And that is why it is such a terrible shock when, with every reason to name me, with the veiled support of the Spanish, with every demonstration I could give her of my papist piety, as soon as Queen Mary’s sickness and sorrow become fatal, she names Elizabeth—Elizabeth!—names her at the last possible moment, on her deathbed, and half the country goes mad for the Protestant princess, who now rides into London and takes her throne as if she were the legitimate heir of royal blood and not a lucky bastard.
After all I have done to prove myself a good papist, Queen Mary fails me, fails her loudly proclaimed faith that so many have died for. She does not even mention the true papist and heir, her other cousin Mary Queen of Scots, who is now married to Francis of France and has the gall to proclaim herself Queen of England, as if my branch of the family were not named to come before hers. Queen Mary does not even mention Margaret Douglas though she promised to make her heir. She plays us all false and names Elizabeth. Elizabeth, her enemy!
“Why did Queen Mary not name you?” I demand of my mother, forced into honesty with her for once, driven by resentment into frankness. “Why did she not name me?”
My mother’s face is darkened with impotent fury. She will now have to serve as loving cousin and lady-in-waiting in Elizabeth’s rooms, and she does not expect a girl young enough to be her daughter, and with every reason to dislike her, to be a particularly generous mistress. My mother, who married her master of horse in order to reassure Queen Mary that she had no plans to marry a man with a claim to the throne, and no royal-blooded son on the way, now finds herself with no great name and no heir either, for Adrian Stokes is a nobody and all her babies from him have died. She made herself unimportant to please Queen Mary, but finds that all she has done is step back for Queen Elizabeth.
“Will you put that damned rat out of here?” she shouts.
I have a new puppy, a pretty pug called Jo, who comes with me everywhere. I bend down and quietly put her out of the room. She whines and scrabbles at the door and then sits sorrowfully on the wooden floorboards outside, to wait for me.
“Queen Mary always had strong family feeling,” my mother says through her teeth. “Despite it all. She came to the throne by her father’s will and she did not think it should be overturned. He recognized Elizabeth as his child and in his will he named her to come after her sister, Queen Mary. He named my line to follow Elizabeth only if she has no heirs, and so that is what the queen willed.” She takes a breath and I can see her fighting to master her temper, a struggle so vigorous that I think she may give herself a fit. “In accordance with tradition. In accordance with King Henry’s will, God bless him.”
“But what about me?” I demand. I think I have been saying this for all my life. “What about me?”
“You have to wait,” my mother says, as if I am not eighteen and desperate to get on with my life, to eat at the feast, to dance at all the celebrations, to wear the beautiful gowns from the wardrobe, to flirt with all the reformist young men who suddenly appear at this exciting new court, which gives up Latin in a hurry, and reads the Bible in English and has to pray only twice a day.
“I can’t wait,” I wail. “I have been waiting every day since Father named Jane as queen. All I ever do is wait for something to happen to me, and hope that this time it’s nice. Janey Seymour says—”
“I’ve heard more than enough of Jane Seymour,” my mother says brusquely. “Are you staying with them again this month? Aren’t they tired of your company?”
“No, they’re not, and yes, I am staying at Hanworth unless you order me to be with you at court,” I say, defying her to forbid me the company of my best friend. “It’s not as if we will be drowning in favors from Elizabeth and should be there early to catch the bounty. I don’t see why I should be there as all Elizabeth’s friends come out of wherever they have been hiding. I don’t see that I should have to stand and watch all day as Elizabeth orders new gowns from the wardrobe that should have been mine.”
“It’s not about gowns; gowns are not important,” my mother says, wrong again.
HANWORTH PALACE, MIDDLESEX,
SPRING 1559
Instead of watching Elizabeth glorying in the treasures and the throne that once belonged to my sister and should have come to me, I go to stay with Janey and her mother, Lady Anne Seymour, at their lovely house in the country. I take Mr. Nozzle the monkey and the little cat Ribbon and the new puppy Jo, and everyone loves them at Hanworth, and nobody tells me to put them in their cages. I am sure that nobody at court misses me at all, except perhaps Henry Herbert, whose lingering glances tell me that now he thinks he made a big mistake when he let them part him from the queen’s cousin. My other former admirer, the Spanish ambassador, is very subdued, waiting to see how his royal master—safely far away on his own lands—manages the new queen and if she will have him in marriage as she promised.
I doubt that she even notices that I am absent. Of course it is exciting that suddenly all the serious Spanish have vanished and the sorrowful Queen Mary is dead, and everyone is young and reformist and flirtatious. Elizabeth, in the plumb center of it all, with her head turned by her sudden safety and importance, goes everywhere with Robert Dudley, my sister Jane’s brother-in-law, as if they were sweethearts, suddenly given the keys to their own palace. They are practically hand in hand; they must be dizzy with relief. It is a miraculous transition from the prison rooms of the Tower to the royal apartments overnight. They both must have thought that they would put their heads down on the block and now they rest their cheeks on the finest of linen embroidered with coronets. Her mother was beheaded, so was his father. Both of them have carved their names on the walls of a Tower cell and counted the days till their likely trial. It must be heaven to come through that darkened gateway and find yourself on the road to court. My sister, of course, took the opposite journey—from royal rooms to the scaffold—and it was Robert’s father who was the cause of her imprisonment. The plot for Elizabeth was the final straw and reason for Jane’s execution. I don’t forget this when I see their triumph: beggars’ triumph. I wonder that they are not ashamed.