Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“You cannot trust young women,” I say quietly. “Now that you are King of England you will have to be on your guard, my love. They will run after you and they will try to charm you and seduce you, but you have to be faithful to me. I was your virgin bride, I was your first love. I am your wife. Do not forsake me.”

He takes me into his arms. “Forgive me,” he whispers brokenly.

“We will never, ever speak of this again,” I say solemnly. “I will not have it, and I will not allow anyone to dishonor either me or your mother.”

“No,” he says fervently. “Before God. We will never speak of this nor allow any other to speak of it again.”

Next morning Henry and Katherine rose up together and went quietly to Mass in the king’s chapel. Katherine met with her confessor and kneeled to confess her sins. She did not take very long, Henry observed, she must have no great sins to confess. It made him feel even worse to see her go to her priest for a brief confession and come away with her face so serene. He knew that she was a woman of holy purity, just like his mother. Penitently, his face in his hands, he thought that not only had Katherine never been unfaithful to her given word, she had probably never even told a lie in her life.

I go out with the court to hunt dressed in a red velvet gown, determined to show that I am well, that I am returned to the court, that everything will be as it was before. We have a long, hard run after a fine stag who takes a looping route around the great park and the hounds bring him down in the stream and Henry himself goes into the water, laughing, to cut his throat. The stream blooms red around him and stains his clothes and his hands. I laugh with the court but the sight of the blood makes me feel sick to my very belly.

We ride home slowly. I keep my face locked in a smile to hide my weariness and the pain in my thighs, in my belly, in my back. Lady Margaret brings her horse beside mine and glances at me. “You had better rest this afternoon.”

“I cannot,” I say shortly.

She does not need to ask why. She has been a princess; she knows that a queen has to be on show, whatever her own feelings. “I have the story, if you want to trouble yourself to hear such a thing.”

“You are a good friend,” I say. “Tell me briefly. I think I know the worst that it can be already.”

“After we had gone in for your confinement the king and the young men started to go into the City in the evenings.”

“With guards?”

“No, alone and disguised.”

I stifle a sigh. “Did no one try to stop him?”

“The Earl of Surrey, God bless him. But his own sons were of the party and it was lighthearted fun, and you know that the king will not be denied his pastimes.”

I nod.

“One evening they came into court in their disguises and pretended to be London merchants. The ladies danced with them; it was all very amusing. I was not there that evening, I was with you in confinement; someone told me about it the next day. I took no notice. But apparently one of the merchants singled out Lady Anne and danced with her all night.”

“Henry,” I say, and I can hear the bitterness in my own whisper.

“Yes, but everyone thought it was William Compton. They are about the same height, and they were all wearing false beards and hats. You know how they do.”

“Yes,” I say. “I know how they do.”

“Apparently they made an assignation and when the Duke thought that his sister was sitting with you in the evenings she was slipping away and meeting the king. When she went missing all night, it was too much for her sister. Elizabeth went to her brother and warned him of what Anne was doing. They told her husband and all of them confronted Anne and demanded to know who she was seeing, and she said it was Compton. But when she was missing, and they thought she was with her lover, they met Compton. So then they knew, it was not Compton, it was the king.”

I shake my head.

“I am sorry, my dear,” Lady Margaret says to me gently. “He is a young man. I am sure it is no more than vanity and thoughtlessness.”

I nod and say nothing. I check my horse, who is tossing his head against my hands, which are too heavy on the reins. I am thinking of Anne crying out in pain as her hymen was broken.

“And is her husband, Sir George, unmanned?” I ask. “Was she a virgin until now?”

“So they say,” Lady Margaret replies drily. “Who knows what goes on in a bedroom?”

“I think we know what goes on in the king’s bedroom,” I say bitterly. “They have hardly been discreet.”

“It is the way of the world,” she says quietly. “When you are confined it is only natural that he will take a lover.”

I nod again. This is nothing but the truth. What is surprising to me is that I should feel such hurt.

“The duke must have been much aggrieved,” I say, thinking of the dignity of the man and how it was he who put the Tudors on the throne in the first place.

“Yes,” she says. She hesitates. Something about her voice warns me that there is something she is not sure if she should say.

“What is it, Margaret?” I ask. “I know you well enough to know that there is something more.”

“It is something that Elizabeth said to one of the girls before she left,” she says.

“Oh?”

“Elizabeth says that her sister did not think it was a light love affair that would last while you were in confinement and then be forgotten.”

“What else could it be?”

“She thought that her sister had ambitions.”

“Ambitions for what?”

“She thought that she might take the king’s fancy and hold him.”

“For a season,” I say disparagingly.

“No, for longer,” she says. “He spoke of love. He is a romantic young man. He spoke of being hers till death.” She sees the look on my face and breaks off. “Forgive me, I should have said none of this.”

I think of Anne Stafford crying out in pain and telling him that she was a virgin, a true virgin, in too much pain to go on. That he was her first love, her only love. I know how much he would like that.

I check my horse again, he frets against the bit. “What do you mean she was ambitious?”

“I think she thought that given her family position, and the liking that was between her and the king, that she could become the great mistress of the English court.”

I blink. “And what about me?”

“I think she thought that, in time, he might turn from you to her. I think she hoped to supplant you in his love.”

I nod. “And if I died bearing his child, I suppose she thought she would have her empty marriage annulled and marry him?”

“That would be the very cusp of her ambition,” Lady Margaret says. “And stranger things have happened. Elizabeth Woodville got to the throne of England on looks alone.”

“Anne Stafford was my lady-in-waiting,” I say. “I chose her for the honor over many others. What about her duty to me? What about her friendship with me? Did she never think of me? If she had served me in Spain, we would have lived night and day together…” I break off. There is no way to explain the safety and affection of the harem to a woman who has always lived her life alert to the gaze of men.

Lady Margaret shakes her head. “Women are always rivals,” she says simply. “But until now everyone has thought that the king only had eyes for you. Now everyone knows different. There is not a pretty girl in the land who does not now think that the crown is for taking.”