Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

That night I dreamed that I was a queen in a court with a scepter in one hand and wand in the other and a crown on my head. I raised the scepter and found it changed in my hand, it was a branch of a tree, the stem of a flower, it was valueless. My other hand was no longer filled with the heavy orb of the scepter but with rose petals. I could smell their scent. I put my hand up to touch the crown on my head and I felt a little circlet of flowers. The throne room melted away and I was in the sultana’s garden at the Alhambra, my sisters plaiting circlets of daisies for each other’s heads.

“Where is the Queen of England?” someone called from the terrace below the garden.

I rose from the lawn of chamomile flowers and smelled the bittersweet perfume of the herb as I tried to run past the fountain to the archway at the end of the garden. “I am here!” I tried to call, but I made no noise above the splashing of the water in the marble bowl.

“Where is the Queen of England?” I heard them call again.

“I am here!” I called out silently.

“Where is Queen Katherine of England?”

“Here! Here! Here!”

The ambassador, summoned at daybreak to come at once to Durham House, did not trouble himself to get there until nine o’clock. He found Catalina waiting for him in her privy chamber with only Doña Elvira in attendance.

“I sent for you hours ago,” the princess said crossly.

“I was undertaking business for your father and could not come earlier,” he said smoothly, ignoring the sulky look on her face. “Is there something wrong?”

“I spoke with the king yesterday and he repeated his proposal of marriage,” Catalina said, a little pride in her voice.

“Indeed.”

“But he told me that I would live at court in the rooms of his mother.”

“Oh.” The ambassador nodded.

“And he said that my sons would inherit only after Prince Harry.”

The ambassador nodded again.

“Can we not persuade him to overlook Prince Harry? Can we not draw up a marriage contract to set him aside in favor of my son?”

The ambassador shook his head. “It’s not possible.”

“Surely a man can choose his heir?”

“No. Not in the case of a king come so new to his throne. Not an English king. And even if he could, he would not.”

She leapt from her chair and paced to the window. “My son will be the grandson of the kings of Spain!” she exclaimed. “Royal for centuries. Prince Harry is nothing more than the son of Elizabeth of York and a successful pretender.”

De Puebla gave a little hiss of horror at her bluntness and glanced towards the door. “You would do better never to call him that. He is to be the King of England.”

She nodded, accepting the reprimand. “But he has not my breeding,” she pursued. “Prince Harry would not be the king that my boy would be.”

“That is not the question,” the ambassador observed. “The question is of time and practice. The king’s oldest son is always the Prince of Wales. He always inherits the throne. This king, of all the kings in the world, is not going to make a pretender of his own legitimate heir. He has been dogged with pretenders. He is not going to make another.”

As always, Catalina flinched at the thought of the last pretender, Edward of Warwick, beheaded to make way for her.

“Besides,” the ambassador continued, “any king would rather have a sturdy eleven-year-old son as his heir than a newborn in the cradle. These are dangerous times. A man wants to leave a man to inherit, not a child.”

“If my son is not to be king, then what is the point of me marrying a king?” Catalina demanded.

“You would be queen,” the ambassador pointed out.

“What sort of a queen would I be with My Lady the King’s Mother ruling everything? The king would not let me have my way in the kingdom, and she would not let me have my way in the court.”

“You are very young,” he started, trying to soothe her.

“I am old enough to know my own mind,” Catalina stated. “And I want to be queen in truth as well as in name. But he will never let me be that, will he?”

“No,” de Puebla admitted. “You will never command while he is alive.”

“And when he is dead?” she demanded, without shrinking.

“Then you would be the Dowager Queen,” de Puebla offered.

“And my parents might marry me once more to someone else, and I might leave England anyway!” she finished, quite exasperated.

“It is possible,” he conceded.

“And Harry’s wife would be Princess of Wales, and Harry’s wife would be the new queen. She would go before me, she would rule in my place, and all my sacrifice would be for nothing. And her sons would be kings of England.”

“That is true.”

Catalina threw herself into her chair. “Then I have to be Prince Harry’s wife,” she said. “I have to be.”

De Puebla was quite horrified. “I understood you had agreed with the king to marry him! He gave me to believe that you were agreed.”

“I had agreed to be queen,” she said, white-faced with determination. “Not some cat’s-paw. D’you know what he called me? He said I would be his child bride, and I would live in his mother’s rooms, as if I were one of her ladies-in-waiting!”

“The former queen…”

“The former queen was a saint to put up with a mother-in-law like that one. She stepped back all her life. I can’t do it. It is not what I want, it is not what my mother wants, and it is not what God wants.”

“But if you have agreed…”

“When has any agreement been honored in this country?” Catalina demanded fiercely. “We will break this agreement and make another. We will break this promise and make another. I shall not marry the king, I shall marry another.”

“Who?” he asked numbly.

“Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales,” she said. “So that when King Henry dies, I shall be queen in deed as well as name.”

There was a short silence.

“So you say,” said de Puebla slowly. “Perhaps. But who is going to tell the king?”

God, if You are there, tell me that I am doing the right thing. If You are there, then help me. If it is Thy will that I am Queen of England, then I will need help to achieve it. It has all gone wrong now, and if this has been sent to try me, then see! I am on my knees and shaking with anxiety. If I am indeed blessed by You, destined by You, chosen by You, and favored by You, then why do I feel so hopelessly alone?

Ambassador Dr. de Puebla found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to bring bad news to one of the most powerful and irascible kings in Christendom. He had firm letters of refusal from Their Majesties of Spain in his hand, he had Catalina’s determination to be Princess of Wales, and he had his own shrinking courage, screwed up to the tightest point for this embarrassing meeting.

The king had chosen to see him in the stable yard of Whitehall Palace. He was there looking at a consignment of new Barbary horses, brought in to improve English stock. De Puebla thought of making a graceful reference to foreign blood refreshing native strains, breeding best done between young animals, but he saw Henry’s dark face and realized that there would be no easy way out of this dilemma.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing low.

“De Puebla,” the king said shortly.

“I have a reply from Their Majesties of Spain to your most flattering proposal, but perhaps I should see you at a more opportune time?”

“Here is well enough. I can imagine from your tiptoeing in what they say.”

“The truth is…” De Puebla prepared to lie. “They want their daughter home, and they cannot contemplate her marriage to you. The queen is particularly vehement in her refusal.”