The Other Henry VIII

Forgive and Forget

5 January 1531
"He's a bit ugly," remarked Princess Eleanor, peering up at her newborn brother with an unimpressed frown on her tiny lips. "He looks like those little angels in the tapestry outside my chambers. Papa, did I really look like that when I was small?"
"We all did, at the beginning," said Lizzie. She leaned over the twins and examined the baby with narrowed eyes. "Yes, he does look rather uncannily like a cherub, doesn't he? See Papa, his face is squashed."

Clara could not help but agree with her sisters. The new prince was plump and cherubic, round brown eyes nearly obscured by the swell of his rosy cheeks as he lay serenely in his mother's arms. His head was as smooth, white, and bald as an egg, though the Queen had artfully concealed it with folds of swaddling cloth. In short, he could not have been more different from the twins, who had been small, bony and squalling. She stepped back and placed a steadying hand on the shoulder of her brother, who had been cowering behind her for quite some time.
"Don't you want to have a look, Edward?" she whispered encouragingly. He shook his head, still clutching at her skirts. "Why not?"
"He's a boy," he mumbled.
Smiling, Clara replied, "You're a boy too, you know."

Before he could answer, the King interrupted, "We shall call him Arthur. For my dear brother. You'll be godmother, of course" he added, nodding at his eldest daughter.
"Of course," repeated Clara under her breath. It was not as if she had any choice in the matter. Ignoring the rest of her father's declaration, she crouched beside Edward and asked quietly, "What did you mean by 'he's a boy'?"
"Well," he said reluctantly, "Eleanor says I have to be King because I'm a boy, but if he's a boy too then he could be King instead of me and that's not fair because he's only little and I'm all grown up."
Clara stared at him in astonishment. She had never heard Edward speak more than four words at a time.

"... and you, my love?" continued the King, "How are you?"
Leia sighed. "Well enough, I suppose. The midwives told me childbirth gets easier every time, but I'm inclined to believe it's a clever lie to convince women to keep having children." She passed the baby to the wet nurse carefully, then folded her hands on the silk sheets. "In any case, it's going to take a great deal of persuasion to convince me to have more."
The King chuckled. "We'll see about that."

And so, the christening for the new prince took place three days later. Of course Clara agreed to carry him to the font. Of course she agreed to stand as godmother. And of course she smiled and nodded and held her nerve and behaved like the ideal devoted princess because that was her duty.
The courtiers drank in the lie as if it were the finest Burgundian wine, and those who did not certainly did a good job of pretending to. They thought she, a Catholic, was finally obeying her Protestant father. They thought her docile behaviour was a show of support for the Reformation. Of course, they were wrong.

As she stood by the font before hundreds of onlookers, eyes fixed glassily upon the opposite wall, her mind could not let go of Edward's words. She had not — nor, indeed, had anyone — ever contemplated how heavy the prospect of the crown must weigh on a prince. He was only five years old, the same age as Clara had been when her mother died, and though he had not experienced such loss, his short life had already been marred by his father's grating expectations. Gazing sadly at her newborn brother as he squirmed in the Bishop of London's grasp, she knew he was condemned to a similar fate.

"People of God, will you welcome this child and uphold them in their new life in Christ?"
"With the help of God, we will," replied Clara, though her voice was lost in the chorus of the other godparents. The loudest of all was Lord Surrey, who stood at her side with his hands clasped behind his back. His adoring gaze was matched only by that of the King.
"What do you name this child?"
"Arthur Henry Edmund," replied the King proudly.
"Arthur Henry Edmund," echoed the Bishop, brushing the oil over the baby's forehead with his wrinkled fingers, "Christ claims thee as his own. Receive the sign of the cross."