“What think you of marriage, Eloise?” Elizabeth asked me one day toward the end of August as I sewed in her sitting room.
Summer had passed its height, and the last days of August had cooled into balmy softness. Late flowers ran riot among the hedges at Cheshunt, bleeding their last color before autumn would send them into dormancy.
I blinked in surprise. “Marriage, Your Grace? I try to think of it as little as possible.”
I was not certain whether Elizabeth was in one of her whimsical moods—when she’d skewer anyone within earshot with her wit and expect their answers to be equally as witty. Or she might have asked me in all seriousness, wishing to provoke a philosophical discussion.
“I believe I shall never marry,” Elizabeth said firmly. “It seems to me a dangerous endeavor.”
“Aunt Kat likes it.” So far, she and Uncle John, despite their occasional disagreement, were happy together.
“Mistress Kat married for love and was allowed to.” Elizabeth turned to me with the air of a lecturer, but I saw her wistfulness as she spoke. “A lady of a high family marries for connections or monetary gain and usually not by her choice.”
“I agree that highborn ladies do marry for duty,” I said. “Perhaps sometimes duty and love can be found together?”
Elizabeth sent me a pitying glance. We might be the same age, but she looked upon the world with eyes that were older and wiser than mine.
“Such things can happen,” she answered. “But not very often. This time, my stepmother married for love, but from my observation, when she married her first two husbands and then my father, all for duty, she was much more contented.”
I was not certain I agreed. I remembered Catherine as Henry’s wife, a patient woman keeping her emotions in check.
I imagined she’d been the same in her first marriages, one to the young Sir Edward Burgh, and the second to Baron Latimer, who at least had given her a title and left her with some wealth. When Catherine had married Seymour, with whom she’d shared a close friendship before her marriage to Henry, she’d dared to be happy, laughing and enjoying herself. Her serious demeanor, which Henry had praised, had vanished.
Henry had married Catherine for her beauty, so the tales went, which had been unmarred by her two widowhoods. Catherine’s attractiveness remained, and I do not believe Seymour was immune to it.
I’d come to highly suspect that Seymour’s interest in Elizabeth had more to do with the fact that she was now second in line to the throne than anything else, though I did not discount her charms for him. I’d learned that Seymour was plenty lecherous enough to want Elizabeth for her young beauty as well.
“I shall not marry at all,” I said with conviction, suppressing a shudder at the memory of Seymour’s hands on me in the dark hall. “A gentleman is expected to rule his wife, and I dislike that notion. It is natural for a woman to obey a mother and father, and even an aunt and uncle, but most husbands, in my opinion, take advantage of their power.”
Elizabeth listened to me thoughtfully. She never dismissed my words out of hand when we had these sorts of conversations, a consideration I was grateful for.
“Would the husband take such advantage, think you, if the wife was a queen?”
“I am afraid so,” I answered. “There is not much that will stop husbands wanting mastery.”
“The husband would be the queen’s subject, though, would he not?” Elizabeth had a strangely persistent note in her voice. “If she ruled England herself?”
“But a woman has not ruled England,” I pointed out. “Not for centuries. There has always been a male heir, who marries and produces at least one son, unless there is a war and another king takes over.” At least, this was my somewhat muddled view of our history.
“True, but if my brother does not sire a son, my sister, Mary, will be queen.” Elizabeth flicked a page of her book, as though the conversation was only of partial interest. “My father willed it thus.”
Elizabeth did not continue that train of thought, but her implication was clear. If Edward left no heirs, and neither did Mary, Elizabeth would step into the role of monarch, as Aunt Kat had suggested.
I studied Elizabeth’s firm jaw, her no-nonsense eyes, the tilt of her head that suggested arrogance.
Arrogance could become a detriment if taken too far. But it could also be an asset, an air that set a person apart from others and forced awe from those who beheld them.
“Mary will surely take a husband,” I argued. “One that will benefit the kingdom. I would think a queen has less freedom than any other woman when it comes to choosing her life’s mate.”
Elizabeth lifted her head, the late summer light making her eyes gray like uncut diamonds. “But she would be queen. All must obey her then.”
She challenged me, awaiting my response. I should bow my head meekly and say she knew best, but my honest tongue rattled on.
“From what I understand, Your Grace, the people of England do not swallow things readily. It is not like the Saracen lands, where the people live in absolute terror of their kings.”
I could not claim complete knowledge of the Saracen lands—or even where they lay—but I believed that in those places, the common subjects would never dream of criticizing their ruler, for fear of being put to death.
I did not remind her that when Henry had put aside his beloved first wife to marry Elizabeth’s mother, rebellion had boiled under the waters of the then-placid pond of our kingdom.
