Queen of This Realm (82 page)

My godfather was Cardinal Wolsey who, under the King, was the most important man in the country at that time. He gave me a gold cup; from my Aunt Mary, the wayward Tudor after whom I was named, I received a pomander. I loved it. It was a golden ball into which was inserted a paste of exquisite perfumes. I used to take it to bed with me and later I wore it at my girdle.

The best time of my life was my early childhood before I had an inkling of the storms which were to beset me. Innocence is a beautiful state when one believes that people are all good and one is prepared to love them all and expect that love to be returned. One is unaware that evil exists, so one does not look for it. But, alas, there comes the awakening.

A royal child has no secret life. He or she is watched constantly, and it is particularly so if that child is important to the state. I say this as no conceit. I was important because I was the only child of the King, and if my parents produced the desired boy, my importance would dwindle away. I should not have been watched over, inspected by ambassadors and received their homage due to the heir to the throne. It is difficult to understand when one is young that the adulation and respect are not for oneself but for the Crown.

There are vague memories in my mind, prompted no doubt by accounts I heard from members of my household; but I see myself at the age of two being taken up by my father, held high while he threw me up and caught me in his strong arms and held me firmly against his jewel-encrusted surcoat. I had felt no qualms that he would drop me. I never knew anyone exude power as my father did. As a child I believed him to be different from all others, a being apart. Of course, I had always seen him as the most powerful person in the kingdom—which undoubtedly he was—and my childish mind endowed him with divine qualities. He was not only a king; he was a god. My mother and Sir Henry Rowte, my priest, chaplain and Clerk of the Closet, might instruct me in my duties to One who was above us all, but in my early days that one was my father.

I was so happy to be held in his arms and to see my beloved mother standing beside me, laughing, happy, beautiful and contented with me.

I remember my father's carrying me to a man in red robes who reverently took my hand and kissed it. My father regarded this man with great affection, and it seemed wonderful to me that he should kiss my hand. It meant something. It pleased my father. I knew by that time that he was my godfather, the great Cardinal Wolsey.

That had been when I was exactly two years old. I think the ceremony must have been in recognition of that fact. It was not only the great Cardinal who kissed my hand. I was taken to the Venetian ambassador and he was presented to me. I had been told I had to extend my hand for him to kiss, which I did in the manner which had been taught me, and I knew this caused my father's mouth to turn up at the corners with approval. Several people were presented to me afterward and I believe I remember something of this. While I was in my father's arms, I saw a man in dark robes among the assembly. I knew him for a priest. Priests, I had been told, were holy men, good men. I was drawn to them all throughout my life. I wanted to see this one more closely, so I called out, “Priest, Priest. Come here, Priest.”

There was astonishment among the company, and my father beckoned to the man to come forward. He did and stood before me. He took my hand and kissed it. I touched his dark robes and said: “Stay here, Priest.” The man smiled at me and, basking in my approval, he overcame his awe of the King and stammered out that the Princess Mary was a child of many gifts and the most bright and intelligent of her age he had ever seen.

People remember that occasion more for the manner in which I summoned the priest than that it was my second birthday and that the King was showing his love for me and that he was becoming reconciled to the fact that he might never have a legitimate son to follow him, which would make me, his daughter, his heir.

I was at that time at Ditton in Buckinghamshire. On the other side of the river was Windsor Castle and there was frequent traffic between the two places. I looked forward to those occasions when the ferryman rowed us across the river. I had my household governed by the Countess of Salisbury, who was a mother to me when my own beloved mother was not able to be with me. She deplored these absences, I knew, and had made me understand that she loved me dearly, and in spite of my reverence for my father, she was the person I loved best in the whole world.

Whenever she visited the household, she and the Countess would talk of me. My mother wanted to know everything I did and said and wore. She made me feel cherished; and the greatest sorrow of my early life was due to those occasions when we had to part.

She would say: “Soon we shall be together again and when I am not here the lady Countess will be your mother in my place.”

“There can only be one mother,” I told her gravely.

“That is so, my child,” she answered. “But you love the Countess as she loves you, and you must do everything she tells you and above all remember that she is there… for me.”

I did understand. I was wise for my years. I had, as Alice Wood, the laundress used to say, “an old head on little shoulders.”

Soon after that, when I was two years and eight months old, my first betrothal took place.

A son had been born to Franois Premier, the King of France, and my father and the Cardinal believed that it would strengthen the friendship between our two countries if a marriage was arranged for us. Although I was almost exactly two years older—the Dauphin was born on the 28th of February 1518—we were of an age. I had no notion of what this was all about. I do vaguely remember the splendid ceremony at Greenwich Palace, largely because of the clothes I had to wear. They were heavy and prickly; my gown was of cloth of gold, and my black velvet cap so encrusted with jewels that I could scarcely support its weight. My prospective bridegroom, being only eight months old, was naturally spared the ceremony and a somewhat solemn-looking Admiral Bonnivet represented him. I remember the heavy diamond ring he put on my finger.

The great Cardinal celebrated Mass. I was too uncomfortable in my unwieldy garments to be anything but pleased when it was all over.

The Countess told me that it was a very important occasion and it meant that one day I should be Queen of France. I need not be alarmed. The ceremony would not be repeated until the Dauphin was fourteen years old— by which time I should be sixteen… eons away in time. Then I should go to France to be prepared for the great honor of queenship.

My mother did not share in the general rejoicing. I learned at an early age that she did not like the French.

I was three years old when an event took place which was of the greatest importance to my mother and therefore to me, although, of course, at this stage of my life I was blissfully ignorant of it and of the storms which had begun to cast a cloud over my parents' marriage.

Later I heard all about it.

I had sensed that there had been a certain disappointment at my birth because I was not a boy, and I was aware some time before my third birthday that there was an expectancy in the Court which had seeped into my household. People whispered. I caught a word here and there. I think I must have been rather precocious. I suppose any child in my position would have been. I did not know what the undercurrents meant but I did somehow sense that they were there.

My mother was ill and I heard it murmured that this was yet another disappointment, though “it” would only have been a girl. The King was angry; the Queen was desolate. It was yet another case of hope unfulfillled.

“Well, there is time yet,” I heard it said. “And after all there is the little Princess.”

And then a boy was born—not to my mother, though. He was a very important boy, but he could not displace me. He was flawed in some way. He was—I heard the word spoken with pity and a touch of contempt—a bastard.

But there was something special about this bastard.

I learned the story later. Bessie Blount was not the King's first mistress. How my poor mother must have suffered! She, the daughter of proud Isabella and Ferdinand, to be forced to accept such a state of affairs. Men were not faithful… kings in particular… but they should veil their infidelities with discretion. I heard many tales of Bessie Blount; how she was the star of the Court, how she sang more prettily and danced more gracefully than any other; and how the King, tiring of his Spanish Queen who, in any case was more than five years his senior, was like every other man at Court fascinated by her.

There had been another woman before Bessie Blount's arrival on the scene. She was the sister of the Duke of Buckingham and was at Court with her husband. The Duke of Buckingham considered himself more royal than the Tudors. His father was descended from Thomas of Woodstock, who was a son of Edward III, and his mother had been Catherine Woodville, sister to Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. So he had good reasons—particularly as the Plantagenets were inclined to regard the Tudors as upstarts. My own dear Countess of Salisbury was very proud of her Plantagenet ancestry but she was wise enough not to talk of it.

However, the erring lady's sister-in-law discovered what was happening and reported it to her husband the Duke, who was incensed that a member of his family should so demean herself as to become any man's mistress, even if that man was the King. Being so conscious of his heritage, he was not the man to stand aside and had gone so far as to upbraid the King. It was really quite a storm and I could imagine the interest it aroused throughout the Court and the anguish it brought to my mother.

The woman was taken to a convent by her brother and kept there. The King and the Duke quarrelled, with the result that Buckingham left the Court for a while. I suppose it was not considered to be a very serious incident but I believe it was the first time my mother had been aware that the King looked elsewhere for his comfort.

The Bessie Blount affair was quite another matter—no hole in the corner affair this. My father was now petulantly showing his discontent. All those years of marriage and only one child—and that a girl—to show for it! Something was wrong and, as my father could never see any fault in himself, he blamed my mother. He convinced himself that he had nobly married his brother's widow; when she was helpless, he had played the gallant knight as he loved to do in his masques and charades, and out of chivalry he had married her. And how had she repaid him? By producing children who did not survive… apart from one daughter. It was unacceptable in his position. He must have heirs because the country needed them. He had been cheated.

There was no longer pleasure to be found in the marriage bed. God had not made him a monk, so it was only natural that he, so bitterly disappointed in his marriage, should turn aside for a little relaxation to enable him to deal effectively with matters of state.

So there was the delectable Bessie, the star of the Court, so enchanting, desired by many. It was natural that she should comfort my father.

Perhaps it would not have been so important if Bessie had not become pregnant; and even that in itself could not have made such a stir. But Bessie produced a boy—a healthy boy! The King's son—but, alas, born on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say.

A ripple of excitement ran through the Court, so obvious that even I, a child of three years, was conscious of it.

When my mother visited me, I noticed a sadness in her. It grieved me momentarily but when she saw this she was determined to hide it and became more merry than she usually was.

I forgot it. But later, of course, looking back, I saw that it was, in a way, the beginning.

The boy was named Henry after his father. He was a bright and goodlooking child, and the King was proud of him. He was known as Henry Fitzroy so that none should forget whose son he was. Bessie was married to Sir Gilbert Talboys, a man of great wealth, for it was considered fitting that as she was a mother she should be a wife. The boy must have the best and his father saw much of him. My mother used to talk to me about it during those dark days when the King's Secret Matter was, in spite of this appellation, the most discussed subject at Court.

When I was four years old, my parents went to France. There was a great deal of excitement about this visit because it was meant to mark a new bond of friendship between France and England. The King of France and my father were going to show the world that they were allies; but mainly they were telling this to the Emperor Charles, who was the rival of them both.

I wondered whether they would take me with them. But they did not. Instead I was sent to Richmond. This was a change from Ditton, although I had my household with me and the Countess and Lady Bryan were in charge. But the Countess did try to impress on me that it was different because my parents were out of the country and that put me into a more important position than I should have been in if they were here. I tried to grasp what this meant but the Countess seemed to decide that she could not explain. I heard her say to Lady Bryan, “How can this be expected of a child?”

There was a great deal of talk about what was happening in France and there were descriptions of splendid tournaments and entertainments. The occasion was referred to as “The Field of the Cloth of Gold,” which conjured up visions of great grandeur in my mind. My mother told me later that it was not all they had thought it was while it was in progress.

I have always deplored the fact that I missed great events and that they came to me by hearsay. I often told myself that, if I had been present, if I could have experienced these important occasions when they happened, I could have learned much and been able to deal more skillfully with my own problems when they arose.