A midwife had been appointed for the birth, one Mistress Bet Scorer who had been recommended by Margaret of Clarence and came from a village called Eye, not far from the palace of Westminster. In mid-November an escort was sent for her protection and she travelled to Windsor with her husband and a young couple from the same village, William and Margery Jourdemayne. Once they had seen their wives settled in the royal household, the two men returned home to their farm work. Mistress Scorer was a plump, practical soul, a veteran of a hundred births, who examined Catherine respectfully but thoroughly and took care not to frighten her with too many details of the skills she had to offer. Her assistant, Margery, was a handsome, sturdy young woman of about Catherine’s age who had been some years with Mrs Scorer learning the science of midwifery. It quickly became evident that she was of more than average yeoman intelligence and Eleanor started to favour her company, showing her the Windsor herb garden and comparing and exchanging knowledge of cures and remedies.
My campaign to get Catherine to travel to Sheen was not aided when, towards the end of November, Eleanor announced loudly in the queen’s hearing that she hoped the household would not leave Windsor until she and Margery had completed their work with the plants in the castle herb garden to prepare fresh salves and potions to ease and assist the queen’s confinement. I decided to speak to Mistress Scorer privately with a view to acquiring an ally over the move to Sheen, but she did not prove instrumental.
‘The baby is small yet,’ she told me matter-of-factly. ‘I think it will not be born until Christmas. If the queen wishes to stay here until Margery has completed her remedies, I will not gainsay her. It would be better in my opinion if she had the baby here at Windsor anyway.’
Since it had been a private matter between the king and Catherine, I did not wish to reveal his grace’s prohibition of a Windsor birth and so I had no argument to present for an imminent move. Instead I decided to seek reassurance from the midwife on another matter that had been worrying me.
‘Are you familiar with the recipes Mistress Jourdemayne and Damoiselle Cobham are preparing for the queen?’ I asked her. ‘We need assurances that they will not be in any way harmful to her grace or the baby.’
The midwife looked seriously offended. ‘Margery Jourdemayne has been apprenticed to me for four years now and she is very skilled in the use of herbs and simples, Madame,’ she protested. ‘She has been studying under a renowned apothecary in Westminster and, young though she is, there can be few who excel her in knowledge and expertise, especially in balms for use in childbirth. Ask the dowager duchess if you do not believe me.’
I hastened to assure her that I did indeed believe her, but made a mental note to check with Margaret of Clarence anyway. As for the move to Sheen, Catherine announced that same day that she would be happy for arrangements to be made to travel there after the feast of St Nicholas but not before, because she wished to preside over the distribution of presents to children on the holy day of their patron saint, which fell on the sixth of December. I bit my tongue and hoped for the best.
On the fifth of December her pains began. It was a mild day for the season and she had taken a walk with the Duchess of Hainault around Queen Philippa’s garden, laid out for King Henry’s great grandmother on a flat area of ground behind St George’s Hall where the curtain wall sheltered a pretty enclosure of paths, low evergreen hedges and ornamental flowering bushes. While Catherine walked and talked intimately with her royal friend, I had hung back discreetly, but I noticed that she was not moving with her usual grace and occasionally her hand strayed to her back, which she rubbed distractedly. On their return to the queen’s solar, she took her usual chair but fretfully demanded that more cushions be provided.
‘Are you feeling pains, Madame?’ I asked. ‘Shall I fetch Mistress Scorer?’
‘No, no, Mette, do not fuss. I am just a bit stiff. Heaven knows I am carrying enough extra weight around. Just do as I ask and fetch the cushions – today if possible!’
Such sarcasm was not typical of her, even when in the company of the duchess, who often treated servants with sharp impatience. So while I was collecting the requested cushions I also sent a page to find the midwife. Prudently, these days Mistress Scorer was never far away. When I returned and began to arrange the cushions in order to give her more support, she suddenly drew a sharp breath and grimaced.
‘Oh – oh! What was that? Did you poke me?’ Catherine’s voice was harsh and accusatory.
Hastily I drew my hand back. ‘No, your grace.’ I was conscious that the duchess shot me an irritated scowl but ignored it. ‘Why? Did you feel something?’
I was not unduly concerned, believing as I always had that this first week of December was a much more likely delivery date than Christmastide, which the midwife had predicted, but Catherine went into a panic and stood up, casting the cushions to the floor.
‘Mette, Mette! I must leave now!’ she exclaimed. ‘I promised the king I would not deliver my baby at Windsor. Order the barges. How long will it take to get downriver to Sheen?’
‘Oh no, your grace! If your pains have started, you cannot travel now, not even by barge.’
For once it was not me telling Catherine what she could and could not do; it was the midwife. Mistress Scorer had answered my summons with impressive speed and bent her knee at the door before hurrying to the queen’s side.
‘It will distress the child and the babe needs all its strength to make its way into the world. No, we will prepare your chamber for delivery and meanwhile you must rest. Margery will provide hyssop water to soothe the cramps and you must drink an infusion of camomile to calm you.’
‘But it cannot have started; it is too early!’ cried Catherine. ‘I promised the king that I would not have the baby at Windsor. He read of some prophecy which predicts ill fortune if his son is born here. You said the birth would not be until Christmas.’
‘Babies come when they will, honoured lady,’ said the midwife soothingly. ‘The babe is small, but that means it will be easier to deliver. Now, pray do as I say and rest. All will be well.’
As another pain seized her, Catherine grabbed at my hand, clenching it until the bones crunched audibly and staring at me in alarm. ‘Ah! It hurts, Mette. It hurts!’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle, it is not easy. That is why we call it labour.’ I was not going to tell her that the pain she felt now was only a fraction of what was to come. ‘Come, we have laid cushions on this bench and in no time we will have prepared your bed. Your confessor has been called and very soon he will be here to pray with you. Prayer always calms you.’
I noticed that the Duchess of Hainault remained rooted to her chair, her expression one of alarm, even distaste. She seemed unwilling or simply unable to offer any sympathy or encouragement to her friend in these circumstances. I knew that Catherine had asked her to be godmother and sponsor to the child and to witness the birth, but I rather wondered if she was up to the task. For once Eleanor was not with us, away in the workshop she had set up with Margery to prepare their herbal lotions.
When he arrived, it was obvious that Maître Boyers was equally perturbed by the prospect of entering a room where a woman had begun the process of giving birth and hovered in the doorway wringing his hands. I bustled up to him, smiling reassuringly. ‘All is well, Maître Jean. Things are at a very early stage, but we will not be moving to Sheen. Her grace would like to hear Mass and receive the comfort of the host before she retires to her confinement. She asks that you go with her into the oratory.’
By this time Catherine had grown more accustomed to the strength and rhythm of the pains, which were still only coming at extended intervals, so she felt confident about hearing the Mass and feeling the reassuring touch of the holy wafer on her tongue, without frightening the priest by delivering the baby while kneeling on the prie Dieu. Lady Joan accompanied her to the oratory and I went to fetch supplies of napkins, sheets and soft linen waste for mopping, in readiness for the birth. A messenger wa
s sent to the wife of a local baron who had agreed to wean her own child in preparation for becoming the royal baby’s first wet nurse. Catherine had declared that she wished to feed the baby herself, but her wishes had been silenced by loud protests from both Jacqueline of Hainault and Margaret of Clarence. In England as in France, a queen simply did not put her child to her own breast.
A few hours later, there was no great sign of progress and Catherine became fretful and restless. ‘It is too hot!’ she complained, throwing off the bedcovers. ‘Why do the windows have to be shuttered and the fire made to burn so fiercely? I know it is winter, but I am stifled.’
‘We must shield the baby from bad humours,’ explained Mistress Scorer placidly, wringing out a pad of linen waste in a bowl of lavender water. ‘Here,’ she handed it to me. ‘Bathe her grace’s face and neck with this. And is there no one who can sing or read to the queen while she labours? Some of my high-born ladies have poetry read to distract them. I have heard wonderful poems by someone called Geoffrey Chaucer, all about pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.’
Margaret of Clarence was in close attendance and made a disapproving noise. ‘Oh no, the queen would not like to hear those. They are too earthy and besides they are in English, and very coarse English too. I do not think her grace would understand them. But I could certainly read to her – from the Gospels perhaps or St Augustine’s Confessions.’
Bet Scorer made a sour face, clearly not impressed with the duchess’s choice of literary distraction. Catherine lay bathed in sweat, panting as another pain gripped her and I moved in to wield the lavender-scented linen pad, wiping it gently over her brow and neck. We had long ago undressed her and she wore only a damp chemise, its ribbons tangled and wet.
‘That is lovely and cool, Mette,’ she said when the pain had passed. ‘I would like a drink.’
‘I will bring some watered wine, Mademoiselle,’ I murmured, smiling fondly. In the crisis of childbirth our relationship had reverted to its mother–daughter origins. ‘I will fetch a fresh chemise also, you will be more comfortable.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, Mette, please do. Will it be very much longer, do you think?’
I looked at Mistress Scorer, who shrugged and moved her hands slowly apart to indicate a considerable interval of time. Fortunately Catherine could not see her, but I knew anyway that her real trial had barely begun and I prevaricated. ‘In a few hours, Mademoiselle, when your babe is in your arms, you will not remember how long it took to arrive.’
Catherine scowled at me and shook her head. ‘Not “it”, Mette, “he”,’ she said. ‘How long he took to arrive.’
As if calling it male could change its sex at this late stage, I thought, but I said, ‘Of course,’ crossing my fingers as I went to the door. ‘I will fetch that drink.’
With the shutters closed, we lost all track of time and in due course Catherine lost all awareness of how long her body had been wracked by the progressively more violent contractions of her womb. Whereas at first she had made little sound, eventually she began to cry out with each new onslaught and then, clutching at my hands and staring at me with wide, agonised eyes, she began to beg for it to be over. Time and again I wiped her sweat-beaded brow and whispered soothing words into her ear, resolutely quashing my own surges of alarm in order to show her only calmness and compassion.
‘All is going well, dear Mademoiselle,’ I crooned again and again. ‘Soon, very soon, it will be over and you will be a mother.’
‘Of a son, Mette, of a son. The mother of a son,’ she repeated through cracked lips, as if simply by saying it over and over again she could make it so. Cracked lips, I thought. Where were all those balms and potions? I raked the room with my eyes, spied Margery whispering in a corner with Eleanor and impatiently beckoned her across. However it seemed the much-vaunted emollients were meant only for the actual delivery, not for the comfort of the poor labouring mother. Making no secret of my irritation at hearing this, I asked Agnes to find some of Catherine’s cosmetic lip lotion in her toilette chest.
We had been informed by this time that Bishop Beaufort had arrived from Winchester and waited in the great hall with the Royal Steward, the Lord Chamberlain and a posse of heralds and couriers who would convey news of the birth to Westminster and on to the king in France. I was interested to note that, unlike the French court which insisted on certain officials actually witnessing a royal birth, the English tradition restricted the birthing chamber to women only, although I had asked Maître Boyers to stay near at hand in the ante room, just in case. I vividly recalled the tragic stillbirth of my own first child and his subsequent burial in unhallowed ground for lack of instant baptism. I knew only too well that there was always a danger in childbirth that either mother or child or both might need the urgent services of a priest.
The midwife kept making secret examinations under the covers and nodding with satisfaction until at last the labour began to show signs of reaching a conclusion. Instead of moaning and writhing, Catherine seemed to acquire renewed strength, pulling herself up on the pillows and shouting at us in French and there were plenty of people to shout at. Apart from myself, Agnes and the two midwives, the room now contained the Duchess of Hainault and the Dowager Duchess of Clarence, all the ladies-in-waiting and several tiring women, scurrying in and out with fresh logs and pails of warm water.
‘Mother of God! What are you all doing standing around?’ Hoarse though her voice was, the queen conveyed her message unequivocally. ‘A prince strives to be born and you all do nothing but stand and gawp at us like idiots? Jesu protect us. Mette – tell them all to go away. You will help me as you always have, and Agnes, where is Agnes? Ah the pain! Blessed Marie save me, I can take no more.’ Suddenly she hurled the covers back and tried clumsily to scramble off the bed in some desperate attempt to escape the unrelenting spasms. I rushed to catch her in my arms and stop her falling to the floor, holding her fast and rocking her like the only mother she knew and all the while I glared wildly over her shoulder at Bet Scorer who was placidly arranging the tools of her trade on a cloth-covered table nearby; a sharp silver knife, a strip of clean linen and a round silver bowl.
‘Always silver for a royal birth,’ she declared, favouring us with a gap-toothed smile. ‘All is well, your grace, do not fear. It will not be long now. Mothers often shout a good deal just before the babe arrives and sometimes in much worse language than Master Chaucer’s.’ A coarse chuckle bubbled from her lips and she turned to beckon to her assistant who hovered at a respectful distance. ‘Bring those salves of yours now, Margery. It is time to ease the baby’s way.’
Catherine suddenly caught a glimpse of the knife and screamed afresh. ‘No! Dear God no! Blessed St Margaret save me from the knife! Mette, do not let them cut me!’
Margery approached the bed and punctiliously dropped a curtsy. ‘The knife is to cut the cord, your grace. Have no fear, Mistress Scorer is very skilled. She will not touch you or the baby with it.’ She showed the queen the earthenware bowl of fragrant balm she held carefully in both hands. ‘And this will make it easier for the child to push his way out. He will slip into the world like an eel through a pipe. He is ready to come now and you must use all your strength to help him on his way. Rejoice, my lady, for you are about to give birth to England’s next king.’
Whether it was the confident way she assumed that the child would be male, the invigorating aroma of the pale-green balm she waved enticingly under Catherine’s nose, or the calm, reassuring tone of her lilting country voice, Margery’s words seemed to settle Catherine’s panic so that she relaxed against me and allowed me to place her gently back against the pillows which Agnes hastily plumped into a heap.
‘Where are the witnesses?’ Mistress Scorer enquired, turning to gaze around the now-empty room. ‘Do we not need official witnesses at a royal birth?’
Agnes and I exchanged glances as we stripped back the heavy covers of the bed to allow the midwife freedom to perform the delivery. ‘She is righ
t,’ whispered Agnes, dumping a heavy quilt on the floor. ‘The royal ladies have retired at the queen’s bidding, but they should be here; should I fetch them back?’
I nodded, turning away from the bed where Catherine had reluctantly settled back against the pillows, cooler now that only a fresh linen sheet covered the mound of her belly. ‘Yes, fetch them,’ I whispered, ‘and warn Maître Boyers. Her confessor should be near at hand, just in case.’
I need not have whispered, for by now Catherine had retreated into a world where only she and the midwives and the new life within her held any significance. Bet Scorer lifted the lower end of the sheet and Margery began applying her salve, all the while holding a muttered conversation, the gist of which I caught as I stood behind them, soaking another pad to wipe Catherine’s brow.
‘I can see the head, Mistress, but there seems to be something shiny all around it, like a halo,’ Margery was saying, bent over Catherine with a note of awe in her hushed voice. ‘Jesu, what can it be?’
Bet Scorer peered over her shoulder and made the sign of the cross. ‘It is the Veil!’ she murmured breathlessly. ‘I thought it possible since the waters had not broken. The babe will be born behind the Veil. It is the sign of a very special birth. I have seen it only once before.’
I was greatly relieved to see that Catherine appeared oblivious to the midwife’s words.
‘The old saying goes that a child born with the birth-caul still intact is blessed with spiritual gifts; a healer or a mystic, but priests say it is the work of the devil so we will say nothing of it, Margery, do you understand?’ She too cast a glance at Catherine, whose face was congested with the effort of the next big push. Even so, the midwife’s next hasty instructions to her assistant were issued in the same cautious whisper. ‘When the head emerges fully, I will break through the caul to let the child breathe and, God willing, there will be no harm done. Do not show the babe to anyone until you have completely removed it. This is just a normal birth, remember that.’
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