Just a Girl (16 page)

Others at court considered the same scenarios, and
took their lead from Philip. From being shunned and excluded, treated as the Great Whore's daughter or spawn of Mark Smeaton, my stakes rose. Great ladies dropped me deep curtsies once more, precedence was yielded to me, courtiers gathered about me, eager to flatter, praise, to catch my ear and my eye. People peddled me gossip, and tried to curry my favour for their friends and my enmity for their enemies. The contrast to my long imprisonment could not have been more extreme, but I let myself enjoy my change of circumstance, secure in the knowledge that I did not believe a single word said to me.

How those long weeks must have felt for the poor queen, I do not like to consider. Slowly it must have begun to dawn on her that there was no child, nay and never had been, that something much more sinister grew in her womb, cruelly mocking her fondest hopes. But as long as no official announcement was made, the daily prayers and processions for the safe delivery of the queen continued, through June, into July and eventually, desperately, into August.

‘Begging your pardon, my lady, but the court is to go to Oatlands.' Elizabeth Sands bobbed into her characteristically jerky curtsy in front of us. Philip and I had just returned from our morning ride. We were flushed and laughing from the exercise, and some absurd joke that the King of Spain had just stood up on
tiptoe to deliver into my ear. Now our laughter died as rapidly as it had bubbled up.

‘When, Elizabeth?'

‘On the morrow, my lady – Your Majesty.'

‘
All
the court?' Philip's tone was redolent of meaning.

‘Aye, Your Majesty.'

‘Including the queen and–'

‘Just the queen, Your Majesty.'

He nodded with an air of finality and we stood and waited for my maidservant to retire to a distance.

‘So there was no child,' he said, once she was out of hearing.

‘It seems not, Your Majesty.'

‘Her doctors have lately hinted as much.'

I stayed expressionless and he just nodded, but no further words were spoken. It was as if the child that had never been, had never even been expected. ‘So, to Oatlands.' He rubbed his small hands together vigorously, and I took his full meaning – child or no, we could at last move on.

‘With permission, I shall not come with you, Your Majesty.'

‘Why ever not?' He seemed genuinely disappointed.

‘I have business to attend to.'

‘Surely any business can wait.' His face softened to such an extent, that my own felt suddenly warm. ‘I would miss you, Elizabeth.'

‘It is urgent business, Your Majesty, and my steward has requested my immediate attention.' I lowered my eyes, fully aware that the king kept his upon me for some time.

‘If you must go, Elizabeth, then far be it from me to detain you. You have our permission not to accompany the court to Oatlands.' Perhaps he had understood.

‘Thank you, Your Majesty.' I curtsied low and, slapping his riding gloves hard against one thigh, he left me. I appreciated his understanding and sympathy. Many would have bullied me to be more expansive, but there are times when it is better for those who could say much to say little. I did not wish to see my poor sister until the bitter disappointment of her situation had receded, and I was all too sure that she in her turn would not wish to see me. No matter how sympathetic I tried to be, she would know that her shame was my great triumph. Now she had emerged from this curious self-imposed incarceration my future once more depended on remaining in her favour. The sight of me at this moment would merely accentuate the loss of all she had hoped for and all she had believed that God had granted her. It would do neither of us any good.

So I retreated from the court and returned to the relative safety and quiet of Hatfield. The queen resumed her duties as if nothing untoward had happened, but the ribald and disrespectful stories that circulated in the taverns about her tragic self-deception were also repeated to me. I will repeat none of them here. We monarchs may be called all-powerful rulers, yet even more than other mere mortals we cannot escape the judgement of our fellow men and the brutality of their opinions, when we fall from grace. Far too early in her reign, my sister's desperate desire to bear a child had tarnished her currency and begun to corrode the respect in which she was held. It is a lesson I must also learn. Queens are judged more harshly than kings. My father could have six wives and remain in higher esteem than my sister, who simply failed to bear one child.

When I did meet the queen again many months
later, she was changed almost beyond recognition. Always an unhealthy woman, easily laid low by physical ailments and their attendant melancholy, the woman I saw when I returned to court, was shrivelled and shrunken. Her great and poisonous belly was visible despite the harsh lacing of her corsets. She sat on her throne as if cast there like a sack of barley, slumped to one side as if her back no longer had the strength to hold her upright. She made an effort to greet me as I entered her presence, smiling and bidding me approach with gestures of welcome. I had to fight to master my shock at her changed appearance. She looked a woman many years older than her actual age; a woman who was dying and, worse, had few regrets about it. She had a distracted air, as if she paid but cursory attention to what was going on around her. Her depression of spirit was obvious to all who beheld her and, while I well knew her death would be my salvation, as her sister I was deeply sorry to see her like this.

‘Your Majesty,' I said, making my obeisance.

‘Sister. It has been many months since I have seen you. Have you completed the business that kept you from our sight?'

‘Aye, madam, and glad I am to see you well recovered.'

The spasm that crossed her face in response made me regret my words, which came from politeness only. ‘Thank you,' she said, and paused as if unable to
remember who I was or what she might be required to say next.

‘How is your husband the king, Your Majesty?' I was well aware that he had waited no longer than absolutely necessary before leaving the prematurely old and sickly woman who was his wife.

‘He is well, though gone back to Spain. He has promised to return ere long, and I must be patient. But I miss him so. I feel distracted with all this masculine business pressing upon me. I need his wise and experienced counsel.'

‘Indeed, Your Majesty. The King of Spain will be sorely missed.' She looked up at me as I spoke and some of her old wariness returned.

‘That's right, I had forgot – he left a message for you. He said to tell you how grateful he was for your kindness to him over the summer, and how he had endeavoured to repay you, though what he meant by that, I know not, for he left you neither gift nor token.'

‘Nay, madam, and none was expected. It is thanks enough to know he thought of me before he left for Spain.'

When the queen leant forward and took hold of my hand, the heat and dryness of her small fingers surprised me. She lowered her voice so none but the two of us could hear. ‘Thank you indeed for your kindness. I worried about how angry he would be with
me, but he upbraided me not at all. He was also kind, so kind. Kindness begets kindness, no doubt, and he bid me be kind to you. So for his sake I shall do my best, Elizabeth. I promise.'

There was something childlike about her, something of the earnest little girl promising to do better and pleading for approval. She touched my heart. ‘Your Majesty has always been kind to me.'

‘Nay, not so, not so and my husband chided me for it. He is a great man, Elizabeth, a saint. Not many would forgive their wives so readily. I am trying to follow his fine example and forgive.'

I did not know how to reply to her. Her demeanour threatened to unleash in me tears of pity and I felt if I attempted to speak, they would flow freely and I would be undone. Instead I blinked and swallowed hard. She did not speak either, but continued to hold my hand in silence, patting and stroking it, as if it were a little dog or cat, in need of placating.

Yet, put not your faith in princes. My sister had always blown both hot and cold on me, and while in her bewilderment she had my sympathy, I did not know whether her changed attitude towards me would once more wane. I remained prepared to be again cast out into the shadowy reaches of her suspicion and displeasure, as I had been so precipitously the last time she had been kind to me. But there was no denying there was a new
note in the way she looked upon me, the softness in her voice when she spoke to me – or even
of
me. If Philip liked me, then, it seemed she liked me too.

Yet I trod warily. Many of the other Catholics at court liked not this change in attitude, but they realised that Philip had not been made less powerful by his absence; rather, immeasurably more so. The queen wrote to him almost daily, seeking his counsel and advice. When she needed to make decisions quickly, she prayed God to tell her what Philip would have her do. Whatever he had said to her before he left, whatever advice or commands he had given, were to be obeyed slavishly. I thanked God quietly that he had seen fit to ask his wife to be kind to me. Nevertheless, I knew that court is always a difficult and dangerous place, particularly for an unmarried princess, who was now more likely than ever to inherit the throne. But the one step the queen still would not take was to acknowledge me as her heir.

In the absence of any firm decision about my status, rumours about my future flew around the court more or less continuously. I was to be sent to Spain, I was to be sent to Brussels, married to a prince of Denmark, to Philip's ten-year-old son Don Carlos or to a prince of France. I paid no mind and kept my own counsel. One delight was afforded me: my old tutor Roger Ascham arrived at court and took up a place as Latin secretary to the queen. Because his duties were light, we were soon
able to resume our lessons together. It did me much good to see his wise and kindly face once more and we read together in Greek and in Latin.

‘You comprehend it all perfectly, Your Grace,' he said to me, one afternoon as we finished reading the orations of Aeschines and Demosthenes on the crown. I knew he did not mean to compliment me only on my grasp of the Greek, but also on my understanding of their ideas, their observations on statecraft. His praise still had the power to make me feel overwhelmed.

‘It is in my interests to comprehend such wisdom, Master Ascham,' I said, lowering my gaze to hide my pleasure as best I could.

‘Aye, my lady.' As he put the book down, his expression grew serious. ‘But for some in your exalted position, all the wisdom in the world cannot prevent them drowning under the tidal wave of events and of other men's ambitions.'

‘You speak of my cousin.' I kept my voice low. Although no attendants were in sight, it remained dangerous to speak of traitors recently executed.

He nodded. His eyes were brimming with tears and when one slid down his cheek, he wiped at it quickly with the back of his hand. I reached across to him. ‘Such talent,' he said, his voice thick with tears, ‘such understanding, such discipline of spirit and beauty of soul – oh, how my blood froze when I heard of her
execution, even as hers flowed. Such a waste, my lady.' And now many tears followed the first.

‘Hush, shhh,' I said, looking about me, terrified that someone might hear his heartfelt but unwise words.

‘You must be careful, my lady, ever vigilant. Do nothing – I mean it – nothing to arouse suspicion. You owe it to God to live – and to your lost cousin. You have a native wit and understanding fully equal to hers. Yours, at least, must survive long enough to fulfil its purpose.'

‘And I fully intend it to, Master Ascham, if people like you will only stop saying foolish things that could land me in the very trouble you exhort me so heartily to avoid.'

He stopped his tears at that and recollected where we were and the extreme danger there was in talking freely about such things. He caught his hand to his mouth. ‘Oh, my lady, you are right. What folly of mine this is! Sitting here, reading these books with you, transported me to that earlier time and my – my recollections were too vivid and too painful to remain unexpressed. I am so sorry, my lady. Forgive my fond teacher's heart.'

‘There is nought to forgive, good master. No harm has been done, no one heard our words, but we must not speak so again.'

He nodded and returned, a little chastened and with a great sniff, to Aeschines and Demosthenes.

Despite its melancholy nature, I left our encounter with a lightness of heart and step that I remember with pleasure to this moment. I had always believed he preferred the Lady Jane to me and thought her scholarship more pure and disciplined. I was older, lazier, more wilful and I never forgot the sting of shame I felt when he admonished me for my foolish and near-wanton behaviour with the admiral. Yet now he had said I was her equal and wept over the need to keep me safe and out of reach of the horrible fate that had severed poor Jane's wise head from her shoulders.

True to his word, Master Ascham and I never spoke of the Lady Jane again, not even when I returned to Hatfield and he took leave to come and visit me from time to time. I knew he had not lost his sense of mission, however, for he was relentless in his expectations, allowing me no respite in mastering the wisdom of those who had ruled, or of those who had analysed rulers. And, for a time, I was happy with my tutor and my intensive program of study, with my people and my household, living quietly in the countryside. The relaxation was wonderful and, though none spoke of it, we all had a sense that our life in the wings was drawing to a close, if not this year, then the next or the one after that. For a time, I was content. I had begun my preparation for the day that is rapidly dawning for me outside my windows, as I pause to dip my quill in the ink.

Some in the palace are rising. I can hear the creaking of floorboards as maids and manservants scurry about their early morning business. The Tower's famous ravens are in full cry beneath my window and the light pushing insistently past the window coverings has changed from pale grey to gold. But I sit here in bodily form only. My spirit remains in Hatfield, sitting in a corner of the hall, studying with my tutor, or poring over documents with my surveyor, William Cecil. Together we had determined to keep our heads low and allow the winds of crisis and drama to blow by us, barely ruffling a hair.

As time crawled by and still the Catholic queen and – through her – the Spanish king determined England's destiny, others grew impatient. Events beyond our control once more inevitably rattled our hard-won equilibrium. Early in 1556, Cardinal Pole uncovered a rebellion involving yet another party of Protestant hotheads who were making wild plans to depose my sister, put me on the throne and marry me off to Edward Courtenay the Earl of Devonshire, without so much as a by-your-leave. At Hatfield, we had become weary of such foolishness and Cecil counselled silence. His policy seemed a wise one as, even in the face of the opportunity, the government left me alone, following up the thwarted plot with no arrest warrant for me or summons to explain myself at court. Could it be I was still protected by Philip's favour? Or was
it my own popularity and my sister's evident ill-health and the impossibility that she would ever bear sons that kept danger from my door? Was it because I was the future and even my enemies knew it? I had entered that strange half-life that sometimes surrounds the second person in the kingdom, when the slow decline of the ruling monarch means wise men must demonstrate double loyalties, if they can.

But resentment of the likely future from some of the more fanatical Catholics in Mary's government caused them to strike at me in other ways, hounding my friends and my servants. They searched Somerset House and found a cache of anti-Catholic pamphlets. Not all my servants were as wise and circumspect as William Cecil, it seemed. They declared Kat Ashley, my Italian master, Baptista Castiglione, and one of my gentlemen, Francis Verney, to be the source of these seditious documents. Only God knew the truth of such accusations; no doubt many of my friends had become a little overconfident in the face of what they saw as a fast approaching favourable future.