Lady Mary

by Lucy Worsley

  Now the ambassador’s nose was so near the floor that Mary almost had to stifle a giggle. It looked like he might never be able to get up again. Once more her father gave her a sidelong glance. Yes, they were both enjoying this. She distinctly heard a sharp report from the joint of the ambassador’s bended knee, and saw him wince a little. But, despite his position, the ambassador didn’t give up.

  ‘It is well known,’ the Frenchman continued, face still floorwards, ‘that Your Majesty obtained a dispensation from the law of the Church when you married your wife. Because she had previously been married to your elder brother, and as we all know, the Pope has to give special permission for two brothers to marry the same bride.’

  Mary frowned, wondering what he was talking about. She knew that she’d had an uncle, older than her father, and that her mother was supposed to have married him and had children with him, but that he’d died. Even her father, who seemed so utterly king-like and powerful, hadn’t expected to become one. It was all down to the death of his brother, whose name was Arthur, when they had been very young.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Henry said. ‘We did get an exemption. Not that we needed one, you’re wrong about that. But I’m pretty sure we got one to be on the safe side. Cardinal Wolsey will have the paperwork if your master really needs to see it.’

  He was offhand now, speaking as if it hardly mattered. But Mary detected a note of strain in his voice, almost as if her father were bluffing.

  The French ambassador’s other knee cracked as he bowed again on the other leg, the better to address the rush matting anew. This time it didn’t seem funny.

  ‘It has come to our attention,’ he said softly, ‘that this dispensation was perhaps not valid. And that perhaps, therefore, your marriage was not valid, which would make this lovely young lady –’ he nodded at Mary – ‘erm, illegitimate, you know. You’ll understand that these difficult questions must be addressed.’

  ‘What can you mean?’ Mary’s father was on his feet, roaring in outrage. ‘How dare you! What evidence have you for this outrageous claim? What nonsense!’

  Flustered, the ambassador was on his feet too, quite unable to continue bowing in the face of so much regal wrath. Mary tried to follow what was going on. Had he just suggested that she was illegitimate? The cheek! She tried to look affronted, but perhaps just succeeded in looking like she had toothache. She was eager to see what would happen next, how her father would eat up this impertinent man for breakfast.

  But the Frenchman appeared – amazingly – to have more to say.

  ‘Well, Your Majesty,’ he said slowly. ‘There is the matter of your offspring. If your marriage were approved by God, then surely you and the queen would have a male heir by now too? As well as this delightful young lady.’ At that he cast a sideways look at Mary, half smiling, as if to indicate that he knew he was being indelicate but didn’t wish to offend his dancing partner.

  Mary pondered. It was true that she had no brother. It was true that she had often heard her mother and father wishing that she did. Indeed, she would have liked to have had a brother or a sister herself. It would be fun to play with someone else, and, when her parents were in an arguing mood, there’d be someone else for them to argue over.

  But then she shook herself and sat up straighter. The whole idea that God had deliberately denied her a brother was quite ridiculous.

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’

  She did not realise that she’d spoken aloud. Everyone was looking at her, in some astonishment. Too late, she realised they were all waiting for her to continue. Perhaps she had better not have said anything, but this was so simple that it was easier, really, for her to put the ambassador right, rather than put her father to the trouble.

  ‘Of course my father and my mother are married,’ she said.

  ‘With the greatest respect,’ the ambassador said, staring at the matting as if it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen, ‘how would the Princess Mary know? She was not yet born.’

  Mary swallowed, hard. This was unanswerable. He had made her look a fool. She was waiting, now, for her father to jump in and rescue her, telling the man not to be an ass, and telling the world that of course she was a proper princess, and totally legitimate, born within a marriage sealed by God.

  But the pause continued.

  Mary looked around, confused. Her father was staring at his hand as it lay clenched on the arm of his chair.

  ‘I believed the queen and I to have been legally married,’ he said at last. ‘But it is true that God has failed to bless our union with children.’

  Mary sat aghast, her mouth open like a fish’s. She had heard him say this before, and each time it was painful. No children? But she was his daughter! How could he say that? She simply could not get used to the idea that a girl did not count as a child. How could he say that he had no children when she was sitting there right next to him?

  Mary was glad, for a moment, that her mother was absent. Her mother would not be able to take this quietly, as Mary realised that she must. She turned her face aside so that the room would not be able to see her mouth quivering.

  The pause lengthened. Mary could feel her face turning pink. She could scarcely get any air into her lungs, and found herself almost panting. All these people were looking at her and wondering if she really was legitimate!

  The Frenchman cleared his throat.

  ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that the good lady the queen is Spanish. In that country, the custom is that women can inherit lands, thrones, crowns, with no impediment. Let us pay the Princess Mary the compliment of assuming, as a daughter of Spain, that this is true for her.’

  The room, which had grown very quiet and still, came alive with nods and sighs of agreement. Mary would never have thought that the foreign ambassador would have saved her when her father could have done it. When she looked at his kind face, she found that her eyes were full of surprised, grateful tears. She hadn’t noticed her father moving from his throne, but she now felt his hand grasping her shoulder.

  ‘Good man!’ he was saying, slapping Mary’s shoulder in his offhand hearty way. ‘Of course the Princess Mary is, for now, my heir. Just until my son is born.’

  Mary relaxed, but only a little.

  Why had he not spoken sooner? She felt that she was once again on solid ground, but it had not been her father who had put her there.

  Chapter 4

  22 June 1527, Hunsdon

  Mary kicked her heels against the wooden frame of the bed, where she sat perched upon the feather mattress, moodily watching her mother brushing her hair. It was to be another fine day. She had begged and begged to be allowed to join her parents at Hunsdon Palace, rather than being sent off with her own servants to some other house as usual. It was much nicer living with her mother, and sharing her bed, than living in solitary splendour with just her own servants. It was much nicer having dinner with her father sometimes, too, and being three instead of one.

  But now the king had just announced that his court was to move on again. Mary wasn’t sure that she would be allowed to go with them to the next house.

  ‘Why can’t we just stay put?’ she asked again, although she knew the answer.

  ‘Because the food is all gone,’ her mother explained. ‘Our servants and you, yes you, hungry Mary, have eaten all the supplies of the villages round here. We have to forage! And, of course, your father says the game here is not good enough.’

  Catherine made her last point in a mocking, ironic tone. Her husband’s love of hunting had long annoyed her.

  ‘Why won’t he take us hunting with him?’ Mary said petulantly, for the umpteenth time.

  ‘Because we are too slow,’ came the reply. ‘You know that, Mary. You know that he has to ride fast.’ Now Catherine sniggered. ‘To keep down his weight, if nothing else. You know how he stretches his hands over his belly after Christmas, and says he can feel it has grown, like a woman’s? Well, your father does his crazy sport and his hunting t
o keep his fine shape.’

  Mary looked at her mother. The queen herself had a magnificent shape, rather than an elegant one. But the summer sun pouring in through the window behind her caught her hair, which was still golden, and her gown was undeniably fine. She looks like an angel, Mary thought.

  ‘Come on, Mary.’ Catherine had done one of her unexpected switches from being the queen to being Mary’s mother, as she so often did. Now she was chivvying Mary off the bed and into her slippers. ‘I must call the ladies to dress you. We must get ready.’

  ‘Can’t we have dinner just you, me and Father?’ Mary asked. ‘I know, I know,’ she added, ‘a princess has to be seen to be believed.’ She had seen her mother’s mouth opening for a scold. Mary knew that she had asked too many questions already. ‘But we always eat with the whole court watching,’ she went on in a great rush, to get the words out before her mother could shut her up, ‘and I never see just you and him by ourselves. Other girls have …’ Mary cast around for the word, not sure exactly what she meant. ‘… other girls have a family. You know, with parents, and brothers and sisters.’

  Mary realised, too late, that she had mentioned the one thing certain to put her mother into a rage. She knew that her mother longed to give her brothers and sisters, but for some reason her mother’s body just could not do it.

  Would there be an explosion?

  Mary saw her mother stiffen, as if she was clenching her self-control. But then Catherine slowly breathed out, and relaxed.

  ‘You are seeing me now, querida!’ she said lightly. ‘That will have to be enough for you. And let’s see a smile on that face or else the wind might change and you might get stuck that way. And what would the Duke of Orléans think then?’ She was back at her dressing table, twisting her hair into a rope.

  ‘It’s not windy,’ Mary said smartly. ‘And I don’t care about the duke.’ This wasn’t exactly true. She did care. But she knew it would please her mother if she was a little rude about her future French husband whom Catherine had not chosen. Mary was right. Catherine did smile, and made as if to tickle Mary with a long, pointed pin from her dressing table.

  ‘Naughty,’ she said indulgently. ‘I’m going to use my pin to prick you under the chin. Let’s see if that changes that sulky face!’

  Mary shrieked, and retreated from the menacing pin. ‘No, no!’ she cried, laughing. ‘Don’t pin me, Mother! I’m not your mortal enemy! I don’t want to fight to the death!’

  She was soon rolling over and over in the unmade bed, getting all tangled up in the sheets, while her mother followed her with the pin. ‘I’m going to poke you, Mary!’ she joked. ‘My pin’s going to tickle you, Mary!’

  ‘You blood-drinker!’ choked Mary, coughing and laughing and by now buried under the coverlet.

  All of a sudden, her mother was spinning away from her, the long pin drooping forgotten in her hand.

  ‘What is it, Nan?’

  Lady Anne Hussey was in the room. Probably they had missed her scratch at the door while they had been romping. It was Mary, much younger, who had mispronounced Lady Anne’s name as ‘Nan’, and it had stuck.

  ‘He’s here, Your Majesty.’

  Nan scurried to stand near the door, head bowed. She needed to say no more. Mary sensed her mother gathering herself, standing ready to present her usual poised curtsey. When others were present, the queen was always serene, always composed. And then her father was in the room.

  ‘Catherine.’

  He stood negligently while Mary’s mother, on her knees, kissed his proffered hand.

  ‘Are you not hunting, my love?’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly, spinning round to look out of the window. ‘Going out in a bit.’

  Mary realised that her father hadn’t spotted her, hidden in the folds of the messy bed. It might be fun to go on hiding there a little longer.

  But she could tell that he wasn’t in a good mood. Even if his ignoring his favourite topic of conversation hadn’t been enough, there was the tense set of his broad shoulders. Mary detected her mother’s anxious movement towards him.

  ‘What is it, my love? Tell me what it is.’

  Her voice was smooth and silky. She’d turned on that special voice she sometimes used, just for speaking to him.

  But it didn’t work. Even now he didn’t answer.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you something,’ he said at last, still looking out of the window. Peeking out from under the sheet, Mary could just see the shape of her mother’s bowed head. She watched and waited and said nothing. Mary was constantly astonished how her mother, usually so full of jokes and fun, could become a different, more serious person in her father’s company. Although Mary was not sure that she preferred this other version.

  ‘Tell me, my love.’

  The words were just a soothing murmur.

  Mary’s father threw up an arm and rubbed at the back of his neck, as if it hurt him.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ Mary’s father said abruptly, still looking out of the window, ‘that our marriage is not legal.’

  Mary herself almost gasped out loud. But in the room beyond the bed there was silence. Mary sensed rather than saw that Catherine’s whole body had instantly stiffened up, and that she was standing and listening intently. The atmosphere in the sunny chamber had completely changed. It was as if the wind had come in and blown out all of Mary’s petty little concerns about dinner.

  ‘I suspected it,’ her father continued, ‘at the time those French ambassadors were at Greenwich. Do you remember, they pointed out that God has not blessed our union with sons, just as if God is not happy with our union? I think, perhaps, that is because it was illegal.’

  ‘Henry!’ It was a choked sound. ‘How can you say such things? And in front of your child too!’

  Mary raised herself to sit, hugging her knees and beginning to tremble with the awful passion that her mother seemed to be feeling as well. She covered her head, almost as if her father might strike her.

  ‘Ah, Mary,’ he said, noticing her. ‘Well, it’s right that she should know. Yes, our marriage was probably illegal. But I know that this was not your fault, Catalina, and you shall choose where you live once we part.’

  Again, he had used the Spanish version of Catherine’s name. Mary knew that he only did that when he was feeling tender, and she always listened out for it as the sign of a good day.

  But now he pronounced it almost as if he felt sorry for her mother.

  Mary opened her mouth to ask what on earth he meant. How could her parents possibly be parted? Surely, as married people, God himself had joined them together? But although her lungs had filled themselves with plenty of air, Mary couldn’t seem to form the words to say anything coherent at all.

  She could see that her mother’s back was still straight, and stern, and not shaking by a single inch.

  The long pause lengthened.

  ‘Well?’ Mary’s father spun round in the end, raising his eyebrows, when his words met with no response. Mary shrank even further into the featherbed, expecting hard words or shouting. But she was surprised.

  ‘I need legal counsel,’ her mother said shortly. ‘I know what my Spanish lawyers think, but I deserve advisors from among your own countrymen, those who are now my countrymen also. You cannot deny that that is fair.’

  Mary’s father seemed taken aback. He walked about the room a little, and seated himself in a chair. He was frowning and shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘You have already taken legal counsel?’ he asked eventually.

  It was as if he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Yes,’ Catherine said crisply, folding her arms. ‘I did so once it became clear that she was here to stay.’

  With an awful sinking of the stomach, Mary realised at once that she knew who the ‘she’ was.

  ‘And you are in danger, you know, from her religion,’ Catherine said. ‘You make a great mistake in thinking that our marriage is illegal under the law of the Holy Churc
h. She’s the one who talked you into that, isn’t she? Her God is false and cheap. I can’t think why she hates the good monks and sisters who pray for you every day. She will lead your soul into peril.’

  As she completed her speech, Catherine’s voice grew louder and faster. Mary couldn’t see her mother’s face, but she was sure that she was piercing her father with a gaze like a stiletto knife.

  Mary thought that he visibly wilted. The wind seemed to have been taken out of his sails. He rested his chin on a fist and looked at the floor. There was more silence. Mary did not want to think any more about what her mother had just said. She could not think at all. There seemed to be clouds of smoke where her brain should be.

  Something strong and dangerous was roiling up inside Mary. She knew that she shouldn’t speak, that she hadn’t been asked to speak, and that princesses were not called upon to give their opinions in council until they were married. But somehow she could not stay quiet any more.

  She jumped out of the bed and ran across to her father, tugging at his elbow where it rested on the arm of the chair.

  ‘We don’t need any lawyers,’ she said. ‘Please no. Please. Please.’ Without her even having noticed, she seemed to be crying. Tears were running down her cheeks. With a howl, Mary clutched her father’s arm as if he were about to leave at once forever.

  ‘Ah, querida!’ Her mother was at her side, hugging her, giving her a kiss on the top of her head. Mary’s father’s hand was hanging awkwardly in the air, and her mother grabbed it and kissed it again, as she had done only a few minutes earlier. ‘You’re right, Mary, we don’t need lawyers. We are your parents. We will always stay married, and together we will always look after you. Because we love you. Don’t we, my lord king? Yes, we love you.’