“They left! Without my permission! This is my household. I give orders here.”

“No, my lady. I have orders from the Protector and the Council. My lady will take the place of Mistress Ashley.”

“Where is Kat Ashley?”

“My lady, she is on her way to the Tower of London for interrogation.”

The hall seemed to swim around me. My head was pounding and I could feel one of my dreadful headaches coming on.

He went on: “Her husband and your cofferer Parry are with her. They are to be questioned too.”

“But… for what reasons?”

I disliked the man Tyrwhit. He looked at me slyly. “You might know the answer to that question better than I do, my lady.”

The man was insolent. How dared he be! And then I understood that he had reason for being so. I was, as I had feared I might be, under suspicion. His very presence meant that I was, in effect, under his guard even in my own house.

He turned to his wife. “Pray help the Princess to her chamber. This has been a shock to her.”

Lady Tyrwhit came to me and laid a hand on my arm. I shook her off angrily.

“I will know more of this.” I remembered that I was still the late King's daughter. “I shall demand an explanation.”

“You will get it very soon, I have no doubt, my lady.” There was a threat in his words and I felt limp with horror, and although I had had my misgivings I was taken by surprise.

One thought kept hammering through my aching head: Be calm. Be careful. You are in acute danger.


* * *

HOW WRETCHED I WAS without Kat! I dearly loved the frivolous creature and I was very anxious for her. And Parry … foolish Parry who couldn't even keep his household accounts in order, how would he fare under questioning, under torture even?

I hated Lady Tyrwhit, mostly because she wasn't Kat. I glared at her and refused to talk to her except when it was necessary. She was a patient woman and she showed no resentment. In fact she behaved rather like a jailer and even at such a time I recognized that hint of hesitation which all displayed when dealing with someone who had a claim to the throne. It suggests that they do not really believe one will ever reach that exalted position—but caution bids them play safe in case one should.

I do not remember how many days passed before Sir Robert Tyrwhit came to my bedchamber. He had sheaves of paper in his hand. These were, he explained, the confessions of Parry and Katharine Ashley.

I took them and read them. It was all there… the rompings, the tickling in bed, the cutting of the dress, the morning visits to my bedchamber in his nightgown with bare legs. They had told everything. Parry had said that wild horses could tear him asunder and he would not tell. How different was the true case.

I did not blame them. I just thought of them—and particularly of Kat— in some dark dungeon waiting with trepidation the hour of questioning, no doubt dreading in terror the terrible means that could be used to prize information from them. The thought of Kat on the rack was more than I could bear. I forgave them… readily… for telling all they knew.

I was ill and rather glad of it. I could shut myself away in my bedchamber and with good excuse, and only answer Lady Tyrwhit when absolutely necessary. I remembered that she had been lady-in-waiting to my stepmother and had been present at her death-bed when Katharine had accused the Admiral of wishing her ill and to be with others. And that meant me. I could understand then that vague attitude of triumph that I, who had caused her beloved mistress so much anguish, was now suffering myself.

Then I began to realize that there was some good in Lady Tyrwhit. She was better than her odious husband in any case.

The whole country was talking about Thomas Seymour. He had always caught people's attention because of his presence and good looks; and I had noticed that people like little better than to see those who were mighty brought low.

They talked more of his matrimonial ventures than his treason to the Crown. The affair of the Bristol Mint was not so interesting as what his life had been like with the Dowager Queen. It was proved that he had tried for me first—and to my horror and astonishment that he had also had his eyes on the Princess Mary and Lady Jane Grey, all not without some claim to the throne. Had he poisoned his wife? it was being asked. She had accused him on her death-bed of wanting to be rid of her. Had he not had his eyes on the Princess Elizabeth?

How do these matters become public knowledge? There are spies everywhere, as every royal daughter knows. The distressing nature of malicious gossip is that it is embellished as it passes along. It grows like a living evil, like a malevolent disease.

They were destroying my reputation. Seymour and I had been lovers, they said. I had had a child by him. One account had it that a midwife had testified that one dark night she had been taken to a house blindfold so that she would not know where she was going. She saw nothing in the house but candlelight, but she did know that she had delivered a fair young lady of a child. There was an even more horrible version. It claimed that the child had been taken away and destroyed.

I accepted the fact now that I had been entirely foolish in allowing the Admiral to pay court to me when he was married to my stepmother; I had been duped. But the monstrous nature of these accusations infuriated me.

After much reflection, I rallied my courage. Though fearful, I wrote a carefully worded letter to the Lord Protector in which I told him that I trusted and believed in his good will toward me. I asked him directly to make a declaration that people should refrain from circulating falsehoods about me, for they must know that they were falsehoods, and I was sure they would wish to protect the King's sister from such calumny.

As a result of that letter, the Council replied that if I could point out these people who were spreading lies about me, they should be suitably punished.

It was at least some slight consolation.

I fretted for Kat. I wanted her with me. I missed her love and her gossip. I decided to plead with the Protector for her return. I could not bear to think of her a prisoner in the Tower.

“My Lord,” I wrote,

“I have a request to make… peradventure you and the Council will think I favor her evil doing, for whom I shall speak, which is Katharine Ashley, that it would please Your Grace and the rest of the Council to be good unto her. Which thing I do, not favor her in any evil (for which I would be sorry to do), but for these considerations that follow, the which hope doth teach me in saying that I ought not to doubt but that Your Grace and the rest of the Council will think that I do it for other considerations. First, because that she hath been with me a long time, and many years, and hath taken great labor and pain in bringing me up in learning and honesty; and therefore I ought of very duty speak for her; for Saint Gregorie sayeth, ‘that we are more bound to them that bringeth us up well than to our parents, for our parents do that which is natural for them that bringeth us into the world, but our bringers-up are a cause to make us live well in it.' The second is because I think that whatsoever she hath done in my Lord Admiral's matter, as concerning the marrying of me, she did it because, knowing him to be one of the Council, she thought he would not go about any such thing without he had the Council's consent thereunto; for I have heard her say many times that she would never have me marry in any place without Your Grace's and the Council's consent. The third cause is, because that it shall, and doth, make men think that I am not clear of the deed myself but that it is pardoned to me because of my youth, because that she I loved so well is in such a place…

“Also, if I may be so bold and not offending, I beseech Your Grace—and the rest of the Council to be good to Master Ashley, her husband, which because he is my kinsman I would be glad should do well.

“Your assured friend to my little power, Elizabeth.”

I hoped my appeal would not fall on deaf ears. I did have some faith in Somerset. He lacked all the charm and good looks of his brother, but I believed him to be a just man and honest as far as men can be when the acquisition of power is the main object of their lives.

I felt numbed when a friend whispered to me that the Admiral was condemned to death. That spy Tyrwhit would be watching me closely. I must prepare myself to show no emotion when the news was brought to me of his execution.

It arrived on a blustery March day. I had steeled myself. When Tyrwhit came to me, he was not alone. He wanted evidence of the manner in which I received the news so that he could report with corroboration to his masters.

“My lady,” he said, “this day Thomas Seymour laid his head upon the block.”

They were watching me, all of them. I clasped my hands. They did not tremble.

I said clearly, for I had rehearsed the words: “This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment.”

Calmly I took my leave of them and went into my chamber.

The Dangerous days

IT WAS ON THE TWENTIETH OF MAY—TWO MONTHS AFTER my arrival at the Tower through the Traitor's Gate—that I left that formidable fortress.

I should have been delighted, but I could not rid myself of the terrible fear that I was leaving one prison for another which might be even more dangerous.

I felt a sudden wave of hope, though, when I heard that I was going to Richmond, for the Queen was there and I believed that if I could see her I could convince her of my loyalty to her and appeal to her sisterly feelings for me.