I take this in, glancing forward to see that the queen is out of earshot. “Thomas Wolsey is growing very great,” I observe disapprovingly. “And that from very small beginnings.”
“Since the king stopped taking the queen’s advice he is prey to any clever talker who can put an argument together,” the duke says scathingly. “And this Wolsey has nothing to boast of but a library of books, and the mind of a goldsmith. He can tell you the price of anything, he can tell you the names of every town in England. He knows the bribe for every member of Parliament and every secret that they hide. Anything that the king desires, he can get for him, and now he gets it for him before the king even knows that he wants it. When the king listened to the queen, we knew where we were: friends with Spain, enemies with France, and ruled by the nobility. Now that the king is advised by Wolsey we have no idea who is our friend or our enemy, and no idea where we’re going.”
I glance ahead, to where the queen is leaning on Margery Horsman’s arm. She looks a little weary already, though we have walked for only a mile.
“She used to keep him steady,” Howard grumbles in my ear. “But Wolsey gives him whatever he wants and urges him on to want more. She’s the only one that can say no to him. A young man needs guidance. She has to take back the reins, she has to guide him.”
It is true that the queen has lost her influence with Henry. She won the greatest battle that England has ever seen against the Scots but he cannot forgive her for losing the child. “She does all that she can,” I say.
“And d’you know what we are to call him?” Howard growls.
“Call Thomas Wolsey?”
“Bishop it is now. Bishop of Lincoln, no less.” He nods at my surprise. “God knows what that’s worth to him annually. If she could only give him a son, we would all be the richer for it. The king would attend to her if she gave him an heir. It’s because she fails in this one thing that he cannot trust her in anything else.”
“She tries,” I say shortly. “No woman in the world prays more for the blessing of a son. And perhaps . . .”
He raises a craggy eyebrow at my discreet hint.
“It’s very early days,” I say cautiously.
“Please God,” he says devoutly. “For this is a king without patience, and we cannot afford to wait long.”
ENGLAND, SUMMER 1514
The queen grows big with her child, riding in a litter drawn by two white mules when we go on progress. Nothing is too luxurious for this most important pregnancy.
Henry no longer comes to her bedroom at night. Of course, no good husband beds his wife during her pregnancy; but neither does he come to her for conversation or advice. Her father is refusing to go to war in France again, and Henry’s fury and disappointment with Ferdinand of Aragon overflows onto Ferdinand’s daughter. Even the marriage planned for Henry’s little sister Princess Mary with Archduke Charles is overthrown as England turns from Spain and all things Spanish. The king swears that he will take advice from no foreigner, that no one knows better than he what good English people desire. He scowls at the queen’s Spanish ladies and pretends he cannot understand them when they bid him a courteous good morning. Katherine herself, her father, her country, are publicly insulted by her husband as she sits very still and very quietly under the cloth of estate and waits for the storm to pass, her hands folded on her rounded belly.
Henry loudly declares that he will rule England without advice or help from anyone, but in fact he does nothing; everything is read, studied, and considered by Wolsey. The king barely glances at documents before scrawling his name. Sometimes he cannot even find the time to do that, and Wolsey sends out a royal command under his own seal.
Wolsey is an enthusiast for peace with the French. Even the king’s current mistress is a French woman, one of Princess Mary’s maids of honor, a young woman very ill-suited for a decent court, a notorious whore from the French court. The king is dazzled by her reputation for wickedness, and seeks her out, following her around court as if he were a young hound and she a bitch in season. Everything French is in fashion, whores and ribbons and alliances alike. It seems that the king has forgotten all about his crusade and is going to ally with England’s traditional enemy. I am not the only skeptical English subject who thinks that Wolsey is planning to seal the peace with a marriage—Henry’s sister Princess Mary, the daintiest princess who ever was, will be sacrificed like a virgin chained on a dragon’s rock to the old French king.
I suspect this; but I don’t tell Katherine. I will not have her worried while she is carrying a child, perhaps even carrying a son. Fortune-tellers and astrologists constantly promise the king that this time a son will be born who is certain to live. For sure, every woman in England prays that this time Katherine will be blessed and give the king his heir.
“I doubt that Bessie Blount prays for me,” she says bitterly, naming the new arrival at court whose childish blond prettiness is much admired by everyone, including the king.
“I am certain that she does,” I say firmly. “And I’d rather have her as the center of attention than the French woman. Bessie loves you, and she is a sweet girl. She can’t help it if the king favors her above all your other ladies. She can hardly refuse to dance with him.”
But Bessie does not refuse. The king writes her poems and he dances with her in the evenings; he teases her and she giggles like a child. The queen sits on her throne, her belly heavy, determined to rest and be calm, beating the time of the music with her heavily ringed hand, and smiling as if she is pleased to see Henry, flushed with excitement, dancing like a boy, while all the courtiers applaud his grace. When she makes the signal to leave, Bessie withdraws with the rest of us, but it is common knowledge that she sneaks back to the great hall with some of the other ladies-in-waiting and that they dance till dawn.
If I were her mother, Lady Blount, I should take her away from court, for what can a young woman possibly hope to gain from a love affair with the king but a season of self-importance and then a marriage to someone who will accept a royal cast-off? But Lady Blount is faraway in the west of England, and Bessie’s father, Sir John, is delighted that the king admires his girl, foreseeing a river of favors, places, and riches flowing in his direction.
“She is better behaved than some would be,” I remind Katherine quietly. “She asks for nothing, and she never says a word against you.”
“What word could she say?” she demands with sudden resentment. “Have I not done everything a wife could do, did I not defeat Scotland while he was not even in the country? Have I not worked at the ruling of the kingdom when he cannot be bothered? Do I not read the papers from the council so that he is free to go out hunting all day? Do I not constantly choose my words to try to keep the treaty with my father when Henry would break his oath every day? Do I not sit quietly and listen while he abuses my father and my own countrymen as liars and traitors? Do I not ignore the shameful French mistress and now the new flirtation with Mistress Blount? Do I not do everything, everything I can, to prevent Thomas Wolsey from forcing us into an alliance with the French, which will be the ruin of England, my home, and Spain, my motherland?”
We are both silent. Katherine has never spoken against her young husband before. But he has never before been so openly guided by his vanity and selfishness.
“And what does Bessie do that is so charming?” Katherine demands angrily. “Write poems, compose music, sing love songs? She is witty, she is talented, she is pretty. What does this matter?”
“You know what you have not done,” I say gently. “But you will put that right. And when he has a child, he will be loving and grateful and you can bring him back into alliance with Spain, out of Thomas Wolsey’s pocket and away from Mistress Blount’s smiles.”
She puts her hand on her belly. “I am doing that now,” she says. “This time I will give him a son. God Himself knows that everything depends on it, and He will never forsake me.”
GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1514
Henry and the whole of the north of England are anxious that Albany will make alliances with the French and turn on England. But, before the Scots can make an alliance with the French, we have beaten them to it. Henry has decided that his friendship with France will be sealed by the marriage of his little sister, Princess Mary, and the queen has to see her sister-in-law married to the king whom she regards as an enemy of herself, her father, and both her countries.
Princess Mary is bitterly opposed to this match—the French king is nearly old enough to be her grandfather—and she comes crying into the queen’s private rooms, whispering that she is in love with Charles Brandon and that she has begged the king to allow her to marry him. She asks the queen to take her part and persuade Henry that his sister can marry for love as he did.
Katherine and I share a glance over the bowed red-gold head, as the young princess cries with her face in the queen’s lap. “You are a princess,” Katherine says steadily. “Your destiny brings great riches and power; but you were not born to marry for love.”
Henry revels in this opportunity to be dominant and kingly. I can almost see him admiring his own statesmanlike determination as he rises above the complaints of his wife and his sister and proves to them that as a man and a king he knows best. He ignores both the furiously bargaining princess and the dignified protests of his wife. He sends Princess Mary to France with a noble entourage of ladies and gentlemen of the court; my son Arthur with his growing reputation for jousting and dangerous sports is among them.
Carefully, the queen suggests that Bessie Blount might go with Princess Mary to France, and the princess at once asks pretty Bessie would she not like the chance of seeing the French court? Princess Mary knows well enough that her sister-in-law the queen would go into her confinement with a lighter heart if Bessie were not dancing with the king while she is in labor. But instantly Bessie’s father refuses the honor offered to his daughter, and we know that he is obeying the king. Bessie is not to leave court.
I catch hold of her arm when I am on my way to Katherine’s darkened room one day and Bessie, dressed for hunting, is running in the opposite direction.
“Bessie!”
“I can’t stop, your ladyship!” she says hurriedly. “The king is waiting for me. He has bought me a new horse and I have to go and see it.”
“I won’t keep you,” I reply. Of course, I cannot keep her. No one can exert any authority over the king’s chosen favorite. “But I wanted to remind you to say nothing against the queen. She is anxious in her confinement, and everyone gossips so. You won’t forget, will you, Bessie? You wouldn’t want to hurt Queen Katherine?”
“I’d never hurt her!” she flares up. “All of us maids-in-waiting love her, I’d do anything to serve her. And my father told me especially to say nothing to worry the king.”
“Your father?” I repeat.
“He told me, if the king ever said anything to me, that I was to say nothing about the queen’s health, but only to remark that we come from fertile stock.”
“Fertile stock?”
“Yes,” she says, pleased at remembering her father’s instruction.
“Oh, did he?” I say furiously. “Well, if your father wants a nameless bastard in his house, then it’s his concern.”
Bessie flushes, the quick tears coming to her eyes as she turns away from me. “I am commanded by my father and the King of England,” she mutters. “There’s no point scolding me, your ladyship. It’s not as if I can choose.”
DOVER CASTLE, KENT, AUTUMN 1514
The court turns out to escort the princess to Dover and see her party set sail. After waiting for the storms to die down, finally the horses and carts with Mary’s enormous wardrobe, furniture, goods, carpets, and tapestries lumber on board and finally the young princess and her ladies walk up the gangplank and stand like fashionably dressed martyrs on the poop deck and wave to those of us who are lucky enough to stay in England.
“This is a great alliance I have made,” Henry declares to the queen, and all his friends and courtiers nod. “And your father, madam, will regret the day that he tried to play me for a fool. He will learn who is the greater man. He will learn who will be the maker and breaker of the kingdoms of Europe.”
Katherine lowers her eyes so that he cannot see the flash of her temper. I see her grip her hands together so tightly that the rings are biting into her swollen fingers.
“I do think, my lord . . .” she begins.
“There is no need for you to think,” he overrules her. “All you can do for England is give us a son. I have the command of my country, I do the thinking; you shall have the making of my heir.”
She sweeps him a curtsey, she manages a smile. She manages to avoid the avid gaze of the court who have just heard a princess of Spain reprimanded by a Tudor, and she turns to walk back towards Dover Castle. I go half a step behind her. When we are in the lee of the wall that overlooks the sea, she turns and takes my arm as if she needs the support.
“I am sorry,” I say inadequately, flushing for his rudeness.
She gives a little shrug. “When I have a son . . .” she says.
GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1514
The king is remodeling the palace of Greenwich on a grand scale. It was my cousin’s, his mother’s, favorite palace, and I am walking with this queen where I walked with her predecessor, on the graveled paths which run alongside the great expanse of the river, when the queen pauses and puts her hand to her belly as if she felt something deeply, powerfully move.
“Did he give you a great kick?” I ask, smiling.
She doubles up, folding like a paper queen, and blindly reaches out a hand for me. “I have a pain. I have a pain.”
“No!” I say, and take her hand as her legs give way and she goes down. I drop to my knees beside her as her ladies come running. She looks up at me, her eyes black with fear and her face as white as one of the sails of the ships on the river, and she says: “Say nothing! This will pass.”
At once I turn to Bessie, and to Elizabeth Bryan. “You heard Her Grace. You two say nothing, and let’s get her inside.”
We are about to lift her when she suddenly screams loudly, as if someone has run her through with a spear. At once, half a dozen yeomen of the guard dash to her, but skid to a halt when they see her on the ground. They dare not touch her, her body is sacred. They are at a loss as to what they should do.
“Fetch a chair!” I snap at them, and one runs back. They come from the palace with a wooden chair with arms and a back, and we ladies help her into it. They carry the chair carefully to the palace, the beautiful palace on the river where Henry was born, the lucky palace for the Tudors, and we take her into the darkened room.
It is only half prepared, since she is more than a month before her time, but she goes into labor despite the rules in the great book of the court. The midwives look grim; the housemaids rush in with clean linen, hot water, tapestries for the walls, carpets for the tables, all the things that were being made ready but are suddenly needed now. Her pains come long and slow, as they prepare the room around her. A day and a night later the room is perfect, but still the baby has not been born.
She leans back on the richly embroidered pillows and scans the bowed heads of her ladies as they kneel in prayer. I know that she is looking for me and I stand up and go towards her. “Pray for me,” she whispers. “Please, Margaret, go to the chapel and pray for me.”
I find myself kneeling beside Bessie, our hands gripped on the chancel
rail. I glance sideways, and see her blue eyes are filled with tears. “Pray God that it is a boy and comes soon,” she whispers to me, trying to smile.
“Amen,” I say. “And healthy.”
“There is no reason, is there, Lady Salisbury, why the queen should not have a boy?”
Stoutly, I shake my head. “No reason at all. And if anyone ever asks you, if anyone at all ever asks you, Bessie, you owe it to Her Grace to say that you know of no reason why she should not have a healthy son.”
She sits back on her heels. “He asks,” she confides. “He does ask.”
I am appalled. “What does he ask?”
“He asks if the queen talks privately to her friends, to you and to her ladies. He asks if she is anxious about bearing a child. He asks if there is some secret difficulty.”
“And what do you tell him?” I ask. I am careful to keep the burn of anger out of my voice.
“I tell him I don’t know.”
“You tell him this,” I say firmly. “Tell him that the queen is a great lady—that’s true, isn’t it?”
Pale with concentration, she nods.
“Tell him that she is a true wife to him—that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes.”
“And that she serves the country as queen and serves him as a loving partner and helpmeet. He could have no better woman at his side, a princess by birth and a queen by marriage.”
“I know she is. I do know.”
“Then, if you know so much, tell him that there is no doubt that their marriage is good in the sight of God as it is before us all, and that a son will come to bless them. But he has to be patient.”
She gives a pretty little moue with her mouth and a shrug of her shoulders. “You know, I can’t tell him all that. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“But he asks you? You just said that he asks you!”
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