Mary, Bloody Mary

CHAPTER ONE

King Francis

I inherited King Henry’s fiery temper — no one would deny that! And so, on the day I learned that he had betrothed me to the king of France, I exploded.

“I cannot believe that my father would pledge me to that disgusting old man!” I raged, and hurled the bed pillows on to the floor of my chamber. “I shall not, not, NOT marry him!”

I was but ten years old and had yet to master my anger nor learn its use as a weapon. I shouted and stamped my feet until at last my fury subsided in gusts of tears. Between sobs I stole glances at my governess, the long-nosed Lady Margaret, countess of Salisbury. She stitched on her needlework as though nothing were happening.

“Come now,” the countess soothed, her needle flicking in and out, in and out, “it is only a betrothal, and that — as you well know — is quite a long way from marriage. Besides, madam, the king wishes it.”

Her calm made me even angrier. “I don’t care what he wishes! My father pays so little attention to me that I doubt he even remembers who I am!”

A thin smile creased Salisbury’s face, and she set down her embroidery hoop and dabbed at my cheeks with a fine linen handkerchief. “He knows, dear Mary, he knows. You grow more like him every day — his fair skin, his lively blue eyes, his shining red-gold hair.” She tucked the handkerchief into the sleeve of her kirtle and sighed. “And, unfortunately, his temper as well.”

Suddenly exhausted, I flung myself on to my great bed. “When is it to be, Salisbury?” I murmured.

“King Francis and his court intend to arrive in April for the Feast of Saint George. We have three months to prepare. The royal dressmaker will soon begin work on your new gown. Your mother, the queen, sent word that she favours green trimmed with white for you. You’re to have a cloak made of cloth of gold.”

“I hate green,” I grumbled. Perhaps this was a battle I could win, although my gentle, patient mother matched my father in stubbornness. “And I absolutely do not care if green and white are our royal colours!”

“It seems that today madam dislikes nearly everything,” Salisbury said. “Perhaps in the morning the world will look better.”

“It will not.”

“Nevertheless, madam, it is time for prayers.”

I slid down from my lofty mattress and knelt on the cold stone floor beside the governess, as I did every night and every morning, and together we recited our prayers.

That finished, two of the serving maids came to remove my kirtle and dress me in my silk sleeping skirt. They snuffed out the candles until only one still burned. I climbed back on to my high bedstead and, propped on one elbow, watched my governess stretch out carefully on the narrow trundle next to my bed and draw up the satin coverlet. Salisbury was tall, and the coverlet was short. When she pulled the coverlet up to her sharp chin, her feet stuck out. This was the first all day that I had felt the least bit like laughing.

SOON AFTER my eleventh birthday in the spring of 1527, I, Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, king of England, and his wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, teetered on a stool. The royal dressmaker and her assistants pulled and pushed at my betrothal gown, pinning and tucking the heavy green silk. Would they never be done with it? My head ached, and my stomach felt queasy.

“Come, madam,” the dressmaker coaxed. “You want to please your bridegroom, do you not?”

“No, I do not,” I snapped. From everything I had overheard from the gossiping ladies of the household, Francis, king of France, was extremely ugly and repulsive, a lecherous old man afflicted with warts and pockmarks and foul breath.

“But your father, the king, wishes it,” the dressmaker reminded me.

I sighed and stood straight and motionless. Your father, the king, wishes it. How I had come to dread those words! Soon the French king and his court would arrive, and I, obeying my father’s wishes, would place my little hand in the grisly paw of the horrible Francis and promise to be his bride.

FINALLY THE GOWN was ready, the preparations finished, and my trunks packed for the journey to London from my palace in Ludlow, near the Welsh border. Travelling with my entourage of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, Salisbury and I were carried in the royal litter, which was lined with padded silk and plump velvet cushions and borne between two white horses. After almost two weeks of bumping over washed-out roads, we arrived, muddy and bedraggled, at Greenwich Palace on the River Thames, five miles east of London.

As I ran through the palace to find my mother, I found myself surrounded by commotion. New tapestries had been hung along the walls in the Great Hall. The royal musicians and costumers bustled about arranging masques and other entertainments. Carts delivered provisions for the banquets to the palace kitchens.

Despite the excitement, or perhaps because of it, I felt unwell. As the arrival of the French king neared, I suffered headaches and a queasiness of the stomach. My physician treated them with doses of evil-tasting potions, but they did no good.

Then word came that the ships carrying King Francis and his attendants had been delayed by storms. My bridegroom would not arrive until the weather cleared. An idea occurred to me: maybe his ship will he lost. Maybe he will drown and I won’t ever have to marry him. Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I regretted it. As I had been instructed since early childhood, I would have to admit these wicked thoughts to my confessor, do penance, and receive absolution.

But as long as I had committed such a sin — a rather small one, in my opinion — I decided that I might as well try to turn it to my advantage. Kneeling on the hard stone floor, my spine straight as a lance, my hands clasped beneath my chin, my eyes turned towards Heaven, I prayed: dear God, if it be thy will to take King Francis, please send a good husband in his stead!

I was not sure what a good husband was. For that I put my trust in God.

FOR NEARLY THREE weeks the storms raged and then suddenly abated. Towards mid-April King Francis and his huge retinue of courtiers and servants landed in Dover. They made their way to Greenwich, escorted by my father’s knights and henchmen.

“Perhaps he won’t find me to his satisfaction after all,” I said hopefully to Salisbury.

“Perhaps, but that is improbable, madam,” said Salisbury. Her face, plain as a plank, was as serene as ever. “The French king requested a portrait, which your father sent him, nicely presented in an ivory box with the Tudor rose carved upon the cover. King Francis much liked the sweet countenance he saw therein.”

How infuriating! “Salisbury, why must it be this way? if I had asked for his portrait, to see if he pleased me, would I have got it?”

Salisbury laughed. “Unlikely. That is not the way of this world.”

“Well, it should be,” I grumbled, although I knew she was right.

THE FESTIVAL honouring Saint George, the patron saint of England, commenced with an evening banquet. This would be my first glimpse of the man to whom I would be betrothed. As King Francis entered the Great Hall with a trumpet fanfare, I could make out that he was nearly as tall as my father but much thinner, save for a little round belly. Unfortunately, he was seated at one end of the king’s table, and I at the other. I have always been shortsighted, and at a distance I could not see his features clearly. All I could make out were his white hands fluttering about like startled pigeons. But I could hear him — he had a laugh like a braying donkey.

As I was peering towards him, trumpeters announced the first course: two dozen dishes that included frumenty with venison; salted hart; roast egret, swan, and crane; lamprey; pike; heron; carp; kid; perch; rabbit; mutton pasties; and baked quinces. The second course followed with as many dishes — crayfish, prawns, oysters, conger eel, plover, redshanks, snipe, larks baked in a pie, boiled custard, and marchpane.

The custom, as Salisbury had taught me, was to have only a taste, a morsel of this, a titbit of that. It was usually a hard custom to observe, especially when the prawns and oysters appeared. Even though I was very fond of these delicacies, precisely the dishes that Salisbury would not allow me at home, when I caught sight of the white hands flying about at the other end of the table and heard the braying laughter, I lost my taste even for prawns. Imagine having to live with this for the rest of my life! I found that I could scarcely swallow.

The banquet concluded with the presentation of a grand dessert, a replica of Noah’s Ark, nearly three feet tall and made entirely of sugar. A procession of every kind of animal, both real and imaginary, moulded of almond paste, paraded up the gangplank of the sugar boat. On the deck stood a miniature couple, which I took to be Noah and his wife. Then my father pointed at the figures and called out loudly, “Look you! The king of France and our own dear Princess of Wales, greeting their loyal subjects!”

The company sent up a cheer. As was expected of me, I lowered my eyes and smiled, but I wanted nothing more than to run from the table.

When the feasting ended, it was time to present King Francis and his courtiers to my mother and me. This was the moment I had dreaded. The courtiers came first, speaking to me in French, Latin, and Italian. (“Stupid questions,” I complained later to Salisbury. “Asking me how old I am in three different languages.”) I replied easily, but my attention was on King Francis, who moved closer and closer. I could now clearly see his rheumy eyes and long beak of a nose.

Then the French king bent over my hand and kissed it wetly. I nearly gagged. “The jewel of England,” my father told Francis proudly. “My pearl of the world.” How could my father do this to me?

AFTER THE BANQUET Henry entertained his French guests with a bearbaiting. I was seated beside my father as an enormous blind bear called Jack was led into the bear ring to cheering and applause. The king’s bearward let loose a pack of dogs. Jack struck out sightlessly and with a swipe of his mighty paw managed to kill the first two mastiffs that rushed at his throat. Several more dogs were released into the ring, and soon bear and dogs were bloody and dazed. Jack staggered around the ring, his fur matted with blood, stumbling over dead and dying dogs. The noise of howling dogs and roaring bear and cheering spectators was deafening, the stench of blood sickening. The bearward looked up at my father, the king, for a signal.

“What shall it be, my darling princess?” my father asked. “Is it life or death for poor old Jack? You must say!”

I was quite dazed from the gory sight. “I say let him be killed!” I declared in a trembling voice, knowing that was what my father wanted me to say but wishing with all my heart I had the power to save the bear’s life.

“Well said!” my father shouted. He made a sign to the bearward, who sent in one last dog to lunge at the wounded bear’s throat.

I watched the huge animal fall and expire, and I glanced at my betrothed, King Francis. His hands still fluttered aimlessly, although he looked a bit pale. At least his donkey bray was silenced.

THREE DAYS AFTER the banquet, I stood stiffly between King Henry and Queen Catherine at the betrothal ceremony, dressed in the new green and white silk gown. The golden robe trailing from my shoulders was so long and heavy that I required six attendants to carry it. So many sparkling necklaces were draped around my neck that I thought I would choke. Francis leered at me and slipped a diamond and ruby ring on my finger.

How much of this must I endure? I wondered, and again I felt cramping and nausea. Tears might have gathered in my eyes if I had allowed them, but I had been trained not to weep in public. “Ista puella nunquam plorat,” my father used to boast in Latin as he carried me around the Great Hall: “This girl never cries.” He didn’t know how much I cried when I was alone.

That evening there was another banquet, even more lavish than the one before. When the meal ended, the king signalled me to leave the royal table and prepare for the masque. This was another of my father’s ideas; he loved dressing up in the most elaborate outfits the royal costumer could devise. He had ordered me and seven ladies of my mother’s court and seven court gentlemen to be costumed, like him, in attire suggestive of the Far North. The fur-trimmed costumes were to my liking, and I truly enjoyed dancing. Since my arrival at Greenwich, my dancing tutor had rehearsed me and the ladies in our steps until we all knew the dance perfectly.

It was during these rehearsals that I had noticed a particular lady-in-waiting in my mother’s court. The lady’s thick black hair, gleaming like a raven’s wing, was left to fly wild, while other women tucked theirs modestly beneath a snood or coif. Her eyes were shiny and black as onyx, skin pale as milk, body thin and supple as a willow. A black ribbon circled her neck with a large diamond at her throat. She stood out among the group of rosy-skinned ladies with their pale blue eyes and golden tresses. Forty-nine ladies-in-waiting in my mother’s household wore pretty bright-coloured gowns, but this one dressed all in dramatic black and white.

The lady’s name was Anne Boleyn. I had learned by eavesdropping that she was the daughter of England’s ambassador to the French court, and she had grown up in France. Soon after she and her sister returned from France, my mother had invited them to join her court. Anne spoke French in a playful, mocking manner, quite different from the formal French of my tutors. She was witty and clever; her frequent, trilling laughter attracted everyone’s attention. She was not of royal blood — she was called simply Lady Anne — and yet she behaved as though she were royalty. I thought her fascinating.

The masque began. I led the seven ladies, including Anne, out of a make-believe ice cave, hung with garlands of greenery, and on to a low platform. There we were joined by eight men swirling long fur capes. The velvet half mask that hid King Henry’s eyes did not hide his identity — he was always the tallest man in any crowd, standing well above six feet. When the dancers were paired off as planned, the masked king held out his hand to me to dance the stately pavane. But as we executed the complicated steps, I noticed that my father’s eyes were not fixed on me but instead followed the black-haired dancer. There was an eagerness in his look that I had never seen there before, and it troubled me.

I needed to learn more about this Anne Boleyn.

CHAPTER TWO

Betrothals

You have nothing to worry about for the present,” Salisbury assured me as we commenced our journey back to Ludlow on a glowing May morning. Dew sparkled on the hedgerows, and the air was sweet with the smell of blossoms. “Before he sailed for France, King Francis complained to your father that “the princess is so small and frail that no marriage is possible for three years, until she is at least fourteen.’”

“‘Small and frail’ — is that what he said?” I cried. “So I do not please him after all! Why did he not say this before we pledged our troth?”

“You please him well, madam. He simply worries that you may not be robust enough to bear children. But this need not concern you. My prayers are answered: you will have plenty of time to grow to womanhood. And who knows what may happen?”

“I shall never marry!” I moaned. “I hate the men my father chooses for me! And if I do not satisfy a pompous old windbag like Francis, then whom can I satisfy?”

This was my third betrothal.

The first had been to the dauphin, the eldest son of this same King Francis, and took place when I was barely two years old and still lived with both my parents at Greenwich Palace. Naturally I could remember almost nothing of that event, but Salisbury had often described the occasion for me.

All I could recall was a jowly hugeness in scarlet satin looming over me — Cardinal Wolsey, that bloated friend of my father’s, who placed a ring with a sparkling stone as big as a wren’s egg on my finger. Wolsey, with his long, yellow teeth and cold, grey eyes, had always frightened me.

I could also remember gazing up at my father and smiling at him, and my father smiling back. How I adored him! How I loved being carried proudly on the king’s shoulder around the Great Hall of the palace as he showed me off or fed me dainty bits from his own plate while my mother frowned in disapproval.

Then, four years later when I was nearly six, my father decided that marrying me to the dauphin would not be in England’s best interests — or in his own. The betrothal was broken.

My mother explained, and Salisbury explained, that from the time of my birth — I was my parents’ only living child — my father had pondered the choice of a husband for me. Not a husband, even, but the promise of a husband. Many promises might be made and broken before there was a real wedding.

“A daughter is not as highly prized as a son would be,” Salisbury said, “but a princess is still precious. She is a valuable tool for forging alliances between kings and kingdoms. You must not concern yourself with it, Mary, because you have no say in any of it. Your mother, the queen, had no say when her own father, King Ferdinand of Spain, betrothed her to Prince Henry. These are the affairs of men, and especially of father’s, and most particularly of kings.”

I loudly protested this idea. My father adored me! Surely my happiness would be most important to him!

“Your happiness has nothing to do with it, madam,” Salisbury said in her infuriatingly calm way.

To my sorrow I learned that Salisbury was right: my happiness did not matter — ever.

After the dauphin, King Henry had next decided on my Spanish cousin, Charles, the son of my mother’s sister. I was just six, and Charles was a man of twenty-two with the title of Holy Roman emperor.

When I was betrothed to Charles, a magnificent procession made its way from London to Dover, on the coast. My mother and I rode in our royal litter, and crowds of people lined the route, cheering and tossing their caps in the air. At Dover we met Charles.

Charles had sailed from Spain with a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships and arrived in Dover accompanied by two thousand courtiers and servants. When I finally saw Charles, his appearance surprised and pleased me. He was clothed in a peculiar manner, so different from my father’s crimson velvet outfit trimmed in fur. Charles wore black velvet with no ornament but a chain of gold around his neck. He had kind, intelligent eyes. And he praised me when I played a little song for him upon my virginals. I liked him, although he was sixteen years older than I was.