Chapter 26
The difference between being seamstress to a princess and seamstress to the queen was that, from the instant Elizabeth received the ring in her chamber, I had not a moment to call my own.
All this while I was expected to pore over the fabrics, trims, and jewels to bedeck the queen during her everyday audiences and make a start on the coronation gowns.
Mary and her Spanish husband were gone, Elizabeth was queen, and England heaved a collective sigh of relief. A pretty, young, and very English queen was ascending to the throne, and the dark days were over. The people, tired of winter, longed for spring.
Elizabeth’s councilors and courtiers moved into in place within days of the official news that Mary had died. William Cecil was busily making myriad plans in his new position as secretary to the queen.
Aunt Kat joined us happily in London and received Elizabeth’s fond embraces. Elizabeth instantly made Aunt Kat First Lady of the Bedchamber—an honor that surprised everyone but me.
Robert Dudley became her Master of Horse, Uncle John the Master of the Jewel House at the Tower. To James Colby Elizabeth gave a captaincy in her personal guard and promised a knighthood and a baronetcy at her coronation. I became First Seamstress to the queen.
Being First Seamstress meant that though I longed to be near my husband, we perforce saw very little of each other.
We had but a few stolen moments whenever we met in a passageway, and a few words before we fell, exhausted, into our bed at night—and that only when Elizabeth allowed me to sleep elsewhere than her chamber.
The coronation was foremost in our minds, and I spent every minute of the day consulting about Elizabeth’s clothes, picking through the sumptuous fabrics presented to her, drawing designs, bullying my assistants to sew faster, and taking up a needle myself when it became clear that we’d never finish in time.
The gown for the coronation itself we remade from the one Mary had worn. As Elizabeth had a completely different build from Mary, the entire garment would have to be reconstructed.
Elizabeth was not the easiest to fit these days.
People surrounded her from morning to night, most of them men, most of them high-placed, most of them trying to talk to her about everything at once.
A lesser woman would have fainted away under all their fussing, but Elizabeth simply told them what she wanted done, expected them to do it, and moved on to the next crisis.
The coronation would be held on January 15, the date chosen by Dr. Dee, the court astronomer now welcomed by Elizabeth, as the most favorable. Dr. Dee might believe it an auspicious day, I grumbled darkly to myself, but he was not the one who had to finish the wardrobe in time.
The state robes of red and purple velvets had to be done, then the gown Elizabeth would wear under them, a gold silk patterned with silver thread and pearls. We trimmed the long, pointed bodice with precious jewels and sewed ermine to the close-fitting sleeves.
I attached a small ruff for Elizabeth’s neck, which would make her rather long face seem rounder.
The gold skirt had a train trimmed with ermine that required extra time to stitch, and we were sorely rushed.
The dress would be covered by a mantle of cloth of gold, embroidered with red roses and lined with ermine and gold tassels.
The costume was complicated and ornate, and I was never entirely happy with it. I felt added tension, because I knew all of London would be watching. The entire world as well, as countless reports and drawings of the event would be circulated throughout the kingdom and abroad.
I was never certain how we managed to finish it all, but we thankfully did. We’d have to pin a few of the gowns on her and hope—but on the appointed day, Elizabeth was ready to travel through the streets on her progress to Westminster.
Elizabeth rode in a large litter borne by mules, Robert Dudley on horseback just behind it. Elizabeth’s maids had brushed out her hair until it gleamed, letting it flow loose and long over her shoulders.
She would move slowly, halting within the City for various pageants put on by the guilds of London, each of which would be symbolic of their support of her and hopes for her reign.
I did not join the procession, but Colby, newly knighted in the Tower, marched with Elizabeth’s guards.
He was dressed in white trimmed with green, his back straight, his crooked arm hidden by the fine silks of the queen’s livery.
Aunt Kat rode with Elizabeth’s train of ladies, she exalted by her new position, Uncle John with Elizabeth’s gentlemen.
I slipped from the Tower and mingled with passers-by on the streets, where I shouted and waved with the rest of the joyful Londoners.
Conduits had been set up so that free wine from wine shops and barrels could flow, spigots allowing us to fill our cups again and again.
I lost myself in the frenzy and didn’t find my bed until well into the night.
The next day, though my head ached and my tongue was thick from my overindulgence, I stalwartly attended the coronation banquet and waited on Elizabeth.
I never came close to her place at the table, being far less highborn than her other ladies. I passed wine and cloths to baronesses, who handed them to duchesses, who handed them to Elizabeth. I minded not at all.
My heart was light. After so much darkness and so much fear, my Lady Elizabeth was queen at last.
A queen, Elizabeth’s privy councilors announced once the coronation was done, needed a husband.
As with Mary, they felt that a woman could not rule without guidance from a man—had not Mary made disastrous decisions once Philip had left her, such as reinstating the heresy laws, not to mention losing Calais?
I longed to point out that it had been Mary’s husband who’d gone and lost us Calais, but the council would not have listened to me. They fondly believed that the correct marriage would make all the difference in Elizabeth’s case.
What followed was a string of suitors who courted the queen one by one: Philip of Spain himself; Archduke Charles, another son of the Holy Roman Emperor; Sir William Pickering, one of Thomas Wyatt’s conspirators; Eric, the new king of Sweden, and many more.
Every eligible bachelor in Europe wanted to pair himself with Elizabeth, England being the jewel each prince wanted to add to his crown.
I knew, however, as did Colby, that while Elizabeth let these gentlemen of the Continent woo her, only one man in the world existed whom she could envision as her husband, and that man was Lord Robert Dudley.
As Elizabeth’s Master of Horse, Robert saw to it that she had the best horseflesh in Europe made available to her. Philip had brought lovely Spanish horses to England, where they’d remained, and now Robert ordered horses from Flanders and Ireland to add to the English stock.
He’d also quickly became Elizabeth’s most trusted confidant and her closest friend. This friendship grew and twined into something strange and complex, and by the time Elizabeth’s reign was less than a year old, every person in the kingdom hated Lord Robert.
“Is he so very terrible?” I asked my husband one evening in the first August of Elizabeth’s reign.
I lounged by the fire as the day had grown cool, stretching my legs as I stifled a yawn. I was easily tired these days, as only a week before I had given birth to our daughter, who slept in a cradle at my feet.
Before I had pushed her out into the world—I wailing loudly no matter how the midwife had tried to shush me—I’d had no idea how profoundly I could love one small person.
Equally as profound was my fear for the mite who struggled to live, especially after my experience the first time I’d found myself with child.
She’d been born a little too early, and Colby, Aunt Kat, and I hovered over her, taking turns sleeping, terrified that we’d watch our Catherine Elizabeth drift into her final sleep.
“Dudley?” James’s eyes remained closed, his long legs beside mine. “Well, he is arrogant, and he makes no bones about using people to get what he wants. He flirts with every wife but his own and has the queen dancing in his hand. Do you consider that terrible?”
“A bit,” I admitted.
Colby shrugged, his shoulder rubbing mine. “While his wife lives, Elizabeth can have only a flirtation with him. At worst, an affair. Our friend Dudley is not likely to become king.”
“Yes, but I hear Amy is often ill,” I said glumly. “And tongues wag that the queen would not be sorry if she died and set Robert free.”
“’Tis rumor only, Eloise. Have you heard Elizabeth say this yourself?”
“No,” I answered. “But when Elizabeth becomes impetuous and imprudent, she endangers herself. We must stop her.”
James opened his eyes, his red brows rising.
“We must, must we? Elizabeth is queen, twenty-six years old, and has ceased listening to the likes of us. She is no longer the little princess so careful of how she comports herself. Remember that she can now send you to the Tower for twitting her about her behavior.”
I pursed my lips, refusing to see this in an amusing light. “Perhaps she would not listen to you or me,” I said. “But I know someone she might.”
James caught my thoughts as he so often did and nodded. “I believe you are right. Shall you ask her?”
“Indeed.” I yawned again. “But in the morning.”
Colby grinned at me and pulled me close, erasing my worries with his tenderness.
The next day, after a much-needed sleep, and leaving my daughter safely in the arms of my husband, I went in search of Aunt Kat.
Elizabeth and William Cecil had their heads together, speaking softly and rapidly, but these days this was a usual sight. Cecil had begun working not an hour after Elizabeth had received word of Mary’s death, and since then he’d labored almost ceaselessly.