She had a generous heart and was kind to everyone, even Elizabeth. Treading with great delicacy and care, she engineered Elizabeth’s return to court and had her too-short-even-with-the-hems-turned-down bursting-at-the-seams gowns and pinching, parchment-thin-soled shoes replaced. What fun we had dressing her, each of us pretending that our deeply cherished dream of motherhood had come true and she was our very own little girl to clothe and choose pretty things for.
When I thanked Queen Jane for her kindness, she said to me: “Verily, I could not do otherwise. When I look at her I think if I had a daughter and some misfortune were to befall me, and I could not be there to see her grow up, I would hope that my successor, whoever she was, would be kind to her. There but for the grace of God, My Lady Mary, there but for the grace . . .”
When she was with child and craving cucumbers and quails, Father took care of the birds, sending as far away as Calais for them, while I sent her baskets brimming with cucumbers from my own country gardens.
I wept an ocean when she died. Even though her death gave Father his most heartfelt desire—a son, my brother, Edward—I still keenly felt her loss. Because of her kind heart, I was a princess again in all but name.
Other wives followed, but none stayed very long. And in between queens I was the first lady of the land, privileged to sit at Father’s side, presiding over the court, with everyone bowing, smiling, and deferring to me, and there was even occasionally talk that a marriage might be arranged for me, but, alas, nothing ever came of that.
After Jane Seymour came the Lady Anne of Cleves, a German Protestant princess, a heretic, but a merry soul with a heart of gold. One could not help liking her, even though the cleanliness and odors of her person and the dowdiness of her clothes left much to be desired. But Father could not stomach to lie with her and she obligingly, no doubt fearing the headsman’s ax if she did not graciously acquiesce, exchanged the role of queen for that of adopted sister and a substantial income that would allow her to lead the life of an independent lady of means.
And after Anne came the one people chuckled behind their hands about and called “the old man’s folly,” pert and wanton Katherine Howard with only fifteen years to Father’s fifty. I felt so embarrassed for him! I marveled that he could not see how she demeaned his majesty. She made him the butt of jests and remarks that ran the gamut from pitying to lewd. She meant to be kind, I am sure, but she could not curb her exuberance; she did not understand that being a queen meant one must comport oneself with dignity. Though I was some years older than she, and to call her my stepmother felt supremely awkward, she tried to befriend me, being overfamiliar as though she were my own sister, one with whom I had grown up in close intimacy, sharing everything. She would brazenly and openly discuss the most intimate things with no regard for modesty or propriety.
She could not believe that I had reached the ripe old age of twenty-four without ever having had a sweetheart, and would prod me incessantly, over and over again, asking incredulously, “You mean you never had a sweetheart, never?” And when I answered, alas, God had not so deemed to bless me, she embraced me and bemoaned the tragedy of my fate, then, blinking away her tears and tossing back her auburn curls, determinedly said we must do something to remedy it.
She arranged a masque for my birthday wherein a number of particularly handsome young men, whom she had chosen herself, were costumed as various flowers, dressed in shimmering satins and silks of the proper colors festooned with lace and embroideries and intricate silk renditions of the blooms they had been chosen to represent.
“We need a little springtime even in the chill of February!” the hoydenish young queen declared as she whooped and kicked up her heels and bade this garden of living posies to encircle and dance around me.
I remember there was a graceful pink gillyflower, a deep red rose who was rather bold, a haughty regal violet, a jaunty daffodil, a bluebell whose costume was cunningly devised to include tiny tinkling bells, a marigold whose tawny locks brought back memories of my youth, a flamboyant heart’s ease pansy, a perky pink, a bashful buttercup, a profusely blossoming lavender, a rather indecent goldenrod who brushed me from behind to draw my attention to the prominent golden bloom sprouting from his loins, and a demure—by comparison to the rest—daisy. As they danced around me they each offered me silken flowers taken from their attire and sang, “Choose me, pretty maiden, do!”
Roses of vivid pink embarrassment bloomed in my cheeks and I desired nothing more than to break the dancing ring moving around me and escape to the privacy of my bedchamber. I disliked being the center of such attentions, and there was a nagging suspicion at the heart of me that they were mocking and making cruel sport of me, the pathetic Lady Mary who was no longer young and had never been pretty like the Queen. Katherine crept up behind me and tied a kerchief over my eyes and spun me round and round until I staggered dizzily and feared I might disgrace myself by being sick, then gave me a shove into the arms of the nearest gentleman.
“Ah, heart’s ease, that brings back memories, does it not, my dear Derham?” she teasingly addressed the vividly costumed gentleman who held me in his arms and had just removed my blindfold so I could see him smiling down at me with a set of very fine, even white teeth.
She drew me aside for a moment before we paired off for dancing and whispered wicked but kindly meant words in my ear, telling me that if I were so minded to meddle with a man, she knew of ways to prevent conception. I was appalled that she would speak of such, and even more so that she would possess such knowledge, and with flaming cheeks I pulled away from her and fled, forsaking the chance to dance with Master Derham.
Time would later disclose that, despite her youth, Katherine Howard had been a rather enthusiastic gardener herself, and that of the bevy of handsome fellows who had danced around me that night, two of them were known to have been her lovers. Francis Derham was purposefully costumed as heart’s ease as a reminder of a silken flower he had once given his common-law wife—the Queen—a fact unbeknownst to Father, who called that wanton little guttersnipe his “Rose Without a Thorn.” And even at that time she was dallying with the daffodil—Thomas Culpepper, Father’s favorite bodyservant, who so tenderly ministered to his poor, sore and ulcerated legs.
She gave me a gold pomander ball studded with turquoises and rubies for my birthday, but I made a point of losing it. I wanted nothing from that foolish girl and hoped that perhaps some poor soul might find it and benefit from the sale of so costly a bauble.
It was only a matter of time before the truth came out and she died on the scaffold for her sins and Father was plunged into a deep, dark depression from which I feared he would never emerge.
But emerge he did, to take a sixth and final wife, the one who would nurse and care for him for the remainder of his life. He began and ended his married life with a Katherine. Both Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr were kind, clever, strong, and capable women. And though I liked her well, and she did much for my sister and me, seeing that Elizabeth received a formidable education every bit as good as that given to our brother, and persuading Father to reinstate us in the succession so we could both be called “Princess” again, still I mistrusted Kate on account of her Reformist beliefs. Though she kept it discreetly veiled, she was in truth a Protestant, a heretic, and encouraged my brother and sister to follow this path, which would lead them away from the true religion.
This made me both fearful and sad. I wanted to right the wrongs Father had wrought at The Great Whore’s instigation. I wanted to go back in time to a place of greater safety, to the tranquility and traditions of my childhood, and the indescribably blissful feeling of rightness and a well-ordered world. I remembered the