Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

There is no doubt but she shall come to some great marriage.

—Lady Wallop to Lady Lisle (referring to Anne Bassett), 8 August 1538

EPILOGUE—1554

On the eleventh day of June, near the end of the first year of the reign of Mary Tudor, a thirty-three-year-old Nan Bassett, waiting gentlewoman to the queen, accompanied her royal mistress to the queen’s chapel for the last time. Queen Mary’s face was wreathed in smiles, as Nan knew her own must be.

“This is an auspicious day,” the queen said.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Nan agreed.

“Will you miss being at court, do you think?”

“I will miss my friends, Your Grace, and it will seem strange not to be in Your Grace’s company every day.”

“But you will have a loving husband, as I soon shall. And children to complete your life.”

The queen was to marry King Philip of Spain as soon as he arrived in England. He was expected toward the end of July, only a bit more than a month hence. Queen Mary’s happiness at her betrothal had, at last, persuaded her to part with Nan. And to grant her, as a wedding gift, a goodly number of the properties that had been confiscated by the Crown at the time of Lord Hungerford’s attainder.

As they approached the chapel at Richmond Palace, where Nan’s wedding ceremony was to be performed, she could not help but think back over the years since she’d first waited upon Mary Tudor. She’d left Mary’s household to serve Kathryn Parr, content to wait until Wat Hungerford reached his majority before she married. But King Henry had become more and more difficult as his health failed him. He was so unpredictable that even Queen Kathryn had once been in danger of arrest for carelessly expressing a wrong opinion. Although Nan had never given up hope that she would one day achieve her goals, neither had she ever dared ask the king for the restoration of the Hungerford lands and title.

Seeking favors from Jane Seymour’s son, Edward, a boy not yet ten years old when he succeeded to the throne, had been even more impossible. His reign had been difficult to endure. Since Edward VI had been too young to rule on his own, England had been governed by his advisors. They’d been radical in their religious beliefs, so harsh in their suppression of papists that even though Mary Tudor was the king’s half sister, she had feared for her life.

Nan’s choices had been limited at the start of Edward’s reign. He’d had no queen for Nan to serve. There had, however, been a powerful woman at court. Queen Jane’s brother, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, had been named lord protector and elevated in the peerage to Duke of Somerset. In all but name, he was king and his wife a queen. But just as Cat Bassett had shied away from entering the then Countess of Hertford’s household when the two sisters first came to England, so Nan had been reluctant to place herself at the mercy of a woman reputed to be a vicious, vindictive virago. Nan had always thought it a great pity that her mother had wasted the gift of her own pet linnet on such a notoriously bad-tempered noblewoman.

Instead, Nan had returned to the Lady Mary, this time as a lady-in-waiting. Mary Tudor had been out of favor, but until King Edward married and had children of his own, she remained next in line to inherit the throne of England. Nan had joined her fate to that of King Henry’s oldest daughter and had never looked back. She and Wat had been patient, and when Mary Tudor finally succeeded her brother, Nan once again became a gentlewoman in the service of a queen.

This time the queen was a queen regnant, a woman with power. And Queen Mary believed in rewarding those who had been loyal to her.

Nan drew in a deep breath as they reached the chapel. Wat Hungerford of Farleigh waited just inside, together with the Catholic priest who would perform their wedding ceremony. Wat was no boy now, but a man in his prime. And yet the look in his eyes as he watched her approach was the same as it had always been. He had never wavered in his devotion, never stopped proposing marriage, never grown tired of waiting until the day—today—when, at last, they could be united in holy matrimony.

Friends and family filled the chapel, gathered to celebrate Nan’s nuptials. She felt a moment’s sadness for those who could not be with her. As she well knew, death could take away the young and healthy as well as the old and infirm. Her good friend Anne Herbert had died two years earlier. Anne’s sister, the widowed queen, Kathryn Parr, had been lost to childbed fever less than a year after her marriage to Sir Thomas Seymour. Jane Mewtas was gone, too, and both Joan and Anthony Denny.

But I am alive, Nan thought. And I have a bright future ahead of me.

Close to the spot just within the chapel door where she and Wat were to take their vows stood the members of Nan’s immediate family. She scarcely knew her brothers, George and James, but they had come to attend the ceremony. Nan’s mother was present, too. For once, she looked pleased with her daughter’s accomplishment. And why not? The queen had promised that Wat would be knighted. Less certain was that he would be restored to the title of Baron Hungerford, but that no longer mattered to either Nan or Wat. Such honors were not as necessary as Nan had once believed. It had taken her years to realize it, but loving and being loved by a good man was far more important.

Nan’s sister, Cat, stood beside their mother. Cat’s husband and six-year-old son were with her. They lived in Kent, near enough to the queen’s favorite palaces for Nan to have visited them often. Whatever rivalry had once existed had been set aside long ago.

Nan’s oldest sister, Philippa, was also on hand. She, too, was accompanied by a husband and a son. The youngest Bassett girl, Mary, as yet unmarried, sniffled into a handkerchief, but she managed a watery smile for her sister.

Elsewhere in the chapel, Nan caught sight of Lucy Somerset, now Lady Latimer, and Cousin Mary, who had remarried and was now Countess of Arundel. Most of the maids of honor Nan had served with in Mary Tudor’s household, both before and after Mary became queen, were also present to celebrate with her.

Nan took her place beside Wat, standing at his left hand. The queen herself blessed their union and gave Nan into the keeping of her future husband.

Throughout the solemn, scripted ritual that followed, Nan could only think how glad she was that this moment had finally come. She did not regret her time at court, but she was ready to leave the service of royalty behind. She wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life at Farleigh Castle as Lady Hungerford.

Wat took her right hand in his right hand, his grip firm and confident. He’d never once doubted that they belonged together.

“I, Walter, take thee Anne to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us depart, if holy church will it ordain, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

As the ceremony demanded, Wat withdrew his hand and Nan took it back again to make her own vows: “I, Anne, take thee Walter to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forth, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonair and buxom in bed and at board, till death us depart, if holy church will it ordain, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Bonair and buxom, she thought, smiling slightly, words that meant courteous and kind. She would have no difficulty with either. Not with Wat as her husband.

The priest blessed the ring, which had been placed on a book along with a monetary offering. When he’d sprinkled it with holy water, Wat took the ring in his right hand, using three fingers, and held Nan’s right hand in his left. Then he repeated the priest’s solemn words: “With this ring I thee wed and this gold and silver I thee give; and with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly cattle I thee honor.”

He placed the ring on Nan’s thumb, “in the name of the Father,” moved it to the second finger—“and of the Son”—and on to the third finger: “and of the Holy Ghost.” When he placed it on her fourth finger, he concluded with, “Amen.”

Nan looked down at her hand, wondering if it were true that in the fourth finger there was a vein that ran straight to the heart. Overwhelmed by the emotion she felt at this moment, she was certain there must be a connection.

Together, Nan and Wat moved to the step before the altar for the nuptial Mass and blessing that would precede a wedding breakfast in the royal apartments—another mark of favor from the queen. Nan scarcely heard a word for the haze of happiness that surrounded her.

When all the prayers were done, Wat received the pax from the priest. The final act of the ritual was to convey it to Nan by kissing her. “At last,” he whispered just before their lips met.

At last, Nan thought, relishing his touch, basking in her sense of belonging and the sheer joy of mutual love and respect.

The kiss Nan gave Wat in return told him everything that was in her heart.