A great deal was happening. I suppose that year was one of the most momentous in history.
The Nun of Kent had been arrested soon after I arrived at Hatfield. She was sent to the Tower with some of her associates. When they were brought before the Star Chamber, they all confessed to fraud, and Elizabeth Barton was accused of trying to dethrone the King, which was, of course, treason.
Christmas came—the most dreary I had ever spent. It was cold. It was long since I had had new clothes, and I saw no means of getting any. I was not allowed to have my meals served in my room. If I wished to eat, I had to go down to the hall and seat myself where I could; and if I did not go, nobody seemed to care. Except, of course, Margaret Bryan, who surveyed me with some anxiety. She assumed the role of nurse and talked to me as though I were a wayward child.
“What good is this doing?” she demanded. “It is hard for you but you must make the best of it. Going without food is not going to help you.”
I said, “You and my two maids are the only friends I have. Perhaps Lady Hussey is…in a way.”
I saw the tears in her eyes. I knew it was difficult for her to speak to me, for she might be noticed, and if she were she would be sent away. But as she saw I was growing more and more wan, she became reckless. I had once been her charge and she could not forget it. Moreover as any good woman would be, she was appalled at the manner in which my mother was treated.
She said to me, “If I came to your room after the household has retired, we could talk.”
I was overcome with emotion. I felt as though a light had appeared in a dark room, and it brought with it a glimmer of comfort.
It was Margaret Bryan who kept me sane during that long time. Sometimes I felt an urge to throw myself out of a window. It was a sin to take life…even one's own. It was that thought which restrained me. My great comfort was in prayer. I was sustained by reading the holy books, by remembering the sufferings of Jesus and trying to emulate his example. At least I had managed to subdue Lady Shelton sufficiently to escape the humiliation of physical punishment.
And there was Margaret Bryan.
When the house was quiet, she would come to my room. I was terrified at the risk she was taking, for I knew that, if Lady Shelton discovered, she most certainly would be sent away; she might even be imprisoned. I was sure both the King and Anne Boleyn were very much afraid of the people's feelings for my mother and me.
She was helped in this by one of the maids who was a sweet girl and wanted to do more for me. I was afraid her devotion would be noticed and she sent away; I told her that would sorely grieve me.
There was a secret understanding between us that she should pretend to be brusque with me, in common with the others around me. It was very important to me that she should stay near me, and although she thought of me as the Princess, it was necessary that she did not show this.
It was little incidents like this which sustained me. Later she became bolder, and it was through her, with Margaret Bryan's help, that letters from my mother and even Chapuys, the Emperor's ambassador, were smuggled in to me.
One day Margaret told me that the King was coming to Hatfield to see the Princess.
Now was my chance. If I could speak to him face to face, surely he would not fail to be moved by my plight. I would plead with him. I would make him understand. I must see him, I told myself.
The house was in tumult. The King was coming! I wondered whether she would be with him. Surely she would, for it was the baby they would come to see… her baby. If she came, there would be no hope of my seeing him. I was sure of that.
I thought of what I must do. I would throw myself at his feet. I would beg him to remember that I was his daughter.
The great day came.
My little maid was agog with excitement. “They say Queen Anne is not coming to Hatfield because you are here,” she told me.
“Surely she will come to see her own child.”
“They say she will not.”
“If he comes alone …” I murmured. The girl nodded. She knew what I meant.
And at length he came. It was true that Anne Boleyn had stayed some miles away and he would rejoin her after the visit.
I could smell the roasting meats; I was aware of the bustle of serving men rushing hither and thither in the last throes of preparation for the royal visit. And at last there he was, riding into Hatfield.
I was in my room… waiting. Would he send for me? Surely he must. Was I not his daughter? He had come to see one; surely he must see the other, too.
The hours wore on. Margaret came to tell me that he had been with Elizabeth and seemed mightily pleased with her. Margaret glowed with pride every time she mentioned Elizabeth. “He is now feasting in the hall,” she went on.
“They are in a panic in the kitchens lest anything go wrong.”
Surely he must ask: Where is my daughter Mary? Why is she not here?
But I could not go unless he sent for me.
The hours were passing. He was preparing to leave and he had not sent for me. Perhaps he had not asked about me. I must see him, I must.
But he was not going to send for me, and already they were riding out of the palace.
I dashed to the balcony. There he was. I stood there, looking down at him.
I did not call his name. I just stared and stared, my lips moving in prayer. Father…your daughter is here… please… please…do not leave without seeing me. Just a look…a smile… but look at me.
And then something made him turn, and for a few seconds we looked full at each other. He did not smile. He merely looked. What thoughts passed through his head, I did not know. What did he think to see this palefaced girl who had once been his pretty child, shabbily clad, when once she had been in velvet and cloth of gold, an outcast in his bastard daughter's household… what did he think?
He had passed on. He did lift his hat, though, in acknowledgment of my presence as he turned away.
All the gentlemen around him did likewise.
I had been noticed. And that was all his visit meant to me.
I WAS HEARING NEWS of my mother through Margaret and my maid.
When they moved me to Hatfield, they had tried to move her from Buckden to Somersham, at the same time dismissing part of her household. I had been worried about her being at Buckden which is a most unhealthy place, but Somersham is worse. It is in the Isle of Ely and notoriously damp, and as she was suffering from excruciating pains in her limbs, I was sure that would have been disastrous for her. I often marvelled at my mother's indomitable spirit and the manner in which she clung to life. She must have known that she could not live long in Somersham, and the thought occurred to me that my father—lured on by his concubine—might have thought it would kill her to stay there long. Her death would make things easier for them, and I was sure it was what the concubine desired—if not my father.
My mother had defied the commissioners sent to carry out my father's orders; she had shut herself in her room and sent word down to them that if they wished to remove her they must break down her door and carry her off by force.
They could have done this, of course, but there was a rumor that the people in the neighborhood were bringing out their scythes and other such implements implying that, if the Queen were taken, her captors would have to face the people, and this made them hesitate.
The result had been that my mother had remained at Buckden.
I heard what her life was like there. She found great comfort in prayer. I did too, but she was more intensely involved. Religion was all-important to her. It was becoming so with me, as it does with people who have nothing else to cling to. She, however, would never rail against her misfortunes, but meekly accept them. That was the difference in us. She passed her time in prayer, meditation and sewing for the poor. There was a window in her room from which she could look down on the chapel, and there she spent a great deal of her time. I was thankful that she had a loyal chamberwoman who cooked for her. Several new servants had been assigned to her, and naturally she must feel suspicious of them.