Tudor Queen, Tudor Crown

by Jennifer Peter Woods

  The Prince had been christened. It was a splendid occasion, resplendent and opulent. The king had spared no expense. He had his prince. He had his heart’s desire, at last.

  He had wept when they handed him the babe, hail and whole, while Jane watched on, her body still wracked by the pains of the birth. She had smiled as Henry thanked her, promising her the stars, the moon and all the trinkets and honors on God’s green earth.

  You will be England’s truest Queen, he kissed her brow as he took her hand, holding it tight, crushing her delicate fingers with his heavy grip. She nodded, relieved.

  Since the day he first noticed her it was all that she had begged for: relief. It was a cruel irony. She had always thought she would be safe from the king. He had his Anne. He liked his women vivacious, charming and learned. Jane was none of these things. She was a daughter of a Wiltshire knight. She was insignificant, with neither profound beauty nor any fascinating quality to warrant his interest. She was, in short, everything his Queen was not. Yet notice her he did and he could not have chosen a lady less desirous of his attentions than she.

  She had been all but mute with fear the first time he singled her out for a few words. She had looked about them, uncertain of what she should do, afraid that people would see her with the king.

  Queen Anne’s eyes were sharp. They were just as sharp as Queen Katherine’s, but where the Spanish queen always chose to ignore her husband’s roaming eye, Queen Anne’s wrath was to be feared.

  The words they exchanged that day were trivial. The king had asked after her father, her mother as well as her siblings. She had answered, dutifully assuring the king of her large family’s continuing good health.

  When the king asked to be reminded of the exact number of siblings she had, Jane, keeping her bow low had made her answer, ten sire.

  She was certain that no one had seen the brief exchange, but after, and as soon as they could, her brothers summoned her. They had wanted a full description of everything that was said. They wanted her to recount every nuance of the king’s expression.

  When she told them she had kept her head bowed too low to decipher anything, they berated her soundly for her foolishness.

  Do you not understand? Her brother Thomas shouted. Here lays our chance to advance the family. Can you not think upon us? He gestured at himself then at their older brother Edward. Can you not have a thought for us?

  I do not understand what it is that you wish me to do, she mumbled through her lips, knotting her hands, lowering her head in fear. She had never been able to stand raised voices. She despised disagreements and arguments. In her younger years, whenever her mother and father exchanged heated words, she would always run and hide.

  She had not wanted to come to court either. She would have happily spent her days in Wiltshire by her father’s side, but her brothers needed someone in the Queen’s service and with Jane the only one of suitable age, they made her come.

  They assured her that she would be safe. She had thought that she would be safe. There were dozens of ladies in the Queen’s service, all of them fairer and far more enticing.

  Encourage him, her brother Thomas told her, eager to grasp whatever chance they could. He has noticed you. He knows you exist. Do not be so dull! Capture his attention. Use your woman’s allure!

  Day after day, Thomas would summon Jane and reproach her for her lack of progress. Eventually, it was her eldest brother and his words that lent real tinder to the fires of Jane’s fear.

  Do not ask her to change Tom, Edward said quietly with solemn satisfaction, his eyes knowing, she must remain precisely as she is.

  The suggestion that the king might like her just the way she was made Jane’s heart squeeze with terror. So she started hiding. She invented illnesses. She tried to escape, she begged the Queen to allow her to return to Wiltshire. She avoided the king like he was the plague. But her brothers would not be out maneuvered. She struggled and she struggled hard, but she was no match for them. And more and more, whether by persuasion or accident the king began to notice her.

  She spoke very little; she never had much to say. She was always awkward in his presence and he mistook that for shyness. Soon, he began to seek her out. He looked at her and saw only what he wanted to see.

  In her desperation, Jane turned her hopes to Queen Anne. She prayed fervently that God would send them a prince. A prince would save Anne and Jane Seymour from their king. But the prince never came. When Queen Anne miscarried again after the joust, Jane panicked.

  On the day after his once beloved Anne lost yet another child, the King of England asked Jane to marry him. He tried to kiss her but she stopped him. Her brothers said she was to allow the king such liberties but Jane liked it not.

  No your majesty. I cannot. She was honest in her reply, pushing him away.

  Fear not sweetheart, he assured her, Anne is not worthy. She is a witch, he declared, she has committed sins. She is no longer fit to be Queen.

  Jane shook her head but the king was determined to replace Anne Boleyn with Jane Seymour. Pledging himself to her, he announced their betrothal the day Anne Boleyn went to the block. Then, he made Jane his wife before the month was out.

  Through it all, Jane smiled, smiled and nodded while inside she trembled. She wanted to say nay. She wanted to escape, she wanted, above all, not to be the center of such conflict. She knew what they were saying. They were saying that the king had executed Anne Boleyn so that he could wed Jane Seymour. She was the cause for Queen Anne’s untimely demise. The possibility scared Jane witless. That she should have been party to the woman’s death sat hard upon her conscience.

  She wanted to turn tail and run, to hide away from everything spinning beyond her control. But when everything was said and done she had been tied, trussed and left without recourse. From behind her, her brothers and her kinsmen pushed her forward, thrusting her into the embrace of the king. They were set on seeing her rise and their fortunes with her, for the king had obliged them all by thinking himself in love with her.

  Jane wondered if the king knew what love was.

  All the same, she allowed him to take her hand before God so that they might plight their troth.

  Obediently, she pledged herself to him and became his wife. She laid down upon his bed a virgin, gave herself to him and prayed. She had been innocent and pure, scared and trembling. He had tried to quell her fears, telling her that he came to her too as true and trusting as a virgin, for none of his first two wives had been his wives in truth.

  Jane, you shall be my one true wife, he said unto her and she had nodded and smiled.

  That night and every day after, she made it her task to cede to his every wish. She was too scared to do otherwise. He was a man who executed Friars. He had burned down the Houses of God the width and breadth of England. She was frightened of him; this man who laid down beside her at night; this man who called himself her husband. So when he sought to please her by ordering her coronation, she asked him to wait.

  I have yet proven myself worthy of such a title, she told him.

  She knew what happened to his Queens. The crowns of Henry’s Queens were wreathed in thorns. Those that wore it had found no joy by it.

  Taking her reticence for modesty, he kissed her forehead. My Jane is the sweetest woman in England, he said.

  It is my only wish to obey and serve you, milord, she replied dutifully. He had been so pleased with her reply that he took her words, inscribing them as her motto.

  She was his dearest Jane. He was kind to her, gentle and caring. But Jane had seen him with his first two Queens. He had cared for them too and loved them with burning passion. He had defied his father for Katherine of Aragon and changed the world for Anne Boleyn and look what happened to them. Katherine of Aragon died alone and desolate, and as for Anne Boleyn, she was a headless corpse buried in an unmarked grave by the Tower green.

  Jane was no simpleton. She knew that the king watched her constantly. Her ladies were spies and they
watched her closely, reporting everything they saw to their paying masters. And while Jane willed away her days waiting for the king’s seed to take, she sat and sewed, darning the king’s shirts and stitching babies’ things. She held no masques or balls and there were no nightly amusements, witty card games or extravagant games in her court. Everything was quiet while the country waited to see how this new wife would fare.

  Much to her relief, she soon found herself with child. The announcement sent the king into a paroxysm of delight. He lavished endless gifts upon her, indulging her every whim. He had oranges sent for her from Spain, quails from France and he scoured England and beyond for pomegranates, peaches and walnuts. Everything that he could spend coin on he did.

  We must take care to feed our prince, he would tell her, pushing yet more food onto her plate, eat! Eat!

  She had stared at the delicacies, piled high, obtained at exorbitant expense and she would take a few forceful bites to please him. What if it is not a prince? She wanted to ask him, what would you do with me then?

  Not long after, she began having dreams. Vivid dreams. Dreams where she found herself walking the Tower green toward her execution. There, Anne Boleyn would be waiting for her, smiling her dark smile. The dead queen with her decapitated head floating beside her would point Jane to the arrow chest they had stuffed her body into, showing it to Jane, empty, showing her the place Jane would soon lie.

  She would wake up from those dreams choking and shaking, her body suffused with sweat.

  It was her habit to hold herself rigid while she slept. Always, she tried to occupy the smallest space possible, careful of her husband’s leg, lest she should disturb it. The wound the king had sustained from the joust refused to heal. In fact, it festered still. It reeked, and their chamber always smelled of poultices, powders and rotting flesh.

  Sweating profusely night after night, Jane would edge herself further away from the king beside her. She would draw the coverlet up over her head, close her eyes and pray. God have mercy. God have mercy on my soul.

  Her belly grew and grew. As the day of her confinement approached, Jane’s dread multiplied.

  When her pains came, they came hard and fast, sped on by her agony and anxiety. She labored from sunrise to sunset, deep into the night and over into the morning after. The child struggled inside of her and Jane fought hard to expel it.

  Finally, on the second night the babe came. Weak and bloody, Jane lifted her weary head. When she saw the child was a boy, she collapsed against the goose down pillows, muttering, thanks be to God, thanks be to God, before losing consciousness.

  She had given Henry a son.

  The days that came after were a blur. She was weak and she seemed to drift in and out of sleep. But she knew enough to understand that they had taken her son, swaddled him tight and handed him to Lady Bryan.

  Edward. The king had named her son Edward after his grandfather, Edward IV.

  After his christening, the child was to be taken to the countryside where he would be safe from the taint of disease. She had asked Henry to keep their boy with them at Hampton Court for a little longer, but he refused her, insisting that the country would be safer for his heir.

  We will visit him as soon as you are able, sweetheart.

  She had never wanted to be his sweetheart.

  Nevertheless, he was pleased with her and for as long as Edward lived he would remain pleased. But Jane was not so simple as to think herself safe. She needed to bring forth again and again. More sons. She had to give the king more sons. One son was never enough. The king had to be given many more to spare. The king had been a second son and just like the king’s brother Arthur had shown, a prince could die at any age. Her task was not done. This was only a reprieve.

  She was not his wife. She was only one of the king’s many subjects. She was bound to obey and serve him like everyone else in the realm. She might be his queen but she harbored no illusions as to the truth of her state. So she smiled and smiled. She smiled for the king and at everyone until her cheeks ached. It was her task to keep her fears quashed and her face smooth at all times.

  When she was able, she would rise from her bed and she would smile some more, then, she would take the king back into her bed and pray again for God to send them another prince. The whole sorry saga would continue, round and round about. Such was her life as Henry’s queen.

  Jane sighed. She was tired, so tired. She was safe for now but what about in the years to come?

  She had to go on and through it all no one must see how fearful and anxious she was, especially her husband, the king.

  1539

  MARY AGED TWENTY-THREE

  Jane Seymour was dead. She had been dead for nigh on three years.

  On that joyous day long ago, Mary had stood beside her brother at his christening to be instated as the little prince’s godmother. Then, not one month later, she donned the requisite black so that she might act as the Chief Mourner at Jane Seymour’s funeral.

  No one mourned Jane Seymour like her father. He had wept and riled against God for taking his Jane away from him.

  She was my one true wife, Henry the king announced as he laid Jane Seymour to rest in Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, she was my one true wife.

  What then of my mother? Mary wanted to ask him. Who was she then?

  Her father had loved Jane Seymour well. The woman had been as sweet and docile as a lamb. She never said no to Henry. She was the perfect subject, ceding to her king’s every wish. She had even obliged the king by giving him his heart’s desire: a son.

  Her untimely death had only made Henry love her more.

  To Mary, Jane Seymour was her father’s one true wife for all those reasons but she was also his one true wife because he needed her issue, their prince, to be the legitimate heir. Henry would suffer no challenges against his Edward. To ensure it, he had Mary and Elizabeth declared bastards yet again. But while Elizabeth was only seven years of age, Mary was now an old maid. No King, Prince, Emperor or Honorable Elector wanted her as his wife. Her status was too unclear.

  Her father would never allow her to marry a Catholic or even a Protestant for that matter. He needed to keep her here in England, unwed and childless. He didn’t want her husband challenging him or his son. Mary was best kept as she was, bound in the chains of illegitimacy.

  But he was not above paltry acts of benevolence. He granted Mary her own household, giving her a house to call her own and servants and retainers aplenty. Occasionally, he would summon her to court along with his other children.

  Mary, Elizabeth and Edward.

  The Prince at the stately age of three was now the heir and Mary had to swallow the fact. England was altered and it would never again be the same. But Mary clung to her memories of her mother and the religion she left her with. She would never conform to the faith that named Anne Boleyn queen over her mother.

  To her, the new religion was naught but her father’s stepping-stone. He had used it to procure his freedom from Katherine of Aragon and his fanaticism for it was borne of lust not faith. It was unjust and it was a disgrace. Yet no one would ever question her father. He was king here.

  Still the truth remained, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour’s path to the throne had been paved with naught but lies. Lies and blood.

  Mary was no longer a girl and the more she saw of the world, the more she understood it.

  Her place in England was a precarious one and Mary was careful with the company she kept. She refused to associate herself with scandal or anything of ill repute. Her one vice was her growing fondness for cards, but now that her father had loosened his privy purse to her, granting her expenses, Mary spent her days toying with such games. It was a safe avenue to pursue, harmless, anyone could play, be they catholic or protestant, and Mary enjoyed the calculations. One had to be a great judge of character to succeed at the game.

  Her father had indulged her too, allowing her friends to return to her and Mary was thankful for th
e comfort of Susan Clarencieux who had been restored to her as one of her ladies. She now had friends in her household, friends who were not spies and Mary was happier for it. But while her situation at court improved, her health plunged.

  Mary Tudor was unwell. She was plagued by illness. She was weak and her body boney. No matter how much food she fought to consume, she remained as skinny as a rail. In the last year, her sight started dipping and dimming too and she had started taking to her bed for days at a time while the physicians despaired over her.

  When advised of her state, her father sent her his own physicians and when she was better he welcomed her to court, enlarging her residences at Westminster and Hampton Court. He also granted her Hatfield, Beaulieu, Richmond and Hunsdon in the country where he bid her reside to see to the continual promotion of her health. But each bout of illness sapped her strength. Her recovery was slow and fraught with setbacks. Still, she breathed on, living and dancing attendance on her father.

  And she was more cautious as ever.

  She saw what happened to those who tried to champion her. Her father’s suppression of Lord Hussey and his party’s desire to see her reinstated as legitimate had been swift and ruthless. She had seen their rotting heads on the Tower; seen and understood. Her father was calling her his sweetheart again. Her father was concerned over the state of her health. But that was the sum of his concern. There was to be no talk of the succession.

  She was careful of his temper too, his wounded leg troubles him still and he was known to explode with rage, lashing out when the pain was at its worst. So when she was with him, she kept her words trivial. She was careful to show no interest in politics, instead, entertaining her father with her talents at the virginal, speaking to him in Greek, Latin and French. She could match him word for word and phrase for phrase and the two of them would converse, deploying all three languages at once, matching each other wit for wit. But Mary always took care to concede. She never bested her father. She was his daughter, she needed excel in all things but she could never be better than the king at anything.