Daughter of Time

January 1558

Westminster

Although it has pleased you, dearest husband to be parted from me these past six months, think not that you are ever absent from my thoughts and prayers.
For just as I have prayed for the success of your endeavours overseas, so too have I prayed that the day might come where I might send to you news that would be more welcome to you than any victory.
I have refrained from voicing my hopes and prayers, until I can be certain of such a condition, with very sure signs, for fear of false hope and error. Now, I know that when Your Majesty took your leave of me, it was not wholly and not completely. For it gives me more joy than your Majesty can comprehend to be able to tell you, with definitive certainty, that I now know myself to be with child.
All I await now to complete my happiness is word from Your Majesty of when you will return to England, so that you may share in my joy and bear witness to the birth of our child.

Written by the hand of Your Majesty's most devoted and loving wife,

Mary, Queen of England

I lean my back against the plump cushion of my carved chair and rub my hand over my swollen stomach. I have waited six months to write this letter. At last, I can give voice to that what I have suspected and prayed for months. I am with child. God be praised I am with child and this time I know it for certain. My courses have stopped. My stomach is swollen. I feel the life within me. Blessed be to God, I will be a mother. I will give England an heir.

I can only imagine what Philip's delight will be when he reads this. This child will bring him back to me if nothing else will. What a wonderful way to begin the new year. An heir and the return of my husband before it is out. God is good.

Sir Robert Rochester stands in the doorway of my privy chamber, ashen face faced and grave in tone. My heart begin to race and my cheeks flush with dread. Has he has come to tell me that my husband is dead?
Instinctively my hand rests upon the swelling of my stomach where my child nestles. Please God do not let it be true. Let Phillip be well. Let him come back to me. Please God.

"Your Majesty, Calais is lost."

It takes a moment for his words to penetrate. They are so unfathomable it seems impossible for them to be true. The last English stronghold in France is gone. Captured by those we sought to put down.
How could this have happened? How can God have allowed us to lose Calais? We have held it for nearly two hundred years. Ever since Edward the third.
My nobles will hate me for this. It is an abject humiliation. They will hate Phillip more. Those that hold xenophobic tongues will call my husband a warlord, and worse.
If only the council had sent reinforcements when I asked them back in December. This could have been avoided. My grief and shame curdle to anger. The council never wanted to go to war against France. They only conceded to declare it after the French King supported Stafford's rebellion against me. They care nothing if my husband were defeated. They already openly speak of the burden of the expense the war has cost the treasury. This is their fault. Their prejudices have caused England to be humiliated on the international stage by our enemies.

As I hoped, the news of my condition delights my husband and offers him great comfort after the defeat of Calais. He sends his confidante, Count of Feria to England to convey his joy and a gift of a ruby ring. Yet soon after the Count's arrival, it becomes clear that he has not only come to deliver my husband's good wishes.

"King Phillip urges Your Majesty to send more men and money to help him retake Calais." He says, calling upon me in my Privy Chamber.

"I will send as many men as can be spared," I assure him. "But I fear my Council may refuse to grant the King any further funds."

"His Majesty understood the Council of England to be supportive of his campaign to quell the French aggression, Your Majesty."

"I am afraid to say, senior, that the Council of England hates the French only a little more than they hate the Spanish."

The count is taken aback by the bitterness in my tone. "But without England's support, Your Majesty, the French will surely advance towards England. Perhaps even invade."

"I will speak to the Council, of course," I assure him. Though I lack confidence that they will do anything to help.

I soon find that my fears are not without conviction when Parliament is summoned a week later.
I attempt to encourage them by first announcing my pregnancy to them. To assure them that the requests to be made are both for the security of the kingdom and to secure the future of my child.

The Count presents Phillip's requests to my council. They accept his requests graciously enough. However, it does not take long for them to refuse him. Stating that the English people could not bear to pay the sums the King asks for.

"There is, Your Majesty, but a wan hope of recovering Calais," The Speaker of the House explains.

It does not deter me. If Parliament will not secure me the money to help Phillip then I will borrow it. The money lenders of Antwerp are ready and willing to offer their services to England and it does not take long to find a willing donor.
I take no small pleasure in countermanding my Council's order and issue the proclamation stating that further supplies will be sent to aid the King's campaign to retake Calais. For the glory of God and for the future of the heir to the throne that I am carrying.

Little Jane Dormer also reaps a prize from my happy condition. She has fallen in love with the dashing young Count and confesses after he has returned to Phillip, that she would accept his marriage proposal if I will consent.
"With the greatest pleasure," I say with genuine joy. "You deserve the best of husbands. However, I would ask you to wait until the King returns. He will wish to honour you both by attending."
Jane is a little crestfallen at this request, but agrees all the same. The poor child is so in love with the dashing Count she cannot wait to be his wife. But I am careful to ensure that her loyalty and dedication receive the proper recognition. After all, what young woman does not dream of her wedding being honoured by the presence of her King.
With no mother of her own to share in her happiness, I am determined to fulfil that role for her. We spend hours together designing sketches for her wedding gown. She will be wed in the finest gown the dressmakers can fashion.

Not even Elizabeth can tarnish my joy. She comes to Richmond, just before the beginning of lying in at the end of February, bearing baby clothes sewn with her own hand. Her black Boleyn eyes discreetly scanning my changing body to see if I truly am with child. I make sure to give her a good view of my swollen belly, lest there be no doubts. Once this child is born, she will be relegated to the obscurity of history and will trouble me no more.

At the beginning of April, after I have taken to my chamber for my lying in. I learn that the heretic King of Sweden has proposed his son as a suitor for her. What is more, the proposal is put to Elizabeth first, before it is brought to me for approval.
She plays her part well. She feigns surprise that the King should approach her first and refers the envoy to my Council. I am adamant that such a marriage will not take place. Even if could overlook the rudeness of failing to bring the King's proposal to me first, I am adamant that Elizabeth will never wed into a known heretic nation.
Once my child is born, she will not be such a prize to any man, let alone a King. She will be only the bastard aunt of the next King or Queen of England. She sends me written assurances that she still has no wish to take a husband and is content to remain in her natural-born virgin state.
I scoff with sarcasm at the irony of the words. She is no more a virgin than a common harlot. However, I am too happy to let her vex me. Even news from France that my brothers one time intended bride, the Queen of Scotland has married the French Dauphin troubles me but little. My child will be born long before any she can produce. Even a wedding night child will take nearly a year to arrive. By which time, God willing, my child will be in its cradle. Preparing for life as Prince or Princess of Wales.
Perhaps, if the new Dauphine bears a child, a treaty could be proposed to unite France, Spain, and England under one glorious catholic crown.