The Queen of Last Hopes

by Susan Higginbotham

  “I am sorry this business up north must take me away from you,” he said in mid-July. There, the Nevilles and the Percies were feuding, for reasons that were obscure to me then and that I recollect only vaguely now. “But it is the sort of problem that must be contained before more families are swept up in it. The best way of doing so is for me to ride to the North myself.’

  “Of course.” Whether it was our recent success in Gascony, or impending fatherhood, or the forlorn state of the Duke of York, or the amicability of the most recent Parliament, I did not know, but I had never in our marriage heard Henry speak so determinedly and confidently. It was almost a pity, I thought with a hidden smile, that my pregnancy prevented Henry from demonstrating this heightened manliness in my bed. “I will be fine. I have never felt better, in truth. Why, I believe that being with child agrees with me.”

  “I do not think you have ever looked better, my dear.”

  “Oh, I look enormous,” I said cheerfully. Each day as my ladies undressed me I examined my disappearing waistline with satisfaction, thoroughly delighted at my increasingly bovine state. I held up my hands. “Even my fingers are getting fat, I think.”

  “Then I am glad I did not order a ring for your gift.”

  “Gift?”

  Henry nodded to a page, who handed him a large casket, which my husband presented to me. “Open it, my dear. It is a very small token of my gratitude to you.”

  Inside the casket was a girdle, set with magnificent precious stones. “Henry!”

  “I ordered it the day after Richard Tunstall brought me the news.” He looked on as I tried on the girdle just below my disappearing waistline. “Of course, in your ninth month you may find it difficult to wear. But for now…”

  I threw my arms around Henry. “It is not just my beautiful girdle that makes me so happy,” I whispered as we hugged each other tight. “It is that I have finally made you so happy.”

  ***

  Women expecting their first babies often become so wrapped up in the state of their own bodies, they ignore the world around them. I was no different. With Henry on his progress, I passed the next few weeks sewing garments for my child, scarcely concerning myself with what was happening outside of my chamber. The Nevilles and the Percies could have exterminated themselves for all I cared. I was hardly more attentive to the affairs of my household. Where once I had badgered my council with my attention to minutia, I now nodded placidly as my men brought their reports and their accounts to be examined. Had my men been dishonest, God only knows what they could have got past me in those days. Even the campaign we were still waging in Gascony failed to capture my attention.

  Only in one affair did I take any interest: that of my damsel Katherine Peniston and her suitor, William Vaux. Now sixteen, they had spent years making sheep’s eyes at each other and exchanging tokens, and one day as I strolled in my garden at Greenwich, I heard a rustle—too loud to be caused by any small creature—in a secluded area. Investigating, I found Katherine sitting on William’s lap, kissing him with no unpracticed air. His lips were active but his hands were behaving themselves, though not for long, I foresaw. “Katherine! William! Stop that and come here immediately.”

  Katherine let out a little cry of dismay and rose from her perch, William helping her up sheepishly. “Your grace—”

  “This cannot go on like this, the two of you. You will be getting with child yourself if this keeps up.”

  “We have not done anything more than kiss like this,” Katherine said hastily, and William’s rather wistful look confirmed it.

  “Well, I believe you. But it is too much. Indeed, I have suspected your little affair for some time, and have written to your father, William. I have just heard from him today, as a matter of fact. He agrees with me that this situation cannot continue as it is.” I made my voice as stern as I could. “It has come down to this: As Katherine’s family has little to give, I have offered William’s father a sum toward Katherine’s dowry, and he has accepted it. The two of you will be married before the year is out. Here is his letter to confirm it.”

  Katherine squealed and fell into my arms. “No,” I said, gently pulling away. “It is your future husband you ought to be hugging so. Goodness knows you were doing it adeptly enough a few minutes ago.”

  “How can we thank you?” asked William, coming up for air after Katherine complied.

  “Just be happy,” I said. I smiled. “And behave yourselves until you are married. I would not like to explain an eight months’ child to the king.”

  ***

  This was in early August. A few days after this successful venture into match-making, Edmund Beaufort came to me, a frown upon his young face. “Your grace, my father is here.”

  The Duke of Somerset had accompanied Henry on his progress. To have him back, without Henry, was exceedingly strange. “Why? Is something the matter?”

  “I think so, but he would not tell me anything. He wishes to see you privately.”

  Was one of the other Beaufort children sick, perhaps, or worse? Perhaps this was the news he had refused to give to his son. “Send him in, straightaway.”

  Somerset came in, looking as gray-faced as in the days when he had newly returned to England from France. “My lord, what is it?”

  “Pray, your grace, sit here.”

  “What means this?” I said, looking up as Somerset practically pushed me onto a stool. “Is it Henry? Is he ill? Is he dead?”

  “Ill, but not dying. Pray, my lady, be calm. Promise me you will be calm.”

  “Somerset, stop speaking to me as if I were a child.”

  “I am sorry; I simply do not know how to tell you this. Let me start by asking you a question. Have you heard of what happened in Gascony?”

  I shook my head. “Gascony? Why do you talk of Gascony? What of my husband?”

  “It is all connected. In Gascony we had another reversal, two weeks before. At Castillion. Four thousand of our men perished, and it is in the hands of the French.”

  Two weeks before, I had been playing at bowls at my garden in Greenwich, surrounded by my giggling ladies. “The Earl of Shrewsbury?”

  “He was killed. So was his son Lord Lisle.”

  I thought of that beautiful book the earl had given me when I first came to England. It was a collection of pieces on an entire array of subjects, written in French so that I could read it back in those days when my English was still inadequate, and I still treasured it and enjoyed leafing through its familiar pages. Now the old earl, kind to me in person as he had been fearsome to his enemies on the battlefield, lay dead, along with England’s hopes in Gascony. Tears began to slide down my face. “Go on,” I managed.

  “The news arrived when King Henry reached Clarendon. The king took the news badly, as you might expect—we all did. He wept and asked why God was punishing him, and England, so. Afterward he closeted himself with his confessor and it seemed to do him good. He went to bed, not in good spirits, but in a better frame of mind than he had been at first, at least. He was eager to meet in the morning to discuss what could be done to retrieve the situation. Nothing unusual happened during the night; he slept soundly, as he always does. Then in the morning his men came in to wake him and found him lying in bed, awake but without the power of speech.”

  “A stroke.”

  “No, your grace. It is something different. One can speak to him, but he does not comprehend. He opens his eyes, but he seems to see nothing. Yet he can be led from room to room, and he can chew his food, though he requires help in eating and shows no interest in what is offered to him. He does not speak, and he makes no response when prodded.”

  “Somerset, what are you telling me? That Henry is—”

  “Mad.” Somerset, gripping my hand, finished my sentence. “He has lost his reason.”

  I turned aside and wept while Somerset awkwardly patted my hand. “You are sure?” I asked stupidly when I could at last speak. “It could be nothing else?”

 
“No, your grace. His physicians have examined him. We will call others in, of course, but there can be no real doubt about the matter.”

  “But he seemed to be so much more—more manly lately. More confident, more sure of himself. How can it be?”

  “No one can say, your grace. But you might remember his grandfather—”

  “Charles the Mad,” I whispered. “Lord help us.” I groaned, remembering what I had been told of Charles VI, for he had died long before my own birth. “He thought at times he was made of glass, they say, and once killed some of his own men in a fit of delusion.”

  Somerset nodded. “He was not constantly insane, though. He had periods where he was well.”

  “So Henry could turn violent like his grandfather.” But I could not imagine Henry violent, even when insane. “Or he might alternate between periods of madness or sanity. Or—he might not recover at all.”

  “That may well be.”

  My child kicked me, and I cradled my belly. Next month, I had been scheduled to go to my confinement at Westminster, where I would pass the weeks in company with my ladies while waiting for my child to be born. I had expected it to be a dull but serene time. Instead, I would spend it fretting about Henry, for even if he recovered, how long would it last? Would he ever be fully himself again? And how would his illness affect my child’s future? Oh, could not the Lord have allowed me to spend the most happy time of a woman’s life in peace, as He did other mothers-to-be? Tears began to form in my eyes again, this time at the sheer unfairness of it all. Then I remembered Suffolk’s words to me that night at Westminster. If I were to choose between you and Henry, I would say that you are the stronger. That is why I want you to promise me that you will stand by him always.

  I took a deep breath and straightened my back. “Well. What do we do now?”

  For the time being, we—I and everyone around Henry, that is—said nothing about his condition. “Let York hear about this, and he’ll exploit it to the fullest,” Somerset said. “Even if he recovers soon, York will be on the lookout for any slightest indication of a relapse.” He snorted. “And I wouldn’t put it past him to try to cause one.”

  “But surely people will notice when he just keeps staying at Clarendon and when no one but a few people have access to him.”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Somerset said. “In the meantime, the people will be occupied with anticipating a royal birth. Your grace must go into confinement as if all is normal.”

  I did not protest anymore; the idea of pretending that all was normal and that this was a confinement like any other did not lack appeal. Perhaps I hoped that pretending might make it so. Thus, on September 10, I put on my best smiles as Somerset and Buckingham, accompanied by the scarlet-clad mayor and aldermen of London, arrived at Greenwich to accompany me by barge to Westminster, where I would be conducted to my chamber with great pomp. As the barge moved gracefully down the Thames, I daydreamed that the birth of my child would bring Henry back to himself.

  While Somerset continued to issue warnings to me about the need to conceal Henry’s madness from York, Buckingham quietly answered my questions about my husband. “He’s no better, your grace. One day he raised his hand and made a noise as if he were trying to speak, and we all waited—but nothing. Since then there’s been no sign that he’s cognizant of his surroundings.”

  “Perhaps the knowledge that he has a child will rouse him?”

  “I am praying that it does.”

  “I am thinking that I should have gone to see him before I went into my confinement.” I looked on my other side and found that Somerset was occupied with speaking to the mayor. “Somerset advised me against it.”

  Buckingham shifted on his seat on the barge beside me. I knew that he had been in favor of telling York of Henry’s madness. “In this case, I must agree with him. Seeing the king so might upset your grace and cause you to deliver your child prematurely.”

  “Am I such a fragile creature?” I said irritably.

  “It is upsetting for those of us on his council to see him in his present condition,” Buckingham said mildly. “It would be far worse, I would think, for his queen to see him so. Best wait, your grace.”

  “I shall. But will you—will you give him daily messages of love from me, in hopes that it might rouse him?” Much as I had come to rely on Somerset, it was Buckingham to whom I felt more comfortable making this request.

  Buckingham smiled. “Of course, your grace.”

  ***

  On October 12, at Westminster, I went into labor. I am small-boned, and my ordeal was long and hard, so much so that there were doubts, I heard later, as to whether I would survive it. Newlywed Katherine Vaux, who had left her newfound marital bliss to attend me in my confinement, became teary-eyed each time I let out a yelp of agony, which was quite often, and in the short intervals when I could think, I hoped I was not frightening the poor girl from having children of her own. But it was she whose hand I was nearly wringing in two when I at last pushed my child into the world on October 13, after nearly a day of effort, and it was she who clapped her hands and hugged me when the midwife held up the baby. “My lady! It is a boy!”

  “Boy,” I whispered, almost too weak to appreciate the significance of the words.

  A few minutes later, the midwife placed my son in my arms, and I stared at him. He was large and red and wrinkled, and it is safe to say that I have never seen a more beautiful creature in my life. “I managed to bear him?” I asked dazedly.

  The Duchess of Buckingham, who had accomplished a similar feat ten times over, patted me on my naked shoulder. “You did, your grace. You have given England a great gift.”

  Katherine Vaux, shaking out her hand—I had left bruises on it with my squeezing, I saw later—said, “My lady, shall he be named Henry?”

  “No. Today is the feast of the translation of Edward the Confessor, King Henry’s favorite saint.” I clutched my son close to me, and my tears—half from happiness, half from grief that my husband would not come to me to see his child—began to fall. “We shall name him Edward.”

  ***

  I have long since lost count of all of the men who were later said to be the father of my dear boy. The Duke of Somerset and his two oldest sons, the Tudor brothers, a traveling player, various and sundry nobodies—all have been counted among my lovers by the tale-bearers. At the time, though, it had yet to suit anyone’s convenience to question my virtue, so news of Edward’s birth was greeted joyously, with ringing bells and a singing of the Te Deum. Only my son’s father remained oblivious to his existence.

  Christening gifts poured in from the nobles, and as my baby thrived, I happily contemplated the possibility of at last being forgiven for being a Frenchwoman and for having so signally failed to bring the hoped-for peace. Even the news that Henry’s advisors had overruled Somerset’s wishes and summoned York to an upcoming meeting of his great council failed to dampen my optimistic mood as I dandled little Edward and contemplated which foreign princess would have the great good fortune to be his bride.

  Then, one morning in late November, not long after I had gone through the churching ceremony that marked the end of my confinement, Hal Beaufort was shown into my chamber. He did not even wait for me to greet him before he said, “That whoreson York has arrested my father. He is a prisoner in the Tower!”

  “What on earth for?”

  “France, what else? The loss of Normandy and Gascony, when Father did his best to save Gascony! York will never let that business lie; what did he ever do to help the situation? Nothing! Sat on his estates in Ireland while Normandy was lost, then came back here and arrested Father instead of standing behind King Henry as he should have. Not a word about how my father sent one of our best soldiers, the Earl of Shrewsbury, to fight in Gascony. Not a word! And—”

  “Hal! Calm yourself if you can. I know it is distressing for you, but you must tell me what happened and not go off into a rage. Give me the details.”
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  Hal took a breath. “Actually, it’s Norfolk who accused Father of treason, but Norfolk is York’s creature. I’m sure of it. He hasn’t the brains to organize this business himself—or the balls.” The colloquialism did not escape me, and I gave Hal a frosty look. Undeterred, he continued, “York probably wrote the speech he gave in council for him. It’s typical of him to let someone else do his unpleasant work for him. Norfolk can come off as the belligerent one, while York stands there nodding calmly, the soul of sweet reason.”

  “But what did he say, Hal?”

  “That a man who gave up towns without siege and who fled from battle should be beheaded.” Hal’s voice faltered at the last word. At seventeen, he suddenly looked very young. “I was there with Father in France! Norfolk and York don’t know what it was like there. The people of Rouen were leagued with the French; a siege would have been hopeless. My father might have made a misjudgment but he’s no coward.”

  “Of course not,” I said. I patted Hal on his shoulder. “I will summon York here and see what his intentions are,” I said after some thought.

  “Norfolk couldn’t have made them clearer. They want to kill my father. Just like they wanted to kill the Duke of Suffolk,” he added.

  I found myself unable to gainsay him.

  That very afternoon, I summoned the Duke of York to my presence, and he arrived promptly the next day. He thanked me for my kindness to his wife, who had written a letter to me shortly before my lying-in, begging me to intercede with the king to bring her husband back into favor. I had not told her of the state of Henry’s health, but had gone so far as to suggest to Buckingham that it would be a good thing, perhaps, if York were allowed to return to court on conditions of good behavior. “You paid me back ill by arresting Somerset,” I said bluntly. “He has his faults, I acknowledge, and has made mistakes, but he has been nothing but loyal to Henry since his return to England. Is it not time to let bygones be bygones? Yes, we have failed in France. Yes, some of it was probably Somerset’s fault. Much of it, we can even say. But what good does it do to fight about it now?”