by G Lawrence
“She wants to feed,” said the midwife. “Some babes are like that. They come out ready for a feast! It’s a good sign, Majesty. She will be strong. You should feed her, if you are ready?”
Suddenly, I could not wait to do so. I opened the front of my gown and brought my babe to my breast. Her little mouth had trouble latching on for a moment, but then she found my nipple and started to draw milk. I gasped as a sharp, strong pain hit my breasts and then there was a curious sensation as my milk began to flow. After a few seconds, my breasts felt stretched, full, and although there was still some pain, it was a satisfying feeling. I leaned back in bed and closed my eyes. I could have lain there all day. I had never felt more content.
“She should have a wet nurse,” said my mother.
“It will not hurt either mother or babe to suckle once, or for the first few days,” remonstrated Mistress Cooper. “It is good for the child to have her mother’s milk. Many people say a wet nurse is better, but why would God give milk to mothers unless He meant us to use it?”
“The Queen will be expected to return to her duties in the bedchamber,” said my mother.
“And breastfeeding impairs conception, I know, my lady.” The midwife’s face settled into such an outraged expression that I laughed. My daughter came from my breast and hiccupped. A stream of straw yellow milk ran down my breasts as we all looked at her with indulgent, soft faces. “If you ask me,” the midwife continued, “it was a blessing from God to allow breastfeeding to prevent further children for a while. He made us. He knows that too many children, too fast, are bad for a woman.”
“But God also understands our duties,” said my mother. “He thinks no ill of a woman who hands her child to another to feed.” She sat on the bed, stroked my hair back from my damp forehead and smiled at her granddaughter. “She is a bewitching little creature,” she said. “She looks so like Henry… with that red hair and blue eyes, but she has your face, Anne. If she had dark hair, I would think I was looking at a vision of you when you were first born.”
I looked up. “Do you think Henry will be angry?” I could not have explained the emotions which rode my blood at that moment. Overwhelming love for my daughter was mingled with terror that Henry would not accept her as his heir. Passionate, zealous protectiveness for this tiny child mixed with my fear that, as a girl, she was not enough for England… just as I was not enough for Henry.
You are enough for me, my mind whispered to my child. Always, will you be enough for me.
“I think he will be pleased you and the babe made it through, unharmed,” my mother said, unaware of the myriad of emotions swirling within me. “He will be disappointed not to have a boy, but he has been out of his mind with worry, Anne. Since you went into labour, a messenger has come every five minutes. This girl is proof that the two of you are fertile. You are well and so is the child. Sons can come in time.”
“Every five minutes?” I asked. “You did not say.”
“You were a little busy,” she said dryly. “Mary gave them updates. We needed to concentrate on you.” She shook her head. “You see why we do not let them in here?” she asked. “Because they flap and faint at every noise, and demand to know what is happening when we need to focus!”
I laughed with her, but not too hard as I did not want to disturb my daughter’s first meal again. “Welcome to the world, little one,” I whispered. “I am going to make sure that you have a wonderful life. Everything you want will be yours. I will let no one hurt you. I will be here to watch over you, always.”
My daughter burped as she unlatched from my nipple. She stared up at me with those enchanting blue eyes, so like Henry’s, and blinked owlishly. I held her against me, consumed by the emotions churning in my breast. I had always believed that my love for Henry had been the strongest passion in my heart. I knew now it was not. There would never be another person I could love as I loved my daughter. There could never be another heart I was so firmly attached to… by unbreakable, silent, invisible bonds. I loved my daughter more than life, more than faith, more than Henry. If I could have held her forever, and never let go, I would have done so. There was nothing more important than her. I had fallen in love.
Even now, so close to death, I can feel Elizabeth suckling from me that day. Even now, there is no one in my heart, but her.
Had you asked me, at any time before that, if I believed in love at first sight, I would have said no. I had desired Henry from afar, but love had only come when we had grown to know each other. With my daughter it was not so. It was no steady progression of thought and emotion and time. It was a thunderbolt. It was the crack of lighting over a balmy summer sky. My love was instantaneous, powerful and all-consuming.
In one moment, my daughter became the master of my heart, and I her willing slave.
Chapter Sixty-One
Greenwich Palace
Autumn 1533
“You are not disappointed?” I asked my husband as he bounced our cooing baby up and down. My daughter was delighted with her father. From the first moment she saw him it was as though she knew who he was. Only Henry and I could stop our daughter from screaming. Handed to anyone else, her cries could deafen nations. But in our arms she slept peacefully. She was so clever, my little girl. Already she knew her parents. And already she knew how to charm her father.
“How could I be disappointed with a fine young lady like this one?” Henry beamed at me. His face was soft, lost in sentiment. He adored his daughter.
When I had been cleaned up, ready to see Henry, he had rushed in with such anxiety on his face I thought he might faint clean away. He had hastened to the bed and taken me roughly in his arms. I had winced, for his grip was painful, and parts of me, still sore, pulled as he gathered me into his arms. But I had been overjoyed to know his first and most important concern was that I was well. The sex of our child was a disappointment, that I realised, but Henry had taken our daughter in his arms, and she had bewitched him. He hastened to assure me, in case I had missed his blind panic, that as long as I was well, everything was fine. With his daughter in his arms, he set about instructing the midwives on how to avoid childbed fever, and swore he would take on my care personally.
“Henry,” I laughed, feeling more pleased than I could say, although a little disconcerted to think that he might well follow through with his oath and become my nurse. “I am well… See me here, unharmed and healthy? There is no cause to fear.”
“You have to be protected against fever,” he said with a strained expression. “The first few days are dangerous. There can be no signs, until it is too late. It was that way with…”
“I am not going to die,” I said. “Look at our little Princess. I could not leave her, now could I?”
Henry’s face had crumpled. He came to the bed and embraced me. I felt his tears of relief flow down my face. When I shifted back, his eyes were bright with tears. “I am being foolish,” he said with a catch in his voice.
“Perhaps a little,” I said. “But to know how much you love me is a wondrous blessing.”
“There is no one for me but you.”
“Do not speak too loud… you will make our daughter jealous.”
Henry chuckled, pulling the bundle up to stare into his eyes. “She looks like you,” he said. “Like her beautiful mother.”
“And you, my love. She did not get that Tudor fire upon her head from me.”
“She is a true Tudor,” he said, putting a finger against her tiny face to stroke it. “She even shouts like one!”
As though responding to her father’s wishes, my daughter opened her mouth and screamed. Henry laughed and insisted on taking her out of my chamber to show his men. “All men will envy me, this day,” he said. “How many men have a daughter who roars like a son?”
I was amazed that Henry wanted to show our daughter off. I had expected him to be downcast, or at least a touch disappointed, but he showed nothing but pride and joy in her, and relief and love for me.
&nb
sp; “With God’s grace, sons will follow,” he said. “You and I are young and healthy. Our daughter is proof of our fertility.”
We named her Elizabeth, for Henry’s mother, and for mine.
I was rather relived to find that Henry welcomed the name when I suggested it. There had been rumours he was thinking of calling her Mary, to replace the Lady Mary firmly in the minds of his people. I did not want my daughter named for such a hateful creature, still less did I want anyone confusing the two daughters of the King.
Since celebrations for the birth of a daughter were more low-key than those for a son, the jousts were abandoned, but a great feast was held. A herald proclaimed the birth of Henry’s first legitimate child, and the Royal Chapel followed the announcement by singing a Te Deum. Proclamations and letters announcing the birth were sent far and wide, and a public Mass was held in Elizabeth’s honour at St Paul’s Cathedral.
“We will christen her in three days’ time,” said Henry, bringing our daughter to the bed. “Bonfires will be lit all over England. I will distribute free wine and ale, so that all my people can share in our joy.”
Will they never be my people? I thought. Henry never says “our people”.
“I just wish I could be there,” I said sadly, pulling back Elizabeth’s soft blanket. Her eyes immediately left Henry and stared into mine. She seemed to find peace there.
“You will be churched soon,” said Henry. “And when that is done, we will get to making a son.” He leaned over and kissed me. “Our son will be fortunate,” he said. “To have an older sister. My sisters kept me in check when I was a boy. Our daughter will do the same.” He smiled at Elizabeth. “Won’t you, my sweet?”
I agreed, but I was not thinking of other children, as Henry was. My daughter was all I could see. She had become the centre of my world.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Greenwich Palace
10th September 1533
On the morning of Elizabeth’s christening, the wind was wild and heavy, flouncing about the walls of the palace as though irritated to not have been invited to this auspicious event. There was a chatter of songbirds on the wind, clamorous and agitated, as they fought for position in the radiant red and orange trees. Autumn is the most skilled of all painters; capturing colours of which no other season may boast and melding them into pictures so glorious that all men stare in wonder as summer fades.
Elizabeth was a child of autumn. In her was the last light and warmth of the world.
I helped dress my daughter in her stunning gown, but I could not go with her. Until purified by the ritual of churching, I could not enter a church, or even go about court. The rites usually took place a month or so after the birth, and during her time of unseemliness a wife also could not share her husband’s bed. Whilst some women accepted this and others grumbled, my mother pointed out it was only sensible. “God knows what is right for us,” she said. “He watches over mothers, allowing them time to heal before their husbands demand their rights.”
I was eager, however, to re-join Henry in bed. By the time Elizabeth was christened, I had ceased to bleed. At first it had been heavy, and I had suffered aches and cramps, but as this departed, I felt fine again. I believed in another week I should be fully healed and felt the ritual of churching was holding me back. Henry had been so attentive, so caring, that I was keen to be with him once more.
But not only for love… for fear. Fear of this mistress and what she would whisper in his ear. I was playing Katherine’s part. Once I had been this woman another Queen feared. How our sins come back to haunt us…
At times, I thought I could hear Katherine laughing, relishing my anguish.
As for Henry and me, I tried to ignore our mutual wrongdoings. Everything was right between us, and Henry had not reacted in the manner I had believed he would when our son turned out to be a daughter. It was clear he adored Elizabeth. It was impossible not to. My daughter understood how to captivate her father from the first moment she breathed life.
Perhaps my daughter, being so very clever even as an infant, understood I needed her help.
Whether by accident of nature, or subconscious understanding of my fear, Elizabeth had Henry in the palm of her tiny hand. He showed her off to everyone, boasting that soon she would have a brother, and declared he was glad to have a girl first. He was even heard to say that he would rather relinquish his throne and beg door to door than ever give me up. Henry’s adoration of our little girl calmed me. As soon as I was recovered, I would return to his bed and we would have a son. The mistress would be forgotten. My fears were groundless, I told myself. There could be no father who loved his daughter more.
But even Elizabeth’s christening was not free from politics. The setting for her christening was the church of the Observant Friars. Their friary had been the focal point of some of the most passionate defence of Katherine, and was also the place Henry and Katherine had married. On Henry’s orders, it would become the place where my child was welcomed into the family of God. It was a message for the Observants; a hard slap about the chops to have a child they regarded as a bastard interloper christened as Princess of England in their domain. It was Henry’s idea, and I encouraged him. I wanted no one to miss that Elizabeth was, until her brother was born, England’s heir.
The ceremony would be followed by bonfires throughout London and every major city, along with free wine, dancing and bull baiting. At court there was to be a feast and a dance, which I also could not attend. My child’s godparents were to be my good friend Cranmer, as well as Agnes, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, and Gertrude Courtenay, the Marchioness of Exeter, who would not have been my first choice.
Gertrude Courtenay was a rich, high-ranking woman. Her husband had grown up in the royal nursery alongside Henry and his sisters, as a ward of court. Henry Courtenay was the son of William Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, and William’s wife, Princess Catherine, had been the sister of Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother. Gertrude had therefore married into royal blood, and her father, William Blount, Baron Mountjoy, was one of England’s wealthiest nobles. But he was also Katherine’s Chamberlain and upon the death of Elizabeth Saye, his first wife, had married one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, Inez de Venegas, who had come with Katherine from Spain. Although Inez had died many years ago, and Mountjoy had married another two times since, their family connection to Katherine was strong.
Gertrude was a great friend of Katherine’s, and, much like her father, had taken the Dowager’s side in the annulment, to Henry’s chagrin. Henry wanted to force Gertrude into acceptance of the new order by making her Elizabeth’s godmother and Gertrude had agreed to avoid angering Henry, but she blamed me for her new, unwanted role. The idea had in fact been Henry’s alone. I would have been happier to have appointed a woman I loved and trusted to watch over Elizabeth’s soul.
But I was pleased that Agnes and Cranmer were Elizabeth’s spiritual guardians. Even if she had one godparent who was an enemy, she had others who were firm friends.
George arrived home in good time, and he, along with my father, eight Howards, and many clients of Brereton and Cromwell, took centre stage at the christening. My mother, Mary and Jane also played a part. Gertrude’s husband, Henry Courtenay, carried the taper of virgin wax, and Suffolk escorted my child to her ceremony. Cromwell had organised the event, and I was grateful for the care he took. On the 10th of September, they assembled outside my chambers. I made sure my daughter was dressed in her finest, and told my mother, Henry, and anyone else who would listen to the flapping wails of a mother about to be separated from her child for the first time, to take care of Elizabeth.
I watched them process away; watched the light of their candles as they moved through the palace. When I could see their dim fire no more, I went to my bed and wept. I could not have told you why I cried that day. My daughter was about to be welcomed by God. I should have been happy, but my child had only been mine for a few spare days, and already she was being stolen awa
y.
My breasts, which had plumped out to almost unbelievable proportions, and were rock solid, full of milk, ached as my daughter was taken from me. I had continued to feed Elizabeth between the days of her birth and christening. My nipples were sore, and I had listened to my sister who told me to apply a little breast milk to them in between feedings and allow them to dry uncovered. She brought me an ointment made of sheep grease and camomile, which also helped, but no matter the pain, I did not want to surrender my daughter to another woman.
“Perhaps I could feed her for the first few months?” I had asked Henry. He was flabbergasted and scandalised at the notion.
“You cannot,” he said, anger flashing across his eyes. “It is not seemly.”
Not seemly? I thought, for a mother to feed her own baby? Surely there was nothing more natural, more right, than a woman caring for her own child?
“You can feed her until the wet nurse is ready,” he said, his face prudish. “And that will be an end to this nonsense.”