The child was carried to the Queen, who took him into her arms and murmured a blessing. Then the King took the child and did the same.
All those present looked on smiling.
“Long live Prince Henry,” murmured the Countess of Richmond and the cry was taken up throughout the chamber.
Life had not gone smoothly for the Queen Dowager since she had lost the King of Scotland. She had suddenly realized that her days of power were over. It was scarcely likely that the King would find another husband for her now. She could not reconcile herself to spending the rest of her life in a convent. Yet it seemed that that was the intention of the King and his overbearing mother; and if it was their wish it would be very difficult for her to evade it.
She spent most of the days in dreaming of the past. It is a sorry state of affairs when a woman who once enslaved a king has come to this, she thought.
She was not so very old. It was true that she would not see fifty again, but she was still beautiful and she had always been mindful of her outstanding beauty and had sought to preserve it. If she were fifty-five years of age she certainly did not look it. And yet of late she had begun to feel it. She experienced unaccountable little aches and pains, an inability to breathe easily, the odd little pain here and there.
Age! How tiresome it was. If only she were young as she had been when she had gone into Whittlebury Forest. But she must stop brooding on the past. But could she when the past had been so thrilling, so exciting, so adventuresome . . . and now . . . what was she? A queen still, mother of a queen . . . but a queen who had become the tool of a cold stern man who was quite immune to the charms and wisdom of his mother-in-law.
Of course it is that woman, she thought. Surely the mother of the Queen carries as much weight as the mother of the King . . . or should do when the Queen had far more right to the throne than the King had, who in fact had acquired it largely through his marriage with the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville.
It was old ground and perhaps she shouldn’t go over it perpetcually. And yet how could she help it? What was there to do in her nunnery except relive the glories of the past?
One morning when she awoke she began to cough and during the day found great difficulty in breathing. Her attendants propped her up with cushions and that eased her a little but by nightfall she felt very weak.
She thought: Is this the end then? Is this how death comes?
She thought of Edward the King who had been so strong and well one day and then had had that fit of apoplexy, which she was sure had been brought on by the shock of hearing that the King of France had broken his treaty with him, and their daughter was not to be Madame La Dauphine after all. But he had recovered from that and seemed well . . . but soon afterward quite suddenly he had died after catching a cold when he was out fishing.
It was better if death came swiftly. Who wanted to outlive one’s power? Certainly no one who had enjoyed so much as Elizabeth Woodville. But the thought of death was sobering when one brooded on all the sins one had committed, all the things one should have done and those which had been left undone.
A woman has to live . . . to fight her way through, particularly if she has after much success been visited by adversity.
But she had outlived her power . . . and her wealth. She had very little left for herself after having supported her girls. It would have been different if her son had come to the throne . . . little Edward the Fifth. Little son, what happened to you there in the Tower? What dark secret is hidden from me? You were the delight of our lives when you were born in Sanctuary, your father overseas, striving to come back and claim his throne. You were delicate. I know you suffered some pain. I was glad you had your brother Richard with you in the Tower. You wanted him to be with you so much. Yet if I had not let him go to you . . . perhaps he would be with us now.
In her heart she admitted that she had let him go for the sake of her freedom. It was an ultimatum they had delivered to her. Suppose she had held Richard back? Would he have been King now? Never. The Tudor would have come just the same and taken the throne.
If Edward were living today what would he think? The first thing he would do would be to take up arms and drive the Tudor from the throne. He would see the red rose trampled in the dust, the white triumphant.
But the white rose lived on in Henry’s wife, the present Queen. That was the irony of it. Lancaster and York reigning side by side—but it was only token power for York. It was Lancaster through Henry Tudor who wielded the real power.
The pain in her chest was growing worse.
“I should like to see my daughters,” she said.
Cecilia was the first to come. She knelt by the bed, alarmed to see the beautiful face so pale and sunken.
“Dear mother,” she said, “you must get well.”
“I feel I never shall again, my child,” said Elizabeth. “This is the end. Do not look so sad. We all have to go sometime and I have had a good life. Where is the Queen?”
“She has taken to her lying-in chamber. Her time is very near.”
“She does her duty by the Tudor. I hear young Henry flourishes.”
“Indeed, yes. He and Margaret are fine healthy children. I wish I could say the same for Arthur.”
“I never believed in that closed-in room, but the Countess insisted.”
“Margaret and Henry were born in the same conditions,” Cecilia gently reminded her. “Dear lady, should you not rest?”
“There is a long rest ahead of me. Cecilia, I am glad you are provided for. Is Lord Wells a good husband?”
“The best of husbands.”
“Then you are fortunate. And you lack for nothing, I believe. He is very rich.”
“We are very comfortable and happy, my lady.”
“I wish the others had been a little older so that I could see them settled.”
“Elizabeth will provide for them.”
“She must when I can no longer do so. I have very little to leave, Cecilia. You find me in dire poverty. I have been growing poorer and poorer.”
“But our father left you well provided for, did he not?”
“When York lost to Lancaster . . . I lost much of what he left to me. Your father’s personal property is in the hands of your grandmother. Cecily of York is one of the most avaricious old women I ever heard of.”
“Think not of money now, dear mother. Rest your voice.”
The Queen Dowager smiled and nodded. “Sit by my bed, dear child,” she said. “Hold my hand. I loved you all dearly . . . far more than I ever showed you.”
“We were so happy when we were children, dear mother. You and our father were like a god and goddess to us. We thought you perfect.”
“Neither of us was that, dear child, but whatever else we were we were loving parents.”
Seventeen-year-old Anne arrived next with her sisters Catherine and Bridget the youngest who had come from her convent at Dart-ford to be at her mother’s bedside. Anne was a source of anxiety to the Queen Dowager because she was seventeen years old, ripe for marriage. Who would look after her now? Elizabeth the Queen must do that. Catherine was eleven; there was time yet for her. Bridget was the only one whose future was assured for she was preparing herself to take the veil.
Elizabeth looked at them through misty eyes. Her beloved children. Was it only eleven years ago that Edward had been alive and they had rejoiced at the birth of this daughter?
She held out her hands to them. The younger girls looked at her with alarmed dismay. They had never seen her like this before, poor children, thought Cecilia. She looks so ill. I really believe this is the end.
“Bless you, dear daughters,” said the Queen Dowager. “I think I shall be gone before Whitsuntide.”
“Where shall you go?” asked Catherine.