Читать книгу Beware, Princess Elizabeth - Carolyn Meyer - Страница 11

During the weeks and months after my father’s death and the accession of my brother to the throne, I heard little from my sister, Mary. She did send me a gift on the occasion of my fourteenth birthday, in September, a pretty pair of kidskin gloves embroidered with pearls. I wrote to thank her, but otherwise I did not write to her at all.

I didn’t see her until Christmas, when we were summoned to court by King Edward. Mary arrived adorned in jewels and all sorts of finery, and she looked in better health than she had at our father’s funeral. We greeted each other as sisters must, smiling and exchanging pleasantries.

But they were only pleasantries. In truth Mary and I had little in common; a difference of seventeen years in age counted for much. Under other circumstances – had she not so hated my mother – Mary might have been a mother to me, as she had been to Edward.

Mary must have been as bewildered as I was by the changes that had taken place in our younger brother. Edward at the age of ten was but a slim boy, still a long way from growing into manhood. Yet he appeared determined to live up to his role as our father’s son. He behaved as though he already completely filled the shoes of our father!

I ran to embrace him, as I always had. But instead of welcoming me as he once would have, Edward folded his spindly arms across his chest and, frowning, made a sign to his uncle the lord protector.

“My lady Elizabeth,” Edward Seymour intoned in that arrogant voice that I so despised, “you are ordered to kneel five times in the king’s presence.”

Five times! Even our father, who demanded every display of respect from his subjects, had never required that I kneel more than three times! I had learned as a young child never to question the king’s will, and so I did now as I was bidden. Only then did King Edward greet me, solemnly holding out his hand so that I might kiss the large ruby ring he wore on his thumb. My brother’s behaviour seemed ridiculous, even pathetic. Perhaps, I thought, he must act this way in order to feel that he is really and truly the king.

At each of the nightly Yuletide banquets, my brother sat at the centre of the long table with his little dog on his lap. Above him hung the cloth of estate, an elaborate canopy signifying that he – and only he – was the sovereign. Mary and I were led to stools placed far down the table, far enough away from Edward to make certain we weren’t in any way covered by that cloth of estate. I wondered if Mary was as irked by this as I was, perhaps even wounded, but she gave no sign, and I decided to make no comment.

It was only when Edward and I were occasionally alone during the visit, when he forgot his posturing and once again called me his Sweet Sister Temperance, his affectionate name for me, that I felt I was with my own dear brother again. Yet the moment Edward Seymour or any of the privy councillors entered the room, Edward immediately became the imperious monarch again, and I was expected to play the role of the obedient subject.

When the season ended, after Twelfth Night, Mary and I left court and went our separate ways without once having spent any time alone together, and I wondered if I had lost my brother for ever to the manipulation of his advisers.

IN JANUARY of 1548 London suffered another outbreak of the plague, which carried off my tutor, William Grindal. I mourned him, and then I set about persuading my stepmother that I wished to have the noted scholar Roger Ascham as my tutor in his stead. Catherine had someone else in mind, and so I took my appeal to the lord admiral. I was quite certain of my ability to cajole him, and I knew that Catherine would do whatever Tom decided.

“And do you always get what you want, my lady Elizabeth?” Tom asked in his teasing way.

“Whenever possible, my lord,” I said, offering a sweet smile.

“Then you shall have your Master Ascham,” he said, patting my arm. And so I did.

I HAD BEEN living under my stepmother’s roof for a year when Catherine called me into her chamber one day when Tom was away. She looked tired. I was alarmed to see her lying listlessly on her couch.

“Are you unwell, madam?” I asked.

“I am quite well, Elizabeth,” she said, and she smiled wanly. “I am with child.” She reached out and grasped my hand in both of hers.

This was another shock to me. I was pleased for her – in her three previous marriages she had borne no children, although those marriages had brought her stepchildren. And now, at last, this. But Catherine was not young. Bearing a child would not be easy for her.

I uttered all the proper words to wish her well, but I’m ashamed to say that I still hadn’t banished my yearning for the man who was her husband. More and more I invented excuses to be where he would notice me; I insisted that he must hear me play a new piece upon the virginals or admire a bit of my needlework. My laughter, when Tom was present, pealed a little too loudly.

It is impossible to imagine that Catherine had overlooked my behaviour. Kat frowned. More than once even little Jane Grey raised her eyebrows, as though sensing something amiss. At times I feared that someone would write to my sister, Mary, who would censure me or

– worse yet – speak to my brother, the king. Edward was becoming unbearably prudish; if he suspected that my heart raced and my hands grew damp in the presence of the lord admiral, what would Edward have said to me? What would he have done? He could have sent me to languish far away from Tom and the queen. I shuddered at the trouble in which I could have found myself. Yet I could not stop. Then I did an immensely foolish thing, and it changed everything.

One afternoon Lady Jane and I had laboured at our lessons for hours. Professor Ascham prodded us relentlessly as we pored over our books. I had never thought our classroom gloomy before, but suddenly I could bear it no longer. It was late spring, and the weather was warm, sweet, tender. At last we closed our books, laid aside our pens, blotted our papers. While Jane lingered to debate some fine point of Greek grammar with the tutor, I escaped towards the outdoors and the fresh air.

As I rushed through a doorway leading to the stairwell, I collided headlong with the lord admiral. In his usual rambunctious way, Tom caught me in his arms. For a moment we stared at each other. The next moment I found my lips pressed upon his. I did not pull away from the embrace, nor did he.

Then suddenly I heard a shocked voice. “My lord!” Catherine cried. “Elizabeth!”

We drew quickly apart. My stepmother stood on the stairway above us. The lacings of her gown were already stretched tight across her belly, and she looked old and worn. Tom hurried up the stairs to her, protesting, excusing, making a joke. I could not even bear to look at her. I fled to my chambers, my legs trembling and my face hot with shame and embarrassment.

Kat was reading as I rushed in and flung myself miserably upon my bed. “My lady!” Kat exclaimed, dropping her book. “What is it? Are you ill?”

“My stomach pains me.” I wept into my pillow. “The monthly curse.”

“Let me bring you a potion of herbs,” she said.

Obediently I drank the bitter liquid, which did nothing to ease what afflicted me.

That evening I sent word that I was unwell and would not join the others at supper. A servant appeared at my door with a tray. “The dowager queen has sent this for you,” she said, and set the tray on my table. But I couldn’t bring myself to eat even a morsel.

The next day I received a short note written in Catherine’s hand. There was no mention of the scene she had witnessed, only the message that she and the lord admiral would soon leave for Sudeley Castle, where they would await the birth of their child. I was to spend the summer not with them at Sudeley, as I had before, but with Sir Anthony Denny, a gentleman of the privy chamber, and his wife, Joan, at their country house in Cheshunt. I was well acquainted with them, for Lady Joan Denny was Kat’s sister.

I look forward to happy reports from you of a pleasant summer, Catherine wrote.

I am forever grateful to the queen. She sent me away not only to preserve her marriage but to preserve my reputation, which could have been permanently damaged if I had remained any longer in the presence of Tom Seymour.

Still deeply ashamed of what had happened, I presented myself on the day after Whitsunday in the queen’s chambers to make my farewells. “Oh, Your Majesty,” I stammered, but my words were halted by a rush of tears.

“It is all right, Elizabeth,” she said kindly, and wiped my tears with her own handkerchief. “I understand. Truly I do. Now go.” And she pushed me gently away.

Catherine and I exchanged letters throughout the summer. For the most part my life became a scholarly one, which suited me well, for it occupied my mind. Most of the day was spent with Mr Ascham, reading the New Testament in Greek and translating the works of Cicero and Livy from Latin to English and then back into Latin again.

I did miss Jane Grey, who was at Sudeley Castle with Catherine and Tom. But I had Kat, and her sister Lady Joan was a jolly sort who never let on that she knew the cause of my exile, although she had certainly heard of it from Kat.

AT THE BEGINNING of September, we received joyous news at Cheshunt from Tom Seymour of the birth of a healthy infant daughter, to be named Mary. But only days later my joy turned to sorrow when a messenger brought news of Catherine’s death. My grief at her loss was compounded by the guilt I felt. Had I somehow contributed to her death by my actions? Then I heard that Jane Grey had taken the role of chief mourner at her funeral. I knew that I had forfeited that privilege with my heedless behaviour. Lady Jane was far more virtuous than I and deserved the role.

GRIEF CONSUMED ME. I wept, slept little, ate next to nothing. Queen Catherine had been my champion, my supporter. What would happen to me now that she was gone? Perhaps, I dared to hope, Tom would come to my rescue. How naive I was still! Soon after my fifteenth birthday, I returned with my household to Hatfield Palace and waited.

“You watch,” Kat whispered one night behind our bed curtains. “Tom Seymour will come courting you as soon as he decently can.” It was as though Kat could read my most secret thoughts and desires. “He intends to have you as his wife after all. He has even kept on all of the queen’s servants. Lady Jane has returned to her parents’ home. Why else would he need a household of two hundred, save for a princess bride?”

“I cannot imagine,” I murmured, unwilling to confess even to Kat that I had entertained this notion.

“You do not want to be like your sister, Mary, now, do you, growing old alone?” Kat persisted.

I did not. But I didn’t know then how much my world had changed.

I received no Yuletide invitation to court from my brother, and that troubled me. Had he heard about the reason for my stay at Cheshunt? Had Tom admitted something? I feared that Edward was punishing me by banishing me from court, and several times I tried to write to him. But I could not think what to say, and each effort ended in pieces of parchment torn up and flung away.

One morning in January of 1549, as I prepared to go to chapel, I heard Kat scream. I ran down the staircase and saw Kat and Mr Parry, my cofferer, surrounded by guards in the king’s livery. The guards had dragged them out of the palace.

I rushed towards Kat, but Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, a member of the privy council, blocked my way. “Lady Elizabeth,” he said, bowing respectfully.

“Where are you taking them?” I cried.

“To the Tower of London.”

“But why? By whose order?”

“For questioning, by order of His Majesty, King Edward,” said Sir Robert.

I ran after the guards and tried to fling myself upon Kat. One of the guards seized and held me roughly. I was forced to watch helplessly as the prisoners were taken away. Kat was wailing, Mr Parry repeating, “I am innocent, I am innocent.”

When they had gone Sir Robert turned his attention to me, as I stood alone and trembling. Eyebrows wild as brambles gave him a fearsome look. “The lord admiral, baron of Sudeley, has been arrested,” he said gravely. “And the members of the privy council have a number of questions for you, madam.”

“Arrested! But why?” I collapsed on to a nearby bench, my mind racing: What has he done? Why am I to be questioned? Then, as calmly as I could manage, I asked, “I beg you, Sir Robert, tell me what has happened.”

In sombre tones Sir Robert described the events leading up to Tom Seymour’s arrest. “The lord admiral went late one night to the king’s bedchamber, planning to kidnap him. When the king’s little dog began to bark, the lord admiral shot and killed the dog. The guards discovered the lord admiral and seized him.”

“My God!” I cried. “What are the charges against him?”

“There are many, all treasonous,” Sir Robert informed me. “The gravest charge is his attempt to kidnap the king. But it seems that the baron was scheming to marry you, Lady Elizabeth, without seeking the permission of the king, the privy council, or the lord protector.”

“To marry me?” I felt faint. “But there is no truth in this allegation!”

Sir Robert continued as though I had not spoken. “To marry an heir to the throne without the king’s permission is an act of treason, punishable by death. It was believed that Mistress Ashley and Mr Parry knew of Baron Sudeley’s plan and agreed to help him.”

I was stunned. Sir Robert escorted me to my chambers, but before I could gather my wits, his interrogation began. Did Mr Parry and Mistress Ashley plot to marry you to the lord admiral? No? Are you quite certain? Think carefully. There was a plot, was there not? Please do not lie, madam. The truth will be found out.

Over and over Sir Robert, eyes fierce as a hawk’s, insisted that I knew more than I was admitting. And I did! I could not forget all those midnight conversations with Kat: He intends to have you as his wife after all. But those were not a plot – only speculation, without any substance! I knew that I must show no weakness, confess nothing, not even the most innocent conversation. If necessary, I must lie, and lie well.

Everything depended upon my convincing replies. Over and over I denied the accusations, all the while beside myself with worry about what might be happening to Kat and Mr Parry in the Tower and what confessions might be wrung from them by torture or threats of it.