by G Lawrence
Edward had been raised with the knowledge that he was our father’s sole true heir and only hope for the country. That sort of pressure can come out in many ways when placed on young shoulders, but our father and our country I thought were lucky in that, rather than rebelling against the weight of his responsibility, Edward tried in all ways to learn all he could so that on the day he was to take the mantle of kingship, he would be ready, no matter how young he was.
And that day came so much sooner than we thought possible.
Death is always sudden, and it is always a shock.
Even if you have seen a person you love grow older, weaker and the knowledge that their passing is coming, it still does not prepare you in any way for the day that someone comes to you, and tells you they are gone.
You will never again see their face, laugh with them, or hold their hand.
You will never again walk into a room and find them there.
People we love pass from our lives so fast.
One day they are ours, a part of our family, our lives, as vital and colourful as every field and flower, and then one day they are a shadow, flitting at the edge of our vision, inconstant and wavering like a silhouette reflected in a sun-dappled pond in the spring light. Like my mother… like my stepmothers… they become just a memory in the minds and hearts of those who knew and loved them.
Our father, the Great King Henry VIII, died on the 28th January 1547. I was thirteen years old, my brother Edward was not quite ten.
News of his death was a closely guarded secret for some time. We were told later it was to ensure the smooth passage towards Edward’s reign. But who can say what really lurks in the mind of some men?
Edward had been at Hertford castle, the seat of his uncle, Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford. When my brother left the castle, he was under the impression he was coming to London to be inaugurated as the Prince of Wales.
No one told my brother, the new King, that he was the King.
It was only when Edward and I were brought together at Enfield, where I was in residence, that Hertford fell to his knees before us, his small eyes narrowed as he watched us and declared;
“The King is dead.
Long live the King!”
Edward and I looked at each other. His handsome, delicate face went pale with shock. But he rose and extended his hand to his uncle to kiss.
I stood, my legs turned to jelly as the unfathomable thought of our father being no longer with us mixed in my head with the knowledge of death. I went to curtsey to my brother, but he pulled me to him and wrapped his arms about me.
With all the suddenness of fear and shock, we two, children of the royal house of Tudor, clung to each other and wept for the loss of the father we had loved, feared and admired. Edward, Mary and I were all now orphans. We had no living parents left to us in this world, and only relatives of our respective mothers or aunts, and each other to hold together the fiction of a family.
Perhaps it was not as Edward should have acted in his first moments as King; reaching out to weep with his sister. But I loved my brother all the more for reaching out to me during the first impact of our grief together; for giving me the comfort of his love in that first white shock of grief.
Hertford stood silently by as we held each other. He did not intrude on our grief.
Finally Edward released me and straightened himself. Long hours of thought and preparation for the weight of responsibility and kingship had brought him to the calm he now seemed to feel.
He nodded to his uncle, who bowed to him again.
“Where are we headed to, uncle?” he said. “The Tower?”
Hertford nodded. “Yes, your majesty,” he said with all reverence, his eyes still narrowed as though he wished to pin Edward down with his glance.
But as they left to prepare the new king’s passage to the Tower where all kings of England stay before their coronation, I felt as though there was a little chill coming to me from Hertford. Edward was the King, but he was still only nine years old. There was to be a Regent, an adult who would head a Council until my brother was at least fourteen, if not eighteen.
We were under the rule of my brother, Edward VI, the boy-king, but we were also under the rule of whoever sat in the chair of Lord Protector. Whoever was given that position would hold the power of the crown within their hands. It was something men had, and would, kill for.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hatfield House
1547
In the weeks that followed our father’s death, Kat made a habit, more so than ever, of coming to sleep beside me. A princess, even a bastard one, is but rarely left alone. My ladies slept either on pallet beds on my floor, or in the bed with me. Kat made it her habit to be my bed-mate in the time after my father’s death.
After my ladies had undressed me and combed my hair, after all the rich trappings were stripped off my skin and the glittering rings were taken from my fingers; when I was covered only in my little shift sitting in bed, Kat would come in so that I could weep on her shoulder for the loss of my father. Sometimes grief is easier to share when it flows freely from the heart of one friend to another. We spend so much time in our lives assuring others that we are alright; with a friend at least one can answer honestly, and tell the other that things are not alright, and all is not well with the world.
Remaining positive is a fine attribute, but that does not mean that at times it does not do us good, to accept and embrace the sorrows of life.
We talked of my father as the hours rolled on into the darkness of the early morning and the candle-light flickered with the drafts coming under the tapestry.
During the day I tried to remain stately. A letter from my brother had attested to the fact that this was what he expected of me in public. But during the night, and in the company of Kat, I did not need to be so guarded.
Kat told me stories of my father.
In my mind as she spoke I heard the ringing sound… the crash and the bash of jousts he had ridden and won. The figure of my father sprang into life with all incandescence and vivacity as she spun tales of his heroism and youth.
I saw him dance with my mother, spinning her dark-haired lithe figure as the two of them stepped together gracefully.
I saw him ride out on great horses, against the French in the battles long before I was born.
I watched the people cheer wildly at his coronation as the young prince full of promise became a king.
I watched him pick up the tiny figure of me and spin her as she gurgled baby giggles around the room as the court looked on and applauded.
I think Kat wanted me to hold only good memories of him in my head. But my mind was not like that. Although I remembered and cherished all those images of my father, I could not refuse the other memories that came to me…
Of the darkness of his face in anger, the way the atmosphere of a room or even a palace could be changed by his black moods. The way Katherine had looked as she held that bit of paper in her hand and saw his signature on it; the fear on my mother’s face as she held me out to him, and he just turned from her and walked away.
Oh yes, there are always two sides to a person, and none more so than the figure of my powerful father.
How could I love such a man, who inflicted such pain and fear, such tyrannical domination and cruelty on so many I loved? And yet… how could I not love the man whose arms had held me in love, laughed with me and admired me as his daughter and who had given me the title of princess even after the disgrace and fall of my mother?
Do we ever really understand why or how we love someone?
I think not.
We only know that we do, and once we do love someone we do so forever.
My heart has taught me this in my life at least. I know not the hearts of other men or women, but I know that in my own heart, once I love I cannot un-love.
I can hate those I love and I can adore them, equally and sometimes simultaneously, but I cannot un-love them. It does not spea
k for my pragmatism that I value so highly, but it cannot be helped, it is how and who I am and was made.
And I have always thought that God moulded my heart to this wish for a purpose. Whatever that purpose is, is still a mystery to me, but He knows better than I what the world needed. It was not the easiest path for me for sure, for it has given me little peace. But love in my life is a constant, irrefutable path that once started on, can never be abandoned.
I loved my father. And I had lost his presence from my life.
Kat held me in the night as I cried for the giant figure of the man who had given me life, just as he had taken it away, from so many others.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chelsea
1547
At the end of January, Edward and his council took up residence at the Tower of London. The will of our father Henry VIII was promised to be adhered to, and then almost immediately ignored as Edward Seymour was created Lord Protector against our father’s final wishes. All the power of the regency was placed in the most-willing hands of Edward Seymour who later became the first Duke of Somerset.
Our father’s will included provisions for Mary and me as well as for Edward. The money, properties and titles that we had been allotted were made known to us. Mary was able, as an adult, to take possession of the £3,000 income per year and her title as Edward’s heir to the throne. She had become overnight one of the richest people in England and a powerful political figure. I was still too young, at thirteen, to live and manage a household by myself. It was agreed that I should go and live with my stepmother, the dowager Queen Katherine and my inheritance should be managed by the Council.
Katherine was well provided for by my father. Although she was not given the regency of Edward in his will, which she might have expected after he entrusted her with the country when he went to war with France, she was given money, position and lands as part of her dower, and she was still able to retain her regal state of life as one of England’s premier noblewomen and a part of the royal family.
And however unlikely it was, the Council were keen to keep an eye on her belly in case she had another heir to the throne in there.
Katherine herself obviously didn’t think it was a possibility when I came to her house in Chelsea; we talked of her great sorrow at never having had a child of her own despite being stepmother to many children from her marriages.
“And although I love all of my husbands’ children,” she said, reaching out and touching my arm, “I would love to feel a babe of my own in my arms too.”
She looked downcast and I pressed her hand in mine. She shook herself and smiled at me. “Perhaps I am too greedy,” she said. “Look at everything that my husbands and your own good father gave me… I have more children than any woman I know through marriage, and I have felt their loving influence on my heart through all my wedded years. Perhaps I ask too much to ask for one more child… even if it is one of my own blood.”
“I do not think you would presume to ask too much, my lady,” I said. “I think God would understand such a wish from a woman who has devoted herself to loving and protecting all her husbands’ children and given up much of her own life to do so.”
“You must not think that I do not feel privileged to be your mother, and Edward’s, and Mary’s… although she was already a woman grown when Henry and I married. But there is in all of us a desire to see our own blood continuing to live when we are gone.”
I nodded. I understood her, of course I did.
Sometimes I thought of the day when I should be grown and be given in marriage. I understood all the feelings of which she spoke. But there was the other side of me which whispered of the dangers of becoming entirely dependent on a man in the state of marriage. After watching my father and his marital lives, there was a darker voice in my soul, which talked to me of the inconstancy of the hearts of men, and the danger to women who were dependent on them.
I was not present at my father’s burial or my brother’s coronation. Katherine was the only immediate family member at our father’s burial next to Jane Seymour, and even she watched it from the Queen’s Closet.
No one should imagine the death of the new King, or the royal family, so we could not be seen next to the hand of death.
Mary and I could only visit court, rather than stay there. Edward was unmarried, being rather too young at the age of nine. Without a resident queen it was not seemly for unmarried ladies to be present without a female household in which to serve.
Edward’s court was therefore very male, and very lacking in fun.
Perhaps this suited my serious brother; for now at least there much for him to understand and do as the new King.
But it does not do to have no fun in life; I had a merry spirit and when I thought of nights at court with no dancing, for there were few or no ladies, I thought it sounded rather dull. Even though our company was limited at Chelsea and we were officially in mourning, Katherine and I talked, laughed and danced together as mother and daughter, renewing and strengthening our bond through the enjoyment of mutual company.
There was, in those months after the death of our father, a constant visitor to Chelsea in the form of Edward’s younger uncle, the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour. Thomas was a new member of the Council, and was the same Thomas who had been sent away from court by my father when he sought to marry Katherine Parr and feared competition; but now he was back.
Thomas Seymour was a handsome man.
Bright blue eyes sat in a strong and playful face. His dark hair shone in the sun like the wing of a raven, and he was tall, graceful, and had an air about him that spoke to every woman in the depths of her heart. There are such men that come about through some accident of nature that despite any other failings will convince women to abandon all reason, religion and reserve in order to be admired and loved by them.
He was such a man.
When he came into a room, everyone turned to him. He was a star that shone brighter than any other around him. Men hated him for it. Women flooded to him, like wasps to jam tarts.
At first it seemed to me that he paid court to us as many others had done before, but I did wonder a little at the frequency of his visits. Kat was the first to tell me in whispered tongue that the younger Seymour had been inquiring about my personal property with Thomas Parry who managed my personal accounts, and it seemed that, despite my youth, he was interested in me as a potential wife.
At first the idea was quite shocking; quite apart from the fact I was little more than a child at thirteen years old, the provisions of my father’s will ensured that I was ruled by the Council and my brother in the choice of my husband. It was their choice whom I should marry, not mine. My hand was of great value to them. It was unlikely, highly unlikely, that the younger brother of the Lord Protector Somerset would be given such a potentially politically explosive bride.
But I understood his ambition certainly. I was now second in line after Mary to the throne of England. Marrying me, even with only a slim chance for the succession, was attractive to those of lesser ranks seeking higher powers. But this would never be allowed to happen by the ruling elite.
But I also could not help but feel a little excitement in my chest when I saw his handsome face. Was all his interest for my position only? Or was there something in Thomas Seymour that desired Elizabeth of England for the woman she was growing to be?
Did he desire me as a man desires a woman, or did he view me as a piece of attractive property? A good investment for the future, or a wife to enjoy in the present?
In the secret places of my heart, I longed to be admired. I wanted to be seen, to be missed, to be wanted as a woman first. Perhaps it was a childhood of feeling overlooked which brought this into my heart, or perhaps it is simply the wish of all people; to be seen, to be admired.
I started to look at myself in the mirror, trying to see what parts of me were attractive for themselves. I was middling tall for my age, my waist was delicate and thin, my breasts w
ere just starting to bud forth, but they were still small and round. My hair was thick, lustrous and a becoming shade of red-gold, but my eyebrows were almost non-existent. My eye-lashes were the same pale colour, and my face was pretty with youth. But there were prettier girls I had seen at court. My hands were lovely, long, pale and elegant with tapering fingers and looked dazzling with jewels on them. My eyes were dark and black, striking in my heart-shaped face, and my skin was pale and smooth, soft and white.
I was not unattractive, I knew, but I was not the beauty that some court poets extolled me as.