succeeded in persuading Kate to renounce the Roman Catholic faith. Frances had experienced a mixture of admiration and fear for her friend when she had openly declared herself a papist. Such a thing would have spelled death for any but the intended bride of the King’s great favourite. Kate’s refusal to relinquish her faith had been the only remaining impediment to the marriage, once her father had at last given way. Looking at her friend now, Frances shuddered to think what it had taken to make her submit.
Williams addressed Kate: ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony?’
Frances saw her friend’s already pale face grow deathly and her hand trembled as it sought her father’s.
‘. . . Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour and keep him . . .’
Rutland grasped his daughter’s fingers so tightly that his knuckles showed white.
‘. . . And forsaking all other keep thee only to him, so long as you both shall live?’
Silence.
Frances held her breath. Next to her, Thomas edged a fraction closer so that his arm brushed against hers. Her eyes never left Kate. Though her friend’s face was turned from her, she could tell from the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders that Kate was struggling to master her emotions. The countess gave a loud cough, prompting. Frances rejoiced at the consternation that this act of defiance must have caused the older woman. Perhaps, after all, the bounties of the Rutland estate would be snatched away from her son at the last gasp.
Even as she thought it, Frances knew it was impossible. Buckingham had bullied, cajoled and schemed his way to this moment and would force the words from his bride’s lips if he had to – he had already done far worse.
‘Speak up, girl!’
Kate jumped at the King’s words, which echoed around the small chapel. Another pause. She turned to her father and gave a small nod. He stared at her for a moment before releasing his grip. His daughter looked back at the clergyman and straightened her shoulders.
‘I will.’
PART 3
1622
CHAPTER 46
12 January
‘It is a girl.’
Frances watched as her husband set down the note and gazed out over the parkland. His hair had become flecked with grey these past few months, his shoulders more hunched. It was as if their burdens weighed heavily upon his body, as well as his mind.
‘Does she have a name?’ She kept her voice light, but it pained her that she had not received the news from Kate’s own hand. Her friend was hardly at fault, though: Buckingham had kept his new wife a virtual prisoner at Wallingford House, the handsome new mansion close to St James’s Park he had purchased from a rival at a good deal less than it was worth. He now owned more than twenty properties in London, by Thomas’s reckoning, as well as the numerous country estates that the King had granted him.
Her husband looked back at the letter distractedly. ‘Mary.’
Named for the countess. Frances felt a stab of loathing for Buckingham’s domineering mother, who now held sway over the ladies at court as if she were queen consort. Even a young woman as biddable as Kate could not help but feel suffocated by her overbearing presence.
‘The marquess will be disappointed not to have a son and heir,’ she remarked.
Thomas smiled. ‘In that respect at least I am a good deal richer than he.’
Frances looked down at the baby sleeping in her arms. Samuel. Thomas had suggested the name to honour an uncle who had recently died, but Frances would always think of her beloved old mentor and priest at Longford, the Reverend Samuels. The infant mewed as she stroked the wisps of chestnut hair on his scalp. It had been a troublesome pregnancy. She had been afflicted by sickness from the sixth week and had been forced to retreat to Tyringham well before her confinement was due to begin. You cannot hope to have an easy time of it when you are so advanced in years for childbirth. The Countess of Buckingham’s remark stung all the more for the truth it carried. As she shifted uncomfortably against the pillows, Frances had to admit that she felt every fraction of her forty-two years. This child would be the last, she was sure. But she could not regret his arrival, even if it had pained her more than the others. He cried more lustily than