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Chapters (116)
  1. Cover
  2. The Last Tudor
  3. Family Trees
  4. BOOK I
  5. BRADGATE HOUSE, GROBY, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  6. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  7. GREENWICH PALACE,
  8. GREENWICH PALACE,
  9. DURHAM HOUSE, LONDON,
  10. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  11. THE OLD MANOR, CHELSEA,
  12. SYON HOUSE, ISLEWORTH,
  13. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  14. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  15. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  16. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  17. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  18. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  19. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  20. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  21. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  22. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  23. BOOK II
  24. BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON,
  25. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  26. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  27. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  28. OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY,
  29. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  30. HANWORTH PALACE, MIDDLESEX,
  31. GREENWICH PALACE,
  32. NONSUCH PALACE, SURREY,
  33. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  34. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  35. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  36. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  37. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  38. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  39. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  40. GREENWICH PALACE,
  41. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  42. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  43. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  44. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  45. CANNON ROW, LONDON,
  46. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  47. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  48. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  49. GREENWICH PALACE,
  50. ON PROGRESS: THE ROAD TO WANSTEAD,
  51. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  52. MR. MORE’S HOUSE, HIGH STREET, IPSWICH,
  53. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  54. THE LIEUTENANT’S HOUSE, THE TOWER, LONDON,
  55. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  56. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  57. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  58. LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON,
  59. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  60. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  61. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  62. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  63. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  64. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  65. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  66. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  67. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  68. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  69. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  70. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  71. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  72. BOOK III
  73. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  74. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  75. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  76. GREENWICH PALACE,
  77. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  78. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  79. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  80. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  81. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  82. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  83. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  84. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  85. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  86. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  87. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  88. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  89. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  90. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  91. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  92. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  93. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  94. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  95. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  96. CHEQUERS TO LONDON,
  97. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  98. GREENWICH PALACE,
  99. GREENWICH PALACE,
  100. GREENWICH PALACE,
  101. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  102. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  103. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  104. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  105. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  106. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  107. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  108. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  109. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  110. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  111. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  112. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  113. OSTERLEY PARK, MIDDLESEX,
  114. ST. BOTOLPH’S-WITHOUT-ALDGATE, LONDON,
  115. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  116. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Obediently, she straightens her back as Katherine twirls around, draped in cloth of silver, as we wait for the dressmakers. The groom of the royal wardrobe has sent more great bolts of velvet and silk, and Katherine already has some priceless lace draped over her head like a veil. “There’s no excuse for vanity either,” I say sourly.

“I am half in love with him already,” Katherine bubbles. “He came to give me a gold chain yesterday, and he pressed my hand when he left. What d’you think he meant?”

“My mother pressed my hand too,” I say, showing her the bruises on my wrists. “She tells me that is love, as well.”

“It is motherly love,” Katherine asserts.

Mary looks solemnly at the marks. Our mother, our nurses, our governesses, and our father have all beaten each of us, at one time or another. Only my tutor John Aylmer has had authority over me but never used a rod. I tell him that is why I love learning.

“It’s the best thing that could happen to us.” Mary parrots what she has been told. “It puts us in line for the throne.”

“It’s hardly the best thing for you,” I tell her. “You can’t give birth to the King of England.”

She flushes a little. “I am a girl like any other,” she says. “My heart is as big as yours, and I don’t doubt I will grow tall.”

Mary’s staunch courage always makes me melt. I hold out my arms to her and we hug. “Anyway, we can’t disobey them,” I say over her fair head.

“Don’t you love him? Even a little?” Katherine breathes.

“I will love him when we are married,” I say coldly. “I will have to love him then, for I will have promised before God to do so.”

* * *

My sisters are disappointed in the wedding service: they hoped it would be in Latin and filled with ceremonial and incomprehensible oaths, noisy with music and trumpets, drowned in regalia, drenched with holy water, and choking with incense. Instead, it has the simple honesty of my religion and I am deeply glad that the Dudleys are a godly family who turned to the reformed religion as soon as the king gave his people the Bible and the preachers spread the word. The purity of our wedding is a living reproach to the papist Princess Mary, who pointedly does not attend—neither the ceremony nor the two days of lavish celebrations that follow. Our cousin Margaret Douglas is not invited either. She is in Scotland, visiting the Nobody that she calls her father. Since John Dudley himself gave her a license to leave the kingdom I imagine that he wanted her out of the way.