KATHERINE, HAMPTON COURT,

MARCH 1540

Easter morning and a happy Easter for me. I so hate Lent—for whatever have I to do penance for, or regret? Next to nothing. But I hated Lent even worse this year when it meant no dancing at court and no music except the dreariest of hymns and psalms; and worst of all no masquing and no plays. But for Easter we shall at last be merry. The Princess Mary is to come to court and we are all desperate to know how she likes her new stepmother. We are already laughing in anticipation of that greeting as the queen tries to be a mother to a child only one year her junior, tries to speak to her in German, tries to guide her to the reformed religion. It will be as good as a play. Princess Mary is said to be very grave and sad and pious; while the queen is light-hearted and merry in her rooms and born and bred a Lutheran or an Erasmian or one of those sorts of things, reformed, anyway. So we are all on the tips of our toes to get a good view from the window as the Princess Mary rides up to the front of the palace, and then we all scuttle like a flock of frantic hens to get into the queen’s rooms before the Princess Mary is shown up the stairs. We fling ourselves into the seats around the room and try to look as if we are quietly sewing and listening to a sermon, and the queen says, ‘Naughty girls,’ with a smile and then there is the knock on the door, and in comes the princess, and—such a surprise—she has the Lady Elizabeth with her, by the hand.

Up we all pop and drop into very careful curtseys, we have to curtsey to the Princess Mary low enough to indicate our respect to a Princess of the Blood Royal, and rise up before the Lady Elizabeth can take the credit since she is only a bastard of the king, and perhaps not his at all. But I give her a smile and poke out my tongue at her as she goes past me for she is only a little girl, poor little poppet, only six years old, and besides, she is my cousin, but with the most distressing hair you can imagine, red as a carrot. I should die if I had hair like that, but it is her father’s hair and that must be worth having for a child whose parentage is in doubt.

The queen rises to greet her two stepdaughters and she gives them each a kiss on both cheeks and then she draws them into her privy chamber and closes the door on all of us, as if she would be alone with them. So we have to wait about outside with no music and no wine and no merriment at all, and worst of all, no idea what is going on behind the closed door. I take a little stroll towards the privy chamber; but Lady Rochford frowns me away and I raise my eyebrows and say, ‘What?’ as if I have no idea that she is preventing me from eavesdropping.