Книга - Mary, Bloody Mary

Mary, Bloody Mary
Carolyn Meyer


Blood is thicker than water – unless the King decrees othewise.A compelling first-person narration of childhood, as told by Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor. History remembers her only as "Bloody Mary" because of the brutality of her reign, but this compelling recreation of her childhood brings alive the contradictions and conflicts and true danger of being the daughter of a 'divorced' queen as her father falls under the spell of the "witch" Anne Boleyn and why such an apparently privileged little girl could grow up to be such a monster.Published by Harcourt Brace in USA 1999, it has been widely reviewed and acclaimed; was an ALA Notable Book, and among the ALA 10 Notable Books of that year.















Copyright (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)


Collins

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First published in the USA by Harcourt Brace & Company 1999

First published in Great Britain by Collins 2003

Text © Carolyn Meyer 1999

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007150298

Ebook Edition ©SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007381722

Version: 2015-08-18


For Marcia H. Henderson




Contents


Cover (#u4f9ef98f-428f-5882-9a32-ce805c32f239)

Title Page (#uc6ad07a4-b623-5ca1-8500-1399c0af27e6)

Copyright

The Tudors (#ue2a68185-4ad1-59dd-8797-f772313a6a74)

Prologue



CHAPTER ONE King Francis

CHAPTER TWO Betrothals

CHAPTER THREE Tudor Colours

CHAPTER FOUR Falconry

CHAPTER FIVE Lessons

CHAPTER SIX Lady Anne

CHAPTER SEVEN Sickness and Dread

CHAPTER EIGHT A visit from the King

CHAPTER NINE Enter Chapuys, Exit Wolsey

CHAPTER TEN Lady Susan

CHAPTER ELEVEN Reginald Pole

CHAPTER TWELVE Queen Anne

CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Royal Birth

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Elizabeth

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Princess’s Servant

CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Double Oath

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Rumours

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A Question of Poison

CHAPTER NINETEEN The Madness of the King

CHAPTER TWENTY The Executions

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The new Enemy

Historical Note

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author

About The Publisher










Prologue (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)


Anne was a witch; I never doubted it. She deserved to die; neither have I doubted that. She wished for my death long before the executioner’s sword glittered above her own neck: month upon month I lived in terror of poison being slipped into my cup. Yet, an hour before the blade bit into her flesh, they say she prayed for my forgiveness. Had the jailers brought me her message, would I have forgiven her?

No. Never.

She beguiled my father and seduced him. She transformed him into a man so unlike his former self that even after she had lost her diabolical hold on him, my father was never again the king he had once been. Because of this evil witch who called herself queen, I lost everything: my rightful place in the circle of my family, my mother’s loving presence, my father’s devoted affection, my chances of a fruitful marriage. And I came close — very close — to losing my own life.

Because of Anne, my father discarded my mother like a worn slipper, forbidding me ever to see her again. Because of Anne, he declared me a bastard, humiliating me for his own selfish ends. And after years of using me as a pawn in his endless quest for power, promising me to this suitor and one, my father abandoned me.

I can forgive her nothing.

You who are quick to judge me, I beg you, hear my story.





CHAPTER ONE (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)










King Francis (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)


I inherited King Henry’s fiery temper — no one would deny that! And so, on the day I learned that he had betrothed me to the king of France, I exploded.

“I cannot believe that my father would pledge me to that disgusting old man!” I raged, and hurled the bed pillows on to the floor of my chamber. “I shall not, not, NOT marry him!”

I was but ten years old and had yet to master my anger nor learn its use as a weapon. I shouted and stamped my feet until at last my fury subsided in gusts of tears. Between sobs I stole glances at my governess, the long-nosed Lady Margaret, countess of Salisbury. She stitched on her needlework as though nothing were happening.

“Come now,” the countess soothed, her needle flicking in and out, in and out, “it is only a betrothal, and that — as you well know — is quite a long way from marriage. Besides, madam, the king wishes it.”

Her calm made me even angrier. “I don’t care what he wishes! My father pays so little attention to me that I doubt he even remembers who I am!”

A thin smile creased Salisbury’s face, and she set down her embroidery hoop and dabbed at my cheeks with a fine linen handkerchief. “He knows, dear Mary, he knows. You grow more like him every day — his fair skin, his lively blue eyes, his shining red-gold hair.” She tucked the handkerchief into the sleeve of her kirtle and sighed. “And, unfortunately, his temper as well.”

Suddenly exhausted, I flung myself on to my great bed. “When is it to be, Salisbury?” I murmured.

“King Francis and his court intend to arrive in April for the Feast of Saint George. We have three months to prepare. The royal dressmaker will soon begin work on your new gown. Your mother, the queen, sent word that she favours green trimmed with white for you. You’re to have a cloak made of cloth of gold.”

“I hate green,” I grumbled. Perhaps this was a battle I could win, although my gentle, patient mother matched my father in stubbornness. “And I absolutely do not care if green and white are our royal colours!”

“It seems that today madam dislikes nearly everything,” Salisbury said. “Perhaps in the morning the world will look better.”

“It will not.”

“Nevertheless, madam, it is time for prayers.”

I slid down from my lofty mattress and knelt on the cold stone floor beside the governess, as I did every night and every morning, and together we recited our prayers.

That finished, two of the serving maids came to remove my kirtle and dress me in my silk sleeping skirt. They snuffed out the candles until only one still burned. I climbed back on to my high bedstead and, propped on one elbow, watched my governess stretch out carefully on the narrow trundle next to my bed and draw up the satin coverlet. Salisbury was tall, and the coverlet was short. When she pulled the coverlet up to her sharp chin, her feet stuck out. This was the first all day that I had felt the least bit like laughing.

SOON AFTER my eleventh birthday in the spring of 1527, I, Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, king of England, and his wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, teetered on a stool. The royal dressmaker and her assistants pulled and pushed at my betrothal gown, pinning and tucking the heavy green silk. Would they never be done with it? My head ached, and my stomach felt queasy.

“Come, madam,” the dressmaker coaxed. “You want to please your bridegroom, do you not?”

“No, I do not,” I snapped. From everything I had overheard from the gossiping ladies of the household, Francis, king of France, was extremely ugly and repulsive, a lecherous old man afflicted with warts and pockmarks and foul breath.

“But your father, the king, wishes it,” the dressmaker reminded me.

I sighed and stood straight and motionless. Your father, the king, wishes it. How I had come to dread those words! Soon the French king and his court would arrive, and I, obeying my father’s wishes, would place my little hand in the grisly paw of the horrible Francis and promise to be his bride.

FINALLY THE GOWN was ready, the preparations finished, and my trunks packed for the journey to London from my palace in Ludlow, near the Welsh border. Travelling with my entourage of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, Salisbury and I were carried in the royal litter, which was lined with padded silk and plump velvet cushions and borne between two white horses. After almost two weeks of bumping over washed-out roads, we arrived, muddy and bedraggled, at Greenwich Palace on the River Thames, five miles east of London.

As I ran through the palace to find my mother, I found myself surrounded by commotion. New tapestries had been hung along the walls in the Great Hall. The royal musicians and costumers bustled about arranging masques and other entertainments. Carts delivered provisions for the banquets to the palace kitchens.

Despite the excitement, or perhaps because of it, I felt unwell. As the arrival of the French king neared, I suffered headaches and a queasiness of the stomach. My physician treated them with doses of evil-tasting potions, but they did no good.

Then word came that the ships carrying King Francis and his attendants had been delayed by storms. My bridegroom would not arrive until the weather cleared. An idea occurred to me: maybe his ship will he lost. Maybe he will drown and I won’t ever have to marry him. Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I regretted it. As I had been instructed since early childhood, I would have to admit these wicked thoughts to my confessor, do penance, and receive absolution.

But as long as I had committed such a sin — a rather small one, in my opinion — I decided that I might as well try to turn it to my advantage. Kneeling on the hard stone floor, my spine straight as a lance, my hands clasped beneath my chin, my eyes turned towards Heaven, I prayed: dear God, if it be thy will to take King Francis, please send a good husband in his stead!

I was not sure what a good husband was. For that I put my trust in God.

FOR NEARLY THREE weeks the storms raged and then suddenly abated. Towards mid-April King Francis and his huge retinue of courtiers and servants landed in Dover. They made their way to Greenwich, escorted by my father’s knights and henchmen.

“Perhaps he won’t find me to his satisfaction after all,” I said hopefully to Salisbury.

“Perhaps, but that is improbable, madam,” said Salisbury. Her face, plain as a plank, was as serene as ever. “The French king requested a portrait, which your father sent him, nicely presented in an ivory box with the Tudor rose carved upon the cover. King Francis much liked the sweet countenance he saw therein.”

How infuriating! “Salisbury, why must it be this way? if I had asked for his portrait, to see if he pleased me, would I have got it?”

Salisbury laughed. “Unlikely. That is not the way of this world.”

“Well, it should be,” I grumbled, although I knew she was right.

THE FESTIVAL honouring Saint George, the patron saint of England, commenced with an evening banquet. This would be my first glimpse of the man to whom I would be betrothed. As King Francis entered the Great Hall with a trumpet fanfare, I could make out that he was nearly as tall as my father but much thinner, save for a little round belly. Unfortunately, he was seated at one end of the king’s table, and I at the other. I have always been shortsighted, and at a distance I could not see his features clearly. All I could make out were his white hands fluttering about like startled pigeons. But I could hear him — he had a laugh like a braying donkey.

As I was peering towards him, trumpeters announced the first course: two dozen dishes that included frumenty with venison; salted hart; roast egret, swan, and crane; lamprey; pike; heron; carp; kid; perch; rabbit; mutton pasties; and baked quinces. The second course followed with as many dishes — crayfish, prawns, oysters, conger eel, plover, redshanks, snipe, larks baked in a pie, boiled custard, and marchpane.

The custom, as Salisbury had taught me, was to have only a taste, a morsel of this, a titbit of that. It was usually a hard custom to observe, especially when the prawns and oysters appeared. Even though I was very fond of these delicacies, precisely the dishes that Salisbury would not allow me at home, when I caught sight of the white hands flying about at the other end of the table and heard the braying laughter, I lost my taste even for prawns. Imagine having to live with this for the rest of my life! I found that I could scarcely swallow.

The banquet concluded with the presentation of a grand dessert, a replica of Noah’s Ark, nearly three feet tall and made entirely of sugar. A procession of every kind of animal, both real and imaginary, moulded of almond paste, paraded up the gangplank of the sugar boat. On the deck stood a miniature couple, which I took to be Noah and his wife. Then my father pointed at the figures and called out loudly, “Look you! The king of France and our own dear Princess of Wales, greeting their loyal subjects!”

The company sent up a cheer. As was expected of me, I lowered my eyes and smiled, but I wanted nothing more than to run from the table.

When the feasting ended, it was time to present King Francis and his courtiers to my mother and me. This was the moment I had dreaded. The courtiers came first, speaking to me in French, Latin, and Italian. (“Stupid questions,” I complained later to Salisbury. “Asking me how old I am in three different languages.”) I replied easily, but my attention was on King Francis, who moved closer and closer. I could now clearly see his rheumy eyes and long beak of a nose.

Then the French king bent over my hand and kissed it wetly. I nearly gagged. “The jewel of England,” my father told Francis proudly. “My pearl of the world.” How could my father do this to me?

AFTER THE BANQUET Henry entertained his French guests with a bearbaiting. I was seated beside my father as an enormous blind bear called Jack was led into the bear ring to cheering and applause. The king’s bearward let loose a pack of dogs. Jack struck out sightlessly and with a swipe of his mighty paw managed to kill the first two mastiffs that rushed at his throat. Several more dogs were released into the ring, and soon bear and dogs were bloody and dazed. Jack staggered around the ring, his fur matted with blood, stumbling over dead and dying dogs. The noise of howling dogs and roaring bear and cheering spectators was deafening, the stench of blood sickening. The bearward looked up at my father, the king, for a signal.

“What shall it be, my darling princess?” my father asked. “Is it life or death for poor old Jack? You must say!”

I was quite dazed from the gory sight. “I say let him be killed!” I declared in a trembling voice, knowing that was what my father wanted me to say but wishing with all my heart I had the power to save the bear’s life.

“Well said!” my father shouted. He made a sign to the bearward, who sent in one last dog to lunge at the wounded bear’s throat.

I watched the huge animal fall and expire, and I glanced at my betrothed, King Francis. His hands still fluttered aimlessly, although he looked a bit pale. At least his donkey bray was silenced.

THREE DAYS AFTER the banquet, I stood stiffly between King Henry and Queen Catherine at the betrothal ceremony, dressed in the new green and white silk gown. The golden robe trailing from my shoulders was so long and heavy that I required six attendants to carry it. So many sparkling necklaces were draped around my neck that I thought I would choke. Francis leered at me and slipped a diamond and ruby ring on my finger.

How much of this must I endure? I wondered, and again I felt cramping and nausea. Tears might have gathered in my eyes if I had allowed them, but I had been trained not to weep in public. “Ista puella nunquam plorat,” my father used to boast in Latin as he carried me around the Great Hall: “This girl never cries.” He didn’t know how much I cried when I was alone.

That evening there was another banquet, even more lavish than the one before. When the meal ended, the king signalled me to leave the royal table and prepare for the masque. This was another of my father’s ideas; he loved dressing up in the most elaborate outfits the royal costumer could devise. He had ordered me and seven ladies of my mother’s court and seven court gentlemen to be costumed, like him, in attire suggestive of the Far North. The fur-trimmed costumes were to my liking, and I truly enjoyed dancing. Since my arrival at Greenwich, my dancing tutor had rehearsed me and the ladies in our steps until we all knew the dance perfectly.

It was during these rehearsals that I had noticed a particular lady-in-waiting in my mother’s court. The lady’s thick black hair, gleaming like a raven’s wing, was left to fly wild, while other women tucked theirs modestly beneath a snood or coif. Her eyes were shiny and black as onyx, skin pale as milk, body thin and supple as a willow. A black ribbon circled her neck with a large diamond at her throat. She stood out among the group of rosy-skinned ladies with their pale blue eyes and golden tresses. Forty-nine ladies-in-waiting in my mother’s household wore pretty bright-coloured gowns, but this one dressed all in dramatic black and white.

The lady’s name was Anne Boleyn. I had learned by eavesdropping that she was the daughter of England’s ambassador to the French court, and she had grown up in France. Soon after she and her sister returned from France, my mother had invited them to join her court. Anne spoke French in a playful, mocking manner, quite different from the formal French of my tutors. She was witty and clever; her frequent, trilling laughter attracted everyone’s attention. She was not of royal blood — she was called simply Lady Anne — and yet she behaved as though she were royalty. I thought her fascinating.

The masque began. I led the seven ladies, including Anne, out of a make-believe ice cave, hung with garlands of greenery, and on to a low platform. There we were joined by eight men swirling long fur capes. The velvet half mask that hid King Henry’s eyes did not hide his identity — he was always the tallest man in any crowd, standing well above six feet. When the dancers were paired off as planned, the masked king held out his hand to me to dance the stately pavane. But as we executed the complicated steps, I noticed that my father’s eyes were not fixed on me but instead followed the black-haired dancer. There was an eagerness in his look that I had never seen there before, and it troubled me.

I needed to learn more about this Anne Boleyn.





CHAPTER TWO (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)










Betrothals (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)


You have nothing to worry about for the present,” Salisbury assured me as we commenced our journey back to Ludlow on a glowing May morning. Dew sparkled on the hedgerows, and the air was sweet with the smell of blossoms. “Before he sailed for France, King Francis complained to your father that “the princess is so small and frail that no marriage is possible for three years, until she is at least fourteen.’”

“‘Small and frail’ — is that what he said?” I cried. “So I do not please him after all! Why did he not say this before we pledged our troth?”

“You please him well, madam. He simply worries that you may not be robust enough to bear children. But this need not concern you. My prayers are answered: you will have plenty of time to grow to womanhood. And who knows what may happen?”

“I shall never marry!” I moaned. “I hate the men my father chooses for me! And if I do not satisfy a pompous old windbag like Francis, then whom can I satisfy?”

This was my third betrothal.

The first had been to the dauphin, the eldest son of this same King Francis, and took place when I was barely two years old and still lived with both my parents at Greenwich Palace. Naturally I could remember almost nothing of that event, but Salisbury had often described the occasion for me.

All I could recall was a jowly hugeness in scarlet satin looming over me — Cardinal Wolsey, that bloated friend of my father’s, who placed a ring with a sparkling stone as big as a wren’s egg on my finger. Wolsey, with his long, yellow teeth and cold, grey eyes, had always frightened me.

I could also remember gazing up at my father and smiling at him, and my father smiling back. How I adored him! How I loved being carried proudly on the king’s shoulder around the Great Hall of the palace as he showed me off or fed me dainty bits from his own plate while my mother frowned in disapproval.

Then, four years later when I was nearly six, my father decided that marrying me to the dauphin would not be in England’s best interests — or in his own. The betrothal was broken.

My mother explained, and Salisbury explained, that from the time of my birth — I was my parents’ only living child — my father had pondered the choice of a husband for me. Not a husband, even, but the promise of a husband. Many promises might be made and broken before there was a real wedding.

“A daughter is not as highly prized as a son would be,” Salisbury said, “but a princess is still precious. She is a valuable tool for forging alliances between kings and kingdoms. You must not concern yourself with it, Mary, because you have no say in any of it. Your mother, the queen, had no say when her own father, King Ferdinand of Spain, betrothed her to Prince Henry. These are the affairs of men, and especially of father’s, and most particularly of kings.”

I loudly protested this idea. My father adored me! Surely my happiness would be most important to him!

“Your happiness has nothing to do with it, madam,” Salisbury said in her infuriatingly calm way.

To my sorrow I learned that Salisbury was right: my happiness did not matter — ever.

After the dauphin, King Henry had next decided on my Spanish cousin, Charles, the son of my mother’s sister. I was just six, and Charles was a man of twenty-two with the title of Holy Roman emperor.

When I was betrothed to Charles, a magnificent procession made its way from London to Dover, on the coast. My mother and I rode in our royal litter, and crowds of people lined the route, cheering and tossing their caps in the air. At Dover we met Charles.

Charles had sailed from Spain with a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships and arrived in Dover accompanied by two thousand courtiers and servants. When I finally saw Charles, his appearance surprised and pleased me. He was clothed in a peculiar manner, so different from my father’s crimson velvet outfit trimmed in fur. Charles wore black velvet with no ornament but a chain of gold around his neck. He had kind, intelligent eyes. And he praised me when I played a little song for him upon my virginals. I liked him, although he was sixteen years older than I was.

King Henry owned numerous palaces and manor houses, and he had prepared Bridewell, one of the most beautiful, for the emperor’s visit. During his stay of several months, Charles began to teach me to play chess.

Then the visit was over. On the day before he sailed away, Charles kissed my hand and promised to return to claim me as his wife when I reached the marriageable age of twelve.

But one day, more than a year after Charles’s departure, a page dressed in the king’s green and white satin livery came to my chambers with a message. I broke the wax seal and read it: the king wished to see me at once. He had signed it, as he always did, Henricus Rex — Henry the King.

Immediately I picked up my petticoats and ran happily to the king’s chambers — down the long gallery, up the king’s staircase, through the guard chamber, where the yeomen all smiled and bowed to me, through the noisy audience chamber crowded with people waiting to see the king on official business, through the first presence chamber where important men conferred, through the second presence chamber where the king’s closest advisers stroked their beards and nodded knowingly as I skipped by, and finally into the privy chamber, where the king was seated at a great oak table, Cardinal Wolsey at his side. Breathless, I fell to my knees before my father and bowed my head for his blessing.

I seldom saw my father, who was usually off performing his kingly duties while I spent my days with my tutors. When I did see him, the visits were usually merry, but this time the purpose was entirely serious.

“You must write to Charles immediately,” the king said.

Quill, inkhorn, and parchment were fetched, and I climbed upon a seat at the table. Cardinal Wolsey himself sharpened the quill for me. I waited for my father’s instructions.

“You shall write the letter in Latin, of course…” that was not a problem; even at the age of eight I had mastered the ability to write in both Latin and English “…and speak of your deep fondness for the emperor,” the king ordered. “Hint at your jealousy that he has sought the favours — nay, the affections — of another. Then swear your devotion. Can you do that, Mary?”

“Yes, my lord,” I replied, having not the least idea what he was talking about: jealousy? Affections of another? But I dared not ask. I dipped the quill and began to write, while my father paced back and forth, dictating the words.

The king slipped a ring from his own finger to send with the letter to Emperor Charles. The ring was set with a large stone that glowed a deep and brilliant green.

“The emerald reflects the truth of lovers,” the king explained, although for me that was no explanation at all. “It will change colour from dark to light if one of the lovers be inconstant.”

Inconstant?

Then he turned to Wolsey, seeming to forget that I was there. I backed slowly out of my father’s chamber (Never turn your back on the king, Salisbury had taught me. Always kneel and remain kneeling until he gives you permission to rise.) and then hurried to find Salisbury to ask for an explanation.

My governess reached for a silver comb and began tugging it through my unruly curls. “The rumour has reached the king,” she said quietly, “that Charles is thinking of marrying someone else.”

“But Charles is betrothed to me!” I pouted, yanking away from the comb in spite of myself.

“Your father must be certain of Charles’s loyalty,” she said.

Weeks later as I sat with my mother and some of her ladies, practising my stitches, my father burst unannounced into her chambers. His face was dark with anger, and his eyes shot sparks of fury. The waiting ladies scattered like frightened doves, and I dropped to my knees and hoped he would not notice me. My mother serenely laid aside her needlework and rose to greet him.

“Damn the Spaniard!” he roared. “The emerald has changed from dark to light! Charles has broken his pledge to us and married a Portuguese princess!” He turned on his heel and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

“Will my father find me another husband?” I asked, when I dared to speak.

“Of course he will, Mary,” my mother assured me. “Never fear.”

I resumed my stitchery. I was disappointed, for I truly liked Charles, and I was too young to be grateful that for the moment, at least, I was as free as I would ever be.

For a time after the betrothal to Charles was broken, I heard no more talk of future husbands. Instead, I received a message of another kind from the king: I was to be crowned Princess of Wales. I was nine years old.





CHAPTER THREE (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)










Tudor Colours (#u8c4fd0e8-2256-5076-b5fe-d1f67592320e)


Everything was in a kind of giddy uproar for my crowning ceremony. I was to have a new gown, pale blue silk embroidered with tiny flowers and trimmed in gold. Even Queen Catherine, who never cared much for finery, ordered a gown for the occasion. It had been a long time since I had seen my mother so happy.

“This means that your father has decided you will one day be queen,” my mother said in her heavy Spanish accent, and kissed me on the forehead. “So the bastard Fitzroy is not in line for the throne, thanks be to God.”

I had heard a little about this “bastard Fitzroy”: that he was the king’s natural son and named Henry Fitzroy — Fitzroy means “son of the king"; that although Henry was the father, the child’s mother was not my mother, his wife, but a woman named Bessie Blount. It interested me that I had a baby brother who was kept hidden away somewhere. I understood that I must not speak of him to anyone, especially my mother. Someday I would ask Salisbury about this bastard half-brother. In the meantime I was happy to be the centre of attention.

On the day of the ceremony, King Henry made his entrance with a flourish of horns, accompanied by a host of earls and barons with their knights and servants. Cardinal Wolsey was there, of course, all in scarlet. He displayed his terrible teeth in something like a smile, but the smile never reached his glittering eyes.

I shivered and turned to my father. How magnificent he looked! He was dressed in close-fitting hose that showed off his muscular legs. Over these he wore red velvet trunk hose stuffed with cotton wool to form an onion shape and slashed to display glints of silver under the velvet. His doublet of quilted black velvet was covered all over with pearls and other jewels. In my eyes King Henry was the handsomest man in all the world.

“Are you ready, my princess?” the king asked.

“I am, Your Majesty,” I said, dropping into a deep curtsy.

The musty chapel swallowed up the light of hundreds of flickering candles, and the ceremony droned on tediously. My beautiful gown was hot and wretchedly uncomfortable, but I moved smoothly through my part, as Salisbury had trained me. Kneeling before my father as he set a jewelled coronet upon my head and invested me with my new title, Princess of Wales, I gazed up at him, basking in his approval. “My perfect pearl of the world,” he called me. “The jewel of all England.”

It was not until several days after the royal banquet in my honour that I learned my father had decided to send me far away. Nor did he tell me himself. Wolsey brought me the news.

The cardinal sat on a stool in my schoolroom, his fat fingers splayed over his fat thighs, listening to my music lesson. He had brought me a gift in honour of my new title, a beautifully illuminated book of hours. But then he added, almost as an afterthought, “Princess Mary, the king has given orders that you are to move to Ludlow Palace, near the Welsh border, where you will establish your own court. The queen will not accompany you. Lady Margaret, countess of Salisbury, will go with you in her stead. You are to leave in a fortnight, madam.”

I felt my lips begin to tremble. Determined not to let him see how upset I was, I stared hard at his heavy gold cardinal’s ring. “My mother is not to accompany me? But why? Why?”

“Because the king wishes it,” rumbled the cardinal, and he heaved his large buttocks off the stool. He held out his ring. Concealing my loathing, I bent to kiss it.

It wasn’t that I had not been away from my mother. We were often separated, she at one palace with my father, I at another with nursemaids and tutors. But she was never more than a few hours away and we saw one another often. Ludlow was a journey of ten days even when the weather was fine. I would see her only rarely.

Later, when the cardinal had gone, I wept inconsolably on my mother’s knee. But I received little comfort.

“No good will come of your tears,” the queen warned. “Your father, the king, wishes it” — those terrible words! — “and so it shall be. But remember that you are now one step closer to the throne. This is the beginning of your training to rule as queen. Salisbury is my dearest friend, and she will act as your mother in my stead, being kind when you require kindness, stern when sternness is in order. And we shall write to one another as often as we wish and send each other remembrances, and when your father, the king, summons us to his court, we shall all be together.”

MY HOUSEHOLD would number three hundred, including the privy council that would make governing decisions in my name and a staff of servants to tend everyone. Days were spent packing the belongings for all these people into wooden carts to he drawn by Flemish draft horses.

I was used to moving. When my father held court, we stayed in one or another of the great palaces near London. Each summer my father went on progress, journeying into the countryside so that his subjects could see him. In autumn he hunted. Often my mother and I accompanied him on progresses and hunts, stopping for days or even weeks at a time in one of the king’s hunting lodges or at the country manor of a nobleman and his family. I had always enjoyed the bustle and excitement of those journeys. But this one was different. My heart was so heavy that for days I slept little and ate not at all.

The night before our departure my father summoned me to his chambers and gave me his blessing. I was angry and upset, but I could not show that. Why? Why? I wanted to cry out, but I was silent. My mother was present, and I ached to hurl myself into her arms but sensed that my father would not like such a display. I must behave like a future queen! My mother’s kiss that night seemed cool and dry, almost like no kiss at all.

On a late summer day, I sat miserably with Salisbury in my royal litter, waiting for the signal to be given for the journey to begin. The procession would stretch for miles, protected by royal henchmen on the lookout for brigands and thieves who preyed upon unwary travellers. As the trumpets sounded, I looked up for a last glimpse of my mother. She was standing at her open window, dressed in a plain kirtle. She waved to me and I watched her handkerchief flutter as we clattered out of the gates.

“When can we return?” I asked Salisbury frantically as we lurched forward.

“Yuletide,” she answered calmly.

Yuletide was nearly four months away. Such an unbearably long time!

As our procession wended towards Ludlow Palace, villagers along the way turned out to wave their caps and cheer.

“Greet your people, madam,” Salisbury instructed. “They’re saluting you.”

“I do not feel like it,” I protested.

“Feel like it or not, you are a princess,” Salisbury reminded me. “Smile and wave.”

Obediently I smiled and raised my royal hand to my subjects.

I MISSED my mother terribly. The arrival of a letter from Queen Catherine brightened me above all; I would rush to my room immediately to compose a reply. My attempts to write cheerful letters were always defeated by my yearning for her and by my complaints. The queen wrote regularly to Salisbury with instructions for my care, insisting upon discipline, wholesomeness, and simple food. I’m afraid I spent too much time writing to protest the boiled meat and plain bread and tasteless puddings that resulted. Later I would regret the time I had wasted with such unimportant matters.

I also complained about my tutor. King Henry, a man of sharp intellect and broad learning, had decreed that my studies must be rigorous. He hired a noted Spanish scholar, Juan Luis Vives, to oversee them.

Master Vives was thin-lipped and ill-tempered. Tufts of dark hair sprouted from his ears. He was never without his walking stick, which had a silver knob at the top in the shape of a fox’s head. I fancied it resembled the tutor himself.

“I see that you have been badly spoiled,” the tutor purred, like a cat about to pounce on a mouse. Then he changed to a roaring lion: “It is my belief that children should feel the rod upon their backs at least once a day.”

Terrified, I bent over my lesson book. Master Vives paced back and forth, smacking the stick into the palm of his hand, thumping the book with its point, or slashing the stick through the air until it whirred. Every time I made an error, I was sure that he would strike me. At the end of my long hours with Vives, I would run to hide my face in Salisbury’s bony lap.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” Salisbury comforted. “Your mother, the queen, has made it plain that he is not to lay a hand upon you.”

“But what about that awful stick he carries? May he strike me with that?”

“No, he may not.”

But what if he forgot my mother’s orders? I never remained comforted for long.

I loathed my tutor almost as much as I loved my governess. Salisbury had nothing to do with my studies but everything to do with my training in manners and court behaviour. When I was not with Vives or my tutors in religion and theology or my music teachers, I was with Salisbury, learning all the rules concerning sitting, standing, kneeling, eating, drinking, dressing, speaking, and every other public act. The lessons were excruciatingly boring, but Salisbury was always patient and kind.

And there were the larger lessons that Salisbury said I must master as future queen: to be gracious even when I felt ill, or tired, or sad. To show mercy even to those I believed did not deserve it. To control my anger, concealing it when necessary and showing it only when I meant to, and then sparingly. For me this was the most difficult lesson of all!

At last the Yuletide season arrived, and as Salisbury had promised, there was an invitation to court. I loved court life — the pretty gowns, the jewels, and especially the banquets. The long, hard journey — by horseback and litter from Ludlow to Richmond Palace on the River Thames and thence by royal barge, winding downriver from Richmond past London to Greenwich Palace — seemed not so long nor so hard. There would be time with my mother and perhaps a private visit with my father. There would be music and dancing every night and jugglers and fools for amusement. My father would show me off, the Princess of Wales, the jewel of all England, and I would be the centre of attention.

But when the Yuletide season ended after Twelfth Night, I had to return again to Ludlow. Although my heart ached when the time came to bid my mother farewell, I did not weep. “Until Easter, then,” I said to her, assuming that I would once again be called to court.

“Perhaps,” she said. “We can at least hope.”

It was not until later that I remembered that conversation. Why did she not say, “Yes, until Easter”? She must have sensed that our lives were about to change.

I counted the weeks until Easter, but no invitation arrived from my father. The third great court festival of the year was Whitsuntide, at the end of May, and again I waited, nearly ill with impatience. I was not permitted to write to my father, begging for an invitation, but I bombarded my mother with letters, entreating her to send for me. Her replies were warm and loving, as always, but she did not answer my questions: why was I not called to court? When will I see you again?

Instead of being called to court, I received a summons from the king to come to Bridewell for yet another ceremony. This time it was not the Princess of Wales who would be the focus of all eyes, but my half-brother, Henry Fitzroy. At this ceremony King Henry intended to invest Fitzroy, his illegitimate son, with a string of royal titles: Duke of Somerset, Lord High Admiral, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Warden of the Marches, Duke of Richmond.

It would have done no good to complain. And I was thrilled at the chance to be with my mother. But when we finally reached Bridewell, I found Queen Catherine in no mood for idle chatter. She was furious.

“Not only will Fitzroy receive all of these titles but he is to have a household even greater than yours, Mary” she fumed when we had a moment to ourselves before the ceremony began. She turned to Salisbury. “Imagine a six-year-old bastard outranking a princess!” she kissed. Then she whispered angrily to me, “Clearly you are no longer the king’s choice to inherit the throne. He intends to put his bastard son in your rightful place. The people will not stand for it, nor will I.”

Throughout the long, tedious ceremony I had a chance to observe my rival, a pretty boy with golden curls, swathed in ermine and weighed down with jewels. He looked thoroughly miserable, and I felt a little sorry for him. But only a little! The last trumpet fanfares had scarcely died away when my mother swept off to make her protest to the king. I waited fearfully outside the privy chamber. My father stormed out, rushing past me without seeing me, his face blood red and his eyes shrunken to pinpoints of rage. When he was gone, I tiptoed to my mother’s side.

“It is no use,” the queen said, slumped wearily in her chair. “He will not listen. And now to punish me, he has informed me that he’s taking away my three most cherished ladies-in-waiting and sending them back to Spain. I shall be so alone!”

That was the first time I had known my father to rebuke my mother, and it frightened me deeply.

I did not know it then, but Anne Boleyn’s poison had already begun its deadly work. Nor did I know then that I would not see my father or my mother for nearly a year. By the time of my betrothal to King Francis, Anne’s poison was eating at my father’s soul.





CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_f1df4dcf-ccda-57a4-b60a-1b7153f0ab15)










Falconry (#ulink_f1df4dcf-ccda-57a4-b60a-1b7153f0ab15)


Following my betrothal to Francis, I was relieved, for the first time, to leave my father and return to Ludlow. But suddenly there was another change of domicile. My father did not even bother to write; Wolsey sent the message that I was to move to Richmond Palace. I did not understand why. Nevertheless, I was glad.

Richmond was quite beautiful, with a great tower and fourteen slim turrets, dozens of state apartments, and two chapels royal. It was surrounded by vast acres of forestland and deer parks. Best of all, Richmond was close to London, only a few hours’ journey by barge upriver from Greenwich.

I settled in quickly at Richmond. One early summer evening soon after I arrived there, I set out to explore the grounds with my favourite attendant, Lady Susan. Only with Susan, of all my ladies, did I feel the stirrings of true friendship. Susan, with her halo of flame-red hair, was clever and adventurous. She was the daughter of the duke of Norfolk, one of my father’s closest advisers. But there was something more: Susan was the cousin of Anne Boleyn. For the past two months, ever since the masque, I had thought often of the way my father had looked at Lady Anne as we danced. Their image sent a shiver of danger through me. And though I felt drawn to Susan, something told me not to ask her about this dramatic cousin — at least, not yet.

As Susan and I walked, we came upon a tall, thin lad who carried a small living thing cupped in his hands. I told him to show me what he had. He opened his hands carefully to reveal a hawk, newly hatched and quaking with fright.

“Who are you?” I asked the lad.

“Peter Cheseman,” he said. “My father is assistant to the royal falconer” he added, a note of pride in his voice.

“And that bird you hold?” I asked. “Has it a name as well.?”

“No, madam. It’s no good, this one,” he explained. “See, she is injured. My father says it is worthless to try to train her. But I mean to prove him wrong.”

“And so you shall,” I told him boldly, although I had not the least idea how a lowborn boy like Peter had any better chance than I, a princess, did of proving a father wrong.

Lady Susan took a particular interest in the injured bird, and thereafter she and I found excuses to visit it as often as I could escape from Master Vives and my studies. One day we arrived to discover Peter in a state of distress.

“Cat got her” he blurted out. “My fault altogether.”

“It was not your fault, Peter!” Lady Susan insisted. “I’m sure you did all you could. Had it not been for the cat, I’m sure your effort would have made her a fine hunter!”

Peter looked at Susan gratefully, and I wished that I had been the one to offer him such reassurance.

Towards the end of summer the hawks finished their moult, new feathers replacing the old ones, and became active hunters again. Nearly every day when my lessons were finished, I began going out with Lady Susan to the mews where the hawks were kept. We watched as Peter and his father trained peregrine falcons, kestrels, and merlins in the hunting of birds and small game.

One afternoon we found Peter in the weathering yard, coaxing a young hawk to fly from its perch to his fist. When finally the bird spread its wings and glided to Peters gloved fist, clutching it with its curved talons, Peter rewarded the bird with a titbit of meat.

“Soon this one will be ready to fly in the open,” he said. Peter smiled — a lovely smile, I thought. “And then she’ll be ready to hunt.”

Peter explained the lessons that the bird must learn: first, to sit by its captured prey but not devour it; once that has been mastered, to fly with its kill to the falconer’s fist. “No one needs to teach her to hunt — that she’s born knowing,” he said, tenderly stroking the hawk’s feathers. “Teaching her to trust you, there’s the hard part,” Peter said. “It’s no good teaching her to kill for you if she goes off with her quarry and sits in a tree somewhere.”

I left the yard and hurried directly to Salisbury. “I wish to study the art of falconry,” I announced. I argued that my father hunted with falcons and that my mother, too, used to ride out with the king, a merlin perched upon her gloved fist. Salisbury wrote to Queen Catherine, who sent her approval with a gift of silver bells to be attached to the bird’s leg and a soft leather hood to cover the bird when it was being carried to the hunt. When the gifts arrived, I rushed to the mews to show the bells and hood to Peter.

“Now,” he said, “we must find you a hawk, and you’ll learn together.”

Peter trapped a young hawk, a merlin with eyes the colour of marigolds, and we began to train her. This was to be my bird. “It’s the females that are wanted,” he told me, because they’re bigger and stronger than the males.” I named the merlin Noisette, the French word for “hazelnut” because of her lovely colour.

“Have to get her used to her new life among people, people who walk about or who ride horses,” Peter said. “It must be a strange thing for birds, eh? And always there’s to be a reward for her. If you don’t give her a reward, she won’t work for you. You can’t force her to hunt for you — she’ll fly away and never come back. But you must not reward her too much. When her crop is full and she has no appetite, then she won’t hunt for you. She’ll do best when she’s a bit lean — not starving, mind, but beginning to think keenly of her next meal — that’s when you take her out. If you’ve trained her right, she’ll come back to you when you whistle.”

It took me days to learn the particular whistle that would bring Noisette to my glove. Once I made the mistake of practising the three quick notes when I was supposed to be studying Latin grammar, and Master Vives bashed his walking stick so hard on my desk that the silver fox head was thereafter cocked at a quizzical angle.

FINALLY NOISETTE and I were ready. Mounted on my white Spanish pony, I squinted up at the brilliant sky. On my left hand I wore my leather glove, thick enough to resist the talons of a hawk. High overhead Noisette swung lazily as though suspended by a string. I could make out the shape of her graceful wings as a dark blur against the cloudless blue sky.

Several of my ladies had ridden out with me. All but Lady Susan straggled behind, gossiping and laughing among themselves, while Susan and I trotted on ahead. Beside us rode the pompous Lord Ellington, the royal falconer. I leaned back in my saddle, searching for Peter. He saw me and grinned.

I had become fond of Peter during the weeks of training. He had big ears and his eyes were set too close together. Unlike my weak eyes that could see next to nothing at a distance, Peter’s seemed to be as been as those of the hawks he worked with. I much admired his way with birds. He was patient and firm, unlike Master Vives, who was neither.

I took such pleasure in Peter’s company that I had sometimes wondered if it might be possible to marry him. He would surely make a fine companion, and he would let me rule England just as he let me do whatever else I wanted. But I knew that was impossible. I could no more choose my own husband than fly like Noisette.

Noisette circled slowly overhead. I gazed up at her, thrilled; for a moment I imagined that I was that merlin, flying free and wild and solitary — alone! I was never alone. Salisbury slept beside my bed and two servant girls lay on pallets near the door to my chamber. From the moment I arose in the morning until I said amen to my nightly prayers, I moved through the day surrounded by servants, courtiers, councillors, priests and confessors, tutors, ladies-in-waiting.

Suddenly Noisette spotted her prey. She tucked in her wings and dived, dropping straight down and snatching a lark out of the air. Not only did I envy Noisette's freedom and her solitude but also her deadly power. I whistled, and Noisette came to my fist with the lark clutched in her talons. The falconer reached for the lark and slipped it into the game bag. I presented Noisette with her reward, a bit of meat from the falconer’s supply.

Riding home at the end of the day, my game bag half-full, I wondered if my father knew I was learning one of his favourite sports. I thought of my father far more often, it seemed, than he thought of me. Although my mother wrote nearly every week, it had been months since I had had so much as a word from the king. Any message he had for me was sent through Wolsey.

“Why does he not come to visit me?” I asked Susan days later as she accompanied me for a walk. The weather had turned foul, and Susan was the only one of my ladies who did not mind going out in the rain. “Deer hunting is one of his favourite pastimes and the deer parks here exist for his pleasure. Why then do I hear nothing from him?”

“They say that the king has taken up falconry again,” Susan replied cryptically, pulling her cloak up over her head.

“Then he could come and hunt with me! He could bring my mother as well. Why does he not bring the queen here, so that I may see them both?”

“His hunting companion is not the queen,” Susan said in a voice so low that I scarcely heard it. “It is my cousin Anne Boleyn.”

Her words took away my breath. “Lady Anne? But why?”

“It is said that the king is in love with Anne,” Susan replied, head down, avoiding my eyes.

“What lies are you telling me?” I demanded furiously.

“Sadly, madam, it is the truth. The king makes no secret of his passion. My father speaks of it proudly: King Henry is seen everywhere with Lady Anne by his side. Queen Catherine appears with him only at large public occasions.”

“I don’t believe you!” I cried. I turned and splashed back to my chambers through the pelting rain, leaving Lady Susan to walk a little way behind.

As a servant girl helped me off with my wet cloak and sodden shoes, I spied the letter on my table. It bore the thick wax seal of Cardinal Wolsey. His letters seldom brought me good news — was I to move again? — and so I waited until I had changed into dry clothes to break the seal and read the letter.

It bore a message from the king, commanding me to come to Greenwich for Yuletide. At last I had been invited to the palace, to spend Christmas with my father and mother. My mood lifted at once. But then a darker shadow passed over: Anne Boleyn would surely be there.

I remembered well the way my father had looked at Anne as we danced for the French king. And now Lady Susan claimed that my father was in love with Anne! I vowed that I would not believe these hurtful rumours until I saw proof with my own eyes. I would have that opportunity at Yuletide, still several weeks away.





CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_1e78e38b-7a21-5dfd-9bf6-0b0693c39e75)










Lessons (#ulink_1e78e38b-7a21-5dfd-9bf6-0b0693c39e75)


Day after day for the next month, my eyes burned, my head throbbed, my body ached with fatigue, My lessons seemed longer, more wearisome, and duller than ever. All I could think about was what I would find when I travelled to Greenwich for Christmas.

I was studying Utopia, a book written by my father’s friend Sir Thomas More, and I found the work hard going. I was forbidden to read idle books of chivalry and romance for entertainment. Meanwhile my ladies-in-waiting played cards and rolled dice to amuse themselves. I longed to join them, but I was not allowed trifling pastimes.

The hours crawled by. All day long tutors in mathematics, geography, French, Italian, and music took their turns. In some of these subjects Lady Susan, Lady Winifred, and a few other court ladies participated, but usually I studied alone. My eyelids would begin to droop, my head to sag, and Master Vives would shriek in my ear, “Pay attention! Think not to avoid the task!”

Only after the formal lessons were over and the prayers finished for the night did Salisbury, beloved Salisbury, teach me what I needed most to know.

One November night as a storm rattled the windows of the bedchamber and the flame of a single candle guttered and died, my governess commenced a long story.

“Mary, you know some of this story,” she began, “but perhaps you have not understood what it means. You must understand it now, because I believe that grave changes lie ahead and you must be prepared.”

I lay absolutely still under the thick satin coverlet. “Go on, I beg you.”

“Under your grandfather’s rule, England prospered, and the royal treasury filled with wealth. He intended for his older son, Arthur, to succeed him on the throne. While still a young man, not much older than you are now, Arthur was betrothed. The wife your grandfather chose for Prince Arthur was the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Catherine of Aragon.”

“My mother.”

“Yes, sweet Mary, but this was long before God saw fit to send you to her. Catherine was sixteen when she married Arthur, already a few years older than one might expect of a bride. I was a guest at the wedding, and I can still picture Princess Catherine riding to the church on the back of a fine Spanish mule. That was the custom of her people, although I’m sure everyone thought it strange, as did I. It was at her wedding to Prince Arthur that she met your father. Prince Henry was just an exuberant, pink-cheeked boy, barely ten years old.

“It was November, anno Domini 1501, and the sky was blanketed with heavy, grey clouds. Henry’s cheerful smile must have warmed Catherine’s heart when she found herself so far from her sunny homeland. But soon her heart was chilled. Only a few months later, Arthur lay in his coffin, dead of consumption.”

I sighed, thinking of my mother’s sorrow.

“The king had no intention of sending Catherine and especially her dowry back home to Spain. The two monarchs, Henry and Ferdinand, put their old grey heads together and devised a solution: Catherine would be kept in England to marry Arthur’s younger brother, Henry. He had not yet reached his eleventh birthday. Many theologians believed that such marriages were forbidden by Scripture. But the pope in Rome granted a dispensation that allowed Henry to marry his brother’s widow. Henry and Catherine were betrothed.”

“But my father was too young to wed, was he not?” I asked.

“He was then,” Salisbury agreed. “But six years passed. Catherine spent those years living a quiet, pious life of prayer and devotion to God. It was during this time that your mother and I became close friends.”

“And my father?” I asked. “Did you know him as well?”

“I knew him as all of England came to know him. We watched in admiration as the lively boy reached manhood. He grew very tall, with merry blue eyes, handsome features, and red-gold hair that shone in the sunlight. He was well-built, strong as a bear and graceful as a deer, an athlete who excelled at every kind of sport. Your father was a magnificent man!

“When his father died, the young prince inherited vast wealth as well as the crown of England. Shortly after the old king’s death, Henry and Catherine were wed.

“The young couple spent the last night of their honeymoon at the Tower of London, where by tradition every English monarch throughout all of our history has slept on the night before the coronation. The next morning they rode together in a golden litter through London to Westminster Abbey, where Henry and Catherine were crowned rulers of all England. I was there by your mother’s side, happy for her happiness.”

“How old was my mother then?” I asked. The hour was late, but I was wide awake and hungry for every detail.

“She was twenty-three, your father was seventeen. The celebration went on for days. You would have loved it, Mary!

“‘Long live King Henry the Eighth!’ we cried. Long live Queen Catherine!”

Outside the palace, the storm howled and sleet whipped against the windows. I marvelled that my governess was telling me this, putting flesh on the bones of the story of my parents, when for so long she had evaded my questions. But why was she telling the story now? Soon enough dawn would arrive, cold and damp, and I would be called from my bed for morning prayers and then to another day of enduring the roars and expostulations of Master Vives. But I wanted to know more, to know everything. “And you were with my mother then?” I prompted.

“Yes, I was. I came to your mother’s court, a lady-in-waiting. I saw with my own eyes how deeply Henry fell in love with his bride, as she did with him. That she was older seemed only to deepen his passion for her. She was comely, and her keen intelligence was a good match for his. Their first child, a girl, was stillborn, but when Queen Catherine was delivered of a living son, the king seemed more in love with her than ever. How King Henry exulted! And all of his loyal subjects celebrated with him. Cannons boomed, shattering windows. Public fountains bubbled with wine. The feasting went on for days. King Henry arranged tournaments in honour of the new prince and jousted with Catherine’s sleeve wrapped around his lance and a banner proclaiming “Sir Loyal Heart.’”

Sir Loyal Heart! I thought of Lady Susan’s words: it is said that the king is in love with Anne. And I remembered the remarks I had overheard only days earlier: “Lovers are madmen who lose all reason, and the king is like all others since he has lost his reason to Lady Anne,” Master Vives had muttered to aged Brother Anselm, my tutor in religion.

Later I overheard Lady Julia, mistress of the wardrobe, murmur to her assistant, “His fancy will wear itself out, and we will hear no more of her. There will be someone new to catch the king’s eye.”

I had listened to the gossip, but I’d refused to believe it — even from the mouth of Anne’s cousin, Susan. How could my father have changed so much?

Salisbury paused to collect herself. When she resumed her story, her voice quivered. “And then the child died.”

I sighed. My mother had told me of the newborn prince’s death and my father’s heartbreak.

“The king and queen mourned the loss of their child, but infant deaths are commonplace, and women are accustomed to weeping over tiny graves. They did not long despair. They were young and vigorous, certain to produce more children. Over the next ten years Catherine became pregnant no fewer than ten times, and each time — except one! — the infant did not live.”

“And that one?” I whispered, already knowing the answer.

“You, my lady,” Salisbury said. “It was an occasion for rejoicing throughout the kingdom when you entered this world healthy and squalling—”

“On the eighteenth day of February, anno Domini 1516,” I interrupted. I was sitting up now on my bed, arms clasped around my thin body, shivering from cold and excitement.

“Three days after your birth I myself carried you from Greenwich Palace to Friars’ Church. I handed you to Cardinal Wolsey, to be christened at the silver baptismal font brought down from Canterbury Cathedral. You wore a white velvet christening robe lined with ermine. The robe was so long and so heavy that a countess and an earl had to follow behind me to carry the train. You lay upon a jewelled pillow under a crimson and gold canopy of estate held by four knights, while the choir sang the Te Deum and Wolsey made the sign of the cross over you.”

Salisbury had told me this part many times, but I never tired of hearing the story. She always ended her account by reminding me of how much my father had adored me, how he doted on me as I grew. But until now I had not dared to question his love.

I leaned over the side of my great bed and peered down at the countess on the trundle. “Then why does he ignore me? What have I done wrong?” I watched the governess’s face carefully for signs of an untruth.

Salisbury breathed a weary sigh. Then she answered, “Because, Mary, you are not a boy. He believes that a woman does not have the strength to rule England after his death, and blood will be shed. He knows that the people may not accept the bastard Fitzroy as their king. Above all else, your father desires a legitimate son to inherit the throne, for England’s sake. And he is determined to have his way.”





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