by G Lawrence
I opened the pages further; it was a simple edition, not overly decorated, but very well-read. Many of the pages had been annotated and as I looked further I found I could distinguish two separate hands writing tiny scribbled notes in this work. One, I recognised easily. The bold, black, often irritated looking script of my father’s personal handwriting was clear to one who had been receiving his letters all her life. My father hated writing, he found it annoying, but that did not mean that he did not on occasion pen a word to me or my household himself.
The other hand was lighter, although at times often as rushed and messy as the other, and I realized as I read more, that this must be the hand of the owner of the book: my mother.
It seemed from the notes next to key passages that my parents had passed this book backwards and forwards to each other, noting interesting phrases and passages and highlighting those with their own comments. Tears started in my eyes as I saw the meeting of their imaginations and minds over the arguments and postulations contained in this work.
In one place the text read: “God therefore hath given laws unto all nations and in all lands hath put kings, governors and rulers in his own stead to rule the world through them.” This line had been underlined by one hand, my mother’s, and then annotated in my father’s bold hand with the words “Dieu et mon Droit.” God and my conscience…
I understood that this volume had been one of the catalysts that had allowed my father in his wisdom to break from the rule of Rome, and to become the Head of the English Church. My mother and father, it seemed, had been interested and had shared in the truths of the work of Tyndale. The rules of the land had once not applied to either of them. My father had allowed my mother the same privileges and access to materials that he had himself. Once, he must have thought a great deal of the strength of her mind and the ability of her intellect. He would not have allowed this privilege to just anyone.
On another page, next to a passage on the obedience of children to their elders was written the following: “(God)…was present with thee in thy mother’s womb and fashioned thee and breathed life into thee, and for the great love he had unto thee, provided milk in thy mother’s breasts for thee…moved also thy father and mother and all other to love thee, to pity thee and to care for thee.”
Against that, in little letters, was “Semper Eadem” Always the Same. And then, perhaps a later addition to the notes, was the inclusion of my own name: Elizabeth . It was written in the hand I believed was that of my mother.
I choked on emotions as they came rearing up in my throat. For a moment I felt as though I could not breathe. To see something that my mother and father had shared so intimately was moving, but to see the hand of my mother writing my name in her little book… it was like her voice was calling to me through all the years and the pain and the loneliness. It was as though when I had longed for her, she had longed for me too. She had thought of me, she had loved me. She had been real.
I clung to the volume, swearing to myself that I should never be parted from it. I should never show this to another person. It was my little repository showing that once my mother and father had been friends, and had shared the limits of their minds and knowledge with each other. This was proof that my mother had existed, and had been intimate on so many planes with my lord father.
For entirely different reasons to my parents, I decided that this was one of the most important books I had ever read. I placed this too in my lap next to the necklace. My fingers stroked them. These wonderful, tangible things that gave me parts of my mother back to me. I picked up the last object, the second book.
It was also very small. It was called Le Miroir de l’ame pecheresse or The Mirror of the Sinful Soul; a poem by Marguerite, Queen of Navarre and sister to the King of France, Francois I. Of course I knew of her. A patroness of reformers and free thinkers, many thought her a heretic only protected from the fires of death by her brother’s love. As the King of France, he could protect her. The poem was something I was already familiar with; it emphasised the sinfulness of the human soul and how redemption could only be reached through faith, something that Protestants were keen to emphasise.
This volume, however, although neatly bound, was clearly much earlier and rougher than the finished, printed and polished versions I had read.
I realized with some sudden clarity, that this volume was a rough first edition of the book. It was a very early copy. Inside, being used to mark a page near to the end was a small note. It was addressed to my mother, and it was from Marguerite herself.
In French, the little note read:
“My dear friend,
I have missed your company and companionship since you left us for the English court. I miss your voice in our conversations, and your songs in our nights. When you were still with us, I mentioned to you this little volume which I felt moved to write. When it was finished, I saw your brother at the court of my own brother, it seemed only fitting that I send him to deliver a copy to you. Although seas and lands or duty and family may divide us in person, the love of God will ever join our spirits in harmony. Marguerite D’ Angouleme. Blois 1526.”
My mother had known the Queen of Navarre? This was new knowledge to me… and the date was too early to have been a letter to my mother as queen. There must have been a time when they knew each other even before my mother was married to my father. I flicked through the volume, but although it had clearly been read and thumbed well, there were no further notes made by the hand of my mother in it, nor by my father.
I could not be disappointed in that, though. After all this time… all this time with nothing of her… with only faded memory and the words of other people. Now I had tangible, beautiful, wonderful, evidence of her life, of the words shared between her and my father, and in the necklace, a gift with words of love from my great father, to my mother.
All night I turned pages and stroked the words written in my mother’s hand. All night I lay awake and held her pearls and gold close to my heart. I pondered the mystery of the letter from Marguerite Queen of Navarre, and I cried when I read the lines and passages my father and mother had shared; united once in a common cause and goal, desiring and inspiring each other’s opinion on Tyndale’s book. They had respected each other’s opinions; they had shared so much.
No matter what had later occurred, I knew this now. Once, there had been more than simple passion between my parents. There had been more than just the lust that servants spoke of, more than even the great love Kat was so fond of relaying to me. They had been friends; they had shared opinions and interests. They had shared ideas. Whatever else had torn them apart, they had once been firmly together.
The thought made me as sad as it made me happy. I could not reconcile the two emotions. But I was happy to know that once… once they had truly loved each other.
I was never more grateful to any woman alive as I was to my new stepmother Queen Katherine. No gift could have meant more to me in the world, and the little bundle that I re-tied and stowed carefully under a loose board in a hidden part of my chamber was the most precious thing I ever owned.
Chapter Sixteen
Winter
1544
I wanted so much to show Queen Katherine of my gratitude for her gift to me of my mother’s bundle of possessions. For her gift this New Year’s I decided to translate Le Miroir de l’ame pecheresse for her, and embroider a cover with my own hand for it. Katherine would approve of the text as she leaned towards the reformed faith, but also she would know where I had taken inspiration for it. It would be a little secret between us.
Although it had seemed a good idea at the time, I chose to translate the volume from French to Italian, a language that Katherine was attempting to learn at the time. My French was excellent, but the added trouble that translation into Italian gave me was frustrating. Perhaps I was trying a little too hard to show my own cleverness; the translation gave me much heart-ache and many headaches.
Kat was a little put out to se
e my growing devotion to my new stepmother. I think in her heart she was my mother, my best friend and my confidant. She was easily jealous of any who would steer my affections in another direction.
I spent time reassuring her that no one could mean as much to me as my dear Kat, and I think she understood and felt a little guilty, for she had wanted after all for me to get along with my stepmother.
But love is a complicated and jealous friend at the best of times. Even the littlest infraction can lead the heart of one who loves deeply to suspect the darkest of things. We are such fragile creatures, when we give our love to another.
I worked at Katherine’s book cover when I could work on the translation no more. In blue velvet and silks I embroidered tiny forget-me-nots on the spine to symbolise memory, and in green, yellow and purple silks I embroidered heartsease flowers into the corners symbolising domestic harmony. In the middle of the cover I embroidered her initials KP in silver thread. With every stitch I felt as though I were saying thank you to the gracious woman who was now my stepmother.
When I sent the book to Katherine at New Year I had to rush to finish the translation that had given me so many headaches. I bound it in the lovely cover which I was very pleased with, and added a note saying I did not want her to show the translation to anyone, as I feared it was not as perfect as I had wanted it to be.
I got a note in return, along with the customary gifts for New Year from my father and new mother. Katherine wrote to me of her unbounded joy at receiving something that I had obviously worked so hard and long on, and had put much thought into on her behalf. She was deeply touched and had shown my work to my father who was pleased also. She wrote that the translation was “well done and with great thought,” and that she hoped “soon we should be able to be together once more, to take pleasures of the court and gardens together.” She had understood, as I knew she would, that this gift was an expression of gratitude for her bringing me together with the memory of my mother.
My new stepmother and I shared the best of things to bring together two women; as secret shared and safe, held and treasured between two hearts.
Chapter Seventeen
Hatfield House
1545
The New Year brought change whistling with it, as though the two held hands and walked together into the future. My household was about to change.
Kat had been acting most un-Kat-like for some time. It was not in her nature to be guarded or secretive, and least of all to be quiet and thoughtful. I do not mean that she was stupid, for she was not, but Kat lived on the outside of her skin. I always knew what she was thinking. But I did not in the few weeks after the New Year. She was quiet, reserved and I caught her sometimes staring out of windows, looking at nothing. At other times we would be doing our embroidery, or walking in the park, and I would catch her staring ahead of her as though her mind had entirely left her body.
Something was going on.
“Oh, for Goodness sake, Kat!” I exclaimed finally as we sat by the fire one evening. I had watched her as her conversation had stalled and disappeared entirely, until she sat simply staring at the fire. In a sudden rush of both irritation and fear, I snapped. “For Goodness sake! What on earth is it?”
She looked at me with surprise, as well she might as nothing had been said to lead up to this outburst of mine. She had been as unaware of my growing temper as she was unaware of everything else. This showed how distracted she was, for generally, I was her sole care in the world.
“My lady Elizabeth,” she said and hot tears sprung to her eyes. I was suddenly filled only with fear, my irritation dissipating as fast as the vapour of rain on a hot road. What on earth was she going to say to me? I went over to her and put my arms around her.
“Kat, dearest Kat,” I said. “What is the matter? You have had this look on your face for so long now, that you need to tell me something, that there is something on your mind. Tell me, am I not your friend and your mistress?”
She burst into tears and hugged me tightly. Terrors swam around my head and my heart. Everything is always at the worst it could be, in that moment before someone tells you the real truth.
“Kat please…” I begged. “What is wrong?”
I pushed her away so that I could look into her soft brown eyes and sweet face. The fright on my face must have made me go white; I could feel all the blood in my body rushing to my heart. My skin went cold as my heart thumped within me solidly, as though trying to cope with the influx of every drip of blood in my heart. I thought she was going to tell me that she was dying, or leaving me. Kat drew in a shaking breath and wiped at her face and her eyes. Her nose was swelling with the pressure of her tears and her cheeks swelled under the torrent of her sobs. There are few women who look pretty when they cry, and my dear Kat was not one of the lucky few.
She pulled in another breath and wrenched her eyes to my face.
“I am in love,” she said and burst into heart-wracking sobs. Her eyes streamed with tears and she sobbed heartily as though saying the words had sanctioned a release of emotion in her pent up for so long.
I stared at her, so relieved that she was not dying that I burst into laughter. “And does being in love usually cause this much anguish?” I said as she stared at me. My voice fell suddenly harsh as an awful thought came to me. “You are not in love with one already married?”
She shook her head and frowned at me. “No. My lady should not think so ill of me,” she said frowning.
“What am I to think of all these tears Kat?” I said with a grin. “Is the man so awful, or so above you in station that there is no chance to marry him? Or he is too far below you?”
“Neither,” she said. “None.”
“Then what Kat?” I asked. “Have you fallen in love with the devil himself? For I never saw a woman so sad for having fallen in love.”
“I love not the devil,” she said crossing herself. “Nor one above or below me…. The man is John Astley my lady.”
I knew the name, they called him both Astley and Ashley; he was a courtier of good standing, a good friend of Roger Ascham’s. He was not far above Kat in station, and not at all below her. It would be a good match.
“As far as I know he is a fine man Kat,” I said. “So, why are you so sad?” I asked. “He does not love you back in return?”
Suddenly I felt angry… As if anyone could not love my beloved Kat! If the man was fool enough to turn down a prize such as my Kat then he should hear of it from me! I would make sure he knew how lucky he was to be loved by a woman as wonderful as Kat. My eyes burned in their sockets as anger flowed around my blood.
If he did not want my Kat, then I should make sure that he would have no one else, ever! I should speak to the King on the matter. I would speak to the Queen. This fool would rue the day that he turned down the hand of my lovely Kat!
I was lost in my angry thoughts for a moment, and then noticed that Kat was shaking her head. “No,” she said and sniffed loudly; quite an unpleasant sound as all the mucus in her nose retreated back into her head. “He loves me well… as I do him. He asked me to marry him and be his wife. But I was so scared to tell you, my lady. I did not want to have to leave you. I still want not to leave you. I would not leave you even to be the wife of the man I love. I did not know what to say or how to tell you, and I do not know what to say to him either. I cannot accept his hand if that hand leads me from you… but yet I do love him and I do want to be his wife.”
She burst into further floods of tears; her shoulders shaking and her sobs becoming stuck in her throat as though she coughed them.
“I…do…not…want…to…leave…you…mistress,” she sobbed at me.
I gathered her up in my little arms and held her. I did not want Kat to leave me either. But neither did I want her to be unhappy. She loved this man very much I could see; most of the time, when a servant married they would leave the house of their master. This was of course more true for women than it was for men, for men do not h
ave to bear babes from their bellies. But there were exceptions. There had to be a way to do both, keep Kat at my side and have her marry her John.
I held her at arms length. “Kat,” I said firmly. “We shall find a way to achieve both. We shall seek the advice of Roger Ascham on this matter and perhaps we shall find a role for your John Astley within my household? I cannot imagine that all the positions I should ever need are filled. Come Kat, dry your eyes, we shall find a way to keep your happiness and mine intact. I would not be separated from you either, so we shall have to find a way to make sure we are all kept happy. After all,” I paused and threw my shoulders back, ruffling them at her playfully, “we Tudors have the blood of dragons in us, and dragons must be kept happy. Otherwise they breathe fire and flame.”