Free Succession by Livi Michael

window and made an attempt to gather his failing resources. He had decided, that day, that he would write a letter to his son, John. Paper and quills were set out for him on the table, but he did not know what to say.
    He sat down, in any case, because his legs were trembling. He looked down at his hands, resting on the polished wood; how they had aged. They were elegant hands, with tapering fingers: a poet’s hands, or an artist’s – not a general’s. That was what his wife had said to him once, in the early days of their courtship. His wife, who had not written to him here, who had gone ahead with the marriage of his son.
    An image of his little boy came vividly to his mind. The small,pointed features which had lengthened until they resembled his wife’s features. He had not expected to have a son after so many years of marriage. Yet he remembered, as though it were happening now, the sensation of holding the small, crumpled body for the first time, that trembling rush of love. He hadn’t expected that either. He was not aware that his own father had felt anything at his birth other than a certain grim pleasure at having another son.
    The duke was fifty-three years old, and had already lived longer than many men, but his son, John, was only seven. He could remember himself at that age; how vividly things had affected him. His mood could be entirely transported by shifts in the weather or the light. He had begun each day with a sense of excitement and possibility, because it was new, and anything might happen. He remembered the first time someone had lifted him on to a horse, the dizzying sensation of terror. The horse had seemed huge and the ground so far away.
    Was that what he wanted to write to his son? ‘Do not be afraid when you sit on a horse’?
    ‘Do not be afraid,’ perhaps. And he could say that he was sorry. Sorry he had to leave, that he would not see his son grow up, that he had not been a better father. And sorry for any disgrace that would follow; any blows of fortune.
    But he did not want to alarm him. And anything he wrote would be read to John by his mother; he could hear her crisp, editorial tones. He could say that he hoped, as far as hope was left in him, for John’s future. For his marriage to the little heiress, Margaret Beaufort.
    Who was six years old, as John was seven.
    His thoughts were too scattered, that was the trouble. Blown about as chaff in the wind. And he could not see the future, that was his wife’s gift; his own vision seemed oddly foreshortened.
    But he had to start somewhere.
    The Duke of Suffolk, as he remained, adjusted his spectacles and the piece of paper in front of him and lifted his quill. Then he gazed ahead of him at the map of Jerusalem on the wall. Maps, he hadalways loved them, and had a great collection, which would pass to John. He wondered if his son would love them also.
    He should not give the impression that he would never return, though in fact his grandfather had died in exile. Perhaps that had been the beginning. His son had so few and such insecure connections that the duke had striven, at least partly for him, to secure land and titles.
    He was sorry that John had no more family, no better connections. God knew that, when the world turned on you, you needed support.
    I wish I could be there with you, my son.
    The outlines of the map seemed to shift and blur as he looked at it and waited for a sense of focus, the words that would not come.
     
And last of all, as heartily and lovingly as father ever blessed his child on earth I give you the blessing of our Lord and me; which of His infinite mercy increase you in all virtue and good living. And that your blood may by His grace from kindred to kindred multiply on this earth to His service, in such wise as after the departing from this wretched world here, you and they may glorify Him eternally among His angels in heaven.
    Letter from the Duke of Suffolk to his son, John de la Pole, 1450
     
     



PART