Queen of Trial and Sorrow (4 page)

He looped the reins over a low branch and then he was beside me, the Rose of Rouen, our sovereign lord King Edward IV, my husband to be.  He was dazzling, boyish, and when he smiled he stole my breath away.  That smile was visited on everyone present, and I felt he would no more miss the grand royal wedding than he would the foreign princess who, in the natural course of things, ought to have shared it with him.  Our fingers entwined within the folds of my skirt.  That morning my mother had helped me to dress in the most beautiful gown I had ever worn.  It was of ivory and gold silk, sewn with so many seed pearls I fancied I shimmered like some otherworldly vision.  The neckline was cut just wide enough to show the mounds of my shoulders and the elegance of my throat.  It was a simple design to emphasize my figure – slender and yet strong, breasts neither too heavy nor too small, the hips of a matron, straight back, square shoulders.  Around my neck I wore his bride-gift: a collar of white enameled roses set between two ropes of gold and with small cabochon rubies at their center.  Each flower was separated by gold fretwork in the form of knots and depending from the lower rope were two Es, Edward and Elizabeth, intertwined in red enamel. My crown that day was a chaplet of white roses and feverfew, worn over a gossamer veil.  My mother suggested a touch of rouge on my cheeks, for I was too pale, she said, but I thought paleness suited me.

In contrast to me, the king was dressed simply, his doublet unadorned, with a white shirt of Holland cloth showing at cuffs and throat, tawny hose, leather boots and belt.  What need had he of fine raiment when he was clothed in youth, beauty and majesty?  And unless I truly was dreaming he was mine. 

The priest began to recite the service in a trembling voice.  I suspect that like me, the poor man was quite aware that in this case the familiar phrases he was uttering might have earth-shattering consequences.  My hand in the king’s strong warm grasp, I made the responses quietly but clearly, and when the priest pronounced us man and wife, I lifted my face for his kiss.

We went inside for the nuptial Mass.  The chapel glowed like the interior of a jewel box from the one small unadorned window and the tall tapers burning on the altar.  Baskets of flowers surrounded the altar and sprays of blossom brightened the drab stone walls, filling the musty air with their fragrance. 

For those who said later, because it suited their evil purposes, that it was not a proper wedding because of this and such, I say it took place in a consecrated church and the priest who officiated was ordained, although I will admit that the banns were disregarded in order to preserve secrecy.  Otherwise everything was as it should be.  There were two witnesses; the church door was left open throughout and Mass was celebrated afterward, as required by holy church.  I know it was good and proper in the sight of God.

My father, Sir Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, was a distinguished-looking man, with silver-gilt hair, regular features, and a slim elegant frame.  I had the same color hair and I also got my height from him – a good thing, too, for I wasn’t entirely dwarfed by my husband.  Since he had just returned from the north, Mother and I had given him little time to assimilate the fact that he was about to become father-in-law to the king.  His first reaction, of course, was disbelief, for which I could not blame him, and his second was fear.  ‘Christ have mercy, have you any idea of the possible consequences? ’ he’d said, looking stunned, as if a length of steel had penetrated his chest and he’d just become aware of it.  And of course we thought we had, but how could any of us have known on that glorious, golden September day what the consequences would be?  I said: ‘He has thought it over very carefully.  I promise you this is neither a hasty nor ill-considered decision.’  But I did wonder: How much was calculation?  How much the impulsiveness of youth?  How much the dictates of his heart?  

When we stepped outside the church, it was very awkward.  No backslaps here, no bonhomie, no coarse jests, and how did one go about congratulating a king anyway?  What was the protocol?  My father, always rather stiff and formal, said to his youthful sovereign: “May I take this opportunity to say how deeply honored I am that your Highness has chosen my daughter to be your queen, and to assure you that you have my own and my family’s loyalty until the end of our days.  We wish only to serve.”

Father had his wrist seized and pumped vigorously and then had his back buffeted by a man whose exuberance was surpassed only by his strength.  “So you shall,” the king promised.  “But we will speak of these things later.”

Leading his horse by the bridle, he took my hand as we walked the short distance to the manor house with the other four members of the wedding party trailing behind.  The woods were quiet, morning dew releasing the smell of the leaf mold that carpeted the ground under his horse’s hooves.  Beside the path the growth stood high.  The emerald of moss peeped out from damp hollows and toadstools sprouted in abundance at the foot of a great oak.  Titmice and wrens darted like bats in the canopy above and a rabbit made a dash for its burrow.  The air was mild, with a whisper of breeze that was as sweet as a caress, and the rising sun flashed through the tree trunks like a newly minted coin.  

I thought we were walking in silence until I realized that he was muttering under his breath:
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.  Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.  Amen.”

“How many more?” I asked, guessing he had been given a penance.

“Another ninety-eight today.  I passed last night at Stony Stratford and thought it would be a good time to make confession and receive absolution.  The venerable Father Francis at St. Mary Magdalen is not one of those obliging churchmen who punish sin with a light hand even when the sinner is his king.  A full confession of my sins – and my sins were mostly of the ah… unexceptional variety but quite numerous – earned me a gentle homily on the manifold rewards of virtue, a night on my knees in the cold and dark church and one hundred
Aves
a day for the next thirty days.  A staggering punishment, wouldn’t you say?”

“Penance not punishment,” I said.  And probably richly deserved. “So, your Grace has completed only two?” I asked disapprovingly.

“Understandable in the circumstances, surely?  You have dominated my thoughts even to the exclusion of Our Lady.  I went to bed dreaming of you and awoke with you before my eyes.”

Ever since he came to the throne, three years ago, his private affairs had been discussed quite as avidly as his public ones and, among my sisters, with such detail that I was left wondering where they got their information. Unfortunately, despite his youth – he was then two and twenty – he already had a reputation for unchaste living, and had two bastards born of an illicit union with Lady Elizabeth Lucy, the wife of one of his late father’s knights.  Scandalous tales abounded and were disseminated with great relish by prurient-minded people of those nights when the king was at his leisure and his young gentlemen smuggled in women and the guards on the doors were commanded to let no one else in on pain of castration.  The king led the debauchery, raising his sloshing cup in the air to toast the bright eyes of whichever female presently claimed his attention. 

‘The sooner he’s married the better,’ my father said, applying an age-old solution to the problem.  ‘A wife and family will settle him down. It did the trick with me.’ 

I suppose in this regard he was not unlike many other young men, the difference being that, as king, he ought to have set a better example of probity for his people.  Now that I was his wife, it was my earnest desire to see him rehabilitated and redeemed and, in fact, I had already extracted his assurance that once we were wed he would have no need of other women.

Mother called from behind: “We should go through the churchyard, avoid the village street.”   

I looked down at my wedding ring: a bright shiny band of intaglio with an emerald surrounded by small diamonds.  He said I should always wear emeralds, to match my eyes. 

“They say your Grace turned down the hand of Isabella of Castile.”

“Of course.  My heart was already engaged elsewhere, as you well know.”

How flattering it was to be chosen over a girl half my age.  Isabella never forgave him.  “My father said you passed up an opportunity to influence and perhaps even dominate the politics of the Iberian Peninsula, and to pinch France in a merciless vice that would allow the wily Louis no wriggle room.”

“Yes, and I was tempted, but there are others ways to deal with Louis.  Anyway,” he added with a mischievous smile, “how can I trust my posterity to the sister of Henry the Impotent.  She may well have inherited the family deficiency.”  He laughed and I laughed with him.  He could always make me laugh.

“And the Lady Bona? Is Lord Warwick still pressing for a French match?”

His smile died; it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud.  A closed look came over his features.  I knew enough to know this was a contentious issue and immediately regretted bringing it up.  Anxiety flitted around in the recesses of my mind like bats’ wings in a dark cavern.  I didn’t yet know how to please him; nor did I know what displeased him.  But I knew that I must learn, and quickly.

“It has been driven home to me that I must marry soon.  The archbishop tells me the people would like to see me living more chastely.  Apparently the world cannot abide a happy bachelor.  But sooner than wed that Frenchwoman I would take holy orders with the Carthusians.  Picture that, if you can!”

The image of Edward as a shaven-skulled, homespun-clad member of an order of austere and silent monks might have had me giddy with laughter, but since the subject didn’t amuse him, I choked it down.

: “Isn’t she a Savoyard?”

“She’s Louis’ sister-in-law, which makes her as French as the pox.  She represents a closer tie with France than I want, and I’ve made that very clear to everyone.  My cousin of Warwick hears nothing that is contrary to his own desires.”

We were in the graveyard, stepping carefully between graven and lichen-covered stones.  Starlings fluttered around the steeple.  I looked at my ring again, a circle symbolizing eternity, the only solid sign I would have once he was gone.

“I ask them: Why must England’s queens be foreign-born?  One has only to look at Margaret of Anjou to see what a disaster that can turn out to be.  She brought no advantages, no dowry, only civil war.  It’s fortunate her father has neither power nor wealth; otherwise he might now be invading England on his daughter’s behalf.  Given the nationalistic sentiments prevailing these days, it is high time that an English king married an English woman.” 

“You are preaching to the converted,” I said, and coaxed a quick smile from him.

“It pleases me that you know your way around the marriage bed and even the fact that you have borne two sons to another man I do not see as an impediment.  It proves your fertility.  I want a brood of children and not for dynastic reasons alone.” 

“And you shall have them.”

He dropped my hand and put his arm around my shoulders where it lay, heavy, to be sure, but warm and comforting.

We spent only three hours together after the ceremony, half of which was taken up by the wedding breakfast, which my husband ate rather quickly while letting his hand lie on my thigh under cover of the tablecloth, and me, I’m sure, with a hot blush on my cheeks.  After suitable compliments to my mother, a kiss on the hand to the two Alices, who blushed and giggled like a pair of silly maids, he begged everyone to remain at table, and hustled me off to a specially prepared bedchamber.  Then he was gone, after enjoining my family and me to secrecy until he sent for me.

I told myself that it was real.  We were wed.  I had gambled and won and against a field of European princesses.  I wasn’t just another Lady Lucy.  I was his queen.  I would be the Queen of England.

……….

I had to practice one of the womanly virtues: waiting.  And now, too, I had the memory of him, of that brief hour we spent abed, to torment me in the long nights.  I ached for him, a real physical ache; I longed to feel him rubbing against my skin, inside and out.

One day I was sewing a panel into a shirt of Thomas’s to make it last just a little longer and thinking, absurdly: I am the Queen of England.  Why am I mending my son’s shirts?  It occurred to me that perhaps Margaret of Anjou had to mend her son’s shirts too.  She was now in France begging help from any prince from whom she could obtain a hearing, even such unlikely prospects as the Duke of Burgundy who had always favored the house of York.  She couldn’t even raise enough money to get back to England and Henry.  Two queens, both impoverished, but at least my future looked brighter than hers.

Anne sat beside me with her own sewing.  “You’re so lucky, Bess,” she said.   “You’ve been married and you have your two sons – ”

“Two hellions, you mean.”

“And you’ve been wooed by the king himself.  While I – ” a dramatic sigh. “I shall be five and twenty this year, Bess!  Think of it!  And no husband on the horizon.  I’ll probably die unloved, unwed and childless!  Oh, I can’t bear the thought!” 

She put her face in her hands.  Anne was inclined to drama; emotions accompanied by supporting gestures, as if she was an actor on a stage with a large audience watching her every move.  This was a common theme with her.  I put my arms around her and gave her a squeeze.  “You’ll have a husband.  I know you will.” And I thought: I will get you an earl, at least a baron.  I’ll make a list.