The Last Heiress (54 page)

There was bread, butter, several kinds of cheeses, and a great charger of the king’s favorite, artichokes. Finally there were cakes soaked in marsala wine, jellies, candied violets, spun-sugar subtleties, and the first strawberries of the season, with freshly clotted Devon cream.

Elizabeth had not been asked to the banquet. She was not important enough, but she waited in the queen’s apartments as she had been asked for Anne to return. When she did Elizabeth found Anne in a foul mood. She pushed away her serving women and shouted at her ladies to leave her be. “Elizabeth will attend me. Go find your beds, you group of gossips. Bride, you are to wait outside,” she instructed her tiring woman. Then she slammed the door behind them. “Bitches!”

“What has distressed you, Anne?” Elizabeth asked her.

“Mistress Seymour,” Anne replied. “Meek, mild, mealymouthed Mistress Jane Seymour! If you had seen her making eyes at my husband, Elizabeth. The little virgin was just asking to be breached by the king. He’s getting restless, Elizabeth. My belly is not a pretty thing, I fear, and his lusts must be satisfied. Why can he not leave me be now, and restrain himself?” Anne flung herself onto her bed.

“Sit up,” Elizabeth said, “and let me loosen your laces and get your shoes off.” She helped Anne to sit, and removed her bodice. Then she undid the tabs of the queen’s skirts, unlaced them, and drew them off.

Rolling Anne’s stockings from her slender legs, she shook her head.

The queen’s ankles and feet were swollen. She slipped her shoes off.

“You are so good to me,” the queen murmured as Elizabeth laid her slippers and garments aside. “Your very presence soothes me.” Then she brightened. “Was not today a triumph? The weather is so wondrously fair. It is as if God is smiling down on me. How clever of you to put those darling little bells all over your barge.”

“ ’Twas Philippa’s idea,” Elizabeth said. “She knows how much you appreciate originality and novelty.”

“Indeed,” Anne said. “Are you certain she was not trying to steal my thunder?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Do not be foolish, Anne. No matter her love for the princess of Aragon she would not dare such behavior. Philippa is far too correct in her manner to do so.”

“Do you like your sister?” Anne wanted to know. “I don’t like mine.

When we were in France her reputation was vile. She looks like an angel, with that halo of blond hair and her blue eyes, but she was the biggest whore at the court. King Francis called her his English mare, he rode her so often,” Anne said. “Now she is married, and so prim and proper, as if I or anyone else would forget her previous behavior.”

“Family is everything, Anne,” Elizabeth said. “You should try to make peace with the lady Mary now.” She propped several pillows behind the queen, and several more beneath her feet. “Would you like some wine?”

“Water it,” Anne instructed her. “I am very thirsty now.”

The door to the queen’s bedchamber opened, and the king strode in, an eyebrow lifting as he saw Elizabeth. “Good evening, Mistress Hay,” he greeted her.

Elizabeth curtseyed. Then she handed Anne her goblet. “Good evening, sire. Would your majesty like to be alone with the queen?” she queried him.

“Aye,” he said.

“I don’t want Elizabeth to go,” Anne said petulantly.

“Your highness, you place me in a difficult dilemma,” Elizabeth gently chided her friend. “It has been a very long day for you, and you need your rest. If I am to remain by your side tomorrow, so do I. And the king, your husband, would speak with you privily.” She curtseyed politely to the royal couple. “I was taught that it is a wife’s duty to obey her husband. Forgive me, but I must accommodate his majesty wishes.” She curtseyed again, and backed from the bedchamber.

“A wise young woman,” Henry Tudor said, “and one who knows her place.”

“Why do you always scold me these days?” Anne began to sob.

“Now, sweetheart.” The king sat down on the edge of the queen’s bed. “I do not mean to chastise you. Did I not give you a perfect day?”

“Aye.” Anne sniffled. “But the people don’t like me.”

“They will once our son is born. How can they not love the queen who gives them a prince?” the king wanted to know. He laid his hand on Anne’s belly and felt the child stir strongly beneath his touch. He smiled broadly. “Our child will be one of England’s greatest monarchs,” he told her. “I just know it.” Then, leaning over, he kissed her gently. “Elizabeth Hay is right. You need your rest.” He stood up.

“Where are you going?” Anne wanted to know. She was suspicious of him.

“To join my companions and play cards,” he told her.

“Send Mistress Seymour to me,” Anne said. “I shall have her read to me until I fall asleep. And she will sleep on the trundle, so that should I need something in the night she will be here to fetch it for me.” She smiled her little cat’s smile at him.

The king chuckled. “You have sharp eyes, Annie,” he told her. “But rest assured that I love you best, and will love you even more when you birth our son.” Then, with a bow, Henry Tudor left his wife.

Chapter 18

O
n the day following the queen’s entry into London there was little official activity. The queen, in her sixth month of pregnancy, spent her time resting and playing cards. There was to be a banquet given for the eighteen noblemen being created Knights of the Bath the following day. The queen, however, did not attend this men-only function. Sixty other gentlemen would also be knighted, but in the usual way. Later in the evening the eighteen were bathed and shriven according to ancient custom. They would have honored places when Anne formally entered the city, and then later at the coronation itself. The king wanted to make the occasion of his wife’s coronation one that would always be remembered.

The next day, Saturday, the traditional coronation procession to Westminster was to take place. Although little time had been allowed for London to prepare, the streets were as decorated as they had been when Henry had been crowned over twenty years earlier. The queen’s litter would be carried along Fenchurch and Gracechurch to Ledenhall to Ludgate to Fleet Street and down the Strand to Westminster.

Every house along the route was ordered to be hung with flags and buntings.

Philippa and Elizabeth were to ride among the queen’s ladies. Special cloth-of-gold gowns had been provided for them. Philippa was astounded when she was told she might keep her gown as a remembrance of this day. “Such generosity!” she bubbled, her elegant hands smoothing across the fabric of her skirts.

“You can have mine,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “I will have no use for it at Friarsgate. It is beautiful, though.”

“You will have to ride like a lady, and not astride,” Philippa warned her sister.

Elizabeth laughed. “I believe I can manage it,” she said. “I can hardly gallop through the streets in such finery.”

“Why do you think I was asked to ride in the procession?” Philippa wondered.

“I told Anne, the queen,” Elizabeth amended, “that while you would always love the princess of Aragon, you were a loyal subject of the king and queen.” Elizabeth chuckled. “I did not, however, name the queen, Philippa, so ’twas not really a lie.”

“I should not be here,” Philippa fretted.

“Your husband and your sons are here,” Elizabeth said. “Besides, you love spectacles such as this will be.”

“The Duchess of Norfolk will report to my lady Katherine everyone of any note who has attended. She will be so hurt and disappointed in me,” Philippa said softly.

“Blame Crispin,” Elizabeth said airily. “The princess of Aragon believes a woman should obey her husband. Your husband insisted you attend. He said you must put your own feelings aside and think of your sons.”

“That’s exactly what he said!” Philippa exclaimed. “How did you know it?”

“Because Crispin is a man of eminent good sense,” Elizabeth responded.

“The Duchess of Norfolk is not obeying her husband,” Philippa said.

Elizabeth snorted derisively. “In my brief stay at court I have learned that the Howard family are a lofty lot. They consider themselves better than those who sit on the throne. I will wager the duke did not order his wife to the coronation. He is in France on the king’s business and is excused. She does not go because she chooses not to go. A foot in both camps, sister. One day they will outsmart themselves and fall. And his old dowager mother will be in a fine litter following after the queen. Nay. The Howards will not be considered disloyal, and neither should you.”

“You have become so wise,” Philippa said. “Yet when we last saw each other you were a foolish girl who showed neither respect nor manners.”

“I am just a country woman, sister,” Elizabeth said. “And I miss my home, and I want to be there. I am so lonely for Baen. For our little son. But I have promised the queen I will stay by her side until her son is safely delivered.”

They had been walking in the tower gardens, but even so Philippa lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “What if it is not a son?” she said.

Elizabeth shuddered. “Do not even think it,” she murmured low.

“They say he is dallying with a lady,” Philippa confided. “But it is so discreet that no one knows who, or if it is even so.”

“The queen does not like the little Seymour girl,” Elizabeth noted.

“Jane Seymour of Wolf Hall?” the Countess of Witton said. “The family is of no importance, and the girl is foolish if she encourages the king. She’ll end up like Mary Boleyn or Bessie Blount. A big belly married off to a nonentity, and back in the country. She is not his type.

I think her rather plain, and she is beyond meek, if such a thing is possible. Nay, Jane Seymour wouldn’t be to the king’s taste at all.”

“The princess of Aragon was a biddable wife,” Elizabeth said.

“But she was intelligent, and a good companion,” Philippa remarked. “Not at all like . . . this one.”

“Anne is intelligent and witty, but I will agree she is hot tempered.

The king, however, seems to enjoy a bit of pepper,” Elizabeth remarked.

“Ladies! Ladies!” A serving woman was beckoning them frantically.

“The procession is forming, and you are wanted.”

Picking up their beautiful delicate skirts, the two sisters ran to join the others. They were to ride their own horses, although mounts had been provided for those who didn’t have them. Philippa’s mare was black, and her sister’s gelding was a dappled gray. Their cloth-of-gold skirts against the dark hides was most striking. Philippa’s bridle was decorated with tiny silver bells, for she had grown to love the sounds the bells made.

The queen came out from her apartments. She was garbed in a mantle and gown of white silk tissue trimmed lavishly with ermine.

Her waist-length ebony hair was loose, and atop her head was a coro-net of multicolored stones that sparkled in the bright sunlight of the spring day. Her litter was lined with cloth of white gold. Four knights garbed in scarlet robes, representing the Cinque Ports, had been delegated to carry the cloth-of-gold canopy over the royal litter. The staves holding the canopy were carved and gilded, and each was decorated with a silver bell. Sixteen knights wearing suits of Tudor-green silk decorated with the king’s badge carried the litter, which was led by two white palfreys draped with cloth of silver.

The queen’s procession was led by twelve noble gentlemen from the French ambassador’s retinue clothed in yellow and blue. The Knights of the Bath wore violet. Among the procession were many noblemen, ambassadors, and other gentlemen. There was the lord chancellor, the archbishop of Canterbury, abbots from the important religious houses, scholars, the archbishop of York, and other bishops from other dioceses. The lord mayor of London was decked out in magnificent finery, with his heavy gold chain of office across his chest.

This pleased the king when he later saw him. Lord William Howard acted as earl marshall for the duke, who was in France. The lord high constable that day was Mary Tudor’s husband, the Duke of Suffolk.

Preceding the queen was her chancellor, bare-headed. Behind her came her chamberlain and master of horse. Next came a group of ladies in their cloth-of-gold gowns, two gaily decorated chariots carrying the old Duchess of Norfolk and the old Marchioness of Dorset.

Two chariots following them transported elderly, but not as distinguished, noblewomen too ancient to ride. The chariots were followed by another larger group of ladies in their cloth-of-gold and velvet gowns, and the queen’s guard in their gold-embroidered coats. Henry had spared no expense to crown this woman he had so desperately sought to make his wife for so long. And despite the short notice given to Londoners, they had done their best to respond in kind to the grand procession.

There were pageants and other entertainments at several places along the royal route. At Fenchurch the queen was greeted by children garbed as merchants, who welcomed her in both English and French. At Gracechurch the queen stopped to enjoy a pageant presented to her by the merchants of the steelyard. It was quite elaborate, and had been designed by the artist Hans Holbein, a favorite of the king. Mount Parnassus had been replicated, along with the fountain of Helicon, which was made of marble. From the fountain four streams of wine shot up to fall into a graceful cup above before pouring over the cup into the fountain below. Atop the mountain beneath an arch topped by an eagle Apollo sat, with the goddess Calliope near him. On the sides of the mountain the Muses were seated, each playing an instrument. Verses written in gold lay at their feet in praise of the new queen. As Anne and her entourage gazed in delight and wonder at Holbein’s creation, the Muse Clio arose and sang.

“Beflower the way, citizens; offer your thanks offerings; burn your in-cense. Wreath your brows with laurel, and with roses. Sport ye in this
day’s honor. Go to meet your lady mistress, poor man and rich man.

Anna comes, bright image of chastity, she whom Henry has chosen to
his partner. Worthy husband, worthy wife! May heaven bless these
nuptials, and make her a fruitful mother of men-children.”