Author Anon is not the same anon who has previously promised to fill this, and would love to see other fills for this request. But I do believe the original requester may not have been so wrong to request England/France. While the Roses was a civil war, France involved itself quite a lot as instability in England was good for the French. Also, Richard III is Author Anon’s dead historical husband, so she was obliged to fill this prompt—please excuse any obvious Yorkist sympathies (and the absurdly long note at the end).
August 22nd, 1485.
Sweeping a stray strand of hair out of his eyes, France wandered over the green grass with a smirk, moving towards Wales, who was grinning wildly.
“You look very happy, cherie.” He observed.
She laughed, “One of my people, on his throne? It’s a dream come true.”
“Ah, but monsieur Tudor has spent most of his life in Brittany, has he not?”
Wales immediately scowled at him and huffed. “England’s a wreck, and that’s what matters to me. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Well, mostly I wanted Richard off the throne. I only met the man once, you know, when his brother the old king made a big show of declaring war on me, then left as soon as I paid him enough?” He prompted Wales to remember the occasion.
“Yes. It made Edward a laughing stock. Of course, it also made him very rich. What of it?”
“His late majesty, monsieur Richard, was the only one to refuse my bribes. I had the distinct impression he would rather have cut his own arm off, sharpened it down to the bone, and then stabbed me with it before he took my money. To be honest the man scared the living daylights out of me—hence my helping to get rid of him.”
Wales shrugged. “I think I met him—once, but that may have been someone else. It gets hard to tell, what with the nobility always having one of about three possible names. Still, I didn’t expect him to die. England’s rather upset about it—last I heard he was moping about by the hawthorn bush, if you wanted to go laugh at him or something.”
“Really?” France stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Poor Arthur. I think I just might pay him a visit.”
“Don’t call him that!” Wales spat, “Arthur was my hero, I only named the bastard after him as a cruel joke, and he turned it on its head.”
“Well, well, c’est la vie. You and I should know how time turns things on their heads sooner or later. Au revoir.”
France left the woman behind and began striding across the battlefield, over various dead or dying bodies and past soldiers herding prisoners, until he came to the hawthorn bush he had heard various unlikely rumours about. Lying on his side in front of it, shaking and spattered with blood, wearing a mismatched mess of colours from either side was England. He was picking petals off a white rose stained crimson with the same hand in which he was holding a bejewelled dagger. Fearing somewhat for his safety, France kept his distance.
“England?” He called out to the other nation cheerfully.
England responded with a groan that turned into a shriek before violently stabbing himself in the hand that was holding the rose. France winced—the last thirty odd years had been difficult for England, to say the least. Cautiously—the dagger safely embedded in the other man’s hand, France approached England at sat down next to him.
“There, there, mon ami.” He said, trying to be soothing. After all, another nation’s civil war leaving them in such a state was nothing for one to gloat about. “I know it didn’t turn out the way the greater part of you hoped… but at least it’s over now.”
“Over?” England hissed, glaring up at him, “Do you know how many of the house of York are still around? Edward had five daughters, you know. Clarence’s son would have been king before even Richard if he hadn’t been attained. Elizabeth of Suffolk has four other sons besides, and I doubt Margaret will let her brother’s death go overlooked. Not to mention the Staffords, who even only remotely related to Edward III still have a better claim to the throne than Tudor!” He laughed, “And to top it all off, I still don’t know if the princes are really dead.”
France had been tuning England out until the last one. “You don’t?” He asked, amazed.
England moaned again and with a sickening noise he drove the dagger further into his hand. “He wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t bloody tell anyone, that bloody bastard—why!? Why would he do it? Richard, you bloody, bloody…” He trailed off. “I didn’t mind so much that he’d deposed them—no one wants their boss to be a child!” France nodded in agreement. Child kings were always a mess; it was what had started the last three decades of self-mutilation in the first place. “Even if he did kill them, I might have forgiven him because I knew he could rule me properly. But he just wouldn’t tell me! He was so needlessly mysterious about the whole affair! Why didn’t he say anything about it? If he’d killed them he could have come up with a cover story for it, no one cared when Edward killed Henry VI and wrote it off as ‘grief over his son’s death’” England laughed again in a desperate sort of fashion. “The same son he’d barely ever met and probably wasn’t his anyway!”
France nodded, not particularly caring about England’s problems per se, but still sympathetic, and enjoying the fact that England was so distraught he hadn’t noticed that his head was now resting in France’s lap. Tears were rolling down the green-eyed nation’s face as he continued. “And I don’t know this Tudor fellow. He’s spent his life in exile in Brittany—how is he supposed to know how to run things? His family are supposed to be barred from ascending the throne since the time of Richard of Bordeaux! And I know what he’s going to do as well. He’ll distort the truth—distort everything, I know it! In time my people will believe whatever he told them, having no other history to fall back on, and it won’t mean so much to them, but it’s my MIND!”
“I don’t want him to control my mind.” He paused. “This is your fault, you know.”
Ah, back on familiar ground. “Well, Angleterre, I won’t deny I did what I could to get rid of your Richard. The man was terrifying! Did you see him at that final charge… of course you did, excuse moi.” When he’d met the king—then Duke of Gloucester—ten years previously, France had felt that his wariness about the man must have been irrational; the poor fellow was, to put it diplomatically, vertically challenged. However that wariness had just been proved founded after all, when the king had earlier that morning, knocked a veritable giant at least twice his size off his horse and then kept on charging with an air of homicidal rage.
“You’ve been doing a lot more than that over the past few years. Breaking off the engagement between my Elizabeth and the Dauphin. Warwick. Margaret of Lancaster.”
“Marguerite was French after all. It was only proper that Louis should help her.”
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” The other man sobbed, prompting France to run his fingers soothingly through the blond hair. “I’m so tired, Francis. I could have helped Richard win if I wasn’t just so fed up with it all.” He lifted his wounded hand, “I’m so tired.” He repeated himself.
“My dear England, you’ve done quite enough damage without me. Remember, I had nothing to do with Towton.” He reminded the other nation, the instantly regretted it as the figure in his lap jerked violently and provoked him to pull his hand back.
“Don’t… mention that.” England snarled through gritted teeth, “Don’t EVER mention…that.”
“Of course. Forgive me.” France had seen Towton and didn’t care to remember it. Even England’s worst enemy would have blanched at that battle (and seeing as how he probably was England’s worst enemy, France would know). He’d only gone out of curiosity, wanting to see whether he’d be dealing with one new English king or another, and had met the terrible sight of England, his eyes practically red with a blood frenzy, stabbing himself wherever he could reach shrieking ‘No quarter! No quarter!’ as thick scarlet blood splashed all over the place. When the battle was over, England had had just enough strength left to hold up a white rose, before passing out. France had left him there, drenched in his own blood, and promptly tried to forget the incident had ever happened.
The two nations sat in silence a while longer—well, without talking anyway. England was still crying at yet another deposition, he’d been averaging out at one every five years since the wars started. Then a Welsh soldier from Tudor’s army walked over to them with a look of some hesitance.
“You with Stanley?” He asked.
France sighed, “No, but I can take a message for him.”
“Right. Message from Jasper Tudor. They’ve captured the cat, the rat’s dead, but the dog’s escaped somewhere, probably gone to Leicester for sanctuary, or he’ll have headed north to… Yorkist… terri…” He trailed off.
England had suddenly started laughing in a way France had never heard grim and reserved England laugh before. It was indeed a frightening sound and France sighed and leaned forward to kiss England on the cheek. “Poor Arthur…” he clucked his tongue.
It spoke of just how damaged England was when he didn’t immediately punch France in the face, and in fact seemed to enjoy the attention. Between laughs France could hear him muttering, “The cat, the rat, and Lovell the dog…” before trailing off into laughter once more.
“Has he gone mad?” Asked the soldier, crossing himself for safety.
France smiled. “Oui.” He answered, “But hopefully he’ll start to come out of it now.”
AN O’ DOOM: This ficlet is set in the aftermath of the battle of Bosworth, the third most important battle to take place in England ever. Although Richard III had the high ground and the bigger army, he was betrayed at the last minute by Stanley, Tudor’s stepfather with whom he’d never exactly gotten along with. (This is a simplification, and contested)
As well as Stanley’s men, Tudor’s army was comprised mostly of Welshmen and also French mercenaries numbering in the thousands. The English themselves, particularly in the north, seemed to be mostly on Richard’s side, (though this is contested) despite the very likely fact that he had murdered his nephews to prevent rebellion in their name (this is one of the most contested events ever. Suffice it to say—Shakespeare got it a bit wrong.)
‘The cat, the rat, and Lovell the dog’ is one half of a popular rhyming couplet referring to Richard’s reign ending in ‘rule all England under a hog’. The ‘hog’ is Richard, whose symbol was the white boar, the ‘cat’ William CATesby, the ‘rat’ Richard RATcliffe, and the ‘dog’ Francis Lovell (whose symbol was a silver dog)—these three, Lovell in particular, were some of Richard’s right-hand-men as it were. (BTW, I ship Richard/Lovell!!1!1! And also Edward IV/Richard III. Hooray for incest!)
The wars of the roses themselves are very confusing. Very, very confusing, and I shall attempt to break them down to their simplest form here. Henry VI was a weak king. Edward IV defeated him and took over. Then Henry (with help from France) got his throne back. Then Edward defeated him again, and killed him. Then he died himself and his son (only 12 at the time) was supposed to take over but got deposed by Edward’s younger brother Richard. Then Richard died in battle with Henry Tudor, who along with his son wiped out the rest of the house of York. There were many other people around worthy of mention, and almost all of them were called either Richard, Henry, or Edward (hence the confusion… although there was one George.)
Towton was the battle in which Edward first took the throne in 1461 and it is reckoned to be the bloodiest and most devastating battle ever fought on English soil with an estimated over 1% of the entire population of England killed off in the battle.
The legendary King Arthur was indeed a Welshman (Briton) who was famed for fighting off the English (Saxons). We English shamelessly stole him later. Sorry, Wales.
There were many other people around worthy of mention, and almost all of them were called either Richard, Henry, or Edward
That was one of the first hurdles I had to clear when I started my fic! XD (Is the "oh balls too many notes" anon from above.) Even when I struck everyone I thought I could conceivably leave out, I was still left with three Richards--wait, four Richards, sort of, two Henrys, and two Edwards.
I really enjoyed this, especially since I've just brushed up on all this history! I very much like how you've depicted France. He's unexpectedly sympathetic. And I've gone in a totally different direction with the story than this, so I don't even have a compulsion to bin what I've written so far and have a drink. *grins* Thank you for writing it!
Thank you for writing this, anon! The War of Roses makes me tingle inside with need-for-knowledge, and I'm actually quite mad at the fact that this got so few reviews. You wrote this beautifully, and even one as ignorant as myself can see that you put a lot of research into it! Also, the dynamics between Francis and Arthur are - well, it would be wrong to say adorable, the circumstances being as they are, but it is! - adorable. And the way you portrayed Arthur during his inners turmoils is GENIUS, anon, genius.
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(Anonymous) 2009-01-12 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)France/England...ish. Also with Wales.
(Anonymous) 2009-02-05 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)August 22nd, 1485.
Sweeping a stray strand of hair out of his eyes, France wandered over the green grass with a smirk, moving towards Wales, who was grinning wildly.
“You look very happy, cherie.” He observed.
She laughed, “One of my people, on his throne? It’s a dream come true.”
“Ah, but monsieur Tudor has spent most of his life in Brittany, has he not?”
Wales immediately scowled at him and huffed. “England’s a wreck, and that’s what matters to me. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Well, mostly I wanted Richard off the throne. I only met the man once, you know, when his brother the old king made a big show of declaring war on me, then left as soon as I paid him enough?” He prompted Wales to remember the occasion.
“Yes. It made Edward a laughing stock. Of course, it also made him very rich. What of it?”
“His late majesty, monsieur Richard, was the only one to refuse my bribes. I had the distinct impression he would rather have cut his own arm off, sharpened it down to the bone, and then stabbed me with it before he took my money. To be honest the man scared the living daylights out of me—hence my helping to get rid of him.”
Wales shrugged. “I think I met him—once, but that may have been someone else. It gets hard to tell, what with the nobility always having one of about three possible names. Still, I didn’t expect him to die. England’s rather upset about it—last I heard he was moping about by the hawthorn bush, if you wanted to go laugh at him or something.”
“Really?” France stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Poor Arthur. I think I just might pay him a visit.”
“Don’t call him that!” Wales spat, “Arthur was my hero, I only named the bastard after him as a cruel joke, and he turned it on its head.”
“Well, well, c’est la vie. You and I should know how time turns things on their heads sooner or later. Au revoir.”
Part Two
(Anonymous) 2009-02-05 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)“England?” He called out to the other nation cheerfully.
England responded with a groan that turned into a shriek before violently stabbing himself in the hand that was holding the rose. France winced—the last thirty odd years had been difficult for England, to say the least. Cautiously—the dagger safely embedded in the other man’s hand, France approached England at sat down next to him.
“There, there, mon ami.” He said, trying to be soothing. After all, another nation’s civil war leaving them in such a state was nothing for one to gloat about. “I know it didn’t turn out the way the greater part of you hoped… but at least it’s over now.”
“Over?” England hissed, glaring up at him, “Do you know how many of the house of York are still around? Edward had five daughters, you know. Clarence’s son would have been king before even Richard if he hadn’t been attained. Elizabeth of Suffolk has four other sons besides, and I doubt Margaret will let her brother’s death go overlooked. Not to mention the Staffords, who even only remotely related to Edward III still have a better claim to the throne than Tudor!” He laughed, “And to top it all off, I still don’t know if the princes are really dead.”
France had been tuning England out until the last one. “You don’t?” He asked, amazed.
England moaned again and with a sickening noise he drove the dagger further into his hand. “He wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t bloody tell anyone, that bloody bastard—why!? Why would he do it? Richard, you bloody, bloody…” He trailed off. “I didn’t mind so much that he’d deposed them—no one wants their boss to be a child!” France nodded in agreement. Child kings were always a mess; it was what had started the last three decades of self-mutilation in the first place. “Even if he did kill them, I might have forgiven him because I knew he could rule me properly. But he just wouldn’t tell me! He was so needlessly mysterious about the whole affair! Why didn’t he say anything about it? If he’d killed them he could have come up with a cover story for it, no one cared when Edward killed Henry VI and wrote it off as ‘grief over his son’s death’” England laughed again in a desperate sort of fashion. “The same son he’d barely ever met and probably wasn’t his anyway!”
France nodded, not particularly caring about England’s problems per se, but still sympathetic, and enjoying the fact that England was so distraught he hadn’t noticed that his head was now resting in France’s lap. Tears were rolling down the green-eyed nation’s face as he continued. “And I don’t know this Tudor fellow. He’s spent his life in exile in Brittany—how is he supposed to know how to run things? His family are supposed to be barred from ascending the throne since the time of Richard of Bordeaux! And I know what he’s going to do as well. He’ll distort the truth—distort everything, I know it! In time my people will believe whatever he told them, having no other history to fall back on, and it won’t mean so much to them, but it’s my MIND!”
Part Three
(Anonymous) 2009-02-05 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)“I don’t want him to control my mind.” He paused. “This is your fault, you know.”
Ah, back on familiar ground. “Well, Angleterre, I won’t deny I did what I could to get rid of your Richard. The man was terrifying! Did you see him at that final charge… of course you did, excuse moi.” When he’d met the king—then Duke of Gloucester—ten years previously, France had felt that his wariness about the man must have been irrational; the poor fellow was, to put it diplomatically, vertically challenged. However that wariness had just been proved founded after all, when the king had earlier that morning, knocked a veritable giant at least twice his size off his horse and then kept on charging with an air of homicidal rage.
“You’ve been doing a lot more than that over the past few years. Breaking off the engagement between my Elizabeth and the Dauphin. Warwick. Margaret of Lancaster.”
“Marguerite was French after all. It was only proper that Louis should help her.”
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” The other man sobbed, prompting France to run his fingers soothingly through the blond hair. “I’m so tired, Francis. I could have helped Richard win if I wasn’t just so fed up with it all.” He lifted his wounded hand, “I’m so tired.” He repeated himself.
“My dear England, you’ve done quite enough damage without me. Remember, I had nothing to do with Towton.” He reminded the other nation, the instantly regretted it as the figure in his lap jerked violently and provoked him to pull his hand back.
“Don’t… mention that.” England snarled through gritted teeth, “Don’t EVER mention…that.”
“Of course. Forgive me.” France had seen Towton and didn’t care to remember it. Even England’s worst enemy would have blanched at that battle (and seeing as how he probably was England’s worst enemy, France would know). He’d only gone out of curiosity, wanting to see whether he’d be dealing with one new English king or another, and had met the terrible sight of England, his eyes practically red with a blood frenzy, stabbing himself wherever he could reach shrieking ‘No quarter! No quarter!’ as thick scarlet blood splashed all over the place. When the battle was over, England had had just enough strength left to hold up a white rose, before passing out. France had left him there, drenched in his own blood, and promptly tried to forget the incident had ever happened.
The two nations sat in silence a while longer—well, without talking anyway. England was still crying at yet another deposition, he’d been averaging out at one every five years since the wars started. Then a Welsh soldier from Tudor’s army walked over to them with a look of some hesitance.
“You with Stanley?” He asked.
France sighed, “No, but I can take a message for him.”
“Right. Message from Jasper Tudor. They’ve captured the cat, the rat’s dead, but the dog’s escaped somewhere, probably gone to Leicester for sanctuary, or he’ll have headed north to… Yorkist… terri…” He trailed off.
England had suddenly started laughing in a way France had never heard grim and reserved England laugh before. It was indeed a frightening sound and France sighed and leaned forward to kiss England on the cheek. “Poor Arthur…” he clucked his tongue.
It spoke of just how damaged England was when he didn’t immediately punch France in the face, and in fact seemed to enjoy the attention. Between laughs France could hear him muttering, “The cat, the rat, and Lovell the dog…” before trailing off into laughter once more.
“Has he gone mad?” Asked the soldier, crossing himself for safety.
France smiled. “Oui.” He answered, “But hopefully he’ll start to come out of it now.”
Author's Note (OF DOOM)
(Anonymous) 2009-02-05 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)As well as Stanley’s men, Tudor’s army was comprised mostly of Welshmen and also French mercenaries numbering in the thousands. The English themselves, particularly in the north, seemed to be mostly on Richard’s side, (though this is contested) despite the very likely fact that he had murdered his nephews to prevent rebellion in their name (this is one of the most contested events ever. Suffice it to say—Shakespeare got it a bit wrong.)
‘The cat, the rat, and Lovell the dog’ is one half of a popular rhyming couplet referring to Richard’s reign ending in ‘rule all England under a hog’. The ‘hog’ is Richard, whose symbol was the white boar, the ‘cat’ William CATesby, the ‘rat’ Richard RATcliffe, and the ‘dog’ Francis Lovell (whose symbol was a silver dog)—these three, Lovell in particular, were some of Richard’s right-hand-men as it were. (BTW, I ship Richard/Lovell!!1!1! And also Edward IV/Richard III. Hooray for incest!)
The wars of the roses themselves are very confusing. Very, very confusing, and I shall attempt to break them down to their simplest form here. Henry VI was a weak king. Edward IV defeated him and took over. Then Henry (with help from France) got his throne back. Then Edward defeated him again, and killed him. Then he died himself and his son (only 12 at the time) was supposed to take over but got deposed by Edward’s younger brother Richard. Then Richard died in battle with Henry Tudor, who along with his son wiped out the rest of the house of York. There were many other people around worthy of mention, and almost all of them were called either Richard, Henry, or Edward (hence the confusion… although there was one George.)
Towton was the battle in which Edward first took the throne in 1461 and it is reckoned to be the bloodiest and most devastating battle ever fought on English soil with an estimated over 1% of the entire population of England killed off in the battle.
The legendary King Arthur was indeed a Welshman (Briton) who was famed for fighting off the English (Saxons). We English shamelessly stole him later. Sorry, Wales.
Re: Author's Note (OF DOOM)
(Anonymous) 2009-02-06 12:13 am (UTC)(link)That was one of the first hurdles I had to clear when I started my fic! XD (Is the "oh balls too many notes" anon from above.) Even when I struck everyone I thought I could conceivably leave out, I was still left with three Richards--wait, four Richards, sort of, two Henrys, and two Edwards.
I really enjoyed this, especially since I've just brushed up on all this history! I very much like how you've depicted France. He's unexpectedly sympathetic. And I've gone in a totally different direction with the story than this, so I don't even have a compulsion to bin what I've written so far and have a drink. *grins* Thank you for writing it!
Re: Author's Note (OF DOOM)
(Anonymous) 2010-03-11 11:03 pm (UTC)(link)You wrote this beautifully, and even one as ignorant as myself can see that you put a lot of research into it!
Also, the dynamics between Francis and Arthur are - well, it would be wrong to say adorable, the circumstances being as they are, but it is! - adorable. And the way you portrayed Arthur during his inners turmoils is GENIUS, anon, genius.
ps: reCAPTCHA:
pekings destructionorly? LOL