None But Elizabeth

by Rhoda Edwards

  Once, Blanche Parry, her Welsh gentlewoman, had told her the story of her grandfather’s winning of his kingdom, as it was written in Welsh by a bard called Daffyd Llwyd. Merlin, the wizard in the days of King Arthur, had prophesied it. Merlin’s tree had spoken; Blanche put it into English:

  ‘Say, thou birch on the slope of Plinlimmon, what are the tidings? And thou, lance-like in beauty, what times are ahead? Myrddin the wizard has said that the wheel will turn, and a fleet will cast off; from Brittany it will come to land… He who shall win Owen’s crown will bring concord to our native land…’

  Harry Tudor had won Owen’s crown, and England’s too. Elizabeth had always known about the crown he found in a hawthorn bush, from the device he used, put in wood and iron and paint all about his Tudor palaces. His son was her father. Merlin the wizard had prophesied her own royal destiny.

  Last year, when her stepmother the Queen had persuaded the King to set the Bill of Succession before Parliament, Elizabeth had seen very little of either of them, because in May the King went to France to lay siege to Boulogne, and the Queen was left Regent in his place, and was busy with affairs of state.

  Elizabeth had laboured at her translation of Le Miroir de l’âme pécheresse, hoping that it would impress the Queen that she had not inherited her mother’s sinful soul, or if she had was determined to keep it forever imprisoned. She also hoped that Katherine would draw this to the attention of the King. Elizabeth had done her best with the French, but she asked her stepmother to correct where necessary, and not to let anyone else see it until the corrections were made. The Queen was a scholarly lady. By Christmas it was finished, bound up, and dressed in a cover embroidered by herself, though this proved more of a labour than the French. She made it in raised work of gold and silver thread on blue corded silk, with the Queen’s initials — KP — on the front, in a diamond shape of interlacing knots, with pansies for Parr at the corners. Elizabeth preferred to embroider with words.

  ‘Where is the hell full of travail, pain, mischief and torment? Where is the pit of cursedness, out of which doth spring all despair? Is there any hell so profound that is sufficient to punish one-tenth part of my sins?’ Katherine the Queen read in Elizabeth’s preface. This child, she thought, carries the sins of the mother like a millstone around her neck. Kat Champernowne had probably helped her to choose this improving piece for a New Year gift, something which humbled a proud spirit, was an apologia for her tainted maternal blood, and an unwarranted castigation of imagined faults. They had all been brought up to it. The Queen determined that her stepdaughter should learn more of Christian charity and the forgiveness of sins.

  Elizabeth vowed that her next task would be to make a version in Latin, French and Italian of Katherine Parr’s own little book of English prayers and meditations. She was proud that both her father and her stepmother had written books. King Henry was now in favour of sensible prayers in English, and had written the preface to the new King’s Primer, which he hoped would get rid of what Elizabeth’s godfather Archbishop Cranmer called ‘mumpsimuses’. So often Latin prayers in the mouths of parish priests had sounded like nothing so much as ‘mumblus, mumblus, jumblibus… Per Christum Dominum Amen,’ being the only bit you could hear at all. When he had been young, the King had written a long book called the Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, the Defence of the Seven Sacraments, against the heresy of Martin Luther. But that had been a long time ago, and now Archbishop Cranmer himself leaned towards the New Faith, and his edition of the Bible, in English, had been available in churches for years. One day, Elizabeth hoped, she would write a learned book herself.

  Were the followers of Archbishop Cranmer right in their ideas, or was Bishop Stephen Gardiner, upholder of the ancient doctrines? Every time that she attended it, Elizabeth had to face the problem of the Mass. She could not believe that the wafer on her tongue was the body of Our Lord, in the way that her sister Mary believed that it was. Surely if it had been, it would have tasted of blood and meat, not flour? She did not use rosary beads, or pray to the Virgin Mary, as her sister did, but she hated the way Cranmer’s followers called the Host ‘Jack-in-the-Box’, or ‘Round Robin’; it was a holy, consecrated thing, even if it did begin life in the baker’s oven. On one of her visits to court, Elizabeth confronted her stepmother with this problem, and was comforted to find that the Queen’s views were very similar to her own, and was grateful for much discussion and reassuring advice.

  In forming her views, Elizabeth had been greatly influenced by her governess. Kat was now married to John Ashley, a cousin of Anne Boleyn, who had a brother at the University of Cambridge and thus mixed in the circles where the New Faith was strongly championed. But it was dangerous to show oneself entrenched in one camp; indeed it was dangerous to air any kind of definite opinions, particularly if you were the King’s wife. King Henry VIII, Defender of the Faith, held the monopoly of opinions.

  In the summer of 1546, when Elizabeth was getting on for thirteen, her dearest, best stepmother, Katherine Parr, nearly went to the block for her opinions. It all happened so quickly, was so unexpected, and died down again so soon, that Elizabeth only knew of what had happened through Kat Ashley, who was properly horrified. Kat had a sense of the comradeship of women, hated the Pope, and distrusted the Bishops.

  Just to be a Queen meant that one had many enemies. The devil’s advocate had been Bishop Stephen Gardiner. He had his horrible henchman, the old Duke of Norfolk, grinning over his shoulder like a spectre of death from rheumatism and indigestion, who said that the Queen’s views on religion had stuck like suet pudding in his stomach. Together they worked on the King, though how far they worked on him and how far he on them was debatable, Kat said. The King was clever and had lived as a King a long time. However, they got as far as framing a list of charges against the Queen, with the aim of bringing her to trial for treason. Elizabeth knew that this would mean beheading; it always did. Neither her mother nor Catherine Howard had any chance to prove their innocence once powerful men had drawn up a list of charges against them. But they had not been innocent and the King had ordered their heads to be cut off. Katherine Parr had done no wrong of that kind. Elizabeth knew, when the whole thing had blown over, that her father was too just a King to condemn the innocent, and loved his wife, and would not deliver his darling to the power of those old dogs Gardiner and Norfolk.

  But the King was a sick King, and old. Elizabeth refused to draw the inevitable conclusion. The King must live for ever. At twelve, her mind could not compass his death; at thirteen, it could, and had to do so.

  *

  At thirteen, Elizabeth’s mind encompassed more every day; even ordinary things took on new life and clarity. The dew of that May Day morning in 1547 was surely fresher, more crystalline sparkling and iridescent than on other days. The footprints were as fresh as the dew. They left the house, crossed the lawns, and disappeared towards the fields in an unwavering line, very sure of where they were going. Female footprints.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath to welcome in May, hugged herself close against the chilliness in her night smock, and laughed out loud, delighting in being party to such a secret. Her stepmother the Queen had walked out early across the dewy lawns to meet her lover. Only three months since King Henry’s death, and there had never been a merrier widow than Katherine Parr. This time she was going to marry for love, and her secret was no longer a secret in the Chelsea household. Of course, these morning meetings were only for talk and teasing and stolen kisses; the Queen would never do anything improper. Elizabeth, who loved to share in the happiness of those she loved, danced for joy across her bedroom floor. Here, at the Queen’s dower house at Chelsea, she felt that she had never really been alive before. It was true, what her stepmother said: the weeks all seemed shorter here. Indeed, the months since her father’s death in January had flown by as if Time himself could not wait for spring and summer.

  But when the Lord Admiral married the Queen, life would be more delightful still
. He was a marvellous man, everyone glowed with life and laughter when he came visiting. He was the younger brother of the Lord Protector, and of the dead Queen Jane, the King’s mother. Kat Ashley was as enthusiastic about him as Elizabeth.

  A walk in the fields, before anyone else came out to go maying! Elizabeth yelled for her women, and was dressed and out in half the usual time, in a hurry lest the dew should have lost its pristine charm before it could be walked in. After five minutes of walking in it her shoes and stockings were sopping wet, but that was part of the enjoyment. In her childhood, Elizabeth had never been allowed to enjoy illicit pleasures like walking in dew without a scolding, so now that she was thirteen, she deliberately and defiantly sought them out.

  Because her purpose in walking out on a May morning was quite different from the Queen’s, her footprints did not lead in a determined straight line, but wove and darted in loops and chains over the silvery lawns, past the fishpond, where fat orange carp lay under lily leaves, through the door into the walled fruit garden, with the peach espaliers and the foamy canopy of cherry and damson blossom. Elizabeth’s wet shoes turned white as dropped petals coated them; one stuck to her nose and she scooped it off, laughing. She laughed like a mad thing and swooped through the trees, no one to see her but the birds and a hoppity bunny. The gardeners were on holiday. ‘Holiday!’ sang Elizabeth.

  Out through the other end of the kitchen gardens to the fields. The grass was ankle high, loaded with dew. White blankets of lady’s smock scattered the grass like someone’s lost washing. Cuckoo flowers. Elizabeth tried calling, ‘Cuckoo! cuckoo!’ but she must have made a poor imitation, because no bird answered her. She tried making a daisy chain as she walked, but lost patience, fiddling with splitting their stems with a thumbnail. She stained her fingers green. As she came towards the boundary of the King’s manor, her skirt hems were as wet as her shoes.

  Of course they were there, by the gate leading to the footpath which led to the track to Chelsea village. Elizabeth checked her steps. She had not meant to spy on her stepmother. But her own feet seemed to have followed in the same direction. The Lord Admiral had his arms around the widowed Queen. He was kissing her. As he was a tall man, he had to stoop to do it. His hat with a feather had fallen off, and the sun gleamed on his hair, russet-leaf colour, though his bushy beard was bright ginger, more like Elizabeth’s own hair, like her father’s beard had been. The Queen’s hands felt among his russet curls. He had a pink bald spot right on top of his head.

  Elizabeth’s heart began beating very fast, as if she were doing something illicit herself. Supposing someone saw them? No one would know who they were. She did not have time to think further, because they heard her, dropped their arms from each other and drew apart. The Queen was not wearing black. Naturally she had worn it since the King died, and the mourning time was certainly not yet officially over. Elizabeth looked down at her own black skirts to try to hide the blush she felt burn in her cheeks. They might resent her sudden intrusion.

  But she need not have feared. Her stepmother held out welcoming arms to her. Katherine was almost dancing on tiptoe, as if she would swoop and twirl as Elizabeth had among the fruit trees, her habitual gravity of manner thrown over the gate into the fields. She did not look like a widow of thirty-four.

  ‘Since the Princess Elizabeth could not be more dear to me if she were my own daughter, she must be the first to know…’ Even Katherine’s voice sounded different.

  ‘Before you stand Lord and Lady Seymour of Sudeley — man and wife!’ The Admiral took the words out of her mouth, and he bowed exaggeratedly low, retrieving his hat from the ground at the same time.

  ‘But when…?’ Elizabeth had not expected this to be sprung on her.

  ‘This May morning at five o’clock — and the priest has gone home to his breakfast.’

  Elizabeth flung her arms round her stepmother. ‘Oh, I am so happy! I am, I am — because you are!’

  ‘You are, madam! What about me?’ The Admiral laughed over her shoulder. She managed to include him in her hug.

  ‘Now I have a new father as well as a mother!’

  ‘Less of the father, please — you’ll age me before my time.’ He hobbled about, clutching a pretended rheumaticky hip. Elizabeth giggled. He was always fooling. Nothing about him frightened her, which was something she would have to get used to in a father. He was a real man, so tall, handsome and jolly, and just the right age to be the Queen’s husband. Besides, they had been going to marry years ago, but the King had spoken first, and women did not say no to the King’s proposal.

  In the distance across the fields, came the sound of voices and laughter, from the villagers out gathering flowers and green boughs. They had been up for hours already.

  Elizabeth slipped some cowslips from her nosegay into Tom Seymour’s buttonhole. ‘Cuckoo buds!’ she said, and this time she was answered from the trees. ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’ sang the bird, unseen.

  Tom roared with laughter. ‘Let that be a warning to a newly married man! Cuckoo buds indeed!’ He kissed his new wife. Elizabeth blushed again.

  ‘In April the cuckoo can sing her song by rote,

  In June of tune she cannot sing a note.

  At first cuckoo, cuckoo, sing shrill can she do,

  At last cuck, cuck, cuck, six cucks to one coo!’

  ‘Did Master Heyward make that one up?’ Tom laughed, and they all three became helpless with laughter — sillier than the May Day revellers, heading for the village maypole and the alehouse.

  When Elizabeth got back to the house, she told her governess the news. Kat Ashley pursed up her lips in an expression which did not suit her pretty, chubby face, and round, brown, rather roguish eyes.

  ‘“Marry in May; rue it alway.” Why didn’t she do it yesterday, or better still, wait for June?’

  ‘Crabby Kat.’

  ‘There’ll be some long faces in the King’s Council.’

  ‘Protector Somerset’s face is as long as a fiddle anyway, and his nose, and his beard. He should be pleased his brother Tom has a wife who was once a Queen.’

  ‘King Henry has only been dead three months, in case your Highness had forgotten.’

  The dig went home. Elizabeth was immediately stricken by guilt at the speed with which her father’s death had been forgotten in the excitement of sharing the naughty secret.

  ‘The King is dead, long live the King!’ The news had been brought to her at Enfield by Edward Seymour of the long nose, and Sir Anthony Browne, Mary’s elderly admirer. They had ridden over from Ashridge, bringing the Prince with them. Elizabeth had known, as soon as she saw them with her brother, that something was wrong, and that the something could only be one thing. Her father had been very ill. Yet they all said nothing, until the following morning. She remembered the fright; like suddenly finding your feet teetering on the edge of a chasm. King Henry had sometimes been frightening in his presence, but his absence was cataclysmic, calamitous. How they had cried; she and Edward had bawled in each other’s arms until the two men joined in also. In their shock and fear, all they could do was bawl, either that or run away, or go mad. The eighth wonder of the world had toppled, and they felt themselves falling after him.

  But the passing of time altered one’s feeling so. Already it was becoming difficult to mourn her father all and every day, as she felt she should, though she did not forget to pray for him. What would the King think when he heard of his stepmother’s hasty marriage? He was too young to have sympathy for lovers. Why had Kat reacted as if she had been confronted by unchaste behaviour, instead of a virtuous marriage?

  ‘Think, Kat, we’ll all be so merry, living at Chelsea.’

  ‘Hmm, so we may be. But the Lord Admiral will want to take his new wife to his own houses. Sudeley is a long way off, in Gloucestershire. We’ll be left behind.’

  ‘Her Grace my mother would not leave me,’ Elizabeth said haughtily.

  Kat Ashley laughed, somewhat rudely. ‘She will follow the sails o
f the Lord Admiral, and answer his whistle!’

  Elizabeth’s hand shot out, but before it could make contact with Kat’s ear, Mrs Ashley had caught her wrist.

  ‘May I remind you, my Lady Elizabeth, that I am your governess, and that I have the authority for boxing ears!’

  Elizabeth was scarlet in the face. ‘Go away, crabby old Kat!’

  Mrs Ashley went. But at the door she turned, her cheeks dimpling. ‘He might have had you instead,’ she said. Mrs Ashley was not old, being still under thirty.

  The fading scarlet in Elizabeth’s cheeks came back with a vengeance. ‘Absurd!’ She did not want to be reminded of her age and position. ‘I don’t want to marry. I’m too young.’

  ‘But growing… Red and white alternate, like the Tudor rose. Red head and matching temper. Remember, one day you may be Queen. You are the second heir, as your father ordained.’ With this parting shot, Kat Ashley dodged round the door, just as Elizabeth hurled her shoe — wallop!

  Elizabeth, standing on one foot, smiled. This was something she did like to be reminded of. It brought back that picture of a red dress, the portrait of a Princess. She preened, needing no mirror to tell her how she was growing.

  *

  The blackbird’s beak was yellow as the celandines. He poked it vigorously into a wormcast on the lawn and tugged. The worm was so long, he had to tug, and tug, until he nearly fell over backwards.