Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

4

More than three months passed before word reached our remote peninsula that King Henry had wed for the sixth time. By then it was late July. It had been an unusually wet summer. There were outbreaks of the plague all over England. In an attempt to avoid both the worst of the inclement weather and the deadly path of the disease, the court went on progress in Surrey and Buckinghamshire, far away from Kent. Using the excuse of limited accommodations at some of the king’s smaller manors, large numbers of courtiers fled to their own estates.

No one knows what causes a visitation of the plague, but fewer people seemed to contract the dread disease in the country. At Cowling Castle with my family, I remained safe from infection.

Mother, well aware that I had hoped to return to court once there was a new queen in residence, spent most of August and the first part of September sending letters to influential acquaintances. To distract me, she kept Kate and me busy in the stillroom, teaching us how to make herbal remedies and preventives. Most of the latter were intended to keep the plague at bay.

It is the duty of every wife, whether she be married to a cobbler or a great lord, to look after the health of her household. To that end, Mother taught us to identify dozens of healing herbs and how to prepare them for use. Ceramic pots covered with thin goatskin, glass and horn containers plugged with stopples, and even a few imported stoneware jugs with parchment tied over their mouths to keep the contents dry filled the stillroom shelves. They contained powders, extracts, oils, ointments, and pills. Drying roots hung in bunches from the ceiling. The long table where we worked held equipment, everything from a small still to a handpress used to squeeze the juice out of fruit.

“But why must preventives always smell so vile?” I asked, wrinkling my nose in distaste as I labored with mortar and pestle. The stench of burning leather permeated the entire castle because the purifying fumes created by setting fire to old shoes warded off disease.

“The onions are not so bad,” Kate said. Peeled onions left in a house for ten days absorbed infection from the air, but not even the sweet herbs we used for strewing could mask their pungent odor.

“If remedies do not smell awful, then they taste terrible.” I bore down harder on a handful of briar leaves.

Mother stopped beside me to inspect my handiwork. “Stamp the herbs, Bess. Do not grind them into powder. Bruise them gently.”

I sighed and started over. When I’d bruised the leaves properly, I added them to handfuls of sage, rue, and elder leaves and strained them with a quart of white wine sprinkled with ginger. Everyone in the family had been drinking a little of this concoction, morning and night, for two months. It was not the worst thing I had ever tasted, but I was heartily sick of it.

Just as I finished the straining, Matthew Rowlett came into the stillroom with a letter that had just arrived for Mother. Her face lit up when she recognized the seal. She wasted no time in breaking the wax to read the contents. She was still smiling when she finished.

“Well, Bess,” she said, “it seems you will be going to court after all.”

“But I thought there was no hope of a post as a maid of honor to the queen.” There were only six such positions and all had been filled. My aunt, Dorothy Bray, held one. She’d written to Mother to boast of it. The other five were Mistress Anne Bassett, the young woman who had been so friendly to me at the king’s supper, and four ladies I did not know—a Carew, a Windsor, a Guildford, and one of Sir Anthony Browne’s daughters by his first marriage.

“Before she accepted the post as a maid of honor,” Mother explained, “the Guildford girl was in service to her kinswoman, Lady Lisle. That position is now vacant.”

I frowned in puzzlement. “Do you mean Nan Bassett’s mother?”

Mother shook her head. “Honor Lisle has lived in retirement in the West Country since her second husband’s death. Lord Lisle had no son to succeed him, so King Henry gave the title to his stepson. The new Viscount Lisle is Sir John Dudley. He is also lord admiral of England. His wife, Jane, was a Guildford of Halden Hall before her marriage. She is one of Queen Kathryn’s great ladies of the household. That means she holds an unpaid post at court but is entitled to lodgings there. As a viscountess, she is permitted to keep waiting gentlewomen of her own. This letter invites you to become one of them. It is an excellent opportunity, Bess. You might well advance into the queen’s service, if there is an opening. Even if you do not, you will be at court. And Lady Lisle vows in her letter that she will treat you with as much affection as if you were her own daughter.”

“Does she have a daughter?” All I knew about Jane Lisle, other than what Mother had just told me, was that she was a close friend of my father’s stepmother.

“She lost one of her girls earlier this year, but the eldest, Mary Dudley, is thriving. Mary must be about twelve years old. Since Jane holds an honorary post at court, she could keep her children with her, but she’d not be given any additional space in which to house them. For all the enormous size of the king’s palaces and great houses, lodgings are always hard to come by. Accommodations are even more crowded when the court is on progress.”

“Are most ladies in service to the queen obliged to leave young children behind?” I busied myself scouring the mortar and pestle with sand and putting them away. Mother insisted the stillroom be kept clean and neat.

“Mothers regularly turn even newborn infants over to nurses and governesses so that they can rush back to their duties. But, in truth, most well-born ladies have little to do with their children, even when they stay at home.”

“Not you, Mother,” Kate said. “And we are glad of it.”

“Is that why you never accepted a post at court?” I asked. “Because you’d have had to leave us behind?”

“I was never offered a permanent place, but I was pleased to have it so. But you, Bess—you enjoy meeting new people and seeing new things. You will thrive in that environment.”

It was true that I was eager to see more of the world, but I loved my family and life at Cowling Castle. “I will miss you terribly, Mother.” I glanced at my sister. “I will even miss Kate and the boys.”

“If you do not go,” Kate said, ever practical, “Father will feel obliged to find you a husband and you will leave us anyway. And at court you might meet someone you’d like to marry. I wish I could go, too.”

“Your turn will come,” Mother promised her. “Now, we must make preparations for Bess’s departure. Jane Lisle is already here in Kent. She writes that the king and queen are still on progress and that their next stop is Woodstock, a royal manor in Oxfordshire. They plan to stay for a month. Since Woodstock is one of the king’s great houses, with room for as many as fifteen hundred people at a time, Jane will rejoin the court there. She’ll travel from Halden Hall accompanied by a large band of retainers. They will stop at Cowling Castle on their way north.”

Four days later, Lady Lisle was carried through the outer gate in her litter, a large box fixed to poles that rested on the backs of two horses harnessed in tandem. I was more nervous than I’d anticipated as I watched the entourage pour into the inner court. Liveried men and gaily caparisoned horses filled the area to capacity. The air smelled of leather and sweat, and the clatter of hooves on cobblestones drowned out every other sound.

Kate stood beside me, already shedding tears. My youngest brother, Edmund, was just as reluctant to let me leave and clung to my skirts with the tenacity of a terrier gripping a rat in its teeth.

A liveried servant attached a small stepladder to the door frame of the litter and folded back the sturdy flap of leather that covered it to keep out the elements during travel. Some kind of coarse canvas cloth, treated to make it waterproof, had been used to form the roof, but the sides were open. Striped curtains suspended from rings could be kept open or closed as suited the occupant. At the moment, they were wide open, giving me a clear view of the interior.

Lady Lisle traveled in luxury. She had cushions and pillows both, all covered with silk and so plump that they were likely filled with the softest down. And when she stepped out onto the stepladder, I saw that carpet padded the floor of the litter.

Jane Lisle was a little younger than my mother, a tall, pale woman whose body had been thickened by frequent childbearing. She was an island of calm in the roiling sea of her retainers. When she saw Kate and Edmund and me standing a little apart from Father, Mother, and Aunt Elizabeth, she seemed to know instinctively that I was beset by second thoughts. As soon as she had exchanged greetings with the three of them, she approached us. Her reassuring manner alone calmed my nervousness.

Unperturbed by Edmund’s grimy fingers, Lady Lisle detached him from my skirts and lifted him into her arms. When they were face-to-face, she made him a promise: “I will take good care of your sister. You need have no fear for her.”

Edmund at first responded with a steady, three-year-old stare. Then he flashed an engaging grin. “I like you,” he said. “You smell like roses.”

Kate also took to Lady Lisle. “I should like to go to court, too,” she announced.

“You are young yet, but perhaps when you are seventeen, as your sister is, something can be arranged.”

Lady Lisle’s diplomatic refusal left my sister disappointed but resigned. I vowed in that moment to try to emulate my new mistress. Clearly, she had mastered the art of dealing tactfully with other people’s feelings.

“Allow me to present my two oldest sons,” Lady Lisle said, turning once again to my parents and my aunt. She signaled for a young man of about my own age to step forward. “This is Henry.”

When he doffed his cap, I saw that Henry Dudley had a shock of light brown hair. After he greeted his elders, he turned clear hazel eyes on me and winked.

“And that,” Lady Lisle said, indicating another boy, this one half hidden behind his horse, apparently more interested in making sure the animal received proper care than he was in meeting strangers, “is John.”

John Dudley was Kate’s age. He was shorter, darker in coloring, and less polished in his manners than his brother. He came forward only after his mother called attention to him, but he showed proper manners when he was presented to the senior members of our household.

Both Henry and John Dudley seemed to appreciate the effort I’d gone to with my appearance. First thing that morning, I’d taken a bath. Then mother had filled her deepest silver basin with heated water and washed my hair with soap and ashes. After it had been combed dry, she’d brushed it until it shone. I’d left it loose, like a bride’s, and worn my newest kirtle and gown, decorated with embroidered flowers and birds. The predominant color in all my clothing exactly matched the pale blue of my eyes. John Dudley, although he obviously preferred horses to people, kept staring at me. I made a wager with myself that he’d spend at least part of the journey to Woodstock riding by my side.

At supper I sat between the two brothers. It did not take long for them to start calling me Bess or for me to become comfortable addressing them as Harry and Jack. Harry told wonderful stories of life at court, where he’d spent considerable time during the last two years.

“My father will meet us at Woodstock,” Harry said. “It will be good to see him again.”

“Where has he been?” I asked between bites of haddock in herb sauce—it was Friday, so we had no meat at table, only varieties of fish and dishes made with cheese.

“He was in Northumberland until April as lord warden and keeper of the Western Marches toward Scotland. Then, after Lord Parr was appointed to replace him, Father had to go to Dudley Castle to supervise the rebuilding there.”

I paused with my food halfway to my mouth. “Lord Parr? The new queen’s brother?”

Harry nodded. “He’s the new lord warden, and welcome to it, Father says. The north is a bleak, barren place and deadly dull except for chasing border reivers. Or when we are at war with the Scots. Lord Parr has been there since May.”

May—well before his sister’s marriage to the king. Dorothy would not yet have returned to court by the time he left. I supposed he might have stopped at Eaton Bray, but somehow I did not think so. Not with Grandmother Jane so set against him.

“There’s a maze at Woodstock,” Jack Dudley said, abruptly changing the subject. “I’ll show you the way to the center if you like. You shouldn’t go in alone. If you lose your way, you might never come out again.”

“A maze? Truly?” I’d heard of such things but had never seen one.

“The second King Henry built it a long time ago,” Harry chimed in. “The story goes that it was constructed to hide his mistress from his wife. She was called Fair Rosamund—the mistress, not the wife—and her house was at the center of the maze.”

That struck me as an odd place to build a house, but I did not say so. The conflicting versions of the story the two Dudley brothers told in competition for my attention contained contradictions enough. No one knew the real story anymore. It had all happened too long ago. But I looked forward to exploring the maze at Woodstock and to all the other new and exciting experiences that awaited me at court.

We set out at first light the next morning. Lady Lisle again occupied the litter, together with her waiting gentlewoman, Bridget Mardlyn. Mistress Mardlyn was a decade my senior and had been in Lady Lisle’s service for many years. Thin and wiry in build, her hands were always busy. If she was not plying a needle, then she was tugging at her cuffs or kneading the folds of her overskirt.

Several armed men rode ahead of the litter. Following after came the two-wheeled baggage carts, together with the rest of the entourage on horseback. Two maidservants rode on pillions. I’d traveled that way once as a child and hadn’t cared for it. Sitting sideways on a pillion attached to the back of a saddle requires a woman to clasp her arms around the waist of the man in front of her, lest she fall off. When I’d been a little older, I’d ridden using a man’s saddle, but now that I was grown I had to ride like a lady.

My horse was a gentle bay named Prancer, and I had a new saddle with its own leather cover to keep it clean when I wasn’t using it. It was worked in velvet with flowers of gold thread. Off the side was a velvet sling on which both of my feet rested while one of my knees nestled in a purpose-cut hollow. This position was not as comfortable on a long journey as riding astride, but it was better than being perched on a pillion and less likely to leave me with bruises than traveling by litter. In spite of all the cushions, Lady Lisle and Mistress Mardlyn would be jounced and jostled all the way to Woodstock.

We reached London late on Saturday and remained there for the Sabbath. With nearly forty people in the retinue and almost sixty horses, we moved at a snail’s pace when we set out again on Monday. We did well to cover twenty miles in a day. If I had not had one Dudley brother riding on each side of me, vying for my attention and entertaining me with stories both real and cribbed from books they’d read, the four days that followed would have bored me to tears.

By the time we reached Woodstock, my back ached and my bottom was sore, even though Prancer had the gentlest of gaits. Although we’d had comfortable accommodations every night, either staying at one of Lord Lisle’s manors or at the country estate of one of his friends, I’d spent all the hours in between on horseback. I felt it in every bone of my body.

The road from the nearest town approached the royal manor of Woodstock from the east, winding past the privy gardens. I am certain they were an impressive sight, but I was too travel weary to care. Still, my first glimpse of the great house, solitary in a large park, had me staring like the simplest country bumpkin.

I’d visited the palace of Whitehall, and we passed Greenwich every time we made a trip to London. Woodstock could not compare to them, and yet there was something about this majestic structure that made a deep impression on me. Perhaps it was just that I knew this was the place where I would be presented to the queen, meet the king for the second time, and come in contact with all the other important and influential denizens of the court.

If I meant to become a courtier myself, I would have to be constantly on my guard lest I displease one of them. Even if I remained only a short time before I left to marry, I still had to be careful. My every action would reflect upon my family. My ability to make a good impression on the right people affected not only my future but also the future of my father and brothers. Suddenly I was beset by insecurity.

“What if no one here likes me?” I whispered to Jack Dudley. His brother had ridden ahead, impatient with the pace of the litter and baggage carts.

“How could anyone not think you were wonderful?” Jack asked.

My spirits soared, even though I knew his opinion to be biased. Banishing both doubt and fear from my thoughts, I rode boldly onward. Whatever happened next, it would be the start of a great adventure.