The White Rose Murders

by Paul Doherty

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Anarchy and unrest make for a deadly investigation... In the first journal of Roger Shallot, the Tudor sleuth writes of the murders and villainy perpetrated during the reign of King Henry VIII in Paul Doherty's masterful novel, The White Rose Murders. Perfect for fans of Susannah Gregory and C. J. Sansom. 'The best of its kind since the death of Ellis Peters' - Time Out In 1517 the English armies have defeated and killed James IV of Scotland at Flodden and James's widow-queen, Margaret, sister to Henry VIII, has fled to England, leaving her crown under a Council of Regency. Roger Shallot is drawn into a web of mystery and murder by his close friendship with Benjamin Daunbey, the nephew of Cardinal Wolsey, first minister of Henry VIII. Benjamin and Roger are ordered into Margaret's household to resolve certain mysteries as well as to bring about her restoration to Scotland. They begin by questioning Selkirk, a half-mad physician imprisoned in the Tower. He is subsequently found poisoned in a locked chamber guarded by soldiers. The only clue is a poem of riddles. However, the poem contains the seeds for other gruesome murders. The faceless assassin always leaves a white rose, the mark of Les Blancs Sangliers, a secret society plotting the overthrow of the Tudor monarchy... What readers are saying about The White Rose Murders : 'Roger is a rogue and a villain, but so engaging that the reader soon becomes entangled in the complex mysteries' 'The plots are always original and interesting and populated by a wonderful cast of characters ' 'Paul Doherty has a great talent for describing the gory and realistic details of Tudor life and bases his story on facts, which make it credible as well as a very entertaining whodunit'

Release date: November 27, 2012

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 253

Sample

Richard III – The last Yorkist king, called the Usurper or Pretender. He was defeated by Henry Tudor at Market Bosworth in August 1485.
He was the wearer of the White Rose, his personal emblem being Le Blanc Sanglier – the White Boar.


The Princes in the Tower – Nephews of Richard III, allegedly murdered by their uncle in 1484.


Henry Tudor – The Welshman. The victor of Bosworth, founder of the Tudor dynasty and father of Henry VIII and Margaret of Scotland. He
died in 1509.


Henry VIII – Bluff King Hal or the Great Killer, he had six wives and a string of mistresses. He is the Mouldwarp or the Dark One as
prophesied by Merlin.


Catherine of Aragon – A Spanish princess, Henry VIII’s first wife and mother of Mary Tudor.


Anne Boleyn – Daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn: ‘A truly wicked man’. Second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth Tudor.


Mary Boleyn – Anne’s sister, nicknamed the English Mare at the French court, she had so many lovers. Bessie Blount – One of the more dazzling of Henry VIII’s mistresses.


Margaret Tudor – Henry VIII’s sister, married to King James IV of Scotland and later to Gavin Douglas, Earl of Angus: ‘Trouble in petticoats’.


Mary Tudor – Daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, nicknamed Bloody Mary because of her persecution of Protestants.


Elizabeth I – Queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, nicknamed the Virgin Queen though Shallot claims to have had a son by her.


Catherine Howard – Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Executed for her extra-marital affairs.


Francis I, King of France – Brilliant, dazzling and sex mad.


Will Shakespeare – English playwright.


Ben Jonson – English playwright.


Christopher Marlowe – English playwright and spy killed in a tavern brawl.


James IV of Scotland – First husband of Margaret Tudor.


Suleiman the Magnificent – Turkish Emperor.


Thomas Wolsey – Son of an Ipswich butcher, he went to Oxford and embarked upon a brilliant career. He became Cardinal, Archbishop and First
Minister of Henry VIII.


Mary, Queen of Scots – Granddaughter of Margaret Tudor and mother of James I of England and Scotland.


Darnley – Husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.


Bothweli – Lover of Mary, Queen of Scots.


Thomas More – Humanist, scholar. Minister of Henry VIII, later executed for opposing Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.


Edward VI – Son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, a sickly boy who died young.


The Earl of Surrey – One of the Howard clan. He fought for Richard III, was pardoned and proved to be Henry VIII’s most capable general.


Murder raps on my door every night. When the sky is dark and a hunter’s moon hides behind the clouds, Murder sweeps up to
this great manor house to kill my sleep and plunder my dreams with ghosts spat out by Hell and images of bloody and horrible
death. Oh, yes, I hear them coming in the darkness outside as the wind rises to moan through the trees. I hear the clip-clop
of spectral hooves on the pebble-strewn path in front of the manor door. I lie awake waiting for them and, at the first ghostly
moon, I rise and stare through the mullioned glass at men and women from my past whose souls have long since slipped into
the darkness of eternity.


They gather under my window like some ghastly chorus, grey shapes still displaying horrible wounds; the hideous faces of those
I have worked with, played with, wenched with, dined with – as well as those I have killed. (May I say, always in fair fight.)
The moon slips between the clouds and bathes their blue-white faces in a silver light. They stare up, black-mouthed and hollow-eyed,
stridently baying at me, asking why I do not join them. I always smile and wave down at them so their howling increases. They
slide through the walls and up the great, oak-panelled staircase along the wainscoted gallery and into my chamber to stand,
an army of silent witnesses, around my bed. Hell has cast them out to bring me back. I just stare, each face a memory, a part
of my life.


My chaplain, the vicar of the manor church, says I eat too much and drink too deeply of the rich claret but what does he know,
the silly fart? I have seen them, he hasn’t. Doesn’t he believe in demons, sorcerers, ghosts and ghouls? I do. I have lived too long a life with the bastards to reject
them. A fool once told me about Murder, a little dwarf woman, who dressed in yellow buckram and burgundy-coloured shoes with
silver buckles. She was the jester at Queen Mary’s court. You know – pale-faced, red-haired Mary, who married Philip of Spain
and thought he would give her a baby. Her belly grew big though no child was there. Poor, bloody Mary, who liked to put the
Protestants in iron baskets and turn them to spluttering fat above roaring fires at Smithfield next to the meat shambles.
Anyway, this jester, God knows I forget her name, she claimed the sky turned red at night because of the blood spilt upon
the earth since the time of Cain, the first murderer. Another man, a holy vicar (a rare thing indeed!), once wondered whether
the souls of murdered men and women hung for all eternity between heaven and earth. Do they, he wondered, float in some vast,
endless, purple-coloured limbo, like the fireflies or will-o’-wisps do above the marshes and swamps down near the river?


Oh, yes, I often think of Murder as I lie between my gold-embroidered, silken sheets with the warm, plump body of Fat Margot
the laundress lying hot beside me. She shares my bed to keep the juices running though, of course, the vicar objects.


‘You are past your ninetieth summer!’ he wails. ‘Turn to God, give up the lusts of the flesh!’

I notice his lips appear more thick and red whenever he drools on about the lusts of the flesh. (Have you ever observed that?
Most of the snivel-nosed bastards can tell you more about the lusts of the flesh than I could.) Nevertheless, I keep my vicar
in line. A good rap across the knuckles with my stick soon diverts his thoughts from the rich, creamy plumpness of Margot’s
tits. Moreover. I know the Bible as well as he.


‘Haven’t you read the Scriptures?’ I bawl. ‘Even the great King David had a handmaid to sleep with him to keep his body warm at night. And that was Jerusalem which is a damned sight warmer than bloody Surrey!’


Oh, yes, the vicar is right on one thing: I am well past ninety. Sir Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor near Guildford,
Surrey, master of its meadows, pastures, granges and barns. I own chests and coffers stuffed with gold, silver and costly
fabrics; plump fallow deer run in my lush woods; clear streams feed my stew ponds stocked full of silver carp and tench. My
manor has opulent chambers, the walls lined with polished, open wainscoting, carved in the neat linen folds after the French
fashion. Above them, my servants have hung velvet drapes from the looms of Bruges, Ghent and Lille. My floors are of burnished
pine wood and covered with woollen rugs from Turkey or the weavers of Lancashire.


I am Roger Shallot, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Array, Knight of the Garter (there’s a good story behind that) and
member of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy. I hold medals from the Pope (though I have hidden these); gems from the spider queen,
Catherine de Medici. (By the way, Catherine was a born poisoner but a most accomplished lover.) I hold pure brown leather
purses full of clinking gold given to me by the present Queen’s father, Bluff King Hal. Bluff King Hal! A fat, piggy-eyed,
murdering tub of lard! Do you know, he wasn’t very good in bed? Oh, he often boasted about his exploits between the sheets
but Anne Boleyn once confided in me, with deep sighs and loving whispers, how with some men, even kings, there is an eternity
between what they say and what they can do – but that’s another story! Oh, you know, she was a witch? Anne Boleyn, I mean.
She had an extra teat with which she fed her familiar, and six, not five fingers on her right hand. She tried to cover it
with a long, laced cuff and started a new style in fashion. God rest her, she died bravely.


Oh, yes, I hold all these honours. Even Hal’s daughter, red-haired, cat-eyed Elizabeth, travels from Hampton Court to seek
my advice. A strange one, Elizabeth! Her hair has all gone now but she wears the best red wig London can sell. It’s a pity about her teeth; her mother’s were a beautiful
white, very strong if I remember correctly. Now, I am speaking truthfully (you wouldn’t think it, looking at Elizabeth’s white,
narrow face; she doesn’t smile now, lest the paint crack), she was a bonny girl and a great ruler – though no more a virgin
than I am. We both know that! When she visits me, we sit in my private chamber downstairs, laugh about the past and wonder
about our bastard son. Oh, a marvellous bonny girl, Elizabeth . . . those strong, white legs! A great rider but, as I have
said before, that’s another story.


Now where was I? Murder, that’s what I was talking about before my chaplain, the vicar who is writing my memoirs down, distracted
me by picking his nose and asking stupid questions. I was talking about the undead, those stained with the blood of others.
How they visit me every night, stand round my bed and mock my titles and the riches I have amassed because they know the truth.


‘Old Shallot!’ they taunt. ‘A liar, a thief and a coward!’

The latter really hurts. What’s wrong in running? I have had to many a time. I thank the good Lord that I was born with the
quickest wits and fastest legs in Christendom. But that’s in the past. In my chamber I have a portrait of me when I was thirty.
It’s painted by Holbein and I recommend it as a fair likeness. I often stare at it: the hooded eyes, one with a slight cast
in it (I told Holbein what I thought of him for that!) and the black, glossy hair falling in ringlets to my shoulders. My
face is sallow but my lips are free and full, and my eyes, though severe, are ringed with laughter lines and there is a dimple
in both cheek and chin. God knows I look as holy as a monk but you’ve heard of the old adage: ‘Don’t judge a horse by its
looks’? I recommend it to you as one of the great eternal truths. I am the biggest sinner who ever prayed in church and I
confess to having a personal acquaintance with each of the seven deadly sins except one – murder! I have killed no woman or child and those who have died at my hands probably deserved an even more horrible fate. Indeed,
these are the spectres who come to haunt me after the chimes of midnight.


Last night I recognised some of the men and women from my past. This morning their faces are still fresh in my mind as I sit
at the centre of my maze and bellow for the vicar to bring his writing tray. One face, however, is always missing. Well, one
in particular: Benjamin, my master, nephew of the great Cardinal Wolsey, one of my few friends. Benjamin with his long, kindly
face, sharp quill nose and innocent sea grey eyes. Of course, he never comes. I suppose he is walking with the angels, still
asking his innocent bloody questions. Oh, but I miss him! His eyes still mock me down the years: he was kind, generous, and
could see the image of Christ in even the most blood-soaked soul.


I am of the old faith, you know. Secretly I miss the Mass, the priest offering the bread and wine, the smell of incense. I
have a secret chapel built into the thick walls of my great hall and keep a blackened statue there which I rescued from Walsingham
when the soldiers of Protector Somerset vandalised the chapel. I took the statue and every day, when I can, I light a candle
in front of it for the soul of my dead master. However, let me concentrate on the dreams which come when the night is silent,
except for the screech of the bat and the ghostly wafting of the feathered owl.


My chaplain is ready. There he sits on his quilted stool, his little warm bum protected by a cushion, quill in hand, ready
to shudder with delicious horror at my shocking past. He tut-tuts as I drink my wine. One glass a day, that’s what the little
sod of a doctor ordered, but it’s not yet noon and time for the Angelus bell and I have already downed six full cups of blood
red claret. But what do doctors know? No physician can ever be successful. If he was, his patients would never die. I have
known many a hearty fellow who thoroughly enjoyed life and the most robust health until he fell into the hands of physicians with their secret chants, newtskin medicine, horoscope charts and
urine jars. Last week the mealy-mouthed hypocrite who proclaims he looks after my health came scuttling in to examine my urine
so I filled the jar full of cat’s piss. The idiot stood there, holding the jar against the light, before solemnly declaring
that I should eat more fish and drink less claret. Good Lord, I nearly died laughing! Mind you, doctors are not all bad. If
you want a real bastard, hire a lawyer. One of these imps of Satan came up from the Middle Temple offering to write out an
inventory of my goods so I could make a will. ‘After all,’ he commented, looking slyly at me, ‘you have so many offspring.’
I asked the bastard what he meant? He replied with a knowing leer how many of the young men and women in the surrounding villages
bear more than a passing resemblance to my goodself. My little fart of a chaplain nods, but I am not ashamed. I have, in many
ways, been a true father to my people. Anyway, back to the lawyer! I soon wiped the grin off his silly face when I asked him
if he was a good runner. ‘Swift as a hare,’ he declared.


I hope he was. I gave him five minutes’ start and loosed my dogs on him.

Ah, yes, my memoirs . . . If I don’t start soon the chaplain will claim he feels faint from hunger. So you want to hear about
Murder? So you shall. Bloody, horrible deaths. Murder by the garrotte, by the knife, by poison. Murder at the fullness of
noon when the devil walks, or in the dark when that sombre angel spreads his eternal black wings. Murder in palaces, Murder
in rat-infested hovels, in open country and in crowded market places. Murder in dungeons, assassination in church. Oh, Lord,
I have seen the days! I have seen judicial Murder: those who have died at the hangman’s hands, strung up, cut down half-alive,
thrown on the butcher’s block and their steaming bodies hacked open. The heart, entrails and the genitals slashed and plucked
out and the rest, God’s creation, quartered and thrown like cold meat into refuse baskets. I have seen women boiled alive in great black vats,
and others tied in chains and burnt above roaring fires at Smithfield.


The chaplain leans forward. ‘Tell them about the maze,’ he whispers.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

‘Well,’ he squeaks, ‘tell them why you dictate your memoirs in the centre of a maze.’

I’d like to tell him to mind his own bloody business but it’s a fair comment. You see, at Burpham I have laid out the manor
gardens like those I saw at Fontainebleau when I served as fat Henry’s spy at the court of the lecherous Francis I. Now mazes
have become very popular, although they weren’t meant to be: you see, years ago, people took a vow to go on a crusade but,
because of lack of money or time, some never reached Outremer. So Holy Mother Church decreed that they could be released from
their vows if they travelled a number of times round a subtly devised maze. Of course, what was planned as a penance soon
became the fashion. Francis I loved mazes. He used to take his young maidens in there and only release them if they succumbed
to his lustful embraces. When the bastard found out I was a spy, I was led into the centre of the maze, hunting dogs were
put in and the entrances sealed. You can imagine old Shallot had to use both his wits and legs! (However, that’s another story.)


Anyway, I like my maze: it protects me from the importunate pleadings of my brood of children, legion of relatives and all
the other hangers-on. Oh, yes, there’s another reason – during my days at the court of Europe I became the sworn enemy of
certain secret societies. I may have grown old but I still guard against the soft footfall of the assassin so I feel safe
in my maze. No one can get near me and no one can eavesdrop. And if the weather changes and I cannot smell the perfume of
the roses or listen to the liquid song of the thrush, I shelter in my secret chamber. After all, my memoirs are meant for posterity, not for the listening ear of some secret spy.


But don’t worry, I’ll confess all to you. I am going to give you your fill of Murder, but I must get it right. Go back down
the years to tell my tale. Trust me, I really will try to tell the truth . . .


I was born, so I tell my family – the offspring of my five wives – at a time of terror when the great Sweating Sickness swept
into London, moving from the hovels of Southwark to the glories of Westminster Hall. All were culled: the great and the good,
the noble and the bad, the high and the low. That was in the summer of 1502 when the Great Killer’s father, Henry VII, reigned:
lean-faced, pinch-mouthed Henry Tudor, the victor of Bosworth, had seven years left to live. I could tell you a few stories
about him – oh, yes. He killed Richard the Usurper at Bosworth and had his torn, hacked body thrown into a horse trough at
Leicester before marching on to London and marrying the Usurper’s niece, Elizabeth of York. I once asked the present Queen,
God bless her duckies, who killed the princes in the Tower? Was it their uncle, the Usurper Richard, or her grandfather Henry
Tudor when he found them alive in the Tower? She shook her head and raised one bony finger to her lips.


‘There are rooms in the Tower, Roger,’ Queen Elizabeth whispered, ‘which now have no doors or windows. They are bricked up,
removed from all plans and maps. Men say that in one of these rooms lie the corpses of the two young princes.’


(I wondered if she believed she was telling the truth for I once met one of the princes, alive! But that’s another story.)

Well, back to the beginning. I was born near St Botolph’s Wharf which stands close to the river at the end of a rat-infested
maze of alleyways. The first sound I heard, and one which always takes me back, was the constant cawing of the ever-hungry gulls as they plundered the evil-smelling
lay stalls near the black glassy Thames. My first memory was the fear of the Sweating Sickness. Beggars huddled in doorways;
lepers, their heads covered by white sacks, heard of his approach and forgot their miseries. The traders in greasy aprons
and dirty leggings shuddered and prayed that the sickness would pass them by. Their masters and self-styled betters thought
they were safe as they sat at table, guzzling delicacy after delicacy – venison and turbot cooked in cream, washed down by
black Neapolitan wine in jewel-encrusted goblets – but no one was safe.


The Sweating Sickness took my father; at least, that’s what my mother said. Someone else claimed his weaving trade collapsed
and he ran away to be a soldier in the Low Countries. Perhaps the sight of me frightened him! I was the ugliest of children
and, remembering my fair-haired mother, must have owed my looks to Father. You see, I was born a month late, my head covered
in bumps, one of my eyes slightly askew from the rough handling of the midwife’s instruments. Oh, Lord, I was so ugly! People
came up to my cot ready to smile and chuckle, they took one look and walked away mumbling condolences to my poor parents.
As I grew older and learnt to stagger about, free of my swaddling clothes, the loud-mouthed traders along the wharves used
to call out to my mother:


‘Here, Mistress, here! A cup of wine for yourself and some fruit for your monkey!’

Well, when Father went, Mother moved on, back to her own family in the rich but boring town of Ipswich. She assumed widow’s
weeds though I often wondered if my father did flee, swift as a greyhound from the slips as Master Shakespeare would put it.
(Oh, yes, I have patronised Will and given him what assistance I could in the writing and the staging of his plays.) Anyway,
when I was seven, Mother became friendly with a local vintner and married him in the parish church – a lovely day. Mother wore a gown of russet over a kirtle of fine worsted and I, in silk-satins, carried the bridal cup before her with a
sprig of rosemary in it. I was later very sick after stealing some wine and gnawing voraciously at the almond-packed bridal
cake.


My step-father was a kindly man – he must have been to tolerate me. He sent me off to the local grammar school where I learnt
Maths, Astronomy, Latin, Greek, and read the Chronicles of Fabyani, as well as being lashed, nipped, pinched, caned and strapped along with the other boys. Nevertheless, I was good
at my studies and, after Mass on Sundays, the master would give my mother such a glowing report that I would be rewarded with
a silver plate of comfits. I would sit and solemnly eat these whilst plotting fresh mischief against my teacher.


One student who was not drawn into these pranks and feats of malice was my future master, Benjamin Daunbey: quiet, studious
and bookish to a fault. One day I and the other imps of Hell turned against him, placing a pitcher upon a door and crowing
with delight when its contents, rich brown horse’s piss, soaked him to the skin. He wiped his face and came over to me.


‘Did you enjoy that, Roger?’ he asked softly. ‘Did you really? Does it give you pleasure to see pain in the eyes of others?’

He was not angry. His eyes were curious: clear, childlike in their innocence. I just stammered and turned away. The master
came in, cloak billowing like bat wings around him. He seized Benjamin by the nape of the neck, roaring at him while he got
his switch of birch down, ready to give the unfortunate a severe lashing. Benjamin did . . .