When King Henry set sail for France, we were all confident that Queen Catherine once again carried his child.
I stood beside her as she waved farewell. When the royal flagship was no longer even a tiny speck upon the horizon, she lowered her hand and laid it to rest protectively over her belly. Now she had not only England but its future sovereign to safeguard, and she was determined to fail neither.
When I gently touched her arm and cautiously suggested she might like to lie down and rest, she laughed.
“Do not cluck over me so, Elizabeth. I have God to watch over me, and the blood of Queen Isabella in my veins. Like my mother, I am as strong as Castilian steel, as the Scots will soon discover if they dare try me!”
The very next day she went as a barefoot pilgrim to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, the popular patroness of mothers and babies, as many barren and bereft women did, to pray that they be made fruitful and their wombs be filled and blessed, as well as those whose prayers had been answered, to rejoice and give thanks after they had been safely delivered. Many also came to pray for sick children or absent loved ones.
Queen Catherine knelt before the beautiful blue and white statue of Our Lady and the infant Jesus and prayed most fervently for the child she carried and for the safe return of her husband. The nuns there even let her hold the vial containing milk from the Holy Virgin’s breasts and joined her in her prayers as did the other women, who were pleased and proud to see their Queen come barefoot and plainly clad as though she were one of them. All were impressed by her honest and humble piety. Though she was Queen of England, she never put herself above the other women who came to Walsingham. When they tried to move away, to give her the place of honor before the statue, she shook her head and moved to the very back. “I come to serve, not to be served. Whosoever will be first amongst you must be last, and the servant of all,” she said as she carefully knelt upon the hard floor, disdaining the pillow I offered for her knees. It was no wonder they all adored her.
With the King away at war, striding bravely into the face of danger, and no living heir, no son, or even as yet a living daughter, at home, the dangers were doubly great. She fasted and spent many hours in prayer before the statue of Our Lady, surrounded by dozens of softly glowing candles. Despite our urgings, she often denied herself sleep in order to spend even more hours at prayer.
As I knelt with the other ladies a few feet behind her, my knees aching against the stone floor, so cold I feared the onset of rheumatism, my weary eyes dazzled by the dancing yellow-orange flames, fighting sleep, which nodded my head and threatened to carry me off as a beautiful hostage to the Land of Morpheus, I heard her implore, “Please, God, let me bear a son this time, a son who will live. Please, do not let me fail!”
True to tradition, the Scots soon seized upon King Henry’s absence. Their own King, James IV, husband to King Henry’s own sister, Margaret Tudor, marshaled his troops and began marching toward the border even as our army prepared to march out to meet them.
Before they went, Queen Catherine wanted to do something special to inspire our troops. Knowing that some of them were fated to die upon the field of battle and never return to their homeland, it was important to her that they know that their sacrifice would not be in vain; it would be for the greater glory of God and England.
“I will ride out and speak to them,” she declared.
“Are you sure you should ride?” her most favored and devoted Spanish lady, Maria de Salinas, asked as we reluctantly helped her prepare. I agreed, reminding her that it was considered most unwise for a breeding woman to ride, especially so early on; it could be fatally injurious to the child within.
“Have you forgotten I am my mother’s daughter?” Queen Catherine gently chided us. “On the night I was born, my mother had spent all day in the saddle. The next morning at dawn’s first light, she rose from her bed as if it were any other morning and she had not just passed the night in childbed, fastened a towel betwixt her legs to staunch the blood, dressed and donned her armor, and rode out at the head of her army to face the enemy. If my mother could do that, then I can surely ride out to address our men.” Seeing the concern that filled our eyes, she reached out and took each of us by the hand and gave our fingers a reassuring squeeze. “I promise I shall go gently. Because of His Majesty’s absence, this child is doubly precious to me, and I must, and will, take all the care that I can. Smile now; God is with us. And He will watch over me as He has always done.”
When we brought forth her brown velvet riding habit, Queen Catherine pushed it away and called instead for a plain white linen gown, and over that, she bade us fasten a silver breastplate such as her mother had worn.
Without her layered petticoats and full velvet skirts, her little round belly showed prominent and proud, bulging gently with the promise of a prince for England. Some might have thought her immodest to show herself so, but I understood; she wanted the men to see, to give them yet one reason more that was worth fighting, and dying, for—the future.
Disdaining her favored headdress, the gable hood, with its boxy, face-embracing frame, she shook out her long golden hair, letting it hang down her back free as a virgin’s, and asked me to brush it for her until it shone like the sun. Then she asked Maria de Salinas to fetch a long mantle of Our Lady’s blue silk. This she draped over her head so that it flowed down over her body like a gently rippling pure blue river.
Her ankles were badly swollen because of the child, and we found, try as we might, her boots just would not lace. “Take them off,” she said, “and my stockings too.” And, in a show of humble piety, she went barefoot just as she always did when she went to pray at the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.
My father, looking splendid and silver-haired in his gleaming new, polished silver breastplate, gasped at the sight of her, blinking aghast at the sight of her little naked feet. But by the time he knelt to cup his hands and boost her into the saddle of her white steed, he had quite recovered himself. When he rose, he saluted her and gave a nod of approval. “God be with Your Majesty.” He understood what she meant to do.
“Your mistress is a brave woman and a very great lady,” he said as he helped me, in my silver-braided sapphire velvet habit and feathered hat, into the saddle of my nervously prancing black mare.
“The Lord smiles on those who stand in defense of their own.” Queen Catherine raised her voice, clear and steady, as, from the saddle, she addressed our brave troops, gazing out into a sea of many thousand faces, refusing to raise a hand to shield her eyes even though the sun bouncing off their armor was blinding and we would all complain of headaches and scorched eyes later. Yet she, our proud warrior queen, betrayed no womanly weakness at all.
“Remember that English courage surpasses that of all other nations!” she cried.
How they cheered! Those nearest pressed forward to reverently kiss the hem of her blue mantle and white gown; some even dared kneel and press their lips to her naked feet, cupping them tenderly as doves in their big, rough, manly hands in a way that made me shiver and long to feel the touch of those hands against my own naked skin. If an opportune moment presented itself, I vowed, I would find a fine soldier and whisper an invitation in his ear.
When we returned to the garrison, Queen Catherine gasped and bent double as she dismounted, crying out that she had just felt a stabbing pain between her legs, like a knife being thrust up and twisted inside her. But she refused to let the men see her weakness, not after she had just shown herself a great warrior queen like her mother. Pushing free of our hands, she steeled herself against the pain and forced herself to stand erect and walk calmly back inside and up the stairs to her chamber. By then the blood was dripping, like fat droplets of red rain, staining her white gown and leaving a telltale trail behind her on the floor.
We summoned doctors and midwives, but it was too late. The child was dead before it ever had a chance to draw breath.
From her bed, propped up against a mound of gold dama
sk pillows with a lap desk balanced upon her knees, Queen Catherine wrote to King Henry of our resounding victory. Ten thousand Scots lay dead upon Flodden Field, amongst them King James himself, and the greatest of his noblemen and soldiers, the finest flowers of Scottish manhood all cut down. King James left a babe in the cradle as his heir, so England would be spared the menace of Scottish invasions for many years to come. Queen Catherine sent the Scottish king’s bloodstained coat as a tribute to her husband across the Channel in France.
At the same time, we received word that King Henry had scored a triumph of his own—the Battle of the Spurs they called it because the French took one look at the superior English forces and drove their spurs into their horses’ flanks and galloped fast away. God had indeed been good to us, but we all shared Queen Catherine’s sorrow; once again, she had failed to give her husband and adopted nation an heir.
I was quick to remind her that she was still young—they both were—and His Majesty was, I took the liberty of saying, a robust young bull who never left her womb empty for long. There was still time, plenty of time. But now, as my own midwife had advised me after the violent agony of Anne’s birth, she must rest and let her body heal. “Enjoy this respite while it lasts,” I counseled. But she ignored me and rose from her bed, to fast and pray. As soon as she was able, she donned a rough, white linen gown and walked barefoot to pray before the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham again. She kept in her private rooms a painting of the Holy Virgin appearing before the devout, but childless, Saxon noblewoman, Lady Richeldis de Faverches, and blessing her womb upon the spot where that grateful and fruitful woman would later build the shrine with a beautiful statue of the Holy Virgin holding the infant Jesus inside. When she returned from her latest pilgrimage, she began donning a hair shirt beneath her splendid gowns that would chafe her beautiful porcelain pale skin raw and open ugly oozing red sores. But the suffering would be worth it, she insisted, if she could only give birth to a son who would live.
“When I hold Henry’s son at my breast, these red sores will be as precious and dear to me as rubies,” she said. “And when my husband returns from France, I will be ready; I will be waiting to welcome him with open arms, to draw him deep inside my body to make our prince.”
And that is exactly what happened. When Henry returned in triumph from the battlefields of France, there she was, waiting for him, and she did give him a son, a one-month’s babe who clung to life by a tether and soon closed his eyes forever. He turned blue as the Virgin’s mantle even as poor Queen Catherine tried to breathe him back pink again with air from her own lungs.
How bitterly she wept and lamented her failure. “Why?” she sobbed again and again. “Why can I not give my husband a son, the only thing he wants that he does not already have? The one thing all his wealth cannot buy. I am a woman and meant to bear children, so why have I failed at my purpose in life? Why does God take each of these precious little souls up to heaven to Him and away from my loving arms? Why?”
I watched her weep in sorrow-filled silence for I had no answer to give her.
One night soon after her last loss, the Queen asked me to accompany her when she left the Great Hall rather abruptly, claiming a sudden, all-encompassing weariness she could not shake off. We left while King Henry still frolicked and danced. I did not think we would be missed, and when I asked if I should send a messenger to tell His Majesty that she had retired for the night, Queen Catherine said nay, she did not wish to spoil his pleasure.
She sent all her ladies but me away and went to stand before her silver mirror. I stood behind her and lifted the pearl-edged gable hood from her head. In the candlelight, as I plucked out the pins, I noticed what I never had before—strands of silver swimming like eels through the golden sea of her tresses. Our eyes met in the mirror.
“Mirrors do not lie, Elizabeth,” she said, appraising the lines the years and sorrow had wrought upon her brow and around her eyes, nose, and mouth. “The feet of Father Time march on.” She sighed and stepped back to scrutinize her figure. Even though I had laced her tight into the boiled leather stays beneath her silver and pomegranate velvet gown, I could still see that her waist had thickened with every child she had carried yet lost. Queen Catherine saw it too. “I have become old, fat, and faded! He is still a young man, but I . . . I have become an old woman. How great a difference suddenly seem the seven years that lie between us! What was once a stream has become an ocean!”
She was eight and twenty, the same age as myself. Only I was still beautiful . . . for now.
I heard the door open behind us, and in the mirror I saw King Henry, clad in cloth-of-gold and deep red velvet, blazing with rubies and diamonds. I curtsied and stepped quickly aside as he came bounding into the room, a broad smile lighting up his handsome face. He went to stand behind his Queen and brushed the thick curtain of silver-veined golden hair aside, over her shoulder, and bent to press his lips against the nape of her neck as he reached around to cup her breasts. Reflected in the mirror, I saw the fear in Queen Catherine’s eyes. I could tell she was wondering if he noticed the change in them, how they sagged a little more after each disappointment she endured.
I felt a sudden sadness as I stood back in the shadows and contemplated the couple before me. Queen Catherine was right—mirrors do not lie. When they had married the difference in their ages seemed paltry and insignificant. Four years ago, they had both been young and golden, but, suddenly, seemingly overnight, only one of them was young and golden. King Henry was still in his lusty, golden prime, while my beloved Queen Catherine had become an old woman with silver strands amongst the gold and deep lines upon her face I doubted any cream, lotion, or elixir could erase.
Old gold is still gold, I tried to tell myself. Beneath the tarnish, silver is still silver. But no, I could not make myself believe. Mirrors do not lie. And I had seen with my own eyes the ravishes time and childbearing had wrought upon my person. I was a woman too; I knew.
I shivered with foreboding. I knew in my heart that they were doomed. They had grown apart in other ways too. It was folly to pretend otherwise, to try to play hide-and-seek with the truth, when the mirror’s reflection was staring me in the face.
The passion that had once burned so brightly between Henry and Catherine had dimmed to a mere flicker through time and familiarity; duty had long ago eclipsed desire. The desperate need for a son had surpassed their desire for each other. And Queen Catherine had spent so much time sitting out dances when she was with child that, between pregnancies when her womb was empty and she was able, she had forgotten—and in her sorrow lost all desire—to dance again. So she let other women—willing, amorous, and ambitious women younger and prettier than the golden Queen, who had now lost her youth and luster—partner her husband instead. A grave mistake, I thought, but I said nothing.
Then King Ferdinand undid all the good he had done them. He chose to abandon the French campaign and leave Henry in the lurch. When Henry found out, he blasted Queen Catherine with his anger, like a dragon belching fire, while we ladies quailed back, fearing his wrath would burn and blind her. But she stood straight and stoically endured her terrible shame, taking the blame because she was there and her father wasn’t.
“Henceforth, I alone shall rule England with Wolsey to help me!” he bellowed. “I want no more advice from you, or your damnable, duplicitous, interfering father, madame! England shall be all for England, not a vassal of Spain as your duplicitous father would have it! I am master here, and the King of England bows to no master save God! And you may tell your father that, madame!”
The damage was irreparable. She had lost all his confidence. The trust was broken. He would no longer discuss statecraft and strategy with her as had always been his custom. Now Wolsey would take her place, shaping the destiny of England, while she was set aside as just another royal ornament, a decoration, sitting on her pretty gilded throne, to smile and nod and dispense kind words and welcome visitors and ambassadors to the court, bestow s
miles and charity on the English people, and give alms and gifts of shirts and shifts to the poor that she, alongside us, her devoted ladies, had labored long in sewing. All her real power and influence were gone forever, and everyone knew it.
6
Although I truly sympathized with all Queen Catherine’s sorrows, by then I had my own happiness to think of, and I refused, as selfish as it may sound, to let the Queen’s sorrows dampen or taint it.
I was what I had always wanted to be—admired and adored. Many men wanted to be my lover, and some I deigned to discreetly favor. But there was one I set above all others, one whose embraces and the rare, sweet times we spent together I truly savored. For me, it was much more than my usual, casual carnal diversion; those were all mere indulgences of the flesh to while away the boredom and fill the tedious hours of one who had so easily grown jaded.
The doll maker, Remi Jouet, was now my lover, the one I favored and desired above all men. I called him “my jou-jou,” “my plaything,” speaking those words in the sweetest, most affectionate sense.
His warm as new baked bread, doughy soft, pink and white body was the most delightful toy to while away the languid afternoons with. I loved exploring it, watching the way shyness warred with boldness inside him. I adored every ample inch of him, and the sweet, tender soul inside. He made my pulses race as no one else ever did. I reveled in his pillowy soft embrace and the way he filled and fulfilled me in a way that no one else, neither highborn nor low, ever did. To me, he was truly, uniquely, in a class all his own. I loved to playfully nip the sweet fleshy lobes of his ears, half-hidden beneath the waves of his rich brown hair, so dark that in some lights it might have been mistaken for black, and to tease him about the talisman of red coral, carved into the shape of a tiny horn—“or perhaps a red pepper; which is it, my dear?”—that he wore on a leather cord about his neck alongside a little silver cross. I asked him which he trusted in more—“Luck or God?” and smiled when he explained that he wore the coral in fond remembrance of his grandmother, a very superstitious Frenchwoman, yet marvelous and magical, and so very kind, who had fastened the bit of coral about his throat to protect him from all harm and evil before the midwife even had a chance to wash the birthing blood off him and lay him in his mother’s loving arms.
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