Root of the Tudor Rose (42 page)

‘I shall be delighted to see him. Is he walking yet?'

‘No, not quite, but he gets around very quickly on all fours!'

‘Just you wait, you won't be able to keep up with him before long,' said the Bishop. ‘Your Royal Highness, what a pleasure to see you!'

Catherine, baby Edmund on her hip, had come into the room, delighted to see Bishop William Gray and eager for his news. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit, your Grace?' she asked as he bowed low to greet her.

He straightened up, looking suddenly doubtful. ‘I … I'm not sure that you will see it as a pleasure, your Highness, but for me it is a very exciting prospect. I am being moved to Lincoln. A great honour …so many opportunities.'

‘Congratulations are in order then, Your Grace,' said Owen.

‘Indeed, thank you, Master Tudor. I must confess I'm very thrilled. But it does, of course, mean that I will no longer have any right to this house. It is not my personal property, it belongs to the church, so I will have to relinquish it. That is why I wanted to see you.'

‘Does that mean …?' Catherine didn't finish her sentence.

‘I'm afraid, Ma'am, it does mean that, personally, I will no longer be in a position to offer you hospitality and security here in Great Hadham. Robert Fitzhugh, my successor will, I'm sure, be honoured if you should want to stay here, but that all rather depends on whether you want him to know of your circumstances. It is entirely up to you.'

Baby Edmund chose that moment to exercise his lungs, wanting to be the centre of attention. He let out a long, piercing wail, causing his father and the Bishop to smile indulgently and disguising the fact that his mother wanted to wail just as loudly herself. She couldn't bear the thought of leaving Great Hadham, she had never been so happy in all her life as she had been here. Now her happiness was being threatened yet again. She couldn't face the upheaval of another move, hounded from place to place, never settled, never at peace. She couldn't go back to Windsor and run the risk of Humphrey or Eleanor finding out about baby Edmund, and she was certainly not going to give him up. Owen caught sight of her face just as she began to bite her quivering lip.

‘You mustn't worry, Catrin,' he said quietly, putting his arm around her shoulder. ‘We'll find somewhere just as good.'

William Gray was appalled. Thrilled at the prospect of moving to Lincoln, he had not realised the impact his news would have on the little Tudor family. He knew they had been happy at Great Hadham but he hadn't realised quite how much of a blow this would be for them. Catherine, white-faced, was avoiding his gaze.

‘I'm so sorry, Your Highness. Please don't upset yourself! I hadn't thought … that is, I'm very glad you've been so happy here … but I didn't realise …'

He was profoundly embarrassed. But he did, at least, have a suggestion to make: it was an idea which had occurred to him on his journey from London.

‘Are you acquainted with Bishop Philip Morgan, my Lady?' he asked.

Catherine took a deep breath, shifting the baby's weight onto her other arm. Now that Owen's hand was under her elbow, steadying her, she managed a smile. ‘Yes, I do know him slightly. He serves on the Council. Cardinal Beaufort speaks highly of him.'

‘Yes, he's the Bishop of Worcester and of Ely. He's a good man, wise and very experienced. When he was younger, he also served as army chaplain to your late husband the King. He was with him in Normandy.'

‘Ah, yes,' said Owen. ‘I heard my cousin Maredydd speak of him. He, too, served in Normandy with the King. He said he'd more than once heard Bishop Morgan grant absolution in Welsh on the battlefield. So he's now the Bishop of Ely, is he?'

‘Indeed he is, Master Tudor. He was Phillip ap Morgan when we knew him at Oxford but he dropped the “ap” part of his name, just as you did. He was studying Civil Law at Queen's College when I was there. And that's where I first met Cardinal Beaufort, of course. De Kyrkeby, too. We all knew each other as young men. I think he might be just the man I need to talk to.'

Catherine, still feeling stunned, wondered where all this was leading but William Gray explained that he knew the opportunity to use another house, much like this one, was within the gift of the Bishop of Ely.

‘Hatfield,' he said. ‘Bishop's Hatfield. I'll write to Bishop Morgan …'

Since time was not pressing and since he wanted to be absolutely certain that he was doing the right thing, William Gray decided instead to pay a visit to Bishop Morgan. He was sure that, face-to-face, he'd find it easier to explain the reasons for his request and the need for great secrecy. Bishop Morgan, a man of kindness and sensibility, was fascinated to hear of the widowed Queen's romance with a kinsman of the Welsh freedom fighter Owain Glyndŵr. He had once met Catherine but couldn't really claim to know her, though he had known her first husband quite well and had received several royal commissions from him. He also remembered that Henry Beaufort had told him of his avuncular affection for her.

So Bishop Morgan was honoured and delighted to be able to help, which meant that, after Catherine had eventually become resigned to the situation, the move from Great Hadham to Bishop's Hatfield went ahead remarkably smoothly.

‘Plain sailing, then,' said Owen, looking around him after they had moved in. ‘Guillemote would have been proud of us! Everything is unpacked and in a sensible place.' He put an arm around Catherine's waist and tapped the end of her nose playfully. ‘And the place for you, your naughty Highness, is in bed. On your own this time. Go on, cariad. You must be tired.'

Catherine managed a smile. ‘I don't want to be on my own, Owen. I don't feel well but I really want to know that you're lying beside me.'

‘I'll always be beside you, cariad
,
wherever we are. You know that.' He was true to his word. They were preparing to sleep in an unfamiliar bed but, for each of them, the sweet familiarity of the other's body worked its usual magic.

This time Owen was extremely worried about her, she looked gaunt and tired and he noticed some streaks of grey at her temples.

‘It's too soon, cariad. Little Edmund is not yet a year old. You're wearing yourself out with child-bearing. We must be more careful.' Catherine reached out for him and nuzzled his neck.

‘Too late for that! Edmund's little brother is already on his way.'

‘His little sister Marged, you mean?' He smiled, teasing her.

‘Oh, Owen. If she's a girl, she'll be Marged. Margaret, anyway. I promise you.'

Catherine hadn't really recovered after the move to Bishop's Hatfield and felt profoundly tired. So when the time came, she spent longer lying-in than she had with any of her other children. Les Trois Jo-jo fussed over her and the midwife, Margery Wagstaff, was pleased to point out that this was the proper way for pregnant women to behave, not rushing around the country in fancy dress. She put up with their good-natured scolding, knowing she was in good hands.

The Feast of St John the Baptist came and went and, according to the midwife's reckoning, the baby was overdue. Then, in the second week of July, Catherine went into labour. She, who thought she had inherited her mother's gift for bearing children with ease, now met the excruciatingly painful experience of a breech birth. She remembered Jacqueline's torment and prayed that it wouldn't be like that for her. Thus far, she had avoided the worst consequences of the curse of Eve but now the pain was almost unbearable and she thought it would never end. Oh, for the Virgin's girdle, Our Lord's foreskin, anything, anything to ease the agony. Margery Wagstaff paused before massaging her hands with oil of wild thyme for another attempt to turn the baby. She reached into her apron pocket and pressed a smoothly polished brown-coloured stone into Catherine's hand.

‘What is it?' Catherine asked weakly.

‘Jasper, my Lady. It will help you. I'm doing everything I can at this end, so just push down when I tell you to and pray to the blessed Saint Margaret. And hold this piece of jasper in your hand. Hold it tight. Jasper is well known to ease the pains of childbirth. I have used it many times. With great success,' she added.

Catherine started screaming then and Owen, who was pacing anxiously up and down in the room below, fell to his knees and prayed as he had never prayed before, for her safety and the safe delivery of her baby. He would be kind to everyone, he would give to the poor, he would listen attentively to the sermon every Sunday, he would be polite to the clergy and forego the pleasures of the ale house. If only she would be safe, he would do anything, give her anything, agree to anything, if only she would be safe. Please, God. Dear God. Please, God.

Then everything went quiet. That was worse. Women often died in childbirth. Please, God. Dear God. Please, God.

Then he heard the most wonderful sound in the world, the indignant squalling of a newborn baby. His baby. His daughter? Marged? Who cared, as long as mother and child were both alive and well.

It seemed an age before Margery Wagstaff appeared at the top of the stairs. She was beaming.

‘That was a tough one,' she said, ‘but your wife is all right. And so is your son!' Owen took the stairs two at a time and hugged her, catching her off balance and giggling. He didn't care. He didn't trust himself to speak.

Quietly, he opened the door of the bedchamber and looked in to see Catherine lying with her eyes closed, her skin almost as white as the pillow she lay on. The baby, red-faced and wizened, lay sleeping in the crook of her arm. He approached them as quietly as he could, knelt at the side of the bed, and watched them for a long moment. He was overwhelmed. He would never, ever, let Catherine go through that again. She opened one eye.

‘That,' she said ‘hurt a lot.'

Owen smiled at her. ‘It's a boy. We didn't think of a name for a boy.'

‘He's called Jasper.' Catherine's voice was weak but determined. ‘His name is Jasper Tudor.'

Chapter Twenty-two

France and London, Autumn 1435

Henry Beaufort understood why Pontius Pilate had washed his hands. There comes a point, he thought, at which the wise man must withdraw from a situation over which he no longer has control. True, no one was about to die on the cross, but enough fine young men had died anyway. There had been too much war, too much death. He was tired of it. All he wanted was to live out his old age in the knowledge that France and England were at peace. He wanted to wash his hands of the whole disastrous pantomime which was the Congress of Arras and go home to England.

It had all started so well. Cardinal Beaufort had welcomed the invitation to attend a big diplomatic congress in northern France, the first since the Treaty of Troyes fifteen years earlier and long overdue. It was with high hopes that he had set out for Arras at the head of a distinguished delegation of Englishmen and he was particularly proud that the group included his nephew Edmund. They were all anxious to see a peaceful outcome to the Congress.

Beaufort, as much a diplomat as a clergyman these days, was well aware of the deterioration of the relationship between England and Burgundy. Things had gone from bad to worse, he reflected, in the three years since John of Bedford's wife Anne had died, despite John's reluctant agreement to marry again for the sake of politics. Anne, the apple of her husband's eye, had been visiting the sick at the Hotel de Bourbon in Paris during an epidemic of the plague and had herself become a victim of it. John was inconsolable. Not only that but, while Anne was alive, she had held together the uneasy peace between her husband and her brother, Philip. Since her death, their relationship had disintegrated rapidly.

Face to face with the Duke of Burgundy at the negotiating table in Arras, Henry Beaufort invoked the terms of the Treaty of Troyes and insisted that the French must recognise the English King, Henry VI, as King of France and pay due homage to him. The French argued that Henry VI had no valid claim to the French crown, since his father Henry V had died before inheriting it and could not therefore pass it on. Charles VII, they insisted, was now the King of France.

Things had come to an impasse. That's when Henry Beaufort had stormed out of the congress, followed by every Englishman in the room.

With the English delegation gone, Philip of Burgundy and King Charles swiftly agreed to the terms of an entirely new treaty, the Treaty of Arras, under which Charles would acquire all the territory hitherto in the possession of the English. In return, Charles promised retribution for the death of John the Fearless, to pay for masses for his soul and to erect a monument in his memory.

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold and Philip had nurtured a prodigious appetite for it over a long period. He had sworn an oath that he would remain in mourning until his father's murderers were brought to book and he had stayed true to his word. For sixteen years he had worn nothing but unremitting black, ever since the fateful day when John the Fearless was slain on the bridge at Montereau.

Now there appeared to be solutions to all Philip's problems because, in addition to the favourable outcome of the Congress of Arras, he had received a message to say that his erstwhile brother-in-law John of Bedford lay gravely ill at Rouen. If John should die, and with the weak-willed and lazy Charles on the throne, Philip himself would be the most powerful man in France. He would run the country. He began to sense that his moment of glory was near.

For some time after Jasper was born, Catherine remained quite ill and made only a very slow recovery from that difficult birth. She'd been thin and listless with a poor appetite and a hollow, rasping cough that would not respond to any treatment until Owen remembered that his mother had sworn by a remedy which she attributed to the Physicians of Myddfai. He remembered the foul taste of hemp agrimony mixed with boiled milk but it had cured many of his own childhood coughs and colds and now, praise be, it finally seemed to be curing Catherine. Under Owen's watchful eye and with the help of Les Trois Jo-jo, she had built up her strength and now positively revelled in the joys of a happy family life with a loving husband and two lusty little boys, Edmund, who was five, and four-year-old Jasper. Well wrapped up against a slight breeze, she watched them play games of tag and hide-and-seek with their father in the golden October sunshine. It was such a joy to see them racing about the garden on their sturdy little legs, shrieking with pleasure.