by Lisa Klein
Whitehall Palace was a bustling, crowded place. Besides six maids and a dozen ladies-in-waiting, the queen employed more than fifty grooms, footmen, and handsome guards known as Gentlemen Pensioners. She kept jesters and dwarves for entertainment and an army of servants, cooks, and kitchen maids. Everyone had a duty. Mine was to help Emme and Frances care for the queen’s clothing.
When I first entered the wardrobe, a room twice as large as the maids’ dormitory, my eyes could not take in everything it contained. There were cupboards with separate drawers for bodices, stomachers, coifs, gloves, and hats. Dozens of pantofles, overshoes with thick cork soles, lined the shelves. I counted fifty-one bodices and eighty skirts on rows of hooks before I gave up, my head spinning. With envious fingers I touched the gowns made of heavy brocade, floral damask, and shiny sarcenet. I admired the velvets wrought with embroidery as varied and colorful as a summer garden.
Lady Veronica, mistress of the wardrobe, opened a thick ledger before me. “Every new item of dress must be recorded here, and the removal of every worn out or damaged piece noted,” she said. “Anything out of fashion goes to the tailor to be remade, unless the queen decides to give it away.”
“Give it away,” I echoed in wonder. “To whom?”
Lady Veronica shrugged. “To one of her ladies. Whoever is her favorite at the time.”
Frances looked up from the chemises she was folding and smiled. “Her Majesty gave me one of her petticoats at my last birthday. The hem was damaged, but I repaired it.”
I glanced down at her skirt. Following the current fashion, it was open in front to show the underskirt.
“I’m not wearing it now,” she said with a wave of her hand. “It is much too fine.”
I wondered why Frances, who seemed so unpleasant, had received such a gift. But I said nothing, only watched Lady Veronica as she showed me how to pair the sleeves and undersleeves and store them with the matching partlets.
Caring for the wardrobe proved more demanding than I had expected. The queen often got ink on her sleeves, which required dabbing with urine, a distasteful task that usually fell to the laundress. But in a pinch we had to clean many a spot of grease and dirt from the queen’s clothes, sprinkling fuller’s earth mixed with alum upon the garment and brushing to remove the stain. Lady Veronica taught me how to wash lace by laying it flat on a board, covering it with fine cloth, applying soap, then sponging it with fresh water.
The queen was most particular about her ruffs. They had to be made of the softest cambric so as not to irritate the skin of her neck. No laundress could set the gathered frills to her satisfaction. So I set out to make this my skill, brushing starch into the folds, drying, dampening, dyeing, and starching again, then poking the hundreds of pleats into perfect folds. The first time it took me all afternoon, though with practice I could soon starch and set a ruff in two hours.
It took that long—two hours—to get the queen clothed in the morning, her hair dressed, her jewels pinned on, her face painted and powdered. Sometimes she would change her clothes at midday or in the evening, especially if there were guests at court. I became breathless from running back and forth from the wardrobe to the queen’s chamber laden with skirts, farthingales, and accessories.
For one accustomed to rule, she was often undecided about what to wear. One day Emme and I fetched her blue damask gown, but as soon as it was fitted and tied—which took fifteen minutes—she demanded the green sarcenet instead.
“Which green sarcenet?” Emme said in dismay as we stood looking around the wardrobe. “There are three of them here.”
I ran back to the queen’s chamber. “Does Your Majesty prefer the one that is bright green like an emerald, pale green like the grass in spring, or deep green like the fir trees?”
“What I do not want is a poem!” she said, sounding petulant.
Not wanting to anger her further, I murmured an apology.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I prefer the blue gown after all.” She peered at me. “Blue, like the sky at midday. Go and fetch it!”
Was I mistaken, or was there a trace of a smile in her eyes? I bowed and scurried away, only to have her call me back.
“Catherine! Bring also the embroidered stomacher my Eyes do love to behold me in.”
I wondered if this was a line from some poem. Was she now teasing me? I smiled, not daring to ask which of the many stomachers she meant. Surely Emme would know.
“That her eyes do love to behold her in?” Emme repeated. She frowned, then searched until she came up with a stomacher embroidered with flowers interspersed with eyes.
“What does this mean?” I asked, looking at the strange motif.
“By her ‘Eyes’ she means Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. That is her nickname for him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He is her true love. She did not marry Monsieur Frenchman because she has been in love with Leicester, and he with her, since childhood. But he is married, so she will probably die a virgin.”
I blushed at Emme’s frank words. “Lord Leicester?” I said. “The one with the fat belly and the red face?”
Emme nodded, and I recalled seeing this lord popping in and out of the queen’s privy chamber—a place more public than its name implied.
“You’re a book of knowledge,” I said. “I must read you further.”
“Now is not the time. Go!” she said, thrusting the stomacher at me and following with the blue gown.
“Very good, my dear Catherine,” said the queen when I handed over the embroidered stomacher.
“I do live to serve Your Grace,” I said, hoping she heard my pun.
The queen smiled at me, and I noticed the wrinkles that spread from the corners of her eyes and her mouth. I did some figuring. Why, she was fifty years old! She could be my grandmother. I tried to imagine her kissing Lord Leicester but could not. I thought of the stomacher under her breasts, pressed against her belly, and wondered what secrets Leicester’s eyes had seen. Such thoughts made me blush again, and I quickly looked down.
Outside the chamber, Emme turned to me. “I desire to please the queen so much she will give me a nickname,” she said. “A pet name is like a jewel compared to Frances’s old petticoat!”
Chapter 2
An Outing in London
It was to be my first outing in the queen’s company, a barge ride on the Thames. I put on a new dark blue skirt and matching square-necked bodice I had sewn under the watchful eye of Lady Veronica, the most skillful needlewoman at court. I had even embroidered some ivy on the bodice, a tedious task that made my neck ache and my fingers bleed. I combed my hair so the waves fell loosely down my back. Emme placed on my head an open cap threaded with pearls.
“The queen likes her maids to wear these,” she said.
I touched the cap with pleasure. It made me feel like royalty.
“If only Father could see me!” I murmured. “He would be proud.”
“And your mother would be, too,” said Emme. “There’s not a woman in the kingdom who doesn’t wish for her daughter to be one of Her Majesty’s maids.”
I doubted that. Again I recalled how lonely my mother had been with my father away, and how she had pulled me back when all I wanted to do was touch the queen.
We hurried through the galleries to a chamber over the queen’s private jetty, where her entourage waited. I spotted Lord Leicester, the queen’s “Eyes,” looking out of sorts. Elizabeth was leaning on the arm of a younger man who had red hair but was otherwise handsome to behold.
Dick Tarleton plied his wit among the party. “What a ship of fools is gathered here. Look at Thomas Graham, the fool of fashion. Why, his doublet and hose are all slashed to ribbons. He dueled with a madman and lost!”
Graham’s face turned as red as his hair, but when the queen laughed, he had no choice but to laugh as well.
Then the clown bowed to the queen, who wore the ruff it had taken me hours to set. It stuck straight out from beneath her chin,
a full twelve inches all around.
“My mistress, you look delectable with your head upon that great platter.” He licked his lips and pretended to tuck a napkin at his own neck.
The queen smacked his head with her fan. “Fool Dick, I do not like your wit today.”
A hush fell over the company. We followed Elizabeth down the stairs to the water’s edge, where the waves lapped against a barge with a covered cabin, glass windows, and gilded fittings. Oarsmen waited, standing firm despite the rocking of the barge and the rain that had begun to fall.
With a flick of her wrist, the queen indicated those whom she wished to board her barge with her. Graham was not among them, but the clown and Frances were. Emme sighed and boarded the second barge, which was like the first but with less ornament. I was too excited to feel slighted. Stepping aboard, I lost my balance and was pitched onto the seat beside Emme.
As the vessels floated away from the jetty, a peal of bells broke out from across the river.
“God’s teeth!” said the burly Leicester, now in an even worse mood. “Can’t Her Majesty go anywhere without Lambeth Church proclaiming it to the whole city?”
“Tush! Why are you so ill-humored, my lord?” said Lady Veronica, sitting beside him. She was a widow of about thirty and still well favored in her looks.
Other church bells joined the chorus.
“Now the Thames will be clogged with traffic all the way to London Bridge!” grumbled Leicester.
Lady Veronica, not one to be ignored, leaned against him so her bosom swelled over her bodice. She put her lips to his ear.
I looked away, embarrassed. “Is there something about the water that makes everyone so amorous?” I whispered to Emme.
“You see why some prefer not to be on the queen’s barge,” she whispered back.
Opposite Leicester and Lady Veronica, Thomas Graham sat beside Lady Anne, the queen’s distant cousin and the prettiest of her ladies. Stroking her hair, he did not seem disappointed at being relegated to the second barge.
“I don’t think we ought—,” Anne began. She glanced at Leicester, whose eyes were now fixed on Veronica’s bosom.
“He is blind to us,” said Graham.
“The queen has more than one pair of eyes.”
“Frances? That little puritan will never know,” scoffed Graham.
Anne gave Emme and me a significant look. Emme shook her head, as if to say she would not tell.
“Come now, my lady. Don’t be coy,” Graham cooed. She relented and kissed him, inserting her fingertips in the slashes of his doublet.
“Is that how Frances earns her favor?” I whispered to Emme. “By spying on lovers?”
Emme nodded. “And not just that. Why, if you wear so much as a piece of Spanish lace, she’ll report the fact to Sir Francis Walsingham.”
“Who is Francis Walsingham?”
“He is the councilor who always wears the close black cap on his head—the queen’s spymaster. He thinks every Spaniard is the devil himelf.”
“Ah, the man with the eyes like black glass beads,” I said with a shudder.
“Let’s not speak of such grim matters today, Catherine,” said Emme with a wave of her hand.
So I put my mind to watching the city glide by, new to me and full of wonders. Great houses peered over the stone walls that held back the river, walls broken at intervals by steps and streets ending at the river’s edge, where women washed clothes and men cast their fishing nets. They shouted at the sight of the queen’s barge.
Anne was now sitting on Graham’s lap.
Swans bobbed on the waves near a green islet and boatmen rowed their wherries between the north and the south banks of the river. Several boats followed the queen’s barge, from which the sound of a lute drifted back to us.
Emme pointed out the Inns of Court where men studied the law, the abbey of the Blackfriars, the spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the palaces where the queen’s favorite noblemen lived. The barge bumped against a jetty and we clambered out beneath the London Bridge, a wide and noisy thoroughfare crowded with houses and shops. The current churned through its many arches, making it dangerous for the barges to pass, so we reboarded on the other side and resumed our journey. Soon I heard the cries of fishmongers and smelled their wares.
“Billingsgate,” Emme informed me, wrinkling her nose.
We glided by a harbor crowded with all manner of vessels, from fishing wherries to tall-masted sea ships.
“By damn, that’s Walter Ralegh’s ship, the Roebuck!” exclaimed Thomas Graham, dumping Anne from his lap in order to peer out the window. “Laden with Spanish treasure, I’ll be sworn. I’d give my eyeteeth for a share of that gold!”
“And I would not love you if you had such gaps in your grin,” said Anne, frowning.
“Who is Walter Ralegh?” I asked Emme.
“Why, have you not seen him at court? He is unmistakable—tall and quite proud,” she said.
I shook my head. There had been little opportunity to observe the gentlemen courtiers, let alone learn their names.
“The queen sent him to Ireland to put down the rebels, then to the Netherlands when she sent Monsieur Frenchman away. Now he profits from … shipping,” Emme explained with raised eyebrows.
“I’ve heard his dream is to colonize the New World,” said Graham. “I’d sail with him. What a feat that would be!”
“Every young man fancies himself an adventurer,” grumbled Leicester.
“I do love to gaze on his finely turned legs,” sighed Anne.
“But his sights are set only on the queen,” said Veronica. “Just like my Lord Leicester’s.” And she tapped him with her fan, pouting.
“If this Walter Ralegh went to the Netherlands, he must have known my father,” I said to Emme, and she touched my arm in sympathy.
The sound of a fanfare meant that the queen had reached her destination. A moment later our barge bumped into the wharf and we disembarked, climbing the steps to the street. As soon as I saw the high stone wall with its bastions and battlements and the tall keep with its four turrets, I knew we had arrived at the famed and feared Tower of London.
My father had told me many stories about the Tower, where the kings of England had once lived and where traitors were now kept. Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, had been beheaded here after being accused of adultery by her husband, King Henry. Yet look how Leicester and Veronica carried on! Did no one remember the past? Surely the queen could not forget. As a young girl, she had been imprisoned here by her sister, Queen Mary, a Catholic who feared that Elizabeth was plotting to overthrow her.
“But why would our mistress come here?” I wondered aloud. “The Tower must hold terrible memories for her.”
Graham, in a giddy mood, replied, “Why, to visit the Royal Mint and hear how well each coin flatters her. Such praise may help to fill my flattened purse.”
“Thomas, you are incorrigible,” said Anne fondly. “But I think it is to see the menagerie.”
I nodded, having no idea what she meant.
As we neared the Tower I stared up at the forbidding wall with its narrow slits. From the squared battlements protruded tall spikes topped with what looked like bundles of blackened rags. I squinted in order to see better.
“Is this the menagerie?” I asked, imitating Anne’s accent.
She burst out laughing. “Yes, it is a menagerie—of criminals and traitors! Thomas, do you hear how witty this new maid is?”
“They are heads, Catherine!” Emme hissed. “Some of them have been up there for years.”
As I stared, the raglike bundles resolved themselves into skulls with torn flesh like strips of stiff leather. Their white teeth shone in grimaces. The breeze stirred remnants of hair. Blackbirds pecked at the eye sockets of one that looked more human than the rest. Probably he had been alive only days ago.
I hurried after Emme and Anne, who were passing under the portcullis. In the courtyard the queen laughed, her good spirits re
stored despite the drizzling rain. Indeed, everyone was merry except for the stern-faced yeoman guards in their scarlet and gold uniforms. I wondered how the queen could be so gay while standing in the very courtyard where her mother had met her death.
I followed Emme toward one of the inner towers, wondering again about the young Elizabeth. Where had she been confined? Had she been afraid? The sound of iron clanking against stone mingled with my thoughts. Surely she had not been chained in a dark dungeon? We entered the Tower. An overwhelming smell of animal waste made me put my hand to my mouth. I heard a screeching and saw colored feathers flash overhead. Then a wailing filled my ears, like that of an angry cat magnified a hundredfold, and a roar sounded in reply, echoing inside the stone tower. What monstrous creatures were here? In the dimness I glimpsed the tawny hide of a beast straining against an iron collar, the fur around its face like a giant ruff, sharp teeth bared. Feeling my gorge rise with panic, I pushed my way out of the Tower and ran into the courtyard, gasping the damp air.
All the way back to Whitehall, everyone talked of the queen’s menagerie. The roaring beast I had glimpsed was called a lion. The catlike wailing came from a leopard, one of four in an iron cage, Emme said. She described their spotted fur and their long, slim tails. Anne snarled, curving her fingertips at Graham, which only made him more amorous toward her.
“My favorite was the bear,” Emme said. “It was a marvel, with white fur, as if the sun had bleached it!”
I wished that I had swallowed my fear and stayed so I could have seen that bear. While the others chattered about the animals, I watched the city through a veil of rain that fell into the roiling river.
As the barges passed the magnificent houses on the north bank of the river and neared Whitehall, the rain stopped. Feeble sunlight shone through the clouds, and the queen’s barge made suddenly for the wharf.
“I’ll wager our Bess has conceived a sudden desire to walk home, obliging us all to accompany her,” Leicester grumbled.
“You know how she likes to be seen. Look at the crowd waiting for her!” said Veronica as we stepped ashore.