Mary, Queen of France: The Story of the Youngest Sister of Henry VIII

“So you came back … ?”

“As soon as I heard that you needed me.”

“I needed you, did I not? Oh, how I needed you!”

“Mary. …”

“Oh, Charles, you are weeping.”

“Stay, Mary. Do not leave me. We cannot be apart … you and I. You always said it.”

“This had to come, Charles. Take care of my little ones.”

“You cannot leave us.”

She shook her head and smiled at him.

“Charles, do you remember the chapel at Clugny?”

“For as long as I live I shall remember.”

“Do you remember how I told you that there would be no regretting … as long as we two should live?”

“I remember.”

“Charles, kiss me … for the last time, kiss me.”

He did so.

“There are no regrets, my love,” she said.

He stood up and stared disbelievingly down at her. He could not believe that the vital, beautiful Mary Tudor had left him forever.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aubrey, William Hickman Smith, The National and Domestic History of England

Batiffol, Louis (translated by Elsie Finnimore Buckley), National History of France

Chamberlin, Frederick, The Private Character of Henry the Eighth

Fisher, H.A.L., The Political History of England (1485–1587)

Froude, James Anthony, History of England

Gairdner, James (editor), Memorials of Henry VII

Green, Mary Anne Everett, Lives of the Princesses of England

———, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain

Guizot, M. (translated by Robert Black), History of France

Hackett, Francis, Henry the Eighth

———, Francis the First

Herbert, Edward, Lord, History of England under Henry VIII

Hudson, Henry William, France

Jackson, Catherine Charlotte, Lady, The Court of France in the 16th Century

Salzman, L. F., England in Tudor Times

Stephens, Sir Leslie, and Sir Sidney Lee (editors), The Dictionary of National Biography

Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England

Wade, John, British History

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEAN PLAIDY is the pen name of the late English author E. A. Hibbert, who also wrote under the names Philippa Carr and Victoria Holt. Born in London in 1906, Hibbert began writing in 1947 and eventually published over two hundred novels under her three pseudonyms. The Jean Plaidy books—ninety in all—are works of historical fiction about the famous and infamous women of English and European history, from medieval times to the Victorian era. Hibbert died in 1993.