Exactly, and 14 births doesn't necessarily mean they all live into adulthood and have kids of their own.
An Imperial Match: Anne Boleyn marries Charles V
- Thread starter pandizzy
- Start date
That’s me and my grandmother in the family. 🙋♂️
One of my great-great-aunts had 16 children (like Maria-Theresa of Austria) so it’s not ASB by any means.
Both sets of my grandparents had 16 children, so I've now around 120 cousins (and 9 siblings).
The question is how many of Bessie's children live enough to take a side in their parents' marriage.
I'm not saying it's ASB, I'm saying I reserve the right to change my mind. To add or remove children that aren't working for me.
The question is when would you remove them. As in they never get born, or they get born and you kill them off because they're useless ?
20th of April, 1545.
Windsor Castle, England. 20th of April, 1545.
John had asked her to take the children away from the capital during the war. Certainly, he did not wish for them to be so close to talks of war, death, and battles. Kitty understood him completely, even though her heart longed for his warm arms and tight embraces. William was a boy of just four and Katherine, sweet gentle Katherine, was barely two. Kind Isabella too, not having seen her first year yet.
Kitty was happy to take them away for some months. Now that she was an experienced mother of three, she enjoyed being alone with the children. William was a rambunctious little boy. So strong, running around and asking to play with the older boys, not wanting to be treated like a baby. Kitty had invited her sisters-in-law to come along, all of them. Princess Eleanor and Lady Margaret, as well as their mother. Ladies Lovell and Lady Hertford.
Countess Cat, her brother Henry’s wife, was heavy with her second child. A son named John after the king was born just some months after William, and her loving husband had named him Viscount Montagu, making her nephew a great landowner despite not being yet out of his swaddling clothes. Eliza, the Viscountess of Lovell, had daughters only. Jocasta, Katherine and Elizabeth, though Kitty knew well that her brother wished for a son, her sister-in-law didn’t seem too utterly worried about it. All of them enjoyed playing with William and Katherine, their royal cousins.
It was great fun to be with the children and her family alone, in one of her husband’s isolated residences. Such a relaxed environment was perfect for their young budding minds. Her ladies-in-waiting had come as well, but they hardly did anything other than sew alms to the poor, or attend mass. Or play with the children.
One of the manservants that followed her had installed some sort of seat in the branches of a tall tree just outside of the castle, long ropes holding the seat tightly. The children loved nothing more than spending every waking moment swinging around, taking turns pushing each other, laughing as they played. William had become the darling of his aunts Nora and Maggie and Kitty could always find them playing together, under the careful watch of Baroness Howard.
Only weeks after their arrival in Windsor, Kitty realised she was expecting again. Her fourth time in so many years and only ten months after Isabella, though she would only give birth when her daughter was already over a year of age. She hoped it would be a son, a duke of York. Kitty wanted nothing more than to secure her husband’s throne, because she loved him well.
She had made John promise not to fight himself, not to risk his life when his death would drag her with him and he had agreed, but he was as hot-blooded as his father. Thirsty for glory. She prayed every night for his safety and for his victories. If the Lord wanted her to be Queen of Ireland as well as of England, then she would accept it, but Kitty knew her heart would stop if she became a Dowager Queen.
But Cat Carey had no such worries. Late at night, she put her son Jack, nicknamed to distinguish him from his royal uncle, to sleep. Her mother, Lady Angus, had come to visit her and to try and convince her to return to her husband’s estate to give birth. Cat was only six months along and she felt every bit confident that she would manage to produce her second babe in Windsor.
“Henry thinks it will be important for our child to be born in a royal residence,” she murmured, adjusting the covers around Jack. He was barely three, with dark red hair and a long nose. Jack had his thumb between his lips, sucking sleepily and Cat sighed as she removed his hand, placing it by his chest. "The Queen herself said that it's not a problem and she will be pleased to have her nephew or niece born here. Especially since Jack will soon join the Duke of Cornwall in the schoolroom, as was her suggestion."
"The Queen is a child," her mother replied.
"She is your cousin," Cat responded. She walked off to sit next to her mother, who was nursing a goblet of cold water near the window. "Why do you have such a problem with it, Lady Mother?”
“The Howards are an ambitious family, my love,” said Lady Angus. “I will not have you, or my grandchildren, mixed in it.”
“Jack is a Howard,” Cat said. “As will this one be.” She touched her stomach and the child within kicked her, chasing the warmth of her palm.
Her mother smiled sardonically.
“It’s best to stay away from court and politics,” she replied. “I learned that lesson when my family left for Spain.”
“Mama…” Cat started.
“Politics will only give you disappointment, daughter,” said her mother. “And you will be left behind, forgotten and alone. Made to deal with the ruin yourself.”
Cat felt her mother was not speaking about her, not with the resentment clear in her voice, but she said nothing. She had already heard it all before.
--
Kraków, Poland. 30th of June, 1545.
Liesl tugged at her embroidery’s thread, trying not to appear too upset. She missed Lithuania like a lost limb, eager to return to the calmness of her husband’s seat in the Grand Duchy, and though Poland was a beautiful country, it was still the home of her mother-in-law. It did not seem to her that Bona Sforza was pleased by anything to do with Liesl, or Austria. She would have much preferred a French bride, to curb the Habsburgs’ influence, but her husband decided on Liesl when his son was still a child.
Her lack of younger children also angered her, Liesl was sure. Staśko, as her son was called by those who loved him, was two, tall for his age and with his father’s dark hair, but as fiery a temper as his birthmark. The Polish doctors had told her that without monthly courses, she couldn’t bear another baby and Liesl hadn’t bled since her son was born. Zygmunt, disappointed, turned to his mistress, a Lithuanian lady of the name Barbora Radvilaitė who hated Liesl and her crown.
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying so very hard not to cry. Papa had written to her and said she would not be set aside, not now that she already produced a male heir. Liesl feared that Zygmunt might force her into a nunnery so he could marry his beloved Barbora.
The little queen of Poland looked at Staśko, sleeping in her bed. He was a fierce little boy and only she could calm him from his fits of anger sometimes. Liesl thought that his anger was born from his father’s neglect, who was more likely to visit his mistress than to attend to his son. If Liesl were a stronger woman, she’d say something about it. Demand to be respected, as her aunt would have done. But she wasn’t strong.
She set her embroidery aside and took her goblet. It was a concoction made to bring back her fertility and her Lithuanian doctor had ordered her to drink it. Liesl drank it slowly and leaned back in her chair, feeling utterly weak. Lately, since she began to drink the powerful elixir, she had experienced nausea, lesions opening in her skin, tingling of her fingers and toes. All things the doctors told her were normal.
But she felt weak. So unbelievably weak. Liesl could feel her heart aching inside her chest, set in a strange rhythm. Her eyes fell shut and never opened again.
Not Liesl! And poisoned? Zygmunt can never escape a chaotic marital life, can he?
I don't think Liesl was poisoned per say, she was just a victim of lacking medical knowledge
Kitty and John deserve to live a long happy life together whil poor Liesl fell victim of the wrong medicine.
“Lately, since she began to drink the powerful elixir, she had experienced nausea, lesions opening in her skin, tingling of her fingers and toes. All things the doctors told her were normal.”
Idk, but it seems a bit poison-y to me, and it comes after a long list of reasons why someone might want to get rid of her. But we just have to wait and see.
Wellllllllllllllllllll if anyone were to look up the combined symptoms plus heart problems, you'd see that it's actually a result of arsenic poisoning over a long period of time...
Poor Mary. Only her father is left now, and he seems to have forgotten her
And damn! Liesl was poisoned! This is gonna be messy