I do not want to turn you into a cat’s-paw in your own home, you are wrong to fear that and to reproach me with a desire I do not have. I do not want to rule over you, but I do not want you to rule over me. I need to be a woman in my own right, and not only a wife. I know that would not be the view of your mother, and maybe not even the view of my father, but, as you said, I am used to having my own way: this is the woman I have become. I have traveled far and lived according to my own means, and I seem to have adopted a lad’s pride along with breeches. I don’t want to lay aside the pride when I surrender the livery. I hope that your love for me can accommodate the woman that I will grow to be. I would not mislead you in this, Daniel, I cannot be a servant to a husband, I would have to be his friend and comrade. I write to ask you if you could have a wife like this?


I hope this does not distress you, it is so difficult to write these things, but often when we spoke of them we quarreled – so perhaps letters are a way that we may forge an agreement? And I should want to agree with you, if we are to be betrothed it would have to be on terms that we both could trust.


I enclose a letter for my father, he will tell you the rest of my news. I assure you that I am safe and happy at court and if that ever changes I will come to you as I promised. I do not forget that I went from you only to bear the princess company in the Tower. She is now released from the Tower but she is still a prisoner and to tell you the truth, I still feel that I should honor my service to the queen and to the princess and to bear either of them company as I am commanded. Should things change here, should the queen no longer need me, I will come to you. But these are my obligations. I know if I were an ordinary betrothed girl I would have no obligations but to you – but Daniel, I am not a girl like that. I want to complete my service to the queen and then, and only then, come to you. I hope you can understand this.


But I should like to be betrothed to you, if we can agree…


Hannah


I reread the letter and found that even I, the writer, was smiling at its odd mixture of coming forward and then retreating. I could wish to write more clearly, but that would only be possible if I could see more clearly. I folded it up and put it away ready to send to Daniel when the court moved to London in August.


The queen had planned a triumphant entry for her new husband; and the city, always a friend to Mary, and now released from the sight and stench of the gibbets, which had been replaced with triumphal arches, went mad to see her. A Spaniard at her side could never be a popular choice, but to see the queen in her golden gown with her happy smile and to know that at least the deed was done and the country might now settle down to some stability and peace was to please most of the great men of the city. Besides, there were advantages to a match that would open up the Spanish Netherlands to English traders which were very apparent to the rich men who wanted to increase their fortunes.

The queen and her new husband settled into the Palace of Whitehall and started to establish the routines of a joint court.

I was in her chamber early one morning, waiting for her to come to Mass when she emerged in her night gown and knelt in silence before the prie-dieu. Something in her silence told me that she was deeply moved and I knelt behind her, bowed my head, and waited. Jane Dormer came from the queen’s bedroom where she slept when the king was not with his wife and knelt down too, her head bowed. Clearly something very important had happened. After a good half hour of silent prayer, the queen still rapt on her knees, I shuffled cautiously toward Jane and leaned against her shoulder to whisper in a voice so low that it could not disturb the queen. “What’s happening?”

“She’s missed her course,” Jane said, her voice a tiny thread of sound.

“Her course?”

“Her bleeding. She could be with child.”

I felt a lurch in my own belly, like a cold hand laid on the very pit of my stomach. “Could it be so soon?”

“It only takes once,” Jane said crudely. “And God bless them, it has been more than once.”

“And she is with child?” I had foretold it, but I could hardly believe it. And I did not feel the joy I would have expected at the prospect of Mary’s dreams coming true. “Really with child?”

She heard the doubt in my voice and turned a hard gaze on me. “What is it you doubt, fool? My word? Hers? Or d’you think you know something we don’t?”

Jane Dormer only ever called me fool when she was angry with me.

“I doubt no one,” I said quickly. “Please God it is so. And no one could want it more than I.”

Jane shook her head. “No one could want it more than her,” she said, nodding toward the kneeling queen, “for she has prayed for this moment for nearly a year. Truth be told, she has prayed to carry a son for England since she was old enough to pray.”

Autumn 1554

The queen said nothing to the king nor to the court, but Jane watched her with the devotion of a mother and next month, in September, when the queen did not bleed, she gave me a small triumphant nod and I grinned back. The queen told the king in secret, but anyone seeing his redoubled tenderness toward her must have guessed that she was carrying his child, and that it was a great hidden joy to them both.

Their happiness illuminated the palace and for the first time I lived at a royal court that was alive with joy and delight in itself. The king’s train remained as proud and as glamorous as when they had first entered England, the phrase “as proud as a Don” became an every day saying. No one could see the richness of their velvets and the weight of their gold chains and not admire them. When they rode out to hunt they had the very best horses, when they gambled they threw down a small fortune, when they laughed together they made the walls shake and when they danced they showed us the beautiful formal dances of Spain.

The ladies of England flooded to the queen’s service and were all lovesick for the Spanish. They all read Spanish poetry, sang Spanish songs, and learned the new Spanish card games. The court was alive with flirtation and music and dancing and parties and in the heart of it all was the queen, serene and smiling, with her young husband always lovingly at her side. We were the most intellectual, the most elegant, the richest court in the whole of Christendom, and we knew it. With Queen Mary glowing at the head of this radiant court we danced at a very pinnacle of self-satisfied pleasure.

In October the queen was informed that Elizabeth was sick again. She asked me to read Sir Henry Bedingfield’s report to her as she rested on a daybed. Woodstock, and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s many ploys for attention seemed far away as the queen gazed dreamily out of the window at the garden where the trees were turning yellow and golden and bronze. “She can see my doctors if she insists,” she said absently. “Would you go with them, Hannah? And see if she is as bad as she claims? I don’t want to be unkind to her. If she would just admit her part in the plot I would release her, I don’t want to be troubled with this, not now.”

It was as if her own happiness was too great not to be shared.

“But if she was to admit a fault, surely the council or the king would want her to face trial?” I suggested.

Queen Mary shook her head. “She could admit it privately to me, and I would forgive her,” she said. “Her fellow plotters are dead or gone away, there is no plot left for her any more. And I am carrying an heir to the throne, an heir for England and for the whole Spanish empire, this will be the greatest prince the world has ever known. Elizabeth can admit her fault and I will forgive her. And then she should be married; the king has suggested his cousin, the Duke of Savoy. Tell Elizabeth that this time of waiting and suspicion can be at an end, tell her I am with child. Tell her I shall have my baby in early May. Any hopes she had of the throne will be over by next summer. Make sure she understands, Hannah. There has been bad blood between us but it can be over as soon as she consents.”

I nodded.

“Sir Henry writes that she attends Mass as good daughter of the church,” she said. “Tell her I am glad of that.” She paused. “But he tells me that when the time comes in the service to pray for me she never says “amen.” She paused. “What d’you make of such a thing? She never prays for me, Hannah.”

I was silent. If the queen had been speaking in anger I might have tried to defend Elizabeth, and her pride and her independence of spirit. But the queen was not angry. She looked nothing more than wounded.

“You know, I would pray for her, if our places were reversed,” she said. “I remember her in my prayers because she is my sister. You could tell her that I pray for her every day, and I have done ever since I cared for her at Hatfield, because she is my sister and because I try to forgive her for plotting against me, and because I try to prepare myself for her release, and to teach myself to deal with her with charity, to judge her mercifully as I hope to be judged. I pray for her well-being every day of her life; and then I hear she will not say so much as ‘amen’ to a prayer for me!”

“Your Grace, she is a young woman and very alone,” I said quietly. “She has no one to advise her.” To tell the truth I was ashamed of Elizabeth’s stubbornness, and meanness of spirit.

“See if you can teach her some of your wisdom, my fool,” the queen suggested with a smile.

I knelt to her and bowed my head. “I shall miss being with you,” I said honestly. “Especially now that you are so happy.”