“Perhaps,” she said. “We can at least hope.”
It was not until later that I remembered that conversation. Why did she not say, “Yes, until Easter”? She must have sensed that our lives were about to change.
I counted the weeks until Easter, but no invitation arrived from my father. The third great court festival of the year was Whitsuntide, at the end of May, and again I waited, nearly ill with impatience. I was not permitted to write to my father, begging for an invitation, but I bombarded my mother with letters, entreating her to send for me. Her replies were warm and loving, as always, but she did not answer my questions: why was I not called to court? When will I see you again?
Instead of being called to court, I received a summons from the king to come to Bridewell for yet another ceremony. This time it was not the Princess of Wales who would be the focus of all eyes, but my half-brother, Henry Fitzroy. At this ceremony King Henry intended to invest Fitzroy, his illegitimate son, with a string of royal titles: Duke of Somerset, Lord High Admiral, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Warden of the Marches, Duke of Richmond.
It would have done no good to complain. And I was thrilled at the chance to be with my mother. But when we finally reached Bridewell, I found Queen Catherine in no mood for idle chatter. She was furious.
“Not only will Fitzroy receive all of these titles but he is to have a household even greater than yours, Mary” she fumed when we had a moment to ourselves before the ceremony began. She turned to Salisbury. “Imagine a six-year-old bastard outranking a princess!” she kissed. Then she whispered angrily to me, “Clearly you are no longer the king’s choice to inherit the throne. He intends to put his bastard son in your rightful place. The people will not stand for it, nor will I.”
Throughout the long, tedious ceremony I had a chance to observe my rival, a pretty boy with golden curls, swathed in ermine and weighed down with jewels. He looked thoroughly miserable, and I felt a little sorry for him. But only a little! The last trumpet fanfares had scarcely died away when my mother swept off to make her protest to the king. I waited fearfully outside the privy chamber. My father stormed out, rushing past me without seeing me, his face blood red and his eyes shrunken to pinpoints of rage. When he was gone, I tiptoed to my mother’s side.
“It is no use,” the queen said, slumped wearily in her chair. “He will not listen. And now to punish me, he has informed me that he’s taking away my three most cherished ladies-in-waiting and sending them back to Spain. I shall be so alone!”
That was the first time I had known my father to rebuke my mother, and it frightened me deeply.
I did not know it then, but Anne Boleyn’s poison had already begun its deadly work. Nor did I know then that I would not see my father or my mother for nearly a year. By the time of my betrothal to King Francis, Anne’s poison was eating at my father’s soul.
Following my betrothal to Francis, I was relieved, for the first time, to leave my father and return to Ludlow. But suddenly there was another change of domicile. My father did not even bother to write; Wolsey sent the message that I was to move to Richmond Palace. I did not understand why. Nevertheless, I was glad.
Richmond was quite beautiful, with a great tower and fourteen slim turrets, dozens of state apartments, and two chapels royal. It was surrounded by vast acres of forestland and deer parks. Best of all, Richmond was close to London, only a few hours’ journey by barge upriver from Greenwich.
I settled in quickly at Richmond. One early summer evening soon after I arrived there, I set out to explore the grounds with my favourite attendant, Lady Susan. Only with Susan, of all my ladies, did I feel the stirrings of true friendship. Susan, with her halo of flame-red hair, was clever and adventurous. She was the daughter of the duke of Norfolk, one of my father’s closest advisers. But there was something more: Susan was the cousin of Anne Boleyn. For the past two months, ever since the masque, I had thought often of the way my father had looked at Lady Anne as we danced. Their image sent a shiver of danger through me. And though I felt drawn to Susan, something told me not to ask her about this dramatic cousin — at least, not yet.
As Susan and I walked, we came upon a tall, thin lad who carried a small living thing cupped in his hands. I told him to show me what he had. He opened his hands carefully to reveal a hawk, newly hatched and quaking with fright.
“Who are you?” I asked the lad.
“Peter Cheseman,” he said. “My father is assistant to the royal falconer” he added, a note of pride in his voice.
“And that bird you hold?” I asked. “Has it a name as well.?”
“No, madam. It’s no good, this one,” he explained. “See, she is injured. My father says it is worthless to try to train her. But I mean to prove him wrong.”
“And so you shall,” I told him boldly, although I had not the least idea how a lowborn boy like Peter had any better chance than I, a princess, did of proving a father wrong.
Lady Susan took a particular interest in the injured bird, and thereafter she and I found excuses to visit it as often as I could escape from Master Vives and my studies. One day we arrived to discover Peter in a state of distress.
“Cat got her” he blurted out. “My fault altogether.”
“It was not your fault, Peter!” Lady Susan insisted. “I’m sure you did all you could. Had it not been for the cat, I’m sure your effort would have made her a fine hunter!”
Peter looked at Susan gratefully, and I wished that I had been the one to offer him such reassurance.
Towards the end of summer the hawks finished their moult, new feathers replacing the old ones, and became active hunters again. Nearly every day when my lessons were finished, I began going out with Lady Susan to the mews where the hawks were kept. We watched as Peter and his father trained peregrine falcons, kestrels, and merlins in the hunting of birds and small game.
One afternoon we found Peter in the weathering yard, coaxing a young hawk to fly from its perch to his fist. When finally the bird spread its wings and glided to Peters gloved fist, clutching it with its curved talons, Peter rewarded the bird with a titbit of meat.
“Soon this one will be ready to fly in the open,” he said. Peter smiled — a lovely smile, I thought. “And then she’ll be ready to hunt.”
Peter explained the lessons that the bird must learn: first, to sit by its captured prey but not devour it; once that has been mastered, to fly with its kill to the falconer’s fist. “No one needs to teach her to hunt — that she’s born knowing,” he said, tenderly stroking the hawk’s feathers. “Teaching her to trust you, there’s the hard part,” Peter said. “It’s no good teaching her to kill for you if she goes off with her quarry and sits in a tree somewhere.”
I left the yard and hurried directly to Salisbury. “I wish to study the art of falconry,” I announced. I argued that my father hunted with falcons and that my mother, too, used to ride out with the king, a merlin perched upon her gloved fist. Salisbury wrote to Queen Catherine, who sent her approval with a gift of silver bells to be attached to the bird’s leg and a soft leather hood to cover the bird when it was being carried to the hunt. When the gifts arrived, I rushed to the mews to show the bells and hood to Peter.
“Now,” he said, “we must find you a hawk, and you’ll learn together.”