Royal Inheritance (9 page)

“My efforts are worse than poor and were intended only to be set to music.”

“There is nothing ignoble about writing lyrics,” Lady Richmond said. “Why, the king himself wrote the words to ‘Pastime with Good Company’ and many of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s verses have been set to music.”

“Thomas Wyatt the Elder,” Surrey clarified. I gathered from this that the poet had a son by the same name, but at the time I had never heard of either of them.

“Wyatt is greatly to be admired,” Tom Clere said, “if only for keeping his head.”

Nervous laughter greeted this remark.

“I do not understand,” I whispered to Mary Shelton.

Mistress Shelton’s shoulders tensed. Her lips flattened into
a thin, tight line. I learned much later that she had once been courted by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and that he’d written poems to her, even though he’d had both a wife and a mistress at the time. Still, she was, as I was to learn, the most blunt-spoken of that company and was nothing loath to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

“Sir Thomas Wyatt, when a young man, was in love with Anne Boleyn . . .
before
she married the king. He might easily have gone to the block, accused of having been one of her lovers. Together with my sister, Margaret, one of the queen’s maids of honor, I was at court to witness these events. I truly believe that it was one of Wyatt’s poems that saved his life, for King Henry took it as proof that the poet never meddled with the queen.”

“Whoso list to hunt, I put him out of doubt; As well as I may spend his time in vain!” the Earl of Surrey recited in a low voice. “And graven with diamonds in letters plain there is written her fair neck round about,
Noli me tangere,
for Caesar’s I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame. ”

“
Noli me tangere
?” I was ignorant of foreign languages. “What does that mean?”

“Do not touch me,” Mary Shelton translated. “And Caesar was meant to be the king. Now you, Audrey. Share something you have written.”

I knew I did not approach within a mile of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poetic talent. I doubted I even reached the heights of Mary Shelton’s “doggerel.” But I was emboldened by her encouraging smile.

Because I was not accustomed to reciting verses in a normal speaking voice, I sang the words:

The linnet in the window sings despite her cage

when other creatures would rail and rage.

And I, beside that same window, do peruse my page

and wait for the one who’ll free me when I come of age.

I faltered into silence. An unnerving pause followed.

“Clever,” the Earl of Surrey conceded. “Although you would do better to follow Petrarch’s model and write a sonnet.”

As if the rest of the company had only been waiting for the approval of the highest-ranking person in the chamber, they all chimed in with words of praise and helpful hints for improving my verses. For the most part, the criticism was kindly meant. More remarkable still, in spite of my youth and my inferior station in life, they treated me as an equal.

I left Durham House that day with my heart overflowing with emotion and my mind full of new ideas. Jack Harington had introduced me to a world I’d never dreamed existed.

I
n the weeks following my introduction to the Duchess of Richmond and her companion, Mary Shelton, I was invited on several occasions to Norfolk House in Lambeth. Father hesitated the first time but, after the Tudors, the Howards were the most powerful family in England. The Duke of Norfolk, father to the Earl of Surrey and the Duchess of Richmond, was an important and influential man. Courtiers flocked to Norfolk House, just across the Thames from Whitehall, much as they did to the royal court, seeking favor and presenting petitions.

“You must be careful not to presume upon their friendship,” Father admonished me as Edith and I were about to set off for the river stairs, accompanied by one of his apprentices, a gangly lad named Peter. “At the same time, it would do no harm to make yourself useful to the duchess. It would be a great honor were you to be asked to enter her service.”

“I am not a maidservant,” I protested, “nor am I in need of employment.” I knew full well how wealthy Father was.

“Young gentlewomen are customarily sent away from home to finish their education. They learn how to manage a household, against the day when they will marry, under the supervision of some great lady skilled in such matters.”

“But I am not a gentlewoman, either. I am a merchant’s daughter and proud of it.”

“Master Malte,” Edith interrupted in a timid voice. “If I may make an observation, it seems to me that the duchess favors Mistress Audrey because of her talent. The ability to create poetry and music is what matters in that circle. They pay no mind to whether someone is of merchant, noble, gentry, or even peasant stock.”

Father hemmed and hawed and scratched his nose, but in the end he sent us off with his blessing. If nothing else, he was loath to offend.

Norfolk House was a huge, sprawling place. It was not as big as its Lambeth neighbor, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace, but there was more than enough space for several separate households. The Duchess of Richmond occupied one section of the house. Her father, when he had business in London or Westminster, lived in another. And a third was the domain of the old dowager duchess, Agnes, the Duke of Norfolk’s stepmother. A bevy of young relatives had been entrusted to her care—to finish their education, as Father had explained—and they were in residence, too.

“They live in a dormitory, country gentlewomen and the duchess’s granddaughters all mixed together.” Edith sounded as if she was not sure she approved of such an arrangement. Mother Anne preached the same philosophy, that overfamiliarity between mistress and servant inevitably led to trouble down the road.

“Did you live here for a time?” I asked as we approached the water stairs on that initial visit. “With your mother and the Earl and Countess of Surrey?”

“A brief period only, but I still have a few acquaintances among the servants.”

I gave Edith leave to seek them out while I spent time with the duchess and her companion and this soon became the established pattern of our trips to Norfolk House.

The house was adjoined by substantial gardens, several paddocks, and a two-acre close. On a pleasantly warm day in June, we left the music room where we usually met and brought our instruments out of doors. Seated in a bower, surrounded by flowers and trees, a light breeze cooling our faces and stirring the lace on the duchess’s sleeves, I picked out a new tune on my lute.

It was private there, just Lady Richmond and Mary, as Mistress Shelton insisted I call her now that we had become better acquainted. I had brought Pocket with me, for the duchess was fond of dogs. She kept several spaniels. Mary had a cat, a great striped beast with an uncertain temper, but it had gone off on business of its own.

“An appealing melody,” the duchess said when I finished playing. “Have you set words to it?”

“Not yet, my lady. Perhaps you might compose something.”

She suggested a verse and Mary contributed another and we were soon laughing together as we tried different variations on a theme. I felt at ease with them both, almost as if they were my sisters, although they were much more considerate of me than Bridget ever was. When we were engaged in the composition of poetry or the setting of verses to music, it was just as Edith had told Father. There were no boundaries. They treated me as their equal.

When we were satisfied with our song, Mary produced a small box full of sugared almonds. “A reward,” she said, and passed it around.

Seated on a blanket on the grass, silent save for the sounds of our contented munching, we had no need to talk. I was so comfortable I
was almost dozing. It came as a shock to hear a familiar laugh boom forth.

I sat up straight, eyes wide. “The king,” I mouthed at Mary Shelton.

She held her finger to her lips, warning me not to speak aloud. Heavy footsteps were coming closer, but they were on the other side of a hedge. We were hidden from view and, so long as we made no sound, His Grace would pass by without ever knowing we were there.

King Henry went past the spot where I sat, holding my breath, but he stopped only a few steps beyond. He spoke, a low rumble of sound in which the words were indistinct.

A high-pitched giggle and a murmur answered him.

Lady Richmond and Mary exchanged a speaking glance. Lady Richmond’s eyes narrowed. Mary’s lips thinned into a hard, flat line. They knew the identity of the female in His Grace’s company, but I did not. I was sorely tempted to peek through the shrubbery and see who she was, but I did not dare move a muscle. All I could do was stretch my ears and hope for a clue.

Silk whispered. Gravel crunched underfoot. Someone sighed. The leaves in the hedge shook as if someone had leaned against the other side. The woman laughed again, and this time when she spoke, what she said was clearly audible. “No, no, Harry. No more until we are wed.”

I frowned. Perhaps it was not the king after all, for King Henry was already married. And what woman would dare to call him anything but Your Grace or Your Majesty?

After a moment, the lovers continued on. I looked at the duchess, and expected her to say something about the strange incident, but she held her tongue. In a little while, we returned to the house and soon after that I bade them farewell and collected Edith for the
journey back to London. It was at the horse ferry, where we went to hail a wherry for the return trip, that I overheard two watermen talking.

“The king’s come to dine with the old duchess, again,” one said.

“I warrant ’tis not the duchess he’s spending his time with,” the other replied with a laugh that made my skin crawl.

“The king was with a woman in the garden,” I whispered to Edith when we were out on the river. “Do you suppose he has a mistress here?”

She sniffed. For a moment I thought she would refuse to answer me, even though it was clear she knew who the giggling female was. Servants always know more than their masters. I waited, hoping she’d relent. After a few minutes, my patience was rewarded.

“Queen Anne has been packed off to Richmond Palace without the king. She does not know it yet, but she is about to be divorced. The king has found another lady he wishes to marry in her stead.”

“Who?”

“One of her own maids of honor, Mistress Catherine Howard.”

I blinked at Edith in surprise, recalling the vivacious blonde she had pointed out to me at Durham House. “But . . . but . . . she is—that is, His Grace is—”

Words failed me, which was perhaps just as well, when I could be overheard by the boatman. Catherine Howard was the same age as my sister Elizabeth. Although King Henry was a magnificent figure of a man, he was old enough to be her father. He was very nearly old enough to be her
grand
father. Of its own volition, my lip curled in distaste.

“Perhaps this rumor will prove untrue,” I said. “Many do.”

And surely the king would never allow himself to look ridiculous by trying to rid himself of yet another wife.

I was wrong about that. Queen Anne was persuaded to accept
an annulment. A bit more than a month after that day at Norfolk House, King Henry married Catherine Howard.

I was never presented to Queen Catherine, even though I was at court with Father during her tenure as queen. I doubt she even knew of my existence. I saw the king only occasionally and when I did he seemed distracted. Once, when he was with the queen, he walked right past me without a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

It was Anthony Denny, by then elevated to the post of chief gentleman of the privy chamber, who unfailingly stopped by Father’s workroom when I came with him to court. He chatted with me in a friendly, avuncular way, inquiring after the progress of my studies. When I expressed an interest in learning to draw, tutors were sent to Watling Street to give me instruction in sketching and calligraphy. Master Denny never said so in so many words, but he led me to believe that he reported on our conversations to the king.

Lessons, friends, family, Pocket, poetry, and music filled my days. When I noticed the first sign of a developing bosom, I felt truly blessed. My first flowers came soon after—that was not so pleasant—but I knew that the arrival of my courses meant that I had entered womanhood and was, if barely, old enough to wed. This encouraged me to flirt outrageously with Master Harington. Sometimes he responded in kind, but he did not take me seriously.

He took a far greater interest in Bridget’s more obvious charms. My breasts were saucepans. Hers were stew pots. She encouraged him, too, doubtless to spite me, for she had already set her sights on someone far wealthier than Jack Harington.

Self-absorbed as I was in private pleasures and frustrations, I was only dimly aware of a heightened tension affecting both the city and the court. It was an exceeding hot summer with no rain. There was drought. Men feared the return of the plague. Although that devastating sickness did not come upon us, at least not that year, there
were outbreaks of another sort. Short tempers led to fights. Some became near riots. After the court went on progress during August, September, and October, thankfully without a full contingent from the Chapel Royal, rumors drifted back to London that the king was in failing health.

These proved unfounded, God be praised, but His Grace chose to remain at some distance from London until mid-December. Most of the courtiers who were not attached to the so-called riding household took themselves off to their country estates. The Duchess of Richmond left for Kenninghall in Norfolk, taking Mary Shelton with her. There was no mention of adding me to her household.

I
waited until after Epiphany to pay a visit to Norfolk House, although the duchess had spent Yuletide there. I brought Pocket with me, since he was easy to carry and got along well with my Lady of Richmond’s spaniels. All the dogs avoided Mary Shelton’s cat.