Tudor Queen, Tudor Crown

by Jennifer Peter Woods

  The Tudors then, it was often remarked, came to the throne from the wrong side of the bed. But luck was theirs and as the War of the Roses raged on in England, plucking and killing off all the well-connected and more legitimate heirs, the Tudor fortunes rose. It was their lot to pluck the crown from worthier brows. Indeed, it was said that the crown had all but landed in Henry VII’s lap.

  The first of the Tudor kings was thus most careful when it came to the matter of furthering his sang royale. In a stroke of genius, Henry VII wedded and bedded Elizabeth of York, uniting the two Houses of England, using her line to substantiate his own.

  Prince Arthur was the fruit of the king’s labors. In him, the future laid and the prince’s father had turned to one of the most respected empires in Europe to seek a bride for his heir.

  And where should his eyes land? The answer was simple: where else but Spain?

  A wan smile tilted the lips of Katherine.

  She had been three years of age when her parents betrothed her to the infant Arthur. From that day hence, she became the Princess of Wales.

  Thereafter, she spent her days learning. She was schooled in English and she learnt everything she could so that she would one day do her position as queen of England justice. She was taught English history and geography so that she knew about the people and the lay of the land. Before long, she had the names of the nobles by heart. She could recite the names of the king’s ministers and she became familiar with English etiquette as well as customs.

  Little Katherine of Aragon was destined to be the Queen of England.

  Her sisters however, pitied her, saying that England was small, damp and wild. But Katherine never wavered.

  I shall be most happy, she told them defiantly. I shall be the happiest of queens.

  When she was ripe for marriage, her mother and father sent her to England. She had been just fifteen. She believed with all her heart then that she was destined for great things.

  So she left the sunny shores of Spain and the embrace of her parents believing that her life was about to soar. She sailed, hopes high, smiles bright and after much tossing and turning on the waves, she arrived in Plymouth.

  The journey had been arduous. No one was of the mind to admit it, but there were many times when they thought all was lost. The storms were frightful and the crashing waves relentless. Katherine had thought they would be sunk and she would die, her body consigned to the bottom of the sea. But she did not die. God and good Spanish courage had seen them through.

  She smiled, a smile of sadness.

  England was everything her sisters said it would be. From the moment she stepped foot on English soil, Katherine felt the cold sink into her bones. The weather here was damp and biting. It rained almost constantly and she despaired at the thought of living out her life in this land. She wondered if she would ever learn to love it, this place that was so different from her sunny Spain.

  She was determined to try.

  She was wed to Prince Arthur with great pomp and ceremony. She tried hard to love the sickly boy. She tended him through his ailments and she was there when he died. She wept bitterly, mourning his short life. Her tears had been tears of fear too, for what was to become of her now that her prince was dead?

  Her father-in-the-law the king was loathed to send her back to Spain. He had need of her dowry and so he kept her on English soil. She became the Dowager Princess of Wales at the age of seventeen and for the first time in her life she understood what it was to be at the mercy of others.

  After Arthur’s death, the king kept her at court, hoping her womb would quicken. But when there was no child, she was dismissed. She lived, not knowing where her life was going and where destiny would take her. Buried in the English countryside, she longed for Spain.

  She longed for activity and purpose but above all, she longed to be loved.

  Love.

  Her thoughts turned to Henry. She had thought that Henry, her Henry, the young roguish brother of Arthur, loved her. When he came to the throne, he chose her. He did not send her back to Spain. He could not bear it. So he kept her by his side. He fell in love with her and against all opposition he insisted on taking her to wife. He insisted on making her his Queen.

  Katherine had thought her happiness complete the day she sat beside Henry and was crowned his Queen.

  Sweetheart, I would have no wife but thee, he had said unto her.

  Katherine thought her sufferings were over. She thought there would be no more sadness, only joy.

  She shook her head, how young she had been, how trusting and untried in the ways of the world.

  Still, she was no fool.

  She was four and twenty when she became Queen. Henry had been just eighteen, her junior by six years. He was a young man with roving eyes. She had marked it and understood it. Kings would be kings and in time, Henry would take mistresses. She had readied herself for the eventuality and she had smiled and turned her eyes away when Henry took his Bessie Blounts and Mary Boleyns to bed.

  She sat by too as the women gave Henry the one thing that she could not: living sons.

  She sat by and watched, year after year, always serene, playing the fool as Henry invested one boy after another, giving them titles and lands, recognizing them as his despite their illegitimacy.

  But a bastard could never inherit the crown, boy or no, and so Henry pushed her for children and she obeyed, even when her body and womb were tired and exhausted from the constant rigors of being bred and bred again. She was determined to fulfill her duty. She gritted her teeth and prayed, but year after year she was brought to bed and still no son. No matter how she tried, no matter how much she bled and twisted her body through the pains and horrors of childbirth, no child survived.

  Save for Mary.

  Mary was the only one that lived.

  But Mary was a girl and a girl couldn’t rule England. The last time a woman tried, she failed bitterly. She was chased out of these lands and forced to live in exile until her son avenged her. Thus, with Queen Matilda’s example as precedence, Henry despaired.

  Mary would not do. Mary would not suffice. She would not be able to secure the Tudor House for eternity. When she married, her husband would become the supreme ruler of her lands. Mary would be relegated to a lesser post. She would bear the crown in name only. She was a woman and her husband would rule her.

  Henry would not have it so. He would not hand his England to anyone but his son.

  What my father had done, I would do too. I shall have sons and sons aplenty! He told Katherine, his face defiant, his eyes flashing in fury.

  But it was too late. She had stopped bleeding and everyone knew it. There would be no more children. Not from her loins. She was done and she had failed. She was a failure in this, her greatest duty.

  Her eyes stung.

  But Henry was not done and he was ready to replace her with another. He wanted to be rid of his once beloved Katherine. He wanted to brush her away, take up a clean slate and start afresh. He had no more use for her. His love for her was no more. He had pronounced it dead. She was no longer the Spanish Princess he once loved. Those days were long gone. These days, she was nothing to him. She was just a tiresome old woman refusing to bow to his wishes.

  In the beginning, he tried to lure her with talk of a quiet place in the countryside. He spoke of titles, lands and riches too, if only she would release him of his bond to her. Endlessly, he cajoled and pleaded, hoping she would give in. But Katherine never wavered, she was his wife by the grace of God and she would not be moved.

  She thought this madness would pass. She pitied Henry and thought that he needed time to reconcile himself to the truth. Katherine of Aragon and Henry VIII would be without male issue and she had thought he needed time to accustom himself with the fact. But she was wrong. Anne Boleyn was a foe the likes of which she had never encountered.

  Anne Boleyn was everything Henry wanted. She was everything he needed. She had convinced him of it. Anne’s wor
ds were poison and Henry her most willing victim.

  Anne Boleyn was determined to see her task as the royal cuckoo through to the very end. She was the one who pointed the king toward the weighty tracts of Leviticus. She was the one who begged him to consider, read and absorb.

  Leviticus.

  Great woes, Leviticus said, befalls the man that takes his brother’s widow to wife.

  The words were like arrows through Henry’s chest. And that was when he began to regard Katherine as the enemy and everything foul. She was the one ruining his kingship, suppressing his manhood and denying him his sons. He acted as if he had never loved her, desired her and lusted after her with all the passion in his soul. Gone was his care for her, his regard as well as his avowals of love. He chose to forget every pledge he ever made and every vow he ever swore to her. They were all of them forgotten.

  Now he ranted and railed at her. He did not want her.

  Where once he desired her above all others, now, his only wish was to be rid of her. He wanted everything between them declared null and void. He wanted to cut her out of his life and relegate her to the realm of forgotten nightmares.

  He fought her hard. And there, to sweeten his every effort was Anne Boleyn’s flashing eyes, quirking smiles and lithesome flesh. The woman paraded herself before Henry. The purpose of her existence was to remind Henry of what lies just beyond his reach.

  As the ageing Spanish queen, Katherine had no arsenal with which to battle such potent sorcery. There was no denying it. Katherine was no longer young. She couldn’t entice Henry with her flesh anymore. There had been a time when he couldn’t bear to be apart from her but those days were long gone. He was a different man now.

  Still, she held on. It would be so easy to give in, to give him all that he wished, but she could not. She held on for her Mary. Her daughter was England’s one true heir and she would not have her daughter’s place usurped.

  Henry’s folly would ruin Mary’s life.

  So, gritting her teeth Katherine fought him. She fought him tooth and nail. She gave him no quarter and she held fast, showing him, showing England and the world her famous Spanish pride and temper.

  She denied him over and over, again and again. She showed him the formidable foe that she could be. She faced the bishops, the ministers and the cardinals sent to probe her marriage without fear. She held firm and she bested Henry, again and again, knocking his nose askew.

  Katherine of Aragon was not to be moved. Her daughter was the heir and she would fight to her last breath to secure Mary’s birthright.

  There were no more niceties left between her and Henry. All bonds were broken. He had shown her the worse of himself and she had retaliated, returning his favors in kind. They had passed the point of no return, Katherine knew that and she accepted it.

  But she would battle on for Mary’s sake. Indeed, there was nothing between her and Henry left to salvage. This last chapter of their lives was too ugly.

  She rubbed her eyes. She was tired, so tired of it all. Yet, like a lioness she would fight on.

  But now the last blow had been struck.

  Anne Boleyn was with child and Henry was sick of waiting.

  There was still no consent from the cardinals and there would never be a dispensation from the Pope. The Church of Rome wouldn’t allow Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. But the Pope was of no consequence now. Henry was done waiting for the divine will of a higher power. He would show everyone who denied him that he was not to be cowed. He had created a new church: the Church of England.

  When Katherine heard what Henry had done, she readied herself.

  Henry’s new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cramer, Henry’s trusted servant would undo what no man could cast asunder.

  It was done.

  Early this morning, Cranmer annulled the King’ marriage to Katherine of Aragon. What the Pope could not do, Cranmer did, and gladly too. As of this morn, she was no longer Queen. She was now the Dowager Princess of Wales once more. How she wanted to laugh. This sorry tale had chased itself round and round and now she was back where she began all those years ago.

  Her first husband Arthur had left her to join the angels. Her second husband Henry had left her to please his loins.

  Heavy fists pounded her doors.

  What was a woman worth to her husband? She asked herself once more and answered the question in the next breath, nothing at all.

  Dowager Princess. She was Dowager Princess once more. The actions against her would now be brought to a head.

  The end was upon her.

  The pounding at her doors increased.

  Anne Boleyn was impatient.

  Katherine had known that the last blow would fall fast.

  In fact, it was here and Katherine was ready. She had been ready for some time now. She jutted out her chin. She had no fears. All her fears were spent. She had seen them, each and every one through to their bitter ends. Her only worries were for her daughter Mary.

  Keep your brow stern, my daughter, there will be dark days ahead, she whispered and hoped that God would carry a mother’s loving words to her daughter.

  All around her, her ladies scattered, their hearts aflutter, their faces masks of terror. But Katherine’s face wore no surprise. She knew the men at arms would come for her, in this, the darkest part of the night. Henry never did things in the light of day anymore.

  He favored the night now; this was his new way.

  With an imperious flick of her hands, Katherine bid her ladies fling the doors to her royal apartments open. The men rushed in, their weapons drawn.

  Then and only then did Katherine look up from her sewing, how now gentlemen, she said with a regal smile, I have been waiting for you.

  1532

  MARY AGED SIXTEEN

  The creature was a viper in silk threads.

  Mary stared hard at the woman. She stared until her eyes hurt. Mary had not known she could hate anyone so much. She stared and stared at the she-wolf who had taken her mother’s place.

  Anne Boleyn.

  Mary thought she understood how the world worked. Her father was the king, her mother the queen and she the realm’s princess. Birth, standing and titles, they determined how a man or woman was to be treated, how low they needed bow and how they had to address her. All her life, she had lived her days according to the decorum and principals given her.

  Now everything was upside down.

  Her mother was no longer Queen. Katherine the Queen was now Katherine, the Dowager Princess of Wales.

  What does that make me? She wanted to ask her father.

  She was still Mary Tudor and she was still Henry’s daughter but now her mother was no queen and in her place was this woman.

  Mary had met Anne Boleyn when she first came to court. The woman was half a Howard. Her father’s line was common stock. They were rich merchants. He had paid for an alliance with the Howards with coin, buying himself a Howard bride. In Mary’s eyes, Anne Boleyn had not been someone worthy of notice. She was nobody. Just another lady at court to serve her mother the Queen.

  But now Anne Boleyn was Queen.

  Knotting her brow, Mary looked elsewhere, casting her eyes over the hall. There was the Duke of Norfolk. He was powerful. As the head of the Howard clan, he held great tracts of land in the north. He was also an able soldier. Lady Salisbury, her governess, always told her to beware the man. He was a wily one.

  She watched him. Nan Boleyn’s ascension had given the duke much to rejoice about. They now had a Howard on the throne. Anne Boleyn was good for Norfolk and Mary marked it. Turning her eyes away from Norfolk, she passed her eyes over her father.

  The King, your father has hardened his heart against his rightful wife and his one true heir, Lady Salisbury said. Mary averted her gaze, hurt.

  It was true. He had abandoned them. He had turned his back on his rightful wife and his Mary.

  The sound of his voice and the love in his words were shadows now, rep
laced by commands and edicts.

  Mary was confused by it. Who is this person my father has become?

  Heartless. She had never guessed that her father could be so heartless. But he was and he had replaced her mother with a whore. He was making a mockery of their family and the love between them, all for this woman.

  Mary cocked her head, veiling her eyes the way Lady Salisbury had taught her, quietly, she studied Anne Boleyn. The woman was small, thin and she seemed to sport a perpetual smile of condescension on her wide red lips.

  She speaks to mock, Lady Salisbury told her. When she speaks she does so in perfect English but she always infuses her words with the slightest inflections of French. She is forever seeking to remind everyone that she spent her youth in France. She is forever at pains to remind people of her sophistication, to show each and every person at court that she is stylish and captivating.

  Mary passed her eyes over the woman. Anne Boleyn was indeed turned out in style.

  And the ladies of the court, Mary saw, were fighting hard to emulate her. Now, under this new Queen everything was French, very French. The court was filled with French music, French food, French hoods, French poetry, French embroidering, French taffeta, French lace and French cambric. Everything was fashion, perpetual gaiety and witty laughter. There was no decorum here.

  As Mary watched, she saw Anne turn her viper’s smile on her father, beguiling him, making him forget all about his duties. He was as they said: a man besotted.

  You will find the king much changed, Margaret de la Pole warned her.

  And it was true. Her father was changed. But she was not the only one who abhorred the changes. The people were unhappy too. They did not like this new Queen. Katherine of Aragon was their queen, not this woman who was emptying all she could from the king’s coffers into her lap. Lands, deeds, titles and everything good, the Boleyns were rising and rising fast in the world. Mary cast her gaze upon them. The Boleyns were all smiles and gracious largess.

  They strut around Whitehall like they own it, Lady Salisbury said, they rub shoulders with dukes, earls and peers of the realm, and now they fancy themselves at one with them.