Just a Girl (4 page)

‘No, my lady. My father told me to wait upon him here and not to, for any reason, come out. What can you see?' He had joined me at the narrowly open door.

‘Nothing yet. A woman is screaming.' And then I saw her. It was Queen Katharine. She came out of her apartments, her hair dishevelled and dress in disarray. Her face was terrible to behold. As long as I live, I will never forget it. She was completely white. The blood had drained from her features. She was weeping, snot ran from her nose and from her mouth came the dreadful screaming that had made me take fright in the first place. Two armed guards emerged from her rooms and lunged at her, but she was full of the juice and mettle of youth. She dodged them, picked up her skirts in both hands and ran from them, in terror for her life, screaming the length of that long, long gallery. My dreams were to be haunted by the sound of those screams, and of her softly clad feet pounding on that wooden floor, followed by the heavy boots of the two soldiers, for many years afterwards.

‘My lord, my love, Henry, Majesty, forgive me, forgive me!' she shrieked, as she ran towards his
apartments. For a moment, I thought she might reach the king, but more armed guards emerged and caught her. She had no hope and I saw the moment when the wild belief that she still had a chance to save herself left her. It was as one of the soldiers clasped her around the waist and plucked her up from the floor. Her screams became desperate sobs and moans, as she crumpled like a rag doll in his arms.

‘No, no, no, let me be,' she cried, as they carried her like so much meat away from the king, back down the long gallery, past her own apartments and out of my sight.

I had my hands clasped over my own mouth and Robin Dudley had wrapped his arms around me, to comfort himself, I warrant, as well as to comfort me. I began to shake, but not to weep. I felt bile rise in my throat and thought I might vomit.

Robin wept. ‘They will kill her,' he said.

‘No,' I said, gaining control of myself a little. ‘He will kill her.'

Robin led me to the bench he had been sitting on when I first entered the room. He sat me down upon it, next to him, and we clung to each other. Eventually, I pulled away from Robin, taking his hands from my shoulders and made space between us. I felt safer alone.

I clasped my hands together beneath my knees, and rocked a little. ‘I will never marry,' I said.

The door to my chamber has opened; a draft blows into my room from the antechamber without. Kat Ashley stands in the doorway. Drawing my warm gown closer around me, I motion for her to close the door. She stands with her hands akimbo and shakes her head, then remembers to curtsy. I pull a face and smile. She is closer to me than any, so I forgive her lapses. It must be hard to make suitable obeisance to the baby you used to dandle on your lap.

‘Still awake, Your Majesty, at this late hour?'

‘As you see, but I am surprised to see you similarly affected.'

She has the grace to blush a little. ‘I was asleep, I confess it, but awoke gratefully from fearful dreams; this place has crept into my soul and disturbs it.' Kat looks about her and shivers. Her memories of this place are not good ones – nor, indeed, are mine. She shakes
her head, as if to rid herself of her gloomy thoughts, and turns her attention to me. ‘'Tis to avoid dreams such as those that you remain wakeful, I'll be bound. But you will be exhausted on the morrow and it will be taxing. Can you not try to sleep now? I will sit by you if it will help.'

She often sat by me when I was a child and could not sleep and told me stories and sang to me. She has no singing voice, but her gruff, tuneless lullabies have comforted me like no other. I had most need of her in the months after Katharine Howard met her end. She sat by me then tirelessly, soothing me, chiding me sometimes, holding me when I started up screaming from nightmares, and hushing me when I sobbed in fear. I had need of her again, the last time I slept in this place, but, as befits a queen, I have outgrown her ministrations. I shake my head. She yawns.

‘Go to bed, Kat.' I clasp her frozen, work-worn hand in mine. ‘I am used to little sleep. When I feel tired, I promise to take to my bed.'

She raises one eyebrow – doubting me. A look so familiar I smile.

‘I promise, Kat.'

She has gone back to her noisy slumbers. It is odd that she should have entered at just that moment, when I returned in my memory to the terrors that so disturbed me in childhood. As if, even in her dreams,
she senses my fright and offers comfort, just as she did when we shared a bed. Her face is older now, it is wrinkled and she can see less well than she used to. I see her peering at her prayer book, holding it as far away as her arms will stretch, squinting to see the words. It frightens me; I do not know what I would do without Kat Ashley, whom I have known since she were Champernowne – before she married John Ashley, another longstanding member of my household. How jealous I was of him at first, but no longer. More than anyone, more than my father, sister or brother, more than Anne of Cleves or even Catherine Parr, she has been beside me, ordinary, foolish sometimes, bawdy, salty-tongued, aye, too salty-tongued on occasion, but loyal. It is the greatest of virtues, and the one, that as monarch, seems hardest for me to find. To princes everyone seems loyal enough, they protest as much at every opportunity, but as my sister discovered, the more a man sputters, the less he may mean.

My cousin Mary, the Queen of Scots, was born in December. The granddaughter of my aunt, she was queen within a few weeks of her birth; I remember pondering on her existence when they told me of her arrival into the world. I felt pity for the infant queen. What fate was to befall her? I wondered. She is Queen of France and Queen of Scots now, and, my advisors tell me, claims to be rightful Queen of England. Greedy
little infant, hungry for crowns; one seems heavy enough to bear this night, to me. She is but a spoilt girl, ill advised by her French Guise uncles, and we may yet reconcile our differences, but it was foolish to begin so ill her relationship with a fellow queen. There will be many who challenge my right to my crown; many have called me bastard when princess. Why would they stop, now I am queen? I will need to cling tight to my crown once it is on my head, so tight that I do not lose either. If I win my subjects' love, it seems to me, only then can I loosen my grip. The love of no one man will save me; only the love of many men.

Of all my father's wives, it is the last I remember best and most fondly. Catherine Parr was a widow: older, wiser, so well educated she was called learned and was consulted on matters of theology by many. Few women are ever taken as seriously as she was and she gained her reputation in her own right, long before she married a king.

The whispers about this marriage that flew around the corners of the court, like some infernal interior breeze, were once again about her lack of enthusiasm for the match, and her love for another much younger man, another Thomas – Thomas Seymour. Once my father had fixed his beady eye on Mistress Parr, however, she had no choice. They were married in the summertime and I remember both the wedding and most of the
marriage as a time of relative peace and serenity. My father was old, by now, not in years, perhaps, but in spirit. He was ill with a stinking, open leg ulcer that caused him great pain and restricted his movement. He found his solace in eating, drinking and the tender ministrations of his wife. But he was fearsome when he suffered: like a spoilt child he lashed out at those around him, roaring his displeasure. When my father saw my locket and banished me from the court and I was forced to slink away to Hatfield, far from my lessons, and my brother and sister, painfully aware of how hateful my presence was to my father, it was Queen Catherine who comforted me. It upset me to be in disgrace. I chafed at the injustice and the boredom of my banishment, but I had learnt to stifle my feelings. It had been a long time since anyone important had shown any interest in them. Queen Catherine showed interest, she counselled patience and eventually persuaded my father to let me return to court. It was also she who persuaded him to include Mary and me in the succession.

It is to the memory of Queen Catherine Parr I turn when I think of my destiny, of what it means to be a woman who rules. My sister's reign has made many fearful of what more petticoat government may mean, and she is the example that most think on when they try to foretell my success or failure. Not to my face, I warrant you, but behind my back when they think themselves
unheard, I know that many – nay, most – of the great men of this kingdom regard my accession with dread, no matter with what enthusiasm the ordinary people may greet me on the morrow. But I have another model in my mind: the regency of Queen Catherine Parr.

When I returned to Hampton Court in the midsummer of 1544, chastened by my long disgrace, with my mother's likenesses (such as I still had) well hidden, it was to a court and a country ruled by a woman. My father was leading a military expedition in France. It was to be his last: a fact that all of us knew, but none of us yet admitted. He had placed his wise and much trusted wife in charge of his kingdom, children and affairs. I spent the three months of her rule as close to her side as I could manage. I watched as she took advice from my father's council, weighed the evidence and made her decisions. I watched as she read, discussed and signed great documents and listened as she disputed with the men whose charge it was to carry out her orders. I was there when she met and charmed ambassadors, emissaries and plenipotentiaries, as she totted up rows of figures and kept my father constantly informed of all she had done. Silently, I exulted in the respect she soon gained and the deferential and collegial manner in which these men – even the most reluctant of them – soon came to treat my beloved stepmother. She was a mere woman after all, a female just like me.

My sister and my brother were also at court. Queen Catherine always liked to have us near her. We spent longer together as a family when she was queen than at any other time. Yet although we were all under the same roof, my brother and sister spent most of their time with their attendants, whereas I made every excuse I could find to shadow the queen and watch her at her work. She soon noticed, of course.

‘The business of government interests you, Elizabeth?' she asked me one morning, scarce lifting her head from the parchment she was reading. I was sitting over my embroidery – it was to be a gift for her – trying to pretend it absorbed all of my attention. I wished to be invisible. I did not want to be sent on my way.

‘I know little about it, Your Majesty.'

‘Aye, but you have been my shadow these past many weeks and must know more now than once you did.'

‘It is your company I crave, good madam, grateful as I am to be returned to court and back in favour – by your good offices, as I know only too well.'

‘And I too enjoy the pleasure of your company, but do not be fearful of my enquiry. It pleases me to see you so intent on hearing and understanding all the business of the kingdom. I understand the hunger of a brain long starved of substantial food, and I also take pleasure in thinking my way through the weighty matters brought before me. Our sex, Elizabeth, is meant to content itself
with the small business of life, and there are some of us – I doubt not that you are among them – who find this irksome. It is exciting to make a decision and see it put into effect, I will not deny it.'

‘But it is not the natural business of women, surely, good madam.'

‘Indeed not, but for some of us circumstances place us in such a position and it is as well that should we be asked to take on the role of men; we are equipped by character and education to fulfil our unnatural task with competence.'

‘Such a circumstance is unlikely indeed for me,' I said, and I could not hide my misery that what she called ‘the small business of life' might be all that filled my future.

‘So it seems now, dear Elizabeth – Madam Ysabeau.' How I thrilled to hear her use my father's rare endearment. ‘But think of my expectations at your age. I was a mere gentlewoman, with no reasonable hopes for the future but marriage to someone approved of by my guardians, followed by a lifetime of child-rearing and household managing. Yet, here I sit, not just Queen of England, but Queen Regent, trusted by the greatest king of our age with the management of our kingdom.' At this, she smiled and winked at me, her delight in her current situation writ large upon her face.

‘God works in mysterious ways, my Elizabeth. As yet,
you are third in line for the throne. The king himself has placed you there, and it does you much credit that you so assiduously prepare for the great destiny that may yet await you.'

‘But my brother will rule after my father.'

‘Aye, and God preserve both of them for many, many years yet to come. But when you marry, you will not marry some minor nobleman as I did – at an age not much greater than yours is now – but some great prince of Christendom, and it will likely be through him or through the sons you bear, that you may one day find yourself placed in a position of great responsibility. And I know that should that day arrive, you will acquit yourself with great honour and ability.'

‘As you are acquitting yourself, Your Majesty, my father will be well pleased with you when he returns home.'

Alas, my prediction of my father's pleasure was not to be fulfilled. He returned in September uneasy about the lack of a definitive victory following his expensive military adventure. His belief in himself as a great warrior king had taken a blow, so he did not respond with much pleasure to a court that was full of praise for the wisdom and calm good sense of the rule of his wife. Her success compounded his sense of failure. He became sullen and snappish with his queen, chafing under her lectures about theology and the importance
of a personal God and the right of all to read the Bible for themselves. Where previously he had been proud of his clever, bookish wife – who did not just read learned tomes, but authored some herself – suddenly he grew peevish and resentful, almost jealous. Having watched so many queens fall precipitously from grace and lose their influence, the queen's enemies knew their business well. They began to gather rumours, filling my father's ears with poison about heresy and witchcraft. With this most virtuous queen, there could be no credible claims of adultery, but her brains could be used against her and they were.

The plotters, whose ranks included the Bishop of Winchester and the Lord Chancellor, searched my stepmother's library and found some heretical texts. They closely questioned her great friend, the Duchess of Suffolk, and tried to draw a direct line between the outspoken challenge to the church's authority (and, therefore, my father's) from the prophetess they called the Fair Gospeler, Anne Askew, and the queen. I later heard they tortured the Fair Gospeler before they burnt her at the stake, but stalwart to the last, she said nothing that could incriminate my stepmother. Used as I was to sitting quietly in corners, hovering on the edge of things, but careful never to draw unwarranted attention to myself, it was I who heard the rumours, saw the queen's closest ladies being led away for questioning
and watched as the bishop's men emerged triumphant from her quarters bearing aloft the dangerous texts. So it was I who warned the queen of the danger she was in and, in so doing, I learnt another vital lesson about being a woman in a man's world.