Just a Girl (3 page)

It is colder; a sudden chill runs up my spine. I pull my gown tighter about me and rise and place another log on the fire. Kat admonishes me for such independence. She shakes her finger and tells me that, as queen, I should not sully myself so. But time to myself is so precious now, I would not part with it for want of a log on a dying fire. My back aches a little. It is good to get up and stretch my limbs. There is no light in the sky yet, and no chance of it for hours, no dawn chorus, no sound from the famous ravens, whose presence, say the legends, protects not just this ancient castle, but the whole of the realm – my realm. How strange and eerie those words sound, even within the confines of my own head. How strange to find myself accommodated once again within these forbidding walls, not as prisoner, but as queen. And yet, how discomfiting it is also to remember that those who dwell here as prisoners do so in my name.

When Queen Anne departed from the court, no one missed her, except Mary and I. Child that I was, I begrudged her loss, my heart boiling with resentment that such a kind lady had been taken away from us. As children will, I blamed everyone for the circumstance: my father, Mary, even the poor lady herself. I was to learn the folly of my childish petulance only too quickly.

I am cold again, although the fire blazes. I shiver and yet I perspire, for my reminiscences have brought me to a moment I would rather forget. A silent and watchful child, I was eight when my father parted from his fourth wife; my joy was in my books, my brother, my sister, and my faithful ladies. I was not cruelly treated, my needs were met, my clothes fitted more often, I shared my brother's tutors. I was a mere lady still, but like Mary, a strange one. We girls were acknowledged to be as much our father's children as Edward, but, as I have said, the king spent little time with us. Unlike our brother, we were not personages of importance. Yet such is the nature of courts and palaces, we knew much of what was going on. Servants and courtiers pass on what they hear and talk about it to one another, and they passed it on to us. We knew my father was again in love and contemplating yet another marriage. We also knew with what scorn and amusement the court watched the old man's antics with a lovely young girl.

Katharine Howard was seventeen years old when
she attracted my father's eye – younger even than Mary. Katharine was my mother's cousin, but I knew her not. She came to court as an attendant to Anne of Cleves, and immediately drew attention to herself. She was pretty; she delighted people with her charm and exuberance. It was while he was still married to Anne that my father became fascinated by the youngest and prettiest of her ladies. Perhaps his appetite had been whetted for marriage.

No sooner was he free of the woman we now called Lady Anne than my father came in great state on one of his rare and much anticipated visits to his daughters' apartments. He came with a laughing Katharine on his arm, sweeping all before him as he strode to our neglected corner of the palace. The great and the good – his ever-present entourage – squeezed into our small rooms and Mary and I hid our surprise with our curtsies, but we were wary as always of what was to come.

‘Katharine,' he boomed, ‘these are your new daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth.' Then, to us, still bent low before him, ‘Stand up, stand up and let my betrothed look at you.'

We stood and Katharine immediately sank into a curtsy herself. It was confusing to remember who took precedence over whom, when a woman's status could change as quickly as it did in my father's court. But
my father, flush with foolish love, was in a fine mood. Instead of berating his young betrothed, he threw back his head and laughed. As always, the court took their cue from him and laughed delightedly along with him. Katharine blushed and stood, then winked at us broadly. My sister and I kept our own faces expressionless. As our father's new love rose to her full height, he threw a heavy arm around her shoulder and spoke to us again.

‘Well, my daughters, what think you? Is she not a beauty, a woman without peer?' He turned her pretty face towards his and chucked her under the chin. ‘No painter needs to flatter this face for me.'

‘May I congratulate Your Majesty, and Lady Katharine?' Mary said, sinking into deepest curtsy.

‘You may, you may.'

‘And I, my lord, may I add my congratulations?'

‘We shall be great friends, shall we not?' said the lady in question. It was a shock to hear how young she sounded. With her light, high-pitched voice and flirtatious manner, she seemed hardly out of the schoolroom. I sounded older and had more gravity of manner at eight. Perhaps my father was unaware of this childishness, or perhaps it was part of her charm for him. Perhaps he hoped to suck her youth and vitality into the very marrow of his ageing bones.

‘Great friends,' he said, laughing once more. ‘That's it, my linnet – you're too young to be their mother,
or anyone else's for that matter, but we'll soon change that. Won't we, my girl!' And with that, he leered at her, gawping at her bosom in a way that made me feel awkward and ashamed.

At their wedding feast, he could not keep his eyes or his hands off his young bride, and perhaps that was why he did not see the looks that passed between courtiers as they watched the besotted old man. Perhaps that was why he did not hear the jokes they told, or the whispers that already sounded in the corners of the court – whispers of Thomas Culpepper. He was the handsomest of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, a favourite of my father. There was another Thomas whose name they did not whisper at the wedding that night and who had not been mentioned at court for months. On the same day my father wed his child bride, Thomas Cromwell, once Lord Chancellor of England, became yet another old man who lost his head.

As I sat at that feast hidden in the shadows, watching and learning about the ways of the court, the ways of great men and women, I thought nothing of the grisly fate of the old man I had known by sight only. My childish wits were too bedazzled by the sights and sounds of the wedding banquet. Only half understanding what I saw, I watched the men on the way up and those on the way down. I sensed, rather
than understood, that the Howards were puffed up with pride at that wedding, perhaps as their kinsmen the Boleyns had been at a similar wedding, not so long past. I watched as the musicians played their songs of love and the king's fool poked fun. The revellers filled their goblets with wine and their bellies with game and women disappeared into shadowy corners with men either handsome or rich.

Now I marvel at how short their memories were, how little they understood the dangerous game they all played. At the time I was only a little girl who loved to watch the dancing. I had already learnt to keep my counsel and I knew I was safest when completely invisible. But I did not hover long in the shadows that day; I could not bear to see my father take yet another bride to bed. I left, I did not stay to hear the crude attempts at wit, but I felt humiliated for my ageing father all the same and I could not shake the sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about the silly young woman whose head now wore that most temporary of crowns: that of Queen of England.

The night of that wedding, beneath the covers in my own bed, in my own apartments, I wept for I knew not what – too many queens in too short a time, perhaps. And when at last I slept, I dreamt of my mother. She sat on my bed and spoke to me softly in beautiful French, but all the while blood trickled from the base of her
throat. There was no wound that I could see, just blood oozing from her skin. It ran silently down between her breasts and disappeared under the neckline of her richly embroidered gown.

At first it seemed my anxiety was without foundation. The existence of a new queen had little effect on the lives of the king's children. When we were not in our various households in the country, but come to court, she did not seek us out and Mary and I knew well enough to keep out of the way. Edward, perhaps, saw more of her because he saw more of our father, but he was still such a small boy – only four. Like me, he was serious and scholarly. Already he studied his Bible and recited his prayers in Latin, Greek and French. As Mary mothered me, so I began to mother Edward. He was not robust, often ill; he coughed a great deal and ate little. It became my goal to make him laugh, to play with him, take him into the fresh air and bring colour to his cheeks. Every day, whether we were in the country or in town, if the sun shone and we had finished our lessons, I took him outside into the gardens and we played foolish games together, in the Maze, in the Fountain Court. It was my pleasure to chase him and catch and tickle him, until he laughed so hard he begged and hiccuped for mercy, or until a spasm of coughing made me stop and worry that, instead of helping him, I was doing him harm. When he coughed, I held his poor thin frame in my arms and
soothed him until the spasm passed and he could catch his breath. He was my little man, my pretty partridge, my turtledove – in truth, anything I could think of to stop the rattle in his chest, the gasping for air. For I knew anyone who harmed Prince Edward would surely lose their head. As soon as he stopped coughing, he wanted the game to begin again, but, much chastened, I refused. Then he grew angry with me.

‘You will play, Elizabeth, you will!' he commanded me, standing as tall as he could, cheeks still flushed from the excitement and the energy required to gasp for air.

‘I won't.'

‘You will. I shall make you. I shall tell my father the king and he will make you.'

‘You won't, and he won't.'

‘You will, you will, you will!' He worked himself into a tantrum.

‘We play no more today. Come inside and I will sing to you.'

‘No, don't want singing.' Now he was sulky, on the edge of tears.

‘Well, a story, then. I'll tell you a story.'

‘The one about the little boy who became a great king?'

‘If you wish.' It was his favourite. So I told it, over and over again. It was the story of the life we hoped he would have. I'm glad now he lived it in his imagination
so many times and that I was able to live it with him. Despite his lack of robustness, we still had hope that he would grow and become stronger, that the coughing would stop and he would become more like his hale and hearty father and less like his pale and fragile mother.

Sometimes our game was cut short by rain, and I always brought him inside if there was as much as a drop. I brooked no argument then – just picked him up and ran indoors, while he kicked his furious feet against my skirts and pummelled my chest. It was one such day when we came clattering in, me a little wet from the rain, he furious, flinging onto the floor the cloak (my cloak) that I had wrapped him in, as soon as I put him down.

‘Fie, Elizabeth. Fie on you, fie on the rain! Why does this always happen when I want to play? When I am king, I will command it never to rain and we will play in the gardens all day. I will never cough, and I will make everyone play, all the time.'

‘But if there is no rain, there will be no gardens and nowhere for us to play.'

‘Well, I will tell it to rain only once it is dark, so we can have gardens and fine days to play in.' I took his hand as we played this familiar game, of all the magical, fantastical things he would do when he was king. I waved away his attendants, who came running with towels and warm drinks, their continued good health also inextricably linked to his.

‘He is not wet. I will take him to his apartments,' I said to them; they paid little attention.

‘Leave us!' commanded the little boy. ‘My sister will take care of me.' And they bowed to him and backed away, but only a little. Wherever he went in that great house, a retinue of lords, ladies and servants followed a few paces behind.

When we reached his apartments off the long gallery, I saw from his pale face that he was tired and needed to rest. I knew better than to say this to him; instead I claimed his ill-health as my own, and pleaded to be excused. Graciously he gave me leave.

‘Poor Elizabeth,' he said. ‘You are so often tired. I suppose it is because you are a girl. Never mind – come again tomorrow.' And I bowed and promised that I would. No retinue of attendants followed me, no one rushed to me with warm towels. I shivered a little in my damp clothes in the draughty hall and began to walk to my own apartments.

I was just beginning to imagine what my own life would be like once my brother inherited the throne, when a commotion behind me attracted my attention: people were shouting, men and a woman. Instinct commanded I hide. I slipped into an open doorway and stood behind the doorjamb, peering into the long gallery, frightened, yet curious.

‘Lady Elizabeth.' A voice behind me. I turned. It
was Robin Dudley, a boy about my own age. When his father was at court, he joined Edward and me sometimes in our games.

‘Lord Dudley,' I acknowledged as he bowed deeply. I motioned to the world outside the door. ‘Do you know what is going on?'