The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [59]
Prince William died seven hours later. By the time Katherine’s milk came in, the babe had been buried for two days, wearing his little christening robe as a shroud.
As Brandon made his way to Dover, preparing to take ship and cross the wintry Channel, a messenger arrived carrying a letter smuggled out of the convent. Mary was being assaulted and harassed by Francis, who visited her daily on the pretext of consoling her, but propositioned her, grabbed her, and attempted to woo her. He ordered the nuns to leave them alone and lock the doors, then he tried to seduce her, and failing that, to force her to lie with him.
I shook with rage at the picture of this libertine putting his hands on my sister—his stepmother! The very heavens themselves condemned this ancient abomination. The First Gentleman of France, as he called himself, was a perverted beast. Let Mary be found with child, so that France would be delivered from his evil reign! And let Brandon act as her champion to free her from the prison that Francis had put her in.
“Pray God, Katherine,” I said, when I recounted Mary’s plight to her. “I know he hears your prayers.”
“Not always,” she said. “But I will pray nonetheless.”
God answered her prayers, but in a disastrous way. For Brandon rescued Mary by marrying her himself, with Francis’s connivance.
“Traitor!” I screamed, when I read his letter. “Traitor!”
For the tenth time I reread the words:
My Lord, so it is that when I came to Paris I heard many things which put me in great fear, and so did the Queen both; and the Queen would never let me be in rest till I had granted her to be married. And so to be plain with you, I have married her heartily and have lain with her, insomuch that I fear me lest she be with child.
Now I knew them all by heart. No need to keep this foul document. I flung it into the fire, where it quickly writhed, blackened, and withered.
“He’s robbed me of a sister!”
“I think it was rather ... noble of him to do what he did,” said Katherine timidly, for she had learned not to contradict me in my rages.
“In Spain such things may pass for noble. In England they are regarded as foolhardy and dangerous.”
“He rescued a princess in distress, whose honour was being threatened.”
“He robbed me of a valuable property to be used in marriage negotiations ! Now I have no one to use as bait for treaties, no one, as we are childless, and—”
“Can you not rejoice for them, and their happiness? Henry, once you would have. Oh, remember the boy who wrote,
‘But love is a thing given by God,
In that therefore can be none odd,
But perfect in deed and between two;
Wherefore then should we it eschew?’”
“That boy is dead.” When had he died? In my learning to be King?
“He rescued me. When I "1em
Passion—almost equally impersonal—I delivered into Bessie.
Mary was arriving back in England, and there was to be a ceremony at Dover to greet her. I made certain I was not there; for to be there was to confer approval on her actions, and that I would never do. Brandon, the (created by me!) Duke of Suffolk, was her protector now. Let him see to her needs.
All communication between us passed through Wolsey. Brandon could not approach me without Wolsey’s leave; neither could Mary. Mary I wished to see, therefore I made arrangements for us to meet in London on the royal barge. Together we would be rowed up and down upon the Thames, where we could speak one last time before I relinquished her to Brandon forever.
The woman who approached the landing-ramp was taller, more beautiful, than I remembered. She wore a cloak of deepest blue velvet, gathered about the neck and shoulders, that floated outward like the Virgin’s. But she was no virgin. Her very step was changed.
The oarsmen saluted her. “Your Majesty.”
I welcomed her, but said pointedly, “Queen no longer, my men. She is Duchess.”
“I remain a Princess, regardless of my husband’s title,” she said, a smile masking her determination.
“Shall we go