Wife to Henry V: A Novel

by Hilda Lewis

  “I am glad you spoke. I am glad we are to be friends—I need a friend. These English—I don't understand them. Help me, Johanne.”

  “The days of my power are gone.”

  “Your wisdom, your advice—that's all I need. It's the child, it's Harry. A boy needs a man to govern him, I know, I know it well. But he's a baby; not yet twelve months old. I must keep him a little. Would Humphrey help me, do you think?”

  “He would if he could. Oh not for your sake, don't think it; he's one who gives nothing for nothing! But* he would dearly love to take the King out of Exeter's hands—Beaufort hands. To get anywhere at all you'd have to play Gloucester against Beaufort—and that's not an easy game to play; the balance is too fine. Still it's a game that could be played—but risky, risky.” She gave Catherine a searching look.

  “I'm Harry's mother “

  “It's not all mother-love with you, never tell me that! You're your mother's daughter. You itch to stir every pot.”

  Isabeau's daughter...but Isabeau's wit? Johanne looked at the soft drooping underlip. “Well you can but try. Stake your die on the Beauforts. My brother-in-law the rich bishop is out to clip Master Humphrey's wings. Henry Beaufort's your man.”

  “He's another to give nothing for nothing,” Catherine reminded her. “What have I to offer the rich bishop?”

  “A Queen's countenance and a niece's obedience. Oh they're quite intangible; but like many things you can't see or touch—they're weighty. At this moment the people love you—young widow, young mother; you stir all hearts. Popularity. It's quite a straw to add to his balance. Besides, one is never so rich one can't be richer. Throw in your lot with the Beauforts.”

  “They told me you were wise,” Catherine said, “but you are wiser than any telling—a very Queen of wisdom.”

  * * *

  Henry Beaufort looked at Catherine with thoughtful eyes.

  “So little a child,” he said at last. “It is right and seemly he should be with his mother. I will speak to my brother, Exeter, Madam; he should not be hard to persuade.”

  “Dear brother,” Johanne lifted a smooth face. “The King is an infant, true. But still he is the King.” She paused. “The Great Seal,” she said very deliberately, “should it not be returned to the King, the King himself—in person?”

  Catherine looked to see if Johanne could be joking. The Great Seal in those infant hands that could not, by themselves, endure the metal's weight? But Johanne's face was grave. Catherine looked at my lord Bishop of Winchester, surprised the gleam in his eye.

  “But naturally,” he said and it was as though he had thought of the matter himself. “The lord Protector must receive it from the King—the King's own hands. My nephew Gloucester shall come to Windsor for the purpose.” He looked with respect at this subtle Johanne who had found so neat a way of keeping his enemy in his place. Return the Great Seal to the King. It would show the whole country, show Gloucester himself, that there was no Regent; a Protector, merely, acting by will of Parliament and receiving his office from the King.

  He bowed over Catherine's hand, over Johanne's; and was gone.

  * * *

  She had won. She was to keep her child. Blessings, blessings upon Johanne! Until he is five years old, my lord of Exeter had said. Five years. Why look beyond them? Five years in which to make and mould. It would not need five years or four, or three, even, to make him hers forever. The King's love and her own power. They were strings intertwined.

  She had known great moments—her marriage, her crowning, the birth of her son, the triumphs through England, through France. But never a greater than this, when upright in her chair, the child upon her knee, she saw Chancellor Langley kneel to deliver the Great Seal. Guiding the tiny fingers to touch the heavy disc before it was handed to Gloucester, she felt the upsurge of power. She gave no sign; she sat still as stone with the child grave and quiet as though he understood—a true little King.

  When the great officials had gone, she gave herself up to delight in her son. He was so beautiful with his great blue eyes and his flaxen hair and his dimples; his wrists and ankles wore the most exquisite bracelets, not of gold, but—much more precious—of perfect rose-leaf flesh. The most beautiful child in the world, his mother thought; and the cleverest and the most loving. Look how he crowed the moment he saw her and leaped in the nurse's arms to come to her! Old Astley could not hide her jealousy, no, nor her disapproval either! She was forever trying to model him into a grave decorum—and he not a year old! But all the same she had to admit his baby gravity was charming. She thought, sometimes, it was a pity his father had never seen him. Well, that was Henry's own fault. She could so easily have carried the baby into France. But then Henry had had no heart. He had seen the child as heir to his greatness; nothing more.

  These few weeks before Christmas, putting aside ambition, she enjoyed him as any mother her first child. She would kneel by his cradle shaking the coral or gently throwing a soft ball; or she would walk in the great park of Windsor, the small fur bundle that was the King held close in her arms. For a little while she was a girl again, a child almost, with her child...the child she had never been. Here there was no looking over one's shoulder for fear of the madman; no cringing from threat of a whipping; no small gnawing of hunger or of cold. It was all gentle and comfortable as her own childhood had never been.

  Henry had wounded her to the heart; but it was a wound already healing. Soon she would commission a great tomb—marble, silver, gold, whatever was needful to his glory. But for this little space of time she would forget death, forget she was a Queen, forget, even, her ambition. She would give herself this small taste of Paradise—mother and child.

  * * *

  It had been death. And death. And death.

  Now all the world was wedding and bedding, so it seemed. At Hertford, where she had invited James of Scotland for Christmas she heard nothing but praises of his love. She herself might have been cross-eyed, she thought; and hump-backed, too, for all the compliments he paid her! And yet she was young; and yet she was pretty...and she had helped him to his freedom and his love. He was to marry his Joanna early in the new year and carry her back home.

  Jacque had come hot-foot from Hadley at the news. “Joanna Beaufort stepping into the royal bed of Scotland! Another Beaufort stepping up, up, up!” Jacqueline was barely friendly. Catherine herself was cool. Jacque had indeed thrown her cap over the windmill; she was living openly with her handsome Humphrey as man and wife. She had scrambled through some sort of marriage ceremony without consulting anyone—certainly not her friend. Now she was watching, all jealousy, lest Catherine show favour to her lover's enemies.

  “Madam Jacque should be well whipped for a fool!” Johanne said. “No good can come from this marriage—if we may call it so—neither to us, nor to herself. If the charming Humphrey doesn't tire of her soon and take the Brabant marriage as an excuse to get rid of her—and what better excuse since it still stands?—then be sure the little Cobham will deal with the matter.”

  “I've been hearing that name more than a little lately. Who is she?”

  “Humphrey's latest; otherwise a nothing and a nobody. No birth; poor as a church mouse—except what she's managed to collect, she's had a string of paramours; no need to guess at her virginity! But for all that he's mad for her.”

  “Mad, indeed! But it won't last long. Faithfulness isn't in him.”

  “She's a flaming beauty and she's got brains,” Johanne said. “They say she's a witch and they could be right—those slanted eyes, that full red mouth—though for my part I'm chary about casting that particular stone. But witch or not, she's a woman; and a jealous one. Cousin Jacque would do well to let her cupbearer taste first.”

  “Jacque isn't so easily disposed of. Besides, they're not likely to meet. He's got the good taste surely to keep his wife and his mistress apart.”

  “His two mistresses, wouldn't you say? Jacqueline isn't his wife yet,” Johanne reminded her. “Besi
des, you can't count on Humphrey's good taste when he wants anything. The little Cobham has already established herself—one of Jacque's ladies. I told you she was clever.”

  “There won't be much chance for the Cobham to exercise her cleverness or her charms. Jacque is off to the Low Countries, as everyone knows, to win back her inheritance. Humphrey goes with her—and a whole army so they say.”

  “It's enough to make Henry turn in his grave. No man has the right to fight his private battles when every sword is needed in France. Here is Humphrey garnished with all Jacqueline's titles—Count of Hainault, Count of Holland, Count of Friesland, of Zeeland—the whole lot. Burgundy will never forgive him for poaching on his preserves.”

  “They're Jacque's, not his,” Catherine said.

  “Possession is nine points of the law, so they say. Jacqueline runs away and her husband seizes her possessions—Duke of Hainault he styles himself—one better than Humphrey! And further, he declares Burgundy his heir; he's a sick creature and Burgundy's hopes are naturally high. Now here comes Jacqueline making over all her property to her new husband—and prepared to fight for her rights. Do you think Burgundy will allow that? He'll certainly withdraw some of his forces from France to defend his 'rights'. If he's pressed far enough—he'll withdraw them all. And then where will you be?”

  “We still have John, the best captain of all the armies in France, friend or foe.”

  “I know, I know. Here's John sparing himself no labour for Harry's inheritance and here's Humphrey set to bring all to disaster. I tell you this may yet cost Harry his French crown.”

  “Let them but see their King,” Catherine was complacent so that Johanne longed to shake her. “He's so beautiful. No-one could deny him anything.”

  “You have your mother's itch for power, but not her hard head! Henry was right not to name you in the Regency; but not so right when he named Humphrey—if he ever did, which I doubt. Well, as God sends, He sends—as Henry used to say; and our gossiping here won't mend matters; though once my whisper would have gone far towards it. Come, tell me about my grandson, if I may name him so.”

  “Who has a better right? You played a mother's part to his father. You know he's to attend Parliament, Harry himself? But of course you do. It was you that put it into Uncle Bishop Beaufort's head.”

  “It didn't need much putting. Let all England see—and my lord Protector Humphrey in particular—that though the King is an infant, he is still the King; and law comes from the King and not from any Protector—not even Master Humphrey.”

  “You know I'm to carry the King to Parliament? Or did you put that notion into Uncle Beaufort's head, too?”

  “That was another idea that didn't need much putting. Such a pretty picture—mother and child; and of all that pretty innocence, the Beauforts sworn protectors! Trust my lord Bishop to turn it to his own advantage. But,” she paused, said slowly, “don't think, my dear, to turn it to your own. Don't let that distress you overmuch. Be glad of the Beauforts on your side—Humphrey's reputation isn't so sweet just now, with all the scandal about Jacque—she's sleeping openly with him at Hadley. But you—you'll be riding through London, the child on your knee and the odour of sanctity all about you; and about my lord Bishop of Winchester and the good Exeter who protect you. But be careful, Catherine. To the Beauforts the power, to them. Not to you; never to you.”

  Again Catherine smiled the small, secret smile...Johanne was wise; but Johanne was growing old. What heart would not soften at the Queen's first appearance with her child since her husband's death—she young and forlorn and pretty, and the child beautiful as the infant Jesus? She was her mother's daughter—in spite of Johanne's poor opinion of her wits; she'd be a fool, indeed, if she couldn't make something out of that!

  * * *

  The Clerk to the Wardrobe whose name she could not remember, brought out gowns and cotes; brought out cloaks and houppelandes. Sitting queenly, the nurse behind her holding the child, Catherine thought, But for this man there might have been no child; and I thrust from the public eye or returned unwanted to France. A pretty gown...so small a thing. But it needed that spark to fire Henry's coldness.

  She looked at the man above the rich cloths.

  Jacqueline had called him a proper man. Yes, he was that! Not unlike Henry in build—the same lean elegance. But this man had a warm, a gentle eye.

  She had chosen her gown—white with a cloak of rich blue. Cloak and gown lent her a Madonna look, most subtly proclaimed her right to her child. When she would have chosen for the King, Astley pushed herself forward. The Clerk turned his look upon the nurse; an enquiring look, gentle enough. Astley coloured and fell back letting him take the child.

  This man had more than gentleness, Catherine saw; he had the strength that goes with true kindness. She might do worse than advance him. Her chamberlain? That would be too great a step. Steward then? She might do worse; a great deal worse.

  He brought the little boy and set him upon the Queen's knee.

  “We must make robes for my little lord; never have we had so tiny a King.” Kneeling with the measure, he smiled; the baby put out a hand towards the gay and smiling face.

  * * *

  She was driving through London, her moving throne drawn by white horses. About her rode princes of Church and State. But for all their massed magnificence, for all their banners and their swords and their golden chains; for all the rainbow of their colours and the glitter of their jewels, it was upon her all eyes turned; upon her with her Madonna look, her King innocent and good upon her lap.

  She knew well they made the picture she had planned, the charming, the almost holy picture—the young mother so fair, so royal and so sad; and the lovely child in crimson and ermine, the velvet cap upon the golden head held by the jewelled circlet. What was it the Wardrobe Clerk had said fitting on the tiny crown? “Those pretty hands that cannot feed himself, yet hold the sceptre.” He had been silent for a while; then he had added, “Here is God's Wonder. This little child who must look to his nurses for food, yet feeds two nations with law and justice.” A poet!

  Now looking down upon London from her high throne and holding her King, she thought of Henry. Could he see her now, gentle and proud, would he not love her then? But could Henry be here to see, the child would not now be driving to Parliament.

  For one fierce moment she was glad Henry was dead. He had tried to cut her off from any share in her child. Well, wherever he might be now, let it be standing arrogant by the very Throne of God, let him see she was not the foolish creature he had thought. She was Isabeau's daughter, Isabeau who with her gibes, had taught her that lacking a child, a woman—queen or peasant—is but half a woman.

  And suddenly she thought of Michelle who had never borne a child, who lay forgotten now in the dark earth.

  In the Queen's eyes a tear sparkled, dropped. And the crowd loving her child and loving her for her sorrows, worshipped her as she went by.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Catherine sat with Johanne in the Lady's Bower at Baynard's Castle. It had been granted for her use until the little Duke of York came of age; in return she kept the house in good repair and the gardens in order. Though hard by St. Paul's and in the midst of London's bustle, the gardens were secluded and charming. Catherine liked the house well and used it constantly.

  Now, on the window-seat, the two-year old King knelt breathing upon the frosted pane and rubbing the little hole with his finger. Catherine, that indifferent needlewoman, rose from her chair, went and stood by the little boy. She laughed at the tiny peep-hole, bent her own red mouth to the frosty pane, rubbed it with the palm of her hand. Now they could look out together.

  From her place Johanne watched. And this was that Catherine who aspired to power—why she was nothing but a child herself! Curious how Isabeau, that determined woman, had bred true to the Valois stock. Not one of her children had her cleverness, her courage, her iron will.

  Johanne sighed looki
ng at the pretty, gentle child. Was it true gentleness, or had he inherited the Valois weakness, too? Yet—and she was glad to see it—he could be obstinate. His mother was pointing out London Bridge, and the houses that stood upon it, dark and sharp as though cut from paper. But he was not interested; he wriggled from her hand, turned his back upon the water sullen beneath the snow-packed sky. Small cheek against the cold pane, he knelt staring at the finger of St. Paul's thrusting upward into the sky.

  Catherine came back to her seat, looked with disfavour upon her needlework. “That child!” She nodded towards the absorbed King.

  “He cannot take his eyes from that church or any other. A Child of God.”

  “Like all children, or so we are told.” Johanne was a trifle dry. “As for Harry—you want him to look at one thing, he pleases himself looking at another. Again—like all children!”

  “How can you say so? Of course it's the church—the little saint!”

  “There's a church on the Bridge if it's churches he wants. But he wouldn't so much as look at it. Don't make your child into a saint, Catherine; you'll make this world too hard for him.”

  “Kings have been saints before now...”

  “And they've come to an uncomfortable end first. Being sainted is a somewhat late douceur.”

  “What a thing to say! Anyhow they've won a heavenly crown.”

  “This child is concerned with an earthly one,” Johanne reminded her.

  “He shall have both. Did you hear how we brought him from Windsor to attend Parliament?”