Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (9 page)

“He has never asked anything of me before,” Harry murmured.

Scrambling to my feet, I circled the brazier and fell to my knees beside him and hugged him tightly. “Stay here, Harry. You belong with Prince Henry. You cannot abandon a brilliant future for an uncertain fate.”

My face was so close to his that I could see the agony of indecision in his eyes.

“Someday Prince Henry will be king. He’ll make you a knight, if his father has not already done so. Serve him well and you’ll end up a baron at the least, or perhaps even a viscount. Kings reward loyalty, Harry.”

He still did not look convinced, so I searched harder for an argument that would convince him.

“Prince Henry will need you beside him when he passes his sixteenth birthday and begins training for the lists. With your jousting experience, you’ll know how to keep His Grace safe from injuries while he learns how to fight in tournaments.”

Like dawn breaking, relief flooded into Harry’s face. “I knew I could count on your good sense!” He leaned over and squeezed me so tightly that I let out a squeak of protest. Grinning, he released
me and stood. “That excuse is one my father will understand. He will see that I have no choice but to stay with the prince.”

T
O ENTERTAIN
K
ING
Philip there was more dancing, as well as hunts and tennis matches, bear baitings and horse baitings. Then, a week after Candlemas, Queen Juana arrived.

The very next day, the Lady Mary and her household and the princess dowager and her attendants left Windsor to go ahead to Richmond Palace. King Henry was to follow with King Philip in a few days.

“Such a pity,” the Lady Mary murmured as we set out aboard one of the royal barges. The Thames was open again and our journey would be far easier and far swifter than it had been by road.

“What is, Your Grace?”

“That Queen Juana remains behind at Windsor when she and the princess dowager have only just been reunited.”

“They will be able to spend time together at Richmond.”

But the princess shook her head. “No, they will not. By the time King Philip and my father join us there, Juana will be on her way to Plymouth, where their ships are being repaired.”

“But they cannot hope to sail for many weeks yet.”

Mary looked more solemn than her years. “It is a ploy, Jane, to keep Catherine and Juana apart. Do you not remember who their father is?”

“King Ferdinand of Aragon,” I said slowly, comprehending at last. At the time of the marriage between Princess Catherine and Prince Arthur, King Ferdinand had been England’s ally. But now, no doubt because he had refused to pay the remainder of Catherine’s dowry after Arthur’s death, King Ferdinand and King Henry were at odds. King Henry feared that the two sisters might somehow conspire against him to aid their father.

A tournament was held at Richmond to entertain King Philip. Charles Brandon acquitted himself well. During the next weeks, Charles continued to pay court to me and even stole the occasional kiss, but he made no further attempt to spirit me away to some secluded chamber. I convinced myself that he was being careful of my reputation.

K
ING
P
HILIP TOOK
his leave of the English court in early March. In early April, Sir Richard Guildford, newly pardoned by King Henry, sailed from England for the Holy Land—without Harry. By then, Charles Brandon seemed to have lost all interest in me. I consoled myself by flirting with Harry, and with Will Compton, neither of whom took me seriously.

Then in September word came that King Philip had died suddenly during his visit to Spain. Rumors flew. Some said his wife, Queen Juana, had poisoned him in a fit of jealousy. Others suggested King Ferdinand was the villain, since it was Ferdinand who would not govern Castile for Philip and Juana’s six-year-old son, Charles.

I pitied Queen Juana. She had lost her beloved husband and was said to have run mad with grief. But I felt much greater sympathy for Harry Guildford. The news arrived in England in October that Sir Richard had reached Jerusalem only to die there.

I was never certain how Mother Guildford felt about her husband’s fate. She did not permit her emotions to show. When she asked me to step into her lodgings on a fine, sunny morning in mid-November, murmuring the name “Charles,” I assumed she wished to discuss plans for the Lady Mary’s betrothal to Charles of Castile.

King Henry and King Ferdinand were friends again. They had agreed that King Henry’s daughter Mary would marry King Ferdinand’s grandson Charles and there was even talk that King Henry himself might marry King Ferdinand’s widowed daughter Juana.
The ceremony to bind Mary to Charles was scheduled to take place in a few weeks. She would not leave England for several years, but as soon as she was officially betrothed, she could call herself queen of Castile even though Queen Juana was still alive. Everyone in her household would also be elevated in importance.

“Sit, Jane,” Mother Guildford said, indicating a wooden stool. She had the luxury of a chair with a plump cushion to pad the seat. Her lips were pursed tight and she had a look of disapproval in her eyes.

“Is something amiss, madam?”

“I could not help but observe, Jane, that you showed a marked interest in Master Charles Brandon during the king of Castile’s visit and afterward.”

I folded my hands primly in my lap and said, “He is a handsome man, madam. Few women could avoid noticing him.”

“Was your heart engaged, Jane?”

I thought about that for a moment before I answered. “No, madam.”

“I am relieved to hear it.” Her posture relaxed a fraction. “Still, better you hear the news from me than elsewhere. Master Brandon has wed a wealthy London widow, Lady Mortimer.”

I sighed. “I suppose, if I’d had a large dowry, he might have made an offer for me.”

“Consider this a lucky escape. Master Brandon’s treatment of gently born young women leaves much to be desired.”

I started to defend Charles, but she cut me off, wagging a finger at me. “Remember this, Jane: What happens away from court is not always known to us here until much later. Nor do we always hear the whole story behind some of the rumors that do reach us. Charles Brandon was betrothed to another young woman at the same time he was courting you. Mistress Anne Browne was once a
maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth. He kept her as his mistress for years after the queen died, and she bore him a child.”

“If he was betrothed to her, why did he not marry her? Indeed, how
could
he marry someone else?” Betrothals were supposed to be almost as binding as marriages.

“An excellent question, and one for which I have no answer.” Mother Guildford looked thoughtful. “I do not believe we have heard the last of this matter.”

Shortly after that conversation, Charles Brandon returned to court. He did not bring his new wife with him. He continued to be one of Prince Henry’s boon companions, along with Tom Knyvett, Lord Edward Howard, Ned Neville, Will Compton, Harry Guildford, and Harry’s older half brother, Edward.

I
N THE SPRING
following King Philip’s visit, King Henry was seriously ill. I was seventeen and horribly afraid that he, too, might die and leave behind a son too young to rule for himself. The king recovered, but he was sick again the following year. His physicians said it was only gout, and he was well enough by the end of February to receive two envoys from King Ferdinand. One was Francisco di Grimaldo, an elderly Italian banker. The other was the new Spanish ambassador, Don Gutiene Gomez de Fuensalida. They had come to discuss Catherine of Aragon’s still unpaid dowry.

The princess dowager seemed doomed to live out her life in poverty in England. Her father would not take her back and King Henry refused to permit her to marry Prince Henry, the most sensible solution. Francesca de Carceres, having had no better offer, escaped by eloping with old Master di Grimaldo.

In the summer of my eighteenth year, King Henry collapsed while out hunting. This time one of his doctors, John Chambre, a man already made memorable by his extremely large nose, dared
speak the truth—the king had consumption and was likely to die of it.

Prince Henry accompanied his father on pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury to pray for a cure. The Lady Mary went, too, taking me with her. It did no good. We watched the king grow steadily weaker and knew that before long the disease would kill him.

King Henry VII did not want to die, especially not before his son was eighteen and of full age to inherit. That day would come on the twenty-eighth of June in the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and nine. King Henry was determined to hold out until then.

That January, I turned nineteen. Over the next weeks, the king’s health continued to deteriorate. He had acute pains in his chest and difficulty breathing. He asked that the Lady Mary come and sit by his side and told her to bring me with her.

A few days later, we were joined in the sickroom by the king’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. The countess was a small, birdlike woman who dressed like a nun and wore a hair shirt under her habit. She was only fourteen years older than her dying son, but seemed likely to outlive him by a good many years.

She did not speak to me. She never did. I was not certain why she’d taken a dislike to me, but over the years she had gone out of her way to ignore my presence in her granddaughter’s household.

At the end of March, King Henry made a new will. On the twenty-first day of April, he once again sent for the Lady Mary and for me.

“She has no business here,” the countess said when she saw me enter her son’s bedchamber.

“I asked for her,” King Henry whispered. He was so weak that his voice carried only as far as the foot of his bed.

The countess allowed me to stay, but only until the king fell asleep. Then she sent me away.

I met Prince Henry just arriving at his father’s sickroom door. “Is he any better?” he asked.

I shook my head and felt tears well up in my eyes.

“I want to be king someday,” the prince said, “but not yet.” He seemed reluctant to enter the bedchamber.

“Your presence will comfort him, Your Grace.”

“A pity you cannot stay in my stead, Jane,” Prince Henry said with a rueful laugh. “I hate the sight and stink of illness.” But he went in and I went away and the king died the next day.

Since Prince Henry was not quite eighteen, his grandmother proposed that she serve as regent. Henry refused. He did not intend to be governed by anyone. He sent the countess to Cheyney Gates, a house adjoining the palace of Westminster but not actually a part of it, and arranged for his father’s lying-in-state and burial himself. He also set the date for his coronation as King Henry VIII. And then, in the chapel at Pleasure Palace, he quietly married Catherine of Aragon.

On the twenty-fourth day of June, they were crowned together as king and queen of England. I watched the procession that preceded the ceremony from the windows of a house in Cheapside in London. It was quite near the inn in which my mother and I had stayed when we saw Perkin Warbeck put in the stocks. How different this was! I was still a spectator, but now I stood beside Mary Tudor, princess of England and queen of Castile.

Nearby was Mary’s grandmother, the Countess of Richmond. As usual, she pretended not to notice my presence. I shed no tears when, a few days later, word reached us at court that the Countess of Richmond had choked to death on a bone while eating roast swan.

4

I
n the first year of the reign of King Henry VIII, the court spent Yuletide at Richmond Palace. We were still there when I passed my twentieth birthday and stayed on a few days more for a tournament. It ended badly. Will Compton was almost killed jousting against Ned Neville. He broke several ribs, his arm, and his nose and was unconscious for hours.

Leaving Will behind in the care of Dr. Chambre, we moved on to Westminster Palace on schedule. I worried about him. Even a cut could be fatal if it grew inflamed, and I did not want to lose anyone else to death, especially not one of my “brothers.”

“It does no good to fret,” Harry Guildford said when I asked if he’d heard any news of Will’s condition. “Either he’ll recover or he will not. It is in God’s hands.”

I knew he was right, but his words offered little comfort. I sighed.

Harry looked thoughtful. “You need something to distract you from gloomy thoughts,” he said. “Will was to have played a role in a disguising I am planning.” The new king had appointed Harry his master of revels. “You could take his place.”

“I look nothing like Will Compton,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

“Ah, but Will would not have resembled himself in the least. He was to have been our Maid Marian.”

As a lad, Prince Henry had loved the Robin Hood stories above all others. We had often acted out tales of the famous outlaw and his Merry Men. I’d portrayed Maid Marian once or twice, but it was more common among companies of players for boys to take on the women’s roles, wearing long skirts and wigs.

“Is this a masque for the court?” I asked.

Grinning, Harry shook his head. “It is a private performance.” He held one finger to his lips. “And it is a secret. Are you with us?”

“Can you doubt it?”

Harry provided a costume—green gown, yellow wig, and a mask that concealed my features—and told me to be ready at first cockcrow on the morning of the eighteenth day of January. We met in the king’s secret lodgings, and from there, through a passage I had not known existed till then, entered the queen’s bedchamber. There were a dozen of us in all, the king as Robin Hood, ten of his companions as the Merry Men, and myself as Maid Marian. Our sudden appearance was met by shrieks of surprise and alarm.

Sweeping back the hangings that enclosed his wife’s bed, Robin Hood found Catherine still half asleep. “Rise and dance with me, madam,” he said. “I vow we will not depart until you agree to this demand.”

The queen was a tiny woman and looked even smaller in her
nightclothes. The king towered over his wife, but his manner was gentle. Even as he delighted in teasing and embarrassing her, his stance was protective. She was expecting their first child.