In the Shadow of the Crown (64 page)

I was ill… sick with disappointment. My women were anxious about me. They thought of everything they could do to amuse me for a while, but I was not amused. Even Jane the Fool could not bring the slightest smile to my lips.

I was with Susan and Jane Dormer one day when they began to chide me for my listless attitude. I was not eating enough; I was staying in my apartments, brooding.

“It will be different when the King returns,” I said.

“Your Majesty should try to enjoy what is here for your pleasure.”

“My heart is with my husband,” I replied.

“You must know that.”

“But he does not come, Madam,” said Jane Dormer sadly.

“He has too much with which to occupy himself.”

I caught a glance which passed between them. Susan's lips were a little pursed. Jane lifted her shoulders slightly. It was as though Jane were asking a question. I distinctly caught the faint shake of Susan's head.

“What have you heard?” I demanded.

Jane flushed scarlet. Susan was more self-contained.

She said, “I doubt little that Your Majesty does not already know.”

“Then why is it that you have decided not to tell me?”

They opened their eyes wide and looked at me, assuming innocence. But I knew them well, and I guessed there was something they were keeping from me.

“Susan…Jane…” I said.

“Have you joined the ranks of my enemies?”

“Your Majesty!”

“You are hiding something from me.”

“But Your Majesty…”

“Susan, what are you afraid to tell me?”

“Oh … it was nothing. Just idle gossip.”

“Concerning me.”

They were silent.

“And the King… was he concerned?” I persisted.

Susan bit her lip. “It is all nonsense. There will always be rumors.”

“And these rumors?”

Susan looked at Jane and Jane at Susan. It was Susan who spoke. “They are saying that the King will never come back.”

“Why should he not?”

“They are saying, Your Majesty, that he prefers to be somewhere else.”

There was silence. Jane fell to her knees and, taking my hand, kissed it.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” she said earnestly, “I wish all could be well with you. I pray he will come soon and show how he loves you… and that there will be a child.”

“I pray for it, Jane.”

“I, too, Your Majesty,” added Susan.

I looked at her. There was an expression of infinite sadness on her face. I had known Susan for many years. She was one of those most dear to me. I trusted her. I knew of her love and devotion.

“You do not believe that he will come, Susan,” I said. “And you know something which you are afraid to tell me.”

She could not dissimulate. She was my honest, open Susan.

She drew a deep breath and said, “There are rumors. But there are always rumors.”

“And these rumors? Come. Since they are only rumors, we need not believe them if we do not wish to.”

“That is so, Your Majesty.”

“Then tell me what you have heard. It is not good that I should be kept in the dark.”

“Your Majesty has suffered. Only those of us who have been near you know how much. I cannot bear to see Your Majesty suffer… and to remain deluded.”

“Deluded? What of these rumors? They concern the King. You must tell me.”

Still she was silent.

“Susan,” I commanded. “Tell me.”

“There are women, Your Majesty. The Duchess of Lorraine is his mistress.”

I tried to smile. I heard myself saying, “The King is a man, Susan. It is the way of men. I am not there. He wants me, of course. I am his wife. But we are separated. We should not take these women any more seriously than he does.”

I was amazed at myself, surprised that I could speak calmly when I was seething with jealousy within. It was hard to pretend. He should be faithful. We were married. We had taken our sacred vows. But I knew this rumor was true. A mistress! How was he with her? Not as he had been with me… courteous… like a stranger. We must try to get a child. Just that. No real love, no passion. Was that how he was with her? But he would not be with her because of the urgent need to get a child. He would be with her because that was where he wanted to be.

And this was why he did not come to England.

I knew that was not all. Half of me said, Do not pursue this. It is only going to make you more unhappy. But if there was more to know, I must know it.

“What else, Susan?” I asked.

“There is nothing else.”

“Usually you are truthful, Susan. It is one of the qualities which have endeared you to me. Come, do not disappoint me. What else have you heard?”

“One cannot trust the French,” she said.

“No. But sometimes they make some pertinent comments. What is their verdict on my marriage?”

She was silent and looked as though she were on the point of bursting into tears.

“I insist on knowing, Susan.”

“The French ambassador told the Venetian ambassador that Philip has said that England is nothing but a costly nuisance. He does not like the people and he does not want to return to it.”

“That cannot be true.”

“Your Majesty asked…”

“Yes, I asked because I like to know what tales are being circulated. What else, Susan? You are still holding something back.”

She paused; she held up her head and a certain defiance came into her eyes. I knew she did not like Philip because she blamed him for my unhappiness.

She said, “It is that King Philip is hoping to have his marriage annulled.”

It was out, and now it was difficult for me to hide my dismay. They knew me too well, both of them. They had seen my exultation. I had talked to them of the perfections of my husband, of my perfect marriage, of my hopes. I could not disguise my misery from these two who knew me so well.

I sat very still and covered my face with my hands. There was a deep silence in the room. Then I felt them at my feet. I opened my eyes and saw them both kneeling there. There were tears on Jane's cheeks, and Susan looked stricken.

“It is only gossip, Your Majesty,” said Susan.

“Only gossip,” I repeated.

“Yet it has a ring of truth…”

They saw now that there was to be no more pretense. It was no use. They knew of my love, of my hopes. They had been with me during those terrible weeks when I was awaiting the birth of a non-existent child. They had been through it all. They had suffered with me.

I could no longer hide my true feelings from them. They were my very dear and trusted friends.

Susan spoke first. “Your Majesty must not grieve. It is better to look at the truth.”

“Better to say I deluded myself,” I murmured, “that he did not care for me, that he never did.”

“It is often so in royal marriages, Your Majesty… and in the marriages of those who are high born.”

“But sometimes love comes,” I said.

They were silent.

“He is a great man,” I said.

“Your Majesty is a great Queen,” added Susan.

I put out my hands and touched their heads gently.

“You should not grieve, Your Majesty, for one who would betray you,” said Susan.

I did not answer. Did she know that she was uttering treason against the King? But she was safeguarding the Queen.

“He was not what Your Majesty believed him to be,” she went on.

“He was all that I believed him to be.”

She was silent for a moment, then she burst out, “You thought he was so solemn…so pure…so chaste. It was never so. Why, he tried to seduce Magdalen Dacre.”

“Magdalen Dacre!”

“Yes. She told us. She was horribly shocked.”

I remembered how I had noticed the girl because she was so tall. They would look incongruous together, I thought inconsequentially. Ludicrous. Perhaps that was what appealed to him about her. But she was exceptionally beautiful. I remembered there had been a time when she had been subdued and always seemed to absent herself when Philip was there.

“It was at Hampton Court,” said Susan, who, having begun, seemed to find it difficult to stop.

“She was at her toilette. There was a small window. He must have seen her as he passed. He tried to open the window and put his arm into the room. Magdalen rapped him sharply and told him to be off.”

“She did not tell me.”

“She would not have grieved you.”

“Perhaps it would have been better if I had known.”

There was no pretense now. I could not hide my misery from them, and they would not have believed me, however good a job I made of it.

“He gave me no sign …” I said.

“He was particularly courteous to her afterward.”

“He bore no grudge,” said Jane, as though calling my attention to something in his favor.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” said Susan, “you must not be unhappy. There are such men. They know not the meaning of fidelity. It is better not to care too much. We heard how he used to go off with a group of friends. They were of a kind.”

“I had heard rumors and not believed them.”

“They used to sing that song about the baker's daughter,” said Jane.

I closed my eyes. So they knew! All my people knew, and I was the only one who believed he loved me!

“What song?” I asked.

Susan said quickly, “It was a silly little rhyme … nothing … nothing…I have forgotten it.”

I caught Jane's wrist. “Tell me the rhyme,” I commanded.

“Your Majesty, I…I can't remember.”

“Tell me,” I said coldly.

So she told me.

The humiliation! The pain of rejection! My happiness had been nothing but an illusion. It was a phantom creature of my imagination to mock me now. It was created out of nothing… like the child of whom I had dreamed, for whom I had planned…a will o' the wisp…to taunt me and to leave me desolate.

I wanted to be alone with my sorrow. It overwhelmed me. I could share it with no one.

“Leave me,” I said.

“Your Majesty …” began Susan, but I only looked at her coldly and repeated, “Leave me.”

So I was alone… alone with my wretchedness, staring the truth in the face as I should have done many weary months before. I had conceived a dream, a flimsy figment of my own imagination. It had nothing to do with reality. I had duped myself; and I had been seen to be duped by those around me. There would be some who laughed at my gullibility and others who kept silent and protected me from the knowledge because they loved me.

At length I rose. I went to that chamber where his picture hung.

How I had loved it! He stood erect, as he always did to disguise his low stature. His face was handsome with his fair hair and beard and his firm Hapsburg chin. I had stood many times before this picture, glowing with pride and pleasure, while he had been romping with some low woman of the town. The baker's daughter who was better than Mary … without her crown, of course.

I found a knife and I slashed at the picture. I felt better than I had for some time. The knife pierced the canvas, and still I went on cutting.

Susan came in.

She must have heard me come here. She was terribly anxious and feared what effect the revelations had had on me.

She saw at once what I had done.

“Have it taken away,” I said.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Gently she took the knife from me and hid it in the pocket of her skirt. The next day the picture was gone, but my unhappiness remained.

I WAS ILL after that. No one was surprised. My periodic illnesses had become commonplace… too frequent for anyone to notice.

I spent long hours alone. I brooded on the past. I recalled incidents, our being together, our love-making, which had been conducted in a manner to resemble a stately pavane. There had been no joy in it, no laughter, no fun. It was a ritual which had to be borne—on his side—for the sake of an heir.

As for myself, I had not known it could be any other way. How could I, ignorant as I was of such matters? Now I wondered how it had been with the Duchess of Lorraine, the baker's daughter and all the others.

I stormed…to myself, of course. I wept. I talked to him as though he were there beside me. I told him what he had done to me. He had humiliated me, used me, slighted me, and never had he loved me.

I remembered how he had been with Elizabeth. He had said she should not be forced to marry. Did
he
plan to marry her when I was dead? He surely could not be thinking of annulling our marriage so that he could marry my sister? Dispensation could, of course, always be obtained for the powerful.

How empty my life was! For the happiness I craved I would have exchanged twenty crowns.

But one cannot mourn for ever. I must meet my Council. The country was unstable. The burnings were deplored in several quarters. I was blamed for them. Families all over the country were cursing my name.

I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted to explain how distressed I was. My task had been to bring England back to Rome, and that I had done, but there were sullen looks everywhere. There were murmurings against me.

Only those close to me, the people who really knew me, gave me their love—and mingled with it, I think, their pity.

I told myself that I hated Philip.

NEWS CAME FROM ITALY. Edward Courtenay had died.

I was deeply moved. He was so young. So handsome he had been. I could have been in love with him. Then Philip had come, a King, a ruler, a strong man. Poor Courtenay! What chance had he had then? I thought of all those years when the Tower had been his home; it was commendable that he
had educated himself, but there was more needed than education. To have married him would have been an even greater disaster than my marriage with Philip.

Would he have loved me any more? Not he. I was too old. Love had passed me by until I was too old to understand and enjoy it. I had nothing to offer but a crown. A low-class baker's daughter was more attractive than I … if my crown were taken away.

But with it, of course, I had been a glittering prize.

I knew poor Courtenay had found it hard to live in exile. Right up to the time of his death he was pleading to return. I would have granted his request but the Council was horrified at the prospect. Often they had pointed out how dangerous such people could be. With Courtenay, his good looks made up for his lack of sense, and he was a member of that dynasty which, now it was no longer the ruling family, had been ennobled with the sanctity of that which was and now is no more. Oh yes, the Plantagenets had become holy now their age was past. Had people loved them so devotedly while they lived? Would the Tudors be as revered when they had passed away?