Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

He had blue eyes. And the tiniest most perfect feet.

In the event, the glorious crusade never happened. The English knights arrived at Cádiz but the crusade never set sail for the Holy Land, never faced a sharp scimitar wielded by a blackhearted infidel. Katherine translated letters between Henry and her father in which her father explained that he had not yet raised his troops, that he was not yet ready to leave, and then, one day she came to Henry with a letter in her hand and her face shocked out of its usual weariness.

“Father writes me the most terrible news.”

“What is happening?” Henry demanded, bewildered. “See, here, I have just received a letter from an English merchant in Italy, I cannot make any sense of it. He writes that the French and the Pope are at war.” Henry held out his letter to her. “How can this be? I don’t understand it at all.”

“It is true. This is from my father. He says the Pope has declared that the French armies must get out of Italy,” Katherine explained. “And the Holy Father has put his own papal troops into the field against the French. King Louis has declared that the Pope shall no longer be Pope.”

“How dare he?” Henry demanded, shocked to his core.

“Father says we must forget the crusade and go at once to the aid of the Pope. He will try to broker an alliance between us and the Holy Roman Emperor. We must form an alliance against France. King Louis cannot be allowed to take Rome. He must not advance into Italy.”

“He must be mad to think that I would allow it!” Henry exclaimed. “Would I let the French take Rome? Would I allow a French puppet Pope? Has he forgotten what an English army can do? Does he want another Agincourt?”

“Shall I tell my father we will unite with him against France?” Katherine asked. “I could write at once.”

He caught her hand and kissed it. For once she did not pull away and he drew her a little closer and put his arm around her waist. “I’ll come with you while you write and we can sign the letter from us both—your father should know that his Spanish daughter and his English son are absolutely as one in his support. Thank God that our troops are in Cádiz already,” Henry exclaimed as his good fortune struck him.

Katherine hesitated, a thought forming slowly in her mind. “It is…fortuitous.”

“Lucky,” Henry said buoyantly. “We are blessed by God.”

“My father will want some benefit for Spain from this.” Katherine introduced the suspicion carefully as they went to her rooms, Henry shortening his stride to match hers. “He never makes a move without planning far ahead.”

“Of course, but you will guard our interests as you always do,” he said confidently. “I trust you, my love, as I trust him. Is he not my only father now?”

SUMMER 1511

Slowly, as the days grow warmer, and the sun is more like a Spanish sun, I grow warm too and become more like the Spanish girl I once was. I cannot reconcile myself to the death of my son—I think I will never reconcile myself to his loss—but I can see that there is no one to blame for his death. There was no neglect or negligence, he died like a little bird in a warm nest and I have to see that I will never know why.

I know now that I was foolish to blame myself. I have committed no crime, no sin so bad that God, the merciful God of my childhood prayers, would punish me with such an awful grief as this. There could be no good God who would take away such a sweet baby, such a perfect baby with such blue eyes, as an exercise of His divine will. I know in my heart that such a thing cannot be, such a God cannot be. Even though, in the first, worst outpourings of my grief, I blamed myself and I blamed God, I know now that it was not a punishment for sin. I know that I kept my promise, Arthur’s promise, for the best reasons, and God has me in His keeping.

The awful, icy, dark fact of my baby’s loss seems to recede with the awful cold darkness of that English winter. One morning the fool came and told me some little jest and I laughed aloud. It was as if a door had opened that had long been locked tight. I realize that I can laugh, that it is possible to be happy, that laughter and hope can come back to me and perhaps I might even make another child and feel that overwhelming tenderness again.

I start to feel that I am alive again, that I am a woman with hope and prospects again, that I am the woman that the girl from Spain became. I can sense myself alive: poised halfway between my future and my past.

It is as if I am checking myself over as a rider does after a bad fall from a horse, patting my arms and legs, my vulnerable body, as if looking for permanent damage. My faith in God returns utterly unshaken, as firm as it has ever been. There seems to be only one great change: my belief in my mother and my father is damaged. For the first time in my life I truly think it possible that they can have been wrong.

I remember the Moorish physician’s kindness to me and I have to amend my view of his people. No one who could see his enemy brought as low as he saw me, and yet could look at her with such deep compassion, can be called a barbarian, a savage. He might be a heretic—steeped in error—but surely he must be allowed his own conclusions with his own reasons. And from what I know of the man, I am certain that he will have fine reasons.

I would like to send a good priest to wrestle for his soul, but I cannot say, as my mother would have said, that he is spiritually dead, fit for nothing but death. He held my hands to tell me hard news and I saw the tenderness of Our Lady in his eyes. I cannot dismiss the Moors as heretics and enemies anymore. I have to see that they are men and women, fallible as us, hopeful as us, faithful to their creed as we are to ours.

And this in turn leads me to doubt my mother’s wisdom. Once I would have sworn that she knew everything, that her writ must run everywhere. But now I have grown old enough to view her more thoughtfully. I was left in poverty in my widowhood because her contract was carelessly written. I was abandoned, all alone in a foreign country because—though she summoned me with apparent urgency—in truth it was just for show; she would not take me back to Spain at any price. She hardened her heart against me and cleaved to her plan for me and let me, her own daughter, go.

And finally, I was forced to find a doctor in secret and consult with him in hiding because she had done her part in driving from Christendom the best physicians, the best scientists, and the cleverest minds in the world. She had named their wisdom as sin, and the rest of Europe had followed her lead. She rid Spain of the Jews and their skills and courage, she rid Spain of the Moors and their scholarship and gifts. She, a woman who admired learning, banished those that they call the People of the Book. She who fought for justice had been unjust.

I cannot yet think what this estrangement might mean for me. My mother is dead; I cannot reproach her or argue with her now, except in my imagination. But I know these months have wrought a deep and lasting change in me. I have come to an understanding of my world that is not her understanding of hers. I do not support a crusade against the Moors, nor against anyone. I do not support persecution, nor cruelty to them for the color of their skin or the belief in their hearts. I know that my mother is not infallible, I no longer believe she and God think as one. Though I still love my mother, I don’t worship her anymore. I suppose, at last, I am growing up.

Slowly, the queen emerged from her grief and started to take an interest in the running of the court and country once more. London was buzzing with the news that Scottish privateers had attacked an English merchant ship. Everyone knew the name of the privateer: he was Andrew Barton, who sailed with letters of authority from King James of Scotland. Barton was merciless to English ships, and the general belief in the London docks was that James had deliberately licensed the pirate to prey on English shipping as if the two countries were already at war.