Jean Plaidy - For a Queen's Love - The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

A tired smile was on her lips. “My husband …” she began.

Philip came forward. He could be relied upon to do what was expected of him. He looked at Mary and tried to hide the repulsion she aroused in him. He was not unaware of the tension in the apartment, and he knew that all was not well with the Queen.

Unless this child was born, the discomfort and the humiliation of the last months would have been in vain. If the child died and Mary died, he would have no hold on England. The red-headed Elizabeth would mount the throne; and he doubted that not very soon after such an event she would be snapping her fingers at the Pope himself. And something was wrong … very wrong.

He took Mary’s clammy hand and kissed it.

“It is so long,” she said piteously.

“You were too anxious, my love. There has been a slight miscalculation. You have been brought to bed too soon.”

She nodded. “It seems as though it will never be.”

The draught they had given her was beginning to have its effect. He said: “Sleep, my love. That is what you need. And when you wake … who knows, your time may have come.”

She would not release his hand. Those cold fingers twined about his, pressing, squeezing, like snakes, he thought. As soon as he was sure she was asleep, he gently withdrew his hand.

“What is it?” he asked the midwives.

They lowered their eyes.

“Let us leave the apartment,” he said. “The doctors also. If aught is as it should not be, I would know of it.”

In the antechamber to which he had led them, one of the doctors said: “Your Majesty, I never saw such a strange pregnancy. There seems to be no child … no movement.”

“You think the child is dead?” His voice was cold and precise.

“It is not that, Sire. It is as though there is no child.”

He looked at the doctors. “Well, you are learned men!”

“It is true, your Majesty, that there is all the outward appearance of pregnancy, but … a softness, you understand? It would seem that there is … no child.”

“But how could this be?”

“Sire, there have been similar cases. There have been ladies of the Queen’s age whose desire for children was intense. There followed all the outward signs of pregnancies … but mock pregnancies, your Majesty. The would-be mothers were completely deceived.”

“But this is … impossible!”

“We crave your Majesty’s pardon, but it has happened thus in other cases. Ladies long for children, their longings become hysterical, and they may not be in the best of health. We fear that the Queen’s age may not allow her to bear children, and that in the greatness of her desire she has created a mock pregnancy.”

“I cannot believe this. It is fantastic.”

One of the women curtsied low. “Your Majesty, the Queen expected to be brought to bed last month. She was waiting for her pains. Many times she thought they had started, but they had not. And so it was on this occasion. She waits for her pains in vain.”

Philip said: “Leave me now. Not a word of this to the Queen. It would kill her. We must wait and hope. There must be a child.”

There must be a child. The bells were ringing throughout London. Soon the news of the supposed birth would be all over the country.

And if there is no child, pondered Philip, what hopes are there for Spain? How Henry of France would be laughing up his sleeve! The whole of France and England would be laughing at poor, plain Mary and solemn Philip, who could not get a child.

There must be a child. News of it had been sent to the Emperor, who had written back gleefully to Philip to say that he had heard that the Queen was “hopeful and that her garments waxed very strait.”

Could the hopes of the last months have grown from nothing more secure than a hysterical woman’s delusions?

All through the palace the rumors were circulating. Philip was filled with pity for Mary, that sad, frustrated woman who had already suffered more in one lifetime than anyone should. What would her reactions be if she knew the truth? He must order the cessation of the bell-ringing. Yet how could he tell the people that there was to be no child because it had never existed outside the Queen’s imagination?

Mary was wild-eyed . They had tried to break the news to her. She screamed: “It’s a lie. It’s a conspiracy. My sister has set these rumors abroad. Look at me. Am I not large enough?”

Her women were weeping about her; but she paced up and down her apartment, her hair wild, her eyes blazing. Let others doubt the existence of the child; she would not.

“Send the doctors to me. Send to me the men who have set these rumors working. I’ll have them racked. I’ll get the truth of this matter.”

Philip alone could soothe her. “Wait,” he begged. “I doubt not that shortly you will prove these rumors false.”

She took his hands; she covered them with burning kisses. “My love, you are with me. Oh, Philip, how happy you make me! How we shall laugh at these people when I hold my son in my arms!”

“You shall,” he said. “But calm yourself now. Rest. You must be strong for the ordeal when it comes.”

“How you comfort me! You are always right, and I thank God for bringing you to me.”

He felt the smile freeze on his face at these protestations of affection. Did she notice that? She was watching him suspiciously. “What do you do while I am resting?” she asked. “What do you do at night?” Her voice grew shrill. “Is it true what they say of you? That you are with … women?”

“No, no,” he soothed. “You are distraught.”

“They plot against me,” she cried. “They tell me that I am to have no child. I feel it within me. I know my child is here. And you? How can you love me? Do I not know that I am old and tired and worn out with my miseries? You wish me dead that you may marry Elizabeth, because she is young and healthy and more pleasant to look at than I.”

He shrank from her. He could not bear these noisy scenes; her jealousy shocked and humiliated his reserved nature almost more than did her cloying affection.

“You are not yourself,” he said gently. “I beg of you, for the child’s sake, and the sake of our marriage, be calm. Lie down, Mary. Rest, I say. Rest is what you need.”

“And you?”

He was resigned. “I will sit beside your bed.”

“You will stay with me?” she asked piteously. “I will stay as long as you wish me to.”

“Oh, Philip … Philip!” She flung herself at him, clinging to him, pressing her face against his. He steeled himself to return her caresses. Then he spoke firmly: “Come. You shall rest. This is so bad for you, and the child.”

Then he made her lie down, and tenderly he covered her; and he sat by the bed, her hand in his.

“There is comfort in this,” she said; “my child within me and you beside me—the two I love. I cannot help the fierceness of my love; I went so long without love.”

He sat silently beside her bed, wondering what would happen when she was forced to accept the truth that there would be no child.

Another month had passed. Mary went about with the light of determination in her eyes. She would see none of her ministers. She declared that the child would be born at any minute.

One day a woman came to the palace and asked to see the Queen. She said her mission was concerned with the Queen’s condition, so that none would turn her away, and eventually she reached Mary’s presence.

“Your Majesty,” she said, “I was forty when my first child was born.”

Then the Queen made her sit in a chair of honor while she told her story.