by Karen Harper
I watched Mary Tudor, now aged twenty-seven and sad she had no suitor, who sat beside the five-year-old Edward. Next to Mary, Elizabeth, now nine, was obviously excited not only to be here but also to be in the king’s good graces, for she, like Mary, had suffered her ups and downs through various stepmothers and their sire’s royal whims of who was legitimate issue and who was not. I had heard the girl was never to speak of her mother before the king, and I pitied her, for I knew better than to bring up my father or family at court too.
My eyes returned to the bride, petite and fair, with stunning hazel eyes that dominated her kind face. Twice widowed by the death of elderly husbands and with no children of her own, she was thirty-one and an heiress, one, they said, who like Anne Boleyn before her favored the new learning in religion. Anthony and his family were staunch old-school Catholics like the king, despite Henry Tudor’s having taken the ultimate power from the pope. Dudley and the Clintons, I had seen, were more middle-of-the-road in their religious beliefs, which suited me, for however Catholic I was reared, I thought that believers—even women—ought to be able to read the Holy Writ for themselves and express opinions about it too. Why, even Brigid of Kildare, however pious, had stood up to the old ways when she must.
All that aside, I thought it so admirable that the new queen insisted on the Tudors being a family. It had been announced in a new Act of Succession that the king would reinstate Mary and Elizabeth as princesses in line to rule behind their young brother and his future heirs. I was happy for the king’s daughters, for I liked them both, yet I was tormented again with the question of whether my revenge must extend to them too. The king’s son and daughters had done nothing against the Fitzgeralds, yet their father’s vengeance against my family had not stopped at the death of our sire but had been visited upon his kin and heirs. I was grateful, at least, that my Irish aunts and many cousins had been left alone at home, as long as they kept out of contention for power.
Speaking of heirs, I had recently met the other seven of Anthony’s children, who were all adults. The Browne brood had acted kindly enough toward me, but I believe they tolerated me as something to amuse their father in his later years, like a new pet dog. Out of earshot of his father, Anthony, my lord’s namesake and heir, had told me, “If you bear him children, they will be the same ages as my own, but I warrant they will be good-looking. Just remember, if you hope for a large inheritance someday, the Browne properties will be split many ways, most going to me and my heirs.”
I darted a glance at Elizabeth again, sitting alert, wide-eyed on the edge of the pew. Her household, which I was to be part of when she was here at court, but not if she left for the country again, was meager. Her governess, Katherine Ashley, sat off to the side, her gaze watchful both on the ceremony and her lively young charge.
With the king’s hearty, possessive kiss of the bride, the wedding service ended, and we all repaired to the great hall for the marriage banquet. There was to be dancing too, though probably after the newly married couple took their leave, for the king who had once danced till dawn could barely get up on the dais where the bridal pair sat.
You might know that Surrey, who was strangely not even here, managed to throw a pall over the party. Word came and was whispered down the tables that he had slapped one of the king’s men for disparaging the Howard name and had been sent to Fleet Prison in London. If the king didn’t personally pardon him this time, the law said, he could have the offending hand cut off.
“Haven’t the Howards had enough of losing face and losing heads to not start losing hands—a writer’s hands?” Anthony had groused.
Sitting next to him, I had ended up across a table from Elizabeth, who was so excited she could barely sit still.
“I love weddings, though it’s really my first one,” she told me. “But I shall see many more, and wish I could be at yours, Lady Gera.”
“I would be honored.”
“If you would ask the king, it might help, though I warrant our new mother will put in a plea for me too,” she said, giving me, I thought, a soft-gloved but direct command. She seemed to pick at her food, seeming most enamored of the sweet dishes, especially the jelly fritters and sugary suckets. “So what are weddings like in Ireland?” she asked.
So she knew more than my name and marital status. I wondered what else she had overheard as I said, “I must tell you, Your Grace, as in this country, Irish weddings are of two kinds, the courtly kind and the country kind.”
“And have you seen both?”
“I have. Though my family had many friends in our village and attended weddings—and funerals—there, our own family weddings were more like formal ones here, but with jigs danced afterward, as well as stately pavanes or gay galliards.”
“Jigs? I never heard of such, but I would like to see one.”
“I shall teach you,” I whispered to her as Anthony leaned the other way to speak with his friend Lord Denny. “This very night, off in the corner if they let you stay up, for I have not danced a jig in too long. Then, someday, you can decree that an Irish jig be danced at your own wedding.”
She gave a slight shake of her head, then mouthed so quietly I am sure not even her watchful governess, two seats down, could have heard: “I shall never wed.”
My eyes widened. My lower lip dropped. This sprightly young girl—though at age nine, I too had had harsh womanhood thrust upon me—had gone from lighthearted to sober and sad in one moment.
I nodded and changed the subject. She talked that night of loving to ride ponies and loving to read about Caesar’s conquest of Gaul—because she wished that England could conquer the French too, and she thought her father might actually lead the next French expedition. She spoke of the first pretty dress she’d had in months and of translating the book of First Corinthians from Latin into Greek. Of playing leapfrog with her brother and learning to play the virginals.
I was in awe of her. And it answered one thing I’d been agonizing over: I still intended to kill the king, but if I survived that, I would try to work with his heirs through logic and loyalty, to somehow get Gerald home to Ireland.
After the bridal couple had gone off to their marriage bed that night and Sir Anthony decided to sit down following a lively galliard where he’d partnered me, I did teach Elizabeth the Irish jig off in the back corner of the hall, even to the shout of, “Erin go bragh!” that Magheen had always added at the end. We giggled through it all, hands on our hips, clicking our heels and spinning about. It made me miss my loved ones again, especially when she gave me a quick hug before she darted off. I wanted to go back to the dancing, but I wasn’t sure what Anthony would say if I partnered someone else, so I just watched from where I was. And heard a voice behind me that almost knocked me to the floor.
“I would ask you to dance, but I’d rather take you sailing.”
I spun to face Edward Clinton. I had forgotten he was so tall, but not that he was so darkly handsome.
“I . . . I had no idea you were here.”
“The weather in the channel was rough, so I arrived late, near the end of the meal. Will you be serving Elizabeth now, or just teaching her rebellious dances and phrases? Imagine, the should-have-been Irish princess daring to teach the off-and-on-again English princess. At least you did not have her shouting, ‘A Geraldine!’ ”
“Would you keep your voice down? And you have been watching me.”
“A favorite pastime. Gera, I am going to sea again, to the north, where we are going to try to settle down the Scots.”
“Better than trying to settle down the Irish, I’d say.”
“However fierce the Scots are, I’d not dare to take on the Irish. But, really,” he said, taking my hands in his as he had when we’d said farewell on his ship, “I wanted to wish you all the best—happiness, a family, safety—with Anthony Browne. I promise I won’t be appearing at your wedding. . . .”
I could tell he had more to say but couldn’t find the words. His eyes glistened with u
nshed tears. I could have and should have asked about Ursula and his family, but I too went tongue-tied, savoring the moment.
Finally, he said, “I’m being given a command in the fleet.”
“Still on the Defiance, I hope.”
“The same. Shall I take you captive so you can steer her clear to Edinburgh for us?”
“Do not . . . do not tease. And Sempringham—how is the manor coming along?”
“I don’t get to see it as much as I want to,” he said, his gaze suddenly devouring me. “But it’s as beautiful as ever.”
“I’d best get back.”
“Ay. Then here’s a kiss for the future bride.” Before I could react, he bent and slanted his mouth over mine in a soft kiss that turned hard and demanding. He did not touch me otherwise but to press my hands he held between my breasts, which tingled. I wanted to leap at him, grapple him to me. I did not care if Anthony, the raving king, and the entire court screamed at us; I wanted to hold him, keep him.
He pulled back, both lips and hands. “God bless you, Irish, and have a care for your safety—always.”
Damn the man if he thought this memory would be a comfort and not a torment, but he turned and was gone.
PART III
My Womanhood
In ship, freight with remembrance
Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sails that has in governance
My life, while it will last . . .
When other lovers in arms across
Rejoice their chief delight.
Drowned in tears, to mourn my loss,
I stand the bitter night,
In my window, where I may see,
Before the winds how the clouds flee.
Lo! what a mariner love hath made of me . . .
Thus is my wealth mingled with woe,
And of each thought a doubt doth grow;
“Now he comes! Will he come? Alas, no, no!”
—HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
WHITEHALL PALACE
December 12, 1543
My betrothed held my hand as our wedding service was recited in the presence chamber at Whitehall Palace with the king and court looking on. Bishop Ridley’s voice droned on, and my thoughts jumped hither and yon.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocence . . .”
Although I thought Elizabeth Tudor quite innocent of evil intent, she was not at my wedding and had written me how “mournful” she was to miss it. The poor girl had been banished to the countryside by her father for wearing a ring with her mother’s portrait hidden within and for standing up to him over it. I admired her for her loyalty and pluck, to champion her mother who—like too many others—had been cruelly dispatched by the Tudor tyrant. I would rather have had Elizabeth here even than Mary, and certainly rather than the king, though I had nothing but praise for Queen Katherine for putting up with her irascible, demanding husband.
“. . . therefore marriage is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding. . . .”
Henry Tudor was a beast. Because his wife read the Bible in English and had dared to discuss points of religion with him, he had nearly let Dudley arrest her for questioning. But I knew another reason the king had almost turned on her too, however much she nursed him and put up with his bitter, quicksilver moods. From Fleet Prison, where the king had allowed Surrey to keep his hand but had supposedly forbidden him pen and paper, someone had smuggled a Surrey poem to the queen, which the king had found under a bed pillow. I knew that poem well, for Anthony showed it to me the night before our wedding, for obvious reasons. Although, like the queen’s true love, Tom Seymour, my dear Edward Clinton was kept at sea, someone had told Anthony of our kiss on the king’s wedding day.
“It was a kiss for the bride—that’s what Lord Clinton said, and he left immediately for the sea and Scotland,” I answered back. More than once I had stood up to Anthony, though he liked it not.
“I hear it was quite a kiss,” he had raved. “Elizabeth Fitzgerald, I will brook no complications with you! God knows, there are enough of those without Clinton sailing through your head—or heart, like . . . like this mariner mentioned in the poem Surrey dared to have smuggled to the queen! ’S blood, with all I’ve done for you, plan to share with you, I’ll not have doubts about where my wife’s loyalty—and her beautiful body—lies! The poetic wretch once wrote another poem about you, I recall, so how do I know this one isn’t for you as much as for the queen?” he’d demanded, ripping the paper in half and tossing it on the floor, from which I retrieved it later.
“Anthony,” I’d replied, trying to rein in my panic—not that he would cast me off but at how the poem struck home with me—“Surrey did not write it for me or send it to me. Nor should he have so presumed with our loyal, loving queen. The king should not have lost his temper at Her Majesty, nor should you berate me. She has not seen Seymour for months and is likely not to again,” I’d insisted, hands on hips, my voice rising. “Don’t wed me then if you cannot trust me.”
Though I was a mere twenty years to his sixty-four, I could tell he was abashed at my defiance. My Irish temper, he’d called it more than once.
“I-I didn’t mean that,” he stammered, then cleared his throat. “You’ve charmed the king—me too, of course. I’m sure the queen’s quite safe from arrest now, and I simply wanted to make myself clear. I’m so very possessive of you, my sweet; that is all. Besides, however important Seymour and Clinton are to the king’s growing navy, I know if they overstepped in any way with our wives, there would be hell to pay. . . .”
Hell to pay . . . I knew the only way to keep Queen Katherine and myself—let alone the realm of Ireland—safe from this vile monarch was to get rid of him. And now that I lived at court and was about to move into quarters even closer to the king, I must strike soon.
“First, marriage was ordained for the procreation of children . . .”
If I bore Anthony children, I must act circumspectly to protect them. Could he have children in his old age? Must I take John Dudley’s advice to rear children loyal only to the English crown? And if I got with child, would my husband send me away from court during my pregnancy to his new country house at Byfleet in the shire of Surrey, or to his favorite, Battle Abbey in the sweet countryside of Kent? All seemed sunny and soft at those sites, when I still longed for the wild, windy reaches of Kildare, or—yes—Lincolnshire.
“. . . therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.”
I wanted to scream, I cannot wed this man! For he is a friend of my enemy and wants me to be loyal. My heart belongs to another I can never have but will ever love. . . .
“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you knows any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.”
I do confess as I took my vows, I also promised myself to be as good a wife to my lord as I could be. That is, considering that I still wanted to kill his best friend, the king of England.
But one other thing haunted me too. On our wedding night, when my husband, who had amorous skills I had not imagined, took my virginity, and rocked over and inside me, I thought of the waves of the sea. And even when my body responded to his arts, I did not feel that he touched me at all.
The next years, I must confess, spun out of my control and sometimes blurred to blackness. Mostly, it was time spent away from court, for I was with child almost immediately. I became quickly ill, sicker each morn than poor Magheen, who help
ed tend me now, had been at sea when we left Ireland. To visit me and yet keep his court duties, Anthony rode back and forth to London from our country house at Byfleet.
When I could keep food down, I liked nothing more than to sit in my bedroom window, with my beloved old Wynne at my side, looking out over the Fleet River to watch rowboats or small sailboats pass by. My memories “freight with remembrance of thoughts and pleasures past,” as Surrey’s poem had said, made me yearn to see my long-lost brother Gerald and Edward Clinton, whose names I never spoke. I was like to go mad from my confinement. Sometimes, even when the windows were tight shut against a storm, I was certain I could smell the sea.
The birth was a horror, and my son was born dead. That is all I can bear to write even to this day: My beloved little son, Gerald Fitzgerald Browne, was born dead and was buried at our larger country seat, Battle Abbey, and I was racked with fever and regrets. Was the Lord punishing me for my lust to kill the king? The Bible said kings were put on their thrones by God, but surely He could not approve of evil ones like Henry Tudor.
I put the pieces of myself back together and returned to court, attending the queen or Elizabeth, living in Anthony’s comfortable suite of rooms there, ironically just down the hall from the hidden door to the king’s back chambers. Both men were away, for despite his age and increasing physical ills, the king led his troops to war in France in the spring of 1544, while Queen Katherine, who became increasingly dear to me, served as regent in his stead. My lord went with the king, as did Surrey, who had been pardoned and released. The Howards were always good soldiers, even though they were dreadful diplomats.
