Buckingham marks a stage in the queen’s campaign march, sixty miles from London. The army has reached it at a pace its soldiers consider remarkable for an English force, placing the town within a journey defined by urgency and the need to defend the capital. In the account, Buckingham is also where the march’s public purpose meets a secret the queen has resolved to bear alone.

On the March

The queen describes herself as tired but not exhausted. Excitement and fear keep her straining forward, like a hound held on a leash, while the army advances toward the threatened north. Buckingham gives that movement a concrete measure: the force is already sixty miles from London, and its speed is exceptional by English standards.

That pace matters in the campaign’s larger stakes. The queen believes the army must sustain its confidence and remain ready to defend England; turning back toward London would risk making the men think she had lost faith in them. Buckingham therefore belongs to a march in which her presence is not merely symbolic: the soldiers know she is leading their reinforcements in person.

A Private Uncertainty

The account places Buckingham alongside a concealed anxiety. Each afternoon after dismounting, the queen seeks a place where she can be alone—a necessary house, a tent, or another private shelter—and checks her linen for signs that her monthly course has begun. It has failed to come for a second month, and she hopes that Henry left her with child before sailing to France.

She tells no one, not even her women. She fears that if they knew, they would object to her riding and preparing for battle while possibly pregnant. Yet she judges that withdrawing could damage the campaign: a son would matter greatly to England, but holding England for that son to inherit matters first. Buckingham thus stands in the narrative between the visible demands of command and a bodily possibility the queen keeps secret as she continues the march.