Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (111 page)

“You failed in your duty!” Lady Somerset’s words snapped out like a whip, causing the governess to shrink into herself. “To give the princess too much freedom is to put not only her reputation but her very life at risk.”

The duchess continued in this vein for some time, heaping abuse on the poor woman’s head. When she paused for breath, Mistress Astley tried to defend herself.

“It was little more than a moonlight boat ride, my lady. Her Grace was not alone. Two of her maids of honor accompanied her.”

“Girls like herself,” the duchess scoffed. “Not proper chaperones. The princess is not yet fourteen and her attendants are only a few years older.”

“They are sensible young women,” Mistress Astley countered. Meek and mild she might be, but she was brave enough to defend her young charge.

“And you yourself most assuredly are not! If you do not exert greater control over the princess in the future, you will be replaced as Her Grace’s governess.”

Mistress Astley’s face lost every vestige of color at the threat of being separated from the young girl she had nurtured since she was a toddler. Smiling in satisfaction, Lady Somerset unleashed yet another wave of invective.

After that incident, life in Lady Somerset’s household became well nigh unbearable. She delighted in making everyone miserable. I was careful not to offend her, but when the end of summer came with no decision yet by the commission, I took matters into my own hands. I begged leave of the duchess, claiming I wished to return to my parents. She granted it with unflattering swiftness. Before she could change her mind, I packed my belongings, hired a boat, and set off downriver.

I had no intention of going to Cowling Castle. My destination was Will’s house in Lambeth. Norfolk House stood just west of the archbishop of Canterbury’s palace and across the Thames from Westminster. I was done with being patient. Although we would have to keep my presence secret for the nonce, I meant to make Norfolk House my home, living there with Will while we waited for the commissioners to sanction our union.

28

W
e renewed our vows in the private chapel of Norfolk House, and although there was still no priest to bless our union, this time I kept Will’s ring on my finger afterward. We would have to wait until the commission stopped dawdling and made its ruling before we could announce our married state to the world, but in the meantime we would be together, living as man and wife.

We had our own private marriage feast to celebrate, just the two of us. Will ordered his cook to prepare all my favorite foods. His musicians played for us while we ate, and when the meal had been cleared away and the table removed, we danced to the sound of lute and pipe and tabor. Candlelight played across the strong planes of Will’s face to show me the look of devotion—and desire—in his eyes.

“Have you naught planned but dancing?” I whispered when the next tune came to an end. Smiling, I fluttered my eyelashes, affecting the shyness of a demure maiden.

He knew my meaning, but he could not resist teasing me in return.
“Would you have a masque to celebrate our wedding, love? Or mayhap a tournament?”

“I would have you, Will, all to myself.” I sent a pointed look toward the grinning musicians. They were not the Bassanos this time, but simply trusted members of Will’s household.

A gesture sent them away. Then Will swept me into his arms and carried me to his bedchamber. Our bedchamber.

Sweet-scented herbs had been strewn and a low fire made with apple-wood burned in the hearth. A brace of candles lit our way to the bed, another of the enormous carved and gilded pieces Will favored, richly furnished with feather beds and down-filled coverlets.

I had no need of a tiring maid. Will had me out of my wedding finery in a trice and himself undressed in half that time. We stared at each other, completely naked together for the first time since we’d exchanged vows at Guildford, before the Duke of Suffolk’s untimely death had interfered with our plans. I laughed in delight.

“Are you pleased with your bargain, wife?” Will asked.

“Well pleased, husband, except that you are standing too far away from me.”

He obligingly closed the distance between us and took me into his arms. Then we consummated our second marriage ceremony even more thoroughly than we had our first.

That set the pattern of our nights. Our days passed just as pleasurably.

No one knew I was living at Norfolk House save Will’s two sisters; his recently acquired brother-in-law, Tom Seymour; and the queen dowager’s faithful waiting gentlewoman—she had been promoted from chamberer—Mary Woodhull. Mary, who was herself betrothed to Davy Seymour, was happy for me. Tom Seymour thought we should have waited. Fine talk from a man whose own marriage had been scandalously precipitous!

My family continued to think I was still in the service of the Duchess of Somerset. The only others I might have confided in also resided
at some distance. My first mistress, Jane Dudley, had remained in the country since becoming Countess of Warwick instead of Lady Lisle, and my friend Alys Guildford, who had returned to her kinswoman’s service, was with her.

The months that followed our decision to live together as husband and wife were filled with quiet contentment. I loved Norfolk House from the first moment I saw it. The mansion, adjoined by substantial gardens, several paddocks, and a two-acre close, boasted a great chamber for dining, a gallery for walking, an oratory, several privy closets, and a great many other rooms. We had one just for music—Will played the virginals while I strummed my lute. There was a library in which Will delighted. And the largest bedchamber, with that magnificent bed, continued to please us both.

Will went often to court to attend meetings of the Privy Council, but this required no more than a quick trip on the horse ferry that plied the Thames between Lambeth and Westminster. All the rest of his time, he spent with me.

When the cold weather came, we made one of the smaller chambers our withdrawing room. We placed two Glastonbury chairs close to the hearth, one for each of us. The first time it became so warm in the chamber that beads of sweat formed on our foreheads; we took off each other’s clothing, piece by piece, spread it out before the fire as a makeshift bed, and made love. Afterward, we watched the flames and dreamed of the future.

“I have put several of my northern estates in your name,” Will said, “to assure you of an income should anything happen to me before you are officially acknowledged as my wife.”

I sat up, my mood shattered. “Nothing will happen to you.”

“So fierce,” he murmured as he drew me back into his arms and made me forget he’d ever mentioned the matter.

When the court traveled to Enfield to celebrate Christmas, and the queen dowager, her husband, and Princess Elizabeth joined King Edward there, we remained in Norfolk House. It was our first Yuletide together.
We enjoyed blissful solitude until my old friend Jack Dudley barged in. He left most of his men, in their bright new Lisle livery, to wait in the courtyard while he boldly strode into our little withdrawing room. Two burly fellows wearing the Duke of Somerset’s badges on their sleeves came with him.

“How dare you invade my home?” Will demanded. Fury mottled his face and deepened his voice to a growl.

Jack avoided looking directly at me by keeping his attention on Will. “I have been sent by the Duke of Somerset, lord protector of this realm, and I have here the authority to carry out his orders.” He produced a roll of parchment.

Will snatched it out of Jack’s hand. As he read, his color changed so rapidly from red to white that I feared he was about to have a seizure. Already on my feet, I tried to go to him, but Jack stepped between us. I shoved at him, but I could not budge him. When I attempted to duck around him, he caught me and tugged me close against his side. I curled my hands into fists and hit him, but it was like striking armor. I stomped on his foot with even less effect, since I wore thin leather shoes and he had on heavy riding boots.

“Behave, Bess,” Jack hissed in my ear. “Better to yield to me than some other.”

I stilled, but only because Will was ripping the document to pieces. Jack signaled to Somerset’s men to seize hold of Will.

“This is an outrage,” Will shouted as they hauled him out of the room.

“What did that paper say?” I began to struggle again, with no more success than before. “What is going on?”

“You and Will are commanded to separate,” Jack answered. “You are to be placed in the queen dowager’s keeping at Chelsea.”

“No! I will not leave him.”

“You do not have a choice, Bess,” Jack said, not unkindly. “Nor do I.” Then he gave orders for the servants to pack my belongings.

He would not allow us a proper farewell, or even a few words in private. When I tried to ask questions, he ordered me to be silent.

Tears streaming down my cheeks, I watched from a window as the lord protector’s men rode off with Will in custody. My limbs felt like ice, and those frozen appendages refused to support my weight. I sank into my chair, engulfed by a suffocating anguish. Time passed. I had no sense of how much later it was when Jack escorted me out of Norfolk House and onto a waiting barge. We were to be rowed upriver to the queen’s dower house—a little more than two miles away.

“I do not understand,” I whispered as the oarsmen set us in motion. “Where have they taken Will? What have we done to deserve such treatment?”

“You have been living in sin for months,” Jack said. “Surely you cannot be surprised to have been found out.”

“I am not Will’s mistress. I am his wife.”

“Yes, more’s the pity. If you had not gone through a form of marriage with him, you’d not be in so much trouble now.” At my bewildered expression, his finely arched brows lifted. He took off his bonnet, raked one hand through his dark hair, and shook his head. “You truly did not realize, did you? Or else you ignored anything it did not suit you to know. Aye, that’s more likely. You always were one to go your own way.”

“That is unfair, Jack. And I’ve always been good at finding my way
out
of trouble.”

“Yes, I remember how we escaped from the maze at Woodstock.” He sighed. “Norfolk House is hard by Lambeth Palace. Did you think that your neighbor, the archbishop of Canterbury, would not notice that you were living there?”

“Even so, what have we done that is so wrong?” I asked. “It is only a matter of time before the commission—”

“That was your first mistake. The archbishop is a member of that commission. By his lights, you should have waited for them to make a ruling before you did anything. He reported your presence to the lord protector and Somerset flew into a rage.” Jack’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. “You can imagine Lady Somerset’s reaction.”

I shivered, and not because of the icy river water on every side.

“The charge against you, Bess, is adultery.”

I felt as if I’d been kicked. For a moment all the breath went out of me. “Must I do penance?” I whispered. I knew the punishment. It was to walk barefoot to church wearing nothing but a shift.

“You will be spared public humiliation, but you are confined to Chelsea until further notice. The queen dowager and her husband, the lord admiral, should return there within the week.”

“And Will? What of him? Where has he been taken?”

“To court.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been afraid he would tell me Will was bound for the Tower of London, where his old friend the Earl of Surrey had so recently been executed. Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk, the last owner of Norfolk House, was still a prisoner behind its impenetrable walls.

“Will is to be deprived of his seat on the Privy Council and reprimanded.” A look of pity came into Jack’s dark eyes. “And the charge against him is not just adultery, but also bigamy. He is forbidden, on pain of death, to see you or write to you until after the commission has rendered its verdict.”

29

T
he queen dowager and her husband, Tom Seymour, were entirely on her brother Will’s side. Kathryn’s dislike of her brother-in-law, the lord protector, and his grasping wife had increased tenfold since the day Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, first tried to claim she had precedence over that “jumped-up country housewife,” Queen Kathryn. Kathryn was furious on Will’s behalf when Tom brought word that Will had not only been deprived of his seat on the Privy Council but had also been banished from court.

“I take heart from the fact that he was not imprisoned,” I said.

“Wise of you,” Kathryn allowed, but I could see she was fuming.

“Will still has all his titles and properties,” Tom said. “He continues to live at Norfolk House.”

“Waiting for me,” I said, and sighed. “I do not understand why the Duke of Somerset will not see reason. He cast off his own first wife for adultery back when he was still plain Sir Edward Seymour. He should sympathize with Will’s dilemma.”

“My brother is a hypocrite and a thief,” Tom said.

Kathryn stopped pacing long enough to smile at him. “It is fortunate for him that he did not attempt to approach me when we were at Enfield, else I might have done him bodily harm.”

“It is forbidden to strike a man at court, Your Grace,” Tom teased her.

“I could have
bitten
him. There is no law against that.” The queen dowager might have been small of stature, but she was fierce.

She reminded me at that moment of Rig, her spaniel, who had once dared to nip King Henry’s ankle. Rig was at Chelsea, too, but he was getting on in years and spent most of his time sleeping in a basket in a corner of the solar. In addition to Kathryn’s pets, her household numbered some 120 people, including Mary Woodhull; Lady Tyrwhitt; Will’s other sister, Anne Herbert; and Anne’s youngest son.

“I do not know which makes me angrier,” Kathryn continued, “that the duke has been leasing my dower properties without my permission, or that he still has not returned the jewelry left to me in Henry’s will. He will not even release my wedding ring, or the cross of gold my mother gave me. You remember the piece, Bess, the one with diamonds on the cross itself—and three pearls pendant as well.”