I've lost count. @FalconHonour - any idea how many beheadings we have planned over the years?
A Queen Twice Over: Mary Tudor the Elder Marries Francis I of France
- Thread starter FalconHonour
- Start date
I had nothing to do with the boiling! I wanted a botched beheading with a rusty axe if I remember rightly!
Boiling was the punishment at the time for attempted poison, I believe. But, in that situation, yes, I think I was...
Hey, FalconHonour and I have frequently talked each other into (and out of) torturing our characters over the years...
I, for example, can take credit for Edward going bald in Daughters of a Rose Without A Thorn.
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You also wrote Buckingham's execution in Queen Is Dead!
The botched poisoning, however, was mine!
I dread to think! But we've written lots of fluff too, so that's something!
Bessie Blount was the one boiled. For, you know, that whole thing with baby William?
Oh, God, I did write that, didn't I?
True. True. It says something, I think, when our best works are "murder, Sororicide, poison, death and infidelity", doesn't it?
Yes, that was it.
It was meant too. Some of FalconHonour's finest work, I think.
My personal favourite scene I've ever written? The argument between Anne and Sarah Rose in Lionesses. That whole Sarah Rose arc was just so much fun!!
Indeed....
Thanks. I've quite a reputation to live up to now, clearly!!
Section LXXIX - September/October 1528
Dover, September 1528
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury draws his lathered horse to a halt on the headland above the port, clapping the exhausted beast on its neck absently as he scans the horizon for any signs of a sail.
Finding none, he breathes a sigh of relief. They’ve made it.
The Court is enjoying the last of the September sun with a few days hunting at Castle Rising before returning to London at the end of the summer progress.
They’d been dining on the day’s catch when the news had come that Her Grace of France had fled the French Court at Fontainebleau. The messenger said that Queen Marie had engaged him at Beauvais, where she’d been alone save for a few ladies, and that Her Grace intended to head for Calais and sail for Dover as soon as possible.
King Henry had been flabbergasted, clearly horrified at the news that his sister should have abandoned her lawful and beloved husband so, but, when Lady Warwick, seated on his left, had put his hand on his sleeve and whispered to him, he’d recovered himself enough to order George and Lord Dorset to ride to Dover with all speed and receive Queen Marie with what honour they could muster at such short notice.
They’ve ridden through the night for days, half-killing their horses, but even so, George wasn’t quite sure they’d beat the Queen of France to the White Cliffs. Not until this moment.
“We’ve made it. Praise God, we’ve made it,” Dorset echoes George’s thoughts and he turns in the saddle, nodding at the younger man.
“Thank God. I dread to think how His Majesty would have reacted had no one been here to greet his sister with the reverence her rank deserves.”
“We’d better not tarry, though. The skies have been clear for days, they can’t be going to take much longer.”
“No,” George agrees, reining back to let Dorset precede him down from the headland into the city, as befits the younger man’s higher rank.
His thoughts churn as he follows, trying to decide whether or not Queen Marie’s unexpected visit will be in his daughter’s best interest or not.
On the one hand, it was Lady Warwick who convinced the King to send the Queen of France an escort to Castle Rising, not Mary. And she did it at the high table, in full view of every single diner. Her Ladyship must be confident of her place in the King’s heart, to influence him so in public. Besides, everyone knows that Lady Warwick only arrived in England because Queen Marie sent her to educate the Princess Mary, back when Her Highness was promised to the late Duke of Orleans and Milan. Which presumes a certain amount of rapport between the two, a rapport Mary can scarcely be said to have with her own sisters, never mind her husband’s. George wouldn’t be surprised if Queen Marie and the King soon form something of a trio with Lady Warwick at Mary’s expense. Heavens only knows the King hasn’t been above shunning Mary in favour of the Marchioness this summer, with or without his sister around to give him an excuse to do so. Her presence on his other side at the High Table the night the message had come was proof enough of that.
On the other hand, however, the King will hate having his marital problems be the talk of Europe, which they will be if Queen Marie’s ladies see him flaunt Lady Warwick as his paramour. He won’t want to be seen as weak. So, he might make more of an effort to play happy families during Her Grace’s visit, if only to prevent her household from carrying tales. And if Mary can make use of that, if she can catch with child again… well, another son would do wonders to bolster her position as Queen.
Moreover, King Henry adores his sister. He’ll naturally look to her rather than Lady Warwick if she’s around. Which in turn will weaken Lady Warwick’s position and, conversely, strengthen Mary’s, whether or not she comes to carry another child.
“Yes,” George hums to himself, as the docks begin to become visible at the bottom of the narrow street he and Dorset are travelling, “Queen Marie’s visit, unexpected though it is, may turn out to be no bad thing for our family.”
Castle Rising, October 1528
“So, what brings you home, sweet Mary?”
Henry has been surprisingly patient, Marie muses as she tips her head back in his lap to look up at him.
She’s been at Castle Rising almost a full two days – indeed, they’re due to start going back to London on the morrow – and this is the first time Henry has raised the question of just why she’s fled France as though she had a pack of wolves on her tail.
Granted, it’s the first time they’ve been alone without any of the fanfare that inevitably surrounds the meeting of two monarchs, but even so. Henry is not usually so willing to wait to satisfy his curiosity.
And she does owe him an answer. She knows that. He deserves to know why he’s had to open his hearth and home to her all over again, fourteen years after she left, with so little warning.
But it is difficult. To come up with anything vaguely resembling a sufficient explanation, she’ll have to talk about Henri and Jean, and that will open up a whole can of emotions she’s not sure she’s ready to deal with yet.
She sits up, shrugging, “I just couldn’t stay in France a moment longer. And I knew you’d give me sanctuary, so…”
“Well, of course! You’re my sister. I’d never leave you in the lurch,” Henry says matter-of-factly, spreading his hands wide, “But something must have happened. I know you, sister. You adore Francis, vain cockerel though he is. You wouldn’t have left him without good reason, especially not with Henri so recently dead and Margot about to leave for Portugal. She needs her mother, now more than ever. So what possessed -”
“Francis betrayed me!”
Marie has never been able to put what she’s been feeling towards her husband for the past few months into words before, has never really known what the strange bitterness that tinges her thoughts of him is, but it suddenly crashes over her, crystal clear.
She jumps to her feet, startling her brother.
“Mary, sweetheart…you know it is a King’s right to take a mistress...”
“I’m not talking about a mistress, though I’m sure he’s taken one of those too,” Marie spits, “I’m talking about the fact that he never told me Edouard was dead!”
Tears burn in her eyes and she swipes them away furiously. She’s wept enough recently. Francis doesn’t deserve her tears. Not after what he’s done.
“I had to find out from Margot. My twelve-year-old daughter had to tell me her baby brother was dead because my husband was too much of a coward to do it himself. Would you put Mary through that?! Would you?!”
Marie is screaming now, her words jagged and broken.
To his credit, Henry doesn’t flinch, though she knows tears – particularly women’s tears – are far from his forte. He takes a deep breath and rises, stepping forward so that he can pull her into his arms. She resists, stiffening, but he persists, holding her firmly in a bear hug until she collapses against him, sobbing so hard he fears the force of her emotion might tear her in two.
He wants to say something; wants to kiss her cheeks dry and make everything better, as he did when she was little and Margaret, secure in her position as the oldest at Eltham and their nurses’ golden girl, had teased her.
But this is no simple childhood hurt. This is the grief of a bereaved mother, of a mother who has lost two children, including her favourite son, within a month of each other. Much though it pulls at Henry’s heart, he knows that it is beyond even his considerable power to make this better. All he can do is hold Mary fiercely, anchoring her in the present by stroking her coppery curtain of hair, while her shoulders shake against his chest.
At last, she quiets a little, enough that she can lift her head to look at him, though her eyes are still leaking tears.
“You need to talk to Diane,” he says softly.
Mary jerks in his arms, and he hushes her, “I know you don’t want to, but you need to. She’s a mother too, and while Louise and Francoise aren’t dead, she’s dead to them. Louis de Breze hasn’t let her see them in years. She’ll have some idea of what you’re going through. I can distract you, but Diane will actually be able to help.”
Silence stretches between them for several long seconds. To his surprise, Henry finds himself holding his breath. He just prays his darling Mary will see the sense in what he’s saying. Her grief is still so blindingly raw, even six months after Henri’s death, that it’s hard to know how she’ll react. Which is why Diane had pressed him to act as messenger for her offer to talk things through with Mary. She’d thought Mary might take it better from him, her cherished older brother, than from a woman she’s only met at Court a handful of times and hasn’t seen for years.
At last, Mary nods tearfully, smiling shakily, “You’ll have to ask her to sup with us tonight, then. I don’t want to summon her. She’s yours to command now, not mine.”
Henry chuckles despite himself and gives her a little squeeze, “I can do that. And now we must find a way to distract you for the afternoon. How would you like to go hawking?”
It is Mary’s turn to chuckle, “You think sport makes everything better, don’t you, Harry?”
“Don’t you agree?” He arches an eyebrow and his heart soars as she laughs despite herself. He’s always loved to see his baby sister happy.
“Capital!” he cries, “Then a-hawking we shall go!”