Note: I haven't played chess in over 20 years, so forgive the spotty referencing, its more to serve as a metaphor for the "chessgame" of moves/countermoves that was the War of the Roses. But Edward playing as black (i.e. the Black Prince?) against white (York's roses) was too good an opportunity to pass up
July 1470
Soundtrack:
René d’Anjou - Le Cœur d'Amour Epris
*exterior* *Paris* *the Sainte-Chapelle at the Chateau de Vincennes
[2]* *Louis XI is present as his son, Charles, is baptised* *the new dauphin’s godparents are Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and Marguerite d’Anjou
[3]* *we see that the Lancastrian “court in exile” – the duke of Somerset, the Earls of Dorset and Oxford, Viscount Beaumont and Baron Wenlock
[4] – are all present* *we also see the “bad fairy” at Sleeping Beauty’s christening: the Earl of Warwick, his daughters and son-in-law, the duke of Clarence*
*cut to the courtyard of the hôtel du Roi de Sicile
[5]* *we see the Lancastrian party returning*
Edward of Westminster: *from horseback* *gives order that Warwick is to hold the prince’s horse and help him dismount*
*several murmurs from the Lancastrians at this*
Edward: *gently chiding them* silence
*immediately there is an awkward hush* *Edward looks at Warwick – rather smugly – expectantly* *Warwick looks conflicted before he finally takes the steps forward and holds the reins*
Edward: *calmly dismounts* *doffs his hat to the Countess of Warwick and her daughters* *then requests Warwick to “walk with them” as Edward and Marguerite go inside*
*interior* *looks like a dining room* *Edward is sitting with his feet up on the table* *slouching back in the chair* *peeling an apple* *listening to Warwick’s speech* *also in the room are Marguerite and her father- as a sort of “mediator”/”guarantor of good behaviour”* *he and Edward also have a chessboard between them* *René is playing as white, Edward as black*
Edward: *interrupts Warwick* done. *moves piece*
Marguerite: *looks at her son* Edward-
Edward: *to Warwick* I
will marry your daughter. You
may be Protector of England
until I am eighteen-
Marguerite: emphasis on the fact that you are
not eighteen yet. Which means tha-
René: *moves chessman*
Edward: *to Warwick* *more insistently this time* done. *dismisses the man*
Marguerite: *looks at him as though to say “what have you done?”*
Edward: when you are quite finished doing your Medusa impersonation, Mother… out with it.
Marguerite: you cannot marry his daughter. She’s-
Edward: my cousin. I’m well aware. Popes grant dispensations for that sort of thing, don’t they, Bompa?
René: *unsurely as he moves* they do
Edward: there we go.
Marguerite: so you will marry some chit of a girl…when King Louis and the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy are both willing for you to marry the duke of Burgundy’s daughter?
Edward: *puts a slice of apple peel in his mouth with the knife* yes…King Louis also proposed me to marry the Princess of the Asturias and the princess of Portugal *tone is like “and look how that turned out”*
Marguerite: don’t talk with your mouth full.
Edward: Milord Warwick thinks himself very clever. Too clever. And no doubt, he would have spent the day arguing with us about why we should not make him crawl around like the dog he is…when in truth…hang him with his own rope.
René: and how do you plan to do that when you don’t even have eighteen summers under your belt?
Marguerite: *realizes* it means Warwick has started a clock on his own power. He has to go back immediately or lose the opportunity
Edward: *smirks at her* *takes his grandfather's pawn out by moving his own pawn to d4*
René: and you think a man like that will simply
step aside when you turn eighteen, do you? *takes Edward's pawn on d4 out with another pawn*
Edward: I’m counting on that he
won’t. But that
assumes he lives to see that day, Bompa. *moves his queen to e4* Check, Bompa
René: he’ll sign a deal with the Devil to make sure he does. *moves his king to d2*
Edward: let him consign his soul to Hell in the name of his ambition then… I have no doubt that he will upset
somebody – my money is that either Cousin Edmund puts a knife between his ribs or de Vere cuts his throat in his sleep – before then.
Marguerite: let’s just hope it’s not
before we’re back in England.
Edward: they want to go back as much as we do. They won’t do anything until then.
Marguerite: and
when we get back to England?
René:
if you go back.
Edward: your signing a deal with the Devil metaphor counts for that too, Bompa. *moves his bishop to b4* Check again.
René: Édouard, I have been promised by knaves and charlatans for my whole life that I will be king of Naples once more. And yet here I sit-
Edward: when I am in England, I have every intention of helping you, Bompa *kisses his grandpa’s hand*
René: piecrust promise: easily made, easily broken. *moves his second knight to c3*
Edward: *withdraws his queen* *gets up and walks over to window* you noticed I didn’t let you say anything about the match he allowed for Cousin Edmund? Marrying that Talbot whore?
Marguerite: you mean you interrupted when the matter was broached.
Edward: Needs must, Mother. I currently have no heir. Or rather surfeit of heirs. The longer I remain without one, the longer the succession remains….open. Milord Wenlock and I have discussed it at length. First there is, naturally, Lady Wiltshire
[6] who thinks that her
darling son should be heir. Then there is Cousin Edmund that believes that
he is heir. Naturally that Yorkist bastard with his ass on the throne disagrees. Now Warwick is so unhinged he wants me to name Clarence the heir.
Marguerite: that doesn’t explain why you are willing to allow the marriage.
Edward: we all know that Talbot’s son is York’s boy, not Cousin Edmund’s. Letting the boy be acknowledged as Edmund’s suits…since should we *arranges face in sad expression* hear the news of York’s
tragic demise on the field of battle with no legitimate son, there can’t be anyone bringing forth the pre-contract asserting that Edmund’s son is actually York’s legitimate heir.
René: the boy has a point. *moves his rook to e1* Check, Édouard
Edward: secondly…Warwick’s condition I marry his daughter is a small price.
Marguerite: small?
Edward: when we get back to England and Warwick is no longer in the picture- either because he makes it until my birthday next year or he has an appointment with the headsman, a soldier or Cousin Edmund- I can simply decide I no longer need the marriage. Have it annulled. *moves his king to f8*
Marguerite: on what grounds?
Edward: I was too young. Warwick is
so eager to make it a reality, he neglects to take that tiny little detail into account.
René: *nods approvingly* *moves his queen to e2*
Edward: and Marie…or the Portuguese infanta…or really, anyone…is more likely to want to marry me then. *sends his knight to d4* *René moves pieces*
Marguerite: assuming they don’t marry in the meantime.
Edward: Marie’s father will wait to see what his wife’s pregnancy will bring. He won’t marry her off until he knows. That means we have until January before we know one way or another. I wouldn’t be surprised if Warwick gets us back in London by then.
Marguerite: *looks at her son as though to say “my sweet summer child”*
Edward: and finally, accepting Warwick’s tutelage for eighteen months is a far smaller sacrifice than having to wait first for York’s daughter to
grow up and then for York to
die, like he suggested. Checkmate, Bompa *picks up his hat and checks his appearance in a mirror* now if you’ll excuse me…I need to go court a certain Neville girl. *walks out whistling Scaramella
[7]*
*fade to black as we pan out to see that Edward's got his grandfather's king pinned on three sides*
[1] a slightly different take on Edward of Westminster. The common depiction of him is either the brutal teenager who set butterflies wings on fire and kicked puppies. Or Philippa Gregory's portrayal of him as a sort of "pasty-skinned mommy's boy" (who's also the equivalent 15th century equivalent of the musclebound braindead arm-candy). Essentially, he's never shown as anything
but in awe of his mother, a sort of "idiot, obedient lapdog" who is only interested in soldiering.
I figured our only contemporaneous sources on him are both by people
biased towards him/his family and it seems unlikely to me that he would've had absolutely no education outside of warcraft (which is what most depictions show him doing). So, he's a charming rogue (à la Charles II), charismatic/commanding (he can reduce his followers to silence, and if he inherited Henry V's height of 6'3", I'd say he's a pretty good chance for being "scary"), but still (slightly) psychopathic- he seems to be more than willing to let Warwick or Edward IV be killed- and arrogant (interrupting his mother). Not to mention shrewd- he's got three generations of shrewd women on his mother's side, and none of the Lancastrians (aside from his dad) can be said to have lacked political skills, two of them deposed a king (Henry IV deposed Richard II, Henry V disinherited Charles VII), after all, so him being an "idiot" or a "dolt" seems
extraordinarily unlikely (yes, I know Henry V's son was Henry VI and Louis XI's son was Charles VIII, so it
is a bit of "swing/miss)
Either way, I hope Lancastrians like
@RedKing like a different take on Edward of Westminster
[2] This is the only royal residence in Paris I can find that has record of Louis XI staying there regularly enough that he had the royal apartments updated for he and his wife. He seems to have shared Louis XIV’s loathing of the city though. bet. Perhaps
@material_boy knows more
[3] ISTR reading somewhere that Edward of Westminster
was chosen as Charles’ godfather OTL as well. Not sure who his godmother was, but Marguerite makes a reasonable
[4] Not sure which of these men were actually in France. IIRC Wenlock was a bit of the WotR's very own Talleyrand
[5] Anjou’s Parisian hotel. The ruins were later demolished and the Hôtel de La Force (later the Prison de La Force from the 18th century) built on the spot.
[6] Margaret Beaufort. While the woman was a devout Lancastrian, I've never been able to find what Marguerite d'Anjou makes of her half-sister-in-law. And even if Marguerite
did like Maggie, that's no guarantee that Edward and Henry Tudor would've got on/liked on another. The way Edward speaks, it sounds more as though its her presumption (of heirship) that grates than any sort of dislike
[7] Scaramella va alla Guerra- the scarecrow goes off to war- was something of a "hit" back in the day