by Karen Harper
She gestured John to us and took both our hands, then brought them together. “And you,” the exuberant girl said, “will be my country family even though I owe allegiance to the king and queen.”
She tugged me close, even, I thought, as I had often done her. It was the summer of 1545, and in all my days, I had never been happier or felt safer. You’d think I would have learned something from the fates of Anne and Cromwell, more fool I.
Our wedding day a fortnight later was crisp and clear. A local curate read our service in the Hatfield church just to the west of the palace, and we had a lovely bridal dinner in the solar, followed by dancing to the music of two lutenists and a drummer. I must admit, it was the first time I knew my husband—how strange that word sounded—could dance. He partnered me and then our twelve-year-old benefactress, who was having the time of her life overseeing everything.
Her other ladies prepared me for bed; Elizabeth herself had insisted we have a larger chamber down the hall from my old one. John came in, half dressed, teased and mussed by some of the male servants and our house steward. With fewer ribald jests than usual, since Elizabeth still stood wide-eyed in the hall, they shoved us into bed together and went back to their party downstairs.
That night, for the first time in my life, I surrendered myself to someone else, without worry, without qualms. I had struggled to be strong for so long, but now here was someone to trust and love, someone to tend to me as I did him. Oh, he knew the ways to pleasure a woman, my beloved John, but I had ever been a quick learner. He evoked a passion in me I had never fathomed and had foolishly thought I could control.
“Riding lessons, indeed,” I whispered as we were somehow wrapped together naked, tangled in bedsheets and my loosed hair.
“One lesson is never enough,” he murmured, looking sleepy-eyed with a lazy grin as he fondled my full breasts, which used to embarrass me so.
But with John, everything was perfect. There had been no pain of head or heart or maidenhead as when I had been ravished by the Seymour wretch. Everything was hot and wonderful, and I wanted more. I had fretted that John would ask me why I was not a virgin, but he had evidently been so intent he had not noticed.
“Then,” I said, lifting my knee over his leg to rub my thigh against his, “how do I request another lesson and what will be its price?”
He reached for me and the short, short night spun away to dust us too soon with the dawn.
We were all back and forth to court for the next two years, until January of 1547 when the king took ill. Elizabeth’s education had proceeded apace and was greatly strengthened by her being permitted to sit in with Prince Edward’s tutors and nobly born school-fellows from time to time. She especially formed a friendship with Robert Dudley, one of Edward’s boon companions. They were close enough that they called each other Robin and Bess. But at Yule that year, the king took a turn for the worse, and all three children were sent to their respective rural households.
“The queen will nurse him back to health,” Elizabeth told us more than once. “ I am so glad they are reconciled. How dare others try to tell the king she had heretical books and so was dangerous.”
I nodded, and my eyes met John’s as the three of us rode toward Hatfield House during our daily exercise. He and I had several of those same books in our possession, hardly heretical—books about the new religion, Protestantism, called so because its adherents protested the rigid practices of the popish Church.
Behind us came a rider at full gallop. John turned and lifted in his saddle. He rode a black stallion called Commander, and I was on Ginger’s filly, Meadow. Elizabeth rode the three-year-old Regal, a horse John had let her name. The passing of Brill and Ginger, as well as the loss of people I had known, made me realize how much time had passed.
“It’s Jamie, from court,” John said, his breath visible in the frosty air. “Perhaps His Majesty has rallied, and we are summoned back again.”
Jamie, one of the men who had worked for John, reined in and nodded to Elizabeth, who sat between the two of us. “Your Grace”—he addressed her as such since she was back in the royal line of succession as princess—“you are ordered to Enfield to await the arrival of your brother.”
“My father’s health?” she asked.
“Tenuous, but as ever, he is determined and strong.”
As we went into the house to pack, for the first time I tried to imagine what England would be like without the king. I had known no other, for he had inherited the throne in 1509 when I was but three. Despite his gross weight and painful leg, I knew that he would recover. But I did wonder how much the messenger had not told us. After all, it was high treason not only to plot the death of the king but to mention it or imagine it, as if someone besides the Lord High God could know one’s thoughts. So, in effect, all my agonizing over this was illegal!
“Back to Enfield,” John whispered to me as he brought round our horses as we set out the next gray-sky morn.
“Yes, there is that,” I said, and smiled.
We both loved Enfield Palace in Middlesex, even more than we favored Hatfield. Called Enfield Chase by some for its large hunt park, it was a reddish brick, moated manor house, not a sprawling place, but charming and livable. Still, it had an impressive gatehouse and an approaching avenue lined with lime trees. The outer court bustled with domestic activities, but the cobbled inner court around which were built the privy apartments had a fountain where splashing water echoed pleasantly in the chambers about. Enfield boasted a chapel, a covered bowling green and conduits bringing in fresh water from up the hill. Two lakes teemed with fish, and the water gardens offered exquisite moonlight strolls. A bridge over Maidens Brook connected lush orchards to the enclosed deer park where John had led visitors and Elizabeth herself to the hunt. In short, it was John’s and my favorite place.
But when we reached Enfield late that afternoon, it looked frozen in place and time. We had not seen it in the winter. The moat was iced, frost etched the windows and fresh snow sat pure upon the ground. We were greeted by the household steward and told that a message had already arrived that the prince and his entourage, headed by Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, would be here soon. We had barely eaten and changed clothes when the royal party, with many more guards than I had ever seen, some in Tudor and some in Seymour livery, clattered into the inner courtyard and dismounted around the fountain.
From a second-story window, I watched John take charge of their horses. Elizabeth hurried out to greet her brother with a curtsy and a hug. Hand in hand—for they were yet children—they disappeared under my window, and I rushed down to greet them. The earl, Prince Edward’s uncle and Tom’s brother, dominated the scene. He had a more pointed face than Tom and a long, dark beard. His features seemed sharp, accented by an aquiline nose; his stance and attitude were ever aloof. To my dismay, he immediately ushered Elizabeth and Edward into the old medieval hall and closed the door on us all.
“How does the King’s Majesty?” I asked one of the earl’s men.
“Not well” was all he said.
And then came shrill cries, even a scream from Elizabeth. Instinct took over. I bolted for the door and pulled it open before one of the earl’s men could stop me. The two royal children stood in the wash of late light before the bank of windows, holding tightly to each other and wailing while Seymour stood there, just watching.
The king is dead, I thought. On this cold, late January day in the new year of 1547, the king is dead! And before me stood the new king, a thin boy of nine, and my thirteen-year-old Elizabeth, now but two lives from the throne.
“I have not summoned you!” the earl shouted at me as I held both children to me and Elizabeth locked her arms around my waist.
“She is my charge!” I challenged him.
“Then both of you can unhand and kneel to your new sovereign,” he ordered.
And so we did, soon backed by the others, all on our knees before one very frightened boy—frightened, I believed, as
much by his uncle as by his father’s loss and his new lofty place.
Just when I thought Thomas Seymour was out of my life for good, I found I was mistaken. I was outraged at him because, immediately after the king’s death in the winter of 1547, he secretly made marital advances to the Princess Mary, then to Anne of Cleves, no less, and—the blackguard—even to Elizabeth! I had overseen her written refusal to him, though, I admit, I would have worded it more strongly. But ever since the king had sent her from court four years before, my princess had managed to get her way with powerful men more by honey than by vinegar. I recall parts of her reply to Seymour yet:
... I confess to you that your letter, charming as it is, has greatly surprised me, since, aside from the fact that I have neither the age nor the inclination to think of marriage, I should never have expected to find myself asked to a wedding at a time when I can only weep for the death of my father.
Therefore, my Lord Admiral, permit me to say frankly that . . . I shall make it my greatest pleasure to remain
Your servitor and friend,
ELIZABETH
CHELSEA HOUSE, VILLAGE OF CHELSEA ON THE THAMES, NEAR LONDON
April 1547
Once again, I thought we were safe from Tom when, shortly after the old king’s funeral and the new king’s coronation, a command came to us from the Privy Council, now headed by Edward Seymour who had been named Lord Protector of the king and kingdom during the boy’s minority. They were ordering the Princess Elizabeth into the care and household of the Queen Dowager, Katherine, at her new home in Chelsea on the Thames just southwest of London.
We were ecstatic, for we had feared a far worse situation. Elizabeth was very fond of her stepmother, and she could keep her household. We were close to London and so the seat of power. She had thought she would see her brother more, but the Lord Protector was keeping him very isolated. At first all went well in the lovely house, gardens and orchards at Chelsea until John was summoned back to Whitehall to help the Master of the Horse, who had hated to lose his talents in the first place. As a result, we were separated by nearly an hour ahorse or a quarter-hour trip by boat. John managed to visit twice a week, early morning, most often by boat since he had struck a deal with some oarsmen.
But one day, as the sun was just coming up, and I met him by the water stairs, his first words were not I love you or I miss you.
“I’m not the only one coming here to meet a beautiful woman,” he told me with a quick kiss.
“What?”
“I learned late night that the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour, has been riding to Chelsea secretly for months and is being let in the back gate by the fields. He takes a steed from the stable nearly in the middle of the night and returns it before dawn each day.”
“What? Surely, he’s not hoping to see Eliza—”
He shook his head. “His groom was drunk last night and told me that he has been secretly wed to the Queen Dowager since five weeks after King Henry died.”
My gasp nearly drowned out his next words, and not because they had wed in such indecent haste.
“They’re going to announce it publicly soon,” he went on, “and all hell is going to break loose from the Privy Council and Seymour’s brother. So keep your and Elizabeth’s heads down, because Sir Thomas will soon be lord here. Kat. Kat! Did you hear what I just told you?” he said, giving me a little shake.
I know not what my expression was, but it must have been horrified. I had never breathed one word to John about my past with Tom. And Tom had threatened me if I told anyone, he would ruin me. I could not stomach being near him now, and under his command—no!
“I—I did hear you,” I stammered. “I must get Elizabeth out of here. After that proposal of his to her—what if Katherine learns of it—that she was second—or fourth place? I heard he is charming and always looking to entice someone higher—and who is higher than the Queen Dowager but Elizabeth? She will be in his household, under his aegis—all of us. I am going to write a letter begging the Princess Mary to take her in.”
“You know they do not get on. Mary likes you, but she and Elizabeth will be like cats and dogs. Besides, you would be much farther away from me.”
But to my dismay, for the first time I could recall, Elizabeth gainsaid my suggestion we leave. “How romantic!” she cried, jumping up from her writing desk and clapping her hands. “A secret courtship and wedding after all that time they had to be apart! Remember, Kat, he was courting her before he probably thought he had to propose to others ere he could follow his heart back to her. I think that is so lovely, and he is handsome and, I hear, a brave fighter of pirates, to boot. No, I am not budging from here, especially not to live in the country with Mary. But why are you so overturned and adamant, especially when you would be forced to live farther from your own dear love? There is nothing wrong between the two of you, is there?”
I could only shake my head. Nothing wrong between John and me—yet. But everything was wrong with my living in a house Tom Seymour commanded, and one where the two most important women in it were all dreamy-eyed about the ravishing—in more ways than one—whoreson wretch.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
CHELSEA HOUSE
Summer 1548
Our staying with the Queen Dowager became torment for me when Thomas Seymour came to live with us. What made it worse was that every other woman in whatever house we stayed in—Katherine’s Chelsea or Hanford, Tom’s properties of Seymour House in London or Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds—was ecstatic to be near the man.
Queen Katherine plainly adored her new husband. She blushed at his hotly whispered remarks and turned misty-eyed when he left the room. Lady Jane Grey, a cousin of Elizabeth, who had also been in the household off and on, obviously thought her guardian was delightful company. Even serving women watched the exuberant, tall and handsome Lord Admiral with awed expressions.
At least his brother and the Privy Council, on which Tom, too, now served, were outraged at his daring to covertly marry the former king’s new widow without permission and in such haste. The Council had reprimanded him soundly, though he had stood up to them and cursed them. In his own domain, only I avoided him like the plague.
About a fortnight after Tom had come to live openly with Katherine, I had started toward the manor house to fetch a book that Master Grindal, Elizabeth’s tutor, needed. He, the princess and Lady Jane Grey—though Jane was shy and quiet, Elizabeth enjoyed having a friend near her own age—were sitting outside beyond the rose garden in deep debate. I had been sitting long enough anyway, so was glad for the excuse to stretch my legs. But on my way up to the house, in a shaded bower of plaited, arched rose canes, Tom stepped out ahead of me and blocked my path.
I spun to stride back toward the river, but his hands clamped onto my shoulders; he pulled me back so hard my skirt bushed out from his boots.
“’S blood, and I had hoped absence all these years would make the heart grow fonder,” he said with a chuckle, turning me back toward him. He tipped his head to one side with a mocking, beseeching look.
“Unhand me, my lord.”
“’S blood, do you not think others might notice your frosty demeanor when everyone else falls all over themselves to please me, especially our little princess or my wife? Or are you yet playing Anne Boleyn’s old game of noli me tangere just to get me hot for you again? You have told John Ashley that I was your first love, have you not?”
“Love!” I said as if it were a curse word. I spit, just missing him. I shrugged his hands off and managed to take a big step back from him, though that put me head to hems in the rose thorns. “I used to be a fool, but you cured me of that,” I told him, brushing myself off where he had touched me. “As for your wife and Her Grace—Lady Jane, too—if you told them the sky was green, sad to say, they would agree with pleasure.”
“ ‘With pleasure’—a lovely motto.” He grinned but I only glared back. How he had changed from the young man I had first beheld on a barge to Hampton
Court twenty years ago. He had filled out with meat and muscle. No longer clean shaven, he had a full beard, as was the fashion. His gaze still rudely assessed my body, but now white crow’s-feet perched at the corner of each eye, and frown lines furrowed his high forehead.
His booming voice was much the same, but he swore even more stout sailors’ oaths as if they made him more dashing or important. Most of his curses, it seemed to me, insulted the Maker of the Universe by trivializing His holy name with things like ’s wounds or ’s teeth or even ’s nightgown. Sometimes he put in the word God’s and sometimes not.
“’S precious eyes, Kat, do not think I have forgotten you. Why, I still have all the love letters you sent me back then, prettily written, too, and if you turn your back on me now . . .”
“I do not need your threats, indirect or blatant, or your brutal handling.”
“Brutal? Hell’s gates, I had no brutality in mind, but just the opposite,” he said and dared to reach out to cup my chin. I hit his hand away. “’S precious soul, Kat, you’ve done well—risen high, even as I,” he said, trying another tactic. He hooked his thumbs in his wide belt and tilted back on his heels. “You must admit we keep good company these days, eh? And did I not tell you once that you would never forget your first love? Here we are, together again. Have you not noticed how many secret, shady bowers abound for trysts on my properties?”
“Leave off, sir, and leave me. You insult me, your wife—even yourself, if that is possible.”
Bristling, he straightened to his full height. “In a way you are my servant now, and they obey orders or are dismissed,” he clipped out. “’S bones, if that is the way you want to play it, let me lay my cards on the table. Do not gainsay me or get in my way here, and I will not tell the Council of your checkered past—”
