by Lucy Worsley
Chapter 20
March 1534, Hatfield
The answer was, to Mary’s surprise, that she was left alone. Life continued quietly at Hatfield. She had reached an unspoken agreement with Lady Shelton that she would give no trouble, and in return would receive none.
She stayed in her chamber, reading, or helping the serving women to sew clothes for poor people, or else she walked in the high gallery within the house. She never played her virginals, as a sort of punishment to herself for her pride. Ashamed of how she had behaved with Reginald, she wore no outfit other than her old black dress.
She thought of Reginald often. He had made her wonder what it would really be like to be in love, and to be married. When she had written her dutiful letters to le duc or le emperour, she’d never thought of either of them as a real person, someone to sit down with, for example, in order to eat dinner. She certainly could imagine eating with Reginald. Or at least, she could have done, before it all went strange and sour.
For a few days, he had stopped her from feeling lonely.
More than ever Mary wanted her mother, to ask her what it was like to be married. She remembered Catherine warning her that a princess must live much within herself, and Mary wished she had listened better at the time. It would be so nice to live with someone you could trust and rely upon. Had it ever been like that for her mother and father? Had their marriage ever been happy? Mary longed to feel part of a family. To live with people who cared for her.
Even a sister would do.
Sometimes Mary heard her own baby half-sister crying through the wall. But Mary took great care to avoid Elizabeth in person, so as to sidestep the issue of having to recognise her sister’s status. Twice a day, Elizabeth’s nurses took her out from her rooms for an airing. As the nursery ran to a predictable timetable, Mary could retreat to her own room at mid-morning and mid-afternoon to avoid them. It made her sad. But this was how it had to be.
The so-called Queen Anne did not come again. Her father did not come again. Yet Mary suspected that they hadn’t simply forgotten about her. They were just biding their time. That Anne was devilishly good at biding her time. Mary knew that she must be hoping to give the king a boy baby as well as a girl. That would increase her power even more.
One morning a few weeks later, she heard an unusual bustle among the servants below, and knew that someone important had arrived at Hatfield. Her first fear was that it was Anne. The thought of her stepmother, and her plots, made Mary so queasy that she was even a tiny bit relieved when she saw that it was a large, moony man’s face peering around the edge of her door. Master Cromwell was still in his travelling boots, she saw, and had come at once to see her.
‘Straight up!’ he said. ‘I’ve come straight up to see you. How are you?’ He was moving towards her across the room, and Mary did her best not to flinch.
‘Well, thank you,’ she said cautiously. She might easily have misread the expression on his face as concerned, friendly, eager to please her. But then, she had seen that terrible piece of paper, with Anne Boleyn’s orders so clearly written out upon it, and signed with his name. She could not trust this agent of her enemy.
‘May I sit?’ he asked, flopping himself down in her chair. ‘You’re so kind. I’m sure you’ll humour an old man who cannot ride as hard as he used to.’
He groaned a little, stretched a little. Yes, he did look tired.
‘But it’s made up for,’ he went on, ‘by seeing how things are here. You are blooming, my dear.’ He looked at her with satisfaction, almost with pride.
Mary knew that she was looking less ghostlike than when he had last been at Hatfield and had ‘freed’ her from the attics. She was plumper now, perhaps a little more glossy, and her hair was growing fast and thick.
‘What do you want?’
She decided that she could not bear to play his little game that they were friends. It was just too awful. She crossed her arms, cradling each elbow of her black dress. She knew that this made her look angular, and sulky. She revelled in the feeling.
He sighed.
‘Oh, my dear,’ he wheezed, ‘don’t be like that. I was hoping that you and I could be allies, you know, working together. I can do all sorts of things for you, you know. Restore you to your father’s good graces. Get you out of here.’
‘Get me my title back?’
Mary snapped it out.
‘Ah, I’m glad that you admit that it is no longer yours,’ Master Cromwell said smoothly. ‘Does this mean you retract that paper you signed saying that you still stake a claim to it?’
Mary instantly regretted her mistake.
‘It was a figure of speech,’ she said. ‘Of course I am, and have always been, a princess. It’s just that no one here recognises it.’
He sighed again, moving in his chair and lifting his toes towards the fire.
‘It’s just a word,’ he said comfortably. ‘Just a little word. Isn’t it more important that you have your health, and your happiness, and your family?’
‘I have none of those things,’ Mary said stiffly.
It suddenly pierced her, like an arrow, that she wanted her family, her mother and father, oh, so badly. Her health and her happiness were as nothing to her, besides them.
‘You could be with your father and mother in a trice!’ he said shrewdly, as if reading her mind. ‘There’s just one little signature that stands between you and them. Look, here is where it goes.’
He had his paper ready again. ‘Just … acknowledge your sister as princess. That’s all it takes, one signature, and you’ll be welcome at court, or you can go to see your mother if you will. Your sister exists, doesn’t she? She’s real! She’s here! You can’t deny that.’
As if on cue, there was a thin wail from the nursery just a few rooms away.
‘She’s a bonny child,’ he said, ‘if all the reports continue true. I haven’t even been to see her yet. You, my dear, you are the main priority. It’s you and your future that everyone is hoping and praying for.’
Mary noticed a gold ring twinkling on his finger. He was rich, and sleek, and well cared for, even though he spoke like a hoodlum. His clothes were not showy, and his person was rather like a sack crammed full of potatoes. There was something particularly unpleasant about his fat white fingers. She could see long, dark hairs growing on their backs.
She bowed her head. She did not believe that her father was praying for her, although she was sure that her mother did so, every single day.
‘My mother, the queen of England,’ she began deliberately, ‘has commanded me to sign no papers until she can advise me herself, in person.’
‘Ah, you call her the queen,’ he said, sighing gustily again. ‘I’m afraid that the Pope in Rome agrees with you there. Quite a fuss he has caused me.’
Mary started up. She had not heard this before. So her father’s supposed remarriage had not been recognised in Rome! This was excellent news.
‘Ah, my poor darling.’ He had noticed her pleased reaction, and Mary grimaced in distaste at his pity.
‘I’m afraid that what the Pope may think doesn’t change a thing,’ he continued. ‘Your father is still married to Queen Anne Boleyn. We’re in England, not Rome, and your father is the head of the Church of England. The succession still goes to their daughter. Now, if you sign here, I can promise you something that I haven’t even mentioned yet, but it’s something that will please you greatly.’
Mary waited, warily. To return to court would not please her greatly. Why would she want to go back to Greenwich with that wicked lady running the place?
‘Your mother,’ he said, ‘is going to be moved again. She has been living in the Fens, you know.’
Mary did not know, and felt confused. Surely there were no royal palaces in the Fens? Surely they were full of marshes, and mosquitoes?
Yet again he noticed her reaction. Mary gave an internal wince. Her mother would not have foolishly revealed the thoughts inside her head like that. A d
aughter of Spain never shows pain.
‘Ah yes,’ Master Cromwell was saying. ‘It is most unhealthy there. And the house where she is now can no longer be used. She will have to go to Kimbolton. It’s a run-down old place, and people have died there, quite recently, of the putrid fever. You can save your mother from being sent there, you know. Just one signature, that’s all it will take.’
Mary stared straight ahead of her, very hard. She did not see the room, or the tapestries, or the man sitting there by the fire. She focussed on a tiny crucifix that was pinned to the curtain of her bed.
She felt faint. He was a devil. He had found the very weakest spot, the very worst thing. In all her nastiest imaginings, she hadn’t imagined this. He was threatening her with her mother’s life.
He waited awhile but she did not speak.
Look at the cross, Mary told herself. Just as long as you are looking at the cross nothing bad can happen. She kept her hands clasped firmly together, in case they should reach of their own accord for the pen.
‘I’ll leave you to think it over,’ he said lightly, and heaved himself up from his chair. ‘There’s no hurry, you know. I’ll be here for a few days, and there will be, oh, many days after that for you to change your mind. Your mother’s a healthy woman. There’s no reason that she shouldn’t survive living there. But she’s Spanish, you know. Thin blood. Never could stand the damp, that woman.’
He was talking, bowing, puffing out his cheeks, smiling and apologising all at once.
Mary did not listen. She was thinking only of her mother. What on earth were they doing to her?
Chapter 21
February 1535, Hatfield
Mary is nineteen …
In the end, Mary’s decision had been easy. She simply imagined herself having to tell her mother, face-to-face, that she had signed away her right to the succession. She simply imagined the explosion that would surely follow. Of course she should not sign. However unhealthy it may be at the ancient crumbling castle of Kimbolton in the marshes, however dangerous it would be for Catherine to live there, Mary could not imagine any circumstances in which her fiery, vengeful mother would have wanted her to give in.
The next day, when Cromwell came to see her, she again refused to sign. And the next day after that as well. He left her sadly, shaking his head.
But there was no return to the attic or change to the daily routine.
‘Time,’ he said. ‘Time is on my side. And it’s not on your mother’s side, sadly. I do hope that she continues to be well. There is so much talk of sickness in the marshes. I’m so very sorry for you both.’
Mary felt sick at his words. But she knew that she was right. Her mother would not want her to sign away her rights. Her mother really would rather die and become one of God’s martyrs … if it came to that. Mary prayed that it would not.
Eventually Master Cromwell went away and left Hatfield, as Mary had suspected that he might, despite his pretence of leisure and ease. A busy man like Master Cromwell, trusted by her father, could not be expected to play lady’s maid at a remote nursery house like this forever.
She heard from Lady Shelton that her sister had started to crawl, and to eat pap, but still she never saw her. And now she never received letters. This new prison of her mother’s, this castle of Kimbolton, must be too strictly guarded for word to be got in or out through her friends. Mary still had the very last of her mother’s letters that Clem had delivered, and kept it all the time under her dress and against her skin. She could not bear to destroy it, even though it included her mother’s dangerous claim that she was still the queen, and Mary still the princess, and that anyone who said otherwise was a villain.
Then came the day when Mary was walking by herself in the gallery just before sunset, the winter daylight low and dropping fast, when a strange nursery-maid came bustling in, carrying something wrapped in a white shawl.
It was not the usual time for the baby’s airing, but the little thing was crying heartily, busting and stretching her lungs. Perhaps the nurses had got tired of the sound and sent her up here out of earshot.
Mary instantly guessed that she was setting eyes upon her sister. The little white package seemed bigger than when Mary had seen it before, in the wicked lady’s arms, and it was certainly making much more noise. Mary’s eyes could not leave her sister, although she tried to keep on walking. She had always wanted a brother or a sister! And now that she had one, she wasn’t allowed to love her. It was all so wrong, so ridiculous. How had it come to this?
Mary did not recognise the nursery-maid, and she, in turn, clearly did not know who Mary was, with her shorn hair and black dress. The maid walked up and down, rocking the bundle. Each time they passed each other in their laps of the long gallery, the nursery-maid nodded politely, just as if they were two members of the same household who had not yet happened to be introduced.
As she walked, Mary could not help but peer constantly out of the corner of her eye at the shawled creature in the nursemaid’s grasp. That really was her half-sister. Her sister! She found it hard to summon up hatred for the tiny body who’d unwittingly stolen her title and caused all this anguish. Eventually the nursery-maid noticed Mary’s interest, and stopped, and gestured for her to look at the little pink face more closely. Having had her cry, Elizabeth was lying there half asleep, and giving the occasional hiccup.
‘She’s a sweet wee thing,’ said the girl. She sounded like she came from far away, perhaps from the North of England, not from the court at all. Mary stood close, and saw the little crinkly eyes open by just a slit, and heard the light sucky sound of her sister’s breathing.
The nursery-maid was treating Elizabeth purely as a baby, not as a princess.
Mary stood frozen. She couldn’t quite find the right response. Should she hate? Or not? She knew that her mother would insist that she should detest this baby girl. And yet how could she hate something so weak and powerless? How could God really want her to do that?
Confused, Mary excused herself and turned quickly for the stairs, leaving her sister and the nursery-maid to walk in the gallery by themselves.
Chapter 22
February 1535, Hatfield
Late one evening, Lady Shelton and Mary were sitting wordlessly, one each side of the fireplace, and working with silks by the light of a cluster of candles. The great household of Hatfield was quiet for once, many of its members already gone to bed. It was just a normal evening of damp countryside darkness.
In the silence, a sharp tap at the door made them both jump, and then a voice was saying ‘a letter, a letter for the Lady Mary’.
Mary got up at once, her heart jumping halfway up her throat. Perhaps the letter had come from her mother! Since Clem had gone away from Hatfield, Mary had received no correspondence at all, but she kept hoping that her mother’s friends might somehow get some message through. Her mind quickly leapt ahead to wonder if Lady Shelton would tell Sir John that Mary had received a letter. She knew, by now, that there were many things Lady Shelton did not mention to her husband.
But no, this wasn’t one of those heavily folded morsels that Clem used to deliver. This was a proper formal wax-sealed letter, placed into her hands by one of the mute serving maids.
Mary looked cautiously at it, examining it by the light of the fire. Perhaps it was from Master Cromwell? She guessed that if a letter had been delivered so openly to Hatfield then it must be something he had either written or sanctioned.
But the letter wasn’t from Cromwell, Mary saw at once.
She did not recognise the seal, but on ripping it open, she saw that it was a cramped, pointed, female hand. A hand that Mary knew. She gasped.
Yes, it was from Nan. Nan! How on earth had Nan been given permission to write to her? A strong wave of longing came over Mary to see Nan again. Perhaps Nan was going to be allowed to join her here at Hatfield? Mary’s spirits lifted. Lady Shelton was sympathetic, but her loyalty might prove shallow. Nan, on the other hand, would will
ingly die for Mary. She knew that.
But the truth behind the letter became clear all too soon.
My dear Lady Mary, the letter began.
No ‘princess’, then. Mary noticed it at once. What, had even dear Nan deserted her?
I write to you from the Tower of London.
Mary looked up aghast. Lady Anne Hussey, in the Tower! Who had dared to do such a thing? To send Nan to a place where such terrible things happened? She stared at Lady Shelton, who looked back with surprise. No, Lady Shelton seemed to know nothing about this.
I write to you from the Tower of London, where I have been interrogated. My writing is not good, because neither are my hands. They used machines, Mary. They have commanded me to write, to say that you too will be brought here, and this will be done to you too, unless you agree to the succession. I pray you, Mary, to do what your olders and betters think. I pray that you might not end up like me and like this.
Mary was bent over, almost double. There was a physical pain in her heart.
‘What is it?’ Lady Shelton asked. She was on her feet, standing over Mary. She laid a thin white hand on Mary’s arm, with almost as much gentleness as Nan herself might have done.
Mary simply gestured at the letter. As Lady Shelton read it through, her hand crept slowly upwards towards her mouth.
‘And this lady … was the governess of your household?’
‘Yes,’ Mary muttered, staring blankly at the table. ‘She did nothing more than look after me and love me.’
She remembered Nan holding her hand, and stroking it, when they had ridden away from Mary’s mother for that last time after saying goodbye.
She looked up, to catch Lady Shelton’s gaze of concern.
‘Have a care, Lady Shelton,’ Mary said bleakly. ‘It’s dangerous to look after a princess.’