Bloody Mary Read Online Free PDF Page B

he went abroad in June he had left her as head of his government and remaining military forces, knowing that his departure would be the signal for at least minor incursions by the Scots. As early as February Lord Dacre, guardian of the northern border, warned Henry that the Scots king James IV was mustering his men in preparation for an invasion. He had provided himself with up-to-date siege artillery, and narrowly missed harm when one of the newly cast guns he was trying out in Edinburgh Castle exploded on firing. 1
    James’ defiance, carried by Ross Herald, reached Henry in the midst of the siege of Thérouanne. He sent the bishop of Durham to London to oversee the organization of defense in the northern counties, but left the major responsibility with Katherine and the Lord Treasurer Surrey, Lieutenant General of the North. Katherine personally handled many of the administrative details, and set her women to sewing banners for the knightly contingents forming under Surrey’s command. A highly intelligent and capable woman, she enjoyed coordinating the enterprise. “My heart is very good to it,” she wrote to Henry. On September 9 the invading Scots met Surrey’s forces in the hills at Flodden just inside English territory, and within three hours they were beaten. The slaughter was terrible. The commanders—the earls, the great churchmen, the king himself—chose to fight to the death though conscious that they were giving ground hopelessly to the English. When the battle was over Flodden Field was strewn with noble corpses; among them was the disfigured body of King James, fallen near his banner. The bishop of Durham praised Surrey and his men, but attributed the victory to the protection of St. Cuthbert, under whose banner the men of Durham had fought. Katherine was overjoyed at the outcome, and sent the Scots king’s bloody shirt to her husband as a trophy.
    A week after the carnage of Flodden Katherine gave birth to a stillborn son. A little over a year later she bore a living son who died within a few days. Her father, whose patience with her failures in childbirth had long since run out, sent a doctor and a Spanish midwife to England to ensurethat future sons would survive. What their techniques were we don’t know, but common medical remedies for infertility included drinking the urine of pregnant goats and sheep and treating the cervix with steam, produced by a brass lamp and funneled into the vagina through a pessary. Folk remedies called for the woman to wear herbs and charms—dock seeds bound to the arm, magical or religious names written in amulets—and to suspend from a girdle worn under her clothing the fingers and anus of a deadborn child. To whatever cures her physicians advised Katherine undoubtedly added assiduous prayers for a son. And Henry, whose piety was less fervent than Katherine’s but no less sincere, prayed too for his long-desired heir.
    The blame in all cases of childlessness fell by custom on the wife, but Henry could not overlook the evidence that there was weakness on his side of the family as well. He had been one of seven children, three boys and four girls. Three of the children had died in infancy, and a fourth, Prince Arthur, lived only into adolescence. Of course, many women lost half their children in infancy, but Katherine had so far lost them all. And she was nearing thirty.
    Katherine’s pregnancy in 1515 was to all appearances normal. The child was expected in February of the following year, and news of the impending birth made the rounds of the diplomatic network. The new king of France, Francis I (Louis XII had just died), felt snubbed because Henry did not personally invite him to send a representative to stand as godfather to the child at the christening; instead he asked his brother-in-law Suffolk to give Francis the message. Francis announced he would send no one; Henry was bound to be very angry. The Venetian ambassador Giustinian, always anxious to preserve good