The White Queen -The White Queen

Abbot's Apartments at Westminster Abbey, London, England, Autumn 1470

I have given up on trying to quell the children's excitement. It is the best we can do for now. Everybody is jumpy about what will happen in the coming days and shipments are lagging behind. We are lucky that we have enough to feed our large families. I have already reminded my children to pray about this. Not everyone in our country is as lucky. They seem to understand it as well as children do and they say extra prayers for the people of our nation each night.

We use prayers to distract us from other things as well. News filters back into London through unreliable whispers. Warwick lands in England, just as my Edward had predicted, but what he does not see is the rush of nobles to the traitor's side, in support of the king they left to right in the Tower the last five years. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who is married to a Woodville, joints inside. Lord Thomas Stanley, Lena's husband and who won the ruby ring at my coronation and told me that his motto was "without changing" switches sides. A whole host of lesser gentry follow these influential commanders and my husband is swiftly outnumbered in his own kingdom.

Those are just the families who have been loyal to us in the past. All the old Lancaster families are saying polishing off their weapons, ready to go after the man they have secretly hated for several years in secret. This is their chance at getting back at York. This is their chance at power once again.

While all of this is happening I am painfully unaware in London. I spend my days with the children and the women. Margie and Bianca are reading out of a fairytale book with their sister Annie while Kate and Bridgette jump up and down on the bed in our Tower apartments. Dinner will be served shortly and Margaret, Elizabeth, and I are preparing a simple meal of roasted veal and bread with butter. It is all we have for now while food is scarce.

The usual amount of loud noise is going off in our apartments when I hear a knock on the door and ask Lizzie, "Who is it?" 

She shrugs. "I don't know."

"It's us Aunt Eliza! Thomas and Richard!" The voice of my godson yells from outside the door.

Elizabeth's had perks up as she runs the door and flings it open and throws her arms around her sons singing, "My boys!"

After she has broken apart Thomas runs to his betrothed and kisses her hand. Annie Holland smiles and Richard, eager to do as his brother does, kisses the hand of young Cecily Bonville. The young girl, doesn't know what to do exactly and simply blushes madly well Richard smiles up at her as though he has won a million marks. I shake my head up their antics. The young people remind me so much of Edward and I.

"Where is my husband?" Elizabeth asks them.

"He's safe mother," Thomas reassures her.

"And the rest of our husbands?" Margaret asks.

"They are safe as well Lady Tudor," Richard buts in. "The king, all the royal dukes, all our Woodville relatives, all of mothers ladies in waiting's husbands; they are all safe."

Even through the reassurances I see that their faces are dark. Annie Holland pours her betrothed a glass of wine and he drinks it quickly as I say, "But something is wrong. I see it on your face. What is it?"

"Warwick did not land in the north as the king had thought," Thomas reveals to us, "we were barely outside London when he took us by surprise."

"The key escaped to Flanders with our Woodville relatives and Richard and Edmund, along with some of the other noblemen," young Richard tells us.

"Like who?" Margaret asks. 

"Your husband, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Montagu, the Earl of Kent and his son Sir Grey, the Earl of Essex and Viscount Brouchier, the Earl of Arundel and Baron Maltravers, the Earl of Pembroke, Baron Bergavenny and Sir Neville, Sir Berkeley, and Sir Talbot."