Chapter Text
September 1533
Earlier that year, on the eve of Eastertide, her father had done the unthinkable and flaunted his mistress as his wife before his court for the first. King Henry the Eighth had borne the harlot into the Chapel Royal on his own arm – adorned in cloth of gold and dripping with precious jewels, attended by a staggering train of sixty women – and the stunned priests had stammered to instruct the congregation to pray for the health and majesty of Queen Anne, rather than Queen Katherine as they had done at every service for the last twenty years. Immediately following Whitsun, Princess Mary Tudor had been ordered to remove from her lodgings at Ludlow Castle in the Welsh marches for the Palace of Beaulieu, instead.
In his letter instructing her relocation, her father had boasted of a time of glorious renewal for England, all in the spirit of the Easter season – as if the gross sin of his bigamous marriage was something to be rejoiced over, the same as the resurrection of Christ their Savior. Although Mary had been swimming in the now familiar depths of shock and betrayal (and rage, more rage than her bones could possibly hold), she'd hastened to obey without question. She had even attempted to regard the move as a blessing in disguise – for her new seat in Hampshire would put her closer to her father’s summer progresses, where she hoped that he would visit. It had been two years since she had seen him last (just before her mother’s banishment from court), and, despite everything that now stood between them, she longed for his presence. Yet, only later did dread pool in her stomach to learn that Anne Boleyn was not merely bound to her father in a farce of holy matrimony, but also heavy with his child . . .
. . . and the king no longer saw a need for his firstborn and heir to reside in Wales, as was tradition, when he was now expecting, at long last, to have a son of his own to carry on his name and rule.
Ultimately, Mary stayed in Beaulieu through the end of July – upon which, the stately old property was gifted to George Boleyn. The harlot’s brother had expressed his desire for immediate habitation, and Mary was once again commanded to move her own household in order to accommodate one of them – this time, to the much smaller estate of Hunsdon, in Hertfordshire.
And there, she waited.
Mary did very little that month of August but pray. Her studies had been terminated with the dismissal of her tutors (her lessons in the art of governing had concluded far earlier, upon her dismissal from Wales), and she did not have a disposition that submitted easily to recreation. She was far too restless for music, even though her mother would be dismayed to learn that she was neglecting her practice. Nor could she hold her hand still enough for embroidery, despite her most strident efforts to bring her traitorously errant body underneath the higher command of her mind. She failed, time and time again.
Ultimately, her restlessness drove her out of doors more often than not. She spent a great deal of time walking in the parkland – either with her governess, the Countess of Salisbury, faithfully by her side, or with her ladies trailing behind and leaving her to the solitude of her thoughts. She prayed as often within the cathedral of nature as she did on her knees in the chapel, begging God to hear the supplications of his most miserable servant and extend mercy towards both herself and her mother the true queen.
In many ways, Mary found her prayers answered when the Pope finally decided upon her father’s Great Matter and declared Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon lawful and valid. In that same bull, the Pope condemned her father’s iniquitous marriage to Anne Boleyn and warned that any children born of their immoral union would be base-born – bastards. Yet if Mary thought that long-desired verdict would return her father to her mother’s side – and see herself restored to his good favor – then she was to be sorely mistaken once more.
When would she learn that Henry the Eighth was not one to be so easily moved – not even by the representative of God’s divine will here on Earth? He would declare himself Head of the Church of England, and thus sovereign over his realm in all matters temporal and spiritual. He had broken from the See of Rome with all temerity, and the pride in his heart would never allow him to mend that schism. There would be no turning back from his course, for better or worse, so help him God.
In Katherine’s last letter before communication turned forbidden to them, she had beseeched her to pray for her father’s soul – and oh, how she did. Mary followed her beloved mother’s example in all things. Katherine still held that she alone was the anointed Queen of England and Henry’s one true wife. She would be immovable before the concubine who thought to supplant her; she would never call herself the Dowager Princess of Wales, as Henry had declared she should hence be known; nor would she ever accept the supposed illegitimacy of her daughter.
Mary was resolved to be equally steadfast – no matter how she’d inwardly reeled to hear her newly decreed bastard status given voice. She had trembled to read the letter where her father had addressed her as Lady Mary for the first, rather than Princess (it had been far longer still since he’d opened his letters to my most beloved daughter) – even if he’d left breaking the actual news of her humiliating abasement to his lords.
The Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard – Anne Boleyn’s uncle, and a truly deplorable man in his own right – had taken a particular pleasure in that role, and the satisfaction in his eyes had only deepened when Mary stood her ground and refused to concede to her diminution by any degree.
She was and would ever be Henry’s sole legitimate daughter. That truth could not just disappear because her father suddenly found it (found her) inconvenient. The tongues of faithless men could lash with their empty words, but they were just that: nonsense and noise. No matter how the storm raged, the toothless wind could never force the mountain to bow.
And Mary was determined to be that mountain.
Now, it was the eighth of September, and Mary found her prayers answered once more – ever incrementally, by degrees, but answered nonetheless.
“I am told that the lady” – the Imperial Ambassador reserved the honorable address of Her Majesty for one woman, and that woman most certainly was not Anne Boleyn – “is much dismayed at giving birth to a daughter, rather than the son she promised.”
Mary struggled to constrain the smile that threatened to break across her face. Though she sat alone with the ambassador at the withdrawing room’s central table, her ladies were nonetheless present, and only ostensibly immersed in their own pursuits. While she had every confidence in the discretion of her governess, who sat closest to her, she could not say the same of her maids. Before the day was through, at least one of them would be relaying her every word to her father, and perhaps even to Anne herself – to say nothing of anyone else who may have had the interest and the coin to spy on the former heir to the throne.
No, the current heir, she reminded herself – or, at least, the one true heir.
. . . such as this child Elizabeth could never be.
But oh, how she was overjoyed to learn the sex of the babe. God had vindicated her mother and made a fool of her father. The king had torn his entire realm upside down in order to put aside his wife and marry his whore, all in the hopes of at last having a son to succeed his rule – only to have those hopes bitterly disappointed.
It was, Mary could not help but think, justice – at long last!
“If the lady can kindly be called . . . dismayed,” Chapuys continued, his own eyes smiling where his mouth could not, “then your father the king is perhaps even more so.”
Mary was not the only one conscious of their audience; Chapuys was equally aware. Yet he was determined to impart to her the necessary intelligence from the court she was barred from attending. She was thankful, as ever, for his constancy in persevering on her behalf. His visits had turned fewer and farther between since her removal from Wales – which was her father’s doing, Mary knew, to punish her obstinacy in supporting her mother – and she wondered how he’d cajoled the king in order to earn permission for this particular visit. While Chapuys traded on the care and filial concern borne by his master – Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor – for his young cousin, Henry’s forbearance was ever limited, and his tolerance for their relationship capricious, at best.
Yet, for the last two years, Eustace Chapuys had been her tether to a world that, in large part, preferred to deny her very existence. Ever faithfully, he’d remained her touchstone through the trials and tribulations that buffeted her like sea swells in a gale. He was her confidant and champion and friend – her truest friend – and she thanked God daily for the gift of him.
And, perhaps most importantly, he was her last remaining link to . . .
“How is my mother?” Mary switched from English to the relative privacy of Castilian to inquire. “The queen?” she added in a hush – entirely for the comfort of saying the words aloud to someone who shared her love of and devotion to Katherine of Aragon just as fiercely.
“Alas, but I have been unable to move the king in regards to Her Majesty.” The language of the Spanish court was Chapuys' third tongue, and he spoke it with a unique Savoyard accent that was neither French nor Italian nor Swiss, but somehow all three at once. She could have happily lost herself in the summer’s warmth of his tenor – had it not been for the cold disappointment his words inspired.
Chapuys continued, “My requests to visit her new residence at Buckden have been denied, and,” he hesitated, but judged the risk acceptable to whisper, “my communications with her ladies – such as she has left to attend her – are now . . . intermittent, at best.”
Mary swallowed, and felt as if she did so around a stone. Her eyes burned, but she kept her tears from falling through a steely force of will. She would not give the spies around her the pleasure of reporting any such victory to the harlot – she refused.
Yet Chapuys noticed her struggles, even so – how could he not? His grey-blue eyes – the color of an ocean at rest – warmed, and his voice gentled to a soothing balm. “Yet they tell me she is still strong. No matter the ignominies she is forced to endure, she bears them all with the patience of a saint and the grace of a . . . well, of a queen. For that, she shall always be.”
Mary could only nod. She did not trust her composure to hold if she dared speak aloud.
“The lady” – Chapuys’ expression flickered, quick as a blinking, and Mary felt his revilement catch in her own spirit the same as like recognizing like – “made demand of your mother to surrender the christening gown and cloth she brought with her from Spain. Boleyn wished for those articles to anoint her own child, yet your mother held fast. She declared that she would rather be torn apart by dogs than hand over a treasure so dear to her heart. In the end, your father would not push her compliance – or, more truly, he could not. After all, he no longer has any legal right to her property, since she was supposedly never his wife to begin with.”
For Chapuys’ satisfied expression, Mary knew who had made that particular argument on her mother’s behalf, and she felt a heady glow of vindication light from deep within her. She couldn’t help but reel for the audacity of Anne’s presumption. She herself had worn that gown as a babe, just the same as her elder brother had – her mother’s lost little Henry, who, if he had lived . . .
Yet she breathed through the pain of that particular what if – and then felt it lift completely when Chapuys added, “The lady was quite perturbed for your mother’s refusal. One could hear her . . . outburst of choler all the way in the great hall. You see? Your mother still has the strength to fight. I know that she would encourage you towards the same, if she could.”
It was a comfort to Mary then, knowing of the letter that Chapuys’ man had already passed to Lady Salisbury – smuggled out from Buckden’s imprisoning walls. She all but itched to retire to the privacy of her rooms, where she could read her mother’s words, written in her own hand . . . and there alone would she finally allow herself to weep.
Then, she would pray.
But, until then: “I feel her with me as a constant presence,” Mary managed to give her most dearly held sentiments a voice. “She is here to encourage me even now – just as she ever shall be.”
“That, I am sure, will bring her great comfort to hear.”
Chapuys spoke as if it were only a matter of time before he would be permitted to visit Katherine on behalf of the emperor, and Mary clung to his belief as her own. Someday – and someday soon – she herself would be reunited with her mother once more. She had to be. Her father could not be so cruel as to keep them sundered indefinitely. Eventually, he would break free from the spell that witch had woven about him and remember the great love he had once borne his true wife . . . and the love he yet held for his daughter.
Mary cleaved to that hope. She would lose herself completely if she gave into the despair of thinking their parting absolute, and that, she refused to do.
“I pray daily for the king’s will to soften on this matter,” she said in a small voice. “For I think . . . nay, I believe with all my heart that my father still loves me.”
Chapuys’ smile did not lose its kindness, yet she thought that it faded, ever so slightly; it no longer wholly reached his eyes. A long moment passed, before: “I am sure he does, Princess.”
Then, on the subject they said no more.
.
.
The months of autumn gave way to winter, until, in the third week of December, she was paid a visit by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Mary received the lords with the same aloof imperiousness she remembered her mother once using to confronting her own enemies. Norfolk gave the barest little bow to acknowledge her presence – if the gesture could even be called as such. Suffolk’s genuflection was deeper and held for longer – and was mayhap even sincere – but she ignored his respects, just the same. This man had dishonored the memory of her most beloved aunt by remarrying before she was even cold in her grave. That he’d married, as his fourth wife, his wealthy ward – a girl he’d been bound by honor and duty to safeguard – who’d already been promised to his eldest son, Mary found a shocking display of avarice and lust, and unforgivable as such. Charles Brandon was as changeable as the wind, her mother had once warned; there was no faith to be found in him – except towards her father, whom even Mary could admit he loved like a brother.
A perhaps ungracious part of her spirit was glad when Suffolk couldn’t seem to hold her gaze for long. She equally enjoyed his clear discomfort to be standing in any such forced proximity to Norfolk. Indeed, although they obviously shared a mission together, they each looked as if they’d rather be attended by the devil himself. Good, she thought, let them suffer.
Yet the cold and crystal part of her mind that never fully slept noted their clear acrimony, and thought it strange. Hadn’t they only just been united in seeking the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey? Or so Chapuys had reported from court. Clearly, their allegiances had realigned.
That shifting of the pieces on the gameboard was something she would have to consider later. Then and there, she could contemplate the matter no further when Norfolk stated without preamble: “Lady Mary, by the order of King Henry, your household is to be dissolved and you are to remove to Hatfield – where you will join the maids of honor attending Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth.”
At first, Mary failed to grasp the meaning of his words – so wild were they for her to absorb in any sort of entirety. She blinked owlish eyes, unable to process the enormity of the blow he had just leveled against her. She did not feel pain – not yet; she couldn’t, for so great was her surprise.
Yet, while her mind was slow to process her new reality, her mouth spoke – shielding her from the canny eyes that awaited even her most minute reactions the same as hounds salivating over a wounded hind in a dell. “I will happily move to any residence that my father desires,” she smoothly acquiesced – but only to a point. “Yet I cannot wait upon her whom you call Princess, as that title belongs to me by right, and no one else.”
Norfolk’s courtly smile could have cut through glass. “I did not come here to argue with you, my lady.” And oh, how that address alone rankled like claws across her skin. “I am only here to see the king’s will done.”
He could not have wounded her more grievously if he tried, and she at last felt the sting of his words as a spear thrust between her rib bones – only, it was not Norfolk’s blade that had found its mark.
It was her father’s.
But no . . . no, Mary fiercely amended that traitorous line of thought. This fresh cruelty could not have possibly originated with her father. This must have been Anne’s doing, and her father had merely given way to that witch’s benighted enchantments. It could be nothing else, for her father loved her – he loved her – and he would never cast her so unspeakably low. Stripping her of her birthright was one thing – she still could hardly accept the dissolution of her entire life’s meaning alone – but to force her to wait on that ill-begotten child as a servant? Not only would she see Elizabeth fêted in the place she had once known with her own two eyes, but she would be forced to serve her usurped role with her own hands . . . how was she ever to endure such a monstrous affront to everything that made her her – Mary Tudor?
For a moment, she felt dangerously unsteady on her feet. The room spun around her, even as she clung to the illusion of her dignity with all her might.
“My lords.” Mary was grateful when Lady Salisbury chose that moment to interject – for she did not think that she could muster a response if she tried, struck as she was. “I fear that there must be some unfortunate misunderstanding. We have heard no word from the king save your own. In these troubled times, I must demand proof of your charge in writing.”
Lady Salisbury had not survived the carnage of the Cousins’ Wars – and kept not only her head, but a position of power as one of the last Plantagenets in the courts of both Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth – by being anything less than entirely shrewd. Mary was grateful for her clear head, even if her relief wavered when Norfolk produced a rolled length of fine vellum, weighed down by a scarlet ribbon and an equally crimson disk of emblazoned wax.
“See for yourself, woman,” he sneered, “the king’s own seal.”
Mary did not have to look but to espy the flourish of Henry Rex at the bottom of the page – as familiar to her as her own signature – and whatever scant hope she’d yet clung to died a quick and pitiful death.
As her governess continued to read – for she’d carefully examine each and every word on behalf of her charge – Charles Brandon took his opportunity to speak.
“There is a way to avoid this, you must know,” he said, sympathy heavy in his gaze. “My lady, if you can find it within your heart to acknowledge the invalidity of your parents’ marriage and accept Queen Anne as your father’s lawful wife, you shall be invited back to court. Your father would readily welcome you to attend both himself and Her Majesty – indeed, he would most eagerly embrace you. You could then maintain your household, and continue to live in the standard to which you have been accustomed – for, though you are no longer our princess, you are still the daughter of our king.”
He may as well have asked that she drive a knife through her chest – and through her mother’s, as well. Mary felt her temper spark, and had to fight not to bare her teeth. Did he truly think her so faithless? Did he really believe that she would decry her mother – decry her very self – for the price of a few worldly goods and earthly comforts? She would prove to the Duke of Suffolk that not all things in life were transitory; souls were not salable; true loyalty was not sequacious; no, she would be immovable.
“I cannot attend Her Majesty at court – for the queen resides in Cambridgeshire at present,” Mary said sweetly. “Did you not hear? The Pope himself declared the validity of my parents’ marriage. My mother is thus the king’s lawful wife, and I his sole lawful daughter.”
Norfolk’s expression was swallowed in a thunderclap – ah, so that one point of contention yet stuck him like a thorn, no matter his bluster to the contrary.
And, heaven above, did he bluster.
“Your parents’ so-called marriage was an incestuous affront on the laws of God,” he growled, taking a menacing step forward. He had a head of height on her, and was twice her breadth with his broad shoulders and great barrel chest. Yet Mary stood her ground, and tilted up her chin to better hold his furious gaze. “The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has declared it so. In the eyes of the true Church of England, you are thus a bastard – and the king’s marriage to my niece is the only marriage that holds.”
It was perhaps unchristian of her to hate so, but Mary bore a true loathing in her heart for that scullion of Satan, Thomas Cranmer – who’d abused the sanctity of his bishopric to solemnize the sin of adultery and grant legitimacy to apostasy. Chapuys had warned her that Cranmer was in the pocket of the Boleyns, and a secret Lutheran, besides. When she was queen, she would see that heretic cast to the flames as soon as the crown was settled upon her brow. That was, if her father did not see to their destruction first – all of them: the unholy trinity of Cranmer and Cromwell and Anne herself.
As such, her answer was swift: “I do not recognize the authority of Thomas Cranmer.” At long last, her teeth did flash. “I am beholden to God and my conscience. It is only the Pope who can decide on such matters – and he has made his decision.”
“Christ’s blood,” Norfolk betrayed his true nature by so crudely blaspheming, “but I have never seen such an ungrateful and undutiful daughter in all my life. Why the king wishes to keep you in any capacity is truly one of God’s mysteries.”
Perhaps seeing the rise of Mary’s temper as much as he did Norfolk’s, Suffolk quickly interjected, “No matter the Pope’s decision, the edicts of Rome are no longer binding in England.” She was surprised that he sounded disappointed by that fact. “I suggest that you make your peace with that, Lady Mary. The king’s will is law. In the end, there isn’t anything any of us can do but obey.”
His words resounded like the knelling of a bell, leaving only silence in their wake. For how could Mary argue that awful truth? She could rail and protest all she wanted, but, ultimately, she was yet still a daughter bound to honor her father – and a subject sworn to her sovereign, besides.
There was only one path before her, she knew – yet it burned to set her feet upon!
Norfolk read the resignation in her countenance – no matter that her every limb remained taut with defiance and wrath yet smoldered in her gaze. “So, are you a true and faithful subject, or will you force us to truss you up and bear you on a hurdle to Hatfield? The king’s desires will be carried out, one way or another; mark my words.”
He would like nothing better, wouldn’t he? Mary knew that he uttered no empty threat, but she would not give the snakes’ tangle of Boleyns and Howards the satisfaction. She had little left to cling to but her pride, it would seem – and that, she refused to surrender, no matter what else was taken from her.
In that regard, she would follow her mother’s example – just as she did in all things.
So Mary ignored the senior duke. Instead, she turned to Suffolk to inquire, “When am I to depart?”
“The dissolution of your household and the confiscation of your goods shall begin this very day. We will depart for Hatfield tomorrow next, as His Majesty desires this matter to be settled before Christmas.”
With that, Norfolk waved one of the ladies forward from the throng of attendants waiting behind him. “Lady Salisbury,” he instructed her governess, “you will begin by showing Lady Stourton to Lady Mary’s jewels. The Queen’s Grace has made demand of them.”
The same as a tinder striking dry kindling, the countess’ eyes flashed. “Now see here, sir, but if you think that I shall surrender the princess’ jewels to that one who is the . . . who is the scandal of Christendom, then you are sorely mistaken!”
Yet Norfolk was little impressed. “Your contumacy is of no matter, Madam – for you too are being dismissed. You may take your leave of this place before sundown on your own power, or I will throw you out myself.”
Lady Salisbury visibly recoiled before she fell into a deep curtsy. She held the genuflection, momentarily speechless, before amending, “My lord, I seek your pardon. I am but an old woman, and I was merely shocked by your request. I have cared for the princess” – she looked mutinous before she carefully schooled her features into a genteel mask of deference – “for Lady Mary since she was a very small child. Please, I call upon the love the king bears his daughter – allow me leave to attend my charge, for she is my greatest joy in all the world.”
“The king was very clear on this point.” Norfolk would not yield. “You are to return to your own properties, and live out the days of your retirement as a loyal servant to His Majesty – which I trust that you are?”
For King Henry had always mistrusted the fealty of his Plantagenet kin, had he not? Even Mary could hear the greater threat lurking in the duke’s words, and she feared for its ability to draw blood.
Yet the countess had lived under the shadow of that scythe all her life, and she yet saw fit to attempt – with a desperation to her words that tore at Mary nearly as deeply as the removal of her own mother once had: “I would remain in my role at my own expense. I plead mercy; grant me leave to entreat the king on this matter. Along with my own keep, I shall also be glad to pay the wages of any servants who may be permitted to stay on and attend - ”
“And allow you and your ilk the opportunity to continually encourage her intransigence?” Norfolk gave a sharp, barking laugh. “I think not. You will say your farewells to the lady as ordered, and that is that.”
Once more, Suffolk looked to soften the blow – yet he could not remove its sting entirely. “His Majesty has decided that Lady Mary shall retain a single maid and a chamberer – Her Majesty has selected these women herself. They are already waiting at Hatfield.”
“Are you not grateful to your father, girl?” Norfolk’s smile was an ugly wound upon his face. “Such a concession is far more than any bastard deserves. If you were my daughter, I would bash your head against the wall until it was as soft as a boiled apple for your defiance – rude, unnatural creature that you are.”
And Mary believed him, too. Her blood went cold for the promise in his eyes, and it took all of her self-control to not take a physical step back as some animal instinct whispered danger and urged her towards flight. She had never feared any threat against her person before, and she told herself that it was foolish to begin so now.
Yet, for the action taken against her title and dignity and the very core of her being . . . had she not once thought those things impossible too?
She would have to tread most carefully in the days to come, she realized all over again, and walk the fine line between loyalty to her father and loyalty to her mother, her own self, and, ultimately, to God.
Such a task seemed, she could not help but fear, utterly impossible. Yet it was the only course she had available to her. She would begin by accepting what she could not change – or, at least, could not yet change – and bear the new yoke pressing down on her with a grace equal to her royal heritage. She was a daughter of the kings and queens of England – the kings and queens of Spain – and she would do their combined blood in her veins proud if it was the last thing she did.
Her mother would expect nothing less of her.
So: “His Majesty is all graciousness.” Somehow, Mary shaped the words and gave them voice, no matter how bitter the taste they left in her mouth. “I shall, as ever, do as he commands, for I am his most dutiful daughter.”
“Good.” Norfolk accepted her capitulation with narrowed eyes. “See that you remain as such, and there may be hope for you yet.”
With that, the duke waved his hand, and allowed his host of hungry beasts to descend.