At any rate, since Princess Mary and Elizabeth were both declared illegitimate, and are both clearly unsuited for the throne, these half sisters to King Edward have less of a legal claim than the daughter of King Henry’s favorite sister, Queen Mary, which is to say: my mother.
And this is the very reason, the very reason, why it is so important that she study the reformed faith and put aside brilliant adornment. She should avoid feasts and drinking, she should dance only with the most chaste ladies of her household and not ride around the country on that great horse of hers all day, hunting whatever is in season as if she were some sort of hungry beast of the field. The great woods around our house echo with her hunting horns, the meadows are flushed for game. Dogs die in the bear pit, heifers are slaughtered outside the flesh kitchen. I am so afraid that she is lustful (the Tudors are terribly lustful), I know that she is proud (all the Tudors are born tyrants), and anyone can see that she is extravagant and loves worldly show.
I should reprimand her, but when I say to my tutor that I am nerving myself to tell my mother that she is guilty at the very least of pride, wrath, gluttony, lust, and greed, he says nervously to me, “Lady Jane, truly: better not,” and I know that he is afraid of her, as is everyone—even my father. This only goes to show that she is guilty of unwomanly ambition, as well as everything else.
I would be as fearful as all the weakly others, but I am borne up by my faith. I really am. This is not easy if you follow the reformed faith. Courage is easy for papists—each fool has a dozen objects to instruct and encourage him: the icons in the church, the glass in the windows, the nuns, the priest, the choir, the incense, the heady taste of wine, which they convince themselves tastes salty of blood. But all these are vanity and emptiness. I know that I am borne up by faith because I go down on my knees in a cool white chapel in silence, and then I hear the voice of God speaking to me alone, gently like a loving father. I read my Bible for myself, nobody reads it to me, and then I hear the Word of God. I pray for wisdom and when I speak I know it is in the words of the Bible. I am His handmaiden and His mouthpiece—and that is why it is so very wrong for my mother to shout, “For the love of God, take that long face out of here, and go hunting before I chase you out of the library myself!”
Very wrong. I pray that God will forgive her, as I do. But I know He will not forget the insult to me, His handmaiden; and neither will I. I take a horse from the stables but I do not go hunting. Instead, I ride with my sister Katherine, a groom following behind us. We can ride all day in any direction and never leave our lands. We canter through meadows and skirt fields where the oats are growing, green and thick; we splash through fords and let the horses drink the clear water. We are children of the royal family of England, happiest in the English countryside, blessed in our inheritance.
Today, for some reason, my mother is all smiles and I have been told to wear my new dress, a gown of deep red velvet, which came from London last week, with a rich black hood and sleeves, as we have honored guests for dinner. I ask our lord chamberlain who is coming, and he says it is the former lord protector, Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset. He was in the Tower for treason and now he is released, and returning to the Privy Council. These are the dangerous times that we live in.
“And he’s bringing his son,” says the chamberlain, and he dares to wink at me, as if I am some lighthearted girl who would be foolishly excited by the news.
“Oh, how exciting!” says my lighthearted sister Katherine.
I give a patient sigh and say that I will be reading in my bedroom until it is time for me to dress for dinner. If I close the door between my bedroom and our privy chamber, it may be that Katherine takes the hint and stays out.
Not so.
Within a moment there is a tap on the linenfold-panel door, and she puts her fair head into my private room and says: “Oh! Are you studying?” As if I ever do anything else.
“Certainly, that was my intention when I closed my door.”
She is deaf to irony. “What do you think the Duke of Somerset is coming here for?” she asks, tripping into the room without any invitation. Mary trails in behind her, as if my rooms are a royal presence chamber and anyone can get past the sergeant porter if they have good enough clothes.
“Are you bringing that disgusting monkey in here?” I cut across her as I see him riding on her shoulder.
She looks shocked. “Of course I am. Mr. Nozzle goes with me everywhere. Except when I visit the poor bear. He is afraid of the poor bear.”
“Well, he can’t come in here and spoil my papers.”
“He will not. He will sit on my lap. He is a very good Mr. Nozzle.”
“Take him out.”
“I won’t.”
“Take him out, I command it.”
“You can’t make me.”
“I am the oldest and these are my rooms . . .”
“I am the prettiest and I am visiting you from politeness . . .”
We scowl at each other. She shows me his silver chain that goes around his scrawny black neck. “Jane, please! I will hold him tight,” she promises me.
“I shall hold him for you!” Mary offers, so now I have the two of them clamoring to hold the monkey, who should not be in my rooms anyway.
“Oh, just go!” I say irritably. “Both of you.”
But instead Katherine turns and hauls Mary up into a chair where the child sits, no bigger than a doll, smiling at me with all the charm in the world.
“Sit straight,” Katherine reminds her, and Mary puts back her shoulders and sits up tall.
“No! Just go!”
“I will, as soon as I have asked you this question.” Katherine is happy because she is getting her own way as usual. She is ridiculously pretty, and about as sensible as Mr. Nozzle.
“Very well,” I say sternly. “Ask your question, and then go.”
She takes a breath. “Why do you think the Duke of Somerset is coming here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because I know. So why don’t you? I thought you were supposed to be so very, very clever?”
“I don’t want to know,” I say simply.
“I can tell you. All you know is stuff in books.”
“Stuff in books,” I repeat the words of an ignorant child. “Indeed. I do know ‘stuff in books’ but if I wanted to know worldly news, I would ask my father, who would tell me the truth. I would not go round eavesdropping on my parents and listening to servants’ gossip.”
She jumps up on my big wooden bed as if she is planning to stay until dinnertime, and then props herself up against the pillow as if she is going to sleep here. The monkey makes himself comfortable beside her, and runs his skinny little fingers through his own silky fur.
“Does he have fleas?”
“Oh, yes,” she says indifferently. “But not lice.”
“Then get him off my bed!”
In reply, she gathers him onto her lap. “Don’t fuss, because it is so exciting. They’re coming for your betrothal!” she announces. “There! I thought that would make you jump.”
I am jumping so little that I keep one steady finger in the book to mark my place. “And where d’you get that from?”
“Everyone knows,” she says, which means that it is servants’ gossip, as I predicted. “Oh, you’re so lucky! I think Ned Seymour is the most handsome young man in the world.”
“Yes, but you like anything in hose.”
“He has such kind eyes.”
“Certainly he has eyes, but they do not have the power of emotion, only of sight.”
“And a lovely smile.”
“I imagine that he smiles like anyone else, but I have not bothered to look.”
“And he rides beautifully and he has beautiful clothes and he is the son of the most powerful man in England. There is no greater family than the Seymours. No one richer. They are wealthier than us. They are even closer to the throne than us.”
I think, but I don’t say, that the greatness of the family was no protection for Thomas Seymour, who was beheaded just a year ago because of Elizabeth, and not even his older brother could save him. Then the brother, the lord protector himself, was disgraced, and is now trying to scrabble back into power.