The Queen's Secret

by Jean Plaidy

  They were waiting to greet us. I looked for Guillemote, but she and the children were not there. I was alarmed and disappointed. Then I was scolding myself. Of course she was not there. I had forgotten the need to keep up the pretense. Most of the household could be trusted, but we still had to remember the danger which could be lurking in the most unexpected places.

  I embraced the Joannas and Agnes. Their looks soothed my anxieties. They were signaling me that all was well. They could not have looked so happy if it had not been so. And as soon as possible Owen and I would make our way to the nurseries.

  What a happy moment that was! There was Guillemote, holding a child by each hand.

  We stood for a second looking at them. I felt a pang of sadness because Edmund did not recognize me, but he looked at me with interest, so I guessed that Guillemote had told him that his mother was coming. The little one, the child I had left when he was a baby in arms, could not be expected to know me.

  I ran to them and knelt before them. I put my arms around them and held them close to me. They studied my face intently. I looked up at Guillemote and there were tears in her eyes.

  “They have been so excited because you were coming. Edmund will remember in time…Jasper, of course …”

  Owen had picked up Jasper, and Edmund took my hand and smiled slowly. Was he remembering?

  I felt a great sense of loss. I had missed so much of their babyhood.

  But I was back. I was home. And all would be well.

  Later Guillemote told me that life had gone very smoothly during my absence. They had lived in peace from day to day, constantly waiting for news, of which they had had very little.

  There had been no visitors to the palace. Nor had they expected them.

  And so we resumed our lives.

  The children delighted us. They were two bright little boys, and very soon it might have been as though we had never been parted.

  They were both devoted to Guillemote, who had cared for them so assiduously during my absence. I felt a little jealous of the affection they gave her. She knew this and told me that in time they would love me too.

  “Already they are showing fondness for you,” she assured me. “You should see their little eyes light up when I speak of you. And of course I talked to them of you all the time you were away.”

  We were so happy to be home. The springtime seemed more beautiful.

  I became pregnant again. I was completely absorbed in my family, and I refused to think of anything outside my little cocoon.

  But significant events were taking place in the world outside Hatfield and that life I had created for myself. I should have noticed them, of course.

  The English lost Chartres in the spring of that year. Owen said that luck seemed to be running out for Bedford. The French no longer had The Maid, and they should be feeling as guilty as the English for having killed her; but the tide had turned in their favor.

  Bedford, whose purpose in life was to preserve his idolized brother’s conquests, must be far from happy.

  In the spring Henry opened Parliament. He was now nearly twelve years old and, it was said, mature for his years. He seemed to be grasping the duties of kingship and surprising people by his seriousness in carrying them out.

  He was popular wherever he went. He presided over Parliament with a demeanor which won the admiration of Warwick, who set a high standard for his pupil.

  Cardinal Beaufort’s enemies were working assiduously against him. Owen said he had made a great mistake when he had accepted his cardinal’s hat. Those who wanted to destroy him had brought charges against him, accusing him of giving his first allegiance to Rome. What did they expect of a cardinal?

  I knew him for an ambitious man. The Beauforts were an ambitious family. Their very origins made that a certainty. I think Owen was right when he said that, if Beaufort’s ambitions lay solely in this country, he would never have become a cardinal.

  There were scenes in Parliament when his accusers attempted to brand him with treachery. The Cardinal defended himself with the skill one expected of him; and Henry listened intently. I was delighted and proud to hear that at the end of the debate he defended his great uncle and announced to Parliament that he was convinced of his loyalty.

  They were all amazed at his judgment, which he gave in a lucid manner which was remarkable coming from a boy not yet twelve years old. So much so, that the case against the Cardinal was dismissed.

  I wished I had been there to see his triumph.

  It was an indication that Henry was growing up. Warwick was reputed to have said that the King had grown so much not only in stature but in wisdom as well, and was in full knowledge of his state.

  It was an indication that Henry was no longer regarded as a child. He was stepping with dignity into the role of king.

  I was so proud. I had cast aside my fears for his mental health. The fact that he had been so disturbed by The Maid’s ill-treatment, imprisonment and finally death was evidence of his tender heart. I think something spiritual in her touched something similar in himself, for he was becoming more and more devout.

  My great regret at that time was that I could not be with him. If only he could have shared our home and our domestic happiness, my joy would have been complete.

  Summer had passed, and I was nearing the end of my pregnancy.

  “We must not become careless,” said Owen. “We must continually remember the necessity to preserve secrecy.” Life had run smoothly. So much was happening in the world outside that we had attracted little attention; but that could change and we must be prepared.

  My daughter Jacina was born in the same secrecy that had accompanied the birth of her brothers. We were delighted with her. We already had our two boys, and what Owen and I had wanted most was a daughter. We admitted this afterward, although we had said nothing before, for we knew we should have been delighted with whichever came to us.

  Our little girl was charming…healthy as her brothers…beautiful, bright…a wonderful addition to our family.

  Guillemote was in her element. She loved all children, but little babies had a special place in her heart.

  I had not quite recovered from the birth of Jacina when I heard news which deeply saddened me. Owen had discovered this and he wondered whether to tell me before I was fully recovered, for he guessed that it would upset me. We were so close, Owen and I, like one person, and I was therefore very sensitive to his moods, and guessing that there was something on his mind, I demanded to know what was troubling him.

  “I know you had a liking for her,” he said. “She is young…it is a great blow. It will have its effect.”

  “Owen, tell me. Who is it?”

  “It is the Duchess of Bedford.”

  “Anne!”

  He nodded. “She is dead.”

  “But she was so young. Oh, poor John. He loved her so much.”

  “And as the sister of the Duke of Burgundy she was very important to him.”

  “I had not thought of that…only of the love between them. How did she die?”

  “It was some illness which struck her down.”

  “But she was so young…younger than I!”

  Owen put his arms around me and held me tightly. I knew he was thinking how precarious life was. We lived with danger. It could strike from any direction at any moment. Those who had been alive and well one day could be dead the next.

  I said: “She was twenty-eight. I wonder…how is the Duke?”

  “He is bowed down with sorrow, I hear. How strange it is that when ill-fortunes come they do not come singly.”

  “I wish that I could see him. I wish that I could tell him how sorry I am.”

  “It is unlikely that he will come to England now.”

  Later I heard that Anne had been buried with great pomp in the Church of the Celestins. She was deeply mourned by the Parisians who had called her “The Beautiful and The Good.” The Burgundians were stricken with grief.

  Owen sai
d that this would most certainly loosen the already weakening links between Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy, for Anne had done so much to keep them intact.

  Poor Bedford! I was sorry for him; but my delight in my newborn daughter was inclined to swamp all other feelings.

  My sympathy for my brother-in-law was lessened considerably when in April of the following year he married again.

  I was astonished and a little outraged on behalf of Anne.

  “How could he?” I asked. “It is not six months since she died.”

  “Bedford is a ruler first, a husband second,” said Owen. “Some men are like that.”

  Owen would not be. Nor would I. Love would come first with me. If I lost Owen, I should never marry again. I had loved Henry, I had thought; but now I had learned the difference between my feelings for him and those I had for Owen. Owen was the man for me, and I prayed fervently that we should never be parted.

  There was a reason why Bedford had married so promptly. Owen was fully aware of the situation.

  “The alliance with Burgundy is waning,” he explained, “and Bedford needs to make a new one. The war in France is going badly. Bedford has tried to revive the old feeling of invincibility, but The Maid has destroyed that. The only reason why the French are not victorious is because, without The Maid to urge him, Charles has sunk once more into his habitual lethargy…and his army with him.”

  Yet here and there still the spirit of The Maid lived on, and there were occasional French victories.

  Owen said: “The house of Luxembourg is rich and powerful. An alliance with it might not make up for the loss of Burgundy, but it would be of some use. The Duke of Bedford is an anxious man and he cannot allow any opportunity to slip past.”

  “Another marriage of convenience, then! And six months after the death of Anne, whom he professed to love so dearly!”

  Owen smiled tenderly at me. “You must be kinder to him, my dearest,” he said. “He is beleaguered at the moment. Burgundy is slipping away, and how much the English owed to the quarrel between the two most powerful houses in France everyone must know. The Duke is a man with a mission. His brother left him a sacred trust, and he is the kind of man who will sacrifice everything, including himself, in order to keep faith with his brother. Do not blame him.”

  “I do not, I suppose. I just cannot stop thinking of Anne.”

  Nor could I. I wondered if she could look down from Heaven and see the husband whom she had thought had loved her so devotedly, now the husband of Jacqueline, daughter of the Count of St.-Pol of the house of Luxembourg…so important to Bedford now that he was in danger of losing the support of the house of Burgundy to which Anne had belonged and she who had been so instrumental in maintaining the weakening friendship between her husband and her brother, was now gone.

  I could not help feeling a little cynical. How much, I wondered, had Bedford’s love been for Anne, how much for Burgundy?

  How different it was with Owen and me! We loved for love’s sake only. And that was the only way to love.

  I reminded myself that we must preserve secrecy at all costs. Our love was too precious to be harmed. We must never forget. We must perforce endure this perpetual fear of discovery that we might never, by the smallest action, betray ourselves.

  In June of that year Bedford returned to England with his new duchess.

  There were no victory parades for him. The news of his marriage, as had been anticipated, had been coldly received by the Duke of Burgundy. The link was slackened still more. Bedford was missing that powerful ally. Affairs in France were in a sorry state. It seemed that neither side had a great enthusiasm for the war.

  I wondered if I should have an opportunity of seeing the Duke and meeting his new wife. I could hardly offer condolences for the death of Anne now.

  I was sure he was not a happy man.

  It soon became clear that Gloucester was about to make trouble. When had he ever not been? And now it seemed he had a good opportunity. The brother toward whom he had always harbored some resentment, for the reason that he had been born his senior, if for nothing else, was no longer the conquering hero. He had come home in defeat rather than victory. Now was the time for Gloucester to move in against him.

  He did it in typical Gloucester fashion. Rumor began to circulate throughout the country that Bedford had been careless. He had neglected his duty. He had spent too much time courting his new wife when his old one was scarcely cold. What sort of man was this who had taken on the sacred mantle of the great and noble King Henry V?

  These rumors were clearly set in motion by none other than Bedford’s brother.

  Bedford made an announcement. He wanted all accusations against him to be made in the proper place, which was before the King and the Parliament.

  Gloucester, of course, would not come forward and openly state his criticisms. He always liked to work in the dark. The result was that, when Bedford announced in Parliament that he wanted a clear statement of the attitude toward him, he received nothing but praise for his activities in France.

  “It seems,” said Owen, “that the little storm has blown over.”

  But Gloucester had no intention of abandoning his battle for self-aggrandizement. This quarrel with his brother kept him busy and was no doubt the reason why we were enjoying a period of comparative peace.

  Gloucester was full of ideas, and the reason more mischief was not done was that he did not think them out clearly enough. He was impatient for action and so eager to promote himself, so furiously angry with the fate which had made him a younger son. He was determined—by fair means or foul—that that which would be due to him had he been born a little earlier, and because of his superior gifts, should be his.

  Frustrated and restless, he could not see that he was making himself ridiculous. In a fit of rage and pique, he announced to the Council that he had plans for changing the fast-deteriorating situation in France. He would bring it back to what it had been in his brother’s glorious reign.

  He declared that Henry had often confided in him, discussed plans of action with him, consulted him and on several occasions asked his advice and followed it with the utmost success. He, therefore, felt he was in a position to take an army to France, and then they would begin to see results.

  He had gone too far. It was known that on his deathbed Henry had asked Bedford to keep a curb on Gloucester’s impulsiveness and not to allow him too much power. Gloucester’s blustering conceit had served only to expose his weakness.

  The Council most definitely refused to supply him with the arms and men he demanded; and Bedford announced that he himself would soon be returning to France.

  I saw Bedford before he left. I had gone to Westminster for a week or so, which gave me an opportunity of seeing Henry. Owen and I had decided that this was advisable and that it would be a good idea if I appeared at Court now and then. We must always be on the alert, and Owen thought that, if I appeared occasionally, Gloucester was less likely to be suspicious of what I might be doing, hidden out of sight in the country.

  Bedford looked old and careworn. I did not mention Anne. His new wife seemed very pleasant and fond of him. But I realized that he was an extremely anxious man. There was a certain desperation about him.

  He was as courteous and friendly as he had ever been, and I wished that I could have told him how sorry I was for his misfortunes.

  I returned to my family. We had moved back to Hadham now. It was quieter than Hatfield, and we were really fond of the place.

  And I was once more pregnant.

  During these periods, that happy indifference to all else but my family would descend upon me. I led the life of a simple country woman far away from the intrigues of Court life, and scarcely gave them a thought, except when some piece of gossip reached me.

  Henry was growing up and since his coronation had assumed a new dignity. I supposed all the deference and homage he received must necessarily have an effect on him. He was serious enough to realize
his great responsibilities, and he was of a nature not to permit himself to shirk them.

  I did feel a twinge of uneasiness when I heard that Gloucester had instituted himself as a tutor to Henry. None disputed the fact that Gloucester was a very learned man. He was, in fact, one of the most complex characters I had ever encountered. A schemer, a voluptuary, reckless, impulsive, ambitious, and in complete contrast he was a scholar, a lover of literature, extremely widely read, an authority on the Latin poets and orators, well acquainted with Aristotle, Plato, Dante and Petrarch. When he talked to scholars of his own kind, a different man emerged, and it was difficult to reconcile him with the brash adventurer who seemed so completely lacking in judgment.

  Henry himself had always been more interested in books than the warlike arts, and this made a bond between them, I supposed. However, I heard that Gloucester’s tuition was very well received by the King and that the friendship between him and his uncle was growing because of this.

  I was sure I was not the only one who was made uneasy by this disclosure.

  I was heavy with child; in fact, I was expecting my confinement to begin very shortly, when a message came that Cardinal Beaufort and the Earl of Warwick were on their way to Hadham.

  There was panic.

  We had faced such a dilemma before, but then I had not been so far gone in pregnancy. Now it would be impossible to hide it. What could we do? Could we say I was ill? They would want to see me. If I were too ill to see them, that would mean that I was very ill indeed and that doctors would most certainly be sent.

  There was only one thing to do. I must receive them. They must be told I was ill. I hoped to be able to conceal my condition and get rid of them as soon as possible.

  “You must be in bed, of course,” said Guillemote. “You could be propped up with pillows…and we will tell them that they must not exhaust you.”

  “What if they talk of sending doctors?”

  “We will tell them that you have your own physician and that all you need is rest.”

  It was a difficult ordeal. I was afraid my pains would start before they arrived or, even worse, when they were here.