Chapter 5 #2
Elizabeth loved to sit with Kate and look at the vivid pictures in one of the beautifully illuminated books the King had provided.
They both enjoyed making music; the child had a precocious talent, and Kate herself was becoming increasingly proficient on the lute, the virginals, and the recorder.
Sometimes, they would sort through embroidery silks, and Lady Bryan would let the child pick the colors herself.
Then she would teach Elizabeth how to make rows of different stitches, with Kate doing the same.
Elizabeth learned quickly, as she learned everything.
Already, she knew her alphabet, and her numbers up to one hundred, and in chapel she was striving to understand the Latin rubric of the Mass.
“What is Father Parker saying?” she would pipe up, ever inquisitive, and Lady Bryan would put a finger to her lips and explain patiently, murmuring in a low voice.
Afterward, Elizabeth would pester the chaplain, urging him to teach her the words and phrases that so intrigued her.
She had only to hear a thing said once and she had it by heart.
When the embroidering palled—after all, Elizabeth was only in her third year, and her quick, darting mind was always flitting to the next thing—Lady Bryan would see to it that her day was filled with distractions: a walk with Kate in the great wide park of Hatfield, a visit to the stables to see her dappled pony, and a spell in the kitchens to watch the cook making marchpane, which she was allowed to sample after it had cooled; the child had an inordinately sweet tooth.
Then a story—nothing too somber, but perhaps that old tale of Master Chaucer’s about Chanticleer the cock, which always made Elizabeth laugh out loud; and after this, a light supper of pottage and bread, then prayers and bedtime.
Once Elizabeth was settled in her comfortable bed, with its feather mattress, crisp heavy linen, rich velvet counterpane and curtains, and the arms of England embroidered on its tester, Lady Bryan would sign the cross on her forehead and then leave her to go to sleep, settling herself with a book in a high-backed chair by the fire, a candle flickering at her side.
Most nights Kate slept on the pallet by Elizabeth’s bed-foot.
Soon Lady Bryan would be slumbering, her book abandoned on her lap.
Elizabeth, however, would lie wide awake, her fertile mind too active for sleep, and then she would lean over the end of the mattress and prod Kate with an insistent finger.
“Get into bed with me! We can look at the pictures again!”
And so Kate would clamber in beside her and turn the pages in the flickering candlelight until finally, mercifully, the child fell into slumber.
Then she herself would try to sleep. It did not come easily now, for when she was tired, she had no defenses against the ghastly images that came unbidden to haunt her.
That sickening thud as the executioner did his work, the blood, the sight of Anne’s severed head lying in the sawdust… Would she never forget these horrors?
—
When the King came again, even Kate had to concede that he was a loving father to Elizabeth. It was raining, so he sat beside the fire in the parlor with his daughter on his knee, while Kate and Kat sat sewing at the table.
“Are they keeping you hard at your books and your prayers, or do they let you out to play as often as they should?” the King asked, winking conspiratorially at Elizabeth, who laughed.
“I play a lot, Sir,” she said, “and I love that doll you sent me. But I do learn my letters and my catechism.”
“Well and good, well and good,” he said, bouncing her on his strong muscular thighs. Then he let her rest with her cheek against his doublet, which was encrusted with gems and goldsmiths’ work, with his bristly red beard tickling the top of her forehead.
“I will tell you something, Bessy,” he said.
“When I was a young king, I did not wish to be at my prayers or attending to state affairs; I wanted to enjoy life. So can you guess what I did? I would sneak out of the palace by a back stair and go hunting, and my councillors would never know I had gone.”
“Didn’t you get into trouble?” Elizabeth was wide-eyed.
“Hah!” he roared. “I am the King. They would never have dared!”
“Can you do what you like when you are king?” she asked.
“Of course I can,” he replied. “People have to do my will.” There was an edge to his voice.
“Then,” she told him, “I am going to be king when I grow up.”
Stealing a glance at his face in the brief silence that followed, Kate saw that he was angry.
Suddenly, he was a man of steel, cold of visage and tight-mouthed.
Without a word, he set Elizabeth none too gently on the floor, and drew himself up to his towering height, a big bulk of a man, powerful and daunting.
“You can never be a king,” he told her, in a voice as quiet as it was menacing. “You must pray that the Queen bears a son to rule after me. Take her to the nursery, Mistress Champernowne.”
Kat rose and hurried to do his bidding, and Kate followed her and Elizabeth out of the room. The child’s lips were trembling. “It’s all right, sweeting,” she said. “Maybe we should have told you that girls cannot be kings.”
“Men say it is against Nature and the law of God for a woman to rule,” Kat said, setting Elizabeth down on the nursery floor. “To me, that’s mere foolishness, but I would not for the world say that to his Grace’s face!”
Less than an hour passed before the King sent for Elizabeth again. When they took her back to the parlor, they found him as cheery and as boisterous as if nothing had upset him.
—
That evening, Kate was kneeling on the floor of the long gallery playing skittles with Elizabeth and Lady Troy.
Without warning, the child turned a troubled face to her.
“Is Queen Jane beautiful?” she asked, making Kate start.
“I have heard say that she is very fair,” Kate said.
“My mother was beautiful,” Elizabeth said in a small voice.
Kate did not know how to answer. She was mindful of the King’s command not to mention Anne to Elizabeth. But she had to say something, for this was the first time that Elizabeth had mentioned her since that dreadful day in the park.
The child was looking up at her with eyes that seemed old in her young face.
“What did my mother do that was bad?” she asked.
“She was unfaithful to the King,” Kate said, picking her words with care. “They said that she was accused of plotting to kill him.” She looked anxiously at her little cousin, waiting for the storm to break. It didn’t. Elizabeth was in command of herself.
—
That summer, Elizabeth was summoned to court, accompanied by Lady Bryan, and when she returned from there to Hatfield, she was full of how kind Queen Jane had been to her and how magnificent Hampton Court Palace was.
“It’s got a huge high roof, even taller than the one here, and it’s all painted in nice colors!
” she recounted, hopping from foot to foot.
“I didn’t want to come home, and the King my father said he was sorry to see me go, but he had to go somewhere with the Queen.
The French ambassador said I was a charming child. ”
“Well, you can be when you put your mind to it!” Kate teased, grinning.
“I am charming!” Elizabeth insisted. She was so vain. Already, she carried herself like the queen she would never now be.
She knelt on the carpet next to Kate. “Get out the skittles,” she commanded.
Kate made a face at her. “And what do we say?”
“Please!” Elizabeth shouted. As Kate rose, she said, “I miss my father, but I don’t miss Queen Jane very much. She’s not my real mother.”
“You will grow to love her,” Kate told her. “Just wait until you get to know her better.”
“Kat says that she has to have a son,” Elizabeth said.
Heavens, couldn’t Kat keep her mouth shut?
“The King your father needs a son to succeed him on the throne, so of course he is hoping to have one,” Kate said carefully.
“How does he get one?” Elizabeth asked.
Kate thought quickly as she laid the box of skittles on the floor and pulled back the rug. “He has to wait until God sends one.”
That seemed to satisfy the child, who was distracted by the imminent prospect of a game.
—
As August passed, Elizabeth kept asking when she was next going to court, or when her father would visit her.
“His Majesty is away hunting,” said Sir John Shelton.
“His Majesty is much occupied with plans for the Queen’s coronation.”
“There is plague abroad. The coronation has been postponed, and no one is allowed to visit the court for fear of the pestilence.”
Kate did not doubt that all these things were true—everyone was frightened of the plague—but she felt they did not excuse that monster for not taking the time to see his daughter.
One autumn day, Sir John appeared in the long gallery, where Kate was helping Lady Bryan to make herb-scented sachets for the linen chests.
Elizabeth was with them, rampaging about on the hobby horse the Queen had sent for her third birthday.
“There is a great rebellion in the north,” Sir John said.
“They are calling it the Pilgrimage of Grace. The Catholics are determined to halt the King’s religious reforms and save the monasteries from closure. ”
Lady Bryan glanced at Elizabeth, but she was riding up and down the gallery, progressing from a walk to a trot to a canter and then a gallop. She was not interested in the conversation between her elders. It was as well, because Sir John seemed deeply concerned.
“This is the most serious threat to the King. He might lose his throne.”
“Never!” decreed Lady Bryan.
“Don’t be too sure. He has sent troops north to deal with the rebels, but I fear they will be vastly outnumbered.
There’s no knowing what could happen.” He lowered his voice.
“If the King is overthrown by these insurgents, who will they choose to succeed him? His daughters are both declared bastards.”
“Shush!” hissed Lady Bryan. “That’s treason you’re speaking. It’s forbidden even to imagine the King’s death.”
“I wasn’t envisaging that, of course,” Sir John said hastily, coloring.
Kate bent her head to her sewing. She was aware that the King had broken with the wicked Pope in Rome and made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, and that momentous changes were afoot in the realm.
The Boleyns had been hot for reform of the Church, although no one had explained to her exactly what that meant, apart from the fact that there were people who held opinions that were different from the Church’s teachings, which got them into trouble.
Lady Bryan said that some were wicked heretics whose minds had been poisoned by a terrible man called Martin Luther, and that they deserved to be burned at the stake for trying to infect others with their lies.
Kate thought that was a horrible punishment for anyone, whatever they had done.
She felt nervous about the rebellion, but it was a long way away, and surely the King’s army would put a stop to it.
She knew about his closing down some abbeys and priories, and Aunt Anne had said that several were not worth saving, while others were hotbeds of Popery, and yet Lady Bryan was of the opinion that the monks and nuns did much good work, looking after the poor and the sick, and teaching children—and who would do that if the King closed all the monasteries down?
Yet she never said this in front of Elizabeth or Sir John.
Kate did not know what to think. Grown-ups were always going on about religious change, and most of it went over her head. She loved God, said her prayers, and kept the commandments, and that was enough, she felt.
Of course, the rebellion meant nothing to Elizabeth until she was allowed to participate in the celebrations to mark the crushing of it in December.
“And we are to go to Whitehall, and then to Greenwich for Christmas!” beamed Lady Bryan, holding Elizabeth’s hand as they watched the bonfire that had been lit in honor of the occasion.
The villagers of Hatfield were capering around it, hands linked, and the ale was flowing freely.
The child’s eyes shone, and she skipped for joy in her excitement.
Kate was looking forward to going to court, too, for the revelry, until Sir John informed her that she was to go home to Hever Castle for the season. “We cannot take the whole household to court,” he said.
Kate was appalled at the prospect of a cheerless Christmas in the company of Grandfather, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, and Elizabeth was appalled at being separated from Kate.
She jumped up and down in a fury, demanding that Kate go with her, but Lady Bryan was having no such nonsense and commanded her to obey her governor. Elizabeth subsided, looking mutinous.