Poor Maria can get her much-deserved rest beside her mother. Felipe is likely gonna be horrified when he hears the news, and Charles’ situation isn’t going to be helped by his eldest daughter’s untimely demise.Paço Real de Évora, Portugal. 22nd of March, 1542.
Afonso bit at his nails as he paced outside the Princess' confinement chambers, unable to relax himself. His brother Filipe, aged fourteen, looked at him with a forcibly calm expression. The only sign of his own nerves was his white-knuckled grip on his rosary, blonde hair brushed to perfection.
Filipe had been the only person he allowed near his person in the two days since a servant came to inform him that María was in labour. His father had tried many a time to take him away, said being near the women’s work would make him go mad, but Afonso wanted to stay there. He wanted to be the first to hear when the child was born, when María would finally be able to rest from her labours. If it was a boy or a girl, if María would be alright.
When the second day rose in the horizon, the King’s own personal doctor came to give his opinion. He had not left yet. Afonso bit his lips, walking closer to the wall in an attempt to hear better. Since the doctor came, his wife, the Princess, had stopped screaming. Was that better? Afonso could not say. Women flew in and out of the room, carrying jugs of steaming water in and bloody rags out.
Every time the door opened, Afonso wanted to run inside. María had her ladies there, both Portuguese and Castilian, but he wanted to be there too. He would be useless, surely, but he wanted to be there.
He was scared. Two days was not normal, was it? It had not taken much for Jorge to be born. And María was weaker than most women, sickler too. Her heart was frail. Would she even…? He didn’t allow himself to finish the thought. María was his wife. His cousin. They shared blood, both grandchildren of Queen Juana and King Philip of Castile. She was not even eighteen, her birthday was in a month. The same day as Jorge would turn two.
They would have a great celebration. Their son would end his infancy and his wife… his wife would… The door opened.
It was Dona Isabel de Lencastre, Duchess of Braganza. María’s chief lady-in-waiting. Without a queen to serve, most of Portugal’s noblewomen had moved to the household of the Princess. She bowed her head to him. “Your Highness,” she said. “The Princess is calling for you.”
Afonso stood up slowly. “Is the baby--?” he asked. “Has the baby been born yet?”
Dona Isabel shook her head. “Please, Alteza,” she said. “There is not much time.”
The Prince looked at his brother and he felt a sense of helplessness, and fear. He remembered the days preceding and following his mother’s death, the grief of his father. The King had thrown himself into his work and when that didn’t cure the hole in his heart, he retired from Lisbon. Barely even visited the capital anymore.
Filipe nodded at him, understanding what he wanted even without him speaking. “I will call the King,” he said. Afonso nodded and entered the confinement chambers, his heart racing.
He found María in the bed, surrounded by pillows. She was wearing a linen shift that clinged to her body, bloody where it touched her legs. Her face was pale, exhausted and she had her mouth parted to let in weak shuddering breaths. When he came closer, Afonso noticed how swollen her legs were, and her lips seemed dark, as did the tips of her fingers. She opened her eyes just as the doctor approached him, his face stricken.
“Her heart is giving out,” he mumbled in a respectful tone. “The scarlet fever of her childhood weakened the organ considerably, as did the two close pregnancies.” He shook his head. “There is nothing that can be done. The Princess has no more strength to push out the child.”
His heart stuttered. “Nothing?” he asked. The doctor shook his head. “What about the baby?”
“It is likely that the child will die within the next few hours,” the doctor murmured and Afonso observed a midwife press wet rags to María’s swollen legs, as another lady cleaned the sweat off her forehead. “If the Princess lives to see it through, she will catch an infection and die in a matter of days.”
“If she lives?” Afonso asked. “Is she--” He could not speak. “Is she doomed, doctor?”
The doctor nodded. “Without a birth, the Princess and the child will both die,” he said. “There is the possibility to save the baby by cutting open the Princess, in which case she will most likely die in minutes.” Afonso took a deep breath, his hand against his chest, unable to breath. Unable to feel anything but pure, white and hot dread. “If the Princess attempts to push the child out again, her heart may give out, and the child will remain stuck in the birthing canal.”
“What does the midwife say?” Afonso trusted the midwives more in this matter. They had a greater span of knowledge at such work, had done births throughout their entire lives.
“The midwife agrees with my assessments and was the precursor of many theories,” he said. “When told of our findings, the Princess asked for the Prince.”
Afonso nodded and gulped down, the knot in his throat growing and growing. He walked to María’s bedside, kneeling down next to her and clutched her hand, her cold and clammy hand. His wife was a girl of seventeen, with blonde hair and black eyes. The Emperor’s eldest daughter, mother of his first and only grandson. She was supposed to be the Queen of Portugal, to reign together with him until their old age.
“This is my fault,” he murmured. “I wanted a second child.”
María shook her head. “Blaming yourself will only end in more pain,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “My father blamed himself and he pulled away from us, left us alone. You can’t do the same.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
“Jorge will need you,” she continued. The hand that he clutched moved to the swell of her belly, and he could feel her muscles tightening, then releasing. And the sudden kicks of a strong and healthy child. His eyes burned, full of tears and he wanted to scream. He would turn twenty years of age in August, too young to be… “Cut him out.”
He raised his eyes to look at María, at her determined pale face. “What?”
“The baby,” his wife clarified, as if that was what confused him. “Cut him out, while he is still alive.”
“María…” He remembered the doctor’s words, that this would take her life in a matter of minutes. And to cut her stomach, to pull their child from her womb as if she were a pig, butchered for meat.
“The doctor has told me that there is no hope for me.” She shrugged, though her face was one full of pain. Afonso kept his hand on her stomach, feeling the child kicking inside. Wanting to be born. “I’m dead anyway, but our son may live. He has a chance.”
“María…” He didn’t know what to say. What to do. In some deep part of him, Afonso knew she was right. He knew he should do whatever he could to save his child, another heir of his body, but he was weak. And a coward. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t give the order.
“Please, Afonso.” María squeezed his hand, opening her brown eyes. Tears streamed down her face. “I’m exhausted. I can’t do it myself, I’m not strong enough.” She looked away from him, at the people surrounding them and Afonso followed her gaze as it stopped in the lambswool cradle near the wall. Filled with toys, and a warm blanket to receive their baby. “I want to be buried with my mother.”
“What?” She looked back at him.
“I want to be buried with my mother,” she repeated. “In the Alhambra Palace in Granada.” She closed her eyes, her lips almost purple now. “In the Royal Chapel, with the Catholic Monarchs and my grandfather, King Philip. Promise me to see it done.”
“I promise.” He kissed her hand and her face. “I promise by the Virgin and by St Anthony to see you buried in Granada.”
The door opened, a person coming inside, but Afonso could not look at it. He only looked at María, who was whispering the same words over and over, like a mantra. “I want to be buried with my mother in the Alhambra Palace in the Royal Chapel of Granada, with the Catholic Monarchs. I want to be buried with my mother. I want to be buried--”
Suddenly, she stopped and her hand went slack, her face turning towards him by an invisible force. Her mouth was still open, but her eyelids softened, revealing a white sliver of her eyes. Afonso held his breath as the midwife who observed them came closer, practically running so she could press two fingers to María’s neck. For a moment, no one spoke, all were frozen in their places to observe and then, the midwife turned to her attendants, eyes full of determination.
“The Princess is gone.” She crossed herself. “We have five minutes.”
“What?” Afonso clutched María’s hand as the servants around them burst into action, all knowing exactly what to do without question. Even the doctor was moving, pulling out a sheet of instruments, metallic under the candlelight. “What are you doing?”
A hand closed around his shoulder, the midwives pulling María by the feet to lay her flat against the mattress. She was limp, heavy and they tugged at her shift until her belly was revealed. Swollen beyond belief and criss-crossed with purple and blue scars of her previous pregnancy. Her chest was not rising, nor falling with a steady breathing and… And…
“Come, my son,” the King said. “Let them work.”
“No,” Afonso said. “What are they doing?”
“We must take the baby out, Your Highness,” someone said. He didn’t know who. Maybe Dona Isabel, or another of María’s ladies-in-waiting. “Or he will die with his mother.”
The doctor approached the bed holding a small metallic blade in his hand. He knelt before María, unconcerned with her nakedness and the midwife moved by his side. “Do not press in too deeply,” she told him, “Or you will cut the baby.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he said sharply. The King pulled at Afonso again, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything. He only stared at the corpse of what was once his wife, her belly moving as the child inside shifted. Trying to escape, most likely.
“Look away, Afonsinho,” his father said, the childhood nickname bringing the Prince back to a world where things were simpler. His mother was alive. And the future seemed bright.
When everything was done, and the baby was crying, drenched in his mother’s blood, Afonso was still there. Kneeling by María’s old bed. The midwife walked to him, holding the child.
“A boy, my prince,” she said. “Healthy, despite everything.”
He moved, tears streaming down his cheeks again. Afonso didn’t know if he had ever stopped crying. He stood up slowly, legs aching after so many minutes in the same position and he stretched his arms out.
The boy was still crying, his face swollen and red. How terrifying it all must seem to him, how strange the world was. Afonso tried to smile at the sight of him, but he couldn’t. This poor boy who would never know his mother’s laughter, who would never know the warmth of her embrace.
“The new infante needs a name, my son,” the King said beside him, his tone not unkindly. Afonso nodded and closed his eyes, hot tears splashing down the boy’s face.
When he opened them again, he looked back at his son. “St Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of Portugal,” he murmured. “He cares for the pregnant women, and the lost souls, and those with sterility.” The Prince of Portugal felt lost without María, holding her posthumous son in his arms. “He will be António.”
His father embraced him then, António stranded in the middle. Afonso laid his head over his father’s shoulder, as the King stroked the back of his neck. “You have to be strong, my son,” he murmured. “Your sons need you.”
Afonso closed his eyes.
An Imperial Match: Anne Boleyn marries Charles V
- Thread starter pandizzy
- Start date
Poor Maria can get her much-deserved rest beside her mother. Felipe is likely gonna be horrified when he hears the news, and Charles’ situation isn’t going to be helped by his eldest daughter’s untimely demise.
Felipe will 100% blame his father for this death too (unjustifiably imho)
María had a weak heart due to her scarlet fever. They could've delayed the marriage or called it off entirely. She wouldn't have reached 25.
Yeah, but Felipe won't know that. He'll definitely blame his father for not listening to him.
I have never lost a sibling, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it's gonna be very difficult to have sex in the first year. So no kids are coming.
I can see Charles sort of idolizing Maria, like he's doing to Anne. Like, he wasn't there for her birth, she was always pretty, kind, and good at her duties, she fell sick shortly after Anne's death, and she gave him two grandsons before dying in a remarkably similar way... yeah I can definitely see him holding her up on a pedestal
50's italy already had many things like penicillin and c-section. I'm saying it's automatic in Maria's case because I'm the author AND a medical professional.
Yes but not many things for heart weakness. Back to the story it was pretty obvious that she would have died not shock there. And I was simply pointing out what Felipe would probably angrily remind to his father. It was not a criticism.
Well on the other hand, would Felipe have his sister be a nun, never to experience married life? Felipe can blame his father a bit, but either way, Maria wasn't going to have a great life.
That for sure. At least, for the mentality of the time, she died in victory having given two healthy sons to her husband. She will be remembered fondly.
This! She will be remembered very well, even if Afonso remarries. I can bet that her sons will be raised o stories of what a good Christian woman she was, giving her husband two sons before she was 18 despite her sickliness and selflessly accepting her death and wishing for her son to live, urging them to act quickly. Might be a bit of a harsh legacy for her boys, but they will almost certainly be told of how wonderful she was
25th of March, 1542.
Paço Real de Évora, Portugal. 25th of March, 1542.
There was a word in Portuguese, a word that could never be easily translated to any other language. Saudade. The feeling deep in someone’s heart of longing for something that was loved, someone who is gone, either alive or dead. Something that may not ever return. A melancholy that could take over if one is not careful, that may drag someone down to the abyss.
Some said the word was invented because of the great explorations, when women and children had to watch their fathers and husbands disappear behind the horizon to cross through unknown leagues of water in search of new routes for Asia. Or because of the men in those ships, watching the only land they had ever known grow smaller and smaller, not knowing if they would ever see it again.
Jorge was too young, at not even two, to understand the death of his mother. He didn’t seem to grasp the knowledge that María was never ever coming back. He fought against his nurses when they tried to dress him in black clothes, and cried against his wet nurse’s embrace, struggling. Most of the time, only his father could calm him down enough to allow himself to be dressed, to eat. Father and son would visit António in his nursery, or leave the castle’s suffocating walls to walk across the grounds, blonde hair matching under their mourning caps.
António grew strong. After the first difficult night, the doctor swore he would live, and his wet nurse fed him twice as much as any other, to make him thrive. Some of the servant girls had nicknamed him Nonato. The name had a Latin origin. Nonnatus, not born. The servants knew the nickname because of St Raymond Nonnatus, who had also been extracted from the womb of his dead mother. In his mind, Afonso called him António, and nothing more.
His second son had hair like him, but his eyes were dark like María’s. He looked like her, as much as a newborn babe could look like anyone. António had some purplish bruises around his face, especially in his forehead; bruises the midwife explained as being due to the many hours suffering through childbirth without a relief, but she swore they would pass in a matter of days. It made him look like a warrior, even though he was still a baby. It made everyone that he had struggled to be born, and came out with his life still in his hands.
But there were some who were still not appreciative of what happened.
“You cannot,” the King of Portugal growled in his private chambers. “You are my son, my heir.”
“And she was my wife,” Afonso responded. “María wanted to be buried in Granada with my grandfather and the Catholic Monarchs.” He thought it best not to mention her mother, as his father still saw the deceased Empress as having stolen his sister’s intended match. “I made a promise, father. I promised to see it done.”
His father looked at him, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I will not allow it.” He walked away from Afonso, closer to Filipe, who stood by the hearth in the hopes of acting as a mediator. Even though he was just fourteen, Filipe had a level head and a sensitive heart. He could be trusted with such a task. “You are my first son, my heir and I will not let you into the hands of my enemy.”
“The Emperor is not our enemy,” Afonso responded. “He is my uncle and María’s father. When he learns of her final wish, he will wish to see it respected.”
“Your wife…” The King shook his head. “The Princess will be buried next to your mother. At the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, with our ancestors. An honourable place.”
“An honourable place, it may be, but those are not María’s ancestors,” Afonso replied. “Father, please. María wanted to be next to her own mother, not mine.”
“A Princess of Portugal can’t be buried outside of Portugal.” He looked between his sons, at Afonso who was determined and Filipe, who clutched his neck in nerves. “Do you wish to be seen like your grandmother? She took her husband’s body to Granada, insisted on it in fact and the people called her mad.”
“I’m not my grandmother,” said Afonso, almost offended at the idea. “And the people will know that this was my wife’s last wish, and that I will not act as my grandmother did, opening the King’s coffin and kissing his rotting face.”
João de Avis looked at his eldest son, the boy that Leonor strove so hard to bring to this world. Afonso was nearly twenty, taller than him and fair-haired. As handsome as the stories claimed his grandfather were. And stubborn, as stubborn as anyone with hot Portuguese blood could be. He would not change his mind, that much was clear.
“The boys will stay,” he declared. “Jorge and António will stay in Portugal, under my custody. They come after you in the line of succession.”
Afonso nodded. “I understand, father,” he said. “By your leave, Your Majesty, I would begin my preparations.”
João nodded and waved him off, watching him go. As he moved, back tense and head hanging forward, almost as if in guilt, the King looked to his younger son.
“He talks like Afonso, he moves like Afonso, but he is not Afonso,” he said. Filipe nodded as if saying that he noticed it too. Something had changed in the Prince of Portugal. Something much deeper.
Awww, what a somber moment for Afonso and his family. It is good of him to want to fulfill Maria's wishes, I suspect that his mother would be proud of him for doing so... Also poor Juana must be heartbroken by this, losing first her daughter and then her grandaughter within less than four years.
Geez, João, it’s almost like he lost both his mother and his wife in the span of only a couple of years