Excerpts from
In the Courts of Power
By Helle Stangerup
The beginning of 1547 saw the death of two of Europe´s mightiest men. King Henry had achieved six marriages. After Anne of Cleves he had chosen yet another English lady. Before long he had sent her to the scaffold; and rumour alleged that the sixth wife had also come close to losing her life.
His private life had been chaotic. Now, although the man had gone, his shadow remained; and it began to loom from across the frequently stormy sea over Europe.
According to reports his successor the boy king was sickly; and apart from him there were only the daughters: the sad spinsterish Mary, and Elizabeth the bastard, a redhaired girl no one took seriously. Yet she, Christine, could have borne the healthy son, the healthy heir. She was a king´s daughter, and the emperor´s niece; and no one would have dared send her to any scaffold, or so much as think of displacing her.
Three months later news came of the death of the king of France. Christine´s ladies grieved, quoting his poems to each other with tears running down their cheeks. She herself gave more consideration to the fact that now Catherine of Medici would be able to wear the crown as queen - she had eventually borne children - although she was no more than a Florentine merchant´s daughter.
Yet another queen was a topic of conversation just then. The king of Scotland had died, after losing the battle of Solway Moss; and the throne had passed to his daughter, Mary. The little queen was now four years old, and Christina was worried at the rumour of a betrothal to the three-year-old French heir to the throne, knowing that such a union would give yet more power to the covetous de Guise family.
From Helle Stangerup: In the Courts of Power, Macmillan London 1987
Translated by Anne Born
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