by Jane Caro
God’s breath, to this day I cannot think of the admiral, or of his wife, without shame. I was so young, so giddy, foolish, so unused to love or attention, to freedom, that I felt like a captive released, a bird escaped from its cage. Catherine was also freed from her servitude to my father and it had a similar intoxicating effect on her. We who were usually so solemn and considered, willingly joined the admiral in his rough-and-tumble romping games.
The games began innocently enough. One morning, soon after Kat Ashley and I had taken up residence, I was woken by the curtains around my bed being ripped open. Shocked and a little frightened, I sat up clutching the covers to my chest. Clad only in his nightshirt, my stepfather stood at the end of the bed. Before I had time to protest, he had leapt onto the mattress and begun tickling me ferociously.
‘So, my fine princess,’ he crowed, ‘if you are to be my daughter, you shall be treated as one – and about time, too.’ He was strong and I could do little except wriggle about, shrieking and giggling beneath his arms. I wanted him to stop – no one in my life had ever treated me so – and I wanted him not to stop. But I was not master of my breath long enough to form any words; I could do little but shriek and squirm. His hands seemed everywhere on my body, all at once: under my arms, on my stomach, under my ribs. The more I squirmed, the more delicate the places his fingers found. I looked up and saw the surprised face of Kat Ashley (hair askew under her nightcap) staring at us both as we rolled about.
‘For shame, my lord, my lady,’ she began to say, but Thomas Seymour was having none of that.
‘Aha!’ he said. ‘Just the woman I need. Here, Mistress Ashley, hold her legs down. They kick at me dangerously.’ And, used to being commanded by men who were used to commanding, she did as she was bid. Worse, as she gripped my ankles, her demeanour changed, from one of trepidation to delight. She always has had an eye for a handsome man and I am sure she noticed the way his nightshirt slipped up and down his thighs.
‘Beg for mercy!’ Lord Seymour laughed, his hard fingers digging into my bony frame.
‘Aye, aye,’ chortled foolish Kat. ‘Beg for mercy and we shall cease.’
But I could not beg for mercy. I still could not catch my breath long enough to speak. At that moment, my stepmother entered the room, awakened no doubt, by the ruckus, because my room was directly beneath hers. I saw the shock of what she saw, vivid in her face.
‘My lord Thomas, leave the child alone!’
‘Very well,’ he said and, with a great wink to me, turned the game on his wife. He swept her into his arms and onto the bed beside me. Now it was her turn to squirm and shriek, batting uselessly at his hands, trying as I had done, to evade his strong, intrusive, teasing fingers. For a moment, I could not believe what I was seeing: my solemn, much respected stepmother, Dowager Queen of England, on her back, in her nightclothes, kicking her legs wildly in the air, breathless with terrified laughter. I sat, still as a statue, catching my own breath, uncertain whether this was a great game or a great outrage.
‘Help me, Elizabeth!’ he cried. ‘Don’t just sit there. Hold her down until she begs for mercy.’ And then there was the briefest moment when I could have stood on my dignity as King Henry’s daughter and stopped it all before it even started. I could have called a halt to the dangerous game and all that consequently unfolded, but I did not. I was a thirteen-year-old girl, I longed to play, I longed to be a real daughter – not a princess, but Elizabeth, someone to be loved. I wanted to have fun, as other children did. Now I think it was the thrill I felt that spurred me on, when this man far beneath me in status, dared to call me just by my name. Kat and I grabbed an ankle each and held my stepmother’s legs for all we were worth, laughing at the sight she made and at our own daring. We all knew that this was a dangerous game indeed. Thomas Seymour was unceremoniously tickling a former queen and – as it has turned out – a future one, to put us both in our place as mere women and establish his power over us in the guise of a game. And, mere women that we were, there in our nightclothes, we loved it.
Admiral Seymour had the keys to every room of the old palace at Chelsea; he could come and go as he pleased. Yet, he did not wake me every morning. Often weeks might pass before I woke to his teasing face peering round my curtains, sometimes because he was away, but mostly because he understood the essence of the game, its unpredictability. The fact that he might be there kept me unnerved, on edge, frightened that he would appear, frightened that he wouldn’t. Sometimes he came two, three, four mornings in a row; sometimes not at all. When I woke to nothing but songbirds I was desolate. I lay in bed remembering his hands on my body, always outside my nightdress, but roaming wherever they would. And I remembered the end of those tickling games, when we lay together on the bed, quietly, with my head on his chest, listening to the strong thump, thump, thump of his heart, his arms outflung, mine held stiffly by my side, my fingers curled up with longing to touch him, to stroke the curls on his head, the hair on the backs of his hands. I did not feel like a daughter at those moments, or like a girl. I felt like a woman. When I saw him with my stepmother and they thought they were not observed, when I saw him put his hand up and under her skirts and bend her backwards beneath his kiss, I felt waves of something I could not identify flow over and through me. I envied her, and let myself think – for a foolish moment – that there might be some advantages to being married after all.
Whenever the queen came upon us playing our dangerous game, in my bedchamber or in the gardens around the old palace, the admiral cleverly included her. Once, he came upon me on a fine summer’s morning embroidering in the rose garden. (Mary’s careful training had borne some fruit.) He pounced upon me and grasped my scissors in a flash.
‘Fie, fie, sir!’ I cried, as he held them high above my head. Although I was tall, he was taller. ‘For pity’s sake, sir, give me my scissors.’
‘Indeed, I shall not,’ he replied. ‘You must retrieve them yourself, or pay the forfeit.’ And with that, he hung the scissors on a branch of the tall chestnut that shadowed the garden, where he could reach them, but I could not. I tried to climb the tree, but could not find a foothold. I tried to shake it, hoping to dislodge the scissors from their branch, but its trunk was thick and my feeble attempts failed. I mounted the bench I had been seated upon and tried to reach towards the scissors, teetering on my slippers. The scissors remained tantalisingly out of reach, but I strained so hard I began to wobble on my perch and gave the admiral a chance to take me in his arms and save me from a fall.
‘Cry forfeit.’ He laughed. Then, as he pinioned me, the laughter left his voice and it became softer, but more insistent. ‘Cry forfeit.’ I had been squirming in his arms, but now his grip was so insistent, I could hardly move. The game had changed. I tried to struggle again. I panted with the effort, but he held me so tightly it hurt. My head was crushed against his chest and I could hear the thump, thump, thump.
‘Forfeit,’ I whispered, wrenching my head free, so I was looking up at him as he looked down on me. He bent his head closer to mine, so that his lips brushed my ear.
‘Say again, Elizabeth,’ he whispered, as quietly as I had done. My heart pounded, but I did not lower my eyes nor move my head away.
‘Forfeit. I surrender, my lord.’
‘What is this?’ The queen’s voice broke the moment and I raised my head to see her lifting the branch of the tree that had sheltered us.
‘The Lady Elizabeth has cried forfeit!’ boomed the admiral. ‘Hold her, my love, whilst I administer the penalty.’ With that, he released me to the ground and his wife took both my arms and held them behind my back. He took the scissors from the tree and approached me with them raised and open for a moment, and I panicked. What did he mean to do with them? I kicked my feet at him, but to no avail: the queen held me fast.
‘Sew, wilt thou? I’ll give thee sewing to do!’ And he began to slash my dress with my scissors, cutting it to ribbons, e
xposing my petticoats, my shift and my stockings. The air and the excitement goose pimpled my skin and I shivered and screamed, half in terror, half in delight. As he cut the rich silk, I looked to the terrace. A small group had gathered, brought hither by the noise we were making. Kat Ashley and two serving wenches laughed at my predicament, but, behind them, my tutor, Roger Ascham, shook his head and pursed his lips. I stopped my shrieks for shame. Only too ready to compare me, unfavourably, with his other pupil, that silent child Lady Jane Grey, he was witnessing to my horror yet another example of my deficiencies. I made one last bid for freedom and broke the grasp of the queen.
‘Keep the scissors,’ I cried as I ran from them across the grass, my long legs unhampered by my shredded skirts. ‘But let me go free!’
‘You should not allow such liberties,’ said my tutor when, freshly gowned, I appeared for lessons.
‘And how can I prevent them, Master Ascham?’ I was stung by his tone. ‘I am the ward; they are the guardians.’
‘You could prevent them, my lady, if you wished to. You are a king’s daughter and have the authority. The admiral does not dare play so fast and loose with Lady Jane.’ And there it was, the inevitable comparison with my cousin.
‘She is but a child.’
‘Indeed, my lady, all the more reason for you to be more careful.’
‘Child or no, I heard he schemed to marry her.’ Kat Ashley’s love of gossip and her determination to pass on what she has heard below stairs to me has stood me in good stead on many an occasion.
‘Perhaps so, my lady, but he has no such intention with you. The admiral now has a wife. A circumstance you should pay more mind to.’ I gasped at the insinuation and opened my mouth to protest. Was he about to accuse me of committing adultery?
But he held up his hand to hush me. ‘If I go too far, I am sorry for it, but you lack guidance, my lady, and as I am your teacher, it falls to me to supply it. I wish to protect you. A princess must have more care than most women about not simply what she does, but what people say she does.’ He lowered his voice and kindness softened his tone. ‘People are saying things, my lady, and you are too fine a creature to have your reputation sullied so.’
My eyes filled with tears at his words. Kindness has always undone me more effectively than harsh treatment and I wanted Master Ascham’s good opinion more, now that my father was dead, than anyone else’s then living. ‘But how can I protect myself? The admiral has the keys to all the rooms in the house and can burst into my chamber anytime he wishes.’
‘Ask to leave, my lady. Move your household away from theirs.’ At this, I wept bitterly. I did not want to leave the only home where I felt important and loved, where, however risky it was, I was able to stop being a king’s daughter and just be Elizabeth, the girl growing into a woman. Master Ascham, never one to show his feelings, looked horrified at the effect of his words and patted me awkwardly on the back. ‘Now, now, perhaps I have been too harsh.’ He held out a greyish handkerchief. ‘Dry your eyes, we can waste no more time on this. We must proceed with our translation. Lady Jane completed hers weeks ago.’ He was a clever man, wise in the ways of his students. Nothing was guaranteed to dry my eyes and sharpen my appetite for my work like a comparison with that bookish child.
Jane Grey was my only true rival: younger than I was, and almost as nobly born, her solemn demeanour belied a sparkling intellect. She alone kept me on my mettle. It stung me when her work was praised above mine and fear of such humiliation kept me at my books, even when I longed to forsake them. I did not like Jane Grey, God forgive me, no one much did; even her own parents treated her with thinly disguised contempt. She was silent, excessively pious and when she did speak the precocity of her use of language and choice of subject matter were universally regarded as not just unusual, but unseemly. Some felt her bewitched, a demon in a girl child’s form. Only Roger Ascham saw her true worth and he loved her and protected her fiercely. I saw his preference for my odd cousin and it did nothing to endear her further to me. How I regret my imperious unkindness now.
How I also regret that I did not take Master Ascham’s good advice with greater alacrity. I fully intended to announce my impending departure, but the admiral left the household the next morning to attend to council business with his brother and with mine, so I saw no need to press the issue. The queen and I settled into a peaceful routine of scholarly pursuits, country walks and womanly chatter. She was with child and suffering a little from biliousness. She was of an advanced age to be carrying her first child and those of us who loved her worried for her. She found it hard to keep food in her stomach and was losing weight. She professed herself overjoyed to be carrying the child of the man she loved, but I felt a constriction in my own belly every time I looked at her. Partly it was fear for her, and partly guilt for myself. However innocent she felt the games her husband played with me, I knew they were not entirely those a man played with a child. She loved the admiral and it seemed that perhaps so did I. When she received a letter from him, my heart beat with as much excitement as hers did; when he closed his missive with a message of love to me as well as to her, I repeated his phrases to myself over and over before I went to sleep. When he wrote to tell us of his imminent return, I knew I should announce my own imminent departure, but I did not. I reasoned with myself that I must tell them both of my intention, that it was only courteous, after their great kindness to me, to say my farewells to them both. I flattered myself that he would be hurt if I left without saying goodbye. But my reasoning was faulty; I wanted to stay because I could not bear to leave without seeing him one more time.
He returned as he always did, with a bellow and a boom, striding into the great hall at dusk, windswept and dusty from his journey. My stepmother and I were seated before the fire. I had a bowl of warm water on my lap and was holding a compress to the queen’s brow – she had become a martyr to headaches since conceiving. Before we had time to register what was happening, he was upon us. He swooped his wife into his arms and spun the poor woman around, knocking the bowl into the air and sending the water cascading over my gown. I occupied myself with mopping at the dark patch it made on the silk, rather than watch as he kissed his wife with all the appropriate ardour of a loving husband returned from a long journey. I was even able to move away to the fire on the pretext of drying my skirt, so I did not have to hear the endearments they whispered to one another as he held her in his arms. Eventually, he turned to me and bowed.
‘Have you no kiss for your stepfather, then, my lady? Have you grown too fine since I have been away to welcome a weary wanderer back to his home and hearth?’
I said nothing, but hoped he could not hear the loud pounding of my heart. He took two steps towards me and enveloped me also in his arms. It was bliss to feel him hold me and torture to hold my own arms by my side and keep my eyes firmly downcast.
‘I have missed you, my Elizabeth,’ he whispered, low into my ear, so only I could hear, and my foolish little heart leapt at the words.
It is easy to look back and judge myself harshly now. What was I thinking of? A king’s daughter, fancying herself in love with the man who was married to the closest thing to a mother she had ever had? I had been warned that there was talk; my good sense told me I was behaving badly and that my dreams of love and marriage were just that, dreams with no hope of fulfilment. But I was a silly, naïve girl and he was a sophisticated and powerful man. I had no one to guide and protect me. The one person who could have helped me was the one person I could not tell.
The admiral let me loose and I scurried to my seat beside the queen. She had sunk back against the bolster, her eyes closed and her hand on her forehead. She looked pale and ill.
‘What ails you my sweet?’ said the admiral softly, kneeling by her side. A stab of jealousy tore through me at the tenderness of his tone.
‘Nothing. My head aches a little, that is all.’
‘Come, le
t me carry you to your chamber.’
‘No, no, there is no need.’ She held out her hand to stay her husband. ‘You have not eaten. You must be hungry from your journey. You sit and eat with Princess Elizabeth. But I shall take myself to my bed; it seems I am a little tired.’ And she was on her feet, hand across her swollen stomach, making an effort to smile and look gay. He was on his feet, too, reaching out to take her arm and I, little traitor that I was, sat there dreading that he would go with her and not stay in front of the fire with me. I was grateful to that fire: its heat gave me an excuse for the way my own face was burning. For a moment it seemed he had every intention of accompanying his wife to her chamber. His arm was around her waist and, despite her continued protestations, he was walking with her to the door. I turned my face to the fire and my attention to my own disappointed hopes.
‘Look, here is Mistress Ashley,’ said the queen. ‘She will help me to my chamber. You stay here, my lord. Your hands are still cold from the journey. Warm yourself by the fire, eat, drink, take your ease. I am poor company tonight. The Lady Elizabeth will see to your comfort – won’t you, my dear?’
And we were alone.
I will not describe what occurred in the next few moments, except to say that I came as close as I ever wish to come to forgetting myself entirely. He was older, stronger and experienced, I wanted and I didn’t want what he intended, but it was over almost before it began. The queen had not taken many steps when she remembered she had meant to tell her husband that his steward needed to see him on an urgent matter. Berating herself for the effect her unborn child was having on her memory, she returned to the room only to have all her joy and trust in the two she loved most in the world destroyed.
