The Dragon and the Rose

by Roberta Gellis

  Henry threw the book violently on the floor. "If your privy purse is not sufficient to provide you with a new gown, why do you not say so? I do not condone extravagance, but the queen of England must be decently garbed."

  Because Henry was so careful in administering his moneys and so eager in collecting more, he was getting the reputation of a miser. Although he knew that what he did was necessary for the security of the throne and reason forbade him to change his ways, he was growing sensitive about the allegation. Elizabeth knew the reputation was false. Henry was as lavish in expenditure as he was assiduous in collection, and he had always been most generous to her. Still, he demanded an accounting for every penny, which Elizabeth found annoying, so she could not forbear teasing him when she found a weak chink in his self-possession.

  "But Harry," she said gravely, "you know how confused the management of money makes me. If you give me more, I will but grow more confused."

  "What do you want me to do, hand you a few pence a day from my purse as I do for Charles? You do not attend properly. You tell this one to buy a thing and that one to give a beggar a coin, and you never make a note of it or remember to tell your clerk. What have you an almoner and a chamberlain for?"

  To hide the fact that she was laughing, Elizabeth bent her head. Henry saw her shoulders shaking. He bit his lip and spoke in a much softer voice.

  "This is all nothing to the point. Do you need money now, my dear?"

  It was too bad of her to tease him when he was so tired and so kind. "Nay, I have sufficient. Those items are a mere chance, my love. I trod a hole in a new gown when we danced one night. Do you not remember? And the blue gown is a favorite—I cannot part with it. I wear it only to play with the children and suchlike. Dear Harry, I am sorry I made you cross. I will try to pay more mind to my accounts."

  Henry came up behind her and put his hand under her hair on her throat. "You keep one thing at a time in your mind, do you not, Bess? Did you hear what I called you?"

  "Called me?" she asked vaguely. He was naked under the bedgown and ready. He had not really come to quarrel, she thought.

  "I called you queen of England. When would you like to have the coronation, Bess?"

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet with wide eyes. "But Henry—" She did not want to be a crowned queen!

  Thinking he was forestalling a long explanation of his past fears that could only hurt her, Henry said quickly, "I desire it greatly. It is right for a crowned king to have a crowned queen."

  It was a symbol Elizabeth could not refuse. Henry was trying to give her all he had to give. She had long had his body and his heart. Now he was yielding her his trust and his faith. Elizabeth curtsied to the ground and kissed her husband's hand.

  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  Henry VII's life falls into three distinct sections that might be called the dangerous years, the bright years, and the dark years. This novel covers only the dangerous years when Henry fought to stay alive and to establish himself on the throne of England. In matters of known fact, the novel is as accurate as possible. Although the conversations and the emotions accredited to the characters are mostly fictional, the personalities are as close to the truth as the author can come by estimation of their acts as recorded in history, comments upon them by their contemporaries, and, where available, their biographies.

  The treatment of Richard III is an exception; he has been sadly maligned, but the opinions stated about him are those of the characters, who were his enemies, not those of the author. In fact, Henry VII revised his own opinion of Richard when, in later years, he was driven into one similar cruelty by the pressure of circumstance. He displayed his mute apology to his predecessor on the throne by raising a magnificent tomb over Richard's hitherto neglected grave.

  This brings the author to the objections that knowledgeable readers may make to the favorable light in which Henry VII is portrayed. Usually he is considered a dour, avaricious, heartless monarch of gloomy, suspicious disposition who mistreated his wife, loved no one, and was himself unloved. Indeed, this is the light in which he was considered by Francis Bacon, and most authors have merely repeated that great biographer's viewpoint. Any serious investigation of the original sources gives the lie immediately to this interpretation of Henry VII's character. The letters that have been preserved from and to his wife and mother make clear the tender affection both these ladies had for him, and that he returned their love in full measure. His eldest daughter, Margaret, after she had been married to James IV of Scotland, wrote to her father that though she was well treated she wished she was "with him now and many times more."

  It is true that Henry VII's character darkened with the years. His early experience with enmity and poverty made him both avaricious and suspicious, and these qualities increased with age. He was, however, neither a miser nor a murderer. He spent lavishly, and his reign was stained only by the political murder of the earl of Warwick—a peccadillo compared with the bloodletting (however necessary) of Richard III and that (however unnecessary) of his own son Henry VIII. (In fact, Henry VIII used the headsman's ax with a frequency that must have made his father turn, shuddering, in his grave.)

  There is much to excuse Henry VII's increasing coldness in his later years. His warmth had always been reserved for those close to him and, one by one, they dropped away. His beloved uncle, Jasper, duke of Bedford, died in 1495, and in 1502 and 1503 two tragedies, major because they were unexpected, marked him permanently. Arthur, his eldest son, died suddenly only five months after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and Elizabeth, Henry's white rose, died in childbirth when she tried to make the succession secure by giving him another son to replace Arthur. The infant, a daughter, followed her mother to the grave after only five days.

  Perhaps Henry felt he had murdered Elizabeth; perhaps he felt the deaths of his dear ones were retribution—he was both religious and superstitious—for the execution of Warwick, who was certainly blameless of any crime except the political crime of being born. In any case, 1503 marks the end of the bright years and a decided change for the worse in Henry's personality.

  In addition, the last years of Henry VII's life were made miserable by ill health. Whether he had, as some authors have suggested, tuberculosis of the bone, or whether he was merely arthritic, cannot now be determined. What is sure is that Henry VII suffered continuous and excruciating physical pain for many years in a period when analgesics were virtually unknown.

  In spite of this, Henry remained a tender father—as witnessed by reports from various foreign envoys. Unlike Henry VIII, who turned on his friends and even on his own children when they failed to grant his desires, Henry VII was invariably loyal. He did not punish his ministers when his diplomacy went awry nor his commanding officers for land or naval battle losses. He became financially tighter and lost control of his temper, but the number of executions did not increase and those who served him well were rewarded adequately, if not with the foolish lavishness that nearly bankrupted the crown under Henry VIII.

  In essentials Henry VII did not change in spite of personal grief and physical agony. Gladys Temperly says:

  The old picture of the harsh and sinister despot gives way to that of a king who was both kindly and considerate. He admitted his subjects to intimate personal relations and gave ear to their petitions. To take at random from a month of his life: he dealt with the woes of a disappointed lover, deceived by the "nygromancer" who had promised to help him to the woman he desired, he gave his protection to the wife of a lunatic, and interfered to protect a nun who had suffered ill-usage. He did not forget his schoolmaster or the son of his old nurse. We find him giving £ 1 "to one that was hurt with a gunne" and so forth.

  He was not difficult to approach, and as he journeyed through his kingdom came into contact with many of his poorer subjects. Thus we hear of him drinking ale in a farmer's house, stopping to watch the reapers in a field and giving them a tip of 2s

  Henry was an ardent sportsman, and took every opport
unity of getting away from the cares of state for a few weeks hunting … He jousted, shot at the butts, played tennis, dice, cards, and "chequer board," was interested in bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and cockfighting. Besides splendid tournaments, banquets, and "goodly disguisings," we hear of "plays in the White Hall …”

  In other words, Henry VII, a remarkable king, was truly a man of his own time. He continued to love music, although he could no longer dance, and sports, although he could no longer participate. Last and not least, he struggled unremittingly to keep his nation prosperous and free of war—a most enlightened attitude.

  Henry VII well deserves to be remembered in a kindlier personal light than that Bacon has cast upon him, although Bacon does full justice to his genius as a king. J. D. Mackie points out, "True it is that there were flaws in Henry's character." But he adds, as the conclusion to his chapters on Henry VII, "He has some claim to be regarded as the greatest of the Tudors."