The Lady Elizabeth (19 page)

“Comfort yourself, child. That is what was
alleged
against your mother. But as I have told you, I firmly believe that was not the truth of it.”

“Which is what I told my father,” Elizabeth cried.

“You did what?” Kat was horrified.

“I said she was innocent,” Elizabeth explained. “I did not say you had told me. He asked where I had heard it, and I said I’d heard the servants gossiping.”

Kat slumped in her seat. Her heart was pounding fit to burst, and her whole body was atremble.

“Dear Lord, I would get into terrible trouble if the King found out I had told you your mother was innocent,” she gasped.

“I know that,” Elizabeth protested. “I took care to protect you. He did not press me further, so I am sure you are safe. But I
must
know what happened, Kat. I must.”

“Very well, but you must
never
repeat what I am about to say,” Kat warned. “Unless you want a new governess, that is.” She was not jesting.

“I promise I will not,” Elizabeth vowed.

Kat relaxed a little.

“Your mother was accused with five men, so much is true,” she began, “and one was her brother, Lord Rochford. It was his own wife who laid evidence against him. He had never loved her, and she was vilely jealous of his natural affection for his sister. My belief is that she did it out of spite, after Master Cromwell offered her a bribe. Certainly, she was looked after very generously when it was all over. All the other accused men except one were gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber; the fifth man was Mark Smeaton, a musician of the court.
That
caused a huge scandal, I can tell you. People were wondering how the Queen could have stooped so low, but of course, she hardly knew him, and anyway, she was too proud to have thus demeaned herself. Believe me, I spoke to those who knew her.”

“So you think Lady Rochford lied?” Elizabeth asked, praying there would be no room for doubt.

“Indeed I do,” said Kat grimly. “A nasty woman she was. She abetted Katherine Howard in her crimes, and was executed for her pains.”

“Executed?” echoed a startled Elizabeth.

“Aye, just after her poor young mistress. Lady Rochford had gone mad under questioning, and so the King had to pass a special Act of Parliament allowing him to execute lunatics. But they say she was sane enough when she went to the scaffold. I say she got what she richly deserved for having borne false witness against her poor husband and your mother.”

“Was there not a great scandal about that too?” Elizabeth wanted to know. “I mean, the thing that Lady Rochford accused my mother of.” She could not bring herself to describe it.

“Well, some people pretended to be shocked, but I think most just found it hard to believe. It was as if Master Cromwell was grasping at anything he could think of to get rid of Queen Anne. As for that charge of plotting to kill the King, well, that was utter nonsense. She was—how do I say this?—not popular, and without the King to protect her, her enemies at court would have tried to bring her down. So why should she wish to do away with her protector? It would have been folly, and she was no fool.”

“So you think she was innocent of
all
the accusations?” Elizabeth urged.

“I do, my lady, I do,” Kat declared. “Four of the accused men protested her innocence, and theirs, to the end. Only Mark Smeaton confessed, but that was under torture, I’m sure.”

“Torture?” Elizabeth exclaimed, with a shudder. She knew what torture was.

Kat paused. Elizabeth was still quite young. Was she ready to hear the brutal details of what was believed to have happened in Master Cromwell’s house?

“Master Cromwell had him put to the torture,” she said carefully. “They say the pain was so great that he would have said anything to stop it.”

“What did they do?” Elizabeth was wide-eyed with horror.

“They tied a knotted rope around his eyes and kept twisting it,” Kat told her, hoping that this would not prove too much for her charge to stomach.

“Oh, the poor wretch,” Elizabeth said, feeling a little sick. “No wonder he talked. I would have talked.”

“Your mother herself declared her innocence before God at her trial,” Kat went on. “What more can I say? They just made an occasion to get rid of her. Master Cromwell had his reasons, I suppose. But little of it made sense to me. Elizabeth, you must never doubt that your mother was a good woman, nor that she loved you very much. Cherish her memory, child, but learn to dissemble. To speak of her as you did to the King was rash and dangerous, and we are paying the price of it now. But our punishment could have been far worse, remember that.”

“I will, dear Kat, I promise,” Elizabeth said, feeling greatly cheered. “I will never mention my mother’s name to anyone but you again.”

“My lady, a messenger has come! He has something for you!”

When the Queen’s missive arrived, it was high summer and the King, ignoring his infirmity and his bad legs, had gone to Boulogne to fight the French. Elizabeth had been watching out for a messenger for days, and when one cantered into the courtyard at Hatfield and she heard Kat calling her, she pattered down the stairs as fast as she could and grabbed the rolled parchment he handed her with scant ceremony.

For several long months now, she had languished in exile. Kat had sent good reports of her to the Queen, and had stressed her dutifulness, and Katherine had spoken up for her, but there had come no word from the King, no reprieve.

Elizabeth felt as if she were pining away; her banishment was becoming unbearable. Without her father’s favor, she could not live.

I have tried my best, she told herself. I have worked hard at my lessons—Master Grindal told me he’s known no finer scholar—and I’ve tried to behave impeccably. Why is there no word from my father? Does he not love me anymore? Have I forfeited his love forever?

Her life in the shadow of his displeasure was arid, devoid of comfort. It was like being deprived of the sun.

Kat had come upon her moping, sitting dejectedly on a window seat and drumming her heels against the wooden paneling.

“Come now,” she said briskly. “Stop wasting your time. If you’ve nothing to do, find a book.”

Elizabeth raised plaintive, tragic eyes to her.

“Don’t look at
me
!” Kat cried in exasperation. “You brought this on yourself, child. Perhaps it will teach you never to be so rash again as to speak your mind in front of the King. Wiser fools than you have done so and not gotten off so lightly, so be grateful we’re both safe here, instead of in the Tower.”

“Shouldn’t I write to my father and beg his forgiveness?” Elizabeth asked. “Then perchance he will summon me and all will be well. I do so want all to be well.”

“Bide your time,” Kat counseled. “Your father is in France and busy with the war. Wait until he returns. He may be in a different frame of mind then, especially if God grants him great victories.”

But Elizabeth was too sunk in misery to heed such comfort. At length, unable to bear it any longer, she had sat down at her desk and composed a letter to her stepmother, explaining that she dared not write directly to her father, and entreating Katherine to speak once more for her.

My exile is most painful to me,
she wrote.
I thank you for all your intercessions on my behalf, and beg you to pray just one more time for His Majesty’s sweet benediction on his humble daughter.
She read this over, then added,
And tell him I beseech God to send him a good victory over his enemies, and soon, so that Your Highness and I may rejoice in his happy return.

Now, days later, her fingers were trembling as she unrolled the scrolled parchment that she had received in reply. It bore the Queen’s seal. With Kat at her elbow, Elizabeth scanned the page quickly, hardly daring to hope.

“He has relented!” she cried ecstatically. “My father has relented, and he has said I may go to Hampton Court to keep the Queen company. I knew the Queen would be my friend. It is she whom I must thank for this, I’m sure of it! Oh, I am so relieved and happy!”

Kat embraced her, concealing her dismay as best she could. For these few months, fraught as they were, Elizabeth had been entirely hers again. Now, once more, she must share her with that interloper, the Queen—for thus did she regard Katherine Parr. Then again, she could not but rejoice that Elizabeth had been restored to her father’s favor, and that the anxious weeks of exile were over.

Elizabeth’s return to court was not as joyful as she had anticipated. Katherine greeted her warmly enough with outstretched hands, but her hazel eyes were shadowed with worry. The King had entrusted her with the government of the realm during his absence, and she now found herself faced with a more deadly peril than the French forces that he was confronting.

“There is plague in London,” she said fearfully. “We must leave Hampton for Enfield, and take the Prince with us, as a matter of urgency.”

Enfield was a palace Elizabeth knew well, for she had stayed there on several occasions. At least this time she would be in residence with the court.

While she and Kat were making ready, the Lady Mary came to her chamber. Elizabeth noticed that Mary was holding herself unusually stiff and aloof. After long weeks of separation, she saw subtle changes in her sister that she had not been aware of before. Mary looked older; there were fine lines about her eyes, and she appeared a little faded in her bright finery.

The sisters embraced.

“I am pleased to see you back at court,” Mary said. “I trust your banishment has taught you discretion and wisdom.” Her manner was faintly disapproving.

Elizabeth did not want to discuss the reason for her exile. That matter was best left alone.

“I hope so, Sister,” she said quietly.

As Kat left the room, her arms laden with chemises and stockings, Mary seated herself in the only chair. There were things she felt she had to say.

“I have not been able to forget what you said to the King our father,” she began.

Elizabeth looked at her, startled.

“It’s not true that your mother was innocent,” Mary said vehemently, the words tumbling out. “I have no doubt whatsoever that she was guilty as charged. She was a ruthless woman who injured many, myself and my sainted mother included. She was quite capable of playing the King false, I promise you. My advice to you, Sister, is to forget you ever had a mother like that.”

Elizabeth caught the note of obsessive grievance in Mary’s voice. She knew instinctively that it would be unwise to provoke her further by arguing with her.

“Forgive me, Sister, but I had heard otherwise,” she said simply.

“Then you heard wrongly,” Mary retorted. Her voice grew shrill. “She was evil, that woman. She urged the King, again and again, to send me and my mother to the block. She had me sent to wait upon you when you were a baby, and she told those that had charge of me to beat me for the little bastard that I had become. How could you think such a one innocent?”

“I am very sorry for your afflictions, Sister,” Elizabeth whispered, aware more of the need to be diplomatic than of the desire to defend her mother. “They were not of my making, nor my desire.”

“How could you think her innocent?” Mary persisted. Her thin lips were pursed with resentment. Elizabeth had never seen her like this, so fervent, so driven.

“I heard things,” she answered, then grew a touch defiant. “The whole world does not think my mother guilty.”

“Who said these things to you?” Mary demanded to know.

“I forget,” Elizabeth said firmly.

“Oh, you are clever,” Mary cried. “You are like her, you can twist words. But she was not so discreet. The whole world knew of her malice; she did not trouble to hide it.”

“Sister,
I
bear you no malice,” Elizabeth hastened to reassure her. “I am ever mindful of your kindness to me.”

“I daresay, but you are
her
daughter,” Mary said.

Elizabeth dared not trust herself to answer. Instead, she moved to the window and stood there looking out, her back to Mary. Suddenly, she realized her sister was sobbing, and when she turned, she saw that Mary had buried her face in her hands.

“Forgive me, Sister!” the older girl cried. “It is unkind of me to visit my hurts on you. You are but a child and have yet to learn from your indiscretions.”

Elizabeth hastened over and hugged her weeping sister. Her newfound happiness had been too dearly won to be jeopardized by them falling out.

“It’s all right, Mary,” she soothed. “I forgive you. And believe me, I have learned from my indiscretions. I intended nothing unkind against you, I promise.”

“We will speak no more of our mothers,” Mary said. “It would be better to let the subject alone, if we are to stay friends. And believe me, I
am
your friend, and I hope you will be guided by me.” In a rush of affection, she embraced Elizabeth again.

Kat, returning, stared as she saw them thus. Mary hastily dabbed at her eyes with her kerchief and bade them good day, not wishing to be seen crying by an inferior person. Hurrying toward the sanctuary of her own apartments, she found her mind in turmoil. How could she have been so thoughtlessly cruel to an innocent child? She should not have made Elizabeth the butt of her own inner miseries and frustrations. But was her sister such an innocent as she seemed? Was that disarming candor genuine or feigned? Anne Boleyn, after all, had been a great dissembler, so why should Elizabeth not take after her? And who else might she take after? Was that face, glimpsed in profile as she bent to embrace Mary, similar in feature to both Anne’s and the King’s? Or was it the very image of Mark Smeaton? In Mary’s fevered imagination, stoked over so many bitter years, it was a question unanswerable.

He was home! Their father was home, in England, to the joyful acclaim of his subjects, for he came in victory, having captured Boulogne.

“God willing, the days of this kingdom’s greatness are returned, and this triumph will be the first of many,” the Queen said fervently as they waited for the King at Leeds Castle, a short ride from Dover. She well knew what this vanquishment of his ancient rival must mean to the aging King.

“Amen to that,” Mary replied. “God must surely be smiling upon us, for the plague has safely abated too, which gives us further cause for rejoicing.”

Dressed in their finest clothes, the King’s daughters were standing behind the Queen and the young Prince beneath the gatehouse arch, watching the colorful cavalcade with its fluttering banners approach. Although he was meant to be on his dignity, in his plumed bonnet and crimson satin robes, Edward, at nearly seven, was practically jumping up and down with excitement, while the Queen, smiling, forbore to restrain him.

Elizabeth knew that she had Queen Katherine to thank for the fact that she was here at all on this joyful day. What a difference that sweet lady had made to all their lives. But despite her stepmother’s calm and reassuring presence, her heart was fluttering wildly. How would her father receive her?

And there the King was, dismounting heavily, large and magnificent in his gorgeous clothes, swaggering with success, and enfolding his wife in a bear-like hug.

“You have done so well, sir!” she cried.

“I have missed you, Darling!” he muttered thickly, kissing her heartily on the lips. “And you, my children…How well you all look.”

Edward bowed and Mary and Elizabeth curtsied as their father addressed them.

“I am delighted to see Your Majesty in such good health,” Mary told him as he raised her. He kissed her on the forehead.

“You look very well yourself, Daughter,” he told her.

Then it was Elizabeth’s turn. The moment she had longed for and dreaded had come, and she bent her head low as she knelt before the King. He put one finger under her chin and tilted it upward.

“And you, Bessy, are you pleased to see your father?” he asked. His expression was unreadable.

“More than I can ever say, sir,” she answered wholeheartedly. “I am so proud of having such a father. It was a marvelous victory.”

The King smiled; it was gratifying to bask in the praise of his womenfolk, especially this fiery girl who was so like him. But he was not letting Elizabeth off the hook quite yet. His face resumed its impassive expression.

“I trust you are now come to your senses,” he murmured.

“Oh, yes, sir,” she said fervently. “I am so deeply sorry to have offended Your Majesty.”

“Then we will say no more about it,” he declared magnanimously, and raised and kissed her lovingly. Elizabeth felt a heady sense of relief. He had accepted her back into his special favor, and her cup of happiness was full.

“My Lady Mary, how enchanting,” smiled Sir Thomas Seymour as they came face-to-face in a gallery. He sketched an elaborate bow and smiled dazzlingly, revealing very white teeth.