by Caro, Jane;
When they return, I insist on hearing every detail from Catherine. The world that seems ordinary to others seems very exotic to me. She enjoys telling me of the fun she has had and promises she will show me some of the skills she has learnt from the Gypsies who run the fair.
As we sit together on that long-ago afternoon, Catherine has just persuaded me to shuffle the pack and is arranging the cards according to the Gypsy woman’s instructions.
‘You will marry a great prince, Elizabeth, and bear him many children.’
‘No, I will not. I am going to run away to sea and become a great explorer.’
‘Girls can’t run away to sea.’
‘Well, I will. You just watch me.’
In fact, it was Catherine who would run away to sea, many years later with her husband and her five youngest children. They slipped away from England in the dead of night to escape the wrath of the near-sighted young woman who now sat next to her, laughing at her nonsense. But on that autumn afternoon, more than half a century ago, we had no idea of what was to come. Indeed, that is precisely why Catherine had decided to play the Gypsy and attempt to foretell our future.
‘Don’t be so foolish, Elizabeth. Girls can’t do things like that. We get married and we have babies. You will see I am right when you are not such a baby yourself.’
‘I am not a baby!’ My voice rises in volume. I hate it when the older girls use their superiority in years to put me in my place.
It seems remarkable now to remember a time when I was almost always the youngest in any group, given that for so many years I have been the oldest. All the women in that room on that afternoon are dead now and have been for decades.
At the sound of discord, Mary raises her head from her embroidery. She speaks soothingly, as adults do to calm a child. I can hear her curious deep voice now, as if she is speaking close to my ears. Is my sister calling to me, though she has been dead two score years and more? It will not be long before I join her. For the moment, however, I am four years old, sitting cross-legged on the floor at Hampton Court, chewing on the end of my quill, listening impatiently to her dulcet tones.
‘Maybe you will marry a prince from a foreign land and cross the seas to become his bride? Maybe you can explore new lands and marry a great prince.’
Mary is always sensible. I suppose it is because she is so much older. Already, she has an air of isolation about her. She trusts very few.
But none of those thoughts cross my infant mind that afternoon. I am too full of my own feelings to worry about anyone else. ‘I don’t want to marry anybody. I think boys are horrid.’
I am meant to be copying some Biblical verses for Kat Ashley, but I fling the quill aside, spattering ink on the rug. Mary’s brow furrows. Mess and disorder always disquiet her.
‘And you will be rich! Elizabeth – here – see? I have turned up the jack of spades – Black Jack as many call him. The Gypsy woman told me his bad reputation is undeserved and to turn up such a card denotes great good fortune, but in worldly matters – not romance. His brother the jack of hearts is the card indicating love.’
‘Then you must be going to marry a great prince, because you are not rich now and it is not possible for a woman to earn her own fortune.’ Mary has put aside her stitching and is leaning forward. She is interested in this game, despite her good sense.
‘It is silly superstition!’ I snort.
‘You are right. Our destinies are in the hands of God, not a hand of cards.’
‘Oh, Mary, we all know how pious you are,’ says Catherine, ‘but I’ll warrant you are as curious to hear what the cards foretell for you as any of the rest of us. Here, shuffle them for me.’
And Catherine hands her pack to Mary, who rolls her eyes but shuffles the cards as she is bid. Catherine takes the first card from the pack and immediately her eyes widen with delight. Both Mary and I lean forward, unable to restrain our curiosity.
‘What do the cards tell you? Don’t keep us in suspense!’
I leap up from my copying, narrowly avoid upending the inkpot, and am standing by my cousin, trying to see the card she is hiding in her hands. She ignores me but holds it under my sister’s nose. Mary narrows her eyes so she can bring it into focus.
‘You will marry an emperor. Look!’ And Catherine holds up the king of hearts and flourishes it for all of us to see. ‘It was the very first card in your pack, Mary! And it’s the luckiest card of them all.’
Catherine is a faulty fortune-teller. Of the three of us gathered together on that rainy afternoon, she is the only one who is to be lucky in love.
‘You are not with child again?’
My cousin Catherine Knollys (Carey as she used to be) had just dashed from the room, white as a sheet, hand clapped across her mouth. Now that she had re-entered my chamber she was dabbing at her lips with a damp cloth. A sweat shone on her forehead, testament to the nausea she was battling. She nodded, smiling ruefully. ‘It would seem so, Your Majesty.’
‘Oh, Catherine! How many is it now?’
‘This will be the tenth, I think, Your Grace.’
‘And the last, I hope.’
‘It shall be as God wills it.’
‘And as your husband demands!’
‘It is a wife’s duty to submit.’
‘Ten children are above and beyond the call of duty, surely?’
Catherine’s eyes filled with tears. I saw her distress and so did some of the other ladies in attendance.
I clapped my hands. ‘Be gone, the lot of you. I want to talk to my cousin alone.’
When they had left, Catherine gave full rein to her feelings and wept openly. I sat beside her and took both her hands in mine. ‘Oh, Catherine. I understand your distress.’
‘I am just so tired. I cannot recall when last I felt myself. And the nausea seems to grow worse with each new—’
‘I will reduce your duties and get some of my other women to take on more of your tasks.’
‘No, no, I enjoy serving you. To be at court and have a role and responsibilities takes my mind off my state. Sometimes I think it is all that keeps me sane.’
‘But you are always so ill in the beginning. It breaks my heart to watch you suffer.’
‘It passes. In only a few weeks I will feel more like myself again.’
‘Does Francis – can he – does he treat you with the respect you deserve when you are carrying his child?’
‘Francis is a good husband and a considerate one. We love each other and the consequences of that are … well … as you see before you.’
‘I worry for your health and your strength. I could not bear to lose you.’
‘I haven’t died of it, yet, Your Grace.’
‘You are built to endure, that is true. But after each confinement you return to me a little thinner and a little darker under the eyes. I do not like to watch you grow frail. Can your husband not see what I see and leave you alone?’
‘A man has needs.’
‘That’s as may be, but surely there are plenty of women at court who could take care of them?’
At this suggestion Catherine bridled. ‘What you suggest is a sin, and Francis is a loyal husband.’
‘Yet I cannot see the virtue in wearing out a good wife in child-bearing. Surely ten children, with almost as many lads as lasses, is enough for any man?’
‘We love our children, Your Majesty. They bring us great joy.’
‘I am not suggesting you get rid of any you have got. I am just wondering at the cost of adding to their number. You must care for yourself too, as well as care for them.’
It strikes me again, at the end of my life, that the dreams young girls have for the future are terribly sad. Perhaps that is why I have always been irritated when the young women around me – so full of promise and potential – fall in love. I fear for them. I�
�d rather they married for more prosaic reasons – such as money and a title. There is much comfort to be found in those.
Even Catherine quickly discovered the real consequences of the romantic nonsense we stuff into girls’ heads. The popular ballads of love and tales of chivalry and white knights have a lot to answer for. Slender, nimble little Catherine, who married for love at sixteen was rewarded with decades of discomfort, pain, exhaustion and – in the end – an untimely death. Happily-ever-after is a false promise for everyone, but especially for girls.
My cousin (or half-sister) was cursed with fecundity. She eventually birthed sixteen children – eight boys and eight girls. Most of them lived. Her third child was Lettice Knollys. I showed the young Lettice great favour because of my love for her mother and, when she grew old enough, I did not hesitate to make her one of my ladies of the bedchamber alongside Catherine. She performed her duties well enough, at first, and it was clear Catherine was proud of her. I indulged that pride and it was a mistake.
In the end, the mother was loyal, but the daughter was not. Lettice betrayed my trust and married Robin – my Robin – behind my back. I banished her from the court and I have not seen her since.
Lettice was a beauty when she was young. I have no idea how she looks now but she lives on quietly (I sincerely hope not contentedly) with her third husband – or is it her fourth? I have lost count. I was fond of her once – she was a fetching enough child – but never as fond as I was of her mother.
I am kind to all Catherine’s children and give them preferences and sinecures, as she would have wanted, but in my heart I keep each one at arm’s length. They did not mean to kill the woman who gave them life – children never do – but I cannot help feeling that their vigour slowly drained hers.
Catherine was only forty-four when she died and I was but three and thirty. Although I was a seasoned monarch by then, I needed her to live longer. The men who surrounded me were both loyal and able, but Catherine was my closest female peer and friend. I loved Kat and Blanche and the others of my attendants who had served me loyally through fair times and foul, but Catherine was my cousin and not my subordinate. I needed her love and wise counsel as much as any of her children did – maybe more. After all, did any of them rule a kingdom? I remember the dread I felt as I watched her fade with each subsequent pregnancy. As they grew in number, I gave up any pretence of being happy for her.
There were not many people I could talk to as frankly as I could to Catherine. It is lonely being a queen. I lived in fear that each new confinement would kill my friend.
Her husband, knowing my concern, always sent me news as soon as the child was born. Within weeks of the birth, she was back at court, my friend and companion once more. Each time she returned I pleaded with her to make this child the last. Each time she nodded, smiled and ignored me entirely. It was only with her sixteenth child that I was able to wring a promise from her. ‘This one will be the last, surely? You must see how thin you have become, despite your enormous belly.’
‘Yes. Francis and I have agreed that we will have no more children after this.’
‘I wish you had made that decision some time ago. You have worn yourself to a shred.’
‘I will be pleased not to have to undergo the rigours of the childbed, Your Grace, that is certain. But I will miss the lovely, wriggling little creatures that are God’s reward for such travails.’
‘Babies are appealing. Yours especially. They are always so chubby and vigorous.’
‘Yes, we have been blessed with sturdy children.’
‘Which is why you do not need to have any more. Give your poor body a rest and a chance to recover its own health and vigour. You will be no help to this child if you are left an invalid – or worse.’
‘I intend to take my pleasures as a grandmother now and leave the child-bearing to my daughters.’
Robert Devereux, who later became the Earl of Essex, was one of the grandchildren my dear friend hoped to take delight in. If only she had lived long enough. After Catherine was delivered of her sixteenth child, her body could stand no more. Like so many brought to childbed, she took a fever and died. I mourned her as I did few others.
‘I will pay for a monument to your wife, my lord.’
‘That is gracious of you, Your Majesty. I know she loved you very well.’
‘As I did her. I will miss her very much.’
‘Yes, many will miss her.’ As he spoke, despite the formality of his language, the great courtier’s voice broke and Francis Knollys could not contain his grief. I was glad he wept for her, but I was also angry with him and resentful that his pleasure had so destroyed my friend.
‘Could you not have let her alone, my lord? Could you not see she was worn out from child-bearing?’
‘It is what women are created to do, she more than most.’
‘Perhaps so, but why must it kill so many of us, I wonder?’
‘It is not for us to question God’s will, Your Majesty.’
‘You sound like a priest, my lord.’
‘She never complained, you see. She never said that she minded so many pregnancies, so many children.’
‘She dreaded the childbed. She told me so often, particularly as her time grew near. She told me that the pain of bringing a new life into the world was like no other. Her face would go white when she told me this and she would grip my hand so tightly it hurt.’
‘She never said as much to me.’
‘Did you ever ask her?’
‘When I asked her how she did, after each churching, she always smiled and told me she did very well. I believed her and enquired no further. And she loved our children – all our pretty ones. They gave her great joy.’
‘I do not doubt that, and now you have them all to remember her by.’
‘Yes, the children are a comfort to me as they were to her.’
‘I tell you frankly, I would rather have Catherine back among us, as she was when she was young and full of the vitality of youth, than any number of her progeny.’
‘We must trust that we will all be reunited in heaven.’
‘You are sounding like a priest again, Francis. It does not become you.’
We were silent for a moment or two, both consumed by memories of the woman we had loved, perhaps. Then Francis broke the silence by telling me again what I already knew.
‘She loved you, Your Grace, above all other women.’
‘And, I say it again, I loved her.’
‘May I have your permission to withdraw? My heart is sore, and I cannot trust myself to remain composed.’
I did not answer as I also felt very close to shedding tears; instead I merely gestured my assent. Then, as Catherine’s bereaved husband bowed his way out of the room, I said one last phrase to him that caused him to lose control entirely. ‘Cor rotto, my lord.’
Or, in English, ‘my heart is broken’.
I had used that phrase to his wife once before, a long time ago, when I was a mere princess and my sister Mary was queen.
Francis and Catherine Knollys were devout Protestants and had therefore prospered under the rule of my similarly pious brother, King Edward. When my Catholic sister Mary inherited the throne, all of us who were of the Protestant faith felt the ground shift. Catherine and I hoped that the early companionship among the three of us when we were young and unimportant might give us some protection. But we felt the cold wind that was blowing. My troubles are well known. I spent the years of Mary’s rule under suspicion and, not infrequently, under arrest.
Nevertheless, Francis and Catherine were much more vulnerable. Being the heir to the throne gave me some protection. My fate was being watched by the whole world. Outside of England, Francis and Catherine were unknown and therefore invisible. Mary could have rid herself of them without consequence.
As the persecutions of Protestants
increased, like many others who shared the new faith, Francis, Catherine and some of their children took flight and sought sanctuary in Frankfurt. Before they left, they confided in me. I was devastated when I heard of their plans. As a young woman, precariously placed in line to the English throne, I never felt I had many friends. Under Mary, I felt particularly alone. Even those who had sworn their love for me now turned their backs. The loss of my childhood companion and playmate therefore was doubly hard, but I did not try to dissuade them. I would rather Catherine alive and at a distance than dead and buried nearby, and I knew exactly how much danger she was in. However, I could not let her leave without saying some kind of goodbye. I did not know then if we would ever see each other again, if either of us would survive.
There was little time between news of the Knollys’ imminent departure and the night of their sailing and I knew it was folly to even consider trying to see Catherine face to face. My every move was watched and monitored. Instead, I was forced to dash off a note at the full pitch of my fear and loneliness. ‘The length of time and distance of place does not separate love of friends, nor stop the show of goodwill.’
It is always dangerous to cross the seas and travel to foreign places. It showed just how threatened they were that Catherine and Francis felt it safer to place their lives and those of their children at the whim of the capricious Channel than to stay in Mary’s England.
‘… when your need shall be most you shall find my friendship greatest. Let others promise, and I will do, in deeds rather than words. My power is but small …’ (Small? It was almost non-existent at that time.) ‘… my love as great as them who give you lavish gifts to tell their friendship’s tale …’
How I wished I could have done something – anything – to prevent the necessity of their flight, but I could not even guarantee my own survival, let alone theirs. I continued to pour out my distress upon the page.
‘And to conclude, a word that I can hardly say, I must write “farewell”, it is in one way what I wish, yet in another way what I grieve.’
And then, as the messenger charged with delivering my hastily scribbled epistle shifted urgently behind my chair, I signed the letter.
