Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

“A boy,” she says like a miser might breathe “God.” “God has answered my prayers.”

I nod. I am too tired to speak to her. My mother holds a cup of spiced hot ale to my lips and I smell the sugar and the brandy and drink deep. I feel as if I am floating, dreamy with exhaustion and the ending of pain, drunk on the birthing ale, triumphant at a successful birth, and dizzy with the thought that I have a baby, a son, and that he is perfect.

“Bring him here,” I command.

She does as I tell her and hands him to me. He is tiny, small as a doll, but every detail of him is perfect as if he has been handcrafted with endless care. He has hands like plump little starfish and tiny fingernails like the smallest of shells. As I hold him he opens his eyes of the most surprising dark blue, like a sea at midnight. He looks at me gravely, as if he too is surprised. He looks at me as if he understands all that is to be, as if he knows that he has been born to a great destiny and must fulfill it.

“Give him to the wet nurse,” My Lady prompts.

“In a moment.” I don’t care what she tells me to do. She may have command of her son, but I shall have command of mine. This is my baby, not hers, this is my son, not hers; he is an heir to the Tudors but he is my beloved.

He is the Tudor heir that makes the throne safe, that will start a dynasty that will last forever. “We will call him Arthur,” My Lady declares. I knew this was coming. They dragged me to Winchester for the birth so that we could claim the legacy of Arthur, so the baby could be born all but on the famous Round Table of the knights of Camelot, so the Tudors could claim to be the heirs of that miraculous kingdom, the greatness of England revived, and the beautiful chivalry of the country springing again from their noble line.

“I know,” I say. I have no objection. How can I? It was the very name that Richard had chosen for a son with me. He too dreamed of Camelot and chivalry, but unlike the Tudors he really tried to make a court of noble knights; unlike the Tudors he lived his life by the precepts of being a perfect gentle knight. I close my eyes at the ridiculous thought that Richard would have loved this baby, that he chose his name, that he wished him into being with me, that this is our child.

“Prince Arthur,” My Lady rules.

“I know,” I say again. It is as if everything I do with my husband, Henry, is a sad parody of the dreams I had with my lover, Richard.

“Why are you crying?” she demands impatiently.

I lift the sheet of my bed and wipe my eyes. “I’m not,” I say.

PRIOR’S GREAT HALL, WINCHESTER, 24 SEPTEMBER 1486

The christening of the flower of England, the rose of chivalry, is as grand and exaggerated as a regime newly come to power can devise. My Lady has been planning it for the past nine months, everything is done as ostentatiously as possible.

“I think they are going to dip him in gold and serve him on a platter,” my mother says sarcastically with a hidden smile at me, as she lifts the baby from his cradle early in the morning of his grand christening day. The rockers stand obediently behind her, watching her every move with the suspicion of professionals. The wet nurse is unlacing her bodice, impatient to feed the baby. My mother holds her grandson to her face and kisses his warm little body. He is sleepy, making a little snuffling noise. I hold out my arms, yearning for him, and she gives him to me and hugs us both.

As we watch, he opens his mouth in a little yawn, compresses his tiny face, flaps his arms like a fledgling, and then wails to be fed. “My lord prince,” my mother says lovingly. “Impatient as a king. Here, I’ll give him to Meg.”

The wet nurse is ready for him, but he cries and fusses and cannot latch on.

“Should I feed him?” I ask eagerly. “Would he feed from me?”

The rockers, the wet nurse, even my mother, all shake their heads in absolute unison.

“No,” my mother says regretfully. “That’s the price you pay for being a great lady, a queen. You can’t nurse your own child. You have won him a golden spoon and the best food in the world for all his life, but he cannot have his mother’s milk. You can’t mother him as you might wish. You’re not a poor woman. You’re not free. You have to be back in the king’s bed as soon as you are able and give us another baby boy.”

Jealously, I watch as he nuzzles at another woman’s breast and finally starts to feed. The wet nurse gives me a reassuring smile. “He’ll do well on my milk,” she says quietly. “You need not fear for him.”

“How many boys do you need?” I demand irritably of my mother. “Before I can stop bearing them? Before I can feed one?”

My mother, who gave birth to three royal boys and has none of them today, shrugs her shoulders. “It’s a dangerous world,” is all she says.

The door opens without a knock and My Lady comes in. “Is he ready?” she asks without preamble.

“He’s feeding.” My mother rises to her feet. “He’ll be ready in a little while. Are you waiting for him?”

Lady Margaret inhales the sweet, clean smell of the room as if she is greedy for him. “It’s all ready,” she says. “I have ordered it to the last detail. They are lining up in the Great Hall, waiting only for the Earl of Oxford.” She looks around for Anne and Cecily, and nods approval at their ornate gowns. “You are honored,” she says. “I have allowed you two the most important positions: carrying the chrism, carrying the prince himself.” She turns to my mother. “And you, named as godmother to a prince, a Tudor prince! Nobody can say that we have not united the families. Nobody can declare for York anymore. We are all one. I have planned today to prove it.” She looks at the wet nurse as if she would snatch the baby from her. “Will he be ready soon?”

My mother hides a smile. It is very clear that My Lady may know everything about christening princes but nothing about babies. “He will be as long as he needs,” she rules. “Probably less than an hour.”

“And what is he to wear?”

My mother gestures to the beautiful gown that she has made for him from the finest French lace. It has a train that sweeps to the floor and a tiny pleated ruff. Only she and I know that she cut it too large, so that this baby who was a full nine months in the womb will look small, as if he had come a month before his time.

“It will be the greatest ceremony in this reign,” My Lady the King’s Mother says. “Everyone is here. Everyone will see the future King of England, my grandson.”

They wait and wait. It makes no difference to me, bidden to rest in bed whatever takes place. The tradition is that the mother shall not be present at the christening and My Lady is not likely to break such a custom in order to bring me forwards. Besides, I am exhausted, torn between a sort of wild joy and a desperate fatigue. The baby feeds, they change his clout, they put him into my arms, and we sleep together, my arms around his tiny form, my nose sniffing his soft head.

The Earl of Oxford, hastily summoned, rides to Winchester as fast as he can, but My Lady the King’s Mother rules that they have waited long enough and will go on without him. They take the baby and off they all go. My mother is godmother, my sister Cecily carries the baby, my cousin Margaret leads the procession of women, Lord Neville goes before them carrying a lit taper. Thomas, Lord Stanley, and his son, and his brother Sir William—all heroes of Bosworth who stood on the hillside and watched Richard their king lead a charge without them, and then rode him down to his death—all walk together behind my son, as if he can count on their support, as if their word is worth anything, and present him to the altar.