The Queen's Nurse by Bernard Capes

Frivolous she may have been, shallow and light-hearted as a brook, but not heartless. Her nurse -- she who, in modern parlance, had "taken her from the month" and had fed and bred her in the house of her father, Sir John Seymour, of Wiltshire, knight -- would always defend her tooth and nail from that charge. And when at last, having followed her nursling's dancing career through the Courts of the old gloomy Louvre and the more splendid Whitehall, she came to see her supplant in the royal caprice the unhappy Queen whose maid-of-honour she had been, she would allow in her presence no breath of detraction to slur the good fame of her darling, but would constantly aver that she had fought against the inevitable with all the desperation of which her buoyant nature was capable. Jane could never say nay to the least plausible beggar in the world, she would declare; and what was her chance when that suppliant was King Harry himself?

She loved life, to be sure, the sweet butterfly -- who would not with such a disposition? And when the alternative was to be broken on a wheel! How many, though deeper ones, would have chosen that in her place, she would like to know? And here was she about to justify her monarch's choice by presenting him with a male heir -- the heir for whom he had been growling and raging these twenty years past. She had no doubt it would be a male, since her bird always gave every one what he asked. And she had come to nurse her nursling through her first troublous days in this the new great palace of Hampton that the red Cardinal had built.

So she believed up to the last, and at that last the King, the least plausible beggar, sat all alone one wild October evening in the great oriel window of the great hall at the Court. It blew and rained boisterously without, and the wet, red leaves were dashed against the glass, where they ran down like gouts of blood. Their hue was reflected in the royal eyes, which stared out upon the desolate prospect between wrath and anxiety. Henry's conscience was gnawing at his heart, in truth, and despot-like he resented the pain.

The tapers burned under that vaulted gloom like glow-worms in a dark avenue; the residue of a discarded feast lay tumbled about the tables. Apart from the golden dishes, the piles of fruit, the crusted goblets and great flagons of wine, he sat in his tremendous isolation, and fought the fight between desire and humanity. It was never, alas! but a brief struggle with him. He rose in a moment, a heavy, butcher-like figure of a man, a huge common hulk made formidable by padded doublet and "blistered" sleeves all roped and starred with gems, and, his lips puffing, the scant ginger hair bristling on his swollen neck and jowls, thundered an order into space. Instant to it an obsequious page leaped into the Presence.

"Sir Anthony Denny -- summon him. "

The page vanished; the King strode up and down. At the fourth turn he paused to see a figure bow before him. This figure, for contrast, was robed all in black, with a tight coif on its head, and, hanging from its shoulders, a long, sleeveless gown edged with brown fur. It was the figure, livid and drawn-faced, of the chief barber-surgeon attending on her Majesty the Queen's confinement.

"Sir Anthony," said the King, "make note of our decision. Meseemeth in this realm of ours that wives be plenty, but heirs most sorely lack. Poor Jane must suffer for the succession. If one must perish" He paused.

"It is even so, your Majesty," murmured the physician.

The King stamped his foot, and turned away.

"I must have my heir," he said. "God's blood, I must and will! "

But that night, as he was crossing a corridor to his cabinet, an old woman broke upon him with tears and lamentations.

"They are killing my bird! "

"Peace, fool! " said the King, harsh and lowering. "I must have mine heir, though all birds fell dumb from this moment. "

She clung to him, but he shook her off roughly, and went on his way. She followed, importunate and beyond fear.

"Spare my nursling! She is one and only; thou canst not renew her; but many shall be her gifts of love to thee. "

He turned like a goaded bull, and the woman was dragged away.

That night the little Prince was born; and thereafter the wreck from which he had been delivered settled down, and on the twelfth day it sank into the fathomless deeps.

The King was sorry for a while; but he had his heir to reward him for the sacrifice he had made. Mary Tudor, a girl of twenty, and already as sour as crabs, was the little dead queen's chief mourner. The trumpets brayed her obsequies, the laureate sang them in execrable verse, the baby -- a pinched atom -- screamed them. Only the old nurse sat dumb and dry-eyed, taking no notice of anything.

She would have nothing to do with the Prince, craved or claimed no part in his rearing. But presently she took her spinning-wheel to the little dark room by the chapel which had been allotted her; and there she would sit all day drawing flax from the distaff.

One noon, the door being open, the King in passing saw her thus occupied, and went in. She neither moved nor acknowledged his presence, but went on with her spinning. His eyes began to redden in the way all knew.