The Tudor Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

herself, they showed her where she stood. Never in her life had she heard anyone dare to speak even impudently to the Queen, and she could see her mother's face flush to red and knew just how hard an effort she must be making to rein in her fierce temper for young Edward's sake.

    “I put it to the Council that the King be brought to London with all speed,” she began again, ignoring Hastings.

    “Madam, upon this we are all agreed,” they chorused.

    “Save for the archers,” insisted Stanley.

    “Are they not in my royal brother's pay,” demanded Dorset insolently.

    “And is not England a civilized country?” soothed the Archbishop of York, laying a churchman's appeasing hand upon the Queen's shoulder.

    “I would have you consider, Madam, how little honour you do the late King in so belittling the love and loyalty his subjects bore him,” pointed out Hastings, more gently.

    Elizabeth Woodville, twice widowed, was hearing men's true untempered opinions for the first time. “During the time I have been Queen I have seen much disloyalty in unlooked-for places,” she faltered.

    “That is true, Madam,” agreed Hastings, remembering how she and her young children had had to take sanctuary during the brief resurgent power of the Lancastrians after the battle of Edgecot. “But do you not suppose that seeing the new King escorted by a powerful army will set men's minds back to those very times? Can you not see that it is timorous folly to act as if there were any question of his being King?”

    The Queen sat silent and rebuked. But this time it was not the Lancastrians she feared. Yet how to voice the instinctive mistrust she felt? Or how to make these well-meaning men see that had the suggestion of the archers come from any save a Woodville they probably would not have opposed it.

    It was at that moment that the Lord Mayor of London suddenly saw fit to speak up, backing in Hastings a man who had done much for London's trade. “Let milord Rivers bring the King and I will answer for the welcome our citizens will give the sweet lad,” he said bluntly. “But I do assure your Grace the sight of an army of hungry northerners and Welshmen bearing down on us will but drive my people to bar the city gates. They remember too well how their victuals have been eaten and their houses fired during their betters' arguments in the years of civil war.”

    “Then we are all agreed?” concluded the Archbishop of York; and the growled assent of twenty weary men went round the table, so that a mere woman's will could only batter itself against the barriers of their long pent-up jealousy.

    “They are all so sensible. But, dear God, let them see that this time she is right!” prayed the slender Princess standing unseen in the shadows.

    When she uncovered her eyes she saw that her mother had risen to her feet. Because she was no longer play-acting there was an appealing dignity about her. “Milords, if I have meddled in the past, or presumed to advance my family unfairly, I pray you forget it now,” she begged. “I grant there is wisdom in what you say, but sometimes women have a kind of insight which outpaces wisdom. I…” For a moment complete candour trembled on her tongue, but the name of the man she mistrusted was too high above suspicion to be spoken, so she substituted other words. “I have here the Great Seal,” she said, lifting the symbolic thing from the table before her, “and seeing that my son is but a minor, can make any order valid in his name. I entreat you once more, milords, to call out his loyal archers!”

    For a moment or two it looked as if the Council, impressed by her earnestness, would be bewitched into believing in her fears. But Stanley broke the pregnant moment by flinging aside from them with a barely smothered oath, and Hastings strode forward to thrust a briefer order beneath the upraised seal. “You allow your womanish whimsies to ride you, Madam,” he said roughly. “You cannot