The King's Curse Read online

  “Except I am afraid the king is neglecting his rule,” she says.

  “Neglecting?”

  Nobody could be a better judge of monarchy than Katherine of Aragon; she was raised to believe that ruling a kingdom is a holy duty to pray for last thing at night, and think of as you wake. When Henry was a little boy, he felt the same, but he has grown to be casual with the work of kingship. When the queen was regent for England, she met with her councillors every day, consulted the experts, took advice from the great lords, and read and signed every single document that was released from the court. When Henry came home, he devoted himself to hunting.

  “He leaves all the work to the cardinal,” she says. “And I am afraid that some of the lords may feel that they have been ignored.”

  “They have been ignored,” I say bluntly.

  She lowers her eyes. “Yes, I know,” she concedes. “And the cardinal is well rewarded for his work.”

  “What is he getting now?” I demand. I can hear the irritation in my own voice. I smile, and touch her sleeve. “Forgive me, I too think that the cardinal rules too widely and is paid too much.”

  “Favorites are always expensive,” she smiles. “But this new honor will cost the king little. It is from the Holy Father. The cardinal is to be made a papal legate.”

  I gasp. “A papal legate? Thomas Wolsey is to rule the Church?”

  She raises her eyebrows and nods.

  “No one above him but the Pope?”

  “No one,” she observes. “At least he is a peacemaker. I suppose we should be glad of that. He is proposing a peace between us and France and the marriage of my daughter to the dauphin.”

  With quick sympathy I put my hand on hers. “She’s only two,” I say. “That’s a long way off. It might never happen; there is certain to be a quarrel with France before she has to go.”

  “Yes,” she concedes. “But the cardinal—forgive me, His Lordship the Papal Legate—always seems to get what he wants.”

  Everything goes smoothly on the royal visit. The king admires the house, enjoys the hunting, gambles with Montague, rides with Arthur. The queen walks around the grounds with me, smilingly praises my presence chamber, my privy chamber, my bedroom. She recognizes the joy that I take in my house, and in the knowledge that I have all my other houses returned to me. She admires my treasure room and my records room and understands that the running of this, my kingdom, is my pride and my joy.

  “You were born for a great place,” she says. “You must have had a wonderful year, organizing a wedding and getting everything just as you want it here.”

  When the court moves on, they will take Arthur with them. The king swears that no one can keep up with him in the hunting field like Arthur.

  “He is to make me a gentleman of the privy chamber.” Arthur comes to my room on the last night.

  “A what?”

  “It’s a new order of the household that the king is making. All his best friends, just as we are now, but we are to be attached to the privy chamber—just like the King of France has his gentlemen. Henry wants to do whatever the King of France does. He wants to rival him. So we are to have a privy chamber and I am to be one of the very, very few gentlemen.”

  “And what will your duties be?”

  He laughs. “As now, I think. To be merry.”

  “And drink too much,” I supplement.

  “To be merry and drink too much, and flirt with ladies.”

  “And lead the king into bad ways?”

  “Alas, Lady Mother, the king is a young man, and every day he seems younger. He can lead himself into bad ways, he doesn’t need me as his waymarker.”

  “Arthur, my boy, I know you can’t stop him, but there are some young ladies who would be happy to break the heart of his wife. If you could steer him away from them . . .”

  He nods. “I know. And I know how dear she is to you, and God knows that England could not have a better queen. He would never do anything disrespectful; he loves her truly, it is just . . .”

  “If you can keep the king to light pleasures, with women who remember that courtly love is a game, and that it should be played lightly, you would be doing the queen and the country a service.”

  “I would always want to serve the queen. But not even William Compton, not even Charles Brandon can lead the king.” Arthur’s face lightens with laughter. “And, Mother, nothing can stop him from falling in love. It is quite ridiculous! He is the oddest mixture of lust and primness. He will see a pretty girl, a laundress in a dye shop, and he could have her for a penny. But instead he has to write a poem to her and speak words of love before he can do an act that most of us would finish and be done with in minutes on the drying green, hidden by the wet sheets.”

  “Yes, and it’s this that troubles the queen,” I say. “The words of love, not the penny, not the business of minutes.”

  “That’s the king for you.” Arthur shrugs. “He doesn’t want the momentary pleasure, he wants words of love.”

  “From a laundress in a dye shop?”

  “From anyone.” Arthur says. “He is chivalric.”

  He says it as if it were an affliction, and I have to laugh.

  I bid the court farewell and I don’t travel with them. Instead, I go to London and visit the Princess Mary for a few weeks and then on to the silk merchants, for I have much to buy. My daughter Ursula is to be married from home this autumn. I have won for her a truly great marriage, and I will celebrate it as my own triumph as well as her happiness. She is to marry Henry Stafford, the son and heir of my cousin Edward, the Duke of Buckingham. She will be a duchess and one of the greatest landowners in England. We will make a new link to our cousins, the greatest ducal family in the land.

  “He’s a child,” she says shortly when I tell her the news. “When he was here at Easter, he was Geoffrey’s little playmate.”

  “He’s seventeen, he’s a man,” I say.

  “I’m twenty years old!” she exclaims. “I don’t want to marry one of Geoffrey’s little friends. Mother, how can I? How can I marry my younger brother’s playmate? I will look like a fool.”

  “You’ll look like an heiress,” I say. “And later on, in good time, you’ll look like a duchess. You will find that a great compensation for anything you feel now.”

  She shakes her head; but she knows that she has no choice, and we both know that I am right. “And where will we live?” she asks sulkily. “Because I can’t live here with Geoffrey, and see the two of them running out to play every morning.”

  “He’s a young man. He will grow out of play,” I say patiently. “But in any case you will live with the duke, his father, who will bring you to court to live in the Buckingham rooms there. I will see you there and you will continue to serve the queen when you are at court. But you’ll go into dinner practically on her heels. You will outrank almost every other woman but the royal princesses.”

  I see her face warm to the thought of that, and I hide a smile. “Yes, think of it! You’ll have a greater title than mine. You’ll go ahead of me, Ursula.”

  “Oh, will I?”

  “Yes. And when you’re not at court, you will live at one of His Grace’s houses.”

  “Where?” she asks.

  I laugh. “I don’t know which one. At any one of his twelve castles, I suppose. I have provided well for you, Ursula, I have provided for you outstandingly well. You will be a wealthy young woman on your wedding day, even before your father-in-law dies, and when he does, your husband will inherit everything.”

  She hesitates. “But will the duke wait on the king anymore? I thought Arthur said that it is always the papal legate who advises the king now, not the lords.”

  “The Duke of Buckingham will attend court,” I assure her. “No king can rule without the support of the great lords, not even with Thomas Wolsey doing all the work. The king knows that, his father knew that. The king will never quarrel with his great lords, that is the way to divide the country. The duke has s