The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  I had not forgotten Daniel Carpenter and his letter to me for all that I had thrown it in the fire after one reading. I might as well have folded it and kept it inside my jerkin, close to my heart, for I remembered every word that he had written, as if I reread it like a lovesick girl every night.

  I found that I was thinking of him more frequently since the arrival of the Spanish court. No one could have thought badly of marriage who could see the queen; from the morning that she rose from her married bed, she glowed with a warmth that no one had ever seen in her before. There was a confident serenity about her, she looked like a woman who has found a safe haven at last. She was a woman in love, she was a beloved wife, she had a councillor she could trust, a powerful man devoted to her well being. At last, after a childhood and womanhood filled with anxiety and fear, she could rest in the arms of a man who loved her. I watched her and thought that if a woman as fiercely virginal and as intensely spiritual as the queen could find love, then so perhaps could I. It might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her. It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out of herself. A woman might blossom into being a wife, not be trimmed down to fit. And this made me think that Daniel might be the man that I could turn to, that I could trust, Daniel, who loved me, who told me he could not sleep for thinking of me, and whose letter I had read once and then thrust into the fire, but never forgot — indeed, I could recite it word for word.

  He also came to my mind for his fears and his cautions, even though I had scoffed at them at the time. Though the Spanish court drew me in like a lodestone swings north, I knew that it was my danger and my death. To be sure, Philip in England was not as he had been in Spain. Philip in England was conciliatory, anxious to bring peace, determined not to give offense to his new kingdom and not to stir up trouble about religion. But Philip nonetheless had been brought up in a land dominated equally by the rule of his father and the demands of the Inquisition. They were Philip’s father’s laws that had burned my mother at the stake and would have burned me and my father too, if they had caught us. Daniel had been right to be cautious, I even thought he had been right to take his family and my father out of the country. I could hide behind the identity of the queen’s fool, a holy child, a companion from her days in the shadows, but anyone who did not have such a provenance could expect to be examined at some time in the future. These were early days, but there were signs that the queen’s fabled mercy — so generous to those who challenged her throne — might not extend to those who insulted her faith.

  I took great care to go to Mass with the queen and her ladies every day, three times a day, and I was meticulous in those little details of observation that had betrayed so many of my kin in Spain, the turning to the altar at the right moment, the bowing of the head at the raising of the Host, the careful reciting of the prayers. It was not hard for me to do. My belief in the God of my people, the God of the desert and the burning bush, the God of exiles and the oppressed, never very fervent or very strong, was deeply hidden in my heart. I did not think He was forsworn by me performing a little nodding and amening. In truth, I thought that whatever His great purpose in making my people the most miserable outcasts of Christendom, He would forgive the bobbing of such a very unimportant head.

  But the attention of the court to such matters made me grateful to Daniel for his caution. In the end, I thought I should write to him, and to my father, and send the letter by some of the many soldiers who were going to Calais to refortify the town against the French, now doubly our enemy since we had a Spanish king. The letter would take some composing: if it fell into the hands of the many spies, English, French, Spanish, Venetian, or even Swedish, it would have to pass as an innocent letter from a lass to her lover. I would have to trust him to read between the lines.

  Dear Daniel,I did not reply to you earlier because I did not know what to say, besides I have been with the princess at Woodstock and could not have got a letter to you. I am now with the queen at Winchester and we will soon go to London when I can send you this letter.I am very glad that your business took you to Calais, and I propose to join you and my father when matters change here for me, just as we agreed. I think you judged very rightly when you should leave and I am very ready to join you in good time.I read your letter very carefully, Daniel, and I think of you often. To answer you with honesty, I am not eager for marriage as yet, but when you speak to me as you did in your letter, and when you kissed me on parting I felt, not a moment of fear or repulsion, but a delight that I cannot name, not from an affected modesty, but because I do not know the name. You did not frighten me, Daniel, I liked your kiss. I would have you as my husband, Daniel, when I am released from court, when the time is right and we are both equally ready. I cannot help be a little apprehensive at the thought of becoming a bride, but having seen the queen’s happiness in her marriage it makes me look forward to mine. I accept your proposal that we should be betrothed but I need to see my way clear to marriage.I do not want to turn you into a cat’s-paw in your own home, you are wrong to fear that and to reproach me with a desire I do not have. I do not want to rule over you, but I do not want you to rule over me. I need to be a woman in my own right, and not only a wife. I know that would not be the view of your mother, and maybe not even the view of my father, but, as you said, I am used to having my own way: this is the woman I have become. I have traveled far and lived according to my own means, and I seem to have adopted a lad’s pride along with breeches. I don’t want to lay aside the pride when I surrender the livery. I hope that your love for me can accommodate the woman that I will grow to be. I would not mislead you in this, Daniel, I cannot be a servant to a husband, I would have to be his friend and comrade. I write to ask you if you could have a wife like this?I hope this does not distress you, it is so difficult to write these things, but often when we spoke of them we quarreled — so perhaps letters are a way that we may forge an agreement? And I should want to agree with you, if we are to be betrothed it would have to be on terms that we both could trust.I enclose a letter for my father, he will tell you the rest of my news. I assure you that I am safe and happy at court and if that ever changes I will come to you as I promised. I do not forget that I went from you only to bear the princess company in the Tower. She is now released from the Tower but she is still a prisoner and to tell you the truth, I still feel that I should honor my service to the queen and to the princess and to bear either of them company as I am commanded. Should things change here, should the queen no longer need me, I will come to you. But these are my obligations. I know if I were an ordinary betrothed girl I would have no obligations but to you — but Daniel, I am not a girl like that. I want to complete my service to the queen and then, and only then, come to you. I hope you can understand this.But I should like to be betrothed to you, if we can agree…Hannah

  I reread the letter and found that even I, the writer, was smiling at its odd mixture of coming forward and then retreating. I could wish to write more clearly, but that would only be possible if I could see more clearly. I folded it up and put it away ready to send to Daniel when the court moved to London in August.

  The queen had planned a triumphant entry for her new husband; and the city, always a friend to Mary, and now released from the sight and stench of the gibbets, which had been replaced with triumphal arches, went mad to see her. A Spaniard at her side could never be a popular choice, but to see the queen in her golden gown with her happy smile and to know that at least the deed was done and the country might now settle down to some stability and peace was to please most of the great men of the city. Besides, there were advantages to a match that would open up the Spanish Netherlands to English traders which were very apparent to the rich men who wanted to increase their fortunes.

  The queen and her new husband settled into the Palace of Whitehall and started to establish the routines of a joint court.

  I was in her chambe
r early one morning, waiting for her to come to Mass when she emerged in her night gown and knelt in silence before the prie-dieu. Something in her silence told me that she was deeply moved and I knelt behind her, bowed my head, and waited. Jane Dormer came from the queen’s bedroom where she slept when the king was not with his wife and knelt down too, her head bowed. Clearly something very important had happened. After a good half hour of silent prayer, the queen still rapt on her knees, I shuffled cautiously toward Jane and leaned against her shoulder to whisper in a voice so low that it could not disturb the queen. “What’s happening?”

  “She’s missed her course,” Jane said, her voice a tiny thread of sound.

  “Her course?”

  “Her bleeding. She could be with child.”

  I felt a lurch in my own belly, like a cold hand laid on the very pit of my stomach. “Could it be so soon?”

  “It only takes once,” Jane said crudely. “And God bless them, it has been more than once.”

  “And she is with child?” I had foretold it, but I could hardly believe it. And I did not feel the joy I would have expected at the prospect of Mary’s dreams coming true. “Really with child?”

  She heard the doubt in my voice and turned a hard gaze on me. “What is it you doubt, fool? My word? Hers? Or d’you think you know something we don’t?”

  Jane Dormer only ever called me fool when she was angry with me.

  “I doubt no one,” I said quickly. “Please God it is so. And no one could want it more than I.”

  Jane shook her head. “No one could want it more than her,” she said, nodding toward the kneeling queen, “for she has prayed for this moment for nearly a year. Truth be told, she has prayed to carry a son for England since she was old enough to pray.”

  Autumn 1554

  The queen said nothing to the king nor to the court, but Jane watched her with the devotion of a mother and next month, in September, when the queen did not bleed, she gave me a small triumphant nod and I grinned back. The queen told the king in secret, but anyone seeing his redoubled tenderness toward her must have guessed that she was carrying his child, and that it was a great hidden joy to them both.

  Their happiness illuminated the palace and for the first time I lived at a royal court that was alive with joy and delight in itself. The king’s train remained as proud and as glamorous as when they had first entered England, the phrase “as proud as a Don” became an every day saying. No one could see the richness of their velvets and the weight of their gold chains and not admire them. When they rode out to hunt they had the very best horses, when they gambled they threw down a small fortune, when they laughed together they made the walls shake and when they danced they showed us the beautiful formal dances of Spain.

  The ladies of England flooded to the queen’s service and were all lovesick for the Spanish. They all read Spanish poetry, sang Spanish songs, and learned the new Spanish card games. The court was alive with flirtation and music and dancing and parties and in the heart of it all was the queen, serene and smiling, with her young husband always lovingly at her side. We were the most intellectual, the most elegant, the richest court in the whole of Christendom, and we knew it. With Queen Mary glowing at the head of this radiant court we danced at a very pinnacle of self-satisfied pleasure.

  In October the queen was informed that Elizabeth was sick again. She asked me to read Sir Henry Bedingfield’s report to her as she rested on a daybed. Woodstock, and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s many ploys for attention seemed far away as the queen gazed dreamily out of the window at the garden where the trees were turning yellow and golden and bronze. “She can see my doctors if she insists,” she said absently. “Would you go with them, Hannah? And see if she is as bad as she claims? I don’t want to be unkind to her. If she would just admit her part in the plot I would release her, I don’t want to be troubled with this, not now.”

  It was as if her own happiness was too great not to be shared.

  “But if she was to admit a fault, surely the council or the king would want her to face trial?” I suggested.

  Queen Mary shook her head. “She could admit it privately to me, and I would forgive her,” she said. “Her fellow plotters are dead or gone away, there is no plot left for her any more. And I am carrying an heir to the throne, an heir for England and for the whole Spanish empire, this will be the greatest prince the world has ever known. Elizabeth can admit her fault and I will forgive her. And then she should be married; the king has suggested his cousin, the Duke of Savoy. Tell Elizabeth that this time of waiting and suspicion can be at an end, tell her I am with child. Tell her I shall have my baby in early May. Any hopes she had of the throne will be over by next summer. Make sure she understands, Hannah. There has been bad blood between us but it can be over as soon as she consents.”

  I nodded.

  “Sir Henry writes that she attends Mass as good daughter of the church,” she said. “Tell her I am glad of that.” She paused. “But he tells me that when the time comes in the service to pray for me she never says “amen.” She paused. “What d’you make of such a thing? She never prays for me, Hannah.”

  I was silent. If the queen had been speaking in anger I might have tried to defend Elizabeth, and her pride and her independence of spirit. But the queen was not angry. She looked nothing more than wounded.

  “You know, I would pray for her, if our places were reversed,” she said. “I remember her in my prayers because she is my sister. You could tell her that I pray for her every day, and I have done ever since I cared for her at Hatfield, because she is my sister and because I try to forgive her for plotting against me, and because I try to prepare myself for her release, and to teach myself to deal with her with charity, to judge her mercifully as I hope to be judged. I pray for her well-being every day of her life; and then I hear she will not say so much as ‘amen’ to a prayer for me!”

  “Your Grace, she is a young woman and very alone,” I said quietly. “She has no one to advise her.” To tell the truth I was ashamed of Elizabeth’s stubbornness, and meanness of spirit.

  “See if you can teach her some of your wisdom, my fool,” the queen suggested with a smile.

  I knelt to her and bowed my head. “I shall miss being with you,” I said honestly. “Especially now that you are so happy.”

  She put her hand on my head. “I shall miss you too, my little fool,” she said. “But you shall come back in time for the Christmas feast, and after that you shall bear me company when I am confined.”

  “Your Grace, I shall be so pleased to bear you company.”

  “A spring baby,” she said dreamily. “A little spring lamb of God. Won’t that be wonderful, Hannah? An heir for England and for Spain.”

  It was like traveling to another country to leave Whitehall for Woodstock. I left a happy court, filled with amusements, exulting in optimism, waiting for an heir; and arrived at a small prison, victualed and managed by Elizabeth’s old servants who were not even allowed in the ramshackle gatehouse to serve her, but had to do all their business in the tap room of the nearby inn, where they dealt with some very odd customers indeed.

  At Woodstock I found Elizabeth very ill. No one could have doubted her frailty. She was in bed, exhausted and fat, she looked years older than twenty-one. She looked older than her older sister. I thought that her earlier taunts about her youth and beauty and the queen’s sterile age had rebounded most cruelly on her this autumn when she was swollen up, as fat as old Anne of Cleves, and the queen was blooming like Ceres. With her jowls bloated by illness Elizabeth bore a startling resemblance to the portraits of her father in his later years. It was a horror to see her girlish prettiness change into his gross features. The clear line of her jaw had disappeared into rolls of fat, her eyes were occluded by the red eyelids, her pretty rosebud mouth was hidden by the fat flesh of her cheeks and the grooved lines running from nose to chin.

  Even her beautiful hands were fat. She had laid her rings aside, they would not go
on her fingers, the very fingernails were half hidden by the monstrous growth of the flesh.

  I waited till the physicians had seen her and bled her and she had rested before I went into her bed chamber. She threw me one resentful look and lay still on her bed, saying nothing. Kat Ashley flicked out of the door and stood on the outside to guard us from eavesdroppers. “Don’t be too long,” she said as she went past me. “She’s very weak.”

  “What is wrong with her?” I whispered.

  She shrugged. “They don’t know. They have never known. It is an illness of water, she swells with water and cannot rid herself of it. But she is worse when she is unhappy, and they have made her very unhappy here.”

  “Lady Elizabeth,” I said and dropped to my knees by the bed.

  “Faithless,” she said, hardly opening her eyes.

  I had to choke back a giggle at her irresistible tendency to drama. “Oh, my lady,” I said reproachfully. “You know I have to go where I am bid. You must remember that I came to you in the Tower when I need not have come at all.”

  “I know you went dancing off to Winchester for the wedding and I have not seen you since.” Her voice rose to match her temper.

  “The queen commanded me to go with her to London and now she has sent me to you. And I bring a message.”

  She raised herself a little on her pillows. “I am almost too sick to listen, so tell me briefly. Am I to be released?”

  “If you will admit your fault.”

  Her dark eyes flared under the puffy eyelids. “Tell me exactly what she said.”

  As precisely as a clerk I recited to her what the queen had offered. I spared her nothing, not the news of the pregnancy, her sister’s sadness at Elizabeth’s resentment, her willingness to be friends again.

  I had thought she would rage when she heard the queen was with child, but she did not even comment. I realized then that she had known the news before I told her. In that case, she had a spy so well positioned that he or she knew a secret I had thought was known only to the king, the queen, Jane Dormer and me. Elizabeth, like a cornered dog, should never be underestimated.