The Constant Princess

by Philippa Gregory

“I think you could be the greatest king England has ever known since Arthur of Camelot,” she said.

  “Arthur it is, then,” he said, soothed as always by praise. “Arthur Henry.”

  “Yes.”

  They called to him from the butts that it was his turn and that he had a high score to beat, and he went with a kiss blown to her. Katherine made sure that she was watching as he drew his bow, and when he glanced over, as he always did, he could see that her attention was wholly on him. The muscles in his lean back rippled as he drew back the arrow, he was like a statue, beautifully poised, and then slowly, like a dancer, he released the string and the arrow flew—faster than sight—true to the very center of the target.

  “A hit!”

  “A winning hit!”

  “Victory to the king!”

  The prize was a golden arrow and Henry came bright-faced to his wife to kneel at her feet so that she could bend down and kiss him on both cheeks, and then, lovingly, on the mouth.

  “I won for you,” he said. “You alone. You bring me luck. I never miss when you are watching me. You shall keep the winning arrow.”

  “It is a Cupid’s arrow,” she responded. “I shall keep it to remind me of the one in my heart.”

  “She loves me.” He rose to his feet and turned to his court, and there was a ripple of applause and laughter. He shouted triumphantly, “She loves me!”

  “Who could help but love you?” Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, one of the ladies-in-waiting, called out boldly. Henry glanced at her and then looked down from his great height to his petite wife.

  “Who could help but love her?” he asked, smiling at her.

  That night I kneel before my prie-dieu and clasp my hands over my belly. It is the second month that I have not bled, I am almost certain that I am with child.

  “Arthur,” I whisper, my eyes closed. I can almost see him, as he was: naked in candlelight in our bedroom at Ludlow. “Arthur, my love. He says that I can call this boy Arthur Henry. So I will have fulfilled our hope—that I should give you a son called Arthur. And though I know you didn’t like your brother, I will show him the respect that I owe to him; he is a good boy and I pray that he will grow to a good man. I shall call my boy Arthur Henry for you both.”

  I feel no guilt for my growing affection for this boy Henry, though he can never take the place of his brother, Arthur. It is right that I should love my husband and Henry is an endearing boy. The knowledge that I have of him, from watching him for long years as closely as if he were an enemy, has brought me to a deep awareness of the sort of boy he is. He is selfish as a child, but he has a child’s generosity and easy tenderness. He is vain, he is ambitious, to tell truth, he is as conceited as a player in a troupe, but he is quick to laughter and quick to tears, quick to compassion, quick to alleviate hardship. He will make a good man if he has good guides, if he can be taught to rein in his desires and learn service to his country and to God. He has been spoiled by those who should have guided him; but it is not too late to make a good man from him. It is my task and my duty to keep him from selfishness. Like any young man, he is a tyrant in the making. A good mother would have disciplined him, perhaps a loving wife can curb him. If I can love him, and hold him to love me, I can make a great king of him. And England needs a great king.

  Perhaps this is one of the services I can do for England: guide him, gently and steadily, away from his spoiled childhood and towards a manhood which is responsible. His father and his grandmother kept him as a boy; perhaps it is my task to help him grow to be a man.

  “Arthur, my dearest Arthur,” I say quietly as I rise and go towards the bed, and this time I am speaking to them both: to the husband that I loved first, and to the child that is slowly, quietly growing inside me.

  AUTUMN 1509

  At nighttime in October, after Katherine had refused to dance after midnight for the previous three weeks and had insisted, instead, on watching Henry dance with her ladies, she told him that she was with child and made him swear to keep it secret.

  “I want to tell everyone!” he exclaimed. He had come to her room in his nightgown and they were seated either side of the warm fire, on their way to bed.

  “You can write to my father next month,” she specified. “But I don’t want everyone to know yet. They will all guess soon enough.”

  “You must rest,” he said instantly. “And should you have special things to eat? Do you have a desire for anything special to eat? I can send someone for it at once, they can wake the cooks. Tell me, love, what would you like?”

  “Nothing! Nothing!” she said, laughing. “See, we have biscuits and wine. What more do I ever eat this late at night?”

  “Oh usually, yes! But now everything is different.”

  “I shall ask the physicians in the morning,” she said. “But I need nothing now. Truly, my love.”

  “I want to get you something,” he said. “I want to look after you.”

  “You do look after me,” she reassured him. “And I am perfectly well fed, and I feel very well.”

  “Not sick? That is a sign of a boy, I am sure.”

  “I have been feeling a little sick in the mornings,” she said, and watched his beam of happiness. “I feel certain that it is a boy. I hope this is our Arthur Henry.”

  “Oh! You were thinking of him when you spoke to me at the archery contest.”

  “Yes, I was. But I was not sure then, and I did not want to tell you too early.”

  “And when do you think he will be born?”

  “In early summer, I think.”

  “It cannot take so long!” he exclaimed.

  “My love, I think it does take that long.”

  “I shall write to your father in the morning,” he said. “I shall tell him to expect great news in the summer. Perhaps we shall be home after a great campaign against the French then. Perhaps I shall bring you a victory and you shall give me a son.”

  Henry has sent his own physician, the most skilled man in London, to see me. The man stands at one side of the room while I sit on a chair at the other. He cannot examine me, of course—the body of the queen cannot be touched by anyone but the king. He cannot ask me if I am regular in my courses or in my bowels; they too are sacred. He is so paralyzed with embarrassment at being called to see me that he keeps his eyes on the floor and asks me short questions in a quiet, clipped voice. He speaks English, and I have to strain to hear and understand him.

  He asks me if I eat well and if I have any sickness. I answer that I eat well enough but that I am sick of the smell and sight of cooked meats. I miss the fruit and vegetables that were part of my daily diet in Spain, I am craving baklava sweetmeats made from honey or a tagine made with vegetables and rice. He says that it does not matter since there is no benefit to eating vegetables or fruit for humans, and, indeed, he would have advised me against eating any raw stuff for the duration of my pregnancy.

  He asks me if I know when I conceived. I say that I cannot say for certain, but that I know the date of my last course. He smiles as a learned man to a fool and tells me that this is little guide as to when a baby might be due. I have seen Moorish doctors calculate the date of a baby’s birth with a special abacus. He says he has never heard of such things and such heathen devices would be unnatural and not wanted at the treatment of a Christian child.

  He suggests that I rest. He asks me to send for him whenever I feel unwell and he will come to apply leeches. He says he is a great believer in bleeding women frequently to prevent them becoming overheated. Then he bows and leaves.

  I look blankly at María de Salinas, standing in the corner of the room for this mockery of a consultation. “This is the best doctor in England?” I ask her. “This is the best that they have?”

  She shakes her head in bewilderment.

  “I wonder if we can get someone from Spain,” I think aloud.

  “Your mother and father have all but cleared Spain of the learned men,” she says, and in that moment I feel almost ash
amed of them.

  “Their learning was heretical,” I say defensively.

  She shrugs. “Well, the Inquisition arrested most of them. The rest have fled.”

  “Where did they go?” I ask.

  “Wherever people go. The Jews went to Portugal and then to Italy, to Turkey, I think throughout Europe. I suppose the Moors went to Africa and the East.”

  “Can we not find someone from Turkey?” I suggest. “Not a heathen, of course. But someone who has learned from a Moorish physician? There must be some Christian doctors who have knowledge. Some who know more than this one?”

  “I will ask the ambassador,” she says.

  “He must be Christian,” I stipulate.

  I know that I will need a better doctor than this shy ignoramus, but I do not want to go against the authority of my mother and the Holy Church. If they say that such knowledge is sin, then, surely, I should embrace ignorance. It is my duty. I am no scholar and it is better if I am guided by the ruling of the Holy Church. But can God really want us to deny knowledge? And what if this ignorance costs me England’s son and heir?

  Katherine did not reduce her work, commanding the clerks to the king, hearing petitioners who needed royal justice, discussing with the Privy Council the news from the kingdom. But she wrote to Spain to suggest that her father might like to send an ambassador to represent Spanish interests, especially since Henry was determined on a war against France in alliance with Spain as soon as the season for war started in the spring, and there would be much correspondence between the two countries.

  “He is most determined to do your bidding,” Catalina wrote to her father, carefully translating every word into the complex code that they used. “He is conscious that he has not been to war and is anxious that all goes well for an English-Spanish army. I am very concerned, indeed, that he is not exposed to danger. He has no heir, and even if he did, this is a hard country for princes in their minority. When he goes to war with you, I shall trust him into your safekeeping. He should certainly feel that he is experiencing war to the full, he should certainly learn how to campaign from you. But I shall trust you to keep him from any real danger. Do not misunderstand me on this,” she wrote sternly. “He must feel that he is at the heart of war, he must learn how battles are won, but he must not ever be in any real danger. And,” she added, “he must never know that we have protected him.”

  King Ferdinand, in full possession of Castile and Aragon once more, ruling as regent for Juana—who was now said to be far beyond taking her throne, lost in a dark world of grief and madness—wrote smoothly back to his youngest daughter that she was not to worry about the safety of her husband in war; he would make sure that Henry was exposed to nothing but excitement. “And do not let your wifely fears distract him from his duty,” he reminded her. “In all her years with me your mother never shirked from danger. You must be the queen she would want you to be. This is a war that has to be fought for the safety and profit of us all, and the young king must play his part alongside this old king and the old emperor. This is an alliance of two old warhorses and one young colt, and he will want to be part of it.” He left a space in the letter as if for thought and then added a postscript. “Of course, we will both make sure it is mostly play for him. Of course he will not know.”

  Ferdinand was right. Henry was desperate to be part of an alliance that would defeat France. The Privy Council, the thoughtful advisors of his father’s careful reign, were appalled to find that the young man was utterly set on the idea that kingship meant warfare, and he could imagine no better way to demonstrate that he had inherited the throne. The eager, boastful young men that formed the young court, desperate for a chance to show their own courage, were egging Henry on to war. The French had been hated for so long that it seemed incredible that a peace had ever been made and that it had lasted. It seemed unnatural to be at peace with the French—the normal state of warfare should be resumed as soon as victory was a certainty. And victory, with a new young king and a new young court, must be a certainty now.

  Nothing that Katherine might quietly remark could completely calm the fever for war, and Henry was so bellicose with the French ambassador at their first meeting that the astounded representative reported to his master that the new young king was out of his mind with choler, denying that he had ever written a peaceable letter to the King of France, which the Privy Council had sent in his absence. Fortunately, their next meeting went better. Katherine made sure that she was there.

  “Greet him pleasantly,” she prompted Henry as she saw the man advance.

  “I will not feign kindness where I mean war.”

  “You have to be cunning,” she said softly. “You have to be skilled in saying one thing and thinking another.”

  “I will never pretend. I will never deny my righteous pride.”

  “No, you should not pretend, exactly. But let him in his folly misunderstand you. There is more than one way to win a war, and it is winning that matters, not threatening. If he thinks you are his friend, we will catch them unprepared. Why would we give them warning of attack?”

  He was troubled. He looked at her, frowning. “I am not a liar.”

  “No, for you told him last time that the vain ambitions of his king would be corrected by you. The French cannot be allowed to capture Venice. We have an ancient alliance with Venice….”

  “Do we?”

  “Oh, yes,” Katherine said firmly. “England has an ancient alliance with Venice, and besides, it is the very first wall of Christianity against the Turks. By threatening Venice the French are on the brink of letting the heathens into Italy. They should be ashamed of themselves. But last time you met, you warned the French ambassador. You could not have been more clear. Now is the time for you to greet him with a smile. You do not need to spell out your campaign. We will keep our own counsel. We will not share it with such as him.”

  “I have told him once, I need not tell him again. I do not repeat myself,” Henry said, warming to the thought.

  “We don’t brag of our strength,” she said. “We know what we can do, and we know what we will do. They can find out for themselves in our own good time.”

  “Indeed,” said Henry, and stepped down from the little dais to greet the French ambassador quite pleasantly, and was rewarded to see the man fumble in his bow and stutter in his address.

  “I had him quite baffled,” he said to Katherine gleefully.

  “You were masterly,” she assured him.

  If he were a dullard I would have to bite back my impatience and curb my temper more often than I do. But he is not unintelligent. He is bright and clever, perhaps even as quick-witted as Arthur. But where Arthur had been trained to think, had been educated as a king from birth, they let this second son slide by on his charm and his ready tongue. They found him pleasing and encouraged him to be nothing more than agreeable. He has a good brain and he can read, debate and think well—but only if the topic catches his interest, and then only for a while. They taught him to study but only to demonstrate his own cleverness. He is lazy, he is terribly lazy—he would always rather that someone does the detailed work for him, and this is a great fault in a king: it throws him into the power of his clerks. A king who will not work will always be in the hands of his advisors. It is a recipe for overmighty councilors.

  When we start to discuss the terms of the contract between Spain and England, he asks me to write it out for him. He does not like to do this himself, he likes to dictate and have a clerk write it out fair. And he will never bother to learn the code. It means that every letter between him and the emperor, every letter between him and my father, is either written by me, or translated by me. I am at the very center of the emerging plans for war, whether I want to be or no. I cannot help but be the decision maker at the very heart of this alliance, and Henry puts himself to one side.

  Of course I am not reluctant to do my duty. No true child of my mother’s would ever have turned away from effort, especially o
ne that led to war with the enemies of Spain. We were all raised to know that kingship is a vocation, not a treat. To be a king means to rule, and ruling is always demanding work. No true child of my father’s could have resisted being at the very heart of planning and plotting and preparing for war. There is no one at the English court better able than I to take our country into war.

  I am no fool. I guessed from the start that my father planned to use our English troops against the French, and while we engage them at the time and place of his choosing, I wager that he will invade the kingdom of Navarre. I must have heard him a dozen times telling my mother that if he could have Navarre he would have rounded the north border of Aragon and besides, Navarre is a rich region, growing grapes and wheat. My father has wanted it from the moment he came to the throne of Aragon. I know that if he has a chance at Navarre he will win it, and if he can make the English do the work for him he would think that even better.

  But I am not fighting this war to oblige my father, though I let him think that. He will not use me as his instrument—I will use him for mine. I want this war for England, and for God. The Pope himself has ruled that the French should not overrun Venice; the Pope himself is putting his own holy army into the field against the French. No true son or daughter of the church needs any greater cause than this: to know that the Holy Father is calling for support.

  And for me there is another reason, even more powerful than that. I never forget my mother’s warning that the Moors will come against Christendom again, I never forget her telling me that I must be ready in England as she was always ready in Spain. If the French defeat the armies of the Pope and seize Venice, who can doubt but that the Moors will see it as their chance to snatch Venice in their turn from the French? And once the Moors get a toehold in the heart of Christendom once more, it will be my mother’s war to be fought all over again. They will come at us from the East, they will come at us from Venice, and Christian Europe will lie at their mercy. My father himself told me that Venice with its great trade, its arsenal, its powerful dockyards, must never be taken by the Moors; we must never let them win a city where they could build fighting galleys in a week, arm them in days, man them in a morning. If they have the Venetian dockyards and shipwrights then we have lost the seas. I know that it is my given duty, given to me by my mother and by God: to send Englishmen to serve the Pope and to defend Venice from any invader. It is easy to persuade Henry to think the same.