Mistress of Mourning

by Karen Harper

  Once we returned to city life, Nick was away when the court was at Windsor or Greenwich, but home each night when they were at Westminster, so I was quite content. Then, just when my being summoned to the queen almost three years ago began to seem like a distant dream, Nick brought a royal summons for me, just after the queen had been delivered of a sickly girl child in February of 1503.

  “Is she fearful the child will die and wants another effigy?” I asked Nick as he escorted me—not by the familiar back entrance—toward the queen’s suite of rooms in Westminster Palace. Like dear Maud, I was showing a pregnancy, four months on, I reckoned, but I pulled my cloak closer around my slightly swelling form. If Her Majesty was going to lose another child, it wouldn’t do to flaunt my happy state.

  I was surprised to find the king sitting by her bed and no one else about. He motioned us over and rose. We curtsied and bowed. “Mistress Sutton,” he said, and nodded a greeting—a surprisingly humble gesture. “And Nick. Come with me,” he added to Nick, “for the queen would speak with Varina alone, about something that has my full approval.”

  Either I was going to finally begin Prince Arthur’s effigy, I thought, or—God forbid—carve a new one for their sick infant. And yet, when the queen’s eyes opened and I noted how ashen pale she looked, I held my breath.

  “Varina, no one is to know yet…but you are good at…keeping secrets.”

  I could barely make out her words, her voice was so faint.

  “I am ill,” she went on. “Childbed fever. I feel…I am told I may not recover.”

  “But you are strong in your heart and mind and soul, Your Maj—” I protested, until she gave a slight shake of her head and gestured me to bend down to her. With one hand lightly on her bed—her sheet was soaked with sweat—I did as she asked.

  “In a way, I gave you Nicholas,” she whispered, gasping for breath. “And you gave me some peace. Now…the king has agreed…that you shall carve my effigy for my funeral. Come each day…so it will be ready soon. And make me—at last—look content.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again. I nodded, kept nodding until I realized it and stopped.

  “And do the one of my Arthur after. The king…he’s seen them. He knows…and now accepts. He will pay you.”

  “I will do it, Your Grace, but as a labor of love.”

  A wan hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Ah, yes—love. Our lots in life so different—but we are so alike,” she said, then seemed to slip away, to sleep instantly.

  The moment I straightened, the king came back to her side. “I knew that would tire her, but anything she asks—anything that I could do for her—almost, I would. Nick, I’ll give others your duties for now and ask you to bring your wife to her old haunt to carve the new wax image. Make her beautiful, Varina.”

  “As she is and ever will be, Your Majesty,” I choked out as he walked us to the door.

  “And carve it quickly,” he said. “I must summon back her physicians and her ladies now.”

  I left, stunned, but determined that I would make my dear friend look as lovely as she had been the day she told me she was with child again. I subtly stroked my own belly as Nick led me out.

  Queen Elizabeth of York

  As Henry hovered and the royal physicians tended me, I soared and slid, in and out, up and down. Prince Henry came in, and I gave him my blessing. His cool lips lingered on my hot cheek before he left, Henry now our only hope to be king. Be a good and loving king, I longed to tell him, but I was not strong enough to form the words. My dear, sweet daughters came and went, weeping. My mother-in-law, who would now really rule the royal roost, muttered something about how I had been a good wife for her son.

  And then, as I closed my heavy eyes and drifted again, swimming in sweat, burning with fever, the Archbishop of Canterbury—what was his name?—gave me the final rites. Then I saw them all again, those I had so long sought. Was I in paradise already?

  My mother was crying but said she forgave me. My brothers, so thin and pale, but hanging over my bed with wings, like angels. Who had hurt them? I still was not sure and did not want to know anymore. I just wanted to be with them all. My father, King Edward, strong and blond, was lifting me now, lifting me up to ride before him on his horse through London’s streets. Yes, we were going to buy a book, and I was so proud to be his daughter, a princess. And then—and then the man named Henry Tudor, who had been our enemy, took me to his bed, and then there was a crown.…

  A man I did not know held my hand, sobbing. I smelled incense, or mayhap it was sweet herbs or roses, white and red roses. A bright light was burning in my brain, a lovely angel candle. I began to rush toward it and then I flew.

  Mistress Varina Westcott

  Her Majesty Elizabeth of York died on her thirty-seventh birthday, and all of London mourned. Her newborn girl, Katherine, outlived her by but a few days. The king, Nick said, was inconsolable.

  I was summoned to Westminster Palace on February 12, to oversee the embalming of Her Majesty’s body—another final wish of the queen. Royal physicians did the work, but I, in tears, wrapped her gently in Westcott Chandlery waxen cloth. I stood with her ladies as her physicians carried her body from her bed. After they changed the linens, they placed the flexible body with the wax face and hands I had labored over upon the bed until it would be placed atop the black satin–draped coffin, then be regally seated next to her tomb in Westminster Abbey.

  Once I saw the effigy was placed in the bed, its robes of velvet and cloth of gold arranged, its ornate hood fitted properly over the long blond wig—the king had found a painter to color the cheeks, lips, and eyes—I walked down the narrow corridor to bid farewell to the effigies I’d carved. It seemed but yesterday that I had first been summoned here. Nick would be meeting me soon, but I took a moment, touched each face as I had seen Elizabeth the Good do in her love for these, her lost children. Then I turned and, since I was not to use the back entrance to this room anymore, I went back toward the queen’s now deserted bedchamber.

  Lost in memories, I jolted to a halt at the sound of sobbing. Someone must have come in to mourn at the image of the queen, so I must go out quietly.

  But I stood frozen in the door of her bedchamber. The king himself lay prostrate on the bed next to the queen’s effigy, his face buried against its neck, his arm over the waist. It took me a moment to catch the meaning of his broken words, and when I did, I shuffled carefully back down the narrow corridor I had just trod.

  “Forgive me, forgive me, my dearest, but I could not tell you—could not, and you so loyal. I was terrified you would know, would turn on me. It was…it was”—he gasped for air, near hysteria as I came to a halt in the shadows of the hall—“just something that happened.”

  What was he speaking of? I feared I knew.

  “I caused it, but it wasn’t my fault!” he wailed. “I—I said aloud one day in the hearing of some loyal men that my path to the throne would be clearer, faster if the princes were to disappear from the Tower. I didn’t mean what happened. It was…it was like when King Henry the Second said to some knights, ‘Who will rid me of that turbulent priest?’ and they went and murdered Archbishop Becket! I had your brothers’ murderers dispatched on trumped-up charges, so only I knew—all these years, I knew!”

  I nearly fell to my knees. The king was confessing that he—even if indirectly—had caused the murders of the queen’s young brothers! But he’d publicly claimed it was her cruel uncle, Richard of York, who wanted those impediments removed and commanded their killing. Tyrell had been blamed, and Lovell must have learned or guessed the truth somehow and meant to tell the queen so she would hate her husband and turn on him.

  I could hear Henry VII, king of all England, sobbing, his mutterings incoherent. I tiptoed all the way back into the tiny closed-in room in which I’d carved the children’s effigies. At least Nick’s presence had helped calm my claustrophobia then. Nick had always helped. Would I tell him what I had
overheard, or would that ruin his loyalty to the king? And would His Majesty’s broken confession to a cold wax effigy of his dead queen ease his grief and guilt?

  When I stepped out into the hall a good while later, all was silent, and I prayed it was now safe for me to pass through to the withdrawing chamber to meet Nick. Yes, the effigy lay alone on the bed. I fancied for one moment that I should make it frown and let the king wonder about its change of expression. But I was only, as ever, being wayward, the woman who ran her own chandlery shop and, thank the Lord, had turned down marriage to one of the most influential waxmongers in London. The woman who dared to share much with the queen, who dared to ride astride in men’s garb to Wales and to Minster Lovell Hall and—

  I gasped as a man, still in shadow, emerged from behind the draperies. The king still here? Or had Nick come in and didn’t want to be seen by others?

  No—it was Prince Henry, so tall for his age. I bobbed him a curtsy. How long had he been secreted there?

  As if he heard my thought, he asked, “Mistress Sutton, how long have you been here?”

  “I was closeted in the far chamber, saying farewell to my work,” I told him.

  “Your best work is there,” he said, pointing at the bed with his mother’s effigy, “for the best of women. I shall never forget her.”

  “Nor I, Your Grace.”

  He came closer. “I might have need of your services for a full array of special candles at my investiture as Prince of Wales,” he said, surprising me by his change of topic. “The king was putting it off for a while, but I think it will be soon now. Very soon, I’m sure.”

  I stared at him as my mind raced. Had he overheard his father’s confession? And would he use it to— No, surely sons, even royal ones, were not like that. Not this queen’s son…but then, he was his father’s boy too.

  I curtsied again, and he gestured that I could leave.

  A mere week after the queen was buried with all pomp—when her effigy was moved along the streets, it trembled as if it were alive—Prince Henry Tudor became Prince of Wales, heir to the Tudor throne.

  I decided then that although I had once named my dear son Arthur after a prince of Wales, this child of Nick’s I carried, should it be a son, would never be named Henry. Carved candles for King Henry VIII’s investiture, candles for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, candles for his coronation but six years later—yes, our chandlery provided them all at the young, handsome king’s request. But knowing Lord Lovell had made me realize that some men—cobbler, king, or in between—were not to be trusted. And so, over the long years of the rule of King Henry VIII, I cherished even more my beloved Nick.

  Author’s Note

  The two mysteries this novel probes are yet unsolved today and have grown in fascination over the centuries.

  First, was Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, murdered or did he die of natural causes? Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral’s archaeologist, says there are puzzling questions about Arthur’s death. Why, he asks, was a man reputed to be in poor health sent to the cold remoteness of Ludlow? Peter Vaughan, of the Worcester Prince Arthur Committee, who researched Arthur’s funeral for its reenactment in 2002, believes there is evidence of foul play. In Vaughan’s words, “He wasn’t a strong character, unlike his younger brother. Could it be that his father was strong enough to see that the best interests of the Tudors were to be served by Henry, Duke of York, rather than Arthur?” (From an article by David Derbyshire, science correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, May 20, 2002.)

  I find it difficult to believe that King Henry VII intentionally had his own son done away with, but the “upstart” Tudors had so many enemies it is highly possible someone else murdered Arthur. And Francis, Eleventh Viscount Lovell, was repeatedly a thorn in their side.

  Others have investigated Arthur’s death through examining his grave site. Ground-probing radar has been used to pinpoint his final resting place beneath the limestone floor of Worcester Cathedral. Professor John Hunter of Birmingham University has completed work on this investigation, although so far the current queen has not given permission for the exhumation of Arthur’s body to perform toxicology tests. Professor Hunter says, “Of course, if it’s discovered he was poisoned and shouldn’t have died, his brother, Henry VIII, would not have been king and subsequently we wouldn’t have the Church of England.” (See David Derbyshire reference above.) And so a small stone thrown in the pool of history can create many ripples and waves.

  As for the tragic fate of the princes in the Tower, many theories about their disappearance and demise have been argued. It is strange that no search for their bodies was made after they went missing.

  However, during the reign of King Charles II, in July of 1674, during some rebuilding in the White Tower, the bones of two children were found in an elm chest that was covered by rubble at a depth of about ten feet. This was under a staircase that led to the king’s lodgings. At King Charles’s request, these bones were interred in a white marble urn designed by Sir Christopher Wren and placed in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey, close to the tomb of their sister, Queen Elizabeth of York. In 1933 the bones were medically examined by Professor William Wright, who concluded they were those of two boys, approximate ages twelve and ten. Were these the poor murdered boys their sister must have agonized over?

  And did King Henry VII order the execution of those boys? I have given him the benefit of the doubt by his not making it a direct order, but their loss cleared his way to the throne just as surely as it solidified King Richard III’s claim. Tudor propagandists (like Shakespeare) blamed “hunchback Richard” and tried to clear Henry’s name. But why was Tyrell not allowed to make the customary death speech on the scaffold?

  More than once, rumors were rampant in London that King Henry had been behind the princes’ deaths, as well as Arthur’s. Perhaps these were just vicious smear campaigns, for the king was hated by many pro-Yorkists. It was not until England fell in love with the handsome, athletic young king Henry VIII that the reign of the Tudors stabilized, and even then, Henry and his children were paranoid about the claims of others to their kingdom.

  If King Richard was behind the boys’ murders, perhaps it is some sort of justice that, during the Reformation, his bones were thrown in the River Stour and his tomb was used as a horse trough and later broken up. Except for the eldest of the princes in the Tower, he is the only English king not to have a splendid tomb.

  As visitors to Westminster Abbey have no doubt seen, the beautiful effigies and tomb of King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York, lie behind the altar in the Henry VII chapel. The Tudors always did things with great pomp, perhaps because of their “inferiority complex” that they won the throne by might, not right, as many claimed. What partly inspired Varina’s “angel candles” in this novel is the fact that Their Majesties’ magnificent gilded effigies are surrounded by beautiful cherubs.

  I must admit, as I watched on television the wedding service of William Windsor, the future Prince of Wales, to his bride, Catherine Middleton, I recalled the wedding of the Tudor Prince of Wales to his Princess Catherine of Aragon in long-ago London.

  As in all my historical novels, I have tried to stay as factual as possible, even forgoing my temptation to call the long civil war that put the Tudors on the throne “the War of the Roses.” Many novels set in medieval times use this memorable, picturesque title, but it was not actually coined until 1762 in David Hume’s History of England, so the people of that day would not have known or used it.

  Discrepancies in historical documents abound, forcing a modern writer to make frequent choices. I’ve read that Arthur’s body at Ludlow Castle was displayed in the great hall and in “his chapel.” Reports claim that Henry VII and his queen were at Richmond or Greenwich when they heard of Arthur’s death, but I have chosen to use Richmond. The one setting I did change was that, for purposes of the plot, I have the queen die at Westminster Palace instead of at the Tower of London, where she had gone i
nto childbed.

  Standardized spelling is also a challenge. The Infanta of Spain who married both Tudor brothers has her name spelled both as Katherine and Catherine; however, since her Spanish name was Catalina, I have gone with the C spelling. I have also seen Frances Lovell’s name spelled Lovel, but as the family home was Minster Lovell Hall, I have gone with the double L. Francis Lovell is not to be confused with Sir Thomas Lovell, Henry VII’s chancellor of the exchequer and constable of the tower, whom I, fortunately, did not have to use in this novel. Two real-life villains Tyrell and Lovell (a song-and-dance team, a law firm?) were confusing enough.

  Research for this novel sent me into quite a study of the merchants and guilds of medieval London. There is yet today a Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers, which has had a hall at 6 Gresham Street (originally called Maiden Lane) in London since 1501. The current, beautifully furbished hall is the sixth on the site and is available for hire for banquets, parties, and ceremonies. The guild’s coat of arms is much as I describe, and their motto was, indeed, changed from Richard III’s “Loyalty Binds Me” to the current “Truth Is Light.”

  Waxworking has a fascinating history, going back at least to ancient Roman times, and I was intrigued by the wax chandlers’ part in medieval embalming. As for wax funeral effigies, the one of Elizabeth of York was part of the collection of the wax or wooden figures at Westminster Abbey (in the Undercroft Museum there) for years. I toured this museum several years ago. The original waxen one of this Elizabeth had a rich crown, a gown of gold satin edged with red velvet with a square neck, splendid robes, rings on her fingers, a long, jeweled wig, and a scepter in her right hand. Evidently, the waxen parts of the effigy were later replaced by a wooden head and hands. It once had a leather body stuffed with hay. Now only the head remains.