then, I was beyond caring, for I had heard one of them suggesting that the infant be cut from my body. It did not matter, so long as the pain ceased. But that was hours, years ago, and still I am suffering. They have not carried out their dreadful threat.
Now it is night. I am barely aware of the darkness outside the mullioned window. They have pulled aside the curtain to let some air into the fetid room, which is heavy with the stink of my labor. The doctors and the women huddle around my bed in a frantic conclave. I am ready to give up the ghost, but they will not let me.
The midwife presses a handkerchief to my nose. It smells of pepper and makes me sneeze violently. All of a sudden, the pangs begin again, stronger and stronger, consuming me with their ferocity. I lack even the power to scream, my mouth opening wide in a silent grimace. Something is happening, there is change in the rhythm of my body and an overpowering compulsion to bear down, to push. They are urging me to push, begging me. And as I push, making one last supreme effort, I am pushing the pain away; I am in charge of my own destiny. Then there is a violent wrenching: I feel as if I am being riven in half.
“A healthy, fair prince, Your Majesty!” cries the midwife in jubilation. But I feel nothing. All I want is to sleep.
Frances Brandon,
Marchioness of Dorset
BRADGATE HALL, OCTOBER 1537
Shouts from the courtyard below herald the return of the hunting party and wake me from slumber. It is late evening already. I must have slept for hours. My husband is here.
Beside the bed stands the heavy oak cradle carved with the Dorset crest, two unicorns ermined and hooped with gold, all painted in bright colors; within it lies my baby, now tightly swaddled and slumbering soundly. Beyond, seated in the glow of a candle and the dancing firelight, sits the nurse, Mrs. Ellen, stitching a seam on a tiny silk bonnet. I close my eyes again as I hear footsteps approaching. I would give anything to avoid having to tell Henry, my lord, that I have failed him yet again.
But he already knows. The expression on his face as he enters the room tells me that. He is a man easily overruled in many matters, but this is one that touches his pride, and his nobility.
“A girl,” he says brusquely, “and all to do again. Why God should not favor us is beyond me. We go to Mass regularly, we give out charity by the dollop, we lead a Christian life. What more can we do?”
Lying flat on my back sets me at an immediate disadvantage. Profoundly grateful that I have not suffered tearing during the birth, I ease myself up. Even so, Henry is looming over me like a stiff caricature of outraged manhood.
“The child is healthy, at least,” I say coldly, “and with God’s grace, a brother shall follow her. I know my duty.” And you, my lord, the son of a mere marquess, need not remind me, the daughter of a queen, where that duty lies.
I can see in his eyes that, despite himself, he admires my dignity and resolve. Even now, exhausted as I am in my childbed, I know he desires me and finds me alluring, even though I am not beautiful in the conventional sense. He likes my auburn hair—Tudor hair, he calls it, and I suspect that is part of the attraction. He thinks my lips are sensual, he admires my dark brows, my tilted nose, my determined chin. Even after bearing three children in four years, my twenty-year-old body, large-breasted and wide-hipped, still has the power to arouse him, especially with those breasts made more voluptuous by pregnancy. But he is not thinking now of the lusty delights in which I am usually so willing a partner. Instead, Henry looks at his little scrap of a daughter and has to smile, for she looks so like her royal great-uncle, the King: she has the same red-gold hair, determined little mouth, and blue-green eyes, which, for all that she is but newborn, are regarding him with what seems to be uncommon intelligence.
I am surprised to see the saturnine, finely chiseled features form themselves into a grin.
“A pretty wench,” I venture.
He nods, straightening, a calculating light in his eyes. “Indeed. We shall make her a brilliant marriage, to bring