by Jean Plaidy
“They were married for fifteen years,” she went on dreamily. “Fifteen years… think of that! She was a very good ruler, though some say she had more care for Brittany than for France. But she was greatly respected and Louis was very sorry when she died.”
“He is sorry no longer since he could not have married Your Grace if she had not died.”
“Oh, he is not sorry now. He is living as he never did before.”
Then she laughed and studied her face carefully in the mirror.
“So much gaiety,” she whispered. “I say to him: “Why does not my lord retire early? I will be at the revels in your stead. I will represent you.” But he says, “No. No, my Queen, I shall be there.” Poor tired old man! And he comes to his bed so wearily at night that there is nothing else for him to do but sleep the sleep of the exhausted.” She smiled. “He is afraid, you see, because…”
She looked at me steadily and I cast down my eyes and tried to look innocent and to hide my eager desire to hear more. “You see…he is afraid of François. I believe that François is in love with me…a little.”
“You are so beautiful that it is not surprising,” I told her.
She shook her head. “François is passionately in love with all things beautiful. Fine buildings, fine music, poetry, pictures, statues and beautiful women. But most of all he is in love with himself. So, my clever little Boleyn, he would not have a great deal of love to spare for one person. He would like to make love to me—and the prospect is all the more enticing because he would be afraid to. What if I were to be with child…by him! What a situation! It is enough to make the gods laugh. He wants me… very much he wants me. He says so with his eyes. I know. But what if he gave me a child? That child would be the King of France because all would think it was the King's. His son would be a king, but it is himself he wants the crown for.”
She stopped suddenly. “What am I saying? You are a witch. You are probing my secret thoughts. Go away. You are dismissed.” Then she caught my arm and held it so tightly that I could have cried out with the pain. “If you ever mention a word of what I say to anyone…I'll have you in the Tower. Yes, I shall send to my brother and say, ‘The child Boleyn is to go to the Tower. She is a traitor.’”
“I will never say a word …”
“Go away. I don't want to see you. I want to go home. I want to see Charles again.”
I crept away. I was heartbroken for I did not know what I had done to displease her.
Time dragged heavily when I was not with her.
Those months were full of revelations for me. I think I grew up then. The Court was rather somber for the King had a reputation for parsimony. He was a good king and did not want to tax his people to pay for his extravagances, which was a habit most kings indulged in; and because of this they called him mean. He hated war, therefore they called him unadventurous. France prospered under him more than it had under his predecessors, but the people did not love him because he was not the glittering figure they liked their kings to be. I often thought how difficult it is to please the people; whatever one was, whatever one did, there would always be the other side of the picture to bring complaints.
Of course I saw him only from a distance, but I did realize how he doted on his beautiful young Queen. He often looked pale and fatigued; his eyes seemed to have grown more prominent, his neck more swollen. In the evenings at the revelries—which I was sometimes allowed to attend—he looked as though he needed nothing so much as sleep. But the Queen would be there dancing—often with François, laughing and coquetting. I thought it was not very kind; but I knew from those monologues at the dressing table how she yearned for her Charles, and that her one idea was to get to him. I could understand that need in her but it did occur to me that she planned these feasts and revels with the great idea of tiring her husband so that he would be too weary for anything but sleep in the big canopied bed decorated with the fleurs-de-lys… and perhaps to hasten his end.
There were three women at Court who interested me. Perhaps it was because of their connection with François, who himself was the most interesting as well as the most attractive man at Court. These three were François's wife, Claude, his sister, Marguerite d'Alençon, and his mother, Louise of Savoy.
Claude was good and kind. She was like her father in that she tired easily; she was delicate in health and walking exhausted her because of her limp.
She took notice of me because I was so young and she thought that it was wrong for a child of my age to be sent away from her country to live with foreigners. I told her that I was very happy to be here and to serve the Queen.
“Ah, the Queen,” she sighed. “What a beautiful and healthy lady she is!”
There was no malice in her, but she must have hated to see the way in which her husband danced attendance on the Queen. I wondered what she felt like being married to such a man. She accepted her husband's infidelities as a matter of course. She had no doubt been brought up by the excellent Anne of Brittany to do her duty whatever it was, and as the daughter of the reigning King it was her duty to marry the heir presumptive to the throne—and this she had done.
They were hardly ever together; he was usually beside some dazzling beauty. He treated her with courtesy. François's exquisite manners would not have allowed him to do anything else, but at the same time it must have been very hard for her.
I liked to talk with her and really it was great condescension on her part to notice me. She made me read with her and insisted on correcting a slightly imperfect accent. She insisted that I learn to do very fine embroidery and petit point, which I quite enjoyed. She was very gentle and I could not help being fond of her.
But she was not as interesting as François's sister. There was a woman who amazed me. She was very beautiful and extremely well educated. She was noted for her cleverness; she wrote verses and was interested in every new idea which was presented to her. I saw her often with her brother, their arms entwined. In fact, one would have thought she was his wife. They loved each other with a fierce passion. The Queen told me that if anyone said a word against François Marguerite would be ready to slay that person. “Of course,” she added, “no one ever does say a word against François…except the King, and even Marguerite could not slay him. The King is really worried about François. Not so much now but he thinks of what will happen after he has gone. You know how the King cares for the people. He does not want them to be subjected to taxation and hardship, nor to be involved in wars. I heard him say to one of his ministers the other day, ‘We are laboring in vain, the Big Boy will spoil everything when I am gone.’ The Big Boy, of course, is François. Marguerite did not hear that or she would have stormed into the royal chamber to castigate the King.”
Marguerite had noticed me even as Claude had.
She said: “You are young to be in a foreign Court,” just as Claude had. She questioned me and she must have been pleased with my answers for she gave me a book to read.
I read it avidly and when I returned it she questioned me about it. I felt gratified because I could see that I had impressed her with my intelligence.
She was twenty-two years old at the time—two years older than François. At the age of seventeen she had been married to the Duc d'Alençon; but it was clear to everyone that her feelings for him fell far short of those she cherished for her brother. Everyone paid homage to her—not only because of her wit, learning and beauty but because she was the sister of the man they expected shortly to be King and when he was in that supreme position, she would be his chief adviser; in fact, she would rule beside him.
The other who aroused my interest was Louise of Savoy. She had always ignored me; in fact, I do not think she was even aware of my existence. She was a very grand lady, very much aware of her royal connections. She had married Charles, the son of Jean d'Angoulême whose grandfather had been Charles V—hence François's claim to the throne.
Louise doted on François with the same idolatry which was bestowed on
him by Marguerite. Mother, daughter and son were irreverently referred to as “the Holy Trinity.” And thus it was. From the date of François's birth Louise had been hoping for him to ascend the throne. It was said that she had refused all offers of marriage after she became a widow, because she wanted to give her entire attention to her son.
When he was a little boy, the possibility of his ascending the throne must have been remote and it would have seemed to Louise like a miracle when King Charles VIII, on his way to watch a game of tennis with his Queen Anne, had struck his head against a stone archway and died as a result. Consequently Louis d'Orléans became Louis XII and Louis was at that time married to crippled Jeanne who had no hope of bearing a child. That was why he had decided to rid himself of her and had done so with the help of the Borgia Pope; and then he married the late King's widow, Anne of Brittany.
Having seen what I had of Louise of Savoy, I could imagine her rejoicing. She was the sort of woman who would let nothing stand in the way of ambition and that ambition was for her son, her Caesar, as she called him. To her he was perfect; all his rash acts, his daring exploits, his love affairs, his infidelity to his wife, they were all regarded with indulgence by the devoted mother and sister. It was indeed a trinity—if not a holy one.
I was amused—and I knew the Queen was, too—to see the anxiety of this haughty lady now that the King had married a young wife; and so deeply were her hopes and ambitions involved that she could not hide her feelings.
The Queen said to me: “She fears I may be pregnant. Oh, what if I were! What if I bore the King's son? What of François's hopes then? I think it would kill his mother.”
“Is it…?” I was rash enough to begin.
She looked at me and taking my cheek between her finger and thumb pinched it hard.
“You must not take liberties, little Boleyn. Just because I show you favor.”
I cast down my eyes; and it occurred to me that it was not easy to tread safely when dealing with royalty.
But I was completely enthralled by life at Court and what I dreaded most was to be sent away.
The Queen was growing restive. December had come and, although the King often looked fatigued, he still attended the masques and entertainments which Marguerite and François devised. I believed that they, like the Queen, were anxious to tire him out.
Poor man, I thought. In a way it is a gentle sort of murder. How dreadful that people should want to be rid of you so much that they are prepared to kill you…even gently. But what goals these people had! For the Trinity there was the crown; for the Queen there was Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
I wondered if Louis knew. He was a very astute man, so it might have occurred to him.
I think he was longing for the Queen to be pregnant so that he could foil François's hopes. If what I heard was true, he was apprehensive about leaving the crown to François. He was a good king who cared about his country. I wished that I knew more about French history. I did know that there had been a hundred years’ war which the English had lost and that one of the Charleses—Charles VII, I believe—had been crowned because of the success of Joan of Arc who had been burned as a witch. But it was the present in which everyone was interested now and it seemed as eventful as anything that had gone before.
As the weeks passed the tension seemed to be rising. The Queen was aware of it and did all she could to intensify it. She liked to tease. I had quickly realized that. I had seen her when in the presence of the Duchess Louise, being aware of how closely the older woman watched her, giving some little sign which might mean that she was enceinte.
She used to laugh about it. “Well, why not?” she said. “Let us give the lady some excitement. Did you see her eyes on me? She would like to bore through me. Is she? Is she not? I can see the question in her eyes. And if she is… mon dieu, mon François …my god, my Caesar… deprived of the crown. The good God cannot be so cruel. What a king he will make! And that poor, feeble old man struggles on when there is my incomparable François…”
She gave a good imitation of the Duchess which made me laugh.
I think she was beginning to feel that we were reaching some climax, for she talked more frankly now. Charles! It was always Charles. I would not have thought such a mercurial creature could have been so faithful, so single-minded. But however much she flitted from one enthusiasm to another, she was always true to Charles.
“I would be happier in a little house… right away from everyone…if Charles were in it with me,” she told me wistfully. “These fine clothes, these jewels… this flattery… this homage…I would give it all for a quiet life with Charles.”
I was not sure that I believed her. She seemed to have been born for her position, just as her brother seemed to be for his.
She was talking more and more of Charles. I would brush her hair and she would close her eyes. I heard her murmur once: “How much longer?”
I almost said: It is only eight weeks since we came, Madame. But I had learned my lesson. It was unwise for me to comment; and at times she was really talking to herself.
Sometimes she seemed depressed and then she would talk of Charles to me, how he had first come to Court with little hope of promotion save for one thing.
“His father was the standard-bearer to my father at the battle of Bosworth Field. His father died defending mine. We Tudors remember our friends… and our enemies. When my father was declared the rightful King and the usurper Richard was dead, he remembered the faithful standard-bearer and sent a message to his widow to tell her that if his son came to Court there would be a place for him. And that was how Charles came to Court. He was put into the house of the Duke of York. Perhaps he would have preferred to be in that of the Prince of Wales. But fate works strangely, does it not? For the Prince of Wales married Katharine of Aragon and very soon he was dead and his brother, Henry, Duke of York, became Henry, Prince of Wales…and now he is the King instead of going into the Church as they intended him to. Every time I think of Henry as a Cardinal, I want to laugh. Well, it was the crown for him, and much more suitable, too. And Katharine did not lose by it. She was Arthur's widow but now she is Henry's wife. So you see, Charles was in the right place after all.”
She was silent for a while, musing.
“They are alike. So tall… both of them … my brother and the man I love. I love them both, of course. Henry is very dear to me but there is no one like Charles. Charles is six years older than my brother…so my love is not a silly, beardless boy.”
“He is indeed a man,” I said, feeling the need to say something.
“Such a man! There was never one like him. At Court he learned to joust and ride and fence… and being Charles he could do it all better than anyone else. He and my brother became the closest friends. They are so like each other. They might be brothers…so tall, so fair… both of them, and excelling in all sport. You cannot be surprised that I love him.”
“No, Madame,” I said.
“Go on with the brushing. It soothes me. You are thinking if he is six years older than the King why is he not married?”
I was afraid to say yes, though it was what I was thinking.
“Well…he has been married. Twice. But that is of no consequence to me. I would not want a foolish, inexperienced boy.”
“Of course not, Madame.”
“And what do you know of such things?”
“Only what Your Highness tells me.”
“I believe there is more going on in your head than you would let us know.”
“Oh no, Madame,” I said in some alarm.
“Well, there should be,” she said. “I do not want stupid little girls about me.”
I did not know what to reply to that. But she was smiling at me.
“He has told me all about his marriages,” she said. “There are no secrets between us. Did you know that Margaret of Savoy wanted to marry him?”
“I did not,” I said.
“Well, she did. When he was on an
embassy there, she fell in love with him. We can understand that, can we not? She might have married him. What a catastrophe! But fate was kind. Though perhaps it was the Emperor. He would never have allowed it to happen…however much she wanted him. And you may depend upon it, she did want him. Any woman would be mad not to want Charles.”
I waited because I was afraid to speak, lest what I said did not please her. I found these sessions with her fraught with apprehension and delight. Her conversation was so racy, so indiscreet. I was sure a great deal of what she told me was exaggerated, but that made it all the more exciting.
She went on: “When he was very young, he fell in love…or thought he did… with the daughter of the Lieutenant of Calais. Of course he was not really in love. He has never loved anyone but me, but when people are young they hear the minstrels singing of love and they become enamored of love… for love's sake. So it was with Charles. This girl, Anne Browne, was, of course, madly in love with him; but she was very young and the marriage was delayed; and after a while Charles realized that it had been a temporary infatuation and that he would be a fool to marry someone in such a humble position, for by that time my brother had become King and Charles was his constant companion. It is a very different matter to be King of England from Prince of Wales with a stern father to keep one in check. You understand me?”
“Oh yes, I understand.”
“Charles is human and all young men have desires. They must satisfy them for it may be that they do not meet the only one in the world for them until they are passing out of their first youth. So it was with Charles…”
She was silent for a while. Then suddenly she dismissed me—and that was the end of her confidences for that time.
But later she took up the story where she had left off.
“He was visiting his grandfather when he met Margaret Mortymer. She was young, lusty and a widow; therefore it was a great hardship for her to be deprived of a husband; and of course, as soon as she saw Charles she wanted him. He was young. He cannot be blamed. It was natural for him to take advantage of the situation. It would be a poor sort of man who did not. He was only a boy then…very inexperienced—and she was far from that. She initiated him, as you might say. Well, it had to happen. Do you understand what I am talking about, little Boleyn? Sometimes I forget what a child you are. There seems to be so much wisdom in those dark eyes. Perhaps I talk too much.”
