Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (110 page)

“You must insist. Remind Somerset of his promise.”

“His
wife’s
promise, you mean.”

“She rules him.”

“Then you must plead our case to her.”

I blanched.

Will sighed. “The real problem is that Somerset is an evangelical. He intends to continue reforming the church. To do so, he cannot be seen to support divorce. What if
anyone
could cast off a spouse? There would be chaos.”

“I am not learned enough for theological debate, but how can I accept this reasoning?”

“We will not have to wait forever. It is true that, for the moment, we cannot live as man and wife, but once the commission the king has sanctioned decides in our favor, no one will ever again be able to question our right to be together.” He reached for me. “In the meantime, let us not waste the afternoon.”

I swallowed bitter disappointment and schooled myself to be patient. But oh how I resented the necessity.

In the following week, my father returned to England, escorting a French envoy who had been sent to bring King Edward word of the death of King Francis of France. Father sought me out in my lodgings, regarding the furnishings with a jaundiced eye.

“I have a husband in mind for you, Bess,” he announced. “It is past time you were married.”

“I thank you for your kindness, Father, but I have made my own choice.”

He ignored that. “I am your father, Bess. You will marry where I say. You will find him agreeable, I think. Sir Edward Warner. You know him from Queen Kathryn’s household.”

“You cannot force me into marriage. I am above the age of sixteen, old enough to make my own decision in this matter.”

“That is questionable. You will not be of full age until you enter your twenty-first year.”

“A matter of a few months only,” I reminded him. “And you cannot coerce me into marriage no matter what my age.” I took a deep breath. “Not only have I the right to refuse, but Will and I have already exchanged wedding vows
per verba de presenti
.” Let him make what he would of that!

A vein in Father’s forehead bulged. “So that is what is behind this commission he’s asked for.”

“As soon as it is formed, the members will declare Will’s earlier marriage invalid, thus removing all barriers to ours.”

“I would not be so certain of success. The commissioners will no doubt be churchmen and conservative in their thinking, at least in matters such as this. If they forbid remarriage, what will you do then, eh?”

“I will live with Will as his mistress!”

The words burst out of me before I considered how Father would react. I quailed before his fulminating glare. I had never seen him so angry. For a moment I thought he might strike me. Or worse, take me forcibly back to Cowling Castle and lock me in the highest tower. Instead he took several deep breaths as he backed away from me.

“I have raised a fool,” he said when he reached the door. “I pray you will come to your senses soon, before a respectable marriage is no longer possible.”

“I have a good marriage already, Father,” I whispered when he had gone. I wished I dared shout that truth to the world, but Will was right. We needed to be cautious until the commission gave its ruling.

Caution. Patience. I came to hate both those words, especially when the eight men chosen to decide our fate were, as Father had predicted, conservative and mostly churchmen. One was Archbishop Cranmer. It was May before they even took up Will’s petition. There seemed little hope of a prompt decision.

“Is there no way to hurry things along?” I asked the Duchess of Somerset, who still claimed to be sympathetic to our plight.

“Patience, Bess,” Anne Somerset advised.

That was what everyone said, unless they were telling me how foolish I was to pine for a married man. It did not help that so many of my friends were gone from court.

Jack Dudley was one of the few who remained. With his father’s elevation in the peerage to Earl of Warwick, Jack had acquired the courtesy title of Lord Lisle. He had grown into his feet, as they say, and now bore a strong resemblance to both his father and his late brother, Harry Dudley. Jack had retained, however, his admiration for me.

“You could still change your mind and marry me,” he said as we stood together to watch the gentlemen pensioners muster in Hyde Park. Will’s standard, yellow and black with a maiden’s head, his sister’s emblem, flew above them.

“I scarce think that would please your father.” Jack made the same suggestion every time we met, even though there had been talk for some time of a match for him with the Duke of Somerset’s eldest daughter, a girl named Anne, after her mother.

Jack was silent for a time, watching the well-trained, beautifully caparisoned horses go through their paces. Their riders, dressed in yellow velvet, paraded with the levies of other nobles, each dressed in distinctive livery.

“Do you truly love Will Parr, Bess?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Love has no reason, Jack. Or perhaps it has too many to name. I cannot explain it. I only know what exists between us.”

Trumpets sounded. To entertain the crowd, Will’s fifty gentlemen pensioners began a carefully staged attack on one of the other bands. The “battle” raged for a quarter of an hour, raising a great cloud of dust and pleasing the spectators, especially the young king, who cheered the combatants on as lustily as any shopkeeper’s son.

“Toy soldiers,” Jack sneered. “They’ve never seen a real battle.”

“Nor have you.” I was quick to take offense at the insult to Will. “You were the lucky one. Instead of going to war like Harry, you entered the young prince’s household and remained with him throughout King Henry’s reign.”

Jack regarded me with mild curiosity. “Did you ever love Harry?”

I hesitated. “I liked him. In time it might have become more.”

“Father says love is not important in marriage. Most people marry without it.”

A shout went up as the gentlemen pensioners made another mock sally.

“Your parents love each other,” I said. “So do mine.”

“I wonder if that was always true.”

I considered before I answered. “I think so, at least in my parents’ case, or so my grandmother told me when I was young.” I repressed a sigh. I had not seen Grandmother Jane since her long-ago visit to Cowling Castle. If she hadn’t approved of Will as a suitor for her daughter, I doubted that opinion had altered now that it was her granddaughter who was in love with him.

Jack’s face was impossible to read. “I wish you well, Bess. Know that. Always.”

27

W
ill and I continued to bide our time through June and into July, waiting for the legal process to work in our favor. Others were not as prudent. A screech of rage from the Duchess of Somerset sent all her ladies scurrying for cover. She prevented my escape by shouting my name just as I reached the door.

Wary, I approached her, braced for a slap. She’d boxed more than one of her ladies’ ears in the past. I bobbed a curtsy. “Your Grace?”

“Do you know what that jumped-up country housewife has done?”

“No, madam.” Nor did I know who this “housewife” was.

Lady Somerset’s nostrils flared. “The queen dowager has secretly married Tom Seymour.”

I felt my jaw drop. I took a quick step back, but there was no blow aimed at my head. She was too busy cursing Will’s sister. Once the duchess had been Queen Kathryn’s devoted friend. Now she looked upon her as a bitter rival.

Her displays of temper went on for days. She had convinced herself that her brother-in-law had married the king’s widow in a bid for power.
She suspected Tom Seymour of conspiring to put himself in his brother’s place as lord protector. And she accused Will of being hand in glove with the newlyweds. This made me guilty by association.

Any possibility that Anne Somerset would eventually persuade her husband to support Will’s right to remarry vanished overnight. I thought of leaving her service, but Will insisted I stay. Since we did not wish to provoke Lady Somerset further, I gritted my teeth and persevered.

The sad truth was that I had nowhere else to go. After our last quarrel, Father had forbidden me to return to Cowling Castle unless I was prepared to forsake Will and marry a man of my family’s choosing.

Matters came to a head when Kathryn Parr, the new Lady Seymour, came to court to visit her stepson the king. The queen dowager and the lord protector’s wife met in the king’s watching chamber. At court, matters of precedence were never trivial. My place was clear. Since no one knew of my clandestine vows to Will, which should have made me Marchioness of Northampton, I was naught but a lady-in-waiting to a duchess. But that duchess was also the wife of the lord protector. No one had held that position before.

Lady Somerset approached her sister-in-law with fire in her eyes. “I will enter first,” she announced.

Queen Kathryn glared at her former lady-in-waiting. “My superior rank must be observed. You may have the honor of carrying my train.”

“It is unsuitable for me to perform such a menial service for the wife of my husband’s younger brother.”

The queen dowager refused to give place. Ordering Lady Tyrwhitt to carry her train instead, she advanced toward the king’s presence chamber.

The Duchess of Somerset elbowed her aside.

For two such tiny women, each possessed formidable strength. The moment Anne Somerset tried to dart ahead of her, Queen Kathryn gave her a shove and swept through the door in triumph. Furious at the insult, Lady Somerset followed at a run. I trailed after them, heartily wishing I was anywhere else.

The young king greeted his stepmother warmly. He seemed unaware of the tension between the two noblewomen. He was a slender lad with angelic looks—golden hair, pink cheeks, and his mother’s pointed chin. Indeed, there seemed to be little of his father in him. Edward had, however, approved Kathryn’s marriage to Tom Seymour
before
it became public knowledge. The lord protector and his wife were thus prevented from taking overt action against the newlyweds.

If only, I thought, Will and I could appeal directly to the young king. But that was no longer possible. Tom Seymour’s coup had cost all of us private access to His Grace.

Anne Somerset was still fuming when she returned to her own lodgings, formerly the queen’s apartments. She vented her feelings by throwing a hairbrush, a wooden box that held trinkets, and her prayer book, ranting all the while.

“Who is she but a nobody?” the duchess demanded. “If her new husband cannot teach her better manners, then I will do so.”

Keeping an eye peeled for flying objects, I began to gather up the trinkets. I had just retrieved the hairbrush when the lord protector entered his wife’s bedchamber.

“Was it wise to create a scene, my dear?” he asked in a quiet voice.

I froze, trapped on hands and knees on the rush matting, hidden from view by the duchess’s bed. Why did this sort of thing keep happening to me?

Lady Somerset flung herself into her husband’s arms and burst into tears. “She is a wicked, wicked woman to marry again so soon after her husband’s death.”

“Impulsive, certainly.”

I peeked around the edge of the heavy velvet bed hangings. The duke’s hand inscribed soothing circles on his wife’s back. He was so tall that her head barely reached the bottom of his long, flowing beard.

“She must not be allowed to profit from her wanton behavior.” Lady Somerset’s smile was sultry as she gazed up at her husband’s angular features.

His well-formed lips curved upward, making the beard twitch. “What did you have in mind, sweeting?”

“Her jewels. I want her jewels. The ones she has been asking be delivered to her.”

He frowned. “The jewels were left to her in the king’s will.” He spoke in a slow, deliberate manner, his words carefully measured. “It was only by chance that they happened to be stored in the King’s Jewel House in the Tower at the time of his death.”

“If you say they are the property of the Crown, you can refuse to give them to her.” She purred the suggestion, putting me in mind of a sleek, pampered kitten—with very sharp claws.

“And I suppose that next you will say that I also have the authority to let you borrow them?” His wry tone suggested that he knew his wife very well.

“Why not?” She pouted and began to toy with the laces at his throat. I winced, remembering the countless times I’d done the same thing to Will’s clothing. I knew what came next.

“They are
royal
baubles, my sweet.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“She should not have the keeping of anything royal. Bad enough that the king’s sister was sent to live with her. You must forbid her to visit His Grace again.”

“I will deny her the jewelry,” he temporized.

“You are executor of the late king’s estate,” Lady Somerset murmured. “That gives you the authority to make decisions about her dower lands.”

An avaricious gleam came into the lord protector’s eyes. “I do have the right to lease parks and other properties. Still, it is customary to obtain the widow’s consent before doing so.”

“Customary but hardly
necessary
.” The duchess went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.

While they were both distracted, I scurried around the bed and slipped quietly out of the chamber.

As summer advanced, relations deteriorated further between dowager
and duchess. It galled Lady Somerset that her rival continued to have custody of Princess Elizabeth. When she heard that the king’s sister had been allowed to go out at night in a barge upon the Thames, unaccompanied by any older ladies of consequence, she used this as an excuse to meddle. She ordered Elizabeth’s governess, Mistress Astley, to present herself at Syon, the mansion near Richmond Palace where the Somersets lived when they were not at court.

The duchess ordered me to attend her. Her sense of her own consequence was such that she was never without at least one waiting gentlewoman.

Mistress Astley crept into the room, timid as a mouse. I had expected someone with a commanding presence, accustomed to giving orders in a royal household and being obeyed. Instead, she was short, plump, and so nondescript as to be almost invisible. Her plain, round face was twisted into a mask of anxiety.