapped by a Lancastrian army just outside Wakefield. Both father and son had been killed, their heads hacked off, crowned with paper hats and placedabove Micklegate Bar. Richard had never forgotten their deaths, determined not to forfeit the hard-earned rewards of the House of York.
    The procession wound its way to the Guildhall, the King and his retinue being taken up by a series of banquets and receptions, amid a never-ending swirl of silk, trumpetings, speeches and exchanges of gifts. On Sunday September 7th, we attended his favourite drama, the Creed play, performed by the Corpus Christi Guild. The following day Richard’s son was installed as Prince of Wales in a gorgeous multicoloured ceremony in York Cathedral. I watched the pageant, thinking Richard had forgotten the task he had entrusted to me, but that was Richard, publicly playing the role of the popular King whilst all the time scurriers, messengers and spies were sent south to bring back information about the conspiracies brewing there. Nor had he forgotten the secret matter. On that same Sunday evening he convoked a meeting of his secret council in a small chamber in the Archbishop’s house in York.
    I remember it was dark. A thunderstorm had swept in from the sea and fat, heavy drops of rain pelted the stain-glass windows of the room. Beeswax candles dipped, winked and glittered on silver and gold ornaments, catching and fanning the glow of a precious diamond necklace, ruby ring or some other valuable stone. Richard sat at the head of a long trestle-table, on his left his principal councillors. There was Sir Richard Ratcliffe, a fierce fighter from Westmoreland, knighted for his bloody service at Tewkesbury. A seafarer, Ratcliffe had terrorised the Scots off Galloway; a man of shrewd wit, short and rude of speech and temper. He was bold in mischief and as far from pity as from fear of God. Next to him, William Catesby, Richard’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, a lawyer from Northampton, a man who served Lord William Hastings but, whenHastings fell, Catesby switched his allegiance. A shrewd, hard-visaged man but a popinjay. He kept peacocks on his estate and loved to wear costly raiment, white or green satin doublets, scarlet hose, black leather Spanish riding-boots to which he always fastened spurs which jingled and clinked whenever he moved. Then Sir James Tyrrell, the only southerner, Master of Horse and the King’s henchman, red-haired, foxy-faced, a sharp contrast to the last person, Sir Edward Brampton, a Portuguese Jew and former pirate. He had been converted to the true faith, no less a person than King Edward IV standing as godfather. He was dark, swarthy, his oiled hair hanging in ringlets about his face. He always insisted on wearing crimson and scarlet and liked to fasten little bells to his clothes so that he walked constantly in a shimmer of silvery noise. I looked at each one of those present. God forgive