Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

Even as he is arming and planning the invasion of France he is puzzling how to avoid it, but at the end of the summer he makes up his mind that it has to be done, and in September we leave the palace in a great procession, Henry in his armor on his great warhorse, the circlet of England fixed on his helmet as if it has never been anywhere else. It is the crown that Sir William Stanley wrenched from Richard’s helmet, when he dragged it from his battered head. I look at it now, and I fear for Henry, going to war wearing this unlucky crown.

We leave the younger children with their nurses and teachers in Greenwich, but Arthur, who is nearly six years old, is allowed to ride out with us on his pony and watch his father set off for war. I leave the new baby, little Elizabeth, reluctantly. She is not thriving, not on the wet nurse’s milk nor on the sops of bread dipped in the juice of meat that the doctors say will strengthen her. She does not smile when she sees me, as I am sure Arthur did at her age, she does not kick and rage as Henry did. She is quiet, too quiet I think, and I don’t want to leave her.

I say none of these thoughts to Henry and he will not speak of fear. Instead, we go as if we are traveling on a wonderful progress through the county of Kent where the apples are thick in the orchards and the oasthouses are free with ale. We travel with musicians who play for us when we stop to dine in exquisite embroidered tents set up beside rivers, on beautiful hillsides or deep in the greenwood. Behind us comes an enormous cavalry—sixteen hundred horses and knights, and after them come the footsoldiers, twenty-five thousand of them, and all of them well shod and sworn to Henry’s service.

It reminds me of when my father was King of England and he would lead the court on a great progress around the grand houses and priories. For this short time we look like my parents’ heirs: we are young and blessed with good luck and wealth. In the eyes of everyone we are as beautiful as angels, dressed in cloth of gold, riding behind waving standards. Beside us is the flower of England; all the greatest men are Henry’s commanders, and their wives and daughters are in my train. Behind them is a great army, mustered for Henry against an enemy they all hate. The summer weather smiles on us, the long sunny days invite us to ride out early and rest in the midday heat beside the glorious rivers or in the shade of the greenwood. We look like the king and queen that we should be, the center of beauty and power in this beautiful and powerful land.

I see Henry’s head rise up with dawning pride as he leads this mighty army through the heart of England; I see him start to ride like a king going to war. When we go through the little towns on the way and people call out for him, he lifts his gauntleted hand and waves, smiling back in greeting. At last he has found his pride in himself, at last he has found his confidence. With a greater army behind him than this part of England has ever seen, he smiles like a king who is firm on his throne, and I ride beside him and feel that I am where I should be: the beloved queen of a powerful king, a woman as richly blessed as my own lucky mother.

At night he comes to my room in an abbey or in a great house on the way, and he wraps his arms around me as if he is sure of his welcome. For the first time in our marriage I turn my head towards him, not away, and when he kisses me I put my arms on his broad shoulders and hold him close, offering him my mouth, my kiss. Gently, he puts me down on the bed and I don’t turn my face to the wall but I wrap my arms around him, my legs around him, and when he enters me, I ripple with the sensation of pleasure and welcome his touch for the first time in our marriage. In Sandwich Castle, for the first time ever, he comes naked to me and I move with him, consenting, and then inviting, and then finally begging him for more and he feels me melt beneath him as I hold him and cry out in pleasure.

We make love all night, as if we were newly married and newly discovering the beauty of each other’s body. He holds me as if he will never leave me, and in the morning he carries me over to the window, wrapped in a fur, and kisses my neck, my shoulders, and finally my smiling lips, as we watch the Venetian galleys slicing their oars through the harbor water as they come in, to take his troops to France.

“Not so soon, not today! I can’t bear to let you go,” I whisper.

“That you should love me like this now!” he exclaims. “I have been waiting for this ever since I first met you. I have dreamed that you might want me, I have come to your bed night after night longing for your smile, hoping that there would come a night when you would not turn away.”

“I’ll never turn away again,” I swear.

The joy in his face is unmistakable, he looks like a man in love for the first time.

“Come back safely to me, you must come back safe,” I whisper urgently.

“Promise me that you won’t change. Promise me that I will come back and find you like this? Loving like this?”

I laugh. “Shall we swear an oath? You shall swear to come home safe, and I will promise that you will find me loving?”

“Yes,” he says. “I so swear,” and he puts one hand on his heart and the other in mine, and though I am laughing at the two of us, flushed from bed, handclasped, swearing to be true to each other like new lovers, I hold his hand and I promise to welcome him home as warmly as now when I see him set out.

“Because you love me at last,” he says, wrapping me in his arms, his lips to my hair.

“Because I love you at last,” I confirm. “I did not think that I ever would, I did not think that I ever could. But I do.”

“And you are glad of it,” he presses.

I smile and let him draw me back to the bed though the bugles outside are calling. “And I am glad of it,” I say.

Henry appoints our son Arthur as Regent of England in his father’s absence: a solemn ceremony on the deck of his ship the Swan. Arthur is only six years old, but he will not hold my hand, he stands alone, as a prince must, while his father reads out the Latin proclamation of regency, and the lords all around him go down on one knee and swear that they will accept Arthur’s rule until Henry comes home safe again.

Arthur’s little face is grave, his hazel eyes serious. He is bareheaded, his brown hair with just a glint of copper lifting a little from his face in the breeze from the sea. He replies to his father in perfect Latin; he has learned the speech from his schoolmaster, and practiced it every day with me, and there are no mistakes. I can see that the lords are impressed with him, with his learning and with the set of his shoulders and the proud stance. He has been raised to be Prince of Wales and one day King of England, and he will be a good prince and a compelling king.

Behind him I see Henry’s uncle Jasper, filled with pride, seeing his own long-lost brother in this boy’s chestnut hair and grave face. Beside him is My Lady the King’s Mother, the linen of her wimple flapping slightly in the wind, her eyes fixed on her son’s face, not even looking at her grandson Arthur. For her, Henry going to war with France is as terrifying as if she were going defenseless into battle herself. She will be in an agony of anxiety until he comes home again.

She and I stand side by side on the harbor wall, demonstrating the unity of the houses of Lancaster and York as the sailors loose the ropes on the quayside and the barges either side of the great ship take the strain, and then we hear the roll of the drum and the rowers lean into the work and the barges and the ship move slowly away from the quay. Henry holds out his hand in a salute, taking care to look determined and kingly as the ship slides from the quayside out into the water of the harbor, and then into the channel, where we can hear the waves slap against the sides, and the sails ripple as they are unfurled and fill with wind. The Venetian galleys, heavily loaded with his men, follow behind, their oars cleaving swiftly through the water.