Life became interesting, less restricted than it had been under Lady Bryan's sterner rule. We moved frequently from house to house which was necessary for the sweetening of the place. The privies would smell foul after a while and the rushes seemed to harbor horrible insects which irritated even the dogs. So when a house became intolerable we went to another while the privies were emptied and the rushes removed and the abode generally sweetened.

Kat used to tell me all sorts of things which were happening in the outside world and this delighted me for there was nothing I disliked more than to be kept in ignorance.

For one thing I learned that my father, for all his professed grief at the loss of Queen Jane, was desperately trying to replace her.

“Heirs, heirs, heirs!” said Kat. “That is a king's great need. Though why he should feel so desperate now, I cannot see. He has the longed-for boy and then there is my Lady Mary to say nothing of my own sweet Elizabeth— daughters of the King, both of you, and he has never denied that despite the fact that he got rid of your mothers—one in the law courts, one on the block—but rid himself nevertheless.”

That was how Kat talked—not so much when I was very young, but afterward when I was getting older. She was the most intriguing person I knew in those days, and if she had not been so indiscreet she could not have been so exciting.

When my father was on the point of marrying the Princess Anne of Cleves, Kat was full of information. “Who knows,” she declared, “this could mean a new way of life for you, my Princess.”

“How so?” I asked. “What if the new Queen wants to meet her stepdaughters? She is sure to be curious to see them.”

I was not yet seven years old when that disastrous marriage took place and I was very different from the child who had taken part in her brother's christening at Hampton Court. I grew up very quickly and life was full of interest, especially when Edward and I were in the same household, which quite frequently happened. We shared tutors and we had a great deal in common for we both loved learning. I found no difficulty at all in mastering languages—nor did Edward; and I think even our tutors were a little astonished at the speed with which I gained a mastery over French, Latin and Italian. I could converse fluently in all three. Edward was determined to surprise our teachers too. He was amazingly precocious and at the age of four was quite a scholar. I loved to be with him, to treat him as a little brother, and he loved that too for he was lonely, surrounded as he was by so much ceremony. No one could ever forget that he was the heir to the throne and so very precious that if he as much as sneezed, those about him were thrown into a panic.

“They guess,” said Kat to me, “that if aught befell my lord Prince, the heads of those whose duty it is to serve him would become somewhat insecure on their sturdy shoulders.”

“You do talk wildly, Kat,” I reproved her.

She fell onto her knees and half mocking, half serious, cried: “You would never betray your poor Kat, would you, mistress?”

It was strange that one as learned as Kat could also be so frivolous. But that was Kat and my life had become considerably more agreeable since she came to me.

We soon learned that my father deplored his marriage to Princess Anne of Cleves. She lacked the beauty of her predecessors, and after receiving Holbein's picture of her and the accounts of her perfections which had forestalled her arrival, he was bitterly disappointed. He found her quite repulsive.

She was my friend for many years and I often wondered why he had disliked her so much. She was wise and kind and by no means uncomely. I can only believe that he had a particular taste in women, however variable, and she did not fit any of his predilections, and so poor Anne of Cleves was discarded as two of my father's queens had been. She was lucky; she did not suffer as my mother or Mary's had; and according to Kat was as happy to be relieved of the King as he was of her. Their marriage was declared null and void. Thomas Cromwell who had arranged the match lost his head. He had once been my mother's enemy and helped those who cost her that lovely head and so I gained some satisfaction from that.

“Four wives so far,” said Kat. “I wonder, my lady, who will be the fifth, do you?”

I said it would be interesting to wait and see.

“We shall not wait long I fancy. The King has his eyes on a relation of yours, young Katharine Howard. She is a young beauty, if ever there was one.”

“You gossip too much.”

“So it is Madam Princess today, is it? Very well, I will keep my news to myself.”

But she did not of course. I would not let her. So I was well aware of my father's courtship of Katharine Howard. My father was infatuated by her, I heard. She was a lovely girl and she took an interest in me because not only was I her stepdaughter to be but she had been my mother's first cousin. I guessed she would do her best to restore me to my father's regard and I was right. She pleaded with the King that I should be allowed to go to Court, and as he could deny her nothing, gladly I went.

I had reached my seventh birthday then and although I had read a great deal and my tutors agreed that I was exceptionally talented for my age, I was a little childish in my knowledge of the world; and when I saw my mother's cousin in all her youthful beauty and vivacity with so much affection to give to anyone who asked it, I felt that all would be well. My father seemed to see no one but Katharine. I heard it said that only once before had he felt such unstinting passion, and that was for my mother Anne Boleyn in the days when she had had his favor.

The memory of my mother's fate was always somewhere in my mind and when I saw my father I often recalled that look he had given us in the courtyard and it sent a shiver through me; to see him happy with this young girl helped to soothe me. She was a Howard…a little like my mother, they said, and if she lacked her cousin's wiles, her vast sophistication, her wit and her lively mind, she made up for it with an infinite sweetness and good nature.

“Just fancy,” she said, “I am your stepmother. And I hope you will let me be your friend.”

Who would have expected a queen to talk thus to a girl who had been brought out of obscurity at her request?

The King smiled on me now because the Queen was fond of me. She talked round-eyed of my achievements and what my tutors had told her, opening her beautiful eyes wide and declaring that even to contemplate such learning was beyond her. At which the King said he was thankful for that, since she was perfect as she was—his rose without a thorn.

On the first night she dined in public with the King, she insisted that I be there as well. So there I was, opposite her, unable to take my eyes from her lovely laughing face, and watching the King touch her arm and her hand with such loving tenderness, calling her sweetheart in a voice which was soft and overflowing with love.

Kat said: “All will be different now. We shall have our rightful place. We shall be recognized as the King's daughter, which we are, of course. But our new Queen has a fancy for you, my Lady, and if she asks for your company, rest assured the King so dotes on her that she will have her way.”

If only it could have stayed like that I believe it would have made a great difference to us all. The King would have been happier for undoubtedly he loved her and, as Kat pointed out, she was not under the same stress to produce a son as my poor mother had been. “Moreover,” said Kat wisely, “the King is no longer in his first flush of youth. Don't whisper a word that I said so or it might cost me my head… but it is the truth and even kings cannot change it. No, His Grace the King has a delightful wife. Let us hope that he never wants another.”

But it seemed inevitable that the rumors must start. Kat told me of them.

“Wicked and unscrupulous men are plotting to bring a case against the Queen,” she said.

I could not understand but Kat explained that when the Queen was very young she was overflowing with affection. She was loving and giving…and that sort drew men to them like bees to the flowers and wasps to the honey. The Queen was so kind and tender to men that she found it hard to say no to them. When she was quite young it seemed she had said yes when she should have said no; and now those cruel people were looking back into her past to uncover some scandal.

“They think the Howards are getting too strong,” said Kat. “My faith! A little while ago it was the Seymours … now it's the Howards. The most dangerous thing on Earth is to be married to the King. A woman is better on her own. It may be that our little Queen would have been happier as the wife of Tom Culpepper, who they say adores her—and she not indifferent to him—than as the Queen of England.”

I did not see Katharine again. I heard terrible stories. They were accusing her of treason—that simple child whose only purpose was to be happy and make others so too. How could they? But even she, who had harmed no one, had her enemies. Thomas Cranmer questioned her about her past, accusing her of having entered into marriage with someone called Francis Dereham and thus in marrying the King committing adultery. There were tales of her wanton behavior with other men and she was arrested.

Kat said that the King was most distressed and would not at first believe those accusations against her. I was glad of that and hoped he would forgive her, but I suppose he was angry at having been deceived in her, thinking that all her loving had been inspired by him alone, and to learn that others had enjoyed it would be galling to a man of his nature.