3 October, 1545
Oh, dear, good things never last. Father’s legs swelled up horribly and began to fester.
The surgeon was called in, and Father insisted that everyone must stay. The Queen protested and said it was not a fit sight for children to see what the surgeon must do. But Father said, “No, Edward must learn to have a strong stomach. He shall see worse sights on the jousting field.” There was no mention made of me. I was once again invisible. But if Edward stayed, I wanted to as well. So I watched from the shadows. The surgeon took a red-hot lancet and prodded the wound. From Father’s legs came near a cup of poisonous fluids. The apothecary, Sir Thomas Alsop, stood by with folded strips of gauze that were soaked in cleansing spices, which he applied. It was an awful sight. I felt my stomach turn. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to bury my face in my hands, but suppose Father should look my way and suddenly I was no longer invisible? He must not see me feeling faint and squeamish as both Mary and Edward appeared to be. I must look strong. I vowed to look like the Queen I would never be. My father never cried out. He crushed the Queen’s hand in his own, and I noticed only afterward that she had removed his rings. They would have cut right through the flesh to the bones of poor Catherine’s thin hands.
We return to London and Whitehall tomorrow.
8 October, 1545
Whitehall Palace
The roses are fine but that is about all. Father does not do well. But Princess Mary seems to thrive, and it is for this I worry. She and Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley, the Lizard, have become quite close! I like it not. I have a strange uneasiness.
10 October, 1545
My uneasiness grows. Edward and Robin and I were working in the rose garden today. Robin and I were at the far end, at a distance from Edward. I saw Princess Mary and the Lizard approach Edward. My blood froze as I saw the Lizard bend over and stroke Edward’s head – Princess Mary smiling the while. One does not do this to the Prince of Wales. It is overly familiar. I saw Edward shrink back but Mary just laughed. She knows this is wrong. I think the two of them full of knavery. I immediately told Robin to go over to tell Edward we needed him. The Lizard scowled at Robin and said something rude, I could tell, but Edward seemed relieved to follow Robin. A pox on that Lizard!
11 October, 1545
Robin presses me about the Lizard and my actions yesterday. He loathes him, too, now for the Lizard actually cuffed Robin and told him he was a rude busybody just like his father! I asked Edward what the Lizard wanted, and he said nothing as far as he could tell. He just stops him all the time to chat. But Edward confessed to me that he, too, is frightened of him. Neither Edward nor I know specifically why we feel this unease, and that is why it is difficult to explain it to anybody. Even Robin. But there is no one in this Court who has my interests and Edward’s more dear to his heart than Robin.
15 October, 1545
I accepted an invitation to play cards at Princess Mary’s. Lucretia the Tumbler was feeling ill, and they needed a fourth. They are playing four-handed quienela. It is a Spanish game. Princess Mary learned it as she did all the Spanish card games from her mother and the Spanish ambassador Chapuys. But it was not Chapuys at the card table. It was the Lizard! That is why I came, really. They told me he would be playing. And I am determined to find out what this new friendship between him and Mary is. There have been plots in the past. The Court has been swirling with these stories for years. You see, Spain has always resented how my father cast aside Princess Mary’s mother who was Spanish for mine. If the Spanish were to invade and Philip, son of the King of Spain, were to marry Princess Mary, what a realm they would command. And where would the Lizard be in that grand scheme? He would love it. Lord Chancellor to the most powerful rulers on Earth!
I shall share my thoughts now with Robin and see what he thinks.
17 October, 1545
Robin thinks my reasoning sound, but he says any plotters against England would first have to make sure the Seymours were vanquished. “Vanquished?” I asked. “You mean dead?” “More or less,” he replied.
One cannot be more or less dead I tell him. This I know from my most basic studies in logic. One either is dead or is not. So now we must stay alert to the health and well-being of the brothers Edward and Thomas Seymour. You, see, they were Jane Seymour’s brothers, Prince Edward’s uncles, and shall be really ruling for him as Regents if Father were to die and Edward were to become King while still a boy.
22 October, 1545
There is a new twist in all of this. When the King of Scots died, he left as his heir a six-day-old baby girl. She is now about three, I believe, Mary, Queen of Scots. A baby Queen! Lord Arran is her Regent. At one point two years ago or so, Edward was betrothed to Mary. But then it was broken off. Scotland is an ally of France. Lord Arran’s position has grown shaky. He seeks to buttress his position of power. He seeks a marriage with Princess Mary! So, as Robin says, who cares if the betrothal between Prince Edward and little Mary, Queen of Scots, was broken off? Another Mary might sit on that throne! They make my head swirl, these marriage plots. I asked what would happen to the baby Queen, Mary. And Robin answered quite coolly, “They would get rid of her.” “You mean kill her?” I ask, then say, “Don’t say ‘more or less’, Robin.” And he says he means kill her, or perhaps they would send her to France. But that would be a bad move, for then the French would move against Scotland to claim the throne.
Robin has learned all this simply by listening. The good thing about being a child in Court, especially a non-royal one, is that if you are clever and quiet you can learn much, for no one takes note of you. Robin is both.
25 October, 1545
Lady Jane Grey is back with us here at Whitehall. We spend pleasant sunny hours in the garden tending the roses.
26 October, 1545
A sighting! Our first of Lady Dinsmore.
Lady Jane Grey and I were in the garden at twilight. Suddenly on the other side of a hedge we heard the crunching of gravel. Jane clutched my arm and mouthed the words “Lady Dinsmore.” We both immediately crouched behind a huge stone vase. There was a gap in the hedge perfect for viewing as the heavily veiled figure of Lady Dinsmore passed by. She seemed to float, oddly detached from the world. Lady Dinsmore has no admirers now, we hear. She stays all day with her nursemaid from childhood. She serves the Queen mainly as a card partner, and we hear she is not clever at cards at all. But the Queen is too kind to turn out a Lady from Court. The Queen attempts to read to her from her own book of meditations, which she has been writing for some time now. I can only guess that she hopes to set Lady Dinsmore’s mind to contemplate higher things. I think the Queen wages a losing battle. For Lady Dinsmore’s entire life, her beauty was so renowned she needed only to think about her luminous skin, her comely body, her thick and shiny hair. It is hard to go inwards in one’s thoughts after so long a course of study of the body’s surface.
3 November, 1545
Whitehall begins to stink. There is talk of Greenwich for Christmas. Kat has been going to visit Lady Dinsmore. I beg her to take me along but she absolutely won’t hear of it. She accuses me of wanting to visit out of idle curiosity. I have never found curiosity idle, I tell her. She tells me I am pert with her. But why do you go? I ask. For she never cared much for the woman. But now she answers me, “She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her.” Nothing infuriates me more than when people quote Scripture back to me. It stops argument, I think. How can one argue back when one’s opponent has run to the Bible? Would one gainsay God? Kat thought this would shut me up. But it did not. “Well,” I asked, “now that her chief rival is swathed in veils, how fares the Duchess of Lexford?” Kat’s face turned dark, and for once I could not tell whether it was with fear or anger. She simply rushed out of the room, muttering about what a wilful child I had become.
Father calls us children to hear some new musicians he is considering for Christmas. I realize I have been neglecting my music of late and request that Father might see fit to allow one of his musicians to instruct me further, not only on the virginal but in the making of compositions. When I ask for this, Princess Mary says she thinks it is a good idea as by the time she was my age she had composed several pieces. The Lizard was there, and when Princess Mary said this, they both smiled loathsome little private smiles. I say again, these two are full of knavery.
9 November, 1545
The weather has suddenly turned freezing cold. Immense logs now burn in the hearths, and the heat stirs anew the foul smells. I hope we leave soon. When Lady Jane Grey and I took a turn in the garden, we noticed that the roses were glazed in thinnest skins of ice. Jane wanted us to cut them and bring them in and save them, but I thought there was a startling beauty to these ice-sheathed roses. I knew that they would turn black within hours and die, but for now they were radiant, for indeed they reflected the pale November Sun. I am much interested in laws of reflection and refraction, as a matter of fact. We study this with Master Grindal. But for now I shall enjoy how this weak November light shimmers on the rose’s icy petals. There is an unnameable glory in such things, though they live only for a moment and turn black within the hour.
10 November, 1546
Master Grindal took us to the roof of Whitehall Palace tonight to observe the night heavens. It was clear, moonless, and so cold. But Cassiopeia is now near the celestial meridian, and Pegasus begins its rise into the wintry sky. A thin sheet of ice lies on the Thames, catching the reflection of the stars.
11 November, 1545
Saint Martin’s Day again. Princess Mary as usual slogging about in her shredded cloak. We all have our noses buried in pomander balls.
13 November, 1545
Father did pay attention to my request, and I now study several hours a week with William Allen, one of Father’s favourite Court musicians. He gives me small, very specific exercises in composition. He urges me to grow bold with the melodies. I try. I protested that I am not a bold person, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, “That is sheer twaddle, My Lady.” This makes me think. I wonder if I am bold? But how can an invisible princess be bold? If I were so bold, I would not be forgotten as often I am. But there is something within me that makes me think that perhaps I could be bold. It almost feels like a seed deep in my heart, or is it my brain? Perhaps boldness is both a part of the heart and the brain. I do feel that if this seed were planted in the right soil, it might possibly grow.
18 November, 1545
Westminster Palace
We are here but briefly at Westminster Palace. Just a few weeks before we go to Greenwich for Christmas. We came here to breathe! The air was so foul at Whitehall. I have to find a hiding place for you, Diary, for I have not visited this palace since you came into my hands. There is in this chamber, once occupied by a Lady-in-Waiting of Catherine of Aragon, a small wall niche in which was placed a reliquary, a box for a relic – a scrap of a saint’s bone or lock of hair. The box is still there but empty, and perfect in size. I shall put you inside.
19 November, 1545
I came back from my lessons today to hear voices being raised in the receiving rooms of my apartments. When I entered, I saw Princess Mary holding my reliquary! My heart nearly leaped from my chest, for I knew that in it was my diary. Princess Mary claimed that the reliquary belonged to her mother and that it was hers by right of inheritance. Kat was saying that she could never let anything be removed without my permission.
I was absolutely white with fury. But I knew that quick revenge was but a fleeting reward. I must manoeuver Mary into a position of vulnerability and fear. I quietly said, “And, Princess Mary, did you find a saint’s bones in the reliquary?” She mumbled and blushed bright red to the roots of her yellow hair. She held out the reliquary towards me. “Here. Take it.” This was going to be her way out, or so she thought. John Ashley and Mary Ward had come into the room, having heard the commotion. Princess Mary moved for the door to leave. “Stop!” My voice sliced the air like a finely tempered sword. “There is only one person who could have put you up to this, Princess Mary.” Now I saw the colour drain from her face. “You are thick with him, are you not? You play cards with him. Not only that, you have taught him how to cheat. Oh, you are full of knavery the two of you.”
One could have heard a pin drop. “And how go your plans for marriage to Lord Arran? And what will you do with the baby Queen, Mary of Scots? There is talk of a renewal of the betrothal between Mary, Queen of Scots, and our brother, Edward.” I just made this up. But it scared Mary, I could tell. She had contemplated the murder of the baby Queen just as Robin had said. But a baby Queen married to Edward would require two murders!
“You are speaking treason.” I had never mentioned the death of a Queen or a Prince, but she had thought of it. This is treason. It was written all over her face. And everyone knew it.
“If you go to Father, he will not believe a word you say,” she replied.
“Do not worry, Mary. I shall not tell Father anything – oh, perhaps, if you and that loathsome little Lizard of a Lord Chancellor ever invade my privacy again, I shall tell Father just one thing.”
“What be that?”
“I shall tell him that you and the Lord Chancellor together cheat at cards. That is all.”
Princess Mary gave a small yelp and clutched her hands. With good cause she made these gestures. My father hates beyond anything a cheat. The last man caught cheating in a game with the King had the fingers of his right hand chopped off. And my father took his rings in payment for the money he had lost at cards.
20 November, 1545
I was, needless to say, left agitated from my encounter with Mary. I could not sleep. What kept me up most were torturous thoughts about my diary. Did she read any of it? How did she know it was there? She and the Lizard were looking for something. And now I have another problem. She knows about you, dear Diary, so where might I hide you? For two nights, I have slept with or carried you along with me in a small drawstring purse, but this cannot go on. It is simply impractical.
21 November, 1545
I think I have solved the problem of a hiding place. I have thought of the last place Princess Mary and the Lizard would look if they ever dare to break in here again. It is the reliquary. They would of course expect me to find a new place. So the safest place is the old place. The reliquary has a simple metal clasp. I shall thread a strand of my hair through the eyes of the clasp and in this way I can tell if it has ever been disturbed.
26 November, 1545
Anthony Scorsby is the new Lord of Misrule for the holidays, and we are all so pleased, for he brought us children together for what he called a consultation of merriment and what the children in particular would like for the Twelve Days of Christmas. We all of course, except for Lady Jane, said Chase the Pig. Sir Anthony said, “Of course. But that is not original. Think harder, children.” So we shall.
27 November, 1545
We go to Greenwich soon but the river is frozen, so we shall have to go by land. It takes much longer.
Have I mentioned that Princess Mary has been avoiding me completely?
28 November, 1545
Lucretia and Jane the Bald both came to me today and begged me to come and play cards. They say that they hate the Lord Chancellor and he is there all the time; that he misbehaves towards Mary’s chambermaids and they are at their wits’ end. I tell them I cannot go. I do not say why. I want them to have no information that would make them vulnerable to the Lizard. This is a difficult situation. I feel for Jane and Lucretia.
15 December, 1545
Greenwich Palace
What is it? Every Christmas I am sick. I have had the most
violent stomach pains and retching.
16 December, 1545
Nothing to write. All is boring.
19 December, 1545
My first well day and where am I allowed to go? To Princess Mary’s apartments to play cards! Princess Mary complimented me about something. I am worried. Maybe I still look sick. Maybe she thinks I am going to die. A worse thought: maybe Father has pinched her cheek or winked at her during my illness. She has seen much more of him than I have recently. I cannot bear the thought of Father giving winks to Mary. I would give up everything if I knew he would never wink at her. I am the only one who really deserves the winks. I am the only one who truly understands his humour, his music. This is not fair. I must be calm.
24 December, 1545
It is two hours before midnight, and I ready myself for the solemn Mass that shall officially begin the Twelve Days of Christmas. We go to the Chapel Royal. I have especially asked that Master Grindal be invited, but now I am somewhat worried as it is a very splendid and glittering service. Master Grindal I think will disapprove. Father is the head of the Church of England. That is not being Catholic, and it is not quite Protestant, but Master Grindal has definite reformist ideas. The reformers like to pray simply. It is a great honour, however, to be invited to the Midnight Mass, and I could think of no other way to honour my esteemed tutor. I hope he understands.
Elizabeth Page 10