Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“Not long now,” I say, smiling, I know exactly what he is thinking.

“I shall go to Walsingham as soon as our child is born, and when I come back you will be churched,” he says.

“And then, I suppose you will want to make another baby,” I say with mock weariness.

“I will,” he says, his face bright with laughter.

He kisses me good night, wishes me joy of the new year and then goes out of the hidden door in my chamber to his own rooms, and from there to the feast. I tell them to bring the boiled water that I still drink in obedience to the Moor’s advice, and then I sit before the fire sewing the tiniest little gown for my baby, while María de Salinas reads in Spanish to me.

Suddenly, it is as if my whole belly has turned over, as if I am falling from a great height. The pain is so thorough, so unlike anything I have ever known before, that the sewing drops from my hands and I grip the arms of my chair and let out a gasp before I can say a word. I know at once that the baby is coming. I had been afraid that I would not know what was happening, that it would be a pain like that when I lost my poor girl. But this is like the great force of a deep river, this feels like something powerful and wonderful starting to flow. I am filled with joy and a holy terror. I know that the baby is coming and that he is strong, and that I am young, and that everything will be all right.

As soon as I tell the ladies, the chamber bursts into uproar. My Lady the King’s Mother might have ruled that the whole thing shall be done soberly and quietly with the cradle made ready and two beds made up for the mother, one to give birth in and one to rest in; but in real life, the ladies run around like hens in a poultry yard, squawking in alarm. The midwives are summoned from the hall, they have gone off to make merry, gambling that they would not be needed on New Year’s Eve. One of them is quite tipsy and María de Salinas throws her out of the room before she falls over and breaks something. The physician cannot be found at all, and pages are sent running all over the palace looking for him.

The only ones who are settled and determined are Lady Margaret Pole, María de Salinas, and I. María, because she is naturally disposed to calm, Lady Margaret, because she has been confident from the start of this confinement, and I, because I can feel that nothing will stop this baby coming, and I might as well grab hold of the rope in one hand, my relic of the Virgin Mother in the other, fix my eyes on the little altar in the corner of the room and pray to St. Margaret of Antioch to give me a swift and easy delivery and a healthy baby.

Unbelievably, it is little more than six hours—though one of those hours lingers on for at least a day—and then there is a rush and a slither, and the midwife mutters “God be praised!” quietly and then there is a loud, irritable cry, almost a shout, and I realize that this is a new voice in the room, that of my baby.

“A boy, God be praised, a boy,” the midwife says and María looks up at me and sees me radiant with joy.

“Really?” I demand. “Let me see him.”

They cut the cord and pass him up to me, still naked, still bloody, his little mouth opened wide to shout, his eyes squeezed tight in anger, Henry’s son.

“My son,” I whisper.

“England’s son,” the midwife says. “God be praised.”

I put my face down to his warm little head, still sticky, I sniff him like a cat sniffs her kittens. “This is our boy,” I whisper to Arthur, who is so close at that moment that it is almost as if he is at my side, looking over my shoulder at this tiny miracle, who turns his head and nuzzles at my breast, little mouth gaping. “Oh, Arthur, my love, this is the boy I promised I would bear for you and for England. This is our son for England, and he will be king.”

Spring 1511

1ST JANUARY 1511

THE WHOLE OF ENGLAND WENT MAD when they learned on New Year’s Day that a boy had been born. Everyone called him Prince Henry at once, there was no other name possible. In the streets they roasted oxen and drank themselves into a stupor. In the country they rang the church bells and broke into the church ales to toast the health of the Tudor heir, the boy who would keep England at peace, who would keep England allied with Spain, who would protect England from her enemies, and who would defeat the Scots once and for all.

Henry came in to see his son, disobeying the rules of confinement, tiptoeing carefully, as if his footstep might shake the room. He peered into the cradle, afraid almost to breathe near the sleeping boy.

“He is so small,” he said. “How can he be so small?”

“The midwife says he is big and strong,” Katherine corrected him, instantly on the defense of her baby.

“I am sure. It is just that his hands are so…and look, he has fingernails! Real fingernails!”

“He has toenails too,” she said. The two of them stood side by side and looked down in amazement at the perfection that they had made together. “He has little plump feet and the tiniest toes you can imagine.”

“Show me,” he said.

Gently, she pulled off the little silk shoes that the baby wore. “There,” she said, her voice filled with tenderness. “Now I must put this back on so that he does not get cold.”

Henry bent over the crib, and tenderly took the tiny foot in his big hand. “My son,” he said wonderingly. “God be praised, I have a son.”

I lie on my bed as the old king’s mother commanded in the Royal Book, and I receive honored guests. I have to hide a smile when I think of my mother giving birth to me on campaign, in a tent, like any soldier’s doxy. But this is the English way and I am an English queen and this baby will be King of England.

I’ve never known such simple joy. When I doze I wake with my heart filled with delight, before I even know why. Then I remember. I have a son for England, for Arthur and for Henry; and I smile and turn my head, and whoever is watching over me answers the question before I have asked it: “Yes, your son is well, Your Grace.”

Henry is excessively busy with the care of our son. He comes in and out to see me twenty times a day with questions and with news of the arrangements he has made. He has appointed a household of no fewer than forty people for this tiny baby, and already chosen his rooms in the Palace of Westminster for his council chamber when he is a young man. I smile and say nothing. Henry is planning the greatest christening that has ever been seen in England, nothing is too good for this Henry who will be Henry the Ninth. Sometimes when I am sitting on my bed, supposed to be writing letters, I draw his monogram. Henry IX: my son, the King of England.

His sponsors are carefully chosen: the daughter of the emperor, Margaret of Austria, and King Louis the Twelfth of France. So he is working already, this little Tudor, to cloud the French suspicion against us, to maintain our alliance with the Hapsburg family. When they bring him to me and I put my finger in the palm of his tiny hand his fingers curl around, as if to grip on. As if he would hold my hand. As if he might love me in return. I lie quietly, watching him sleep, my finger against his little palm, the other hand cupped over his tender little head where I can feel a steady pulse throbbing.

His godparents are Archbishop Warham; my dear and true friend Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey; and the Earl and Countess of Devon. My dearest Lady Margaret is to run his nursery at Richmond. It is the newest and cleanest of all the palaces near London, and wherever we are, whether at Whitehall or Greenwich or Westminster, it will be easy for me to visit him.