Suddenly Mary recalled all of the betrothals, both genuine and political, that had taken place over her entire lifetime, indeed, from the age of barely two. None of them had ever come to anything; this one with Duke Adolph likely would not either. She looked desperately at Catherine and then at her father. It was time to put on the performance of her life. And as soon as she could, she must get word to Anne; and Anne must get word to Philip. She now knew, Anne had gently informed her, that her father had rebuffed Philip, insulted him, but Philip had promised; he would not let them be parted. She had taken him at his word and he must come.
Mary came to life before Henry’s very eyes. She smiled, she extended a white bejeweled hand, her eyes sparkling. “I am everlastingly grateful to Your Most Gracious Majesty,” she said, in a firm, clear voice. “You ever have my good at heart. Did any daughter,” and she flicked a quick glance at Catherine, “ever have such a loving father and sovereign? Happy Christmas, Your Grace.” With that she kissed the rolls of fat on his face and fell into a deep curtsey. But her thoughts were far from the King’s Privy Chamber at Windsor Castle; already they were winging their way across the water to Philip.
Portchester Castle, Portsmouth Harbour, July 1545
“What was that dreadful noise?” asked Margaret. She had been dozing in the window seat, basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sun and caressed by the sea breeze wafting in through the open window. Lulled by the constant sound of the waves hitting the shore, and the soothing keening of the seagulls, she had almost been asleep when something, heard but not quite heard, had jolted her awake.
Lady Catherine, the Duchess of Suffolk, looked up from her book and replied, “It is nothing, I’m sure. The French and the English have been popping away at each other in the harbour for hours.”
Margaret sat up, her hands placed protectively around her still flat belly. She was three months and more gone with child, and had recently celebrated her quickening. “No,” she said. “This was different. There was the cannon, of course, but I heard something else. It sounded almost…human.”
All was quiet for a few moments and then the sound of cannon fire resumed. Mary was sitting in the window seat next to Margaret trying to catch the last of the light as she sewed on an altar cloth. She had deliberately chosen this pastime, just to see who amongst the queen’s ladies would opt to join her. In times past, all the ladies would sit in a circle and work on such things; but the Reformers amongst them now shied away from such. Subterfuges like this had become a reliable gauge for determining which ladies held these dangerous, and secret, views. But Mary said nothing; she simply worked and kept her observations to herself.
The day had been hot and exceedingly still; and then just towards sundown the wind had risen. The queen and her ladies had repaired to the topmost room of the tower to make the most of the sea breeze, which had been most welcome even if it had kept them waiting all day. Suddenly a furious clatter in the stairwell that ended at their door caused them all to jump.
The queen turned towards the door just as it burst open and there, standing hollowed-eyed and gaunt, was Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. Lady Catherine, his duchess, stood up so abruptly that her book fell to the floor. Lady Catherine had a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit to practice it on; many at court had felt the sting of its lash. But whenever she beheld her husband, her eyes softened and her manner became more gentle than any of her acquaintances could have believed possible.
Sir Charles just stood there, seemingly unable to speak; a fleeting thought passed through the queen’s mind that something had happened to the king. And then the thoughts came fast and furious, almost too quickly to process them all: She would be regent for the young prince. She need not endure any longer the king’s inept fumblings about her person. She would be able to steer Edward towards the Reformed faith, so that in his reign a new England might be forged, free from the yoke of Catholicism. Did not Proverbs say, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”? Oh yes, she had read her Bible in English. And she had already proved her worth as Regent of England once, and not so very long ago; she would be Queen Regnant in all but name. And Thomas would be there…there would be no stopping them this time; Thomas was the uncle of the heir to the throne; the boy who would be king. What better way to rule the realm than to have the young king’s uncle married to the Regent? It was perfect. It was inevitable. The moment had come.
And then Brandon found his voice. “The Mary Rose has sunk in the harbor with all hands lost,” he managed to croak. Tears welled in his eyes.
It was a moment of revelation; only Mary and Margaret of all the ladies in the room, including Queen Catherine, made the sign of the cross at this momentous announcement. Lady Herbert, Lady Lisle, Lady Suffolk; none crossed themselves at hearing of the sudden and horrible death of hundreds of Christian souls.
“I knew it!” wailed Margaret. “I-I heard them…crying out…” Mary arose quickly and went to embrace her cousin; since she had become pregnant, Margaret’s emotional instability had become marked. This was exactly the sort of upset she did not need in her condition. Portchester was eight miles from Southsea; Margaret could not have heard the desperate screams of the drowning men. But she fancied she had done so, which was much the same thing to a gravid female.
Brandon, who to Mary’s eye had looked very ill since his return from the French wars, was as white as chalk. Lady Catherine took his hand and led him to a chair; he seemed not to be looking at any of them, but at some far distant point out the window. Then suddenly he began to talk, and the spate went on for several minutes.
“It was terrible,” he said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. “The fighting had been off and on, there had been no concerted attack by the French ships. I was stationed at Langstone, to repel any French that might attempt to land. But as the day wore on, no real threat ensued, and finally the king bade us all come to him on the Henry Grace a Dieu, where he was set to dine. And then a lookout said he spotted the sails of French men-of-war, and there was a mighty scramble to get back to our posts. The battle was joined and no one was the worse for it, until…”
Mary reflected that it was a rare thing to see a man weep; but Brandon could not hold back his tears. His chest heaved with great gasping sounds, meant to be sobs, but in a man unaccustomed to such, it sounded like nothing so much as a heavy cloth being rent in pieces.
“…until the Mary Rose took a French cannonball low in her hull. I had by that time joined the king at Southsea Castle, where we had a commanding view of the harbor. She tried…” Again the rasping, racking sobs; “…she tried to make for the shoals, but just as she tacked north, a great gust of wind belted her and she…she…”
“There now,” soothed Lady Catherine. “We know. We know. Rest your mind, now. There is nothing anyone could have done.” Mary thought that she could never have owned that Lady Catherine could be so gentle. But with Brandon, she was the soul of comfort.
Brandon ran a dirty hand from wrist to elbow across his eyes, and gave a mighty bellow into a piece of cloth from the bag of scraps that had resulted from Mary’s efforts with her needle. “His Grace is utterly beside himself,” he went on, the ripping sobs now reduced to hiccoughs. “I, who have known the king almost all his life, have never seen him so distraught. The disaster happened before his very eyes, and he, powerless to save either ship or men. His is prostrate with grief.”
Brandon sat silent for a few moments, staring past them all at some unknown spectacle; he was again transfixed with the memory of what his eyes had seen but his mind refused, as yet, to fully accept. He slumped over, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. And then suddenly he sat straight up, red eyes streaming and his mouth quivering.
“But I have forgotten me!” he cried. “The French have withdrawn their fleet towards the Isle of Wight, and His Grace begs that the Queen’s Grace and the Lady Mary should prepare for His Grace’s imminent arrival here
.”
Mary had been at New Hall with her ladies when the summons had come from the king to join himself and the queen in nearby Portsmouth. The English had known for months of French plans to invade England, and the king’s spies had been reliable; most of the English fleet was in Portsmouth awaiting the French and those that were not were on their way. Henry had been nothing but scornful of the French attempt to invade, and his contempt, so far, had been justified. But to lose the Mary Rose, his favorite ship, and the one which had been named for his favorite sister! And all those poor sailors, drowned! It was unthinkable, but there it was. Mary was capable of grief for men she had never, and would never, know; but if her father was distressed at the loss of one of his best carracks and an able-bodied crew, she could but rejoice in his discomfiture.
It was indeed a paradox that because the king had for so long now treated her with little but kindness, she had begun to thaw a bit towards him, but no sooner had she lowered her guard than her father had struck her a blow from which she did not think she would ever recover. For Philip had heeded her call; as soon as he had received word from Anne that there was danger of the king making the unwanted match for Mary with Denmark, he had ridden posthaste all the way back from Neuburg to once again plead his case for Mary’s hand. And this despite the despicable treatment that the king had afforded Philip as he fought the King of England’s battles against France in the Low Countries, voluntarily no less, simply to show his worthiness as a suitor!
Not only had Henry refused even to see Philip, but he had refused to allow Mary to see him, either, and had made sure that no such underhand subterfuge as had been employed on the duke’s previous visit (oh, yes, he knew about that secret rendezvous at Westminster!) was allowed to take place. He had packed Mary off to New Hall and forbade her to see either Philip or Anne until further notice, on pain of the king’s extreme displeasure.
Mary’s eyes filled with frustrated tears for Philip, profoundly sad tears for the men who had just lost their lives, and angry tears at the thought of her father’s arbitrary actions. For the match with Denmark was not to be after all; once again Mary was stranded between the haven that was Philip and stubborn rock that was her father.
Mary was jolted out of her reverie by the insistent voice of Lady Suffolk. “I will brook no refusals,” said Lady Catherine sternly. “Page!” she shouted. Two strapping young boys appeared, wide-eyed with fear at the duchess’s determined visage. “See the duke to my apartments,” she said shortly. When Brandon sought to protest that he must be there when the king arrived, she said tersely, “I will speak to His Grace. You should not even be out of bed, let alone standing duty against the French on the shore in the heat and mud! Now go!” With that she cocked her head angrily at the two boys who were only too glad to each take an arm of the Duke of Suffolk and depart.
Queen Catherine realized that no mention had been made of the king except his mighty perturbation at the loss of his ship and its crew; her dream of another regency, and this one with a free hand, evaporated before her very eyes. She felt her heart give a tug as she observed Lady Catherine’s proprietary air when it came to her beloved husband. She herself would have been only too glad to see to Thomas’s welfare, if only he were her husband instead of the king! But it was a sad fact that not only had she had no choice but to accept the king’s unwanted proposal, but Thomas had run like a deer to Brussels as soon as the king had bid him do so, and according to her spies, he had not been lonely there. Men were men, she understood that; they were as careless of their seed as a rutting stag, and nothing to be done. Confound the king! She was sorry for the loss of life, but if the sinking of one of the king’s favorite ships had him mortified, she was glad. Would that His Corpulent Grace had been on it!
And along with all the other secret, silent complaints she had as the king’s wife, she must add humiliation to the list. For the king had earlier that year commissioned a portrait to be made of the royal family…depicting the king, of course, and Prince Edward, and the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth. But had Henry caused his queen to be painted sitting by his side? Of course he had…but much to her embarrassment, it was not herself but Jane Seymour who had been painted into the picture!
Catherine had smiled and nodded her approval, not wishing to upset the prince, who was glad to see the mother he had never known. But inside she was seething with anger, an anger that had neither cooled nor abated over time, but had grown inside her until she thought she would explode. The king had dishonoured her and there was naught that she could do except accept the slight, and not only that she must appear understanding, approving…every time she thought about it her blood boiled over. So the king was mad with grief over the loss of his ship…and she was glad.
Windsor Castle, September 1545
St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle was a large church, but it was filled to bursting with mourners on the fine September day that marked the last obsequies of Sir Charles Brandon. The king was inconsolable at the loss of his best friend, the companion of his youth, his mentor in the manly pursuits, his brother-in-law, and the man who, to him, was as close as any brother could have been. Closer, perhaps; Henry’s own brother, Arthur, had been regal and aloof and might never have been the boon companion that Brandon had proven to be. And if Arthur had lived, he, Henry, might never have been king…unthinkable. But Arthur had died, Henry was king, and through thick and thin, right and wrong, Hell and high water, Brandon had always been there as long as Henry could remember, and he could not conceive of life without him.
For all her acerb manner, intolerance and generally unpleasant personality, Brandon’s wife, and the fourth lady to hold that honor, was beyond grief. She, too, had loved Brandon almost all her life. She had plotted and schemed to become his duchess, and she had had her way. Brandon was a faithful husband, a rarity at the Tudor court. Sir Charles and Lady Catherine, the Duchess of Suffolk, the Countess of Willoughby in her own right, had been an almost unheard of thing: a happy couple.
Mary was astonished at the outpouring of sorrow displayed by the people of Brandon’s own estates. Scores of his tenants had traveled over a hundred miles from Suffolk to attend his lying in state and the requiem masses sung for him at Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and now at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor.
And it seemed that he who had been a good friend and good husband had also proven himself to be a good father. His surviving children were all present and mourned him sincerely.
Mary placed a comforting hand atop Frances’s, who sat beside her in the royal pew sobbing uncontrollably. It was a paradox, thought Mary, that the very people who seemed the strongest and best able to cope with any situation or emergency toppled like a sand castle when their own hearts were touched. Frances was devastated at the loss of her father; Mary had never seen her so wretched, even at the loss of her first two children.
At the end of the mass the king arose, walked to the sepulcher and placed a jousting helmet on the marble column at its head. When Henry finally turned to face the congregation, it was the Duchess Catherine whose arm he held. The queen looked on with raised eyebrows, but followed the king beside Lady Frances, followed by Frances’s sister, Lady Eleanor, and Mary. Two by two the mourners left the chapel and processed out into the September sunshine. The courtyard was filled with common folk come to grieve for their lord.
Lady Catherine, leaning heavily on the king’s arm, paused to acknowledge the heartfelt sympathy extended to her by many of those who had traveled so far to bid a final farewell to their lord. But finally, the king declared that she had done enough and must rest. He led her up the hill to the entrance to the Round Tower, and up the stairway into the King’s Privy Chamber.
Henry tenderly sat the duchess down in the chair next to his own, and continued to hold her hand. Their voices were low and none heard what they said as they mingled their tears in their great loss.
The queen was none too pleased at this behavior; she had always thought Brandon a coa
rse buffoon unworthy of the rank he had been raised to, and although the Duchess of Suffolk was a fellow Reformer whom she respected, she was as bad a scold as the duke’s daughter Frances, and many a time her abrasive personality had grated on Catherine’s nerves. And enough was enough; such excessive grief demonstrated a lamentable lack of belief in fact that any death was the will of God, who called His servants to Himself when He might.
The Duke of Norfolk shared the queen’s opinion of Charles Brandon. And if the truth be known, he had always been jealous of the king’s regard for Brandon; the privilege of best friend to the sovereign should have been reserved for a man of rank, not a jumped-up knight who had happened to catch the eye of the king’s flibbertigibbet younger sister.
As Lady Catherine continued to give vent to her sorrow, the king waved off those who would have come closer. He was not blind to the dark looks of his queen, who realized that such applied to her as well. He was growing right tired of a queen who did little but preach at him; if the truth would be owned, he was becoming impatient with her constant sermonizing. After all, was he or was he not the Supreme Head of the Church of England? A nurse could be got anywhere; was that not what his doctors, his surgeons, his leeches and his apothecaries were for? He did not need such in a wife. Their meetings at day’s end when Catherine dressed his legs were becoming an unwelcome trial.
Henry’s gaze shifted to the Duchess of Suffolk. He lifted her tiny white hand into his two beefy ones and massaged her palm with a caressing thumb. “Are you all right, my dear? Shall I call your women?” Her eyes were a startling blue, and made a surprising contrast to her hair, which was as black as a raven’s wing. Then he realized something he had never noticed before; her hair actually had a bluish cast where the light streaming in from the windows hit it. He felt an unaccustomed stirring in his loins. Lady Catherine was the daughter of Katharine of Aragon’s favorite lady-in-waiting, Maria de Salinas, and Sir William Willoughby, the eleventh Baron Willoughby de Eresby; her unusual coloring was a pleasing blend of both her Spanish and her English heritages. And she was young; there had been thirty-five years between her and Brandon. The lady had been, after all, supposed to marry Brandon’s son. But when Henry’s own sister Mary had died, the saucy wench had wasted no time in informing Brandon that she could not marry Brandon’s son, having conceived a passion for the duke himself. Brandon had been nothing loath and married they had been, within months of Mary’s death. Henry had always cherished a secret passion for the girl, but out of respect for Brandon, had kept it to himself.
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