She nods, as if she is comforted; but I put my head in my hands and know that they have not rid themselves of Plantagenets. It is impossible to be rid of us. My cousin Edmund’s brother, Richard de la Pole, his heir, now the new pretender, has run away from England and is somewhere in Europe, trying to raise an army; and after him, there is another and another of us, unending.
DOVER CASTLE, KENT, JUNE 1513
The queen says good-bye to her husband at Dover Castle and he honors her with the title of Regent of England—she will rule this country with the authority of a crowned king. She is a monarch of England, a woman born to rule. He gently rests his hand on her belly and asks her to keep his country and his baby safe until he returns.
I can think of nothing but my boys, especially my son Montague, whose duty will keep him at the king’s side and whose honor will take him into the heart of any battle. I wait till his warhorse is loaded on the ships and he comes to me and bends his knee for my blessing. I am determined to say a smiling good-bye, and try to hide my fear for him.
“But take care,” I urge.
“Lady Mother, I am going to war. I am not supposed to take care. It would be a very poor war if we all rode out taking care!”
I am twisting my fingers together. “Take care with your food at least, and don’t lie on wet ground. Make sure that your squire always puts a leather cloak down first. And never take your helmet off if you are anywhere near—”
He laughs and takes my hands in his own. “Lady Mother, I will come home to you!” He is young and lighthearted and thinks that he will live forever, and so he promises the thing that in truth he cannot: that nothing will ever hurt him, not even on a battlefield.
I snatch at a breath. “My son!”
“I’ll make sure Arthur is safe,” he promises me. “And I’ll come home safe and sound. Perhaps I shall capture French prisoners for ransom, perhaps I shall come home rich. Perhaps I shall win French lands and you will be able to build castles in France as well as England.”
“Just come home,” I say. “Not even new castles matter more than the heir.”
He bends his head for my blessing and I have to let him go.
The war goes better than anyone dreams possible. The English army, under the king himself, take Therouanne, and the French cavalry flee before them. My son Arthur writes to me that his brother has ridden like a hero and has been knighted by the king, for his bravery in battle. My son Montague is now Sir Henry Pole—Sir Henry Pole!—and he is safe.
RICHMOND PALACE, WEST OF LONDON, SUMMER 1513
It is encouraging news for us in London; but far graver things are happening at home than the easy progress of the king’s campaign. Almost as soon as Henry’s fleet sets sail, and despite the fact that the King of Scotland is sworn to a sacred permanent peace sealed by his marriage to an English princess, our own Princess Margaret, the king’s sister, James IV of Scotland invades, and we have to defend the kingdom with our army in France and our king playing at commander overseas.
The only man left in England able to command is Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, the old dog of war whom Henry left behind for his queen to deploy as she thinks best. The seventy-year-old warrior and the pregnant queen take over the presence chamber at Richmond, and instead of sheets of music and plans of dances spread on the table, there are maps of England and Scotland, lists of musters, and the names of landlords who will turn out their tenants for the queen’s war against Scotland. The queen’s ladies go through their household men and report on their border castles.
Katherine’s early years with her parents who fought for every inch of their kingdom shows in every decision she and Thomas Howard make together. Though everyone left in England complains that they are guarded by an old man and a pregnant woman, I believe that these two are better commanders than those in France. She understands the dangers of a battle ground and the deploying of a troop as if it were the natural business of a princess. When Thomas Howard musters his men to march north, they have a battle plan that he will attack the Scots in the north, and she will hold a second line in the Midlands, in case of his defeat. It is she who defies her condition to ride out to the army on a white horse, dressed in cloth of gold, and bawls out a speech to tell them that no nation in the world can fight like the English.
I watch her, and I can hardly recognize the homesick girl who cried in my arms at Ludlow. She is a woman indeed, she is a queen. Better than that, she is a queen militant, she has become a great Queen of England.
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1513
Their battle plan is astoundingly successful. Thomas Howard sends her the bloodstained coat of James IV. The king’s own brother-in-law and fellow monarch is dead, we have widowed Princess Margaret and made her a dowager queen with a seventeen-month-old baby in her arms, and Scotland is ours for the taking.
Katherine is filled with bloodthirsty delight, and I laugh as she dances round the room, singing a battle song in Spanish. I take her hands and beg her to sit, be still and be calm; but she is completely her mother’s daughter, demanding that the head of James of Scotland be sent to her, until we persuade her that an English monarch cannot be so ferocious. Instead, she sends his bloodstained coat and torn banners to Henry in France, so that he shall know she has guarded the kingdom better than any regent has ever done before, that she has defeated the Scots as no one has ever done before, and London celebrates with the court that we have a heroine queen, a queen militant, who can hold the kingdom and carry a child in her womb.
She is taken ill in the night. I am sleeping in her bed and I hear her moan before the pain breaks through her sleep. I turn and raise myself up on one elbow to see her face, thinking that she is having a bad dream, and that I will wake her. Then I feel under my bare feet the wetness in the bed, and I flinch from the sensation, jump out of bed, pull back the sheets, and see my own nightgown is red, terribly stained with her waters.
I tear to the door and fling it open, screaming for her ladies and for someone to call the midwives and the physicians, and then come back to hold her hands as she groans as the pains start to come.
It is early, but it is not too early; perhaps the baby will survive this sudden urgent, fearful rush. I hold Katherine’s shoulders as she leans forward and then I sponge her face as she leans back and gasps with relief.
The midwives shout for her to push, and then suddenly they say, “Wait! Wait!” And we hear, we all can hear, a tiny gurgling cry.
“My baby?” the queen asks wonderingly, and then they lift him, his little legs writhing, the cord dangling, and rest him on her slack, quivering belly.
“A baby boy,” someone says in quiet wonderment. “My God, what a miracle,” and they cut the cord and wrap him tightly and then fold the warmed sheets across Katherine and put him into her arms. “A baby boy for England.”
“My baby,” she whispers, her face alight with joy and love. She looks, I think, like a portrait of the Virgin Mary as if she held the grace of God in her arms. “Margaret,” she says in a whisper. “Send a message to the king . . .”
Her face changes, the baby moves just slightly, his back arches, he seems to choke. “What’s the matter?” she demands. “What’s the matter with him?”
The wet nurse who was coming forward, undoing the front of her gown, rears back as if she is suddenly afraid to touch the child. The midwife looks up from the bowl of water and the cloth and lunges for him, saying, “Slap him on the back!” as if he has to be born and take his first breath all over again.