I am the favorite of the whole palace. I am a beloved royal princess, no longer a despised visitor. I am not a neglected poor relation but the recognized heir to the kingdom. I have the strange sensation of being in a place that I know well and yet everything is different. There is a new reality behind the costumed smiles, as if it is Act Two of a masque and the actors have changed their faces behind their shields and the same people must now be taken as completely different.
My cousin Margaret Douglas has offended the queen deeply. A servant of her husband, Matthew Stuart, has been caught reminding the French ambassador that Margaret is next of kin to our cousin Mary Queen of France and Scotland, and her husband, as Earl of Lennox, is heir to the throne of Scotland. This is obviously true, but anyone could have warned her that such a message would be reported at once, and Elizabeth would be frightened and furious. Margaret should have played on her main strength of being extremely plain, and old, and then perhaps Elizabeth would have forgiven her royal blood. Anyway, the court is hugely amused that William Cecil is ordered to rifle through old documents, stored away in the muniments room, to prove that Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Henry VIII’s sister, Queen of Scotland, is, in fact, illegitimate, and so neither she nor her pretty son Henry Stuart can have any claim to the throne of England. As though her reputation could be worse than Elizabeth’s, whose mother was beheaded for adultery with five named men!
I thank God that nobody can question my paternity. I descend in a straight and legitimate line from King Henry’s favorite sister, Queen Mary, married to his best friend, Charles Brandon, through my mother, the unimpeachably virtuous and bad-tempered Frances Brandon, and now that I am in favor again, my resemblance to my beautiful royal grandmother is suddenly apparent. Many people remark to each other that I am as pretty as the Tudor princess, and admire my fair York coloring.
Robert Dudley, who is in and out of the privy chamber, and openly admitted to the royal bedroom, declared as the queen’s most trusted friend, is courteous to me as a kinsman. Our families overlap so often—he was the brother-in-law of my sister Jane, and so a brother-in-law to me—he is the most favored suitor to my cousin the queen, and is now happy to remember our kinship. Suddenly, I have friends, where before I was living among strangers. I could almost think myself widely liked and generally admired. I start to say “my cousin the queen” just as my mother did, and Mary laughs at me behind her little hand.
But my triumphant return to court, my discovery of so many new friends, even the favor of the queen, does not compensate me for the loss of Ned. The young man who claimed me freely, of his own will, as his lover, who sought the blessing of his mother and the permission of mine, now walks past me as if he does not see me, and when we are accidentally face-to-face, he bows to me as if we are nothing more than polite acquaintances.
The first time that his cool gaze goes over me and beyond, I think that I will faint with unhappiness. It is only Mary at my elbow, her head not reaching my shoulder, who keeps me upright. She pinches my arm so hard that she leaves a bruise and she mutters at me: “Head up! Chin up!”
I glance at her, completely bewildered, and she beams up at me and adds: “Heels down! Hold tight,” like our father when he was teaching us to ride, and that recalls me to myself. I walk with my hand on her shoulder and I can barely make my feet take one step after another. We go to chapel together, she supporting me as if I am sick, and when I kneel behind the queen, I bow my head and ask God to release me from this pain.
I am so bitterly unhappy to think that Ned has given me up to avoid the displeasure of a queen who would never sacrifice her own pleasures. Elizabeth allows herself joy in her lover, but I may not even speak to the man that I love. I watch her as she beckons Robert Dudley to lift her down from her horse, or dance with her in the evening, when she walks with her head practically resting on his shoulder, and summons him to her privy chamber where they are left alone together, and I find I hate her for her selfishness, for thinking only of her own pleasure and never thinking of me. I blame her bitterly that I am parted from the man I love, and I will die a lonely spinster, while she indulges herself in a shameful adulterous public love affair.
Now, she publicly swears that she will marry the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand as soon as he comes to England—she promises that she will make a Spanish alliance to keep England safe—but it is obvious to everyone that she is lying, and that any husband of hers would be cuckolded before his ship had even docked at Greenwich.
The Spanish have learned this now. The new ambassador is offended, his household sulky. William Cecil is quite distracted, trying to maintain our friendship with the great power of Spain to balance the great threat from France. The Spanish ambassador, álvaro de la Quadra, finds himself beside me as we walk by the river towards a lighted arbor where we are going to listen to some poetry one evening, and he mentions that the archduke has heard of my beauty and would far rather marry me than go through the long-drawn-out and discredited process of courting Elizabeth. One day I might be a great Queen of England with the archduke at my side and Spanish power behind me. In the meantime I could be a treasured archduchess with an envied place at the English court, the center of papist ambitions.
“Oh, I couldn’t say,” I whisper. I am horrified that he should dare to say this so clearly to me. Thank God no one is in hearing and no one has seen us but one of William Cecil’s men, who happens to pass by. “Your Excellency, you do me too much honor. I cannot hear such things without the permission of my cousin the queen.”
“No need to mention it to her,” he replies swiftly. “I spoke to you in confidence, so you understand what might be. If you wished it.”
“Really, I don’t wish for anything,” I assure him.
It’s true. I don’t wish for the throne anymore. I want to be a wife, not a furiously bad-tempered spinster queen. I want a husband, and none but Ned. I could not bear the touch of another man’s hand. If I live until I am ancient, if I live until I am as old as fifty, I will never want anyone but him. We pass each other in the gallery, at dinner, on the way to chapel, in miserable silence. I know that he loves me still. I see him look across at me when he is at chapel and I have my face covered in my hands so he cannot see me peeping through my fingers at him. He looks as if he is ill with longing, and I am not allowed to comfort him.
“I swear to you, he loves you as much as ever,” Janey says mournfully. “He’s pining away, Katherine. But my mother has forbidden him to speak to you and warned him of the queen’s displeasure if she knew. I can’t bear it that you’re not together. I tell him that he has a worse illness than I do. And his cure is just here! You are the cure for his illness.”
“If only your mother would speak to Elizabeth!” I say.
Janey shakes her head. “She doesn’t dare. She told me that the Privy Council has told Elizabeth that she must find a safe husband for you at once. With English troops mustered to fight against the French in Scotland they are terrified that you will come out against her, or even leave the country. They are frightened that the Spanish will take you. They want you safely buried in marriage to a low-born Englishman who will keep you home and diminish your claim.”
“I wouldn’t go to Spain!” I say desperately. “Why would I? Where would I go? The only man in the world that I would marry is here. I have no interest in the archduke or anyone else! And why should I marry a low-born Englishman? Why should I be insulted?”