Royal Inheritance (33 page)

The strain was terrible during the months that followed. I did not sleep through a single night in all that time. I had no way of knowing what the queen would decide to do with Princess Elizabeth or with Jack. If my husband was charged with treason, all he owned, including everything I had brought to our marriage, would be forfeited to the Crown. Hester and I would be destitute.

Another fear haunted me, too. The queen, for all she wanted to believe that the Lady Elizabeth was not her sister at all, could not deceive herself forever. Elizabeth’s resemblance to King Henry—a resemblance I shared—was too pronounced. If Elizabeth was a threat to the throne, then so was I. In Mary’s mind, we were both the king’s bastards.

In January, Jack came home to us. He had spent more than eleven months a prisoner, a shorter incarceration than the last time, but not by much. It had been more than eight months since I’d seen him last. He was thinner, and more somber. He swore to me that he was a changed man.

“We will build a new life for ourselves,” he promised. “You and I and Hester will rusticate here in Somerset, far from the royal court, free of intrigue and in no danger.”

The year of our Lord fifteen hundred and fifty-five, spent at Kelston and Catherine’s Court, was the happiest of my entire life.

I
went to stand beside Jack as he stared up at the night sky. The comet was there again, as it had been all week. It looked like a star with the long tail and many people were frightened by it.

“Is it an omen?” I asked.

“Some believe comets foreshadow future events, but whether those events are good or evil, who can tell?” Then he laughed.

“What amuses you?”

“If this comet augurs well for the future, then perhaps it is time I returned to London.”

“If you think you can ingratiate yourself to Queen Mary, you are much mistaken. She will be too suspicious of your motives to allow you anywhere near her.”

Even in Somerset we’d heard rumors of yet another plot against the queen. I imagined Her Grace’s councilors would look askance at anyone new arrived at court, especially someone like Jack, who had twice before been arrested because he’d had ties to enemies of
the Crown. That nothing had ever been proven against him would matter little.

He followed my thoughts without difficulty and answered the question I had not dared ask. “I have had no dealings with any conspirators, nor do I have seditious books or papers in my possession.”

Failure to conform to the teachings of the Church of Rome was as dangerous in Queen Mary’s England as fomenting rebellion. Those who clung to the church King Henry had established soon found themselves in gaol. If they would not recant, they were burned at the stake for heretics. Many people had fled into exile, vowing to remain abroad until Elizabeth succeeded to the throne.

So long as the queen and her Spanish husband did not produce a child of their own, Mary’s half sister remained her heir. Our hope that Elizabeth Tudor would eventually reign, restoring the New Religion to England, was one of several things about which Jack and I were in perfect agreement. Our opinions on other matters diverged. I opposed his return to Stepney.

“Why go there when you have no hope of being given a place at court?” I asked.

“But to be seen to hover on the fringes, supporting the queen,” he argued, “can do me no harm. And to have you and Hester with me in Stepney would provide most excellent proof of my sincerity.”

“And when you are not at court?” I was beginning to have a bad feeling about this. “Will you stay with us there?”

He grinned unrepentantly at me. “Part of the time. Then again, it is but a short ride to Hatfield.” Princess Elizabeth, after a long incarceration at Woodstock, had been allowed to return to her own house.

“Hatfield is at least twenty miles from Stepney.”

“I can ride that distance in one day.”

“To see the princess? Or is that just an excuse to visit your muse?”

“But that’s the beauty of it!” he exclaimed. “To all those who
have read my poetry, it will seem that I go there to see Mistress Markham. No one will suspect that I carry messages of support to Elizabeth Tudor.”

The smug satisfaction in his voice made me want to strike him.

“How many people do you suppose have read your poems, since they have never been published?”

“Rumor is enough to carry out the ruse. The ruse of the muse.” He chuckled, delighted with his own cleverness.

“Rumor will not call her your muse, Jack. Everyone will think you have abandoned me for your mistress.”

His smile turned to a frown. “I will remind them of Surrey and Fair Geraldine.” At my blank look, he laughed again. “Have you never read the poem the earl wrote to Elizabeth Fitzgerald? She was a child at the time. He felt sorry for her, alone at court and blighted by her Irish father’s treason. The verses singing her praises were intended to remind men of her noble heritage and help her to a good marriage.”

“So you wrote poetry to Mistress Markham only to help her find a husband?” The words were so sweetly said that honey should have dripped from my lips.

Jack lapped them up. “I wish her well, as I do all of the ladies who serve the princess or have served her in the past.”

I knew better. As they had in the Tower, his features softened whenever he spoke of Isabella Markham. She was more than a muse to him. More than a young woman he sought to help to a marriage with someone else. He desired her. If he had not committed adultery in the flesh, he had most assuredly sinned in his thoughts about her.

It is always better to face the truth than to deceive one’s self, even when the truth is so painful that it hurts to take the next breath.

We left for Stepney within the fortnight.

I
t was some five months later that the summer fevers came. I fell ill, so ill that I feared I would die. To be so near to death forced me to think about my life and whether I would have done anything differently. I decided that I would not, but as I began to recover, it worried me that my daughter lived in total ignorance of her connection to the royal family, even more so than I had for so many years.

Ignorance is never wise.

I had no desire to claim a royal inheritance. It was far too dangerous. I wanted to be John Malte’s bastard rather than the king’s and I had fought to back that claim with legal documents. But since both Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth knew the truth, I no longer believed I could protect my daughter by keeping her uninformed.

I quarreled with Jack about telling her my story. He forbade it. That ended the discussion for a time. I felt too weak to argue further. But as the weeks passed and I did not regain my former good health, my sense of urgency grew stronger. When fortune presented me with an opportunity, I took it, and so began my tale.

T
here was silence in the hall. The portraits on the walls looked down on Hester Harington and her mother, seated side by side on a padded settle before the hearth. Audrey had her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, holding her close.

She had told Hester everything now, Audrey thought, all except the reason they were presently rusticating in Somerset. Her daughter appeared to be mulling over what she’d learned. Physically spent, mentally exhausted, Audrey could not think of anything more to say. Had she convinced Hester to keep silent about her royal blood? The girl was so young. Did she truly understand the danger?

A voice spoke from behind them. “It is very late. You both should be in bed.”

Hester abruptly disentangled herself and ran to greet her father. Jack hugged her tightly in return, then gave her a little push in the direction of her bedchamber. She made a face, but she went.

“I wish she would obey me as readily as she does you,” Audrey murmured.

Jack said nothing.

“I’ve told her everything. It will be up to you to guide what she does with that knowledge.”

He frowned. “What do you mean? You are her mother.”

Audrey rose slowly, attempting to compensate for the dizziness she knew would come. The spells did not pass as quickly as they once had. By the time she felt steady enough to take a step, Jack was at her side, his face ashen.

“There are learned physicians in London. We could return there.”

“My fate is in God’s hands. Have we not been taught that, Jack, by both the New Religion and the old?”

In his face she saw the confirmation of her fears. She had never fully recovered from the fevers of the summer just past. She grew weaker with each passing day, not stronger. She might have weeks left, perhaps even months, but her days were numbered.

Jack helped her from the hall. Slowly, they made their way toward Hester’s chamber. By the time they reached her bedside, she was already soundly sleeping, one hand curled under her cheek.

Audrey smiled. She had finished what she’d set out to do. For better or worse, with or without her mother’s presence, Hester would not have to go searching for the truth. She knew what her royal inheritance was and she knew why it was better to make no claim to it.

A glance at her husband reassured Audrey. That Jack would remarry when she was gone seemed certain. No doubt he’d wed his muse. But his feelings for Hester would never change. As they stood together, looking down at the sleeping child, his eyes were full of his love for their daughter.

Although this is a work of fiction, all the characters except Edith, Mistress Yerdeley, and Dionysus Petre the dancing master are based on real people. You will find mini-biographies of some of them in the next section. These may also contain spoilers.

Many of the things Audrey experiences really happened, although she may not have been present when they did. We do not know exactly when she died or where, but there was an outbreak of fever in the summer of 1556 and many who were ill then but survived were carried off by a second outbreak that took place during the winter of 1556–57.

The names Audrey and Hester may strike readers as unusual for the times. Audrey was a nickname for Ethelreda (don’t ask me how, but I’m told there is a linguistic explanation). Many girls were named after this English saint who lived in East Anglia from 630 to 679. It has been suggested that Audrey was named for her because she was born on St. Ethelreda’s Day, June 23. As for Hester, I think it likely that something happened circa 1548 to call attention to Queen Esther’s story in the Bible, perhaps the publication of a popular version of the tale. In addition to Hester Harington, there were at least two other Hesters born at about that same time, Hester Saltonstall and Hester Pinckney.

The glove or pocket beagle is a real breed and King Henry is known to have kept a pack of them for hunting.

Audrey’s mother is said to have been a laundress at Windsor Castle. I didn’t want to include an information dump in the novel, but for those who are interested in what the life of a laundress was like, what follows is a description of how you’d get your linens clean in the sixteenth century. The process would start on a Saturday by soaking the laundry in a thick green mixture of water and summer sheep’s dung. This took three days. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, each item had to be dipped repeatedly in the river. After the last rinsing, it was beaten out and left to soak until Thursday morning, when it was finally allowed to dry. On Friday the laundress put everything into a buck tub. This sat up on a stool with an underbuck beneath it for the lye to drain into. A laundress would spread a buck sheet over the linen and then spread a thin paste of dog’s mercury, mallow, and wormwood over the sheet. Finally, she’d pour strong, boiling lye over the whole thing, cover it up, and leave it to stand overnight. In the morning, she’d take the linens out and spread them on the grass and water them all morning. This business with the buck sheet and the lye and the watering would be repeated twice more before the laundry was dropped into a vat of lye and urine and soaked to bleach it. Then, on Monday morning, each piece would be laid out and watered. This process was repeated daily until the laundry was considered to be white enough. Sometimes that required another week or more.

As for Princess Elizabeth’s incarceration in the Tower of London, my account contradicts some popular beliefs about her stay there. I’ve relied for details on the information in David Starkey’s 2001 biography,
Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne,
which points out several factual errors in earlier accounts.

ANTHONY DENNY

Anthony Denny was one of King Henry VIII’s most trusted servants throughout the period of this novel. He was a yeoman of the wardrobe by 1536, as well as a groom of the privy chamber. In 1539 he became chief gentleman of the privy chamber and deputy groom of the stool. He was knighted in 1544. In October 1546 he was named groom of the stool and was also keeper of the “dry stamp” with the king’s signature. In other words, he could authorize documents in the king’s name. This made him a very powerful figure at court, despite the fact that he was not a nobleman. His wife was a lady-in-waiting to all six of Henry VIII’s queens. He died in 1549.

JOANNA DINGLEY

Nothing is known about Joanna Dingley or Dyngley other than that she was said to have been a royal laundress. Her natural or
“base” daughter, Audrey Malte, was raised as the child of John Malte, Henry VIII’s tailor, but was later said to have been the king’s child. Joanna was married to a Mr. Dobson by the time Malte made his will on September 10, 1546. It refers to her as “Joane Dingley, now wife of one Dobson” and as “Joane Dyngley, otherwise Joane Dobson.” He left her twenty pounds. Joanna does not seem to have played any part in her daughter’s life and the identity of Mr. Dobson remains elusive.

EDWARD VI

Not yet ten years old when he became king, he was a devout follower of the New Religion and favored his Protestant half sister Elizabeth over his Catholic half sister Mary. Modern scholars seem to agree that it was Edward’s own idea to pass over both Elizabeth and Mary in favor of making his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, his heir. He died in 1553.