Seven Will Out: A Renaissance Revel (31 page)

“I’m not surprised,” I said, remembering the caustic wit and acerbic tongue of that famous New Yorker.

“What was it that Mistress Dorothy called her witticisms?” Elizabeth asked, trolling the collective memory in the room.

“Wisecracks!” Mary Grey said. “She called them wisecracks.”

“And pithy they were too. What was the one she made about my father’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard?” asked Elizabeth.

“‘You can lead a hor-ti-culture, but you can’t make her think,’” said Mary Grey, long on memory if short on inches.

“I rather liked her ‘what fresh hell is this?’” said Mary, Queen of Scots. “It was the story of my life, really, if you think about it.”

“What career advice did you ladies have for Dorothy?” I asked.

“She was looking for—what did she call it?—a gimmick. We were flummoxed for a while, I can tell you. Eventually she spoke to our grandmother, Elizabeth of York,” said Mary Tudor. “You recollect my grandmother’s obsession with the Camelot legends, Dolly. Something she said about the Arthurian Round Table really resonated with Mistress Dorothy. She said it was just what she was looking for!”

I remembered the history of Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, that epicenter of 1920s urban culture and literary criticism. Around it, the New York City literary world’s best and brightest met daily at the landmark Algonquin Hotel for lunch. The resultant wit and acerbity were shared with the waiting world in publications such as
The New Yorker
. Elizabeth of York’s suggestion had clearly been just what the doctor ordered.

“Do you think Dorothy remembered the advice our grandmother gave her and put it to use when she returned from here to the real world?” Elizabeth asked hopefully.

“Well, I think I can tell you what Dorothy would have said about that,” I replied. “‘Women and elephants—they never forget!’”

Chapter Eighty-Two

Family Dysfunction Junction

“So!’” I asked, returning to the subject at hand, “When, so to speak, did your literary party start, Mary?” It turned out that the outset of Bloody Mary Tudor’s literary career, like the rest of her life, wasn’t much of a party at all.

“My literary output began while I was resident with the last of my stepmothers: Katherine Parr.”

“It’s said that she united Henry VIII’s children in a haven of love and security, at least for a time. It must have been a welcome respite for you after all you went through during your father’s various marriages. Your fidelity to your mother’s principles put you on thin ice with him on more than one occasion, to say the least. It must have been nerve-racking for you, living that way.”

“It was, Dolly! I was feeling as if I had just about reached the end of my tether by the time my father made his sixth marriage. Fortunately for me, my fifth stepmother was committed to doing the right thing by
all
my father’s children, and I could appreciate her for that. She and I had our religious differences, of course, me being Catholic and her being a confirmed reformer. Nevertheless, the combination of her kind heart and the point of emotional exhaustion that I had reached by then allowed us to come to an understanding.”

“That is impressive indeed, considering the reputation for unbending dispositions that you both had,” I commented.

“Never underestimate girl power, Dolly,” Mary said.

“After my experience with Henry VIII’s six wives,” I responded, “not bloody likely!”

“Really, Dolly! Language, please!”

I apologized sincerely for my thoughtless words, and Mary continued her story.

“I felt sufficiently comfortable with Katherine Parr to confide in her how my feelings about my father’s second marriage, and all that ensued from it both emotionally and politically, were eating me alive.”

The story of Henry VIII’s fascinating second wife needs little retelling. Leaving the middle-aged Katharine of Aragon—Mary’s mother and Henry’s first wife—in the dust, Ann Boleyn led the until-then sane and stable Henry VIII a merry dance. The world’s most famous divorce, the upheaval of English Catholicism, and the eventual decapitation of Ann Boleyn left behind a now despicable Henry VIII, eating his emotions for all eternity.

“I was consumed with hatred for Ann Boleyn for obvious reasons in terms of my mother, Dolly,” Mary recounted. “She rendered mother’s dower years a time of humiliation, misery, ignominy, and privation. And of course, Ann Boleyn made my own life sheer hell as well. Perhaps worst of all, though, was the ongoing wreck that Ann Boleyn made of my father. Henry VIII was my hero and everyone else’s before Ann Boleyn’s advent. After Ann, he became an object of fear, hatred, and ridicule. My resentment about it all did not end with my mother’s death or with Ann’s and seemed unlikely to end even with my father’s. My anger raged on inside me, day and night. There was no respite from my feelings; I ruminated on the matter constantly.”

“I guess you took after your mother in that respect, Mary.”

“What, when it came to ruminating? You’re not insinuating that my mother was a cow, are you, Dolly?”

Mary was obviously, and understandably, hypersensitive when it came to her mother. I tried to talk her down as best I could.

“No, of course I was not! I was thinking more of the propensity the two of you had to hanging on to things, no matter what. The two of you were like a couple of Renaissance-era pit bulls; you just couldn’t let go.”

“That sounds like the Mary I know,” said Elizabeth, giving her sibling a sisterly chuck under the chin.

Mary smiled and resumed speaking. “We shall return to that particular topic, I am sure, Dolly. To resume my chronology, Katherine Parr sympathized with me in my dilemma as best she could, and I cried many a tear on her strong and comfortable shoulders. When she was at a loss to tell me what I might do to relieve myself, she asked if she might consult a trusted friend on how to advise someone in my situation. She said she would do it discreetly, in general terms, and without revealing my identity. I agreed to let her do this.”

“And in whom did Katherine Parr confide on your behalf, Mary? Let me guess—Catherine Willoughby!”

“She was the ideal person to ask, Dolly; she was my stepmother’s best friend, after all. And of course, my own mother and Catherine Willoughby’s mother were best friends back in the day, as well.”

“I presume that my home girl, Catherine Willoughby, advised Katherine Parr to counsel you to expose, examine, and process your painful feelings on paper. Correct?”

“It didn’t take much to figure that out, did it, Dolly?” asked Mary. “The novel, of course, did not really exist yet in any
meaningful way in my life and times, but playwriting was, as my cousin Margaret pointed out, at an intriguing turning point. I decided to take my stepmother’s advice, and try my hand at the drama.”

“So there you were, pen in hand, ready to work out the volcanic emotions you had about your father’s downfall, as you perceived it, at the hands of the original complicated woman, Ann Boleyn.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call her the
original
complicated woman, Dolly.”

“Well, in any event, it can’t have been easy for you, capturing so mercurial a woman in prose. The Bard might have said of her ‘that time could not wither, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.’”

“Spot-on, Dolly. That is exactly what the Bard—I mean what I—wrote about Ann Boleyn!”

Chapter Eighty-Three

The Spin on Ann Boleyn

“Mary, who’d have thought it? You—responsible for
Antony and Cleopatra
!”

Mary beamed. “I did think rather well of it once I’d finished it,” she admitted, with an author’s pardonable pride.

“Pardon my asking about this, Mary; I hope I am not being persnickety here,” I began.

“What is your question, Dolly?”

“
Antony and Cleopatra
was said to have been based on Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch. And that came after your time.”

“Dolly,” Mary said, “do you not recall the discussion that you, Elizabeth, Jane, and I had on your last visit here—about scholarship and my own, my sister’s, and my cousin’s credentials?”

“Yes, I remember,” I said.

“I do too,” said Elizabeth. “The only one of us who got to favor Dolly with her Greek on that occasion was
me
. She has had no proof, Mary, of
your
proficiency in the language.”

“If writing a play in English based on Plutarch’s
Parallel Lives
from the first century in the original Greek is not proof enough of proficiency, I shall eat my snood!”

As she spoke, Mary primped the crocheted hairnet that corralled her locks behind her simple white French hood with red embroidered filigree. The rest of Mary’s ensemble was likewise a simple red and white, but it was sumptuous, in velvet and brocade. It reminded me of the elegant outfit that her grandmother, Elizabeth of York, had been wearing when I met her.

“Plutarch’s work would have given you ample material to work with when it came to analyzing the character of Marc Antony,” I said.

“The parallels between Plutarch’s Marc Antony and my father were considerable. And when you look at Cleopatra and the parallels to Ann Boleyn, well—”

“Hold on a minute, Mary!” I said, remembering the pyrotechnics that tended to follow Ann Boleyn around. “Are we about to judge the character of Ann Boleyn, out loud, right here, on her own turf? It was mentioned earlier that Ann is visiting here; is she likely to appear at any moment?” I asked, peering suspiciously around the corner and mentally preparing myself for an explosion.

Elizabeth reassured me. “My mother is present but will not be appearing while we here in this room make our revelations to you, Dolly. My mother—”

“And mine as well,” Mary Tudor added—

“Have promised not to steal our thunder on this momentous night,” Elizabeth concluded.

My panic meter moved down from ten by about four degrees but still had a ways to go.

“I also cannot help but mention that we will be judging Ann Boleyn’s character in the presence of her daughter,” I said, motioning to Elizabeth. “It will not be easy for Elizabeth to hear home truths about her mother from someone who has as big an ax to grind with the woman as you do, Mary.”

Elizabeth pulled the elastic that was holding my sweet little pillbox hat on my head and then let it go. It snapped back and smacked me under the chin.

“Execution awareness, Dolly!” she reminded me.

“Like mother, like daughter, Elizabeth,” I said, rubbing my chin. “I do apologize for my thoughtlessness. Still, given the history and current circumstances, I have my reservations about a frank and honest discussion of your mother’s character in your presence.”

“Man up, Dolly!” Elizabeth commanded me. I expected further directives about having the heart and stomach of a king, or perhaps a queen, but they were not forthcoming. “If I can take it,” she continued, “you can too!”

With that, Elizabeth rose from the floor, and she and her sister Mary squared off. I watched as little Mary Grey casually grabbed a pillow and held it up against herself like a shield, preparing herself for any possible fallout.

Did I follow her cautious example? You bet your asp I did.

Chapter Eighty-Four

A Quote or Two to Float Your Boat for You

“‘We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears. They are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report—’” Mary quoted. “I think I summed up Ann Boleyn’s propensity to create turmoil quite nicely there.”

“The drama queen revealed, in twenty-five words or less,” I agreed. “And of course, you went on to capture the way she was able to turn this potentially unattractive characteristic into an asset. To wit:

Fie, wrangling queen!

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,

To weep; whose every passion fully strives

To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!

Mary, taken aback that she may have inadvertently complimented Ann Boleyn, bristled discernibly. Her recovery, though, was almost instantaneous.

“‘Would I had never seen her!’”

Mary quoted, “‘As Marc Antony said of Cleopatra. I heard my father say that more than once about Ann, as well, after the tingle became a chill.’”

“To which the character of Enobarbus,” Elizabeth pointed out jubilantly, “said: ‘O sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work which not to have been blessed withal would have discredited your travel—’”

“A bootlicker that bails out at the very end! You are welcome to Enobarbus, Elizabeth, if you would have him,” Mary said.

“Probably not the most fortuitous choice of quotes, Elizabeth,” I said. “You see—”

“Are you taking sides, Dolly?”

“Certainly not. I just wanted to point out that the phrase ‘piece of work’ has a different connotation in modern parlance than it did, perhaps, in your day.”

“Well, what is the modern meaning, then?” Elizabeth asked.

“Hard to put into words, really—you could say that calling someone a piece of work is like calling them a hot mess, I guess.”

“That wasn’t very helpful, Dolly. Try again,” said Mary, Queen of Scots.

“Well—how about a strong and unusual personality with serious character flaws?”

“You certainly could have called our father a piece of work, then,” Mary Tudor said, “at least, when it came to his trajectory during and after Ann Boleyn. Although I thought, ‘The triple pillar of the world transform’d, Into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see’ covered Father pretty well,” she went on. “And I managed to get it in only about a minute into the first act, as well.”

Elizabeth picked up a plumy quill that was lying on a desk in the room. “Well, since Father laid claim to England, Ireland, and France in his day, I can live with the ‘triple pillar.’ What I cannot live with,” she said, gently bitch-slapping Mary with the feather, “is my mother being called a strumpet in front of company.”

“You will be more copasetic, I am sure, Sister, with my lines from Marc Antony on men and the impact their behavior can have on women. I would think we can agree in feeling on that.
Take, for instance, these words, Elizabeth—germane to the fate of my own mother and in a way to yours—