In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,9

I wanted to say that Charles would grow too and as I grew older so must he. In seven years, they told me, when I was fourteen, Charles would be in his prime.

It was wonderful to see everyone happy; so I was happy, too, for I believed that everything that pleased my mother must be good and right and please me.

One day she told me that Charles was so delighted with everything he had heard of me that he was coming to England to see me for himself and that if I pleased him there would be a formal betrothal.

I was a little anxious that I might not please him, but the Countess soothed my anxieties with a tender smile. “You are your father's daughter, Princess,” she said. “That is enough to please anyone.”

All the women of the household used to talk of my romance with the Emperor Charles.

“The Princess is in love,” they would say. “I declare she is always dreaming about her bridegroom. And who can wonder? Such a bridegroom! The great Emperor himself.”

It was a game to me. I laughed with them. It seemed wonderful to be in love because it made everyone so happy.

My mother came to Ditton. She was very excited.

“I have wonderful news for you, little daughter. The Emperor will soon be here.”

I clasped my hands. I should see him… this wonderful creature, this god who, in my mind, would be rather like my father but not frightening, tender like my mother, in spite of the fact that he was as powerful—or almost—as my father.

“Yes,” said my mother. “Although at this time he is engaged in a war, he is coming to see you.”

It seemed marvelous. No one told me that it was because he was engaged in a war, because he wanted my father's support against the French, that he had agreed to take me as his bride, even though he would have to wait years before I could take up that position, and that in his mind this was something which might never happen.

I believed then that he loved me. I had been told so, and it did not occur to me, at that time, that my elders did not always mean what they said. They had told me that I was going to live happily with him for the rest of my life, and this would begin as soon as I was old enough to go to him. What could be more enticing than a rosy future in the far distance, so that I could contemplate it with a comforting pleasure knowing that nothing could be changed for many years?

It seemed so simple as my inexperienced imagination grappled with the scraps of information I received. I saw the wicked King François, with his long nose and satanic eyes, who had betrayed my father at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, who, all the time he had been professing friendship, was trying to humiliate him, who had greeted him as brother merely because he wanted help against that knight of shining virtue, the Emperor Charles.

In due course Charles arrived in England. It was June, four months after my sixth birthday. I was at Greenwich, in a state of immense excitement because this most wonderful being would in due course arrive here and I should come face to face with him.

The Countess talked continually of him—of what I must do, of how I must not speak unless spoken to. I must practice the virginals, for he would surely wish to hear me play. I danced well, but I must dance better. I must outshine all other dancers. He would be interested in my learning perhaps more than my social graces. He was that sort of man. So I must be at my best in every way. There were discussions with the seamstress. What should I wear for the great occasion?

I was in a fever of excitement.

“The Princess is in love,” giggled the women.

Each day I awaited his arrival and was disappointed.

“Why does he not come?” I demanded of Lady Salisbury.

“Your father will not let him go,” she replied. “You see, the Emperor is a very great ruler. He is as important in his own country as your father is here. They will have much to speak of. Your father will wish to give him great entertainments and, although the Emperor would rather come to see his bride, etiquette demands that he must partake in all the banquets, witness the masques and enjoy