I then embarked on the most extraordinary and heartbreaking time of my whole life.
The first weeks at Hampton were peaceful. I was glad of the custom which decreed that a queen should retire and live quietly with her women, awaiting the great event.
Here Jane Seymour had come before me. She had given birth to a boy, and that had killed her—yet she had been young and healthy and ripe for childbearing, it had seemed.
Susan said I must not think of Jane. She had not been taken care of after the birth. She would see that I had every care.
And so we waited. I had the cradle placed in my room so that I could see it all the time. It was very elaborate and splendidly decorated—worthy of the child born to be King.
My dearest hope was about to be realized, and it seemed as though the days would never pass. I said to Susan that time seemed to have slowed down.
“It is ever so, when one is waiting,” she replied. “Very soon your time will come.”
I talked all the time of the child. “He will be a boy, I know it…a perfect boy. I can see him, Susan. He will be like Philip. That is how I would have him. But perhaps he will be tall…as my father was… although I am small and so is Philip… but sometimes children take after their grandparents. The child's grandfather was a big, fine man. I should like my son to be like him … as he was in his youth before … before … And my father's grandfather, Edward IV, was a big and handsome man.”
“Be the child large or small, you will love it just the same,” said Susan wisely.
“How dare you call my child ‘it', Susan?”
“We do not know that it will be a boy. It is wise at such a time to see what God will send.”
“I should love a girl, of course. But it is a boy that everyone wants. A King… not a Queen… but if the child is a girl, we might get boys after.”
Susan raised her eyes to the ceiling. She did not approve of my having a child at all. She thought I was too old and not strong enough. I could have been angry with her, but I knew all she thought and all she did was out of love for me.
The waiting went on. The weeks were passing. What was wrong? Sometimes I would look out of my windows and see people gathered some little way from the palace. They were waiting for the announcement.
“Let it be soon, O Lord,” I prayed. “And give me a son. That is all I need for my happiness. Is it asking too much? The lowest serving woman can have sons… many of them. Please God, give me a son.”
But the time was passing, and my prayers were unanswered.
At the end of the month a rumor circulated that I had given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Bells were rung, and the people were already celebrating in the streets. All through the morning the rejoicing went on, but by afternoon the truth began to be known.
There was no child. I was still waiting.
May had come, and there was still not a sign. To my secret alarm, the swelling in my body, which I had convinced myself was my child, began to subside.
Susan had noticed. She did not mention it but I knew she was thinking that I had had such disorders before. The swellings had not been so great and they had subsided more quickly. A terrible fear began to dawn on me that what I had experienced was not pregnancy but a return of my old complaint.
At last Susan spoke of it.
“It is as it was before,” she said.
“I have never been so swollen before.”
She agreed and tried to comfort me.
“Perhaps the child will come at the end of May.”
I clutched at the hope. But I was growing melancholy. I did not see Philip. I told myself that it was a Spanish custom not to see a wife who was about to give birth until after the child appeared.
I felt certain pains such as I had suffered before, but I knew they were not concerned with childbirth.
The people were growing restive.
Where is the child? they were asking. Could there have been a miscalculation so great as to be two months late? Rumors began to circulate. Was the Queen dead? Where was the child? Had the Queen given birth to a monster?
And I stayed in my apartments, seeing none but my own women, and I felt as though my heart would break. I was too old, too small… something was very wrong.
One of my household sent a woman to me. She was of very low stature and not very young; she had just given birth to three babies and had regained her strength in a week. The babies were brought to show me. They were all strong and healthy.
It was a comfort to see her, but in my heart I began to accept the truth. There was no child. I had suffered from the symptoms which had been with me for a greater part of my life; but perhaps because of my great need, my great desire to bear a child, I had forced my body to show the outward signs of pregnancy.
But I would not give up.
The midwife said, “We have miscalculated the time. It will be August or September.”
I wept bitterly. I clung to Susan. I said to her, “They say this to soothe me. In their hearts they know there will never be a child. Susan, don't lie to me. It is true, is it not?”
She looked at me sadly, and we both began to weep.
The Queen is dead: Long Live the Queen
IF PHILIP WAS DISAPPOINTED—WHICH I AM SURE HE MUST have been—he did not show it.
I felt not only desolate but intensely humiliated. I had believed myself to be with child, and there was no child. I could imagine the manner in which I was being discussed in the streets of the cities and villages, and even in the tiny hamlets; all over the country they would be talking of the child which had never existed.
Philip was always mentioning his father, who needed him badly.
“He has missed you from the day you left,” I said. “I understand that.”
“He has many commitments. I should be with him.” He was looking at me with the faintest dislike in his eyes. Oh no, I told myself, not dislike. It was only that terrible disappointment. He had so much hoped that we should have our child by now. Was he thinking that I was incapable of bearing children? I knew I was small; I was not attractive; I had been old when I married him. How did I please him as a lover? I did not know. Such matters were not discussed between us; they just happened. Was that how lovers behaved? I wondered. Did I disappoint him? He had already had a wife; he never spoke of her. I heard rumors that sometimes he went out at night with some of his gentlemen, that they put on masks and went about the town, adventuring. There were bound to be rumors.
If only I had a son! I often thought of my mother. How often had she prayed, as I was praying now, for that longed-for son who would have made all the difference to her life? My father would never have been able to treat the mother of a male heir to the throne as he had treated her… not even for Anne Boleyn.
How strange that my story should be in some measure like hers! “I must return,” said Philip.
“I have sworn to my father that I should do so… when the child was born.”
Any mention of the child unnerved me.
“But,” I stammered, “there may still be a child.”
“You have been under great strain. You need a rest. You could not attempt such an ordeal… just yet…even if…”
I knew what he meant: Even if you can bear a child. He did not believe that I could.
And I was beginning to wonder, too.
I felt humiliated and defeated.
“I would come back…as soon as I could,” he said tentatively.
“Philip!” I cried, suddenly wanting to know the truth which I had tried not to see for so long. “Do you truly love me?”
He looked startled. “But you are my wife,” he said, “so of course I love you.”
I felt comforted, forcing myself to be. He must go if he wished, I knew. I could not detain him, and even if I succeeded in doing so, it would be against his will.