by D. L. Bogdan
He may have wept, I reflect with bitterness, but it did not stop him from uttering that fateful word. Guilty.
And now my father is to die.
“He has disgraced the Stafford name,” my stepmother-in-law tells me in somber tones. “And for nothing but pride. It is a dangerous thing, pride. Of all the sins, perhaps it is the worst. It leads us to believe in our own illusions of power and the rightness of our own misguided principles.”
I bow my head. I can no longer cry; I am past tears. My father is to die . . . my father is to die. . . . He bounced me on his knee when I was a wee girl. He smiled and joked. I loved him, aloof as he could be. My father is to die. . . .
“I will attend the execution,” I say then, my tone just above a whisper.
“You will do no such thing,” says Lady Agnes. “You will keep away. You cannot be seen to be offering any support to the fallen duke.”
“I am not supporting him,” I assure her. “In no way do I support treason. But I will be there for him when the axe falls. I will offer a prayer and my farewells. There is nothing neither you nor anyone else can do to prevent my going.”
Lady Agnes’s face is wrought with sadness as she regards me. “You are far too willful, Lady Elizabeth.” Her tone is wistful.
“I am a Howard,” I retort, my tone hard.
The sun shines bright in a cloudless azure sky the day my father is to die. The grass on Tower Green is lush and green-gold; nature is innocent, ignorant of the fates of those who share its realm. The April air is warm; there is even a slight refreshing breeze. I marvel that such evil can take place on this mockingly perfect day.
Gathered about are some members of my family, the court, and the hoard of observers hungry for gory displays, a crowd crude and rough and without compassion. It is good sport witnessing an execution, and the sounds of laughter can be heard ringing out here and there. It is a travesty. No one cares that the greatest duke in the land is dying. They care about the show, the spectacle of a man cut down in his glory.
As he kneels before the block, he raises his head. For the briefest of moments he locks his eyes with mine; they are bewildered blue mirrors that reflect nothing I had envisaged. No regret, no sorrow, no anger. Just shock. Whether it is over his execution or over his failed plot, I will never know. I bite back a sob, trying to convey in my gaze my love and grief and a thousand other emotions that have every and no name.
And then the axe. A swift whir as it cuts through the air, then through my father’s neck with lethal exactness. The head rolls onto the waiting straw, its eyes wide in a moment of mingled terror and surprise. Blood pours from his trunk and I stand transfixed by the sight. I cannot scream or cry or rage. I just stare.
“Come, my lady,” beckons my gentle servant Molly. “Come away from this terrible thing.”
“This . . . terrible thing,” I parrot, still held fast by the atrocity before me.
She takes my arm and leads me to my coach, guiding me away from the stench of death and Tower Green.
I pray never to return.
I withdraw into myself after my father’s death. No one offers their sympathies. Who would? He was a traitor and few mourn traitors. Even if they did feel some grain of compassion for me, they would not utter it. It would be treasonous.
Charles V blamed Wolsey for my father’s death, saying, “A butcher’s dog has killed the finest buck in England.” I could not agree more.
Ultimately, however, the blame falls upon His Majesty. He signed the warrant. He authorized my father’s death, and despite any wrongdoing on my father’s part, I cannot help but feel my heart stirring in resentment whenever I think of my king.
“We appreciate how hard this must be for you, Lady Elizabeth,” Queen Catherine tells me in her soothing tones one afternoon as I wait upon her at Westminster. “The Duke of Buckingham may have been a traitor to king and country, but to you he was a father. You have every right to mourn him.”
I purse my lips, swallowing tears. We are sitting in her apartments sewing shirts for the poor. I cannot concentrate on my work. My fingers fumble and I prick myself with the needle so much that little dots of blood can be seen on the garments.
Queen Catherine reaches out to still one of my trembling hands. “Don’t be ashamed of your grief. The Lord tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, for suffering produces perseverance. That is all we can do, Lady Elizabeth: persevere.”
I shake my head in bewilderment. “But my lord husband . . . he did nothing to intervene. He did not even send word offering his sympathies. Nothing.”
The queen pauses a long moment. She bows her head. When she speaks, her voice is very low. “Your husband could have done nothing without risking his own head. A written message could have been intercepted and interpreted as his not only sympathizing with your father’s death but with your father’s cause.”
Though the logical part of me understands this, I cannot fight the emotions that rage and cry and long for Thomas to reach out to me in some way.
But he does not.
The rest of the year is spent waiting on Her Grace. We pass the days in quiet contemplation, prayer, and charitable works. When I take leave of her, I wait for my husband at Hunsdon in December of 1522. He returns to me, after begging relief from his fruitless chore in Ireland and being afflicted with the dreaded dysentery.
He is a different man, thinner in appearance, sporting a close-cut beard and hair that reaches his shoulders in thick, dark waves. He looks wild and brooding, frightening yet, as always to me, alluring.
For a moment we say nothing. We survey each other as though we are ambassadors about to embark on a diplomatic mission requiring delicate handling. At last Thomas reaches for my hand.
“Hello, Elizabeth,” he says in soft, low tones. I had forgotten how handsome his voice is.
Yet my heart stirs with bitterness as I behold the man who did nothing to intervene in the death of my father. I close my eyes against the thought. “Thomas,” I say at last, my voice a mingling of longing and sorrow.
He squeezes my hand. Then takes me in his arms.
I yield to his embrace, folding against him, burying my head in his shoulder and allowing myself to cry.
“I missed you so,” I weep. “Oh, Thomas, it has been dreadful with Father dying.”
He pulls away, cupping my face between his slim hands. I am held captive by his intense black gaze. “You must forget him. He was a traitor, Elizabeth. He disgraced your family and your name. You can thank God you are a Howard now.”
I stiffen, furrowing my brow. “Forget him? How can you say such a thing? How can I forget my own father? He may have been a traitor, but I was his daughter, bound in loyalty and love! Would you ask your children to forget you?”
“If it were expedient,” he says.
“Of course,” I say in cool tones. “How can I forget? That is what it is all about, after all. Expedience. Ambition.” I pause, choosing my next words with care. “The king granted you and your father some of my father’s lands. Why not just throw thirty pieces of silver in with it?”
“What else was I to do? Refuse an offering from the king?” he retorts. “You are a fool, Elizabeth. You live in a world that cannot possibly coexist with mine.” His voice is so cool and calm that I shudder. I cannot even think to form a response. Thomas offers a lifeless smile that belongs on a portrait in some cold hall. “I did not come home to discuss such unpleasantness,” he tells me. “What is done is done.”
“With no help from you,” I interpose.
“Yes, with no help from me. What help could I be? Help Buckingham and allow you and the children to watch my own head fly? Yes, that makes sense, Elizabeth,” he snaps, dropping his hands from my face. “Now, enough of this. Where are the children? Take me to them.”
I swallow my tears and purse my lips. I cannot fight him on this anymore. “They are awaiting you in the nursery, ready for your inspection,” I tell him, my tone hard.
Arm in arm and wi
th forced gaiety we make for the nursery where waiting in a little row are our children. Cathy is beautiful at nine years old, her fair head held erect, her long black hair tumbling down her back in a wavy cascade. Next to her stands five-year-old Henry, his face alight with curiosity and unbridled admiration for his soldier-father. Two-year-old Little Thomas stands on one foot, then the other, as if realizing his ability to balance thus is far more important than meeting some stranger he has chanced to encounter in his infancy. Thomas murmurs his greetings and words of approval in jovial tones.
And then his eyes fall upon Mary.
Thomas Howard
Ireland was a terrible ordeal and despite Elizabeth’s harangue of complaints regarding her traitor-father’s death, I am more than relieved to be home. The only good things to come from my trials are that my brother-in-law Thomas Boleyn will be created Earl of Ormond one day in place of Piers Butler, which will eventually grant him a great deal of property. In addition, Butler’s son James will be betrothed to Boleyn’s daughter Anne in an effort to secure the peace between the two islands.
But these victories are too small. The king would not allow me to use the force necessary in mollifying the island, hence there was nothing more I could accomplish. So now I am home anticipating new orders with eagerness. I am hungry for another challenge.
My first is acquainting myself with this family, a group of people I cannot seem to relate to at all. It is as though I am looking at them through a window. We are separated by an unbreakable pane of glass, and all that can be done is to hold one’s hands up to it in the vain hope of making some kind of connection with the warmth of the human being on the other side.
But all I feel is the cold hard glass.
I distract myself from this dark analogy by surveying the children in the nursery. I think of all the ways they can be useful to me, the alliances they will make. Cathy is bound to be a great lady. She is the perfect embodiment of nobility and grace. Henry is quick-witted and athletic; he will go far, no doubt. It is too early to tell with the baby. He seems a little dull as yet. But they all have the good fortune of being attractive, a trait I credit not only to my own self but to my choice in breeder.
And then . . . my God . . . it is she.
My eyes behold the littlest girl, so different from the others with her honey gold hair, pearly skin, and open, trusting eyes that are as green as Tudor velvet. She raises her face to me, offering up a beatific smile so reminiscent of . . .
I cannot compare them. But it is so strange, this resemblance. It is almost as though she is her daughter. . . .
There is a vague blood-tie to the Plantagenets, but I never thought it was enough to yield itself to this kind of family resemblance. Yet what other explanation is there? It is so uncanny. But short of claiming the impossibility of my princess’s soul being returned to me in the body of this child, that is the best I can come up with. She is a Plantagenet. That is all. There is nothing cosmic in it.
I scoop my little Mary up in my arms and hold her close, affording myself a better look at her ethereal face. As we walk to the window, she imparts some nonsensical childish chatter to me in a voice melodic as a nightingale and soothing as a summer breeze. Her little arms clasp my neck, and all I can think is I want to hold her forever. I do not care what she says or if she is a dullard and never offers me some grand alliance. I want to seize this moment of perfection and run away.
At once I am terrified by this strange onset of emotions, emotions I can hardly sift through or understand. What spell has she cast on me, this child I have always thought to be from some other world, the world of my princess and her faery folk?
I set her down, shaking my head, bewildered and annoyed by my bizarre fancies.
But as I accustom myself to my homeland, I am drawn to observing her. Through the window of my study I watch the children play in the garden.
Henry chases Mary, tackling her to the ground and forcing her to proclaim him the victor in their childish games. They are quite close, these two, and are often in each other’s company, drawing pictures, writing in the dirt with sticks. Henry has become a prolific little writer and student. He tries to instruct Mary on making her letters. She makes a good show of trying; it seems she’ll do anything to please her big brother.
Through the window I watch her weave garlands of flowers with her sister, Cathy. Upon their completion they wear them on their heads like circlets. Mary twirls about before her sister as though she is a courtier at a masque. Cathy applauds her antics.
The window affords me a view of her gentle side as she tends to Little Thomas, nurturing him with loving patience. She is a natural.
From my safe vantage, separated by a pane of glass, I watch her play and laugh and turn her smiling face to the sun and God and all those others who cannot resist her.
The window has become obscured.
I turn away, wiping the strange and sudden onslaught of tears away with an impatient hand.
A waste of time this is, staring out windows at children who are, for now, quite useless.
I must press on to more important matters.
Elizabeth Howard
Since Thomas arrived he has been distracted. He locks himself away in his study or broods before the fire, waiting, waiting for orders from his king. He watches the children play through his window, his expression soft and sad and, for once, completely vulnerable.
Seeing him thus softens my own heart. I lay a hand on his shoulder, then lean my head on his upper arm as I take in the sight of the children at play one afternoon.
His eyes are fixed on little Mary, who is laughing at something Henry said.
“She is very beautiful,” I comment. “She is not like the rest of us.”
“How so? We aren’t beautiful?” Thomas returns, his voice bearing the slightest edge of teasing.
My body relaxes at the tone. “Of course we’re beautiful!” I cry. “I mean . . . I mean that she is not like us in that she is completely lacking in guile.”
Thomas regards her a moment longer before turning to me. His face is sober. “That will have to change,” he says. “To be naïve in our world is to be eaten alive.”
I shudder at the thought as I think of my father and his naïve attempts at securing power.
He is right. Mary will have to learn as she grows that innocence and court life seldom mix.
And she is destined for court life. Her father will see to that.
Thomas leaves me again in the summer to raid France. When he returns, it is only to become the lieutenant general of the army against the restless Scots. Alone I wait for him, feeling as though I have spent half my life in waiting: waiting for my husband, waiting for my children, waiting for my life to begin as a wife.
I still have no household of my own. The promise of renovating Kenninghall has been put on hold while Thomas occupies himself with the king’s wars. I know he has no choice and I should be honored that the king graces my husband with such heady responsibilities, but nothing can quite chase away the thought that I long for the life of a country lady. I want my husband beside me. I want to be near him, feel his touch, converse with him. . . .
But he is gone and I sleep alone.
I wait upon Her Grace, who is ever patient and pious. She sets an example of perseverance in the face of disrespect and loneliness, which I try my best to emulate.
“It seems young Mary Carey is to give my husband a child,” says the queen to me one winter afternoon as we embroider by the fire in her apartments.
“Oh, Your Grace,” I say, my tone rich with sympathy. “Are you certain it is not her husband’s?”
“She is sequestered in her own apartments, her husband in the privy chamber,” the queen tells me. “There would be little opportunity for them to be together. And I know my husband.” The face she turns to me is fraught with sadness.
“I am ashamed she is my niece,” I say with fervency. “Ashamed of the Howards and of the Boleyns for encouraging her.”
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Queen Catherine shrugs. Her smile is too sad to be called such. “He tired of the Blount woman after she had a child. Perhaps this marks the end of Mary’s favor as well.”
I say nothing. The king took up with Mary Carey soon after the delivery of his bastard with Bessie Blount. There is no reason to believe he will not adhere to the same pattern of behavior after the delivery of this child.
“But enough lamentations about things we cannot change,” the queen goes on in a voice taut with forced cheer. “Tell me, how goes it with you and yours, Lady Elizabeth? How are your children?”
“I am well,” I say. “And the children are fine. Our Cathy shows a great deal of promise. Mayhap I can present her to you someday? She would make a fine maid. She has all the makings of a great lady.”
“We should love to meet her,” Her Grace says with a little nod.
I expect she is weary of people pursuing her favor regarding placement of their children at court, so I do not persist in the matter.
“And Lord Surrey?” Her Grace’s voice takes on a softer note. “How is my champion?”
I laugh. “He is well, I suppose. Off fighting anyone he can. He . . . loves to fight.” My voice cracks on the word fight.
The queen pauses a moment, as though giving the phrase consideration, then continues in a different vein. “We are sorry to hear of your lord father-in-law’s ill health this year. But it is just that he favors your husband with his duties.”
“Yes,” I say. “But it does keep him busy. I do wish he were home with me. I miss him so.”
“You really love him, don’t you?” asks Her Grace.
I meet her face. It is softened through the veil of my tears. “Yes,” I tell her. “I really love him, for all that he is and isn’t. I cannot help it. Sometimes I do not know why I love him. God knows there are times when he doesn’t deserve it,” I add, shuddering as I recall my Mary’s birth. “But yet . . . yet . . . it is as though he is the vine and I am the fruit. He sustains me; even with all the challenges he presents, his life flows into me and sustains me. Without him I would fall to the ground and wither away. And I truly believe without me he would shrivel and dry up just as a vine unattended. I cannot believe that he doesn’t need me.”
