Elizabeth rode the three-year-old Regal, a horse John had let her name. Her bedchamber door was unlocked and, surprised at that, I darted in. At last, voices in the hall! John oft acted as a guard for Her Grace’s royal person, too, though we usually managed to make it look as if he were just with me and I were with her. We had not seen it in the winter. But I studied her especially because it was common knowledge that she had been swept away in love by Sir Thomas Seymour before she caught the king’s eye. “Ah, Mrs. Ashley,” the man who was my examiner intoned as he peered into the dimly lit cell that had been my prison for nigh on six weeks. Yet it was not the furbishings but the lady herself who commanded my interest. I’ll brook no more of your delays or clever bantering. Without my times at Dartington Hall, I would never have learned such or yearned much. I thought. I must be certain he is well rewarded for his good work—my dear Cecil too.” She looked wan, weak and bedraggled, but as my girl stood on her own two feet and I wrapped a robe around her and combed the crown of her red-gold hair, she had never looked more a queen.
He breathed through his mouth, which made it seem he was panting. “I know how to calm all sorts of wild steeds but not Dudley or the queen,” John told me once. These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Lord Cromwell’s sharp visage floated before me, then Henry Tudor’s florid face—even my father’s, as if I were reviewing my life before my impending death. Did you hear what I just told you?” he said, giving me a little shake. Do you like historical stories with strong female characters? “Handsome, isn’t he? I did not scold anyone but took over with a vengeance. No, a disembodied voice whispered, “Mistress! Her thoughtless, oft reckless behavior seemed to say that nothing could harm her now. You’re right, I must distance myself from him, but I just—just can’t face it.
Yet through the shuttered windows I could hear the ever-present droning of the priests and bishops who walked in the courtyard below chanting their rosaries for the safe birth of the royal child. I was grateful John took my elbow, because my legs shook, and not from the long ride. And then, who knows what that waiting will be for, eh?” For once, I had nothing to say. It was a very heartfelt story, which actually brought me close to tears a few times, especially when Kat would think back to her time with Anne Boleyn. “Master Cromwell, should I go for help?” his man asked. That is, unless someone did not show the proper demeanor to or delight in his dear Anne. I nodded and went out to do for her—as oft I had before—a duty that I did not want. . Still, Cecil and the Council were already adamant that Elizabeth consider royal suitors. “Lady Ashley,” came the distinctive voice, though subdued now, “welcome to my prison. Here were dark cliffs half-hidden by humps of hills and the broad, pale sand shore studded by random clusters of black rocks as if a huge hand had strewn them amidst the sea grasses of Sedgewell Cove. John, I knew, would hold to that, no matter what, so—through my death or his—I might lose him for good. . . Yet he knew how to look one in the eye and listen intently with a penetrating gaze, though I later learned his thoughts might well be elsewhere. But it was no dream that Maud flew into a fit of temper—despite another half crown from Cromwell’s purse that sealed the bargain with my father—when she heard I was to be sent to Sir Philip Champernowne’s household at Modbury, not as servant but as companion to his daughters. King’s roving eye or not, she won’t last long at court, I thought. I grew up in East Burnham in Norfolk.” “Yes, the Howards, headed by the Duke of Norfolk.
Tom of Wolf Hall was tall—later I learned few but the king were taller—and dark-haired, with brown eyes that seemed to look right through me, or at least through my clothing. “No, it’s just privy pictures, my lord,” Elizabeth protested with a sharp laugh as she tried to tug it back from him.
God willing, it must be true that I shall rule. Each time, I came closer to the truth, closer to giving her Anne’s ring, but I held back. But Crawfie’s discreet and loving memoir saw her punished for the rest of her life.
Another princess. That night he took me by force, he was raving jealous.” “Raving jealous,” he repeated, gripping my upper arms and seeming to look through me, as if he saw it all. At age twelve, she rides better than men twice her age.” Business done, we kissed, then he just held me against him, my head tucked under his chin. Behind us, trying to keep up, came Elizabeth, called Bess, of thirteen years, pulling her sister Katherine, called Kate, eight years, the youngest of the Champernowne brood. No doubt, her many enemies they had lorded over rejoiced.
Just before that horrid scene, so Cecil said, the wretch had the gall to tell one of his servants, “Remember the charge I gave you!” The servant was questioned, and two letters in crude, scribbled code were found in the man’s shoe, one to each of the king’s royal sisters, urging them to press on against the Lord Protector, the brother Tom had always hated. LONDON TO HAMPTON COURT The next morning, without seeing Cromwell again, I was off to Hampton Court on a royal barge, one stripped of its hangings, crests and seat cushions, though loaded with wooden boxes tied down with straps. The writing was so ridiculous. Worries I would let her down kept me awake some nights, and I fancied she sometimes spoke to me in my sleep, desperately, passionately, even as she had that last moment when she hugged me farewell in her prison room here at the Tower and I vowed to be her girl’s good teacher and friend always. Worse, abetted by George Boleyn’s widow, Jane Rochford, who had been the first person to greet me when I arrived at court, Catherine Howard had taken a lover behind her besotted royal husband’s back. Because then, when I declare the time to be ripe, I will see that you are placed with a noble family of my choosing in London, not as a servant but as a companion, a gentlewoman-in-waiting, so to speak. “His Majesty needs me and he needs a son, and I shall see to both!” I seldom carried messages between her and Cromwell anymore, for the Boleyns had so inserted themselves into the politics of the land that she oft summoned Cromwell to her as if she were England’s ruler. Hoping my lips were not blue from the mulberries, I tipped my head back to smile up at him. “My lady, you have too much to live for. “Say it then.” “We have a bargain, Master Cromwell.” To my surprise, moving only his good arm, he took my hand—the one not holding the rolled-up pages of my story I had penned that day—and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “They released me after rough questioning. But with John, everything was perfect.
Besides, he was grieved, as were we all, that Mary Sidney had caught the pox while nursing the queen. And like John—and Tom Seymour too, curse him—Robert reeked of masculinity and magnetism. “Good day, Mistress Ashley,” he bid me kindly. She drove herself hard, and I knew why. Like me, she valued learning, however different her family and past were from mine.
This fever’s just from something I must have eaten—not the sweat or worse.
But where was John and in what condition would I find him? I knew Northumberland was up to something! It has been—let’s see, nigh on twentysix years now.” “Aye. He perched behind a portable desk that had not been there today, though he had brought it with him twice before. After all, it was common knowledge in the Fleet that Bishop Gardiner had been a prisoner here during the reign of King Edward, so he would know all the ins and outs. I rue the day I taught her how to ride like the wind. Anne glanced into the alcove and screeched, “Get off his lap, you strumpet! Tom gave me a running commentary on it. It was dropsy and belly swelling and the cessation of her menses that had deluded her this time, she claimed. He was caring for all the business of the kingdom while His Majesty was in seclusion and deepest mourning. “Is all well?” I asked him as we three huddled by the hearth. Make no mistake, Warwick was as ambitious as they come, but he seemed somehow more human. The court, the country, even foreigners spoke of the scandal.
I know the family.
“Those who helped to preserve Your Majesty’s rightful throne are truly blessed.” “And for that we must give thanks,” she said, with a little clap of her hands. But Arthur had told me, too, that his sire had vowed to buy him a fine manor somewhere in Devon, so he would someday have even better prospects to wed well. This way, by your leave.” It was darker than a birthing chamber in the small house. Just as Mary had predicted, and as John and I had feared, a new rebellion was raised by a man who proclaimed Elizabeth as rightful queen. She rushed out willy-nilly. It was said the king had wed Katherine Parr partly because he needed a nurse for his old age, but it was also said that he was going to amend the Act of Succession to include any children they might have. But a dreadful sleet storm made us put up in a house on the way. You have plans.” “Precise and pithy—I like that in you. I was not dreaming. He was so much like his master. At least the great Henry Rex would have to admit the child showed her Tudor heritage with her thatch of red hair, though her eyes were not pale blue but already dark, like her mother’s. “He’s to die a traitor’s death tomorrow on Tower Hill,” Master Chamberlain said. You will choose your loyalty, and if you choose her, it is because you are like her. Unfortunately, Cromwell summoned me to meet him in the rose garden to the east of the palace. I had held in my hopes and fears for him so long, I burst out in tears and fled outside, where Elizabeth came to comfort me as I had her so many times. But on my introduction to Modbury by my mentors, I was in awe, and not just from seeing the high regard which they enjoyed among the local citizenry. “Her Majesty, your sister, is gravely ill, God rest her soul—despite it all.” “I’ll not have such talk, Lord Ashley!” the Pope interrupted again. But to this new duty for you. “Both, of course. Lady Katherine had told me—warned me, as she put it—that the English courtiers’ greeting was a kiss directly on the mouth. My heartbeat kicked up to a canter, then a wild gallop. Soon after, when I saw her and Tom walking in the gardens with his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist, I pressed my knuckles against my lips and cried. I was surprised to see him instead of Master Stephen for once. I, too, turned away and began to pack, trying to calm myself, for my heart was nearly pounding out of my chest as I forced my thoughts back to this current predicament. That is all I really knew. Your Grace, come with me, for I think we are leaving.” “I did not mean to hurt Katherine,” Elizabeth said in the hall as I hustled her upstairs as if she were a little child. Cannot we convince them I can’t be moved, stall for time?” “I think he means it, so the queen must too,” I muttered, digging in her coffer for her warmest gown and cloak.
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