In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean - Страница 29

After his initial disappointment the King was expressing a certain delight in the child. I sometimes thought in the years ahead that she had inherited her mother's witchery. She was beautiful and healthy. “Oh God,” I asked in anguish, “why did You not listen to my prayers?” From the beginning she charmed all those who came into contact with her.

It was the cruelest act to make me attend her christening.

There was a letter from my mother which had been smuggled in to me. I was sure that woman and my father would have stopped our correspondence if they knew her letters were reaching me.

She told me that Anne Boleyn had had the effrontery to write to ask her for the special robe which had been used at the christening of that son who had briefly brought her and the King such joy and then almost immediately died.

I remembered my mother's showing me the robe. She had brought it with her from Spain. It was to be worn by her sons at their christening. How ironic that she had been able to use it only once, and then for little purpose. Even I—as a girl—had not worn it. And that woman had dared to ask for it for her daughter!

My mother had refused, amazed that my father had known of his concubine's request and had not stopped it.

My mother wondered whether they would come to her and take it by force; but they did stop at that, and although the young Elizabeth was carried in a gown of purple velvet edged with ermine, it was not the Spanish christening robe.

To me it was like a nightmare. I kept marvelling how they could have been so insensitive as to insist that I take part. It might have been to show the people that my father was not casting me out. I knew a great many rumors were circulating about his treatment of my mother and me and that they disturbed him.

This was a very grand ceremony. The walls between the Palace and Grey Friars were hung with arras, and the path was strewn with fresh green rushes. Elizabeth was carried by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who was her great-grandmother, and the canopy was held by Anne's brother George Boleyn, now Lord Rochford, Lords William and Thomas Howard and Lord Hussey, another of the Boleyn clan recently ennobled.

The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk walked beside the baby.

It was indeed a royal christening.

I was so wretched. Why had they insisted that I be present? At least my mother had escaped this.

Then came the final blow. I felt stunned when Garter-King-at-Arms proclaimed, “God, of His infinite goodness, send a prosperous life and long to the High and Mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth.”

Princess of England! But I was the Princess of England. How could she be so?

I heard the shouts and trumpets through a haze of apprehension. What did this mean? Need I ask myself? I knew. This was the final insult.

WHEN I LOOK BACK over that time, I think it must have been one of the most dangerous of my life. There have been many crises, and my life has been at risk many times, but then I was so young, so inexperienced in the ways of the world, so inadequate to cope with situations in which I found myself; I was so reckless, so lacking in good counsel. Lady Salisbury was not with me at this time and I did not realize then how much I had relied on her. My mother had written warning me, but my natural resentment made me one of my own worst enemies.

I was seventeen years old and had already faced as many dangers in a few short years as most people face in a lifetime.

I know now that there are people in the world who revel in the troubles of others and find excitement in fomenting them. They take a delight in seeing what will happen next. There was I, once Princess of Wales, heir to the throne…and now there was this child who had usurped my place and had been named Princess of England.

How they beguiled me—those people about me—with their gossip. They treated me as an adult. Was it not shocking the way in which Queen Anne behaved with all those men about her? She was never without a bevy of adoring young men. They had seen the looks which passed between them… and looks told a great deal. And the King? He was not so enamored of her as he had once been.

I was too young, too foolish, to restrain myself. Of course I should not have listened. I should not have told them of my hatred for her and how I had prayed that she would die in childbirth… and her child with her.

Lady Salisbury would never have allowed it; my mother would have forbidden it. But I was parted from them; I was alone in a hotbed of treachery, and these gossipers seemed so sympathetic toward me that they lured me into expressing my true feelings.

I did not know that my remarks were recorded and taken back to Anne Boleyn.

I was bewildered and bitterly humiliated. I was the Princess of England, I declared, and foolishly not only to myself. A bastard did not count. The King was still married to my mother and I was born in wedlock.

In due course I was sent back to Beaulieu. At least the Countess was there.

I fell into her arms and sobbed out what had happened.

“They called her the Princess of England!” I sobbed. “What does that mean?”

The Countess was silent. She knew full well what it meant.

But at least I was back with her and I found a certain comfort in going over my experiences while she stroked my hair and soothed me with gentle words, but she could not hide the fear in her eyes.

Sir John and Lady Hussey arrived at Beaulieu. He was to be my Chamberlain, he informed me, and his wife was to join my household.

The Countess was disturbed. She told me that Hussey was one of the King's most trusted servants. I guessed now that he had been sent because of the remarks I had made and which had been reported to Anne Boleyn, who would have convinced my father that I was dangerous. Hence he had sent Hussey to watch over me. He might be suspicious of the Countess—after all she was a Plantagenet, and her son Reginald had openly expressed his feelings about the King's marriage in no uncertain terms.

Hussey had been a long and tried friend to the Tudors; he had fought for my grandfather when he came to the throne and had been made Comptroller of his household. When my father had become King, he had felt the need to win the people's approval by taking revenge on those who had helped his father collect the taxes, and he had executed Dudley and Empson, the hated enforcers of the royal extortion. Hussey had been involved with them, but shrewdly guessing that he would be a good friend, my father pardoned him and granted him land in Lincolnshire. So he had a loyal servant in Hussey. He was quite an old man now, therefore very experienced; and he had been useful to my father during the devious negotiations for the divorce.

My heart sank when he was presented to me as my Chamberlain; and I believe the Countess's did too. She guessed more accurately than I could what this meant. One of Hussey's duties was to tell me the doleful—though not unexpected—news of what the Council's ministers had decided.

Hussey looked uneasy, and I thought I caught a glint of sympathy in his eyes.

“My lady,” he said, “I have received orders.” I felt a twinge of uneasiness as he had not addressed me as Princess. “It is with regret I have to tell you of them.”

“Then tell me,” I said as coolly as I could.

He was holding a piece of paper in his hand. He looked at it and bit his lips. I had not suspected him of such sensitivity.

“The orders are that you are no longer to be addressed as Princess.”

“Why not?”

“It…er…it seems that this is no longer your title.”

I stared at the man. “How can that be? I am the King's daughter.”

“Yes, my lady, but…in view of the fact that the King's marriage to the Princess of Spain was no true marriage, you are no longer entitled to be called Princess. Indeed, my lady, we are forbidden to address you as such.”