The Bastard Princess

by G Lawrence

  I longed to be admired and to be loved. Thomas Seymour was the first man I ever fell in love with, and risked losing everything for.

  But Thomas soon gave up the idea of taking either myself or, as I found out later, my sister Mary as his wife. The opposition to his enquiries on Mary’s wealth and mine were met with censure by the Council. He would never be allowed to marry either of us. I was not overly surprised that he had looked on my elder sister as a potential bride as well as me, but I was saddened to hear it. It made me feel less special.

  I was though, surprised by what actually happened afterwards… Three months after the death of my illustrious father we found that my stepmother, who was known for her calm, wise decisions, had thrown caution and her position to the winds and taken the hand of the rakish adventurer Thomas Seymour in marriage. The man I had started to feel the first, sudden and powerful feeling of adult attraction to… was now my new stepfather. The lawful and legal husband of my stepmother, Katherine Parr.

  Thomas Seymour moved in. This was eventually to cause all hell to break loose in that beautiful house at Chelsea.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chelsea

  1547

  Don’t think for a moment that the marriage of the Dowager Queen of England and the younger brother of the Lord Protector went either unnoticed, or un-criticised… especially seeing as the marriage was conducted without the permission of the King, Council or Lord Protector Somerset and was carried out in what many considered unseemly haste, after the death of my father.

  What a storm was to follow the discovery of Thomas and Katherine racing into this marriage together! Even though I was living in the same house, I had no idea it had gone on at all. Kat, whose nose was always pressed against some door or other to glean a bit of gossip, was caught unawares too.

  And she was oddly upset by the news. More so than others.

  I think now, looking back, that Kat was a little in love with Thomas Seymour herself. The idea that he wanted to marry me pleased her because she admired him and loved me. If he had married me it would have brought together all her fantasies in a convenient bundle. She could not marry him herself, but Thomas marrying me was I think to her, just as good. But in marrying Katherine, Thomas had acted against Kat’s wishes and, she was sure, his own too. Kat thought that Thomas had merely settled for Katherine as a wife. Kat was sure he did not love Katherine, for she was sure that he really loved me.

  To Kat, I believe that Thomas and I had become two star-crossed lovers separated by the cruel fortune of fate, and she was determined to be the one to bring our lives together once more, as they should be.

  “He admired you first my lady,” she whispered to me as we walked together in the gardens. It was summer, the news of the marriage had broken, everyone was in uproar and messengers ran back and forth from this house in Chelsea to the King at Greenwich. The house was full of a restless, watchful anxiety which was too agitated to sit in, so Kat and I had come outside for a walk. It is easier to deal with restlessness, after all, when one is moving.

  The grim faces of the messengers and the shouts from behind closed doors were all signs that this news had not been well received. We were all wondering if Thomas and Katherine might be sent to the Tower for acting in such defiance against the Council and my brother Edward. As the Dowager Queen, Katherine should not have married for at least a year after our father’s death to ensure no child of the King’s was within her womb, and even when she did marry again, she should have had the approval of the ruling King. She and Thomas had played with fire here, and there was a distinct possibility they might both end up being roasted for their reckless, rebellious act of love.

  “Shush,” I said hushing Kat as we watched another messenger in Seymour livery almost fly out of the door and onto another horse. More wear must have been done to the roads today than any other time. I watched the messenger ride off and then turned to Kat and spoke quietly: “It is clear now that he admired my stepmother, not really I. It was Katherine he came to see, not me.”

  Even as I said the words I felt my heart rebel against them. No! said the little traitor in my heart. He liked you better than Katherine, but he had to settle for her. He wanted you. You are young, comely and the second in line to the throne. He wanted you, not Katherine.

  I tried to quiet my rebellious heart. The ache that I felt thinking that Thomas Seymour might love Katherine rather than me was enough to keep me grave and reserved. Perhaps people thought I was solemn with the news of the clandestine marriage? If so then that was more to my favour than them thinking that it was jealousy eating at me. I found myself thinking ill of Katherine for the first time in my life. I was jealous of her. Jealous of the union she now had with the man I had looked on with interest, and angered, that I could be so easily set aside for another woman. I felt as though I had a canker in my heart, and it was growing in its childish, selfish jealous blindness over the love I had cherished for Katherine. I tried to swallow it, cast it aside and think of all my heartfelt admiration for Katherine; but anyone who has had to try and do this knows well enough it is a fool’s errand.

  “He likes you, my lady,” Kat continued to whisper. “You know he did, I knew when I saw his eyes fall on you. There was never a man who could disguise a feeling for a woman when he felt it. It’s as clear to read as the good book itself.”

  “Even if this were true,” I said, “the Council would have never allowed it. They decide who I marry, and they would never let Thomas Seymour have a chance to possibly be king one day. Besides, remember, he made a play for my sister Mary’s hand as well as for mine.” I sighed and pulled the daisy-like heads from some feverfew.

  “He didn’t want your sister’s hand,” said Kat with a wicked grin. “The only thing that made her more attractive was her closeness to the crown.”

  “And then how can you say that he loved me?” I asked. “A man who is clearly so interested in placing himself in the royal family by hook or crook is not looking for love but for power. He tried my sister and me and failed, so he took our stepmother.”

  “He settled for her,” said Kat sullenly.

  “And he might well thank God for his luck in securing the love of a woman of such infinite courage, patience and beauty!” I said, almost shouting at my friend and governess. “You would do well to think of her better than you do Kat, it would do more to credit your spirit.”

  Kat flinched from my rebuke, but my words were directed as much at my own self as they were at her. These traitor-thoughts, that Thomas loved me and I loved him and now we were separated by his marriage to my stepmother, these were not helpful. These thoughts were not worthy of me, I thought miserably, but I could not stop having them.

  “If Katherine and Thomas are allowed to stay married and together… they will have a better chance of happiness in marriage together than he and I ever could have had,” I said and threw my flowers into the hedge.

  Kat crowed triumphantly. “I knew it!” she exclaimed loudly, almost shouting. I had to cuff her hard across the shoulder to bring her back to earth. “I knew you liked him my lady,” she said quietly as she rubbed her arm where my fingers and rings had cut her.

  “Whatever I felt or did not feel is irrelevant now,” I said. “Thomas Seymour is married to my stepmother the Dowager Queen and I wish them all happiness together.” I don’t think my face was as convincing as my words.

  Kat linked her arm with mine and we continued around the garden. She spoke no more on the subject. But there was a twinkle in that eye of hers that spoke to me as one friend’s spirit will do to another. That although I might say it was over and done with, that this was not true.

  She knew as well as I did, that the heart will not be ruled by the head, and certainly not when the head belongs to a young girl, little more than a child, in the first flush of attraction towards a man with more experience than she could possibly imagine.

  I was in love; although I told my heart to contain itself and be quiet on the
subject… I knew it was the truth.

  Those first few days after we learned of their marriage were the hardest; I hoped Katherine merely took my quiet and solemnity as concern over the news, but I wondered if Thomas suspected I was heartsick for him.

  Thomas Seymour moved into Chelsea. More than twice my age, he was a man of much experience with women. He only had to glimpse the flush on my cheeks when he entered a room, he only had to watch the faltering rise and fall of my chest to know that I strove to control feelings of a strength I had never experienced before.

  And he did watch me; he enjoyed my faltering words at our first meetings. He teased me, he played with me. It did not take me long to understand that Thomas was flirting with me, the thirteen year old ward of his new wife and sister to his King. He only had to cast a dark eye over me to know that I was just as attracted to him, as he was to me.

  Love and attraction are deadly games to play when one is not experienced in them. I felt as though I had no control over myself. I felt as though I might drown in his eyes. I was so much younger than he, but at the time I thought nothing of it. It was only later that I saw how reckless Thomas Seymour really was, playing with the hearts of a young girl and his own wife… playing with the power of the English line to the throne… playing with fire as he always had done.

  I had never been in so much danger as I was in that beautiful house in Chelsea when my new stepfather moved in.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Autumn

  1547

  Katherine and Thomas were lucky. They did not get sent to the Tower for treason as many of us expected them to; luckily for Katherine, the affection that my brother the King still felt for her saved her and her reckless new husband Thomas Seymour. I think that his elder brother, the Lord Protector Somerset would have liked a much more severe punishment than the one the new couple received. He liked not his brother’s new-found wealth and position. There were many others who found Katherine’s haste to marry another man entirely disrespectful to our late father’s memory and morally quite disgusting; Katherine herself however seemed to care very little for the opinions of others now that she had her husband. It seemed that she had loved Thomas even before our father has started to court her, and this ending was, for her, the completion of a fairy-tale love story.

  The pair were fined for their disobedience and were in disgrace at court. My sister Mary was outraged by the affair and wrote many words to me in disgust at the tasteless speed in which our stepmother had abandoned the memory of the great King she had been so lately married to. Mary’s letters seemed to imply that Katherine was entirely overtaken by the sin of lust, and was obviously unable to contain or control herself. That such a woman should have been ever held worthy to marry into our family filled Mary with shame, and she thought that I was at great risk of corruption, being so young and housed with my immoral stepmother. Mary asked me to go and live with her. She thought it would be more fitting and less dangerous for me to go to her, rather than stay in the household of Katherine. She felt it was unsuitable for me, both as a princess and as a child, to be surrounded by the iniquity of such a woman as Katherine had turned out to be.

  But I wanted to stay. Not only because of the love I still had for my stepmother and the thought of how boring life would be with my pious elder sister, but also, secretly and silently, because I desired to be near to the exciting, enticing figure of my new stepfather. I was hardly likely to admit this to my sister; the thought would have given her apoplexy.

  I wrote to Mary and expressed, with what I felt was tact and delicacy, that I wanted to remain in the household of our stepmother, at least for now, as this was where the new King and his Council had decreed I stay. Until our brother and his advisors spoke otherwise, I should operate in accordance with their wishes. Every prince, I wrote to my sister, must show duty to the King of her country.

  It was just helpful in this case that the wishes of my heart and the old orders of my brother were in concordance.

  My little cousin Lady Jane Grey also joined Katherine’s household in short time. She was around eleven at the time. Thomas Seymour with his infinite ambition had secured her as a ward, seeing the value in having two princesses of the royal line guarded under his roof with the Dowager Queen. Thomas had convinced the Greys that if Jane was left to his care, he could advance her greatly. I believe the plan was to attempt to marry my little cousin to my little brother in time, and produce a great English line of Protestant Tudors. I don’t know if anyone ever mentioned this to Jane. She was quite young although she was very clever. I would not have minded if my serious brother had married my solemn cousin; they were a good match, almost the same age, and Edward would have to marry someone when he grew older. Why not a girl from our own line?

  Jane was not exactly pretty, but she was not unfortunate in any way either. Her hair was blonde with a tiny hint of the Tudor fire which was so striking in my own hair. Her eyes were a dark blue and her skin was pale and clear. She was little in build but her mind was strong and eager. She had not been treated well by her own family, and this made her eager to please others, and grateful for the slightest hint of friendship. It was a winning mixture. She was easy to overlook because she was so slight and little, but you would miss a great deal if you did overlook her.

  When she was tempted from her general reserve into conversation, Jane was an able debater. Her mind was sound, her arguments convincing and I found her the perfect person to resolve any point against, for no matter what subject I was learning, she could find a point to argue against me on. Despite the slim difference in our ages, she was as able and willing as I to make and prove her point. It does much more to advance the strength of a mind when it is made to argue and to justify its points.

  One thing no one remembers about Jane though, was that she was really quite funny. She did not play with people and their humour unless she knew them well; her home life had made her shy on that front. But when she knew you, you would find that her humour was dry as salt.

  With Jane’s arrival at Chelsea, we became like a little family; Katherine and Thomas with their two royal wards settled down as the scandal died down.

  At Chelsea with its gracious, fashionable gardens and warm red-bricked walls we all settled into a life together. Jane and I settled into our lessons together and took walks together. Katherine shone; a woman released from all the terrors of a royal marriage, and seemed to love and respect her husband to such an extent that she saw no wrong in anything he did.

  Kat continued to look on Thomas as being my property and every night she helped to inflame my foolish and unguarded heart with the possibility of his love and devotion to me.

  And like every fool in love, I listened to her.

  And like every fool in love, I had no compunction in taking every look, word and deed of Thomas Seymour as a sign of his returning my own childish flutters of love.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chelsea

  Autumn

  1547

  When I first entered the household of Katherine at Chelsea, I sat for a portrait commissioned by the King. Edward requested a portrait of his dear sister to keep beside him when he could not see me, which was more often than not.

  Since Edward had become the King, we had barely seen each other, but I resolved to keep in better contact with him through letters. As the portrait was finished, I wrote him a letter to go with it.

  “Like as the rich man daily gathers riches to riches, and one bag of money layeth a great sort until it come to infinite, so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with many benefits and gentleness showed to me afore this time, doth now increase them in asking and desiring where you may bid and command, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for itself, but made worthy for your highness’s request. My picture, I mean, in which if the inward mind toward your Grace might as well be declared as the outward face and countenance shall be seen, I would have tarried the commandment but prevent it, nor have been the last to
grant but the first to offer it. For the face, I grant, I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present. For though from the grace of the picture the colours might fade by time, may give you weather, may be spotted by chance; yet the other nor time with her soft wings shall overtake, nor the misty clouds with their lowerings might darken, nor chance with her slippery foot may overthrow. Of this although yet the proof could not be great because the occasion hath been but small, notwithstanding as a dog hath a day, so may I perchance have time to declare it in deeds where now I do write in words. And further I shall most humbly beseech your Majesty that when you shall look on my picture you will vouchsafe to think that as you have but the outward shadow of the body before you, so my inward mind wisheth that the body itself were oftener in your presence; howbeit because both my so being I think could do your majesty little pleasure, though myself great good; and again because I see as yet no time agreeing thereunto, I shall learn to follow this saying f Horace, ‘Feras non culpes quod vitari non potest’. And thus I will, troubling your majesty I fear, end with my humble thanks. Beseeching God to preserve you to His Honour, to your comfort, to the Realm’s profit and to my joy. From Hatfield.