Chapter 8 #2
I studied my boots, muddy from the journey and flecked with dead blades of grass. “Elizabeth fell in love with him.”
I did not mention the brief, foolish time I’d been infatuated with Seymour as well. But it gave me an understanding of his charm.
“I know she did,” Uncle John said, voice gentling.
“That is neither here nor there. A princess may fall in love and break her heart with no one to condemn her—so long as she keeps it to herself. But any action on that love determines her fate. The question is not whether Elizabeth fell in love, but whether she promised to marry Seymour and thus aid his schemes.”
“She did not,” I said with confidence.
“And that is why they are evil to our Kat. They wish to make her admit that Elizabeth did agree to marry him, with Kat as a go-between.”
We sat in silence, hearts heavy, thinking of the woman we loved, wretched in the Tower.
Uncle John and Aunt Kat did not see eye to eye at times, which was obvious from their occasional quarrels. Uncle John believed her too ready to pry into things she should leave alone, but it was clear that he cherished her.
Theirs had been a match of love and friendship—I regarded it as an example of what a good marriage could be. I was broken-hearted, but Uncle John was doubly so.
“Will they let us visit Aunt Kat?” I asked after a time.
Uncle John shrugged tiredly. “I have tried, but without success. They fear I will pass messages to her or advise her what to say.”
“Perhaps I can be admitted. I am a seamstress—I can invent some excuse to enter—”
I broke off when Uncle John glared at me. “I’ll not let my niece traipse into the Tower like a heroine and be arrested as a conspirator. ’Tis a foolish idea, Eloise. Let me hear no more about it.”
His fear for me was genuine, so I subsided.
“How can we sit here, not knowing what is happening?” I asked as we drifted into moroseness once more.
“I do have some information. Not everyone belongs to Somerset. There are those who tell me things, ones who do not like Somerset’s complete control over the king.”
Some of my fears gave way before curiosity. “Who are these people?”
“No one you should trouble yourself about. Never repeat that I said this, but I believe Somerset’s days are numbered.
” Uncle John lowered his voice and glanced around uneasily, as though he feared spies lurked behind the walls.
Well, they might. “We will dine, niece, and you will rest. You must be worn out from your journey.”
I obeyed him, seeing he would say nothing more.
I remained in London with Uncle John for a time, trying to live as routine a life as possible. We took meals in his lodgings, aided by Uncle John’s servants, who were kind to us, and also concerned for Aunt Kat’s welfare.
I’d brought along the bodice for the new gown that I’d been doing fittings on with Elizabeth before I’d departed. I tried to focus on sewing tucks that would make the bodice lie flat and embellishing it with seed pearls, but Aunt Kat’s imprisonment remained a shadow over me.
I usually enjoyed excursions to London, taking the opportunity to visit shops that carried fabrics and trim brought from the Continent, Africa, and as far away as the Asiatic countries.
I loved to browse the silks and velvets, damask and satin, laces and ribbons.
Even the more common fabrics of lawn and linsey-woolsey could usually gain my attention.
This journey, I lacked interest. I kept myself in Uncle John’s lodgings and wrote to various people of my acquaintance in London, trying to find out what information I could regarding Aunt Kat.
On the fourth day my stay, our fears for Aunt Kat were confirmed.
One of Uncle John’s cronies from court discovered that she had indeed been confined of nights to a dank cell.
She was usually released in daylight hours, but only to speak to a secretary of Edward’s council.
Apparently, she was telling him all sorts of tales, including everything that had happened between Seymour and Elizabeth in Chelsea.
Somerset ordered guards to Uncle John’s house and bade us not to leave. As frightening as this was, however, these guards proved to be a great source of information. Stultified by their assignment, the men at arms gossiped readily with us to relieve their tedium.
The guards had heard about Elizabeth’s letter to Somerset denying she was pregnant by Seymour. Somerset had apparently written back to her, declaring that Elizabeth should name those who’d slandered her, so he could make an example of them.
Somerset had flown into another rage at Elizabeth’s reply—that she would not be considered the sort of person who pointed fingers and punished rumormongers.
This news had filtered through nobles to their servants, and in turn to our guards, so I could not say how embellished all had become before it met our ears.
But I detected in the stories a grain of truth: Elizabeth had stood up for herself and her damaged reputation, laying it fully in the Protector’s lap to prove she’d done anything wrong.
Somerset at last issued a statement saying that such stories about the princess were untrue and those who spread the lie would be imprisoned. I sensed an acid tone in the proclamation, but it was done.
Though Uncle John and I were more or less confined, I managed to gain permission to run the occasional errand, claiming to need thread or other notions that I trusted only myself to choose.
I obeyed Uncle John and never went near the Tower, which was made easier by the guard who was always dispatched to follow me.
I met acquaintances at the markets and spoke to those I regularly bought fabric and other sundries from while in London.
I learned through these sources that while Somerset was busily confiscating Seymour’s lands and houses, there were other nobles, like the Dudley family, who believed Somerset was going too far. The Seymours’ power was waning.
Again, I realized this information might only be hearsay, but I tucked it away in my head to relate to Elizabeth when I returned to her.
The Dudley family was run by the Earl of Warwick, whose son, Robert, had sometimes been Elizabeth’s playmate or studied with her when they were children.
I hadn’t thought much about him at the time, as I’d had no interest in boys in my youth.
My Lady Elizabeth and her beautiful clothes had been far more interesting to me.
Robert now served in Edward’s court, as did his father, who’d become the Lord Great Chamberlain. I wasn’t certain what a Lord Great Chamberlain did exactly, but I knew it was a very lofty position.
Robert’s father and Somerset had always been good friends, from what I understood, and so this friction, if true, was intriguing.
I kept my findings to myself, as the cold February days wound on, as neither Uncle John nor I were allowed to communicate with Elizabeth. I’d hoped to send her a covert letter, but Uncle John convinced me it was foolish to try.
I obeyed him, to his relief, though I continued to pry as much as I could out of anyone I could speak to.
In my frustration, I began to ponder ways I could communicate with Elizabeth without writing, since letters were forbidden.
The scheme that dawned on me would not help me at the moment, but I amused myself expanding on the idea and trying various methods.
I’d have to explain it all to Elizabeth, if I was ever allowed to be near her again.
March began with the same cold dreariness of February. Then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, our guards were dismissed, and we were allowed to leave again for Hatfield. We had no explanation—the sergeant who headed the troop simply told us he’d been recalled, and the armed men marched away.
Uncle John elected to stay in London, to be near Aunt Kat, but he sent me home.
I retreated with a heavy heart. I’d miss him—I clung to Uncle John for a long while before I could make myself let go. I was still frantically worried about Aunt Kat and none the wiser about her fate.
I reached Elizabeth’s house on a drizzly morning, having spent a night with the gentlewomen and guards Uncle Denny had sent to escort me at a wayside inn.
I found Elizabeth in another great fury.
“The Protector could get nothing from my fine Kat,” she snarled as she stalked back and forth in her chamber.
“She is innocent of anything but having a foolish tongue. Still, he dares to replace her with Lady Tyrwhitt, a woman of no great mind. I have done nothing to demean myself, and the council has no need to put any more mistresses upon me.”
I crept out as she called for paper, prepared to write her anger to the Protector once again.
I imagined the tall, thin-faced Somerset, his white lips folding in on themselves as he read yet another tirade from Elizabeth.
“What of our dear Kat?” Elizabeth asked me later that night when her outrage had brought on one of her headaches. “What did you learn? Tell me at once, Eloise.”
She lay in bed with a chamomile-scented cloth on her forehead, while I sat by her side. Fear made Elizabeth angry, and her rage could wind her into illness.
I told her all I’d learned—that Aunt Kat remained confined and that she’d confessed all of Elizabeth’s escapades with Seymour at Chelsea.
Master Parry had shared similar tales, including that Seymour had offered Elizabeth, via Parry, lands and money.
I also related the rumors that Somerset was in danger of being toppled himself if he did not take care.
Elizabeth listened to all without interruption. When she did speak, her voice had quieted, as if worn out with bitterness.
“Why, then, should they keep our Mistress Ashley? She has told them all she knows, and Seymour has been condemned, his lands seized. Why is that not the end of it?”
“I do not know,” was all I could say.
Elizabeth directed me to her writing table and told me to read the papers Tyrwhitt had brought that Aunt Kat had written herself. She’d continued denying that Elizabeth had any intention of marrying Seymour, but her final paragraph kindled my tears:
Good Master Secretary, speak that I may change my prison. For by my troth, it is so cold I cannot sleep in it and so dark that I cannot in the day see, for I stop the window with straw; there is no glass . . .
When I finally retired to bed, I wept, brokenheartedly.
This was the most terrible thing that had happened in my young life, and at fifteen, I could not imagine worse.
The woman who had taken me from a home where I was unwanted and welcomed me with cheerfulness to hers, now suffered in the cold and dark, with no surety that she’d ever see daylight again.
Elizabeth cried for her as well, and the next day she wrote the Protector a strongly worded letter, explaining that Kat was more important to her than a mother. Please relieve Kat’s suffering—send her home, and be good to her.
Tyrwhitt accosted me that afternoon when I was sewing in the light of the great hall, he having read Elizabeth’s letter thoroughly before he dispatched it to London.
“You are close to Her Grace,” Tyrwhitt said, his small eyes narrowing.
“How is it she loves Mistress Ashley so well? Here is a woman who confessed all manner of lewd behavior on Her Grace Elizabeth’s part, embarrassing her, even if trying to clear her from the Lord Admiral’s plots.
I would think Her Grace would like never to see the woman again. ”
I faced Tyrwhitt patiently, this moon-faced, elderly man who’d been given far too much power over us.
“The princess loves few people,” I explained.
“But those she loves, she loves very deeply, and she will never abandon them. My Aunt Kat took care of Her Grace Elizabeth when she had nothing—no status as princess, no household of her own, and had been declared illegitimate. Aunt Kat loved her anyway. Her Grace will never forget it, I think.”
Tyrwhitt’s frown grew as I spoke, his brows pinching in perplexity. When I finished, he cleared his throat, betraying his discomfort.
“I see,” was all he could come up with to say. “Well, tell her she is a fool.”
I made no such promise, and Tyrwhitt stalked away toward his chamber, clearly not understanding what I’d told him.