“Your turn will come.”
I hoped it would arrive before I was as old as she was, but I gave her the smile she expected before we went back to watching our mutual nephew catch fish.
A few days later, my sister Kate arrived at Chelsea. It had been years since I’d last seen her. At nineteen, her resemblance to our mother was striking. That was shock enough, but the news that she was en route to her new home in the company of a husband left me speechless.
Experienced at smoothing over awkwardness, the queen dowager expertly separated the newlyweds, engaging John Jerningham in conversation so that Kate and I could steal away to my chamber. I’d heard not a word from anyone in my family since I’d arrived at Chelsea. The letters I’d sent to Cowling Castle had gone unanswered.
I did not know what to ask Kate first. Before I could decide, she rushed into my arms and embraced me. “I have missed you, Bess! It was very bad of Father to forbid us to write to you, but he was furious when he heard you were Northampton’s mistress.”
“I am his wife, Kate.”
Her eyebrows winged up. “If you say so.”
“I do. And I do not need Father trying to arrange my life.”
“He means well,” Kate said. “And I am well pleased with the husband he picked out for me.”
“Then you are fortunate. I doubt I would have been happy with the results of his matchmaking. I have nothing against Sir Edward Warner, but I do not want him as a husband.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “Sir Edward Warner? Is that why he came to Cowling Castle?” She started to laugh.
“Why is that so funny?” I had the feeling I’d been insulted, but I could not fathom how.
“Because he’s to marry Elizabeth Brooke, after all. Just not you.”
That took a moment to work out. Then I was the one gaping. “Aunt Elizabeth?”
Kate nodded. “They announced their betrothal last month.”
She rambled merrily on, telling me all about my brother William’s new wife, and what the younger boys were up to, and how excited she was to be going to her new home. It was the lot of daughters to wed and leave their childhood homes behind. Sometimes they moved so far away from their parents and siblings that they never saw any of them again. Tears welled up in my eyes. I was not so very far away, but because of the lord protector’s vengeful wife and her hatred of the queen dowager, I had lost both husband and family. I flung my arms around Kate and hugged her as tightly as she’d earlier embraced me.
“Promise me we will see each other as often as possible,” I begged her. “Swear to me that Father’s disapproval will no longer keep us apart.”
Kate used her own handkerchief to wipe away my tears. “I promise. Oh, Bess, if only you could be as happy with your Will as I am with my John.”
After Kate’s visit, it was harder to convince myself that everything would come out right in the end. Try as I might to distract myself from longing for Will, he was always in my thoughts. There were even times when I imagined that I heard his voice.
I was walking in the garden, inhaling the soothing scent of the lavender border, when it happened again. Resolutely, I continued on my way, certain my mind was playing tricks on me until I heard the thud of running footsteps and turned to see my own dear Will loping toward me.
He caught me by the waist and swung me around, grinning from ear to ear. “My lady Northampton,” he said, “are you ready to come home with me?”
31
We went first to Norfolk House for a private reunion but the next day we were off to court so that Will could formally present me to King Edward as his wife. My marriage to Will had been validated by the commissioners. He was permitted to remarry, they said, because his first wife’s adultery had been proven, and proven adultery dissolved a marriage, allowing the aggrieved party to take another wife. The decision was controversial because there was no precedent in canon law, but it had been made. I was not only Will’s wife, but also Marchioness of Northampton, one of the highest-ranking ladies in the land.
I found myself strangely awed by the ten-year-old boy king. He was dressed all in white silk, with a white plume in his bonnet and a sword buckled to his belt. In attendance were two boys his own age clad all in black. Following protocol, I curtsied three times as I approached His Grace and sank to my knees when he addressed me.
King Edward had a somber mien for one so young, and a direct gaze that reminded me of his sister Elizabeth. His eyes were less disconcerting, perhaps because they were gray rather than black. He seemed genuinely pleased to accept me as kin—his aunt through my marriage to Will and the fact that Will was Edward’s stepmother’s brother—and gave his blessing to our union in a clear, high voice. I fancied I could hear the Duchess of Somerset gnashing her teeth in the background. I thanked him, kissed the hand he extended toward me, and then walked backward from the room. I made my final curtsy at the door as it was opened behind me by one of the king’s pages.
The king’s acceptance of our marriage quieted any remaining rumbles of dissent. The lord protector pretended to be pleased by the commission’s verdict, as did his wife, but I knew it galled the duchess that I now came directly after her in precedence. My high position was all the more obvious because none of the women who outranked us both was at court.
Princess Mary stayed away because she wished to practice her own religion and it was best to do so quietly and at a distance from the reformers on the Privy Council. Princess Elizabeth remained at Chelsea with the queen dowager, and neither put in an appearance during April or May. The early months of Kathryn’s pregnancy had been difficult. Already ill and irritable, she had no wish to encounter Lady Somerset. The Lady Anna of Cleves, who had become King Henry’s “sister” when he’d had their marriage annulled, preferred her own palace at Richmond. King Henry VIII’s nieces—Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, and Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset—spent most of their time at their husbands’ country estates. The widowed Duchess of Suffolk, Frances’s stepmother, likewise preferred to remain far removed from court. There had been one other duchess in the land, the wife of the Duke of Norfolk, but with his attainder for treason, she’d lost her rank.
That left only Frances Brandon’s eldest daughter, ten-year-old Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of the late king’s sister Mary by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. She was in London as the ward of Tom Seymour and made frequent visits to her cousin the king, since they were the same age, but she had importance only as a marriage pawn and was too young to participate in ceremonies at court.
Will and I were assigned lodgings in various royal houses in accordance with Will’s place in the peerage and his position as a privy councilor. They were very fine indeed, made more splendid by the addition of our own furnishings. We lived in great comfort and luxury and, as a marchioness, I was entitled to keep a bevy of attendants with me at all times.
There I experienced the first small check in my happiness. I wanted my sister Kate with me, but she was expecting a child and refused to leave hearth and home. I tried to persuade Mary Woodhull to come with me from Chelsea, but she insisted that the queen dowager needed her more than I did, especially during Her Grace’s coming confinement. I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue. Loyalty was a quality I admired. Alys Guildford likewise turned down my invitation and remained in the service of Jane, Countess of Warwick.
I had hoped Jane would be at court, but John Dudley, her husband the earl, was in poor health. I had to rely on letters to maintain my friendship with her and with Alys, although the three Dudley sons at court—Jack, Ambrose, and Robin—also relayed news. When Jane recommended a Mistress Crane as one of my waiting gentlewomen, I accepted the young woman sight unseen. In all, I had six such females attending me—women of gentle birth and flawless upbringing who gave me consequence but did not become my confidantes.