“Your Grace?” I turn to the king.
To my relief he makes a little gesture with his hand, and Sir William bows, smiles, and withdraws.
“I’ll have my steward look into it,” Henry says simply. “But Sir William is quite sure that they are my lands and you have them in error.”
I am about to say, as I would be wise to say: Oh! let me return them to you at once, now, without delay, whether they are mine by right or not—that would be the work of a good courtier. Everything belongs to the king, we hold our fortunes at his pleasure, and if I give them to him at the first moment of asking, he might return something else to me later.
I am just about to dispossess myself when I see a quick, sly smile on Sir William’s face as he turns away from my son Montague. It’s a gleam of triumph between the man who knows that he is the absolute favorite, allowed all sorts of liberties, guilty of all sorts of indiscretions, to another who is younger, steadier, and a better man by far. And I feel a stubbornness rise up in me as I think I will not give my son’s inheritance away because this popinjay thinks that it is not mine. It is mine. These are my family lands. I had to endure poverty without them and it was hard for me to win them back; I am damned if I am going to give them away at the bidding of such as William Compton, to a king like Henry whom I watched dance around the nursery snatching his sister’s moppets and refusing to share.
“I shall ask my steward Sir Thomas Boleyn to look into it and inform Sir William,” I say coolly. “But I am certain that there is no mistake.”
I am walking away from the king’s privy chamber, with a couple of my ladies-in-waiting, going towards the queen’s rooms, when Arthur catches me up and takes my arm so that he can speak quietly, and no one else can hear.
“Lady Mother—just give him the lands,” he says shortly.
“They are mine!”
“Everyone knows it. Doesn’t matter. Just give them to him. He doesn’t like to be crossed and he doesn’t like to have work to do. He won’t want to read a report, he doesn’t want to make a judgment. Most of all he doesn’t want to have to write anything and sign it.”
I stop and turn to him. “Why would you advise me to give away your brother’s inheritance? Where would we be if I had not dedicated my life to winning back what is ours?”
“He is the king, he’s accustomed to having his own way,” Arthur says briefly. “He gives Wolsey an order, sometimes he gives him nothing more than a nod, and it’s done. But you and my uncle Stafford, and my uncle Neville—you all argue with him. You expect him to act within a set of rules, of traditions. You expect him to explain any change. You hold him to account. He doesn’t like it. He wants to be a power that is not disputed. He really can’t bear being challenged.”
“They are my lands!” I have raised my voice, and I glance around and then speak more quietly. “These are my family lands that I own by right.”
“My cousin the duke would say that we own the throne by right,” Arthur hisses. “But he would never say it out loud before the king. We own these lands, we own the whole of England by right. But we never say such a thing, or even suggest it. Give him back the lands. Let him see that we think we have no rights, that we claim no rights, that we are nothing but his humblest subjects. That we are glad to receive only what he freely gives us.”
“He’s the King of England,” I say impatiently. “I grant you that. But his father got the throne by conquest and, some would say, treachery on the battlefield. He only held it by the skin of his teeth. He did not inherit it, he’s not of the old royal blood of England. And young Henry is first among equals, he is not above us, he’s not above the law, he’s not above challenge. We call him ‘Your Grace,’ as we would call any duke, as we call your cousin Stafford. He is one of us, honored; but not above us. He is not beyond challenge. His word is not that of God. He’s not the Pope.”
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, NOVEMBER 1518
In November the court moves to Westminster and together the queen and I plan her confinement, ordering her favorite bed to be moved into the great chamber and choosing the tapestries which will hang over the windows, blocking out the disturbing daylight.
We are going to use the birthing bed where she had Princess Mary. I even have the same linen ready. Without saying anything, we both hope that it will bring us luck. She is busy and happy and confident, her belly curved like a fat cauldron, nearing her eighth month. We are standing side by side, considering a space in the room where we plan to place a great dresser to show her golden plates, when she suddenly stops and pauses, as if she has heard something, a whisper of unease.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She is uncertain. “I just felt . . .”
“Should you sit down?”
I help her to her chair and she sits gingerly.
“What did you feel?”
“I felt . . .” she begins, and then she suddenly scoops the skirts of her gown towards her, as if she would hold the baby inside her womb by sheer force. “Get the midwives,” she says very low and quiet, as if she is afraid that someone might hear. “Get the midwives, and close the door. I’m bleeding.”
We rush hot water and towels and the cradle into the room, while I send a message to the king that the queen has gone into labor, weeks early of course, but that she is well and we are caring for her.
I dare to hope; little Mary is flourishing in her nursery, a clever two-year-old, and she came early. Perhaps this will be another frighteningly small baby who will surprise us all by strength and tenacity. And if it were to be a tough little boy . . .
It is all that we think about, and nobody says it aloud. If the queen were to have a boy, even at this late stage of her life, even though she has lost so many, she would be triumphant. Everyone who has whispered that she is weak or infertile or cursed would look a fool. The grand newly made papal legate Wolsey himself would take second place to such a wife who had given her husband the one thing that he lacks. The girls who accompany the queen when she dines with the king, or walks with him or plays cards with him, always with their eyes modestly downturned, always with their hoods pushed back to show their smooth hair, always with their gowns pulled down in front to show the inviting curve of their breasts, those girls will find that the king has eyes only for the queen—if she can give him a son.
At midnight she goes into full labor, her gaze fixed on the holy icon, the communion wafer in the monstrance on the altar in the corner of the room, the midwives pulling on her arms and shouting at her to push, but it is all over too quickly, and there is no little cry, just a small creature, hardly visible in a mess of blood and a rush of water. The midwife picks up the tiny body, shrouds it from the queen’s sight in the linen cloth that was supposed to be used to swaddle a lusty son, and says: “I am sorry, Your Grace, it was a girl, but she was already dead inside you. There’s nothing here.”
I don’t even wait for her to ask me. Wearily she turns to me and silently gives me a nod to send me on my errand, her face twisted with grief. Wearily, I get to my feet and go from the confinement chamber, down the stairs, across the great hall, and up the stairs to the king’s side of the palace. I dawdle past the guards who raise their pikes in a salute to let me through, past a couple of courtiers who drop into a bow and stand aside to let me by, through the outer doors of the presence chamber, through the whispering, staring crowds who are waiting and hoping to see the king. A silence falls all around as I enter the room. Everyone knows what my errand is, everyone guesses that it is bad news from my stony face, as I walk through the doors of the privy chamber, and there he is.