Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1)
Read Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) Online
Authors: Catherine McCarran
QUEENBREAKER
PERSEVERANCE
A Novel
Catherine McCarran
For the ones who were there
Henry, Brady, Bijou, and Yoshi
This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locales,
events or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Catherine McCarran 2016
All rights reserved.
With the exception of the poetry used in
this book, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in whole or part
without the author’s express written permission.
Poetry excerpted from
Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
All other poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the
Elder
Cover designed with Canva
ISBN-10:0-9972641-0-1
ISBN-13
:978
-0-9972641-0-4
Table of
Contents
CHARACTERS
APPEARING IN QUEENBREAKER
(*
denotes
fictional
character)
Mary
Shelton
- Anne Boleyn’s
cousin and Maid of Honor
Mary
Howard (
Mariah
)
- the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter,
betrothed to Henry Fitzroy
Margaret
Douglas (
Margot
)
- King Henry’s favorite niece; Mary
Howard’s best friend
Anne
Boleyn
- King Henry’s
second wife and Queen of England
Henry
VIII
– King of
England, father of Lady Mary Tudor, Elizabeth, and Henry Fitzroy
Henry
Fitzroy
– Duke of
Richmond and Somerset; King Henry’s bastard son, betrothed to Mary Howard
Anne
Shelton
- Mary Shelton’s
mother, Queen Anne’s paternal aunt
Sir
John Shelton
- Mary
Shelton’s father
Thomas
Shelton
- Mary Shelton’s
second brother; a friend and confidante
Gabrielle
Shelton
- Mary Shelton’s
older sister
Emma
Shelton
- Mary’s younger
sister
Janet
de Walle
* - Mary
Shelton’s maid
Margaret
Shelton (
Madge
)
– Lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne,
Lady Rochford’s sister, Mary’s sister-in-law
Joan
Percy
- the Earl of
Northumberland’s niece; Maid of Honor to Queen Anne
Mrs.
Marshall
- Mother of the
Maids
Elizabeth
Somerset
- Countess of
Worcester, Queen Anne’s favorite attendant
Jane
Rochford
- Queen Anne’s
sister-in-law and chief attendant; Madge’s sister
Jane
Seymour
- Maid of Honor
to Queen Anne
Thomas
Clere
- Mary’s former
betrothed; Lord Surrey’s client and best friend
Thomas
Howard
– Duke of
Norfolk; Queen Anne’s maternal uncle; father of Henry and Mary Howard
Henry
Howard
- Earl of Surrey,
the Duke of Norfolk’s son and heir; Mary Howard’s older
Frances
de Vere
- Lord Surrey’s
wife; Lord John de Vere’s younger sister
John
de Vere
- the Earl of
Oxford’s son and heir
Thomas
Boleyn
- Earl of
Wiltshire, Queen Anne’s father; Mary’s maternal uncle
Elizabeth
Boleyn
– Countess
of Wiltshire, Queen Anne’s mother; the Duke of Norfolk’s sister
Mary
Carey
- Queen Anne’s
older sister and lady-in-waiting; widow of William Carey
George
Boleyn
– Lord
Rochford, Queen Anne’s fraternal twin, married to Jane Rochford
Bess
Holland
- the Duke of
Norfolk’s mistress; Maid of Honor to Queen Anne
Thomas
Wyatt
- gentleman and
poet of the court; longtime friend of Queen Anne
Sir
Henry Norris
- Gentleman
of the Stool; the King’s closest servant
Mark
Smeaton
- Dutch singer
and musician in the King’s household
Henry
Percy
– Earl of
Northumberland; uncle of Joan Percy
Sir
Thomas Percy
– the
Earl of Northumberland’s brother and heir; Joan Percy’s father
Sir
Francis Weston
-
gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber
Sir
Francis Bryan
-
gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber
Lady
Mary Tudor
- daughter of
King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon; exiled from court
Princess
Elizabeth
- daughter of
King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Mrs.
Stonor
- former Mother
of the Maids under Queen Katherine of Aragon
Margaret
Lee
– Mistress of
the Queen’s Wardrobe; Queen Anne’s oldest friend; sister of Thomas and Mary
Wyatt
Mary
Wyatt
– Maid of
Honor to Queen Anne; younger sister of Margaret Lee and Thomas Wyatt
Archbishop
Cranmer
- chief prelate
of the Church of England; Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas
Cromwell
- the King’s
secretary and chief minister
Urian
- Anne’s favorite hound
Honor
Lisle
- 2
nd
wife of Arthur, Lord Lisle (King Henry’s maternal uncle)
Mrs.
Coffin
- Chamberer to
Queen Anne
Joan
Dyngley
- Chamberer to
Queen Anne
Richard
Enowes
- Lord John de
Vere’s groom
William
Stafford
- servant in
the Wiltshire household
Anne
Savage
- Maid of Honor
to Queen Anne; one of her oldest friends
One
St.
Mary’s Church, Shelton, Norfolk
Sunday,
March 23
rd
1533
“Stop
writing letters at Mass!” Emma’s damp whisper trickled down my ear. “It’s
irreligious.”
“The
King does it,” I muttered, rubbing away the runny sensation before it reached
my jaw. “So go hang.”
“I’ll
tell Mademoiselle.”
“You’ll
have to wake her first.”
We
were too long a time from the Sacrament. Semmonet, our ancient French tutor and
sometime nursemaid, always fell asleep halfway through the Oratory. On this
Sunday, God save us, Doctor Shaxton was taking his time. He wore a new,
squirrel-lined robe under his vestment and a thick black velvet skullcap on his
balding head. Tufts of gray fur peeked at the vestment’s black collar.
I
tugged my own rabbit lined collar close. Behind the altar, curtains of March
sunlight fell through the stained glass windows with a sharp, clean light, but
no heat. As always, I pitied the poorer folk, huddled like cows in the byre,
near the open doorway. Knee-deep snow covered the churchyard behind them.
Seated
in our family’s box to the left of the altar, and against the wall, we enjoyed
some distance from the creeping cold. But the miserly heat rising from the iron
brazier at Gabrielle’s feet did nothing to curb the chill leaching through the
stone floor. Our brother Ralph, de facto head of the household in the absence
of our parents and two eldest brothers, sat in Father’s seat in front of
Gabrielle monopolizing two braziers for his precious toes.
Lord, I am still grateful you made me a
Shelton even though I must be a girl.
“Blasphemer.”
Emma dropped the word in the middle of my conversing with God.
Gabrielle,
who had been dozing with her eyes open—a trick she refused to teach
me—
stirred.
“Oh,
leave her,” she sighed. “’Tis her only safe chance to write to Tom Clere.”
Emma
rolled her Shelton blue eyes. “But he never writes her back, so where’s the
point?”
“Well,
this is the last one,” I announced.
Gabrielle
bowed her head. “Praise God.”
Emma
crossed herself. “You never truly thought he meant it, did you?”
I
ignored her as Doctor Shaxton’s deep voice began expounding on the virtues of
our King Henry taking a new wife, as did Saul and David of old. I listened,
heard nothing new from the Sunday before and went back to my letter.
Gabrielle
poked the back of my writing hand. “You’re a fool, Mary Shelton.”
“A
fool,” Emma echoed.
“A
kiss means nothing,” Gabrielle informed me from the towering vantage of her
sixteen years. I had only turned fourteen at the New Year.
“You
took it too seriously,” she went on. “T’was just a game of Pass-the-Time, for
him.”
“So
it was for me,” I declared. “Nothing more.”
Gabrielle
gave one dismissive shake of her dark blonde head.
“Tell
yourself that and be grateful he went off to France with Lord Surrey when he
did. You were about to shame yourself.”
“I
was not!”
Doctor
Shaxton’s sermon faltered. Ralph turned around shooting me a viper’s glare.
Being only three years my senior, I ignored him.
“He’ll
write to
Father
,” Gabrielle warned once Doctor Shaxton
had safely resumed.
“And
I’ll tell Amy Wodehouse he has warts in his privates,” I muttered.
Emma
ducked her face before she burst laughing.
Gabrielle
poked my knee. “If you drag me into your trouble, I’ll write Tom Clere and say
you’re pining for him.”
“Oh,
do it, do it,” Emma almost squealed.
Gabrielle
on my left; Emma to my right. Semmonet behind, and Ralph afore. I was
thoroughly trapped in the cruel box of family.
They
knew my secrets, sometimes kept them; more often used them to compel my
cooperation. I could go nowhere without my father’s approval, my brother’s
escort or my sisters’ company. I owned nothing so ordinary it would not find
its way to decorating Emma’s hair or riding at Gabrielle’s waist. I shared my
wakings, my meals, and my lessons in history, French, music, and mathematics
with them. I was always measured against them: my stature, my figure, my
posture, and my gait. There was no part of my life not tethered to another
Shelton. Except for Tom Clere.
Not
even Gabrielle knew everything. She knew of the kiss. She did not know it was
his farewell kiss. She did not suspect how many had come before it. I sometimes
itched to tell her just to see her mortification when she understood that
I—the plain Shelton girl—had been kissed more than she last summer.
And
his poems! I kept all fourteen of them in my head. There was nowhere else
secure enough against Emma’s snooping. Every night I recited them like
scripture, carving them deep and forever beyond forgetting. They were beautiful.
They were wholly mine. Didn’t they mean he loved me?
The
words said he did. But Gabrielle was right. He had told me he would write from
France every week. I’d judged that trustworthy—if he’d said every day I
would have known that for a lie.
His
last letter had come from Compi
é
gne.
The Duke of Richmond’s party was going hunting with King François. He hoped to
witness the Duke’s first kill on French soil.
When
Father asked for the news from France, I had to say there was none.
Father
chuckled. “Those pretty French demoiselles must have him in their toils.”
He
did not know how hard he’d stabbed me.
“’Tis
no matter,” I’d said. “Let him shine in Paris. He’s such a dull light in
England.”
Father
chucked me under the chin, delighted by my wit. He’d paid a lot of money to
sharpen it.
I
was miserable. But I could not show it. Not a single moment. Not in the bed I
shared with Emma. Not in the dormant gardens where Gabrielle practiced her
alluring walk to torment the workmen. Not in Church, God knew. Doctor Shaxton
was Mother’s servant first. Anything I confessed to him would reach her ear
long before God’s.
There
was nowhere to unburden my feelings, except during Mass. I devised the trick
for it in a day. I sanded my paper very fine, cut my quills razor sharp to
prevent any betraying friction. I hid the inkwell in my gilt pomander. My Book
of Prayer served for a desk.
I
wrote long, turbulent letters at first then shorter, more dispassionate pages
as the weeks passed into months. Every Sunday I faithfully produced a letter
like a hen making once precious egg. My favorite brother Tom would fetch them
on his monthly trips from Oxford and send them on to London then France. I paid
him in French sonnets I translated. He in turn sold them to his poorer
classmates. I let my brother keep the coin. He was doing me a great favor.
But no longer.
I
was done with Tom Clere and this letter told him so. Would he ever read it? Had
he read my others? Did he share them with his French doxies?
Or
his cronies?
Had the Duke of Richmond laughed at me? Had Lord Surrey
mocked my poetry?
The
unwonted burning that had started in my stomach the first day my brother sent
on no reply from France flared with the magnitude of such a likely betrayal.
Bile scorched the back of my throat.
“By
God, I hope he catches the French pox,” I said.
Gabrielle
nudged me. “Shh.
We’re
almost to the Sacrament.”
I
looked down at the little I had written. Salutation, asking after his health,
conveying my best wishes to his master, the typical meaningless form polite
correspondence was supposed to take. Then I wrote what I would say to his face:
You are no gentleman. Worse, you are a
liar. For any man poor, but honest is a better man than you.
I hope never to hear your name again in
England. Go ahead and marry some diseased French heiress who will abuse your
bed. And remember then you had a loving friend in Norfolk.
My
fingers cramped at signing it. I folded it once then opened it again. I had no
knife to shave it from the page, so I crossed out the line about the heiress.
He would see it, know I’d thought it, but had better manners than to send it
so.
“Finished?”
Gabrielle whispered as Doctor Shaxton elevated the Host.
Sunlight
fractured off the engraved golden chalice dazzling my eyes. I recognized God’s
sign.
“Yes,”
I said. “You’ll see the Good Lord returned before I ever speak of Tom Clere
again.”
____________
We
recessed out of church in order of precedence. Since our family had built St.
Mary’s, we went first. Ralph marched down the nave in Father’s place imperious
as a Caesar.
Emma
barked my heels.
“Stop
trying to run me down,” I snapped. “It’s not my fault you were born last.”
Emma
kicked the edge of my cloak. “The Good Lord said the last shall be first, and
the first will be last.” She elbowed me at the door and sped down the steps
toward our covered sleigh standing just outside the churchyard wall.
“He
didn’t mean you, ninny!”
“Mary.”
I stopped short as brother Ralph’s fingers curled around my upper arm. “A
word.”
I
sighed. “That is already two.”
Ralph
pulled me around the corner before Semmonet saw us.
“Oww.”
I tried, but could not fling him off. Despite his weedy frame, Ralph had a
blacksmith’s grip, which he reserved for handling me. Ralph had once been my
favorite brother. But five years ago, we’d both caught smallpox. While I had
completely escaped its ravages, Ralph had not. The pox had chewed his face,
leaving behind a craterous landscape that had warped his character.
“You’re
crushing my velvet,” I snapped. “It cost Mother a full pound in London.”
Ralph’s
grip did not relent. “Speak one word to Mistress Wodehouse and I’ll ruin you.”
My
eyes rolled to the gray-white sky. “Father will murder you if the marriage does
not happen.” I gave him my nastiest smile. “You shouldn’t go whoring with the
grooms. Everyone knows Thomasine Brewer is diseased.”
“You
filthy little gossip,” he hissed, putting his waxy face in mine. “Here’s a
nasty piece just for you. Sir Roger has asked for you.”
Cold
air snuck under my skirt and spider-walked up the backs of my legs.
“Sir
Roger who?”
Ralph
smirked. “You know Sir Roger put the first Lady Wodehouse in the ground with
constant breeding. He’s still a lusty fellow for his years.”
He
was Father’s elder, almost an ancient. But old men were sometimes as randy as
their youthful counterparts—more so since they had few other activities
to expend their strength. No jousting, wrestling, tennis, war. No, just bed
sport remained for pastime.
But
that cannot be Sir Roger. He always looks like the next breeze will topple him.
I
called Ralph’s bluff. “He’s as virile as a shorn sheep.”
Ralph
chuckled. “Who do you think introduced me to Thomasine?”
My
jaw fell. Old Sir Roger and Thomasine? It was like a Welsh pony—a
diseased Welsh pony—mounting a dray horse. I had never pitied a whore
before.
“It
will not be me,” I said.
“Think
you so?” Ralph’s smug face rolled my stomach like a capsized ship. “Father’s
reply is due tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
“Father
would never give me to Sir Roger.”
“Do
you think you ride highest in Father’s affections? We all know how he favors a
pretty face. ‘Tis your misfortune to’ve got the Boleyn looks.”
It
rankled. It always did. Especially coming from Ralph. Pock-ridden Ralph still
looked more a Shelton than I. I was the only girl with our mother’s dark Boleyn
eyes. Under winter sun my skin tended to a sickly, yellowish cast. Though not
my gravest flaw—it was the one that brought me the most insults. Only Tom
Clere had ever come close to naming me beautiful—his poems called me
lovely, handsome, charming.
“Those
looks please the King so well he’s almost made our cousin Queen,” I countered.
Ralph
snorted. “She’ll never be Queen. She’s the King’s whore. Lady Marquess of
Pembroke was her price. He’ll go no higher. And for you, Sir Roger is as high
as you go.”
I
read Tom Clere’s name in Ralph’s loathsome smile. My fingers itched for a
weapon to shatter his teeth, but I had none.
“You
should not speak so of Anne.”
Ralph
sneered. “As if you haven’t said the same.”
I
tore my arm out of his lax hand. “I’d wish the pox on you, but God does not send
it twice.”
His
fist brushed the top of my shoulder as I ducked under his arm and ran.
