Robert now served in Edward’s court, as did his father, who’d become the Lord Great Chamberlain. I wasn’t certain what a Lord Great Chamberlain did exactly, but I knew it was a very lofty position.
Robert’s father and Somerset had always been good friends, from what I understood, and so this friction, if true, was intriguing.
I kept my findings to myself, as the cold February days wound on, as neither Uncle John nor I were allowed to communicate with Elizabeth. I’d hoped to send her a covert letter, but Uncle John convinced me it was foolish to try.
I obeyed him, to his relief, though I continued to pry as much as I could out of anyone I could speak to.
In my frustration, I began to ponder ways I could communicate with Elizabeth without writing, since letters were forbidden. The scheme that dawned on me would not help me at the moment, but I amused myself expanding on the idea and trying various methods. I’d have to explain it all to Elizabeth, if I was ever allowed to be near her again.
March began with the same cold dreariness of February. Then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, our guards were dismissed, and we were allowed to leave again for Hatfield. We had no explanation—the sergeant who headed the troop simply told us he’d been recalled, and the armed men marched away.
Uncle John elected to stay in London, to be near Aunt Kat, but he sent me home.
I retreated with a heavy heart. I’d miss him—I clung to Uncle John for a long while before I could make myself let go. I was still frantically worried about Aunt Kat and none the wiser about her fate.
I reached Elizabeth’s house on a drizzly morning, having spent a night with the gentlewomen and guards Uncle Denny had sent to escort me at a wayside inn.
I found Elizabeth in another great fury.
“The Protector could get nothing from my fine Kat,” she snarled as she stalked back and forth in her chamber. “She is innocent of anything but having a foolish tongue. Still, he dares to replace her with Lady Tyrwhitt, a woman of no great mind. I have done nothing to demean myself, and the council has no need to put any more mistresses upon me.”
I crept out as she called for paper, prepared to write her anger to the Protector once again.
I imagined the tall, thin-faced Somerset, his white lips folding in on themselves as he read yet another tirade from Elizabeth.
“What of our dear Kat?” Elizabeth asked me later that night when her outrage had brought on one of her headaches. “What did you learn? Tell me at once, Eloise.”
She lay in bed with a chamomile-scented cloth on her forehead, while I sat by her side. Fear made Elizabeth angry, and her rage could wind her into illness.
I told her all I’d learned—that Aunt Kat remained confined and that she’d confessed all of Elizabeth’s escapades with Seymour at Chelsea. Master Parry had shared similar tales, including that Seymour had offered Elizabeth, via Parry, lands and money. I also related the rumors that Somerset was in danger of being toppled himself if he did not take care.
Elizabeth listened to all without interruption. When she did speak, her voice had quieted, as if worn out with bitterness.
“Why, then, should they keep our Mistress Ashley? She has told them all she knows, and Seymour has been condemned, his lands seized. Why is that not the end of it?”
“I do not know,” was all I could say.
Elizabeth directed me to her writing table and told me to read the papers Tyrwhitt had brought that Aunt Kat had written herself. She’d continued denying that Elizabeth had any intention of marrying Seymour, but her final paragraph kindled my tears:
Good Master Secretary, speak that I may change my prison. For by my troth, it is so cold I cannot sleep in it and so dark that I cannot in the day see, for I stop the window with straw; there is no glass . . .
When I finally retired to bed, I wept, brokenheartedly.
This was the most terrible thing that had happened in my young life, and at fifteen, I could not imagine worse. The woman who had taken me from a home where I was unwanted and welcomed me with cheerfulness to hers, now suffered in the cold and dark, with no surety that she’d ever see daylight again.
Elizabeth cried for her as well, and the next day she wrote the Protector a strongly worded letter, explaining that Kat was more important to her than a mother. Please relieve Kat’s suffering—send her home, and be good to her.
Tyrwhitt accosted me that afternoon when I was sewing in the light of the great hall, he having read Elizabeth’s letter thoroughly before he dispatched it to London.
“You are close to Her Grace,” Tyrwhitt said, his small eyes narrowing. “How is it she loves Mistress Ashley so well? Here is a woman who confessed all manner of lewd behavior on Her Grace Elizabeth’s part, embarrassing her, even if trying to clear her from the Lord Admiral’s plots. I would think Her Grace would like never to see the woman again.”
I faced Tyrwhitt patiently, this moon-faced, elderly man who’d been given far too much power over us.
“The princess loves few people,” I explained. “But those she loves, she loves very deeply, and she will never abandon them. My Aunt Kat took care of Her Grace Elizabeth when she had nothing—no status as princess, no household of her own, and had been declared illegitimate. Aunt Kat loved her anyway. Her Grace will never forget it, I think.”
Tyrwhitt’s frown grew as I spoke, his brows pinching in perplexity. When I finished, he cleared his throat, betraying his discomfort.
“I see,” was all he could come up with to say. “Well, tell her she is a fool.”
