The Kingmaker's Daughter

Outside my window the blackbird makes its penetrating questioning call.

‘It is as if the world is reborn,’ Elizabeth says wonderingly. ‘How strange it has been. The disc is moving from the sun, the sun is blazing in the sky again and everything is warm and sunny and like spring once more.’

She comes back to the bed. ‘Renewed,’ she says. ‘As if we can start all over again.’

I smile at her optimism, the hopefulness of the young and foolish. ‘I think I will sleep now,’ I say.

I dream. I dream that I am on the battlefield at Barnet, and my father is speaking to his men. He is high on his black horse, his helmet under his arm so everyone can see his bold brave face and his confidence. He is telling them that he will lead them to victory, that the true prince of England is waiting to set sail across the narrow seas, and that he will bring with him Anne, the new Queen of England, and that their reign will be a time of peace and prosperity, blessed by God, for the true prince and the true princess will come to their thrones. He says my name ‘Anne’ with such love and pride in his voice. He says that his daughter Anne will be Queen of England, and that she will be the best Queen of England that the world has ever seen.

I see him, as bright as life, laugh in his confidence and his power, as he promises them that the good times are coming, that they need only stand fast, be true, and they will win.

He swings his leg over his horse and he drops to the ground. He pats his horse’s neck and the big dark head turns with trust as his hand goes up to pull gently the black moving ears that flicker forwards to listen to him. ‘Other commanders will ask that you stand and fight, will ask that you fight to the death,’ he tells them. ‘I know that. I’ve heard that too. I have been in battles where commanders have asked their men to fight to the death but then ridden away and left them.’

There is a ripple of agreement from the men. They have known battles where their commanders have betrayed them, just like this.

‘Other commanders will ask you to stand and fight to the death but when the battle goes against them they will send their pages for their horses and you will see them ride away. You will face the charge alone, you will go down, your comrades will go down, but they will be spurring their horses and riding away. I know that. I have seen it as well as you.’

There is a mutter of agreement from men who have been able to run away, who remember comrades who could not get away in time.

‘Let this be my pledge to you.’ He takes his great broadsword and carefully, feeling for the horse’s ribs, puts the point of the sharp blade between the ribs, aimed at the heart. There is a low murmur of refusal from the men and in the dream I cry out, ‘No, Father! No!’

‘This is my pledge to you,’ he says steadily. ‘I will not ride away and leave you in danger for I shall have no horse,’ and he thrusts the blade deep into the ribcage, and Midnight goes down on his forelegs and down on his backlegs. He turns and looks at my father with his dark beautiful eyes as if he understands, as if he knows, that this is a sacrifice my father has to make. That he is a pledge that my father will fight and die with his men.

Of course he died with them, that day on the battlefield of Barnet, he died with them to make me queen, and I had to learn alone later what a hollow crown it is. As I turn in my bed and close my eyes once more, I think that tonight I will see my beloved father, Warwick the kingmaker, and the prince who is my little boy, Edward, and perhaps, in fields greener than I can imagine, Midnight the horse is turned out to graze.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is an historical novel based on a character whose own biographer predicted that the life would be impossible to write because of the lack of information. Luckily for all of us, historian Michael Hicks found much valuable material about Anne Neville despite being hampered by the usual silences that surround women in history.

What we know from Hicks and from other historians is that she was related to most of the great players of the Cousins’ War (only called the Wars of the Roses centuries later in the 1800s). What I suggest in this novel is that perhaps she was a player in her own right.

She was the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, known in his lifetime as ‘the kingmaker’ because of his extraordinary role as puppeteer to the claimants of royal power in England. First he supported Richard Duke of York, then his son and heir Edward, then the second son George, then their enemy Henry VI. Warwick died fighting for the House of Lancaster, having lived his life as the great supporter of the House of York.