Lady Mary

by Lucy Worsley

  ‘The most beautiful princess in Europe,’ he used to say. ‘My Catalina was, is, a golden girl.’ She longed to hear him saying it again. Just like he used to.

  When he said that, her mother would lower her heavy eyelids half across her eyes and give a lazy smile. If she was in a good mood, she would tell him not to be a snake-tongued flatterer from an Eastern bazaar.

  Seeing her mother now, remembering this, Mary’s spirits lifted. For the first time in months, it seemed, she felt the corners of her mouth creep upwards.

  Catherine was reading now, having torn open the seal.

  There was silence. Long silence.

  ‘When does he arrive, Mother?’

  ‘There has been …’ Her mother was speaking quietly, distantly, just as if Mary wasn’t desperate to hear what the mysterious letter said. She spoke as if there was an unexpected minor inconvenience.

  She trailed off into silence, reading quickly to the end of the letter.

  ‘There has been a misunderstanding,’ she began again, gathering herself and smiling up at Mary. ‘We are to vacate this castle,’ she said, ‘for your father wants to come here with the Lady Anne, who has expressed a desire to see Windsor. And you and I are, for her convenience, to leave.’

  ‘But we’ve only just got here!’ Mary was dismayed. Leave Windsor? Not see her father? Not give him the shirts? She felt herself slipping back into the marshy quandary she’d been in before.

  ‘Yes, we’re to leave.’

  Mary could tell that her mother was upset, but trying, for her sake, to put on an air of calm and decision. ‘No matter. We are used to travelling.’

  ‘And where are we to go?’

  ‘Well …’ Catherine seemed strangely reluctant to continue.

  ‘I am to go to Cardinal Wolsey’s house,’ she continued, eventually. ‘The cardinal has requested my company, it seems. And you, well, you are to go to the palace of Richmond. That’s good. It’s a fine palace, it’s befitting to your status. Your father is paying you a compliment by sending you there.’

  ‘But, if he wants to pay me a compliment, why doesn’t he want to see me?’ Mary asked. ‘And we are not to go together? You said we had the whole summer together! You promised!’ Mary had forgotten all her previous suggestions that she should go away with her own servants.

  Mary could hardly believe her father’s reasoning. Why were the Lady Anne’s wishes so important? Surely they weren’t more important than the wishes of the queen and the princess of England? Why was her father acting as if they were? As if he truly preferred the Lady Anne?

  ‘I’m sorry, darling.’ Catherine finally turned to Mary, and Mary could see that her eyes were glinting, too, with tears that she was attempting to hold in. Mary could see how hard her mother was trying to be brave.

  Mary knew, in that instant, that her mother would never forswear her, or reject her.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ she said softly, reaching out a hand as if her mother were the child.

  ‘The time of a great test is coming, my love,’ said Catherine, with a sigh. ‘You will be stretched, oh, ever such a long way. You’ll be stretched until you think you might break in two. But I will send my people to protect you as best I can, and you must always trust me. The wicked lady seeks to part us,’ Catherine continued. ‘But remember, Mary, in my mind I am always with you. Your father does still love you, I know he does. And remember that I love you fiercely.’

  ‘Of course you do, you blood-drinker,’ Mary said. And for a moment they both managed a little smile.

  Chapter 8

  April 1533, Beaulieu

  Mary is seventeen …

  How Mary regretted those three long months between February and May when she hadn’t been speaking to her mother!

  She was walking about in the garden, walking fast so that her household officers would think she was exercising and not interrupt her.

  Mary, as always, was thinking about her mother. She had not seen her for two years now, two long years of living by herself. Or at least, living by herself, but for a couple of hundred servants. And Nan. Sometimes at night Mary would wake up suddenly to find tears wet on her face. She knew then that she had been dreaming, yet again, of riding down the hill, away from Windsor Castle with Nan, trying not to cry.

  Since then she and Nan had been at Richmond, and at other palaces, and now at Beaulieu in Essex. Each one of them was very grand, but they seemed to Mary to be magnificent prisons. It was all very well having fine chambers to live in, and gardens in which to walk, but she hadn’t managed to learn her mother’s trick of running a household well. However hard she tried, the fires were always unlit, and the guardsmen’s uniforms a little rumpled.

  ‘Your mother would call in the senior officers each morning,’ Nan told her, ‘and tell them their duties for the day.’

  ‘What, every morning? When did she read her books?’

  Nan sighed.

  ‘She did not spend as much time reading as you do, my princess. In fact, no one does.’ As Nan had known Mary’s mother for longer than Mary had, she seemed almost like a second mother. Only less demanding. It had been Nan whom Mary had gone to when she started to bleed; it had been Nan who sometimes came in and comforted her when sad dreams woke her up at night.

  Mary knew that she should try harder to behave more like a princess, but it seemed less and less worth the effort. Who would know how many of her attendants served her at meals? But then, when Cardinal Wolsey’s servant arrived unexpectedly with a letter from her mother, just at the hour of dinner, she knew that he had observed her lazy lack of state. She knew that he would report back to the main court, and thus to Mary’s father, that the princess had been eating her dinner with Nan alone, and had let the gentlemen of her household have the evening off.

  Mary grew warm as she walked, and touched the cold, wet leaves of the rosemary bushes to cool down. She ought to walk more, ride more, read less. Her mother, she thought, would stiffen her spine, put a little Spanish fire into her everyday life.

  But when would she see her mother again? Here at Beaulieu, the letters had been few and far between, and sometimes they did not quite make sense. Mary suspected that some of them had failed to arrive. She had the feeling that the wicked Lady Anne, so powerful now at court, had means of causing messages to miscarry, of making servants misunderstand their directions. Mary ground her teeth together. She was so tired of thinking of the wicked lady. Her image in Mary’s mind was the flip side of her mother’s: Catherine was day, Anne was night. One always followed the other.

  But then, Mary consoled herself, they simply had to sit this out. It would be all right in the end. Her father needed mistresses for his health, her mother had said. Surely he would put the Lady Anne aside in the end, just as he had done with mistresses before. It was a refreshing thought, like the sharp scent of the needles of rosemary Mary had been pinching between her fingers.

  She heard a tentative tread on the gravel behind her, and turned around with a sigh. What was it now? It was Nan’s husband, Sir John, or to give him his full name, Sir John Hussey. Probably he wanted to know whether he might appoint a new kitchen boy, or let go one of the more wasteful maids. Mary quickened her pace, hoping that he would take the hint and leave her alone. Such decisions could wait until dinner time.

  ‘Princess!’ he was calling in his weedy voice. Nan was familiar, comforting, solid as the hills, but her husband was a bit … ineffectual. Mary wished that there was more substance to him, and that he could make up his mind more often by himself. Her own father, she guessed, would be infuriated by Sir John’s drippy ways. He was always so decisive – well, at least about small things.

  Mary stopped, and sighed loudly. She would let him know that he had annoyed her. But as soon as she saw his expression, she knew it was something more serious than the usual household trivia. He was holding a letter, a big one, and he was waving it towards her so that she could see the seal. It was an enormous red seal. Just like the wax seals her f
ather’s secretaries used.

  Mary gasped, and almost ran towards him. He was smiling at her eagerness, for sometimes, despite her moods, she reverted to being a little girl.

  Mary held the letter in her hands for a minute, and he started to back off.

  ‘No, Sir John,’ she said, feeling generous for once. ‘Stay here and read it with me. It might contain a direction for us to move once more.’ If that was the case, then it would be Sir John who would give the orders for the household to pack and to travel.

  Calm down, Mary said silently to herself as she broke the seal. It might equally well contain bad news. Ever since her mother had so confidently opened that letter at Windsor which had broken her heart, Mary had had a horror of sealed paper packets like this. In fact, come to think of it, she had a bad feeling. Would it be possible not to open the letter at all?

  ‘Sir John, why don’t you read it for me?’

  Now he sighed. He was always so full of fuss that he didn’t like being asked to do something that he thought even one inch out of the ordinary.

  ‘If you insist, madam,’ he said reluctantly. ‘It might be private.’

  Mary thrust the letter back towards him, holding it loosely so that it was in danger of falling to the gravel. Actions speak louder than words. Her father had said that once, when he had bounced and dandled her on his knee in the Great Chamber, even when she’d been a bit too big and had found it undignified. ‘I’m doing this, Mary,’ he’d said, ‘because I love you, and because I want everyone to see that I love you.’ The memory made her a little sad. She could scarcely believe he loved her still. No, that wicked lady was his new love, and had taken up all the room in his heart.

  Her gesture with the letter worked.

  Sir John was opening the seal, sighing a little as he did so, and shaking his head. He was still shaking away as he puzzled out the words. Mary smiled. Her father, unlike her mother, hated writing, and never took the trouble to make his words clear.

  In the end, she gave up waiting. Mary was more used to her father’s hand; she took the letter back. But Sir John was still looking inquisitive. All right, she would tell him what it said.

  ‘Sends his best wishes,’ Mary summarised. ‘Hopes I am in good health and not bothered by the airs of Essex. He never liked this county,’ she explained to Sir John, ‘which is quite ridiculous, as its air is no different to Suffolk, or even to Greenwich if it comes to that.’

  She saw she had confused him. ‘All right, all right!’ she said, laughing. Honestly, he was such a worrier. ‘Back to the letter.’

  ‘He sends the good news that the French ambassador has been to London again … oh, and that his horse Zorro has been ill but now is well. Really, I wish he would get to the point.’

  Sir John interjected.

  ‘But madam, surely it is good for us if His Majesty cares to update us with all the court news?’

  She knew what he meant. The courtiers were always reading the runes, finding meaning in the smallest detail. But surely her father would have some special message, just for her? Surely it would not all be about the illness of his horse?

  ‘And then he says … he says …’ Mary broke off once more. This was quite a change of key, in the sentence at the end. She looked at the ground, and then the bushes, then back at the letter. Yes, it still said the same thing.

  ‘He says,’ she continued, gathering herself, ‘that he has married. He has married again. I mean, he says he has married the Lady Anne Boleyn. But that cannot be true, for he is married to my mother.’

  Mary’s voice failed her. It could not go on reading. There was a dismaying gap in her mind where her thoughts should be. Sir John’s doglike eyes were large and moist, and looking at her with intense concern. Mary couldn’t bear it. She avoided them by looking back at the letter.

  ‘He says that,’ she went on, in a tiny croak, ‘that in the light of the situation, it would be improper for me to write or to receive letters from, from, the dowager … Who does he mean? Does he mean my mother? And that he looks forward to introducing me to my new mother soon.’

  Sir John had never surprised anyone in his life, but now he surprised Mary.

  He spoke softly, politely, slowly shaking his head, so gently that Mary could scarcely believe her ears when she took in the actual words.

  ‘That woman,’ he said, ‘is a bitch. A bitch of the highest order. I must tell you, Your Royal Highness, that this is unlawful. I am sure it is unlawful.’

  ‘I … I suppose so.’

  Mary wasn’t sure what to think. Didn’t her father make the law? She felt quite at a loss, scarcely able to take in the horrible thought that the wicked lady was so firmly ensconced in her mother’s old place, by her father’s side, in his chambers, in his bed. How on earth had her father allowed that to happen? There was something wrong with him. He had been deceived. The Lady Anne had deceived him.

  ‘It is wrong, wrong.’

  Mary had never seen the hangdog Sir John Hussey look more put out. The letter, its contents, seemed so unbelievable. It was Sir John’s expression, as much as anything, that convinced her that this was really happening.

  ‘This cannot be allowed,’ he said, speaking almost firmly. ‘You are forbidden to communicate with your mother, are you? Well, I am not. And neither is my wife. We will find out her wishes for you, princess, never fear.’

  He turned to lead her back towards the house, but Mary seemed to have difficulty in putting one foot in front of another. He took her arm, as if she were not well.

  ‘This is bad news,’ he muttered again. ‘But it clarifies things, princess. This is open war,’ he continued, ‘and your father will find that your mother has many strong allies. And he will find out that this so-called new church of his, the one which has given him permission to marry when our true Church of Rome did not, will not withstand the smallest assault.’

  Mary noticed that he was using the language of battle.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘My mother will fight to the death. I believe that. We must find out from her how best to behave.’

  She stopped, realising that there was no hesitation in her mind that she was going to disobey her father’s orders. She was going to disobey the orders of her king. But it was all right. He wasn’t himself just now. She imagined him popping, bulging his eyes out to make her laugh. Yes, one day he would be back to normal, and making her laugh again.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sir John said. ‘That’s right. Your mother will fight to the death.’

  It sounded almost ludicrous, said in his mournful tones, but Mary couldn’t laugh. It was too serious. How was she going to find out what her mother wanted her to do? When would she see her mother again?

  Sir John was suddenly kneeling before her, his hand on his heart.

  ‘My wife and I,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘really … we worship your mother. She is a wonderful lady. We will dedicate ourselves to her daughter until her, and your, rights are truly recognised, as they should be.’

  Mary reached out and touched his hand to raise him up. He was a soft sort of ally, but he was shaking with emotion. He really meant it.

  ‘Thank you, Sir John. I shall need your support.’

  She was embarrassed, but she really meant it too. She’d need all the support she could get.

  Chapter 9

  December 1533, Beaulieu

  They were having their dinner, Sir John, Lady Nan, and Mary. She had taken to eating with them, breaking bread even though she knew she should not with people who were her inferiors in rank. Of course, Mary should really only have sat at table with her mother or father. Or with the brothers and sisters she wished she had. But frankly, she could no longer bear to eat alone.

  The loud knocking at the door made them all pause, Sir John in the very act of tearing open a roll, Nan with her goblet halfway to her lips. They all knew that sound. It meant trouble. It meant a messenger, from Mary’s old home. From the court, from the palace, where Anne Boleyn was now living Q
ueen Catherine’s old life.

  Mary and the Husseys had been expecting someone to come from court, ever since they’d heard that a baby had been born to … to her father’s new wife. Mary couldn’t bear to call her Queen Anne, even in her own head. And she couldn’t bear to think of that baby girl, her own half-sister, her replacement. The visitor must be someone with the clout to frighten Mary’s servants into allowing access straightaway, rather than going through the rigmarole of waiting politely in the outer room until the princess should be pleased to admit the supplicant.

  They quickly looked at each other, and Mary rose, wiping her lips with her napkin. She spread her hands on the tabletop and nodded to Sir John.

  ‘Enter!’ he cried out, in what Mary knew was the boldest voice he could manage.

  It was the Duke of Norfolk, long, skeletal and ghostly with his pale face. He came shuffling into the room, bowing in a perfunctory fashion to Mary, scarcely acknowledging Sir John and Nan.

  ‘My lady,’ he croaked. His voice, never very pleasing, sounded even more rasping than Mary remembered, rather as if a skeleton was speaking. It occurred to Mary what a long time it was since she had seen him at Greenwich, at court in the old days, and how much older he had become.

  ‘I am “Your Royal Highness”,’ Mary said at once to the Duke of Norfolk coldly, ‘not “your lady”.’ She decided to correct him immediately, thinking that attack was the best form of defence.

  Sir John, in his conscientious way, had briefed her about this. Her mother had written to her, secretly, about this very point. Now that she had a rival for her position as her father’s beloved daughter – this new half-sister, Elizabeth – she must stand on her dignity at all times, and insist on all her honours.

  The duke gave a half smile.

  ‘Well, you open up the matter at once,’ he said, clutching his gown a little closer around his spare person.

  ‘Cold, Your Grace?’ she said courteously. ‘Do come and sit here, near the fire.’