Something awful has happened. I know it because I have heard hushed whispers in the household. People stop talking when I enter the room, and I can guess that whatever they are talking about is unpleasant.
Soon, I learn what it is. I am repeating the alphabet to Mrs. Ellen when my mother comes into the nursery. We curtsy, then stay standing until my lady has sat down in the high-backed chair by the fire. Katherine is crawling around the room, babbling to herself, happily ignorant of the tension in the air.
“I am sure you have heard about the Queen,” my lady says to Mrs. Ellen, “but there is fresh news, and the child may as well hear it, since it is an object lesson in what can happen to a woman who falls from virtue. Anyway, she is bound to find out sooner or later.”
Mrs. Ellen looks at me unhappily. I realize she already knows something of what my mother is talking about. I fear I am going to hear something terrible. Over by the windowsill, Katherine is reaching up for a cloth ball, crooning to herself, lost in her own small world.
“There has been a lot of gossip, and wild rumors multiply daily,” my mother begins, “but let me give you the truth, as I have it from my lord. Last November, after His Majesty and Queen Katherine returned from their progress in the north, certain accusations were made by mean persons concerning the conduct of the Queen, and an inquiry was made to discover if they were true. Unfortunately, they were. It seems that Her Grace was corrupted by her music master before she was even twelve years old, and that she later lived with her cousin Francis Dereham as if she were his wife. This all took place while she was being brought up in the household of her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk. Apparently, the servants testified. They had seen her naked in bed with Dereham in the maids’ dormitory.”
I am astonished. What does
corrupted
mean? And why would the Queen want to be naked in bed with her cousin? How immodest of her! No wonder she is in trouble.
My mother looks at me and frowns.
“Pay attention, Jane. This is a lesson you must learn. You are four years old and big enough to understand. As if it were not bad enough that the Queen was unfit to marry His Majesty, she continued her immoral life after her marriage to the King, engaging Dereham as her secretary. Then, when she had apparently tired of him, she began a secret liaison with another cousin, Thomas Culpeper, a Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber. His Majesty was very fond of Thomas, which makes his conduct all the more disgraceful. With the connivance of that dreadful Lady Rochford—you remember, George Boleyn’s wife, who gave evidence that her husband had sinned with his sister, Queen Anne—the Queen arranged to meet Culpeper in her chamber at night, even on the progress. On one occasion, the King came to her door, expecting to lie with his wife, and was kept waiting while Culpeper made a hasty escape down the back stairs. Another time, Lady Rochford kept watch while the Queen received Culpeper in the privy!”
In the privy? I am shocked. I know beyond question now that the Queen is a naughty lady who deserves to be punished. I would never let anyone come into the privy while I was using it. How rude!
“That is disgusting behavior, my lady,” murmurs Mrs. Ellen. “It is scandalous that she should have so dishonored the King’s Highness!”
“Indeed,” says my mother grimly. “When His Majesty was informed by his councillors of the truth of the allegations, he broke down and wept before them, then called for a sword to slay her whom he had dearly loved. My lord was there, and he wrote to say it was a pitiful sight to see one of the King’s courage brought so low. The upshot was that the Queen was placed under arrest at Hampton Court. She was in a terrible state, weeping and wailing, and once she managed to break past her guards and run towards the chapel, where the King was attending Mass, hoping to soften his heart by a personal appeal. She probably thought that her charms could save her. But she was caught and dragged back, screaming, before she could reach him.”
“She is very young,” Mrs. Ellen says.
“Yes,” agrees my lady, “scarce seventeen. But old enough to know right from wrong.”
“Yet by all accounts, madam, she was never taught virtuous behavior. I have heard that her grandmother neglected her, and now you tell me that she was led astray by her music master when she was but a child. Yes, she has committed a grievous wrong, but is there no one to take pity on her? The poor girl must be in misery, remembering the dreadful fate that befell her cousin Anne Boleyn.”
I have heard Anne Boleyn’s name mentioned before, but only in whispers or corners, and I do not know who she was, or what happened to her that was so dreadful. I would love to interrupt and ask about her, but I dare not chance a rebuke—or worse—from my mother.
“Of course she remembered,” my lady is saying, “and that accounted for her wildness and weeping under questioning. And of course she denied it all, but the sworn testimony of the witnesses was enough to prove that she lied.”
“Have they tried her?” Mrs. Ellen asks sadly.
“No. The King had her banished to Syon Abbey, and she stayed there over Christmas.”
“I heard as much.” Mrs. Ellen nods. “Is she still there?”
“No.” My lady pauses. “A week ago, Parliament passed an act of attainder declaring her a traitor and depriving her of her life and all her titles and possessions. Last Friday, although she resisted frantically, she was taken by barge to the Tower of London, and there, on Monday, her head was taken off by the executioner.”
I gasp. This is horrible, horrible, worse than the nastiest nightmare. Her head was taken off. How? And why? She had been very naughty, but surely not naughty enough to have her head taken off. I feel sick. Would there have been a lot of blood? I hate blood. When I cut my finger, it bled a lot, and hurt too. It must hurt an awful lot to have your head cut off. Much more than cutting your finger. So there must be lots more blood. And what happens to you when your head is cut off? You must be dead.
I am shaking with the horror of it. I am also crying, although I do not realize it. Mrs. Ellen, whose face looks white, kneels down beside me and holds me close to her. She looks up at my mother.
“She is too young to understand, my lady! It is too much for her to take in.”
My mother looks at me as I stand sobbing. There is no softness in her as she stands there in her gorgeous furred gown and bejeweled hood. She has been angered by the Queen’s affront to her blood.
“Jane,” she says sternly, “you have been born into a family of the royal House. People in our position lead public lives. We have power, rank, and wealth, but we also have duties and obligations, and as women of this family, we must be above reproach. If a noblewoman or queen sins as Queen Katherine has done, she sets her husband’s very inheritance, his titles, lands, and riches, at risk. In this case, the succession to the throne itself has been disparaged, for if the Queen had borne a child to one of those traitors she sinned with, she could easily have passed it off as the King’s, and that could have led to a bastard of base blood sitting on the throne of England. A wife must keep faithful to her husband, and adultery in an aristocratic woman is a vile crime and is rightly punishable by death.”
I do not know what
adultery
means, but I know what death is. As soon as I was old enough to ask what the tombs in the church were for, it was explained to me. The chaplain told me that, when God decides that a person’s time on earth has ended, He summons them before His dreadful judgment seat. If they have been good, He sends them to Heaven, where they may dwell forever in bliss with Our Lord Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, and all the saints and angels. But if they have been wicked, they are sent to Hell, to suffer for all eternity. The chaplain has told me all about what awaits sinners in Hell, and I know it is true, because in one of the churches in Leicester there is a horrid wall painting that I dare not look at for fear of seeing the cruel devils tearing the flesh of the damned with their pitchforks. Mrs. Ellen says I must not think about that picture, and that my sins are not so bad as to deserve eternal damnation, and if I am a good girl and say my prayers and keep the Commandments, and receive absolution for my sins, I will go straight to Heaven.
Mrs. Ellen told me that most people die of illness or old age, or a mishap, like Sam the thatcher, who fell off his ladder and broke his neck. She told me that brave soldiers die in wars, and that for most people death is just like going to sleep; but surely no one should be deliberately killed by having her head taken off, especially when she hadn’t done much to deserve it.
It was the King, my great-uncle, who had ordered that the Queen must be killed. Kings can do whatever they like—I know that. I have also been taught that they are above ordinary people and must be obeyed. I have never met the King, but I have heard many tales of him, and his portrait hangs in the great hall. He is a big man, a giant in his gorgeous clothes, with a fat tummy and a red beard, standing with his hand on his hip and his legs apart. He looks frightening, grimacing out of the picture, as I imagine an ogre might look. Perhaps he is an ogre. He had the Queen’s head taken off. But perhaps he is sad now, and wishing he hadn’t done it.
I am feeling a bit better now, although I still want to ask lots of questions, because there is much that I don’t yet understand. But my mother is preparing to depart.
“I leave it to you how much you elaborate to the child,” she is saying to Mrs. Ellen as she pauses by the door, “but for the love of God, bid her be discreet. If ever she should go to court, we don’t want her disgracing us with embarrassing remarks.”
When she has gone, Mrs. Ellen starts tidying the room, putting my toys away before supper. I sit on the floor with Katherine, helping her to dress her cloth Polly doll, all the while thinking of the terrible death of the Queen.
“Let’s put Polly to bed,” pipes Katherine, getting up and toddling toward the miniature cradle standing in the corner. She tenderly lays down the doll and covers her up, tightly.
“Not over her face.” I force a smile. “She can’t breathe.”
“Bedtime for you too, Katherine,” says Mrs. Ellen. The nurserymaid leads a protesting Katherine up the stairs.
Mrs. Ellen closes the toy chest, smooths her apron, seats herself in her chair by the fire, and takes up her mending.
“You must not dwell on what has happened to the Queen, Jane,” she tells me.
“It’s horrible.”
“Horrible, but necessary, I daresay. She had been very silly and very wicked. She must have known the risks she was taking.”
“But what had she done wrong?”
Mrs. Ellen folds Katherine’s tiny smock, the tear in it hardly visible now. Her stitches are so minute you can hardly see them.
“Come here, child, and stand at my knee.” She beckons, and I go to her, resting my hands on the soft holland cloth of her apron.
“Mrs. Ellen, how did they cut off the Queen’s head?” I am bursting to know, yet fearful of the answer.
“With an ax, Jane.”
“Like the ax Perkin cuts the logs with?”
“Like that, but bigger and sharper.”
“Did it hurt?”
“I’m sure she didn’t know anything about it. It’s a very quick death.”
I pause. I want to ask another question, but I know it’s not polite to talk about naked people.
“Why was the Queen in bed with her cousin?” I venture at last.
“I expect because she considered herself to be his wife. Married people are allowed to sleep in the same bed.”
“But she was married to the King. You can’t be married to two people at once, can you?”
“No. But I have heard that Dereham said she had promised in front of others to marry him, and people consider that to be as good as a marriage itself. The Queen insisted she had never done so, but she must have been lying, for folk heard Dereham call her ‘wife,’ while she called him ‘husband.’”
There is still something I do not understand.
“But why did they go to bed together”—I feel my cheeks going red—“without any clothes on?”
Mrs. Ellen does not answer at once. She thinks for a bit, then says, “Listen, child, God decrees that, when a man and woman marry, one of their duties is to have children. It is a sin to have children outside marriage, so marriage has been ordained by God so that children can be born and brought up in a godly manner and have a father and mother. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Good. The Scriptures tell us that God made men and women differently. Their bodies are different. The husband plants a seed from his body inside his wife. Inside the tiny seed is a complete person, and it grows inside its mother’s womb, which is in her tummy. It stays there for nine months, then it is born. Now, to plant that seed, the husband and wife have to take their clothes off, otherwise it would be difficult.”
“Don’t they mind?” I ask, my face afire.
“Not at all. God has made it a pleasant business, although He has ordained that it be lawful only in holy wedlock. Now the Queen was unfaithful to the King because she received seed from other men. Thus she committed a terrible crime. She endangered the blood royal. That is treason, and the punishment is always death.”
I remember something.
“Did Anne Boleyn have her head chopped off too?”
“Mercy me, how sharp you are!” cries Mrs. Ellen. “Yes, she did, my dear, and for much the same thing, but it must not be spoken of. It was a dreadful business, and a matter of too great grief to His Majesty and your parents.”
“But who was Anne Boleyn?”
“She was the King’s second wife, the mother of the Lady Elizabeth, your cousin.”
I have heard a lot about my cousin Elizabeth. She is four years older than me and lives in her own palace with a lot of servants. She hardly ever goes to court because she is busy at her lessons. She is an uncommonly clever girl, my mother says.
“The Lady Elizabeth must be very sad about her mother’s head being cut off,” I say. “Is the King a kind father to her?”
Mrs. Ellen pats my hand. “At first, I heard, he could not bear the sight of her. She was only two when her mother died, and she was left in the care of her governess. When she grew out of her clothes, there was no money to buy new ones, and Master Secretary Cromwell did not like to trouble the King. But then Queen Jane took pity on the poor motherless child and brought her back to court, and her other stepmothers were also kindly towards her, and to the Lady Mary too, the King’s daughter by the first Queen Katherine. Now the Lady Elizabeth is well received at court whenever she visits there. She never speaks about her mother, it is said. Perhaps it is best that way. And she adores her father, the King. But Jane, you must remember, these matters must never be spoken of outside this room. Do you heed me?”