Chapter 25
May 1548
I woke suddenly, gripped by an agonising pain. "Ah!"
"My Lady Queen!" Lady Lucy, who had been sleeping on a pallet at the foot of my bed, sprang up, alerted by my cry. As she reached me, however, the pain eased and I slumped back on the pillows with a watery smile.
"It's nothing, Lucy. Just another false alarm, most likely."
"Not another one, Madam! That's three in the past week! If we tell His Highness again, he'll begin to think you're making up the child in your womb!" she laughed.
"More fool him! He hasn't had to carry – AH!"
My sharp retort was cut off by another screech of pain. I arched suddenly, feeling as I did so something break inside me and a torrent of liquid gush out from between my legs. Lady Lucy took advantage of my momentary position to snatch a brief glimpse of the sheets. It was enough to enable her to ascertain that they were soaked through.
"On second thoughts, Your Majesty, perhaps I'd better fetch Mistress Greenwood."
Lucy flashed me a smile and was gone, without even waiting for my nod of approval. Not that I was complaining.
I barely would have had time to do so anyway, for a minute later, she was back, Kat and Mistress Greenwood scurrying in her wake.
The former almost went into hysterics upon seeing me in pain. To her, even though I was Queen of England and a mother to be, I was still just as much her little Princess, the girl she had taken under her wing when my sister Blanche had been born the year I turned five. To see me writhing in the throes of childbirth affected her severely.
"Oh, Elizabeth!"
Falling to her knees beside me, she gripped my hand tightly, trying not to cry at the sight of my anguish.
I tried to offer her a smile of reassurance, but couldn't help being relieved when Mistress Greenwood snapped, "Well, Mistress Ashley, if you want to help me, then I need you to pull yourself together. Go and send someone to tell the Great Lord Edward that his wife has gone into labour. Tell him I'll send someone to get him when it's over. And fetch some hot water. We'll need plenty of it before we're done here."
Though, at the time, I didn't believe her, an hour later, when I was sweaty and bloodstained, cursing Edward for putting me in this position with every other breath, I certainly did.
It was no easy birth, that much was certain. The child was a stubborn one; I had known that from the very first time I had felt it kick; when it had been so determined to prove its presence to its father. Even though I felt that it was time to push it out into the world, the child itself. It took me a full day of hard, laboured struggle to push England's newest Royal child out into the world.
But she was worth it. Of course she was worth it. She was my Princess; Edward's Princess. Our Princess Katherine Tudor-Brandon. How could she not be worth it?
From the second I held her, freshly swaddled, I loved her with such a passion that I scarcely wanted to let her go.
"Oh, Katherine. My darling. You're so, so loved, Princess. You're England's little Rose. The Thornless Rose, just like your Grandmother. I pray you never forget that. May you stay bonny and blithe and grow into a perfect jewel of womanhood. Just like I'm sure you will."
Crooning into the whorls of her tiny ear, I cradled her close, barely paying attention even as Kat sent a maid, Mistress Amy Robsart, scuttling to Edward's apartments to fetch him.
The first time I looked up from Katherine's downy head was when Edward, tousled with drowsiness and worry, but his eyes blazing with love, came sprinting into the room, crying out my name.
"Elizabeth! Oh, thank God! Elizabeth!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Rocking Katherine quickly to prevent her from startling at her father's voice, I offered him a tired smile. Edward fell to his knees beside me, cupping my face between his hands and staring deep into my eyes.
"I thought I was going to lose you. It took so long… I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again."
"But you haven't. I'm still here. I'm still your Elizabeth. I'm still Queen of England. As I promised you I would be. And they say that first babies are always the hardest. The next one will be easier, I'm sure. Anyway, she's worth it. Look at her. Isn't she just perfect?"
"She is," Edward agreed, taking Katherine from me and dandling her in his arms. "Our perfect Princess Katherine."
"I want Anne to be her Godmother. Anne and Maria," I announced decidedly, using the Spanish version of our older sister's name, as I often did when I was trying to keep her separate from Lady Stafford, and especially since she had married a Portuguese noble. Edward nodded.
"I thought you might. I was going to suggest Blanche, but if you want Maria to be Godmother instead…"
"I do. I want Blanche to be Godmother to the Prince of Wales whenever we have a boy, so I'd rather she wasn't…"
"Of course," Edward said smoothly, understanding perfectly, as I had known he would. "For Katherine's Godfather, I was thinking of Robert King, Bishop of Oxford. I don't know about you, but I've not forgotten that we got married in Oxford. I thought it might be a nice gesture. Bring things full circle."
As Edward spoke, I realised that he was right. If I was honest, I hadn't considered the Bishop of Oxford as a possible godfather, not even as a second one, had it been a boy, but now that Edward had planted the idea in my head, I couldn't get rid of it. I nodded.
"As you wish, Edward. Robert King it is."
A week later, wearing the tiny gown of silver and ivory lace that I had designed and sewn for her, the one embroidered with roses and dragons, our little daughter was christened "Her Highness Katherine Tudor-Brandon, Princess of England!"
Edward and I had debated giving her a title in her own right, as my sisters and I had one, but decided against it. She was still so young. We still had every hope of a Prince of Wales. If, in the future, Katherine turned out to be our only heir, then we would invest her with a title of her own beyond that of Princess, but not yet.
Given that I had only given birth a week earlier, I couldn't attend the ceremony, but Anne, who had held her at the font, assured to me that Katherine had behaved just as one might expect of a child barely a week old.
To my relief it was a view corroborated by all three of my younger sisters when they paid me a visit the next day
"She looked beautiful, Bessie. And so quiet. With you for a mother and all the incense and crowds and what have you, I thought she might be shrieking her head off, but she didn't. She acted the part of an angel just as much as she looked like one."
"No, she didn't, Blanche. She cried when the water went over her head," Nora contradicted and I laughed, laughed a breathy sigh of relief. "Oh, that's all right, Nora. Babies are supposed to do that."
"Why? Doesn't crying mean that they're unhappy?"
"In most cases, yes. But at the christening, their crying means that they've been blessed; that God has expelled their demons."
"Demons?" Nora, who had been fussing over Katherine, who lay cradled in Jess's arms, glanced up in alarm, but thankfully, Katherine started crying a moment later. I glanced over at the three of them.
"She's probably hungry, Jess. Will you take her to her wet nurse for me?"
"Of course, Beth."
Jess slipped from her seat on the bed, Katherine balanced awkwardly in her arms. Not to be outdone, Nora leaped to her feet. "Wait for me!"
Watching them go, I chuckled. "They're adorable."
"All three of them," Blanche agreed, before switching the subject back to Katherine. "Have you chosen a governess for her yet?"
"Well, Kat will no doubt be disappointed that I haven't chosen her, but I think she's getting a little old to meet the demands of an infant. I was thinking of Lady Mary Dudley."
"Lord Warwick's daughter?" Blanche sounded stunned, and I hastened to reassure her.
"Yes. With the Dowager Lady Latimer to help her, of course. I've not forgotten that Mary's still young."
"Elizabeth…I hate to say it, but you really favour the Dudleys. If you don't watch out, people are going to get jealous."
"They've earned it. After everything they've done for me, for us, they've earned it," I retorted, trying not to glance at the door that the twins had just disappeared through. Marriage was still a touchy subject for Blanche. Telling her that I had recently been toying with the idea of marrying one of the twins off to John Dudley, the future Earl of Warwick, would do nothing to help that.
"Anyway," I said cheerfully, "I refuse to debate that now. Anne tells me you're planning to renovate Dublin Castle when you go back to Ireland. What do you mean to do to it?"
It was the right thing to say. Blanche had always been a keen artist and the idea of having an entire castle to arrange as she liked was simply wonderful for her. She talked so fast and for so long that, to be honest, I was surprised that she didn't drop down in a dead faint for lack of oxygen. My head spun from all the details she tried to cram into it, but nonetheless, it was a pleasure to have my little sister near me, talking as animatedly as she used to.
Much as I loved Katherine and my sisters, however, I couldn't shirk my duties as Queen forever. Six weeks was far too long to leave England without a monarch, however capable a Regent Edward might be.
So, when King Henri of France's message congratulating me on the birth of my new daughter arrived, I lost no time in writing back to him.
The message I entrusted to William Stanley, Baron Mounteagle, who was my new envoy to the French Court, also contained the suggestion that Edward, Anne and I had agreed on all those months ago.
That, if King Henri would agree to marry my younger sister Blanche when she turned sixteen and cede the Pas-Du-Calais to me until that date in the year of our Lord 1551, then, provided he honoured his agreement to marry her, I would ensure that the Pas-Du-Calais made up part of her dowry when the time came and give up all my claims to it from then on.
Message signed, sealed and sent in both Edward's name and mine, I turned my attention back to domestic matters such as arranging Katherine's household at Eltham. After all, I had done all I could, offered the best terms I could reasonably accept. It was up to the French now.