Deus Vult
NB: Eleanor Boleyn is an old OC of mine, written for my very first story 'Sister to the Queen'. I've always had a soft spot for her, so I brought her back for this story because it seemed to fit that this Katherine and Henry might come to blows over the idea of Henry's infidelity in a way that Henry has not yet done with his wives within this series…
Toledo, December 1523
"Mistress Mendoza? The Princess is asking for you."
"Thank you, Pedro. Where might I find Her Highness?
"The Chapel."
Susana de Mendoza nodded, picked up her skirts and was about to head for the chapel within the Palace walls when the page, with surprising daring considering the difference in their ranks, halted her where she stood.
"Mistress Mendoza?"
"Yes, Pedro?"
"With all due respect… I feel you ought to know. The messengers brought grave news from England. I fear it has affected Her Highness deeply."
Susana's heart missed a beat. If the news from England concerned her mistress Catalina – it could only have to do with the young Prince of Wales, Guillermo. And the last they'd heard, he'd been acquitting himself well… in his father's skirmishes with the French.
She picked up her skirts and ran, bursting through the doors into the sacred space with far less decorum than was truly seemly.
She didn't have to ask. When she took in how silent the vaulted room was, how deliberately poised the sixteen-year-old Princess was, she didn't have to ask. She knew.
"Su Alteza?"
The Princess didn't respond. Susana waited a few moments, then crossed the space between them on soft, respectful feet. Only when she was within arm's length of the younger woman did she dare to reach out to touch her mistress's shoulder, presuming upon their many shared years in the schoolroom to do so, "Doňa Catalina?" she asked quietly.
"He's dead, Susana," Catalina's voice was scratchy, hoarse with what was clearly hours of weeping. For a moment, Susana wondered just how long her mistress had been here, sunk to her knees with grief, before anyone had thought to fetch her, "Guillermo is dead."
"But Mistress Mendoza… Loath though I am to admit it, you have such influence over my sister. Surely, you can dissuade her of this step. It just seems so final, so…"
The young Emperor spread his hands, not knowing the words he sought, and Susana felt for him. His hold over his many territories was not as secure as he might have hoped and, as he himself had yet to marry, His Grace had quite understandably hoped that his youngest sister would prove helpful in securing him a foreign alliance, in order that he might not have to watch his borders quite so closely. What Catalina was proposing would put paid to that almost as effectively as if she had died instead of her young affianced, the Prince of Wales.
Susana hated to disappoint him. But disappoint him she must. She curtsied deeply,
"I'm afraid, Sire, that My Lady the Princess is quite determined. You see, Her Majesty Queen Juana seems to have impressed upon Her Highness that it is her God-given destiny to be Queen of England. Hence, Her Highness has decided that, if the Lord has changed His mind, and she is not to be Queen of England after, that must necessarily mean that she isn't fit to be a Queen at all. She has decided that she must yield herself to His hand by taking a vow of chastity."
"My damned mother…" The words had slipped out of His Majesty's mouth before he could bite them back. It was an unusual lapse of his commendable self-control, however, and naught but a momentary one. A second later, he had himself under tight rein again.
"Does my sister not realise how much she will harm my international prestige by doing this?" he huffed, "I could have found her any match she wanted, a far grander match than with the Prince of Wales, if that was her desire. She could have served Spain! Instead, she has to throw it all away with a childishly ostentatious display of piety!"
"Her Highness knows her decision will grieve Your Grace, Sire, and she begs your forgiveness. However, she also begged me to remind Your Majesty, that although she is your obedient sister and humble servant, she was born God's servant first."
Susana met the young Emperor's eyes for a fraction of a second, before dipping down into a respectful curtsy. Her words hung, heavy and cool, in the air between them.
"Oh, very well. She may retire, if that's what she wants. But she'd best not think I'm leaving the matter alone."
"Su Alteza, please. Try and eat something. It's not good for you, to starve yourself like this." Susana begged her mistress, who shook her head, her dark hair limp and bedraggled around her face, but her eyes burning in her face like chips of coal alight with her determination.
"Susana. We've talked about this. God punished me for my pride, my conviction that I would be among the greatest women in Christendom, by taking away my beloved Guillermo, and with him, the destiny I always believed would be mine. I need to learn better. I need to learn humility. Today is a fast day, stipulated by our holy mother Church. I would be a great sinner indeed, if I ate any more than I already have today."
"A few mouthfuls of bread soaked in sweet wine do not a suitable meal make, not for a Princess of Spain!" Susana muttered. She'd hoped to keep her voice low enough for Catalina not to hear her, but the Princess's ears were always sharper on fast days, as though the self-inflicted hunger heightened her other senses as well.
"Ah, but Susana, you forget. I am not a Princess of Spain, not before our Lord and Saviour. I am just Catalina, a proud, haughty sinner, who must do penance for her pride," The Princess chuckled lightly, knowing there was no argument that could truly be voiced against such a declaration.
Susana knew it too. She might mutter about the Lord also having said that one shouldn't make a big show of one's faith, but that was as far as her protests went. She would never truly challenge Catalina, especially not when the younger woman had invoked her piety and conviction that the Lord had punished her for her pride by killing Guillermo in the argument. Her Highness's brother, the Emperor, might have been able to, but given that he married the Princess Isabella of Portugal eighteen months after his sister's withdrawal into a convent in Segovia, His Grace was rather more concerned with starting and raising a family of his own than worrying about the fate of his youngest sister.
Or so Susana thought. As such, the letter that arrived from Court in the May of 1529 was quite a surprise.
"You're sure your master won't mind, Master Sampson?" Charles murmured, pausing with the quill held above the parchment at a carefully calculated angle to prevent it from dripping ink all over the place.
"Of course he won't mind, Sire! Why on earth should King Henry mind being in alliance with the greatest monarch on God's earth?" Master Sampson, a slightly portly man who, unlike most diplomats, had never learnt to keep his emotions from showing on his face, flushed in affront, "Would I be here if he did?"
"No, no, you misunderstand me," Charles soothed quickly, "I am of course honoured that my royal brother King Henry wishes to affirm the friendship between our countries. I am only surprised that he is willing to certify it with a match between himself and my younger sister the Princess Catherine of Austria. After all, the late Queen Anne has not yet been dead a year. And by all accounts, His Majesty loved her dearly. I would have thought he might want to honour her memory a little longer – as he did that of the late Duchess of York."
Master Sampson sighed, "Your Majesty is greatly insightful. His Majesty King Henry did indeed love the Lady Anne. Indeed, I hear the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are scarcely ever away from Court, so keen is my master to keep what little remains of his latest Queen with him. However, he also knows only too well that, without a Prince of Wales in the cradle, our dear country is not stable. And loath though he is to admit it, the King cannot hope to hold time back forever. He is already 38 years old and his father barely saw out two score years and ten upon this earth. His grandfather, God rest him, saw out even less. If His Majesty wishes to have a hope of handing his throne on to a fully-grown son, as he believed he would when Prince William was alive, then, he needs one sooner rather than later, as indeed, Your Majesty does in His Highness Prince Phillip."
Few other diplomats would have been as honest about their monarch's fears in front of a potential rival. But that, surprisingly, was where Sampson's talents lay. Not in the witty, amusing comments that promised much and delivered little that his contemporaries could do so well, but in reading people. In knowing when showing honesty and vulnerability might be played to his advantage. He hoped that in appealing to Charles's fatherhood and the new sense of dynasty that must necessarily come alongside that, he might win what he needed from him.
Charles hesitated, then exhaled, "I understand that need. God forbid I am taken before the Prince of the Asturias is old enough to sit where I am now."
He scrawled his signature across the bottom of the scroll. Scattering sand across the ink to dry it, he glanced up. Suddenly, a thought struck him and he chuckled wryly.
"Well, well," he murmured to himself, "It seems Catalina will get her English bridegroom after all."
England, 1530
Henry was far from the kind of man who would shame his bride by admitting he had doubts about their marriage from the start, but for the life of him, he couldn't see how his marriage to the Princess Catherine of Austria was supposed to work.
Oh, she was comely enough, he supposed, with dark snapping eyes and long dark hair, similar to his Boleyn bride's, though several shades lighter, and a waist small enough to make her the envy of every woman at Court. But he preferred his women rather more buxom, if he was honest.
And it wasn't her manner, as such. She clearly knew her duty as his wife, and seemed to be a kind enough stepmother to little Bess and sweet young Meg, when she remembered they were there, but still. There was something lacking between them. Whether it was the fact that she was of an age with Kathie, so quite young enough to be his own daughter, or whether it was that she had her share of the Hapsburg pride, meaning there were barriers between them in a way that there hadn't been between him and his wife since he'd shared his life with Anna, Henry didn't know, but something wasn't right. Something stopped him seeking out his wife, either for the sake of her company, or, perhaps more worryingly, for the sake of her bed.
Instead, he surrounded himself with the bright young men and women of his court, most especially those who had familial links with him: his nephew, the Earl of Lincoln, his nieces the Brandon sisters, Frances and Eleanor, and Lady Margaret Douglas, his distant cousins like Reginald and Geoffrey Pole, and his late wife's siblings, Mary, George and Eleanor Boleyn.
They danced and laughed, played cards and sang until the early hours of most mornings, relishing in their own high spirits and the fact that they shared blood and memories that no one else did.
Henry tried not to have favourites among their number. Despite himself, however, he couldn't help but have a particular partiality for young Eleanor Boleyn, or Nora, as Mary and George often called her. She reminded him so much of Anne, or even partly of his beloved Kate.
Oh, she looked nothing like either of them, but there was just something in her ready wit, in the way she held her head, in the way she flung herself into any dance with all the boundless energy that one has at fifteen. Henry couldn't help but be enchanted by her.
As ever when Henry loved a girl, he longed to be generous towards her, so when she and his nephew came to him, confessing their love for one another, and pleading that he might bless their union, rather than the one Eleanor's father was pushing her into with the Earl of Somerset, it was an easy decision for him to make.
"Marry? Aye, why not? After all, if your sister was good enough to be my Queen, then you are indeed good enough to be my niece, Nora. We'll have you wed at Whitsun, hmm?"
"But, Sire, the Papal dispensation…"
"Leave that to me," Henry waved an airy hand, "I find that large amounts of gold, which I have in abundance, tend to grease the cogs of Rome quite satisfactorily."
Nora's jaw dropped. "Your Grace…"
"Consider it a wedding present. And it is brother or uncle to you, Nora, at least in private."
Before she could respond, Henry turned to his nephew, "Well, Hal. What can I say? You clearly take after myself and your father in your impeccable taste in women. I wish you all the best. But remember, were I ten years younger and had I not already wed her sister, you might have had to challenge me for the right to her hand. As it is, you'll have me to answer to if you ever hurt her. Am I clear?"
"Yes, Uncle Henry," Hal bowed, but Nora was too happy to care for protocol. Overwhelmed with delight, she threw herself into Henry's arms in exuberance, much like Kathie or Mary might have done.
"Thank you, Uncle Henry! Thank you!"
"Lady Lincoln," he chuckled softly, twirling her round slightly before setting her on her feet again.
A slight movement caught his eye. His heart sank. Just slipping away from the door frame – close enough to have seen their actions, but not to have heard their words, was Katherine.
Katherine clenched a fist in her sleeve as she stalked away from the hall, though she fought to keep her face blank and refused to look at any of her ladies. She couldn't bear the thought of the subdued pity she knew she'd find in their gazes.
"You have his ring on your finger," she told herself, "You have his ring on your finger and the royal blood of Castile, Aragon and Flanders in your veins. Whoever that hussy was in his arms, she will never be able to compete with that. Never. He must know that. He must."
No matter how much she tried to reassure herself, however, fury boiled in her veins. How dare her husband dishonour her like that by carousing with another woman so openly, when all the Court knew he scarcely ever came to her bed? When he knew, only too well, how closely she was being watched for a single sign that she might, by some miracle, be with child? How dare he?!
Irate as she was, she knew better than to let it show. Instead, fettered by her regal training, her anger simply festered inside her, until the next time her husband deigned to make an appearance in her rooms.
"I want her gone! I want her gone before the day is out!"
Only Henry's lightening reactions saved him from being brained by a heavy silver candlestick that came flying his direction the moment he stepped inside Katherine's rooms.
"You know, I'm fairly sure trying to behead one's monarch counts as treason," he chuckled lightly, buying himself time to size up the situation as he scanned his wife's rooms quickly. Thank goodness. Her ladies had made themselves scarce. This wasn't going to be a public airing of their marriage issues, at least.
"Don't patronise me!" Katherine snarled, "I'm not a child, I am your Queen! I want her gone!"
"Who? Madam, I cannot dismiss someone if I don't know who I'm supposed to be dismissing."
"Oh, don't play the innocent with me! You know perfectly well who I mean! That hussy you were embracing the other night!"
Henry rolled back the hours in his head, trying to think who Katherine could mean… and then it hit him. He threw back his head, laughing.
"Nora?! You want me to dismiss Nora? What on earth for?"
"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps because you blatantly favour her over me! Perhaps because she doesn't know her place and flaunts your affection every moment she can, and you let her! Her very presence at Court is belittling to me as a Princess of Spain and I won't have it! I won't have it, do you hear me?"
"But why would you even… Katherine, she is not my mistress!"
"Really? You could have fooled me!"
"She's my sister, Katherine! That hussy, as you called her, is my late Queen's youngest sister Eleanor. Yes, I like women as much as the next man, but I would never risk my immortal soul by bedding the sister of a woman I have already fathered children on!"
Katherine spluttered, scrambling to find her footing in the light of this new information.
"Well, how was I supposed to know? You never tell me anything!"
"Perhaps you should seem more interested, then. We've been married a full half-year. You should know your own Court by now!"
Henry was trembling with rage, his face as white-hot as the blood in his veins. He stalked to the door before Katherine could say any more, not even bothering to do her the courtesy of saluting her hand with a kiss in farewell. At the door, he paused, his voice icy with controlled fury.
"For your information, Madam, I do not have a mistress. Nor do I have any intention of taking one. I haven't dishonoured my wife in such a manner since I was a young, hot-blooded man who knew no better. But even if I did, it would not be your place to rail against me as you have just done. You would shut your eyes and endure, Madam, as your betters have done before you!"
"What am I to do, Susana? What am I do? The King hasn't come near me in weeks, and all the while I can feel the eyes of the Court on me, wondering why I do not show any signs of being with child!"
Katherine wept in her favourite's arms despairingly. Even as she sobbed, however, despair began to give way to rage and she scoffed scornfully, "Not that the King's presence in my bed would do any good, even if he was so inclined to grant it!"
"Su Alteza! You can't say such things!"
"Why not, if they're true? All he ever does is kiss me on the forehead and call me his lady. We never get any further. "Good night, my lady," before we sleep, "Good morrow, my lady" when we wake. That's all I ever get out of him. Perhaps a 'sweet lady', if I've particularly pleased him."
"But, Catalina! Are you sure?" Susana was too shocked by her mistress's revelations to think of standing on protocol, "That won't get the country a Prince of Wales."
"Don't you think I know that?! Christ, Susana, I might have spent the last eight years in a convent, but I'm not that sheltered! Not with Juana La Loca as my mother!"
Katherine spat the words at her oldest friend, dark eyes blazing with fury and injured pride. Despite herself, Susana took a step back, holding a hand out placatingly.
"Forgive me, I misspoke. Of course you're not. But, My Lady, what are you going to do? It's not exactly as if you can take a lover and hope to pass the child off as the King's."
No sooner were the words out of Susana's mouth than she regretted saying them.
"My Lady Queen, no!" she cried, but she knew it was too late. Katherine's jaw had set in the way it had always done when she was a mulish, spoilt little girl who wanted nothing more than her own way and didn't see why she shouldn't have it.
"It's not as if any child of mine wouldn't be more royal just by virtue of being mine than it would be if it were the English King's. I'm part of one of the oldest families in Europe. His are little more than upstarts. Besides, we're married. He'd have no choice but to claim the child, unless he wanted to risk being laughed at as a cuckold, and insulting my brother into the bargain."
The half-laugh that followed Katherine's words made Susana's blood run cold, "And I know just the man to be my lover. He has diplomatic immunity, after all. And, being Spanish, his loyalty must naturally be to me, his Infanta."
Katherine's eyes locked with Susana's, daring her to look away as she spoke the next three words, words Susana had known must come, but dreaded all the same,
"Your brother, Diego."
To say Diego was just as shocked by the Queen's suggestion as Susana had been would be an understatement. "Your Majesty! Have you taken leave of your senses? We can't. If we were found out, it would be the end of us. Even your brother couldn't save us."
Katherine knew his words were the voice of caution, but, almost a year into her marriage with King Henry, she was far past caution. She gripped the Ambassador like a vice, eyes burning.
"I don't care, Diego, I don't care! I've tried to make my marriage work, tried to prove to the King that I am a worthy Queen, that I would be a good mother to his daughters if he would only let me. But no, he has to deny me my rights. He shares a bed with me only on odd occasions, when he has to, to quieten the rumours. And even then, he doesn't do his duty by me! The rest of the time, he's always got that bunch of sycophants around him. Dios, even the little girls know something's not right. They refuse to call me Mother. They're always crying for Lady Lincoln or Lady Carey when I try to be around them!"
"Your Majesty, your marriage is barely a year old. These things take time. The Princesses are young and unsettled by all the change around them. They'll get used to you soon enough. Besides, once Your Grace gives King Henry a son, I'm sure…
"And how am I meant to do that if His Majesty shuns me, hmm?"
"Why are you being like this, My Lady? Your mother and sister made it clear enough to you that jealousy doesn't work in front of a man such as King Henry. Your mother knows that only too well. Can't you follow their advice, at least for a little while longer, before resorting to such drastic measures?"
"Not without a son. Not without a son to secure the Tudor line." Katherine's every word dripped with desperation. Diego sighed, spreading his hands.
"And how are we meant to get you one of those, Madam, without the King playing his part?"
"I'm married. Any child I carry will automatically bear the Tudor name…regardless of how it comes to be in my womb."
For a few moments, the two of them simply stared at one another. Blue eyes met brown. Horrified shock met pleading desperation. Anger and pent up frustration met ever-weakening resolve. Katherine held out her hand.
"Please, Diego. Am I not your Princess? Did you not once swear to die for me, if I ever asked it of you?"
"I might well be doing that soon," Diego snapped, before he could stop himself. But Katherine was right. His innate sense of obedience to those who outranked him was quickly asserting itself, even in the face of such an outrageous suggestion. He exhaled.
"Just once then. Just to get you with child."
1531
"Sire?"
Henry turned towards the voice, surprised when he realised it was Brandon.
"Charles," he smiled, laughing and standing to pull his old friend into a back-slapping hug, "I've told you, it's Henry to you."
"Not today, it isn't, My Lord," Brandon sighed, "I'm afraid I'm the bearer of some bad news. Might we clear the room?"
Henry hesitated, glancing down at his young daughters, who were playing at his feet.
"My Lord," Brandon pressed, "I must insist. The Princesses cannot be here for this."
Finally, the urgency in Brandon's tone got through to Henry and he sighed, reaching down to tweak his daughters' hair, "Off you go with Lady Carey now, Bess, Meg."
"But Papa, you promised you'd play!" Meg whined, shifting irritably. To Henry's credit, he'd been around enough young children to know when and how to be stern if he needed to.
"And so I will, Meg, but later. I need to speak to Uncle Charles now. Off you go. Thank you, Lady Carey."
"Sire," Lady Carey nodded, curtsied and took her nieces by the hands, "Come along now, there's good girls. Shall we go down to the stables and see your ponies, hmm?"
Bess squealed in agreement and, though Meg whined a little more, she let herself be led out of the room without anything like the fuss she usually made at having to leave her beloved Papa. The servants, responding to Henry's silent dismissal, followed the Princesses out and swung the doors shut behind them, leaving Henry and Brandon alone.
Henry turned to his oldest friend, "Well, Charles, what's so important that you decided to risk Meg's wrath by pulling me away from an afternoon I'd promised to spend with them?"
"It's about the Queen."
"Katherine? What of her? Is she ill?"
"No, no. Quite the opposite, Sire. As far as I can tell, Her Majesty is quite well. Certainly, well enough to be entertaining Ambassador Mendoza alone, at any rate."
"Well, of course she should be entertaining him. He's her brother's ambassador, and brother to one of her favourite ladies, as far as I understand it. I don't see what you're getting at, Charles. Now, if that's all…."
"Henry." Brandon stopped his friend in his tracks as he began to head for the door, "Must I spell it out? Queen Katherine – it is rumoured that she entertains Ambassador Mendoza late at night, without anyone more than his sister Lady Susana for company. And sometimes, not even her, if my spies are to be understood correctly."
Henry froze. Now, he understood what Brandon was being too delicate to come out and say directly. Oh, he understood only too well.
"Are you sure?" His voice was granite.
"No, Sire, but I was troubled enough by the rumours of Her Majesty's supposed behaviour to feel I ought to bring to you. I can investigate, if you wish it."
"Do. But discreetly. Get my Secretary, Master Cromwell on it. He's good at discreet work. I pray to God there's nothing in it, but if there is… I can't stay married to a harlot, can I now?"
"No, Sire," Brandon bowed hurriedly and scurried off, leaving Henry alone with his dark thoughts.
In the event, Master Cromwell thought, the Queen had really made his job far too easy. Several months without detection had made her careless, too free with her favours when Ambassador Mendoza was around. It hadn't taken him much to bribe one of her maids into sharing all the household gossip with him – and into smuggling him into a passage that came out in a hidden door in the tapestry in the Queen's bedchamber – the very door that gossip said the Ambassador himself used to meet Her Grace.
Sure enough, one night, the said Ambassador came down the passage from the Queen's rooms, fumbling his way in the dark, clearly in his cups, but swaggering only the way a man who has recently lain with a woman can do.
He was so drunk, he didn't even see Cromwell until the younger man put a blade to his throat.
"Well, well, well, Your Excellency. Fancy meeting you here. Care to explain this?"
"I – I – I was only serving Castile! I was only doing what Infanta Catalina asked of me!"
The words were involuntary, spoken with the lowered inhibitions of a man who will not remember them hours later, Cromwell knew that, but as the old saying went, in vino veritas.
"I am loath to admit it, Sire, but shameful though the Queen's conduct has been, we cannot afford to execute her. The Emperor might yet balk at the killing of his youngest sister."
Henry blinked at Cromwell, "Adultery in a Queen is high treason! How can Charles deny me the right to treat my wife as I would any other person who has committed high treason?"
"The Emperor will claim that the Queen is unwell, that she has inherited her mother's weakness of the mind, that she cannot truly be say to understand the enormity of what she did. Indeed, it must be said that Her Majesty's conviction that it was her destiny to be Queen of England and that God would never abandon her, no matter how she behaved whilst in the role, would seem to suggest that Her Grace has inherited Queen Joanna's lunacy.
"I see," Henry exhaled impatiently, running a hand through his thinning auburn hair, "And Mendoza? I suppose I am to be allowed to treat him with the severity his crime deserves? Or is Charles seeking to play the angel of mercy for him as well?"
The King's sarcasm was uncharacteristic and perhaps unfitting for the gravity of the moment, but no one dared suggest that. Not with the King's temper wearing so thin as it was. Brandon bowed quickly.
"No, Sire," he soothed, "You may do with Mendoza as you wish."
"Good. Then punish him as harshly as the law will allow. Hang him, draw him, quarter him… Oh, and make him a eunuch before you do. If he can't keep his cock in his hose where it belongs, then he doesn't deserve to have one at all. As for my wife, needless to say, I've already petitioned for an annulment. Pray God it comes through soon. In the meantime, send her as far north as you can. Imprison her at Bamburgh until I can decide what to do with her."
So saying, Henry stalked to his feet and stormed from the room. Let the councillors deal with the rest. He was going to go and soothe himself by spending some time with his beloved little girls. Thank goodness they'd never taken to Katherine. At least he wouldn't have to worry about her having corrupted them or having turned them against him.