The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife

by Carolly Erickson

  To say that I was greatly relieved, after months of barrenness—a harsh word that I had heard all too often since our marriage the previous spring—would be to say far too little. I was overjoyed, and not only because I had finally accomplished the thing for which the king had married me, but because I was to have a child of my very own at last. A dear, loving, child of my very own. Even to write the words warms me and gives me great pleasure.

  I hardly let myself imagine all that could arise to spoil this lovely prospect. Yet I knew only too well that many babies died, that some never quickened and were lost, and that my own child might possibly turn out to be, not the son Henry avidly sought, but another princess. I tried not to imagine any of these things, and especially not to imagine that my infant might scarcely be a child at all, but a monstrous misshapen thing like Anne’s misbegotten son.

  With my ladies and maids of honor I sewed and embroidered bed linens and pillows for the baby, listening while we worked to readings from uplifting books and lives of the saints. Month by month I watched my belly swell, slightly at first and then more and more obviously, proud of the signs that I would soon be a mother, proud when the official announcement of my quickening was made to the whole court and the happy news was sent to foreign courts to still the rumors that King Henry was no longer able to father a child.

  That my pregnancy was advancing amid hangings and beheadings—the gruesome harvest of the dangerous northern rebellion—saddened me but did not taint my own joyful hopes. My son would rule, in time, as a merciful king, a godly king who would not reign amid rebellion but would preside over a peaceable and prosperous realm. And I would look on in pride and thankfulness.

  Such were my daydreams in those months of waiting.

  Joining me in my hopeful time was dear Will, whose ever expanding duties and responsibilities now included overseeing the ordering of my household. My faithful Griffith Richards was aging, and ailing; although he remained my devoted gentleman usher he often had to rest and any exertion made him short of breath. He needed help in carrying out his many tasks and Will was appointed to help him.

  Obedient to his parents’ wishes Will had married a proud, unsmiling woman with a fine figure and handsome features who made no secret of her aversion to me. The marriage was not a happy or harmonious one; Will suffered, and spoke often of what he called his “chafing yoke.” When his wife galled him he fled to my apartments and I was always delighted to see him. Even when he was heavy-spirited I was glad to have him nearby, especially when the king was in one of his foul moods or when, as in the aftermath of the rebellion, we quarreled.

  Our quarrels were in essence the same quarrel, often repeated. Though I felt certain that my husband’s happiness and relief at my pregnancy meant that he valued me greatly, and would never put me aside as he had Catherine and Anne (at least not until my child was born), still there was a strong difference between us that continued to cause strain and anger again and again.

  For I, like the northern rebels, clung to the old ways of the church—the religious houses, the time-honored forms of worship, the prayers and deep beliefs that had endured for centuries. I was in no way a daughter of the pope, and I knew only too well that popery meant political danger. Yet I wanted the old ways to continue, while Henry felt smothered by them.

  Out with the old! he often said. Old authorities, old customs, outworn superstitious beliefs!

  When I so much as hinted that the rebellion might have been sent by God as a warning, as a sign that the destruction of the convents and monasteries was contrary to His will, my husband grew furious.

  “Get on with your sewing, Jane, and leave these matters to your betters! Have a care, lest your meddling bring you to grief, as it did Anne!”

  When Henry shouted at me, and Will, hearing his shouting, grew grim-faced and resentful, I was comforted. I imagined that I had a champion in Will, a defender. If I should ever need rescue, Will would be at my side.

  I confided to Will what Ned had told me about my husband’s sharp and at times vicious temper. How Ned had cautioned me that my husband’s late father King Henry VII had become so violently angry at times that he had seemed like a madman—that indeed some at his court did think him mad.

  “It is a disease, this fury,” Ned had said. “It gets worse with age. No doubt your son will inherit it in his turn.”

  “Never mind,” Will reassured me. “I promise you, Jane, I will always be nearby to protect you, should you need me.”

  This fancy that I might need rescue was, I felt sure, only one of many fancies that came over me as a result of my pregnancy. Nearly all the mothers I knew nodded in agreement when I said this, and shared odd fancies of their own. I became prey to sudden shifts in mood—now lighthearted, now tearful. I had a craving for quinces. I could not abide cats, where before I had always loved them. Most striking of all, I was hungry for quails, and had a fresh supply sent from the countryside every week and stored in the royal larders.

  By the middle of September it was time for me to take my chamber, and I withdrew with my ladies to the queen’s apartments at Hampton Court, which my husband had ordered refurbished for my delivery.

  I would not be honest if I did not admit that I was fearful. Fearful of the pain to come, or that something could go wrong. I sought to clear my mind of fear, to think only of the happy culmination of my hopes. I prayed daily for divine favor.

  All was in readiness. My child kicked vigorously and the midwives felt my belly and smiled.

  “The people pray daily for a prince,” they told me. “The Lord’s favor is upon you.”

  I rested, I dined on my quails, and waited for the pains to come.

  * * *

  When at last I felt a clutching in my belly and an ache in my back it was nothing like what I had expected. I hurt, but not too badly. It was no worse than when I had lifted something too heavy or ridden for too long on an unmanageable horse with an ill-fitting saddle.

  I thought, I can endure this.

  But within an hour the clutching had turned to a hard clamping pain that left me gasping and the ache in my back was like no other ache I had ever felt. The midwives brought me a posset to soothe me, and put a charm under the bed to draw out the pain, but nothing gave me ease, and I lay suffering all night and into the next day. I grew weak and very weary.

  I had thought that Henry, knowing of my suffering, would come to give me strength and comfort but when I sent him a message I was told he had gone to Esher to escape the plague, and that a great many of the household servants had gone as well.

  I was terrified then. What if I should become ill with the plague while I was trying so hard to give birth to my child? What if he was born with the plague? What if the midwives deserted me?

  I heard men’s voices, shouting, insistent voices, coming from another part of the palace.

  “Has the king come back from Esher?”

  “No, it is Master Dormer.”

  “Summon him.”

  “Your Highness knows that no men are allowed in the birth chamber.”

  “Summon him at once.”

  The voices grew louder, and I recognized Will’s resonant bass. He was causing a commotion.

  Dear Will! How overjoyed I was to see him when he all but forced his way in among us, saying he had been sent by the king to see how the queen’s pains were progressing.

  “Jane!” He came toward me, hearty and smiling, arms outstretched.

  His smiling concern gave me renewed vigor. He assured me he would stay with me until the baby arrived, if that was what I wanted.

  “All the royal physicians have gone with the king,” he told me. “They fear the plague. Cowards!”

  I lacked the energy to condemn the physicians. All I wanted was for my ordeal to end. I drowsed between the assaults of pain, and overheard Will talking in low tones to the principal midwife. I could tell that they were talking very seriously, but their words were indistinct. After a time I slept, or so it seemed lat
er, when once again I heard Will’s voice.

  “Jane, dear, I must talk to you. It can’t wait.”

  I opened my eyes and did my best to attend to what he was saying. “The king is not here to decide what must be done, so you and I must decide together. Shall we?” He took my hand and held it in both of his. I felt his warmth and strength. But I had to fight against the weariness that tugged at me, beclouding my understanding.

  I nodded.

  “The midwives say they can reach in with their instruments and bring the baby out. They will give you an opiate to help you bear the pain.”

  Through the fog of my increasing drowsiness I had a vivid memory. I remembered going in to Catherine’s birth chamber early in my days at court, and finding her in bed, with an empty cradle beside her. There were no faint cries, no lusty newborn wailing. The baby was nowhere to be seen. Then I remembered catching sight of a bloody bedlinen, and realizing, with horror, that the child had not lived. That dark room with its telltale signs of death had reeked of opium. The opium Catherine had been given for pain. The opium that had killed her child.

  If I drank it now, my son would not live. I was certain of it.

  “No,” I managed to say. “No. I will try again.”

  “The midwives tell me that you may bleed, Jane. You may bleed until you have no more blood.”

  I nodded. “Save my child,” I whispered. “Save my son.”

  Will bent down and kissed my cheek.

  “Dearest, dearest Jane,” he murmured. “Good Queen Jane.”

  * * *

  Mercifully, I cannot remember the next few hours, but Will has assured me that my struggle to give birth was a heroic one, and one whose outcome was never certain, right up until the end. He saw to it that I was given no opium and that throughout the evening and the early part of the night there were torchlit vigils in the courtyards of the palace and processions of the faithful praying for me. The scourge of plague lay over the countryside and this, combined with the scant harvest, made everyone expect the worst. Nearly all the midwives, Will told me, had given me up for dead by the time I groaned and strained one last time against the hands that pressed down on my belly and—at last—pushed my child out into the world.

  My son.

  I wish I could remember that moment, but I cannot. All I know is that the world had dissolved into a blur of pain and exhaustion and I was lost in a delirium of bad dreams.

  When I awoke, hungry and terribly thirsty, daylight had come. My husband was there in the room, looking immensely pleased, and my boy was in his golden cradle beside the bed, and Will stood with Master Cromwell and Ned and a crowd of others, all rosy-faced and full of satisfaction.

  “Edward,” everyone was repeating. “Prince Edward. Edward the Sixth of that Name that shall be.” For it was St. Edward’s day, the 12th of October in that year of 1537, and through the goodness of the Lord, England had a prince.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I had thought I might end my account when my son was born, and it has taken me four days to feel well enough again to continue my story. But tired though I am, and feeling unwell—the midwives say it will be a month or two before I am fully restored to strength and health—I want to write of my Edward, and of the great delight he has brought me, and of the king’s satisfaction and the merrymaking and the rejoicings he has ordered.

  First I must say that though my son is quite small, and the physicians peer down into his cradle and murmur to each other that they wish he had more color in his cheeks, he is a sturdy baby and his cries fill my chamber. The wetnurse assures me that he sucks lustily. Already I hear Cromwell telling the men in the outer chamber that there must be another boy, as soon as possible. In case the worst happens, and Edward does not survive. I shudder to hear this. Of course Edward will survive, and I trust there will be a brother for him, in time. Several brothers, and sisters too. But not right away. My ordeal was so painful—and Will says I nearly died. No more babies for a while.

  Besides, my Edward is perfect. I love looking at him while he sleeps. His round white cheeks, his sparse tufts of red-brown hair. His long eyelashes. His small rosebud mouth. He has the narrow face and wide-set, slanting eyes of the Seymours. I hope that in time he will have his father’s broad-shouldered, muscular athlete’s body, though to look at him now you would not imagine he would ever be sturdy enough to joust or run or ride to hounds.

  I hope he will be musical, like his father. I try singing to him and I imagine that his eyelids flutter just a little when I begin my lullabies. He slept soundly through the clamor of bells, the shouting of the crowds that greeted the news of his birth, even the great guns that were fired again and again, hour after hour. There are not many guns here at Hampton Court; Ned told me that in London, as soon as word reached the Tower that my son had been born, the great culverins were fired hundreds of times, all through the day and into the following night. Such a salute, he said, had not been heard for a hundred years. Ned is proud indeed of his small nephew, to exaggerate so much.

  Yesterday was Edward’s christening. I was not present of course, not having been churched and still keeping my chamber. But I heard in great detail from Bridget and Will and Anne Cavecant and others how my little prince remained quiet and composed throughout the long ceremony in the chapel, with his half-sister Mary beside him as his godmother and his other half-sister Elizabeth, just turned four years old, carrying the baptismal cloth. The astrologers were present as well, wearing new gowns presented to them by the king, their smiles of satisfaction very wide—or so I was assured.

  How I would have liked to hear my son’s titles proclaimed: “Edward, son and heir to the king of England, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester,” on and on through a dozen titles and honorifics. It would have given me such pleasure to hear the choir sing and the prayers repeated. And then, as trumpets blew a fanfare and the guns once again boomed forth, to see Edward sanctified and brought into the faith of Our Lord and under His merciful protection and care.

  After the christening he was carried back into my chamber in his christening gown and purple robe and laid in my husband’s arms, while one by one the officers and other members of our households gave us greetings. Henry had not wanted to allow this small ceremony, as there was still plague at Esher and even in the kitchens and stables, some dozens of our servants had died or been taken ill. But in the end he agreed, and the procession of our faithful servants went on, while the baby slept. Before long I slept too.

  When I awoke I found that the preparations for my churching had begun. Mr. Skut had sent baskets of satins in many shades of blue for me to admire and choose from. He is already sewing my churching gown. All my ladies are to have new gowns as well, and new kirtles and headdresses and satin slippers to match. While I drowse, and continue writing this account, my maids are amusing themselves by going through Mr. Skut’s baskets and talking of light things, of how the gowns from France are being made narrower now than in past years, and of the jewels the king has ordered for me to wear at my coronation (for now there is talk once again of a coronation, perhaps in a few months).

  Ned is to be made Earl of Hertford, a great honor. My husband has already made him a rich man, but now his wealth will be far greater, with lands and manors in nine counties and income from hundreds of tenant farms. He is very grand in his fine new robes and feathered hats. But he does not give himself airs, and I believe he gives my husband good counsel.

  Tomorrow morning I must allow my maids to dress me in a gown of fine red velvet trimmed in miniver and accompany me to the presence chamber where I will receive the congratulations of all the dignitaries and ambassadors, the nobles and townspeople, even the children from the surrounding villages bringing sheaves of wheat to honor me and my son. I hope I have the strength to receive their good wishes, for there will be a great many people and it will take a long time to acknowledge them all. Will has promised to stay nearby, and Griffith Richards as well. My husband has been so busy ordering banquets and
jousts, feasting for the Londoners and a grand pageant of welcome for baby Edward that I have seen little of him. I do not expect him to be with me tomorrow. He must show himself in all the villages from here to Richmond, for there is a rumor that he has died and in order to squelch it he must let the people see him.

  In truth I feel relief that he will not be present with me, for he can be trying at times, and I am feeling queasy today and have had a discharge. The physicians say this is good, that I am purging the bad humors from my blood. I began feeling ill after eating a plate of quails and drinking malmsey wine. The wine was strong, and the quails, I must admit, had a curious sour taste, they did not taste the way good quails normally do when prepared correctly and eaten soon after being killed and cleaned.

  I said nothing at the time, to be sure. I did not want to offend Lady Lisle who had sent the quails all the way from Calais. I remember wondering whether the ship that brought them had been delayed, by bad weather or a need to wait for some important passenger to reach the harbor. Ships are often delayed in making their crossings. And if they had food aboard, the food spoils.

  I cannot help clutching at my stomach as I write these words. I am surely ill, and it is because of the quails. I must purge myself …

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE,

  NOVEMBER 13, 1537

  Queen Jane ceased writing her account on the night she suffered a bloody flux and had to be put to bed. She asked me to keep writing in her book, recording all that was happening in those first days after the prince was born. She said I should write just until she was well enough to resume writing herself. She trusted me to put down everything that happened. To tell the truth. Which is what I will do.

  The truth was, my dear Jane was not well cared for. She overtaxed herself, and there was no one to restrain her. I did my best, but I was not her husband. (Lord forgive me, I wish I had been!) All I could do was stay nearby and make everything as easy for her as I was able.