The White Queen -The White Queen

Westminster Palace, London, England, Winter 1473

We return to court. My baby Grace is growing. She no longer has the arms and legs of sticks but as a fat baby and I take pride in the fact that she is growing and is no longer in mortal danger due to her health. Elizabeth's daughter, Dorothy, who is a little less than a month younger than my Grace is also growing. Take pride in our children. The same as Jackie takes pride in her newborn son Anthony, she named after her brother. I envy her and Elizabeth who have more freedom over the names of their children. With mind must always be a king or queen to be appeased or a royal name that we have not used that my children must be named after. For having sex, I have even named one of my children after George of all people!

But there is still good news. My pregnancy is progressing well and I am now four months along. We expect for the new baby to arrive shortly after Grace's first birthday and all of my children are excited. This time there is a lot more happiness throughout the household and Edward seems to champion it, telling the children to remember that their Tante Jacquette would've wanted them to be happy and helping them do so by spending as much time as he could with them. Lizzie also helped a lot. She was able to be a mother figure to her siblings when I was unavailable. Sometimes I had to step back and realize that she would be 16  next month. I couldn't believe that my firstborn child would be married in about two years. 

But other things were also on our minds. In early January I was walking through the halls of Westminster when I heard familiar voices coming from inside my husband study. When I walked in my husband was sitting there with his brothers, Edmund, George, and Richard. My oldest son Baby was sitting amongst them listening intently to their conversation while the adult men drank wine and discussed international and local politics in the country.

"Edward, you must go back to your room as your tutors have been looking for you all morning," I tell my golden haired son.

"But Mother-" he says.

"I do not think he has to go yet," George has the audacity to say to me. "One missed lesson will not hurt him very much."

"My son will learn that when he has appointments and people are waiting on him he must go to them. He will be the ruler of the kingdom one day and he cannot just do whatever he wants because of it. Must build character. You must do things he does not want to do because it will make him into a man," I say to George flatly as I tell my son, "To your Latin lesson."

"Yes Mother," comes the dejected sigh. 

As my boy was walking out of the room and closed the door Edmund says, "It will not be too very long before we see him settled at Ludlow."

"Ludlow Castle?" I ask. "Are we to live in Wales?"

"We won't," Edward tells me, "but our son will. He's 12. He's the prince of Wales. He must establish his own household there."

"And what possible use has Wales for an infant Prince?" I wonder. 

"People must know him from childhood Eliza," Richard explains to me. "The people must be able to see him, to love him, and that's how we will be able to break Wales's loyalty from the old Lancastrians."

"No," I insist. "I'm not letting go of my son."

"This is what it means to have a prince and not a girl," Edward reminds me. "It's simply a matter of choosing the right guardian for our son."

"Then I will appoint his guardian," I tell them. "I am his mother and if I'm his part with him I will choose who will care for him and raise him into a man."

"It's not a matter of raising him into a man," Edward says, "it's a matter of raising him into a king."

"And for that you cannot possibly understand," George smirks.