Titulus Princeps: Bessie Blount Has A Girl
- Thread starter FalconHonour
- Start date
Oh, golly, have just spotted this. I'd better get on with things then!
Also, quick retcon, not that it really matters. I have reversed Harry's title so that he is now Duke of Pembroke and Richmond, rather than vice versa. I kept referring to him as Lord Pembroke for short, so... 🙄
XVI: Christmas 1530
Whitehall, Christmas 1530
The trumpets blared and a fair-haired boy of about ten strolled into Whitehall’s great hall, his head held very high and an arrogant blue gaze darting everywhere.
Teodosio de Braganza watched with some confusion as the crowd parted for the boy as though he were a Prince born and bred, for he knew only too well that he was not. King Henry might dress the lad in silks and satins, his rich blue doublet setting off his golden hair and blue-grey eyes beautifully, but Lord Pembroke was no Prince. Teodosio had made a point of learning as much as he could of the English Court during his voyage from Porto, and it was an open secret that King Henry had no legitimate son, and no chance of getting one, given that his physician had had to castrate him in order to save his life after his jousting accident at midsummer.
Legitimate or not, the King and Princess Mary looked delighted to see the boy, the Princess’s blue eyes lighting up as she bent to embrace him, and the King forcing himself to his feet to swing the boy into the air, though he had to suppress a grunt of pain as he did so.
Deciding his best option was to play the clueless foreigner, Teodosio nudged his neighbour and nodded towards the dais, “Who’s the boy? I was under the impression that His Majesty had no son. Is that the Earl of Lincoln?”
“Lord Lincoln?” His neighbour glanced towards the dais and shook his head, “That’s Lord Pembroke, His Majesty’s son by Lady Hunsdon. Mark him well, sir. My father is his governor, and he swears blind that Henry of Pembroke will be our next King.”
Teodosio couldn’t help it. His jaw dropped. Lord Pembroke, King of England? It couldn’t be!
“But that’s impossible!” he breathed, “Bastards cannot inherit their father’s titles. Surely, in lieu of a son, the Princess Mary must be first in line to the throne, with the Lady Elizabeth after her?”
His neighbour turned to face him, a supercilious sneer curling his upper lip, “That might be how you’d do things in Portugal, Lord de Braganza, but, here in England, we are not quite so sanguine about the ability of a woman to rule. The horrors of the Anarchy and the Cousins’ War have seen to that. No, King Henry is taking no chances. He has sent His Eminence Cardinal Wolsey to petition His Holiness to allow him to legitimise Lord Pembroke.”
Teodosio had to stifle a smirk at those words. He highly doubted that gamble would pay off, not with Pope Clement the Emperor’s prisoner. His Imperial Highness would never allow his cousin Maria to be set aside in favour of a Viscountess’s bastard, even if said bastard was a boy.
But it wouldn’t do to puncture the Englishman’s bubble, not now, not when his father was clearly a man of some influence at King Henry’s Court, and Teodosio was here with strict instructions to try and warm relations between England and Portugal.
Instead, therefore, he simply nodded to the other man, clicked his heels and departed with a cordial bow before he could do or say anything to betray his inner feelings.
“My Master King Luis is pleased to offer himself as a groom for Her Highness Princess Mary,” Teodosio proffered King Luis’s letter, “Now that his year of mourning for his sainted brother has passed, the Council are keen to see him wed, and quickly, for the sake of Portugal. Sadly, His Majesty is not much inclined towards the state of matrimony.”
King Henry’s face clouded at those words, and Teodosio kicked himself. He should never have been so honest. He ought to have sung the Princess’s praises, to have sworn blind that his master was overwhelmed by Her Highness’s grace and beauty and desired nothing more than to wed her, He hurried on, “However, King Luis has been writing to Her Highness for some time now, so he feels he already knows her, at least a little. He has stated outright, that if he must wed, then the Princess Mary is the wife he desires.”
There was silence at his words, and, for a moment, Teodosio allowed himself to breathe. He had salvaged success from disaster, he was sure of it.
His pride only lasted an instant, for, when the King opened his mouth, it was with a roar loud enough to shake Whitehall to its foundations.
“King Luis has been writing to my pearl?! Without asking my permission? How dare he?! King of Portugal or not, he holds her honour cheaper than any true gentleman. I won’t have it. How DARE HE treat Mary so?! How DARE HE?!”
Teodosio hadn’t been an envoy for long, but he was a seasoned enough courtier to know better than to remain where he so clearly wasn’t wanted. Scrambling for his papers, he swept them into his arms and all but ran from the room, scarcely pausing long enough to sweep King Henry something that might passably be called a bow.
The last he heard of the English King was a bellow “Get me the Princess Mary and the Lady Salisbury! NOW!”
Henry scowled blackly at Lady Salisbury as she and her charge curtsied before him.
“What’s this I hear about King Luis writing to Her Highness, Lady Salisbury? Mary’s of age; it is most unseemly for her to be engaging in any kind of relationship with an unmarried one, particularly one more than a decade her senior. You ought to know that; you should never have let this happen!”
“Well… I – I didn’t see the harm – I didn’t think anything could-” Lady Salisbury stuttered, her usual Plantagenet poise deserting her in the face of Henry’s mulish temper. After all, she knew better than anyone how fragile one’s position at Court can be, how much it depended on courting royal favour.
Fourteen-year-old Mary, however, had no such qualms. Leaping up from her curtsy, she interposed herself between her father and her governess, winding her arms around Henry’s neck with the kind of confidence peculiar to adored eldest daughters.
“Oh, you mustn’t be angry with Lady Bury, Papa. My correspondence with Cousin Luis was my own idea. It was forward of me, I know, but I truly didn’t think anything would come of it. All I had in mind, when I wrote my first letter to Luis, was that we were cousins and that I knew what kind of pain he would be in, having lost his brother so suddenly. I saw it as my Christian duty to comfort him, for does it not say in the book of Sirach that we should give grace and kindness to the living, and mourn with those who mourn?”
Mary tilted her head back to gaze up at her father, blue eyes deliberately wide and innocent, “I didn’t think any more of it, honestly, but then he wrote back. I was so pleased when he did. He thanked me and said I could write again if I wanted to, that he’d be delighted to know more about me, his only English cousin. I thought Mama would pleased to think of us getting along, so I decided it would be rude not to write again, after he’d asked it of me so nicely. You’re not really angry, are you, Papa?”
Faced with Mary’s sweet smile, Henry’s fury melted away. His pearl was so young. She’d only wanted to do her best by her cousin. How would she ever have realised how damaging this might have been to her reputation? No, this wasn’t her fault. Lady Salisbury should have guided her better.
He tapped her nose indulgently, setting her back from him, “No, my pearl. I’m not angry with you. You’re the best daughter a man could ever ask for. And you’re a lucky girl. Whatever you’ve been talking to King Luis about, it’s clearly pleased him. I’ve just had Lord de Braganza in here. Luis wants to make you his Queen. Would you like that?”
Mary’s mouth fell open, “Cousin Luis wants to marry me?”
A moment later, she remembered herself and curtsied demurely, “I’ll marry wherever and whomever you think best, Papa.”
However obedient Mary tried to be, however, flush in her cheeks and the light in her azure eyes betrayed her true feelings. The fourteen-year-old had all too obviously been dreaming of nothing more than being Luis of Portugal’s Queen.
Henry couldn’t help but laugh. He ruffled her hair.
“Go on, then. Why not? It’ll do us good to shore up the Treaty of Lisbon anyway. I’ll see what I can do.”
At that, Mary couldn’t hold back her delight any longer. She squealed rapturously and flung herself against her father.
“Thank you, Papa! Thank you!”
For the briefest of moments, Henry contemplated explaining to Mary that Parliament would doubtless insist on her signing away her rights to England if she married Luis. No one would want another Empress Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou, after all, or to see England subsumed into the Portuguese Empire.
But she looked so happy, he just couldn’t bring himself to mar her mood. Instead, he simply kissed her, and stroked her hair, before raising a goblet to her as though she was a married woman already.
“My Lady Queen. May you be very happy in Portugal.”
Teodosio...Teodosio.*shakes the head* I don't think that Charles V would defend his cousin's right to succeed as Queen of England without his aunt being alive. Besides, if Mary is to be Queen of Portugal, I seriously doubt that Charles will stand in the way as Charles already got into the hot water with Portugal when it came to his now wife and I don't think that he want to deal with that again. Plus, Charles probably knew that Portugal and England were traditional allies for few centuries at this point, better keep them happy than make them his enemies, which he had enough to deal with even without making Portugal and England mad at him.
Well, you're not wrong, but I need an excuse to weave Cromwell into this TL for @Belschaft ... Bear with me 😀
It'll no doubt be interesting to see what kind of a deal Henry makes for his son's inheritance hopefully it's marriage to a Habsburg or Habsburg proxy...
Harry may have his own ideas on that one, of course. Tudors will Tudor
Thank you 😄
Well, no, because there are definitely precedents for English Kings without heirs to designate their own heirs by way of Parliament. The Pope's blessing would legitimise Harry in the eyes of the rest of Christendom, but it is not essential
On the plus side, it's good to see Henry being a good father and actually having an "OMG MY DAUGHTER'S HONOUR MAY BE AT STAKE!?!?!?!?!?!?! KILL EVERYONE!" moment. For once, he's being a good father.
Although if I were Lady Salisbury, I would run as far as possible as quickly as possible.
She can join Dr Butts and Francis Talbot in trying to get as far away from Henry as humanly possible.