Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

This is not my only stepchild, of course. But the Lady Elizabeth is not allowed to come to court at all. She is to stay at Hatfield Palace, some distance from London, and the king does not recognize her except as his bastard, got on Lady Anne Boleyn; there are those who say she is not even that, but another man’s child. Lady Jane Rochford – who knows everything – showed me a portrait of Elizabeth and pointed to her hair, which is red as coals in a brazier, and smiled as if to say there could be little doubt that this is the king’s child. But King Henry has made it his right to decide which children he shall acknowledge, and Lady Elizabeth will be brought up away from court as a royal bastard and married to a minor nobleman when she is of age. Unless I can speak to him first. Perhaps, when we have been married awhile, perhaps if I can give him a second son, perhaps then he will be kinder to the little girl who needs kindness.

In contrast, the Princess Mary is now allowed to court, though Lady Rochford tells me that she has been out of favor for years, ever since the defiance of her mother. The refusal of Queen Katherine to let Henry go meant that he denied the marriage and denied their child. I have to try not to think the worse of him for this. It was too long ago, and I am not fit to judge. But to visit on a child the coldness earned by the mother seems to me to be cruel. Just so did my brother blame me for the love that my father felt for me. Of course the Princess Mary is a child no longer. She is a young woman and ready for marriage. I think she is in poor health; she has not been well enough to come to court and meet me, though Lady Rochford says that she is well enough but that she is trying to avoid the court because the king has a new betrothal in mind for her.

I cannot blame her for that; she was to be betrothed to my brother William at one time, and then to a Prince of France, and then to a Hapsburg prince. It is natural that her marriage should be a matter of continual debate until she is settled. What is more odd is the fact that no one can ever know what they are getting when they buy her. There is no telling her pedigree, since her father has disowned her once and now recognizes her again, but could disown her again at any time, since nothing has any weight with him but his own opinion, which he says is the will of God.

When I become more of a power and an influence with my lord the king, I shall talk to him about settling the Princess Mary’s position once and for all. It is not fair to her that she should not know whether she is princess or a nothing, and she will never be able to marry any man of any substance while her position is so unreliable. I daresay the king has not thought of it from her point of view. And there has been no one to be an advocate for her. It would surely be the right thing to do, as his wife, to help him see the needs of his daughters, as well as the demands of his own dignity.

Princess Mary is a most determined Papist; and I have been raised in a country that rejects the abuses of Papists and calls for a purer church. We might be enemies over doctrine and yet become friends. More than anything, I want to be a good queen for England, and a good friend to her, and surely, she should understand that. Of all the things that people say of Katherine of Aragon, everyone knows that she was a good queen and a good mother. All I want to do is follow her example; her daughter might even welcome that.

I am summoned to practice a masque, a tableau to open the tournament. The king is going to come in disguised as a knight from the sea, and we are to be waves or fish or something like that in his train and dance for the queen and the court. His composer has the score of the music, and there are to be six of us. I think we represent the muses, but I am not sure. Now I come to think of it, I don’t even know what a muse is. But I hope that it is the sort of thing that has a costume made from very fine silks.

Anne Bassett is another dancer, and Alison, and Jane, Mary, Catherine Carey, and me. Of the six of us probably Anne is the prettiest girl, she has the fairest blond hair and big blue eyes and she has this trick, which I must learn, of looking down and looking up again as if she had heard something most interesting and indecent. If you tell her the price of a yard of buckram, she will look down and back up, as if you have whispered that you love her. Only if someone else is watching, of course. If we are just on our own, she doesn’t bother with it. It does make her most engaging when she is trying hard. After her, I am certain that I am the prettiest girl. She is the daughter of Lord and Lady Lisle and a great favorite of the king’s, who is very much taken with this up-and-down look and has promised to give her a horse, which I think a pretty good fee for doing nothing more than fluttering eyelashes. Truly, there is a fortune to be made at court if you know how.

I enter the room at a run because I am late, and there is the king himself, with three of his greatest friends – Charles Brandon, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and young Thomas Culpepper – standing with the musicians with the score in his hand.

I curtsy very low at once, and I see that Anne Bassett is there, in the forefront, looking very demure, and with her are the four others, preening themselves like a nest of cygnets and hoping to catch the royal eye.

But it is me whom the king smiles to see. He really does. He turns and says, “Ah! My little friend from Rochester.”

Down I go into my curtsy again and up I come tilted forward so that the men can get a good sight of my low neckline and my breasts, and “Your Grace!” I breathe, as if I can hardly speak for lust.

I can see they all enjoy this, and Thomas Culpepper, who has the most dazzling blue eyes, gives me a naughty wink as one Howard kinsman to another.

“Did you really not know me at Rochester, sweetheart?” the king asks. And he comes across the room and puts his finger under my chin and turns my face up to him as if I were a child, which I don’t like much, but I make myself stand still and say: “Truly, sire, I did not. I would know you again, though.”

“How would you know me again?” he says indulgently, like a kind father at Christmas.

Well, this has me stuck because I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say; I was simply being pleasant. I have to say something, but nothing at all comes to mind. So I look up at him as if my head were full of confessions but I dare say nothing, and to my enormous pleasure I can feel a little heat in my cheeks and I know that I am blushing.

I am blushing for nothing but vanity, of course, and the pleasure of being singled out by the king himself in front of that slut Anne Bassett, but also for the discomfort of having nothing to say and not a thought in my head; but he sees the blush and mistakes it for modesty, and he at once tucks my hand in the crook of his arm and leads me away from the others. I keep my eyes down; I don’t even wink back at Master Culpepper.

“Hush, child,” he says very kindly. “Poor sweet child, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Too kind,” is all I manage to murmur. I can see Anne Bassett looking after us as if she would kill me. “I’m so shy.”

“Sweetest child,” he says more warmly.

“It was when you asked me…”

“When I asked you what?”

I take a little breath. If he were not king, I would know better how to play this. But he is the king, and this makes me uncertain. Besides he is a man old enough to be my grandfather, it seems quite indecent to flirt with him. Then I take a little glance upward at him, and I know I am right. He has got that look on his face. The look that so many men have when they look at me. As if they want to just swallow me up, just capture me, and have me in one gulp.

“When you asked me whether I would know you again,” I say in a thin, little-girl voice. “Because I would.”

“How would you?” He bends down to hear me, and I suddenly realize in a rush of excitement that it does not matter that he is king. He is sweet on me like my lady grandmother’s steward. It is exactly the same soft, doting look in his face. I swear I recognize it. I should do; I have seen it often enough. It is that stupid, wet look that old men have when they see me, rather nasty really. It is how old men look at women young enough to be their daughters and imagine themselves to be as young as their sons. It is how old men look when they lust for a woman who is young enough to be their daughter, and they know they should not.

“Because you are so handsome,” I say, looking directly at him, taking the risk and seeing what will happen. “You are the handsomest man at court, Your Grace.”

He stands quite still, almost like a man who suddenly hears beautiful music. Like a man enchanted. “You think I am the handsomest man at court?” he asks incredulously. “Sweet child, I am old enough to be your father.”

Closer to my grandfather if truth be told, but I gaze up at him. “Are you?” I pipe, as if I don’t know that he is near to fifty and I am not yet fifteen. “But I don’t like boys. They always seem so silly.”

“They trouble you?” he demands instantly.

“Oh, no,” I say. “I have nothing at all to do with them. But I would rather walk and talk with a man who knows something of the world. Who can advise me. Someone I can trust.”

“You shall walk and talk with me this very afternoon,” he promises. “And you shall tell me all your little troubles. And if anyone has troubled you, anyone, no matter how great: he shall answer to me for it.”

I sink into a curtsy. I am so close to him that I almost brush his breeches with my bent head. If that doesn’t cause a little stirring, then I shall be very surprised. I look up at him and I smile up at him and I give a tiny little shake of my head as if in wonderment. I think to myself that this really is awfully good. “Such an honor,” I whisper.