Joanna Hickson - The Tudor Bride

‘There was plenty for them to see. On raised platforms at each crossroads mummers staged biblical tableaux celebrating marriage and monarchy and outside every church on the route choirs sang psalms and anthems. Fifty knights of the king’s retinue rode before and behind us flying their brightly coloured standards and wearing full suits of armour, which glinted in the sunshine. Then, mounted on bright chestnut palfreys behind them were my six maids of honour attracting deafening cheers and whistles – and so they should have, in their blue fur-trimmed mantles and sparkling jewelled headdresses. We made a circular route through the centre of the city, stopping at St Paul’s church to hear a celebration mass, and then to a feast in the Guildhall before returning along the river, past moored barges, docks and warehouses all decked with flags and crammed with more cheering crowds of people. I have to admit that today we were more enthusiastically greeted than when we rode into Paris last Christmas.’

I had left the royal cavalcade after crossing London Bridge and ridden with the household servants and baggage straight to the royal apartments in the Tower of London, on the city’s eastern flank. The quiet of the inner ward, where I had spent the day supervising the queen’s unpacking, was suddenly broken by the fanfare of trumpets. I found a window from which to watch the returning procession as it clattered over the drawbridge that spanned the moat, past the Lion Tower where the king’s animals were housed, through the massive gatehouse, under another gatehouse and into the inner ward. Steam rose from the horses’ flanks and the riders’ cheeks were flushed bright red, their breath condensing in the icy air as daylight faded. A hot tub awaited the queen before a blazing fire, not only to warm a body stiff and chilled by the February wind, but even more importantly to begin the purification process essential before the divine rite of coronation.

The queen would make a lone vigil ahead of the solemnity of coronation. Having escorted his queen formally to her lodgings, the king immediately rode away again to Westminster, leaving the Archbishop of Canterbury with Catherine in the royal chapel of St John. The archbishop spent an hour explaining the vows she would be taking and the indelible nature of the sanctity which anointment with the holy chrism would bestow. When she emerged, she looked pale and slightly dazed and went immediately to the small oratory beside her chamber, where she dropped to her knees before the portable altar that always travelled with her with its precious triptych of the Virgin.

Each of the maids of honour had been given particular duties regarding the queen’s personal grooming – meticulous washing, trimming and brushing and the application of fragrant unguents – but I knew that if Catherine wished to pray, these treatments would have to wait. The wooden tub, draped in fresh white linen and set before the fire in the royal solar, had to be refreshed with hot water and re-draped three times before the queen felt that the preparation of her mind and soul for coronation could give way to the smoothing and soothing of her body and its ritual cleansing.

I waited with her in the little oratory, standing quietly in the deep shadows cast by the flickering wax pillar candles. When she rose from the prie-dieu and turned to leave, she noticed me there, smiled at me wistfully and moved close to whisper, ‘I do not feel worthy, Mette. I fear the filth of Burgundy will never be prayed away.’

There was no one else to hear us but, nevertheless, I replied in the same hushed whisper, ‘You have said yourself that the crown is your destiny, Mademoiselle. You did not allow that devil duke to snatch this marriage from you and now your coronation will demonstrate forever your high worth in the eyes of God.’

Although nothing had been said, I was intuitively aware of Catherine’s fervent hope that the crowning ritual would bring a spiritual rebirth that might banish once and for all the dark memories of the torrid abuse inflicted on her by Jean, Duke of Burgundy; appalling ill-treatment which had ended only with the violent death of the duke, murdered in the presence of, if not by the hand of, her brother Charles. I had prayed that her marriage to King Henry would allow her to set the past aside, but it seemed it might take more than that.

‘Perhaps the weight of the crown will finally instil a sense of right,’ I added gently; ‘that and the birth of an heir.’

She closed her eyes and crossed herself. ‘I have been begging Our Lady for both, Mette. I earnestly pray that she will intercede for me and that I will emerge from the abbey tomorrow fortified with God’s divine strength and ready to carry the heir that our countries demand.’

When her eyes opened, the expression of determination in their deep-blue depths startled me. Looking back, I had not anticipated how fundamentally the catharsis of coronation might affect her.

Over recent days two of the three Joannas (they all shared the extra syllable to their name) had formed a tight friendship, always keeping together and helping each other in the performance of their tasks. Joanna Belknap and Joanna Troutbeck were both from the north of England and seemed to possess a certain down-to-earth practicality. In order to differentiate between them, Catherine had decided to call them by their family names, a habit which made life easier for the rest of us but which did not please the third Joanna whose name was Coucy, a solitary girl not given to smiling readily or volunteering for anything. She complained out of Catherine’s hearing that she considered being addressed only by her surname to be disrespectful. When I suggested that being in the service of the queen and addressed by name at all could only be deemed an honour, she gave one of her habitual, dismissive sniffs. Through careful enquiry I discovered that the Coucy family held, among others, the estate and barony of Dudley, which included possession of a substantial castle, and that her father had served King Henry in France and was recently appointed a court official. The Coucys were what might be described as ‘top-rank’ and very conscious of the fact.

When all six young ladies came to dress Catherine on the morning of her coronation Coucy, sniffed and sneezed and complained about the penetrating chill of their allotted rooms at the top of the White Tower, but Eleanor Cobham remarked on the glorious view to be had from its windows.

‘They are calling it “coronation weather”, your grace,’ she told Catherine, kneeling to present the first of the queen’s fine white hose, embroidered with fleurs-de-lys to signify her French royal lineage. ‘From our chamber you can see across the River Thames and miles out over the countryside. I think today you might even be able to see as far as my father’s manor of Hever!’

Catherine merely smiled and raised her eyebrows, being distracted by Agnes who was polishing her long pale-blonde hair with a silken cloth to make it glossy, but Coucy gave another of her chronic sniffs and commented tartly, ‘Hever? I thought you came from some place with a borough in it, Cobham.’

‘Yes, my home is at Sterborough,’ Eleanor agreed equably, affecting not to notice the other girl’s scornful tone, or her use of the surname. Joanna Coucy had decided that, since she was to be addressed by her family name, she would call all her fellow maids of honour by theirs. ‘But my family has rents from more than one manor, as I am sure does yours. Hever is one of them.’

‘Not manors,’ responded Coucy scathingly. ‘My family has estates – and more than one of those.’

Catherine eased her foot gently into the toe of the pale hose and stretched out her leg for it to be rolled up. Without turning she said, ‘Is it not your task to raise my skirts, Coucy, to allow Eleanor to pull up the hose? And you might remember, while you boast of your estates, that they are granted to your father by the king and what is granted may also be withdrawn.’