The Constant Princess Read online

  “A border raid?” Katherine asked, knowing it would not be.

  The man shook his head. “My lord told me to tell you that the French king has promised the Scots king that he will recognize him if he wins this battle against us.”

  “Recognize him? As what?”

  “As King of England.”

  He expected her to cry out in indignation or in fear, but she merely nodded, as if it were something else to consider.

  “How many men?” Katherine demanded of the messenger.

  He shook his head. “I can’t say for certain.”

  “How many do you think?”

  He looked at the queen, saw the sharp anxiety in her eyes, and hesitated.

  “Tell me the truth!”

  “I am afraid sixty thousand, Your Grace, perhaps more.”

  “How many more? Perhaps?”

  Again he paused. She rose from her chair and went to the window. “Please, tell me what you think,” she said. “You do me no service if, thanks to you, trying to spare me distress, I go out with an army and find before me an enemy in greater force than I expected.”

  “One hundred thousand, I would think,” he said quietly.

  He expected her to gasp in horror but when he looked at her she was smiling. “Oh, I’m not afraid of that.”

  “Not afraid of one hundred thousand Scots?” he demanded.

  “I’ve seen worse,” she said.

  I know now that I am ready. The Scots are pouring over the border, in their full power. They have captured the northern castles with derisive ease; the flower of the English command and the best men are overseas in France. The French king thinks to defeat us with the Scots, in our own lands, while our masking army rides around northern France and makes pretty gestures. My moment is now. It is up to me, and the men who are left. I order the royal standards and banners from the great wardrobe. Flown at the head of the army the royal standards show that the King of England is on the battlefield. That will be me.

  “You will never ride under the royal standard?” one of my ladies queries.

  “Who else?”

  “It should be the king.”

  “The king is fighting the French. I shall fight the Scots.”

  “Your Grace, a queen cannot take the king’s standard and ride out.”

  I smile at her. I am not pretending to confidence: I truly know that this is the moment for which I have waited all my life. I promised Arthur I could be a queen in armor, and now I am. “A queen can ride under a king’s standard, if she thinks she can win.”

  I summon the remaining troops: these will be my force. I plan to parade them in battle order, but there are more comments.

  “You will never ride at their head?”

  “Where would you want me to ride?”

  “Your Grace, perhaps you should not be there at all?”

  “I am their commander in chief,” I say simply. “You must not think of me as a queen who stays at home, influences policy by stealth, and bullies her children. I am a queen who rules as my mother did. When my country is in danger, I am in danger. When my country is triumphant, as we will be, it is my triumph.”

  “But what if…?” The lady-in-waiting is silenced by one hard look from me.

  “I am not a fool. I have planned for defeat,” I tell her. “A good commander always speaks of victory and yet has a plan for defeat. I know exactly where I shall fall back, and I know exactly where I shall regroup, and I know exactly where I shall join battle again, and if I fail there, I know where I shall regroup again. I did not wait long years for this throne to see the King of Scotland and that fool Margaret take it from me.”

  Katherine’s men, all forty thousand of them, straggled along the road behind the royal guard, weighed down by their weapons and sacks of food in the late-summer sunshine. Katherine, at the head of the train, rode her white horse where everyone could see her, with the royal standard over her head, so that the men should know her now, on the march, and recognize her later, in battle. Twice a day she rode down the length of the line with a word of encouragement for everyone who was scuffing along in the rear, choking with the dust from the forward wagons. She kept monastic hours, rising at dawn to hear Mass, taking Communion at noon, and going to bed at dusk, waking at midnight to say her prayers for the safety of the realm, for the safety of the king, and for herself.

  Messengers passed constantly between Katherine’s army and the force commanded by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. Their plan was that Surrey should engage with the Scots at the first chance, anything to stop their rapid and destructive advance southwards. If Surrey were defeated, then the Scots would come on and Katherine would meet them with her force, and fling them into defense of the southern counties of England. If the Scots cut through them then Katherine and Surrey had a final plan for the defense of London. They would regroup, summon a citizens’ army, throw up earthworks around the City and if all else failed, retreat to the Tower, which could be held for long enough for Henry to reinforce them from France.

  Surrey is anxious that I have ordered him to lead the first attack against the Scots, he would rather wait for my force to join him; but I insist the attack shall go as I have planned. It would be safer to join our two armies, but I am fighting a defensive campaign. I have to keep an army in reserve to stop the Scots sweeping south, if they win the first battle. This is not a single battle I am fighting here. This is a war that will destroy the threat of the Scots for a generation, perhaps forever.

  I too am tempted to order him to wait for me, I so want to join the battle; I feel no fear at all, just a sort of wild gladness as if I am a hawk mewed up for too long and now suddenly set free. But I will not throw my precious men into a battle that would leave the road to London open if we lost. Surrey thinks that if we unite the forces we will be certain to win but I know that there is no certainty in warfare, anything can go wrong. A good commander is ready for the worst, and I am not going to risk the Scots beating us in one battle and then marching down the Great North Road and into my capital city, and a coronation with French acclaim. I did not win this throne so hard, to lose it in one reckless fight. I have a battle plan for Surrey, and one for me, and then a position to retreat to, and a series of positions after that. They may win one battle, they may win more than one, but they will never take my throne from me.

  We are sixty miles out of London, at Buckingham. This is good speed for an army on the march. They tell me it is tremendous speed for an English army; they are notorious for dawdling on the road. I am tired, but not exhausted. The excitement and—to be honest—the fear in each day is keeping me like a hound on a leash, always eager, straining to get ahead and start the hunt.

  And now I have a secret. Each afternoon, when I dismount from my horse, I get down from the saddle and first thing, before anything else, I go into the necessary house, or tent, or wherever I can be alone, and I pull up my skirts and look at my linen. I am waiting for my monthly course, and it is the second month that it has failed to come. My hope, a strong, sweet hope, is that when Henry sailed to France, he left me with child.

  I will tell no one, not even my women. I can imagine the outcry if they knew I was riding every day, and preparing for battle when I am with child, or even in hopes of a child. I dare not tell them, for in all truth, I do not dare do anything which might tilt the balance in this campaign against us. Of course, nothing could be more important than a son for England—except this one thing: holding England for that son to inherit. I have to grit my teeth on the risk I am taking and take it anyway.

  The men know that I am riding at their head and I have promised them victory. They march well; they will fight well because they have put their faith in me. Surrey’s men, closer to the enemy than us, know that behind them, in reliable support, is my army. They know that I am leading their reinforcements in person. It has caused much talk in the country, they are proud to have a queen who will muster herself for them. If I were to turn my face to London and tell them to