Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

2

King Henry VII rebuilt Pleasance during the first two years I lived in England, facing the whole in red brick and renaming it Greenwich Palace. My “brothers” and “sisters” at Eltham, however, had already taken to calling it “Pleasure Palace” in private.

By the time I reached my ninth birthday, during my first January in England, I was fluent in English and no longer had any trace of an accent. This pleased me very much, for I did not wish to call attention to my foreign birth. The English, by nature, are suspicious of anyone who is not a native of their island. That may be why I never became close friends with any of the other girls among the children of honor. Little Princess Mary, however, took to me from the first and tagged along after me, chattering in French, even when I wished she would not.

In February of that same year, a new prince was born—Edmund Tudor. Queen Elizabeth of York gave birth to him at Pleasure Palace, but soon after, he was sent to join his siblings at Eltham, while the queen continued to live at court with the king.

The court never stayed in one place long. Sometimes it was at Richmond, which King Henry built to replace Sheen, sometimes at Windsor Castle. It was often at Westminster Palace and Greenwich. In the summer, it went on progress.

In late November, Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne, was executed. He had involved himself in one too many plots and had to pay the price for it. I felt sorry for his wife, Lady Catherine Gordon. I had never spoken to her, but she was one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies and I had seen her once or twice when I was at court with the princesses. I did not see much of Queen Elizabeth either, although she always spoke kindly to me and brought me gifts of clothing when she visited her daughters at Eltham.

When I was ten, the Lady Margaret and the Lady Mary were given separate household staffs. Harry Guildford’s mother, who until then had been one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies, was appointed as Mary’s lady governess. Princess Mary took to calling her “Mother Guildford,” and soon we were all using that name behind her back. To her face, we addressed her as Lady Guildford or madam.

I was nominally assigned to the Lady Mary—she refused to be parted from me—but I still conversed with the Lady Margaret, in both French and English, on a daily basis. All four households—Prince Henry’s, the Lady Margaret’s, the Lady Mary’s, and Prince Edmund’s nursery—continued to live, for the most part, at Eltham. But we were all at Hatfield House again in June that year when Prince Edmund died. He was only sixteen months old. I was saddened by his death, but I would have been much more upset to lose one of my princesses, Prince Henry, Harry, or Will.

I was always happy to go to Pleasure Palace when the court was there. It lived up to its name as a place where we could indulge in pleasant pastimes. We were allowed to watch the disguisings and the dancing, and we had games of our own. Harry Guildford was always the cleverest at devising those. He was the one who set prince and princess against each other in a contest with hoops.

One day in my tenth year, Prince Henry, the Lady Margaret, Harry, and I eluded the tutors, governesses, and five-year-old Mary to meet in the passageway that ran beneath the king’s apartments. Above us, King Henry’s rooms were stacked one above the other in the five-story keep.

“The goal,” Harry explained, “is to be the first to roll these hoops from the chapel to the entrance to the privy kitchens.”

The passage, newly floored, was long and level and perfect for the purpose, but I regarded the metal barrel hoops and sticks Harry had “found” for us with a sense of dismay. I did not see how I would be able to keep control of such an unwieldy thing.

The Lady Margaret had no such doubts. She sent her younger brother a superior smile and was off, deftly spinning the hoop at her side. Prince Henry followed an instant later and nearly overtook his sister near the royal wardrobe; but for all her stocky build, the princess was fleet of foot.

My hoop toppled over at the first uneven bit of flooring. Harry completed the course, but was wise enough to move much more slowly than his young master.

“I was faster!” Prince Henry complained. “If you had not started before the signal to begin, I’d have reached the finish sooner.”

“Is it a race, then?” Margaret asked, eyes aglow with anticipation.

“It is. Let us see who takes the best two out of three.”

“Agreed. We will go back the way we came.” Margaret kilted up her skirts and ordered Harry to count to three.

Prince Henry was off at “two,” but his sister still passed him halfway to the chapel and beat him handily.

“Best three out of five,” the prince said, panting.

“Done.”

This time when Margaret won, they had an audience. Servants had come out of various household offices and courtiers had trickled down from the king’s apartments, drawn by the commotion.

“You cheated!” Face red, eyes bulging with anger and humiliation, Prince Henry threw his hoop against the wall. When it bounced back, the sharp metal rim nearly struck Harry. He barely jumped out of the way in time.

The spectators made themselves scarce. I eyed a nearby tapestry, wishing I could duck behind it and hide. I stiffened my spine. It was my duty to remain at Princess Margaret’s side, but I dearly wished she would wipe that smug expression off her face. Seeing it only heightened her brother’s anger. He glared at her, saying not a word, but if thoughts could kill she’d have burst into flames.

“Cheat!” With a snarl, the prince stalked off. Harry trailed after him, shoulders slumped.

WHEN I WAS eleven, a fifteen-year-old Spanish princess named Catherine of Aragon arrived in England and married Prince Arthur. She was greeted with elaborate processions and festivities. I had to laugh at my first sight of the Spanish ladies. They rode on mule chairs instead of saddles, two to each mule, back-to-back. The arrangement made them look as if they had quarreled and were refusing to speak to each other.

A little more than two months after that, the Lady Margaret was betrothed to King James of Scotland and married to him by proxy at Richmond Palace. She was twelve. There was a tournament to celebrate, the first I was allowed to attend. My uncle was one of the competitors. Although he lived at court and was master of the king’s falcons, I rarely saw him after my mother’s death. If he noticed me in the crowd of spectators, he did not give any sign of it.

In April of that year, tragedy struck. Prince Arthur died. Prince Henry, who had been intended for the church, became the new Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. He went to live at court, taking all his household with him—Harry Guildford and Will Compton and Ned Neville and the younger boys, like little Nick Carew, who had come to Eltham well after I’d arrived there.

We were reunited at Westminster toward the end of that summer, and to entertain us King Henry paraded his collection of curiosities. He kept a giant woman from Flanders and a wee Scotsman, a dwarf. There was a man who ate sea coal—a very strange sight! But the oddest curiosities of all were the newest additions. Certain men of Bristol who had sailed to the New World that lies across the Western Sea had brought back three natives of that distant land and given them to King Henry as a gift.

The sight of these savages both frightened and fascinated me. They wore the skins of beasts as clothing and ate raw flesh. No one was able to understand their speech.

“You must keep them locked up, Father,” Princess Mary told the king. “Otherwise they might eat us.”

“They are not cannibals, Mary, and we mean to civilize them. I have assigned them a keeper. He will look after them, just as keepers watch over the more simpleminded of our royal fools.”

Distracted by this idea, she frowned. “Goose does not have a keeper.”

“Goose is not simple, so he does not need one,” King Henry said with an indulgent chuckle. “He is the other kind of fool—the sort who has a wit sharp enough to cut and the cleverness not to use it to slice into the wrong person.”

QUEEN ELIZABETH DIED shortly after I turned thirteen. She’d just given birth to another child, a daughter, but the baby also died. The loss of his wife affected King Henry VII even more than the death of his eldest son. I think he truly loved her.

A few weeks after the queen’s funeral, the king came to Eltham. He dismissed the Lady Margaret’s other attendants but bade me remain. Then he seemed to collapse onto a window seat. He indicated some cushions on the floor in front of it with a listless gesture, inviting his daughter to sit. I remained standing.

The king was a pitiful sight. Hair that had once been reddish brown had gone gray and was uncombed. His pale coloring had gone sallow, and the skin around his jowls sagged, as if he’d lost all interest in food or had forgotten to eat. He was almost fifty years old, but he had never looked it before. Now he seemed to have aged a decade in a single month.

As if he felt my gaze upon him, he looked up, peering at me for a moment without recognition before he gathered himself and motioned for me to come closer. “Sit, Jane. This concerns you, too.”

“Your Grace?” Hesitantly, I settled myself on the cushion to the right of the Lady Margaret.

“My dear,” he said, turning to Princess Margaret. “You must set out for Scotland as we planned. You will leave from Richmond Palace in late June.”

Margaret frowned but did not argue. She had been married to King James IV more than a year earlier and plans for her departure had been well advanced before her mother’s death.

“Jane, Margaret asked that you go with her. I had intended to permit it, but no longer. I wish you to remain in England.”

We both stared at him. I had not known about the Lady Margaret’s request. Now I did not know what to say. Indeed, I hesitated to say anything at all.

“Jane must accompany me,” Margaret objected. “I cannot do without her.”

“You will have to,” her father said. “Your sister needs her more. Mary is eight years old, the same age Jane was when her mother died. If I could keep you here, Margaret, I would, but you needs must go to Scotland. In your place, Jane must stay.”

“In my place?” Margaret looked offended. “Jane is no princess!”

The king sighed and glanced again at me. A crafty look came into his pale eyes. “What say you, Jane? Do you wish to go to Scotland with Margaret or stay here with Mary?”

He could command that I stay, no matter what I said. I thought of Mary. I’d heard her crying for her mother in the night and my heart had gone out to her. I looked at Margaret—solid, sturdy Margaret who knew her own mind even at the tender age of thirteen. She did not need me…and Mary did.

“I will stay here,” I said.

“You will not regret your decision.” The king looked pleased.

After he left, the Lady Margaret stared at me with cold, unforgiving eyes. With a wrenching sense of loss, I knew our friendship was at an end.

“I always knew our father loved Mary best,” she said when I started to speak, “but I thought you would be loyal.”

“The king of Scots may not permit you to keep any of your household,” I reminded her. Although James IV had agreed to let her bring a goodly number of English men and women with her, she had been warned of the possibility that he would dismiss most of them after she arrived in Scotland.

“I am a princess of England,” Margaret declared. “I shall do as I like.”

After Margaret Tudor left England for Scotland, I tried not to think about her. My “sister,” as Will Compton would have it, had stopped speaking to me—in either English or French—well before her departure.

I devoted myself to the Lady Mary and was pleased when, over the course of the next two years, she began to turn to me for advice. I became her “dearest Jane,” but I never let myself forget how quickly that might change. When she asked for honesty, I gave her only as much as I thought she wanted to hear.

I CELEBRATED MY sixteenth birthday at Pleasure Palace in January of the twentieth year of the reign of King Henry the VII. By then I had lived in England for some seven and a half years and, while the Lady Mary feared thunderstorms, I had developed a liking for the wild weather that sometimes battered the English Isles at that time of year.

For three long days and nights in the middle of the month, a gale that had swept across the Narrow Seas and into the south of England raged unchecked. It uprooted trees and sheered tiles off rooftops. From the Lady Mary’s apartments, which looked out upon a garden with a fountain, an apple orchard, and part of the two-hundred-acre park her father had enclosed for hunting, I was able to watch branches waving madly but could see little else.

Curiosity finally drew me to the opposite side of the palace, to the passageway beneath the king’s apartments where we had once rolled hoops. There the windows overlooked the rapidly rising waters of the Thames. From that vantage point I had a clear view of a surface that had been frozen solid only a few days earlier. Now the river had overflowed its banks, flooding the lowest-lying areas. In awe, I watched stairs designed to give access to Greenwich Palace at any stage of the tide vanish beneath the roiling water.

I was so intent upon the sight that I did not at once realize I was no longer alone. I heard footfalls approaching and then a man spoke.

“Why, it is Mistress Popyncourt,” said Master Charles Brandon, stopping beside me.

I recognized him at once. He had been taking prizes in tournaments for the last four years, ever since one held at Richmond Palace to celebrate the betrothal of Princess Margaret to the king of Scots. He was also the most handsome man at court. All the Lady Mary’s ladies thought so. Tall and broad shouldered, he had hair of such a dark red it sometimes looked black and eyes the color of agates.

I was a little surprised that he knew me by name. My features were not sufficiently distinctive to make me stand out in a court filled with beautiful women. I could boast of nothing more than a trim figure, medium height, brown hair and eyes, a pale complexion, and a small, thin nose.

Master Brandon wore livery—clothing of a particular dusky brown-orange called tawny that was decorated with a badge that featured a silver falcon crest. He was master of horse to the Earl of Essex, but his demeanor was not that of any man’s servant. His bearing betrayed a proud, independent spirit. I had heard that he was a man who liked to have his own way and I had no trouble believing it.

“What brings you to this part of the palace, mistress?” he asked.

“I wished for a better view of the storm.”

“It is a fierce one.” The wind still howled and rain lashed the windows, although the thunder and lightning had passed on. “I am told that in London the gale ripped the brass weathercock out of its socket atop the spire of St. Paul’s and blew it clear across the churchyard. It struck the sign over the door of an inn three hundred paces away and smashed it to bits.”

“Some might call that an evil omen,” I murmured.

“Do you believe in signs and portents?” He chuckled. “Then mayhap it is good luck that brought me here at this hour.”

When he slipped his arm around my waist, I belatedly realized that the gleam in his eyes was desire. He had warm feelings toward me and was happy to have found me alone in this secluded place. I responded by sending him an encouraging smile.

In common with every other young woman at the royal court, I had read the tales of chivalry and romance. Sometimes I daydreamed of being swept off my feet by a bold knight and carried off to his castle. I imagined marriage and children and a return to court when my “brother,” Prince Henry, took the throne as Henry VIII and had likewise wed. I saw myself taking charge of his nursery, for surely such a big, strapping lad would produce a goodly number of sons and daughters.

Charles Brandon, I thought, might make a very suitable husband. He had no fortune yet, but he was a favorite of both King Henry VII and the Prince of Wales. Brandon seemed destined for a successful career at court. And so I did not protest when he lowered his head and kissed me.

The experience was not what I had been expecting. He gave me a wet, sloppy kiss and seemed to be trying to slide his tongue into my mouth. I allowed this, out of curiosity, but I found it unpleasant when he began to press small, smacking kisses on my cheek and throat. Over his shoulder, I could see the river. When something on the surface of the water caught my eye, I stiffened and made a little sound of surprise and consternation.

Brandon released me with unflattering speed. “Do you hear someone approaching?”

I ignored his question, leaning closer to the window until my nose almost touched the expensive glass pane and my palms rested flat against the casement. A wherry was approaching the submerged water stairs. The fitful light of several lanterns on land and one aboard the tiny craft itself revealed a heroic struggle as the boatman attempted to make a landing.

My breath caught as the boat’s single passenger stood up, waving his arms about. This made the boatman’s task even more difficult. One of the oars he’d been using to steer his small craft disappeared beneath the water. At any moment, I expected to see the passenger follow. It did not look as if the boat itself would stay afloat long enough to reach the safety of the shore. I clutched my rosary.

At my side, Master Brandon also watched the drama unfolding on the riverbank. “There! The boatman has managed to catch hold of something.”

“And look—help is coming.” A detachment of the king’s yeomen of the guard had appeared, all in their livery and carrying halberds. They pulled the wherry onto the shore. The passenger scrambled out, still waving his arms about in an agitated fashion, but I lost sight of him when the guards surrounded him. A moment later, they were marching him toward the palace.

Charles Brandon was no longer beside me. He was sprinting down the passageway toward the stairs that led to the king’s apartments, no doubt hoping to be the first to bring news of the stranger’s arrival to the king. No one, I realized, would have been so foolish as to risk life and limb on the swollen river unless he had urgent business at court. The king might well look favorably upon the courtier who gave him advance warning.

Certain I would eventually learn who the man was—it was difficult to keep secrets at court—I returned to the Lady Mary’s apartments. The warmth of her rooms was welcome after the chill damp of the passageway. Although nothing could successfully ward off winter’s icy grip on Greenwich Palace, woolen tapestries covered the interior walls of the princess’s privy chamber. A fire blazed in the hearth. In addition, two green-glazed ceramic stoves on wheels had been placed close to the half circle of women seated on the floor in front of the Lady Mary. Bay leaves and juniper added to the sea coal made the smoke fragrant, and the heat from these stoves warmed busy fingers as they plied their needles.

I moved to join the others, but Mother Guildford intercepted me. She seized my arm and pulled me into the relative privacy of a window alcove, out of earshot of the ten-year-old princess and her ladies.

There was a striking family resemblance between Lady Guildford and her son. Like Harry, his mother had a round face dominated by a large nose and a cleft in the chin. Unlike him, she had a caustic tongue. Her voice was low and stern and as icy as the cobblestones in the courtyard. “What have you been up to, Jane? Your face is most unbecomingly flushed.”

“I went to look at the river.”

Her eyebrows shot upward. “And where, pray, did you find a window that overlooks the Thames?”

“In the passage beneath the king’s lodgings.”

Servants had closed the green-and-white-striped satin curtains to conserve the heat in the Lady Mary’s chambers, but even curtains lined with buckram could not keep out the bitter, penetrating iciness of a severe frost. The oak flooring was covered with fitted rush mats, making it considerably warmer than stone or tile. But inside my shoes and two pairs of stockings my feet felt like blocks of ice. I glanced with true longing at the thick footcloth on the floor in front of the long, padded bench where the Lady Mary sat. As befit her station, she had the hearth to heat her back and the braziers to warm her front.

“You should not have been in that wing of the palace,” Mother Guildford said.

“Why ever not?” I asked, distracted by my desire to move closer to the heat. “We often played there as children.”

Mother Guildford’s face hardened. Her displeasure was an almost palpable force in the confined space. “We?”

Suddenly wary, I nodded. “The Lady Margaret and Prince Henry and some of the children of honor.” There had been games of blindman’s buff and shovelboard as well as that memorable race with hoops.

“Then my son was among them,” Mother Guildford said. “Were you with Harry today?”

“No, madam.” But I felt heat creep into my face as I remembered the time I had spent with Charles Brandon in the deserted passageway.

“Harry’s not for you, mistress.” Mother Guildford’s sharp reproof made me jump.

“And I do not want him!” I replied. Indignant, I drew myself up straighter and thrust out my chin.

The idea of a romantic attachment between the two of us was laughable. Harry was a friend. Nothing more. Still, it annoyed me that Mother Guildford thought she could do so much better for her son. I was as gently born as he was, even if my father had been a merchant. More to the point, given what Harry’s father had been up to, Lady Guildford and her son were fortunate to still be at court.

The previous July, Sir Richard Guildford had been arrested over irregularities in the accounts he controlled as master of ordnance. He’d spent five months in Fleet prison awaiting trial. Just before Christmas, without explanation, the king had ordered his release, but everyone at court knew that he had not been cleared of wrongdoing, nor had he been pardoned. He had retreated to his country estates, where he still awaited His Grace’s pleasure.

“You worry me, Jane.”

The hint of genuine concern in Mother Guildford’s voice diffused my irritation, but then I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes heavenward. I did not need anyone to look out for me. I had been fending for myself from a very early age.

“You have grown into an attractive young woman. You have been noticed.”

“What is wrong with that, madam?” I preened just a little. “Everyone comes to court in search of advancement, if not for themselves, then for their families.”

Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “True enough. We all look to marry higher than we were born. But marriage is a business arrangement, best negotiated by one’s father.”

An all too familiar ache settled into the center of my chest at the reminder that I had neither mother nor father to look out for me. Squaring my shoulders, I stared the Lady Mary’s governess straight in the eye. “Lady Guildford, I have no desire to wed your Harry, but if I did, I do not see why we would be such an unsuitable match.”

Mother Guildford did not enlighten me. Instead she said, “You are sixteen, Jane. That is a dangerous age.”

“Dangerous to whom?”

Her eyebrows shot up at my tone. “To you, my dear. You must not wander about the palace alone. It is neither wise nor safe.”

I blinked at her in genuine surprise, unable to imagine what danger could possibly escape the notice of the king’s guards.

Mother Guildford sighed and patted my arm. “You are young in many ways, Jane, and innocent, but you are old enough to marry. That you have no one to make arrangements for you to wed concerns me deeply.”

“I am one of the king’s wards.”

“You are His Grace’s dependent. His servant.” Voice even, words blunt, Mother Guildford gave no quarter. “You inherited nothing when your mother died, because she brought nothing of value with her when she left France. This places you in an awkward position, Jane. Gentlemen seek a rich dowry when they contemplate taking a wife, and you have none save what the king decides to give you.”

Already well aware of these hard facts, I resented her all the more for reminding me of them. I preferred to concentrate on the pleasures of life at court.

“If you are to remain in the princess’s household unwed, then you must have a care for your virtue. Any man, even the most honorable, will take advantage of a woman if he’s given half a chance.”

I made a small, involuntary movement before I managed to hold myself still again. What Mother Guildford said was true enough. Master Brandon’s kisses were proof of that, and he was not the first courtier to show an interest in me.

“I am always careful of my reputation,” I lied. “And no courtier would dare accost one of the princess’s ladies.”

“You were observed kissing Master Brandon.”

For a moment I thought someone had seen us together earlier that day. Then I realized that she meant the kiss Charles Brandon had given me when we’d encountered each other in the garden the week before. I had been with several of the princess’s ladies. Brandon had been accompanied by his constant companions, Tom Knyvett and Lord Edward Howard. He had not singled me out. He’d kissed all of us in greeting, as had the other two men.

“It is the custom to exchange kisses upon meeting,” I protested. It had taken me years to adjust to this peculiarly English habit. In France, etiquette forbids kissing on the lips in public, but in England these light touches of mouth to mouth are nothing more than a symbolic gesture of welcome, not unlike bowing before royalty.

“There are degrees of kisses.” Mother Guildford’s face was set in hard, uncompromising lines and her voice vibrated with disapproval.

I had begun to suspect that the kisses given to a woman by a man who desired her were quite different from those exchanged in casual greeting. In truth, that was why I’d been so willing to let Charles Brandon kiss me in the passageway beneath the king’s lodgings. In spite of Mother Guildford’s dire predictions, opportunities were few for the Lady Mary’s attendants to meet in private with handsome men.

“Drunkenness and lechery go hand in hand,” Mother Guildford continued, “and not all the king’s courtiers are temperate men. Many of them have sired bastards, both before and since coming to court. Others are simply uncouth louts. I cannot count the number of times I have come upon some gentleman relieving himself in a corner rather than bothering to walk to the nearest garderobe. And once I saw a maidservant emerge from behind an arras, her skirts rucked up and her bosom exposed.”

I had seen such sights myself. “I would never allow myself to be treated with such disrespect.”

“Not even if it were the Prince of Wales himself who showed an interest in you?”

Taken aback, I required a moment to adjust to this notion. “Prince Henry is not yet fifteen.”

“He takes after his grandfather, King Edward the Fourth, in appearance. I warrant he shares Edward’s appetites as well. Queen Elizabeth’s father had a great many mistresses and fathered a number of bastards, starting when he was just a boy. And at fourteen, even Prince Henry’s father had—”

She broke off, appalled that she’d very nearly criticized the present king’s behavior. It was never a good idea to do that, and most particularly unwise when that same king could send your husband back to prison on a whim.

“No matter,” she said brusquely, recovering. “What you need to remember, Jane, is that you must not encourage the prince or any of his friends.”

“Prince Henry behaves toward me as he does to his sisters. When we were younger, he regularly put frogs in my bed and pulled my hair, and he still trounces me soundly at chess.” The chubby little boy I’d first met at Eltham had grown into a big, golden-haired lad. He was already taller than his father. He drew every eye the moment he strode into a room. I suppressed a smile, thinking it likely he had already seduced a willing wench or two, but the idea that his amorous interest might fix on me seemed as remote as the possibility that Harry Guildford and I would fall into each other’s arms and tumble into bed.

Mother Guildford did not look convinced. “Henceforth when you leave the princess’s lodgings, take another female with you—a maidservant or one of the other gentlewomen. I will have your promise on this, Jane. You must not take foolish chances.”

I agreed, but grudgingly. It seemed to me most unfair that she should restrict my movements solely because I was female and of marriageable age. Satisfied at last, Mother Guildford released me to return to my duties.

I’d barely had time to warm my hands at the brazier before a messenger arrived to summon the Lady Mary and her women to the king’s presence chamber. An explosion of excited whispers and titters greeted this news. We’d been confined indoors by bad weather for days and the prospect of some new entertainment delighted everyone.

The king squinted in our direction when we entered his presence chamber but did not acknowledge his daughter in any way. I wondered if he recognized her. Although his eyesight had been failing for years, he refused to wear spectacles.

The rise and fall of voices filled the crowded room. Following close behind my mistress, I advanced toward the dais. On the far side of the presence chamber, I caught sight of Charles Brandon. He noticed me, too, and sent a smile my way that made me think I might let him kiss me again. Perhaps I would like it better the next time. As I felt heat creep into my cheeks, I quickly shifted my attention back to King Henry.

He looked down on us from a raised dais, a morose expression on his face. As was his custom, since he set great store by appearances, he sat beneath a cloth-of-gold canopy and upon a braided and tasseled cushion. Both were symbols of his authority. The ceiler and tester were trimmed and tasseled with Venice gold, and the section hanging down the wall behind him was embroidered with the royal arms.

Whatever chair the king’s cushion was placed upon became the chair of estate, even though the principal chair of estate was the one he now occupied in his presence chamber. No one but the king of England could sit on that one. Courtiers newly arrived in the royal household were taught that even if they entered this room when His Grace was not present, they must still doff their caps and bow as they passed the chair.

It was impressive to look at, upholstered in cloth-of-gold studded with gilt nails. It was also the only chair in the chamber. No one was allowed to sit unless His Grace gave permission. He did not ordinarily do so, but for those rare occasions when he did, the room was furnished with settles for those of the highest rank and stools for men and women of lesser importance.

A duke outranked all other noblemen. Then came marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. Most courtiers, however, were only knights, or gentlemen like Master Brandon.

When the Lady Mary reached the dais, the king spoke quietly to his daughter, then acknowledged my presence with a nod. “Bring the messenger in,” he ordered.

The room abruptly fell silent. All eyes shifted toward the door through which we had just entered.

A man stepped through from the great watching chamber. He was clad entirely in black. He twisted his cap in his hands, and the smell of wet wool emanated from his clothing. Narrowing my eyes, I studied him. This appeared to be the same fellow I’d seen earlier, taken into custody during the storm by the king’s guards near the submerged water stairs.

After much hesitation and throat clearing, he addressed the king in French, the language common to every royal court. He introduced himself as a secretary to the king of Castile, which explained his odd accent and provoked a stir of interest in the crowd. There were exclamations of surprise and excitement when he announced that King Philip, driven ashore by the storm, had taken refuge in England and begged King Henry’s leave to remain.

The babble of voices almost drowned out the messenger’s next words. I moved nearer in time to hear him say that he had brought a letter from his master. King Henry accepted it and in the hush that descended, he perused its contents.

A loud chattering sound broke the silence. The Lady Mary and I shared an amused glance. Jot, the king’s pet monkey, was loose…again. A stir in the crowd of courtiers marked his progress from the door of the privy chamber to the dais. Still reading, King Henry absently held out one arm. A streak of brown fur flashed along it to settle on His Grace’s shoulder and sit up.

The little spider monkey, a mischievous creature whom the late queen had named Jot, wore a decorative collar of velvet and kid adorned with the king’s arms. Still chattering softly, he reached out one small paw and tugged on a lock of white and thinning royal hair. King Henry reached up to stroke the creature’s small head.

Anticipation bubbled in the presence chamber with palpable force. Thoughts were plain to read on every courtier’s face. Visiting royalty was no common occurrence. Such events ordinarily required months of preparation. Even at short notice, however, a display of hospitality must be made. That meant tournaments and disguisings, hunting and hawking, and games of all sorts.

My heart beat a little faster at the prospect. There had been few celebrations at court after the festivities surrounding Princess Margaret’s departure for Scotland, and even those had been steeped in sadness because of Queen Elizabeth’s death.

I thought of Margaret sometimes. It was unlikely I would ever see her again. Princesses who married foreign princes rarely returned to the land of their birth. Catherine of Aragon, who had so briefly been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, remained in England. She was styled the princess dowager, but she was rarely at court.

When King Henry looked up from the letter, his deep-set blue eyes were alive with an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen in them for a long while. “King Philip and Queen Juana, on their way from Flanders to Castile by sea, encountered the same storm that has wreaked such havoc here in England. It scattered their fleet. The ship carrying the royal couple and their courtiers made landfall at Melcombe Regis, in Dorset. King Philip begs our hospitality until he can make such repairs to his ships as are necessary to continue the journey.”

The king gently lifted the monkey down from his shoulder and placed him on the arm of his chair. Only then did he address the messenger directly.

“Our fellow monarchs are most welcome in England. They will be entertained during their stay as befits their station. Return to your master and invite him to meet us at Windsor Castle in two weeks’ time.”

“Will the entire court go to Windsor, Father?” Princess Mary placed one hand on her father’s arm and extended the other to Jot.

She and her brother were the only people at court permitted to show such boldness before the king. I edged closer to the dais, but was careful not to place myself beneath the royal canopy.

His Grace’s rare, slow smile appeared, somewhat brackish and gap toothed. “We will stage amusements fit for a princess.”

“Will there be dancing, Father?” His ten-year-old daughter all but bounced up and down with excitement at the prospect, every movement accompanied by the tinkling of dozens of tiny bells that had been sewn onto her sleeves. “Please say there will be dancing.”

“Just to please you, Mary,” the king promised, “there will be dancing.”