* * *
On our return to Westminster Palace we found we had been allocated quarters close to the king’s private apartments, a move that fuelled a spate of court gossip, whether Henry and Somerset liked it or not. Our new chambers were light and airy, boasting elaborate furnishings and casement windows overlooking the Thames, diamond-glazed instead of merely shuttered. Each had a separate guardrobe with a latrine draining into a moat washed clean by each high tide, a welcome privilege, indicative of very high status. Between these chambers lay an anteroom where attendants and visitors might await admittance. The apartments were on the same floor as those of the king, but the sweeping stone staircase was reserved for his use and we accessed our rooms by a narrower and steeper spiral stair. Queen Marguerite and her ladies were housed in a separate wing of the palace, linked to the king’s apartments by a private gallery, where handpicked and trusted members of the royal guard kept discreet watch, despite little sign that it was a path well trodden.
Behind the closed doors of our new chambers Edmund and I were fitted for our coronets and mantles of state. We had been granted funds to extend our wardrobes and for once I was grateful for Edmund’s familiarity with fabrics and fashions, being woefully ignorant on such matters myself. However, King Henry planned a joust in our honour following our installation, and then the boot – or more accurately in this case the sabaton – would be on the other foot, for it was I and not Edmund who knew the best agents from whom to commission new armour, having made a study of the latest developments in military design. Until this time, as yeoman squires of the king’s household, we had been provided with standard ready-made body-defences and so for me it was a proud day when I stood in a hot, noisy workshop off Cheapside to be measured for my first custom-fitted attire.
Edmund was less enthusiastic. ‘What can it matter whether I have the latest hinges on my helmet’s visor,’ he demanded, ‘as long as I can readily open and close it? My chief concern is the shape of the sabatons. The style of a noble knight is judged by how much of his foot extends through the stirrups when he leans back to aim the lance. I definitely want sabatons with the longest possible points.’
The kneeling armourer paused in the act of measuring Edmund’s calves for greaves. ‘As an earl you are permitted to wear them twice the length of your foot but I must warn you, my lord, that if the points are too long, the foot will not readily be released in the event of a fall from the saddle,’ he cautioned. ‘It is a dangerous fashion.’
‘So fashion can prove deadly if you are dragged by a galloping charger, Edmund,’ I remarked scathingly, adding more seriously, ‘You should heed the man’s advice.’
My brother eyed me scornfully. ‘A knight who expects to fall can expect to lose. Nothing demonstrates cowardice more than stunted sabatons.’
In my opinion, foolish risk-taking in jousting and fighting demonstrated nothing but idiocy, but I recalled it was I, not Edmund, who had been lucky to receive only a chipped tooth as a result of a jousting accident and so in the interests of maintaining good brotherly relations I shrugged and, leaving the armourer to pursue the argument, wandered off to examine my surroundings.
Like most noble English knights we would have the individual pieces of our armour made to our measurements in Germany where they had perfected the steel-rolling process. They would then be fitted and altered as necessary in London workshops like this one. I watched perspiring apprentices scurrying between three forges where the master armourers worked. There was barely a moment of silence as they hammered expertly at the many separate items that formed a knight’s ‘attire’: breastplates and backplates, greaves and gauntlets, cuirasses and vambraces and all manner of joints and swivels, buckles and bracers. The mingling of heat, sweat and noise formed a miasma, which I found exhilarating, stirring images of jousts and tournaments and the heady prospect of action on the battlefield. There were shutters at either end of the premises, which even in this late autumn season stood wide open, allowing what breeze was to be found in the narrow streets of the city to carry away the poisonous fumes from the red-hot forges. I leaned against one of the supporting pillars and admired the skill of the finishers working at benches along the walls as they engraved and stamped distinguishing designs into the metal before polishing it. As a squire I was thoroughly familiar with the order and attachment of one gleaming element to another when I fitted them to a knight’s body and felt a thrill at the thought that soon I would be able to appoint my own squires to perform this onerous task for me.
Christmas that year was held at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, whither the court moved en masse two days beforehand, travelling downriver on a convenient morning turn of the high tide. Still officially serving as the king’s Squires of the Body, Edmund and I accompanied King Henry and Queen Marguerite on the royal barge from Westminster, enjoying the thrill of the slide under one of the narrow arches of London Bridge as the water churned through to escape into the wider reaches of the Thames beyond.
King Henry had inherited the palace and park at Greenwich from his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester five years previously and it was a particular favourite of his, due to the celebrated library his cultured uncle had amassed there. It was Queen Marguerite who had renamed it Placentia for its green and rural setting – though it lay only a few miles downstream. The contrast with Westminster’s tightly packed streets and buildings was magical; an oasis, and like the outgoing tidal waters of the Thames, the queen yearned to escape from the confines of urban life upriver. Besides, hunting was one of the few pastimes Henry and Marguerite had in common and there were great chases to be had in the vast enclosure of Greenwich Park. As the oarsmen made swift work of the long meander around the north bank mudflats, I sniffed the salty tang in the air and prayed that the crisp, calm weather would persist and give us some magnificent Christmas sport.
It was King Henry’s decree that on the Eve of Christ’s birth his court should be unsullied by too much eating, drinking and merrymaking, such as had been common during previous reigns and still persisted in many noble houses. So after a long celebration Mass during the morning, there was a decent meal of three courses accompanied by a limited quantity of wine and small ale, consumed while choristers sang beautiful but plangent psalms, and prayers and Gospel readings were heard. Afterwards a troupe of mummers performed a Nativity play dressed in gorgeous traditional costumes kept in the royal Wardrobe for use on this one night of the year. It took place in candlelight as darkness fell outside and was an unexpectedly moving experience. When the shepherds fell to their knees in awe at the choir of angels, enthralled by their soaring voices and twinkling jewelled wings I felt a surge of nostalgia, recalling nights spent under the stars with Jane Hywel and her brothers while embers from the camp fire rose into the dark sky and my father played his harp and sang stories of ancient Welsh legend.
It was at the conclusion of this play, as the applause died down and a hum of conversation started, that King Henry chose to have his big announcement made to the court. He did not do it himself but, appropriately enough, through the services of his Richmond Herald, who began by sounding his trumpet for silence.
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen of the king’s court and household, hear your gracious sovereign’s will. In so far as his grace’s uterine brothers, Edmund and Jasper, have gained their majority, it is his royal highness’s desire to recognize their legitimate descent from his beloved and much lamented mother, the right royal Queen Catherine, consort to his glorious and right royal father King Henry the Fifth of England. Therefore the honour of knighthood shall be bestowed on them and in addition the king’s beloved brother Edmund shall be created Earl of Richmond, a royal honour and title held in abeyance since the death of his grace’s uncle John,