The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [64]
She wrote it this time without the aid of a dictionary, and without the nervousness which six months ago had made her so prolix. She had few points to make, and those were forthright.
She was well, Philippa wrote, and so were his family and son with the exception of Sybilla who, as she had already written, was stoical but much in need of his return. She herself was in London at court, where she was in need of nothing, but had been made aware that if their marriage was to be annulled, she must have a statement regarding both the reasons for the annulment and his consent, delivered either in writing or in person by himself. There was no haste for this, except in so far as he might wish to find himself free. Lastly, Philippa set out, without comment, the circumstances of her visit to Sybilla’s sister the Abbess, and what she had learned there. After the birth of Richard, Sybilla had no more children. You and your sister were born to your father in France, of mother or mothers unknown.…
She ended: This is an affair of yours on which I embarked perhaps childishly, since it seemed to me that, by ignoring it, you were doing yourself and your family a disservice. The results either way make no difference to me and should make no difference to you. Whatever your relationship with them, the people among whom you grew up are and should be the dearest to you. I am sure you know this without being told by a schoolgirl. It is only the love Kate and I have for Sybilla which makes me repeat it. Kate would join me in sending you our greeting and regard for your wellbeing. I remain, your friend, PHILIPPA.
Then she retired with their Majesties to Hampton Court, Wolsey’s red-brick kingdom down the river, which he had presented to his master King Henry, but too late to save his own head. And there, among its courts and galleries and gardens and offices, Easter came and April wore on, although the child which had moved in the womb five months ago on Pole’s arrival still delayed coming. The Emperor Charles, frail and twisted with gout, had entered on what seemed his last illness. Peace talks between Charles and France, promised for April, had yet again been delayed. On the Emperor’s side the reason, said Don Alfonso, was exhaustion: the Low Countries had no money, and the soldiers were close to rebellion. Also they were waiting, as the whole world was waiting, for the Queen of England at last to give birth.
The French, on the other hand, were gay, fresh and well equipped with men and with money. The longer the talks were deferred, said Don Alfonso, the more opportunity France would have of discovering the enemy’s plans. And there was the matter of the new Papal election. Marcellus II, so favoured by France, had died in the twenty-second day of his pontificate, killed by the rigours of celebration. Cardinal Pole contracted a fever, diplomatic or other; and the Cardinal of Lorraine hurried posthaste to Rome. The Queen took to her rooms.
By all the warring elements in her realm and outside it, the fact was immediately noted. Forty days before a confinement and forty days after, by royal and ancient custom, the Queens of England withdrew to their chambers and were attended only by women. By another inalienable and sensible custom, the enemies of the kingdom and its heirs—who were, it must be said, very often one and the same flesh—were either sent abroad, or kept under closest surveillance at the Palace.
So, towards the end of April, Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, was summoned to Court, and given royal leave to visit the Emperor and his sister the Queen Regent in Flanders, there to thank them in person for his final release from his recent restraint.
The day after Courtenay’s departure from Court the Queen’s sister Elizabeth arrived there, brought from her prison at Woodstock; as twenty-one years before Mary Tudor had been summoned to Greenwich for Elizabeth’s birth, too shamingly soon after the wedding, to the Great Whore, Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second, usurping Queen.
Madam Elizabeth entered Hampton