King Henry

Chapter 1 - Meeting Thomas Fletcher

Medieval England - Year 1450

Eleanor's mother stood in front of her and pressed her hand to her cheek, saying, "You look stunning Eleanor," as her eyes started to water. She smoothed out the front of her dress and then smiled up at her proudly. "Just think, if tonight goes well, your children and your children's children will be able to have a better life than you had. You'll never have to know the pain of struggling to feed your children like I have."

Those words made Eleanor's stomach tie up in knots and she felt even more anxious than she already had.

"I know Mother," she said taking a deep breath in and letting out an exhale.

"Your younger sisters could have more advantageous marriages if you marry so well. It could change all of our lives."

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," Eleanor laughed. "You're already speaking of weddings and I haven't even met him yet!"

Her Mother smiled. "That's because I already know he's going to fall in love with you the instant he sees you. How could he not?" she asked, stepping back and looking at her daughter's reflection in the full-length mirror.

The top part of Eleanor's long blonde hair was pulled up into a braid that circled around the top of her head like a crown, secured in place with a golden barrette in the back. The bottom half of her hair was left down and curled. She had on the most expensive gown she had ever worn in her life, sewn from a rare blue silk organza that made her bright blue eyes stand out even more than they already did and it hugged the curve of her hips and had a low neckline that showed off a bit of cleavage.

This meeting with Thomas Fletcher was so important that her family had spent all the spare money they had to splurge on a fancy dress so Eleanor could look like a high class courtier and not like a poor pauper's daughter, which is what she really was.

Tonight she was being courted for the first time by Thomas, the Royal Blacksmith's son. His family was wealthy, powerful and of noble blood, three things that her family most certainly were not. Eleanor and Thomas were from two very different social classes which spat in the face of tradition and she knew their courtship would be quite the scandal in his social circles.

The unusual way Thomas was going about things made Eleanor suspicious that maybe his family didn't approve of him courting her or maybe they didn't even know she existed. Thomas had directly approached her mother himself in the town square to inquire about courting her daughter instead of having his parents make contact first, which was highly unusual. Eleanor wasn't even sure how Thomas came to know of her existence because he was a complete stranger to their family.

Normally the way courting worked was that the parents of two families of a similar class and rank would arrange the meeting of their children, and if the meeting went well they would start courting and an engagement would soon follow. Since the Fletcher family was very well known, powerful and respected throughout the city of London, Eleanor's mother had agreed to their courtship without insisting on meeting his parents first.

The bride's family would usually pay a dowry of property or money to the groom's family for the privilege of having their daughter marry their son, but unfortunately Eleanor's family couldn't afford to pay a dowry, not even a small one. Nothing about their courtship had followed tradition so she hoped her lack of dowry wouldn't be an issue.

Her mother was the only one that had met and talked to Thomas, and she hadn't given her much of a description of what he looked like. She really hoped he would be tall and handsome.

She heard a knock at their front door and instantly felt anxious. Knowing that their family's future for generations to come was resting solely on her shoulders was overwhelming. Eleanor swallowed hard and let out an exhale, taking one last look at herself in the full-length mirror.