The Keeper of the Seals was still warm when Robert Brackenbury, operating with full royal authority, broke into the man's chambers in the Tower and opened his chest of files. They were assembled into a single crate and brought by wagon to Westminster. On the morning of the 13th of May, King Edward partook as a pallbearer at Knox's funeral. He took one final look at the body of his most loyal and reliable servant. This stare lasted some time, as if the White Rose still had some question that he wished to ask the dead man. But he had eventually left and returned to Whitehall Palace, entering his private offices.
"First Morton, then Knox..." King Edward thought to himself.
Sir James Pole was there, looking through the records of the hard man from the West Country. For the first time the King was startled. He joined the Lord Chancellor, who was now doubling as Keeper of the Seals. The two continued to read. The King glanced at one letter. It now piqued his interest. It was from Marcel, the Portuguese Ambassador to a Venetian banker.
"The King is not warm blooded. He is neither man nor beast. He is a statue, a man of marble."
Have I truly concealed my weaknesses so well, the King thought. Will my legacy be nothing but one of hatred and repression?
"Most of these must be destroyed, sire." remarked Pole. "They represent liabilities to the security of the Crown."
The White Rose ignored him, continuing to dig through the crate.
"In any case, we must secure finances for the next year. The Parliament is refusing to raise taxes, so we'll have to attaint either the Italians or the Germans."
But the King wasn't listening. An image had brought back old memories. The seal of Vlad III Dracula, hung off the bottom of the letter. It was a message of congratulations from the great Wallachian lord.
"How misunderstood I shall be..." King Edward murmured.
When he'd retaken the throne in 1471, an emissary of that Prince of Wallachia had come to him with an offer of an alliance to go on crusade and retake Constantinople. A King of England heading an army of all Christendom to liberate the holy places from the Turks... How tempting an offer it was to Edward, not yet thirty years old, with all the qualities of a perfect soldier king. But he had decided against it. No, he'd said. We shall have no more overseas adventures, least of all crusades. I shall devote the rest of my reign to ensuring peace and prosperity in England. How might things have gone if he had taken the offer up? How much more prestige would England have? Would it be greater than the Crown of France, a title for which his ancestors had fought so hard to procure?
"Sir James..." Edward muttered "what shall I be remembered for? Where are my victories and conquests abroad?"
"You shall be remembered for uniting the realm sire!" Sir James said, reassuringly. "You've taken a fractured country and put together a lasting dynasty. England begins to beat with a single heart. You've absorbed both Luxembourg and Burgundy into the dominions of the Crown. Those things shall outlast you; indeed, they will outlast us all!"
"What of Sir John? What is his fate? Does it await me next?"
"Sire, these things happen every day. We do not notice them because they do not concern us."
"I am getting old, Pole. That is enough of a curse."
Indeed, the White Rose was fifty-one years of age, whilst Pole was fifty-seven. They had little time left to live. The Lord Chancellor shrugged and went on.
"Finances must be set in order. The foreign bankers must be attainted before the next Parliament ."
"Of course...." the King said, melancholy.
The extraction of cash from foreigners had always been Pole's specialty.
YOU ARE READING
The White Rose
Fanfiction"Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed even unto the thirteenth generation of your blood!" The White Rose - Edward the Handsome- is as cold and silent, as handsome and unblinking as a statue. He governs his realm with an iron hand, but he cannot...
