The Constant Princess Read online

  I pray for a boy but I do not expect one. A child for England, a child for Arthur, is all I want. If it is the daughter that he had wanted, then I will call her Mary as he asked.

  Henry’s desire for a son, and his love for me, has made him more thoughtful at last. He takes care of me in ways that he has never done before. I think he is growing up, the selfish boy is becoming a good man at last, and the fear that has haunted me since his affair with the Stafford girl is receding. Perhaps he will take lovers as kings always do, but perhaps he will resist falling in love with them and making the wild promises that a man can make but a king must not. Perhaps he will acquire the good sense that so many men seem to learn: to enjoy a new woman but remain constant, in their hearts, to their wife. Certainly, if he continues to be this sweet-natured, he will make a good father. I think of him teaching our son to ride, to hunt, to joust. No boy could have a better father for sports and pastimes than a son of Henry’s. Not even Arthur would have made a more playful father. Our boy’s education, his skill in court life, his upbringing as a Christian, his training as a ruler, these are the things that I will teach him. He will learn my mother’s courage and my father’s skills, and from me—I think I can teach him constancy, determination. These are my gifts now.

  I believe that between Henry and me, we will raise a prince who will make his mark in Europe, who will keep England safe from the Moors, from the French, from the Scots, from all our enemies.

  I will have to go into confinement again but I leave it as late as I dare. Henry swears to me that there will be no other while I am confined, that he is mine, all mine. I leave it till the evening of the Christmas feast and then I take my spiced wine with the members of my court and bid them merry Christmas as they bid me Godspeed, and I go once more into the quietness of my bedroom.

  In truth, I don’t mind missing the dancing and the heavy drinking. I am tired, this baby is a weight to carry. I rise and then rest with the winter sun, rarely waking much before nine of the morning, and ready to sleep at five in the afternoon. I spend much time praying for a safe delivery, and for the health of the child that moves so strongly inside me.

  Henry comes to see me, privately, most days. The Royal Book is clear that the queen should be in absolute isolation before the birth of her child, but the Royal Book was written by Henry’s grandmother and I suggest that we can please ourselves. I don’t see why she should command me from beyond the grave when she was such an unhelpful mentor in life. Besides, to put it as bluntly as an Aragonese: I don’t trust Henry on his own in court. On New Year’s Eve he dines with me before going to the hall for the great feast, and brings me a gift of rubies, with stones as big as Cristóbal Colón’s haul. I put them around my neck and see his eyes darken with desire for me as they gleam on the plump whiteness of my breasts.

  “Not long now,” I say, smiling, I know exactly what he is thinking.

  “I shall go to Walsingham as soon as our child is born, and when I come back you will be churched,” he says.

  “And then, I suppose you will want to make another baby,” I say with mock weariness.

  “I will,” he says, his face bright with laughter.

  He kisses me good night, wishes me joy of the new year and then goes out of the hidden door in my chamber to his own rooms, and from there to the feast. I tell them to bring the boiled water that I still drink in obedience to the Moor’s advice, and then I sit before the fire sewing the tiniest little gown for my baby, while María de Salinas reads in Spanish to me.

  Suddenly, it is as if my whole belly has turned over, as if I am falling from a great height. The pain is so thorough, so unlike anything I have ever known before, that the sewing drops from my hands and I grip the arms of my chair and let out a gasp before I can say a word. I know at once that the baby is coming. I had been afraid that I would not know what was happening, that it would be a pain like that when I lost my poor girl. But this is like the great force of a deep river, this feels like something powerful and wonderful starting to flow. I am filled with joy and a holy terror. I know that the baby is coming and that he is strong, and that I am young, and that everything will be all right.

  As soon as I tell the ladies, the chamber bursts into uproar. My Lady the King’s Mother might have ruled that the whole thing shall be done soberly and quietly with the cradle made ready and two beds made up for the mother, one to give birth in and one to rest in; but in real life, the ladies run around like hens in a poultry yard, squawking in alarm. The midwives are summoned from the hall, they have gone off to make merry, gambling that they would not be needed on New Year’s Eve. One of them is quite tipsy and María de Salinas throws her out of the room before she falls over and breaks something. The physician cannot be found at all, and pages are sent running all over the palace looking for him.

  The only ones who are settled and determined are Lady Margaret Pole, María de Salinas, and I. María, because she is naturally disposed to calm, Lady Margaret, because she has been confident from the start of this confinement, and I, because I can feel that nothing will stop this baby coming, and I might as well grab hold of the rope in one hand, my relic of the Virgin Mother in the other, fix my eyes on the little altar in the corner of the room and pray to St. Margaret of Antioch to give me a swift and easy delivery and a healthy baby.

  Unbelievably, it is little more than six hours—though one of those hours lingers on for at least a day—and then there is a rush and a slither, and the midwife mutters “God be praised!” quietly and then there is a loud, irritable cry, almost a shout, and I realize that this is a new voice in the room, that of my baby.

  “A boy, God be praised, a boy,” the midwife says and María looks up at me and sees me radiant with joy.

  “Really?” I demand. “Let me see him.”

  They cut the cord and pass him up to me, still naked, still bloody, his little mouth opened wide to shout, his eyes squeezed tight in anger, Henry’s son.

  “My son,” I whisper.

  “England’s son,” the midwife says. “God be praised.”

  I put my face down to his warm little head, still sticky, I sniff him like a cat sniffs her kittens. “This is our boy,” I whisper to Arthur, who is so close at that moment that it is almost as if he is at my side, looking over my shoulder at this tiny miracle, who turns his head and nuzzles at my breast, little mouth gaping. “Oh, Arthur, my love, this is the boy I promised I would bear for you and for England. This is our son for England, and he will be king.”

  Spring 1511

  1ST JANUARY 1511

  THE WHOLE OF ENGLAND WENT MAD when they learned on New Year’s Day that a boy had been born. Everyone called him Prince Henry at once, there was no other name possible. In the streets they roasted oxen and drank themselves into a stupor. In the country they rang the church bells and broke into the church ales to toast the health of the Tudor heir, the boy who would keep England at peace, who would keep England allied with Spain, who would protect England from her enemies, and who would defeat the Scots once and for all.

  Henry came in to see his son, disobeying the rules of confinement, tiptoeing carefully, as if his footstep might shake the room. He peered into the cradle, afraid almost to breathe near the sleeping boy.

  “He is so small,” he said. “How can he be so small?”

  “The midwife says he is big and strong,” Katherine corrected him, instantly on the defense of her baby.

  “I am sure. It is just that his hands are so…and look, he has fingernails! Real fingernails!”

  “He has toenails too,” she said. The two of them stood side by side and looked down in amazement at the perfection that they had made together. “He has little plump feet and the tiniest toes you can imagine.”

  “Show me,” he said.

  Gently, she pulled off the little silk shoes that the baby wore. “There,” she said, her voice filled with tenderness. “Now I must put this back on so that he does not get cold.”

  Henry bent over the cri