The Forbidden Queen

‘You will stay here at Westminster,’ Henry informed me as he escorted me back to my chamber at the end of one of the interminable banquets to shackle the foreign ambassadors to our cause, very much in the tone that he had been issuing orders for the past hour. ‘You must send word to me as soon as my son is born.’

Henry was making preparations for his—and his army’s—imminent departure to Calais. I did not waste my breath asking if I would accompany him. If Henry did not want me with him on a progress through peaceful England, he would not want me on a military campaign beset by unknown difficulties. The days of our honeymoon when he had serenaded me with the best minstrels he could set his hands on so close to a battlefield seemed very far away.

I was now too precious to be risked, as the vessel that would produce the gilded heir. The child who would fulfil Henry’s dreams of an English Empire stretching from the north to the shores of the Mediterranean. I became part of his preparations.

‘Of course.’ There was no doubt in his mind that the child would be male. I tucked my hand into his arm, trying for a lighter mood. His brow was creased with a strong vertical line, his gaze distant. ‘You will be able to celebrate his birth at the same time as that of the Christ Child.’

‘Yes. Before I leave I will order a Mass to be said.’

‘Will you not return before then?’ It would be a good five months. Surely he would return.

‘If it is possible—I will if I can.’

In truth, I did not think he would. The preparations were for a long campaign, and once winter set in there would be no crossing of the Channel unless it was of absolute necessity. As we walked past one of the glazed windows, I looked out over the Thames, grey and drear for it was a cloudy day, and thoughts of winter lodged in my mind. I imagined Westminster would be a cold and inhospitable place in winter.

‘I think I will go to Windsor when the weather turns,’ I said.

‘No.’

I glanced up. Surprisingly, I had his entire attention. ‘Why not?’

‘It is not my wish.’

I felt a little spirit of rebellion stir in my belly. If Henry would not be in England, why should I not choose my residence? Perhaps he had not thought about it carefully enough, and if his concern was for my comfort then he must be open to persuasion. ‘The private rooms are more comfortable and less…’ I sought for a word ‘… less formidable at Windsor. Here I feel as if I am living in a monument rather than a home. The drainage is better at Windsor. I like the countryside too.’

I glanced up and tried a final thrust. ‘The chance of disease, I imagine, is far less at Windsor than living here in the middle of London. The child will thrive there.’

‘No.’ He was no longer even listening. ‘Stay here. Or go to the Tower if you wish. But not Windsor.’

‘I dislike the Tower as much as Westminster,’ I persisted. ‘And what if plague threatens London again?’

‘I’ll not be persuaded, Katherine. I expect you to be obedient to my wishes. Your reputation must be beyond reproach in all things,’ Henry replied. ‘I do not expect you to take matters into your own hands and set up a separate court.’

‘That was never my intent.’

Taking in his severe expression, I knew he considered that there was enough notoriety in my family with my mother living apart from my father in her own household, and was instantly filled with shame. Would I never be free of my mother’s notorious amours?

‘My reputation is beyond reproach,’ I retorted. ‘My mother’s morality is not mine.’

‘Of course. I implied no other,’ continued Henry, starkly disapproving. ‘Merely that the mother of the heir must be as pure as the Holy Virgin.’

‘But I don’t see why it would make a difference if I was at Windsor or Westminster.’

Henry stopped, his hand around my wrist, and for a long moment was caught in a tight-lipped silence as his eyes, bright hazel, searched my face.

‘I order it, Katherine. You will not go to Windsor.’

So much for my brief moment of subversion. I slid back into obedience. ‘Very well,’ I agreed stiffly. ‘I won’t if you don’t wish it.’

‘I will make all the arrangements before I go.’ Henry released my arm and we walked on. I could not see the need for the little lick of temper in his eyes, but if that was what he wanted, I would remain in Westminster and shiver through the cold. I would not go to Windsor. I would be as virtuous as the Virgin herself, cosseted and protected, an example to all womankind. Disillusion might keep me close companionship, but now I had a child to fill my thoughts. A child who I would love as my parents had never loved me.

Henry left me and went to war in a flurry of gilded armour, blazons and caparisoned horses. I received a publically formal bow and a peck on the cheek, impeded somewhat by the feathered war helm he carried, before he mounted. Once I would have been impressed. Now I knew that in his mind would be the superb chivalric impression his leavetaking would make on his subjects.

A pity about Windsor.

But the seed had been sown, and it blossomed more strongly in my mind every day. I began to think of the bright rooms, the large fireplaces, the warm water brought by a spigot so that bathing in a tiled chamber constructed for the purpose became a pleasure.

Why should I not? Henry could not have considered. His mind had been taken up with the French war—he must have been distracted when he had forbidden me, and would surely not object if I ran counter to his orders. He might even forget that he had actually objected. I might like to decide for myself…

A week of constant rain made up my mind. Westminster became a cold grey domain of draughts and streaming walls and icy floors. My growing bulk barely showed under the layers of furs and mantles that Alice heaped on me. Fur-lined slippers did not stop the rising cold as we huddled next to the fires. No one was tempted outside: exercise was taken in the Great Hall, our breath rising in clouds of vapour. And then there was the day when there was ice skimming the water in my ewer. Enough was enough. I could easily travel—it was still two months before the expected birth of my child and I could take to the seclusion of my suite of rooms in Windsor quite as well as in Westminster.

‘We will go to Windsor,’ I announced to Beatrice, suddenly much more cheerful.

‘Yes, my lady.’ And she departed with alacrity to supervise the packing.

‘Will we?’ Alice asked, surprised at this change of plan but willing to see its merits.

‘No, my lady.’ Mistress Waring was adamant, her frown formidable.

Mistress Johanna Waring. If Henry had thought he had made every preparation for my accouchement, he had been wrong, for this self-important individual had arrived in my expanding household the day after Henry’s departure, with much baggage heaped in two large wagons, and a shortage of breath due to her advanced age and considerable girth. Mistress Waring—I would never have dared address her as Johanna—nurse to the infant Henry and his brothers, and one time tirewoman to Lady Mary Bohun, Henry’s mother.

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