Wolsey’s conversation with the King might have come to naught as far as Wolsey was concerned, but it did have one far-reaching consequence. Eager to avoid any more unwelcome discussions about his marriage prospects, Henry had Archbishop Warham proclaim his marriage to the Earl of Ormonde’s daughter, Lady Mary Boleyn, throughout the land. In early August, he also had her processed before the Court as their new Queen Mary at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire.
“You’ll be crowned as soon as we get back to London this September,” he whispered to her, watching with delight as, clothed in a newly sumptuous gown of cloth of silver trimmed with purple velvet ribbon, she accepted the homage being paid to her by the nobles as though she’d been doing it all her life.
“Yes,” Henry thought,
“I made the right choice in Marie. She might be young, but she’s taken to this life like a duck to water. Looking at her, you’d never guess that her father was any less than a Duke. France turned her into a young woman fit to be Queen.”
“Why?” Marie’s murmured question brought him out of his musings. He started and looked across at her.
“What’s that, darling?”
“Why do I have to wait until we get to London? Can’t I be crowned in York or Newcastle instead of London?”
“But it’s tradition that all England’s Queens are crowned from the Tower. Why don’t you want to wait? Are you that eager to be crowned?” A note of something unpleasant crept into Henry’s voice. Why did Marie want to be crowned so quickly? Had she only married him for the power of the Crown, despite her protestations to the contrary? But no. She couldn’t have done. She was too sweet a girl for that.
As though she could read his flicker of misgivings, Marie reached across and took his hand, “Of course I’m not. I’ll do whatever you think best in the end. But I just meant…Katherine was so loved up here. She’s still so grieved, even almost two years later. Wouldn’t it be really something to give the Northerners a day of Royal joy to celebrate, so that they could make a fresh start? Come to terms with what has happened more completely than they already have?”
She turned her big blue-grey eyes on him and Henry felt his heart melt. Despite himself, he could see the sense in what she said. Yet, how could he deny her the traditionally lavish coronation that all the Queens before her had had? That his first – that Katherine had had? It was the least he could do for her. After the hurried secrecy of their wedding, a lavish coronation was the least he could do for her.
He hesitated and while he was hesitating, the herald banged his staff on the floor, “Her Grace the Dowager Queen of France and His Grace the Duke of Suffolk!"
Every eye in the room – Henry and Marie’s included – flicked to the doors. There, resplendent in matching outfits of navy-blue satin, stood Charles Brandon and his wife Mary, Henry’s sister.
They advanced towards the dais and everyone held their breath. It was common knowledge that the King’s sister had loved Katherine of Aragon passionately; had hated Bessie Blount just as fiercely as she had loved the late Queen. And this was her own former Lady in Waiting. How on Earth would she react?
Those who thought she might fly into a rage – and there were more than a few, it had to be said – had underestimated the strength of Mary Brandon’s regal poise and self-control.
Keeping her face poker-straight, she dropped into a rigid curtsy beside her bowing husband, “Your Majesty. My Lady Queen.”
“Mary, sister,” Henry answered, rising to kiss her, relieved she hadn’t kicked up a fuss, “It pleases us to see you join us this evening. You and Charles must dine with us at the top table.”
“If it pleases you, Sire,” Mary replied coolly, hesitating for the merest fraction of a second – so briefly that it was hard to know if she really had hesitated at all. She took her assigned place beside the Queen and signed for a tumbler of wine.
As she drank it, the watching crowd couldn’t help murmuring in amazement at how calmly she was behaving. Had she truly accepted her brother’s choice of wife? It seemed impossible. If there was one thing Mary Brandon nee Tudor was keen on, it was status. Love or not, many believed she’d never have married her current husband at all, had he not been a Duke. Yet, here she was, treating a mere Earl’s daughter as though she had every right to be Queen. What had happened? Had she lost her senses? Or had she merely accepted what she knew she could not change?
*** *** ***
Privately, Mary had done neither. In fact, even mere minutes before she had been due to make her appearance for dinner, she had been railing against her husband the Duke of Suffolk.
“This is all your fault!” she screeched, flinging a glass of wine at him.
“My fault?! How is it my fault?!” he exclaimed, jumping aside out of the way.
“You took him whoring!” A silver goblet made its way towards his head.
“You let him fall for Bessie Blount!” An expensive bronze paperweight shaped like a stag.
“You threw Marie at him! She went into his arms on your orders,” Charles reminded her, chancing a step forward, then falling back as all three of a venomous glare, a dangerous snarl of fury and a heavy candelabra – candles and all – flew towards him.
“Only because of Bessie! And anyway, he wasn’t meant to marry her! If you hadn’t witnessed the wedding, he couldn’t have done! It wouldn’t have been legal!”
A leather-bound Bible spun through the air. He ducked, then, as she searched the room for something else to hurl at him, dashed forward and grabbed hold of her, shaking her by the shoulders.
“Enough!” He roared. “Enough! You’re making a fool of yourself!”
“And you three are making a fool out of the whole of England!”
“No, we’re making her King happy, which is more than you seem to be able to appreciate or want to do!”
Mary suddenly froze in his arms, as though her furious energy had been sucked out of her by his words.
“How
dare you,” she hissed. “How dare you, Charles! You know I care for my brother more than anything.”
“Really?” Charles scoffed. When she didn’t answer, he sighed, loosening his grip on her, though he still didn’t let her go completely. “Then you will forget about this French marriage and you will go out there and bend the knee to young Lady Marie as though nothing gives you greater pleasure. Do I make myself clear?”
“But…”
“Do I make myself clear? Do you understand, Mary, that if you don’t do it, I’ll make you rue the day you were born?”
With a final shake, he released her and, ten minutes later, they were walking into the Great Hall.
