Anne looked at her husband with contempt. In 1535 she had assessed the situation correctly; King Henry was paying court to Edward’s mousy sister Jane, and he seemed to have set his royal cap at her. Why he should do so Anne simply could not fathom, but there it was. Edward’s erring wife, who had been banished to a convent when the contretemps with her husband’s father had come to light, had recently died, and Edward was free. Wife to the brother of the queen…a promising situation. She had planned her siege and won; Edward and she were married. Even she could not have predicted the course that events had eventually taken, but she was quick to take advantage of any opportunity. It was she who had prodded Edward into convincing the Council to bestow on him the Protectorate; she who had conceived the brilliant idea that the corollary to such an exalted position must be a dukedom. And so from plain Lady Stanhope, Lady Seymour, she had become first the Viscountess Beauchamp, then Countess of Hertford, and now, finally, Duchess of Somerset. And if her husband was de facto King of England, then must needs she not be de facto queen? Why could no one see this but herself?
It had been easy convincing the Council to give up their rights as regents, and the reason was very simple. They wanted the titles, the lands, the preferments, the chink of coins in their pockets; but they did not desire the awesome responsibility that should have devolved upon sixteen equal regents. This way there was only one regent; a convenient scapegoat, should one ever be needed. But she intended that that would never happen. Whilst Edward apparently ruled England, she would rule Edward. And give way to mistress high-and-mighty Catherine Parr she would not!
Edward sighed. He approached her, took her face into both his hands and kissed her brow. “You are my heart’s queen,” he said. Would that he could do more!
He walked to the door, Anne close behind him, and shouted “Give way!” The doors to the queen’s chambers opened and they proceeded into the corridor. He had been able to do that much for her, at least; Edward, as king, occupied the king’s chambers, but there being no queen, these rooms were occupied by the Lord Protector and his imperious wife.
As soon as they began walking towards the Great Hall, the trumpeters preceding them raised their instruments in unison with a swish of the banners that hung from them, and let out their clarion call. Queen Catherine emerged from her chambers on Thomas’s arm, looking radiantly happy. It was that radiance, that obvious self-satisfaction that emanated from the Dowager Queen, that so galled Anne. No one had a right to be that happy.
Catherine, who knew her sister-in-law’s feelings on the matter, had simply shrugged and recruited her own sister to carry her train. By rights Catherine should have proceeded on Edward’s arm, leaving Anne to carry her train, and Thomas to take the arm of the next lady in the procession, who happened to be Lady Tyrwhitt. But because of the Duchess of Somerset’s refusal to carry the Queen’s train, there was some slight confusion about how to proceed.
And then just as the royal party approached the entrance to the Great Hall, Anne did the unthinkable. She seized Edward’s arm in her iron grip, doubled her pace, and inched in front of Catherine just before she was about to make her entrance. Encumbered by her heavy train, there was nothing the Dowager Queen could do but give way. And so Anne, the Duchess of Somerset, had gotten her way after all; she strode into the hall, a grim expression on her face, on her husband’s arm, practically elbowing Queen Catherine and her husband, the Lord High Admiral, out of her way.
The startled diplomats and the rest of the court made no acknowledgement of this breach of etiquette; at that moment the best thing to do was to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. The royal party made their way to the high platform on which their table was set, and everyone settled down to listen to the musicians in the gallery play while sewerers washed royal and noble hands preparatory to the meal being served. Wine goblets were filled, and soon the hall was pervaded with the scents of baked meats as the servants proceeded in from the kitchens, their platters heaped high.
If Anne was convinced of her own superiority when it came to precedence, the servants were laboring under no such confusion, and the queen was served first of all the ladies. There was nothing more Anne could do except glare and accept the perceived slight to her dignity. Well, her husband was not Lord Protector of England for naught; she would soon have this misunderstanding sorted.
She hated her smug brother-in-law only slightly less than she hated the queen. The blind fool! Could she not see that Thomas wanted her for her position and wealth? The queen was convinced otherwise, but Anne was bedfellow to the man’s brother, and men were worse than women when it came to gossip. Before Thomas had become incensed at his brother, first for being named Lord Protector, and then for blocking every one of his brother’s moves to gain ascendancy through a royal marriage, he had told Edward everything, and Edward in turn had told his wife. It was true that Thomas had wanted to marry the queen years ago, who was only Lady Latimer back then; but even then his reasons were the same. She was twice a widow and one of the wealthiest women in England. Oh, she had a pleasant enough visage and form to be sure, no man would turn his nose up at her even in her shift, but that was bye-the-bye; Thomas had wanted to marry her for her money then and his reasons for marrying her now were only augmented by her position as Dowager Queen.
“…and safe in the Tower?” asked Catherine.
At the mention of the Tower Anne’s ears perked up, but she could not now join the conversation to ask a question, since she had publicly snubbed the queen. She must wait until further exchange revealed the gist of the discussion. She nibbled daintily at her venison pasty and pretended icy disinterest.
“Indeed, yes, Your Grace,” replied the Lord Protector. “It requires only the permission of the king.”
Sensing danger and unable to contain herself, Anne broke her own rule and asked briskly, “What requires the permission of His Grace?” The king was not usually present at the evening meal; even though he was king, Edward was still in the schoolroom and the Lord Protector insisted on treating him as the child he was.
Edward Seymour turned to his wife and said, “Her Grace has applied to have the Crown Jewels returned to her, that she might have the pleasure of wearing them. They were locked in the Tower when His Grace, King Henry, died, for their safe-keeping during the days before the coronation.”
Anne turned first white and then very red. She threw down her knife with a clatter and exclaimed, “She shall not!”
Catherine looked on blandly; she was so very happy with everything in her life that she refused to be moved to anger or even mild resentment by anything or anyone, including her sister-in-law’s bitter jealousy. She firmly believed that Thomas loved her, they had the blessing of the king on their marriage, which had been made public the month before, she was wealthier than she had ever been thanks to her generous legacy from the erstwhile king, and life had never been better. She knew Anne Stanhope, as did the entire court and diplomatic corps, for an unpleasant, malicious, haughty scold who delighted (or so it seemed!) in making ugly scenes in public. She was arrogant, grasping, unforgiving, bad-tempered and spiteful, and Catherine simply refused to respond to such.
The queen turned instead to the Lord Protector, and placing a dainty white hand on his sleeve she said, “If you would see to the matter with His Grace, I should be most grateful, my lord.” She gave him her sweet smile.
Edward Seymour was very wroth with his brother for being a fool and flouting all convention to get what he wanted, but he had always liked the queen. It seemed unfair to take his anger with his brother out on Queen Catherine. “That I shall, my lady, and glad to.”
At this Anne sputtered in her wrath and shouted, “And I say you shall not! My sister-in-law has married beneath her station and is not fit to wear the jewels of a queen! As wife to the Lord Protector of England, those jewels are mine to wear!”
Several of the courtiers seated closest to the royal dais had been aware of something amiss, but now the entire ha
ll became aware of it and suddenly went silent.
So softly that only those sitting closest to her were able to hear, Catherine said, “My lady duchess, you are a cold-hearted termagant who is not fit…” what were the words that Mary had used to her? “…for the high station to which you have been called. The king expressly stated in his will that I shall continue to enjoy all of the pleasures of being queen until our current king shall bless us with a new one. That includes the possession and wearing of the Crown Jewels; but I feel compelled to point out to you that many of the jewels were personal gifts from the king to myself, which surely no man…or woman…can question are my own personal property. You are nothing more nor less than the Duchess of Somerset, and I have never heard of anyone of the title of duchess wearing a queen’s jewels.”
Anne narrowed her eyes and replied, “My Lord High Admiral, can you teach your wife no better manners? For if ye cannot, I am she that will!”
Catherine placed her hand atop Thomas’s to silence him. She was used to fighting her own battles. “It is not I,” she rejoined softly, “who rails like a fishwife before the entire court.” To emphasize her indifference to the situation, she deftly placed a gobbet of meat into her mouth with two pale, slender fingers, chewed delicately, and swallowed. The entire hall was so shocked, so silent, that one could have heard a pin hit the stone floor. Catherine lifted her linen napkin and daintily dabbed the corners of her mouth. “And as to your claims to precedence, Madam. There are those here,” at this she looked straight at the Council members who sat stone-faced at the first table below the dais, “who think to flout the late king’s will. But the Third Succession Act is not simply the refutable wish of a dying man, it is the law of the land. And it clearly states that all ladies…” again that pregnant pause! “…all ladies of the court, without exception, shall follow only after myself as queen, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, and the King’s Good Sister, the Duchess Anne of Cleves.” Catherine then turned her attention back to her wine goblet and her husband, dismissing the subject as of no further importance.
With that Anne stood up so quickly that her chair overturned, and she strode from the hall, leaving everyone to marvel in astonishment at such behavior.
Edward wished himself a thousand miles away and continued to eat as though nothing had happened, and following his example, everyone turned back to their food and conversation; the musicians, who had stopped their playing, started up again.
Catherine smiled and laughed at a remark that Thomas whispered in her ear.
But it had been made plain that the Lord Protector was subject to his wife, and no one wanted to be ruled by a woman. How could such a man be trusted to govern England?
Sheringham, Norfolk, July 1547
It was one of the realities of royalty that even the smallest modicum of privacy was an illusion. And now that Mary was Heir Apparent to the throne of England, the illusion was stretched to its limit. Even now, as she sat on her horse on the wide expanse of beach, she knew that just over the rise and on the other side of the dunes, her escort waited. She could not hear the nickering and stamping of their horses or their conversation, but she could feel in her bones the impatience of the men to be heading back to the manor at Sheringham. Suddenly her mind returned to those miserable days at Hatfield; the only saving grace back then was that even if she had been stripped of her royalty, at least she had enjoyed the solitude it afforded.
The sun was now low on the horizon; it would be dark soon. The waves crashed endlessly on the shore and the gulls cried their lonely song. A sea mist cast an unearthly glow over the entire scene. The golden light of the setting sun lit the ocean until it resembled a vast cauldron of honey. The lowering clouds brooded a dark purple, but they were breaking up in the stiff wind, so that great shafts of white light stabbed the ocean and the beach. Mary tugged the rein and turned her horse’s head; the mare was also impatient for her stable and her manger, and ascended the rise with less than her usual delicacy of step. It seemed that everyone wanted their supper and their bed but Mary. The mare had earned her rest; Mary had galloped her long and hard down the endless stretch of shoreline, the water and sand flying behind them as she ran. A good gallop always rejuvenated her spirits, and God only knew how much she needed that right now.
Her royal father had treated her shabbily for much of her life, but in the end he had left her a rich woman. Including her previous properties, she now boasted no fewer than thirty-two principal manors and a number of minor ones. Whereas all her life, except for her brief sojourn at Ludlow as a child of nine, her expenses had been entailed to the king’s household, she now had a household of her own. Even now the king’s accountants, along with her comptroller, Sir Robert Rochester, were setting her affairs in order so that she might start receiving her income and live, for the first time in her life, independently of anyone. In the interim she had been granted temporary funds, and with those in hand, she had departed London to embark on a tour of her new estates.
It was ironic indeed that her principal estate in Norfolk was Kenninghall, confiscated from the Duke of Norfolk, who currently languished in the Tower. An inelegant snort escaped her at the thought of Norfolk. He had cheated death by hours when her father died. In a way, she was glad that Norfolk had escaped the headsman’s axe; he was Catholic and by all rights, they should have been on the same side. His dramatic reprieve was so unbelievable that Mary could not help thinking that God had saved him for some purpose as yet unknown. On that basis, despite his cruel treatment of her during the awful days of Anne Boleyn’s reign, she was willing to reserve judgment of him. But it did give her a deep satisfaction to own Kenninghall.
Her stay at Kenninghall had been short, so that her servants might receive the long wagon train of furnishings and goods that had followed her north, and contrive to make the place livable. Having two smaller estates on the north coast, she had decided to take a small contingent and see to those. Wells had been more than acceptable, but upon arrival in Sheringham she had felt that sense of coming home that escaped her in almost every place she abided except New Hall. She had fallen instantly in love with the place, all of it; lock, stock and barrel. Never had she felt such an affinity for the sea as she felt here.
Since leaving Chelsea in April she had led an even more peripatetic existence than usual. She was anxious, restless, fretful and uneasy, and could settle nowhere for more than a few days at a time. The events that had transpired at Chelsea in the spring weighed heavily on her mind; she could not forget them.
When the news of Catherine’s marriage to Thomas Seymour had been broken to his brother, Edward, the Lord Protector had been livid with anger and chagrin, and the collective Council had been furious. But it was a fait accompli; there was nothing in the king’s will to prevent the Dowager Queen’s remarriage; on the contrary, the king had explicitly stated that he expected her to remarry and wished her well. But he would have been appalled at the flouting of convention in the form of such a short, almost non-existent period of mourning. A more ominous concern loomed over the Council; if the queen were to become pregnant, there would be no way to ascertain to whom the child belonged, and this presented a very real danger to the succession. The queen could have set their minds to rest on that issue but decided instead to preserve both her own and the late king’s dignity, and stayed silent. The truth would out soon enough.
The Lord Protector, now Duke of Somerset, was beside himself with rage at his brother, whom he blamed completely; for all her erudition, the queen was still just a woman, and her emotions were bound to cloud her good sense where her heart was concerned. But his brother should have known better, in point of fact, most certainly did know better, but as usual he had put his own selfish desires before the good of the kingdom.
For Mary the hurt went much deeper. She had truly loved and respected her stepmother, and that affinity had been dealt a mortal blow at the moment the queen had emerged from her bedroom half-dressed and in the arms of Thomas Seymour. Try
as she might, she could not recapture her feelings as they had been; the fragile image of Catherine as good queen, good stepmother, had been shattered.
If it was hard to lose a friend, for that was what Catherine had been to her, it was harder still to lose a sister. On that dreadful night Mary had turned away from the shocking spectacle that Catherine and Thomas made in the corridor at Chelsea to see Elizabeth standing there, taking it all in. Her intention had been to leave the next morning and take her sister with her.
But when she had reached out to take her sister’s hand to lead her away from the shameful sight, Elizabeth had angrily shaken her off. It was then that Mary recalled her words of moments before, when she had reminded everyone that Elizabeth, by her father’s own declaration and by English law, was a bastard.
Mary withdrew her hand and ignored the slight. She must make her sister see sense. “You cannot stay here,” Mary had said. “The queen has compromised herself and anyone who stays under her roof is compromised as well. Do you not care for your own reputation?”
Elizabeth had raised a haughty chin at her and replied, “I see no reason why anyone should be compromised. They are married.”
Mary had thrown up her hands in exasperation. “Yes, and without the knowledge or permission of either king or Council!”
Elizabeth threw back a lock of flaming red hair and held up her hand, “First,” she said, using one index finger to count upon the other, “the queen requires no one’s permission to marry. Second, Edward knew their intentions and gave them his blessing.”
The Baker's Daughter Volume 2 Page 6