Read Online Her Highness, the Traitor by Susan Higginbotham - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Higginbotham
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patted the queen on her arm. “He is anxious about the babe, that is all, and this is his foolish way of putting his mind off it, I’ll wager. Let him have his horseplay for a few months. It will all be over soon, and you will be a proud mother, and he, a doting father.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“Of course I am right! Now let us speak of happier matters. Where are you going to spend your confinement?”
***
Despite Thomas Seymour’s folly, I could not help but feel rather smug as I rode in my barge toward home, for it was true John had never been unfaithful to me. It could be no great credit to my own charms, for I knew well I was not beautiful—not even pretty. Though my figure was tidy for a woman who had borne thirteen children, the most that could be said about my face was it was pleasant. On my best days, I could just manage something approaching prettiness, and that was only with the assistance of two ladies, the best tailor and hoodmaker in London, and a little bit of art.
I smiled, ignoring the sights and sounds of the busy Thames as my barge lumbered along. My looks, or lack thereof, had never kept John from my bed; indeed, we had anticipated our wedding day, though naturally this was not a fact I had advertised to my sons and daughters, particularly my daughters. It was the Castle of Loyalty tournament that had been our downfall, so to speak. Over Christmas of 1524, when King Henry’s court was a more cheerful place than it became later, sixteen young men, including John, had proposed to defend their castle against all comers. The king had responded with enthusiasm, and soon after New Year’s of 1525, a team of workmen had dutifully built a mock castle, with a mount on which stood a unicorn. Standing on each of the castle’s turrets was a lady, who was expected to clasp her handkerchief to her heart at appropriate moments and in general look romantic and worried at the same time. It was a drawn-out tournament that took place over a series of days, so instead of the same four ladies sighing upon the turrets day after day, different ladies were used on each occasion.
Having just recently been appointed as one of the first of Queen Catherine’s maidens, I was a newcomer to court, and not one of its ornaments. My father, however, was master of the armory, who helped arrange the king’s tournaments. He had said a word to the right people, and so I had been chosen as one of the ladies of the castle.
I had never been dressed so thinly in my life. We were supposed to look like damsels from King Arthur’s court, which must have been a chilly place. I wore simply a flowing tunic with an under tunic, with a hooded mantle to keep the cold off. The garments clung, which was not a bad thing, as I had a pretty figure, but the idea of the entire court seeing just how pretty was so daunting to me that at the feast afterward, I was slipping away when a slender hand pulled me back. “Where are you going?”
Anne Boleyn was about nine years my senior, and whatever people said about her afterward, she was never anything but kind to me. Perhaps because I was so much younger than she, and such a novice at court, she had taken a liking to me. It was Anne who had helped me arrange my costume after putting on her own robes in a careless, jaded manner that reminded all of us she had spent time in the splendid courts of Burgundy and France, where grand spectacles were the order of the day.
“To change,” I said.
“Change? What on earth for?”
“I feel naked.”
“You look fine. It’s a costume; everyone expects it. And what are you going to put on? That terrible gable headdress that you had on earlier, I wager.”
“I had it made for me in Kent. It’s almost new.”
“It should have stayed in Kent. It’s not a style that suits anyone under thirty, don’t you see? You should wear a French hood. Your hair is your greatest beauty; it should be displayed as it is now.”
In my distress at my clinging
“Perhaps you are right.”
“Of course I am right! Now let us speak of happier matters. Where are you going to spend your confinement?”
***
Despite Thomas Seymour’s folly, I could not help but feel rather smug as I rode in my barge toward home, for it was true John had never been unfaithful to me. It could be no great credit to my own charms, for I knew well I was not beautiful—not even pretty. Though my figure was tidy for a woman who had borne thirteen children, the most that could be said about my face was it was pleasant. On my best days, I could just manage something approaching prettiness, and that was only with the assistance of two ladies, the best tailor and hoodmaker in London, and a little bit of art.
I smiled, ignoring the sights and sounds of the busy Thames as my barge lumbered along. My looks, or lack thereof, had never kept John from my bed; indeed, we had anticipated our wedding day, though naturally this was not a fact I had advertised to my sons and daughters, particularly my daughters. It was the Castle of Loyalty tournament that had been our downfall, so to speak. Over Christmas of 1524, when King Henry’s court was a more cheerful place than it became later, sixteen young men, including John, had proposed to defend their castle against all comers. The king had responded with enthusiasm, and soon after New Year’s of 1525, a team of workmen had dutifully built a mock castle, with a mount on which stood a unicorn. Standing on each of the castle’s turrets was a lady, who was expected to clasp her handkerchief to her heart at appropriate moments and in general look romantic and worried at the same time. It was a drawn-out tournament that took place over a series of days, so instead of the same four ladies sighing upon the turrets day after day, different ladies were used on each occasion.
Having just recently been appointed as one of the first of Queen Catherine’s maidens, I was a newcomer to court, and not one of its ornaments. My father, however, was master of the armory, who helped arrange the king’s tournaments. He had said a word to the right people, and so I had been chosen as one of the ladies of the castle.
I had never been dressed so thinly in my life. We were supposed to look like damsels from King Arthur’s court, which must have been a chilly place. I wore simply a flowing tunic with an under tunic, with a hooded mantle to keep the cold off. The garments clung, which was not a bad thing, as I had a pretty figure, but the idea of the entire court seeing just how pretty was so daunting to me that at the feast afterward, I was slipping away when a slender hand pulled me back. “Where are you going?”
Anne Boleyn was about nine years my senior, and whatever people said about her afterward, she was never anything but kind to me. Perhaps because I was so much younger than she, and such a novice at court, she had taken a liking to me. It was Anne who had helped me arrange my costume after putting on her own robes in a careless, jaded manner that reminded all of us she had spent time in the splendid courts of Burgundy and France, where grand spectacles were the order of the day.
“To change,” I said.
“Change? What on earth for?”
“I feel naked.”
“You look fine. It’s a costume; everyone expects it. And what are you going to put on? That terrible gable headdress that you had on earlier, I wager.”
“I had it made for me in Kent. It’s almost new.”
“It should have stayed in Kent. It’s not a style that suits anyone under thirty, don’t you see? You should wear a French hood. Your hair is your greatest beauty; it should be displayed as it is now.”
In my distress at my clinging
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