The Taming of the Queen

The double doors are flung open, the herald bellows, ‘Edward Prince of Wales!’ and the little boy of just five years old walks in, with half the court trailing sycophantically behind him. I could almost laugh aloud. All their shoulders are hunched, all their heads are stooped, everyone is trying to bend down to smile at the little boy, to lean towards him so that they can hear anything he might say. When they walk behind the king they match his swagger, heads up and shoulders back, chests thrust out, pacing themselves to his limping stride. But to follow his son they have invented a new way of sidling along. What fools they are, I think to myself, and I glance at my husband and see his sardonic grin.

Prince Edward stops before the thrones and bows. His pale face is turned to his father with the dazzled expression of a child who hero-worships a distant parent, his lower lip trembles. He gives a small speech in Latin in a piping little voice that I assume expresses his honour and pleasure at coming to court. The king replies briefly in the same language. I can pick out a few words but I have no idea what he is saying. I guess that he had this speech prepared for him; he has little patience with study these days. Then Edward turns to me and speaks in French, a courtly language more appropriate for a woman without much learning.

As I did with Elizabeth, I rise to my feet and go towards him but he looks anxious as I approach and this makes me cautious. He bows, I curtsey, I extend my hand and he kisses it. I dare not embrace him as I did Elizabeth; I cannot fold him into my arms. He is only a little boy, but he is a unique being, as rare as a unicorn, sighted only in tapestries. This is the only Tudor prince in the whole world. After a lifetime of marriages and couplings, this is the only surviving boy that Henry could get.

‘I am so pleased to meet you, Your Highness,’ I say to him. ‘And I look forward to knowing and loving you, as I should.’

‘I too am honoured,’ he says carefully. I imagine he has been coached in every possible response. This is a boy whose speech was scripted from the first words he ever learned. His first word was not ‘Mama’; they will have taught him to say something else. ‘It will be a comfort and joy to me to have a mother in you.’

‘And I’ll learn Latin,’ I say.

No-one could have prepared him for this surprising promise and I see the leap of amusement of a normal boy. ‘You’ll find it awfully hard,’ he warns me in English, and for a moment I see the child that he is, under the carapace of the prince that he has to be. ‘I’ll get a tutor,’ I say. ‘I love to learn and study. I have wanted all my life to have a good education. Now I can start, and then I can write to you in Latin and you can correct me.’

He gives a funny little formal bow. ‘I shall be honoured,’ he says, and looks up fearfully to see if his father approves.

But Henry, the king, sombre in his own thoughts and besieged with pain, does not smile at his little son. ‘Very well,’ is all he grudgingly says.

MANOR OF THE MORE, HERTFORDSHIRE, SUMMER 1543

The plague is worsening in London, it is going to be one of the deadly years. Left behind us, hundreds are dying in the filthy streets as we ride further and further away from the city, making our way north, hunting and feasting. Guards are posted along the road from London to prevent anyone following the court, and the gates to every palace are bolted shut as soon as we are inside.

In a plague year at my home at Snape Castle I used to order the nursing of sick people in the village, send out tisanes and herbs to prevent the spread of the disease, and pay the burial parties for the pauper graves. I would have the newly-orphaned children to eat in the castle kitchens, and ban travellers from visiting. It’s odd to me that now I am Queen of England and all the people are my people, I act as if I don’t care for any of them, and they can’t even beg for food at the kitchen doors.

The king decides to order a Rogation, a day of processions with prayers. Everyone must call on the help of God to save England, at this time of her need. There are to be nationwide pilgrimages of faith, and a service in every church in the land. The day is made known from every pulpit, and every congregation is commanded to process around their parish, praying and singing psalms. Only if every parish in England prays for all the people of England will the plague leave us. But instead of an outpouring of faith and hope, the occasion is a complete failure. Hardly anyone attends and nobody gives alms. It’s not like it used to be. There are no monks and no choirs to lead the processions, no-one has any sacred relics to parade, the gold and silver holy vessels have been taken away and melted down, the abbeys and monasteries are all closed, their hospitals closed too. As a demonstration of national faith all it shows is that nobody cares any more.