The Queen is Dead!: Katherine of Aragon dies in 1518
- Thread starter FalconHonour
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Thanks. We're stopping off briefly with Anne and Harry in France first, and then the next few chapters will be prophecy-centred.
Section CXXVI - March 1523
Fontainebleu, March 1523
Anne lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The child inside her tossed and kicked vigorously. She sighed.
“Will you be quiet?” she begged, “Maman’s trying to rest.”
Harry turned to her, “The child?”
She nodded, “Won’t stay still for an instant. You’ve sired a real fidget, Lord Percy.”
Harry chuckled, “Are you sure it’s not your Howard blood? Aren’t you always telling me that Howards never look back?”
He came over, placing a hand on her bulging stomach. The two sat in comfortable silence for a moment or two before Anne broke it.
“If it’s a girl, I want to name her Margaret, after Madame Marguerite. And I want Marguerite to be Godmother.”
“Godmother? Anne...you know what Anglo-French relationships are like at the moment. If the King finds out..”
“What? What can he do? He can’t hurt my sister any more than he already has, not without publicly endangering her status as the mother of his heir. He won’t go for George. We’re in France. He can’t hurt us anymore. Please, Harry. Madame Marguerite is more of a mother to me than my own. I want to name my eldest daughter after her.”
Harry hesitated, then sighed, “Only if we can name a boy Charles after the Duke of Suffolk. That ought to appease the English.”
“Henry would appease them more.”
“Yes, but there’s too many Henrys in my family already.”
“No there aren’t. You just don’t want me to have to name my son after the man who’s mistreating my sister so.”
Harry held up a hand under Anne’s searching gaze, “Touché,” he admitted and Anne blushed.
“You’re so sweet, you know that?”
“You deserve it,” he murmured, leaning down to capture her lips with his.
Only a snippet this time, but we needed it out of the way before we focus on the outcome of Brandon's plans for the next few chapters...
Look on the bright side, Mary/Maria is still going to saner/stabler/happier than otl.
Heck, if she remains engaged to the Dauphin, it would be fun for Maria to end up as Anne's protogege, closer to her than her own mother.
Oh that would be adorable! Although, one could argue that in adoring Marie, Maria is already closer to another woman than her mother, albeit she doesn't remember Katherine.
But if it's a boy, the future Earl of Northumberland will be born abroad, which isn't a good thing either. The most sensible thing to do would be to name a girl Margaret, but say it's after Henry's older sister, the Dowager Queen of Scotland... and not make Marguerite godmother. Unfortunately, Anne is too fond of Marguerite to do that!
Well that will be the price to pay for Henry... He and his actions sent back little Anne in France...
Section CXXVII - March 1523
Kenilworth, March 1523
Henry was standing alone in his Privy Chamber when Charles came up to him.
“Harry. Fancy a ride?”
Not having anything else in particular to do, he shrugged.
“Why not? It’s a fine enough day. I’m sure the others can deal with anything that comes up.”
He turned from the window and within half an hour, the two of them were cantering through the woods, laughing and joking like old times.
It was as they paused by a stream in preparation for fording it that it happened.
An old woman dressed in naught but thin rags, with wild hair and eyes like burning embers, stepped out of the trees on the far bank.
“Ahab!” she shrieked, pointing a gnarled, trembling finger at Henry, “Ahab! You call yourself a Christian King, yet the guilty languish unpunished in your cells whilst the innocent suffer. Whilst you cavort with your pretty piece of Irish dishonour, your pearl of a wife’s heart bleeds in silence!”
Charles chanced a look at Harry. He sat like stone in the saddle, has face as white as the great cliffs at Dover. His hands were holding the reins so tightly his knuckles were threatening to pop out of his skin.
“God is testing you, Henry Tudor!” the crone hurled across the water, “God is testing you and if you don’t take exceeding care, the dogs will be licking your blood from your wounds the way they once licked Ahab’s from the ground!”
“What can I do?” he finally plucked up the courage to ask, “Good woman, what can I do to avert such disaster?”
“Return to your wife. Return to your wife and punish the guilty. Do this and, as a sign of His forgiveness, God will bless you with a son. A son with hair as golden as the three suns of York and eyes and a mind as clear and sharp as the noonday sky.”
All of a sudden, the old woman blinked. The odd light vanished from her eyes and she turned and left, leaving nothing but the echo of her words ringing in the breeze behind her.
Henry shuddered, “What a fright she gave me. How did she know? About Honour? About Marie? About me?”
“Old women like that often seem to have uncanny knowledge of those around them, but it’s often little more than lucky guesswork. I wouldn’t think on it, Sire,” Charles soothed.
They rode on in silence for a while, but Charles saw Harry’s jaw working furiously and guessed he was deep in thought. He let him be, knowing that whatever was troubling him would work its way out eventually. He was right.
“What did she mean, “The guilty languish in your cells unpunished?'”
“I told you not to think on her words, Your Majesty.”
Unfortunately for Charles, Harry could be exceedingly perceptive when he wanted to be. He drew rein and glowered at his oldest friend, “Tell me.”
“I suppose she meant Lady Tailboys, Sire,” Charles said slowly, “The Princess Mary committed her to the Tower when they caught her after she smothered the Duke of York and she’s been there ever since.”
“What? You mean she’s gone unpunished for months? She’s been in the Tower since October – on Maria’s orders, no less – and no one saw fit to inform me? Why wasn’t I told?!”
“Harry...” Charles reached out a hand, hoping to calm his friend before he did something he would regret, “You were grieving. We may not have done the right thing, but no one wanted to trouble you further, especially not once you distanced yourself from the Queen.”
“To Hell with that! The woman murdered my son! I should have been told! I should have been told!”
“The woman’s mad, Harry. Dr Linacre examined her himself. He says she’s mad and you know what the law says. Those who are insane cannot be punished for their crimes by anything more than incarceration, no matter how grievous their offences may be.”
“Then the law must be changed! Immediately!”
Harry wrenched his horse’s head around and galloped off in the direction of Kenilworth. Charles turned his horse far more sedately and followed.
And now Henry VIII will be convening Parliament to pass a bill to allow for Bess's execution. Under the circumstances I can't see them outright refusing, but I could see a couple of bold (and stupid) Lords trying to twist Henry's arm for a few concessions here and there in exchange for what he wants. I doubt that will go over well, but I could see someone being dumb enough to try.
Oh, he's not even going to go to Parliament! He's going to use his Royal Prerogative to get it through without waiting to summon Parliament. That's how angry he is right now! But yes, someone can probably win some concessions from him in exchange for not questioning that later on....
Section CXXVIII - March 1523
Kenilworth, March 1523
Wolsey was a little alarmed by the urgency of the King’s summons. After all, they both knew the dynamic between them had changed with Prince Lionel’s birth. Gone were the long, personal chats between them. That role had been largely taken over by the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Pembroke, if not the Queen herself. They only ever spoke on matters of state now, and Wolsey only ever saw the King when he had been summoned to do so. And Harry had been so cloistered recently, with or without the Lady Honour, that he rarely sent for him at all, and only ever absently if he did. An urgent summons like this hadn’t come since before Prince William’s death. He hastily tidied his flowing scarlet robes and made his way to the Royal Apartments.
“You wanted to see me, Sire?”
He bowed, but Henry waved the formality aside impatiently.
“Yes, Yes. I need you to draft a new law for me.”
“A new law, Your Majesty?”
“I need it to be legal for mentally unstable people to be tried and punished according to their crimes the same way those who were sound of mind would be. You will draw this law up immediately, and implement it from the morrow.”
“The morrow?! Sire, that’s impossible. For such a momentous change in the law, Your Grace will have to summon Parliament!”
“Hang Parliament! The old codgers are too slow and demand too much. I needed this law through months ago! You will do it here and now. Use the Royal Prerogative if you must, but make it law by the morrow!”
Wolsey hesitated, “Sire,” he began delicately, “Is this to do with the Lady Tailboys? Surely it would be possible just to force her to take the veil without any of this unpleasantness?”
Henry spun round to face him, flushed with fury.
“That woman killed my son, Thomas. I need her dead and I need her dead now!”
He pounded the table, “God’s death, will I never be free of the Blount bitch and her poison?”
“If that is Your Majesty’s wish, of course it can be done,” Wolsey said silkily, “I shall draw up the necessary documents just as soon as possible. I presume Your Grace wishes Lady Tailboys to suffer the usual death accorded to noble traitors? Or, given the grievous nature of her crimes, is she to be treated as though she is without rank?”
“You mean, is she to be hanged, drawn and quartered?” Henry paused, then laughed; a dry, mirthless laugh that sent chills down even Wolsey’s spine, “No. You’ll change the law so that I may pick a traitor’s mode of death. And it won’t be beheading or hanging, drawing and quartering for Bessie Blount. Neither of those is painful enough for the harlot. I want her boiled alive. Boil her alive. Let her taste the flames that will torment her for all eternity before she even leaves this earth.”
Henry laughed again and Wolsey had to swallow a rising tide of revulsion at the manic glee in his master's voice.
“As you say, Sire,” he replied, “I shall go and draw up the documents at once.”
“No,” Henry countered, “You’ll do it here. I want to see you do it.”
And so it had to be. Wolsey sat at the King’s own writing desk, drafting out the ghastly document in vivid black ink, with the King’s cerulean eyes burning into the back of his skull, glittering and hard as sapphires in his rage. Nothing short of affixing his seal to the still-glistening documents would slake His Majesty’s burning thirst for revenge.
I understand that Henry is mad but...would being boiled alive be an acceptable punishment for an upper class woman at this time?
Yup. This is as close to OTL Henry VIII, TTL Henry gets...
Glad you're both enjoying it!
Well, it certainly will for Bessie, of course!
That's why he's changing the law, to make it technically legal. And to be honest, Bessie is a traitor, plain and simple. No one is going to argue too much, as long as he reins himself in again afterwards...
Therein lies the rub. The current case has the grace of being understandable. But there is plenty of room for latter-day misuse of said power...