Joanna Hickson - First of the Tudors

I sat. It was now or never. I wet my lips with the hippocras and gave a nervous preliminary cough. ‘Thank you, Henry; if I may call you Henry, sire?’ How foolish that sounded but he gave me an encouraging wave and so I ploughed on. ‘Forgive me for asking but I wonder whether your promotion of Edmund and me and your interest in Margaret Beaufort may have come as a result of concern at your own isolation? The throne must be a lonely place when you do not have close family, whose loyalty you can rely on.’

At this point Henry’s attitude became avuncular rather than brotherly. ‘For a young man you are very perceptive, Jasper. Yes, I have certainly felt the lack of relatives of the kind that many of my nobles seem to rely on in large numbers. That is why I have come to value you and Edmund so highly.’

I took the plunge. ‘Of course there would be no such lack if you and the queen were to have a family of your own …’

My words hung between us like feathers caught in an up draught, hovering weightless, before their slow, hesitant descent into meaning. Henry resorted to another large gulp from his cup. Then, after due consideration and yet more alcoholic encouragement, his response came like a bolt from the blue. ‘Was this what you were talking about with Marguerite after your dance together?’

In future it would be hard for critics of his reign to persuade me that Henry was always an arrow short of a full quiver. ‘No. Well yes, indirectly,’ I stuttered. ‘She told me how happy she was that you were favouring your brothers and mentioned how much she regretted you having no children of your own as yet. She seems to think that the people blame her for this.’

Henry’s brow creased deeply and at first I thought it was in anger. I steeled myself for his reprimand but instead he drained his cup and then replaced it with careful deliberation on the table. ‘She obviously already trusts you with her confidences, Jasper, and I am going to do the same,’ he said. ‘And what I am going to tell you must never be repeated to anyone, not even your brother and certainly not Marguerite. Do I have your word on that?’

The solemnity of the moment was striking. I pulled from beneath my doublet the reliquary I wore: it held a trace of the blood of Saint Thomas Becket and had been given to me for protection by the Abbess of Barking when we left her charge to begin our training as knights. The saint’s sister Mary Becket had been a nun at Barking and had received the martyred Archbishop’s bloodstained garments following his murder at Canterbury Cathedral. They had become an object of pilgrimage to the abbey and the tiny scrap of bloodstained cloth that the abbess had snipped from them was my most sacred and treasured possession. ‘You have my oath on holy Becket’s blood, my liege.’

What he saw in my eyes seemed to satisfy him. ‘Good. Then I will reveal to you that I have never liked the process of procreation. It does not come naturally to me as it does to other men and my late lamented confessor, Bishop William Ayscough, encouraged me to steer my energies instead towards the worship of God and his saints. Like Saint Thomas, the bishop was also murdered by evil men you know, outside one of his own churches after he had celebrated Sunday Mass. He was like a father to me.’ He faltered, as though there were a lump in his throat.

I risked a supplementary point. ‘And he was the priest who married you to the queen. Did he not speak as well of the obligations of the marriage contract? Even I, though not yet wed, am aware that between man and wife there is a debt each owes to the other in the marital bed. Is it fair, or even legal, to fail your wife in this debt and expose her to the unjust censure of your subjects when no heir is conceived?’

I was not sure if Henry heard me because he only asked if there was more wine in the flagon. He put the cup to his lips the instant it was full, and it occurred to me then that perhaps an inebriated husband was exactly what Queen Marguerite had in mind when she suggested that I get Henry to enjoy himself a little. Certainly I was not entirely sober myself.

‘Women are strange creatures are they not?’ my royal brother mused, nursing his cup fondly in both hands, as if anxious not to let it out of his sight. ‘Their conversation is all of material matters; who should marry whom, how great will be the dower, of which fabric shall a gown be made. They have little concern for their souls and much for their bodies. Marguerite is no different. I find I cannot bear to use her body in the necessary way to bring about a child when she responds the way she does, with such enthusiasm. Why can I not just take her quietly and discreetly and then return to my prayers?’ He stared deeply into the dark wine, pondering his next words. ‘When I was your age I knew nothing of such things. In truth I know little now and wish to know less. I told your tutors not to let you become corrupted by loose women and feckless companions. They are the ruin of many a young man. I hope you are keeping yourself pure and unsullied, Jasper.’

I stared at him, hearing a maudlin tone in his voice and wondering if he ever really enjoyed himself. I felt a twinge of irritation, combined with a surge of affection for this intelligent yet strangely innocent man who seemed to have become old before his time and who, as a result, had never truly experienced human love. How could he be our mother’s son, the child of a woman who had refused to submit to the restraints imposed on her and had secretly loved and married the man of her choice, a lowly Welsh squire? Our mother had craved happiness and fulfilment, and she had also greatly loved the children who were the result of this reckless passion. I had disappointingly little memory of her face but I vividly recalled her fragrance and the warmth of her embrace. It was a tragedy that this cold and pious Henry could not remember the joy of his mother’s love. It would be so much the better for Queen Marguerite if he did.

‘But achieving the honour of fatherhood, Henry, implies no impurity. Perhaps if you were to try to please your wife a little more often you would find that her enthusiasm is a measure of her sense of duty,’ I suggested, suddenly careless of whether I angered him or not. ‘I know I look forward to finding such a wife myself in due course. Surely every man does.’

The maudlin tone persisted in Henry. ‘But how would I do that, Jasper? Please my wife I mean?’ His pale, greenish-blue eyes pleaded across the hearth, like those of a trembling hound.

It was probably the wine talking but I said the first thing that came into my head, brother to brother. ‘Put God to the back of your mind for an hour or so, Henry, and concentrate on her. You are a man after all. And she is beautiful, you know.’

There was a scratching on the door and it suddenly opened to allow the entrance of the queen, escorted by Edmund. Henry and I both jumped as if caught in some act of petty larceny and Marguerite’s gaze went immediately from the cup in her husband’s hands to my expression of startled guilt. Her delighted smile caused Henry’s jaw to drop in amazement.

‘Blessed Marie, we have discovered a den of iniquity, Edmund!’ she cried with glee. ‘Shall we join it?’

EDMUND AND I KNELT on the stone floor before the high altar. Our long white tunics and red cloaks represented the body and blood of Christ. Dark shadows obscured the vaulted ceiling and arched aisles of the Chapel Royal of St John the Evangelist at the top of the ancient keep in the Tower of London. The overnight vigil was observed by every candidate for knighthood, other than those dubbed on the battlefield or during a campaign. I had begun by dutifully reciting all the prayers and psalms I knew by heart, repeating them under my breath so as not to intrude on Edmund’s orisons, but as time went on and the shadows began to play tricks, my mind strayed sinfully.