The Three Crowns: The Story of William a - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,37

Highness is mistaken. I who well know my master can assure you of that.”

“You know him well and mayhap have influence with him. Then if you would be of service to me, I beg of you dissuade him from this marriage and beg him to look elsewhere.”

The Earl was exasperated. Glancing at the girl’s mother and seeing the sadness in her stern face, he felt depressed. The girl had too much spirit. If he were not careful this attempt to bring her home to James was going to fail. And having seen her, having written to his master of her incomparable beauty, how was James going to content himself with any other?

The interview was unsatisfactorily ended and the Earl continued in his despondency.

Mary Beatrice was exultant when she heard the Pope had refused to grant the dispensation. She embraced her seventeen-year-old friend and attendant Senorina Molza, and declared herself happier than she had been since this horrible proposition was made to her.

Senorina Molza, a little older and more experienced than the Princess, was more moderate in her joy. She had seen the comings and goings to the Duchess’s apartments and guessed that the matter would not be allowed to end there.

The Duchess was being told how foolish she would be to pass over this chance of alliance with a great and powerful country. It would be pointed out to her that her daughter might well one day be the Queen of that country. All knew the value of these alliances.

“They can do nothing … nothing since the Pope refuses,” declared Mary Beatrice. “Why are you so glum?”

“I am just praying that they will heed His Holiness,” answered her friend.

“But of course they will. My mother is a good Catholic. How could she possibly go against the Pope’s wishes?”

“How could she indeed?” murmured the Senorina Molza.

“Then cheer up. I should like to sing. I feel in the mood for singing.”

But Mary Beatrice’s joy did not last. The Cardinal Barberini, the Duchess’s most trusted adviser, was at that moment closeted with her, explaining to her that to lose this great opportunity would be a folly which she would never cease to regret, and if the marriage took place, it would not be difficult to obtain papal forgiveness. The Duke of York was at heart a Catholic, and it was possible that His Holiness would come to regard the marriage as good for the Catholic world. It might well be that Mary Beatrice would influence her husband to become a declared Catholic and if it happened that James should one day take the throne, it would be almost a certainty that he would bring Britain back to Rome.

The Duchess was persuaded. Even without the dispensation, the marriage should take place.

When the news was brought to Mary Beatrice she was stunned; her women, the little Molza and Anna Montecuculi tended her; they bathed her tear-stained cheeks; they knelt beside her and told her that perhaps she would come to love England and her husband; they tried to make pictures of the glories of Court life in England. But poor Mary Beatrice could not be comforted. She declared that her heart was broken and that the only state she could pray for was death.

On a bright September day the Earl of Peterborough, who was to stand proxy for his master, was taken from his lodgings by young Francisco, Duke of Modena, and the Prince Rinaldo, to a chapel in the Ducal palace, and there he was married in the name of the Duke of York to Mary Beatrice of Modena.

An obscure priest married them, because no other would agree to do so, since the marriage was taking place without the dispensation from His Holiness. The bride’s eyes were swollen with weeping and she walked like one in a dream. Her ladies stood about her ready to support her should she faint, which they expected, for she had taken very little food since she had known this marriage was to take place.

There could never have been a more reluctant bride.

The Earl was angry. This was he believed the greatest honor that had ever come to Modena and the girl was receiving it as though she were a beast being taken to the slaughterhouse. The Duchess was uneasy; as for the proxy bridegroom, he was afraid that something was going to prevent the marriage at the last moment.

But nothing did, and the ceremony proceeded. The Duke of York was married by proxy to Mary Beatrice and not