“Hannah, I cannot take you back into my service and you are already released from your oath to love me, but I would be glad if you would remember me,” he said quietly.

“I always remember you,” I whispered.

“And put my case before the queen.”

“My lord, I do. She will hear nothing of anyone in the Tower but I will try again. I will never stop trying.”

“And if anything changes between the princess and the queen, if you should chance to meet with our friend John Dee, I should be glad to know of everything.”

I smiled at his touch on my hand, at his words that told me that he was alive and yearning for life again.

“I shall write to you,” I promised him. “I shall tell you everything that I can. I cannot be disloyal to the queen-”

“Nor now to Elizabeth either?” he suggested with a smile.

“She is a wonderful young woman,” I said. “You could not be in her service and not admire her.”

He laughed. “Child, you want to love and be loved so much that you are always on all sides at once.”

I shook my head. “Nobody could blame me. The queen’s servants all love her, and Elizabeth… She is Elizabeth.”

“I’ve known her all her life,” he said. “I taught her to jump with her first pony. She was then a most impressive child, and when she grew older, a little queen in the making.”

“Princess,” I reminded him.

“Princess,” he corrected himself. “Give her my best of wishes, my love and my loyalty. Tell her that if I could have dined with her I would have done.”

I nodded.

“She is her father’s daughter,” he said fondly. “By God, I pity Henry Bedingfield. Once she has recovered from her fright she will lead him a merry dance. He’s not the man to command Elizabeth, not even with the whole council to support him. She will outwit and outman him and he will be driven to distraction.”

“Husband?” Amy rose from her seat at the table.

“My lady?” He let go my hand and stepped back toward her.

“I would be alone with you,” she said simply.

I had a sudden rush of absolute hatred toward her and with it came a momentary vision so dark that I stepped back and hissed, like a cat will suddenly spit at a strange dog.

“What is it?” Lord Robert asked me.

“Nothing,” I said. I shook my head to dispel the picture. It was nothing: nothing I could see clearly, nothing I could tell. It was Amy thrown down, pushed clear away from Robert Dudley, and I knew it was my vision clouded by jealousy and a woman’s spite that gave me a picture of her flung away, pushed into a darkness as black as death. “Nothing,” I said again.

He looked at me quizzically but he did not challenge me. “You had better go,” he said quietly. “Do not forget me, Hannah.”

I nodded, and went to the door. The guard swung it open for me, I bowed to Lady Dudley and she gave me a brief dismissive nod. She was too anxious to be alone with her husband to care for being polite to someone who was little more than a servant.

“Good day to you, your ladyship,” I said, just to force her to speak to me.

I could not make her acknowledge me. She had turned her back to me; as far as she was concerned, I had gone.


Elizabeth’s gloom and fear did not lift until the litter came to the gateway of the Tower and she went out under the dark portcullis into the city of London. Once we were through the city I, and a handful of ladies, rode behind, and the further we went west the more the march turned into a triumphal procession. At the small villages when they heard the rattle of the horses’ bits and the clatter of the hooves, they came running out and skipped and danced along the road, the children crying to be lifted up to see the Protestant princess. At the little town of Windsor, in the very shadow of the queen’s castle, at Eton and then Wycombe, the people poured out of their houses to smile and wave at her, and Elizabeth, who could never resist an audience, had her pillows plumped up so that she could sit up to see and be seen.

They brought her gifts of food and wines and soon we were all laden with cakes and sweetmeats and posies of the roadside flowers. They cut boughs of hawthorn and may and cast them down on the road before her litter. They thrust little nosegays of primroses and daisies toward her. Sir Henry, riding up and down the little train, desperately tried to stop people crowding forward, tried to prevent the calls of love and loyalty, but it was like riding against a rising river. The people adored her, and when he sent soldiers ahead into the village to ban them from coming to their doorways, they leaned out of their windows instead, and called out her name. And Elizabeth, her copper hair brushed down over her shoulders, her pale face flushed, turned to left and right and waved her long-fingered hand and looked – as only Elizabeth could – at one and the same time like a martyr being taken to execution and like a princess rejoicing in the love of her people.

The next day, and the next, word of the princess’s progress spread ahead of us, and they were ringing the bells of the parish church in the villages as we passed through. There was many a priest whose bells pealed out for the Protestant princess who wondered what his bishop would make of it, but there were too many bell ringers to be resisted, and all that Sir Henry could do was order his soldiers to ride closer to the litter and ensure that at least no one attempted a rescue.

All this flattery was meat and drink to Elizabeth. Already her swollen fingers and ankles were returning to their normal size, her face blushed rosy, her eyes came alive, and her wit sharpened. At night she dined and slept in houses where she was welcomed as the heir to the throne, and she laughed and let them entertain her royally. In the day she woke early and was happy enough to travel. The sunshine was like wine to her and her skin soon glowed in the light. She had her hair brushed with hundreds of strokes every morning so that it flowed and crackled around her shoulders, and she wore her hat rakishly to one side with a Tudor green ribbon. Every man at arms had a smile from her, everyone who wished her well had a wave in reply. Elizabeth going through an England ablaze with early summer flowers, even on her way to prison, was in her element.


Woodstock turned out to be a crumbling old palace which had been neglected for years. They had fitted up the gatehouse for Elizabeth in a bodged job that still left draughts howling through the windows and underneath the broken floorboards. It was better than the Tower but she was still undoubtedly a prisoner. At first she was allowed access to only the four rooms of the gatehouse; but then, Elizabeth-like, she extended her parole until she could walk in the gardens, and then into the great orchard.

At first she had to request every piece of paper and pen, one at a time, but as time wore on and she made more and more demands of the harassed Sir Henry she obtained more and more liberties. She insisted on writing to the queen, she demanded the right to appeal to the queen’s council. As the weather warmed, she demanded the right to walk out beyond the grounds.

She became increasingly confident that she would not be assassinated by Sir Henry, and instead of fearing him she became utterly contemptuous of him. He, poor man, just as my lord had predicted, was worn gray and thin by the peremptory demands of the queen’s most disgraced prisoner, the heir to the throne of England.


Then, one day in early summer, a messenger came from London, with a bundle of business for Elizabeth and a letter for me. It was addressed to “Hannah Green, with Lady Elizabeth at the Tower of London,” and it was not a hand that I recognized.


Dear Hannah,


This is to tell you that your father is safely arrived in Calais. We have rented a house and a shop and he is buying and selling books and papers. My mother is keeping house for him and my sisters are working, one at a milliner’s, one for a glover and one as a housekeeper. I am working for a surgeon, which is hard work but he is a skilled man and I am learning much from him.


I am sorry that you did not come with us, and I am sorry that I spoke to you in such a way that did not convince you. You find me abrupt and perhaps demanding. You must remember that I have been the head of my family for some time now and I am accustomed to my sisters and my mother doing as they are bid. You have been the indulged daughter of two parents and are used to having your own way. Your later life gave you dangerous experiences of the world and now you are quite without a master. I understand that you will not do as I command, I understand that you do not see why I should command. It is unmaidenly; but it is the truth of you.


Let me try to be clear with you. I cannot become a cat’s-paw. I cannot do as you desire and set you up as the master of our home. I have to be man and master at my own bed and board and I cannot imagine any other way, and I believe that I should not imagine any other way. God has given me the rule of your sex. It is up to me to apply that rule with compassion and kindness and to protect you from your mistakes and from mine own. But I am ordained to be your master. I cannot hand over the mastery of our family; it is my duty and responsibility, it cannot be yours.


Let me try to make you an offer. I will be a good husband to you. You can ask my sisters – I do not have an ill-kept temper, I am not a man of moods. I have never raised my hand to any of them, I am always kind to them. I can find it in me to be kind to you, far kinder than you imagine at the moment, I think. Indeed, I want to be kind to you, Hannah.


To be brief, I regret that I released you from our betrothal and this letter is to ask you to promise yourself to me once more. I wish to marry you, Hannah.