my Spanish cousin, Charles, the son of my mother’s sister. I was just six, and Charles was a man of twenty-two with the title of Holy Roman emperor.
When I was betrothed to Charles, a magnificent procession made its way from London to Dover, on the coast. My mother and I rode in our royal litter, and crowds of people lined the route, cheering and tossing their caps in the air. At Dover we met Charles.
Charles had sailed from Spain with a fleet of one hundred and eighty ships and arrived in Dover accompanied by two thousand courtiers and servants. When I finally saw Charles, his appearance surprised and pleased me. He was clothed in a peculiar manner, so different from my father’s crimson velvet outfit trimmed in fur. Charles wore black velvet with no ornament but a chain of gold around his neck. He had kind, intelligent eyes. And he praised me when I played a little song for him upon my virginals. I liked him, although he was sixteen years older than I was.
King Henry owned numerous palaces and manor houses, and he had prepared Bridewell, one of the most beautiful, for the emperor’s visit. During his stay of several months, Charles began to teach me to play chess.
Then the visit was over. On the day before he sailed away, Charles kissed my hand and promised to return to claim me as his wife when I reached the marriageable age of twelve.
But one day, more than a year after Charles’s departure, a page dressed in the king’s green and white satin livery came to my chambers with a message. I broke the wax seal and read it: the king wished to see me at once. He had signed it, as he always did, Henricus Rex — Henry the King.
Immediately I picked up my petticoats and ran happily to the king’s chambers — down the long gallery, up the king’s staircase, through the guard chamber, where the yeomen all smiled and bowed to me, through the noisy audience chamber crowded with people waiting to see the king on official business, through the first presence chamber where important men conferred, through the second presence chamber where the king’s closest advisers stroked their beards and nodded knowingly as I skipped by, and finally into the privy chamber, where the king was seated at a great oak table, Cardinal Wolsey at his side. Breathless, I fell to my knees before my father and bowed my head for his blessing.
I seldom saw my father, who was usually off performing his kingly duties while I spent my days with my tutors. When I did see him, the visits were usually merry, but this time the purpose was entirely serious.
“You must write to Charles immediately,” the king said.
Quill, inkhorn, and parchment were fetched, and I climbed upon a seat at the table. Cardinal Wolsey himself sharpened the quill for me. I waited for my father’s instructions.
“You shall write the letter in Latin, of course…” that was not a problem; even at the age of eight I had mastered the ability to write in both Latin and English “…and speak of your deep fondness for the emperor,” the king ordered. “Hint at your jealousy that he has sought the favours — nay, the affections — of another. Then swear your devotion. Can you do that, Mary?”
“Yes, my lord,” I replied, having not the least idea what he was talking about: jealousy? Affections of another? But I dared not ask. I dipped the quill and began to write, while my father paced back and forth, dictating the words.
The king slipped a ring from his own finger to send with the letter to Emperor Charles. The ring was set with a large stone that glowed a deep and brilliant green.
“The emerald reflects the truth of lovers,” the king explained, although for me that was no explanation at all. “It will change colour from dark to light if one of the lovers be inconstant.”
Inconstant?
Then he turned to Wolsey, seeming to forget that I was there. I backed slowly out of my father’s chamber (Never turn your back on the king, Salisbury had taught me. Always kneel and remain kneeling until he gives you permission to rise.) and then hurried to find Salisbury to ask for an explanation.
My governess reached for a silver comb and began tugging it through my unruly curls. “The rumour has reached the king,” she said quietly, “that Charles is thinking of marrying someone else.”
“But Charles is betrothed to me!” I pouted, yanking away from the comb in spite of myself.
“Your father must be certain of Charles’s loyalty,” she said.
Weeks later as I sat with my mother and some of her ladies, practising my stitches, my father burst unannounced into her chambers. His face was dark with anger, and his eyes shot sparks of fury. The waiting ladies scattered like frightened doves, and I dropped to my knees and hoped he would not notice me. My mother serenely laid aside her needlework and rose to greet him.
“Damn the Spaniard!” he roared. “The emerald has changed from dark to light! Charles has broken his pledge to us and married a Portuguese princess!” He turned on his heel and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.
“Will my father find me another husband?” I asked, when I dared to speak.
“Of course he will, Mary,” my mother assured me. “Never fear.”
I resumed my stitchery. I was disappointed, for I truly liked Charles, and I was too young to be grateful that for the moment, at least, I was as free as I would ever be.
For a time after the betrothal to Charles was broken, I heard no more talk of future husbands. Instead, I received a message of another kind from the king: I was to be crowned Princess of Wales. I was nine years old.
Everything was in a kind of giddy uproar for my crowning ceremony. I was to have a new gown, pale blue silk embroidered with tiny flowers and trimmed in gold. Even Queen Catherine, who never cared much for finery, ordered a gown for the occasion. It had been a long time since I had seen my mother so happy.
“This means that your father has decided you will one day be queen,” my mother said in her heavy Spanish accent, and kissed me on the forehead. “So the bastard Fitzroy is not in line for the throne, thanks be to God.”
I had heard a little about this “bastard Fitzroy”: that he was the king’s natural son and named Henry Fitzroy — Fitzroy means “son of the king"; that although Henry was the father, the child’s mother was not my mother, his wife, but a woman named Bessie Blount. It interested me that I had a baby brother who was kept hidden away somewhere. I understood that I must not speak of him to anyone, especially my mother. Someday I would ask Salisbury about this bastard half-brother. In the meantime I was happy to be the centre of attention.
On the day of the ceremony, King Henry made his entrance with a flourish of horns, accompanied by a host of earls and barons with their knights and servants. Cardinal Wolsey was there, of course, all in scarlet. He displayed his terrible teeth in something like a smile, but the smile never reached his glittering eyes.
I shivered and turned to my father. How magnificent he looked! He was dressed in close-fitting hose that showed off his muscular legs. Over these he wore red velvet trunk hose stuffed with cotton wool to form an onion shape and slashed to display glints of silver under the velvet. His doublet of quilted black velvet was covered all over with pearls and other jewels. In my eyes King Henry was the handsomest man in all the world.
“Are you ready, my princess?” the king asked.
“I am, Your Majesty,” I said, dropping into a deep curtsy.
The musty chapel swallowed up the light of hundreds