41

Mary

When my child didn’t come in May, the doctors patted my hands and said I had muddled my dates, as women often did, especially with a first baby, and said I should most likely be delivered near the end of June. When that month also passed I began to despair that something was well and truly wrong. I knew then that I must put myself wholly in God’s hands.

“A miracle will come to pass!” I insisted as I put on one of my fine pleated Holland cloth birthing smocks with the wrists, neck, and hem edged with gold braid, and tucked my hair up in a matching cap. Then I wound my precious ivory rosary around my hand and fastened round my neck the cross my mother had given me containing a splinter from the True Cross. Having these dear, precious things made me feel like my mother and grandmother were right there in the birthing chamber with me. I clasped an ivory and gold inlaid crucifix to my breast and lay back on my bed with my legs wide and my knees bent and waited for my pains to begin. I had the midwives bring their instruments and stand poised in readiness at the foot of my bed, and issued orders for the swaddling bands to be brought out of the chest where they were kept, and for the wet-nurse and cradle rockers to be ready to assume their duties; I was about to give birth. At my command, all my ladies and a number of nuns from an abbey I had recently restored arranged themselves in neat rows and knelt in prayer around my bed. Whilst outside in the courtyard I could hear a procession of monks in rough dung-brown robes walking round and round in circles, the soles of their leather sandals slapping against the flagstones, as, with their tonsured heads bowed, they chanted:

O Almighty Father, which didst sanctify the Blessed Virgin and Mother Mary in her conception, and in the birth of Christ Our Savior thine only Son; also, by thine omnipotent power, didst safely deliver the Prophet Jonas out of the whale’s belly: defend, O Lord, we beseech Thee, thy servant Mary, our queen, with child conceived; and so visit her in and with Thy godly gift of health, that not only the child Thy creature, within her contained, may joyfully come from her into this world, and receive the blessed sacraments of baptism and confirmation, enjoying therewith daily increase of all princely and gracious gifts both of body and soul; but that also she, through Thy special grace and mercy, may in time of her travail avoid all excessive dolor and pain, and abide perfect and sure from all peril and danger of death, with long and prosperous life, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I closed my eyes tight and prayed with all my might, harder than I ever had in my life, beseeching Our Lady to show mercy and bring on my good hour.

Truly, you are blessed among women.
For you have changed Eve’s curse into a blessing;
and Adam, who hitherto lay under a curse,
has been blessed because of you.
Truly, you are blessed among women.
Through you the Father’s blessing has
shone forth on mankind,
setting them free of their ancient curse.
Truly, you are blessed among women,
because through you
your forebears have found salvation.
For you were to give birth to the Savior
who was to win them salvation.
Truly, you are blessed among women,
for without seed you have borne, as your fruit,
him who bestows blessings on the whole world
and redeems it from that curse
that made it sprout thorns.
Truly, you are blessed among women,
because, though a woman by nature,
you will become, in reality, God’s mother.
If he whom you are to bear is truly God made flesh,
then rightly do we call you God’s mother.
For you have truly given birth to God.

For hours I lay thus waiting for my pains to begin, repeating my prayer, feeling the wooden edges of the crucifix I clutched bite into my hands. It comforted me to know that I was surrounded on all sides by prayers—the monks outside chanting in the courtyard, walking round and round, wearing out their soles, and inside the palace, at my command, when I lay down and opened my legs and drew up my knees, everyone had stopped whatever they were doing and knelt where they were, and prayed for me and my safe delivery.

My voice grew weary and hoarse and in the heat of the late afternoon I fell into a torpor. I drifted as the voices droned and I know not how many more hours had passed before a heavenly light so bright it hurt my eyes appeared beside my bed. Within it I saw a bright angel gowned in blue with flowing gold hair.

Though her eyes were kind, her lips were downturned in sorrow. She told me that God was not pleased with me. Heresy still flourished in my realm. I had failed to uproot the weeds from my garden—though some had been plucked and others had perished, many more still remained to breed and multiply and spread their blasphemy like a Black Plague of the soul—so He must withhold my miracle. My child could not be born until every heretic in England had been burned or converted to the true faith.

Heretics were the worst kind of criminals, worse than any ordinary murderer or thief, and much more dangerous, for their crimes were not only against man but God as well. They were the worst kind of thieves, for they stole the souls of the innocent and ignorant and cheated them of salvation, condemning them to damnation and denying them the kingdom of Heaven.

I opened my eyes then and sat up. God, through His angel, had spoken to me, and I knew exactly what I must do.