His children, the bastard and the true heir, are honored equally in an insane subverting of the rules of precedence. I watch as Princess Mary enters the great hall with a nobody: the ten-year-old boy, Bessie Blount’s bastard. But they make a handsome pair. The princess is so dainty and slight and the boy so handsome and tall for his age that they walk at the same pace, their copper heads aligned. Little Henry Fitzroy is referred to everywhere as the Duke of Richmond; this brass-headed, smiling child is the greatest duke in the country.
Princess Mary holds his hand as they enter for the Christmas feast, and when he opens his New Year’s gift from his father the king—a magnificent set of gilt cups and pots—she smiles and applauds as if she is pleased to see him so highly rewarded. She glances across at me and sees my small nod of approval. If a princess of England is required to treat her father’s bastard as an honored half brother, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the head of the Council of the North, then my little princess—the true princess of England, Wales, Ireland, and France—can rise to this ordeal.
The Lady is not present, so we are spared her pushing in front of her betters; but there is no need for anyone to hope that the king is tired of her yet, for her father is everywhere, flaunting his new title.
Thomas Boleyn, the man who was once very glad to serve me as steward of my lands, is now the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, while his handsome but quite useless son George is Lord Rochford, appointed to the privy chamber with my cousin Henry Courtenay—where I doubt they will agree. The thankfully absent daughter becomes Lady Anne, and the previous Boleyn whore, Mary Carey, now serves in two contradictory posts: chief companion and sole confidante to her sister, and as a rather sheepish lady-in-waiting to the queen.
Montague tells me that at the banquet held before Christmas, to celebrate Thomas Boleyn’s remarkable rise, his daughter Anne walked before a princess born: the Dowager Queen of France, Mary. I cannot imagine the king’s mistress walking ahead of the king’s sister, the daughter of my steward preceding a dowager queen. My only comfort when Montague tells me of this is that I know Anne Boleyn has made herself a formidable enemy. The dowager queen is accustomed to being the first at court for rank, beauty, and wit, and no Norfolk-born slut is going to take that off her without a battle.
RICHMOND PALACE, WEST OF LONDON, SUMMER 1530
The first sign of the royal visit is the arrival of the household: the grooms with the cantering horses, ridden four abreast, the man in the king’s livery at the center, holding four sets of reins, the horses going steadily forward. Behind them come the men-at-arms, first the mounted riders in light riding armor, then—after a long pause—the slower carts carrying the hawks for hunting, with the hounds running alongside, a cart for the little dogs and pets, and then the household goods. The king’s luxuries go before him, his linen, his furniture, his carpets, his tapestries, the great riches of the treasury. The Lady’s gowns, headdresses, and jewels take two carts of their own, and her serving women ride alongside, not daring to take their eyes off her wardrobe.
Behind them come the cooks with all the utensils for the kitchens, and the stores for today’s feast and tomorrow.
Princess Mary, standing beside me on the tower at Richmond Palace, looking down at this winding cavalcade as it heads towards us, says hopefully: “Is he staying for a long time?”
I tighten my arm around her waist. “No. He’s going on from here. He’s just coming for the day.”
“Where’s he going?” she asks, forlorn.
“He’ll travel this summer,” I guess. “There’s news of the Sweat in London. He’ll go from one place to another again.”
“Then will he send for my mother and for me and it will be like the year when it was just us?” She looks up at me, suddenly hopeful.
I shake my head. “Not this year, I don’t think,” I say.
The king is determined to be charming to his daughter, you would almost think he wanted to win her to his side. From the moment his barge draws up to the pier with a shout of trumpets, to the moment he leaves at dusk, he is beaming at her, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, his head cocked to hear her speech. He looks as if he is sitting for a portrait entitled “A Loving Father,” he looks as if he is an actor performing in a masque, and his role is “The Righteous Parent.”
He has only a handful of companions with him: his usual friends, Charles Brandon and his wife, Mary, the Dowager Queen of France, my cousin Henry Courtenay and his wife, Gertrude, my son Montague and a few other gentlemen of the privy chamber. The Boleyn men are on the royal barge but there is no mention of either of the Boleyn whores, and the only ladies who dine with us are those in attendance on the king’s sister.
As soon as the king arrives, his breakfast is served, and he himself cuts the best meats and pours the sweetest watered wine for Princess Mary. He commands her to say grace for him and she does so quietly, in Greek, and he praises her learning and her composure. He nods his thanks to me. “You are polishing my jewel,” he says. “I thank you, Lady Margaret, you are a dear friend and kinswoman. I don’t forget that you have been watching over me and mine, like a loving mother, from my childhood.”
I bow. “It is a pleasure to serve the princess,” I say.
He smiles roguishly. “Not like me, when I was her age,” he twinkles, and I think, how urgently you move the conversation to you. How eagerly you prompt praise.
“Your Grace was the finest prince in the nursery,” I respond. “And so naughty! And so beloved!”
He chuckles and pats Mary’s hand. “I loved sport,” he says. “But I never neglected my studies. Everyone said that I excelled at everything I did. But,” he stages a shrug and a little laugh, “people always praise princes.”
They take the horses and go out hunting, and I command a picnic to be ready for them when they are tired. We meet in the woods to dine, and the musicians, hidden in the trees, play music that has been composed by the king himself. He asks the princess to sing for him and she makes a little curtsey to her aunt, the dowager queen, and sings a song in French, to please her.
The dowager queen, who was once a Princess Mary herself, rises from the table and kisses her niece, and gives her a gold and diamond bracelet. “She’s a delight,” she says quietly to me. “A princess through and through,” and I know we are both thinking of the little boy who is not and never can be a prince.
There is dancing after they have dined, and I find Montague at my side, as we watch the princess with her young ladies. “The queen stays at Windsor Castle,” he says. “But we have to go on. We are to meet up with the Lady and her court tonight.”
“But nothing changes?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing changes. This is how it is now: the queen at court and us trailing around with the Lady. There’s no joy in the summer anymore. It’s as if we are children who have run away from home. We’re tired of the adventure, but we have to endlessly pretend that we are having a wonderful time.”
“Is he not happy? Does she not make him happy?” I ask hopefully. If the king is not satisfied, then he will look.
“He’s still not had her,” Montague says bluntly. “She’s got him dancing on a thread. She’s a prize he has to win. He’s still, night and day, on the hunt, hoping that this day, this night, she will say yes. My God, but she knows how to entrap a man! She is always about to fall, but she keeps always a handbreadth, a moment out of his reach.”