Beware, Princess Elizabeth

Beware, Princess Elizabeth Carolyn Meyer A matter of life and death – and the Throne of EnglandCompanion volume to Mary, Bloody Mary. Set in the 16th Century, this tells of the danger and conflict Elizabeth Tudor faced after the death of her father, Henry VIII. Once again told from a young girl's point of view, we follow Elizabeth's teenage years through the turbulent reigns of her young brother Edward, and then her half-sister Mary who becomes her mortal enemy. Beware, Princess Elizabeth Carolyn Meyer Copyright (#ulink_10cc1f51-a8d1-547e-9fde-51522c70bd66) Beware, Princess Elizabeth is a work of fiction based on historical figures and events. Some details have been altered to enhance the story. HarperCollins Children’s Books A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsChildren’s Books 2003 First published in the USA by Harcourt Brace & Company 1999 © Carolyn Meyer 1999 Carolyn Meyer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written consent in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractural and technological constraints in operation at time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007150304 Ebook Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 9780007389445 Version: 2016-08-11 For Elizabeth Van Doren – inspiration, archeditor, and friend Table of Contents Cover Page (#u49261347-ee44-5c3c-abaa-5abfe3013551) Title Page (#ud3f680b3-f42b-5188-a10c-3112f331a6e5) Copyright (#u9d8ed900-32d9-527b-8d04-599d292865a8) The Tudors (#u6d3cc12c-0574-51ff-9a31-1251f0080a97) Prologue (#u2eaeaf42-0fa4-5aa2-8a03-9d77249064b2) CHAPTER ONE The Death of My Father (#udf5bd47d-6f4c-5d8f-ad87-8fcbff049029) CHAPTER TWO Edward the King (#udab4e503-9a45-572a-8f74-e2e834e8d3d9) CHAPTER THREE The Lord Admiral (#u591fce47-ec81-59fd-b2b3-1fa60e58fdd1) CHAPTER FOUR Suspicion of Treason (#u8f7877e7-a028-53a7-bbaf-6340d1864eb4) CHAPTER FIVE King Edward’s Court (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX The Dying King (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN Two Queens (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT Queen Mary (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE The Queen in Love (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN Rebellion and Treachery (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ELEVEN The Tower (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWELVE Elizabeth, Prisoner (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THIRTEEN Lady Bess (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOURTEEN Waiting (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIFTEEN King Philip’s Departure (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIXTEEN Hatfield (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVENTEEN King Philip’s Return (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Death of the Queen (#litres_trial_promo) Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo) By the same author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) The Tudors (#ulink_623eab70-c5e6-5160-a862-1d6087a23cd0) The Tudors Prologue (#ulink_b0b8a6a6-fb3c-5b04-b21b-c10e59472299) Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England 17 November 1558 THERE WAS A TIME, long ago, that I loved my sister. There may have been a time that Mary loved me. But that all changed. It had to, given who we were: the daughters of Henry VIII. Our father at times adored us but often shunned us and occasionally nearly forgot us. We were not the sons he desired. Worse: I am the daughter of the woman Mary hated most in the world. She never forgave me for who my mother was: Anne Boleyn, who took the place of Mary’s mother as queen. When I was born Mary was forced to be my servant – not an easy thing for a proud young woman of seventeen. How she must have loathed that! But then, before I reached my third birthday, my mother was dead, her execution ordered by my own father – and Mary’s. Yet, in spite of all, it seemed for a time that Mary was truly fond of me – before she turned bitter, before she recognised that we were enemies. My path to the throne has been long and fraught with peril. Now I am ready to follow in the footsteps of my father, England’s greatest king. Mary, who hindered me at every turn, will soon be forgotten. But I promise you, history will remember me, Elizabeth, not for who my father was, or my mother or my sister, but for myself. CHAPTER ONE The Death of My Father (#ulink_1e82df07-1374-59f7-ad4a-8eed3a5e15a4) “The king is dead.” Those four words, cold as marble and sharp as flint, were uttered by the thin, cruel lips of Edward Seymour, the king’s privy councillor and my brother’s uncle. In this way I learned of my father’s death. The date was the thirty-first of January, anno Domini 1547. My father, dead! I knew that he had been ill, yet the news still came as a terrible shock. It seemed impossible that the great King Henry would no longer stride like a giant through the kingdom and through my life. I was not close to him, and I had spent little time with him in the years of my growing up. Nevertheless, he had been an enormous presence in my life. Now, suddenly, my father was gone. I would have neither his protection nor his occasional bursts of affection. I was alone, and – I confess it – I was afraid. But I had no time to dwell on my own tumultuous feelings. My brother burst into tears at the news and threw himself sobbing into my arms. Named Edward in honour of this uncle, he was nine years old, a beautiful boy, delicate as a wren’s egg. I held him, and my own tears fell upon his thick curls. I was thirteen, poised on the brink of womanhood, but at that moment I felt like a child myself. My brother and I were orphans, and now he was king. I can scarcely imagine his terror. “When did my father die?” I asked Seymour, struggling to still the tremor in my voice. “On the morning of the twenty-eighth.” “Three days past?” I asked sharply. “Why am I told only now?” “There were decisions to be made,” Seymour replied in a cold voice. “For three days no one but members of the privy council was informed of the king’s death.” I glared at him. I did not trust Seymour, even then. Decisions concerning what? I wanted to ask boldly, but I did not, for I saw that my questions angered him. Seymour was the brother of young Edward’s mother, Jane Seymour, who had died soon after giving birth to my brother. Seymour had made himself so much part of our family that he’d carried me in Edward’s christening procession. Now he was the most powerful of the privy councillors. Seymour had his own reasons for keeping the death of the king of England a secret. I guessed that it was to make sure of his own power over the new king. Instead of demanding an explanation, I asked merely, “Has my sister, Mary, been informed?” “She has,” he snapped. “Madam, your questions could delay our arrival in London. Kindly summon your servants. We must leave at once.” “You have waited three days to tell us of our father’s death,” I retorted. “Now, if you please, have the kindness to allow me a little time to console my brother, the king.” Without waiting for a reply, I knelt beside the sobbing, quivering boy. Only when he was somewhat soothed and my own feelings calmed did I call for Kat Ashley to prepare for our journey. “LORD HAVE MERCY!” Kat cried out when I told her the news. She put on a great show of wailing and blubbering that I only half believed. Kat had been my governess and dearest confidante since I was three years old. We knew each other very well, and I sensed that although she deemed it proper to grieve for the death of the monarch, she could not forgive my father for his treatment of my mother and for the many times he seemed to have forgotten me. While Kat continued her lamentations, I summoned the maids of the chamber to begin laying out the black mourning garments I would need. Eventually – not quickly enough for Seymour, but in good time – our belongings were packed into panniers carried by horses, and our mounts prepared. Frost crunched beneath the horses’ hooves as we plodded along rutted roadways. For once Kat was mostly silent, and I was finally able to give myself over to my grief. I hadn’t seen my father for two years, since last he called me to court to celebrate the dawning of the new year. That was how he was – sometimes I was in the king’s favour, sometimes not. It had been this way all my life. For a time he hadn’t even acknowledged me as his daughter, long ago declaring both my sister, Mary, and me bastards. (Mary is the child of his first wife, I of his second, and Edward of his third.) Yet, only weeks before his death, I learned that he had restored us to the succession, putting us in line for the throne after Edward and whatever children my father’s only son would produce. My sister and I were still bastards, but we were the king’s heirs. I stood a long way from the throne, however, and it did not once occur to me that day as I rode towards London that I might one day become queen. IT WAS LATE afternoon, and the torches were already lit when we reached London. We were chilled to the bone and aching with weariness. But we could not rest. We had to hasten at once to Whitehall Palace, where my father’s body lay in state in the chapel. His enormous coffin was surrounded by dozens of mourners and as many flickering candles. As I entered the chapel, I gave a start and nearly cried out, for beside the coffin stood a wax effigy of the king, dressed in magnificent jewelled robes. The extremely lifelike figure didn’t resemble my pain-wracked father as I last saw him. It was made to portray the king in his vigorous youth. I had never seen him like this. My earliest memories were of a man who was already turned fat and ungainly. I was unprepared for the feelings of loss and yearning that swept through me for the awesomely powerful man I had never known. Near the coffin sat Queen Catherine, my father’s sixth wife, pale but composed. It would be wrong to describe her as beautiful, for Catherine, at thirty-four, was past her bloom. But she had a kindness in her eyes and a generous mouth that, on less sombre occasions, smiled easily. I thought how lonely she would now be without my father. She had been so attentive to him in his last months, when he was feeble and in pain. He had been a demanding husband, yet she was sure to feel his absence keenly. By her side sat one of our cousins, Lady Jane Grey, gently stroking the queen’s hand. As we entered, Jane jumped to her feet, and she and Edward rushed weeping into each other’s arms. I stood silently by, observing the scene. I, too, felt like weeping, but I would never reveal my feelings so easily. After Edward received Queen Catherine’s embrace, it was my turn. I stepped forward and knelt before her, and when she raised me up I kissed her with true affection. As I did so I noticed the man who hovered near her chair with an air of solicitude. He gazed at me, and I couldn’t help gazing back frankly. Two years previously, when I was last at court, I had met Tom Seymour, brother of Edward Seymour and another of my little brother’s uncles. I’d paid little attention to him then – I was but a child of eleven. But now thirteen and aware of such things, I was quite conscious of his eyes lingering upon me. Tom Seymour was tall, at least six feet, although not so tall as my father, with a slender, athletic build. His dark hair fell over his brow, and his beard was red and abundant. His brown eyes generally glowed with merriment, although at times they seemed to smoulder with less pleasant emotions. I thought him very handsome. After gazing at me for a long moment, he bowed and greeted me cordially, expressing his deep sympathy. But almost immediately he turned to my brother with an outpouring of affection. Edward had been weeping more or less steadily since Seymour brought us the news. Now he suddenly brightened and fairly leaped into Tom’s arms. Tom swept up the frail boy in an embrace that nearly engulfed him. At that moment Edward Seymour stepped forward. “Set him down at once,” he ordered Tom in a tone that brooked no refusal. “This is the king of England, you fool! Not some idle toy for your pleasure!” The two Seymours stared at each other while my brother clung to Tom like a cub to its dam. Then, very gently, Tom set the young king on his feet again and knelt before him. “Your Majesty,” Tom said reverently. Edward Seymour cast his brother a scornful look and turned away. What interested me even more than the anger that flashed between the two men was something in the eyes of Queen Catherine. She gazed at Tom Seymour with an expression that could mean only one thing: she loves him. At once I wondered, How long has she loved him? My father has been dead for less than a week! This realisation troubled me; I cared for Queen Catherine, and I could not bear to think of her as a disloyal wife. My mind raced on: And what of Tom Seymour? Does he love the queen? I WAS KNEELING in prayer by my father’s coffin when my sister, Mary, arrived. Her entrance created a considerable stir. Unless we were called to court, we rarely saw each other, although we lived only half a day’s journey apart and often exchanged politely formal letters. I was surprised at how she looked. She would be thirty-one in a few days, but she appeared much older. Her skin was blanched, her face pinched, her once red-gold hair now faded and thin. She seemed shrunken inside her mourning clothes, and yet she glittered from head to foot with diamonds and pearls. In her love of jewels, at least, she resembled our father! We greeted each other as daughters of the king, as the occasion demanded, and wept in each other’s arms. Yet there was no warmth in our embrace. We were not enemies then, but neither were we friends. For my part I felt no more than if I had been embracing a near stranger. As Mary and I stood by our father’s bier, I recalled the summer our father had wed Catherine. After the marriage ceremony at Hampton Court in July of 1543, Mary and I, and Edward, had accompanied the bridal couple on a honeymoon progress through the countryside. Each summer my father made a royal progress to let himself be seen by his subjects, stopping for a week or a fortnight with noble families along the way and amusing himself each day with hunting. The purpose of this progress was to display his new wife as well as to hunt for deer. No one paid me much attention that summer except Catherine, who was quite gracious to me. I was grateful for her kindness, for as a nine-year-old girl I did not like to be ignored. Wherever we went, little Edward, curly haired and adorable heir to the throne, was of course the object of much cooing and petting. But it was my sister, Mary, who received enthusiastic greetings from the crowds that turned out to hail us as we rode through hamlets and villages. This seemed to annoy my father, who took to teasing Mary about finding her a husband. “Twenty-seven and still a virgin!” he would roar. “Perhaps I know of a German prince who would have you as his wife!” Then later it would be the French dauphin, or some Danish count. He teased her as one might taunt a dog with a bone. “As my lord wishes,” Mary would reply in her deep, almost manly voice, taking care not to show her hurt or embarrassment. Mary might have hidden her true feelings from our father, but I caught a glimpse of them one day when we stopped to rest by the side of a stream. Our servants rushed about, setting up planks on trestles beneath the branches of a large oak. While our meal was being laid out, I saw Mary wander off alone along the banks of the stream. My father’s leg was paining him, as it often did, and Catherine was busy tending to his needs. Edward had fallen asleep on the couch brought for him. Partly out of boredom and partly, I suppose, out of jealousy that she was the favoured sister – my father didn’t even bother to tease me – I decided to follow Mary and to spy on her. What I thought I would witness I cannot say. After a time her footsteps slowed, then stopped. She flung herself down on the grassy bank and burst into tears. I watched from behind a tree as she sobbed as though her heart were breaking. Part of me wanted to flee back to the royal company, where perhaps I might now receive some of my father’s attention. But Mary’s grief touched something within me, and after a time I stepped out from my hiding place. I didn’t know what to say, and so I simply stood where she might notice me. When Mary realised that she was not alone, she stifled a startled cry. “Yes?” she asked irritably. “What is it, Elizabeth?” “You seem so sad,” I said. Mary gazed at me thoughtfully. “I am twenty-seven years old. I have neither husband nor child, nor any hope of one. It is a terrible thing to live without love, Elizabeth.” “I love you, dearest sister,” I murmured, and I moved to lay my hand softly upon her cheek. “You!” she said harshly, pulling back, and I stepped away in surprise. “You!” Stung, I turned and ran back to join the others. The board was laid with a meal of meat pasties and fish pudding and ale, but I had no appetite. Soon Mary joined us, her eyes puffed and reddened. My father noticed nothing, but I saw the new queen observing Mary carefully. Feeling rebuffed, I avoided Mary as much as I could for the rest of our journey. It was not difficult to do, for she seemed to avoid me as well. When the royal progress ended at the close of summer, each of us returned to our homes. Mary went to her manor house at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, north of London. Edward was taken to his palace at Ashridge and I to Hatfield Palace, also in Hertfordshire, accompanied by our various tutors and governesses. The king and queen returned to my father’s favourite palace at Greenwich, on the River Thames, east of London. For a time I missed them, until I got caught up again in my studies and thought less and less of my family. Since then I had seen little of the new couple or of Mary, except when we all were invited to court for Yuletide and New Year’s, again at Easter, and once more at Whitsuntide. On those occasions I was careful not to approach Mary closely, no matter how genial she may have appeared. But now, at my father’s funeral, I had no choice. I wondered what my sister’s thoughts were as we stood side by side, her fingers entwined with mine. CHAPTER TWO Edward the King (#ulink_d74081a7-4cd2-5bae-ab02-9798d6f230bf) The body of King Henry lay in state for twelve days. During the long hours that I was required to kneel beside his coffin, I had much time to think back upon my relationship with my father. “You remind him of your mother,” Kat once said when I complained that he paid me no attention. “Nothing will change that.” And nothing did. He never spoke of it, of course. It was forbidden to utter the name of Anne Boleyn. It was as if my mother had never existed. Every trace of her had been removed – every trace, that is, but me. I owe my understanding of my father and my mother to dear Kat. Night after night, as we lay side by side in the darkness with the bed curtains drawn closed around us, it was Kat who whispered answers to my deepest questions. Sometimes I asked about my father and often about my mother. Kat is the only person with whom I ever spoke of Anne Boleyn. “She was beautiful, with hair black as a raven’s wing and eyes black as jet, and she was intelligent and witty as well,” Kat would say of my mother. “She fascinated your father from the first time he set eyes upon her.” She fascinated him, but he already had a wife: Catherine of Aragon, who was Mary’s mother. I learned, when I grew older, that my father had had his marriage to Catherine annulled in order to marry Anne. That first Catherine (three of my father’s wives were named Catherine) did everything in her power to prevent the annulment. But my father banished Catherine, and Mary, too, to force her to consent to it. Yet, to her dying hour, even after my father had married Anne Boleyn and made her his queen, Catherine of Aragon refused her consent. Perhaps Mary had inherited from her mother that same stubbornness. According to Kat my father believed Anne Boleyn would give him the son that poor old Catherine could not. To his great disappointment I, the only child of his marriage to Anne, was not a son. I was Anne’s failure. When he no longer loved her, he determined to rid himself of her. He had her locked in the Tower and then contrived to have her sentenced to death for charges of adultery and treason. There was not a word of truth in the charges. Would King Henry have ordered my mother’s execution if I had been a boy? I believe not. He might have found love with another woman, as he was wont to do, but he would have let Anne live, and I would have had my mother. And so my feelings about my father were never simple and uncomplicated. I did love him, because he was my father and a great king. But I also harboured a dark secret: I resented him deeply for depriving me of my mother. The darkest secret of all: at times I hated him. Then, just weeks after my mother’s death, my father married Jane Seymour. “The opposite of your mother,” Kat replied when I pressed her for a description of a woman I scarcely remember. “Pretty, I suppose, but rather colourless. Quite prim.” Kat pursed her lips. “Queen Jane had the good fortune to bear a male child, to the king’s delight. And then she had the good sense to die almost at once, before he tired of her.” Kat should never have said such a thing, of course, but Kat had a talent for saying things she ought not. Her tongue often brought her trouble. My mother was not the only wife my father sent to the Tower and then had put to death. I was eight years old when his fifth, Catherine Howard, was sentenced to die. All the nervous excitement of this latest execution could not be kept from me, and it was as if my own mother’s execution were being repeated. I wept, I cried out, for days I could neither sleep nor eat. Kat, frantic to calm me, summoned the court physician to prescribe a sleeping draught. When I awoke it was over. I listened as servants whispered how Catherine Howard’s head had been caught in a basket, her blood sopped up by crones with handkerchiefs, her body carried off for burial.The way it must have been for my mother, I thought, and I have thought of it many times since that day. Remembering Catherine Howard’s death has always struck terror to my heart. THE TWELVE DAYS of the lying-in-state ended. From the palace window Edward and Mary and I watched the sombre procession that stretched for miles, following my father’s coffin to Windsor Castle. By custom the monarch’s heirs did not attend his funeral, but it seemed that nearly everyone else did. The wax effigy rode in a carriage drawn by eight black horses in black velvet trappings. In the days that followed, I waited to learn what turn my life would take next. I had no control over events; I could only control my response to them. Wrapped in the silence of my own lonely thoughts, I paced the snowy paths in the bleak palace garden. My father was dead. My sister, Mary, was cold and withdrawn. My little brother, Edward, was now king. What will become of me? I wondered over and over.What will become of me? But I decided that, however much fear and worry now gnawed at my vitals, I would one day learn to rule my own life. ON THE TWENTIETH day of February,anno Domini 1547, I witnessed the coronation of my brother, Edward. Those who were there the day in 1509 when my father was crowned were determined that this celebration would surpass it in grandeur. The day before the coronation, as the royal procession wound its way through London, trumpeters blew fanfares to proclaim the approach of the boy-king. My little brother, dressed in cloth of silver embroidered in gold and belted with rubies, pearls and diamonds, was mounted high on a huge white horse trapped with crimson satin. He was followed by the nobility of the kingdom, according to rank. The two Seymour brothers, Edward and Tom, took the lead. So much splendour on such a delicate young boy! He wore a look of proud hauteur, but I knew that was a mask to disguise his fear. For a little while I imagined myself in his place, arrayed in ermine and jewels, surrounded by members of the privy council in their rich velvet robes. Henchmen carrying gilded poleaxes and knights in purple satin riding fine horses would precede my royal litter. But I was not the queen, and short of a miracle I would never be queen. I was assigned a place far back in the procession, behind my sister, Mary, who sat in a chariot with Dowager Queen Catherine, the highest-ranking woman in the kingdom. Beside me rode Anne of Cleves, my father’s fourth wife, a German princess my father had decided to wed seven years earlier on the basis of a small portrait he’d seen. Anne of Cleves had spoken only German when she’d stepped off the ship that brought her to Dover. She was stoutly built, her skin pockmarked, her gowns and headdresses drearily old-fashioned. The king immediately saw that the flesh-and-blood woman did not match the portrait, much less his dreams of her, but he married her anyway. Six months later he had the marriage annulled – and sent to the gallows his chief secretary, Cromwell, who had arranged the match. Since the divorce Anne had had the status of “the king’s sister” and had lived comfortably in one of the country houses he had given her with plenty of jewels and money to soothe her injured feelings. We were often paired at official occasions. We were fond of each other, and I was glad for her company. We were two women, one old and one young, who counted for little in the kingdom. Anne may not have cared, but I confess that I did. I was the trueborn daughter of King Henry VIII! That night Edward slept in the Tower of London, traditional for each monarch in the history of England, including my mother, who spent the night there before her crowning as queen. It amuses me to think that I was present for that event, less than three months before my birth, riding in her belly, beneath all her jewelled finery. But now my thoughts were not of Edward’s coronation, but of another matter entirely that had been troubling me for days: the look I had seen Queen Catherine bestow upon Tom Seymour. I knew that Kat would speak forthrightly once I had found a way to introduce the subject. That night we retired to the chambers assigned to us. All but one of the candles were extinguished, and we climbed on to the high bed and drew the curtains against the cold. Our servants slept. “Tom Seymour and the queen…” I began hesitantly. “She was in love with him before, you see,” said Kat, almost as though she had read my thoughts. “Catherine has been in love with Tom Seymour these many years, since long before she married King Henry. And who can blame her? Do you not think him extraordinarily handsome?” The handsomest I have ever seen, I thought. Aloud I said, “I scarcely noticed,” and feigned a yawn. Then, “Will they wed, then, do you think?” “The dowager queen must first complete a year of official mourning,” said Kat. “We shall see if she lasts six months.” With that Kat rolled on to her side and fell fast asleep, leaving me to lie awake pondering this bit of news. THE NEXT MORNING after a solemn procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey, the coronation commenced, hours of pomp and ceremony that left everyone exhausted. By evening the celebrants had recovered sufficiently, and the revelry began at Whitehall Palace, the new king’s official residence. Throughout the banquet no one paid me the least attention, as usual. I was seated far down the table from King Edward and completely ignored, as only a thirteen-year-old princess of lowly status can be ignored in the vast sea of dukes and duchesses, marquises and marchionesses, earls and countesses, barons and baronesses. But when the dancing began, my old friend Robin Dudley suddenly appeared at my side. Robin had shared lessons with Edward and me and our tutors when Robin and I were eight years old – our birthdays are within days of each other. He was a merry lad then, as good-looking as he was good-humoured, but I had not seen him in some time. Now thirteen, no longer a boy but not yet a man, he had the same bright eyes, reddish brown hair, and quick smile that I remembered well. He approached me shyly, but as soon as we joined the other dancers, his shyness vanished. The dance was my favourite – lavolta, in which the partners take turns lifting each other off the floor. Of course, the lady does no actual lifting; the gentleman first executes a leap and then seizes the lady by the waist and propels her high into the air. When finally we stopped, breathless and laughing, Robin brought me a cup of hippocras and begged me to tell him where my life was taking me. “I cannot say, Robin,” I told him frankly as we sipped the spiced wine. “I am the king’s daughter, but I think they have all forgotten me.” “I have not,” he said, suddenly serious and taking my hand. “I shall never forget you, Elizabeth.” The passion with which he uttered this promise startled me, for I’d always thought of him as a brother. Yet his tone as well as his words held my attention. “Nor shall I forget you,” I said. I was happy passing the time with my old friend. But to my surprise, Tom Seymour appeared and claimed me for the next dance, a grave and stately pavane. I had felt light-hearted and at ease with Robin Dudley, but my feet turned to lumps of clay and my hands were cold as fish when I was on Tom Seymour’s arm. I wanted to hide from embarrassment, and at the same time I wanted the dance to go on and on. The attraction I felt for this man was strong, the strongest I had ever experienced, and I sensed that he was drawn to me as well. But I knew the attraction was improper, even dangerous. Later, when I looked again for Robin, he had disappeared. Then Kat materialised and announced that it would be wise for me to retire. “King Edward has long departed for his bedchamber,” she said, frowning at me, “and so must you, madam.” I blamed the fireworks and booming cannons for keeping me awake until dawn. In truth the faces of a handsome man and a handsome boy troubled my sleep. CHAPTER THREE The Lord Admiral (#ulink_a5c8c1dd-2fed-59a0-b286-289523088c8c) The day after Edward’s coronation, Dowager Queen Catherine, my father’s widow, astonished me with an invitation to come and live with her at Chelsea Palace in London. “I would be happy for your company, Elizabeth,” she said, “and it would give me great pleasure to continue to oversee your education. What do you say? Are you in agreement?” “Oh yes, my lady Catherine!” I said, for I was fond of my stepmother. London was noisy and dirty, unlike my quiet country home in Hatfield, where the only noise came from flocks of sheep in the nearby fields. But London was also exciting. In preparation for the move from Hatfield, Kat bustled from chamber to chamber, giving orders to the serving maids. Now and again she paused to smile broadly at me. “To London, to London!” she fairly sang. “Such a life you shall now have, madam!” The maids were packing my chemises, my petticoats, my kirtles and gowns, my shoes and stockings and boots – all now too short, too tight, or too worn or threadbare – into wooden trunks. Kat looked first at a blue velvet gown she was holding in her hands and then at me. “You need a new gown, or two or three. You have grown at least a hand span since this one was made for you. I shall speak to Mr Parry about it.” Thomas Parry, a puffed-up little Welshman, was my cofferer, in charge of the allowance that my father used to send for the upkeep of my household. His sister, Blanche Parry, a plainspoken and practical woman, was also in my service. Blanche and Kat had always complained there were not enough funds to provide properly for the king’s younger daughter, although there always seemed to be plenty for his elder daughter, Mary. I wondered if that might now change with my brother on the throne. On a wintry day in early March, under clouds heavy with snow, Kat and I and a small retinue of servants once again set out for London. Thick mud sucked at the horses’ hooves, slowing our pace. “Does my sister know of this change?” I asked Kat. “Why, I have no idea, Elizabeth,” Kat said. “Did you not write to her?” I’d thought of sending word to Mary to inform her of my whereabouts, but in the commotion of the past week, I had neglected to do so. But then, I thought, neither had Mary taken the time to write to me. Later, I decided,when I am settled, then I shall write. And I promptly forgot about her. OUR WELCOME at the queen’s beautiful Chelsea Palace was as warm as one could wish for. Queen Catherine didn’t wait for me to beg her to receive me, but as soon as she had word of our arrival, she stepped out into the snowy courtyard to greet me. “How happy I am you have come to be with me,” she said with an affectionate embrace. She led Kat and me through elegant halls with marble floors and walls panelled in oak to our own apartments, a spacious suite of chambers with windows overlooking the River Thames. After inviting us to join her at supper when we were ready, the queen left us to recover from our journey. As servants carried in our trunks and boxes, Kat went about examining everything from the candles in the sconces on the wall (“Good quality beeswax,” she said approvingly) to the tester bed, with its canopy and curtains of heavy blue damask. “Look!” Kat whispered, poking her finger into the lofty bedding with its coverlet, also of blue. “Three mattresses, all well stuffed with wool.” I took more interest in a small writing desk, intricately carved, with two wooden stools covered in leather. There was even a supply of goose quills and a knife to sharpen them, and a little inkhorn. A cosy fire crackled on the hearth. I felt that I should be content here. After we had rested, cleansed our hands and faces, and changed our muddy petticoats for fresh ones, we made our way to the gallery. Fine tapestries lined the walls. At one end, in a place of honour, hung a portrait of my father. Nearby was a small portrait of my grandfather, King Henry VII. I stood gazing into the eyes of the two portraits and tried to imagine what those great kings might have been thinking as the artist painted their images. Then a servant in livery of green and white, the Tudor colours, appeared and announced that the dowager queen awaited us in her private apartments. The servant pushed open a heavy door. I entered the queen’s privy chamber, ready to kneel before Catherine. But before I could do so, I found myself enveloped in the arms of Tom Seymour. I barely managed to suppress a startled cry. “Welcome, dear sister Elizabeth!” he roared, and twirled me around before setting me down rather unsteadily on my feet. All of my life I had been carefully schooled in royal deportment, and so I was shocked at his behaviour. At the same time, I confess, I was also thrilled. I looked with alarm from this handsome, boisterous man to the sweet, smiling countenance of my stepmother. Queen Catherine must have observed my confusion, for she immediately took care to present him formally: “Thomas Seymour, baron of Sudeley.” What are you doing here? I thought, but I made a curtsy and murmured a bit breathlessly, “My lord.” The baron bowed deeply. “My lady Elizabeth,” he said, now looking straight-faced and rather pompous, as though he had not just moments before swept me off my feet. And the queen, still smiling benignly, called for hippocras to be brought. As it was the Lenten season, our supper consisted of manchet – fine white bread – and several dishes made of fish. While we ate, the baron described to me the stone castle called Sudeley, three days’ journey to the northwest in Gloucestershire. “It was the pleasure of your brother, the king, to present me with both castle and title,” Tom explained. Then, at the queen’s urging, Tom Seymour told several tales of wild adventure that I only half believed and made jokes that I did not entirely understand. So the evening passed merrily, until at last Catherine excused us. The liveried servant reappeared to conduct Kat and me back to our chambers. The fire was dying, and once our maids had removed our gowns and kirtles we retired for warmth to our bed, which turned out to be just as comfortable as it looked. “What think you now of the baron of Sudeley?” Kat murmured into the darkness. “I think him—” and here I hesitated, remembering his raucous greeting. “I think him very bold,” I replied at last. “I believe that the baron would have you as his bride,” said Kat calmly, as though informing me that a cat likes cream, “were you of an age. And it is not long until you shall be.” “He would marry me?” I gasped. “But does not Catherine love him? Does the baron not intend to wed the queen, once her mourning ends?” “So she hopes. But I believe it is you to whom Tom Seymour has lost his heart.” “But, Kat!” I protested, excited but also frightened. “This cannot be! What shall I do?” “Do nothing at all, dear Elizabeth,” Kat replied in that placid way that at times infuriated me. “Wait and see.” Wait and see, I thought as I lay awake, staring into the darkness long after Kat’s breathing had deepened in sleep. Too much of my life was “wait and see”. Yet, for now, I had no choice – even if I had known what my choices were. NOT LONG AFTER I moved to Catherine’s mansion, I learned that Tom’s brother, Edward Seymour, had also been given a new title by the king. He was now duke of Somerset. Furthermore, he had been named (or more likely had named himself) lord protector of King Edward. “This means that Edward Seymour will rule in your brother’s stead until the king comes of age,” Kat said. “The lord protector is supposed to assist and advise the young king, but you can imagine who will have the real authority for the next nine years.” This was not a surprise, for I had known from the moment my father’s death was announced that Edward Seymour intended to grasp the reins of power in England. One more thing: Tom Seymour had acquired yet another new title. He was now called lord admiral. I learned this during one of the many dinners and suppers I shared during the following weeks with Queen Catherine. At least half the time, the lord admiral had no navy to command, no ship’s crew to attend; he only had us. I was better prepared now for his rambunctious greetings, as he would jump out at me from behind a tapestry or a table, seize me and swing me once or even twice around, and call out, “Welcome, my lady Elizabeth!” I confess that I was not only prepared for his unconventional greeting, but I now looked forward to it. Catherine always watched this little ritual with a benevolent smile. When the lord admiral happened to be away on business, as he often was, I was disappointed. Of course, I took care to hide my disappointment. It would not do to have my kind stepmother suspect how eagerly I awaited those few precious, playful moments in Tom’s arms. I knew from the looks they exchanged that Catherine was deeply in love with Tom. What was not so plain was the depth of his feeling for her. I was, as I have said, thirteen years old at the time, and I had begun to think of love for myself. Marriage did not tempt me, although I assumed it was my fate, as it was the fate of all women. Marriage was about securing property or power, and seldom had anything to do with love. I had only to look at my father’s six marriages to shudder at the prospect. Queen Catherine herself had been married twice to men much older than herself before she married my father, also much older. Yet, I thought, when I do marry, it must be to a man like Tom Seymour: handsome, charming, dashing. “And”, as Kat was quick to point out, “with a bit of the devil in him.” She made that sound like a good thing. Increasingly, I wasted time in daydreams about what it might be like to be the wife of the lord admiral. Then, early one May morning, Queen Catherine called me to her chambers. I was instructed to come alone. As soon as I arrived, she dismissed her waiting women. The queen bade me sit by her side, which I did, quite mystified by this unusual meeting. “I have a secret for you, Elizabeth, and for you alone. For my sake you must tell no one, although in time all of England will know.” “I swear that I will speak of this to no one,” I said breathlessly. “The lord admiral, baron of Sudeley, and I have married,” she said, blushing prettily. “Tom Seymour will no longer be a frequent visitor to our house. He will be living here with us.” My head whirled dizzily with this news. I managed to convey my good wishes, but I confess that I felt a sharp stab of jealousy. Would the raucous greetings and the loud kisses on my cheek come to an end, now that Tom Seymour was my stepmother’s husband? It had been foolish of me to dream of him as someday being my own husband, although Kat herself had encouraged that fantasy. I kept my pledge to the queen and said nothing at all, but finally the baron’s presence at odd hours provoked palace gossip. At last the marriage was made public. Kat Ashley appeared profoundly shocked when she learned of it. “It is much too soon for this,” she declared, frowning in disapproval. “The dowager queen is bound to official mourning for a year. King Henry has been dead but three months!” I did not mention that I had already heard the news from Catherine’s own lips, but I did remind Kat that she herself had predicted this event, as well as the untimely suddenness. “Do not be pert, miss,” Kat admonished me, and I said no more. THERE WAS ANOTHER change in our living situation, this one more to my liking. With Tom officially part of our Chelsea household, he brought with him his ward, Lady Jane Grey, who was also my cousin – my father’s sister Margaret was Jane’s grandmother. As young children Jane and I and my brother – and, for a time, Robin Dudley – had shared lessons with our tutors. Jane was nine years old, Edward’s elder by only a matter of weeks. Now Jane was under the lord admiral’s guardianship, according to an agreement made with her parents. Jane Grey joined in my studies with my tutor, William Grindal. Despite the difference in our ages, I found Jane entirely my intellectual equal. Her Latin was as fluent as mine, if not better, and she was already reading Greek and Hebrew, in which I had but scant interest. Jane was a brilliant student, and I enjoyed the challenge she provided. But it appeared that something else was going on. Kat, walking with me in the gardens outside Chelsea Palace, said to me, “I believe the lord admiral intends to see his ward married to the king.” With her small bones and large, solemn eyes, rosy lips, and grave demeanour, Jane seemed a good match for my brother. But there were already rumours that the lord protector had chosen another of our cousins, five-year-old Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, to become my brother’s wife. This struck me as a particularly interesting rivalry – not between the two young girls, who would not be consulted in such a matter, but between the two Seymour brothers. Tom and Edward were each manoeuvring to promote his own interests. I had already concluded that Tom’s greatest ambition was to replace his brother and become King Edward’s lord protector. My stepmother was caught up in her new marriage. Besides my governess, Kat, Jane was my only friend. She was a sweet-natured girl in addition to having an acute intellect, and we spent many amiable hours in each other’s company. Although I was older by four years, there was little I could teach Jane, with the exception of embroidery. Her keen mind, though, was more challenged by Greek translations than by the couching of gold threads on a piece of silk. “Oh, dear Elizabeth,” she would sigh. “Your stitches are so much finer than mine shall ever be!” And so on. Had she not been my only friend, the only young girl with whom I could speak and walk and ride in the park, I might have found her somewhat annoying at times. She was almost too perfect. We were sitting at our needlework – I was embellishing the velvet cover of a book as a gift for Catherine, her initials entwined with the lord admiral’s, worked in silver wire – when Jane abruptly turned to me and murmured, “I am so happy here, Elizabeth. You cannot imagine how it was.” “I, too, am happy,” I responded. Imagine what? I wondered. “I should not speak of it,” she said. “But do, dear cousin,” I urged. “My parents are so severe,” she confided in a tearful voice. “Whether I speak or stay silent, sit or stand, eat, drink, be merry or sad, whether I am sewing or playing or dancing or doing anything else, I must do it perfectly. As perfectly as God made the world! If I do not, I am sharply taunted by my mother and cruelly rebuked with pinches and slaps by my father. I sometimes thought myself in hell, until the lord admiral took me as his ward and promised my parents that he would secure a bright future for me.” Jane was not the sort to wail and sob, as some might have done. Instead, after this recital of the terrors of her life with her parents, two perfect tears fell from her eyes, like pearls, and rolled softly down her pale cheeks. And when that was done, she returned to her needlework as though nothing unusual had been said. “Perhaps it is better to be an orphan,” I suggested. “Like me. There is not much that either of us can do with our lives just now, except when others decide to help us.”But someday, I thought, it will be different for me. The day will come when I will make my own decisions. I did not voice my thoughts, for I didn’t believe Jane would understand my determination. “How fortunate for both of us to have the care and affection of the lord admiral,” said Jane. “How fortunate, indeed,” I agreed. I wondered if she knew that Tom intended to use her to further his own ambitions. Many times, I confess it, I simply wanted to be rid of Jane, because I wanted more of Tom Seymour’s attention and affection for myself. I knew it was wrong. I knew that Tom was now a married man and that I was betraying my dear stepmother’s trust in me. And yet, how I yearned! I turned his least glance, his smallest joke, into something that meant that he returned my youthful passion. I’m certain that Lady Jane didn’t notice the long looks I gave the lord admiral when he barged into our classroom (to the obvious irritation of Professor Grindal) and in his booming voice bade us read aloud to him. Or how, when we supped together, I contrived to sit closer to him. Kat noticed, though. “For shame, madam!” she admonished me when I had been mooning after him too obviously. “It is apparent to all that you throw yourself in the baron’s path at every opportunity. And he the lawful husband of your benefactress!” But I could not stop myself. Nor did the lord admiral do anything at all to cure me of my lovesickness. When summer came all of us moved from Chelsea Palace to the countryside of Gloucestershire. The baron of Sudeley had ordered the refurbishment of his castle for his bride, and my lovestruck fantasies continued to bloom there like summer flowers. If Queen Catherine noticed she said nothing, probably assuming I would outgrow my foolishness. How many times in the months that followed did I wish that she had been right. CHAPTER FOUR Suspicion of Treason (#ulink_6ce1ecb2-2291-55e9-ba3c-b6ea6002e87c) 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. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/carolyn-meyer/beware-princess-elizabeth/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.