Later

Another session with Clouet. Clouet has much information. I asked him about Queen Mary, who is my cousin. He told me that she has what he describes as a “peculiar” personality. I pressed him. So he told me that she never really forgave her father for divorcing her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and marrying Anne Boleyn. She believes Anne Boleyn was a witch and believes that the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Princess Elizabeth, my cousin and her half-sister, is a bastard child, and that Mary has imprisoned her! But that is not all. Queen Mary orders Protestants burned to death and anyone else who does not believe in the sacraments of the Catholic Church. I believe fervently in the sacraments of the Catholic Church, and so I despair of this rebel John Knox, who leads the Scottish Reformation and its attempts to rid Scotland of the Catholic Church. But would I burn the man and any others who did not believe in my faith and the sacraments? I think not. No! Most certainly. I not only think not. I know never!

Our discussions during my posing help pass the time. The weight of this jewelled bodice seems light compared with the weight that rests on a crowned head. Someday I shall be called upon to lead my country, and what shall I do with these reformers?