Dearest Mary,
I thank you for your letter and your good wishes. I am afraid they come too late for me. I think my heart is broken at being parted from my husband and my darling boy, and I can neither eat nor sleep. My marriage, which started with a feast in bed, is ending in hunger and lonely wakeful nights.
I know that you and all our friends have done your best to explain to Her Gracious Majesty that I meant no wrong, and that all my offenses were for love, not for gain.
I hope that I may be freed, and my little boys. If I should die, Mary, I do pray that you will care for them and tell them how much I loved them, and their father. I hope that you can find happiness and perhaps love. If you have a chance of either, I hope that you can take it.
Farewell, good sister
Katherine
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
SPRING 1565
The pretty boy, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, is granted a passport to join his father in Scotland, and Elizabeth agrees that he can go. His journey is enthusiastically proposed by Elizabeth’s two advisors, Robert Dudley and William Cecil, for their own selfish reasons. Robert Dudley would send the devil himself to Scotland to marry the queen if it left him safe at home, and Cecil believes that Henry—French-speaking, cultured, beautifully mannered, the cousin who has been pressed on her ever since her widowhood by our cousin Lady Margaret Douglas—will distract the queen from trying to unify and rule her people. He predicts that Henry Stuart will cause endless trouble.
Nobody but his mother thinks that the Queen of Scots will take the handsome youth seriously; Elizabeth never would. But Cecil thinks that Henry Stuart and his father, the Earl of Lennox, befriending all the Scots lords, irritating the powerful preacher John Knox, stirring up old rivalries, and claiming his wife’s Douglas family lands will confuse matters in Edinburgh beyond Mary’s management. The fiercely Protestant Scots lords will hate the effete papist French-speaking English boy and will conspire against him, breaking the fragile support that Mary has won.
Robert Dudley, for his part, is desperate not to be banished to Scotland and married off to a woman who must despise him as an adulterer and a wife murderer. He knows that, whatever she says now, Elizabeth would never forgive him marrying another woman. He is gambling everything on her inability to let him go. He urges her to send Henry Stuart to take his place, as a diversion in Mary’s court—nothing more.
Nobody suggests that pretty Henry Stuart Lord Darnley might be a suitable husband and advisor for Queen Mary, that he might hold her loyal to England and serve as an English ambassador and wise advisor. He’s not yet twenty years old and he has spent his life under the heavy hoof of his papist mother, alternately indulged and scolded by her. He has been raised as a courtier; he is charming and pleasing and amusing and good company. But nobody thinks he can act like a skilled diplomat with his first loyalty to England. Everyone believes he is nothing more than a time-wasting folly.
I think that they underrate him. I believe his sweet face hides an avaricious heart, and his fair looks might charm the lonely French queen, surrounded as she is with hearty loud men of action, insisting on their rights. We are not all Elizabeths: desiring a man who looks more like a horse thief than a nobleman. But neither Cecil (though he has studied her likes and dislikes since she was a girl) nor the dark Robert (who has been her preference for as long) can make the flight of fancy to imagine that another woman might find a different sort of man far superior. I think young Henry has great charm, if you like a pretty doll—but as something of a pretty doll myself, that is not surprising.
Even I cannot say I am an admirer of Lord Darnley, and I see him leave court without regret. He is so excited by his freedom that he forgets his mother’s rivalry with mine, and smiles at me for the first time ever. “As my star rises, I will remember your sister,” he says sweetly enough. “Who can doubt the favor that the queen is showing our side of the family? You and your sister will become unimportant and I will speak for you.”
“She is sorely in need of friends,” I say steadily. “But all our trust is in Her Majesty.”
He waves to the court that has gathered to see him leave. He bows as gracefully as a dancer and turns and leaps from the ground into the saddle. His horse curvets; he holds it on a hard rein and sits well as it rears. He doffs his hat and kisses his hand to Elizabeth, and she smiles graciously on him. He really does look as handsome as a mounted angel. I wonder how long after he is out of sight she will regret letting him go.
Less than a month is the answer! I could laugh if I were not standing, straight as a poker, tall as a broadsword, as she rages up and down her room. Sir William Maitland, the Scots queen’s advisor, arrives from Edinburgh, carrying the extraordinary request from Queen Mary to marry Elizabeth’s noble subject—Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Elizabeth goes white with anger and retreats to her privy chamber. Cecil and Dudley go in and out like anxious jacks-in-the-box. In: to listen to Elizabeth shouting in rage that Henry Stuart is false as his mother, Margaret Douglas, as his father, Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and that Mary is a fool and he will break her heart and ruin her chance of ever being named as heir to England. Out: to meet with the lords of the Privy Council and see if there is any legal contrivance, any forbidden relationship, any device by which they can refuse permission for the marriage or—if it has already taken place—declare it void.
It is as good as a play for me—a savagely comical play—to see how these great men set to work to destroy a woman’s innocent desire. They think of nothing but the advantage of their own course, the victory of their own policy. They think nothing of a woman in love, a young woman, without advisors, a lonely young woman who has a handsome young man thrown at her in a court riven with anger, and has nowhere else to turn.
“It’s not even as if he were a very admirable young man,” I say to Thomas Keyes. It is a cold afternoon, and we are seated either side of the fire in his private room, over the watergate. One of his officers is on duty at the main gate. The winding mechanism for the portcullis of the watergate is on the other side of the wall and nobody can raise it without Thomas’s permission. He has some wine in a pot and, as I watch, he gently takes the poker from the red-hot embers and seethes it in the wine. The hiss of the boiling liquid and the scent of mulled wine fills the room. He pours me a cup and takes one for himself.
“A dainty little nobleman,” he says. “But, I fear, not one that walks in the ways of the Lord.”
This is an extreme condemnation for Thomas to make—my Thomas, who never speaks ill of anyone. I look at him over the top of my cup. “Why, what do you know of him?”
He smiles at me. “I keep the gate,” he reminds me. “Nobody comes in without me seeing them. I know who visits him—and they’re not the best sort of men. And I often see him. He comes down to visit my soldiers,” he says shortly. “To drink with them—when they are off duty. I won’t say more than that; it is not fitting.”
I am agape at the scandal he is hinting. “You never told me anything like this before.”
“It’s not fitting that I should speak of it,” he says. “Nor that you should hear. My betrothed does not deal in gossip.”
I beam at him. “You have a very high opinion of me, Thomas. The court’s principal currency is gossip. You have just given me a fortune of scandal if I chose to sell it.”
He nods. “Oh, I am rich in scandal. Don’t you think I let people in and out at all hours? I hear everything, but I don’t repeat it.”
“I am glad of it,” I say. “For I could not be here if I thought you would ever tell.”
He shakes his head. “Not me.”
“Have you taken any messages from Sir William Petre? Or heard any news of my sister?” I ask him.
“I know only what you do: that she is low in spirits, that he is a poor host, a tired and sick old man. He is ordered to keep her close and not spend money on her. It is an unhappy household.”
The thought of Katherine, who was always so li
ghthearted and playful, sunk under grief in a poor house, makes me lower my head and gaze into the red embers as if I would see a happier future for her there. I feel her sadness like a weight on my own shoulders, the pang of her hunger in my own belly.
“Good times must come,” Thomas says encouragingly. “And as for us . . . can we not marry, even in secret, and be together? We cannot make matters worse for your poor sister or her bairns, surely? And the queen is absorbed in the affairs of the other queen: she will not trouble herself about us?”
I look at his broad honest face, warm in the firelight. I am so tired of refusing him, I am so tired of caution and unhappiness. I am so tired of being the despised little sister to the saint in the Tower and the martyr of Ingatestone that I put out my hand to him.
“Yes,” I say. “Let the two of us be happy at least.”
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
SUMMER 1565
I am encouraged to be bold because my stock at court is rising as Elizabeth becomes more and more resentful of her other cousin, the papist cousin, the false-faith cousin, the two-faced cousin, the old cousin, the irritating cousin, the ambitious cousin, the hypocrite cousin Margaret Douglas, who has earned all these epithets for sending her husband to Scotland with Elizabeth’s permission and her pretty son after him, and, between the two of them, rising up to the throne of Scotland and looking set to take it.
After days of sulking and spiteful comments Elizabeth tells Margaret Douglas that she must stay in her rooms at court and see no one, and after a week of this cold treatment she signs a warrant for her arrest. Lady Margaret will not be kept, this time, in a beautiful house in comfort, but instead takes the short voyage by barge to the Tower of London. She is guilty of nothing more than the crime of having a handsome son who went to Scotland and now refuses to return. There is no charge laid against her, there cannot be: she has committed no treason or crime. They are imprisoning her in the Tower only to frighten her boy to run back to his mother. They are holding her as a bait for her son.
But it does not work. Elizabeth’s family is made of sterner stuff than she ever calculates. My sister, parted from her husband and her son, will not call one a blackguard and the other a bastard. Margaret Douglas, imprisoned in the Tower, will not order her boy home to be imprisoned with her. She sets up her little household in the Tower and waits for good news from Scotland. Surely, the Queen of Scots will not allow her future mother-in-law to be imprisoned; surely, the ambassadors of France and Spain will not allow Elizabeth to persecute a renowned papist? Margaret Douglas, a tougher old warhorse than her sensitive husband and butterfly son, settles down to outlast Elizabeth’s persecution.
The queen and all her court are invited to one of the greatest weddings of the year: the marriage of Henry Knollys, the son of Catherine Carey, Elizabeth’s cousin and first lady of her bedchamber. She is a great friend of my stepgrandmother, Catherine Brandon, since they are both staunch Protestant believers and fled to Europe rather than live under Queen Mary. They came back at the same time to Elizabeth’s court and were welcomed by her with open arms. Of course, because of their religion, they idolize my sister Jane, and I always feel myself to be a smaller inferior version of the great Protestant martyr. But despite this preference, I count them as my friends, especially my stepgrandmother, Catherine Brandon, the Duchess of Suffolk.
Now Catherine Carey’s son Henry is to marry the famously rich Margaret Cave at Durham House, and Elizabeth has insisted for weeks that we parade her best gowns before her, so that she may choose the richest, hoping to outshine the bride and everyone else.
Elizabeth’s passion for Mary Queen of Scots has turned to a hatred, quietly stoked by William Cecil, who points out that Mary can now never be heir to the throne of England: she has proven herself disobedient, she has proven herself unreliable and she has turned up her pretty nose at Robert Dudley.
The pretty youth Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, ordered home to England, denies his former devotion to Elizabeth and defies her, refusing to return. Elizabeth is beside herself at the disobedience, the disloyalty, and—above all, in my opinion—the infuriating preference. The young man prefers the genuine love of a beautiful queen of twenty-two, to the relentless demanding vanity of her cousin of thirty-one. There is no surprise in this to anyone but Elizabeth. In her rage, Elizabeth swears that the title of heir will never go to the papist queen, that her papist cousin Margaret Douglas is now her enemy, and her husband and son are worse than traitors.
I hold up one set of heavily embroidered sleeves and then another. She likes neither of them. I set them down and hold up another pair. This could take all day. The royal wardrobe is filled with ornate gowns, sleeves and kirtles. Elizabeth orders new every season, and nothing is ever thrown away. Every gown is powdered and stuffed with lavender heads and hung in a bag of linen to prevent moth. She could consider hundreds in her determination to mar the happiness of a bride on her wedding day. Dressing is easier for her ladies: we are to wear either black or white. Only the queen is to blaze in color among us, only she is to be admired.
But I do not care what gown is chosen, nor what I am commanded to wear, for I am not going to be there. The wedding day of Henry Knollys and Margaret Cave is going to be my wedding day, too, and I am more sure of my happiness than I am of theirs. I am marrying a man whom I know and love and trust; their marriage is arranged by their parents and licensed by the queen, who would not permit it if she thought there was any passion or love to be had. All admiration must come to her, not to any other woman.
Finally, the queen makes her choice of sleeves and it is the turn of another lady to open the jewel boxes so that she can select her necklaces, her chains, her earrings, and her brooches. Only when everything is laid out and compared one with another, only when we all agree that she will be the richest, the best-dressed, the most beautiful woman present, do we start to prepare her for dressing.
Her thinning hair is carefully brushed and tied up on the top of her head in a scrawny bun. Mary Ratcliffe, the maid of honor with the steadiest hand, comes forward with a pot of fresh-mixed ceruse, and Elizabeth sits still, closes her eyes, as Mary paints the white lead and vinegar from her plucked forehead to her nipples in painstaking gentle strokes. It is a long process. The queen’s neck, back, and shoulders have to be painted too; the gown she has chosen is low cut, and there can be no ugly smallpox scars showing through the glowing white.
When the queen’s cheeks are dry, Thomasina stands up on a stool and dusts rouge on the hollow cheeks, and paints carmine on the narrow lips. My aunt Bess comes forward with a brown crayon and draws in two arched eyebrows.
“Lord! What I do for beauty!” the queen exclaims, and we all laugh with her, as if this were amusing and reasonable, and not an absurd daily chore for us.
With immense care, Bess St. Loe pulls the great red wig over Elizabeth’s graying hair, as Elizabeth holds it at the front of her head, and then looks into her mirror to approve the effect.
She throws off her dressing gown and sits on her chair, naked but for her richly embroidered smock, one foot extended for her silk stockings.
Dorothy Stafford bends and carefully rolls them up to Elizabeth’s knees and ties the garter.
“Do you know what fortune Margaret Cave will bring the family?” Elizabeth asks her.
“Lady Catherine told me that she is to inherit all her father’s land at Kingsbury, Warwickshire,” Dorothy replies.
Elizabeth makes a little grimace as if she thinks what she would have done, if she had been an heiress like that, instead of a bastard set aside for the true heir. Behind the painted smile, her face is sour.
The queen stands as her ladies press the bodice to her belly, and then go behind her and start to thread the laces through the holes, pulling them tightly. The queen grips on the post of the bed to brace against them. “Tighter,” she says. “None of you pull as well as Kat.”
Elizabeth’s former governess Kat Ashley is absent from her duties for once.
She has taken to her bed complaining of shortness of breath and fatigue. Elizabeth visits her every morning, but really misses her only when her laces are pulled. Only Kat will heave at them so that Elizabeth’s stomacher lies completely flat on her empty barren belly.
Dorothy Stafford holds out the farthingale for Elizabeth to step into it, and pulls it up over her slim hips and ties it at her waist and then settles a satin roll on top. “Are you comfortable, Your Majesty?” she asks, and Elizabeth makes a face as if to say that she is suffering for the benefit of England.
I step forward, proffering the chosen sleeves as Elizabeth steps into the kirtle. While one of the ladies ties the kirtle behind, I lift up the sleeves and Elizabeth puts one arm through, and then another. Then she laughs, as she always does, and says, “Lady Bess, you tie my sleeves on. Lady Mary will never reach.”
I smile as if I have not heard this a hundred times before, and Aunt Bess ties the sleeves to the bodice as Dorothy helps the queen into the gown itself.
We are like an army of ants trying to move a dead rabbit. We gather around her, pulling the puffs of the inner sleeves out through the ornate embroidered slashes, fastening the hooks and eyes, settling the gown over the farthingale and roll so that it rides high around her hips. When we fall back, she says, “Shoes,” and young Jennie goes down on her knees to tie the bows on Her Majesty’s best shoes.
She stands while we drape her with jewels and pin them safely. She says she will wear a cape over everything to go down the river to Durham House, and we arrange the hood over the towering red wig. She stands high above me, I see her as a created monster, half of horsehair and satin, sea pearls and white lead. I think: this is the last day that I will fear you. I will seek my own heart’s desire, as my sister did, perhaps as both my sisters did, as you never dare to do. Pray God I am indeed so small that you do not stoop to notice me. Pray God that since I am neither your rival in looks nor threat as heir, I can marry a nobody, as my mother did, as my stepgrandmother has done, and hide my name in his. Like my stepgrandmother who was Catherine Brandon but is now Catherine Bertie, I shall lose the great name of Grey and be called Mary Keyes.