Виктория Холт - In the Shadow of the Crown

For a moment I looked steadily at Ruy Gomez da Silva. I could not face the truth. I had to see Philip.

I said, “The French are as great a menace under Henri as they were under François.”

He nodded. That was good enough. Philip would come.

I WAS AT GREENWICH. The news had come that evening. Philip had landed at Dover.

It was wonderful to see him again. I embraced him warmly, and he smiled at me affectionately. I was a little concerned, because he had aged considerably. Yet in a way that made me feel better, for I knew that my looks had not improved since his departure. There had been too many sleepless nights, too much bitterness.

As soon as I saw him, my heart softened toward him. I told myself romantically, foolishly, We shall start again.

I ordered that the bells of London should ring out and the Tower guns fire their salutes. And we rode together into the capital. There was a noticeable lack of rejoicing in the streets. I fancied I could smell the smoke from the Smithfield fires. There were a few faint cheers and a great deal of silence.

The citizens no longer loved me, and they distrusted my husband. Reginald would say he had been right. There should never have been a Spanish marriage.

I had prepared banquets and masques to welcome Philip but he displayed little interest in them. He had never had any great enjoyment in that kind of activity.

When we were alone together, he was subdued. He told me he had been concerned in affairs of the Continent, and the election of Paul IV had been a shock to him.

I said that a man such as he was, a firm upholder of the true faith, should be beloved by the Pope.

“This Pope is an ambitious man,” he said. “He should never have been elected.”

“I wish that Reginald had become the Holy Father,” I said.

He did not answer.

And so we retired. It was not quite as it had been before. I felt I was outside the scene, looking on at myself and my husband. There was no spontaneous love. Did I imagine it or was he as one performing an onerous duty? In the past it had been necessary in the hope of getting an heir. That reason was there no longer. He regarded it as an impossibility, though hope lingered with me. But now he must perform his duty for the sake of getting England to declare war on France.

It was not for such purposes that love was meant.

I half deluded myself. I suppose, when one has been so deprived of love as I have, one snatches at even a pretense of it.

The next day, when I was introduced to the ladies and gentlemen of his entourage, I received a shock.

A tall and beautiful woman was presented to me, and I was immediately struck by her radiant good looks.

“The Duchess of Lorraine…”

I felt sick. He had brought her with him! Oh, how dared he! How could he be so blatant?

She was kissing my hand, lifting her dark-fringed eyes to my face, studying me, no doubt seeing me as the plain, unwanted wife. I looked at her coldly, nodded and passed on to the next who was being presented to me.

I was wondering what he had said of me. People talked indiscreetly during intimate moments. I was angry, but most of all very sad.

SUSAN AND JANE DORMER understood. They were indignant.

“It is nothing,” I said to them. “Kings have mistresses. They are not serious entanglements.”

“Do they bring them in their trains?” demanded Susan.

“Often, I suppose. It just happens that we have heard her name mentioned. He does not know that.”

I turned over in my mind what I should do. Should I confront him with the fact that I knew who she was? Should I demand how he dared bring his mistress to my Court? Or should I feign ignorance?

But how should I receive the woman? I could not endure it. I would have her sent back. On the other hand, if I did, there would be more whispering, more titters. Pretend I did not know? I had been living a life of pretense for so long, shutting my eyes to the truth.

I could not bring myself to be civil to the woman. Yet I did not see how I could order her to go.

Sometimes I was on the verge of telling Philip that I would not have his mistress here, but I did not.

When we were together, when he showed affection for me, I was still able to deceive myself. It was because I so earnestly wanted there to be love between us.

He talked a good deal about the iniquity of the French. They must be defeated. They were the enemies of England as well as of Spain. I must see that the sooner England declared war on them the better.

This was why he had come. Not to be with me. I knew it and still I wavered. There were moments when I completely deluded myself. I wanted him with me. I wanted to please him.

He was getting exasperated because I was shelving the question. It was urgent, he said. The French were laughing at us. They were working against us as they always had.

I said I would speak to the Council.

The verdict was noncommittal. We were not in a position to go to war. The Exchequer was alarmingly low. The people were not in a mood to suffer taxation.

It seemed as though Philip had come in vain.

My attitude toward the Duchess of Lorraine was becoming very strained. I wondered whether people noticed. No one mentioned it to me. But at several banquets I cut her when she approached me, and I always insisted that she be seated as far from Philip as possible.

Susan came to me in distress one day. She had friends who were always ready to pass on news, and she thought it her duty to garner it and sometimes tell me.

She explained that she had heard that, at the French Court, they were laughing about the ménage à trois , and there was speculation as to how the Queen would deal with her beautiful rival.

“It is an impossible situation,” I said.

“I do not know what to do.” Susan was forthright. She had already expressed her disapproval of Philip's behavior with Magdalen Dacre, so she did not hesitate to do so now.

She said, “Your Majesty should send her away.”

I frowned. I said, “But she is in Philip's entourage. It would not be good manners for me to interfere with his private circle.”

“In the circumstances,” she said, “Your Majesty should remember that you are the Queen. He had no right to bring her here but you have every right to dismiss her.”

“How could I?”

“Simply by telling her that her presence is no longer required at your Court.”

“Philip would be angry.”

“Your Majesty is angry.”

I said, “I think you may be right.”

I pondered on it for a few days. I almost spoke to Philip, and then found I had not the courage to do so. I was afraid he would leave me. He was already becoming impatient about the delay in agreeing to make war on France.

Eventually I did it. I sent a message to ask her to leave, as her presence was no longer required at my Court.

She was a discreet lady. A few days after receiving the order, she left.

I WAS NOT SURE what would happen. There was a feeling in the Council against war. As for myself, I wavered. There were times when I wanted to please Philip beyond everything; there were others when I reminded myself that he had not come to see me but to persuade England to declare war on France.

He made no comment on the departure of the Duchess of Lorraine. I was glad of this, although I should like to have known what his true feelings were. I had come to the conclusion that I would never know much about this strange, cold man I had married.

He seemed to be obsessed by the need to bring us into the war with France.

I am not sure what would have happened but for the Stafford affair. Reports of the latter's activities were coming in from our people in France, and it was clear that what had seemed just another little plot was really dangerous, due to the increasing involvement of the King of France.