by Tony Riches
‘I need to know if Sir Charles Brandon will return to Paris – for me.’
Palsgrave looked down at the sealed letter in his hand. ‘I will try my best, my lady, but it will be difficult for a poor cleric such as me to gain an audience with the highest ranking noble in England.’
‘You are resourceful, John. I know you will find a way.’ An idea occurred to her. She pulled one of her gold rings from her finger and held it in the candlelight. A token of her love, with her motto engraved around the inside: La volenté de Dieu me suffit. ‘Take this – and have his squire give it to him as surety.’ She smiled, pleased with herself, and handed him the ring.
‘I suspect I know the answer, my lady, but might I know your purpose?’ A twinkle of amusement flashed in his eyes.
‘I need him to escort me back to England – and I plan to ask him to marry me.’
Duke Francis arrived in the early evening with French curses, stamping his boots and brushing flakes of snow from his hat and cape. Mary had her servant bring him a cup of warm spiced mead and invited him to sit in a chair by the hearth. He removed his riding gloves and held out his hands, warming them at her fire.
With the trials of Louis’ illness and death she’d forgotten she married him to preserve the peace between England and France. She waited until the duke tasted the sweet mead then forced a smile. Her secret weapon would be informality, to disarm the arrogant king-in-waiting.
‘It’s good of you to visit me every day, Francis. It can be so lonely in this dark place, with no idea when it will end.’
It was true. There were times when she’d paced her darkened rooms like a caged beast at the Tower of London. She’d prayed at her altar until her knees ached on the cold stone floor. She’d wondered how she deserved the cruel twist of fate which caused her to be locked away from the world. Now she must smile at the man she cursed as the cause of it.
He turned from the warmth of the fire and looked at her white mourning dress, his appraising eyes lingering on her body a little too long. ‘By tradition you should remain in your bed for six weeks.’ He managed to make it sound salacious. ‘It is only until there can be no question of a male child.’ He looked away and changed the subject. ‘I trust you are being treated well, Mary?’
‘As your good lady mother promised. I want for nothing, except my liberty.’
Her well-rehearsed words made him look up at her face. ‘I confess I am as eager to see you out of here as you are.’
She moved closer, speaking softly so her servants would not overhear. ‘I give you my word of honour. You must know. I am La Reine Blanche. There is no child. There never could be.’ Her tooth ached worse than ever yet she smiled.
He sipped the warm mead, never taking his eyes from her. ‘I know. In truth, this is my mother’s doing. She places great importance on the old traditions.’ His dark eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘When I am king I will shake off these dusty cobwebs.’
‘When you are king, my life can begin again.’ She gave him a knowing look. ‘Will you tell your mother it’s a waste of our time for me to remain here? It is time to end our mourning – time for you to be crowned.’ She saw his dark eyes shine with ambition at her words.
‘I will!’ Duke Francis drained his cup. He smiled at her as he stood and picked up his riding gloves from where they had been drying by the hearth. ‘I bid you farewell – and thank you for giving me your word, my lady.’
He drew his flowing cape around his broad shoulders, fastening the silver clasp, fashioned in the shape of a salamander with sapphire eyes, his personal emblem. He pulled on his black gloves and left, without looking back, to arrange his coronation as King of France.
Mary dismissed her muttering French servants and sated her frustration at them by tearing down the black cloths covering the long windows. Shafts of bright winter sun lit up motes of dust drifting like tiny, glittering stars in the still air. Tears of relief ran down Mary’s face as she looked out at the River Seine and the spires of Notre-Dame Cathedral. She was leaving Cluny Palace forever.
John Palsgrave returned with news that the waiting was finally over. Charles Brandon had sailed from Dover on the same ship and was meeting with Francis to negotiate her return to England.
Mary’s mind raced with questions. ‘Why must he negotiate? Of course I will return. Francis has no wish to hold me here. Is it the return of my dowry?’ She recalled Wolsey’s scheming before she’d left for France. He’d foreseen Louis’ death and already planned for her return, wording the marriage contract to Henry’s advantage.
John Palsgrave nodded. ‘There is a considerable sum of money at stake, Your Grace, as well as the question of the jewels from the late king.’
‘They were gifts!’ She heard the outrage and frustration in her voice. Her confinement and aching tooth made her short-tempered. She saw her secretary’s troubled look. ‘I’m sorry. Does Duke Francis,’ she corrected herself, ‘does King Francis want them returned?’
‘It seems, Your Grace, they were part of the crown jewels of France. I expect they now belong in law to Queen Claude.’
Mary understood. ‘I have enough jewels. Claude is welcome to them after all she’s been through – although I doubt my brother will take the same view.’
Palsgrave’s troubled face revealed he had more bad news. ‘You are right, Your Grace, which brings me to the other matter I must tell you.’
Mary felt the chill premonition of her plans slipping away yet again. ‘My brother has already chosen me another husband?’ She could picture Henry and Wolsey scheming as they weighed the usefulness of different suitors, with no regard for her.
‘Not yet,’ Palsgrave frowned, ‘although it seems King Henry and the new King of France disagree over who has the right to choose on your behalf.’ He smiled, for the first time since his return. ‘King Henry has sent a delegation to resolve the matter – with the Duke of Suffolk as their chief negotiator.’
Mary groaned. ‘Will you kindly take a message to my physician? Tell him his foul potion has done nothing to ease the pain from my tooth.’
Queen Claude shivered in the chill February air, despite her fur cape. She watched with Mary from the high balcony of her mansion as cheering crowds welcomed their new king to Paris. By tradition, neither of them were present at King Francis’ coronation ceremony at the ancient cathedral of Notre-Dame in Rheims.
Neither of them cheered as King Francis rode through the crowds. He looked handsome and regal and wore a gold coronet. Behind him followed his flag-bearers with colourful banners, a cavalcade of mounted French knights and nobles, then five hundred marching soldiers in blue and gold.
Claude glanced over her shoulder at the waiting servants. ‘I fear what kind of king my husband might become, Mary. He’s made his scheming mother a duchess and his wastrel of a brother-in-law Governor of Normandy.’ She frowned. ‘Now he talks of reconquering Milan and spends his time hunting. I’ve hardly seen him since my father’s funeral.’
Mary decided to remain silent about his daily visits to her in Cluny. Before leaving for his coronation Francis called late in the evening to propose a list of suitors. He promised Mary favours if she chose to allow him to decide for her. When she refused he’d warned her not to speak of his proposals. The threat in his narrowed eyes was unmistakable. Becoming king had changed him, as it changes any man.
Mary rode at the side of the queen on a fine white palfrey in a procession through the wintry Paris streets to the coronation banquet. When they arrived it seemed the new king had forgotten his wife, as he sat in a gilded throne with his mother on one side and his sister on the other, a sign of what was to come.
Claude was stoical and sat with Mary and her ladies, although she remained unusually silent. Watching the scene before her Mary realised it wasn’t only Francis who had changed – the country seemed different now, as England had after the death of her father. Like Henry, Francis was abandoning the sedate atmosphere of Louis’ old court. The grim-faced bishops
and grey-haired advisors were nowhere to be seen.
Instead Francis surrounded himself with poets, musicians and his boisterous young hunting companions. Mary heard a crash of breaking glass followed by raucous laughter and turned to look. The rich wine flowed freely and the younger nobles were already playing noisy drinking games and singing bawdy songs.
Mary had little appetite for the rich platters of food weighing down their table and picked at the delicate bones of spiced quails in a sweet cherry sauce. She hoped none of the other guests noticed how she watched Charles Brandon. He’d arrived late and took his seat with the other ambassadors on the opposite side of the banqueting hall. She’d seen him studying her with a serious look on his face and worried about what it might mean.
She heard Duchess Louise’s harsh laughter at her son’s witty remarks and wondered at how their fortunes had changed in so short a time. She’d played along with Louise’s demands yet the price had been higher than expected. The long lonely winter in the cold, darkened rooms of Cluny had left her pale and sapped her spirit.
She’d clung to her memories to survive the long dark days. She’d recalled her father’s words of comfort when she’d fallen from her horse as a girl. ‘Remember you are a Tudor,’ he’d said. ‘We Tudors are survivors in adversity.’ She’d remembered the look in Charles Brandon’s eyes, and dreamed of her knight coming to rescue his Tudor princess.
She took another sip of the sweet red wine, feeling it warming her throat as she tried to forget the scandalous rumours. She glanced at Claude’s dish of gilt sugar plums and glistening pomegranate seeds. There’d been no sign Claude believed the speculation of gossiping courtiers that she’d been attempting to seduce Francis.
Mary only learned of it when she was reunited with her English ladies, who looked shocked when she told them the truth. She could imagine how Francis might have bragged to his companions after too much fine wine. It was also not beyond his calculating mother to encourage such talk.
Claude used the excuse of a headache to leave, after one last long look at Francis with his mother and sister. Mary was also about to do the same and was finishing her goblet of wine when she saw the tall figure of Charles Brandon approaching. Two well-dressed, middle-aged men she recognised as her brother’s delegation followed close behind him.
Mary studied Brandon’s face as he removed his hat and bowed to her, noting the changes since she’d last seen him. The gold chain around his neck looked heavier, a badge of his success. His beard had grown thicker and his eyes, which seemed to turn from grey to blue with his mood, hinted at concern.
‘How are you, Your Grace?’ His warm voice made her heart miss a beat.
‘My time of mourning is over, Sir Charles,’ she gestured towards the top table where Francis seemed to be enjoying another joke, ‘and I must confess I’m ready to leave France. I pray to see England again, to walk in the grounds of Richmond, to take a barge down the Thames.’ She realised she was babbling and put a hand to her mouth.
Brandon gestured towards the men at each side of him. ‘You will know Sir Richard Wingfield, Lord Deputy of Calais, and our ambassador to France, Dean Nicholas West?’
‘Gentlemen.’ Mary smiled. ‘It’s good to see such a fine delegation come to speak on my behalf.’
She saw how they both looked at her with the shrewd eyes of men with questions that needed answers. Sir Richard Wingfield was her great uncle, through marriage to her mother’s late sister Catherine Woodville. Her eyes went to his sword, the well-used weapon of a soldier, then returned to his grey-bearded, weather-beaten face, the legacy of his years in France.
‘Sir Richard, you were my father’s trusted courtier and arranged my betrothal to Prince Charles.’ She shook her head. ‘How different my life might have been if I had married him.’
Sir Richard removed his cap and bowed. ‘At your service, Your Grace. Please accept our condolences on the loss of your husband. King Louis was a good friend to our country.’
Mary nodded in acknowledgement and turned to Nicholas West. A thin-faced man with white hair showing under his black velvet hat, he wore a cleric’s dark robes yet their quality, and the gold rings on his fingers, suggested his legal expertise paid well. Mary knew he was Bishop Foxe’s man, respected by Henry and Wolsey.
‘Dean West, you have negotiated my betrothal twice now.’
Dean West didn’t remove his hat but bowed his head and looked at her with his deep-set eyes. ‘Indeed – and it seems you might have need of our services a third time, my lady.’
She forced a smile before looking back at Brandon, trying to read his thoughts. ‘You must come to see me in the morning and tell me all the news from England.’
‘Of course, Your Grace.’ The faintest flicker of amusement passed over his face before he touched his cap and turned to leave.
Mary wasn’t sure if she’d sipped too much fine wine but she didn’t care who’d been watching or listening to their exchange. Her new life was about to begin and she returned to her chambers laughing at the comments of her ladies, in good spirits for the first time since she’d arrived in France.
It was noon the next day before Charles Brandon knocked at the door to her chambers. She led them into the next room where her fire still crackled in the hearth and signalled to Palsgrave to make his discrete withdrawal. Charles Brandon loosened his coat and sat in the chair she offered. He glanced back as Palsgrave closed the door behind him.
‘At last we can speak freely.’ He smiled at her, more at ease than she’d seen him since the jousting. ‘The French think that holding you here strengthens their hand in these negotiations.’
‘Can you take me with you?’
‘Nicholas West cautions against it. We must secure a new treaty with King Francis first.’
Mary studied his face and made a judgement. This was her moment. ‘Francis plans to marry me off before Henry can do anything about it, Charles. He warned me not to tell anyone – or there would be consequences.’
Brandon cursed. ‘Wolsey predicted as much. Francis thinks he’s been playing us for fools, wasting our time while he agrees a match for you.’ He scowled. ‘Did he tell you who he intends as your suitor?’
Mary shrugged. ‘He mentioned his uncle, Charles, Duke of Savoy, and the Duke of Lorraine.’
‘How did you reply?’
‘I told him I would rather take myself to a convent.’
Brandon leaned forward in his chair. ‘I have to ask you something which is not easy for me.’
Mary held her breath and stared at Brandon, knowing whatever he was about to ask could change the rest of her life. Her toothache returned, an unwelcome reminder of her time at Cluny Palace.
Brandon fixed his blue-grey eyes on hers. ‘Has Francis ever taken advantage of you?’
It was the first time she’d seen him look embarrassed. Her first impulse was to laugh, then to cry. She’d feared this moment. Her word would be weighed against that of one of the most powerful and influential men in the world.
Mary returned his questioning stare. ‘I give you my word that Francis has always treated me with the greatest of respect – except when he refers to me as his stepmother.’ She leaned forward a little. ‘You’ve known me all my life, Charles. Do you believe me?’
He relaxed. ‘I do.’ He gave her a sheepish grin. ‘I promised Wolsey I would find out, but was halfway across the Channel before I realised there was only one way to be sure. Please forgive me.’
She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. ‘Of course.’ She gave his arm a squeeze and didn’t remove her hand. ‘There is a way to stop King Francis. There would be little he could do if I were already remarried.’
‘King Henry would never permit it.’ Brandon gave her a curious look. ‘I don’t think you have any idea—’
‘Of course I do!’ Her raised voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room. ‘Which is why I extracted a promise from my brother before I left for France, that he will give his blessing when I choo
se my next husband.’
Brandon stared at her without answering for a moment, then grinned. ‘I have a confession to make, Mary. Henry told me of his promise to you before I left – and that he suspected your intention. He had me swear an oath not to act on the information until you are returned safe to England.’
‘And your intention, Charles? Is it your intention to obey your king or the Dowager Queen of France?’ Mary held her breath for the second time, her pulse racing as she awaited his next words.
‘I must be mad,’ he placed his free hand over hers, ‘but I will risk everything I own, my reputation, my liberty and possibly my life to marry you, Mary Tudor.’
11
February 1515
Mary’s plans for her new life began as a great secret, shared only with those she trusted most. She played her role as Queen Dowager, loyal supporter of the new king and close companion of his wife, Queen Claude. She learned the names of the new courtiers and John Palsgrave helped her to improve her French, as if she planned to stay.
She understood Brandon’s view that he should only visit her in the course of his diplomatic duties, and even then would need a chaperone at all times. He’d also told her they must risk taking Dean Nicholas West into their confidence.
‘Do you trust him, Charles?’
‘Don’t be fooled by his pious face. West’s as sharp as a razor and will help us.’ He grinned as a thought occurred to him. ‘Although I’m certain it will cost me a great favour one day.’
‘How can he help?’ Mary placed her gold-ringed hand on Brandon’s, her fingers as small and pale as a child’s next to his.
