Jean Plaidy - For a Queens Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

Then had come the miscarriage. There was to be no child, and Isabella’s life was in danger.

He went to her bedchamber and sat by her bed. Day and night he stayed there, hoping that she would open her eyes and smile at him.

At times it seemed almost unbearably like that other occasion. But this was different. She was not going to die, and eventually she began to recover. She was very thin and her black hair seemed too heavy for her little head to carry; she wore it loose about her shoulders, for to have it piled on her head tired her so.

His only pleasure at that time was in arranging for her convalescence. He himself decided how she should rest, what she should eat. The women about her marveled, for the King of Spain had become a more devoted nurse than any of them.

The Queen was aware of this, and sometimes she would look at Philip with anxious puzzled eyes. One day she said to him: “It is a sad thing when a Queen cannot bear her husband sons.”

“You are a child yourself,” answered Philip. “And I am not old. There are many years left to us, for which I daily thank God.”

“What if I should never bear a child?”

“My dear, you must not say such things. Of course you will. I know you will.”

“It may be that I shall not.”

“We will not think of such a thing.”

“Is it not better to face facts, Philip?”

“You have become solemn during your illness, Isabella.”

“Nay. This thought has been with me often. The King of England put away his wives because they could not bear him sons.”

“He cut off the head of one because he wanted another woman. Have no fear, Isabella. I am not the King of England.”

“But you are the King of Spain; and the King of Spain needs sons even as did the King of England.”

“I have one son.”

“Carlos!”

“Oh, I admit I should like to have others … yours and mine, my dear. That I should like more than anything. But it will happen yet. Shall we lose heart because of one failure?”

“Philip, there is something you must know. You should have known before.”

“Well, Isabella?”

“The King of England could not get sons, and some say it was because his body was diseased. He suffered from La Malade Anglaise, some say.”

“I have heard that.”

“My grandfather suffered from that same disease. He died of it.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Perhaps I am not the right wife for you.”

Her eyes were blank; he could not read the thoughts behind them. Did some part of her long for escape? Words came to his lips—tender and pleading. But all he said was: “You are. Of course you are. You are my wife. Is that not enough?”

She would not look at him. She said slowly: “But if I cannot give you sons … if I should be unable to give you sons …”

“Have no fear. If God wishes us to have sons we shall have them. Everything that happens to us is due to the will of God.”

“Philip, I am glad that you know of the rumors concerning my grandfather.”

“I have always known of them.”

She was thinking that her own brother Charles was wild, even as Carlos was wild, that François, the young King, suffered from many infirmities. It was God’s law that the children should suffer even unto the third and fourth generation for the sins of such fathers. If she was doomed to suffer for her grandfather’s excesses, she must accept God’s will as Philip would.

She was comforted and relieved because he knew of these things. There he sat, at her bedside, and she was aware of the warmth of his feelings beneath that cold surface. During her illness she had been perpetually conscious of his devotion.

He was a strange man, but he was good to her. She was more fond of him than she had ever been before; she put out her hand and he took it. She thought: If I were not afraid of him I could love him.

She was grateful; he had helped her escape from the fear which had dominated her childhood. She was no longer afraid of her mother, because she was under the protection of the man who would dominate her life from now on, and whom she might one day love.

There was bad news of Carlos. When was news of Carlos ever good?

Messengers came to Philip, who was staying in the Valladolid Palace at that time. He had been enjoying a certain peaceful contentment. He felt that he would soon subdue the Netherlands, and had started work on that great monastery, the Escorial, which, when he had witnessed the desecration of St. Quentin, he had vowed to build. He intended to fill it with the art treasures which his father had taught him to love and revere, and when he was there he would live quietly as a monk. His father had repudiated his crown when he retired to the monastic life. But Philip intended to combine the two. He would spend half his time in fasting and in prayer that he might the better rule his country.

Isabella’s health had improved considerably; her high-spirited temperament helped her. She was herself once more, and Philip felt that he had been foolish to have suffered so acutely. She was surely stronger than Maria Manoela had been. Soon there would be children born to them, and if he had a son—a healthy and intelligent boy—he would disinherit Carlos. He had discussed this possibility with Ruy, whose opinion it was that the disinheriting of Carlos—providing the Council agreed to it—could only be of advantage to Spain.

Ruy was grave when he talked of Carlos. He was fully aware of the Prince’s feelings for the Queen, and that knowledge Philip knew, disturbed him deeply.

Such were Philip’s thoughts when the news was brought to him.

“There has been an accident, your Majesty,” said the messenger from Alcala. “The Prince lies nigh to death.”

Ruy was with Philip at the time. Philip could not help but be aware of the sudden tension in his friend. Was it hope?

Philip betrayed nothing of his feelings, and the messenger hurried on. “It was a few nights ago, your Highness. The night was very dark and the Prince, hurrying down a staircase in his establishment, slipped and fell from top to bottom. He received injuries to his head and spine … terrible injuries Highness.”

“You came straight to me?” said Philip.

“Yes, your Highness.

“And it is some days since the accident,” said Ruy. “We know not what may have happened in the meantime.”

“I shall leave at once for Alcala,” said Philip.

Ruy rode beside him when they left. Philip knew that Ruy regarded the accident in the light of a blessing. Carlos was no good to Spain, no good to Philip; therefore, Ruy’s thoughts would run, it is well to be rid of him.

Philip knew, even as Ruy did, that while Carlos lived he would give trouble to all, and in particular to his father. Ruy worshipped logic, but Philip worshipped duty. However painful that duty, Philip would follow it. Ruy would have delayed on the journey so that the best physicians, who were with the court, might not reach Carlos in good time; but Philip saw nothing but the need to save his son, whatever misery that might bring to himself or to Carlos.

With all urgency, the court proceeded to Alcala.

Now the whole of Spain was in mourning. The heir to the throne was dying, wailed the people. They forgot the stories they had heard of his conduct. Don Carlos was the hero now. There were lamentations. There were pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints. Many sought to win Philip’s favor by having themselves publicly scourged in the hope, they said, of calling the saints’ attention to their sorrow, but actually in the hope of calling the King’s attention to their loyalty to the crown.

At Alcala Philip found Carlos in a very low state. He did not recognize his father, and this many thought to be fortunate for it was generally believed that excitement at this time would surely kill the Prince.

Dr. Olivares, the greatest physician in the world, whom Philip had brought with him from Valladolid, examined Carlos, and his verdict was that Carlos would die if nothing was done to save him; there was, he believed, a faint hope that the operation of trepanning might do this. If the King gave his permission for the operation, Dr. Olivares would see that it was carried out with all speed.

With Isabella and Ruy beside him, and his courtiers and statesmen about him, Philip waited for the news; and as he looked at the faces of those gathered about him, he fancied that only in Isabella’s did he see any expression of real grief.

Why should she care for the fate of this lame epileptic who was a source of anxiety to all those who came into contact with him? Why, of all these people, should Isabella be the only one who sincerely prayed for the recovery of Carlos?

Philip could not shut out of his mind the memory of a distorted face, of eyes which stared madly into his while a harsh voice cried: “She is mine … mine!”

How could he be jealous of a poor, half-mad creature like Carlos?

At length Olivares presented himself to the King, and one look at the doctor’s face was enough to tell everyone present that the operation had been successful.

But although Carlos had not died during the operation its results were far from satisfactory. The Prince’s head swelled to twice its usual size so that his eyes were completely buried in his flesh and he could not see. A rash broke out on his skin and he suffered agony.

He was in constant delirium, calling perpetually for Isabella; but when she went to him he did not know her. He shouted threats against someone, but as he mentioned no name, those about him could only guess at whom the threats were directed.

Philip prayed for guidance. Isabella knew that he was thinking what a blessing it would be if Carlos died, and she knew that he was fighting against such thoughts. To Philip, duty was all-important, and she was aware that if he believed it was his duty to go into the sickroom, put a cushion over Carlos’s face, and suffocate him, he would not hesitate to do so.

Was he wondering even now whether he might hint to the doctors that the moment had come to rid Spain of Carlos?

Her fear of this strange man who was her husband was growing. She would never be able to forget the fanatical light which had shone in his eyes when he had talked to her of the work of the Inquisition. She was dreading the day—for she knew that as Queen of Spain she could not escape it—when she would have to attend an auto-da-fé. She recalled with horror the executions her mother had forced her to witness at Amboise. She was a good Catholic, but cruelty horrified her. She could not look on calmly while men and women were tortured, no matter what they believed. Now it seemed to her that she had escaped her mother’s tyranny for that of another. The last months had made a woman of a frivolous girl, and as that woman was a tender-hearted one, she could not love a man who thought it righteous and godly to torture men and women, even though he had been to her the kindest of husbands. She was becoming complicated, whereas she had been simple; she wanted to escape, but she knew not how.

Philip decided that it was his duty to do everything in his power to save his son’s life.

He explained to Isabella that in the Monastery of Jesu Maria were buried the bones of the Blessed Diego, a Franciscan lay brother, who had led a life of sanctity and was said to work miracles.

“It is years since he died,” said Philip, “but his memory has never faded. If he saves the life of my son he shall be canonized.”

“Let us pray to him,” said Isabella.

“We will do more. I will have his bones dug up, and they shall be brought to Carlos and laid upon him.”

Philip’s indecision was past. He had found the solution to his tormenting problem. If Carlos was saved through the intercession of the Blessed Diego, he would know that he, Philip, and Spain were not yet to be relieved of their burden.

Carlos was tossing on his bed. Don Andrea Basilo and Dr. Olivares, the King’s most worthy physicians, stood by his bedside.

Carlos was moaning in agony. The terrible swelling of his face made him unrecognizable.

Philip arrived in the sick-room, and with him were two monks from the Monastery of Jesu Maria. They carried a box in which were the bones of the Blessed Diego.

Philip said: “We will place them about the body of my son. Then we will kneel and pray to the saint to intercede for us. He is noted for his sympathy for the sick. Doubtless his intercession will succeed.”

So the bones of the long-dead monk were placed about Carlos, and some pieces of the cerecloth, in which the body had been wrapped, were scraped off the bones and laid on Carlos’s face.

Carlos screamed. “What is this, then? You have come to kill me, I smell death. I smell decay. Is death here then?”

“We have brought the bones of the Blessed Diego,” said Olivares.

“You have brought death. I smell it. It fills the room. You have brought death to me. It is my father who has done this because he longs for my death.”

Dr. Olivares bent over the bed. “We are striving to save your life,” he said. “Pray with us. We have here the bones of the Blessed Diego, and to him we are directing our prayers. The King and the Queen are praying for you now. They pray for a miracle.”

“The Queen …” said Carlos in a whisper.

“Pray, your Highness. Pray to the Blessed Diego.”

Carlos was delirious. He dreamed that he saw a monk rise from his tomb, his body wrapped in cerecloth.

“You will recover, Carlos,” said the Holy Man.

In Carlos’s delirium, the cerecloth fell away from the body of the monk; and now it was clothed in a dress of the becoming French style, and the dress covered not the old bones, but the beautiful young body of Isabella.

“I am praying for you,” she said. “Carlos, I wish you to be well.”

When at last the delirium faded the swelling in his head began to subside. People in the palace and in the town and in all the country were saying: “Here is another miracle of the Blessed Diego.”

Carlos had recovered physically, but his mental sickness had taken a more violent turn. Yet he could not be kept at Alcala indefinitely; he was old enough now to take his place at court, and this the people would expect of him. So he came to Madrid where he had for company Don Juan, Alexander Farnese, and his two cousins, the sons of Maximilian and Maria of Austria, who were to be brought up at the Spanish court.

These lively, intelligent young people might have been excellent company for a normal boy; but poor Carlos was far from normal. He was sullen for days on end; he refused to eat for long periods, so that all feared he would starve to death; then he would decide to eat, and make himself ill because he would not do so in moderation. He would rise from his bed in the middle of the night and demand boiled capon; he would lash his attendants with a whip which he kept handy for the purpose, until the food was brought to him. All his attendants longed to be removed from his service, with the exception of his half-brother, Garcia Osorio, who seemed able to soothe him better than anyone else. This boy, perhaps out of gratitude to Philip, had made the Prince his special charge, and would show the utmost tact in dealing with him. Carlos was relying more and more on his half-brother; he tolerated him because, although he was handsome and of lively intelligence, he was illegitimate, and that pleased Carlos, as it gave him a sense of superiority. Young Garcia was of great value in the household, since he could manage Carlos better than anyone except the Queen; and the King had ordered that the Queen should see her stepson but rarely.