Elizabeth inclined her head at the compliment. She knew this was not a suggestion from Richard but a command. Richard would need to keep Bess close in case Henry Tudor spirited her away, married her, and used her to shore up Yorkist support.

Elizabeth rose. “Pray tell the king I will consider his kind request,” she said. “If that is all, then I shall wish you a good morning.” She made to leave, but seeing Anne’s raised eyebrow, she asked, “I beg your pardon, did you have anything else to say?”

“Only that one does not usually rise before the queen and dismiss her,” Anne said evenly. The quick flush of embarrassment on Elizabeth’s face gave Anne immense satisfaction.

But Elizabeth’s bravado only lasted long enough for her to concede that Richard’s offer to protect her daughters was both generous and a relief. The dreary life in sanctuary was grinding her resolve down, and once accepting that there was no chance her boys would suddenly reappear, she gave her girls permission to leave. She grunted her reluctant admiration as she read a transcript of Richard’s oath taken in front of the lords: I, Richard….promise and swear that if the daughters of Elizabeth Grey, late calling herself queen of England… She paused to mutter before moving on, “but I was anointed queen,” …will come to me out of the sanctuary and be guided, ruled and conduct themselves after me, then I shall see that they shall be in surety of their lives, have them honestly and courteously treated…and to have all things requisite and necessary for their exhibitions and findings as my kinswomen…. The next sentence finally broke Elizabeth’s reserve: I shall arrange marriage for them to gentlemen well born, and give every one lands and tenements… Elizabeth sighed. “Where would I now, as disgraced Dame Grey, look to find husbands for my beautiful girls,” she moaned to her last faithful lady. “As innocents, they deserve nothing less than what Richard offers.”

Richard also extended Elizabeth an adequate annual stipend, which would allow her to return to live quietly at her manor of Grafton if—and the written declaration made it clear—Richard never heard any reports of duplicity or disloyalty from her.

Being a schemer, Elizabeth looked for a motive behind Richard’s seeming generosity. The only feasible reason was that he intended to keep a close eye on Bess in case Henry Tudor decided to snatch her and make good on his Christmas promise. But, she sadly admitted to herself, Henry had had ample time and an easier opportunity to carry out an abduction from sanctuary and had made no attempt in that direction.

“It is the best I can do for you, my dears,” she told her five older daughters. She had decided the baby, Brigid, would stay with her.

Thus, with the glimmer of hope that one day Bess would be queen, Dame Elizabeth Grey conceded defeat. She emerged from the abbey a suffocating year after seeking its sanctuary. She would have been mortified to see how quickly her daughters embraced life at Richard’s court.