by G Lawrence
“The ambassador said, Majesty, that the King had expressed doubts about the legality of his second marriage,” wrote my aunt. “And that the King had said he had been seduced into marriage by witchcraft, and for this reason considered it null. Considering the source of this gossip was the Courtenays, and knowing their restless tongues are often full of deceit, I took not much stock in this report. The ambassador himself sounded dubious about it, but it was reported to us at Hatfield in the hope of making us treat the Lady Mary better. I thought, no matter how unworthy or untrustworthy the source, I should repeat it to Your Majesty.”
I stared at the letter. Had Henry really said this, or was it poison dreamt up by my enemies? I felt cold. I bound the parchment up and hid it in a chest, hoping that if I could not see it, it did not exist.
But I was haunted by it. Was Henry thinking of destroying our marriage? With me pregnant I could not believe it, and yet there was a possibility he had expressed such sentiments. He had said things like this to me in the past. After an argument, had he gone to his men, not only complaining about me, but seeking ways to remove me?
He came to me that afternoon, and I could barely speak to him. I told myself to be witty, to be quick, but I could not. My smile froze upon my face.
The Lady Mary was unmoved by my efforts. She repeated anew that she knew of no other Queen but her mother, who, although dead, was still the Queen. I grew annoyed, and wrote to Lady Shelton again. “If I have a son,” I wrote. “She knows what will happen to her.”
I told my aunt to resume harsh treatment, and my orders were not welcome. My aunt began to turn from me, disliking my shrill commands. I heard that Lady Shelton had not done as I commanded, and George informed me that one of his men at Hatfield had said he thought Lady Shelton was taking money from Chapuys in return for allowing his servants to meet Lady Mary in contradiction of Henry’s orders.
I asked George to find evidence. Henry was presently disposed to be kind to his errant daughter, but if I could prove Mary was working against us, this might change.
*
Reports came from Savoy, a state in which François had intervened. The Emperor opposed him, and war was rumoured. Italy and Milan became Europe’s focus, and England slipped to one side. Henry did not care to see that his realm was not as important as he might have liked. But I believed that if the Emperor’s gaze fell elsewhere, all was well.
As Katherine lay in state, awaiting her funeral, I sat upon my gracious throne, trying to pretend I was happy. But I was not. I was distraught, bereft… I knew myself to be alone, and only the child in my womb protected me. If I am taken from this throne, I thought, will they take my daughter from me too? Will I become as Katherine, locked away in little rooms, never to see my Elizabeth again?
When Katherine’s corpse was opened for examination, her heart was found to be black and hideous. It was cut in half, and washed, but the blackness remained. People said she had died of a broken heart, and this was their evidence.
Sometimes, I set my hand against my own heart, and wondered if it, like Katherine’s, had died. Was this what Henry did to the women he loved? Claimed their hearts, and turned them to rot and ruin?
Katherine’s body lingered at Kimbolton for almost two weeks after her death, whilst Henry attempted to seize what little property she had left. On the 15th of January she was encased in a lead coffin, and her body had begun to decompose. She was returned to the chapel, to lie for another twelve days as Masses were sung for her soul. Suffolk and Elizabeth Browne, the Countess of Worcester, along with the Countesses of Oxford and Surrey, and ladies of lesser rank, were chosen as her mourners. Lady Mary could not attend. It was not normal for royalty, even of bastard birth, to attend funerals of close kin.
As we waited for the once-Queen to be laid to rest, a strange series of accidents occurred. The first was that I woke one morning to billowing black smoke, and had to be rushed from my chambers. It was said one of the coals from the fire had escaped and set light to the carpet. In my fright and slumberous confusion, I called for my women to bring Purkoy, only to remember he was dead.
We stood outside the palace, watching white smoke curl from the windows. The early morning air was cold, and I felt frozen. Was this an accident? I asked myself. The memory of Purkoy and what had been done to him was fresh within my mind that morning. I had to wonder if this destruction of my chambers was indeed an accident, or if it had been done either as revenge for Katherine, or as a clumsy attempt on my life, and that of my unborn baby.
Henry found me outside, shivering in my fur-lined gown, and took me to his rooms, bellowing at everyone that they should have more care of their Queen.
The second event was even more serious.
On the day before Katherine’s chivalric banners were made ready to fly above her funeral procession, the second accident occurred. It was a mishap that might have altered the course of England’s history and the path of my life.
On the 24th of January, whilst competing in jousts to celebrate his freedom, Henry fell from his horse.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Greenwich Palace
January 1536
I was sitting in my rooms when the news came, my hands busy sewing a nightgown for my unborn child. Henry had visited that morn in a bright mood which matched the sunny skies.
“Will you join me today?” he asked, picking up the gown I was working on and smiling to see my preparations for our son.
“I may attend in the afternoon,” I said. “But if you will excuse me this morning, beloved, I am not feeling hale.”
“It is only proper that you rest,” he said, stooping to kiss my forehead. “I will see you later, but only if you feel strong enough.”
“I love to watch you ride,” I said. “Do you remember the day you fell from your horse and I came running to your side?”
He laughed. “There was no man or deer who could have beaten you. You were with me before I even knew that I had fallen.”
“I thought I had lost you, and my heart could not bear the pain.”
“And I have not fallen since,” he said. “You placed a spell of luck upon me that day, I think.”
I shivered as he spoke of spells, remembering Chapuys’ letter. But Henry, lost in his desire to get onto a horse, noted nothing.
“Ride well,” I said as we parted. “Show foolish boys what a true man can achieve.”
I thought later that perhaps I should not have spurred him on, but at the time, I simply returned to my embroidery. Taking up the gown, I gazed upon my work with satisfaction. Golden acorns spilled across a hem of white linen, and a sky of blue was picked out in azure above. My child would have a beautiful array of garments to greet him when he arrived. And with Henry and me on better terms, and Katherine gone, I felt lighter than I had in months. I told myself that Henry’s threats to remove me had been spoken when he was angry and he did not mean them. How often had I let slip unguarded words… insults about his ability in bed, poetry and clothing? When I was at peace with him I did not think such wild, horrible thoughts, and it was the same for him.
At least I hoped it was.
But there were reasons to rejoice, and I would not ignore them. God had listened. All the hours I spent on my knees after the deaths of my sons, and the effort put into our reformation had been rewarded. This pregnancy was a sign God loved us. This time I would not fail.
My ladies and I had thrown ourselves into work on bed hangings, clothes for my Elizabeth and for my waiting son. I had sewed so many H and A’s entwined that I had started to dream of our initials. The palaces were decorated by the symbols of our love. I was not going to let anyone forget that Henry and I were joined by bonds of a love everlasting. There was no love like our love. We fought, we scrapped, we wounded each other, but always we came back.
Our love was a drug. We were addicted.
Thinking thus, as I sewed, I whiled away the hours. Just as I was preparing to rest, there was a commotion outside the door. Wit
h a distraught servant dogging his steps, begging for him to tarry so he might be properly announced, Norfolk barged into my chambers.
My uncle looked wild. His hair was uncovered, and he had run his fingers through it; it spiked like the coarse hair of a sweaty boar. He glanced about, his eyes feral, his mouth gaping.
I rose from my chair, thinking for a moment that he might be there to kill me.
“My lord?” I asked, my hand on the back of my chair. If he meant to murder me I could throw it between us.
“The King is dead!” Norfolk cried.
I stared at him. The room went silent.
Henry… dead? How could it be?
“What?” I asked, my voice emerging as a hard, tight curl from my mouth. “What do you mean?” Everything was numb. I could not feel my body. There was no thought in my mind.
“He was thrown in the lists!” Norfolk went on. “His horse collapsed on top of him, crushing him. He is dead!”
“It cannot be.” I swayed, feeling all the blood in my body leave my flesh and flood to my heart, so it might thunder in my chest, beating out a refrain for the lost heart that once had beat in time with mine. My ladies, seeing me close to fainting, ran to me, bearing me to a chair where they thrust my head between my knees.
When I looked up, I could feel my face was grey. “He is dead?” I whispered.
“We have to move fast,” said Norfolk. “There will have to be a regency council established for the Princess and the child you carry.”
I put my hand dumbly on my belly. Henry was dead?
I could not think. I could not imagine a world without him. A dull shadow fell upon me, sapping my energy. The light had left the world. The sun had died. Endless night would fall, blanketing the world in darkness.
Norfolk let out a noise of exasperation and threw his hands into the air. “You are the Queen!” he shouted. “Stand, and take command, or our enemies will!”
Even through the pain and the fug of sorrow, I knew he was right. This was a fragile moment. The future of my children now depended on me.
I stood. “Take me to the King,” I said.
“He is dead.”
“You will address me as Majesty!” I shouted. “And you will do as I say!”
Norfolk took me to a tent in the tilting yard. There was a huge crowd about it, full of milling people with pale faces. My hands shook and my blood quivered as they parted, allowing me to enter and see Henry lying on a makeshift bed. Doctors were flapping about him, but at first sight, I could see he was not dead.
“God be praised!” I shouted, making them stare. “I was told the King was dead!”
“We thought he was,” said my father, rushing to me. Taking one glance at my drawn face he led me to a chair. “When first he fell, he went down so hard we thought he might not rise, and his armoured horse, seventeen hands high, fell upon him. He was wearing nearly a hundredweight of armour. The horse rolled on him.”
“So said my uncle,” I said, glaring at Norfolk, who looked utterly flabbergasted. “You told me the King was dead!”
“No one thought he could survive that fall,” said my father.
“When we moved him in here, Majesty,” said Doctor Butts, “we found he was breathing. He remains unconscious, but he lives.”
“He lives,” I breathed. “He lives.”
Relief washed over me. I was dizzy. Henry had been taken from me and restored within an hour. The thought that I had lost him had been unbearable, and now that I knew he was alive, if gravely injured, I knew not what to feel. Should I be relieved, or fear to lose him again? Should I rest easy, or start planning to protect our children from my enemies?
My mind felt strangely blank. Finally I understood limbo… a state of non-being, floating between worlds. If Henry lived, all was well. If he died, much, perhaps all, was lost.
“Can I speak to him?” I asked. “Just for a moment. I would not get in your way, but I cannot be here without…”
“Of course, Majesty,” said Butts, waving back the other doctors. “It will help him to hear your voice.”
I went to Henry. They had removed his armour. His face was deathly pale and there was blood on the back of his head, matted in his hair. A thin line of crimson had dribbled from his mouth, running down a crease in his skin. A flash of memory rose, and I had to force it down, down into the pit where the broken one lived; into that labyrinth where I stored all dangerous things.
One of his legs was uncovered, and I stared at it in horror. Henry had suffered from his legs, but now, those risen veins were swollen, distended and hideous. Stretching from his calf up to his thigh, they were lumpy, erupting from his flesh like earthen fortifications upon an old hill fort. And one had burst. The doctors were trying to stem the bleeding coursing from his thigh, but blood pumped out, rude and red, brilliant against his white skin.
“Can you stop the bleeding?” My voice was desiccated, reedy. I thought I might be sick.
“We will do everything we can,” Butts said. “But should His Majesty recover, this may be the end of his days of competition.”
I bowed my head over Henry. Taking his hand in mine, I started to whisper. I knew not what I said, for the words poured out of me like water. I spoke of my love for him, of how I needed him, of how our children needed him. I pleaded with God to bring him back. “For what will England do without her King?” I asked. “What will I do without you, my love… my only love?”
On and on I spoke. On and on I prayed. When I looked up, my eyes glazed by tears, I saw the same in the eyes of many others. Moved to grief by my entreaties to the Almighty, they stared at me with admiration and sorrow.
If it had never been clear to some that I loved my husband, it was now.
“You cannot leave me,” I whispered. “Do not go, beloved. You must be here to rule England, and see our son born. I cannot do without you. All the petty arguments, they are nothing, do you not see? All that matters is that you are here, and we are together. I cannot live without you.”
I started to sob, and my father led me from Henry’s side. “Go and rest,” he said.
“I will stay with him.”
“You should protect your child,” he said. “Norfolk was a fool to tell you the news as he did. He might have put you in danger.”
I had not even considered this. My hand flashed to my bump. Please, my mind begged. Please, little one. All will be well. Stay, and I will keep you safe.
As though hearing me, my child moved under my hand. It was the first time I had felt him quicken, and it did not cause alarm. It was the sleepy movement of a child in perfect happiness.
“My child is well,” I said. “And my place is with my husband.”
“We need to make provision,” said my father. “In case the King does not survive.”
“The King will live.”
“But if he does not…”
“The King will live!” I shouted, causing heads to twist about and eyes to stare. “Make whatever plans you think necessary to protect my children, Father, but speak no more of death. It is treason!” I turned to the doctors. “When you think he is strong enough, he will be moved into the palace,” I said. “He cannot remain here, in the night air, it will make him sick.”
“We thought the same, Majesty,” said Butts. “But the crowds outside must be moved.”
“I will address them.”
“Majesty,” said my father. “Are you strong enough for this?”
I stuck my chin in the air. “I am the Queen,” I said. “This duty is my office to perform as my husband lies unwell.”
I went outside, and as I stepped before them, the anxious masses fell silent. “The King lives,” I said. “And he will recover. We thank you for your care, but the noise is disturbing him. In an hour he will be taken into the palace to recover. I would have all of you disperse so we might take him to his chambers without further problems. News will be given this evening, and any time there is more I will tell you all. But, for the sake of H
is Majesty, the King we love and revere, please go now.”
As they started to drift away, I held up a hand. “Please,” I said. “Do not seek to scare the rest of court or England by passing on this news for purpose of shock or scandal. If you must speak of the King’s fall, say also that he is well, that he is a strong man… that no one can compare to him. Your King will be recovered in a few days, and when he is, he will not wish to hear that anyone has passed on false gossip and alarmed his people.” I eyed them with my great, black orbs. “And neither will I.”