Greenwich, April 1516
Margaret Bryan is a loyal servant of King Henry. No one can dispute that. And no one could have been prouder to have been named Princess Mary’s governess when the infant was given a household of her own following Queen Katherine’s churching. Truly.
But even Margaret’s fierce loyalty to her sovereign lord doesn’t mean she’s not sometimes infuriated by His Majesty’s utter ignorance in all matters of childrearing.
The young Princess’s household is settled at Greenwich, while her parents move to Richmond, an easy boat ride away. No sooner are the rooms in order than the news comes that the King, overriding Queen Katherine’s protests that the children are too young to share a household, has agreed to let his baby niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, be raised with her royal cousin.
A day later comes the news that the royal cousins will also be joined by eight-month-old Eleanor Boleyn, youngest daughter to King Henry’s trusted courtier, Sir Thomas Boleyn. Orphaned within a week of her birth, Mistress Eleanor has so far been raised by her eldest sister, Mistress Mary, with the help of an elderly nurse, Simonette.
But Mary Boleyn is sixteen now, and her father has arranged for her to marry Sir William Carey of Aldenham, one of the King’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, at Easter. Mary can hardly be expected to take her baby sister with her when she marries, and besides, Sir Thomas is ambitious and high-reaching. He longs for the prestige that having a daughter raised in the royal nursery will bring him. As such, he has begged for the boon off the King, and the King, generous as ever, has signed it off, reasoning that babies are babies and Lady Bryan and her maids will of course be capable of caring for all three infants. As if there are no differences between the needs of a six-week-old, the needs of a six-month-old and those of an eight-month-old.
Margaret would never dare speak against her King, of course, but sometimes, just sometimes, on a particularly bad day, she does just wish His Majesty had at least asked her first.
Oh, Princess Mary is no trouble, not really, but she does have a voracious appetite, meaning she is wailing for her wet nurse more often than not. Isabel is happy to do her bit to safeguard England’s future, of course, but she does so often look waxen, as though Her Highness has drained her dry.
Lady Margaret, meanwhile, is teething. This in itself wouldn’t be too bad, as the teeth aren’t causing her much pain, but unfortunately, they are making her bowels run. Often, it feels as though Margaret has no sooner directed one of the maids to change Lady Margaret’s smallclothes than she has dirtied them again. The poor lass is hardly ever off someone’s knee, being sponged down – and shouting her displeasure at the cold.
Mistress Eleanor is never out of someone’s arms either, but again, it is hard to blame the child. At eight months old, she is precisely the wrong age to have changed homes. She is old enough, alert enough, to be scared by her new surroundings and caretakers. However, she isn’t old enough to have the reasons behind her sudden displacement explained to her, or to express her fears properly. Therefore, all she can do to show her unhappiness at all the changes is cry, and this she does, almost constantly. The only thing that soothes her is being rocked in the arms of someone with blonde hair and wearing the scent of lavender. From the way Mistress Eleanor reacts so favourably to the scent of lavender, the soon-to-be Lady Carey must wear it. And of course, both Mary Boleyn and baby Eleanor have the blonde curls of their late mother, Lady Elizabeth Howard.
All these various challenges together, then, means that the nursery wing at Greenwich is hardly a haven of serenity, except for a few hours each evening when all three girls have been coaxed into their cradles and, with luck, won’t need anything else until Princess Mary wakes just as the household is retiring for one of her countless feedings.
But of course, the King never visits. Proud though he is of his only living daughter, he’s far too busy to pay much attention to her, at least until she can walk and talk.
Thus, although he is a doting father on the few fleeting visits he does pay to the nursery, King Henry never guesses what turmoil his careless generosity to the Queen of Scots and Sir Thomas Boleyn has caused Lady Bryan and the rest of the nursery staff. And Margaret will never tell him. She’s too proud for that. She’s been shouldered with a duty to England and she’ll fulfil it without a murmur, even if she drops with exhaustion in the process.
*** *** ***
Across the Channel, however, things are running far more smoothly. To everyone’s surprise, little Marguerite, or Margot, as she quickly becomes known so as to distinguish her from her namesake aunt, is a remarkably placid baby. The tiny girl is content to lie in her cradle, or in the arms of her governess, Francoise de Foix, for hours on end and scarcely makes a peep.
She is so calm, in fact, that Marguerite often jokes that if it weren’t for Margot’s dark hair and cerulean eyes, she’d wonder whether the child was Francis and Marie’s daughter at all.
“This girl never cries!” Francis boasts to the Spanish Ambassadors, as he shows six-week-old Margot off at the lavish banquet following Marie’s churching.
He strips Margot bare as he speaks, declaring her as faultless and beautiful as her mother, the fairest rose in all of Christendom.
The Ambassadors, as is their wont, fall over themselves to agree with him, and Francis smirks at Marie over their bowing heads.
Even from several feet away, she can
feel the lust in his gaze.
A shiver runs down her spine. It is a full three months, if not longer, since she and Francis even so much as slept in the same room. At moments like these, it feels like an eternity.
She returns his look boldly and tilts her head, her lips curving into a pout as sultry as any courtesan’s.
“Later,” she promises him silently, “
You can seek to seed my womb with a Dauphin later.”