Rivals in the Tudor Court

by D. L. Bogdan

  But I am loyal to her nonetheless. She is my Catherine’s daughter and I must try and guide her with as much subtlety as I can.

  Thomas takes ill after the failed rebellion and we retire to Kenninghall for the summer.

  “I’ll return to court when I am better,” he tells me.

  “Of course,” I say, but as I lock eyes with those hard black orbs, I know he is lying. And he knows it, too.

  “Elizabeth . . .” Thomas sits on his bed and holds his arm out. I sit beside him and allow him to enfold me to his chest. “Will you do something for me?”

  I nod, swallowing an unexpected onset of tears.

  “Will you send for my Mary?” he asks.

  Mary. Mary, who has been so wronged by this man, Mary who just now had to sacrifice the children she loved more than her own soul to Thomas’s desires, Mary, who I have never allowed myself to love . . . Yes, of course he would want to see his Mary.

  “Yes, my lord,” I tell him. “I shall send for her directly.”

  The girl is mortally ill, that much is certain. She arrives hunched over in a Tudor green gown her father had made for her years ago, gripping a stomach that curses her with endless pain. Upon seeing me, she tries to right herself before dipping into a curtsy.

  I seize her hands, pulling her toward me into an embrace. “Oh, Mary . . .” I say as I hold her close. “How much I have missed you . . . how much do I long to love you as I should have so many years ago.”

  She pulls away, reaching up to stroke my face. Her sweet little countenance is surrounded by a halo of golden hair. Her green eyes shine like emeralds.

  “How much do I share that longing, lady Mother,” she tells me in her tiny voice.

  “Then you will stay with me,” I say, pulling her to me once more. “You will stay with me and let me take care of you. Let me be the mother I never was.”

  “It is my greatest desire,” says the girl as she buries her head in the crook of my shoulder.

  I stroke the honey blond hair and sway from side to side. “Your father wishes to see you.”

  She pulls away, blinking rapidly. “My father . . . my Norfolk.” She bows her head.

  I shudder and pretend not to have heard the agony in the last words as I guide her to his bedchamber.

  When Mary emerges hours later, she clutches a little silver circlet in her trembling hands. Tears stream down her cheeks unchecked and she turns toward me, green eyes lit with helpless despair.

  “How will I live without him?” she asks me.

  “You will,” I tell her firmly. “You will because you can. At last, Mary, you will be allowed to truly live.”

  Mary is distracted and averts her head, shaking it as though she cannot comprehend the thought of life without her Norfolk.

  It is a life I have spent many an hour dreaming of and yet now that it is so near, I find myself in mourning.

  When I am reassured that Mary is being cared for, I enter Thomas’s apartments and close the doors, taking my place at his bedside and busying my fidgety hands by mending a shirt long since cast aside.

  “I don’t know why you’re bothering,” he says. “I’m not wearing it again.”

  I sigh. “Then someone else will,” I tell him. “It’s a fine shirt.”

  He offers a slight laugh, then to my astonishment reaches out to still my wrist, keeping his fingers encircled about it. I wait for the pain but none comes. His touch is light. His eyes are grave.

  “Mary . . .” he begins. “I fear for her.”

  “I am disappointed. Such a break in tradition is almost unworthy of you,” I say with a slight sneer. It is too late to regret the words.

  “She’s—she’s—”

  “She’s dying,” I finish, keeping my voice hard and myself harder so that I might bear it.

  His face is stricken. “You will take care of her?”

  I offer a frenzied nod. “You would ask me to take charge of her now, after denying us a connection almost since her birth.” I cannot go on. I bow my head.

  “What’s done is done,” he says in gruff tones. “She is the best of us,” he adds then, his voice softer. His head sinks back onto the pillows. He closes his eyes a long moment, expelling a heavy sigh. “The very best.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which leaves us.” His tone is all business once more. “Why do you stay, Elizabeth?” he asks as he opens his eyes, revealing the impenetrable black orbs I know so well. I smile at the sight.

  “I am just one of many circling vultures, my lord,” I say.

  “You’re not getting a thing,” he says, and though his voice rings with the slightest humor, there is no doubt of his seriousness. He has not forgotten my betrayal. It does not matter. I have not forgotten his. In any event, I am well taken care of.

  “Believe me, there is nothing of yours that I want,” I return, my cool voice tinged with amusement. “Nothing that I don’t already have: the children and grandchildren.”

  He searches my face. “Elizabeth . . .” He averts his eyes, drawing in a wavering breath.

  Something in his tone evokes a peculiar gentleness in me. I find my hand entwining his. In the fading light, it is difficult to tell whose fingers are whose. He reaches up and with a trembling hand strokes my cheek.

  “If I could have been the man I was before things—happened,” he begins slowly, “or someone else altogether, someone common . . .” He drops his hand. “Everything was wrong.”

  I cannot speak past the sudden lump in my throat.

  “We were cursed from the beginning,” he goes on.

  “No,” I tell him. “No one was cursed; there is no shifting responsibility for our miseries onto some divine fancy. We made our own hells and any chance at happiness we could have had, we drove away like beggars from a feast. We had everything, Thomas. Wealth, children . . . at one time even love.” I lower my eyes. “But that wasn’t enough.” I return my gaze to him. His face is void of its usual indifference; he appears wistfully engaged. “It was never enough. Before your love for any living being came your ambition. It ruled over you with more stricture than God and king alike and proved your ultimate undoing. You wanted favor. You wanted power. If you couldn’t have that, you would exert your control over anyone you considered less than yourself: Bess—poor Bess, whom you used as a distraction from your clever wife and beloved daughter—me, your nieces, the poor dead queens.” I pause. “And Mary, of course.”

  I draw in another breath. “And all the while, even as I hated you I loved you, Thomas, God knows how much.” I shake my head. “I followed you everywhere you allowed me to go; I’d have gone to the very depths of Hell with you.” I offer a rueful smile. “I believe I did on one or two occasions.” The smile fades. “But you made it irrefutably clear that I was not your chosen accompaniment. So I found another way. If I couldn’t have you, I would have my revenge—in denying you your divorce, I would keep you from the person I thought you wanted most.” I offer a bitter laugh. “But it was the wrong person. For all your love of her, for all the desire that had you running mad, it was never Bess who could claim your heart. No, in that, God was truly cruel. Your greatest love was delivered in forbidden form—your ‘princess’ reborn in your own daughter Mary.”

  Thomas is silent a long moment. At last he draws in a wavering breath. “You knew it, too.” His voice is just above a whisper.

  “I’ve known since you were ill with the sweat, when you called her name above all others.” I look away, unable to bear the tears that are now streaming down his craggy cheeks.

  “It was not unholy.” His voice is so thick with sadness that my eyes are once again riveted to him. “It was not . . . I would never—”

  “Oh, Thomas, I know that,” I tell him in soft tones. I draw in a breath. “It is a strange thing, the human heart, this chaotic heart that lusts and yearns and envies. It is immune to logic. There is no sense of right or wrong. It keeps its own counsel; the paths it travels are secret, sometimes even to the mind t
hat claims dominion over it. It goes where it will and we can only rein it in with the commandments set by God and the laws put down by men.” I gaze at him pointedly. “We put the limits on one another. We draw the boundaries. But those boundaries and limits serve to protect only what is physical. Nothing can curb the emotions; nothing can stop the raging torment in the soul. And that torment raged in all of us. How we suffered for it . . . but, Thomas, I think you suffered most of all.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Thomas whispers, sitting up and placing his hand on my cheek. I look into his face and cannot find in it the savage old man of so many years past. He is the knight who won the day at the joust, the man whose power and energy surged through my twelve-year-old hand and into my woman’s heart when he danced with me. He is the father of my children, the man I am fated to spend my eternity with because I would be nowhere else. For all that he was, for all that he is, for all that he can never be, he is mine. I am glad he is mine.

  “Do you know why you were hardest to love?” he asks me then.

  I shake my head.

  “Because you were me,” he whispers.

  “That’s strange,” I tell him, touching his face in turn. “Because that was the very reason I loved you.”

  “Always at odds,” he says.

  “Always.”

  He draws me to him, pressing his lips to mine, and I yield, wrapping my arms about his neck, tracing his strong shoulders, stroking his thick silvery hair. For a long moment we cling to each other thus, lost in the passion that has always served as our catalyst for destruction and delight.

  When at last we part, I rise and dip into a curtsy. “Good-bye, Thomas Howard,” I tell him.

  “Good-bye, my lady wife,” he says. Then, to my retreating back he says, “Elizabeth.”

  I turn.

  His face is filled with the words; it is all there, naked, assailable, raw. He parts his lips. My heart catches in my throat, racing in anticipation. Still he does not say it.

  “I know,” I whisper at last.

  And I leave him.

  He does not die in my arms but leaves this world clinging to the hand of his steward, George Holland, Bess’s brother. I am told only a single word left his lips as he succumbed to his mortality: Princess.

  When the will is read and I am predictably excluded, I do not protest. Mary is provided for and thanked for her appeals in trying to secure his release from the Tower, and the grandchildren are provided for. And little Jane Goodman is awarded one hundred pounds for her upbringing and marriage.

  He did not have to leave me anything. He knew well his death would afford me my life to live as my own at last. I can ask for nothing more.

  At his interment, I stand by the grand effigy that lies upon his sarcophagus. I run my hand along the collar of medallions that graces its neck where is carved Thomas’s motto, “Gratia Dei, sum quod sum!”

  By the Grace of God, I am what I am.

  He was just that.

  Norfolk House

  Jane Goodman, Winter 1555

  Agreat lady is coming to see me today, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. I am beside myself with curiosity and excitement. Could it be I am being called to attend her? I am told to be on my best behavior. My foster brother William warns me I must not betray my stupidity. I hope I succeed—I am a hopelessly stupid girl and cannot bear the thought of disgracing myself.

  I wear my best gown, a sumptuous pink damask affair trimmed with ivory lace; it was from my good aunt Bess Holland, who left me everything after she died. How much do I miss her! I did not know her well. I was but five when she passed. But I remember her laugh—her beautiful, rippling laugh. And her softness. I loved to sit on her lap and cuddle with her.

  At fourteen, I do not fill out the gown as I imagine my curvaceous aunt must have. I am diminutive in stature and slim as a willow wand. My black hair cascades down my back in thick waves. I stare down my reflection in the glass. I wish I didn’t have such deep black eyes. Obsidian, William calls them. Colorless, I call them—I always wanted blue eyes or green. I shrug. I suppose I am pretty enough. Many say I will be a stunning beauty when I am older, so I take comfort in that.

  I enter the parlor to meet the duchess, who is seated before the fire. She is a woman of extraordinary beauty and grace, and as I dip into my practiced curtsy, I begin to tremble.

  All color drains from her face when her gaze falls upon me. She closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath. “Sit, Jane,” she tells me in low tones.

  I obey, arranging my gown about my feet and hoping I do not appear a grand fool.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asks me.

  “Yes,” I say. “You are the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.”

  “Indeed,” she says. “Now. Do you know who you are?”

  The question confounds me. “God’s body, of course I know who I am!” I cry, unable to contain my annoyance. “I am Jane Goodman!” I am stunned by my bold response and clamp a hand over my mouth. “Meaning no disrespect, my lady,” I say, hoping to redeem myself. “It’s just that I do not understand.”

  She laughs and shakes her head. She reaches into the pocket of her red velvet gown and holds out a signet ring that bears a mighty lion with its tongue pierced through by an arrow. “Do you know who owned this ring?”

  I shake my head.

  “This ring belonged to your father,” she tells me.

  “Oh, no,” I say, admiring it. “He could never own a ring so fine.”

  “The duke of Norfolk loved fine things,” she informs me.

  It takes me a long moment to digest what she is telling me. When the duchess sees that I comprehend her implication, she goes on.

  “But one of the finest by far was your mother, Bess Holland,” she says. Tears light her penetrating blue eyes. For a moment she averts her head.

  “My lady . . .” I murmur, unsure of what to say, what to do, what to feel.

  I knew I was a fosterling. I accepted the story the Goodmans told me about my parents dying of plague when I was a wee girl. Yet did I? As I sift through my racing emotions, I begin to realize I did not. That somewhere, in a deep place I never acknowledged, I had always known I belonged to the Howards in a way that could not be explained. I have no logic to support the thought. A memory stirs, ancient, a woman holding me, telling me in a tiny voice, “I am Bess Holland . . . I am your mother, and the great duke of Norfolk is your father. . . .” These words could never have been spoken, not really. It is some wild fantasy I have convinced myself of as reality. And yet it is true. It has always been true. And I knew it.

  The duchess faces me once more. Her strong countenance reveals a woman who has learned to endure and prevail over the greatest obstacles. Admiration surges through me as I regard her.

  “You will tell me of them?” I ask her as tears begin to warm my eyes. I allow them to fall unchecked down my cheeks. I slide from my chair to the floor and sit at her feet.

  She smiles. “Yes,” she says. “I will tell you of them. I will tell you of them and of your cunning cousin, Anne Boleyn. I will tell you of your other cousin, the beautiful Kitty Howard, and of your sweet sister Mary. I will tell you of the kings and queens from whom you descend.” She reaches out and takes my hand, then slides the signet ring upon my middle finger. It is weighty with history. “Today, Jane, you will know all. Some of it is far from pleasant, but I have avowed to always speak the truth. Can you appreciate that?”

  “With all my heart,” I tell her with fervency.

  And so she begins.

  Further Reading

  Elton, G. R. England Under the Tudors, Third Edition. London: Routledge, 1991.

  Elton, G. R. The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  Hackett, Francis. Henry the Eighth. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Co., 1931.

  Head, David M. The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1995.


  Hutchinson, Robert. The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason, and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant. New York: William Morrow, 2005.

  Loades, David M. Two Tudor Conspiracies, Second Edition. Bangor, Wales: Headstart History Publishing, 1992.

  Nott, George Frederick, D.D., F.S.A. The Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, 2 vols. New York: AMS Press Inc., 1965.

  Warnicke, Retha M. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

  Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and His Court. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  RIVALS IN THE TUDOR COURT

  D. L. Bogdan

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of D. L. Bogdan’s

  Rivals in the Tudor Court.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Explain Thomas Howard’s descent of character. What were the key factors in his life that contributed to his moral and spiritual decline? Did he ever redeem himself?

  2. Is there anything in this novel that supports the theory of nature vs. nurture? Was Thomas’s nature predetermined genetically or was he solely a product of his environment?

  3. Elizabeth, as a sufferer of domestic violence, was ahead of her time in that she reached out to several sources for help, including Privy Seal Cromwell. Was she a heroine or a victim? Did she have any real allies in her life?

  4. Catherine of Aragon seemed to be a consistent source of contention in Thomas and Elizabeth’s marriage. Compare and contrast Elizabeth’s and Thomas’s relationships with this formidable woman.