Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

“Or what?”

She giggles. “Or your mother will be as unhelpful as she always is,” she says. “Truly, she’s a queen, the greatest queen that England ever had. Whoever stepped up so high? Whoever has been braver? There has never been a more intractable Queen of England than her.”

“It’s true,” I say. “Let’s both try and sleep.”

Margaret is breathing deeply within moments, but I lie beside her and listen to her peaceful sleep. I watch the slats of the shutters gradually lighten with the autumn dawn, then I rise and wait for the bell for Prime. Today, I will ask my mother what she knows. Today I will not be satisfied with anything less than the truth.

“I know nothing for sure,” she says to me quietly. We are seated on the benches at the back of the chapel of Bermondsey Abbey. She has walked with me beside the river, we have attended Prime together and prayed side by side, our penitent heads on our hands. Now she sinks down and puts her hand to her heart.

“I’m weary,” she says to explain her pallor.

“You’re not ill?” I ask, suddenly fearful.

“Something . . .” she volunteers. “Something that catches my breath and makes my heart race so that I can hear it pounding. Ah, Elizabeth, don’t look like that. I am old, my dear, and I have lost all my brothers and four of my sisters. The man I married for passion is dead and the crown I wore is on your head. My work is done. I don’t mind sleeping every afternoon, and when I lie down I compose myself in case I don’t wake up again. I close my eyes and I am content.”

“But you’re not ill,” I insist. “Shouldn’t you see a physician?”

“No, no,” she says, patting my hand. “I’m not ill. But I am a woman of fifty-five. I’m not a girl anymore.”

Fifty-five is a great age; but my mother does not seem old to me. And I am very far from being ready for her death. “Won’t you see a physician?”

She shakes her head. “He could tell me nothing that I don’t already know, my dear.”

I pause, realizing that I can do nothing against her stubbornness. “What do you know?”

“I know I am ready.”

“ I’m not ready!” I exclaim.

She nods. “You are where I wanted you to be. Your children, my grandsons, are where I hoped that they would be. I am content. Now—never mind my death, which is bound to happen one day whether we like it or not—why have you come to see me?”

“I want to talk to you,” I start.

“I know you do,” she says gently, and takes my hand.

“It’s about Ireland.”

“I guessed as much.”

I put my hand on hers. “Mother, do you know why the French have a small army in Ireland, and why they are sending more ships?”

She meets my troubled eyes with her straight gray gaze. A nod tells me that she knows all that is happening.

“Are they going to invade England?”

She shrugs. “You don’t need me to tell you that a commander who has mustered ships and an army is planning an invasion.”

“But when?”

“When they think that the time is right.”

“Do they have a leader from the House of York?”

Her joy blooms in a smile that warms her whole face. She looks so filled with happiness that despite myself, I find I am smiling back at her radiance. “Ah, Elizabeth,” she whispers. “You know I have always thought it better that you should know nothing.”

“Mother, I have to know. Tell me what makes you look so happy.”

She looks like a girl again, she is so rosy and joyful, and her eyes are so bright. “I know that I did not send my son to his death,” she says. “In the end, that’s all I care about. That, loving my husband more than the world itself, I did not fail him in that one great act. I did not foolishly betray both his sons to his enemy. I didn’t trust like a fool when I should have been careful. My greatest joy as I face the last of my days is that I did not fail my sons, my husband, or my house.

“I couldn’t save Edward, my beloved son, the Prince of Wales, as I should have done. I told them to come quickly, and I warned them to come armed; but they weren’t prepared to fight. I couldn’t save Edward, as I should have done. It’s weighed on my heart that I did not warn him to come to me without stopping for anything. But, thank God, I could save Richard. And I did save Richard.”

I give a little gasp and my hand goes to my belly, as if to hold the unborn Tudor safe. “He’s alive?”

She nods. That’s all she will do. She won’t even trust me with a word.

“He’s in Ireland? And sailing from there, to England?”

Now she shrugs, as if she knows she did not send him to his death but what he did after, and where he is now, she will not say.

“But Mother, what shall I do?”

She looks at me steadily, waiting for more.

“Mother, think of me for a moment! What should I do if my brother is alive and he comes at the head of an army, to fight my husband for the throne? The throne that should go to my son? What should I do? When my brother comes to my door with his sword in his hand? Am I Tudor or York?”

Gently, she takes both my hands in hers. “Dearest, don’t distress yourself. It’s bad for you and for the baby.”

“But what am I to do?”

She smiles. “You know you can do nothing. What will be, will be. If there is a battle”—I gasp but her smile is steady—“if there is a battle, then either your husband will win, and your son will take the throne; or your brother will win and you will be sister to the king.”

“My brother, the king,” I say flatly.

“Better that you and I never speak such words,” she says. “But I am glad to have seen the day that you could tell me that England is waiting for the boy that I sent out into the darkness—not knowing what might become of him, not even knowing if the little boat would go safely downriver. My heart has ached for him, Elizabeth, and I have spent many, many nights on my knees for him, hoping for his safety, knowing nothing for sure. I pray that your boy never leaves you and you never have to watch him go, not knowing if he will come back again.” She sees my anxious face and her beautiful smile gleams out at me. “Ah, Elizabeth! Here you are, well and happy, two boys in your nursery and a new baby in your belly, and you tell me that my son is coming home—how can I be anything but filled with joy?”

“If this boy is your son,” I remind her.

“Of course.”

GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, JUNE 1492

Maggie goes into her confinement and gives birth to a baby boy. Tactfully, they call him Henry in tribute to her husband’s beloved king. I visit her and hold her adorable little boy before I have to prepare for my own withdrawal from court.

Henry arrives home just before I enter my confinement, and presides over the great dinner that celebrates my departure from court for the long six weeks before the birth and then the month before I am churched and can come back.

“May I send for my mother?” I ask him as we walk together towards the confinement chamber.

“You can ask her,” he concedes. “But she’s not well.”

“The abbot wrote to you? And not to me? Why did he not write at once to me?”

His quick grimace tells me that he has learned this not in a letter but as a secret from his spy network. “Oh,” I say, realizing. “You are watching her? Even now?”

“I have every reason to think that she is at the very center of the plotting of the Irish and the French,” he says quietly. “And it won’t be the first time she’s called the doctor just to send a secret message.”