Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory
but her son Henry, and his son, Prince Harry.
She will help no-one but she will serve the interests of her own family first. She will consider me as only one candidate among many for his hand in marriage. God forgive her, she might even look to a French bride for him and then I will have failed not only Arthur but my own mother and father too, who need me to maintain the alliance between England and Spain and the enmity between England and France.
This year has been hard for me, I had expected a year of mourning and then a new betrothal; I have been growing more and more anxious since no-one seems to be planning such a thing. And now I am afraid that it will get worse. What if King Henry decides to surrender the second part of the dowry and sends me home? What if they betroth Harry, that foolish boy, to someone else? What if they just forget me? Hold me as a hostage to the good behaviour of Spain but neglect me? Leave me at Durham House, a shadow princess over a shadow court, while the real world goes on elsewhere?
I hate this time of year in England, the way the winter lingers on and on in cold mists and grey skies. In the Alhambra the water in the canals will be released from frost and starting to flow again, icy cold, rushing deep with melt-water from the snows of the sierra. The earth will be starting to warm in the gardens, the men will be planting flowers and young saplings, the sun will be warm in the mornings and the thick hangings will be taken down from the windows so the warm breezes can blow through the palace again.
The birds of summer will come back to the high hills and the olive trees will shimmer their leaves of green and grey. Everywhere the farmers will be turning over the red soil, and there will be the scent of life and growth.
I long to be home; but I will not leave my post. I am not a soldier who forgets his duty, I am a sentry who wakes all night. I will not fail my love. I said ‘I promise’, and I do not forget it. I will be constant to him. The garden that is immortal life, al-Yanna, will wait for me, the rose will wait for me in al-Yanna, Arthur will wait for me there. I will be Queen of England as I was born to be, as I promised him I would be. The rose will bloom in England as well as in heaven.
There was a great state funeral for Queen Elizabeth, and Catalina was in mourning black again. Through the dark lace of her mantilla she watched the orders of precedence, the arrangements for the service, she saw how everything was commanded by the great book of the king’s mother. Even her own place was laid down, behind the princesses, but before all the other ladies of the court.
Lady Margaret, the king’s mother, had written down all the procedures to be followed at the Tudor court, from birth chambers to lying in state, so that her son and the generations which she prayed would come after him would be prepared for every occasion, so that each occasion would match another, and so that every occasion, however distant in the future, would be commanded by her.
Now her first great funeral, for her unloved daughter-in-law, went off with the order and grace of a well-planned masque at court, and as the great manager of everything she stepped up visibly, unquestionably, to her place as the greatest lady at court.
2nd April 1503
It was a year to the day that Arthur had died and Catalina spent the day alone in the chapel of Durham House. Father Geraldini held a memorial Mass for the young prince at dawn and Catalina stayed in the little church, without breaking her fast, without taking so much as a cup of small ale, all the day.
Some of the time she kneeled before the altar, her lips moving in silent prayer, struggling with the loss of him with a grief which was as sharp and as raw as the day that she had stood on the threshold of his room and learned that they could not save him, that he would die, that she would have to live without him.
For some of the long hours, she prowled around the empty chapel, pausing to look at the devotional pictures on the walls or the exquisite carving of the pew ends and the rood screen. Her horror was that she was forgetting him. There were mornings when she woke and tried to see his face, and found that she could see nothing beneath her closed eyelids, or worse, all she could see was some rough sketch of him, a poor likeness: the simulacrum and no longer the real thing. Those mornings she would sit up quickly, clench her knees up to her belly, and hold herself tight so that she did not give way to her agonising sense of loss.
Then, later in the day she would be talking to her ladies, or sewing, or walking by the river, and someone would say something, or she would see the sun on the water and suddenly he would be there before her, as vivid as if he were alive, lighting up the afternoon. She would stand quite still for a moment, silently drinking him in, and then she would go on with the conversation, or continue her walk, knowing that she would never forget him. Her eyes had the print of him on their lids, her body had the touch of him on her skin, she was his, heart and soul, till death: not – as it turned out – till his death; but till her death. Only when the two of them were gone from this life would their marriage in this life be over.
But on this, the anniversary of his death, Catalina had promised herself that she should be alone, she would allow herself the indulgence of mourning, of railing at God for taking him.
‘You know, I shall never understand Your purpose,’ I say to the statue of the crucified Christ, hanging by His bloodstained palms over the altar. ‘Can you not give me a sign? Can you not show me what I should do?’
I wait but He says nothing. I have to wonder if the God who spoke so clearly to my mother is sleeping, or gone away. Why should He direct her, and yet remain silent for me? Why should I, raised as a fervently Christian child, a passionately Roman Catholic child, have no sense of being heard when I pray from my deepest grief? Why should God desert me, when I need Him so much?
I return to the embroidered kneeler before the altar but I do not kneel on it in a position of prayer, I turn it around and sit on it, as if I were at home, a cushion pulled up to a warm brazier, ready to talk, ready to listen. But no-one speaks to me now. Not even my God.
‘I know it is Your will that I should be queen,’ I say thoughtfully, as if He might answer, as if He might suddenly reply in a tone as reasonable as my own. ‘I know that it is my mother’s wish too. I know that my darling –’ I cut short the end of the sentence. Even now, a year on, I cannot take the risk of saying Arthur’s name, even in an empty chapel, even to God. I still fear an outpouring of tears, the slide into hysteria and madness. Behind my control is a passion for Arthur like a deep mill pond held behind a sluice gate. I dare not let one drop of it out. There would be a flood of sorrow, a torrent.
‘I know that he wished I should be queen. On his deathbed, he asked for a promise. In Your sight, I gave him that promise. In Your name I gave it. I meant it. I am sworn to be queen. But how am I to do it? If it is Your will, as well as his, as I believe, if it is Your will as well as my mother’s, as I believe, then, God: hear this. I have run out of stratagems. It has to be You. You have to show me the way to do it.’
I have been demanding this of God with more and more urgency for a year now; while the endless negotiations about the repayment of the dowry and the payment of the jointure drag on and on. Without one clear word from my mother I have come to think that she is playing the same game as me. Without doubt, I know that my father will have some long tactical play in mind. If only they would tell me what I should do! In their discreet silence I have to guess that they are leaving me here as bait for the king. They are leaving me here until the king sees, as I see, as Arthur saw, that the best resolution of this difficulty would be for me to marry Prince Harry.