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In this story, Hal grows old. He decides Agincourt is enough and la plus belle Catherine du monde is enough. He meets his son—and what a difference it makes to have a father instead of a childhood kingship! True, Hal still puts pressure on the boy to learn the arts of War and Manhood (old habits die hard, and really one never knows when it will come in useful,) but when he finds the lad’s writings: essays that read like poems, like prayers, Hal has a proper cry in the back garden. He never had skill with words (as Cate would laughingly, lovingly attest), but that lack was worth it, his hard-fought, rough-worn days were for something, because if he could not win with words he’d won the right to raise one who could.
France is tricky—France always is—but brother John does his best over there, and one day writes that he may have found a wife for young Henry.
Cate adores Marguerite the way Hal adores the surliest cat in the stables. Those first few dinners become (quite by accident) a father-son bonding experience, as the Plantagenet boys exchange bemused looks while their fierce French ladies chatter at incredible speed of places far away. Hal also likes Marguerite—she reminds him of himself—but most importantly, Henry likes Marguerite—no, is entranced by her—and Marguerite eventually grows from enjoying his worship into a true, deep fondness for the funny young Englishman so unlike a crown prince. They marry, and it is enough.
This is not a perfect story. Hal has one great discontent, despite having the smartest, kindest wife in Christendom, three kingdoms, three children, and thrice as many grandchildren tumbling about the palace after their parents. It is the same discontent that brought him to his knees before Agincourt, and it was his father’s discontent before him. God has been gracious so far, has not visited the price of Bolingbroke’s usurpation on his son’s head. It is because of this grace, not despite it, that Hal stays up all night with Cate before calling his Parliament and announcing that henceforth, Richard Duke of York and his children are his heirs.
Of course, he told Henry first. Gentle Henry, once Hal assures and reassures him it is not because he was a failure of an heir, is so happy he cries. For Henry, a well-kept garden and God’s word are enough. For Marguerite, moving home with her husband and ruling Anjou and Lorraine in his name is enough. With the two who might chiefly resent disinheritance alive but very much content elsewhere, there is no leverage for those middling Lancastrian nobles who want to cause a fuss.
Besides, Hal lives another twenty years, with an almost superhuman vigor. In fact, he lives so long he outlives his heir (and all his hair.) When he is laid to rest beside Cate, both palaces and taverns feast in his honor, and it is the energetic teenaged Edward of York, Edward Hal liked to spar with even at almost seventy, Edward IV by God’s grace of England, Ireland, and France who at last rights the wrong done to good Richard II.
Edward also grows old in this story. He does not lose his youth and family to a wretched war, so he does not squander his middle age chasing that youth in the bottoms of wine cups. He marries for love, makes merry, and tolerates his in-laws, and it is enough.
Edward’s youngest brother Richard also grows old in this story—because that is the height of fame to which he aspires, to be King Edward’s brother. Yes, he becomes the wisest lord of the north in many a long year, but he is not the stuff of great histories and lasting infamy. God grants him time, time to be quiet, loyal, and just, time to befriend the Scots and scandalize some London lords by it, and most significantly (he jokes), time to raise exceptionally large dogs that may descend from bears. It is enough.
Richard’s wife Anne grows old in this story. She knows firsthand that not everyone has that chance, so when she loses friends and family she raises their children in a love she was not raised in. Anne always wanted to be a mother, and despite only having one son of her own blood, her nursery is full to bursting, and it is enough.
Some evenings, when her childhood home clamors with all eight of her children welcoming Richard in from a hunt, when he kisses her hello as if he’s been gone weeks instead of the day, she thinks of all she has. And she thinks of Edward in London and his pretty, haughty wife who no one really minds, and Henry and Marguerite’s son across the channel who was raised watching no beheadings and is but a fierce French lord and a fine ally. And she thinks of the old king Hal she met once as a little girl, who made all the hall drink a toast to her and noticed with a teasing smile that she and Richard could not be parted, even so young. She thinks of the long peace there has been, and may well be. And it is more than enough.