set for me to play the good one; jolly Uncle Tom, with his pockets always ajingle with coins, who never comes to court without a gift for His Majesty! I put my man Fowler at the King’s service, to keep little Neddy in ready money in my bsence, and praise me to the skies whenever he can, and I had him ask a favour on my behalf. I had him say to the King that I was of a mind to marry, and asked him if he would do me the very great honour of choosing a bride for me. I thought the poor little puppet would relish the chance to name the tune instead of just dancing to it. And I was right, I tell you, Bess. It gave his pride such a puffing up, plumping it up fat as a new-stuffed goose-down pillow it did! Was that not good of me? Well, Bess, first he suggested the Lady Anne of Cleves” – Tom wrinkled up his nose – “but, no, that would not suit me at all! I like my women with breath sweet as perfume, not stinking of sauerkraut! So my man tactfully put him off that. So, next, little clueless Neddy suggested his sister Mary, to wean her from the papist teat. But my mind and heart were set elsewhere, so Fowler, who knew in whose bed my inclinations lay, suggested the Dowager Queen, my beloved, bonny, buxom Kate here” – he blew her a kiss – “and little Neddy said, ‘Oh yes, that is a fine idea!’ And as a loyal subject to the King it was both my duty and my very great pleasure to obey his royal command! Now is that not a grand tale, Bess?”
“Audacious and amazing, My Lord.” My reason reasserted itself, slowly clawing its way back up from the sharp and painful rocks onto which I had impetuously shoved it.
Grasping the arms of my chair, I levered myself up. “Now I really must beg leave to retire…. My head …”
“Of course, my dear!” Kate leapt up and rushed to my side. “We have delayed you too long already.” She began to shepherd me toward the door again and her lips pressed a tender, motherly kiss onto my throbbing brow. “You do look pale, my dear. Shall I send you a soothing posset of chamomile?”
“No, thank you, Madame. I just need to rest,” I said as I bobbed a hasty curtsy and quickly fled.
I forced myself to walk swiftly but sedately, as becomes a princess, down the corridor to my chamber, but once inside I flung myself onto my bed and wept until the stars came out.
Mary
I was appalled when word reached me that my eminently sensible stepmother, Catherine Parr, had married “The Cakes and Ale Man”. Indeed, I was surprised that she had married anyone at all so soon after Father’s death; it showed a wanton and selfish disregard for his memory, and I had never taken her for one who would so brazenly and callously flout propriety. Father’s body was barely cold in the tomb before she was in another man’s warm bed; it was the height of disrespect and I could never forgive her for it.
I wrote to my sister and implored her in the most urgent and heartfelt words to forsake that unprincipled den of heretical wickedness and moral laxity and come and make her home with me, where both her body and soul would be safe in my household where the light of God’s goodness shone warm and ever-bright and all comported themselves with the utmost virtue and decorum. But Elizabeth declined, saying that she could see both sides of the matter, and both had equally valid points to make. And, to her mind, Father was as dead as he was ever going to be whether six months or six years had passed; Kate was well past the first flush of youth and desirous of motherhood before it was too late; and as for herself, she thought she would tarry there for a time as she liked it well enough, and she had good company and her studies to occupy her and did not feel herself morally endangered.
I felt a phantom slap of betrayal sting my face as I read Elizabeth’s words. My own sister had wilfully chosen to dwell in an immoral household, a place as wanton and unprincipled as a brothel, to wilfully let her morals and soul be corrupted, rather than make her home with me, a virtuous and righteous woman who permitted no indecorous mischief beneath her roof. I crumpled her letter in my hand and flung it into the fire, telling myself I should have expected nothing less from The Boleyn Whore’s bastard brat who probably was not even my sister anyway; I had always thought she had the stamp of the lute player, Mark Smeaton, about her features.
Meanwhile, despite my pleas that I was not a well woman and thus should be left in peace, Edward’s Councillors incessantly hounded and bombarded me with stern reprimands for “making a grand show” of my celebration of the Mass and throwing my chapel doors wide in welcome to all and sundry who wished to attend. Edward, they said, had only intended that I myself alone be allowed the privilege of the Mass until I could be persuaded from the folly of my ways; he only tolerated my misguided ways because I was his sister. I repeatedly informed the Council that I could not bar my chapel doors against the faithful; denying them the Mass would be the same as condemning them to Hell, and I would not have that upon my conscience. “I am God’s servant first,” I declared, “and the King’s second. I can put no earthly master above our heavenly one, and His Majesty must understand and accept that or take my life, for I would rather die than give up my religion.”
They sent letters to explain to me as though I were a simpleton that the Act of Uniformity was meant to unite the whole of England under one religion, but by flaunting my beliefs and making myself appear as a candle in the dark to the Catholic rebels I was doing the country more harm than good; because of me, bloody civil war might erupt. Did I want to see England torn apart by religious strife? they asked, stressing that it was integral that I, the King’s sister, conform to the laws of the land. I should not hold myself up as above them or exempt, but instead set a good example for the common folk and nobly born alike to follow.
“I would rather lose my life than lose my religion!” I exclaimed time and time again, imploring them to understand that it would be my death to deprive me of the consolations of the faith I had been brought up in, but they had closed their hearts and were deaf to my soul’s anguished cries.
And so it continued, back and forth, to and fro, the same argument, again and again, but I knew it could not go on for ever. I prayed to God to give me strength to withstand it as I continued to live in fear of assassins or being walled up alive to die a lonely death in a crumbling old castle in the middle of nowhere, where no one could hear my screams or rescue me.
Every day I thanked God for my cousin, the Emperor Charles. The Spanish Ambassador kept him well apprised of my plight and brought diplomatic pressure to bear upon the Council, hinting that if I were harmed in any way or forced to forsake my faith the Emperor would declare war on England. That threat, for a time, at least, would keep me safe, as England could not afford a war, but, I also knew, many a murder had been arranged to mimic illness or natural death, and my health had never been robust, so none would greet the news that I had died of some malaise with great surprise. So I continued to live in fear, knowing that God was the only one I could truly trust to safeguard me, and into His hands I commended both my life and spirit.
Elizabeth
“He is your stepfather, Bess,” I kept reminding myself. But it did no good. “No good can come of dallying with such a rash and reckless knave,” I told myself times too numerous to tally. “Ambition is the star that guides him, and in following it he forgets to watch his feet; he will stroll right off the precipice someday, and if you go along hand in hand with him, gazing rapt like lovers do, so too will you.” But all he had to do was smile at me and I was deaf to reason and all serious thoughts went scurrying out of my mind like rats fleeing a burning building.
He would saunter in as I sat upon a velvet-upholstered stool, embroidering or reading aloud with Kate, with his arms overflowing with great bouquets of wildflowers. He would draw up a chair behind me and nimbly pluck off my hood and take my wavy waist-length Tudor-red tresses in his confident hands and weave them into a braid. Inserting the sunny yellow daffodils, deep purple violets, orange-yellow marigolds, sky-coloured