Agnes de Blagny, who had borne the brunt of the queen’s initial outburst, was making faces at me behind Catherine’s back. I found her facial gymnastics hard to interpret, but gathered it had involved King Henry in some way.
‘Please, Madame – your grace – tell me what it is that has upset you. Does it concern the king? Was it something he said?’
She swung round at that, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. ‘All day people have been calling out my name, begging for my glance, holding out their children for my touch. I am their beautiful queen, their Fair Kate, their Agincourt Bride. But my husband, the one who should have my glances and my touch and whose child I should be bearing, prefers to squander his attention on debating Christian doctrine with the abbot and inspecting the abbey’s library of dusty old books. And tomorrow, after he has prayed for an heir at the tomb of St Thomas à Becket, he says he must leave me here and hasten to Westminster to meet with his counsellors. I ask you – where in all the two thousand books the abbot is so proud to display to the king does it say that there has ever been more than one Immaculate Conception? What is the use of praying for an heir if Henry does nothing about actually getting one?’
There was the crux of the matter. She might be the darling of the crowds but, deep down, she would be an inadequate failure as a queen if she did not produce the heir that was so essential to securing the future of the crowns of England and France. Her marriage to King Henry was the very embodiment of the unification of the two kingdoms. She was the living proof of his remarkable conquest of more than half of France, but the joining of the two crowns, set in law by the Treaty of Troyes at their wedding eight months before, would be useless unless there was a male child born of the marriage; an heir to inherit the empire King Henry was creating and to carry it through to succeeding generations. On the surface Catherine was the ultra-beautiful, super-confident Queen of England and presumptive Queen of France, but inside she was a quivering mass of insecurities, all centred on the imperative conception of that child.
I hurried across the room to the abbot’s carved armchair into which she had sunk with a heavy sigh. ‘His grace will be here soon, Mademoiselle, I am sure,’ I said, lapsing back into the intimate form of address I had used ever since we had been reunited when she came to the French court at thirteen, fresh from her convent school. To me she would always be ‘Mademoiselle’, however many grand titles she acquired. ‘He rarely fails to wish you goodnight, even if he works into the small hours.’
Catherine gave me a withering look, far from mollified by my attempt at consolation. ‘A goodnight kiss is hardly going to sire the next king of England, Mette,’ she complained, fretfully tugging at the pins that secured her veil to her headdress. ‘Henry could learn something from his subjects when it comes to enthusiastic outpourings of love!’
I gazed at her ruefully. What she was trying to tell me was that King Henry had not performed his duty in the marital bed for some time and I was guiltily aware that I might be partly responsible for this lack. A month ago, just after Epiphany, Catherine had miscarried. It had not been a well-developed pregnancy, but for a few joyous weeks she and Henry had believed the essential heir had been growing in her womb. Fortunately they had not made any announcement to this effect, having followed my suggestion that it might be best to wait until a few more weeks had passed; so Catherine had not had to suffer court murmurings of dissatisfaction and doubt about her ability to bear a child. But of course it had been a bitter disappointment for the king and queen. To my surprise, the king had not been critical of Catherine or blamed any lack of care on the part of her attendants, including myself, which had emboldened me to advise him that it would be wise to allow her a few weeks to recover before making any further attempt to get her with child. The fact that I had not told her of this conversation was now coming home to haunt me. The king might be scrupulously following my advice, but the queen was misinterpreting his restraint, construing it as lack of interest.
I decided to try a fresh approach. ‘I recall the king saying he was eager that you should be crowned his true consort before any heir was born, Mademoiselle. Perhaps he has decided that it would be best even to delay conception until after your coronation, believing that God will bless your union once you are both consecrated.’
The feverish removal of hair-pins ceased suddenly. Catherine now turned to meet my gaze, which she had so far avoided, a flicker of hope dawning. ‘Do you think that could be so, Mette? Really?’
I nodded vigorously, glad to have provided at least some crumb of comfort. ‘Yes, Mademoiselle. As you know, the king lays great stress on divine approval of his actions. Truly I believe you should not doubt his regard for you or his trust in God’s holy will.’
She frowned. ‘But if he is convinced that it is God’s will anyway, why has he sworn to pray for a son at the shrine of every English saint we pass in our progress through the kingdom?’
I gave her a mischievous smile. ‘Why do you attend Mass every day, Mademoiselle, when God must know that you worship Him unreservedly anyway? Is it not to demonstrate your faith to the world?’
Catherine’s brow wrinkled as she considered this. ‘Actually, I think it is to reinforce my faith, Mette,’ she said after a moment.
‘Well then, perhaps the king is reinforcing his faith in God’s will by giving Him a little reminder now and then,’ I responded.
She gave me a reproachful look. ‘I have said it before, Mette, you are too flippant in your attitude to God and the Church.’ However she spoke more calmly having revealed what was the immediate cause of her outburst. ‘Tomorrow the king will be leaving us and going on ahead to London to supervise arrangements for my coronation,’ she informed us. ‘The date has been set for February the twenty-third. That is just over a fortnight away.’
‘And what will you do in the meanwhile, Mademoiselle?’ I asked, seeking to glean some idea of when and where we were to make our own arrangements for this momentous event.
‘We are to travel to Eltham Palace, which is apparently a royal palace close to London, where we can rest and organise ourselves for the big day.’ Catherine turned to young Joan, who had been hovering quietly nearby waiting to assist her to undress. ‘You may help me to choose my maids of honour for the ceremony, Joan. I am told that a number of young ladies are to present themselves at Eltham Palace for my consideration and I believe three of them share your name, or a version of it. It seems that in future I may call “Joan!” and four of you will answer.’
Young Joan Beaufort lifted her chin proudly. ‘But I was here first, Madame. The others will have to take different names.’
I was delighted to hear Catherine’s laugh ring out and see a twinkle return to her eye. ‘You are right, little one! You shall be the one and only Joan and we will call the others something else. Meanwhile, please come now and help me take off this headdress.’
Joan advanced to pick up the discarded veil and remove the jewelled net and fillet which had restrained Catherine’s pale gold hair for her dinner with the abbot. Agnes and I exchanged relieved glances; a crisis had erupted and now seemed to have subsided, but I did not doubt there would be many more over the next weeks and months. This had been a warning that for the foreseeable future we would have to deal with a vulnerable young queen whose growing popularity would doubtless continue to wreak its share of havoc with her mood, causing her to veer alarmingly between intense self-belief and a desperate sense of inadequacy, unless and until her confidence was bolstered by the arrival of a viable male child. King Henry would not be the only one praying for an heir at the shrines of the English saints. Very likely I would be creeping in behind him with my own fervent prayers of intercession.
Our first sight of Eltham Palace was a disappointment to those of us who measured English palaces against the sprawling, marbled splendour of the French king’s Hôtel de St Pol in Paris. Eltham had once been a royal hunting lodge