I knew she should never have spent that long, endless day receiving the well wishers, sitting until she was stiff and exhausted in the high-backed chair with no cushions to ease her. I could tell how tiring it was for her, smiling and returning everyone’s greetings with her kind welcoming smile for hours on end. She hid her exhaustion well, and her hunger also, though she told me later that she had felt not only a pain in her stomach but a sharp clutching in her bowels. She said she felt as if an iron hand gripped her, and squeezed her without mercy, and would not let her go.
She was ill, and no one physicked her. That night she hardly slept, she was so ill. A messenger was sent to the king but he did not come right away. He could not, for the false story that he had died of plague was spreading and he had to make certain his people saw him and knew the rumor was not true. He feared that if his subjects in the north country believed he was dead, they might rebel once again.
It was two whole days before King Henry came to Jane’s side, and then he did not stay long. He saw that she was weak and hot with fever, and I saw him turn his face away and call for the prince. He took Edward in his arms and showed him off to us all. He delighted in the boy. But he could not bear to look at Jane, for he saw death in her eyes. I am sure he did. And having seen it, he handed the prince to the wetnurse and hurried away to the hunt.
I shouted at the midwives but all they did was to give poor Jane a posset of opium. “It will bring on the sweat trance,” they said. But I knew the posset did no good. Nor did the charms they brought to put under her pillow, or the sprigs of dried lavender they hung over the bed to soothe her spirits.
If prayers could have saved her, then she would surely have survived, for not only was everyone in her household praying but there were prayers and processions every day by the local people for the healing of Good Queen Jane. Her confessor was near at hand, and he heard her confess her sins and ask for forgiveness. But she was deluded, confused in mind. The fever was making her imagine things. She thought that she had committed fearful sins, and wept from guilt. I did my best to console her, but she gripped my hand tightly and I saw such terror in her eyes that I was beside myself with concern. I did not want her to suffer in mind as she was suffering in her thin, shivering body.
The only thing that seemed to bring her comfort was the sight of the prince, who was laid in her arms for a few minutes at a time. Her face grew soft at the sight of him, and her worries and terrors seemed to lift.
I will not write much of the last days, when her body leaked its discharges freely and her sweet face was creased with deep lines of pain. The king stomped in and out of the room, saying he would go to Esher to hunt, whether the queen was improved or not. His blustering was meant to hide his fear. In truth he did not want to watch Jane die. And he knew that I would stay with her to the end. We did not speak of this, but I am sure he knew.
We heard the royal hunting party ride off very early in the morning, long before dawn, on the twelfth day after Edward was born. Within the hour Jane’s confessor was once again at her bedside, anointing her with the oil meant to sanctify the dying. I could not bear to watch. I was too weary and too filled with sorrow. When I came back into the room later, I saw that she was alone. The priest, the confessor and even the midwives had gone. She was asking for water and I held a cup to her dry lips.
Through my tears I looked down at her, her white face glowing faintly in the candlelight, and despite all, I thought her lovely. I told her so, and saw the merest smile on her pale lips.
“Galyon,” she said. “My Galyon. My love.”
“Jane! It is Will, Jane!”
But she looked past me, her eyes fixed on something or someone I could not see. Her poor mind was full of fancies.
I knew I could no longer reach her with my words, but I imagined that the sound of my voice might soothe her. So I talked to her a little, of how different our lives would have been had we gone aboard the Eglantine, and sailed off to the Spice Islands, and lived in a paradise far from everything we had ever known.
“How much easier it would all have been, dearest Jane,” I said, holding her hand and kissing it. She gripped my hand, and I thought, for a moment, that I saw recognition in her eyes. But then her fingers grew limp, and her eyes were closed, and I knew that she had gone on alone.
* * *
My Jane, Good Queen Jane, died on the twenty-fifth of October in the year of Our Lord 1537, a year of dearth but many wildflowers, a year of great sadness for me. I suppose it must have been a year of sadness for our sovereign King Henry also, but he wore no mourning for Jane, and hid his grieving well. And before even a week had passed he was sending out his ambassadors to France and the Low Countries and even to faroff Cleves, searching for a new wife, and boasting that he knew of at least nine ladies who would be honored to share his bed and his throne.
It was left to me to keep my vigil by her tomb, and do honor to her memory as best I can, and to vow that as her son grows, I will tell him the story of his mother as I know it. I will not fail you, Jane. I promise. I will do my best.
NOTE TO THE READER
Once again, dear reader, a caution and a reminder: The Favored Queen is a historical entertainment, in which the authentic past and imaginative invention intertwine. Fictional events and circumstances, fictional characters and whimsical alterations of events and personalities are blended. Fresh interpretations of historical figures and their circumstances are offered, and traditional ones laid aside. I hope you have enjoyed this reimagining of the past.
Also by Carolly Erickson
HISTORICAL ENTERTAINMENTS
The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette
The Last Wife of Henry VIII
The Secret Life of Josephine
The Tsarina’s Daughter
The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots
Rival to the Queen
NONFICTION
The Records of Medieval Europe
Civilization and Society in the West
The Medieval Vision
Bloody Mary
Great Harry
The First Elizabeth
Mistress Anne
Our Tempestuous Day
Bonnie Prince Charlie
To the Scaffold
Her Little Majesty
Arc of the Arrow
Great Catherine
Josephine
Alexandra
Royal Panoply
Lilibet
The Girl from Botany Bay
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE FAVORED QUEEN. Copyright © 2011 by Carolly Erickson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Erickson, Carolly, 1943–
The favored queen : a novel of Henry VIII’s third wife / Carolly Erickson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-59690-3
1. Jane Seymour, Queen, consort of Henry VIII, King of England, 1509?–1537—Fiction. 2. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Henry VIII, 1509–1547—Fiction. 4. England—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Henry VIII’s third wife.
PS3605.R53F38 2011
813'.6—dc22
2011024757
First Edition: October 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8895-7
Discussion Questions
What do you think it was that drew King Henry to Jane Seymour and led him to make her his third wife? Was it simply a desire for a wife less temperamental and imperious than Anne Boleyn, and likely to give him a healthy son?
King Henry came to believe, when married to Anne Boleyn, that she had cast a spell on him to induce him to marry her. Doesn’t infatuation always cast its own spell?
Some of Jane Seymour’s contemporaries described her as
“full of goodness.” In your own reading, have you found novels about “good” women of the past to be less compelling than those about disreputable women or villainesses?
From what you know of Tudor history, do you imagine that King Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour was the happiest of his six marriages? Do you think it is significant that when Henry died, his remains were placed in a single tomb with Jane’s so that they would be united in death?
What do you think Jane would have thought of Henry VIII’s image in popular culture as a royal Bluebeard who bullied and mistreated his wives and ordered the executions of two of them? Would you agree with the sardonic Victorian writer who suggested that the plainness of Henry’s queens was, “if not a justification,” at least a credible reason for his willingness to discard them?
How would the course of English history have changed if Anne Boleyn had died of the sweating sickness in 1528 instead of surviving to marry the king? Or would it have made little difference?
Many of Jane Seymour’s contemporaries believed that the end of the world was at hand. Why do you imagine that each generation seems to find so much destruction, confusion, and hazardous mayhem in human society that a future of any sort appears unlikely? Why are prophecies of doom so compelling?
In The Favored Queen, Jane Seymour idolizes King Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, as “a model of courtesy and charity,” who had “played her thankless role with uncommon grace.” Yet it was rumored that Catherine was poisoned by her enemies at court. What was your opinion of Catherine?
Have you thought of writing a historical novel or entertainment about any person from the past? If so, who?
For more reading group suggestions, visit www.readinggroupgold.com.
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