Queen of Trial and Sorrow (25 page)

It was that dispiriting time of year when the sun, if it appeared at all, didn’t show itself until Sext.  I returned to Westminster from Shene, bringing the children to share Christmas with us, and found upon entering my chamber that my dark blue mourning gown had been brought over from the Great Wardrobe; as if to remind us, as if to never let us forget, that life is fleeting and none given to know the hour of its end. 

Steeling myself, I asked: “Who?”

“The Duchess of Clarence, Madam.”

Requiescat in pace. 
There was a flurry of raised arms as we all crossed ourselves. 

I cannot begin to imagine what life with the increasingly aberrant duke was like for Isabel. Those who had known her in girlhood remembered her as frivolous and vivacious, vain and rather self-absorbed, but I had only known her as a wife, a shadow of the girl she had been, a pale wisp like a column of thin smoke and with a sad, tired smile.  They said her first labor, on board ship when Warwick was bound for France, had almost killed her, and the subsequent births of a daughter and son had depleted her resources until there was little left for the child born in October, another son.  No, let me be honest: it wasn’t only the trials of dealing with a difficult husband, or even the rigors of childbirth that had sapped her strength.  She was consumptive, poor Isabel.  The last time I saw her, I told my ladies that frail body would not produce a living child.

Still, it was a sad shock when the news came.  She had been ill throughout her confinement in Tewkesbury Abbey, but she and the child did survive, barely, and she was gravely ill when the duke took her back to Warwick Castle, where she passed from this world of care and her little son survived her by only a couple of weeks.  I prayed Almighty God that she died in peace and that He would take her into His tender care.  

It is a sad but demonstrable fact that we relate all deaths to ourselves.  Isabel was just five and twenty, whereas I would be forty this coming February and although I was still healthy frequent childbirth was taking its inevitable toll on my body.  Furthermore, I was beginning to tire of, dread, and even resent the cycle of pregnancy, confinement and labor, with just short intervals between when I could have my body all to myself. My last child Anne had been born late in ‘75, and at the time of Isabel’s death I was already swelling with the next one.

Adding to my depression that winter, there was now a permanent mistress at court.  Her name was Elizabeth Shore, though everyone called her Jane.  She was the daughter of a draper and the wife of a goldsmith.  When she was first pointed out to me, I thought nothing much of her at all.  She was quite short and what you would call voluptuous, full in breasts and hips, and her mouth was too wide and ripe, her cheeks blooming with color when a pale complexion and rosebud mouth are essential to any lady with a true claim to beauty.  Her eyes were her best feature, blue and sparkling, but no dignity either in face or form.  They said she had a merry disposition and lightened the king’s cares.  Well, good for her!  I could not lighten his cares, for I was fated to share them.

She had staying power though.  After the first year I realized that I had a serious rival. The king came to my bed less frequently and, sadly, only during those times I was likely to quicken.  When I was pregnant, if he came at all, it was to talk.  Although the withdrawal of the intimacy we had shared in the past hurt me deeply, I had to admit, if only to myself, that Mistress Shore was better than most.  Some of the strumpets minced around the court as if they were queen.  Queen for a day, maybe, and then they were gone.  Mistress Shore never trespassed, and, being a commoner, she had no interest in other than the politics of London, and no kin to advance.  She did, however, use her influence on behalf of her fellow citizens, persuading the king to pardon this fellow, or reduce the fine for that, and even inveigling the courtiers to take in a poor man as a servant else his family starved.  She herself was generous with alms, and was said to buy a trinket in the market one day and then give it away to some beggar the next.  Shoes, cloaks, gewgaws, all might be given away on a whim.  Children followed her when she appeared in the streets for the sweetmeats she always kept about her person.  For these charitable acts, and more, I give her credit.

What she did, Mistress Shore, was to make me take a critical look at myself and I saw for the first time an aging woman.  Some things could never be taken away from me: my height lent me a dignity short Shore would never possess and my skin was still white as milk without need of artifice, but I could no longer deny the lines beside my eyes and running between my nostrils and the corners of my mouth, and there was a softening of the flesh beneath my chin.  Concealed beneath my garments, worse things were happening.  My belly was dough-like and wrinkled, my breasts heavy and sagging and purple threads marred the flesh of both belly and thighs.  No longer did I delight in letting the king see me naked, nor did he evince any interest in doing so. 

One thing more could not be taken away from me.  I still had Edward’s love.  I knew it.  What was lacking was only his interest in my body as anything more than a baby-making instrument.  I was the mother of his children and would be the mother of more.  I was his queen.  Saving his infidelities, he treated me always with respect and courtesy, listened to my advice, didn’t always take it of course, but listened and gave it the consideration it deserved before making a decision. 

I had learned a fundamental truth: that the birth of an heir conveys a subtle but very real power on the mother.  I cannot explain this, nor what form it took – in fact, it didn’t take any form at all; it just manifested itself in small things that taken individually were insignificant, but taken together informed me that my queenship was now regarded as a potent instrument of royal authority.

In the years of my marriage I had grown in self-assurance and resolve and become more active in court life.  I had been gathering around myself a small party of supporters, and even if they were mostly all family and their satellites, there were among them some men of influence.  I knew this division within the ranks of his court troubled Edward.  For a division it undoubtedly was: the Wydevilles in opposition to the old nobility who despised us, and resulted occasionally in a flare of tempers, an exchange of insults, and sometimes a very public quarrel.  Yet I felt it was necessary for my own protection.

……….

I was still a member of the Prince of Wales’ council, as were his uncles, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and Lord Hastings, and while we all received regular accounts of his development from those responsible for his day to day care, as well as reports concerning the governing of the marches, the duchy of Cornwall and the county of Chester, sometimes soliciting our advice and more often merely to inform, I doubt the other recipients scrutinized these accounts as avidly as I, eager as I was to catch a glimpse of the little boy emerging from the precise ranks of words.

Having received such a letter, I sent someone to find out if the king was in his chambers and if he would see me, and having received his assent I went through to share the contents with him.  Aside from all the little details that parents love to hear, about how, according to Doctor Alcock, his tutor, he was ready for simple algebraic equations and how patiently he struggled with Latin, and how all four of his front teeth were gone giving, for the moment at least, his rather solemn face an impish quality; and when all these small but treasured details had been dutifully delivered, Anthony wrote that new clothes were needed and the prince had requested that he be allowed to ride a horse, as he had outgrown his pony.  Anthony was in favor, as Ned was tall for his age.  But, I thought: although that’s true, he’s still such a
little
boy.

As Edward and I were discussing this (he was inclined to trust Anthony’s judgment) it was announced from the door that Master Dominic, the court astrologer, wished to speak to the king on an urgent matter.  He was a very dark man.  (Was that a prerequisite of his calling?)  He favored dark robes and wore his dark outrageously curly hair under a black velvet cap, but his face was pale as parchment, in which the large lustrous dark eyes glowed like orbs of polished obsidian. 

Master Dominic, as he always did, began with a discourse upon which planet was in which house and under which influence and what all this signified anent us mortals below.  It seemed to me he was nervous, holding his hat in his hands and turning it around and around, and also speaking falteringly and for too long, until the king, impatient, told him to get to the point.  What he said then was that he had come to the inescapable conclusion that the name of the next King of England would begin with the letter
G
.

The king was up from his chair in a moment, like a volcano erupting.  “Liar! 
Liar
! 
Liar
!” he shouted, his face suffused with crimson, his hands knotted into great fists; corded veins bulged at his temples as if leeches were feasting under his skin and growing fat. 

With an incoherent squeal, the astrologer dropped to the floor, his forehead pressed to the carpet, not so much in obeisance as to make himself as small as possible when the king’s wrath fell on him.  The attendants tried to efface themselves against the walls and guards came rushing in to stand uncertainly just within the door.

“God’s wounds, you vile wretch!  You worm!  You pox-ridden get of an Italian whore!” Mindless with fear and rage, the king kicked him brutally in the ribs.  “Have I cherished you in my court all these years and thus you reward me!  Ingrate!  Filthy, lying sack of shit!” Another vicious kick landed and Dominic shrieked in real pain. 

Never in all our years together had I seen my husband so out of control.  As he readied himself for another kick, I grabbed his arm, fearing he would kill the man, and he pushed me roughly away.  Then, realizing what he’d done, for I was big with child, he reached out to steady me, and I clung to him as if on the point of swooning.  I said: “He is a fool.  Let him go.” 

He led me to a chair and sat me down.  An attendant emerged from the shadows to bring another chair and placed it beside mine and Edward collapsed into it with a gust of breath.  “Wine,” he called, and a cup was brought to him.  He drank deeply, glittering eyes on the sobbing creature curled into a ball at his feet, before passing it to me.  What had prompted the foolish man to say such a thing?  Surely he had been bribed – an immense bribe – or threatened – a terrible threat – to coerce him into predicting something that put the succession in doubt, for he must have known that in so doing he risked death.  

“Get up, charlatan,” Edward finally said, having mastered himself.  But Dominic was unable to rise unaided.  He hung between the two guards, trembling from head to foot like an aspen in high wind.  “If I hear a whisper of this about the court, I’ll have you trussed up and tossed in the Thames.  Get out of my sight.”

When the astrologer had tottered away, we sat in silence for a few moments.  The notes of a lute, softly harmonious, trembled in the air, gentle as falling raindrops.  I was about to say something, to reassure him that it meant nothing, that astrology was an inexact science, that Master Dominic had predicted our Bessie would be a boy, something to ease his heartache, but when I turned to him to speak I saw with a mixture of surprise and pity that his cheeks were glistening with tears.

……….

The birth of another royal child, even a boy, although attended by all the ceremony as in the past, was no longer regarded as an event of singular importance.  But when the king came to see me I was distressed to see how haggard he looked, how joyless.  He didn’t even glance at the new baby but sat beside me on the bed and took my hand in his warm grasp. Gazing down at our joined hands he informed me that it was his will that our new son be called George.

“No!  Any name but that.  It would be a curse on our son!”

“It must be George,” he insisted.  “Otherwise, my brother will be offended and I want to keep him sweet.”

But I knew that wasn’t the reason.  “It’s because of Master Dominic, isn’t it?  Oh, Edward, it doesn’t matter!  Don’t you see?  Even if true, whether the prophecy refers to your brother or our new son, it means – ”

“I know what it means!” He cut me off sharply.  “God in Heaven, I know what it means!  I can think of nothing else.  I am tormented, Bess, day and night.  I fear to sleep, fear to dream because… when I am not on my guard the devil comes to punish me.  What if it was all in vain, all the ambition, all the striving, all the panoply and glory?  The legions of dead who fought to secure the throne for me – how they would reproach me if no son of mine ruled after me!”

“Not the devil,” I said.  “Your own fears torment you.”

Pity for him overwhelmed me.  Because he truly believed our two eldest boys were doomed and all his hopes rested on the tiny boy who had yet to meet and overcome the first dangers of infancy.  His ambition was to found a dynasty; better any son of his loins should follow him than another.  I refused to believe Master Dominic’s prediction.  It couldn’t be true.  What I believed in was God’s mercy and His infinite capacity to forgive and the efficacy of prayer. 

This was not something he could share with Mistress Shore or Lord Hastings, or anyone else, only with me.  And it rested with me to give him the only comfort available, inadequate as it was.  “George then,” I said.  “So be it.”