Reluctant Queen: Tudor Historical Novel About Mary Rose Tudor, the Defiant Little Sister of King Henry VIII

by Geraldine Evans

  He hadn’t liked that, of course. Mary knew how much he valued the love of his subjects.

  ‘I will not lose their love,’ he had insisted. ‘I will keep their love and get me a son also. You, Mary, have your son already. Would you deny me mine?’

  ‘Many times have I prayed for you and Catherine to have the joy of a healthy prince. It has grieved me sorely that you have no son. But have you never thought that as such is the case it must be God’s will that it is so?’

  It had been the wrong thing to say. Mary had known it as soon as the words had left her mouth. Henry was prepared to fall in with God’s will only when it agreed with his own.

  ‘It is not God’s will that I remain without my son. It was the Pope who wrongly gave me a dispensation to marry Catherine. As the Pope has caused the problem, the Pope can right it by agreeing that Catherine should be put aside. I will have my son. And as I haven’t got him on the Spanish woman I’ll get him on Anne. I don’t care what anyone says. I am determined on it.’

  There had been nothing more to say after that, but a softly murmured, ‘Have a care for your mortal soul also, Henry,’ before she walked softly away.

  Mary blinked and came back from her unhappy trip down Memory Lane to find that she and Anne had both stood up during their exchange. Now Anne came up close and thrust her face forward to tell her, ‘His poor, barren wife is queen in name only. I am the true queen now, as all do acknowledge.’ She smiled. It was a smile made up of malice and triumph.

  Mary felt sick. The pain in her side started up. She bit her tongue lest she call Anne ‘harlot’ to her face, and bring the power Anne had boasted of down on her own head and that of her husband and children. For now, Mary had to accept that Anne Boleyn did have the power to hurt them both. The effort to remain silent almost choked her. Insults burned on her tongue to be spoken. Somehow, Mary got out of the room. She stood in the corridor, breathing deeply while she tried to control her wildly beating heart. Behind her, she heard Anne’s mocking laughter. It pursued her as she hurried along the corridors to her waiting litter and, wth her tail between her legs, went home to Suffolk House, their London home.

  She had been as foolish in trying to speak to Anne as she had been in tackling Henry. Catherine’s unhappiness had spurred her on. Mary had tried to appeal to Anne’s better nature, but it was clear Anne Boleyn didn’t possess such a thing. Mary could only hope her interference did not damage Catherine’s position even more.

  Mary had hoped to find solitude to regain her composure. But to her consternation, Charles was there and clearly waiting for her.

  He could not fail to recognise her agitation - nor did he. And when she had finally confessed its cause he gave her another tongue-lashing. Mary attempted to defend herself. ‘I was only trying to help Catherine. She has need of friends now.’

  ‘She doesn’t need friends like you, Mary, to interfere and make her position even more difficult. You are becoming a worse meddler than that accursed Cardinal. Have I spent months gaining the friendship and trust of the Lady Anne only to have you upset all my efforts in a minute? Truly, it is a pity you didn’t remain in the country. Now I suppose I’ll have to try to repair the damage you have wrought.’ With that, he marched past her without another glance, bellowing for his horse.

  Upset, Mary kept to her home for the next few days. She feared that Charles was right and that her impetuous importuning of Anne Boleyn would only make Catherine’s situation worse. She had been horrified to discover how confident was Anne Boleyn of her power. Her one-time gawky little Maid of Honour now ruled over Mary’s husband as surely as she ruled over the king. That Charles should be frightened of offending this slim young woman outraged Mary. Astonishingly, it seemed, if what the court whispers and Anne’s own words had claimed were true, she had managed to ensnare her brother without actually letting him possess her. But Anne Boleyn had not spent seven years at the French court without learning Gallic guile; it went some way to explaining how she managed such a feat.

  When Mary ventured back to the court, she kept her eyes open and her mouth shut. She saw with dismay that each time Anne rejected Henry’s adulterous advances his passion for her deepened. Henry was so caught in the snares of love that he would do anything, agree to anything, if only he could have her. He had long since warned off several of his courtiers who were also enamoured of the lady. He was determined to have her for himself. Whispers flew around the court that Henry had promised her the earth, the moon, the stars, if she would only give in and lay with him. But still Anne refused. She wanted more. As Mary had learned, she wanted to be queen. Worse, Henry had so tired of Catherine that he was now actively hunting round for means to cast her off so that he could marry Anne.

  These matters were whispered into Mary’s ear in the marital bed she shared with Charles. He had promptly sworn her to secrecy. Mary didn’t confess that she had no need to learn the truth of this from her husband; she already had it from her brother. Mary began to fear for her brother, for his crown and even for his mortal soul. Henry’s ‘Secret Matter’ was now common knowledge at the court. Charles was deeply enmeshed in it and committed to Anne and Henry’s hopes for their union.

  Such a widely-known secret couldn’t long remain within the bounds of the court. Soon, it was being discussed in every tavern and ale-house and Anne was abused by the people whenever she ventured into the streets.

  Wolsey, on Henry’s orders, had set the divorce in motion by setting up a secret court at Westminster which he demanded Henry attend in order to answer the charge of having lived unlawfully for eighteen years with the widow of his own deceased brother, Arthur. Henry’s obsession with Anne was leading him down dangerous paths, for he could not lightly repudiate Catherine. Her nephew was the mighty Emperor. He would not allow his aunt to be thus cast off, for all that Henry prated of his conscience and his fear that his marriage was an adulterous one since Catherine had been his brother’s wife first.

  What consciences we Tudors have, Mary thought. There is Henry, with his mighty conscience over the marriage he no longer wanted; her own pricking conscience concerning her own marriage and the constant humiliations and difficulties Charles suffered because of it. These had caused him to take a grievous dislike to Cardinal Wolsey. Charles had sided with Anne not only because she was the woman Henry wished to marry, but also because Anne, too, believed Wolsey to be her enemy. For Charles, any enemy of Wolsey must perforce be his friend.

  Mary had come to find the court less and less to her liking and spent more time in the country and at their London house on the river at Southwark. When she wasn’t at court, she would spend long, melancholy hours staring from the window at the river. Although she couldn’t see the heads that decorated London Bridge, she didn’t need to. In her mind’s eye she could see them clearly; they put her in fear for her own family, for this obsession of Henry’s could bring the country to a civil war, such was the feelings it aroused, not only in England, but across Europe.

  Mary’s health had been poor for some time. She suffered greatly from a recurring pain in her side which was exacerbated by her anxiety about the future. What would become of them all if Henry got his wish and set Catherine aside? Would the Emperor invade to restore his aunt to her rightful place? Would he, by force of arms, tumble Henry from his throne? And what of Charles, her husband? If all these events came about, Charles would fall with Henry. He would surely lose his head. Round and round Mary’s thoughts went, imagining ever more grim and terrifying events unfolding. She looked down at her hands and saw they were trembling. She gripped each with the other and tried to force them to be still. But, like so much else in her life in these turbulent times the tremors in her hands were beyond her control.

  The timing of this spread of knowledge about Henry’s desire to marry Anne was unfortunate, as shortly after, Catherine’s nephew, the mighty Emperor, captured Pope Clement whilst his soldiers sacked Rome. Thus, the Pope who was expected to agree to Henry’s demand for a divorce wa
s in the hands of Catherine’s powerful nephew and unlikely to anger him by sanctioning this insult to the Emperor’s aunt. Henry was furious at this downward turn in his fortunes. Especially when he realised that the Emperor’s capture of the Pope must bring his and Wolsey’s secret court to a precipitous close. Henry poured his complaints into Charles’s ears and he came home to Mary whenever he could get away and relieved his burdens by telling her all about them.

  ‘The king has become convinced that the Emperor spends his time planning how best to ruin his hopes. He has had Francis in his power for a year-and-a-half, now he also has the Pope. As if that was not enough, we have learned that Francis has agreed to a Treaty between himself and the Emperor and is to marry the Emperor’s sister. Your brother is most displeased.’

  ‘And taking it out on Catherine, I doubt not.’

  Charles had the grace to look abashed. He admitted that a furious Henry had confronted the unfortunate Catherine. ‘He told her that he felt they had been living in sin for the entire duration of their time together and that theirs was no marriage. He told me that Catherine burst into tears.’

  Who could blame the poor queen? thought Mary. Worn down by constant humiliation, told her long marriage was no marriage at all, even Catherine’s great dignity must fall before such an onslaught.

  ‘I confess I felt sorry for the poor lady,’ Charles told her. ‘For all that her stubbornness has vexed the king’s hopes.’

  Would that Henry would fall out of his obsession with Anne Boleyn, thought Mary. But there was no sign of such a thing. Her brother’s days of calling himself ‘Sir Loyal Heart’ were long gone. His anger against the Emperor and his untimely triumphs rebounded spitefully on Catherine. Mary knew that Henry felt that Catherine and her family had brought him nothing but troubles and disappointments. Not only had she failed in her duty to get a son, but her Hapsburg relatives had, one after the other, let him down. According to Henry, he had been cheated or disappointed of help in his French ambitions in turn, by Ferdinand, Maximilian and now Charles. He had had enough. That his hopes for a divorce should be delayed once more by the actions of Catherine’s nephew was the final straw. Henry’s grievances didn’t make him any kinder to his wife.

  Mary sighed. Where would it all end? In civil war and invasion as she feared? She knew her brother. He was not the man to long endure having his wants denied. He had been remarkably patient thus far. But it was clear that Henry’s short stock of patience was rapidly coming to an end. And with Anne Boleyn pushing him, who knew to what travails he would put them all before he had his desire?

  But Mary’s fears about her brother and what he would do were now set aside by an enemy even more deadly than the Emperor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The sweating sickness had returned to London. Its evil, clutching fingers groped their insidious way into Mary’s home, intent on destruction.

  Her beloved son, Harry caught the contagion. Mary was appalled and terrified for him. She had shared the common belief that children didn’t get the sweat unless they heard their elders talking about it. It was considered a male disease mostly and an English one; women and Frenchmen caught the contagion as rarely as children were said to.

  But Mary had no time to ponder who might have spoken of it to her son and so placed him in its way. She nursed him herself, not trusting anyone else to care for her boy. She wiped his hot forehead as the fever took him and cuddled him close when he shivered. The fever had wracked his little body and left him exhausted. He called piteously for his father, who was from home.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked Mary. ‘When shall he come?’

  Mary had sent urgent messages to Charles, but with the sickness raging, she couldn’t be sure they had reached him. Desperate to soothe Harry, Mary had to calm her anguish before she could reply. ‘Soon. I have sent for him. Hush now. Lie still, sweeting. Save your strength so you have some to greet your father on his return.’

  Harry quietened and slept a little. But soon the fever broke out again and he lapsed into semi-consciousness, tossing and turning as though trying to shake off some devil. One minute he was burning up, the next shivering with cold. He couldn’t long continue like that; his little body would not have the strength. And so it proved.

  The crisis came that evening as the shadows were falling. It had been a beautiful day and was turning into a lovely evening. Mary could still see the last, fading sunlight on the drawn curtain. The beauty of the day seemed to mock her. Her son’s suffering was the more unbearably poignant that it should occur on such a day when he should be running and jumping in the sunshine.

  In another of his rarer lucid moments, he complained, ‘It’s getting dark, mother. I don’t like the dark.’

  ‘Mama will make it as bright as day, sweeting.’ Mary called for candles, masses of them. Soon it was, indeed, almost as bright as day, but Harry still complained of the dark, his voice small and frightened. With the directness of youth, he asked her, ‘Mother, am I going to die?’

  Mary denied it, to herself as much as to her child. To her shame, her sudden tears at his artless question mocked her denial. She was unable even to protect her child from the cruel knowledge of his own imminent death.

  Harry seemed to accept his mortality and find it more easy to bear than did his mother. Exhaustion gave him an unnatural calm. His blue-grey eyes, so like her own, regarded her with a sad, almost fatalistic solemnity. ‘Why has my father not come? I do so long to see him once again before I die.’

  His resignation to his fate tormented Mary. Again she denied he was dying, this time forcing the tears to remain unshed. She was thankful that Charles returned home shortly after to share her sad vigil. He and Mary sat either side of Harry’s bed, clinging to his hands, ready to drag him back from the icy clutches of death.

  Charles was as distraught as Mary. She knew how well he loved the boy. But although he loved his son for his own sake, she knew he could never forget that he was the king’s nephew also. He had held high ambitions for this rare, Tudor boy of whom the king was so fond. Charles had dreamed such dreams for his son; Mary suspected his hopes had gone as high as the crown, in spite of the birth of the Princess Mary, in spite of his own low birth which would have made his son’s acceptance in such a role difficult. Her sister, Margaret also now had only the one son; her other boy by James IV having died before he was two, but Henry had never had the chance to know them as he had their boy.

  Mary was glad to see Charles’s ambition forgotten for once. When he had finally reached home he had come immediately to the bed-chamber, taken his son in his arms most tenderly and rocked him from side to side as gentle as any nursemaid. He was so affected that he even pleaded with God to only let his son live and he would finish with ambition. ‘Would that I could give you my strength, my son,’ he had murmured against Harry’s sweat-drenched hair.

  But, of course, he hadn’t been able to do that, so they sat and watched the life drain out of the boy, while the physicians Mary had summoned could only stand and wring their hands. They both knew that the end was fast approaching, but even though neither was willing to acknowledge it, still it came, darkly creeping, so silent they didn’t recognise its arrival, an arrival heralded by the tiny smile that appeared on Harry’s face and was as quickly gone.

  Mary clutched Charles’s arm. ‘He smiled, Charles. Did you see?’ Eagerly, Mary gazed down at her son. She stroked his soft cheek. But his stillness made her draw back in sudden fear. She couldn’t bring herself to feel if his heart was still beating; Charles, a soldier with all too much experience of death, did that.

  He closed Harry’s eyes and turned to Mary. ‘He has gone. Our boy has gone.’ He broke down then, huge, wracking sobs burst from him and he gathered his son’s frail body in his strong arms for the last time.

  Strangely, Mary felt unable to shed any more tears. Instead, she sat numbly as though turned to stone. If tears fell they fell inside where no one could see them. She could only gaze, unblinkin
g at her weeping husband. Her boy was dead. The pride and delight of her heart lay still. Soon, he would have the chill of the earth about him. Mary couldn’t bear it. Only twelve, he had been about to flower into young manhood. Instead, the sweating sickness had claimed him for the grave. Never again would he ride like the wind. Never again would the sun catch his bright hair and cause her to catch her breath at its golden beauty.

  At last Charles’s sobs quieted. He leant across the bed to Mary, seeking comfort in questions. ‘Why Harry? Why our son?’

  Mary had no answers for him. Her body was as still as that of her boy. She didn’t notice when Charles, abandoning the attempt to reach her, left the room, calling for her maid. But the maid was also unable to reach her. Shock had made Mary retreat into herself. She had found a sanctuary from bitter reality and none were to be allowed to wrest her from it.

  As usual, the court had fled London, retreating before the sweating sickness. For once, Charles had the leisure to spend time with his family. But although he continually attempted to comfort his wife, to get through to her, she paid him no heed. He was at a loss. He did not know what to do when her eyes looked through and beyond him. In the end he gave up and left her to her silent grieving.

  The king’s no longer ‘secret’ matter had occupied much of his time before Harry’s death. Henry’s frustration was making him increasingly vindictive. His desperation for the divorce forced him to push his sympathisers more firmly into his own camp. You were either with him or against him, and Charles had long since chosen his side. Henry expected his followers to treat Catherine as harshly as he did himself. Although Charles loathed this brutal duty, he did it, helped to become inured to it by the very stubbornness of Catherine’s will. The sweating sickness brought but a brief respite from such pressures.