The Constant Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  “A border raid?” Katherine asked, knowing it would not be.

  The man shook his head. “My lord told me to tell you that the French king has promised the Scots king that he will recognize him if he wins this battle against us.”

  “Recognize him? As what?”

  “As King of England.”

  He expected her to cry out in indignation or in fear, but she merely nodded, as if it were something else to consider.

  “How many men?” Katherine demanded of the messenger.

  He shook his head. “I can’t say for certain.”

  “How many do you think?”

  He looked at the queen, saw the sharp anxiety in her eyes, and hesitated.

  “Tell me the truth!”

  “I am afraid sixty thousand, Your Grace, perhaps more.”

  “How many more? Perhaps?”

  Again he paused. She rose from her chair and went to the window. “Please, tell me what you think,” she said. “You do me no service if, thanks to you, trying to spare me distress, I go out with an army and find before me an enemy in greater force than I expected.”

  “One hundred thousand, I would think,” he said quietly.

  He expected her to gasp in horror but when he looked at her she was smiling. “Oh, I’m not afraid of that.”

  “Not afraid of one hundred thousand Scots?” he demanded.

  “I’ve seen worse,” she said.

  I know now that I am ready. The Scots are pouring over the border, in their full power. They have captured the northern castles with derisive ease; the flower of the English command and the best men are overseas in France. The French king thinks to defeat us with the Scots, in our own lands, while our masking army rides around northern France and makes pretty gestures. My moment is now. It is up to me, and the men who are left. I order the royal standards and banners from the great wardrobe. Flown at the head of the army the royal standards show that the King of England is on the battlefield. That will be me.

  “You will never ride under the royal standard?” one of my ladies queries.

  “Who else?”

  “It should be the king.”

  “The king is fighting the French. I shall fight the Scots.”

  “Your Grace, a queen cannot take the king’s standard and ride out.”

  I smile at her. I am not pretending to confidence: I truly know that this is the moment for which I have waited all my life. I promised Arthur I could be a queen in armor, and now I am. “A queen can ride under a king’s standard, if she thinks she can win.”

  I summon the remaining troops: these will be my force. I plan to parade them in battle order, but there are more comments.

  “You will never ride at their head?”

  “Where would you want me to ride?”

  “Your Grace, perhaps you should not be there at all?”

  “I am their commander in chief,” I say simply. “You must not think of me as a queen who stays at home, influences policy by stealth, and bullies her children. I am a queen who rules as my mother did. When my country is in danger, I am in danger. When my country is triumphant, as we will be, it is my triumph.”

  “But what if…?” The lady-in-waiting is silenced by one hard look from me.

  “I am not a fool. I have planned for defeat,” I tell her. “A good commander always speaks of victory and yet has a plan for defeat. I know exactly where I shall fall back, and I know exactly where I shall regroup, and I know exactly where I shall join battle again, and if I fail there, I know where I shall regroup again. I did not wait long years for this throne to see the King of Scotland and that fool Margaret take it from me.”

  Katherine’s men, all forty thousand of them, straggled along the road behind the royal guard, weighed down by their weapons and sacks of food in the late-summer sunshine. Katherine, at the head of the train, rode her white horse where everyone could see her, with the royal standard over her head, so that the men should know her now, on the march, and recognize her later, in battle. Twice a day she rode down the length of the line with a word of encouragement for everyone who was scuffing along in the rear, choking with the dust from the forward wagons. She kept monastic hours, rising at dawn to hear Mass, taking Communion at noon, and going to bed at dusk, waking at midnight to say her prayers for the safety of the realm, for the safety of the king, and for herself.

  Messengers passed constantly between Katherine’s army and the force commanded by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. Their plan was that Surrey should engage with the Scots at the first chance, anything to stop their rapid and destructive advance southwards. If Surrey were defeated, then the Scots would come on and Katherine would meet them with her force, and fling them into defense of the southern counties of England. If the Scots cut through them then Katherine and Surrey had a final plan for the defense of London. They would regroup, summon a citizens’ army, throw up earthworks around the City and if all else failed, retreat to the Tower, which could be held for long enough for Henry to reinforce them from France.

  Surrey is anxious that I have ordered him to lead the first attack against the Scots, he would rather wait for my force to join him; but I insist the attack shall go as I have planned. It would be safer to join our two armies, but I am fighting a defensive campaign. I have to keep an army in reserve to stop the Scots sweeping south, if they win the first battle. This is not a single battle I am fighting here. This is a war that will destroy the threat of the Scots for a generation, perhaps forever.

  I too am tempted to order him to wait for me, I so want to join the battle; I feel no fear at all, just a sort of wild gladness as if I am a hawk mewed up for too long and now suddenly set free. But I will not throw my precious men into a battle that would leave the road to London open if we lost. Surrey thinks that if we unite the forces we will be certain to win but I know that there is no certainty in warfare, anything can go wrong. A good commander is ready for the worst, and I am not going to risk the Scots beating us in one battle and then marching down the Great North Road and into my capital city, and a coronation with French acclaim. I did not win this throne so hard, to lose it in one reckless fight. I have a battle plan for Surrey, and one for me, and then a position to retreat to, and a series of positions after that. They may win one battle, they may win more than one, but they will never take my throne from me.

  We are sixty miles out of London, at Buckingham. This is good speed for an army on the march. They tell me it is tremendous speed for an English army; they are notorious for dawdling on the road. I am tired, but not exhausted. The excitement and—to be honest—the fear in each day is keeping me like a hound on a leash, always eager, straining to get ahead and start the hunt.

  And now I have a secret. Each afternoon, when I dismount from my horse, I get down from the saddle and first thing, before anything else, I go into the necessary house, or tent, or wherever I can be alone, and I pull up my skirts and look at my linen. I am waiting for my monthly course, and it is the second month that it has failed to come. My hope, a strong, sweet hope, is that when Henry sailed to France, he left me with child.

  I will tell no one, not even my women. I can imagine the outcry if they knew I was riding every day, and preparing for battle when I am with child, or even in hopes of a child. I dare not tell them, for in all truth, I do not dare do anything which might tilt the balance in this campaign against us. Of course, nothing could be more important than a son for England—except this one thing: holding England for that son to inherit. I have to grit my teeth on the risk I am taking and take it anyway.

  The men know that I am riding at their head and I have promised them victory. They march well; they will fight well because they have put their faith in me. Surrey’s men, closer to the enemy than us, know that behind them, in reliable support, is my army. They know that I am leading their reinforcements in person. It has caused much talk in the country, they are proud to have a queen who will muster herself for them. If I were to turn my face to London and tell them to
go on without me, for I have a woman’s work to do, they would head for home too—it is as simple as that. They would think that I had lost confidence, that I had lost faith in them, that I anticipate defeat. There are enough whispers about an unstoppable army of Scotsmen—one hundred thousand angry Highlanders—without me adding to their fears.

  Besides, if I cannot save my kingdom for my child, then there is little point in having a child. I have to defeat the Scots, I have to be a great general. When that duty is done, I can be a woman again.

  At night, I have news from Surrey that the Scots are encamped on a strong ridge, drawn up in battle order at a place called Flodden. He sends me a plan of the site, showing the Scots camped on high ground, commanding the view to the south. One glance at the map tells me that the English should not attack uphill against the heavily armed Scots. The Scots archers will be shooting downhill and then the Highlanders will charge down on our men. No army could face an attack like that.

  “Tell your master he is to send out spies and find a way around the back of the Scots to come upon them from the north,” I say to the messenger, staring at the map. “Tell him my advice is that he makes a feint, leaves enough men before the Scots to pin them down, but marches the rest away, as if he is heading north. If he is lucky, they will give chase and you will have them on open ground. If he is unlucky he will have to reach them from the north. Is it good ground? He has drawn a stream on this sketch.”

  “It is boggy ground,” the man confirms. “We may not be able to cross it.”

  I bite my lip. “It’s the only way that I can see,” I say. “Tell him this is my advice but not my command. He is commander in the field, he must make his own judgment. But tell him I am certain that he has to get the Scots off that hill. Tell him I know for sure that he cannot attack uphill. He has to either go round and surprise them from the rear or lure them down off that hill.”

  The man bows and leaves. Please God he can get my message through to Surrey. If he thinks he can fight an army of Scots uphill he is finished. One of my ladies comes to me the minute the messenger has left my tent. She is trembling with fatigue and fear. “What do we do now?”

  “We advance north,” I say.

  “But they may be fighting any day now!”

  “Yes, and if they win we can go home. But if they lose we shall stand between the Scots and London.”

  “And do what?” she whispers.

  “Beat them,” I say simply.

  10TH SEPTEMBER 1513

  “Your Grace!” A page boy came dashing into Katherine’s tent, bobbed a most inadequate hurried bow. “A messenger, with news of the battle! A messenger from Lord Surrey.”

  Katherine whirled around, her shoulder strap from her halberk still undone. “Send him in!”

  The man was already in the room, the dirt of the battle still on him, but with the beam of a man bringing good news, great news.

  “Yes?” Katherine demanded, breathless with hope.

  “Your Grace has conquered,” he said. “The King of Scotland lies dead—twenty Scottish lords lie with him, bishops, earls, and abbots too. It is a defeat they will never rise up from. Half of their great men have died in a single day.”

  He saw the color drain from her face and then she suddenly grew rosy. “We have won?”

  “You have won,” he confirmed. “The earl said to tell you that your men, raised and trained and armed by you, have done what you ordered they should do. It is your victory, and you have made England safe.”

  Her hand went at once to her belly, under the metal curve of the breastplate. “We are safe,” she said.

  He nodded. “He sent you this…”

  He held out for her a surcoat, terribly torn and slashed and stained with blood.

  “This is?”

  “The coat of the King of Scotland. We took it from his dead body as proof. We have his body, it is being embalmed. He is dead, the Scots are defeated. You have done what no English king since Edward the First could do. You have made England safe from Scottish invasion.”

  “Write out a report for me,” she said decisively. “Dictate it to the clerk. Everything you know and everything that my lord Surrey said. I must write to the king.”

  “Lord Surrey asked…”

  “Yes?”

  “Should he advance into Scotland and lay it waste? He says there will be little or no resistance. This is our chance. We could destroy them—they are utterly at our mercy.”

  “Of course,” she said at once, then she paused. It was the answer that any monarch in Europe would have given. A troublesome neighbor, an inveterate enemy lay weakened. Every king in Christendom would have advanced and taken revenge.

  “No. No, wait a moment.”

  She turned away from him and went to the doorway of her tent. Outside, the men were preparing for another night on the road, far from their homes. There were little cook fires all around the camp, torches burning, the smell of cooking and dung and sweat in the air. It was the very scent of Katherine’s childhood, a childhood spent for the first seven years in a state of constant warfare against an enemy who was driven backwards and backwards and finally into slavery, exile and death.

  Think, I say to myself fiercely. Don’t feel with a tender heart, think with a hard brain, a soldier’s brain. Don’t consider this as a woman with child who knows there are many widows in Scotland tonight, think as a queen. My enemy is defeated, the country lies open before me, their king is dead, their queen is a young fool of a girl and my sister-in-law. I can cut this country into pieces, I can quilt it. Any commander of any experience would destroy them now and leave them destroyed for a whole generation. My father would not hesitate; my mother would have given the order already.

  I check myself. They were wrong, my mother and father. Finally, I say the unsayable, unthinkable thing. They were wrong, my mother and father. Soldiers of genius they may have been, convinced they certainly were, Christian kings they were called—but they were wrong. It has taken me all my life to learn this.

  A state of constant warfare is a two-edged sword: it cuts both the victor and the defeated. If we pursue the Scots now, we will triumph, we can lay the country waste, we can destroy them for generations to come. But all that grows on waste are rats and pestilence. They would recover in time, they would come against us. Their children would come against my children and the savage battle would have to be fought all over again. Hatred breeds hatred. My mother and father drove the Moors overseas, but everyone knows that by doing so they won only one battle in a war that will never cease until Christians and Muslims are prepared to live side by side in peace and harmony. Isabella and Ferdinand hammered the Moors, but their children and their children’s children will face the jihad in reply to the crusade. War does not answer war, war does not finish war. The only ending is peace.

  “Get me a fresh messenger,” Katherine said over her shoulder, and waited till the man came. “You are to go to my lord Surrey and tell him I give him thanks for this great news of a wonderful victory. You are to tell him that he is to let the Scots soldiers surrender their arms and they are to go in peace. I myself will write to the Scots queen and promise her peace if she will be our good sister and good neighbor. We are victorious, we shall be gracious. We shall make this victory a lasting peace, not a passing battle and an excuse for savagery.”

  The man bowed and left. Katherine turned to the soldier. “Go and get yourself some food,” she said. “You can tell everyone that we have won a great battle and that we shall go back to our homes knowing that we can live at peace.”

  She went to her little table and drew her writing box towards her. The ink was corked in a tiny glass bottle, the quill especially cut down to fit the small case. The paper and sealing wax were to hand. Katherine drew a sheet of paper towards her, and paused. She wrote a greeting to her husband; she told him she was sending him the coat of the dead Scots king.

  In this, Your Grace shall see how I can keep my promise, sending you for your
banners a king’s coat. I thought to send himself to you, but our Englishmen’s hearts would not suffer it.

  I pause. With this great victory I can go back to London, rest and prepare for the birth of the child that I am sure I am carrying. I want to tell Henry that I am once again with child; but I want to write to him alone. This letter—like every letter between us—will be half public. He never opens his own letters, he always gets a clerk to open them and read them for him, he rarely writes his own replies. Then I remember that I told him that if Our Lady ever blessed me with a child again I would go at once to her shrine at Walsingham to give thanks. If he remembers this, it can serve as our code. Anyone can read it to him but he will know what I mean—I shall have told him the secret, that we will have a child, that we may have a son. I smile and start to write, knowing that he will understand what I mean, knowing what joy this letter will bring him.

  I make an end, praying God to send you home shortly, for without no joy can here be accomplished, and for the same I pray, and now go to Our Lady at Walsingham, that I promised so long ago to see.

  Your humble wife and true servant,

  Katherine.

  Walsingham,

  Autumn 1513

  Katherine was on her knees at the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, her eyes fixed on the smiling statue of the Mother of Christ, but seeing nothing.

  Beloved, beloved, I have done it. I sent the coat of the Scots king to Henry and I made sure to emphasize that it is his victory, not mine. But it is yours. It is yours because when I came to you and to your country, my mind filled with fears about the Moors, it was you who taught me that the danger here was the Scots. Then life taught me a harder lesson, beloved: it is better to forgive an enemy than destroy him. If we had Moorish physicians, astronomers, mathematicians in this country we would be the better for it. The time may come when we also need the courage and the skills of the Scots. Perhaps my offer of peace will mean that they will forgive us for the Battle of Flodden.