by Jean Plaidy
‘My dear William,’ said Henry, ‘do you not know that I receive such invitations whenever I am in the company of women?’
‘I know it, Sire. But those are invitations discreetly given.’
‘And she was not . . . discreet?’
‘If she seemed so to Your Grace I will say that she was.’
Henry laughed. ‘Ah, if I were not a virtuous married man . . .’
He sighed.
‘Your Grace would seem to regret that you are a virtuous married man.’
‘How could I regret my virtue?’ said Henry, his mouth falling into the familiar lines of primness.
‘Nay, Sire. You, being such a wise King, would not; it is only the ladies who are deprived of Your Grace’s company who must regret.’
‘I’ll not say,’ said the King, ‘that I would ask for too much virtue in a man. He must do his duty, true, duty to state, duty to family; but when that is done . . .’
Compton nodded. ‘A little dalliance is good for all.’
Henry licked his lips. He was thinking of Anne Stafford; the very way she dipped a curtsey was a challenge to a man’s virility.
‘I have heard it said that a little dalliance away from the marriage bed will often result in a return to that bed with renewed vigour,’ murmured Henry.
‘All are aware of Your Grace’s vigour,’ said Compton slyly, ‘and that it is in no need of renewal.’
‘Two of my children have died,’ said the King mournfully.
Compton smiled. He could see how the King’s mind was working. He wanted to be virtuous; he wanted his dalliance, and yet to be able to say it was virtuous dalliance: I dallied with Anne Stafford because I felt that if I strayed awhile I could come back to Katharine with renewed vigour – so powerful that it must result in the begetting of a fine, strong son.
Compton, who had lived many years close to Henry, knew something of his character. Henry liked to think of himself as a deeply religious man, a man devoted to duty; but at heart he had one god and that was himself; and his love for pleasure far exceeded his desire to do his duty. Moreover, the King was not a man to deny himself the smallest pleasure; he was a sensualist; he was strong, healthy, lusty like many of his friends; but, whereas some of them thoughtlessly took their pleasures where they found them, Henry could not do this before he had first assured himself that what he did was the right thing to do. He was troubled by the voice of his conscience which must first be appeased; it was as though there were two men in that fine athletic body: the pleasure-seeking King and the other, who was completely devoted to his duty. The former would always be forced to make his excuses to the latter, but Compton had no doubt of the persuasive powers of one and the blind eye of the other.
‘There are some ladies,’ mused Compton, ‘who are willing enough to give a smile of promise but never ready to fulfil those promises.’
‘That is so,’ agreed Henry.
‘There are some who would cling to their virtue even though it be the King himself who would assail it.’
‘A little wooing might be necessary,’ said Henry implying his confidence that if he were the wooer he could not fail to be successful.
‘Should the King woo?’ asked Compton. ‘Should a King be a suppliant for a woman’s favours? It seems to me, Your Grace, that a King should beckon and the lady come running.’
Henry nodded thoughtfully.
‘I could sound the lady, I could woo her in your name. She has a husband and if her virtue should prove overstrong it might be well that this was a matter entirely between Your Grace, myself and the lady.’
‘We speak of suppositions,’ said Henry, laying a hand on Compton’s shoulder. He picked up his lute. ‘I will play and sing to you. It is a new song I have here and you shall tell me your opinion of it, good Compton.’
Compton smiled and settled himself to listen. He would sound the lady. Kings were always grateful to those who arranged their pleasures. Moreover Anne Stafford was the sister of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, an arrogant man whom Compton would delight in humiliating; for such was the pride of the Staffords that they would consider it humiliation for a member of their family to become any man’s mistress – even the King’s.
So, while Henry played the lute and sang his song, Sir William Compton was thinking of how he could arrange a love affair between the sister of the Duke of Buckingham and the King.
Anne Stafford was bored. She was of the Court, but it was her sister Elizabeth who had found favour with the Queen; and this was because Elizabeth was of a serious nature which appealed to Katharine.
The Queen, thought Anne, was far too serious; and if she did not take care the King would look elsewhere for his pleasure.
Anne laughed to herself; she had very good reason to believe that he was already looking.
Anne had had two husbands and neither of them had satisfied her. In a family such as theirs there had been little freedom. They would never forget, any of them, their closeness to the throne, and they were more conscious of their connection with royalty than the King himself. Through her father Anne was descended from Thomas of Woodstock, a son of Edward III; and her mother was Catharine Woodville, sister of Elizabeth Woodville who had been Edward IV’s Queen.
Anne’s father had been an ardent supporter of the House of Lancaster, and Richard III had declared him a traitor and the ‘most untrue creature living’. He was beheaded in the marketplace at Salisbury, thus dying for the Tudor cause, a fact which had endeared his family to Henry VII; and Henry VIII carried on his father’s friendship for the Staffords.
And what was the result? Anne had been married twice without being consulted, and given a place at Court; but there she was merely a spectator of the advancement of her elder sister.
Being a Stafford, Anne was not without ambition, so she thought how amusing it would be to show her family that the way to a King’s favour could be as effectively reached in the bedchamber as on the battlefield. How amusing to confront that arrogant brother of hers, that pious sister, with her success! Once she and Henry were lovers, neither brother nor sister would be able to prevent the liaison’s continuance, and then they would have to pay a little attention to their younger sister.
One of her maids came to tell her that Sir William Compton was without and would have speech with her.
Sir William Compton! The King’s crony! This was interesting; perhaps the King had sent for her.
‘I will see Sir William,’ she told the maid, ‘but you should remain in the room. It is not seemly that I should be alone with him.’
The maid brought in Sir William and then retired to a corner of the room, where she occupied herself by tidying the contents of a sewing box.
‘Welcome, Sir William,’ said Anne. ‘I pray you be seated. Then you can comfortably tell me your business.’
Compton sat down and surveyed the woman. Voluptuous, provocative, she certainly was. A ripe plum, he thought, ready enough to drop into greedy royal hands.
‘Madam,’ said Compton, ‘you are charming.’
She dimpled coquettishly. ‘Is that your own opinion, or do you repeat someone else’s?’
‘It is my own – and also another’s.’
‘And who is this other?’
‘One whose name I could not bring myself to mention.’
She nodded.
‘You have been watched, Madam, and found delectable.’
‘You make me sound like a peach growing on a garden wall.’
‘Your skin reminds me – and another – of that fruit, Madam. The peaches on the walls are good this year – warm, luscious, ripe for the plucking.’
‘Ah yes,’ she answered. ‘Do you come to me with a message?’
Compton put his head on one side. ‘That will come later. I would wish to know whether you would be prepared to receive such a message.’
‘I have an open mind, Sir William. I do not turn away messengers. I peruse their messages; but I do not always agree to proposals.�
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‘You are wise, Madam. Proposals should always be rejected unless they are quite irresistible.’
‘And perhaps even then,’ she added.
‘Some proposals would be irresistible to any lady; then it would be wise to accept them.’
She laughed. ‘You keep company with the King,’ she said. ‘What is this new song he has written?’
‘I will teach it to you.’
‘That pleases me.’ She called to her maid and the girl put down the box and hurried forward. ‘My lute,’ said Anne. And the girl brought it.
‘Now,’ went on Anne.
Compton came close to her and they sang together.
When they stopped he said: ‘I shall tell the King that you sang and liked his song. It may be that His Grace would wish you to sing for him. Would that delight you?’
She lowered her eyelids. ‘I should need some time to practise. I would not wish to sing before His Grace until I had made sure that my performance could give the utmost satisfaction to him . . . and to myself.’
Compton laughed.
‘I understand,’ he murmured. ‘I am sure your performance will give the utmost pleasure.’
Anne was passing through an ante-room on her way from an interview with her sister. She was feeling annoyed. Elizabeth had been very severe. She had heard that Sir William Compton had visited Anne on several occasions and such conduct, she would have Anne know, was unseemly in a Stafford.
‘I was never alone with him,’ Anne protested.
‘I should hope not!’ retorted Elizabeth. ‘Do behave with more decorum. You must keep away from him in future. The Queen would be displeased if she knew; and what of your husband? Have you forgotten that you are a married woman?’
‘I have been twice married to please my family, so I am scarcely likely to forget.’
‘I am glad,’ replied Elizabeth primly.
Anne was thinking of this as she hurried through the rooms. The Queen would be displeased! She laughed. Indeed the Queen would be displeased if she knew the true purpose of Sir William’s visits. Perhaps soon she would be ready for that encounter with the King, and once that had taken place she was sure that Queen Katharine’s influence at Court would be a little diminished. There would be a new star, for Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon, would be of greater importance even than her brother, the Duke of Buckingham.
As she came into an ante-room a woman rose from a stool and came hurriedly towards her.
‘My lady Huntingdon,’ the voice was low and supplicating, and vaguely familiar. The accent was foreign and easily recognisable as Spanish since there had been so many Spaniards at Court. This was a very beautiful woman. ‘You do not know me,’ she said.
‘I know your face. Were you a lady-in-waiting to the Queen?’
‘I was, before she was Queen. My name is Francesca de Carceres and I am now the wife of the Genoese banker, Francesco Grimaldi.’
‘I do remember,’ said Anne. ‘You ran away from Court a few months before the Queen’s marriage.’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca and her lovely face hardened. She had schemed for power; she had imagined that one day she would be the chief confidante of the Queen; but the Queen had been surrounded by those whom Francesca looked upon as her enemies, and in despair Francesca had run away from Court to become the wife of the rich and elderly banker.
Her banker was ready to lavish his fortune upon her, but it was not jewels and fine garments which Francesca wanted; it was power. She realised that fully, now that she had lost her place at Court; and she cursed herself for a fool because she had run away two months before Henry had announced his intention to marry Katharine. Had she waited two months longer, as one of Katharine’s ladies-in-waiting, as a member of one of the noble families of Spain, she would have been given a husband worthy of her background; she would have remained in the intimate circle of the Queen.
Having lost these things Francesca now realised how much they meant to her, and she presented herself at Court in the hope of getting an audience with Katharine, but Katharine had so far declined to see her. Francesca had been a trouble-maker; she had quarrelled with Katharine’s confessor, Fray Diego Fernandez; she had intrigued with Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida who had been the Spanish ambassador at the time and whose arrogance and incompetence had aroused Katharine’s indignation and had resulted in his being sent back to Spain.
Moreover in Katharine’s eyes Francesca had committed the unforgivable sin of marrying a commoner, and she wished her former maid of honour to know that there was no longer a place at Court for her.
But Francesca was not one to give way lightly; and she was constantly to be seen in ante-rooms, hoping for a glimpse of the Queen that she might put her case to her and plead eloquently for that which she so much longed.
Francesca now said eagerly: ‘I wonder if you could say a word in my favour to Her Grace the Queen.’
‘You mistake me for my sister,’ Anne answered. ‘It is she who is in the service of Her Grace.’
‘And you . . . are in the service of . . .?’
Anne smiled so roguishly that Francesca was immediately alert.
‘I am the younger sister,’ said Anne. ‘My brother and sister think me of little account.’
‘I’ll warrant they’re wrong.’
Anne shrugged her shoulders. ‘That may well be,’ she agreed.
‘The Queen has changed since her marriage,’ went on Francesca. ‘She has grown hard. There was a time when she lived most humbly at Durham House and I waited on her. Then she would not have refused an audience to an old friend.’
‘She disapproved strongly of your marriage; she is very pious and surrounds herself with those of the same mind.’
Francesca nodded.
‘My sister is one of them. I have just received a letter on the lightness of my ways, when all I did was to receive a gentleman – one of the King’s gentlemen – in the presence of my maid.’
‘It is natural,’ said Francesca slyly, ‘that the Queen’s friends should be disturbed when a gentleman of the King’s household visits a lady as beautiful as yourself . . . on the King’s orders.’
‘But I did not say . . .’ began Anne, and then she burst into laughter. She went on incautiously: ‘She is indeed so much older than he is, so much more serious. Is it to be wondered at?’
‘I do not marvel,’ replied Francesca. ‘And, Lady Huntington, if ever you should find yourself in a position to ask favours, would you remember that I have a desire to return to Court?’
Anne’s eyes gleamed. It was a glorious thing to be asked such favours; the power of the King’s mistress would be infinite.
She bowed her head graciously.
‘I would be your friend for evermore,’ murmured Francesca.
Anne laughed lightly and said: ‘I shall not forget you.’
She walked on as though she were a Queen instead of a potential King’s mistress.
Little fool! thought Francesca. If she ever does reach the King’s bed she will not stay there long.
There was a constricted feeling in Francesca’s throat which was the result of bitterness. She was the most unfortunate of women. She had endured all the years of hardship as Katharine’s friend; and then two months before the coming of power and glory she had run away to Grimaldi – she, who longed to live her life in an atmosphere of Court intrigue, whose great delight was to find her way through the maze of political strategy.
She went back to the luxurious house where she lived with her rich husband.
He watched her with a certain sadness in his eyes. To him she was like some gorgeous bird which had fluttered into the cage he had prepared for her and was now longing to escape.
She was so young and so beautiful, but lately the lines of discontent had begun to appear on her brow.
‘What luck?’ he asked.
‘None. When do I ever have luck? She will not receive me. She will never forgive me for marrying you. I have heard that she thin
ks I did it to cover up a love affair with Fuensalida. Our Queen cannot understand a noblewoman’s marrying a commoner except to avoid a great scandal. Fuensalida was of a family worthy to match my own.’
‘And I am a vulgar commoner,’ sighed Grimaldi.
Francesca looked at him, her head on one side. Then she smiled and going to him she took his head in her hands and laid her lips lightly on the sparse hair. She loved power and he gave her power over him. He would do anything to please her.
‘I married you,’ she answered.
He could not see her mouth, which had twisted into a bitter line. I married him! she thought. And in doing so I brought about my exile from the Court. It was so easy to offend. She thought of the frivolous Anne Stafford who was hoping – so desperately hoping – to begin a love affair with the King.
Then she smiled slowly. Such a woman would never keep her place for more than a night or two. Francesca would not place herself on the side of such a woman; and if it was going to be a matter of taking sides there would be another on which she could range herself.
If Katharine were grateful to her, might she not be ready to forgive that unfortunate marriage?
Katharine was on her knees praying with her confessor, Fray Diego Fernandez, and the burden of her prayer was: Let me bear a son.
Fray Diego prayed with her and he comforted her. He was a young man of strong views and there had been certain rumours, mainly circulated by his enemies, the chief of whom was the ambassador Fuensalida with whom he had clashed on more than one occasion; and another was Francesca de Carceres who had been convinced, first that he was preventing her returning to Spain and, now that she was married and exiled from Court, that he was preventing her being received again.
The pugnacious little priest was the kind to provoke enemies; but Katharine trusted him; indeed in those days, immediately before her marriage, when she had begun to despair of ever escaping from the drab monotony of Durham House, and had discovered the duplicity of her duenna, Doña Elvira and the stupidity of her father’s ambassador, Fuensalida, she had felt Fray Diego to be her only friend.
