The children were presented to Katharine, who patted their heads tenderly.

She sighed and turning to Mary said: “I have just been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.”

Mary knew for what reason; Katharine was praying that she might bear the King a son.

When Katharine had rested in the apartments which had been made ready for her as soon as she entered the house, she wanted to see the nursery; and as Mary watched her bending over the cradle of her son, she felt a deep pity for her sister-in-law. Never, since her great happiness had come to her, had she felt as grateful as she did at that moment. How easy it was for the lives of royal people to go awry.

“Mine never shall,” she told herself fiercely.

Katharine, returning to Court, talked to Henry of the household at Westhorpe. Henry was amused; he laughed heartily.

“So she has become a simple country woman, has she? How long will she be contented with that life? Depend upon it ere long she will be requesting to come back to Court.”

Katharine was not so sure, but she rarely disagreed with the King’s opinion; and when Henry heard of the nurseries of Westhorpe containing three little girls and a bonny boy—Mary’s own son at that—he became glum.

He wanted to hear all about the boy, and Katharine was not sure which would have distressed him more, to have learned that his nephew was ailing or, the truth, that he was a healthy boy.

When Katharine told him: “Little Henry is growing so like you,” he was pleased but almost immediately disgruntled because he had not a boy to whom he could give his name.

“I feel so much much better since my pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham,” Katharine told him. “I am certain that she will soon answer my prayers.”

But of course she would, thought Henry. There was his good and pious wife. As for himself, did he not hear Mass regularly? Was he not as devout as God could wish?

He was suddenly good-humored. “We will have a merry masque,” he declared. “My sister Margaret will soon be with us. We must show her how we amuse ourselves here in England, for I believe the Scots to be a dour race. Now if we should have a tourney our champions must be there. Suffolk must come back to Court and Mary must greet her own sister.”

Katharine remembered, a little sadly, the country idyll she had disturbed, and imagined the messengers arriving there with the King’s orders.

Moreover she thought of Mary, the mother of a son, being at Court with Margaret who also had a boy. Henry would be delighted to have his sisters at his Court, but he was going to be very envious of them.


WHEN THE KING COMMANDED, there was nothing to do but obey.