“It’s no hardship to spend time with her,” I say, smiling. “She is a beautiful child; it is a real pleasure to play with her. And I am teaching her letters, and how to read.”
“She could have no better Lady Governess,” he says. “They tell me that she runs to greet you as if you were a second mother.”
“I could not love her more if she were my own,” I say. I have to stop myself repeating how bright she is, and how clever, how prettily she dances, and what a good voice she has.
“Well, God bless you both,” the cardinal says airily, waving his fat fingers in a cross over my head.
WARBLINGTON CASTLE, HAMPSHIRE, JUNE 1519
I leave the newly sober and composed court to go to my favorite house and plan Arthur’s marriage. It is a very good one. I would not throw my popular son Arthur away on anyone but a well-born heiress. His wife will be Jane Lewknor, the only daughter—and so the sole heiress—of a Sussex knight, a good old family and one that has amassed a fortune. She was married before and brings a good fortune from that marriage too. She has a daughter, living with her guardian, so I know she is fertile. Best of all, for Arthur, at court among the king’s friends who are ready, at the drop of a glove, to write a poem about Beauty and Unattainable Virtue, she is fair-haired, gray-eyed, and lovely but no fool; she will not write love poems in reply. And she is educated and well mannered enough to serve the queen. Altogether, she is an expensive asset for the family to buy, but I think she will serve us well.
PENSHURST PLACE, KENT, JUNE 1519
The king is honoring my cousin Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, with another visit to Penshurst Place, and Cousin Edward begs me to come, bring the newlyweds, and help entertain the king. It is a great moment for my cousin, but an even greater event for my daughter, Ursula, who finds, as I promised her, that being married to little Henry Stafford brings rewards. She stands beside her mother-in-law, Duchess Eleanor, to greet the King of England and his court, and everyone tells me that she will be the most delightful duchess one day.
I expect a magnificent show, but even so, I am amazed at my cousin’s lavish hospitality. Every day there is a hunt and an entertainment and a picnic in the woods. There are masques and one day a bullbaiting, a fight with dogs, and a bearbaiting with a magnificent beast that goes on for three hours. The duke has prepared the costumed dances and disguisings that the king loves, and commissioned music and performances. There are satirical plays that mock the ambition of Charles of Castile, who has just squandered a fortune buying the position of Holy Roman Emperor. Our king Henry, who hoped for the title for himself, laughs so hard that he nearly weeps when the play accuses Charles of greed and hubris. The queen listens to the abuse of her nephew with a tolerant smile, as if it were nothing at all to do with her.
We are awakened some mornings by a choir singing under our windows, another day boatmen call us from the lake and we row for pleasure with musicians on the boats and then gather for a tremendous regatta. The king wins the race, battling his way through the water, his face red with effort, his shoulder and chest muscles standing out under his fine linen shirt, just as he wins at cards, at tennis, at horse racing, at wrestling, and of course at the great joust which my cousin the duke stages for the entertainment of the court and to show the skill and courage of the king and his friends. Everything is designed for the king’s entertainment and amusement, not a moment of the day passes without some fresh extravagance, and Henry revels in it all, the winner of every game, a head taller than any man, as undeniably handsome as a carved statue of a prince, his hair curled, his smile wide, his body like a young god’s.
“You’ve spent a fortune on giving the king the best visit of the year,” I observe to my cousin. “This has been your kingdom.”
“As it happens, I have a fortune,” he replies nonchalantly. “And this is my kingdom.”
“You have succeeded in persuading the king that this is the most beautiful and well-ordered house in England.”
He smiles. “You speak as if that were not a triumph. For me, for my house, for my name. For your daughter too, who will inherit it all.”
“It’s just that from boyhood, the king has never admired something without wanting it for himself. He’s not given to disinterested joy.”
My cousin tucks my hand in the crook of his elbow and walks me past the warm sandstone walls of his lower garden towards the archery butts where we can hear the court exclaiming at the contest, and their ripple of applause at a good shot. “You are kind to caution me, Cousin Margaret; but I don’t need a warning. I never forget that this is a king whose father had nothing, who came into England with little more than the clothes on his poor back. Every time his son sees a landowner like you or me whose rights go back to Duke William of Normandy, or even earlier, he feels a little gnaw of envy, a little shiver of fear that he has not enough, that he is not enough. He wasn’t raised like us, in a family who knew that their place was the greatest in England. Not like you and me, born noble, raised as princes, safe in the greatest buildings in England, looking out at the widest fields. Henry was born the son of a pretender. I think he will always feel unsteady on such a new throne.”
I press his arm. “Take care, Cousin,” I advise. “It’s not wise for anyone, especially for those of us who once owned that throne, to speak of the Tudors as newcomers. Neither of us was raised by our father.”
The duke’s father was executed for treason against King Richard, mine for treason against King Edward. Perhaps treason runs in our veins with the royal blood and it would be wise to make sure that no one remembers it.
“Oh, it’s not polite,” he concedes. “It’s true, of course. But not polite in me, as a host. But I think I have shown him what I wanted him to see. He has seen how a great lord of England lives. Not riding his horse up the stairs like a child, not throwing eggs at his tenants, not fooling like an idiot and playing all day, not promising love to alehouse maids, and sending a well-born mistress into hiding to bear a child as if one was ashamed of dirty doings.”
I can’t argue with that. “He is contradictory. He always was.”
“Vulgar,” the duke says under his breath.
We come to the outskirts of the courtiers and people turn and bow low to us, standing back so that we can see the king, who is just about to draw the bow. Henry is like a beautifully wrought statue of an archer, poised, his weight a little back, his body a long, lean line from curly russet head to outstretched leg. We stand in attentive silence as His Grace bends the heavy longbow, pulls back the string, takes careful aim, and gently releases the arrow.
It flies through the air with a hiss and clips the central bull in the target, not midcenter, but just on the edge, close—not perfect, but very close. Everyone bursts into enthusiastic applause; the queen smiles and takes up a little gold chain, ready to award it to her husband.
Henry turns to my cousin. “Could you do better?” he shouts triumphantly. “Could anyone do better?”
I grip the duke’s hand before he can step forward and take up a bow and arrow. “I am very sure he cannot,” I say, and the duke smiles and says: “I doubt that anyone could outshoot Your Grace.”
Henry gives a little crow of delight and then kneels before the queen, looking up at her and beaming as she bends down to put the gold chain of victory around his neck. She kisses him on the mouth, and he puts up his hands and gently holds her face for a moment, as if he were in love with her, or at any rate, in love with the picture that they make: the young handsome man on his knee to his wife, his thick copper hair curling under her caress.