by G Lawrence
But in my reign, and in that of my father, there were many who would not cast aside the outward representation of their faiths in order to live in peace. It is the greatest vanity of man when he is unable to worship in peace within himself and must make public show of his faith through word and symbol. If a man is secure with his own relationship with God then he does not need any trapping or garment to show his faith, it is at peace and rests within his heart. It is those who are unsure in their faith who seek to hide that truth from God by shouting their beliefs from the rooftops of the world.
God sees all within the hearts of men, and nothing can be hidden from the seeking of his eyes. And all the shouting and protesting in the world will not cover a craven, waving heart from the sight of God.
Trust those whose worship and faith is gentle and private, for those are the ones who understand and do not fear the searching eye of their God. Distrust any who proclaim their faith in shouting voice and raging blood, for they are the ones who try to conceal their true, cowardly and unsure natures even from God himself. They are the most dangerous of all people, for they will destroy all else in the world in the quest to hide their souls from God.
Chapter Thirteen
Hatfield House
1544
It was in this year, when I was eleven that I dared to hope as I never had been able to before, that one day I might be seen fit to rule England. Our father, in his great wisdom, restored Mary and me to the right of succession in 1544.
After years of being held away from the succession, the stain of bastardry upon us, we were at last acknowledged as the daughters of Henry VIII and put into the line of succession behind our brother Edward.
But our father did not reverse our bastardry. We were still legally his illegitimate daughters. He would not accept either one of our mothers as having been his wife. Mary and I were still bastard daughters of the King of England, but we had been legally placed into the line of princes that would follow our father onto the throne.
Mary was joyous, but her restoration to the line of succession had been dependent on a condition she loved not, and one that sired a rift between us more serious than any we had previously had.
My father had decreed that Edward was his direct heir, and any children Edward should have would inherit the throne after him. In the event that Edward died childless, then Mary would inherit followed by her children. Lastly, should Mary also die childless, then I would take the throne. The possibility that I should ever take the throne was very thin, but the fact that I had been restored to my father’s graces publicly was the important thing to me then.
Mary, however, was told that her restoration to the succession was dependent upon her acceptance and embrace of the new religion governed by my father. She must abide by his religious reforms if she was to be included in the succession. Otherwise I should supplant her and be put next in line after Edward. I did not have anything to do with this stipulation of course, but that did not mean that she did not hold me partly to blame in her heart.
It was a huge demonstration that my father’s favour for Mary was as tenuous as ever, and entirely dependent on her obedience to him in every matter. If she did not agree then the uncompromising wording of the document said that
I would inherit “…as though the said Lady Mary was then dead.”
Although Mary acquiesced to the demands of our father, she did so with great reluctance and a weighty conscience. Her religion was the same as that of her beloved mother, the last link that she had to preserve the love that had once been between them. To betray the See of Rome was, to her, to betray the mother she had loved, adored and now worshipped as a martyr.
I am sure that although she obeyed our father outwardly, she did not change a single point of her worship in her heart.
But it also brought up other things between Mary and me; picking the crusty head from an old wound and showing the infection that lay therein. Whilst I was a child she had loved and looked after me, she had made me dolls and taught me to make dresses for them. She had sung to me in her deep voice and written to me of the latest styles at court. But as I grew I sometimes saw her looking at me strangely.
She tried to hide it at first. But I would see her looking at me from the corner of her eyes. Her gaze was speculative, and it was judgemental. When we did argue, she would at times widen her eyes as though she saw a shadow of something awful behind me. Sometimes, she would not look me in the eyes when she talked to me at all.
I reminded her of my mother.
As I grew, the large, dark eyes and the little heart-shaped face in the mirror resembled more and more the faded images of my mother in my memory. When Mary looked at my features, she could see the woman she had hated more than anyone else in the world. I reminded her of all the pain and horror she had gone through as a child when our father and my mother had fallen in love and cast her and her mother aside.
The demands of the bill of succession, I believe, reminded Mary of all the anguish she had felt associated with me and my birth, all those nasty little cankers that had been hidden away whilst I was an innocent infant. Now that I was growing, now that my eyes and my face started to remind her of her most hated enemy, now that my father had threatened to remove her powers and give them to me…. now she started to see me less as a sister and more as the echo of her enemy.
She tried to hide it. My lovely Lady Bryan had raised both of us and I believe that she had done a good job in trying to remind Mary that I was not guilty of my mother’s crimes. But I could see a change in Mary’s eyes. She viewed me, even when I was only eleven, as a danger to her.
But, amongst all this, I felt joy in my heart to know that our father had restored me to the line of succession.
He felt that his blood could be trusted in the protection of the country he loved, and I was so proud to know that he felt me worthy of this.
I was still the Bastard Princess, but one day, Henry VIII had ruled, I could be worthy to be the Queen.
Chapter Fourteen
Hampton Court
1544
In July, I was sent word to join the household of Queen Katherine at Hampton Court. Mary and Edward were already there and we were to come together as a family with our new stepmother. Our father was away in France on a military expedition and he had entrusted Katherine with the regency of the country in his absence. Although I feared that my father had left to go to war, I knew in my heart that he would return. I had absolute faith that my father was invincible.
Katherine had written asking that I bring Kat and the other members of my household for a long stay. Our father had approved it and we were to be together for the summer and perhaps even for Christmas.
I had never known a time when my father was absent from the country and it was with a mind full of awe that I viewed Katherine, not in any way a princess born or educated to the role, yet still held worthy to preside over the court and the laws of the land with the greatest of ease and grace.
She was capable and resourceful, she took advice when she needed it and ruled absolutely when it was required. Queen Katherine was the only one of my father’s wives I ever really knew well. She was really very special; he had chosen well in her.
She kept Mary and me in constant companionship with her, and I think in her own way she was trying to show us that a woman could rule, and rule well, when it was required. She had an eye for ceremony and never let the obedience due to her as Queen slip, even once. But she was also kind and merry, trying always to smooth disturbances.
I learnt a lot from Katherine.
We walked together most mornings after she had seen to the first round of dispatches and issues; she was fond of gardens as was I and she found them a comfort as she often required some time alone for thought in the bustle of the day.
“It is good to take a step to clear the mind,” she said to me as we strolled. “I was not born to this role, Elizabeth, not as you have been, but your father placed a great deal of trust in me and I mu
st seek always to make sure that trust was well founded. “
“I believed it was most well founded, your majesty,” I said, looking out at the new walled gardens being built at Hampton Court. My father was a great builder of gardens and palaces; everywhere we moved I could see the touch of his hand on the landscape and the houses. It was as though he was as entrenched in the fibre of the land as God is.
She smiled at me. “You are so young to be such a skilful diplomat,” she said, shaking her head. Those that are born to rule come to it with such effortless ease I think. I feel as though I struggle with every choice, for I do not want to let your father down by making the wrong one. But those are gifts you have taken from your father; he too was born to be a king.”
“My brother was born to be the king,” I said.
“Of course,” Katherine paused. “But as a princess, as a woman connected to the King who will rule this land, it should ever be your duty and pleasure to learn all you can to aid and help the work of the ruler. You are placed in the line of succession because your father sees that you are worthy of that role. And should anything untoward happen, to rule in the stead of Edward.”
“Mary is placed before me.”
“Yes, but despite your difference in age, you have as great a wisdom as her, perhaps greater, for you are still willing to listen where she is not.” She stopped and held my chin in her soft, perfumed hand. “You have learned well from the trials of your youth, Elizabeth,” she said. “But I would see you enjoy life and smile more, you are grave for one so young.”
I smiled and she looked pleased.
She looked around her; we were as alone as we ever could be… servants walked behind us, her ladies stood to one side of the grasses. Royalty was never really alone.
“I want to give you something,” she said. “But you must promise that you would not tell anyone, not even your father, that I have done so.”
I looked at her concerned. “My lady,” I said “I would not want to disobey my father.”
She shook her head. “It is not a betrayal,” she said. “I inherited some items when I became Queen, and I want you to have them. I believe the knowledge would upset your father, but I understand perhaps more so than a man should be able to, of the great love between a mother and her daughter, even if the mother was judged as a traitor. I think you would like to have them, and I should like to give them to you.”
I looked around me. The servants were far enough behind us, Kat was close by, but she would never tell if she saw or knew. I nodded to Katherine. Her hands reached into her dress and pulled out a little package, wrapped in velvet. It was rectangular in shape, and not too big. She slid it into my pockets before anyone saw.
I touched the package and felt tears jump into my eyes as I slid a finger over the soft fabric.
She smiled and nodded to me. “I did not meet your mother in life,” she whispered, “but I do not think that she died in sin as was said of her. I will not speak against the rule and wisdom of your great father, but there are some taken to God who die for the right cause, for religious reform, and I believe she was one of those. A martyr.” She looked around her again, her voice was little more than a murmur. “Be proud of her Elizabeth,” she said softly. “But remember that it is dangerous to talk of her.” She looked about her again and said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail.”
I nodded and we continued our walk. Our conversation was of the plants and the flowers, of fashions and of poetry. All safe subjects to be overheard by any.
I fingered the package in my pocket wonderingly… What could be in this little pouch of my mother’s? What new secrets was I going to find this night?
Chapter Fifteen
Hampton Court
1544
That night I asked my serving women to sleep outside the door of my chambers rather than within it as was normal. They thought it unusual, but obeyed me. I did not want even Kat to be with me at the time I opened the package wrapped in black velvet. I wanted to be alone with whatever came from the soft wrappings. Whatever was in here had belonged to my mother. The woman all must have known once existed, and yet now all denied any recollection of at all.
Sometimes I felt as though she were a creature of mythology, so dark and mysterious that only garbled tales and half-truths remained of the woman who once held me in her arms and looked at me with love.
Who was she? This bright, intoxicating creature whom my father had risked so much for, and then had discarded so easily.
The package sat unopened in my hands as I thought these things. I wanted so much to believe those who said good things about my mother and yet there was every terrible thing I had ever heard whispered about her as well. I wanted to find something of her that would solve this riddle for me. It seemed that even in death, she was as fascinating as she was divisive.
Trembling hands undid the fastenings on the black velvet, slipped so secretly into my pockets. I felt my heart race with excitement; inside this little package could be the secrets unveiled to me of the truth of my mother, and her life and death.
I opened it.
Inside the package there were two small books, both rough volumes compared to some of the wondrous books of my father’s library, and on top, tightly curled and coiled, were three long strings of pearls with a little golden decoration. The decoration was in the form of letters, AB. It had been my mother’s own necklace.
I turned the little golden letters over, and on the back, engraved in tiny, elegant letters was an inscription: HR loves AB and no other. I stared at it for what felt like hours not knowing whether to laugh or cry; this had been a gift from my father to my mother. This proved that he not only had once known her, had admitted her existence in life, but had loved her once too.
The strings of delicate pearls were warm and shone like the moon in the light of my candle; their little lights awoke memories within me. I could remember my mother wearing something very similar to this on that last day I sat with her in the gardens, looking at the fish in the pond.
The golden letter winked at me too. I felt a warmth coming from the pearls and the gold that was not of this world. As though the love of my mother were seeping through the metal and pearl and wending its way into my heart, carried on the still space between me, and my memory of her life. As though these little tokens could contain and preserve the love that a mother might hold for her child.
I stared at my mother’s necklace for some time, trying to recall from my memory all that I could about her; her face, her shape, the smell of her skin, the way she walked and moved, the sound of her voice. But even with the help of this lovely necklace, I could call only blurry images of the sparkle of her eyes, the sound of only the end of a word as it came from her mouth, the warmth of her gentle hands as she held my little body close. But still, despite the failures of my faded memory, there was still something that seemed to call to me from the treasures in my hand.
I put the necklace on my lap, not wanting to feel far from its magic and turned the little volumes over in my hands. They were simply bound in an old-fashioned style, with plain velvet covers that had been hand-stitched neatly and elegantly. Little heartsease and lily flowers sat faded slightly at the edges of the covers. Had my mother’s long, elegant fingers done this work? I hoped so as I stroked the stitches. I opened the first one.
Inside I saw the title of the work. No wonder it had been bound with plain covers, without title.
The Obedience of a Christian man
and how Christian rulers ought to govern, wherein also (if thou mark diligently) thou shalt find eyes to perceive the crafty conveyance of all jugglers.
It was by William Tyndale. A man whom many of my tutors talked of quietly with some reverence, and many others talked of as though he were the devil. He had died in the same year as my mother, 1536, strangled and then burnt at the stake as a Protestant heretic. Tyndale may have died for his faith, but his works were not forgotten. The New English Bible,
translated into the vernacular, was largely from Tyndale’s own, also once banned, translation. A copy of that volume sat in almost every house in England rich enough to own books.
How could I, tutored by those so interested in the new faith, not understand the importance of such a work? My tutors might all say, for safety’s sake, that they were committed to the Catholic religion with our father as the Head of the Church, but that did not mean they did not lean with an eye of favour towards the teachings of Protestants. Tyndale was a Protestant martyr, he had died for the faith they all secretly followed. The Obedience of a Christian Man was still largely a banned book, containing such ideas that had lit the fires of the new religion in our lands and in the hearts of its people. My father did not condone ordinary people reading such works, but I understood that he was not included in that sanction, being the King; he could read as he pleased.
The Obedience of a Christian Man had been seen as sacrilegious when it first appeared. And yet my mother had owned a copy, owned a book that the Catholic Church was opposed to, and had owned it even though the laws of my father said she could not. Obviously my mother had thought that rules she did not like did not apply to her. She had loved the new religion and the greater understanding of God so much that she had risked keeping such a volume in her own private collection. She had risked the displeasure of the Church, and of my father, in owning this book. Even now it was a volume no one would admit they owned; I wondered at her daring, back then, when this had been illegal to own or even read.