The Star of Lancaster (17 page)

‘You mean you are proposing to take an embassy to France?’

‘I mean just that,’ said John of Gaunt, ‘and you should be a part of it.’

Catherine Swynford talked with Mary about the proposed mission which the Duke had discussed at great length with her.

‘It will take them away again,’ she said, ‘but at least it will be on a peaceful mission.’

Mary toyed with the idea of telling Catherine about the fears that came to her and how after each pregnancy she felt a little weaker. But somehow she could not bring herself to do so. Catherine looked so full of health although she was so much older and she had borne the Duke four children and her husband two with, it seemed, the utmost ease.

Mary felt ashamed of herself for being so weak. After all it was a woman’s mission in life to be a mother.

So she said nothing and instead discussed the prospects of peace with France.

In due course the embassy left and by this time Mary was once more pregnant.

The terrible foreboding came to her. She felt ill as the months passed. I must tell Henry, she promised herself. There must be an end to this. We have four sons and now there is this other child.

That must be enough.

She had the feeling that she must get away from Bolingbroke. Perhaps a stay in pleasant Peterborough would do her good. In any case a change of scene would be beneficial. There was excitement in moving from castle to castle. After his adventure in the bear pit Harry had lost some of his devotion to the bears. He was more interested in a falcon which he had had given to him. The children would enjoy a move.

So they travelled to Peterborough.

Strangely enough Mary’s health improved. The months passed quickly and there was news from France. Everywhere the English went they were treated with honour and courtesy
by the French; there were tournaments and banquets at which as usual each tried to outdo the other in splendour.

Henry excelled as always at the joust and there he met those on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. It occurred to him then that that was something he would like to undertake. The truth was that he needed adventure. When he had joined with the Lords Appellant there had been plenty of that, but now that the King had settled down and the Queen was beside him to keep a steadying influence on him, life had changed in England; and there was not enough to keep a man like Henry occupied.

He fancied going on a pilgrimage and discussed it with his father, who thought it a good idea.

He had heard from Mary that she was once again pregnant. She seemed to be having a child almost every year which was very commendable. The more his family grew, the happier Henry was. Boys to stand beside him and support him in his quarrels, girls to make good alliances and bring more strength to his house. They were young yet. Mary was now twenty-two; she had years of childbearing before her. Yes, they were going to rival Edward and Philippa.

Meanwhile Mary waited in Peterborough.

She was aware of the anxious looks of Joan Waring and Mary Hervey; she knew that they whispered about her and feared the worst.

Joan was indignant. Ladies had more to do in life than bear child after child. This was for gipsies and the poor, my lord should understand this. Of course he did not know what toll these pregnancies took of the Lady Mary. When he came home there was a baby smiling – or yelling – in its cradle and his lady wife smiling as though it had all been as easy as she could have wished it to be.

It was spring and the buds were opening and the birds were going wild with joy when Mary’s pains started. A cold fear took possession of her as her women helped her to bed.

‘Let me come through this,’ she prayed. ‘What of the children if I do not? They need their mother. Oh God, let me live and let this be the last.’

It seemed as though her prayers were answered for it was an easier birth than the others; the baby was small but perfectly formed.

A little girl.

It was a change after the four boys. She marvelled at the dainty creature and in that moment she thought it was all worthwhile. She had five wonderful children. She must not complain because she had had to pay a certain price for them. The painful birth . . . the deterioration of health . . . they could be forgotten while she held her baby girl in her arms.

Would Henry be pleased? She believed so. After all they had their four boys.

She thought of a name for the child. She should be named after Henry’s mother. Blanche, that was a good family name. So Blanche it should be.

The little girl thrived and Mary was delighted that she should feel so much better than she usually did after her confinements.

Henry was as delighted as Mary had known he would be. He was pleased that she should be called after his mother whom the poet Chaucer had extolled in his verses but whom Henry could not remember. He sent silks from Champagne and Flanders to decorate the font in Peterborough Cathedral and there Mary’s fifth child was baptised.

Henry returned to England but almost immediately set out again. He was going to travel across Europe to the Holy Land. On the way the King wished him to call on the Queen’s brother Wenceslas who was also the Holy Roman Emperor. He was to pay his respects and to let Wenceslas know how devoted Richard was to his Queen. Indeed there was no need because the devotion of the royal pair was well known throughout Europe. However, it was a friendly gesture and one which Henry was delighted to make.

From Bohemia he went to Venice where he arranged that a ship was commissioned and when it was built and filled with the requisite stores he set out for Palestine which he reached in due course. He paid a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the Mount of Olives and glowing with righteousness he began to journey home. He stayed for a while on the island of Cyprus where he was entertained by its King and when he had watched the performing bears he could not resist telling the story of how his firstborn had fearlessly descended into the pit to play with the bear. The boy’s valour was applauded and when he was leaving, the King presented him with a leopard.

‘To amuse the young Lord Harry,’ was the comment, ‘but tell him he must not come too close to this one.’

‘Which,’ replied Henry, ‘would be the way in which to make him do so!’

‘Oh he is a bold brave Prince, that one,’ was the laughing reply and a cage was found for the leopard so that it might accompany Henry when he returned to England.

John of Gaunt sent a message to him. It was time he came back. A new situation was arising in the country. The Earl of Arundel, one of the five Lords Appellant who had faced the
King with Henry, was circulating rumours about John of Gaunt, doubting his loyalty to the King.

The Duke was soon able to deal with these and so strongly had he won the King’s confidence that Richard commanded Arundel to apologise to his uncle.

Richard had come to believe that John of Gaunt was his most trusted ally. He was too old now to want the crown for himself, moreover it was understood that Richard was undoubtedly the true heir to the crown and that it would be folly to attempt to shift it from his head. These were uneasy days when those about the throne must take care how they walked.

Henry returned and Mary, to her dismay, discovered that she was once more pregnant. Her spirits drooped for this time she felt really ill.

There
must
be an end to this incessant childbearing. She would
have
to tell Henry how she dreaded it. He was naturally not aware of this because he was generally if not out of the country away from the family circle. Soon after she had made this alarming discovery news was brought to the castle of the death of Henry’s stepmother, Constanza of Castile. Mary had met Constanza only rarely and she had always seemed remote, for Henry’s stepmother was entirely Spanish and had never fitted into the English way of life. She and her husband had rarely lived together and since they had returned from Castile after arranging the marriage of their daughter Catherine with the heir of that country, Constanza seemed even more like a stranger to them all. The Duke’s wife was in all but legality Catherine Swynford and it was Catherine who interested herself in family affairs and whom the children loved. Still it was a shock as death must always be and Henry, who came
back to the family for a brief spell, expressed his curiosity as to what would happen now.

The Duke was free of Constanza but could he marry Catherine Swynford? If he were not the son of a king he undoubtedly would. But he must always remember that he
was
King Edward’s son. ‘Of one thing we can be sure,’ Mary pointed out, ‘Lady Swynford will not attempt to influence him.’

‘He cannot marry her,’ said Henry emphatically. ‘His rank is too high and she is too humble.’

Mary sighed. ‘There is no woman in the country more worthy to be the Duchess of Lancaster.’

‘In all ways but one,’ agreed Henry. ‘Her humble birth can never be forgotten.’

‘Can it not?’ asked Mary almost wonderingly.

Then she said that she would like to go to Leicester for a change. She wanted the new child to be born there.

A terrible tragedy had struck the King. His beloved wife, who was known throughout the country as Good Queen Anne, caught the prevailing sickness and in a few weeks was dead.

The King’s grief maddened him and he was inconsolable. Anne had been his constant companion and had grown ever closer since the passing of his friend Robert de Vere. He could not contemplate life without her and was filled with rage that fate could have been so cruel as to take from him this beloved Queen.

In his uncontrollable anger he slashed the hangings in the room where she had died and declared that he never wanted to see Sheen again.

Then his morbid rage took possession of him so that he was unable to control it. He broke up the furniture in that room; he destroyed it utterly. Never could he bear to look on that room again.

There is death in the air, thought Mary.

The time was growing near. Joan Waring and Mary Hervey were growing more and more uneasy.

‘There is no time between for her to recover,’ grumbled Joan. ‘It is a mercy my lord is away on his travels or the intervals would be even shorter I’d swear.’

‘If he were here perhaps he would be aware of the toll it is taking of her.’

‘Men!’ snapped Joan. ‘What do they know of these matters. All they think of is their own pleasure and getting children to bring them honour and glory. My lord will have to be spoken to after this one and if no one else will do it I will.’

‘Better leave it to my lady.’

‘She, poor soul, does nothing but submit.’

‘She is a great lady.’

‘The best in the land. But that won’t bring her through. I fear for her, Mary. I fear for her.’

‘You have always feared yet she recovers.’

‘Yes, in time for the next one. It will not continue, I know that.’

‘You fret too much, Joan,’ Mary Hervey said. ‘Blanche’s was an easy birth.’

Joan said nothing. She pursed her lips to express disapproval.

The weeks passed and Mary was so tired that she spent most of her time in bed. She was glad Henry was away. She would have hated him to see her so indisposed. Thousands of women
were having babies every day. And she had only five. It was not a great number. It was just that they had seemed to follow so quickly on one another.