The Fallen Queen (3 page)

“Oh, my dear child!” Master Ascham cried and tenderly pressed her lily-pale hand to his lips and held it there for a very long time.

I saw the smallest flicker of a smile twitch Jane’s lips, and at the time, being so young, I wondered if his long, curly beard was tickling her hand, or perhaps he was in love with her, and she like any other maid was preening over her conquest, but now, as a woman grown older and wiser, I suspect that it was his pity that gave her the greatest pleasure.

While it is true that Jane was beautiful—if she had smiled and radiated charm and winning ways, she would have rivalled Kate as the beauty of the family—she was
not
blessed with these gifts, nor did she make any effort to cultivate them. On the contrary, she disdained them and flaunted a frankness that bordered on insolence. Tolerance and tact eluded her. No matter how much we encouraged her or how hard our lady-mother tried to instill grace and charm through beatings and harsh punishments, Jane dug in her heels like a balky mule and refused to budge.

In matters of faith and fashion she was intractable, and over both, she waged many a battle, and even though she won many, I always, in my heart, felt that she always lost. As Kate always used to tell her, “You win more friends with smiles than with frowns, and honey catches far more flies than vinegar.”

But for all her brilliance and book learning, Jane lacked the ability to make herself liked. All she had was her intelligence, learning, and religious zeal to win her applause, accolades, and admiration. And she knew it. So if she could not be loved, she decided she would be praised and venerated. She saw herself as a victim, and she would make sure others saw her the same way, and she would shackle this idea to her strong, unwavering Protestant faith to create an image that would never be forgotten, as memorable, powerful, and inspiring as the Maid of France.

In many ways, Jane created her own myth. I loved my sister, but I sometimes wonder if I would have loved her if she had not been my sister. She was dour and gloomy, the kind of dull, dreary, and pedantic person who rains on every picnic. But as much as Jane scorned love, and urged us to turn away from the flesh and despise it and look to our souls instead, her need for it was all the greater, and she needed us—her sisters, who knew her best—to love her. She needed love in life more than she needed this posthumous fame and a glorious martyrdom. I wish she had lived long enough to find it. I
longed
to see Jane transfigured by love,
true
love, not just that tantalizing glimpse I caught of her in the dying throes of a girlish infatuation she once confided to us, or fighting furiously against and despising herself for her deep-buried and denied attraction to Guildford Dudley. I wanted to see her as a woman in love with all her sharp edges softened and beautifully blunted and blurred by bliss. But the allure of the victim, the sacrifice, the forever young and beautiful martyr, proved too strong, and Jane chose a remarkable and romanticized death, a potent and inspiring memory for posterity to glorify and cherish, over an ordinary life and the joy that can be found in the right pair of arms.

I have only two portraits of my sister Kate, my sunshine girl, along with the letters she wrote to me, tied up in bunches with silk ribbons the colour of ripe raspberries, and a jewelled and enamelled hand mirror shaped like a mermaid, a memento from her first marriage.

Sometimes I imagine I can see her laughing, happy face reflected in the oval of Venetian glass framed by the sea nymph’s flowing golden tresses. How strange it is, it always strikes me when I contemplate these pictures, that in both of them Kate, who loved bright colours so, is dressed in black and white. Where are her favourite fire opals and flashing green emeralds? Neither portrait does justice to her great beauty of face and heart. Both are miniatures, round with azure grounds, the paint made from pulverized lapis lazuli, painted by Lavinia Teerlinc, a dainty, flaxen-haired Flemish woman. The first shows Kate at thirteen, her hair more golden than copper then beneath a gold-bordered white satin hood. It was painted when she was still new-married to her first husband, Lord Herbert, and trying to look grown up in a high-necked gown of black velvet edged with white rabbit fur and gold aglets all down the front and trimming the slashed sleeves, her chin sinking deep into the soft cushion of a gold-frilled ruff. Beneath these stark and severe matronly black-and-white trappings, her bubbly vivacity and charm are smothered so that if only this picture survives down through the ages none will ever know what she was
really
like. And that saddens me; I want everyone to know and love Kate as I did, before she became the tragic heroine, with “all for love” as her creed, living and dying for love.

In the second portrait she looks sad and sickly, or “heart-sore” as the poets might say, blessed with that peculiar kind of beauty that sorrow in some miraculous way enhances; for Kate, though her fame is far eclipsed by Jane’s, is Love’s martyr, not Faith’s. This picture shows an older and sadder Kate at twenty-three, clad yet again in black velvet and white fur, a loose, flowing, sleeveless black surcoat through which her thin arms clad in tight-fitting white sleeves latticed with gold embroidery protrude like sticks, the bones and veins in the backs of her hands distressingly bold. In this likeness, Kate’s bright hair is subdued and hidden beneath a plain white linen coif devoid of ornamentation, not a stitch of embroidery, not even a jewelled or gilt braid border or even a dainty frill of lace. And, though it doesn’t show in this picture, her waist is thickening and her belly growing round again beneath the loose folds of black velvet with her second son, Thomas. Ned, the husband who held her heart in his hand, is with her in the form of a miniature worn on a black ribbon around her neck, and in the child they made together, the rosy-cheeked baby boy, named Edward after his sire. Kate holds her son up proudly, grandly garbed, like a little prince, in a black velvet gown I made for him, striped down the front with silver braid, and cloth-of-gold sleeves with white frills at his neck and wrists, his little black velvet cap twinkling with diamonds and trimmed with jaunty tawny and white plumes. He clutches a half-ripe apple, its flesh both rosy red and gold blurring into green, and one can almost imagine it represents the orb that is put in the sovereign’s hand on their coronation day. Kate holds her son in such a way that the ring Ned put upon her finger on their wedding day is on display for all to see, the famous puzzle ring of five interlinked golden bands, as well as the pointed sky blue diamond betrothal ring, both declaring that this baby in her arms is not some baseborn bastard, an infant conceived in hot lust and shame, but a legitimately born heir with royal blood from both the Tudor and Plantagenet lines coursing through his veins like a scarlet snake that could someday rear up and strike down the Queen if those who oppose this petticoat rule of Elizabeth’s ever dare to raise his banner and fight to take the throne in his name.

This picture looks like a warning in paint. If I were Elizabeth, or one of her counsellors, that is certainly how I would see it. But I
know
my sister better than any. Kate
never
coveted a crown for her children or herself. She was there and saw what happened to Jane. Kate steadfastly refused to follow in Jane’s footsteps, despite the urgings of others. Instead, she turned her back on the road of power and ambition and the golden throne that shone so bright it blinded the beholder to the scaffold lurking ominously in the shadows. The only ambition Kate ever harboured for herself, or her children, was to love and be loved. This is in truth a portrait of love, showing Kate with the three people she loved most—her husband, their firstborn son, and the one growing in the safe and loving warmth of her womb—and yet another example of my beautiful sister thinking with her heart instead of with her head.

And tucked inside my father’s battered old comfit box, its sky blue and rosy pink enamel chipped and worn, flaking off in places, nestled inside a bag of warm burgundy velvet, is a cameo carved with the profile of the most
beautiful
boy I ever saw—Jane’s husband, the vainglorious Guildford Dudley, when he was only sixteen and thought the world was an oyster poised to give up its precious pearl to him. That exquisitely carved profile is pure white, so I have only my memory to remind me of the gleaming brightness of his golden curls and the gooseberry green of his eyes. There was a grandiose portrait of Guildford clad head to toe in vibrant yellow and gold, but I don’t know what ever became of it. ’Tis a pity; I would like to have it here with me, to once again behold Guildford, who now lives only in my memory. Guildford, the golden boy whose whole life truly was a masquerade; a boy who died tragically young, before he could throw the mask away and become the person he always meant to be, or at least try to be, though that would have probably ended in tragedy and bitter disappointment too. Also inside that dear, dented box is another treasure—an intricately woven rose I fashioned from three long hanks of coiled and plaited hair—chestnut hiding ruddy embers, the richest coppery gold, and sleek sable sheened with scarlet—there we three sisters are, entwined in a loving embrace forever—Jane, Kate, and Mary.

Hanging upon my parlour walls are three wedding portraits, each showing a husband and his wife shortly after their nuptials.

The first shows the grandparents I never knew. The beautiful and spirited “Tudor Rose,” Mary Tudor, the youngest sister of Henry VIII. With her porcelain and roses complexion, blue eyes, and red-gold hair she reminds me of my sister Kate. She too dared all for love. When we were growing up how Kate used to beg to hear the story, told over and over again, of how our grandmother, who was as clever as she was beautiful, did not despair when she was forced to do her royal duty as every princess must and marry the ailing and decrepit King Louis XII of France, who had fifty-three years to her seventeen. Instead, she coaxed and wheedled and extracted a promise from her royal brother, Henry, who, like everyone else, adored her, that her second husband would be one solely of her own choosing. Oh what a merry dance she led gouty old Louis, bouncing out of bed at dawn and dancing until far past midnight! She wore him out within six months, and when he died, dwindled to a gaunt-faced shadow, exhausted from trying to keep up with his teenage bride, she married the man she had loved all along, her brother’s best friend, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. And they were
gloriously
happy until the day she died in 1533.

The portrait shows them in their wedding clothes, Mary, “The French Queen” as she would ever afterward be called, in chic black velvet embroidered with a fortune in pearls, some formed into exquisite rosettes, and rich golden roses set with sapphires to match her necklace. Her handsome, rusty-bearded bridegroom stands beside her, holding her hand, in sable-trimmed black velvet covered with silver piping with a row of silver-braided lovers’ knots marching down his chest. In her other hand, the newly wed duchess holds an artichoke, a pun on the orb she would have carried as queen, to show that she had disdained another royal marriage for one of true love, and also as an emblem of ardent love and fertility. I like to think that perhaps she already knew her firstborn child, my lady-mother, was already growing in her womb, like the leaves of an artichoke unfurling as it ripens.

The second portrait shows my parents dressed for the hunt. Hunting and gambling being the two passions that endured throughout their marriage, it seems somehow most appropriate that they chose to don these clothes for their wedding portrait. And it is how I best remember them. My lady-mother never seemed to be without her riding crop, and if satin slippers ever peeked from beneath her hems instead of gold or silver spurred leather riding boots, I do not remember. My lady-mother, Frances, the Duchess of Suffolk, stands in a grand gold-embellished russet velvet riding habit gripping her horse’s bridle in one leather-gloved hand and her riding crop in the other, a proud, fierce, willful, determined, voluptuous beauty, flesh already at war with the restraining influence of her corset, threatening to break out in open rebellion. She holds her head high, showing off her Tudor red hair, snared in a net of gold beneath her round feathered cap, and stares unwaveringly straight ahead with her shrewd ice-grey eyes, avaricious and calculating as a bird of prey eyeing a gentle, innocent sparrow with a wounded wing. There is something in the way she holds herself, her chin, firm and unyielding as chiselled granite, and the way she grips her riding crop that defines the words
dominance
and
control
. My father, Henry Grey, Hal to his wife and friends, stands beside her, auburn-bearded and handsome in a weak-chinned way in his white linen, brown velvet, and hunting leathers, with a hooded falcon on his wrist; he is a man awestruck, with the tentative smile and quizzical eyes of one who can’t quite believe his good fortune.

The third, and most unfortunate, wedding portrait shows my fat and florid piggy-eyed, sausage-fingered mother with her second husband, our Master of the Horse, Adrian Stokes, the boy of not quite twenty-one she married a scant two weeks after Father lost his head on Tower Hill. Her eyes remain the same, flinty, cold, and hard, but the hair has darkened, and the strong chin is softened by the pads of pink flesh that swaddle the bones, pushed higher still by a tall, most unflattering chin ruff with a fortune in pearls edging its undulating frills. And beneath the rich pearl-embroidered black velvet of her gown it is obvious that flesh has won a great, bursting victory over restraint, her defeated corset remains only as a nominal presence, because no proper lady would ever be seen in public without one; it has become an obsolete ornamental necessity that serves no actual purpose except to add one more expensive, luxurious embroidered layer to my lady-mother’s opulent person. She looks like she could devour the pale and slender black-haired boy standing beside her clutching his gloves as if they could save his life, and trying to look older than his twenty years, while showing off his grand gold and silver ermine-edged garments. Supported by a gold-laced ruff, his gaunt face always makes me think of the head of John the Baptist being offered to a most corpulent Salome, one who should keep her seven veils on instead of wantonly discarding them. Poor Master Stokes’s dark eyes seem to say his is a life of hard bargains, and also to question whether it’s really worth it—he’s risen in the world by marrying a duchess, the niece of Henry VIII, and mother of the best-forgotten nine days’ queen, but he doesn’t relish what will come afterward when they are alone together behind the bedcurtains and everything but our lady-mother’s riding boots comes off.