A Health Unto His Majesty

by Виктория Холт

  Catherine sat at her mother’s feet and rested her head against her farthingale. It was in moments of intimacy such as this that she was allowed to give vent to her tender feelings.

  Luiza let her hand rest on her daughter’s shoulder.

  “Little daughter,” she said tenderly, “you are happy, are you not? You are happy because there is now every likelihood that this marriage will come to pass?”

  Catherine shivered. “Happy, dearest mother? I think so. But I am not sure. Sometimes I am a little frightened. I know that Charles is the most charming King in the world, and the kindest, but all my life I have been near you, able to come to you when I was in any difficulty. I am happy, yes. I am excited. But sometimes I am so terrified that I almost hope the arrangements will not be completed after all.”

  “It is natural that you should feel so, Catalina, my dearest child. Everything you feel is natural. And however kind your husband is to you and however happy you are, you will sometimes long for your home in Lisbon.”

  Catherine buried her face in the serge farthingale. “Dearest mother, how can I ever be completely happy away from you?”

  “You will learn in time to give all your devotion to your husband and the children you will have. We shall regularly exchange letters, you and I. Perhaps there may be visits between us. But they would be infrequent; that is the fate of royal mothers and daughters.”

  “I know. But Mother, do you think in the whole world there was ever such a happy family as ours has been?”

  “It is given to few to know such happiness, it is true. Your father was deeply conscious of that. He would have lived peacefully in the Villa Viçosa and shut his eyes to his duty for the sake of the happiness he could have had with us. But he was a king, and kings, queens and princesses have their duties. They must not be forgotten for the sake of quiet family happiness.”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Your father agreed on that before he died. He lived nobly, and that is the way in which we must live. My dearest Catherine, it is not only that you will be marrying a very attractive King who will be a good husband to you, you will be making the best possible marriage for the sake of your country. England is one of the most important countries in Europe. You know our position. You know that our enemies, the Spaniards, are ever ready to snatch from us that which we have won. They will be less inclined to attack us if they know that our family is united in marriage with the royal family of England, that we are no longer alone, that we have a powerful ally at our side.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “So it is for the sake of Portugal that you will go to England; it is for your country’s sake that you will do there all that is expected of a queen.”

  “I will do my best, dear Mother.”

  “That brings me to one little matter with which I must acquaint you. The King is a young man who will soon be thirty-two years of age. Most men marry before they reach that age. The King is strong, healthy and fond of gay company. It is unnatural for such a man to live alone until he reaches that age.”

  “To live alone, Mother?” said Catherine, puzzled.

  “To live unmarried. He, like you, could only marry one who was royal, and therefore suitable to his state. It would have been unwise for him to marry while in exile. So … he consoled himself with one who cannot be his wife. He had a mistress.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Catherine. “I think I understand.”

  “It is the way of most men,” said Luiza. “There is nothing unusual in this.”

  “You mean there is a woman whom he loves as a wife?” “Exactly.”

  “And that when he has a wife in truth he will no longer need her? She will not be very pleased to see me in England, will she?”

  “No. But her feelings are of no account. It is the King’s which are all important. He might dismiss his mistress when he takes a wife, but it has come to my ears that there is one lady to whom he is deeply attached.”

  “Oh …” breathed Catherine.

  “You will not see her, for naturally he will not let her enter your presence, and you must avoid all mention of her. And eventually the King will cease to require her, and she will quietly disappear. Her name is Lady Castlemaine, and all you have to do is avoid mentioning her name to anyone—anyone whatsoever—and foremost of all to the King. It would be a grave breach of etiquette. If you hear rumors of her, ignore them. It is a very simple matter really. Many queens have found themselves similarly placed.”

  “Lady Castlemaine,” repeated Catherine; then she suddenly stood up and threw herself into her mother’s arms. She was shivering violently, and Luiza could not soothe her for some time.

  “There is nothing to fear, dearest,” she murmured again and again. “Little daughter, it happens to so many. All will be well. In time he will love you … only you, for you will be his wife.”

  Every day the arrival of the Earl of Sandwich was expected. He was to come to Lisbon with ships so that he might conduct Catherine and her entourage to England.

  Still he did not come.

  Catherine, bewildered by the sudden change the last months had brought, wondered whether he ever would. She had not left the Palace more than ten times in the whole of her life, so determined had her mother been to keep her away from the world. Exercise had been taken in the Palace gardens and never had she been allowed to leave her duenna; now that she was Queen of England—for she had been proclaimed as such since the marriage treaty had been ratified in Lisbon—she had left the Palace on several occasions. It had been strange to ride out into the steep streets, to hear the loyal shouts of the people and to bow and smile as she had been taught. “Long life to the Queen of England!” they shouted. She was now allowed to visit churches, where she prayed to the saints that her marriage might be fruitful, and that long prosperity might come to the sister countries of Portugal and England.

  When she was alone she took out the miniature which had been brought to her by Sir Richard Fanshawe who was in Portugal to help further the match, and she would feel that she already knew the man pictured there. He was as dark and swarthy as her own brothers, so that she felt he was no foreign prince; his features were heavy, but his eyes were so kindly. She thought of him as the man who had offered his life for the sake of his father and, although she was frightened of leaving her home and her mother, although she was fearfully perplexed at the thought of a woman named Lady Castlemaine, she longed to meet her husband face to face.

  But still the Earl of Sandwich did not come.

  Luiza, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Earl, began to be afraid. This marriage with England meant so much to her. If it should fall through she could see that the honor and comparative security, which she and her husband had won for Portugal during the long years of endurance, might be lost.

  The Spaniards were doing all in their power to prevent the marriage; that in itself showed how important it was. Already they were massing on the frontiers, ready for an attack, and she, being obliged to raise forces without delay, had been hard put to it to find the money to do this, so that it had been necessary to use some of that which she had set aside for her daughter’s dowry—that very dowry which had made Catherine so attractive to the English King. The thought of what she would do when the time came for Catherine’s embarkation and the handing over of the dowry gave her many a sleepless night; but she was a woman of strong character who had faced so many seemingly insurmountable difficulties in her life that she had learned to deal only with those which needed immediate attention, and trust in good fortune to help her overcome the others when it was absolutely necessary to do so.

  There was another matter which gave her grave concern. She was sending her daughter into a strange country to a man she had never seen, without even the security of marriage by proxy.

  “I send you my daughter the Infanta, unmarried,” she had written, “that you may see what confidence I have in your honor.”

  But she doubted whether that would deceive the King of En
gland and his ministers. They would know that the Papal See, which was still the vassal of Spain, had never acknowledged Catherine as the daughter of a king; the Pope, when he gave the dispensation for the Infanta to marry a prince of the Reformed Faith—and the marriage could not be performed in Portugal without such a dispensation—would give her title not as Infanta of the Royal House of Portugal, but merely as the daughter of the Duke of Braganza. And that, Luiza felt, was a greater shame than any which could befall her.

  So she, a determined woman grappling with many problems, had decided to act boldly. But if the Earl of Sandwich did not come soon, the Spaniards would be marching on Lisbon.

  So each day she waited, but in vain.

  Had the English learned that she could not find the money for the dowry? How could she know what spies there were in her Court? The Spaniards were cunning; they had been conquerors for a long time; and she was a poor Queen fighting a lonely battle for the independence of her country and the glory of her royal house.

  Soon news came to her. The Spaniards were on the march. They were forging ahead towards the unfortified towns on the Portuguese seaboard.

  Luiza was in despair. This attack was to be stronger than any the Spaniards had ever launched against their neighbors. Their aim was to see that, by the time the King of England’s ambassadors came to claim the daughter of the royal house of Portugal, there would be no royal house. They were throwing great forces into the struggle; forever since the defeat of their “invincible” Armada in the reign of the great Elizabeth, the Spaniards had held the English in dread, and it was their endeavor to prevent at all costs the alliance between little Portugal and that country whose seamen they feared beyond any mortal beings.

  So all her schemes had been in vain, thought Luiza. Her people would fight; but they had never had to face such a mighty army as now came against them. She saw ahead years of weary warfare, of frustration and struggle, the English marriage repudiated, and Catherine growing too old for matrimony.

  She could no longer bear to look ahead. She shut herself into her apartments. She wanted to be alone to consider her next move.

  She would not give up. She would somehow send Catherine to England. The King had promised to marry her. He must marry her.

  She had said she was not to be disturbed, but Catherine came running into the apartment. Her face was flushed, and she ran as best she could, greatly impeded by her cumbrous farthingale.

  “Catherine,” said her mother sternly; for in that moment Catherine bore no resemblance to an Infanta of the royal house.

  “Mother! Dearest Mother … quickly! Come and look.”

  “What has happened, my child? What has happened to make you so far forget …”

  “Come, Mother. It is what we have been waiting for so long. The English are here. They have been sighted in the bay.”

  Luiza turned to her daughter and embraced her. There were tears on her cheek, for she too had forgotten the formal etiquette of the Court.

  “They have come in time!” she said.

  And she looked in wonder at this daughter who, she had always known, had been born to save her country.

  There was rejoicing throughout Lisbon as the English came ashore. The Infanta Catherine, the Queen of England, had been born to save them; and here was another sign from heaven to assure her people that this was so. The commanders of the Spanish army, having heard the news and remembering the terrible havoc wrought on their country’s ships by the satanic El Draque in another century, would not stay to face the English. They turned back to the border and retreated as quickly as they could to safety. Some had seen the ships in the bay—the Royal Charles, the Royal James and the Gloucester with their accompanying fleet of vessels. To those Spanish soldiers, brought up on the story of that ill-fated Armada, which had broken the hopes of great Philip II when it came into conflict with a fleet of inferior vessels yet led by a man of supernatural powers, one glimpse was enough. The great ships seemed to have about them a quality which was not of this world, for it seemed that with them they had brought the spirit of Drake. So the army turned tail, and the Portuguese were saved from their enemies; and how would they dare attack again, knowing that the English were united with their little neighbor through marriage!

  Luiza fell on to her knees and uttered prayers of thankfulness to God and His saints. The greatest danger was over; but there still remained the matter of the dowry. However, that could be shelved for the moment; since God had willed that her daughter should be born to save her country, Luiza doubted not that He would show her some way out of the difficulty.

  In the meantime there must be a great welcome for the saviors of her country. The people did not need to be ordered to hang out their banners. They were wild with the happiness which comes from relief; they were ready to rejoice. The best bulls had already been brought to Lisbon in readiness for the welcome; it was only a matter of hours before the streets were hung with banners of cloth of gold and tapestry; crowds were on the banks of the river as Don Pedro de Almeida, Controller of Alphonso’s household, rowed out in the royal barge to welcome the ambassadors of the King of England. The guns roared as the Earl of Sandwich and his friends were brought ashore. The people cheered as the King’s coach carried him to the Palace of the Marquez Castello Rodrigo, where Alphonso was waiting to receive him.

  Now the city of Lisbon showed the English what a royal welcome it could give to its friends. Banners, depicting the King of England and the Portuguese Infanta, hands joined, were carried through the streets; the bells of all the churches rang out; bullfight followed bullfight, and every Englishman was a guest of honor.

  “Long live the King and Queen of England!” cried the people throughout the city of Lisbon, and that cry was echoed in those towns and villages which had so recently been spared the tyranny of Spain.

  Queen Luiza chose a moment when the Earl of Sandwich had returned from a lavish entertainment, given in his honor, to ask him to her councilchamber. On the previous day he had suggested to her that his master was impatient for his bride, and that he wished not to incur His Majesty’s displeasure by further delay. The Queen knew he had been late in arriving at Lisbon, because he had found it necessary to subdue the pirates of the Mediterranean, who must be taught to respect the English flag; moreover, taking possession of Tangier, the task with which he had been commissioned before coming to convey the Infanta to England, had not been accomplished as quickly as he had hoped. The Moors had offered some opposition, and it had been necessary to overcome that. He anticipated no further trouble there, but had been obliged to leave a garrison in the town. As he considered these matters he thought he should lose no time in making his preparations to return; and so was eager to begin immediately to get the dowry aboard.

  Luiza had known then that there was nothing for her to do but to explain her difficulties. She therefore arranged this Council meeting to take place after the Earl had been assured once more of the love the Portuguese had for his master and his master’s country.

  The miracle for which she had hoped had not come to pass. There was no means of providing the money she had promised. There was therefore nothing to be done but admit the truth.

  She faced him boldly. “My lord, in these last months we have faced troublous times. Our old enemy had determined to do all in his power to prevent the match which is so desired by both our countries. When the marriage was ratified the dowry was ready and waiting to be shipped to England, but our enemies stole upon us, and it was necessary to raise men and arms against them. For that reason we were forced to use part of the money, which was intended for our daughter’s dowry, in the defense of our country.”

  The Earl was dumbfounded. He had been ordered to bring back with him that money which he knew to be the very reason why his impecunious master had found the Portuguese match so desirable.

  Luiza, watching the expressions of dismay flit across his face, knew he was wondering whether he should abandon Catherine and return to England wit
hout her. Panic filled her. She visualized not only the retreat of the English, but ignominious defeat at the hands of the Spaniards. Then she remembered that Catherine was destined to save her country, and her confidence returned.

  The Earl of Sandwich was meanwhile taking into consideration the fact that he had at some cost gained possession of Tangier, and had left an English garrison there. He was also calculating the cost of conveying that garrison back to England.

  Meanwhile Luiza went on: “Half the portion shall be delivered onboard the King of England’s ships without delay, and I pledge myself to send the other half before another year has passed.”

  The Earl made a quick decision. Half the money was better than nothing; and the whole affair had gone too far for withdrawal; so, bowing before the Queen, he declared that, since it was his Queen in whom His Majesty of England was primarily interested, he would accept half the marriage portion now, and the other half within a year as the Queen had suggested; and, as soon as the moiety was on his ship he would be ready to convey the King’s bride to England.

  Luiza smiled. The rest would be simple. She would merely have bags of sugar and spices and such commodities shipped aboard the English fleet in place of the money, which it was quite impossible to supply.

  Luiza held her daughter in a last embrace. Both knew that they, who had been so close, might never see each other’s faces again. Neither shed a tear; they knew they dared not, for if they once allowed any sign of weakness to be visible they would break down completely before all the grandees and fidalgoes of the Portuguese Court and the seamen of England.

  “Always remember your duty to the King your husband, and to your country.”

  “I will, Mother.”

  Luiza still clung to her daughter. She was wondering: Should I warn her once more against that evil woman Castlemaine, for whom they say the King of England has an unholy passion? No! It is better not. Catherine in her very innocence may discover a way to deal with the woman. Better for her not to know too much.