The Constant Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  I pray for a boy but I do not expect one. A child for England, a child for Arthur, is all I want. If it is the daughter that he had wanted, then I will call her Mary as he asked.

  Henry’s desire for a son, and his love for me, has made him more thoughtful at last. He takes care of me in ways that he has never done before. I think he is growing up, the selfish boy is becoming a good man at last, and the fear that has haunted me since his affair with the Stafford girl is receding. Perhaps he will take lovers as kings always do, but perhaps he will resist falling in love with them and making the wild promises that a man can make but a king must not. Perhaps he will acquire the good sense that so many men seem to learn: to enjoy a new woman but remain constant, in their hearts, to their wife. Certainly, if he continues to be this sweet-natured, he will make a good father. I think of him teaching our son to ride, to hunt, to joust. No boy could have a better father for sports and pastimes than a son of Henry’s. Not even Arthur would have made a more playful father. Our boy’s education, his skill in court life, his upbringing as a Christian, his training as a ruler, these are the things that I will teach him. He will learn my mother’s courage and my father’s skills, and from me—I think I can teach him constancy, determination. These are my gifts now.

  I believe that between Henry and me, we will raise a prince who will make his mark in Europe, who will keep England safe from the Moors, from the French, from the Scots, from all our enemies.

  I will have to go into confinement again but I leave it as late as I dare. Henry swears to me that there will be no other while I am confined, that he is mine, all mine. I leave it till the evening of the Christmas feast and then I take my spiced wine with the members of my court and bid them merry Christmas as they bid me Godspeed, and I go once more into the quietness of my bedroom.

  In truth, I don’t mind missing the dancing and the heavy drinking. I am tired, this baby is a weight to carry. I rise and then rest with the winter sun, rarely waking much before nine of the morning, and ready to sleep at five in the afternoon. I spend much time praying for a safe delivery, and for the health of the child that moves so strongly inside me.

  Henry comes to see me, privately, most days. The Royal Book is clear that the queen should be in absolute isolation before the birth of her child, but the Royal Book was written by Henry’s grandmother and I suggest that we can please ourselves. I don’t see why she should command me from beyond the grave when she was such an unhelpful mentor in life. Besides, to put it as bluntly as an Aragonese: I don’t trust Henry on his own in court. On New Year’s Eve he dines with me before going to the hall for the great feast, and brings me a gift of rubies, with stones as big as Cristóbal Colón’s haul. I put them around my neck and see his eyes darken with desire for me as they gleam on the plump whiteness of my breasts.

  “Not long now,” I say, smiling, I know exactly what he is thinking.

  “I shall go to Walsingham as soon as our child is born, and when I come back you will be churched,” he says.

  “And then, I suppose you will want to make another baby,” I say with mock weariness.

  “I will,” he says, his face bright with laughter.

  He kisses me good night, wishes me joy of the new year and then goes out of the hidden door in my chamber to his own rooms, and from there to the feast. I tell them to bring the boiled water that I still drink in obedience to the Moor’s advice, and then I sit before the fire sewing the tiniest little gown for my baby, while María de Salinas reads in Spanish to me.

  Suddenly, it is as if my whole belly has turned over, as if I am falling from a great height. The pain is so thorough, so unlike anything I have ever known before, that the sewing drops from my hands and I grip the arms of my chair and let out a gasp before I can say a word. I know at once that the baby is coming. I had been afraid that I would not know what was happening, that it would be a pain like that when I lost my poor girl. But this is like the great force of a deep river, this feels like something powerful and wonderful starting to flow. I am filled with joy and a holy terror. I know that the baby is coming and that he is strong, and that I am young, and that everything will be all right.

  As soon as I tell the ladies, the chamber bursts into uproar. My Lady the King’s Mother might have ruled that the whole thing shall be done soberly and quietly with the cradle made ready and two beds made up for the mother, one to give birth in and one to rest in; but in real life, the ladies run around like hens in a poultry yard, squawking in alarm. The midwives are summoned from the hall, they have gone off to make merry, gambling that they would not be needed on New Year’s Eve. One of them is quite tipsy and María de Salinas throws her out of the room before she falls over and breaks something. The physician cannot be found at all, and pages are sent running all over the palace looking for him.

  The only ones who are settled and determined are Lady Margaret Pole, María de Salinas, and I. María, because she is naturally disposed to calm, Lady Margaret, because she has been confident from the start of this confinement, and I, because I can feel that nothing will stop this baby coming, and I might as well grab hold of the rope in one hand, my relic of the Virgin Mother in the other, fix my eyes on the little altar in the corner of the room and pray to St. Margaret of Antioch to give me a swift and easy delivery and a healthy baby.

  Unbelievably, it is little more than six hours—though one of those hours lingers on for at least a day—and then there is a rush and a slither, and the midwife mutters “God be praised!” quietly and then there is a loud, irritable cry, almost a shout, and I realize that this is a new voice in the room, that of my baby.

  “A boy, God be praised, a boy,” the midwife says and María looks up at me and sees me radiant with joy.

  “Really?” I demand. “Let me see him.”

  They cut the cord and pass him up to me, still naked, still bloody, his little mouth opened wide to shout, his eyes squeezed tight in anger, Henry’s son.

  “My son,” I whisper.

  “England’s son,” the midwife says. “God be praised.”

  I put my face down to his warm little head, still sticky, I sniff him like a cat sniffs her kittens. “This is our boy,” I whisper to Arthur, who is so close at that moment that it is almost as if he is at my side, looking over my shoulder at this tiny miracle, who turns his head and nuzzles at my breast, little mouth gaping. “Oh, Arthur, my love, this is the boy I promised I would bear for you and for England. This is our son for England, and he will be king.”

  Spring 1511

  1ST JANUARY 1511

  THE WHOLE OF ENGLAND WENT MAD when they learned on New Year’s Day that a boy had been born. Everyone called him Prince Henry at once, there was no other name possible. In the streets they roasted oxen and drank themselves into a stupor. In the country they rang the church bells and broke into the church ales to toast the health of the Tudor heir, the boy who would keep England at peace, who would keep England allied with Spain, who would protect England from her enemies, and who would defeat the Scots once and for all.

  Henry came in to see his son, disobeying the rules of confinement, tiptoeing carefully, as if his footstep might shake the room. He peered into the cradle, afraid almost to breathe near the sleeping boy.

  “He is so small,” he said. “How can he be so small?”

  “The midwife says he is big and strong,” Katherine corrected him, instantly on the defense of her baby.

  “I am sure. It is just that his hands are so…and look, he has fingernails! Real fingernails!”

  “He has toenails too,” she said. The two of them stood side by side and looked down in amazement at the perfection that they had made together. “He has little plump feet and the tiniest toes you can imagine.”

  “Show me,” he said.

  Gently, she pulled off the little silk shoes that the baby wore. “There,” she said, her voice filled with tenderness. “Now I must put this back on so that he does not get cold.”

  Henry bent over the cri
b, and tenderly took the tiny foot in his big hand. “My son,” he said wonderingly. “God be praised, I have a son.”

  I lie on my bed as the old king’s mother commanded in the Royal Book, and I receive honored guests. I have to hide a smile when I think of my mother giving birth to me on campaign, in a tent, like any soldier’s doxy. But this is the English way and I am an English queen and this baby will be King of England.

  I’ve never known such simple joy. When I doze I wake with my heart filled with delight, before I even know why. Then I remember. I have a son for England, for Arthur and for Henry; and I smile and turn my head, and whoever is watching over me answers the question before I have asked it: “Yes, your son is well, Your Grace.”

  Henry is excessively busy with the care of our son. He comes in and out to see me twenty times a day with questions and with news of the arrangements he has made. He has appointed a household of no fewer than forty people for this tiny baby, and already chosen his rooms in the Palace of Westminster for his council chamber when he is a young man. I smile and say nothing. Henry is planning the greatest christening that has ever been seen in England, nothing is too good for this Henry who will be Henry the Ninth. Sometimes when I am sitting on my bed, supposed to be writing letters, I draw his monogram. Henry IX: my son, the King of England.

  His sponsors are carefully chosen: the daughter of the emperor, Margaret of Austria, and King Louis the Twelfth of France. So he is working already, this little Tudor, to cloud the French suspicion against us, to maintain our alliance with the Hapsburg family. When they bring him to me and I put my finger in the palm of his tiny hand his fingers curl around, as if to grip on. As if he would hold my hand. As if he might love me in return. I lie quietly, watching him sleep, my finger against his little palm, the other hand cupped over his tender little head where I can feel a steady pulse throbbing.

  His godparents are Archbishop Warham; my dear and true friend Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey; and the Earl and Countess of Devon. My dearest Lady Margaret is to run his nursery at Richmond. It is the newest and cleanest of all the palaces near London, and wherever we are, whether at Whitehall or Greenwich or Westminster, it will be easy for me to visit him.

  I can hardly bear to let him go away, but it is better for him to be in the country than in the City. And I shall see him every week at the very least, Henry has promised me that I shall see him every week.

  Henry went to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, as he had promised, and Katherine asked him to tell the nuns who kept the shrine that she would come herself when she was next with child. When the next baby was in the queen’s womb she would give thanks for the safe birth of the first; and pray for the safe delivery of a second. She asked the king to tell the nuns that she would come to them every time she was with child, and that she hoped to visit them many times.

  She gave him a heavy purse of gold. “Will you give them this, from me, and ask them for their prayers?”

  He took it. “They pray for the Queen of England as their duty,” he said.

  “I want to remind them.”

  Henry returned to court for the greatest tournament that England had ever seen, and Katherine was up and out of her bed to organize it for him. He had commissioned new armor before he went away and she had commanded her favorite, Edward Howard, the talented younger son of the Howard house, to make sure that it would fit precisely to the slim young king’s measurements, and that the workmanship was perfect. She had banners made, and tapestries hung, masques prepared with glorious themes, gold everywhere: cloth of gold banners and curtains, and swathes of cloth, gold plates and gold cups, gold tips to the ornamental lances, gold-embossed shields, even gold on the king’s saddlery.

  “This will be the greatest tournament that England has ever seen,” Edward Howard said to her. “English chivalry and Spanish elegance. It will be a thing of beauty.”

  “It is the greatest celebration that we have ever had,” she said smiling. “For the greatest reason.”

  I know I have made an outstanding showcase for Henry but when he rides into the tiltyard I catch my breath. It is the fashion that the knights who have come to joust choose a motto; sometimes they even compose a poem or play a part in a tableau before they ride. Henry has kept his motto a secret, and not told me what it is going to be. He has commissioned his own banner and the women have hidden from me, with much laughter, while they embroider his words on the banner of Tudor green silk. I truly have no idea what it will say until he bows before me in the royal box, the banner unfurls and his herald shouts out his title for the joust: “Sir Loyal Heart.”

  I rise to my feet and clasp my hands before my face to hide my trembling mouth. My eyes fill with tears, I cannot help it. He has called himself “Sir Loyal Heart”—he has declared to the world the restoration of his devotion and love for me. My women step back so that I can see the canopy that he has commanded them to hang all around the royal box. He has had it pinned all over with little gold badges of H and K entwined. Everywhere I look, at every corner of the jousting green, on every banner, on every post there are Ks and Hs together. He has used this great joust, the finest and richest that England has ever seen, to tell the world that he loves me, that he is mine, that his heart is mine and that it is a loyal heart.

  I look around at my ladies-in-waiting and I am utterly triumphant. If I could speak freely I would say to them: “There! Take this as your warning. He is not the man that you have thought him. He is not a man to turn from his true-married wife. He is not a man that you can seduce, however clever your tricks, however insidious your whispers against me. He has given his heart to me, and he has a loyal heart.” I run my eyes over them, the prettiest girls from the greatest families of England, and I know that every one of them secretly thinks that she could have my place. If she were to be lucky, if the king were to be seduced, if I were to die, she could have my throne.

  But his banner tells them “Not so.” His banner tells them, the gold Ks and Hs tell them, the herald’s cry tells them that he is all mine, forever. The will of my mother, my word to Arthur, the destiny given by God to England have brought me finally to this: a son and heir in England’s cradle, the King of England publicly declaring his passion for me, and my initial twined with his in gold everywhere I look.

  I touch my hand to my lips and hold it out to him. His visor is up, his blue eyes are blazing with passion for me. His love for me warms me like the hot sun of my childhood. I am a woman blessed by God, especially favored by Him, indeed. I survived widowhood and my despair at the loss of Arthur. The courtship of the old king did not seduce me, his enmity did not defeat me, the hatred of his mother did not destroy me. The love of Henry delights me but does not redeem me. With God’s especial favor, I have saved myself. I myself have come from the darkness of poverty into the glamour of the light. I myself have fought that terrible slide into blank despair. I myself have made myself into a woman who can face death and face life and endure them both.

  I remember once when I was a little girl, my mother was praying before a battle and then she rose up from her knees, kissed the little ivory cross, put it back on its stand, and gestured for her lady-in-waiting to bring her breastplate and buckle it on.

  I ran forwards and begged her not to go, and I asked her why she must ride, if God gives us His blessing? If we are blessed by God, why do we have to fight as well? Will He not just drive away the Moors for us?

  “I am blessed because I am chosen to do His work.” She kneeled down and put her arm around me. “You might say, why not leave it to God and He will send a thunderstorm over the wicked Moors?”

  I nodded.

  “I am the thunderstorm,” she said, smiling. “I am God’s thunderstorm to drive them away. He has not chosen a thunderstorm today, He has chosen me. And neither I nor the dark clouds can refuse our duty.”

  I smile at Henry as he drops his visor and turns his horse from the royal box. I understand now what my mother meant by being God’s thunderstorm. G
od has called me to be His sunshine in England. It is my God-given duty to bring happiness and prosperity and security to England. I do this by leading the king in the right choices, by securing the succession, and by protecting the safety of the borders. I am England’s queen chosen by God and I smile on Henry as his big, glossy-black horse trots slowly to the end of the lists, and I smile on the people of London who call out my name and shout, “God bless Queen Katherine!” and I smile to myself because I am doing as my mother wished, as God decreed, and Arthur is waiting for me in al-Yanna, the garden.

  22ND FEBRUARY 1511

  Ten days later, when she was at the height of her happiness, they brought to Queen Katherine the worst news of her life.

  It is worse even than the death of my husband, Arthur. I had not thought there could be anything worse than that; but so it proves. It is worse than my years of widowhood and waiting. It is worse than hearing from Spain that my mother was dead, that she died on the day I wrote to her, begging her to send me a word. Worse than the worst days I have ever had.

  My baby is dead. More than this, I cannot say, I cannot even hear. I think Henry is here, some of the time, and María de Salinas. I think Margaret Pole is here, and I see the stricken face of Thomas Howard at Henry’s shoulder; William Compton desperately gripping Henry’s shoulder, but the faces all swim before my eyes and I can be sure of nothing.