by Jean Plaidy
The Queen screamed aloud in agony and the women closed about her.
One of the women, more bold than the rest, said: “The Queen’s time has not yet come.”
The other midwives nodded in agreement. Mistress Clarencius, her eyes filled with anxiety, whispered to the Queen: “Your Majesty, will you try to rest? The time is not yet here. You should try to rest, they say.”
“Not yet come!” screamed the Queen. “But I swear my time has come. I feel it. I know it. What mean they?”
“They are craving your Majesty to be patient.”
“The child…the child is safe…?”
“Safe, your Majesty,” said Mistress Clarencius, “but not yet ready.”
“Ah! I have come to my bed too soon.”
“Your Majesty should rest. Here is a soothing draught.”
She sipped it and lay back on her pillows. She looked very old without her jeweled coif; her light sandy hair was disordered on the pillows, her sallow face piteously lined. The women looked at her with a terrible fear in their hearts, but they saw that all the Queen’s hopes were with her still.
“I hear bells…shouts…” said Mary.
“It is the people, your Majesty. They rejoice in the blessing which is about to be yours.”
A tired smile was on her lips. “My husband…” she began.
Philip came forward. He could be relied upon to do what was expected of him. He looked at Mary and tried to hide the repulsion she aroused in him. He was not unaware of the tension in the apartment, and he knew that all was not well with the Queen.
Unless this child was born, the discomfort and the humiliation of the last months would have been in vain. If the child died and Mary died, he would have no hold on England. The red-headed Elizabeth would mount the throne; and he doubted that not very soon after such an event she would be snapping her fingers at the Pope himself. And something was wrong…very wrong.
He took Mary’s clammy hand and kissed it.
“It is so long,” she said piteously.
“You were too anxious, my love. There has been a slight miscalculation. You have been brought to bed too soon.”
She nodded. “It seems as though it will never be.”
The draught they had given her was beginning to have its effect. He said: “Sleep, my love. That is what you need. And when you wake…who knows, your time may have come.”
She would not release his hand. Those cold fingers twined about his, pressing, squeezing, like snakes, he thought. As soon as he was sure she was asleep, he gently withdrew his hand.
“What is it?” he asked the midwives.
They lowered their eyes.
“Let us leave the apartment,” he said. “The doctors also. If aught is as it should not be, I would know of it.”
In the antechamber to which he had led them, one of the doctors said: “Your Majesty, I never saw such a strange pregnancy. There seems to be no child…no movement.”
“You think the child is dead?” His voice was cold and precise.
“It is not that, Sire. It is as though there is no child.”
He looked at the doctors. “Well, you are learned men!”
“It is true, your Majesty, that there is all the outward appearance of pregnancy, but…a softness, you understand? It would seem that there is…no child.”
“But how could this be?”
“Sire, there have been similar cases. There have been ladies of the Queen’s age whose desire for children was intense. There followed all the outward signs of pregnancies…but mock pregnancies, your Majesty. The would-be mothers were completely deceived.”
“But this is…impossible!”
“We crave your Majesty’s pardon, but it has happened thus in other cases. Ladies long for children, their longings become hysterical, and they may not be in the best of health. We fear that the Queen’s age may not allow her to bear children, and that in the greatness of her desire she has created a mock pregnancy.”
“I cannot believe this. It is fantastic.”
One of the women curtsied low. “Your Majesty, the Queen expected to be brought to bed last month. She was waiting for her pains. Many times she thought they had started, but they had not. And so it was on this occasion. She waits for her pains in vain.”
Philip said: “Leave me now. Not a word of this to the Queen. It would kill her. We must wait and hope. There must be a child.”
There must be a child. The bells were ringing throughout London. Soon the news of the supposed birth would be all over the country.
And if there is no child, pondered Philip, what hopes are there for Spain? How Henry of France would be laughing up his sleeve! The whole of France and England would be laughing at poor, plain Mary and solemn Philip, who could not get a child.
There must be a child. News of it had been sent to the Emperor, who had written back gleefully to Philip to say that he had heard that the Queen was “hopeful and that her garments waxed very strait.”
Could the hopes of the last months have grown from nothing more secure than a hysterical woman’s delusions?
All through the palace the rumors were circulating. Philip was filled with pity for Mary, that sad, frustrated woman who had already suffered more in one lifetime than anyone should. What would her reactions be if she knew the truth? He must order the cessation of the bell-ringing. Yet how could he tell the people that there was to be no child because it had never existed outside the Queen’s imagination?
Mary was wild-eyed. They had tried to break the news to her. She screamed: “It’s a lie. It’s a conspiracy. My sister has set these rumors abroad. Look at me. Am I not large enough?”
Her women were weeping about her; but she paced up and down her apartment, her hair wild, her eyes blazing. Let others doubt the existence of the child; she would not.
“Send the doctors to me. Send to me the men who have set these rumors working. I’ll have them racked. I’ll get the truth of this matter.”
Philip alone could soothe her. “Wait,” he begged. “I doubt not that shortly you will prove these rumors false.”
She took his hands; she covered them with burning kisses. “My love, you are with me. Oh, Philip, how happy you make me! How we shall laugh at these people when I hold my son in my arms!”
“You shall,” he said. “But calm yourself now. Rest. You must be strong for the ordeal when it comes.”
“How you comfort me! You are always right, and I thank God for bringing you to me.”
He felt the smile freeze on his face at these protestations of affection. Did she notice that? She was watching him suspiciously. “What do you do while I am resting?” she asked. “What do you do at night?” Her voice grew shrill. “Is it true what they say of you? That you are with…women?”
“No, no,” he soothed. “You are distraught.”
“They plot against me,” she cried. “They tell me that I am to have no child. I feel it within me. I know my child is here. And you? How can you love me? Do I not know that I am old and tired and worn out with my miseries? You wish me dead that you may marry Elizabeth, because she is young and healthy and more pleasant to look at than I.”
He shrank from her. He could not bear these noisy scenes; her jealousy shocked and humiliated his reserved nature almost more than did her cloying affection.
“You are not yourself,” he said gently. “I beg of you, for the child’s sake, and the sake of our marriage, be calm. Lie down, Mary. Rest, I say. Rest is what you need.”
“And you?”
He was resigned. “I will sit beside your bed.”
“You will stay with me?” she asked piteously. “I will stay as long as you wish me to.”
“Oh, Philip…Philip!” She flung herself at him, clinging to him, pressing her face against his. He steeled himself to return her caresses. Then he spoke firmly: “Come. You shall rest. This is so bad for you, and the child.”
Then he made her lie down, and tenderly he covered her; and he sat by t
he bed, her hand in his.
“There is comfort in this,” she said; “my child within me and you beside me—the two I love. I cannot help the fierceness of my love; I went so long without love.”
He sat silently beside her bed, wondering what would happen when she was forced to accept the truth that there would be no child.
Another month had passed. Mary went about with the light of determination in her eyes. She would see none of her ministers. She declared that the child would be born at any minute.
One day a woman came to the palace and asked to see the Queen. She said her mission was concerned with the Queen’s condition, so that none would turn her away, and eventually she reached Mary’s presence.
“Your Majesty,” she said, “I was forty when my first child was born.”
Then the Queen made her sit in a chair of honor while she told her story.
“Doctors are not always right in their reckoning. My child was three months overdue, your Majesty, and everyone declared it was a mistake. I was forty at the time, and a fine, healthy boy is my son today!”
Mary was delighted. She gave the woman a jewel and thanked her for her visit.
In the streets the townsfolk made sly jokes. “Now we know these Spaniards! They beget children who are too shy to put in an appearance!” The jokes became more and more ribald. And more and more women came to call on the Queen. Toothless old women presented themselves with their granddaughters’ latest. “See!” they wheezed. “Old women can have children!” It was well worth a journey to see the Queen and pocket the royal reward.
Every day the midwives and doctors waited on Mary. Continually she was declaring that her pains had started.
But May was almost out and the child was as elusive as ever.
The Emperor wrote impatiently to Philip, demanding to know the truth of this strange story. He feared that Mary was too old to bear children. “Ingratiate yourself with Madam Elizabeth,” he wrote. “I know she is suspected of heresy and that if she takes the throne all our work of bringing England back to Rome may be undone. But remember! Better a heretic England which is a friend to Spain than a Catholic England dominated by France. We must at all costs have the English with us, but I doubt you can do much good by staying in England now. Proclaim yourself Elizabeth’s friend and come to me in Brussels. I grow so feeble I can no longer rule. I wish you to take over my crown; and you must do that here in Brussels that all my vassals may, in my presence, swear fealty to you.”
To leave England! There was nothing Philip wished to do more. But how broach the matter to the love-sick woman who insisted on imagining that she carried a child in her womb in spite of all evidence to the contrary?
The Queen shut herself in her chamber and would see no one. She did not weep. She stared before her in such utter misery as she had never before known in the whole of her life.
She thought of her mother, longing, always longing for the son who would have made her life such a different one. She remembered Anne Boleyn could not bear a son. It seemed as though the very walls of this great palace echoed with the cries of defeated motherhood. “A son…a son!” wailed the wind driving through the trees in the gardens.
She was barren. Her swelling was due to some ailment, they told her now. The new physician had given her potions and had considerably reduced it.
She had said to Philip: “Perhaps there is yet time for us to have a son.”
How could she be blind to the look of horror which had passed over his face? Even his accustomed control could not hide it. What did it mean? That he believed her to be too old to bear children? That he found her repulsive? He was evasive, as he ever was. He spoke with quiet, yet firm tenderness: “In view of the ordeal through which you have passed, it would be advisable for you to have a long rest…”
Rest! All he could say was: “Rest!”
She must still delude herself, for a woman could not face, all at once, too much that was so tragic.
Mistress Clarencius, that privileged person, came to her. She shook her head sadly, for when they were alone there was little ceremony between them.
“Your Majesty gives way too quickly. Your hopes have been disappointed, but you are still a bride.”
Mary put her arms about her old nurse and wept quietly.
“It was a bitter disappointment,” soothed Mistress Clarencius. “But there will be another time, dearest lady.”
“My dear, dear Clarencius, will there be? Can there be?”
“Of course there can be. And the King is coming to see you. You must look beautiful, because that is how he will want you to look, is it not, dearest Majesty?”
It was good to be petted, to let oneself believe that one could be made beautiful, to sit while one’s hair was dressed and a glittering coif set upon it, to have one’s black velvet gown with its dazzling ornaments arranged to perfection, and to await the coming of Philip.
He came unattended, and as soon as he arrived Mary dismissed Mistress Clarencius. Philip kissed Mary’s hand.
“I rejoice to see you so improved in health.” He hurried on: “Oh, there is need for great care yet. You must rest and not excite yourself. We must take great care of you.”
“It was good of you to come and see me, Philip,” she said meekly.
“I have had an urgent letter from my father.”
Before he spoke she knew what he would say, and she sent up a silent prayer to the saints for fortitude to help her bear it. “He says it is imperative for him to see me.”
“Where is he now?”
“Only in Brussels.”
“And you will go?”
“I fear I must.”
She wanted to shout at him: You fear! You are filled with pleasure at the thought of going. You long to leave me because I am old and unattractive and the strain of pretense is too much for even you to bear.
“There is no help for it,” he went on with an apologetic half-smile. “He is going to renounce his crown, and I must be there to take it.”
She looked at him with pride and longing. He was so slight, frail almost, and she thought how beautiful he was with his fair skin and hair that seemed almost silver in the sunlight. He was her beloved husband who would soon be the most powerful monarch in the world.
“You will not stay long?” she implored.
“Nay. A month perhaps.”
Four weeks! To her they would seem as long as years; to him they would be so short. But they both knew that once he escaped he would not be back in a month.
“Oh, Philip…must you go?” He recognized the hysteria in her voice. He was poised for flight; he was ready to call her attendants so that he might not be alone with her and suffer her protestations of affection, her cloying embraces.
“I fear so,” he said briskly. “But the sooner I leave the sooner it is over. Now…I have my dispatches to answer.”
“Philip…”
“I will send your women to you.”
“Nay, Philip. Just a moment. I will send for them when I need them.”
“I see I must take charge of you. You do not take enough care. We cannot have you running risks.” He was edging away from her. He was now at the door. He opened it and the men-at-arms saluted. “Send for the Queen’s ladies at once!” he commanded.
And they came in great haste, thinking she had been taken ill again. But they found her with her husband, yearning and wretched, knowing that his solicitous care for her was really a means of escape.
It was August when the royal party left Hampton Court and came by water to Westminster, where they disembarked and went by road to Greenwich, riding through the lines of sight-seers. Mary was too weak to ride on horseback and was carried in a litter.
Her subjects cheered her, for, they said, she looked like a corpse dug up from the grave. There were no jokes about the imaginary baby on that day.
All about Philip was an armed guard, for he rode at the head of the procession with Cardinal Pole beside him, and his friends would not a
llow him to go undefended through the city of London.
Philip was smiling in a manner which would have pleased his father. In three days’ time, if there was a good wind, he would step aboard and sail away from England and Mary. It was little more than a year that he had spent in England—yet, to him, it seemed a lifetime.
Three days had to be lived through, and in Greenwich Palace it was necessary to spend most of the time with Mary; but at length came that day, so happy for Philip, so wretched for Mary.
She could not contain her grief, and wept bitterly when the farewells were said. Philip returned her fervent embrace. He hoped it was the last he would have to suffer for a long time.
“Good-bye, my dearest husband.”
“Good-bye, dear wife.”
“You will be back in a month?” she begged.
“In a month,” he promised, “unless…something happens to prevent my coming.”
“You will come back? You must. I shall be counting the days. It will be the longest month in my life.”
“I also shall count the days.”
He was looking at the barge and thanking God for it. He could wait no longer. One last embrace; one last farewell, and the barge was slipping away from the shore while, with his attendants about him, he waved to the desolate Queen who stood watching until he was out of sight.
What had happened to this son of his? wondered Charles. What had the English done to him? Was the change for the worse or the better? There were two Philips now—warring one with the other. Tales had reached the Emperor of the Prince’s conduct. At last, it seemed, Philip was indulging in those adventures which others before him had enjoyed in the days of their youth. He had run wild since he left England; he had had many light love affairs. He had roamed the streets in the disguise of a nobleman, accompanied by the merriest of his followers.
Lines appeared about the pale eyes; there was a hint of sensuality which had not been apparent before. Yet the well-known Philip was never far away; he was always ready to emerge unexpectedly—calm, aloof, and controlled.
The Emperor was amused to think that he should ever contemplate remonstrating with Philip concerning his wildness. To think that he might warn Philip to take heed, to choose his companions with more care, to lead a less dissolute life! Charles could not help breaking into loud laughter at the very thought.