Queen Katherine smiled, tired but jubilant. Her face no longer held the dimples of her youth, but there was a serenity which Elizabeth believed made her more beautiful.
‘Have you met my daughter, Princess Mary, yet, Lady Boleyn?’ asked the queen from the bed.
‘She is the most radiant child I have ever seen,’ replied Elizabeth, who, in fact, had thought the child thin and unhealthy in appearance. She remembered the queen’s other pregnancies and had prayed for the child’s survival.
‘Later today she will be christened and then, when I am recovered and have been churched, the king and I shall have a son,’ she said.
‘Princess Mary’s birth is a sign from God,’ agreed Elizabeth, but, despite the warm smile she gave the queen, in her heart she felt pity for the woman and her false optimism.
Katherine was thirty-one years old, and her history of lost pregnancies had taken its toll on her once strong, slender body. The women who had been with the queen for the birth had whispered it was a miracle she had survived. Her hopeful talk of a son was, in Elizabeth’s view, foolish. Each time the queenpromised the king an heir, he became more furious when, in his eyes, she failed in her duty.
Women have no control over the babes we produce, she thought.God chooses their paths, yet certain men blame their wives again and again. It is unjust.
She praised God every day for sending her Sir Thomas Boleyn as her husband, a man of learning, laughter and love.A man much in demand at the king’s side too, which was why,she thought,I should have expected the invitation to the christening of the princess.
When the summons had arrived, Elizabeth had felt the usual queasy tightening of her stomach as it lurched between revulsion and fear. At Hever, she felt safe, far away from the cross currents of Henry’s increasingly erratic rule. She knew any journey to Henry’s court would be fraught with family politics and she had been correct. An hour after arriving, her stepmother, Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, had arrived, waddling like a duck. The Duchess was vastly pregnant and informed Elizabeth she planned to retire to the Howards’ London home in Lambeth for her confinement once the christening was over.
‘This will be my eighth child, with five children living,’ she declared, and Elizabeth wondered whether Agnes was subtly snubbing the queen or her.
An hour later, Elizabeth left the queen and the overheated suite of rooms, relieved to be away from the queen’s women as they fussed and gossiped. She was surprised to see her father waiting at the far end of the corridor; the closest men were allowed to the birthing chamber.
‘Dearest Lizzie,’ he said, hurrying towards her and gathering her into a hug as he had done since she was a child. ‘I hoped to see you before Agnes and I left for Lambeth. How fares young Anne?’
The situation for the Boleyn girls had changed over the years. To Elizabeth’s delight, after a brief period as a maid for Queen Katherine, Mary had followed Anne to France, away from the wandering eye of King Henry. At present, both Boleyn girls remained abroad. In 1514, after the king’s youngest sister, Princess Mary, had married King Louis XII of France, the French king had caused his young wife great distress by dismissing the majority of the women she had chosen to travel with her from England to form her court. One of the few to remain was Anne Boleyn. The marriage, however, was brief due to Louis’s premature death, after which Mary caused a scandal by marrying Charles Brandon, Henry’s best friend, without her brother’s permission. When Mary and Charles eventually returned home, now the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, Anne had remained with Queen Claude, the wife of the new king of France, Francis I, while Mary had moved to stay with distant cousins to finish her education.
‘Anne’s doing well with Queen Claude and is becoming more French than English.’
‘And Mary? I believe she, too, is settling in France. She is happy with the du Moulin family in Brie-sous-Forges?’
‘Yes, she writes of her enjoyment of being in such beautiful countryside,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Thomas and I will call her home soon; we have agreed, it is time we found her a suitable husband.’
‘Do you believe the rumours about her affair with King Francis?’
‘Of course not,’ snapped Elizabeth. ‘She is a Howard; she understands her place in society. It was idle gossip put about to deflect the scandal from the Duchess of Suffolk.’
The Duke nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face at Elizabeth’s answer.
‘This was as I suspected,’ he said, then continued. ‘The king speaks highly of George, too. You’ve done well with your children, Lizzie. Your mama would have been so proud of you and your family.’
Two years earlier, the invitation offering her son a place as a page had come from the king himself via her father.
‘It shows the king holds us in high esteem, Lizzie,’ he had said when he had delivered the news.
‘Does he?’
‘It’s always wise to remain on the right side of the king,’ he had murmured, but there had been a mild warning in his tone. ‘Remember, he is still young, impetuous. Don’t insult him, it could ruin us all.’
Now, as they walked through the sunshine filtering through the stained-glass windows, she pushed the thought of the king away.
‘Thank you, Papa,’ she said, acknowledging his compliment.
‘Is there any word on the Earldom of Ormond?’ he asked. ‘Do you know if the king will be granting it to Thomas?’
‘There is no confirmation,’ Elizabeth replied.
‘It would be a worthy prize,’ said the duke. ‘Your husband deserves to be elevated.’
‘There are other claimants,’ said Elizabeth, who was long bored with the endless discussions of the earldom. ‘The king will no doubt decide in the end.’
