Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“I am going to war with France whatever she thinks,” he promised.

“Of course you are, as soon as the time is right.”

I hide my triumph over her, but I know the taste of it, and it is sweet. I think to myself that one day the other tormentors of my widowhood, the princesses, Harry’s sisters, will know my power too. But I can wait.

Lady Margaret may be old but she cannot even gather the senior people of court about her. They have known her forever; the bonds of kinship, wardship, rivalry, and feud run through them all like veins through dirty marble. She was never well liked: not as a woman, not as the mother of a king. She was from one of the great families of the country but when she leapt up so high after Bosworth she flaunted her importance. She has a great reputation for learning and for holiness but she is not beloved. She always insisted on her position as the king’s mother and a gulf has grown between her and the other people of the court.

Drifting away from her, they are becoming friends of mine: Lady Margaret Pole of course; the Duke of Buckingham and his sisters, Elizabeth and Anne; Thomas Howard; his sons; Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn; dearest William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury; George Talbot; Sir Henry Vernon that I knew from Wales. They all know that although Harry neglects the business of the realm, I do not.

I consult them for their advice, I share with them the hopes that Arthur and I had. Together with the men of the Privy Council I am bringing the kingdom into one powerful, peaceful country. We are starting to consider how to make the law run from one coast to another, through the wastes, the mountains, and forests alike. We are starting to work on the defenses of the coast. We are making a survey of the ships that could be commanded into a fighting navy, we are creating muster rolls for an army. I have taken the reins of the kingdom into my hands and found that I know how it is done.

Statecraft is my family business. I sat at my mother’s feet in the throne room of the Alhambra Palace. I listened to my father in the beautiful golden Hall of the Ambassadors. I learned the art and the craft of kingship as I had learned about beauty, music, and the art of building, all in the same place, all in the same lessons. I learned a taste for rich tiling, for bright sunlight falling on a delicate tracery of stucco, and for power, all at the same time. Becoming a Queen Regnant is like coming home. I am happy as Queen of England. I am where I was born and raised to be.

The king’s grandmother lay in her ornate bed, rich curtains drawn close so that she was lulled by shadows. At the foot of the bed an uncomplaining lady-in-waiting held up the monstrance for her to see the body of Christ in its white purity through the diamond-cut piece of glass. The dying woman fixed her eyes on it, occasionally looking to the ivory crucifix on the wall beside the bed, ignoring the soft murmur of prayers around her.

Catalina kneeled at the foot of the bed, her head bowed, a coral rosary in her hands, praying silently. My Lady Margaret, confident of a hard-won place in heaven, was sliding away from her place on earth.

Outside, in her presence chamber, Harry waited for them to tell him that his grandmother was dead. The last link to his subordinate, junior childhood would be broken with her death. The years in which he had been the second son—trying a little harder for attention, smiling a little brighter, working at being clever—would all be gone. From now on, everyone he would meet would know him only as the most senior member of his family, the greatest of his line. There would be no articulate, critical old Tudor lady to watch over this gullible prince, to cut him down with one quiet word in the very moment of his springing up. When she was dead he could be a man, on his own terms. There would be no one left who knew him as a boy. Although he was waiting, outwardly pious, for news of her death, inside he was longing to hear that she was gone, that he was at last truly independent, at last a man and a king. He had no idea that he still desperately needed her counsel.

“He must not go to war,” the king’s grandmother said hoarsely from the bed.

The lady-in-waiting gave a little gasp at the sudden clarity of her mistress’s speech. Catalina rose to her feet. “What did you say, my lady?”

“He must not go to war,” she repeated. “Our way is to keep out of the endless wars of Europe, to keep behind the seas, to keep safe and far away from all those princeling squabbles. Our way is keep the kingdom at peace.”

“No,” Catalina said steadily. “Our way is to take the crusade into the heart of Christendom and beyond. Our way is to make England a leader in establishing the church throughout Europe, throughout the Holy Land, to Africa, to the Turks, to the Saracens, to the edge of the world.”

“The Scots…”

“I shall defeat the Scots,” Catalina said firmly. “I am well aware of the danger.”

“I did not let him marry you for you to lead us to war.” The dark eyes flared with fading resentment.

“You did not let him marry me at all. You opposed it from the first moment,” Catalina said bluntly. “And I married him precisely so that he should mount a great crusade.” She ignored the little whimper from the lady-in-waiting, who believed that a dying woman should not be contradicted.

“You will promise me that you will not let him go to war,” the old lady breathed. “My dying promise, my deathbed promise. I lay it on you from my deathbed, as a sacred duty.”

“No.” Catalina shook her head. “Not me. Not another. I made one deathbed promise and it has cost me dearly. I will not make another. Least of all to you. You have lived your life and made your world as you wished. Now it is my turn. I shall see my son as King of England and perhaps King of Spain. I shall see my husband lead a glorious crusade against the Moors and the Turks. I shall see my country, England, take its place in the world, where it should be. I shall see England at the heart of Europe, a leader of Europe. And I shall be the one that defends it and keeps it safe. I shall be the one that is Queen of England, as you never were.”

“No…” the old woman breathed.

“Yes,” Catalina swore, without compromise. “I am Queen of England now and I will be till my death.”

The old woman raised herself up, struggled for breath. “You pray for me.” She laid the order on the younger woman almost as if it were a curse. “I have done my duty to England, to the Tudor line. You see that my name is remembered as if I were a queen.”

Catalina hesitated. If this woman had not served herself, her son and her country, the Tudors would not be on the throne. “I will pray for you,” she conceded grudgingly. “And as long as there is a chantry in England, as long as the Holy Roman Catholic Church is in England, your name will be remembered.”

“Forever,” the old woman said, happy in her belief that some things could never change.

“Forever,” Catalina agreed.

Then, less than an hour later, she was dead; and I became queen, ruling queen, undeniably in command, without a rival, even before my coronation. No one knows what to do in the court, there is no one who can give a coherent order. Harry has never ordered a royal funeral—how should he know where to begin, how to judge the extent of the honor that should be given to his grandmother? How many mourners? How long the time of mourning? Where should she be buried? How should the whole ceremonial be done?

I summon my oldest friend in England, the Duke of Buckingham, who greeted me on my arrival all those years ago and is now lord high steward, and I ask for Lady Margaret Pole to come to me. My ladies bring me the great volume of ceremonial, the Royal Book, written by the king’s dead grandmother herself, and I set about organizing my first public English event.