These tête-à-têtes were becoming frequent. They were easy to arrange because of his position. I was known to set great store by clothes, and as he was my Wardrobe Clerk I would have a certain amount to say to him. I suppose one of my ladies might have conducted the necessary business, but it was not unnatural that I should want to do it myself.
I liked to listen to his musical voice with the accent which was now becoming familiar to me. He was proud of his ancestors with the unpronounceable names. I used to laugh as he reeled them off and I used to make him say them again, syllable by syllable.
How he loved to talk of Wales! I said: “I think your heart is still there, Owen Tudor.”
“A man’s heart often stays where he first saw the light of day, my lady. And you?”
I shook my head firmly. “No, Owen Tudor. I was very unhappy there. Home! That was the Hôtel de St.-Paul. You could not imagine it. Those cold and drafty rooms. Guillemote will tell you. She came to us when we were there. She looked after us…poor, hungry, shivering little children. We were kept there by our mother, who lived in luxury with her lover and spent so much on garments, perfumes and little pet animals that there was not enough to feed her children. And all the time there was the fear of that wild man…our father…who was often chained to his bed in a room more dismal than ours.”
I was startled by this outburst. This was no way for a queen to talk to one of her subjects. I stopped abruptly: “I…er…Forget what I said. I was carried away. It was what you said about one’s home. I never had a real home, Owen Tudor. This Windsor…with my son…is the best home I ever knew.”
I left him then. I was too emotional to remain. I sat alone in my apartment. Why had I allowed this to happen…to talk so frankly, so intimately…to my Clerk of the Wardrobe?
I wanted to tell Guillemote about it. But no. It was something I could not say to anyone. I could not understand it myself.
· · ·
I insisted that Owen tell me about his family. I loved to hear him talk; he had a love of words and could be carried away by his own rhetoric.
“My sire, my lady,” he told me, “was one Meredydd. He lived in Anglesey, that island at the head of wild Wales. He was what is known in those parts as Escheater of Anglesey, and I pray you do not ask what his duties entailed for I cannot tell you. Yet I know this: later he reveled in the post of Scutifer to the Bishop of Bangor, and I can tell you that that was a grand name for butler or steward. He married my mother. She was named Margaret, her father being Dafydd Fychan ap Dafydd Llwyd, which means that he was the son of the last named.”
He made me laugh and I was eager to hear more.
“My father Meredydd was a man of wild temper. If a word was uttered against him that did not please him, it would be his hand to his sword. I do not believe any were surprised when he killed a man.”
“Owen Tudor!”
“Alas, ’tis true, my lady. ’Twas before I entered this world. Perforce he fled to the mountains taking Margaret with him, and there in the shadow of great Snowdon, I was born.”
“And you left Wales to come and serve the King?”
“There I had good fortune. Look you, is it not so? A man knows this one…knows that one…and that can be another step up the ladder to fame. My father’s mother was a connection of the great Owen Glendower who was of some use to England. His own son, in time, entered King Henry’s army and so brought me to it.”
“So that is how you came to be with us?”
He looked at me earnestly and murmured: “’Twas the greatest good fortune I have ever known, my lady.”
“I am pleased. I often think that a warrior such as you will want to be off again…fighting.”
“My lady, I am more content here than I have ever been before.”
It was fulsome. But he was Welsh, I reminded myself. He had a poetic soul and might sometimes choose words for their musical sound rather than because they expressed the truth.
But I continued to look forward to our meetings; and they took my mind away, now and then, from the haunting fear that I might lose my son.
Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, was with me again, and I was delighted to see her, particularly as she brought with her her charming daughter of her first marriage, Jane.
Margaret was happier than she had been at our last meeting when she was mourning her husband. Now she had settled down to a life of widowhood and I could see that the center of that life was her daughter.
I found a great pleasure in their company. I, myself, was fast recovering from the shock of Henry’s death, and my nightly prayers were that I should continue in this state.
There was another visitor to Windsor. This was James I of Scotland.
It was not quite true to call James a prisoner in the ordinary sense. He was just being held in England until such time as the Scots paid his ransom.
James was a delightful companion. I had liked him from the moment I met him. I felt I knew him fairly well for he had been with us on our triumphant entry into Paris. Henry had taken him to France in the hope that he would be able to persuade the Scots there not to fight for the French. I believe he had not been very successful in this; but James himself had fought side by side with Henry in several battles and I could not believe that for one moment he saw himself as an enemy. He had been in exile for so long. I think at this time it was nineteen years. But he had always been treated as royalty. The only difference was that his liberty was curtailed. For instance, he could not ride out and return to Scotland. I had a sneaking notion that he had no desire to. Conditions above the border were somewhat harsh compared with the south; and while he was treated in a royal manner, I supposed James felt no restraint—or very little—in not being allowed complete freedom. He was happy enough to be in England. In any case, he never showed any nostalgia for his native land to my knowledge—in fact, he could scarcely have remembered it, for he was about ten years old, I believe, when he had been captured.
He had lived hardly any of his life in Scotland, for he told me that when he was eight years old he had been put into the care of the Earl of Northumberland to learn the manly arts and for a while was educated with the Earl’s grandson, who later became known as “Henry Hotspur.”
It was another case of a minor being too young to take over the government of his country; and his old, sick father decided he would send his young son to France for safety. His efforts failed, for the ship in which James was being taken was intercepted by the English; and that was how James came to be a prisoner awaiting the ransom to be paid.
He was writing a long poem about his life which he called The King’s Quair, and he used to read extracts from it to us, which we found both moving and entertaining.
So I grew very fond of James and hoped we should go on enjoying the peaceful days together for a long time.
It was inevitable that, as they were both at Windsor, one day James should meet Jane.
I remember the occasion vividly. James was in my apartment and we were looking down on the gardens as we chatted. Suddenly Jane came into view.
She looked up at the window and, seeing me with the King of Scotland, she bowed her head; then she looked up again and smiled.
“What a beautiful girl!” said James.
“Yes, is she not.”
“Who is she?”
“She is the daughter of the Duchess of Clarence. Her father was John Beaufort, the Earl of Somerset.”
“Oh…a Beaufort.”
“Yes. The Duchess’s first husband. Poor Margaret, she has been twice widowed.”
“Yes,” he said. “It is sad for her.”
At the earliest possible moment I presented Jane to him. James was clearly bemused. I was not sure of Jane. She was perhaps more in command of her feelings. They talked together for some time and I noticed that his eyes never left her face.