Katharine, the Virgin Widow Read online

  “We shall do well enough here.”

  “I envy you the quiet of Durham House,” said the Queen.

  “Tell me when your child is expected.”

  “In February.” The Queen shivered. “The coldest month.”

  Katharine looked into the face of the older woman and saw there a resigned look; she wondered what it meant.

  “I trust you will have a Prince,” Katharine murmured.

  “Pray that I may have a healthy child. I have lost two at an early age. It is so sad when they live a little and then die. So much suffering…that one may endure more suffering.”

  “You have three healthy children left to you. I have never seen such sparkling health as Henry’s.”

  “Henry, Margaret and Mary…they all enjoy good health, do they not? My life has taught me not to hope for too much. But I did not come to talk of myself, but of you.”

  “Of me!”

  “Yes, of you. I guessed how you would be feeling. Here you live almost a prisoner, one might say, in a strange country, while plans are made for your future. I understand, for I have not had an easy life. There has been so much strife. I can remember being taken into the Sanctuary of Westminster by my mother. My little brothers were with us then. You have heard that they were lost to us…murdered, I dare swear. You see, I have come to tell you that I feel sympathy for you because I myself have suffered.”

  “I shall never forget how kind you are.”

  “Remember this: suffering does not last for ever. One day you will come out of this prison. You will be happy again. Do not despair. That is what I have come to say to you.”

  “And you came through the cold to tell me that?”

  “It may be my last opportunity.”

  “I hope that I may come and see you when the child is born.”

  The Queen smiled faintly and looked a little sad.

  “Do not look like that,” Katharine cried out in sudden panic. She was thinking of her sister Isabella, who had come back to Spain to have her child, the little Miguel who had died before he was two years old. Isabella had had some premonition of death.

  She expected some reproof from the Queen for her outburst, but Elizabeth of York, who knew what had happened to the young Isabella, understood full well the trend of her thoughts.

  She stood up and kissed Katharine’s brow. That kiss was like a last farewell.

  * * *

  IT WAS CANDLEMAS-DAY and the cold February winds buffeted the walls of the Palace of the Tower of London, although the Queen was unaware of them.

  She lay on her bed, racked by pain, telling herself: It will soon be over. And after this, should I live through it, there cannot be many more. If this could be a son…if only this could be a son!

  Then briefly she wondered how many Queens had lain in these royal apartments and prayed: Let this be a son.

  It must be a son, she told herself, for this will be the last.

  She was trying to shake off this premonition which had been with her since she knew she was to have another child. If her confinement could have taken place anywhere but in this Tower of London she would have felt happier. She hated the place. Sometimes when she was alone at night she fancied she could hear the voices of her brothers calling her. She wondered then if they called her from some nearby grave.

  This was a sign of her weakness. Edward and Richard were dead. Of that she was certain. The manner of their dying could be of little importance to them now. Would they come back to this troublous Earth even if they could? For what purpose? To denounce their uncle as a murderer? To engage in battle against their sister’s husband for the crown?

  “Edward! Richard!” she whispered. “Is it true that somewhere within the gray walls of these towers your little bodies lie buried?”

  A child was coming into the world. Its mother should not think of the other children—even though they were her own brothers—who had been driven out of it before their time.

  Think of pleasant things, she commanded herself: Of rowing down the river with her ladies, with good Lewis Walter, her bargeman, and his merry watermen; think of the Christmas festivities at Richmond. The minstrels and the reciters had been more engaging than usual. She smiled, thinking of her chief minstrel who was always called Marquis Lorydon. What genius! What power to please! And the others—Janyn Marcourse and Richard Denouse—had almost as much talent as Lorydon. Her fool, Patch, had been in great form last Christmas; she had laughed lightheartedly at his antics with Goose, young Henry’s fool.

  How pleased Henry had been because Goose had shone so brilliantly. It had pleased the boy because his fool was as amusing as those of the King and Queen.

  Henry must always be to the fore, she mused. “Ah well, it is a quality one looks for in a King.”

  There had been a pleasant dance too by a Spanish girl from Durham House. Elizabeth had rewarded her with four shillings and fourpence for her performance. The girl had been indeed grateful. Poor child, there were few luxuries at Durham House.

  The Queen’s face creased into anxiety. Where will it all end? she asked herself. She thought of her son Henry, his eyes glistening with pride because his fool, Goose, could rival the fools of his parents. She thought of the lonely Infanta at Durham House.

  The fate of Princes is often a sad one, she was thinking; and then there was no time for further reflection.

  The child was about to be born, and there was nothing left for the Queen but her immediate agony.

  * * *

  THE ORDEAL WAS OVER, and the child lay in the cradle—a sickly child, but still a child that lived.

  The King came to his wife’s bedside, and tried not to show his disappointment that she had borne a girl.

  “Now we have one son and three bonny girls,” he said. “And we are young yet.”

  The Queen caught her breath in fear. Not again, she thought. I could not endure all that again.

  “Yes, we are young,” went on the King. “You are but thirty-seven, and I am not yet forty-six. We still have time left to us.”

  The Queen did not answer that. She merely said: “Henry, let us call her Katharine.”

  The King frowned, and she added: “After my sister.”

  “So shall it be,” answered the King. It was well enough to name the child after Elizabeth’s sister Katharine, Lady Courtenay, who was after all the daughter of a King. He would not have wished the child to be named Katharine after the Infanta. Ferdinand and Isabella would have thought he was showing more favor to their daughter, and that would not have been advisable.

  The bargaining had to go on with regard to their daughter; and he wanted them to know that it was they who must sue for favors now. He was still mourning for that half of the dowry which had not been paid.

  He noticed that the Queen looked exhausted and, taking her hand, he kissed it. “Rest now,” he commanded. “You must take great care of yourself, you know.”

  Indeed I must, she thought meekly. I have suffered months of discomfort and I have produced but a girl. I have to give him sons…or die in the attempt.

  * * *

  IT WAS A WEEK after the birth of the child when the Queen became very ill. When her women went into her chamber and found her in a fever they sent a messenger at once to the King’s apartments.

  Henry in shocked surprise came hurrying to his wife’s bedside, for she had seemed to recover from the birth and he had already begun to assure himself that by this time next year she might be brought to bed of a fine boy.

  When he looked at her he was horrified, and he sent at once for Dr. Hallyswurth, his best physician, who most unfortunately was at this time absent from the Court in his residence beyond Gravesend.

  All through the day the King waited for the arrival of Dr. Hallyswurth, believing that, although other physicians might tell him that the Queen was suffering from a fever highly dangerous after childbirth, Dr. Hallyswurth would have the remedy which would save her life.

  As soon as the doctor was found a
nd the King’s message delivered he set out for the Court, but dusk had fallen when he came, lighted by torches into the precincts of the Tower.

  He was taken at once to the Queen’s bedchamber, but, even as he took her hand and looked into her face, Elizabeth had begun to fight for her breath and the doctor could only sadly shake his head. A few minutes later Elizabeth sank back on her pillows. The daughter of Edward IV was dead.

  Henry stared at her in sorrow. She had been a good wife to him. Where could he have found a better? She was but thirty-seven years of age. This dolorous day, February 11th of the year 1503, was the anniversary of her birth.

  “Your Grace,” murmured Dr. Hallyswurth, “there was nothing that could have been done to save her. Her death is due to the virulent fever which often follows childbirth. She was not strong enough to fight it.”

  The King nodded. Then he said: “Leave me now. I would be alone with my grief.”

  * * *

  THE BELLS OF ST. PAUL’S began to toll; and soon others joined in the dismal honor to the dead, so that all over London the bells proclaimed the death of the Queen.

  In the Tower chapel she lay in state. Her body had been wrapped in sixty ells of holland cloth and treated with gums, balms, spices, wax and sweet wine. She had been enclosed by lead and put into a wooden coffin over which had been laid a black velvet pall with a white damask cross on it.

  She had been carried into the lying-in-state chamber by four noblemen. Her sister Katharine, the Earl of Surrey and the Lady Elizabeth Stafford led the procession which followed the coffin; and when mass had been said, the coffin remained in the lighted chamber while certain ladies and men-at-arms kept vigil over it.

  All through the long night they waited. They thought of her life and her death. How could they help it if they remembered those little boys, her brothers, who had been held in captivity in this very Tower and had been seen no more?

  Where did their bodies lie now? Could it be that near this very spot, where their sister lay in state, those two little boys were hidden under some stone, under some stair?

  * * *

  A WEEK AFTER the death of Queen Elizabeth, the little girl, whose existence had cost the Queen her life, also died.

  Here was another blow for the King, but he was not a man to mourn for long. His thoughts were busy on that day when his wife was carried to her tomb.

  It was the twelfth day after her death and, after mass had been said, the coffin was placed on a carriage which was covered with black velvet. On the coffin a chair had been set up containing an image of the Queen, exact in size and detail; this figure had been dressed in robes of state and there was a crown on its flowing hair. About the chair knelt her ladies, their heads bowed in grief. Here they remained while the carriage was drawn by six horses from the Tower to Westminster.

  The people had lined the streets to see the cortège pass and there were many to speak of the good deeds and graciousness of the dead Queen.

  The banners which were carried in the procession were of the Virgin Mary, of the Assumption, of the Salutation and the Nativity, to indicate that the Queen had died in childbirth. The Lord Mayor and the chief citizens, all wearing the deepest mourning, took their places in the procession; and in Fenchurch Street and Cheapside young girls waited to greet the funeral carriage. There were thirty-seven of them—one for each year of the Queen’s life; they were dressed in white to indicate their virginity and they all carried lighted tapers.

  When the cortège reached Westminster the coffin was taken into the Abbey, ready for the burial which would take place the next morning.

  The King asked to be left alone in his apartments. He was genuinely distressed, because he did not believe that he could ever find a consort to compare with the one he had lost. She had had everything to give him—royal lineage, a right to the crown of England, beauty, docility and to some extent fertility.

  Yet, there was little time in the life of kings for mourning. He was no longer a young romantic. That was for youth, and should never be for men who were destined for kingship.

  He could not prevent his thoughts from going back to the past. He remembered now how, when Edward IV’s troops had stormed Pembroke Castle, he had been discovered there, a little boy five years old, with no one to care for him but his old tutor, Philip ap Hoell. He could recall his fear at that moment when he heard the rough tread of soldiers mounting the stairs and knew that his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, had already fled leaving him, his little nephew, to the mercy of his enemies.

  Sir William Herbert had been in charge of those operations, and it was well that he had brought his lady with him; for when she saw the friendless little boy she had scolded the men for daring to treat him as a prisoner, and had taken him in her arms and purred over him as though he were a kitten. That had been the strangest experience he had ever known until that time. Philip ap Hoell would have died for him, but their relationship had never been a tender one.

  He recalled his life in the Herbert household. Sir William had become the Earl of Pembroke, for the title was taken from Uncle Jasper Tudor and bestowed on Sir William for services rendered to his King.

  It had been strange to live in a large family; there were three sons and six daughters in the Herbert home, and one of these was Maud. There had been fighting during his childhood—the continual strife between York and Lancaster; and, when Lancastrian victory brought back the earldom and castle of Pembroke to Jasper Tudor, Henry was taken from the Herberts to live with his uncle once more.

  He remembered the day when he had heard that Maud had been married to the Earl of Northumberland. That was a sad day; yet he did not despair; he had never been one to despair; he considered his relationship with Maud, and he was able to tell himself that, although he had loved her dearly, he loved all the Herberts; and if marriage with Maud was denied him he could still be a member of that beloved family by marrying Maud’s sister, Katharine.

  And then fortune had changed. A more glorious marriage had been hinted at. Why should not the Tudor (hope of the Lancastrian House) marry the daughter of the King, for thus the red and white roses could flower side by side in amity?

  He had then begun to know himself. He was no romantic boy—had never been a romantic boy. Had he wished to marry Maud that he might become a member of a family which had always seemed to him the ideal one, because from loneliness he had been taken into it by Lady Herbert and found youthful happiness there? Perhaps, since it had seemed that Katharine would do instead of Maud.

  But the match with Elizabeth of York had been too glorious to ignore and he was ready to give up all thoughts of becoming a member of his ideal family, for the sake of a crown.

  Life had never been smooth. There had been so many alarms, so many moments when it had seemed that his goal would never be reached. And while he had waited for Elizabeth he had found Katherine Lee, the daughter of one of his attendants—sweet gentle Katherine, who had loved him so truly that she had been ready to give him up when, by doing so, he could be free to marry the daughter of a King.

  He was a cold man. He had been faithful to Elizabeth even though Katherine Lee had been one of her maids of honor. He saw her often, yet he had never given a sign that she was any more to him than any other woman of the Palace.

  Now Elizabeth was dead, and she left him three children. Only three! He must beget more children. It was imperative.

  Forty-six! That is not old. A man can still beget children at forty-six.

  But there was little time to lose. He must find a wife quickly. He thought of all the weary negotiations. Time…precious time would be lost.

  Then an idea struck him. There was a Princess here in England—she was young, personable and healthy enough to bear children.

  What time would be saved! Time often meant money, so it was almost as necessary to save the former as the latter.

  Why not? She would be agreeable. So would her parents. This halfhearted betrothal to a Prince of eleven—what was that, c
ompared with marriage with a crowned King?

  His mind was made up; his next bride would be Katharine of Aragon. The marriage should be arranged as quickly as possible; and then—more sons for England.

  The next day Queen Elizabeth was laid in her grave; but the King’s thoughts were not with the wife whom he had lost but with the Infanta in Durham House who should take the place of the dead woman.

  Bad News from Spain

  KATHARINE WAS HORRIFIED.

  She sat with her maid of honor, staring at the embroidery in her hands, trying in vain to appear calm.

  They tried to comfort her.

  “He will not live very long,” said the incorrigible Francesca. “He is old.”

  “He could live for twenty years more,” put in Maria de Rojas.

  “Not he! Have you not noticed how pale he is…and has become more so? He is in pain when he walks.”

  “That,” Maria de Salinas said, “is rheumatism, a disease which many suffer from in England.”

  “He is such a cold man,” said Francesca.

  “Hush,” Maria de Salinas reproved her, “do you not see that you distress the Infanta? Doubtless he would make a kind husband. At least he was a faithful one to the late Queen.”

  Francesca shivered. “Ugh! I would rather such a man were unfaithful than show me too much attention.”

  “I cannot believe that my mother will agree to this match,” Katharine exclaimed anxiously, “and unless she does, it will never take place.”

  Maria de Salinas looked sadly at her mistress. There was no doubt that Queen Isabella loved her daughter and would be happy if she returned to Spain, but she would certainly give her blessing to the marriage if she considered it advantageous to Spain. Poor Infanta! A virgin widow preserved for an ageing man, whose rheumatism often made him irritable; a cold, dour man, who wanted her only because he wanted to keep a firm hand on her dowry and believed that she could give him sons.