The Constant Princess Read online

  “It is possible,” he conceded.

  “And Harry’s wife would be Princess of Wales, and Harry’s wife would be the new queen. She would go before me, she would rule in my place, and all my sacrifice would be for nothing. And her sons would be kings of England.”

  “That is true.”

  Catalina threw herself into her chair. “Then I have to be Prince Harry’s wife,” she said. “I have to be.”

  De Puebla was quite horrified. “I understood you had agreed with the king to marry him! He gave me to believe that you were agreed.”

  “I had agreed to be queen,” she said, white-faced with determination. “Not some cat’s-paw. D’you know what he called me? He said I would be his child bride, and I would live in his mother’s rooms, as if I were one of her ladies-in-waiting!”

  “The former queen…”

  “The former queen was a saint to put up with a mother-in-law like that one. She stepped back all her life. I can’t do it. It is not what I want, it is not what my mother wants, and it is not what God wants.”

  “But if you have agreed…”

  “When has any agreement been honored in this country?” Catalina demanded fiercely. “We will break this agreement and make another. We will break this promise and make another. I shall not marry the king, I shall marry another.”

  “Who?” he asked numbly.

  “Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales,” she said. “So that when King Henry dies, I shall be queen in deed as well as name.”

  There was a short silence.

  “So you say,” said de Puebla slowly. “Perhaps. But who is going to tell the king?”

  God, if You are there, tell me that I am doing the right thing. If You are there, then help me. If it is Thy will that I am Queen of England, then I will need help to achieve it. It has all gone wrong now, and if this has been sent to try me, then see! I am on my knees and shaking with anxiety. If I am indeed blessed by You, destined by You, chosen by You, and favored by You, then why do I feel so hopelessly alone?

  Ambassador Dr. de Puebla found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to bring bad news to one of the most powerful and irascible kings in Christendom. He had firm letters of refusal from Their Majesties of Spain in his hand, he had Catalina’s determination to be Princess of Wales, and he had his own shrinking courage, screwed up to the tightest point for this embarrassing meeting.

  The king had chosen to see him in the stable yard of Whitehall Palace. He was there looking at a consignment of new Barbary horses, brought in to improve English stock. De Puebla thought of making a graceful reference to foreign blood refreshing native strains, breeding best done between young animals, but he saw Henry’s dark face and realized that there would be no easy way out of this dilemma.

  “Your Grace,” he said, bowing low.

  “De Puebla,” the king said shortly.

  “I have a reply from Their Majesties of Spain to your most flattering proposal, but perhaps I should see you at a more opportune time?”

  “Here is well enough. I can imagine from your tiptoeing in what they say.”

  “The truth is…” De Puebla prepared to lie. “They want their daughter home, and they cannot contemplate her marriage to you. The queen is particularly vehement in her refusal.”

  “Because?” the king inquired.

  “Because she wants to see her daughter, her youngest, sweetest daughter, matched to a prince of her own age. It is a woman’s whim—” The diplomat made a little diffident gesture. “Only a woman’s whim. But we have to recognize a mother’s wishes, don’t we? Your Grace?”

  “Not necessarily,” the king said unhelpfully. “But what does the Dowager Princess say? I thought that she and I had an understanding. She can tell her mother of her preference.” The king’s eyes were on the Arab stallion, walking proud-headed around the yard, his ears flickering backwards and forwards, his tail held high, his neck arched like a bow. “I imagine she can speak for herself.”

  “She says that she will obey you, as ever, Your Grace,” de Puebla said tactfully.

  “And?”

  “But she has to obey her mother.” He fell back at the sudden hard glance that the king threw at him. “She is a good daughter, Your Grace. She is an obedient daughter to her mother.”

  “I have proposed marriage to her and she has indicated that she would accept.”

  “She would never refuse a king such as you. How could she? But if her parents do not consent, they will not apply for dispensation. Without dispensation from the Pope, there can be no marriage.”

  “I understand that her marriage was not consummated. We barely need a dispensation. It is a courtesy, a formality.”

  “We all know that it was not consummated,” de Puebla hastily confirmed. “The princess is a maid still, fit for marriage. But all the same, the Pope would have to grant a dispensation. If Their Majesties of Spain do not apply for such a dispensation, then what can anyone do?”

  The king turned a dark, hard gaze on the Spanish ambassador. “I don’t know now. I thought I knew what we would do. But now I am misled. You tell me. What can anyone do?”

  The ambassador drew on the enduring courage of his race, his secret Jewishness which he held to his heart in the worst moments of his life. He knew that he and his people would always, somehow, survive.

  “Nothing can be done,” he said. He attempted a sympathetic smile and felt that he was smirking. He rearranged his face into the gravest expression. “If the Queen of Spain will not apply for dispensation there is nothing that can be done. And she is inveterate.”

  “I am not one of Spain’s neighbors to be overrun in a spring campaign,” the king said shortly. “I am no Granada. I am no Navarre. I do not fear her displeasure.”

  “Which is why they long for your alliance,” de Puebla said smoothly.

  “An alliance how?” the king asked coldly. “I thought they were refusing me?”

  “Perhaps we could avoid all this difficulty by celebrating another marriage,” the diplomat said carefully, watching Henry’s dark face. “A new marriage. To create the alliance we all want.”

  “To whom?”

  At the banked-down anger in the king’s face, the ambassador lost his words.

  “Sire…I…”

  “Who do they want for her now? Now that my son, the rose, is dead and buried? Now she is a poor widow with only half her dowry paid, living on my charity?”

  “The prince,” de Puebla plunged in. “She was brought to the kingdom to be Princess of Wales. She was brought here to be wife to the prince, and later—much later, please God—to be queen. Perhaps that is her destiny, Your Grace. She thinks so, certainly.”

  “She thinks!” the king exclaimed. “She thinks like that filly thinks! Nothing beyond the next minute.”

  “She is young,” the ambassador said. “But she will learn. And the prince is young—they will learn together.”

  “And we old men have to stand back, do we? She has told you of no preference, no particular liking for me? Though she gave me clearly to understand that she would marry me? She shows no regret at this turnaround? She is not tempted to defy her parents and keep her freely given word to me?”

  The ambassador heard the bitterness in the old man’s voice. “She is allowed no choice,” he reminded the king. “She has to do as she is bidden by her parents. I think, for herself, there was an attraction, perhaps even a powerful attraction. But she knows she has to go where she is bid.”

  “I thought to marry her! I would have made her queen! She would have been Queen of England.” He almost choked on the title. All his life he had thought it the greatest honor that a woman could think of, just as his title was the greatest in his own imagination.

  The ambassador paused for a moment to let the king recover.

  “You know, there are other, equally beautiful young ladies in her family,” he suggested carefully. “The young Queen of Naples is a widow now. As King Ferdinand’s niece, she would bring