Epitaph for Three Women (50 page)

‘You will love the baby whether it be boy or girl,’ he was told.

‘Will I?’ he said wonderingly.

And there they were on that fateful day when one of the servants came into the garden to tell them that visitors had arrived.

‘I wonder who it is,’ said Katherine beginning to rise. ‘Perhaps it is someone come to tell us Henry is on the way.’

Owen said: ‘Stay where you are. I will go and see.’

Katherine turned. Men were coming onto the lawn. Two of them came forward and stood one on either side of Owen.

‘You are Owen Tudor, Welsh Squire to Queen Katherine?’ she heard them say.

‘I am.’

‘We must do our duty and arrest you.’

Katherine felt her heart leap in terror. She started forward.

‘On what grounds?’ cried Owen.

‘In the name of the King,’ said the Captain of the guard.

Katherine started to run. ‘Owen … Owen … stay here … Don’t go.’

He was looking back at her. She saw the anguish in his eyes and she knew that as long as she lived she would never forget his face as it was then.

‘Katherine … my … Queen.’ The words seemed to escape from his lips. He was holding out his arms. She stumbled towards him. She reached him and fell into them.

‘Owen … Owen … what does it mean …?’

‘I don’t know. It can’t be much. I have done nothing wrong. It will soon be explained.’

‘It won’t … it won’t,’ she exclaimed. ‘They are taking you away from me … It is what I always feared.’

The Captain said, almost gently: ‘We must go now.’

‘I want an explanation,’ cried Owen.

‘You will get that.’

‘I won’t let him go. I won’t,’ cried Katherine. ‘Do you know that I am the Queen?’

‘Yes, my lady, but this is the order of the King.’

‘The King. My son. Take me to him.’

‘We have orders to take the squire, my lady. Come, Squire. We must be gone.’

They were moving him away.

The sun seemed suddenly pitiless. She could hear Edmund and Jasper shouting to each other … it seemed from a long way off.

‘Owen, Owen … my love …’ she called. He was looking back taking a last look at her as she stood there on the grass holding out her arms to him.

Something was happening. Owen had gone. Darkness descended on her and she was sinking to the cold friendless earth.

She was lying in her bed. She had been aware of intense pain … and some fearful shadow hanging over her but she was not sure what it was.

She was in a strange world she felt; she was not on earth; she did not want to come back. She was afraid to because of the hideous shadow which would reveal itself to her if she did. Somewhere in her mind she knew that Death was very close to her and that because of that shadow she wanted it to take her.

‘She will recover.’ Those were the first words she heard, and she knew that she was coming back.

She opened her eyes.

‘You have a little girl, my lady.’

‘And … my lord … Where is my lord?’

The fearful shadow was revealing itself and the revelation was wrapping itself round her like a cloak of misery.

‘My lord went away, my lady.’

‘When … when … how long ago?’

‘It is three days. You have been long in labour.’

‘My children …’

‘They are well and here, my lady.’

She closed her eyes. Then it came back to her. That wonderful happiness which had been shattered in minutes. They had taken him away. Where? And why?

She must get well. She must go to him. She must bring him back. She could. She would. What harm were they doing anybody? Owen must come back to them. He was so necessary to them all.

They brought the baby to her … a frail creature, not like the others. They had been lusty from the start. This one’s entry into the world had been marked by sorrow.

‘She is very frail,’ she said.

‘We thought, my lady, that she should be baptised without delay.’

Ominous words.

She tried to rouse herself and think. Where was Owen? She must get up. She must understand what this meant. She would send to the King. She would ask him to come and see her. He had so enjoyed being with them all. He would listen. He would tell her what this was about and he would send Owen back to her.

The child was christened Margaret. A few days later she died.

The Queen felt a sickening sense of loss; but it was Owen she wanted. The break up of her happiness was all she could think of. The loss of the child to whose coming she and Owen had looked forward was just another blow. But when one was stunned by disaster another did not hurt as it might have done if it had been delivered singly. She and Owen would have mourned the loss of this little one … But then, had she not been subjected to that terrible shock, baby Margaret would have been as strong and lusty as the rest.

‘What can I do?’ she mourned. ‘What must I do?’

The children came to her.

‘Where is our father?’ they demanded.

‘He has gone away for a little while.’

‘He did not tell me,’ said Jasper.

‘He didn’t tell me and I am the eldest,’ announced Edmund.

‘There was not time to tell you. He went in such a hurry.’

‘And where is the baby?’ Jasper wanted to know.

‘The baby has gone away, too.’

‘With our father? He should have taken me,’ said Jasper.

‘No … me … I am the eldest …’

‘He will be back,’ said Katherine and then because she was weak and some voice within her said, He never will, she could not hold back her tears.

The children watched her in amazement. They did not know grown-up people cried.

Then they were all crying with her. They knew some major catastrophe had struck their home.

They came to Hadham. There was a party of them including nuns.

The Abbess sought out Katherine and told her that it was the King’s wish that she be taken to the Abbey of Bermondsey where she would be well looked after.

‘I will stay here,’ said Katherine. ‘It may be that my husband will come back.’

‘My lady,’ said the Abbess, ‘it is well that you should know. Owen Tudor is a prisoner in Newgate.’

‘Why so? Why so?’ she cried. ‘What has he done that they should put him there?’

‘He has married against the law. Or if he has not married he has lived with you as your husband.’

‘He
is
my husband.’

‘That is his offence. He has broken the law which forbids men of his rank to marry noble ladies.’

‘I married of my own free will.’

‘It is the law, my lady, and we have been ordered to take you to our Abbey in Bermondsey. There you will be nursed back to health. You have nothing to fear from us. We will care for you.’

‘This is my home. I shall wait here for my husband and I have children … young children …’

‘They are being taken to the Abbey of Barking. There they will be cared for and educated in a manner fitting.’

‘They have broken up my home …’

‘Dear lady, the law forbids such a home.’

‘Oh God!’ she cried. ‘I vow vengeance on those who have done this.’

‘Do not invoke God’s anger, lady. You have already sinned deeply in this marriage.’

‘There never was such a good and pure marriage as mine with Owen Tudor.’

‘Come, lady, we will nurse you back to health.’

‘My children …’

‘They have already left for Barking. We thought it better to avoid the anguish of parting.’

‘Oh my God, you have taken everything from me … everything I cared for …’

‘My lady, you will recover. You will find peace in God.’

‘I will find peace only with my husband and children. I beg you send for the King. He is but a boy but he loves me. He will not let them do this to me.’

‘It is on the King’s orders, my lady …’

‘I will never believe that!’ she cried. ‘He is but a boy in the hands of ambitious men.’

‘You will feel better when you are in the peace of our Abbey. We shall nurse you and bring you back to health. Then you will make your plans … or you will stay with us. It is in your hands, my lady. But now these are orders. We are to take you to Bermondsey.’

She knew she was powerless. She must obey. She must bide her time and try not to grieve too sorely for her children or to yearn too unbearably for a sight of Owen.

She remained ill. The loss of her child, the sudden disappearance of her happy life – it was too much for her. There were times when she raged against fate and those who had done this to her and there were others when she lay listless on her bed.

Time was passing, she knew. She was always asking, ‘Have you heard aught of my husband?’

There was never any news of him. Nor of the children.

What were they doing, those little ones, torn from their home and their parents? How could people be so cruel to little children?

She thought fleetingly of her own misery in the Hôtel de St Pol. But what was that compared with this? This was such tragedy that she could not think clearly. It had stunned her into a melancholy of inadequacy, a state of not caring, of longing for death.

Yes, that was it. If she could not have Owen and the children she wanted to die.

She prayed for death. ‘Oh, God, take me out of my misery. I cannot live like this. I want Owen. I want Owen more than anything. I want my babies. Oh, God, how can You be so cruel?’

Some days her spirits would revive a little. She would fancy something could be done. She would ask for writing materials and write to the King. She would appeal to him, tell of her misery. He could not fail her.

But in her heart she knew that whatever she wrote to the King would not be allowed to reach him.

The Abbess and her nuns were growing anxious. There were times when the Queen seemed almost demented. At others she would be quiet as though she were already on the way to death.

‘She has an unequable temperament,’ said the Abbess. ‘Remember who her father was.’

The Duke of Gloucester, who was the most powerful man in the country, enquired about her.

‘Keep her well looked after,’ were his orders. ‘It must not be said that she did not have every attention. Of course she is a little wild. It may well be that she has inherited something of her father’s affliction.’

The Abbess and her nuns would do their best.

But her health grew worse. She became devout. She told the Abbess that she thought she was paying for her sins.

That pleased the Abbess. It was a good conclusion for her to come to.

‘You see,’ said the Queen, ‘I went to Windsor for the birth of the King’s son. “Do not go to Windsor,” he said. “I do not want my son to go to Windsor.” And yet I went to Windsor. I don’t know what possessed me. There was some prophecy. I was wicked. I think I have passed some evil spell onto my son.’

They tried to soothe her. God would forgive her, said the Abbess. If she repented, if she devoted herself to prayer and asked forgiveness sincerely enough she would be forgiven.

‘I never shall, I fear. I fear for my son Henry. I have dreams, Abbess, terrible dreams … that he is as my father was. You cannot understand, lady Abbess, what it was like to be shut up in St Pol and to know that a madman was there and that he was my own father.’

‘It is now in the past, lady. You have the future to think of.’