Philippa Gregory - The Red Queen

When the Princess Cecily was born, I was in and out of the confinement chamber, praying for the queen’s safety and for that of the new baby; and then it was me she asked to stand as godmother to the new princess, and it was I who carried the tiny girl, in my arms, to the font. I, the favorite of all her noble ladies.

Of course, the queen’s constant childbearing, almost every year, reminds me of the child I had but was never allowed to raise. And once a month, through the long ten years, I have a letter from that son, first a youth, and then a man, and then, I realize, a man reaching his majority: a man old enough to make good his claim to be king.

Jasper writes that he has maintained Henry’s education; the young man still follows the offices of the church, as I ordered. He jousts, he hunts, he rides, he practices archery, tennis, swimming-all the sports that will keep his body healthy and strong and ready for battle. Jasper has him study accounts of wars, and no veteran soldier visits them but Jasper has him talk to Henry about the battle he saw, and how it could have been won or done differently. He has masters to teach him the geography of England so that he may know the country where his ships will land; he studies the law and the traditions of his home so that he may be a just king when his day comes. Jasper never says that teaching a young man in exile from the country that he may never see, preparing him for a battle that may never be joined, is weary work; but as King Edward of England celebrates the twenty-first year of his reign with a glorious Christmas at Westminster Palace, attended by his handsome and strong son, Prince Edward of Wales, we both sense that it is work without purpose, work without chance of success, work without future.

Somehow, over the ten years of my marriage with Thomas Stanley, my son’s cause has become a forlorn hope even to me. But Jasper, far away in Brittany, keeps the faith; there is nothing else he can do. And I keep the faith, for it burns inside me that it should be a Lancaster on the throne of England, and my boy is the only Lancaster heir, but for my nephew the Duke of Buckingham, left to us. And the duke is married into the Woodville family and so yoked to York, while Henry, my son, keeps the faith-for though he is twenty-five, he has been raised in hope, however faint, and though he is a man grown, he has not yet the independence of thought to tell his beloved guardian Jasper, or me, that he will deny our dream, which has cost him his childhood, and still holds him in thrall.

Then, just before the Christmas feast, my husband Thomas Stanley comes to my room in the queen’s apartment and says: “I have good news. I have made an agreement for the return of your son.”

I drop the sacred Bible from my hands and snatch it before it slips from my lap. “The king has never agreed?”

“He has agreed.”

I am stammering in my joy and relief. “I never thought he would-”

“He is determined on war with France. He doesn’t want your boy rattling round on the border as a rival king, or a hostage, or whatever. He will let him come home, and he can even have his title. He will be Earl of Richmond.”

I can hardly breathe. “Praise God,” I say quietly. I long to get to my knees and thank God for sending the king some sense and mercy. “And his lands?”

“He won’t let him have Wales as a Tudor, that’s for sure,” Stanley says brutally. “But he will have to give him something. You might give him something from your dowry lands.”

“He should have his own,” I say, resentful at once. “I should not have to share my lands. The king should give him his own.”

“He will have to marry a girl of the queen’s choosing,” my husband warns me.

“He is not to marry some York makeweight,” I say, instantly irritated.

“He will have to marry whomever she picks out for him,” he corrects me. “But she has an affection for you. Why don’t you talk to her about who you would like? The boy has to marry, but they won’t allow him to marry anyone who would strengthen his Lancaster line. It will have to be a York. If you were to put your mind to it, he might have one of the York princesses. There are enough of them, God knows.”

“Can he come at once?” I breathe.

“After the Christmas feast,” my husband says. “They will need to be reassured, but the main work is done. They trust you, and they trust me, and they believe we would not introduce an enemy into their kingdom.”

It has been so long since we discussed this that I am not sure that he still shares my silent will. “Have they forgotten that he might be a rival king?” I ask. We are in my own room, but still I drop my voice to a whisper.

“Of course he is a rival king,” he says steadily. “But while Edward the king lives, there can be no chance of a throne for him. No one in England would follow a stranger against Edward. When Edward dies, there is Prince Edward, and should anything happen to him, Prince Richard to come after him, beloved boys of a strong ruling house. It is hard to imagine how your Henry could step into a vacant throne. He would have to walk past three coffins. He would have to see the death of a great king and two royal boys. That would be an unlucky set of accidents. Or would he have the stomach to enact such a thing? Would you?”

I have to wait till Easter for Henry to come home, though I write to him and to Jasper at once. They start to prepare for his return, dispersing the little court of York opportunists and desperate men who have gathered around them, preparing themselves to part for the first time since Henry’s boyhood. Jasper writes to me that he cannot think what he will do with himself without Henry to guide, advise, and govern.

Perhaps I will go on pilgrimage. Perhaps it is time I considered myself, my own soul. I have lived only for our boy and, far from England as we have been, I had come to think that we would never get home. Now he will return, as he should, but I cannot. I will have lost my brother, my home, you, and now him. I am glad that he can come back to you and take his place in the world. But I shall be very alone in my exile. Truly, I cannot think what I shall do without him.

I take this letter to Stanley, my husband, where he is working in his day room, papers piled around the table for his assent. “I think Jasper Tudor would be glad to come home with Henry,” I say cautiously.

“He can come home to the block,” my husband says bluntly. “Tudor picked the wrong side and clung to it through victory all the way to defeat. He should have sought for pardon after Tewkesbury when everyone else did, but he was as stubborn as a Welsh pony. I’ll use no influence of mine to have him restored, and neither will you. Besides, I think you have an affection for him which I don’t share, nor do I admire it in you.”

I look at him in utter amazement. “He is my brother-in-law,” I say.

“I am aware of that. It only makes it worse.”

“You can’t think that I have been in love with him for all these years of absence?”

“I don’t think about it at all,” he says coldly. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want you to think about it. I don’t want him to think about it, and especially, I don’t want the king and that gossip his wife to think about it. So Jasper can stay where he is, we will not intercede for him, and you will have no need to write to him anymore. You need not even think of him. He can be dead to us.”

I find I am trembling with indignation. “You can have no doubt as to my honor.”

“No, I don’t want to think about your honor, either,” he repeats.