Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory
is over.’
She was not yet ready to show him her full plan. ‘I shall write to my mother,’ was all she would reply. ‘But you are not to make arrangements for me to leave. It may be that I shall stay in England for a little while longer. If I am to be remarried, I could be remarried in England.’
‘To whom?’ he demanded.
She looked away from him. ‘How should I know? My parents and the king should decide.’
I have to find a way to put my marriage to Harry into the mind of the king. Now that he knows I am not with child surely it will occur to him that the resolution for all our difficulties is to marry me to Harry?
If I trusted Dr de Puebla more, I should ask him to hint to the king that I could be betrothed to Harry. But I do not trust him. He muddled my first marriage contract, I don’t want him muddling this one.
If I could get a letter to my mother without de Puebla seeing it then I could tell her of my plan, of Arthur’s plan.
But I cannot. I am alone in this. I do feel so fearfully alone.
‘They are going to name Prince Harry as the new Prince of Wales,’ Dona Elvira said quietly to the princess as she was brushing her hair in the last week of June. ‘He is to be Prince Harry, Prince of Wales.’
She expected the girl to break down at this last severing of her links with the past but Catalina did nothing but look around the room. ‘Leave us,’ she said shortly to the maids who were laying out her nightgown and turning down the bed.
They went out quietly and closed the door behind them. Catalina tossed back her hair and met Dona Elvira’s eyes in the mirror. She handed her the hairbrush again and nodded for her to continue.
‘I want you to write to my parents and tell them that my marriage with Prince Arthur was not consummated,’ she said, smoothly. ‘I am a virgin as I was when I left Spain.’
Dona Elvira was stunned, the hairbrush suspended in mid-air, her mouth open. ‘You were bedded in the sight of the whole court,’ she said.
‘He was impotent,’ Catalina said, her face as hard as a diamond.
‘You were together once a week.’
‘With no effect,’ she said, unwavering. ‘It was a great sadness to him, and to me.’
‘Infanta, you never said anything. Why did you not tell me?’
Catalina’s eyes were veiled. ‘What should I say? We were newly wed. He was very young. I thought it would come right in time.’
Dona Elvira did not even pretend to believe her. ‘Princess, there is no need for you to say this. Just because you have been a wife need not damage your future. Being a widow is no obstacle to a good marriage. They will find someone for you. They will find a good match for you, you do not have to pretend…’
‘I don’t want “someone”,’ Catalina said fiercely. ‘You should know that as well as me. I was born to be Princess of Wales and Queen of England. It was Arthur’s greatest wish that I should be Queen of England.’ She pulled herself back from thinking of him, or saying more. She bit her lip; she should not have tried to say his name. She forced down the tears and took a breath. ‘I am a virgin untouched, now, as I was in Spain. You shall tell them that.’
‘But we need say nothing, we can go back to Spain, anyway,’ the older woman pointed out.
‘They will marry me to some lord, perhaps an archduke,’ Catalina said. ‘I don’t want to be sent away again. Do you want to run my household in some little Spanish castle? Or Austria? Or worse? You will have to come with me, remember. Do you want to end up in the Netherlands, or Germany?’
Dona Elvira’s eyes darted away, she was thinking furiously. ‘No-one would believe us if we say you are a virgin.’
‘They would. You have to tell them. No-one would dare to ask me. You can tell them. It has to be you to tell them. They will believe you because you are close to me, as close as a mother.’
‘I have said nothing so far.’
‘And that was right. But you will speak now. Dona Elvira, if you don’t seem to know, or if you say one thing and I say another, then everyone will know that you are not in my confidence, that you have not cared for me as you should. They will think you are negligent of my interests, that you have lost my favour. I should think that my mother would recall you in disgrace if she thought that I was a virgin and you did not even know. You would never serve in a royal court again if they thought you had neglected me.’
‘Everyone saw that he was in love with you.’
‘No they didn’t. Everyone saw that we were together, as a prince and princess. Everyone saw that he came to my bedroom only as he had been ordered. No more. No-one can say what went on behind the bedroom door. No-one but me. And I say that he was impotent. Who are you to deny that? Do you dare to call me a liar?’
The older woman bowed her head to gain time. ‘If you say so,’ she said carefully. ‘Whatever you say, Infanta.’
‘Princess.’
‘Princess,’ the woman repeated.
‘And I do say it. It is my way ahead. Actually, it is your way ahead too. We can say this one, simple thing and stay in England; or we can return to Spain in mourning and become next to nobody.’
‘Of course, I can tell them what you wish. If you wish to say your husband was impotent and you are still a maid then I can say that. But how will this make you queen?’
‘Since the marriage was not consummated, there can be no objection to me marrying Prince Arthur’s brother Harry,’ Catalina said in a hard, determined voice.
Dona Elvira gasped with shock at this next stage.
Catalina pressed on. ‘When this new emissary comes from Spain you may inform him that it is God’s will and my desire that I be Princess of Wales again, as I always have been. He shall speak to the king. He shall negotiate, not my widow’s jointure, but my next wedding.’
Dona Elvira gaped. ‘You cannot make your own marriage!’
‘I can,’ Catalina said fiercely. ‘I will, and you will help me.’
‘You cannot think that they will let you marry Prince Harry?’
‘Why should they not? The marriage with his brother was not consummated. I am a virgin. The dowry to the king is half-paid. He can keep the half he already has and we can give him the rest of it. He need not pay my jointure. The contract has been signed and sealed, they need only change the names, and here I am in England already. It is the best solution for everyone. Without it I become nothing; you certainly are nobody. Your ambition, your husband’s ambition, will all come to nothing. But if we can win this then you will be the mistress of a royal household, and I will be as I should be: Princess of Wales and Queen of England.’
‘They will not let us!’ Dona Elvira gasped, appalled at her charge’s ambition.
‘They will let us,’ Catalina said fiercely. ‘We have to fight for it. We have to be what we should be; nothing less.’