Beware, Princess Elizabeth

by Carolyn Meyer

  "You remind him of your mother," Kat once said when I complained that he paid me no attention. "Nothing will change that." And nothing did. He never spoke of it, of course. It was forbidden to utter the name of Anne Boleyn. It was as if my mother had never existed. Every trace of her had been removed—every trace, that is, but me.

  I owe my understanding of my father and my mother to dear Kat. Night after night, as we lay side by side in the darkness with the bed curtains drawn closed around us, it was Kat who whispered answers to my deepest questions. Sometimes I asked about my father and often about my mother. Kat is the only person with whom I ever spoke of Anne Boleyn.

  "She was beautiful, with hair black as a raven's wing and eyes black as jet, and she was intelligent and witty as well," Kat would say of my mother. "She fascinated your father from the first time he set eyes upon her."

  She fascinated him, but he already had a wife: Catherine of Aragon, who was Mary's mother. I learned, when I grew older, that my father had had his marriage to Catherine annulled in order to marry Anne. That first Catherine (three of my father's wives were named Catherine) did everything in her power to prevent the annulment. But my father banished Catherine, and Mary, too, to force her to consent to it. Yet, to her dying hour, even after my father had married Anne Boleyn and made her his queen, Catherine of Aragon refused her consent. Perhaps Mary had inherited from her mother that same stubbornness.

  According to Kat my father believed Anne Boleyn would give him the son that poor old Catherine could not. To his great disappointment I, the only child of his marriage to Anne, was not a son. I was Anne's failure. When he no longer loved her, he determined to rid himself of her. He had her locked in the Tower and then contrived to have her sentenced to death for charges of adultery and treason. There was not a word of truth in the charges.

  Would King Henry have ordered my mother's execution if I had been a boy? I believe not. He might have found love with another woman, as he was wont to do, but he would have let Anne live, and I would have had my mother. And so my feelings about my father were never simple and uncomplicated. I did love him, because he was my father and a great king. But I also harbored a dark secret: I resented him deeply for depriving me of my mother. The darkest secret of all: At times I hated him.

  Then, just weeks after my mother's death, my father married Jane Seymour. "The opposite of your mother," Kat replied when I pressed her for a description of a woman I scarcely remember. "Pretty, I suppose, but rather colorless. Quite prim." Kat pursed her lips. "Queen Jane had the good fortune to bear a male child, to the king's delight. And then she had the good sense to die almost at once, before he tired of her."

  Kat should never have said such a thing, of course, but Kat had a talent for saying things she ought not. Her tongue often brought her trouble.

  My mother was not the only wife my father sent to the Tower and then had put to death. I was eight years old when his fifth, Catherine Howard, was sentenced to die. All the nervous excitement of this latest execution could not be kept from me, and it was as if my own mother's execution were being repeated. I wept, I cried out, for days I could neither sleep nor eat. Kat, frantic to calm me, summoned the court physician to prescribe a sleeping draught.

  When I awoke it was over. I listened as servants whispered how Catherine Howard's head had been caught in a basket, her blood sopped up by crones with handkerchiefs, her body carried off for burial. The way it must have been for my mother, I thought, and I have thought of it many times since that day. Remembering Catherine Howard's death has always struck terror to my heart.

  THE TWELVE DAYS of the lying-in-state ended. From the palace window Edward and Mary and I watched the somber procession that stretched for miles, following my father's coffin to Windsor Castle. By custom the monarch's heirs did not attend his funeral, but it seemed that nearly everyone else did. The wax effigy rode in a carriage drawn by eight black horses in black velvet trappings.

  In the days that followed, I waited to learn what turn my life would take next. I had no control over events; I could only control my response to them. Wrapped in the silence of my own lonely thoughts, I paced the snowy paths in the bleak palace garden. My father was dead. My sister, Mary, was cold and withdrawn. My little brother, Edward, was now king. What will become of me? I wondered over and over. What will become of me? But I decided that, however much fear and worry now gnawed at my vitals, I would one day learn to rule my own life.

  ***

  ON THE TWENTIETH day of February, anno Domini 1547, I witnessed the coronation of my brother, Edward. Those who were there the day in 1509 when my father was crowned were determined that this celebration would surpass it in grandeur.

  The day before the coronation, as the royal procession wound its way through London, trumpeters blew fanfares to proclaim the approach of the boy-king. My little brother, dressed in cloth of silver embroidered in gold and belted with rubies, pearls, and diamonds, was mounted high on a huge white horse trapped with crimson satin. He was followed by the nobility of the kingdom, according to rank. The two Seymour brothers, Edward and Tom, took the lead.

  So much splendor on such a delicate young boy! He wore a look of proud hauteur, but I knew that was a mask to disguise his fear. For a little while I imagined myself in his place, arrayed in ermine and jewels, surrounded by members of the privy council in their rich velvet robes. Henchmen carrying gilded poleaxes and knights in purple satin riding fine horses would precede my royal litter.

  But I was not the queen, and short of a miracle I would never be queen. I was assigned a place far back in the procession, behind my sister, Mary, who sat in a chariot with Dowager Queen Catherine, the highestranking woman in the kingdom. Beside me rode Anne of Cleves, my father's fourth wife, a German princess my father had decided to wed seven years earlier on the basis of a small portrait he'd seen.

  Anne of Cleves had spoken only German when she'd stepped off the ship that brought her to Dover. She was stoutly built, her skin pockmarked, her gowns and headdresses drearily old-fashioned. The king immediately saw that the flesh-and-blood woman did not match the portrait, much less his dreams of her, but he married her anyway. Six months later he had the marriage annulled—and sent to the gallows his chief secretary, Cromwell, who had arranged the match. Since the divorce Anne had had the status of "the king's sister" and had lived comfortably in one of the country houses he had given her with plenty of jewels and money to soothe her injured feelings. We were often paired at official occasions. We were fond of each other, and I was glad for her company. We were two women, one old and one young, who counted for little in the kingdom. Anne may not have cared, but I confess that I did. I was the trueborn daughter of King Henry VIII!

  That night Edward slept in the Tower of London, traditional for each monarch in the history of England, including my mother, who spent the night there before her crowning as queen. It amuses me to think that I was present for that event, less than three months before my birth, riding in her belly, beneath all her jeweled finery.

  But now my thoughts were not of Edward's coronation, but of another matter entirely that had been troubling me for days: the look I had seen Queen Catherine bestow upon Tom Seymour. I knew that Kat would speak forthrightly once I had found a way to introduce the subject.

  That night we retired to the chambers assigned to us. All but one of the candles were extinguished, and we climbed onto the high bed and drew the curtains against the cold. Our servants slept.

  "Tom Seymour and the queen...," I began hesitantly.

  "She was in love with him before, you see," said Kat, almost as though she had read my thoughts. "Catherine has been in love with Tom Seymour these many years, since long before she married King Henry. And who can blame her? Do you not think him extraordinarily handsome?"

  The handsomest I have ever seen, I thought. Aloud I said, "I scarcely noticed," and feigned a yawn. Then, "Will they wed, then, do you think?"

  "The dowager queen must first complete a year of
official mourning," said Kat. "We shall see if she lasts six months."

  With that Kat rolled onto her side and fell fast asleep, leaving me to lie awake pondering this bit of news.

  THE NEXT MORNING, after a solemn procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey, the coronation commenced, hours of pomp and ceremony that left everyone exhausted. By evening the celebrants had recovered sufficiently, and the revelry began at Whitehall Palace, the new king's official residence.

  Throughout the banquet no one paid me the least attention, as usual. I was seated far down the table from King Edward and completely ignored, as only a thirteen-year-old princess of lowly status can be ignored in the vast sea of dukes and duchesses, marquises and marchionesses, earls and countesses, barons and baronesses. But when the dancing began, my old friend Robin Dudley suddenly appeared at my side.

  Robin had shared lessons with Edward and me and our tutors when Robin and I were eight years old—our birthdays are within days of each other. He was a merry lad then, as good-looking as he was good-humored, but I had not seen him in some time. Now thirteen, no longer a boy but not yet a man, he had the same bright eyes, reddish brown hair, and quick smile that I remembered well. He approached me shyly, but as soon as we joined the other dancers, his shyness vanished.

  The dance was my favorite—lavolta, in which the partners take turns lifting each other off the floor. Of course, the lady does no actual lifting; the gentleman first executes a leap and then seizes the lady by the waist and propels her high into the air. When finally we stopped, breathless and laughing, Robin brought me a cup of hippocras and begged me to tell him where my life was taking me.

  "I cannot say, Robin," I told him frankly as we sipped the spiced wine. "I am the king's daughter, but I think they have all forgotten me."

  "I have not," he said, suddenly serious and taking my hand. "I shall never forget you, Elizabeth."

  The passion with which he uttered this promise startled me, for I'd always thought of him as a brother. Yet his tone as well as his words held my attention. "Nor shall I forget you," I said.

  I was happy passing the time with my old friend. But to my surprise, Tom Seymour appeared and claimed me for the next dance, a grave and stately pavane. I had felt lighthearted and at ease with Robin Dudley, but my feet turned to lumps of clay and my hands were cold as fish when I was on Tom Seymour's arm. I wanted to hide from embarrassment, and at the same time I wanted the dance to go on and on. The attraction I felt for this man was strong, the strongest I had ever experienced, and I sensed that he was drawn to me as well. But I knew the attraction was improper, even dangerous.

  Later, when I looked again for Robin, he had disappeared. Then Kat materialized and announced that it would be wise for me to retire. "King Edward has long departed for his bedchamber," she said, frowning at me, "and so must you, madam."

  I blamed the fireworks and booming cannons for keeping me awake until dawn. In truth the faces of a handsome man and a handsome boy troubled my sleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Lord Admiral

  The day after Edward's coronation, Dowager Queen Catherine, my father's widow, astonished me with an invitation to come live with her at Chelsea Palace in London. "I would be happy for your company, Elizabeth," she said, "and it would give me great pleasure to continue to oversee your education. What do you say? Are you in agreement?"

  "Oh yes, my lady Catherine!" I said, for I was fond of my stepmother.

  London was noisy and dirty, unlike my quiet country home at Hatfield, where the only noise came from flocks of sheep in the nearby fields. But London was also exciting.

  In preparation for the move from Hatfield, Kat bustled from chamber to chamber, giving orders to the serving maids. Now and again she paused to smile broadly at me.

  "To London, to London!" she fairly sang. "Such a life you shall now have, madam!"

  The maids were packing my chemises, my petticoats, my kirtles and gowns, my shoes and stockings and boots—all now too short, too tight, or too worn or threadbare—into wooden trunks. Kat looked first at a blue velvet gown she was holding in her hands and then at me. "You need a new gown, or two or three. You have grown at least a hand span since this one was made for you. I shall speak to Mr. Parry about it."

  Thomas Parry, a puffed-up little Welshman, was my cofferer, in charge of the allowance that my father used to send for the upkeep of my household. His sister, Blanche Parry, a plainspoken and practical woman, was also in my service. Blanche and Kat had always complained there were not enough funds to provide properly for the king's younger daughter, although there always seemed to be plenty for his elder daughter, Mary. I wondered if that might now change with my brother on the throne.

  On a wintry day in early March, under clouds heavy with snow, Kat and I and a small retinue of servants once again set out for London. Thick mud sucked at the horses' hooves, slowing our pace.

  "Does my sister know of this change?" I asked Kat.

  "Why, I have no idea, Elizabeth," Kat said. "Did you not write to her?"

  I'd thought of sending word to Mary to inform her of my whereabouts, but in the commotion of the past weeks, I had neglected to do so. But then, I thought, neither had Mary taken the time to write to me. Later, I decided; when I am settled, then I shall write.

  And I promptly forgot about her.

  OUR WELCOME at the queen's beautiful Chelsea Palace was as warm as one could wish for. Queen Catherine didn't wait for me to beg her to receive me, but as soon as she had word of our arrival, she stepped out into the snowy courtyard to greet me. "How happy I am you have come to be with me," she said with an affectionate embrace.

  She led Kat and me through elegant halls with marble floors and walls paneled in oak to our own apartments, a spacious suite of chambers with windows overlooking the River Thames. After inviting us to join her at supper when we were ready, the queen left us to recover from our journey.

  As servants carried in our trunks and boxes, Kat went about examining everything from the candles in the sconces on the wall ("Good quality beeswax," she said approvingly) to the tester bed, with its canopy and curtains of heavy blue damask. "Look!" Kat whispered, poking her finger into the lofty bedding with its coverlet, also of blue. "Three mattresses, all well stuffed with wool."

  I took more interest in a small writing desk, intricately carved, with two wooden stools covered in leather. There was even a supply of goose quills and a knife to sharpen them, and a little inkhorn. A cozy fire crackled on the hearth. I felt that I should be content here.

  After we had rested, cleansed our hands and faces, and changed our muddy petticoats for fresh ones, we made our way to the gallery. Fine tapestries lined the walls. At one end, in a place of honor, hung a portrait of my father. Nearby was a smaller portrait of my grandfather, King Henry VII. I stood gazing into the eyes of the two portraits and tried to imagine what those great kings might have been thinking as the artist painted their images. Then a servant in livery of green and white, the Tudor colors, appeared and announced that the dowager queen awaited us in her private apartments.

  The servant pushed open a heavy door. I entered the queen's privy chamber, ready to kneel before Catherine. But before I could do so, I found myself enveloped in the arms of Tom Seymour. I barely managed to suppress a startled cry.

  "Welcome, dear sister Elizabeth!" he roared, and twirled me around before setting me down rather unsteadily on my feet. All of my life I had been carefully schooled in royal deportment, and so I was shocked at his behavior. At the same time, I confess, I was also thrilled.

  I looked with alarm from this handsome, boisterous man to the sweet, smiling countenance of my stepmother. Queen Catherine must have observed my confusion, for she immediately took care to present him formally: "Thomas Seymour, baron of Sudeley."

  What are you doing here? I thought, but I made a curtsy and murmured a bit breathlessly, "My lord."

  The baron bowed deeply. "My lady Elizabeth," he said, now looking straight-f
aced and rather pompous, as though he had not just moments before swept me off my feet.

  And the queen, still smiling benignly, called for hippocras to be brought.

  As it was the Lenten season, our supper consisted of manchet—fine white bread—and several dishes made of fish. While we ate, the baron described to me the stone castle called Sudeley, three days' journey to the northwest in Gloucestershire.

  "It was the pleasure of your brother, the king, to present me with both castle and title," Tom explained. Then, at the queen's urging, Tom Seymour told several tales of wild adventure that I only half believed and made jokes that I did not entirely understand.

  So the evening passed merrily, until at last Catherine excused us. The liveried servant reappeared to conduct Kat and me back to our chambers. The fire was dying, and once our maids had removed our gowns and kirtles we retired for warmth to our bed, which turned out to be just as comfortable as it looked.

  "What think you now of the baron of Sudeley?" Kat murmured into the darkness.

  "I think him—," and here I hesitated, remembering his raucous greeting. "I think him very bold," I replied at last.

  "I believe that the baron would have you as his bride," said Kat calmly, as though informing me that a cat likes cream, "were you of an age. And it is not long until you shall be."

  "He would marry me?" I gasped. "But does not Catherine love him? Does the baron not intend to wed the queen, once her mourning ends?"

  "So she hopes. But I believe it is you to whom Tom Seymour has lost his heart."

  "But, Kat!" I protested, excited but also frightened. "This cannot be! What shall I do?"

  "Do nothing at all, dear Elizabeth," Kat replied in that placid way that at times infuriated me. "Wait and see."

  Wait and see, I thought as I lay awake, staring into the darkness long after Kat's breathing had deepened in sleep. Too much of my life was "wait and see." Yet, for now, I had no choice—even if I had known what my choices were.