She took to her bed before the coronation festivities were over and when she died peacefully, bringing the celebrations to an end, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, declared: “All England for her death had cause for weeping”; and it was true that the news was received with sorrow throughout the land.

The old King and his mother dead! A new way of life was certainly opening out before the country.

Perhaps the new King was not quite so grief-stricken as he declared himself to be. Perhaps he felt the last of his bonds breaking. He was no longer in leading strings. Absolute freedom was his, and that was a state for which he had always longed.

And the young Princess? She wept for her grandmother, but the old lady was a figure of the past, and at this time of exultation and apprehension Mary could only look to the future, could only ask herself whether it was possible, if one were determined to have one’s will, to flout the whole Court, the whole world, to get it.

One could not deeply mourn the passing of a woman who had lived her life, when one’s own was opening out before one.

There was no room in Mary’s heart and mind for other thoughts or emotion.

She loved with all the force of a passionate nature. It was no use telling herself that she was not yet fourteen years of age. Her grandmother had borne a son at that age. She was a woman now, understanding a woman’s emotions; and because she had always had her way she did not believe she could fail to get it now.

Charles Brandon was the man she had chosen for her husband. She cared nothing for ceremonies which joined her to a boy whom she had never seen.

“I must marry Charles,” she told herself. And she added: “I will.”


CHARLES BRANDON was well aware of the effect he was having on the Princess Mary. He was amused and flattered, for she was a charming creature and he—who prided himself on his knowledge in such matters—would have been ready to wager that not only would she in a very short time become one of the most beautiful young women at the Court, but also one of the most passionate.