The Dragon and the Rose

by Roberta Gellis

  He had heard regularly from his mother and Elizabeth, but nothing to the purpose. It was necessary for him to be content with Foxe's cold comfort that no news was good in this case. Thus far he remained in official ignorance of his wife's condition. He had had sense enough, even in his first excitement, not to betray his knowledge. If Elizabeth discovered someone else had given him the news, she would be mortally offended. It was wearing on the nerves because Henry had to reread every letter he wrote to her three times for fear he would give himself away. Unfortunately, this also made his letters very stiff.

  On May 11, the day before they were to leave Birmingham, Henry received his release. Elizabeth wrote at last, in her own hand this time, that, having missed three fluxes, she was sure she was with child. She hoped, she said, that this would please him, it being plain from his manner of writing that something had caused him discontent.

  Henry uttered a string of blasphemies which caused his attendants to shrink back against the walls. It was the first indication he had received that Elizabeth was dissatisfied with his letters. He should have known, he thought. At first her replies to him had been dictated to one of her ladies. After his gift of the rabbits, however, she had written to him herself until he had broken off communications when he heard of the short-lived rebellion. There was a hiatus, since Elizabeth only wrote in response to his letters, but after the note he sent to her with Poynings her replies had been dictated again. Henry thought nothing of it, except for worrying whether she was too ill to write. Now he realized he had hurt her.

  Paper and pen were at hand. Henry dashed off a reply full of apology, concern for her well-being, and joy at her news. It was most unfortunate that the habit of rereading everything he wrote was so ingrained in him. He blushed at the naked emotionality of the composition and destroyed it. Then he reread Elizabeth's letter in an attempt to find a starting point for a second try. That was a mistake, he realized later, for his instant reaction was fury. How dared she protest at anything he did when she was probably neck-deep in conspiracy against him. She could thank the child in her womb—his child—for the fact that she was not languishing in the dank confines of a prison. That reply was not sent, either, Henry having recovered his temper enough to remember that she was probably unconscious of his suspicions and might even be innocent.

  The third draft was rather the worse for the effect of the other two. It was careful and considerate, containing proper sentiments of joy, proper questions regarding Elizabeth's health, proper puzzlement as to what she meant by writing of discontent in him. He certainly had no cause for complaint now, and hoped he would have none in the future. If he was brief, she must consider the very small time at his disposal for personal matters.

  Elizabeth's dictated reply to this masterpiece was its equal in propriety; but Margaret's, which began "Even a mother dare not call a king an ass," would have ignited the paper if ink were flammable.

  Miserably, Henry tried again; struggle as he might, however, he fell between the two stools of love and hatred. If he permitted any feeling to warm him, it ran away with him completely. He cursed himself in French, Welsh, and English, in language his gentlemen had never heard on his lips before and did not realize that he knew, all to no avail. Cold propriety was the only salvation he could find. He could not declare a love he would not acknowledge nor acknowledge a hatred he dared not declare.

  Work was another salvation. Never from any previous king had the cities Henry visited enjoyed such minute attention to every piece of business presented. The Tudor was ready to receive deputations at all times, and his advice was practical and precise. No problem was too small for his consideration, and nothing was forgotten.

  Wherever the king touched, he left golden opinions of him behind—mixed with a good deal of awe. Word spread of his real interest in his nation's welfare, and when he rode into Bristol women leaned from their windows to throw wheat, the symbol of fruitfulness and plenty, down to him.

  Now Henry heard more speeches of complaint than empty phrases of exaggerated praise. Bristol cried of her decay, blaming the decline of the navy and the falling off of the cloth trade. The king listened and promised help. Every king did that, but the mayor and aldermen were agreeably surprised when they were summoned to an audience. With Henry sat Lord Dynham, the treasurer; the earl of Oxford, who was lord high admiral of the defunct navy; and Dr. Foxe. The table before the king, however, was no neat and formal sight. It was covered with papers and calculations. This was not to be a session of more empty promises, but of real business.

  Let the Bristol merchants start to build ships, Henry said. He would lend so much, and so much he would contribute for shares in the profits. He would provide guns to arm the ships from the royal foundries, but in return he must have an agreement that the ships would be available for naval purposes free of charge for a certain length of time and upon proper notice.

  Henry spoke then of the cloth trade. He could make no promises, he admitted, because it depended in part on the will of other nations, but he would strive to bring life to that cold body with all his power. In parting, the lord mayor kissed Henry's hands with tears in his eyes, and said, "They have not heard this hundred years of a king who was so good a comfort."

  Then Henry could bear no more. He rode in one day from Bristol to Abingdon, and on the next from Abingdon to London—right across the width of England. The small party that had kept pace with him arrived very late, but for once Henry allowed himself the wisdom of not thinking. Splattered with mud and streaked with sweat he went directly to Elizabeth's apartments. He did not intend to waken her. He merely wanted to see how she looked with his own eyes. He had forgotten that certain ladies slept in her chamber to attend to her wants in the night when he did not come to her. One young fool shrieked with terror at the sudden sight of a man in riding clothes.

  "Be quiet," Henry snarled at her, and then, knowing it was too late to withdraw, called out, "Do not be afraid, Elizabeth, it is I, Henry."

  He moved quickly to the bed and pulled the curtains back. She had been startled by the shriek, for she clutched the bedclothes nervously and her lips trembled. The shock had been very brief, however; she was already recovered enough to stretch out a hand to him.

  "I am so sorry," Henry said softly. "I did not mean to wake you."

  Puzzled, Elizabeth asked simply, ''Then what did you come for?"

  "To look at you. I—"

  "Oh, Henry!" She drew him down to her and offered her lips. "Welcome home."

  "Are you well, Elizabeth?"

  "Much better now. I am not so sick any more, and I am growing heavy," she said proudly.

  "Is that good?"

  Elizabeth looked at her husband's anxious face, burst into a trill of laughter, and threw her arms around his neck. "Henry, you write the most dreadful letters. I swear I came to believe that you were angry with me for getting with child."

  "Bess," he said softly, using the tender short form of her name for the first time, "Bess … I … My mother wrote that you were ill. I did not know what to say. I did not wish to frighten you by asking—" For the moment it was true. She was so lovely and so warm. He had forgotten the rage and the suspicion. He wet his lips, suddenly dry with desire. "Bess, may I come back?"

  "Where are you going now?"

  "To wash and change my clothes."

  "You certainly need it," she said, laughing and wrinkling her nose. "You smell of tired man and hot horse."

  "I am not too tired," he insisted. "I want to come back."

  "So eager, Harry?" Elizabeth smiled and touched his dry mouth with her forefinger. "Does this mean you have been true to me?"

  "By God, I have—for three long months."

  Elizabeth was fairly sure he spoke the truth. Possibly he had slipped once or twice with an unknown chambermaid; but that was not important. In the reports about his progress, not the official reports, but the rumors and stories that had filtered back to her, not the least of the virtues for which the king
was praised was his chaste manner with the wives and daughters of his subjects. Perhaps she would not need to face the humiliation her mother had endured. The next few months would tell. When she was heavy with child and could not satisfy him: that would be the crucial time. His behavior on the miles of the progress boded well, but there was no sense in putting an unnecessary strain on his virtue.

  "Come back then—I have missed you, too."

  He kissed her eagerly and went to the door, then returned slowly. "Elizabeth, will it be all right? Could I do you, or the child, any harm?"

  "It never did my mother any harm, and I know she was not celibate when she carried my brothers and sisters," Elizabeth answered frankly.

  "Thank God for that," Henry replied with heartfelt sincerity.

  For Elizabeth, the succeeding months passed in peaceful contentment. Henry was unfailingly tender and considerate. No matter how busy he was, and international affairs were beginning to press upon him just as he seemed to have subdued domestic rebellion, he always had time to respond to Elizabeth's demands for attention.

  Henry took to breakfasting with her, often rising before dawn to do the work he could have accomplished in a more leisurely fashion if he'd had the extra hour or two to devote to it. The activities in which she could no longer partake, such as hunting, he curtailed drastically, going only when she urged him to do so.

  Elizabeth blossomed under his kindness. Her nervous irritability disappeared. As she grew more unwieldy and the weather grew hotter, Elizabeth was sometimes fretful, but Henry's patience never failed. And if he could not jest her into good humor, the thought of the child within her soon brought her peace.

  Henry was not so contented, and it was fortunate that his wife, self-absorbed as breeding women so frequently are, did not realize how much the ideal husband was really the politic king. His spies had been ineffective; very well, he would watch her himself. He watched, and he learned. He was almost certain that Elizabeth knew of the rising in the north. When he told her of it, her reaction was not natural.

  That knowledge did not please him, but other things did. She did not seem to be an accomplished actress, and he did believe now that she had no active part in the rebellion—more, that it was probably she who had sent Conway to warn him.

  He thought he knew the seat of the trouble, too. If ever hatred glared from a woman's eyes when they fell upon him, that woman was the dowager queen. What profit she could find in such behavior he could not guess; but he could do little to seek the answer because she avoided him. The information was not of much value, either. He could see no way to separate Elizabeth from her mother completely, especially at this time.

  Fortunately, Elizabeth seemed much attached to his mother, too. Henry could only hope that Margaret's influence would counter the dowager's, and he applied himself to keeping Elizabeth faithful by coddling her in every way he could think of.

  They moved from London when the heat made the stench of the filthy city unpalatable, traveling by water to Richmond and then very slowly south until they settled in Winchester on September 1. Henry remained for a week and, seeing Elizabeth particularly peaceful and in good health, he told her he would have to leave her for a time.

  "How long?" she asked, setting down her mug of ale suddenly.

  "A week or two—not more."

  Elizabeth looked away. She was hot and uncomfortable, and felt herself to be ugly and misshapen. She could hardly bear to wait until she was free of the burden she carried, and at the same time she was terrified of dying in childbirth.

  "You want a woman," she said harshly.

  Henry flushed, conscious of the queen's ladies whom he was sure were listening, although they were not close. "Bess," he said softly, "you know I do and I know I do, so I would be a fool to deny it. I swear that is not my purpose in going. I will swear, also, if it will make you more content, that I will not. Have I given you any cause to accuse me thus?"

  "You have been under my eye too much, but you are a man. Do I need any other cause?"

  "I certainly hope I am a man," he rejoined lightly. "I have surely given you reason to believe so. Elizabeth, I cannot help it. I have delayed and delayed, seeking a place where you would be happy, and I dare wait no longer. I wish very much to free the earl of Surrey from prison, but first I must be sure that Norfolk and Suffolk are quiet. They must not inflame him and, if I have guessed wrong with regard to his loyal intentions toward me, he must not be able to inflame them."

  So seldom did Henry mention a political matter to Elizabeth that she blinked in surprise. Then she was flattered, for his explanation showed how earnest he was to pacify her.

  "If you must …" she said uncertainly, and then, swallowing nervously, added, "but I am so near my time. You would not leave me alone then, would you?"

  Regardless of the watching eyes, Henry rose and put his arms around his wife. "You will not be alone, Bess. Your mother is here and mine." Not to mention, he thought, a dozen court physicians, midwives, and God knows who else.

  "But I want you."

  Filled with remorse for his unkind thought, Henry kissed her hair, and then her eyes and mouth. "I will be here, I promise. I will be here."

  Leaving behind any man who could not ride like a centaur, Henry galloped two hundred miles in two days. The horses were not too much wearied, for they were changed at every town, but the men were half dead with fatigue. He arrived at East Dereham on the ninth, concluded his business in that day and rode thirty miles more in the dark to Brandon Ferry.

  Here Henry made arrangements for Charles Brandon, William Brandon's son, to be transferred to his care to be raised with his child. The next day he was in Downham, twenty miles north, and here problems of trade and administration delayed him for three days.

  By the fourteenth, however, he had ridden to Greenwich where he spent two days with foreign deputations from France, Brittany, the Empire, and Spain, and two nights with Morton and Foxe outlining what could and could not be suggested to the foreign envoys when he was away. At dawn on the seventeenth, a messenger arrived to say the queen had been taken ill. Henry dressed, mounted, and rode the nearly eighty miles to Winchester in six hours, only to find that the signs had disappeared. Elizabeth was so grateful that he could not be angry. She pressed him to her swollen breast.

  "I am glad I sent for you. You are half dead with work. You must not go back to London. You must stay here and rest. Henry, please! Your mother says it will be any time now. Please do not leave me."

  "No," Henry said thickly. "No, I will stay." Misunderstanding, he gestured for a chair to be brought to the bed, but Elizabeth shook her head.

  "Not here." She lifted a hand to stroke his hair. "Indeed, I would be glad to take you into my bed, but you could not sleep. Go and rest, my love. I will try not to disturb you too soon."

  Henry slept the clock around and then spent the afternoon of the eighteenth nervously prowling about the palace, expecting to be called at any moment. The day, however, was completely uneventful and the evening, which he devoted to Elizabeth, seemed to prove her condition unchanged. He grew extremely irritable. It appeared as if she would not deliver for a week or a month and that he would be imprisoned among these chattering women forever. In fact, he came so close to quarreling with his wife, that Margaret was forced to drive him away.

  Unfortunately, Henry had reached a state of nerves where nothing but a rousing quarrel could content him. Margaret was too occupied with preparations for the lying-in to be bothered with him. Jasper totally misunderstood the problem and absolutely refused to be drawn into an argument, no matter what Henry said or did. No one else dared quarrel with the king, and everyone slunk out of his path with such fearful glances that his temper was further exacerbated.

  Henry approached Elizabeth at breakfast on September 19 with a surface calm that covered emotions approaching those of a raving maniac. The day was warm and she was flushed and short of breath. Her hair was dark and oily because her skin had grown very sensit
ive and she could not bear to have it brushed properly. She was sitting sideways near the open window, the light outlining the grotesquerie her body had become. Henry was revolted.

  It did not take him five words to insult her and Elizabeth, who was even more miserable than he, was soon screaming like a fishwife. When her ladies tried to interfere, Henry drove them from the room. Half fled to Margaret, the other half to Elizabeth's mother, but by the time those ladies had thrown on enough clothing to be decent Henry was gone and Elizabeth was in hysterics. The king then flung himself on a horse, cursing women, children, and his own misfortune in having a wife who was such a fool that she did not know when her own baby was due.

  Ned Poynings saw him careening toward the stables alone. He grabbed two cloaks and a purse and followed at a discreet distance until Henry, seeming to have galloped off the worst of his temper, reined in his mount. Poynings approached cautiously, but Henry wanted none of him or anyone else and fled again, westward across the downs. They played the game twice more.

  It was nearly noon and the unseasonable warmth showed every sign of building up into a thunderstorm. By two of the clock the storm broke, pouring such sheets of rain that Henry had to stop for fear his horse would stumble and throw him. He sat still, his head hanging. Poynings covered him with one of the cloaks and was about to withdraw again when Henry spoke.

  "I have ruined five months of hard work in five minutes."

  "You mean you had a fight with Her Grace, sire?"

  Henry nodded.

  "Women do not take such matters amiss."

  "I suppose," Henry sighed. "I must go back and make my peace."

  "If that is what you have decided to do …" Poynings left that hanging and caught Henry's look of inquiry. It was clear that the king was filled with remorse but still in a state of nerves in which a rejection of his peace overtures would rapidly cause a reversal of his feeling and precipitate another quarrel. "I am no expert on such matters," Poynings suggested, "but I know what Devon would say."