Westminster Palace, Summer 1441
Westminster Palace, Summer
MY COURSES STOP, as I knew they would; I tell no one that I am with child, not even my husband.
I don’t want to speak of it until I have walked in the unending daylight of midsummer eve.
I want a night of sunlight to wipe out my memories of the night of darkness.
Roger Bolingbroke never asks after my health, and I avoid Margery Jourdemayne’s keen gaze.
I keep this as my secret, my hidden knowledge.
I made this happen; it is all mine. I don’t know how long a child conceived by a fallen angel on a woman will wait in the womb before birth.
I do not know how this pregnancy will go.
So far, I have no other sign but the lack of blood: no appetite for rare foods, no swelling of my belly.
I think the seed is sitting in the womb, ripening, like an ear of wheat in dark ground, and I must wait patiently for signs of growth.
He will be strong and well made, as his dark father was strong and well made.
I will trust him as I would trust to no mortal man.
My secret knowledge that the king will soon die changes everything.
The Beauforts can talk all they like about his marriage; they snub us by preferring the Anjou princess to our choice.
It no longer matters; it will not happen.
Nothing that they plan will come to pass.
Even if they get little Marguerite d’Anjou to England, even if they force the poor unwilling youth to the altar, he will never bed her.
He has no strength to make an heir, and he will waste and die, as his little image, buried deep in the ground somewhere in Haringey, will waste, together with the bones and the hair and even the silk handkerchief, and all that will be left will be the little crown of gold wire and the gold thread that pierced him from his screaming wax mouth down his twisted spine.
I treat the king with gentle affection as someone not long for this world, and he responds as if he is readying himself for death like the saint he longs to be.
Somehow, his soul knew that it should be shriven and ready for the hour, and when my husband complains or my ladies laugh behind their hands at his excessive devotion, I tell them: ‘His Grace knows best what he needs. His Grace is called to higher things. It’s not for us to complain. ’
The king loves me for my understanding. He takes me into his confidence, trusts me with his little sins and his fears.
He asks me, his eyes shining with faith, if I am sure that he will be able to hold to his determination to be a holy king, even if they make him take a wife.
I comfort him; I assure him that God will favour him.
I have to take care not to promise him that God will take him to peace long before he commits any sin.
He need not fear sins of the flesh; he will be far from temptation very soon.
‘You are very close to God,’ I tell him, and he gives me his trusting smile and says: ‘My dear lady-aunt, I feel it – I know it.’
We hold hands. ‘I promise you,’ I tell him.
TRUSTING ME, HE honours me before any other woman at court.
I am invited into the City, to take the salute of the marching bands of the watch in their midsummer parade: a great honour from the City of London to their beloved duchess.
The king invites me to host a grand dinner in the royal house, the Crown Seld, and watch the parade from the special viewing platform built for the royal family to take the salute of the City bands.
It is a day for display. The people are in the streets to watch as I lead my household guard to the Crown Seld; they applaud me as I ride past as if I were leading a pageant of goddesses.
I wear a gown of deep royal red, and my cape is trimmed with ermine – the fur of monarchy.
The brooch of the Order of the Garter in gold and diamonds, which the king gave me, is pinned on my gown, and I wear my hair down in a mane of gold over my shoulders with a coronet of gold, like a queen going to her coronation.
My servants, in their ducal livery, run before me; my noble companions are honoured to ride beside me.
My ladies follow; my foot-guard struggle to hold back the crowds who cheer as I go by.
The Crown Seld serves a royal banquet in my honour, and I sit on my own, proudly alone at the high table, my ladies and my lordly guests at their tables in the hall below me.
I eat a little of the very best dishes and send them out to the hall; I drink sparingly of the fine wines.
I am no glutton; I am an epicure. I want only a spoonful of the very best – to spoil the dish for everyone else, rather than eating it myself.
I like to send beautiful dishes to great lords, with my spoonful missing, fine wines opened for my one sip.
I want everyone to know that everything is mine.
I know there will be greater moments than this.
There will be my coronation, when I will wear a full crown, not a coronet, and be recognised as Queen of England.
There will be the christening of my son the new Prince of Wales this winter.
There will be his coronation on the death of Humphrey, when I will become the king’s mother and the mother of our line.
But I doubt I will ever have a moment when I feel more intensely the glorious weight of what I have won, the long distance that I have come from Sterborough Castle, the greatness that I have achieved, than tonight.
I am here alone – I do not share any of this night with my husband the duke; I do not want anyone to share the stage or sit beside me at my table or break the crust on the pastry of my pie. This is all mine and only mine.
I see a messenger enter at the back of the hall, glance around the room as if he does not know how to slip through – it is over-crowded with wealthy well-dressed noblemen and women.
He is one of my household, a young squire wearing my smart livery.
His awkwardness makes me smile; in time, he will learn how to serve the greatest household in the land.
Graciously, I beckon to him, and he bows, threading his way through the servers, going around the tables, mounting the steps to the stage where I dine, seated high above the hall.
He bows again and circles the table to get behind my high-backed chair.
He leans forward to whisper in my ear. He speaks so low that I cannot hear him.
I turn my head and laugh at his shyness. ‘Speak up!’ I command. ‘What news is so urgent that you come into my dining hall and then cannot speak above a whisper? Are you afraid of the noblest company in England?’
Something in his expression warns me that this is no laughing matter, and then I hear his words: ‘Your Grace, my lady, I didn’t know what to do. Forgive me. It is your chaplain, Canon Southwell – he’s just got word out. He’s in the Tower of London. He’s been there for days.’
I feel my face freeze; but I don’t turn my head to look at him.
I face the room, where no one will see me falter, not even for a moment.
‘This is the action of our enemies,’ I say.
‘The Beauforts or . . .’ I think quickly: could it be Owen Tudor – moving against me in this underhand way?
Has he chosen the moment of my greatest pride to fell me?
‘It means nothing,’ I say certainly. ‘I will order him released at once. What charge do they allege? I shall send you back to the Tower with a written order of release. What crime do they pretend that he’s done?’
‘Unlawful mass,’ he says, so quietly that I can hardly hear him over the noise of the court at dinner. ‘Forgive me, Your Grace. A black funeral mass and burying a dead baby.’
HE DOESN’T WAIT for me to dismiss him, as he should. He steps back, bows, and goes out quickly, slipping through the door at the back of the dais, as if hiding from the watchers in the great hall. For a moment only, I am terribly afraid; then I beckon my lady-in-waiting with a crook of my finger.
‘I’m taken faint,’ I say sharply. ‘Something I ate. Get my guard and my horse – don’t disturb the company.’
Obediently, she goes out, and I rise from my unique place at the high table.
I pause only for a moment, thinking: do I dare to say anything?
Can I tell them to stay in their places, to dine well, to act as if nothing is wrong?
Can I swear that there is nothing wrong?
And then I decide they can look out for themselves. Who has ever looked after me?
I slip out through the door at the back of the dais into the solar and down the private stairs to the stable. My horse is waiting; my guard is ready; my lady has my ermine-trimmed cloak open to throw around my shoulders.
‘Not that one, fool,’ I say. ‘Give me yours.’
I snatch her plain woollen cloak from her shoulders and tie it around myself, ignoring her shiver as the cold air strikes her.
Half-disguised by the plain cloak, I give her my coronet to hold and I draw up the hood to hide my fair hair.
I climb on the mounting block to mount my horse. I nod to the guard.
‘Where to, Your Grace?’ the captain of the guard asks me. ‘Westminster Palace?’
‘Westminster Abbey,’ I say to his surprised face. ‘Take me to Westminster Abbey.’