The King's Curse

  BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, SUMMER 1523

  We may be exiled from court but the king still calls on us when he wants outstanding military leaders. Both my boys, Montague and Arthur, are summoned to serve as the king invades France. Montague is appointed captain and Arthur fights so bravely at the forefront on the field of battle that he is knighted and is now Sir Arthur Pole. I think how proud his father would have been, I think how pleased the king’s mother would have been, and I am glad that my son has served hers.

  BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, MAY 1524

  Nobody from court writes to me; I am in exile, I am in silent disgrace, though everyone knows that I am innocent of anything but bearing my name. Thomas Howard, the old Duke of Norfolk, dies comfortably in his bed and I order a Mass for his soul at the priory, the loyal good friend that he was; but I do not attend his lavish funeral. Katherine the queen sends me a short letter from time to time, a prayer book from her own library, New Year’s gifts. She rises and falls in the favor of the king as he enters alliances firstly with and then against Spain. My former pupil, my darling little Princess Mary, is betrothed to marry her kinsman Charles, the emperor, in an alliance against France, then she is to marry her cousin James, the young King of Scotland, then they even say that she will go to France and marry there. I hope that someone stands in my place and tells her not to attach herself to these alliances, not to dream of these young men as lovers. I hope that there is someone teaching her to look at all these ambitions with a steady skepticism. Nothing could be worse for her than to fall in love with the idea of one of these mercenary suitors; they may all come to nothing.

  I learn from my Bisham steward, who heard from the drovers who walked our beef cattle to Smithfield, that people are saying the king has a new lover. Nobody is sure which one of the ladies at court has the king’s unreliable fancy, but then I hear that it is one of the Boleyn girls, Mary Carey, and that she is pregnant and everyone is saying that it is the king’s child.

  I am glad to hear from a pedlar who comes into the kitchen to sell trinkets to the maids that she has given birth to a girl, and he winks and whispers that while she was in confinement the king took up with her sister Anne. After dinner that night, quietly in my room, Geoffrey suggests that perhaps all Howard girls smell like prey to the king, just as a Talbot hound will prefer the scent of a hare to all else. It makes me giggle, and think with affection of the old Duke of Norfolk, who loved a bawdy joke, but I frown at Geoffrey for disrespect. This family, this boy especially, is never going to say one word against this king.

  BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, JULY 1525

  The king creates a duke to replace my cousin whom he killed. Bessie’s boy, the bastard Henry Fitzroy, is honored beyond belief. My steward comes back from London and says there was a great procession to the old royal palace of Bridewell and the six-year-old boy was made a duke twice over: Duke of Richmond and Duke of Somerset. Thomas More, the king’s new favorite, read out the letters patent.

  “I didn’t know that you could be two dukes at once,” my steward remarks with a sly smile to me.

  “I am sure the king judges rightly,” I say; but inwardly I think that this will have cost my friend the queen a lot of pain, to see a golden-headed Tudor boy kissed by his royal father and draped in ermine.

  It is Arthur, Sir Arthur as I now always call him, who gives me my first living grandson, the heir to my name. He names him Henry, as he should, and I send our beautiful gilded cradle to Jane at Broadhurst for the next generation of Plantagenet boys. I am amazed at my own fierce pride at this baby, at my powerful delight at the next generation of our dynasty.

  My son Geoffrey was not part of the muster for France, and I made sure that he did not volunteer to go. He is a young man now, nearly twenty-one, and this last son, this most precious child, must be found a wife. I spend more time in considering who would suit Geoffrey than anything else in these years of exile.

  She has to be a girl who will run his house for him; Geoffrey has been raised as a nobleman, he has to have a good household around him. She has to be fertile, of course, and well bred and well educated, but I don’t want a scholar for a daughter-in-law—she should be just well-enough read to raise her children in the learning of the Church. God spare me from a girl running after the new learning and dabbling in heresy as is the fashion these days. She has to be aware that he is a sensitive boy—he’s not a sportsman like Arthur nor a courtier like Montague, he is a hand-reared boy, his mother’s favorite. Even as a child he knew what I was thinking from just looking into my face, and he still has a sensitivity that is rare in anyone, especially a young nobleman. She must be beautiful; as a young boy with his long blond curls Geoffrey was often mistaken for a pretty girl, and now he has grown to manhood he is as handsome as any man at court. His children will be beauties if I can find a good match for him. She has to be elegant and thoughtful and she has to be proud—she is joining the old royal family of England, there is no greater young man by birth in the country. We may be in half disgrace at the moment, but the king’s mood changed quickly—almost overnight—and is certain to change again. Then we will be restored to royal favor and then she will represent us, the Plantagenets, at the Tudor court, and that is no easy task.

  If my youngest son were in his rightful position, present at court, in some good place, heir to the greatest fortune in England, it would be easy to find the right bride for him. But as we are, half exiled, half disgraced, half acknowledged, and with the old lawsuit for my lands that Compton would deny me still running, we are a less-attractive family and Geoffrey is not the most eligible bachelor in the land as Montague was. Yet we are fertile—Montague’s wife Jane gives birth to another girl, Winifred, so I have three grandchildren now—and fertility is prized in these anxious days.

  In the end I choose the daughter of the queen’s gentlemen usher, Sir Edmund Pakenham. It’s not a great match, but it is a good one. He has no sons, only two well-brought-up daughters, and one of them, Constance, is the right age for Geoffrey. The two girls will jointly inherit their father’s fortune and lands in Sussex that run near to my own, so Geoffrey will never be far from home. Sir Edmund is close enough to the queen to know that our friendship remains unshaken, and she will have me back at court as soon as her husband allows. He is gambling on my son being as great a man at court as his brothers were. He thinks, as I do, that Henry was ill advised, that the cardinal played on his fears, his father’s fears, and that this will soon pass.

  They marry quietly, and the young couple come to live with me at Bisham. It is understood that when I am returned to court I will take Constance with me, that she will serve the queen and no doubt rise in the world. Sir Edmund has faith that he will see me back at court again.

  And he is right. As slowly as spring comes to England, I see the royal frost thawing. The queen sends me a gift, and then the king himself, hunting nearby, sends me some game. Then after four years of exile I get the letter I have been expecting.

  I am appointed to go, once again, to Ludlow Castle and be companion and governess to the little nine-year-old princess who is to take up the seat and govern the principality. Perhaps soon she will be named Princess of Wales, where once there was a beloved prince. I knew it. I knew that Katherine’s loving, gentle advice to the king would bring him to a sense of his true self. I knew that as soon as he was in alliance with her homeland he would turn once again to her. I knew that the cardinal would not be in favor forever, and that the prince I had loved as a boy would become what he was born to be: a fair, just, honorable king.

  I go at once to meet the princess at Thornbury Castle, and I take my new daughter-in-law Constance with me, to serve the Princess Mary as a lady-in-waiting. The return of Tudor favor puts us all in our rightful places, back at the heart of the royal court. I show her the beautiful castle at Ludlow with pride as a place where I was once mistress, and I tell her about Arthur and the princess who was his bride. I don’t tell them that the young couple were in love, that th
eir passion for each other illuminated the plum-colored castle. But I do say that it was a happy home, and that we will make it happy again.

  THORNBURY CASTLE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AUGUST 1525

  Nine-year-old Princess Mary arrives on a blazing hot summer’s day, riding her own small horse, flanked by two hundred outriders, in her livery of blue and green, and smiling to the people who are massed around the castle gate to see this new princess coming into her own.

  I stand in the shadow of the doorway, glad to be out of the heat, ready to welcome her into the castle that I once counted as my daughter Ursula’s inheritance. This was a Stafford house; it should have been Ursula’s home. The cardinal took it from the duke, and now it is to be used by the princess, and I shall run it as I will run all her houses.

  Her retinue is headed by my kinsman Walter Devereux, Baron Ferrers of Chartley. He greets me with a warm kiss on both cheeks and then helps the little princess down from her saddle.

  I am shocked at my first sight of her. It has been so long since I have seen her I was imagining her taller, a sturdy Tudor girl like her aunt Margaret, stocky as a pony; but she is tiny, dainty as a flower. I see her pale heart-shaped face in the shadow of the big hood of her cape and think her swamped in adult clothes, too frail for such a costume, for such a force of guards, too slight to be carrying her titles and all our expectations, too young to be taking up her duties and lands. I feel myself swallow with anxiety. She is fragile, like a princess made out of snow, a princess wished into being and only lightly embodied.

  But then she surprises me by taking Walter’s hand and jumping off her horse like an agile boy, bounding up the steps towards me, and flinging herself into my arms. “Lady Margaret! My Lady Margaret!” she whispers, her face pressed against me, her head at my breast, her body slight and thin. I hold her close and feel her tremble with relief that she is with me again. I hold her tight and think I should take her by the hand and present her to her household, show her to her people. But I can’t bear to turn her away from me. I wrap my arms around her and I don’t let go for a long time. This is a child as beloved as any one of my own, a little girl still, and I have missed four years of her childhood and I am glad to have her back into my keeping.

  “I thought I would never see you again,” she breathes.

  “I knew I would come back to you,” I say. “And I won’t ever leave you again.”

  LUDLOW CASTLE, WELSH MARCHES, 1525–1526

  She is not a difficult child to raise. She has her mother’s sweet temper and all of the Spanish stubbornness, so I introduce her tutors to her, and persuade her to practice music and take exercise. I never command her; this is a daughter of England and Princess of Wales—nobody can command her but her father and mother—but I tell her that her beloved parents have put her in my keeping and will blame me if she does not live well, study like a scholar, and hunt like a Tudor. At once she applies herself for love of me. By making her lessons pleasant and interesting and encouraging her to question and consider things, by ensuring that her Master of Horse chooses hunters for her who are eager but obedient, and by having music and dancing in the castle every night, it is easy to encourage her to gain the skills that a princess must have. She is an intelligent, thoughtful girl, if anything a little too grave. I cannot help but think that she would be an apt pupil for Reginald, and that it would benefit all our family if he were to become an influence in her life.

  In the meantime, her tutor is Dr. Richard Fetherston, the choice of her mother and a man that I like on sight. He is tall and brown haired, and he has a quick wit. He teaches Mary Latin with the classic authors, and translations of the Bible, but he also composes silly rhymes for her and nonsense poems. His loyalty to her mother—which we never mention—is, I think, quite unshakable.

  Princess Mary is a passionately loving girl. She counts herself betrothed to her cousin King Charles of Spain, and she pins a brooch which says “The Emperor” on every gown. Her mother has encouraged this attachment, and spoken of him to her; but this summer we learn that her engagement is to be released and that instead she will marry into the French royal family.

  I tell her the news myself and she runs away and locks herself in her room. She is a princess—she knows better than to complain. But she puts the diamond brooch in the bottom of her jewelry box and we have a sulky few days.

  Of course, I feel for her. She is nine and she thinks her heart is broken. I brush her beautiful long russet hair as she looks pale-faced into her mirror and tells me that she thinks she will never be happy again. I am not surprised that her betrothal has been broken, but I am genuinely shocked when we receive a letter from the cardinal and learn that the king has decided to marry her to a man old enough to be her father, the notoriously loose-living, widowed King of France. She dislikes him for these three good reasons and it is my duty to tell her that as a princess of England she has to make up her mind to serve her country with her marriage, and that in this, as in everything else, her father has to be obeyed and that he has the absolute right to place her where he thinks best.

  “But what if my mother thinks differently?” she asks me, her dark eyes bright with anger.

  I don’t allow myself to smile. She draws herself up to her full height, a magisterial four feet, as proud as a Spanish queen. “Then your mother and your father must agree,” I say steadily. “And you would not be a good daughter if you presumed to judge them, or to take sides.”

  “Well, I shan’t like him,” she says stubbornly.

  “You will love and respect him as a good and dutiful wife,” I tell her. “Nobody requires you to like him.”

  Her quick wit grasps the humor of this and she rewards me with a peal of ready laughter. “Oh, Lady Governess! What a thing to say!”

  “And anyway you will probably come to like him,” I say comfortingly, pulling her to sit beside me so that she can rest her head on my shoulder. “Once you marry a man and you have children together and you rule your lands together, you will find in him all sorts of qualities that you admire. And if he is kind to you and a good father to your children, then you will come to love and like him.”

  “Not always,” she points out. “My aunt Margaret, the Dowager Queen of Scotland, turned the cannons of her castle on her own husband and is trying to persuade the Pope to give her a divorce.”

  “She’s very wrong to do so,” I maintain. “It is God’s will that a woman obey her husband and that their marriage can only be ended by death. And your father has told her so himself.”

  “So can it be better to marry for love?” she demands. “My father the king married my mother for love.”

  “He did indeed,” I agree. “And it was as lovely as a fairy story. But not all of us can have a life like a fairy story. Most of us will not. Your mother was very blessed that the king chose her, and he was honored with her love.”

  “So why does he befriend other ladies?” Mary asks me, her voice lowered to a whisper, though we are quite alone in my private chamber. “Why does that happen, Lady Margaret?”

  “What have you heard?”

  “I have seen it myself,” she says. “His favorite, Mary Carey. And I see his son, Bessie Blount’s boy, at court. They have made him a duke, he is Duke of Richmond and Duke of Somerset. Nobody else in England is honored like that. It is too great an honor for a boy born to someone like Bessie. It is too great an honor for a horrid little boy like him.”

  “Men, even kings, perhaps especially kings, may love with a free heart, even after their marriage,” I say. I look into her honest, questioning face and I hate the truth that I am telling her. “Your father, as a king, can do as he pleases, it is his right. The wife of a king, even though she is a queen herself, does not complain to him, does not complain to others. It is not important, it makes no difference. She makes it clear to everyone that it is not important. However many girls there may be, she is still his wife. Your mother is still the queen, however many Bessies and Marys dance at the court or walk behi
nd her into her rooms. They don’t trouble her at all. They need not trouble you.”

  “And the little double duke?” she asks spitefully.

  Since I do not know what the king means by creating such an honor, I dare not advise her. “You are still the princess,” I say. “Whatever happens, the queen is still the queen.”

  She looks unconvinced, and I am unwilling to tell this young princess that a woman, even a princess, is servant to her father and slave to her husband. “You know, a husband, any husband, is set by God Himself to rule over his wife.”

  She nods. “Of course.”

  “He must do as he pleases. If he imperils his immortal soul, a good wife might warn him of this. But she cannot try to take command. She has to live as he wishes. It is her duty as a wife and a woman.”

  “But she might mind . . .”

  “She might,” I admit. “But he cannot leave her side, he cannot deny his marriage, he cannot forsake her bed, he cannot deny her title as queen. He may dance and play and write poetry to a pretty girl but that changes nothing. He might give honors and love a bastard son but that changes nothing for the legitimate child of his marriage. A queen is the queen until her death. A princess is born to her coronet and no one can take it from her. A wife is a wife until her death. Everything else is just pastime and vanity.”

  She is a wise girl, this little princess; for we don’t talk of this again, and when the couriers from her mother in London also carry gossip into the kitchen that the Boleyn girl has given the king a child, this one a boy, this one named Henry, I order that no one repeat the story in the hearing of the princess and I tell my daughter-in-law Constance that I will personally beat her into convulsions if I hear that she has allowed anything to be said in Mary’s hearing.