Rising from her prie-dieu and kissing her rosary, the Duchess embraced her sister-in-law. Then she stepped back and regarded her with sad, lack-lustre eyes. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ was all she said, crossing herself.
Catherine found herself spending more and more time with Guillemote. As old friends, they spoke French comfortably together and Guillemote, having lived through so many of her mother’s pregnancies, was surprisingly informative about the process of having babies. She managed to allay some of Catherine’s fears about the pain she could expect to endure but still, in her heart of hearts, Catherine felt very apprehensive. Women died in childbirth. It was a fact.
The King was so busy that it was several days before he remembered to tell Catherine that her cousin, the Countess Jacqueline, was expected at court. Catherine was overjoyed at the news but, despite her excited questioning, Henry could tell her little beyond the fact that his brother Humphrey had elected to meet Jacqueline at Dover and, no, he had no idea about what arrangements had been made for the visit or how long she would be staying. Nevertheless, Catherine hugged herself with delight. Here, at last, was the friend she had despaired of finding in England. The prospect of having Jacqueline at court meant that life promised to take on a new and thoroughly enjoyable dimension. There would be so much to catch up on, so much to talk about, that she could hardly wait for her cousin to arrive. They hadn’t seen each other since the wedding at Troyes and they hadn’t had a chance to talk very much even then. Catherine hadn’t met Jacqueline’s new husband either, though she had been concerned to hear that the Duke of Brabant was a thoroughly unpleasant man.
She would love to have travelled to meet her high-spirited cousin but, though she was no longer troubled by morning sickness, her pregnancy made her disinclined to leave the comfort of Windsor. Travel made her queasy at the best of times, now she avoided it at all costs. She was pleased to think that Jacqueline would be escorted safely to Windsor, even though her escort would be Humphrey of Gloucester. Try as she might, Catherine couldn’t quite bring herself to trust her husband’s brother.
A few days later, the horses of Jacqueline’s escort party clattered over the drawbridge and into the outer ward of the castle. No sooner had the Countess been helped to dismount than the two women were embracing each other with great excitement. Humphrey of Gloucester stood to one side, an indulgent look on his handsome face.
‘Jacqueline, you haven’t changed a bit!’ said Catherine with a broad smile, holding her cousin’s hands in both her own as she took in every detail of her appearance. Jacqueline smiled back. She had the Valois nose and the same fair colouring as the rest of the family, but she had the merriest pair of blue eyes and, from under an elaborate horned headdress, they regarded Catherine with great affection.
‘No, my dear, of course I haven’t changed!’ said Jacqueline, ‘except that I’m a great deal happier now than I have been for a very long time. It’s good to see you, Catherine, and I’m so pleased to be here in Windsor with you.’
‘I trust that His Grace the Duke looked after you well during the journey?’
‘Humphrey? Oh, yes! Yes, he was most attentive.’ Jacqueline turned to Humphrey of Gloucester who met her look with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows. Catherine immediately sensed a frisson between them, an impulse of energy, a secret. Oh, surely, Jacqueline had not fallen under the spell of the handsome Humphrey during the course of the short journey from Dover! Surely not!
There was little opportunity to discuss the matter during the next few days for Windsor Castle had been turned upside down. Advisers, money-lenders, and military men were in constant attendance on the King, making last-minute arrangements for the expedition to France. Elsewhere, sounds of loud clanging and hammering accompanied the extensive new building work which was being undertaken. Repairs were also being made to the existing fabric of the building and it was all in anticipation of the birth of the heir to the throne. Catherine sometimes felt quite remote from all this activity, as though none of it had anything to do with her or with the child she carried in her womb but every time she tried to snatch an hour with Jacqueline, she always failed to find somewhere quiet enough for the two of them to talk. Either that, or she was told that the Countess was in consultation with His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester.
Then one morning, early in June, Henry was taking his leave of her in the privacy of their bedchamber. He held her close and stroked her hair while she clung to him.
‘God be with you, my sweet love,’ he said, ‘and with our baby son. By the grace of God and with the help of St Crispin and St John of Bridlington, I will return from France and be in Westminster in good time for his birth.’
‘God speed, my Lord, and a safe journey,’ Catherine responded as he embraced her. She would miss him, she was sure of that, but nothing like as much as she would have done without Jacqueline’s company to look forward to.
She was glad, too, that John of Bedford was to govern the country in his brother’s absence and was to oversee the building work at Windsor. She was fond of John and had always felt safe and secure in his company. He stood with her and Jacqueline now as those members of the court who were to remain at Windsor gathered in the outer ward to bid farewell to the King and his companions-at-arms. Climbing the mounting block, Henry waited as one of his knights came towards him, leading the huge black war horse which was to carry him into battle. Once the King was in the saddle, James of Scotland guided his own horse into place behind him, followed by Humphrey of Gloucester and the Earls of March and of Warwick. A bugle call signalled the letting down of the drawbridge and the King of England and his companions rode out to join the army of four thousand men who were about to undertake the long journey south to Dover and thence to France.
Catherine waved farewell as dutifully as any wife but in truth she could hardly wait to talk to her cousin, now that Humphrey of Gloucester had left Windsor with the King and could no longer monopolise her.
‘Jacqueline, you are a married woman!’ Catherine blurted out, as soon as they were alone. ‘And yet you seem very close to the King’s brother.’
‘True, I am married. Indeed, I have been twice married. But that means nothing. Catherine, despite having had two husbands, I might as well have remained unmarried. Well, until now.’
‘What do you mean? Have you …? With Humphrey? Not already, surely?’ Catherine’s questions hung in the air.
‘Yes, I have. And yes, we did! Catherine, I make no apology for it. Humphrey is all I ever dreamed of. He’s handsome, charming, cultured, clever. A real man.’
Jacqueline executed a little pirouette from sheer joy, not noticing the look of disbelief on Catherine’s face.
‘But what of your husband?’
‘Husband? Brabant? He is no husband to me, Catherine. He hates women. He would rather share his bed with a pretty boy than with me. He disgusts me!’
‘So you never …?’
‘I repulsed him. And he repulsed me. Our marriage was doomed from the start. He preferred the company of his lewd, debauched friends. That and drinking. He was almost always drunk. Sometimes too drunk to stand but never too drunk to hit me.’
Catherine was aghast. ‘Hit you? But, Jacqueline! That’s terrible! Terrible! You must have been so unhappy. But what about John? You were happy with John, weren’t you?’ She crossed herself. ‘Surely, before he was taken from us, you and he …’
‘Ah, sweet John,’ Jacqueline smiled. ‘He was my playmate. I loved him very much but we were only children. Catherine, I was only three years old when we were betrothed and he came to live in Holland. Of course, he was your brother but he was like a brother to me, too.’ She paused and sighed heavily. ‘Poor little John. Ours could have been a good marriage if only we’d been a little older and he’d been a little stronger. And if John had lived, of course, he would eventually have inherited your father’s throne and I would have been Queen of France. And now you will be, when Henry becomes king.’ Smiling, she
held out her hand to Catherine. ‘I’m glad. At least we’re keeping it in the family!’
Catherine squeezed her cousin’s hand in return. ‘Yes, I hadn’t thought of it in that way. But that doesn’t solve your problem, Jacqueline.’
The two women delighted in each other’s company. They spent nearly all their time together, gossiping and giggling and looking forward to the day when the baby would be born. Jacqueline made no bones about being envious of Catherine’s pregnancy and Catherine would smile, sometimes a little smugly. Nothing seemed to be required of her, other than to entertain Jacqueline, to distract poor Margaret from her grief, to concentrate on the coming baby, and, at Henry’s insistence, to make sure the child was born in the Palace of Westminster.
She really hadn’t understood that, particularly since Windsor was undergoing such extensive renovation in preparation for the royal birth. There was surely a good reason for it but, though she asked him several times before he left for France, Henry had always remained tight-lipped and was clearly irritated by her demands for an explanation. Eventually he told her why.
‘There is a prophecy,’ he’d said with a dismissive shrug. ‘I don’t know where it originated but it foretells that I, Henry of Monmouth, will small time reign and much get; but Henry of Windsor shall long reign and lose all. But as God wills, so be it.’
‘But, Henry, that’s all …’
‘Yes, I know. It’s probably nonsense but I don’t want to tempt providence.’
Well, to Catherine, the answer was very simple. ‘Then we must not call our son Henry,’ she said. ‘John would be a good name, a strong name. John of Windsor. What do you think, my Lord? Or even Louis. He will reign over France one day, so perhaps we should give him a French name as well as an English one.’
Henry frowned. ‘My son will be named Henry and that’s an end to it. My father was the fourth king to bear that name, I am the fifth, and my son will be Henry the Sixth. There is no question about that. And he will be born in Westminster. You will see to that, Catherine. It is my particular wish.’ That had been his last word on the subject.
Catherine would really rather have the baby in Windsor, it was such a comfortable royal palace, much less formal than Westminster and much more of a home. However Henry had insisted on it and would brook no argument. She would have to move to Westminster towards the end of November for her month of lying-in prior to the birth, though the prospect of travelling there didn’t please her. Still, she remembered that her husband had been born in Monmouth and she should be grateful that there appeared to be no element of tradition in that. She certainly wouldn’t want to go all the way to Monmouth to have her baby: she wasn’t even sure where it was.
Margaret, a fount of religious knowledge, gave her another reason why the Palace of Westminster was favoured for royal confinements. It was, she said, because the Benedictine monks of Westminster Abbey had a relic in their possession, a girdle which had once belonged to the Virgin Mother of Christ, she who had brought forth her son without pain. The monks revered it greatly and kept the ancient, fragile piece of plaited fabric in a long box made of fragrant sandalwood, lined with silk and exquisitely inlaid with pearls to represent the Virgin’s tears. It never left the Abbey except when it was loaned out for a royal birth at the Palace and even then it was very closely guarded. That made perfect sense to Catherine. Of course, the monks would be very reluctant to travel the distance from Westminster to Windsor with anything so valuable, running the risk of attack by footpads or highwaymen. Margaret had finally convinced her that she could relax as she approached the impending birth, unafraid of the curse of Eve and confident in the knowledge that the holy relic tied around her belly would enable her to bring her child into the world with no pain.
And she prayed that she too, like Maria Immaculata, would bring forth a son.
As Catherine’s pregnancy progressed, she and Jacqueline began work on a layette for the baby, sewing companionably during the afternoons and talking of this and that, more often than not of the difficult situation in which Jacqueline found herself. She told Catherine how she had been tricked into her desperately unhappy marriage to the Duke of Brabant.
‘I should never have allowed myself to be taken in like that. And do you know who was behind it all, Catherine? Our dear uncle, John the Fearless. He must have known that I would never have children with Brabant so he made sure that if my so-called husband and I should both die, then everything goes to your brother-in-law, Michelle’s husband, our cousin Philip of Burgundy.
‘Cousin Philip? But surely, he wouldn’t be such a snake!’
‘Oh yes he would. And he is. He stands to inherit all the royal lands in Holland. They were all mine but became Brabant’s, of course, when I married him.’
‘Then he’s not going to give them up easily, Jacqueline.’
‘No, of course he isn’t. That’s why I’m so desperate for an annulment. But Humphrey will advise me what to do. When he gets back from France, he plans to come to Holland and fight for me. He will go to Parliament to request money to raise an army.’
Catherine knew how hard Henry had tried to get Parliament to pay for the army he had taken to France, but without success. She felt certain that if Parliament had refused the King, then the Duke of Gloucester could go and whistle for funding for his hare-brained scheme, but Jacqueline seemed to like the romantic idea that her handsome lover was coming to her rescue. Catherine didn’t want to disabuse her of that dream, not when she saw the radiant expression on her cousin’s face.
‘So tell me, Jacq,’ she said one afternoon, pulling a length of thread twice through a stitch in a tiny garment to secure it, before biting it off with small white teeth, ‘do you think the Pope will grant an annulment of your marriage?’
‘Well, one of them will, either Pope Martin in Rome or Pope Benedict in Avignon.’
‘But, Jacq, Benedict is not the pope. He is the antipope! Henry always says so. If Benedict granted you an annulment, it wouldn’t be worth the parchment it’s written on. Henry would certainly never accept it. He only acknowledges Pope Martin in Rome. And he’s right. Martin is the true Pope.’
‘When you’re as desperate for an annulment as I am, Catherine, you’ll do anything. Applications have been made to both of them but they’ve both been dithering for months. And they’ve both been told the truth, that the marriage was never truly consummated.’
‘Will they demand proof of that?’
Jacqueline gave a wry smile. ‘Too late, Catherine. I might have been a virgin when I went to Humphrey’s bed but, believe me, I’m certainly not a virgin now.’
It had been a remarkably mild autumn and, on the threshold of winter, there were leaves still clinging to the trees. Catherine, feeling heavy and bloated in the late stages of pregnancy, had lost all sense of time and was quite startled when Joanna Troutbeck asked her which clothes she wanted packed for the month of her lying-in at Westminster.
‘Surely, we don’t have to worry about that already, do we, Troutbeck?’
‘Yes, my Lady, we do. I think the sooner the better. It’s already December so, even now, you won’t have the full month of your lying-in if the child is to be born at Christmas.’
‘But I’m so comfortable here at Windsor.’
‘But remember, Catherine my dear,’ said the Lady Margaret, ‘that the King particularly wants his son born at Westminster, so we really should be going there within the next day or two.’
‘It’s easy for Henry to make the rules, he doesn’t have to have the baby,’ Catherine sulked, ‘nor does he have to make the journey to Westminster. I’m not looking forward to that.’
She had never felt more disinclined to travel, making every excuse to dally and dawdle in the comfort of Windsor, claiming a headache the next day and an upset stomach the day after that. Guillemote was most concerned for her; she had seen her mother grow sluggish like this as the time for the birth drew near. But she didn’t want to alarm Catherine.
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�It’s this dreadful English food,’ she said, putting the blame where she always did. ‘Mon Dieu! I don’t know how you eat it while you’re pregnant! It is sickening. I will ask Anton if he has a little of his special calf’s foot jelly for you. You’ll enjoy that and it will settle your stomach before you have to make the journey.’
‘Yes, yes, Guillemote. Thank you. You’re very kind.’ Catherine moved her hand back and forth over her distended belly, as though to rub away the dull ache she’d been feeling for some hours.
Guillemote was in the kitchen consulting Anton when the first real wave of pain hit Catherine like the kick of a mule. Her knees buckled under her and when Guillemote returned, she found her mistress crouching down with her head bent, moaning quietly. A damp stain was spreading across the floor.
‘Oh, my Lady, the baby wants to come! I thought so.’ Guillemote set down the little pot of calf’s foot jelly on the table and began fussing over Catherine. ‘I knew we should have made the journey to Westminster weeks ago. This baby wants to be born now, not at Christmas, and here in Windsor, not at Westminster and there’s nothing we can do about it! Come, my Lady, let me help you to bed, then I will fetch the midwife and the Lady Margaret.’ But the Lady Margaret had already arrived, having heard the first scream of pain.
‘Guillemote,’ Catherine begged, ‘please fetch the girdle of Our Lady! I must have it, I must wear it while my baby is being born, otherwise the pain will be too much …’
‘But, my Lady, the girdle is in Westminster.’
‘Don’t worry, Catherine,’ the Lady Margaret soothed her. ‘Don’t worry about Our Lady’s girdle. I have here something equally good, possibly a great deal better.’
‘What is it?’ moaned Catherine, wincing as another dragging contraction assailed her.
‘The Silver Jewel,’ said Margaret, ‘the most precious relic of all. I arranged to have it sent over from France as soon as I knew that you were having Henry’s baby.’
‘The Silver Jewel?’ Catherine turned dark questioning eyes towards her.
Root of the Tudor Rose Page 10
