for foreseeing, or for ghosts of boys lost long ago.
“Most gracious queen, greetings,” he says, and I take Anthony’s hand and smile, and
hear the crowd murmur that I am a beauty beyond their imaginings.
“Nothing exceptional,” Anthony says for my ears only, so that I have to turn my head
and stop myself giggling. “Nothing compared to our mother, for instance.”
Next day is my coronation at Westminster Abbey. For the court herald, bellowing names
of dukes and duchesses and earls, it is a roster of the greatest and most noble families
in England and Christendom. For my mother, carrying my train with the king’s sisters
Elizabeth and Margaret, it is her triumph; for Anthony, a man so much of the world
and yet so detached from it, I think it is a ship of fools and he would wish himself
far away; and for Edward it is a vivid statement of his wealth and power to a country
hungry for a royal family of wealth and power. For me it is a blur of ceremonial in
which I feel nothing but anxiety: desperate only to walk at the right speed, to remember
to slip off my shoes and go barefoot at the brocade carpet, to accept the two scepters
in each hand, to bare my breastfor the holy oil, to hold my head steady for the weight of the crown.
It takes three archbishops to crown me, including Thomas Bourchier, and an abbot,
a couple of hundred clergy, and a full thousand choristers to sing my praises and
call down God’s blessing on me. My kinswomen escort me; it turns out I have hundreds
of them. The king’s family come first, then my own sisters, my sister-in-law Elizabeth
Scales, my cousins, my Burgundy cousins, my kinswomen that only my mother can trace,
and every other beautiful lady who can scrape an introduction. Everyone wants to be
a lady at my coronation; everyone wants a place at my court.
By tradition, Edward is not even with me. He watches from behind a screen, my young
sons with him: I may not even see him; I cannot catch courage from his smile. I have
to do this all entirely alone, with thousands of strangers watching my every movement.
Nothing is to detract from my rise from gentry woman to Queen of England, from mortal
to a being divine: next to God. When they crown me and anoint me with the holy oil,
I become a new being, one above mortals, only one step below angels, beloved, and
the elect of heaven. I wait for the thrill down my spine of knowing that God has chosen
me to be Queen of England; but I feel nothing but relief that the ceremony is over
and apprehension at the massive banquet to follow.
Three thousand noblemen and their ladies sit down to dine with me and each course
has nearly twenty dishes. I put off my crown to eat, and put it back onagain between every course. It is like a prolonged dance where I have to remember
the steps and it goes on for hours. To shield me from prying eyes, the Countess of
Shrewsbury and the Countess of Kent kneel to hold a veil before me when I eat. I taste
every dish out of courtesy but I eat almost nothing. The crown presses down like a
curse on my head and my temples throb. I know myself to have ascended to the greatest
place in the land and I long only for my husband and my bed.
There is a moment at one point in the evening, probably around the tenth course, when
I actually think that this has been a terrible mistake and I would have been happier
back at Grafton, with no ambitious marriage and no ascent to the rank of royals. But
it is too late for regrets, and even though the finest of dishes taste of nothing
in my weariness, I must still smile and smile, and put my heavy crown back on, and
send out the best dishes to the favorites of the king.
The first go out to his brothers, George the golden young man, Duke of Clarence, and
the youngest York boy, twelve-year-old Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who smiles shyly
at me and dips his head when I send him some braised peacock. He is as unlike
“Most gracious queen, greetings,” he says, and I take Anthony’s hand and smile, and
hear the crowd murmur that I am a beauty beyond their imaginings.
“Nothing exceptional,” Anthony says for my ears only, so that I have to turn my head
and stop myself giggling. “Nothing compared to our mother, for instance.”
Next day is my coronation at Westminster Abbey. For the court herald, bellowing names
of dukes and duchesses and earls, it is a roster of the greatest and most noble families
in England and Christendom. For my mother, carrying my train with the king’s sisters
Elizabeth and Margaret, it is her triumph; for Anthony, a man so much of the world
and yet so detached from it, I think it is a ship of fools and he would wish himself
far away; and for Edward it is a vivid statement of his wealth and power to a country
hungry for a royal family of wealth and power. For me it is a blur of ceremonial in
which I feel nothing but anxiety: desperate only to walk at the right speed, to remember
to slip off my shoes and go barefoot at the brocade carpet, to accept the two scepters
in each hand, to bare my breastfor the holy oil, to hold my head steady for the weight of the crown.
It takes three archbishops to crown me, including Thomas Bourchier, and an abbot,
a couple of hundred clergy, and a full thousand choristers to sing my praises and
call down God’s blessing on me. My kinswomen escort me; it turns out I have hundreds
of them. The king’s family come first, then my own sisters, my sister-in-law Elizabeth
Scales, my cousins, my Burgundy cousins, my kinswomen that only my mother can trace,
and every other beautiful lady who can scrape an introduction. Everyone wants to be
a lady at my coronation; everyone wants a place at my court.
By tradition, Edward is not even with me. He watches from behind a screen, my young
sons with him: I may not even see him; I cannot catch courage from his smile. I have
to do this all entirely alone, with thousands of strangers watching my every movement.
Nothing is to detract from my rise from gentry woman to Queen of England, from mortal
to a being divine: next to God. When they crown me and anoint me with the holy oil,
I become a new being, one above mortals, only one step below angels, beloved, and
the elect of heaven. I wait for the thrill down my spine of knowing that God has chosen
me to be Queen of England; but I feel nothing but relief that the ceremony is over
and apprehension at the massive banquet to follow.
Three thousand noblemen and their ladies sit down to dine with me and each course
has nearly twenty dishes. I put off my crown to eat, and put it back onagain between every course. It is like a prolonged dance where I have to remember
the steps and it goes on for hours. To shield me from prying eyes, the Countess of
Shrewsbury and the Countess of Kent kneel to hold a veil before me when I eat. I taste
every dish out of courtesy but I eat almost nothing. The crown presses down like a
curse on my head and my temples throb. I know myself to have ascended to the greatest
place in the land and I long only for my husband and my bed.
There is a moment at one point in the evening, probably around the tenth course, when
I actually think that this has been a terrible mistake and I would have been happier
back at Grafton, with no ambitious marriage and no ascent to the rank of royals. But
it is too late for regrets, and even though the finest of dishes taste of nothing
in my weariness, I must still smile and smile, and put my heavy crown back on, and
send out the best dishes to the favorites of the king.
The first go out to his brothers, George the golden young man, Duke of Clarence, and
the youngest York boy, twelve-year-old Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who smiles shyly
at me and dips his head when I send him some braised peacock. He is as unlike
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