Jean Plaidy (40 page)

One of the attendants came in to say that there was a case of sweating sickness in the town of Ludlow.

There was immediate consternation in the castle. Everyone was awaiting a summons from the King. They were sure that when the news reached him, Arthur would be removed at once.

But no message came. And then it was too late.

It was inevitable that the weakest member of the household should be the victim.

There was despair in the castle. Katharine prayed for the life of her young husband. Surely God could not be so cruel as to take him away now that they were becoming so happy together? The King would send down the finest physicians in the land. Arthur’s life must be saved.

But few survived the dreaded sweating sickness. Arthur most certainly could not.

They brought the news to her. She stared at them unbelievingly. Dead! Arthur. She could not believe it. She would not believe it.

“’Tis true, my lady,” they said. “God knows what the King will do when he hears this doleful news.”

She felt bereft, desolate. A wife and no wife … a virgin widow.

If only the marriage had been consummated. If only she could have had Arthur’s child. Then she would have had something to live for.

Now … she was alone.

The King was at Greenwich when he heard that Arthur’s Chamberlain had arrived from Ludlow and was urgently requesting to be brought to him.

Henry was seized with trembling for a terrible foreboding had come to him.

“Bring him to me with all speed,” he said, “and as soon as he comes.”

Arthur’s Chamberlain was heavy-hearted as he rode to Greenwich where the Court was in residence. He dreaded telling the King the tragic news and he decided that he would impart it first to the Council and ask their advice as to the best way of breaking it.

The Council was dismayed and after some consultation decided that it would be best for the King’s Confessor to tell him and this was arranged.

When Henry heard the discreet knock on the door he knew that it was his Confessor who stood without and, suspecting nothing, he bade him enter.

The man’s woebegone expression sent quivers of alarm running through the King’s mind and he immediately thought of Arthur.

“You have ill news,” he said.

The Confessor replied: “I have, my lord, and you are going to need all the strength that God can give you.”

“It is my son,” said the King quietly.

“It is, my lord.”

“He is sick?”

The Confessor did not answer.

“Dead!” cried the King. “Dead … !”He turned away. He could never bear any man to see his emotion. Why had he loved this boy who had been such a disappointment to him? All his hopes had been in Arthur although he had been frail from birth. It was a mistake to become involved with others. He had always known this and tried to avoid it. Why was Arthur the one person who had made him diverge from the path of wisdom so that he must suffer constant anxiety—as he had since the boy had been born!

Now this was the final blow.

He turned to the Confessor. “Send the Queen to me. I must be the one to break this news to her.”

“My lord, would you wish to kneel first in prayer.”

“I would wish first to see the Queen. I would not want her to hear this news from any but myself.”

The Confessor bowed and retired and returned shortly after with the Queen.

She was alarmed. She knew from Henry’s expression that something terrible had happened. He had lost something dear to him. His crown … his … son!

“What is it?” she said. “Is it … ?”

He nodded. “Arthur,” he said quietly. “He died of the sweating sickness.”

She covered her face with her hands. Henry was so overcome with emotion that he could not speak. She lowered her hands and looked at him and saw the anguish in his face and she knew how deeply he whose feelings were usually so well hidden was suffering and suddenly the need to comfort him was more important to her than anything else.

“Our beloved son,” she said quietly. “His health was always an anxiety. We were always expecting this. Henry … we have another son. Thank God for him. We have two fine daughters.”

“That is true,” said Henry. “But Arthur …”

“Arthur was our firstborn … so gentle always. Such a good boy. But he was never strong in health. In Henry we have one who will step into his shoes. We should be thankful for that.”

“I am,” he said. “We have one son left to us… .”

“Your mother had but one son, and look you, he is King of England, the comfort of his realm, the comfort of his Queen and his children.”

“Elizabeth, you are a good wife to me … a good mother to our children.”

“Subdue your grief, my lord. Remember God wills that we go on … even after such a bitter blow. We are young yet. Who knows we may have more princes. But we have Henry and he is a fine strong boy.”

The King was silent. “You comfort me,” he said.

And she left him for she could no longer contain her grief and when she reached her own chamber she threw herself onto her bed and gave way to it.

She had loved Arthur as much as Henry had—more tenderly, as a mother does. This was her firstborn. Her beloved child … loved, she must admit, beyond the others. Her grief was such that it overwhelmed her and when her women found her they were alarmed for her and sent for her physician.

He went to the King and told him that he must comfort the Queen.

So then it was Henry’s turn and he went to her and talked to her quietly of Arthur—Arthur as a child, Arthur growing up, how delighted they had been with his cleverness, how perpetually anxious for his health.

“Somehow,” he said, “I knew that it would happen … and now it has. Dear Elizabeth, we must be brave. We must go on. You were telling me this and now I am telling you. We have our son Henry. We will get more sons, and perhaps in time we shall cease to mourn so bitterly.”

There were three weeks when the Prince of Wales lay in state and then began the funeral procession from Ludlow Castle to the Cathedral at Worcester.

There was one among the mourners who wept with the others, but he could not suppress the fierce joy in his heart.

This was what he had always longed for. To be the firstborn. But that was of no consequence now. Miraculously he was there in the place he had longed for.

No longer Duke of York, but Prince of Wales.

“Henry the King,” he murmured to himself. “Henry the Eighth.”

He could not help studying his father, whose face was pale, whose hair was gray and whose eyes were without luster. Arthur’s death had aged him a great deal. Well, the Prince of Wales was only eleven and even he recognized that was rather young to be a king.

“I can wait awhile,” he told himself, “knowing that one day it will come.”

The Princes in
the Tower

he King was weighed down with anxieties. He had lost his eldest son; the Queen was ill; but most alarming of all was the fact that his grip on the crown after seventeen years of good rule was still not firm enough to give him peace of mind.

At the heart of his insecurity was the fear that someone would arise and snatch the throne from him—someone mature, strong, able to charm the people and who was in possession of that which for all his cleverness Henry would never attain: the claim to rule by the law of hereditary accession.

There would always be whispers against him—behind his back, of course. At least none dared utter them aloud, but he was aware of them. “Bastard sprig!” “Was your grandmother
really
married to Owen Tudor?” “Your mother, it is true, descended from John of Gaunt—but from his bastard family of Beauforts.” And whatever case was brought forward to prove legitimization there would always be those to shake their heads and murmur against him.

So here he was after seventeen years during which he had proved he knew how to govern since he had brought his country from near bankruptcy to financial prosperity—and yet he must live constantly with this fear that someone would one day rise against him.

In public he could snap his fingers at pretenders. He could laugh at poor simple Lambert Simnel tending his falcons and Perkin Warbeck had met his just deserts. Henry hoped by his leniency to these two—and he had been lenient even to Perkin Warbeck—that he had shown the people how little importance he attached to these impostors.

But in fact he had attached the utmost importance to them—not in themselves, of course, but what they stood for.

The young Earl of Warwick was dead. It had been a wise move to get rid of him, and to execute him openly for treason. There must be no more disappearances in the Tower. There was more to be feared from mysterious disappearances, he had learned, than from open execution. No one talked of young Warwick now. The people had accepted that he had been a menace to the peace of the country. They had not been very interested in him. Poor boy, he had been a sorry figure, a prisoner for most of his life. It would have been better for him if he had never been born.

Assessing the mood of the people Henry believed that they were not eager for rebellions; they wanted peace. They were in fact more contented with his rule than they realized. They grumbled. People always grumbled. If things went well they wanted them to go better. Give them comfort and they wanted luxuries. They did not like the taxes imposed by Empson and Dudley. Did they not see the need for a solvent exchequer? Did they not understand that a bankrupt nation could not hold off its enemies? Did they realize that their growing prosperity came from the wise calculation of the King and his able ministers? They must know that trade prospered; they cared about that. Was that why they had realized it would have been bad for the country to put a foolish youth on the throne just because his father had been the brother of Edward the Fourth?

Yet both Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck had had their supporters. Lambert had been doomed to failure from the start. The idea of trying to impersonate a young man who was actually living and could be brought forth from his prison in the Tower and shown to the people was absurd. It was different with Perkin. His had been a much stronger case. For he had declared he was Richard Duke of York—the Prince who had disappeared in the Tower.

This was a lesson to all would-be pretenders. If you are going to impersonate someone let it not be one whose whereabouts are known. Choose one who has disappeared mysteriously and in this case one who, had he lived, could well be the true heir to the crown.