by Lucy Worsley
Time passed. The slight sounds of people coming and going in the gallery penetrated Mary’s chamber, and so did the cold from the night outside. She took one of the blankets off the bed, and wrapped it round her over the black-and-brown cloak. She found she was shivering, and stood up to try pacing about a bit to get warm. It struck her that she was something like a prisoner. But the door wasn’t locked, of course.
Or was it?
It turned out that Mary could lift the latch, and she peered out into the gallery. A gentleman usher was waiting there, seated on a wooden stool and tossing a small item – was it a toothpick? – from one hand to another, as if bored.
Perhaps an hour or so had passed already. She wasn’t quite sure. Certainly he looked like he had been there a long time, and expected to remain.
Mary’s heart sank. There was no sign of the friendly serving woman in grey, who had whispered a secret welcome. But at least it was neither of those terrifying Sheltons, sharp and cold as steel. Mary shuddered at the thought of them. She had behaved rudely and offended them, and she was in their house. How would they respond when she saw them next, as surely tomorrow she must?
Although Mary had opened the door as quietly as possible, the man outside it had noticed that she was looking out. He quickly stood, and bowed.
‘I am to take you, madam, to pay your respects to the princess, just as soon as you are well enough.’
Mary cringed. So they were keeping this up! They were still pretending that she wasn’t a princess. How long could this last?
‘I am not well enough,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘I am ill.’ She wanted something to eat, but felt it was too humiliating to have to ask.
He bowed again, and looked blank, as if there was nothing further to say.
Mary silently closed the door, and stood thinking for a second. There was nothing for it. She got into the bed and pulled up all the blankets. Here, surely, she would warm up. Here, surely, she could fall asleep, and maybe this horrible dream would be over.
Try as she might, Mary couldn’t think how she could have avoided it. But it had been a terrible mistake to come here to Hatfield.
Chapter 11
December 1533, Hatfield
The next morning, it was exactly the same. Mary opened the door to find that she was still guarded. This time it was a different servant outside, a serving man of lower rank than the household gentleman of yesterday.
When he saw the movement in the doorway, he stood smartly to attention and whisked off his woollen cap. Mary knew, by observing him through a very narrow crack, that he had been amusing himself for the last quarter-hour with his knife, throwing it into the floorboards and trying to hit the same spot twice.
Again, just like last night, he offered to take her to ‘the princess’. Again, she refused.
‘I don’t understand you,’ she said shortly. ‘I am the princess.’ She knew she didn’t look like it, wan, dishevelled, with no water to wash in nor clean linen to wear. But she was desperate enough to ask for some food.
‘You wish to eat?’ he asked quickly. ‘I shall conduct you down to our lord and our lady Shelton. They are breaking their fast just now, I believe.’
‘No, no, I am not well enough for that,’ Mary said. ‘I must eat here in my room. Pray send some broth and some bread. Food for an invalid.’
He bowed but did not leave.
‘Please,’ she said. She was so hungry that she was almost ready to whimper.
‘Madam,’ he said, looking shiftily at the ground, ‘I have been told not to leave your door unguarded. I am told to accompany you if you wish to go to Sir John or her ladyship, or to the princess, but otherwise, I am to bid you keep to your room. Until my fellow comes to relieve me.’
Mary winced. So she was a prisoner! In effect, at least, she was trapped. She realised Sir John and Lady Shelton’s plan: to keep her up here, in this room, unless she did what she was determined not to do, which was to go to see her baby half-sister. If she once kissed her sister’s hand, or curtseyed, or addressed the baby as ‘Princess’, Mary would be acknowledging that she had been ousted from the royal family. She understood it. That’s what they were trying to achieve.
But she was not sure that the serving man understood it, for his face was troubled.
He nearly spoke, but then there was the sound of footsteps coming along the gallery. Mary’s heart leapt. Had someone come to help her?
Looking out through the door, she saw it was the serving woman she remembered from last night. The woman was bustling along with a lacquered tray in her hands. On it Mary could glimpse bread, and was that faint steam escaping from a tankard? It was certainly cold enough, in this draughty top floor of the great wooden house, for a warm drink to produce steam.
Mary’s stomach growled loudly. Yes, it was food, and it was for her.
Nodding at the man but not at all slowing her pace, the grey-clad woman was heading right in through the door. He seemed uncertain, for a moment, about whether he should stop her, but it was too late. Mary opened the door fully, stepped aside, and closed it smartly after the woman with the tray.
The serving woman put her burden down on the linen chest, having looked around the room for a moment in search of something more suitable. Mary looked longingly at the tray. But she guessed that this woman was more important to her than the food. She quietly placed her hand on the servant’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.
‘Who are you?’
The woman smiled, and beckoned Mary into the corner by the window.
‘If we whisper,’ she hissed, ‘I hope he won’t hear us.’ Mary understood that she meant the man outside. Mary started to speak, but the woman used her hand to make a quick gesture.
‘I am so sorry, Your Royal Highness,’ she whispered. ‘But time is short. My name is Clem. If I stay and talk, I will be missed. There is something I must say to you. Look at your tray carefully. I will come later, to take it away, and I will also take away your message. I cannot get you writing materials. You must tell me what message you want to send. I will remember it. And keep it short. It is dangerous!’
Then before Mary could answer, she was bustling away, out of the door, calling out cheerfully to the servant. ‘Some buttered ale for you, Stephen?’ she asked. ‘When I come back up for the tray?’
Mary could hear him respond, pleased, and the burble of their conversation continued for a minute or two.
She was surprised. Royal servants would never have allowed themselves to disturb the ears of their betters in this manner. But these weren’t really royal servants yet, it was clear. They had felt sorry for her last night, and they had shown it. They were the newly assembled household of a baby princess, not yet fully trained, nor able to predict the wishes of their lord and lady.
However, listening to Clem’s conversation with the man outside in the gallery about ale, and the weather, and how cold it was for the time of year, wasn’t Mary’s priority. The tray! What was significant about the tray?
She almost ran to the linen chest. Yes, here was a pewter plate, with bread on it, and a cup. It was warm ale, with butter mixed in. Mary’s empty stomach wanted to drink it all at once. She was so thirsty! The bread didn’t look so good. It had a nasty hard crust, and the pewter looked … well, dirty, after the silver salvers she was used to. But the ale could wait. What else was here? She carefully lifted the cup off the plate, examining it. Nothing. She picked up the bread. Nothing. Then she lifted the pewter dish itself. There! Underneath was the tiniest square of parchment, folded very tight.
It wasn’t sealed, and Mary’s fingers, although they were cold and clumsy, undid it in a trice.
She looked at the door, aware that it wasn’t locked, and that the man outside could come in at any moment. She’d been pleased that they hadn’t locked her in, but now she regretted being unable to lock people out.
Mary stood with her back against the door, so that if he tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. She was also read
y to scrunch up the letter in a flash if she felt even the slightest pressure against her shoulder blades.
Instantly, her eye recognised her mother’s hand. She felt almost a physical pleasure, like someone giving her a hug. She had been remembered! Her mother had remembered her!
The letter did not begin with Mary’s name, which was odd. But then Mary realised that this was perhaps sensible. If people, if that serving woman Clem, had run risks to get it to her, then it was best kept brief and plain.
I have heard such tidings, her mother’s handwriting told her, that tell me the time when Almighty God will test you is very near. They will press you. Answer with few words. Say you will obey the orders of your father, the king, in everything, save only that you will not offend God. Remember I love you.
Mary’s knees slowly gave way, and her back slid down the door until her legs were out straight ahead of her on the floor.
This was treason. Sending this letter was treason. Her mother was risking everything to have sent it, and her request therefore had the force of a command. Yes, Mary must become like one of the martyrs of the Church. She must obey the orders of men as far as she could, but she must not offend God.
She decided on her reply. It would be very short, very safe to deliver. It would simply be: ‘yes’.
Of course.
She would continue to resist. She wondered what to do with the letter, how to hide it. The answer came from her stomach. She tore off a little corner, popped it into her mouth, chewed it many, many times, and swallowed. It would make an excellent precursor to breakfast.
Chapter 12
New Year, 1534, Hatfield
Mary fell into something of a routine, warily coexisting with the servants of the house. Each morning, they asked her if she would see her sister the princess, but each morning Mary said she was too ill.
The serving woman Clem brought her breakfast. At dinner time, Mary agreed to descend to eat. She and the Sheltons sat in silence at the long table in the Great Hall. Mary rebuffed Sir John’s every attempt at conversation; every attempt he made to make her go to pay her respects to her sister. Her eye was often drawn to the figure of Lady Shelton, elegant and thin, usually dressed in black, and always, always silent.
Mary went back to her room after the midday meal and refused to come out again. She always felt hungry in the evenings, but she ate as much as she could at dinner and, of course, every last bite of her breakfast. How she enjoyed her breakfast! It was always the best part of the day.
In her room, Mary spent long hours jumping up on to and down from the linen chest. She was trying to keep some strength in her legs, which were growing useless from want of exercise.
The days went slowly by. On bright mornings, Mary looked out of the window at the sun shining on the frosty grasses below. She had a view of the garden, many, many floors down. It delighted her to see the occasional gardener creeping slowly along the path with his barrow and hoe. It reminded her that the world still contained other people. It was easy to forget this.
Once, one of the manservants outside her door fell asleep on his stool, and Mary could hear the loud, rhythmic hiss of his snores. She thought about leaving the room, even if only to walk up and down the gallery. But there was no point. She wouldn’t get far before someone would spot her and ask her if she was going to the Princess Elizabeth. She sat on the floor, though, with her ear against the door, listening to the man snore. There was generally so little to listen to that it almost sounded like music.
Another day, Mary looked down into the garden to see a slow procession of ladies creeping along the path. At their rear came the stately figure of Lady Shelton, all in black and bearing a bundle. Mary could not see exactly what the bundle contained, but she was pretty sure this was her baby half-sister, out for an airing with her household. From the floors below, she would sometimes hear distant laughter, and even singing at night. It was Christmas, after all.
The sight of her sister made Mary lonelier than ever. She now felt that she had been wicked, in the crowded days of her old life at Greenwich, to wish that she could more often be alone. Now she was alone all the time, and she didn’t like it. Mary squeezed the front of her stays together, there to hear the rustle of her mother’s latest letter. She had not eaten it yet, as she wanted to read it again. She rather wished that it had said more about what her mother was doing, and less about God.
But then, if her mother was likewise being held in a grand prison, just as Mary was, she was probably doing nothing. Just as Mary was.
As the New Year turned, Mary prayed to God for something to change. She knew that her father would be celebrating at Greenwich, and wished he wanted her there by his side, as she had been last year. She had been at Hatfield for weeks now. How long could it last? Even her clothes, as well as her nerves, were wearing out. Her dress had not been cleaned or brushed at all, and her linen was taken from her to be washed just once a week.
In January, something happened at last. Mary’s ear was finely attuned to the sounds of the household, and she could tell that something was afoot.
There was more noise than usual down below, and when her breakfast came it was brought by an unknown serving man, not the friendly Clem.
Mary tried to damp down her hopes. Perhaps something awful had at last happened to the wicked Lady Anne. But it could equally well be bad news. Perhaps Lady Anne – for surely it was her, not Mary’s father, who had ordered her to be kept prisoner – had got impatient. Perhaps Lady Anne had sent the Duke of Norfolk to take Mary to the Tower of London.
If that was the case, Mary thought, squaring up her chin, then so be it. It would be what God, her mother’s good but demanding God, wanted.
Thank goodness it was only two days since her linen had been washed. Mary did the best she could to get ready, to look like the princess she was. She used her napkin and the water jug to clean her face and hands, and she picked up the tiny ivory comb Clem had given her. It was impossible for Mary without help to plait or arrange her hair as in the old days at court, so she just combed it long and loose.
But Mary was still dissatisfied with her preparations. If it was the Duke of Norfolk, or an important visitor from court, she needed to be able to express, through her appearance alone, how ill she had been treated. How could she signal that the Sheltons had scarcely let her leave her chamber?
An idea came to her. Was it still here? Yes, the knife that had one day been left on the breakfast tray was still under the mattress of her bed. She ferreted it out. She lifted up a great hank of her hair and sliced. It was hard to cut, but the action was satisfying. She began to saw faster and faster, so much so that her arm ached. A pile of brown hair began to build upon the coverlet of the bed.
Yes! Even if they did not let her speak, then this would be a silent protest that something wrong, very wrong, had been done to her.
Mary left off her cap and fluffed up the short ends of her hair. It felt soft, unusual, like the fur of an animal.
At midday, the usual heavy step came along the gallery. Mary braced herself. The usual respectful tap.
‘Dinner, my Lady Mary?’
She opened the door immediately and came out quickly, pushing past Sir John before he could stop her. She walked ahead of him along the gallery, imagining that she was at Greenwich, finely dressed, all ready to face the courtiers and ambassadors of Europe, as she had done so often before. It felt a little draughty round the back of her neck, but Mary imagined that she was wearing her hair up, like her mother, under a hood.
She could tell that Sir John was displeased.
‘What, has something happened?’ he was asking as he tried to keep up with her. ‘Have you injured your head?’
‘What is that, Sir John?’ she said distantly, over her shoulder, pretending that she had not heard.
‘This is most unfortunate,’ he said.
Mary half smiled as she realised that he wasn’t quite sure what she had done, and knew only that she looked different.
>
‘Has someone come to the house?’ Mary asked, bounding ahead down the staircase and quickly passing her sister’s floor before he could go through the usual rigmarole of insisting that she go there to pay her respects.
He didn’t answer.
‘My wife will be most displeased,’ he was saying. ‘Your appearance. Your sister …’
But Mary was already at the bottom of the stairs, and entering the Great Hall.
There she saw the very last person she wanted to see. There, by the fire, was the woman who was now Mary’s stepmother. Her enemy.
Mary noticed that Lady Shelton was standing nearby, presumably just having handed the lady the neatly swaddled little sausage of baby that lay in Anne Boleyn’s arms.
Mary also noticed, with satisfaction, Lady Shelton’s start of surprise at seeing her shorn hair. But Mary also experienced a curious feeling about the sight of the baby sausage. This tiny girl, too, was her enemy. Yet how could such a small thing hurt Mary? She would rather have liked to have looked at her sister closely, maybe stroked her little pink cheek.
The lady looked up. Mary remembered, though it seemed extraordinary, that the court now called her Queen Anne.
‘Ah,’ Anne said, without preamble. ‘Lady Shelton has been telling me that you have still refused to pay my daughter the respect that is fitting from a servant to a mistress. You are a servant now, do you hear?’
Mary knew that she looked like one, with her ragged hair, her drab black dress. But she stood up straight.
‘I respect my father, the king, and my mother, the queen,’ she said. ‘I respect God. But I did not ask to come here, and I do not respect those who keep me here against my will.’
There was something like a snarl from Lady Shelton.