The king still visits Katherine’s bed from the continuing need for an heir, but he takes his pleasure elsewhere. Katherine’s praise means less to him now that she is no longer the beautiful widow of his older brother, the woman he was forbidden to marry. He thinks less of her father since he failed against France; he thinks less of her for not giving him an heir. They are still side by side at every dinner, of course she is honored as Queen of England at every great event, but he is Sir Loyal Heart no longer, and everyone can see it now, not just the alert ladies of the queen’s rooms and their opportunistic families.
GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, MAY 1515
I don’t like Charles Brandon; even on his official public wedding day to our Princess Mary I cannot warm to him, but that is the fault of my caution. When I see a man whom everyone adores, whose ascent to the highest places in the land has been like an upward flying spark, I always wonder what he will do with all this heat and light, and whose thatch will he burn down?
“But at least this is a marriage for love for our Princess Mary,” the queen says to me as I stand behind her, holding her coronet as the lady-in-waiting pins her hair. It is still the rich auburn that Prince Arthur loved with just a few threads of gray.
I smile at her. “On her side certainly there is love; but you are making the assumption that Charles Brandon has a heart.”
She shakes her head at me in smiling reproof, and the lady snatches at a falling pin. “Oh, sorry,” the queen says, and sits still. “I see that you are not in favor of love, Lady Margaret,” she smiles. “You have become a cold old widow.”
“I am indeed,” I say cheerfully. “But the princess—I mean the Dowager Queen of France—has enough heart for both of them.”
“Well, I for one am glad to have her back at court,” Katherine says. “And I’m glad that the king has forgiven his friend. They’re such a handsome couple.” She slides a sidewise smile at me. Katherine is never a fool. “The Archbishop of York, Thomas Wolsey, was in favor of the match?” she confirms.
“He was indeed,” I say. “And I am sure Charles Brandon is grateful for his support. And I am sure it will cost him.”
She nods in silence. The king is circled by favorites like wasps around a tray of jam tarts, set on a windowsill to cool. They have to outdo each other in buzzing compliments. Wolsey and Brandon are united against my cousin the Duke of Buckingham; but every lord in the land is jealous of Wolsey.
“The king is loyal to his friends,” she observes.
“Of course,” I agree. “He was always a most sweet-tempered boy. He never bears a grudge.”
The wedding feast is a joyous one. Mary is a favorite of everyone at court and we are glad to have her back with us, though we are all anxious as to the health and safety of her sister Margaret in Scotland. Since Margaret was widowed, and remarried a man whom the Scots lords cannot accept, we all wish that she too would come home to safety.
My son Arthur comes to find me during the dancing, kisses me on both cheeks, and kneels for my blessing.
“Not dancing?” I ask.
“No, for I have someone to meet you.”
I turn to him. “No trouble?” I say quickly.
“Merely a visitor to court who wants to see you.”
He winds his way through the dancers with a smile to one and the touch of an arm to another, through an arched door and into an inner room. I go through, and there is the last person I would have expected to see: my boy Reginald, lanky as a colt, his wrists showing at the cuffs of his jacket, his boots scuffed and his shy smile. “Lady Mother,” he says, and I put my hand on his warm head and then hold him as he springs up. “My boy!” I say in delight. “Ah, Reginald!”
I hold him in my arms but I feel the tension in his shoulders. He never embraces me as my two older boys do, he never clings to me like his younger brother, Geoffrey. He was taught to be a diffident child; now, at fifteen years old, he is a young man made by a monastery.
“Lady Mother,” he repeats, as if he is testing the words for meaning.
“Why are you not at Oxford?” I release him. “Does the king know you are here? Do you have permission to be away?”
“He’s graduated, Lady Mother!” Arthur reassures me. “He need not go back to Oxford ever again! He’s done very well. He’s completed his studies. He’s triumphant. He’s regarded as a very promising scholar.”
“Are you?” I ask him doubtfully.
Shyly, he ducks his head. “I am the best Latinist in my college,” he says quietly. “They say the best in the town.”
“That’s the best in England!” Arthur declares exuberantly.
The door behind us opens, and a gust of music comes in with Montague, Geoffrey at his side. Ten-year-old Geoffrey bounds towards his older brother like an excited child, and Reginald fends him off and embraces Montague.
“He debated for three days on the nature of God,” Arthur tells me. “He’s much admired. Turns out our brother is a great scholar.”
I laugh. “Well, I am glad of it,” I say. “And so what now, Reginald? Has the king commanded you? Are you to join the Church? What does he want you to do?”
Reginald looks at me anxiously. “I have no calling for the Church,” he says quietly. “So I hope you will allow me—Lady Mother . . .”
“No calling?” I repeat. “You have lived behind the walls of an abbey since you were six years old! You have spent almost all your life as a churchman. You have been educated as a churchman. Why would you not take orders?”
“I have no vocation,” he repeats.
I turn to Montague. “What does he mean?” I demand. “Since when did a churchman have to be called by God? Every bishop in the land is there for the convenience of his family. Obviously, he has been educated for the Church. Arthur tells me that he is well regarded. The king himself could not have done more for him. If he takes holy orders, he can be given the livings that come with our great estates and he will, no doubt, be made a bishop. And he could rise, perhaps even become an archbishop.”
“It’s a matter of conscience.” Arthur interrupts his brother’s answer. “Really, Lady Mother . . .”
I go to the chair at the head of the table, seat myself, and look down the long polished surface at my boys. Geoffrey follows me, and stands behind my chair looking gravely at his older brothers, as if he is my page boy, my little squire, and they are supplicants to the two of us. “Everyone in this family serves the king,” I say flatly. “That’s the only way to wealth and power. That is safety as well as success. Arthur, you are a courtier, one of the best jousters in the court, an ornament to the court. Montague, you have won your place as a server of the body, the best position at court, and you are rising in favor; you will be a senior advisor, I know. Geoffrey will go into the king’s rooms when he is a little older and will serve the king as well as any one of you. Ursula will marry a nobleman, link us to the greatest family we can obtain, and continue our line. Reginald here will be a churchman and serve the king and God. What else is possible? What else can he do?”
“I love and admire the king,” Reginald says quietly. “And I am grateful to him. He has offered me the deanship of Wimborne Minster, a valuable place. But I don’t have to take holy orders to get it, I can be a dean without being ordained. And he says he will pay for me to study abroad.”
“He does not insist you take your vows?”
“He does not.”
I am surprised. “This is a sign of great favor,” I say. “I would have thought he would have demanded it of you, after all he has done for you.”