Richmond. December 1510
All the men had gone. Catherine would not see a single one of them for weeks. Only women now existed in the semi-secret, cocooned world of the royal birthing chamber. Not even her husband Henry would dare come through the door until a child was born – if that was what God willed. The rituals of childbirth required that things be this way.
Catherine had last seen a male face when she was ceremonially delivered to her door at the palace in Richmond after a special communion service preparing her to ‘take her chamber’. All the official male roles – ‘butlers, panters, sewers, kervers, cup bearers’ – were now temporarily in the hands of women. Anything Catherine needed was to be left at ‘the great chamber door, and the women officers to receive it’. The rule handed down in the ‘Royal Book’ was clear. ‘No man after to come in,’ it stated. Childbirth was the realm of midwives and other female attendants. The men could do nothing except pray that the mysterious goings-on behind the closed doors produced a healthy child.
Catherine’s chamber had been transformed into a soft, warm chrysalis hung all over with tapestries, carpets and curtains. ‘That chamber must be hanged … with rich cloth of Arras, roof, sides, and windows and all, except one window, whereby she must have light when it pleaseth her.’ These were not meant to be too loud or elaborate as the visual overload was ‘not convenient about Women in such case’. To complete the all-enveloping sensation of snug cosiness, the floor ‘must be laid with carpets over and over’.
The focal point of this chamber was a queen-sized ‘royal bed’. This was big enough for an entire family, measuring just over eight by eight feet. Special confinement counterpanes for the bed, one of ‘rich purple tissue’ and the other of ‘crimson cloth of tissue’, were found later amongst Catherine’s goods. Both were ‘furred with powdered ermine’ and came with matching head pieces to cover the pillows. They were amongst the many treasures of childbirth that she hoarded away. The bed was where Catherine, possibly with one or more of her closer companions flopped beside her, could relax and sleep as she awaited childbirth.
A magnificent cradle, five and a half feet long, stood nearby. This ‘cradle of estate’ was built for a future king and, presumably, was where the baby could be displayed to visitors. A smaller cradle, just over three feet long, seems to have been set aside for the more mundane business of sleep. Amongst the treasures Catherine stored away in later years were a cradle’s tester canopy, its long red and blue sarcenet curtains and a baby’s counterpane of crimson velvet with yellow cloth of gold.
This time Catherine was being especially careful. The sadness and embarrassment over their ‘lost’ twins had been easily erased by their delight that the real thing was finally happening but she did not want to run unnecessary risks. Catherine’s false, or semi-false, double pregnancy had at least provided a dry-run for the rituals of confinement and the preparations for birth. It also, however, exposed the couple’s deep-seated anxiety. Over the summer Henry set out on a traditional progress around the south of England, wandering between country houses. Catherine stayed behind at Henry’s childhood home in Eltham for part of the summer, however, carefully protecting the child now growing in her womb.
In the late autumn of 1510 the court moved to Richmond. Catherine’s chambers here were on the first floor of the royal lodgings in the impressive, grey-walled main block, or donjon, rebuilt by her father-in-law. They looked south over a walled and galleried privy garden and, beyond that, the gently flowing River Thames.
When she went into labour on New Year’s Eve Catherine had to choose between her royal bed and a separate ‘pallet bed’. The latter, in this case, was not the usual straw-stuffed mattress but a luxuriously large and soft combination of wool and down mattress set under a crimson satin sparver, or tester canopy, in the same room. Three such pallet mattresses encased in Brussels cloth were later found in Catherine’s personal wardrobe store at Baynard’s Castle in London. Each was filled with feathers or down and, at around ten by eight feet, left plenty of room not just for a queen in labour but also for anyone else who may have been called in to help.
Catherine probably wore one of the two double petticoats or the three smocks of ‘fine Holland cloth’ decorated around the collar in gold or silk that were also kept in her wardrobe for ‘whatte time she laye in child bedde’. A round mantle of crimson velvet furred with ermine was at hand to keep her both warm and regal.
A midwife was there to help and could expect handsome reward for a successful birth. Bandages or swaddling pads of linen and wool, known as ‘roullers’, were kept to hand for the moment of birth. Other experienced women were, if not in the chamber, then close at hand. These included Elizabeth Denton, the future child’s Lady Governor who had looked after Henry as a young boy. There was also a well-born wet nurse called Elizabeth Poyntz – who was daughter-in-law to Catherine’s vice-chamberlain and whose own husband already earned the considerable sum of around £1,000 a year. There was little the midwife could do to diminish the pain. There were no guarantees, either, of success. Whatever happened would be God’s will. The Girdle of Our Lady, a relic held at Westminster Abbey that brought fortune in childbirth (and which Catherine later loaned to her pregnant sister-in-law Margaret Tudor, queen of Scotland), may also have been in the room. The rest was up to Catherine. The harsh realities and risks of childbirth were already accounted for. The ‘rich font of Canterbury’ had been sent back again by the prior of Christ Church, and clergymen put on standby, in case a sickly baby’s soul had to be saved by a quick baptism. Representatives of the ‘gossippes’, or godparents, were also at Richmond. Catherine herself was also at considerable risk. Mothers by no means always survived childbirth. This she knew only too well after the deaths of her sister Isabel and mother-in-law Elizabeth of York. Henry knew all this, too, and set the gentlemen of his chapel ‘praying for the queen’s good deliverance’.
This, however, was the moment Catherine had been waiting for. From her earliest days she had been told that her appointed destiny was to bring England and Spain together through marriage and blood. The guarantee of all those laboriously crafted and bitterly discussed treaties – and of her own future – lay in her womb. As the year turned from 1510 to 1511 and the court prepared for New Year’s Day, she laboured to bring the whole business to fruition. By 1.30 a.m. it was all done. Catherine had a son. England had an heir.