Catherine of Aragon (9 page)

There could not be a better start to this new year. Catherine has given birth to a boy, and all the church bells are ringing. The court has gone into instant rejoicing, and Henry is cock-a-hoop with pride. The child will be called after him, of course, another Henry to come to the throne in his turn, and all London knows a royal prince has been born. Bonfires burn in the streets and cannon are booming from the Tower.

Nobody seems to take much notice of Catherine in all this, but I am so happy for her, knowing as I do the delight of a living baby. Sometimes Michel picks Rosanna up by her little feet and holds her upside down in the air. I was horrified the first time he did it, but he says she may as well get used to the idea that the world is topsy turvy. And she seems to love it, crowing and gurgling with delight. I am making a new cap for her, sewn with tiny blue beads and satin ribbon.

21st February 1511

The celebrations were short-lived, as was the little prince. He died early this morning after barely seven weeks of quiet, sickly life. Catherine is distraught, and Henry walks about with an ashen face. This is the greatest blow he has ever suffered, and he has no way to combat it.

4th June 1511

Busy, busy, busy. Constant embroidery work for the court, and supervising all the other needlewomen as well. Michel says I am doing too much – looking after him and Rosanna is enough. Perhaps he is right. For a while, I thought I was pregnant again, but it came to nothing. I grieve a little for a child that might have been, even if it existed only in my imagination.

Henry's preparations for war continue. They seem to be some consolation to him for his lost son, but Catherine looks older, and has lost much of her happiness.

12th March 1512

I still have little time to write – or inclination, in fact. The days go by so fast, and Rosanna is walking now. Not just walking, but climbing and scrambling and getting into everything. She babbles in a mixture of English and Spanish, for I have always spoken to her in my own language, and she even knows a few French words as well, from Michel. This delights him, but it would be rash to speak French outside the safety of our own quarters. War fever is mounting, and the Pope has called on all the rulers of Europe to join in what he calls the Holy League against France. The Pope hates Louis because he was rash enough to criticize the Pope for having fathered so many illegitimate children. I cannot help feeling that these war games are a personal sport between men of power. Henry has bought 48 immense guns, each one over seven feet long, and has given them names and badges, as if they were living things.

 

 

17th March 1512

King James of Scotland has written to all the kings of Europe, calling for peace. We are all Christians, he says, and should learn to tolerate each other. I think he is right, but Catherine is contemptuous. She says James has no right to call himself a peacekeeper. “Look how often he has raided England's northern border,” she says.

Michel has a great respect for James. Court jesters know more than most people about what goes on in high circles, and they gossip among themselves constantly, of course, passing on any bits of scandalous news and scraps of inside information. Knowing what is happening is all part of their job. Those of them who know James all like him. He's a thoughtful man, they say, practical and yet imaginative, and he adores his wife even though he was so wild as a young man. Margaret expects another baby very soon. Michel says he sometimes wishes we were at the Scottish court instead of this one, but yesterday he added that it couldn't be as ridiculous as the English one. “This lot fancy themselves so important that they're half off their heads,” he said. “Fascinated with themselves. Quite absurd. And what would a jester do without absurdity? I'd be no good with James – he's much too sensible.”

Henry would be outraged. He likes to think of himself as extremely sensible. He spends a lot of time with Wolsey now, and is beginning to value his opinion more than Catherine's. Wolsey is what Michel calls “one of the New Men”. His father was a butcher in Ipswich, and he climbed out of the blood and sawdust through sheer cleverness. Henry is a New Man, too, I suppose, unlike James, who comes of the ancient Stuart line. He looks ahead to a grand future, and picks his friends accordingly. Wolsey is the only cleric I know who wears robes made from pure, heavy silk.

28th April 1512

Margaret's baby was born on the 10th of this month, and it is a boy, healthy and strong, the letter says. He, like his short-lived elder brother, will be called James. Perhaps Catherine and Henry, still childless, regret having sent her the Girdle of Our Lady, a most precious relic, reputed to work wonders for queens desiring the safe delivery of a child.

7th June 1512

Twelve thousand men have sailed for the Basque frontier between Spain and France, following 6,000 last week. Such numbers! They are under the command of the Marquess of Dorset, who seems to me a foppish gentleman for the business of war, but perhaps he will surprise us. And now we wait for news.

10th July 1512

Dorset's army waits at San Sebastian to be joined by the Spanish troops of Ferdinand. It must be terribly hot in that place between the mountains and the Bay of Biscay, and the English will not understand that one has to have a siesta in the afternoon. It's very unhealthy to be out in the blaze of midday. The French watch them and seem perplexed, the despatch says. No shot has yet been fired.

Catherine is frowning and puzzled. Her father should have met Dorset long before now, with cavalry troops and artillery as arranged. The English could not ship large numbers of horses, and they depend on Ferdinand to supply them with mounts. Something has gone wrong.

23rd July 1512

The court has begun to mutter that Ferdinand has betrayed Henry. Instead of meeting the English troops as he promised, he has gone straight to Navarre, where he is besieging that small kingdom, knowing the French will not come to its aid as they are still watching Dorset's army and waiting for it to make a move. But the English cannot move, for they still have no horses. They are sweltering in San Sebastian, bored and angry and drinking too much wine.

It's an embarrassing situation for Catherine. Her father it seems has deceived her as well as everyone else about his true intentions. Quite obviously, he has used the English troops to tie up the French while he, Ferdinand, gets on with taking Navarre. Catherine falls back on blaming the ambassador, Caroz, but he is as baffled as anyone else. And Henry, of course, is raging.

2nd September 1512

Another letter came from Dorset's army today, and its contents were soon common gossip. The men are on the point of mutiny. They are nearly all ill now, with a stomach sickness that has killed many of them. They blame the garlic! So stupid – but I can't help feeling sorry for them. Henry has sent a herald with a return message, telling Dorset the army must stay where it is for the winter, ready for a fresh campaign in the spring. “You see what I mean?” Michel said. “Totally absurd. They'll all be dead.”

29th September 1512

Henry's herald was shouted down. The soldiers would not listen, and their yells turned into a chant of “Home! Home! Home!” Henry will have to give in.

11th December 1512

The wretched stragglers who were once an army have come home. And Ferdinand has sent an incredibly insulting message, saying the English troops were of such poor quality that he couldn't use them. He adds that he has had to make peace with the French for six months, for fear they might invade England, having seen how hopeless the English soldiers are.

Henry is gibbering with rage. He was all for hanging the Marquess of Dorset the moment he set foot in England, but Catherine managed to dissuade him. It would do his reputation no good, she said. Better by far to show the watching world that England is still a nation to be feared. He must prepare for war next year. And this time, he must win.

20th December 1512

James of Scotland is still trying to negotiate a peace between France and her enemies. He sent an envoy to Paris – or at least, he tried to, but Henry turned the man back at the border. It's hardly surprising, Michel says. Henry knows a French ship arrived at the Leith docks two weeks ago laden with wine and cloth of gold, but also with artillery guns of a new and very accurate kind, together with 300 cannon balls and a large quantity of gunpowder.

13th January 1513

Henry was in a fresh storm of rage this morning. His spies in Scotland tell him that James has received a letter from the French queen, Anne of Brittany, with which she sends her glove and a turquoise ring, begging him to come to the aid of France when England and Spain attack her.

“She sent him her
glove
,” Michel said, exhausted after the hard work of restoring the King to something like good humour. “You know what that means. It is the traditional sign given to a knight by a lady in distress. Chivalry will not allow him to ignore it.”

Henry is infuriated that his brother-in-law takes up this high moral tone – “Posing,” he bellowed, “as the saintly peace-keeper of Europe!” Henry hates peace. Enemies are a necessary and enjoyable evil, part of the great game of war, but peace is the ultimate wet-blanket, undoing the game itself. We all breathed more easily when he went storming out to the river, there to be ferried down to Woolwich, to inspect the progress of his new ships that are being built. Whole forests have been cut down for the sake of this armada, and the sky seems strangely open and empty where the great oaks used to stand. But Henry loves his ships, specially the huge flagship, the
Great Harry
. Suits of armour arrive daily from Italy and Spain, together with hundreds of fine new swords and daggers, and he has twelve immense cannon, sent by Maximilian, which he calls
The Twelve Apostles
.

Both Catherine and Mary have received letters from Margaret in Scotland. She had a miscarriage in the autumn, and was ill for some time, and in recent weeks she has been much troubled by nightmares. She dreams constantly of her husband's death, and of standing alone on a high cliff in a desolate place, with the sea crashing on rocks a long way below her. She always sends loving wishes to Henry in her letters, but I doubt whether he writes back to her. Scotland, too, is part of the great game of war, and to see it through the eyes of his sister would be dangerously close to wishing for peace.

4th May 1513

Henry is deeply perturbed about the Queen of France's appeal to James. He has sent an envoy to Scotland – Nicholas West, the dry, virtuous Dean of Windsor – hoping to get a promise from James that he will not aid France in the coming war.

12th May 1513

West has returned, ruffled and angry, and the court is full of excited gossip, as usual. They try to pump Michel, who is closer to the King than any of them, but he tells them he is just the pet monkey, and hops and gibbers until they shrug and turn away. I know, as they do not, how much Henry confides in him, and what a strain it is to be called upon to find crumbs of comfort and amusement in a morass of bad news. West utterly failed to bribe James to stay on the English side. He failed, too, in a clumsy attempt to bribe Margaret, offering her the gold and jewels bequeathed to her by Arthur in return for a promise that she would persuade James not to help France. Margaret simply laughed and walked out, for which I admire her, and after that she removed herself and her small son, James, to the castle of Linlithgow. She is pregnant again, expecting a baby in the autumn, and I would hate to be in her situation, caught between two sides in the war which will now undoubtedly come soon.

30th June 1513

It has started. Henry and his great fleet have set sail, complete with all their guns and armour, banners, lances, provisions and horses (for he is taking his own cavalry this time). My fingers are sore from stitching, since this war is also a travelling pageant of Tudor glory. Every tunic and jerkin and cloak, every saddle-cloth and even every tent has been gold-embroidered, and the army set off under a moving forest of plumes and banners. We have used bale upon bale of cloth of gold, both red and white, and tissue of silver, as well as silks and velvets in crimson and blue and purple, and countless yards of green and white cloth have gone into the making of tents and covers for waggons. The armourers and smiths have been working equally hard, engraving designs of antelopes and swans on to breastplates and forging silver medallions for harnesses and little gold bells to tinkle on bridles. This is the greatest tournament of Henry's life, and he has revelled in every moment of it.

Catherine, too, has thrown herself into it all. She rode to Dover with Henry at the head of the long procession, and at the sea's edge he proclaimed her Governor of the Realm in his absence, and put her in charge of northern defences. I did not go, for I am certainly pregnant again now, and it is making me often sick. Catherine agreed that I could stay at home when Michel spoke to her on my behalf. I felt ashamed to do so, for Catherine herself is expecting a child, and I suspect that she must despise me for giving in to such weakness. She ignores her condition, just as her mother did, the battling Isabella. Those who came back say she made a fiery speech to the assembled men. I can imagine how her Spanish-accented English rang out over the breaking of the waves.

And now they are gone. Henry insisted on taking Michel with him, and Rosanna does not understand where Papa has gone. God keep him safe.

29th July 1513

A messenger brought news today that Henry met as arranged with the Emperor Maximilian's army, under the walls of a French town called Thérouanne. It was pouring with rain. Such a shame, when the army had set out looking so glorious in its red and gold and Tudor-green. And Maximilian's men were all in black. It must have amused Michel – Henry's troops decked out in magnificence while the old Habsburg bandit sticks to practicalities. He does not play at war; it is his business.