Just Flesh and Blood

by Caro, Jane;

‘Forgive me, Your Majesty, forgive me, we meant no harm. We love each other.’

  ‘Love? What care I for that? I can see the fruits of your love, right enough. But you claim to be married?’

  Robin had told me that her difficulty was compounded because she had no actual proof of the legality of her union.

  ‘Oh, yes, Your Grace, we are legally wed. I would not – we would not …’

  ‘Do you have proof of this marriage? Where is the prelate who performed the ceremony? Where is your witness? Where the certificate of marriage?’

  ‘Jane Seymour – our only witness – has died. I have searched and searched, and I cannot find the paper, and the minister’s name I have forgot.’ She dissolved into desperate tears as she spoke these last words and snot coursed from her nose. In her extremity she did not look as comely as usual.

  ‘You are either remarkably foolish and careless, or a whore and a liar. Which is it to be, madam?’

  ‘I am a fool. A fool!’ She said this thickly and her sobs came so fast they threatened to overwhelm her. She had crumpled into a puddle of heaving silk on the floor.

  ‘You are a fool, no doubt, but an even bigger fool than you have any inkling. Do you not know why you must ask my permission to marry? Because – according to my father’s will – you are my heir, madam, and any child you carry could one day sit upon the throne. You are not a free person, able to choose your own fate, any more than I am. And to choose a Seymour, of all people! How many times has that ambitious family attempted to control the throne of England? Are you so foolish to think that this boy loves you for your pert charms, rather than your proximity to my crown?’

  ‘Forgive us, Your Grace. We will retire quietly to the country and make no trouble, I swear.’

  ‘It is not within your power to so swear. You forget, I have been a second person and I know how disgruntled men will scheme and plot, whether you would have them do so or nay. You cannot choose not to be who you are.’

  ‘But I will not be your heir for long. You will marry soon and have your own children.’ (I was still young enough for that to remain a real possibility.)

  ‘Maybe so. But until that time you, your husband or paramour and your bastard, once born, will sojourn in the Tower.’

  ‘No! No! No! Please not the Tower. I am afraid of that place. They killed my sister there and my father. Forgive me, Majesty, please, please!’

  Try as I might to hide it, I have a heart and I could feel her terror. Once it had been mine. I reached down from the chair on which I sat and lifted her face up from the folds of her skirts where she had hidden it in her despair. I knew what it was to be sent to the Tower. I spoke to her quietly and in a softer tone. ‘I can do nothing else. But you will be well housed and treated gently and when your time comes I will send a good midwife to help ease your child’s passage into the world. You think I have some choice over your fate and could pardon you if I would, but I do not. I may look like the mistress here, but my choices are curtailed by circumstance just as surely as your own.’

  I stood and turned to walk from the room. I had seen the armed men approaching to take my cousin to her prison and my mouth had gone dry. I remembered witnessing the horrible scene of another Katherine, condemned for love, pleading hopelessly for her life. Now it was I who wished only to flee, but I was prevented. I felt a hand around my ankle and looked down. Katherine Grey had grasped it.

  I bent over and whispered to her so that only we two could hear. ‘Let my foot go and get up onto your own. There is no avoiding this fate: you can either face it with dignity or be dragged from here in an unseemly fashion. You will be treated kindly, I will make sure of that.’

  She looked at me with tearful eyes and made a desperate mewing noise. Then she let go of my ankle. I turned and hurried from the room. I had no desire to see whether she had taken my advice or not.

  It is perhaps the curse of the Tudors that we birth more female children than male. My father certainly thought so. Such is the different value that God and the world place on the two genders that to be born a girl is always a misfortune, but to be born a girl in a royal family is a tragedy. As events have turned out, it was the making of my triumph that all my close relatives were female. It was the making of their disaster. The only reason I gained the throne at all was because every one of my male relatives, by which I mean my frail brother, were dead. All the other possible heirs to my crown during the early years of my reign were female and they caused me no end of trouble.

  The devil is a woman, the poets like to say, and so it sometimes seems to me.

  My cousin Mary of Scotland is the she-devil over whom I have cried more tears and pulled out more of my thinning hair than any other person alive. But Katherine Grey was almost as bad. As with the Queen of Scots, I wished Katherine no harm, yet I destroyed her.

  The last time I lay close to death, forty years ago now, it was with the pox. While I writhed in my delirium my council, particularly my Protestant councillors, cast about for a successor, and it was Lady Katherine Grey they turned to. (It is as well that God saw fit to spare me, for I shudder when I think of the fate of my poor country if such a witless and idle jade should ever have taken control of its destiny.)

  Before her fall from grace, Katherine made little impression on me except for the marked contrast between her behaviour and that of her sister, Jane. She was pretty enough and vain about it, while Jane, whose magnificent mind was deceptively housed in a mousy, freckled and under-sized frame, had cared nothing about outward appearance or finery. Had Jane lived she would have made a fine abbess. Her sister Katherine had no more inclination to dedicate her life to God than a tabby cat. Her one devotion was to her own appearance and pleasure. Nevertheless, it gave me no joy to imprison such a silly young woman. I did it because I had no choice.

  ‘Ahem.’

  I looked up. It was some months later. I had been so absorbed by my papers that I had not noticed William Cecil enter the room. Whatever it was he had to tell me was obviously making him feel very uncomfortable. I gestured for him to speak.

  ‘The Lady Katherine Grey, your cousin …’

  ‘I know who she is, Cecil, get on with it.’

  ‘She is with child for a second time.’

  It took me a moment to absorb the news. At first, I did not believe my ears. ‘How so, my lord? She is behind lock and key in the most formidable prison in my kingdom.’

  ‘It has occurred in the usual fashion, I believe.’

  ‘Is this a miracle? Or treachery?’

  ‘Misguided mercy, I suspect. If Your Grace will forgive me, there has been some corridor creeping between Lady Katherine and her husband, Edward Seymour, and the gaolers have turned a blind eye to it.’

  ‘God’s death! Perhaps they’d like an actual blind eye for their trouble!’

  ‘They are very sorry for their failure. The warden trembled as he told me the news.’

  ‘Trembled! I’ll make him tremble! What incom-petence is this? I try to be merciful to the foolish pair and they – and everyone else, it seems – take this as a sign of weakness! Do they think to make a fool of me? Nay. Nay, do not answer that. They have made a fool of me and I will no longer allow them such leeway. Take Lady Katherine and her bastards from the Tower and place them under house arrest. I don’t care where – just somewhere as far away from here and her husband as possible. Send her to Wales, to Cornwall, to Cumberland, to hell for all I care, just rid of me of this foolish girl.’

  This time, my orders were obeyed. After she gave birth, Lady Katherine and her younger son, Thomas, were separated from her eldest son and her erstwhile husband. The next time I heard of her, the poor witless woman had died, of a broken heart, or so they told me. I was sorry, but I did not grieve for her – not then. I had too much else to worry about. Now, as an old woman, I feel differently. Poor Katherine, she only wanted what most women want: a husban
d and children. What she did not realise was that because I did not have them, her closeness to my throne meant that neither would she.

  At the time, and this is another of my sins, I was probably relieved. With Katherine’s death – and I had not executed her: it was God, not I, who took her – I had one less Grey to worry about. To my astonishment, no sooner was Katherine dead than her last surviving sister began to cause me trouble.

  Mary Grey was the youngest of the three sisters and while not as gifted as Jane, she was not as foolish as Katherine. Nature had blessed her with good sense but not much else. She was dwarf-like in stature and crook-backed, with one shoulder much higher than the other. She did not seem to be of an amorous disposition and her great ugliness lulled me into a false sense of security. I found her a pleasant and commonsense companion and felt grateful that at least one of my relatives on my father’s side was someone I could rely on. I should have known better.

  One evening I saw Robin Dudley and a group of his cronies laughing together over a game of cards. I was bored with the company of my ladies, so I made my way across the banqueting hall. Robin was the one person I could always rely upon to amuse me.

  ‘Share the joke, my lords!’

  I could see immediately by their expressions that whatever had caused their amusement was not something they wished to share with me. Nothing could have piqued my curiosity more.

  ‘It is a trifle, Your Grace. A bawdy joke that is not fit for your ears.’

  ‘You are not usually so careful of my ears, and I am of a mind to be amused.’

  ‘I would rather tell you tomorrow. I have no wish to spoil the party.’ As Robin said this I became aware of whispering around me. It seemed that many of my courtiers knew what had caused the laughter. I frowned. I have never liked to be ignorant of what others know.

  ‘What is it that causes such amusement, and now such unease? It seems many of you know why these fine gentlemen laugh so loudly.’

  ‘It is but gossip, Your Majesty, foolish gossip.’

  ‘Gossip? About whom? It must be someone important for you all to turn so pale and evasive when I ask about it.’ An unpleasant thought struck me. ‘Are you gossiping about me?’

  ‘No, no, Your Majesty. We are all your loyal and loving servants. I, and every man here, would kill anyone who dared to bandy your name around in our hearing.’

  ‘Then who is the subject of this amusing tittle tattle?’

  ‘Lady Mary Grey.’

  I could not have been more astonished if they had said William Cecil, a man known for his absolute rectitude. ‘And what are they saying of my poor cousin?’

  ‘She is in love.’

  ‘That is cruel, to tease the poor little lady so.’

  ‘It is not a tease, it is true, but it is who she loves that causes the most amusement.’

  ‘Who does she love?’

  ‘Thomas Keyes.’

  ‘Thomas Keyes?’ I had been astonished before; now I was incredulous. Thomas Keyes was my sergeant porter, a commoner in charge of the security of my court. This was unsuitable enough. Lady Mary was of royal blood and far above him in rank, but that was the only way in which she was above him. As befitted his office, Thomas Keyes was a giant of a man – the tallest man in my court, if not in my kingdom. Mary Grey had not attained the height of a nine-year-old child.

  ‘It is not a flirtation, Your Majesty. We are legally wed.’ Lady Mary stood before me and, to her credit, she did not sob or beg as her sister had done, but drew herself up as straight as she could, given her infirmity. Also, unlike her sister, she carried her marriage papers in her hands.

  ‘You are what? Have you learnt nothing from your sister’s sad example? You have no right to wed without my permission.’

  ‘But we knew you would not give it.’

  ‘You are not a fool, are you, Mary? You are right, I would not have given you permission to marry so far beneath your dignity.’

  ‘But surely that is why my marriage is no threat to you. By marrying so humble a man, I have ruled myself out of any consideration of the succession and so may attain my only desire, to live quietly and unobtrusively with my husband as an ordinary wife.’

  Had her precipitate actions not reminded me so forcibly of her foolish sister’s irresponsible behaviour perhaps I might have been more merciful, but I was the queen. I could not allow my rules to be broken with no consequence and I also remembered what occurred when I showed mercy to her sister. Regardless of my liking for Mary or even, perhaps, my admiration for her dignity and courage, I was a queen and was obliged to act like one. ‘Madam, to marry without the queen’s permission is high treason. You will be placed under house arrest for the foreseeable future. Your so-called husband will be thrown into the Fleet.’

  Now Mary flung herself onto her knees and began to beseech me. ‘Not the Fleet, merciful queen, please do not send Thomas there. My husband is ailing, and he will not survive such conditions.’

  ‘He is a commoner who has presumed above his station. He should have thought of the consequences when he first set eyes on you, as should you, Lady Mary. I thought God had blessed you with a modicum of good sense. It seems I was wrong. Foolishness and giving in to intemperate impulse appear to run in your family. All three sisters ruined by their marriages. I thought you had learnt from their example. It seems I was mistaken. I do not understand you, for all the blood we share. People never cease pressuring me to think of marriage. When I protest, they tell me it is desirable. Desirable? Unlike you, foolish cousin, I would rather be a beggar woman and single, than married and a queen.’

  Poor Mary is dead now too, but of natural causes, I am relieved to say. She died in her own bed a free woman, proud to the last of her status as a married one. Her husband was not so fortunate. He died only a year after being released from the Fleet. I did not allow them to meet again and I am sorry for that. Thomas Keyes is another link on my phantom chain. If he had lived longer, perhaps I would have relented and let them enjoy a little happiness together. I like to think I would have done so, but I cannot be sure.

  ‘The queen wishes to stay where she is, my lords.’

  Yet again, Cecil and Archbishop Whitgift exhorted me to allow orderlies to carry me to my chamber, but I was not yet ready to go. I knew that as soon as I took to my bed, I would never rise from it again. I wanted to die. I was impatient to leave a world that no longer had a place for me, but I was also afraid. As the litany of my past sins and errors unfolded itself before my mind’s eye, I became more afraid of the divine judgment that awaited me. Like a child anticipating a beating, I wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as I could. Somehow, sitting on cushions on the floor soothed me. Perhaps it was my earthly version of limbo – I was neither quite alive nor quite dead. And I have never liked to be rushed into anything.

  This time, Cecil and Whitgift had been more insistent about my need to retire and I had shown my displeasure by grunting and feebly waving my hands at them in a gesture of dismissal. Their forceful tone had made me afraid that they would disregard my wishes and drag me away against my will. I began to whimper in my distress.

  Philadelphia Carey, who had attended me so carefully, came to my rescue. ‘The queen wishes to stay where she is, my lords.’

  And the two great men backed away.

  I have always relied on my ladies in waiting. With them and with them alone, I could relax and throw off my masculine guise of sovereign. Each of my ladies, with their different duties and responsibilities, resembled a wife. (I have never quite realised until now how much I had in common with a Turkish sultan and his harem.) My ladies variously soothed my brow, gave me rest, entertained me and protected me from care and woe. Perhaps I was as harsh a husband as any Great Turk in that I expected them to give to me and never the other way around. Yet parents queued to have their daughters enter my service, so I cannot have been such a harsh mistre
ss. Of course, I also knew those same parents wanted a good husband for their daughters and that there was no finer place to hunt one down than in my court. Particularly if I had become fond of the young woman in question, it irritated me that her parents merely regarded me as a way station on the journey to marriage and motherhood. I was a queen, not an interlude!

  Indeed, it was not simply my relatives who caused me trouble by falling in love indiscriminately. My ladies-in-waiting did so with monotonous regularity. It became so commonplace for some young lady to approach me and confide tearfully that she was with child and needed permission to marry her swain (usually also a member of my court) that I began to wonder if any marriages ever took place in my kingdom without a baby already resident in the incontinent bride’s belly.

  I did not like all this marrying and fornication! If I could control my basest urges and live a life of discipline and virtue, then I found it hard to understand why it proved so difficult for others. I was not sympathetic – particularly as each tearful girl pleaded that she had been swept away by love. As if such self-indulgence excused anything! Even women I had respect for, who had some brains in their heads and a modicum of commonsense, used the same absurd arguments to justify their foolish behaviour. I expected my ladies to love me, not some sweet-smelling popinjay. As I grew older and saw more of the consequences of love I reasoned that the same maidens who had begged and pleaded to be allowed to marry their paramour (or, alternatively, be forgiven for having done so already), would have fared much better if they had remained faithful to me and lived out their days in my service, rather than in their husbands’.

  In my forty-five years on the throne, I have had many gentlewomen attend me. Some I felt little for, many I liked and a few I loved. Now, after so many long and weary years, all but a handful of my dearest attendants have died. There was none that I loved as I loved Kat Ashley, who cared for me when I was a babe in arms and stood beside me through my darkest and most dangerous days. She was my chief gentlewoman until she died. I miss her gruff voice and bawdy commonsense as much now as I did the day she left me. Of all those I hope to see in heaven, it is Kat’s plain face that will give me the greatest comfort when I stand before God on my day of judgment. I know that she will nod and smile at me just as she did when I was an infant, and that her approval will give me the strength to answer the questions that are put to me.