Elizabeth Tudor- Ancestry of Sorcery

by Theresa Pocock

  When I listened to his teachers as they spoke to him, the comment I heard repeated over and over sounded like a threat. “Edward, you will be king soon and if you are not this or that, how will you ever live up to your father’s reputation or the expectation of a prince?” It made me sick.

  One day I’d had enough, and after one such comment I said, “How indeed? Edward will not be able to become anything with you telling him that all his actions are reproachful and that the whole world will be watching him and comparing him to our father. I myself would rather go out to the privy and clean it with the servants than sit and listen to you tell him again about how his duty is so grand and how he will never live up to it.”

  I had not used my manipulations on them, yet they seemed to listen to my words and take them to heart, for I did feel that things became better after that. I was just ten, but I realized at that moment that I had a mind that could reason out problems, and though I did have an advantage when it came to getting my way, I did not always need to use that advantage.

  My mind was very capable.

  As we ran through the beautiful fall countryside that was Hatfield, I found playtime somewhat strained between Robert and me. He seemed more than ever the courtier and less the friend I had wandered these woods with last summer. I wondered if it was because of the marriage talk we’d had as our fathers discussed the same topic, or if it was because of Barnaby, who was undergoing adolescent changes and now took to paying me ridiculous compliments and lingering by my side when it was not completely appropriate.

  He might only be following Robert’s lead, for I doubted he had been to court more than a few times. However, it was obvious that it annoyed Robert to have a third party always following us into the groves and to have said party constantly vying for my attention.

  Most of the time, I forgot that Robert and Barnaby were both at the age where they began to notice girls. I was ten and only after Blanche told me all about relations between a man and woman did I have some dreams that involved Robert. I convinced myself they were due to my mind struggling to comprehend the process, not because I really wanted to act out that sort of thing. It—as Blanche described—was too disgusting to think about for long.

  There was a single exception to my distaste: Thomas Seymour.

  I had pondered on the act he facilitated with the maid many times. I did not understand how changing the characters involved moved my mind from revulsion to fascination. Yet it was a fact, it was as if the fascination had a moat around it and only Sir Thomas Seymour could enter.

  The fact was Robert did not make me feel what Thomas did, though I liked him best and thought him perfectly handsome and genteel.

  I definitely did not have any feelings for Barnaby or anyone else.

  Blanche had said that courtiers lived in a sexual environment, and children who were exposed to that environment naturally acted like the adults surrounding them. This made me wonder if the interest between boys and girls at my age was not forced. It was possible that I was unique in my noninterest, or perhaps Blanche was right when she said that the inclination developed at different times for everyone.

  No matter what the reason was, I noticed as the summer months passed that anytime I brushed Robert’s hand or got close to him in any way that was normal as a result of playing together, he stiffened, his cheeks flushed, and he would walk away as though he were embarrassed about something. Even his manner of walking seemed stiff.

  But at other times, I was certain he stared at me all day and lingered by my side.

  It was all so strange that I resolved to ignore it entirely. I spent more time with Edward and my studies, though Robert and I continued to ride horses together several times a week.

  Only on his horse would I consistently see the Robin I loved.

  School crept along, and as winter descended, I had another manifestation of my power. It was October, and Kat, Robert, and I sat under an apple tree that had just given the last of its fruit, when I suddenly felt an icy wind blow past me. Next, I could smell firewood and frozen straw, and I felt tiny prickles of ice on my skin. All this culminated in a single sound: the hush after a new snow.

  As the frigid air blew past, I felt as if my hair should be whipping wildly around me, yet my shawl was still, and Kat’s own loose hair remained in place. Neither she nor Robert seemed to share any of these sensations.

  “It is going to snow,” I said in a thoughtful voice, my focus far away.

  Kat twisted to look at me, and when our eyes met, she smiled. “Why do you say that, my Lady? I have a very good sense of when the weather will be changing, and I feel that fall will hang on a bit longer. What do you say, Robert?”

  My head was reeling with the knowledge that I had just had an experience that was beyond my understanding. Robert was looking at me strangely. Shrouded in the power of the moon, I felt I knew what he was thinking. He had been present almost every time I had used my power and he might very well know what I could do, although he surely had no explanation for it. I searched his face as he searched mine, and finally, he glanced away to peer around him.

  “I would say that there were no signs of winter yet.” He looked back at me. “However, I have come to realize that our Ladyship here is more than just wise beyond her years. I believe her to be something of a seeress. She seems to know things before they happen, like what people will do or say.” He ran his fingers through his hair, then finished in a softer voice, “Yes, I do believe I should always listen to what she has to say and take it to be truth.”

  Kat looked at me, suspicion in her dark piercing eyes, and I wondered if she also knew. I had not shared with her what the letters from my mother and grandmother had said. She only knew that they held something secret. As I looked into her eyes, I saw questions there.

  So, I did what I had to do. I put them off. “Robert, what in heaven’s name are you talking about? I have heard Dr. Grindal talk of astrologers as seers, and Father does see one—I know that for a fact. But the future cannot be told by any but God. Are you saying that I have the same talents as the Almighty?”

  Relief flooded Kat’s face, and I could tell that Robert’s held a touch of the same sentiment, however, in my attempt to logic my way out of this situation, I had happened upon a premise that captured the full attention of my mind. Was I like God?

  By the time the sun touched the horizon, massive black clouds filled the sky, and the looks of dismay I received from Kat unnerved me. I lay awake most of the night pondering my question. It was only at night that I took my mother’s journal out of its hiding place and read it by candlelight. Skimming through the pages, my eyes fell upon the word GOD, written in capital letters. I stopped on that page and read. It was an entry from my fifth great-grandmother, Edith DeGray.

  I wonder at times how I fit into GOD’s plan. I have his power, and from my reading in this book I have concluded that I am to be in partnership with him in a great work. This is a gift and a treasure, one I have not seen nor ever heard of anyone else having.

  * * *

  I watched my relations and saw how they loved and worked together thru health and sickness, thru wealth and poverty and I think that there must be a reason that I have been given something that no one else but my mother has. So, my thoughts are thus: I, my grandmothers, and my daughters are here to do the female half of the work God has. I do not wish to sound wicked, but this is my journal. Is it not a safe place for me to write out my thoughts and feelings where no one may judge me but God? I only hope to understand myself and the power I have, and perhaps help my daughter who may have my same questions.

  * * *

  What I think is this: Jesus our Saviour worked his mighty miracles on the earth and he used the power of God to do it, and I believe that we as a line of women are here to continue Christ’s works. We cannot be partners with Him in sacrifice, though we do sacrifice in our service. However, we can continue His works. We have the same power, only it is the opposite, or female half of it. For I
have many times wondered where His works have gone. Does God not love us as much as He loved those long dead people and prophets? Or with His infinite power and knowledge has He given us all He has, all we need, and done all He can for us? Or is He just no longer powerful? Or no longer interested in us? Has some horrid heavenly battle taken place and God has lost the fight so that we are no longer under His hand? Where are His apostles today? We have men who tell us what the scriptures say and what Christ did, but where are the men that testify of Him because they know and have seen Him and have worked with His power? I believe those men are gone and all that are left are women…women with the power of God. A power given while Christ sojourned on the earth. A power passed down from generation to generation in a process that can only be attributed to God, for is not creation His domain? Yes, and is this a reminder that we are more than just animals? We are apprentices to Him and has He not given all of us the right to participate in the most miraculous, most powerful, and most godly event: procreation?

  * * *

  I and my posterity are here to break the tides of evil, to fight them and to set the course of mankind on the correct path. One day, one of us will be in a position of power, and then let evil try and stop us from bettering the world and bringing about the truth of God’s plan.

  * * *

  There is power and knowledge yet, and He is mindful of us.

  The moment I read the words, I knew that Edith was correct in all her thoughts. I had never had a truth so burned into my soul. It was as though I felt warm water rushing down my skin, caressing and comforting me. My mind blazed with the power this knowledge gave me. I could someday be in that position of worldly power. I, more than all the Daughters of Moon and Mind, besides my mother, might be able to change the face of the world and to bring about what was right.

  But how would I know what was right? How did my mother know what to do? She had to have read this and understood what it meant for her.

  Perhaps this was part of what my mother was doing—trying to change the face of history and the world. In order to divorce Mary’s mother and marry mine, Father had had to break with the Catholic Church. My grandmother told me that my mother caused this break, had pursued it single-mindedly, and the Protestant Church was created, using many of the new ideals, protestant ideas. She had also helped him with Royal Supremacy, setting it up so that the king was considered the direct servant of God and was thus over his church, like a prophet.

  I could see the logic in that action after reading this journal entry, but I was not sure my mother was correct in her application. Father was just a man, an unholy one at that, nothing like a prophet. Also, I felt there were equal parts good and evil in the Catholic Church (evil mostly because of the men in charge). Nevertheless, this was the task my mother focused on.

  She made all the present religious turmoil come about and then, somehow, she lost control and was killed.

  That was something too. How was it possible for her to lose control of someone? Even with my tiny experience I could control anyone I wanted. So how did Father get out from under her spell?

  Perhaps this was not her main goal. Maybe she knew that she was not to be the one with the opportunity, but that she was to be the one who laid the groundwork for someone else—for me. Perhaps she always knew her life would be sacrificed for a greater cause.

  I had always had so many questions about my mother’s actions in regards to my father, but what if she was only attempting to secure my place in the royal line? It all made perfect sense. If she could have a daughter by royalty, that would ensure that such a princess would marry a prince of some land and thus be in a position to lead.

  Perhaps she accomplished these important things only so I could accomplish more.

  It was all very romantic to think of my mother in this light, but I had read her entries and they sounded rather selfish and vain to me. However, I did know that even the servants of God were imperfect, for they were human. All of the Saints had weaknesses and struggles, and I would not assume my mother was void of any good motives just because I knew that she was not holy.

  The more I thought of this possibility the more right it seemed, and the more it resonated with my soul. I concluded that I would have to go back and read again all that she had written. I knew that in my current frame of mind I would be most likely to pick up the small hints and nuances, if there were any, so I began right then.

  Episode 9

  October 1543

  Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

  When I woke the next morning, I felt the silence of new snow on the ground. I jumped out of bed, cold prickling my skin as I raced to the window and flung it wide. I smelled firewood and frozen harvest straw that had only been cut the day before. It was my exact experience, only in the opposite order.

  At that moment I knew I had seen the future, but I wondered if it was a premonition or if I was now somehow connected with the weather. Grandmother did say that the powers of the moon and of the water were connected. My great-grandmother could control the water, but Grandmother could see the future. So, I was not persuaded either way, and not knowing what had happened made me want to run back to my book to find another answer.

  Unfortunately, Kat came in at that moment with a tray of breakfast and she had a look in her eye that told me she was troubled.

  Apprehensively, I watched her set the tray down and look out the window I had just shut. When she met my eyes, she hesitated, and so I had pity on her and relieved her of the duty of speaking first.

  “I have no idea how I knew it was going to snow, Kat. Truly I do not. It is as odd to me, as I am sure it is to you. Shall we talk of it, for I do not want you to be troubled?”

  Kat’s face softened, and she spoke in a quiet voice. “I just…I thought of your…I am sorry, Elizabeth, it was just so odd. And the way you have acted on occasion of late—I just wondered if maybe there are things you are not telling me, or if…well never mind. If you do not know, you do not know, and there is nothing we can do about it, is there?” She smoothed her light blue velvet dress and cleared her throat as she lifted the lid of the tray. “Nevertheless, I am happy that only Robert and I were there to hear you, for neither of us would betray you or claim that you were a—anything other than what you are.”

  “I do not think there is anything to betray,” I said as I came to sit at the table. “You yourself said that you could tell the weather sometimes. I just happened to be right this time.” I took a piece of bread with butter on it and tasted a small corner.

  “Yes, my dear, but though I say I know the weather at times, I have never known it would rain on a day without clouds. The entire circumstance has a feel of something unnatural, as I fear others would recognize.” She lifted a bowl of porridge off the tray and set it in front of me. It had a delicious aroma of dates and I took a bite while Kat continued. “Moreover, if you yourself did not think the situation odd, why did you assume that was what I was upset about when I arrived?”

  I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. She had trapped me, and I had not even seen it coming. I instantly surrounded myself with the power and my mounting anger melted away into the glorious gleam of the light. Without the intelligence that filled me when surrounded by power, I was just a regular ten-year-old arguing with an adult. Though my brain worked swiftly, I could not reason a way out of her comment, and I had made a promise not to manipulate her.

  I said coolly, “Kat, I do not understand why this is such a marked thing for you. I would appreciate it if we could move past it and you could assume, as I do, that it was a coincidence.”

  Kat looked at me with uncertainty. “As you wish, my Lady.” And I hoped she meant that was the end of it.

  January 1544

  Ashridge House, Hertfordshire

  News came at the new year that my aunt’s grandchildren would be joining us in our studies. I was interested to watch how the older boys reacted to the arrival of Lady Mary Grey and her sister Jane. I was not surprised th
ough when they acted as I suspected they would.

  They flirted with, cajoled, and teased both girls mercilessly—especially Barnaby—and I knew it was because they were pretty and shy that the boys were enamored with them. It was only then that I realized they had never paid that sort of attention to me, and this told me a few things about myself. Firstly, I was not pretty, or I was not as pretty as these girls were; and secondly, boys were mean when they liked you as more than a sister. These boys were always talking with me and joking with me, but they never made fun of me and I was sure that it had nothing to do with being the king’s daughter. We had acted as brothers and sister from the start.

  However, there was one boy in the crowd who never looked at Mary and Jane twice. Robert talked with them and we all played together, but he never acted toward them the way the other boys did. Then again, he had never acted flirtatiously toward me, aside from playing the courtier. This was telling, and in a way, I did not like it. I learned that Robert’s deference, or lack thereof, was quite devastating to my ego, and this shamed me.

  Soon, Dr. Grindal returned to us and we floated between Hatfield and Ashridge as we became educated. In late January, we received word that Father was planning to attack the French at Boulogne, and was about the countryside raising an army. This of course worried me for I did not want to see Father plundering the French when he was in such bad health. On the other hand, I had never seen Father at war and I had been told by a great many nobles that he was at his most splendid when there was an enemy to vanquish. So, Edward and I kept our ears open for news of how things were maturing, as we both hoped that Father would give up the notion but were nonetheless excited by the prospect of his defeating the French.