The Miracle at St. Bruno's

She made me see the serious-minded Queen who was so interested in the new ideas that she even talked of them to the King. She made me see cruel Wriothesley, the King's Lord Chancellor, who had determined to bring her to the block. I could hear his insinuating voice asking the King if the Queen had so far forgotten her place as to seek to teach the King religion. And the poor Queen's ignorance of what was happening until the King had signed the order to commit her to the Tower.

But the King was weary of hunting for a new wife. It was true the Queen had not given him a son; but she was a good nurse and if she were a headless corpse who would dress his leg? And the Queen, suddenly being aware of imminent danger, had used all her wits to extricate herself. She had become ill with anxiety but recovering in time she had told the King that she would never learn from any except God and himself.

As she had when a child, Kate assumed the parts of the people in her stories. Now she struck an attitude; she strutted-she would have made a good mummer. She seemed to grow large and royal; she narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips and she was the King.

"And he said to her - for I have it from one who overhears”.

'Not so, by Saint Mary. You have become a doctor, wife, to instruct us and not to be instructed of us, as oftentime we have seen.’

"At this," went on Kate, "the Queen trembled, because she saw the hand of Wriothesley in this and the ax very close and turned toward her.”

Kate was the Queen now. “‘Indeed if Your Majesty have so conceived then my meaning has been mistaken, for I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord; and if I have ever presumed to differ from Your Highness on religion it was partly to obtain information and sometimes because I perceived that in talking you were able to pass off the pain and weariness of your present infirmity.’

"With which clever reply His Majesty was pleased and he said, 'And is it so, sweetheart.

Then we are perfect friends.’

"And when they came to arrest her they found her in loving discourse with them in the gardens, at which His Majesty vented his fury on them. So you see the King's sixth Queen came very near to losing her head and we might well be asking ourselves who the seventh was to be.”

I shivered. "How near queens are to death," I said.

"How near we all are to death," replied Kate.

Kate left us soon after that, and I was surprised when a messenger brought me a letter from her in which she told me she was expecting a child.

"Remus is beside himself with glee," she wrote. "As for myself I am less gleeful.

I deplore the long unwieldy months almost as much as the painful and humiliating climax. How I wish there were some other way of getting children. How much more dignified if one could buy them as one buys a castle or a manor house-and choose the one wants. Would that not be more civilized than this animal process r I confess to a twinge of envy. I thought with burning resentment of my boy who had been allowed to die, how much I wanted him. And Kate was to have another child although she was never meant to be a mother.

During the next months I devoted myself to the little girls. I tried not to mourn for my lost child. I watched the gradual growth of our castle and I was amazed that Bruno should have had such wealth as to be able to create such a place.

When I asked him about it he showed great displeasure. He had changed toward me.

The disappointment over the loss of the boy was intense and he made no secret of it. I could not help thinking of poor Anne Boleyn when she had failed to produce a boy. Then I remembered that Kate had referred to Bruno as a King.

Where was that young and passionate boy who had wooed me? I sometimes wondered whether that had been a part he had played for some purpose. Purpose! That was it. There was some purpose behind everything that had happened since his return.

My mother was a frequent visitor, for since I did not go to Caseman Court she must come to me.

 "Your stepfather marvels at the magnificence of this new place you are building.

Your husband must be a man of boundless wealth, he says.”

"It is not so," I said quickly. "You know the Abbey was bestowed on him. We have the material we need. We are using bricks from the lay quarters, so it is not so very costly.”

"Your stepfather says that there is a movement in the country to bring back some of the monasteries, and that monks are getting together again and living together as they did before. Your stepfather thinks this is a highly dangerous way of living.”

'So much is dangerous, Mother. It is dangerous to concern oneself with the new ideas.”

"Why cannot people be sensible and live for their families?" she said irritably.

I agreed with her.

She would bring the twins with her and the children would all play together while we watched them fondly and laughed at their antics. I saw what Kate meant. My mother and I were of a kind after all-the eternal mothers, as Kate would say.