given you some draught to cure that cough. He is supposed to be so clever.”
“I must ask him when I see him next.”
“Do so. I like not to hear it.”
If Anne had not been so concerned with the coming wedding she might have been more aware of Henry’s state. The match with the Elector Palatine, who was known as the Palsgrave in England, did not please her, for she thought the man not good enough for her daughter.
“I’d set my heart on her being Queen of Spain,” she grumbled. “Who is this Palsgrave?”
“I think it is an excellent match, dear Mother,” Henry told her. “It delights me.”
She smiled at him indulgently, and for his sake tried to hide her disappointment; but she could not manage this completely. When Elizabeth came to them she said: “So Goody Palsgrave comes calling on a Prince and Queen.”
“She looks very happy,” commented the Prince.
“Mayhap she has forgotten she was once a Princess. Come along, Goody; you must make a deeper curtsy now.”
But Elizabeth threw her arms about her mother and said: “Forgive me, dearest mother, but I think that good wife Mistress Palsgrave is going to be very happy.”
Queen Anne snorted; but Henry was laughing. And it made her very happy to have these beloved children with her.
He was immediately popular, being good-looking and eager to please; and Protestants throughout the country welcomed the union.
When Elizabeth met him she found him all that she had hoped he would be; and there was no doubt that he was as enchanted with her.
For once two people who had been elected to marry for political reasons had fallen in love on sight. It was a very happy state of affairs.
Even the Queen could not help being pleased, although she continued to mourn the loss of the Spanish crown.
Henry had been feeling steadily more ill, and was finding it increasingly difficult to hide this. But during the celebrations he determined to conceal his condition and he plunged into the celebrations with great zeal.
Elizabeth was in love and happy. He wanted her wedding to be something she would remember with pleasure for as long as she lived.
At the tennis tournament he was one of the champions, and everyone marveled at his skill. Being October the weather was cold, but he played in a silk shirt so as not to be hampered by too many clothes.
When the game was over he was very hot, but almost immediately began to shiver.
The next morning a fever had overtaken him and he was unable to rise from his bed.
The Prince being aware of this implored his doctors not to let his mother, father, his sister, Elizabeth, or his brother, Charles, come near him.
He lay on his bed, not being quite sure where he was.
There were times when he believed he was dancing with Frances Howard, and others when he was sailing the high seas with Sir Walter.
“This is not possible,” she cried. “My Henry! He was always such a bonny boy. This cannot be true. He will recover.”
Nobody answered her. No one believed the Prince could recover, but no one dared tell her this.
“When he was a baby,” she said, “he was taken away from me. I, his mother, was not allowed to nurse my own son. It was the same with them all. And now … this!”
But for all her grief she made no attempt to go to him. It would upset him, she assured herself; and she was terrified of contagion. Yet within her a battle was raging. She wanted so much to go to him; it was meet and fitting that his mother should be at his bedside. But if she should catch this fever … if it should run through the Palace … She must not be foolish; she must stay away from her beloved son. This was yet another sorrow to be borne.
She called one of her women to her.
“Send to Sir Walter Raleigh in the Bloody Tower. Tell him of the Prince’s need. He is a clever man. Let him give him some of his elixir of life. That will save him.”
Then she threw herself on to her bed and wept.
But she felt better. He was wise, her Henry, and he had always declared that Sir Walter Raleigh was the
