The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Would it not be better for me to be seen at your side?’ I asked. ‘A French Queen, whom you hold in esteem, despite the defeat?’

  ‘Your loyalty is not in question,’ he stated brusquely.

  I sat up, holding out my hands, palms up, in the age-old gesture of supplication. ‘Let me come with you, Henry. I don’t think we should be parted now.’

  But Henry stood and moved to sit on the bed beside me. At first he did not touch me, then he reached out a hand to stroke my hair, which lay unconfined on my shoulders.

  ‘Why would you wish to? You’ll be far more comfortable at Westminster or the Tower.’

  ‘I want to travel with you. I have seen so little of you since we were first wed, and soon you’ll be back in France.’

  ‘You’ll see enough of me,’ he remarked, as if it was a matter of little consequence how many hours we spent in each other’s company.

  ‘No.’ I twisted my fingers into the stiffly embroidered lions on his cuff, and said what I had always resisted saying. ‘I love you, Henry.’ Never had I dared speak those words, or even hint at my feelings, fearful of reading the response in that austere face. Now I said them in a bid to remain with him, to make him realise that I could be more to him than I was, and I waited wide-eyed for his response.

  ‘Of course. It is good that a wife loves her husband.’

  It was not what I had hoped for. Merely a trite comment such as Guille had made on my wedding night. My belly clenched with disappointment.

  Do you love me, Henry?

  I dared not ask. Would he not tell me if he did? Or did he simply presume that I knew? A voice whispered in my mind, a voice of good but brutal sense: He does not love you, so there is nothing to say. I held tight to the emotions that rioted nauseously within my ribcage.

  ‘Then stay with me tonight,’ I said before my courage could die. ‘If we are to be parted, stay with me now.’

  ‘I have letters to write to France.’

  I swallowed the disappointment that filled my mouth. I would not ask again. At that moment I knew that I would never ask again.

  ‘You must make ready to leave at daybreak,’ he said.

  ‘I will do whatever you wish,’ I replied, weakly compliant. But I knew in my heart that there was no changing his mind.

  ‘You will prefer it.’ Henry stood. You will prefer it, I thought.

  ‘I will be ready. Henry…’ He halted at the door and looked back. ‘You don’t really think I would rejoice in my brother’s victory, do you?’

  For a moment he looked as if he was considering the matter and my heart lurched. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you would. I know you have no love for the Dauphin. And I think you have little interest in politics and what goes on in the war.’

  I forced myself to show no reaction, no resentment. ‘So you don’t condemn me for my birth and past loyalties.’

  ‘No. How should I? I knew the complications when I took you in marriage. Don’t worry about it, Katherine. Your position as my wife is quite secure.’ He opened the door. ‘And will become even stronger when you give birth to England’s heir.’

  And he closed the door at his back, reinforcing the reason he had come to me when his heart was heavy with grief for his brother. Not for comfort, or to spend a final hour with me, but to get a child on me before he parcelled me off to London so that I might sit in the vast rooms of Westminster with the heir to England growing inside me.

  A bleak fury raged within me, a desolation so deep that I should ever have thought that he could love me. He did not. He never had, he never would. Even affection seemed to be beyond what he could give me. He could play the chivalrous prince and woo me with fine words, he could possess my body with breathtaking thoroughness, but his emotions were not involved. His heart was as coldly controlled as his outer appearance.

  And—the anger burned even brighter—he had judged me to be nothing more than an empty-headed idiot, incapable of comprehending the difficulties of his foreign policies or the extent of his own ambitions. I was an ill-informed woman who had little wit and could not be expected to take an interest. I may have been ill informed when he first met me, but I had made it a priority to ask and learn. I was no longer ignorant and knew very well the scope of Henry’s vision to unite England and France under one strong hand.

  It was during that lonely night that I accepted that, even as I grieved for Henry’s loss of a beloved brother, my marriage was a dry and arid place. Why had it taken me so long to see what must have been obvious to the whole court?

  I rose at dawn, my mind clear. If all Henry wanted was an obedient, compliant wife who made no demands on him, then that was what he would have. Not waiting for Guille, I began to pack my clothes into their travelling coffers. Obedient and compliant? I would be exactly what he wanted, and after Mass and a brief repast, both celebrated alone—Henry was elsewhere—I stepped into the courtyard where my travelling litter already awaited me. Before God, he was thorough.

  It crossed my mind that the accounts of taxes paid and unpaid might prove a more beguiling occupation than wishing me God speed, but there he was, waiting beside the palanquin, apparently giving orders to the sergeant-at-arms who would lead my escort. It did nothing to thaw out my heart. Of course he was conscious of my safety: after last night—might I not be carrying the precious heir to England and France?

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, turning as he heard the brisk clip of my shoes on the paving. ‘You will make good time.’

  My smile was perfectly performed. ‘I would not wish to be tardy, my lord.’

  ‘Your accommodations will be arranged for you in Stamford and Huntingdon. Your welcome is assured.’

  ‘I expect they will.’ I held out my hand. Henry kissed my fingers and helped me into the litter, beckoning for more cushions and rugs for my comfort.

  ‘I will be in London at the beginning of May, when Parliament will meet.’

  ‘I will look for you then, my lord.’

  The muscles of my face ached with the strain of smiling for so long, and I really could not call him Henry.

  At a signal we moved off. I did not look back. I would not wish to know if Henry stayed to see my departure or was already walking away before my entourage had passed from the courtyard. And thus I travelled quite magnificently with a cavalcade of armed outriders, servants, pages and damsels. The people of England flocked to see their new Queen even though the King was not at her side.

  In Stamford and Huntingdon and Cambridge I was made to feel most welcome, I was feasted and entertained most royally, my French birth proving not to be a matter for comment. It should have been a series of superb triumphal entries, but rather a deluge of rejection invaded every inch of my body. I meant nothing to Henry other than as a vessel to carry my precious blood to our son, so that in his veins would mingle the right to wear both English and French crowns. I should have accepted it from the very beginning. I had been foolish beyond measure to live for so long with false hopes. But no longer.

  My naïvety, constantly seeking Henry’s love for me when it did not exist, was a thing of the past. His heart was a foreign place to me, his soul encased in ice.

  Why had I not listened to Michelle? It would have saved me heartbreak if I had. And although I knew from past experience that tears would bring no remedy, yet still I wept. My final acknowledgement of my place in Henry’s life chilled me to the bone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  London, England: February 1421.

  ‘I don’t want that tradition, my lord. I would like you to stand with me.’

  ‘There is no need to be emotional, Katherine.’

  Our first disagreement on English soil. Our first full-scale quarrel because, instead of my habitual, careful dissimulation, I said the first words that came into my head.

  ‘What do you wear for this occasion?’ I had asked, surprised at the informality of Henry’s tunic and hose when I was clad from head to foot in leopards, fleur-delys and ermine. I stood bef
ore him, arms lifted to display my finery, as he broke his fast with a hearty appetite in our private chamber. It had taken an hour for my damsels—Beatrice, Meg, Cecily and Joan—to dress me. Now Henry and I were alone.

  ‘Do you not have a part to play in this?’

  ‘No.’ Henry looked up from a platter of venison, knife poised. ‘I won’t be there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It is your day. I’ll not take the honour from you.’

  I tensed against a tremor of anxiety. I would have to face this shattering ordeal on my own. Already I felt perspiration on my brow and along my spine beneath the heavy fur. Would I ever be able to face such public display with the equanimity that Henry displayed? I did not think so.

  ‘If I asked you to come with me,’ I tried, ‘would you?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘It is the tradition. A King does not attend his Queen’s coronation.’

  ‘But I don’t want that tradition, my lord. I would like you to stand with me.’

  I heard the quiver in my voice, flinched at the formality I still clung to in moments of fear, as I envisaged the hours of ceremonial that I would have to face alone. So did Henry hear it.

  ‘There is no need to be emotional, Katherine.’

  ‘I am emotional.’

  I felt as if I was being been abandoned in a cold and friendless place, a lamb to the slaughter. I had left the country of my birth with my sister’s ring, a portrait of Henry given to me by Lord John and a desire in my heart to prove myself worthy of my husband’s regard. At first I had looked to Henry, but he had his own affairs and his own manner of dealing with them.

  Hardly had we set foot on English soil than it was writ plain. He left me at Canterbury, going on ahead to prepare my reception in London. I wished he hadn’t. I would rather forgo the reception and have him with me. The constant critical concern over my presence, my appearance, my knowledge of how I should comport myself, unnerved and baffled me.

  Henry placed his knife carefully beside the platter, aligning it neatly as he sighed. ‘Your damsels will surround you and support you.’

  I had enough acquaintance with my damsels to answer smartly, ‘My damsels sneer and scoff at my lack of confidence.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Katherine.’ Impatience was gathering like a storm cloud on Henry’s brow. ‘They are only your servants. They will obey you.’

  ‘But they do not like me.’

  ‘They don’t have to like you. Their opinion is irrelevant.’

  Ridiculously, I felt tears press against my eyelids. This momentous day was being ruined by my lack of assurance and Henry’s lack of understanding. My enjoyment was fast sliding away between the two.

  ‘My brothers will stand beside you. The archbishop will do all that needs to be done. And you, Katherine, will play the role to perfection.’ Henry rose to his feet and, collecting the pile of documents from beside his platter—of superbly inscribed gold craftsmanship, of course—walked from the room. At the door he halted and looked back. ‘We have been wed for six months now. It is time that you were able to present yourself with more regal authority.’

  Henry stepped out, then stopped again to add, ‘You have a duty to this country as Queen and as my wife. It is time that you fulfilled that duty. In all its aspects.’

  It was a final, blighting condemnation of my failure to bear a child for him. It was also an order, stated with cold exactitude, leaving me feeling awkward and foolish. And ungrateful, despite having been plucked from obscurity and made Queen of England with all the splendour of rank and honour. Yet how cold was English precedent! How rigidly formal the demands of ceremonial, when my husband was prevented from standing at my side to imbue me with his grace and confidence. Would I ever grow used to it? Growing up enclosed behind Poissy’s walls, I knew nothing of living so prominently in the eye of the Court.

  ‘I will fulfil my duty. Of course I will. But I do not wish to be there alone.’ I addressed his squared shoulder blades and formidably rigid spine.

  Henry did not hear me. Or chose not to.

  And now my coronation banquet, which should have filled me with a sense of my achievement, merely enforced my unworthiness. As I sat in the place of honour and smiled at my guests, all I could think of was who was there and who was not. These high-blooded members of the English royal family, these English nobles and princes of the church, would people my future existence and dictate the direction of my future life. I had no one of my own.

  So I must become English.

  There was Lord John, who had made me welcome from that very first occasion when the war between hunting cat and wolfhound had filled me with fear. He smiled at me and raised his cup in a silent toast. I could call him John and trust his friendship.

  I slid a glance to my right, to Henry Beaufort, clad in all his magnificence as Bishop of Winchester. Thin-faced, sharp-eyed, quick and keen as a fox, this was Henry’s uncle, a man very close to all the Plantagenet brothers. He had welcomed me like a niece, assuring me of his good offices. I think he meant it but I sensed a strong streak of ambition, a man who would let no one stand in his path. He had a wily eye. He patted my hand and nodded his encouragement.

  On my left was James, hopeful King of Scotland. Dear James. His jaunty irreverence was balm to my sore heart.

  I tried not to look across the table, in case I caught his eye, for there sat Lord Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, another of Henry’s clutch of brothers, easily recognisable with the family traits of nose and brow, but his mouth had a sour twist. I recognised his dislike of me behind the false smile. Perhaps because I was French. Or my mother’s daughter. I was wary of him, and he was cool with me.

  The one figure I looked for, and did not find, was that of Queen Dowager Joanna, Henry’s stepmother. Perhaps there was a reason for her absence. Perhaps her health was not good. I determined to ask Henry.

  The banquet began. Because it was Lent, the range of magnificent dishes that were brought for our delectation was composed entirely of fish. Salmon and codling, plaice and crabs, sturgeon cooked with whelks—the variety was astonishing. And after each of the three courses a subtlety to honour me, a confection that elicited cries of wonder. A figure of me as Saint Catherine seated amongst angels, all constructed cleverly out of marchpane, then another of me holding a book. I hoped Saint Catherine was better able to master the contents than I. And then another Saint Catherine with her terrible wheel and a scroll in her hand, with gold crowns and fleurs-de-lys and a prancing panther, which made me laugh.

  And where was Henry, to enjoy this moment with me? He would not be there because this was my day and he would not impose his own presence on it. The exchange, becoming increasingly impatient on his part and increasingly hopeless on mine, had ultimately undermined all my pleasure.

  Oh, I wished I had more confidence. The weight of the jewelled crown on my head did nothing to enhance it. Why did I not have the assurance of Beatrice, who was laughing and simpering with the gallant on her right? How could a newly crowned and anointed Queen of England be so gauchely tongue-tied? I picked at the dish of eels roasted with goujons of turbot.

  I made a token gesture of eating, yet when another dish, a crayfish in a golden sauce, was placed before me, I abandoned my spoon. This roused unsubtle debate over possible reasons why my appetite was impaired. Could it be that I carried England’s heir?

  No, it could not. My ability to quicken was becoming an issue.

  ‘You were magnificent, Katherine.’

  Back at the Tower, leaping to his feet as the little knot of us, full of laughter and comment, entered the room, Henry abandoned his cup of wine—for once he had been lounging at ease, ankles crossed, a hound at his feet—to clasp my shoulders in his strong hands and kissed my cheeks.

  Delighted at such a show of spontaneous admiration, I returned his smile. The apprehension that had dogged me through the whole performance dropped away, along with the ermine cloak that Beatrice bore away to preserve for the next occasio
n. Henry’s praise expressed with such immediacy was a rare commodity and to be valued.

  ‘I think I did nothing wrong,’ I replied hopefully, as his hands slid down my arms to link fingers with mine. Joy spurted in my affection-starved heart.

  ‘You did it to the manner born,’ John assured me.

  ‘Very gracious, Your Majesty!’ James grinned.

  Humphrey said nothing, busying himself with cups of Bordeaux.

  ‘You made a magnificent Queen,’ Bishop Henry added. ‘You would have been proud of your wife, Hal.’

  ‘So I am.’ Henry had forgotten our clash of the early morning and was in good humour, reminding me of our first meeting when he had allowed his admiration for me to shine in his eyes. ‘And a more beautiful one I could not have chosen. Did I not say from the beginning that you would make me a superb wife?’

  He kissed my fingers, then my lips. He was proud of me. More than gratified, I tightened my hold, heart throbbing and my whole body flushed with my achievements and my love for this man who saw through my fragile facade to my possible strengths and encouraged me to stand alone. With him I would be confident. I would hold my head high.

  ‘Oh, Henry…’

  What I would have said I had no idea, for I could hardly pour out my love at his feet, but Henry released my hands and turned to look at John. ‘About tomorrow…’

  ‘Bishop Henry said we would go on progress,’ I said, emotion still bubbling inside me. ‘So that the people of England will know me.’

  ‘I leave tomorrow,’ Henry said with a quick glance, taking the cup offered by Humphrey.

  My belly lurched, clenched, but I kept my expression impassive. A Queen of England must exercise composure. ‘And what do I do?’ I asked carefully. My smile was pinned to my face.

  ‘Remain here. I intend to make a circuit of the west. And then I’ll go on to…’ I closed my eyes momentarily, accepting that Henry’s discussion of his itinerary was more for the benefit of his brothers and uncle than for mine. ‘They need to see me after so long in France. And I hope to call on their loyalty in hard cash. The army’s a constant drain—will you organise a body of royal commissioners to follow on behind to receive loans that are freely offered—or not so freely? It’s quicker than going cap in hand to Parliament.’