‘And they lived happily ever after.’ This we learned at our mother’s knee. A goodnight kiss and we drifted away satisfied on the clouds of dreams but Charles Perrault did not tell us the whole story. Perhaps, in some ways, that was for the best.
Fairy godmothers should really know better but being inveterate matchmakers they can never foresee the eventual outcome of their meddling. Their magic powers greatly exceed their wisdom. A beautiful low-born girl and a handsome prince do not make the ideal match no matter how beautiful and willing to please the low-born girl may be. Anyone should be able to see that. She can never be a ‘real’ princess.
We are talking of course about Cinderella and Prince Charming and it is true that for both of them the first few months glided past on a carpet of bliss. For the moment, no-one and nothing else existed.
Unfortunately, in the small European kingdoms and principalities of the time as elsewhere, royal marriage was normally a matter of state policy, the making of alliances, the cementing of future claims to both kingdoms for the unborn offspring. Cinderella carried no such political dowry with her.
In vain had Prince Charming’s advisors pointed out to him that he had a duty to his people and that he was selling them short: that the choice was not really his to make. In their view, to have him fall in love with a beautiful girl, a commoner, at the state ball was a disaster. They had been entirely against that particular state ball. To find that he had fallen for a girl who was nothing more than a household skivvy, a gatecrasher with borrowed finery, took the matter far beyond disaster. Commoners might marry for love and, strangely, most of them did. The poor things simply knew no better but then a mistake in their case was of no great importance anyway. A
BOOK TWO. Page 2 2436 words royal marriage involved a whole kingdom now and forever and should be initiated under advisement. It was a matter requiring careful study and debate: a matter for the ambassadors of two courts to set terms. It was something that should not to be rushed and it was best that the proposed couple did not meet until final arrangements had been made. To have young royals fall in love was a pressure that was always best avoided. Reason and careful planning went out the door.
Unfortunately, in this case, they had a very headstrong young man who would not listen to reason. Throughout history, did any young man ever listen to reason when there was fair face and form involved? It was even more of a problem since the Prince held close to ultimate authority and advisors are easily replaceable with any number of others in the wings eager to take over . So possibly it was self interest that stopped them from pushing the matter as strongly as they might have done.
The palace servants were also unhappy with the match. Fawning, as always, when in the royal apartments but dismissive when back in their own regions. To have to serve a common slavey! The indignity of it! With the women it was probably to large part envy. It should have been them. And Cinderella did not help by her manner. She was polite to the lowest of servants and had no wish to put anybody out. A princess should not be like that. A proper princess has hauteur and is consistently inconsiderate.
The couple’s bliss and euphoria did not last. It seldom does. With the Prince it faded faster than with most and he increasingly gave himself over again to the royal hunts that had been his main pastime in his single days. His forests were extensive and he could be out of the castle
BOOK TWO. Page 3 2436 words sometimes for weeks at a time only putting in an appearance for state occasions where he made a point of parading his devotion, his beautiful princess. Out of the public gaze his lack of respect for her sometimes became quite pointed. She was entirely to blame for trapping him into this unequal relationship. What she had done was entirely unforgivable.
The only way that she could make some slight mitigation of her wrong, and it would be slight indeed, would be to provide him with a son. Since she could never be his equal, they must be Sire and Dam.. He continued to make some private show of affection when it suited in order to plant his seed his conscience telling him that this could be justified. In time she began to show. In the following months his affection again became somewhat more than feigned. Almost as it had been at first. She had the honour of carrying his son. It was an acute disappointment and indeed a personal affront when she brought forth a daughter.
He tried again, gave her every chance to make good, and when she contrived to produce another daughter and then another it became clear that he must find a way to end this blighted match. As an aside it needs to be mentioned that he had earlier offspring from two serving maids who subsequently were made Duchesses and had to be set up in their own distant establishments. In each case their child had been a girl. That should have given him some inkling of where the problem lay although the means by which sex was determined was known to God alone in those days. Vicious rumour had it that the ‘Duchesses’ were still on the Prince’s visiting list: that his hunting was not all after stags and boars. Some cynics claim that charming men are least to be trusted: that the purpose of charm is manipulation.
It came to be that the Prince began to suspect his wife of infidelity. She was, if possible, becoming even more beautiful with maturity. Perhaps a little fuller in the figure from
BOOK TWO. Page 4 2436 words childbearing but still shapely and surely in many eyes highly desirable. It seemed only reasonable to assume that she mirrored his own sexual waywardness. Soon, during his periods away, he commissioned palace spies, males, women were not to be trusted, to report on her every move and, when these spies continued to insist that the behaviour of Princess Cinderella was beyond reproach, he came think them guilty of perfidy. That had to be so. Perhaps they were among the very ones enjoying her favours.
The belief became so obsessive that Cinderella was eventually confined to a tower of the palace which was then made off-limits to all males with the exception of her confessor Father Gottlieb who was commanded to say nothing of this. Just one word and she would be without a confessor. Naturally, the entire palace staff was also enjoined to silence. As the greatest indignity, she was allowed to see her royal children only under supervision as one who was inimical their spiritual well-being. And yet, on public occasions she was still trotted out and it must be said that on such occasions she played the game and fulfilled her civic duties as well as any princess could.
But this confinement did not solve the problem of a son and heir. The Prince needed a wife who could give him that son which meant getting rid of his present wife who had selfishly failed him in this important duty. He could not divorce her. The Holy Roman Church would not allow divorce but there WAS the avenue of annulment and he knew of some who had obtained this on what appeared to him to be rather specious grounds. The rules had a way of bending for kings and princes. How pleased he was that his father had made sure by main force that his people remained true to ’the true faith.’ Those other realms who had chosen to follow the heretic Luther did not have this option.
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However, it was not to be. A case was made for annulment on a number of inventive grounds and presented to the Cardinal in the expectation that he would have it forwarded to the Holy Father with his recommendation. The Prince had not reckoned on the Cardinal’s true piety and concern for the integrity of Christ’s Church. Here was a prince of The Church that political considerations could never sway. The papers went no further than his desk. Although, necessarily, holding to an amiable relationship with the Prince as a matter of policy, he knew that that one’s public professions were in marked contrast to his private actions. And that humble priest Father Gottlieb having some inkling of what was afoot had reached his ears telling of him Cinderella’s simple faith and goodness, her blamelessness. The information had not been received in confession and he was free to pass it on. He might not have been so fulsome in his praise had he known of her Fairy godmother. Magic was something to be execrated.
It was quite some time, a time of anxious waiting, before the Prince realized that his petition had probably not been forwarded. He couldn’t insist. He couldn’t even ask directly what, if anything,was being done. In a way the Cardinal had power commensurate with his own. Really– more power. The power of The Church that could easily make him, the Prince, anathema: that could even have him deposed. So it was that he sent his own emissaries to Rome but they were not even received. Word from the Cardinal had gone ahead of them.
Therefore, it was proper that she should die. The greater good demanded it. But how was it to be done? Poison? Steel? No! These would lead to too many questions and a knight of The Church had to be above suspicion if he was to maintain a standing among his peers. True, not a one of them was beyond blame, plaster saints every one, and that was acceptable. Even God accepted that this must be so and had provided absolution. But to kill one’s wife in anything but
BOOK TWO. Page 6 2436 words rage. That was something else. A fall from the tower? That was probably the best. An unquestioned accident, hopefully, even to those who knew the true state of affairs between them. He must be somewhere else and in plain sight. Perhaps he could be returning from a distant hunt and his wife could be leaning from the highest tower window eager to catch the first glimpse of her beloved husband. Sadly, leaning just that little bit too far. It had the ring of plausibility and, if that was not enough, it would be difficult to disprove.
So it came to be that Cinderella came to have a new personal maid, Maichen. She saw nothing in this. Her maids had been changed regularly that she might not subvert them. The new maid was on the large side, mannish, and perhaps a little too obsequious. The plan went ahead and a few days later this new maid called her mistress to the open window to see a troupe of jongleurs in motley who were supposedly approaching the palace. One quick push is all it took.
Why must fairy godmothers leave everything to the very last minute? Surely this one would have known well ahead of time what was going forward. A just-in-time wave of the wand and white linen became white feathers and the goose who was Cinderella instinctively spread her wings and glided down to join a flock of domestic geese browsing in a field beside the highway. She was there to see her husband spurring eagerly toward the town gate in the expectation of finding his problem solved.
After that first push from behind there had been another push and Maichen had followed her mistress. A this-time-reluctant wave of the wand had allowed another goose to plane in for a soft landing. A fairy godmother must not kill, as much as she would have liked to do so in this case, but she had possibly confined Maichen to a fate worse than death. For ever after, Maichen would try to tell all who came near of the great wrong that had been done her. But for some reason, the
BOOK TWO. Page 7 2436 words stupid fools seemed unable to understand her and, once bailed up by that particularly belligerant goose, they took great pains to watch out for her and avoid her.
At midnight the original goose became a woman clad in white and first light found her at the gate of the Convent of Saint Clara where she was given admittance. She would always be vague as to how she had come to be there. They had known of her plight. Father Gottlieb was also confessor of the sisters and he and the Mother Superior were, you might say, cronies. At least they had a good opinion of each other and one that was justified. Although it was an open community, Cinderella was safe and unreachable while she remained within the walls. All the power of The Church was behind her. Her continued existence and place of abode was deliberately made widely known. The Prince must not be allowed to remarry. On his part he saw her desertion as a strong argument for an annulment but his efforts again fell on deaf ears. His insisting that The Church harboured the almost certain murderer of ‘poor’ Maichen certainly did nothing to further his case. There could be no prospect of his having a legitimate son.
Cinderella could not become a ‘bride of Christ’ but she could cook and clean and make herself useful. There can be a real pleasure in serving others and she found happiness there. She knew more of the doings in the town than when she was at the palace. The sisters went out daily on their missions of mercy and there being no vow of silence, except at certain times, they returned loaded with gossip. Her daughters, naturally, were forbidden to visit her but clandestine messages regularly passed back and forth. The girls now had any number of fond mothers and had to be forbidden to hug any nuns that they met. When older, they would make a point of riding past the convent and she would just happen to be looking through the wicket in the larger door. It was not much but it was something.
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She was not to see any of her daughters married and this was her one great sadness. Apart from that, she lived happily ever after. And the Prince? Don’t ask!