Excerpt from The Queen of Last Hopes
I was
formally betrothed in the Church of St. Martin at Tours on May 24, 1444, with
William de la Pole, then the Earl of Suffolk, standing proxy for Henry. My uncle
led me to the choir where the Bishop of Brescia, the papal legate, stood, and
Suffolk and I promised to love and cherish each other.
If a heart can break more than once, mine
was to break for the first time six years later, when the whoresons—but that is
for another time. I like to remember my friend Suffolk as I saw him that day at the
altar, his dark eyes alive with amusement as he gave his strong responses to my
somewhat shaky ones. “Don’t worry, my lady, you’ll be an old hand at this when
it comes time to marry the king in person,” he whispered as the ceremony ended
and we processed to the abbey of St. Julien, where I was to be feasted like a
queen.
There was dancing much, much later in the evening. Whether I was a trifle
affected from the wine that had been flowing in abundance or simply from it
being well past my usual hour of retirement—for my life at Angers was not a
boisterous one—I was feeling giddy when Suffolk partnered me at the dance. “If
you were a proper husband to me, you wouldn’t stare so at one particular lady,”
I said demurely.
He followed my eye to where his had just been: fixated upon the figure of
Agnes Sorel, my uncle’s mistress. Suffolk gave an excellent English version of a
French shrug. “I beg your pardon, your grace. But it is difficult not to look,
you must admit. She is very lovely—though not, of course, as our new English
queen.”
“Flatterer,” I said, and Suffolk did not gainsay me. Agnes Sorel was
blond and stately; I was little and darker, though not, I knew,
charmless.
“She
is my uncle’s official mistress,” I babbled on—quite unnecessarily, I realized
later, for Suffolk, who was in his late forties, had been serving in France
since he was a young man and probably knew as much about the court here as I
did, if not more. “Do you have such things in England?”
Suffolk shook his head gravely. “We are not nearly as advanced, I fear.
Our mistresses are entirely unofficial.” We paused to take some intricate turns,
to general applause, for my grandmother, who had had the rearing of me, had
never stinted on dancing masters, and Suffolk was an accomplished partner. “I
shall be returning to England shortly. Do you have anything you would like to
ask me about the king?”
I considered this question as best I could while dancing. As I turned in
harmony with Suffolk, Agnes Sorel once again passed into my line of sight, which
suggested a natural topic. “Does he
have a mistress? I suppose I should know these things in advance.”
My partner nearly stumbled, and had to put a hand to his mouth to stifle
laughter. “I beg your pardon, your grace.”
“I do not see how that is such a foolish question,” I said frostily.
“In the case of most men, it would not be—but for anyone who knows our
king! He is a very pious man. Indeed, some of the entertainment here tonight
would have appalled him. Those rather underclad Moorish dancers we had earlier—
There’s none such to be seen at his court. Nor will you find any mistresses in
your husband’s life, in or out of court. You’ll have nothing to worry about on
that score.”
Did that mean I had to worry about anything else? But the dance had ended and it was time to take my place back at the dais beside the Queen of France, so I never got a chance to ask my next question.