Tales from Court

Chapter one: Charles Brandon

1543:

‘You are the Duke of Suffolk, my love it is expected of you’ my wife kissed my cheek; of course she was right as always. She always was with a clear mind making me see that it was to be expected. Did not mean I always had to like it.

 I am the Duke of Suffolk, look at me and what do you see. The man who sits at the right hand of the King? As his best friend and confident and the person that many say he trusts the most. Or do you see a man full of ambition that through marrying strategically and by doing so has placed myself, within the Royal family because my children have Tudor blood running through their veins? Even now as I am married to Catherine that I married her for her wealth, I can say I did not.

Maybe if you look beyond on way I act around the court you will see a man that is not all those things he is a man who grew up without any family, was taken in by the people I consider family the King and Queen of England at the time Henry VII and Elizabeth, although they never said it, they treated me like I was their son. I was placed in the household of their second son, an honour that not many children get when sent into the patronage of the King when they become ‘orphaned’ most of the time they would have been sent to a noble to set up house or they could have been turned away but I was signalled out from the moment I appeared, I had been in a cloak two sizes too small for me and shoes too big- people would have laughed to think of me like that now, but that was me- and again I will point that many think I have always been born with what is the expression a silver spoon in my mouth, I am afraid I came from more humble of beginnings.

I was still young when I came to court. Little child not much more I stood looking scruffy and expectantly at the man who I thought was the best man in the world, the King. Henry VII although he was not as grand as I thought he would have been, I can say his son hardly looks like him; Henry had the look of his mother’s blood, which must have been hard on the King. Arthur however, looked the spit of his father. I suppose that is why Arthur was always the beloved son while Henry was only ever seen as the spare. God forbid if something would ever have happened to the future King.

I can still remember the words the King spoke to me, as I looked nervously as the members of court looked at me in amusement, even though I have been here for many years now this was something that I was not used to the eyes. Constantly watching, I am a known face at court even diplomats who have never been seen at court know of me, Charles Brandon.  I digress, The King, who looked so in love with his queen who if I recall was pregnant again, she seemed be that a lot every time I think me and Harry would go to court when we were young she would be pregnant. She looked at me with indifference in the first meeting probably too busy thinking about things for the babe, but in time her and I became acquainted and she treated me like her own son.

But it was the King I would never forget the imperial crown on his head he walked towards me bent down and spoke to me. Spoke to me Charles Brandon the orphan.  ‘Ah Charles Brandon, son of William and Elizabeth Brandon. I knew them both- your father died on the battle field with me’ he has a look in his eye something I would see when he spoke of my mother but me being young and nervous I squashed it. It was highly unlikely he knew her he only just about knew my Father.

‘Yes your grace’ I had been told the story for many years by my grandfather how my father had fought with the right side that day. How God may not have graced him with the life but he had graced the King because of his bravery, Graced him my father was dead as me myself had seen many standard bearers in my time. They were the warning signal in battle and always the first to die, my father had not been brave he had been foolish, he had left my mother who was pregnant with me and two small children and two bastards without a father.