by V. E. Lynne
Joanna seemed to take his words as an invitation that they should all pray and so they all did so, their voices united as one for the safe travail of the queen. Will finished it off with a heartfelt “Amen” that was interrupted by the arrival of a man who whispered urgently in his ear.
“Ladies, I am needed elsewhere. I bid you a good evening. Mistress de Brett,” he raised Joanna’s hand and kissed it, “I am so glad that you still walk amongst us. The world cannot afford to lose beauty such as yours.” He let his hand linger on hers before stepping back and bowing to them both.
Joanna reddened and laughed self-consciously at his gesture, avoiding Bridget’s gaze as she did so. Bridget told herself she did not care—let him pay attention to Joanna if he must. Let him kiss her hand. She sat down at one of the long trestle tables set up against the side of the hall. Conveniently, a cup of wine was at hand, and she drank it down in one gulp. It slid down her throat, the spices in it hot and fiery, like molten envy.
Chapter Nine
“A prince! A prince! Wake up, wife, England has a prince!” The bedchamber door crashed open and a red faced Sir Richard entered through it like a whirlwind, his countenance wreathed in unaccustomed smiles. “The queen has delivered a prince!” he repeated, and Bridget sat up in bed, fully awake now, a feeling of relief shooting through her veins. So then, at long last, the king had his heir, he had the son whom he had sacrificed everything for: the church, the pope, his first wife, his second wife. All disestablished, cast away and beheaded in order to get to this moment. After the endless years of struggle, he was here. The golden boy. Surely now, the king and the kingdom would be content.
“And what of the queen?” Bridget asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Is she well?”
“Oh, yes,” Sir Richard replied, somewhat offhandedly. “She is fine. She is already sitting up and able to receive visitors in her chamber. Now come along.” He tugged at the bed sheets. “There is to be a Thanksgiving Mass held in the chapel soon and we must attend. Joanna!” He walked over to where the young woman lay. “Wake up, girl! We have a new prince! We must go and offer our thanks to God for bestowing upon us such a gift. This is no time to slumber!”
After a hurried breakfast, they attended Mass and never before had that ceremony been conducted with such naked excitement. During and afterwards, people openly wept with elation at the prince’s birth, embracing each other spontaneously. In the Great Hall, they drank, feasted and sang, and all the while the bells rang out for joy and the fountains ran red with wine. A large crowd of people had gathered at the gates and they called incessantly for the king, the queen and the prince to be brought out to them. The king, in the most exultant mood Bridget had ever seen him, went out to greet them in person and, as a reward for their display of loyalty, he showered them in handfuls of gold sovereigns. They cheered themselves hoarse and lauded his name. The years had miraculously fallen off Henry Tudor, and it was as if he had been transported back to the days of his youth, when he was the most celebrated monarch in Christendom and all the world lay open at his feet, ripe for the conquering. With the birth of his heir, the king himself had been reborn. All was made new again.
On the Sunday after the prince’s birth, he was christened in the chapel at Hampton Court. Sir Richard was to be a part of the procession and Bridget a mere spectator, but even so, she made sure she dressed as an Englishwoman for the occasion, her gable hood firmly in place, like a house, on her head. The ceremonials began at close to midnight and nearly four hundred people assembled to participate in them. A great crowd of knights, ushers and squires, carrying flaring torches, led the way followed by bishops, abbots, the whole of the Privy Council, ambassadors such as the Emperor Charles V’s representative, Eustace Chapuys, who was dressed in purple silk like he was the prince and behind them a host of lords, including Sir Richard. Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, walked amongst them with a measured gait, and Bridget caught his eye as he swept past her curtseying frame. His visage was as untroubled as ever, but something jumped in the depths of his steadfast gaze, a little pulse of grief that he quickly buried under all his accumulated layers of diplomatic polish. What must it be like, Bridget wondered, to walk in a procession to honour the son of Jane Seymour, the woman his daughter had been killed to make way for? Did he think of Anne, lying in her grave at the Tower, with every step he took? Did he see her face everywhere he went? If he did, he made sure that no one would ever know it.
Following the earl came his granddaughter, the Lady Elizabeth, carried in the stiff arms of the queen’s brother, Lord Hertford. The child had grown a great deal since Bridget had last seen her, and she appeared to be quite healthy and very sturdy. In looks, she was a disconcerting combination of both her parents—her fair skin and bright red hair shouted out her Tudor blood, but her dark eyes and strong, angular face proclaimed unmistakably who her mother had been. It must be a very unsettling experience for the king every time he beheld her.
Elizabeth was holding her new-born brother’s white christening robe in her plump hands, and behind her came the infant himself, borne on a crimson cushion by Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter, with the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk on either side supporting his head and feet. All three of them processed with almost painful slowness, as though they carried between them the most precious cargo in the world, which, of course, they did. Due to their slowness, Bridget was able to catch a fairly good glimpse of the prince as he went by. He was small, perhaps too small, with very white skin and downy blond hair. He already markedly resembled his mother.
Beside the prince walked four gentlemen of the privy chamber—Will was one—and together they held a gold cloth of estate over the prince’s head. The appearance of the Lady Mary, engulfed by a large group of ladies, rounded out the procession. She was to be the prince’s godmother, and Bridget curtseyed to her deeply as she glided by.
The train of worthies entered the chapel and Bridget, together with Joanna, discreetly followed them and took their places near the back. The chapel was ablaze with candlelight that arced off the stained glass windows and illuminated the gorgeous blue- and gold-painted ceiling. Archbishop Cranmer officiated and he performed the rites with aplomb. A ripple of satisfaction ran through the congregation when he intoned that the prince’s name was to be Edward. Lord Hertford beamed at his namesake, no doubt thinking of the day when this infant would be king and the importance, not to mention the power, he would then enjoy as his uncle.
The newly named Edward was duly baptised with holy water from the silver font, which was draped all about with cloth of gold. Garter King of Arms cried out in a voice that echoed to the star-spangled rafters, “God of His almighty and infinite grace, give and grant good life and long to the right high, right excellent and noble Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son to our most dread and gracious lord, King Henry VIII.”
The words of the Te Deum swelled upwards and the tiny sleeping prince, wrapped warmly in his richly embroidered robe, was brought back down the aisle, across the black- and white-chequered floor, to the unending flourish of trumpets. The procession reformed itself, in precisely the same order, and the congregation all made their collective obeisance to it as it went by.
“Are we supposed to follow them to the queen’s apartments?” Joanna asked after they had gone.
“I do not know. We will see if my husband waits for us outside.” Sure enough, Sir Richard was there, cooling his heels impatiently in the passageway.
“Hurry, Their Majesties are receiving guests in the queen’s chambers. Was not the ceremony magnificent, and does not the prince look bonny? Edward is a fine name; the king chose it because he was born on the eve of St Edward and also doubtless to honour Her Majesty’s brother, Lord Hertford, who is an excellent man of impeccable repute.”
Sir Richard chattered on excitedly all the way to the queen’s rooms and only quietened down when they entered the royal presence. Bridget stepped into the chamber
behind her husband, and the cold fingers of a long ago remembrance ran up and down her spine. The feeling was so strong she had to work hard to hold her smile in place.
The room smelled, quite simply, of blood. There was no other way to describe it, and Bridget was surprised that no one else had detected the odour. Then again perhaps somebody had, and that would account for the unusually pungent perfume that hung so heavily in the air. It was an attempt at disguise. But despite the cloying nature of the beeswax scent, and the fire that burned so brightly and warmed every inch of the great chamber, the aroma of blood still lingered stubbornly beneath it all, billowing around them all like an ill wind. Bridget had smelled this particular brand of blood twice before. Firstly, when she was four years old and her mother had died giving birth to a stillborn daughter, and secondly, when Queen Anne had miscarried her son at Greenwich. She recognised its sour, coppery tang as a harbinger of death, so much so that she could almost feel its approach as she took Sir Richard’s hand and walked toward the king and queen.
Queen Jane was sitting, propped up like a doll, in a pallet bed that was smothered in velvets and furs. She was bedecked, as always, in a multiplicity of jewels, topped off by a golden diadem that balanced awkwardly upon her damp blonde hair. She smiled and laughed as she greeted each of her guests and looked, perhaps for the first time in her life, genuinely pretty.
Beside her sat the king, with his son held closely in his arms. He proudly showed Prince Edward off to everyone, taking time to point out his “strong fingers” and “red hair.” The baby’s hair was rather more yellow than red, and his fingers were the most delicate things that Bridget had ever seen but, of course, no one gainsaid the king.
When it was their turn to gaze upon the prince, Sir Richard praised him to the skies and Bridget diplomatically complimented him on his beauty, which was quite true. He was an angelic looking child, with alabaster skin and a halo of flaxen hair. The queen beamed at her remarks and beckoned her to come closer. Bridget obediently pressed nearer to the bed, and the waft of blood, fresh blood that hit her nostrils confirmed all her worst suspicions. Not only was the queen undoubtedly bleeding, but up close her face was coated with sweat, and her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. Underneath her carefully crafted appearance, she was struggling, but her unrestrained joy and furious triumph at finally producing the Tudor heir was buoying her up.
“Look at my son! Is he not fair? Is he not robust? He will be a great king one day. King Edward! I have done what nobody else could do, what nobody thought I could do. I have secured this kingdom. I have made my husband the happiest of rulers and of men. Is he not happy now? Finally, after all of his tribulations, after all of his misfortunes, he is happy. And it is all because of me.”
Bridget glanced over at the king, who was now parading his boy around the chamber to the delight of the onlookers. Happy would be a mild way of describing his mood. Euphoric was much nearer to the mark.
“Yes, Your Majesty, it is because of you and I congratulate you for it. We could not have wished for a finer prince than the one you have given us.” Bridget lowered her eyes in what she hoped was an attitude of proper submission.
The queen regarded her. “I am pleased to see that you have dressed as a proper Englishwoman tonight; it becomes you. Perhaps I may be able to find an appropriate place for you in my household now that you are conducting yourself in a more decorous manner, and in light of the fact that your husband enjoys the king’s confidence as a member of his privy chamber. Come and attend on me once I am fully recovered and we shall see what can be done for you.”
Bridget murmured her thanks, whilst displaying the correct amount of decorum she trusted, and the queen nodded at her in dismissal; the Lady Mary was approaching and she had far more important personages to entertain. The king, meanwhile, had finished exhibiting the prince to all and sundry and had summoned the wife of his close friend, the young Duchess of Suffolk, to convey him back to the nursery.
The waiters and servants entered, carrying platters of bread and wafers and vessels of wine and hippocras. Bridget took some hippocras and let the sweet taste of it slide deliciously down her throat as she surveyed the room. Sir Richard was too busy talking to Sir Nicholas Carew and the Exeters to bother with her, and Joanna too had gone off and was engaging some of the queen’s maids in conversation. Bridget was alone. She took another sip of the honeyed liquid and nearly choked on it when the voice of Thomas Cromwell sounded in her ear. A little of the wine spilled onto her gown, and the master secretary laughed and offered her his handkerchief.
“My lord, you startled me! You have a very unsettling habit of simply materialising in my midst, as if you had hidden yourself behind the hangings.”
“Ah, no,” Cromwell lightly answered, “though a tapestry is an excellent hiding place and has been known to cover a multitude of sins, but, alas, I am probably too well fed to secrete myself behind one these days.” He patted his solid stomach. “I apologise for startling you, ’twas not my intention. I merely wished to ask your opinion of the queen, as I saw you conversing with her.”
“My opinion?” Bridget repeated quizzically. “I do not understand what you mean, sir.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” Cromwell countered, his eyes bright as coals. “I watched you as you came in and I noted your reaction, though you strove to hide it rather well. You smelled it immediately, as did I, underneath all that beeswax. You smelled the blood.”
There was no point in denying it, so Bridget did not try to. She merely raised her eyebrows and allowed Cromwell to hold her gaze for a long moment. Words were superfluous. Bridget was surprised to see little shadows of regret, and of pain, flicker across the master secretary’s visage. He must have grown to care about the queen, but then another, more likely, reason came to her mind. Cromwell had lost his wife and two young daughters some years ago, a triple tragedy that many said had wounded him so deeply that he was never able to speak of it. Was the pain on his face a remembrance of his own grief or was he anticipating the desolation that was perhaps in store for his beloved sovereign? Either way the emotion was written very clearly on his face or he made no attempt to conceal it from her.
The sound of the queen’s laughter drew their attention, and they both swivelled their heads toward her. There she sat among her adoring ladies, like a character from legend: Jane the Velvet Queen, perched high on a cushion of scarlet damask, her jewels gleaming, her wide smile announcing to all her hard-won victory even as the bloody outriders of death galloped in, ever closer, around her.
Chapter Ten
The queen survived the birth of her son by an agonising twelve days. After the christening, her one, unforgettable day of glory, the childbed fever took hold and her health steadily declined. It was a testament both to her character and her iron will to live that she held on for as long as she did. But childbirth was ever a dangerous business, for queens and commoners alike, and it claimed Jane Seymour for its own as it had claimed so many others before her.
The king went away to Whitehall after she died. He could not bear anything to do with sickness or mortality, and he absented himself as quickly as he could, leaving the Duke of Norfolk in charge of organising his wife’s obsequies and the Lady Mary to oversee the break-up of the late queen’s household.
The entire court, which had been so uplifted by the birth of the prince, now sank into the profoundest of mourning at Queen Jane’s death. Every courtier was clad in black, from top to toe, and a silent darkness hung over the palace like a curse of perpetual midnight.
Masses went on continually for the repose of the queen’s soul, and Queen Jane’s body lay on a bier in her presence chamber, dressed in gold tissue, while her ladies prayed all around her. Bridget sought permission, through the good offices of the Marchioness of Exeter, to come and pray with them and it was, to her slight surprise, granted. She entered the chamber as unobtrusively as she could and took her place on her knees next to Lady Rochford who, for once, did not notice her pr
esence. She was almost collapsed with grief; she wept without cease, as did every one of the other ladies. In fact, that was virtually the only sound to be heard in the whole palace—the muffled drum of falling tears.
Queen Jane was buried was great pomp at Windsor in November. Bridget did not attend the funeral, having held no official place within the late queen’s household in life, she had no role in death. The king secreted himself away, with only a few attendants at Greenwich and was said to be prostrate with the force of his loss. She and Sir Richard went home to Thorns where they, along with everyone else, observed a very quiet Christmas.
Soon after the subdued festive season a change came. A messenger, clad in the inevitable green and white, came clattering into their courtyard bearing a summons to appear at court for the New Year. Sir Richard, who had been so restless with inactivity that he had taken to wandering the gardens at Thorns since November, began packing and handing out orders as soon as the messenger rode away.
“Wife, we go to court tomorrow and we must bring His Majesty a gift to mark the New Year. What do you think we should choose? One of the silver platters? The clock that is in the library, the one with the pearl-encrusted face? The king might like that. Then again, he already has so many clocks. Oh, what about that ruby ring that was my grandfather’s? He always said that it had once belonged to St Edward the Confessor, for whose memory the king has a great regard. Yes, that ought to do nicely, but I shall have to find it in this rambling, old house first. I wonder if my sister might know where it is. Joan? Where the devil are you . . .?”
