The summons to the queen came soon after our return to Whitehall. Indeed, I had barely taken off my hat, before a page came to fetch me. He led me to the queen’s private apartments and showed me through an outer chamber where a number of her ladies were stitching while one of them read aloud from a book of verse, and on into a small room that Elizabeth used as a study and for practising music. It had a mullioned window with glass panes leaded in a pleasing pattern, open this warm June day, so that birdsong came in from outside. The room was furnished with a spinet and a writing desk, a set of bookshelves, and a carved oak settle which just now was occupied by a mysterious object hidden under a silk drape.
Elizabeth was waiting for me on a cushioned window seat. She was simply dressed, by her standards, in a long loose peach-coloured gown with neither ruff nor farthingale, but most people would have thought the damask of the gown, the profusion of pearls – rope, earrings, the edging of her headdress and the glimmering bunches on the ends of her girdle – were highly elaborate. She smiled at me as I curtsied and, as I rose, I smiled back, but I was nervous.
As the years went on, my royal half-sister had become increasingly royal and therefore increasingly intimidating. She was not yet forty and every now and then there was renewed talk of marriage plans for her. At present, it was rumoured that an alliance with a French prince was being discussed. Looking at her now, however, I could not imagine her joined in marriage to anyone. Her face was shield-shaped and she used it as a shield, hiding her thoughts behind it; the jewels and fine fabrics were armour too, holding her aloof from others. I couldn’t visualize a man ever finding his way past them.
‘So, Ursula,’ she said. ‘What happened this morning?’
I told her, briefly and also truthfully. She nodded. ‘So he tried, at the end, to excuse himself, to say he had never plotted treason with Ridolfi. I thought he would. But he died with dignity.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Yes, he did.’
‘Of that, I am glad. He was my cousin. It is a sad burden, having to pass such a sentence on a member of one’s own family.’ She did not add, And you helped to put me in that position, but I heard the trace of resentment in her voice. It was only a trace, though, and it vanished as she said: ‘A burden, but inevitable if I and the realm are to stay safe. Thank you, Ursula. This morning must have been an ordeal for you, too. You are well? How is your small son? My little nephew!’
‘He thrives, ma’am. A young Hawkswood maidservant, Tessie, has been appointed as his nurse and is caring for him while I’m away.’
‘I hear you have called him Harry. After my father?’
‘Partly that, ma’am. But it is of course a popular name.’
‘So it is. And now, I take it, you will wish to return to your home at Hawkswood. What of your other house, Withysham, that I gave to you so many years ago?’
‘That flourishes, too, ma’am. I visited it earlier this year.’
‘I do hear a good deal about you,’ Elizabeth said. ‘As you know, I take an interest in your welfare. There are those who send word to Burghley now and then.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. I knew of Burghley’s discreet surveillance and tried not to be irritated by it, knowing that it was for my good.
‘In places close to Hawkswood, I hear there has been unkind gossip about Harry,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘It was to be expected. Withysham, being in Sussex, perhaps gave you a chance of escaping from it.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, none too truthfully, for I had an uncle and aunt near Withysham, whose comments about Harry had been even more scathing than Jane Cobbold’s gossip, and for less reason. I had been frank with them, for from the start I had determined that Harry should grow up knowing who he was, and accepted as who he was, with no deception. I had hoped that since my uncle and aunt still held, though discreetly, by the Catholic faith, they of all people ought to have been understanding about Harry. I had been disappointed.
But then, they had never liked me. They took my mother in when she came home from King Henry’s court, disgraced and with child and refusing to name its father, and when I was born, they had given me a home as well. But it hadn’t been a happy one. My mother died when I was sixteen, and when I was twenty, I ran away to marry my first husband, Gerald Blanchard, which had further enraged Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha, since he was supposed to be betrothed to one of their daughters.
My marital situation was an odd one. After Gerald’s death from smallpox, I had married Matthew de la Roche, who was half-French by blood and all French in his ways. I had lived with him in France for a time, though I left my little daughter by Gerald in England, as I didn’t want her to grow up a Papist. I had married Matthew by Catholic rites and under a degree of duress, yet I was in love with him and he with me. But he was forever getting involved in plots against Elizabeth and there was never any real peace between us.
When I was on a visit to England because Meg had need of me, I heard that Matthew had died, of plague. Some time after that, I married Hugh, my very dear Hugh, who was much older than I was, but as good and kind a companion as anyone could ask for. And then I learned that Matthew was not dead; that the queen and Cecil had lied to me, to keep me in England, and that he had been told the same lie about me. Elizabeth said that she had also annulled our marriage, on the grounds that the rite was unlawful and there had been duress. But in Catholic eyes, the marriage had been legal in its form and the duress questionable, since for a long time I had lived as Matthew’s wife, of my own free will.
After Hugh’s death, I had had occasion to visit the Continent. I had met Matthew again and he had rescued me from a dangerous situation. For a short time, we came together and Harry was the result. I had hoped that in the eyes of my Catholic uncle and aunt, Harry would be legitimate, but they hadn’t taken that view at all and, between their virtuous condemnation of my morals and the merciless tongue of Jane Cobbold, my plan to face down gossip and rear my son without apology as Harry de la Roche was turning out very difficult. I had set myself a hard field to plough.
‘You will win through,’ said Elizabeth, who knew all about the circumstances leading to Harry’s arrival. ‘You have a gift for that. And I have a gift for your little son. I promised a fine christening present for him – do you remember? I have kept my word. Come.’ She slid off the window seat and shook out her skirts. ‘My ladies helped in the making. They can all embroider skilfully. I have it here.’
It was the object on the settle. Elizabeth drew back the drapery and revealed a child’s cot. It was made of exquisitely carved walnut, with a canopy that could be set up to protect its occupant from over-hot sunshine. The canopy was of blue silk with little animals and birds embroidered on it in gold. There were pillows with embroidered covers, sheets with edgings to match, a soft woollen blanket and a sealskin coverlet.
‘It takes to pieces,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It will need a packhorse to itself, but John Ryder will go with you, and bring the packhorse back.’
‘It’s a royal gift!’ I said.
Before I left Whitehall, Elizabeth also presented me with a small purse of money, which I used before starting for home, by visiting a cloth warehouse and buying a roll of lightweight worsted. It was a new type of cloth which I had already found ideal for making summer-weight cloaks and everyday dresses. I talked to the merchant across a counter in a congested room where the walls were covered all the way up to the ceiling by shelves full of fabric rolls. The higher shelves were only accessible from ladders. He said I was lucky that he actually had some worsted available.
‘It’s hard to get. I’ve had to bring some in from abroad. The Guild of Weavers that make the old heavy cloth have been creating a to-do and saying this new stuff is affecting their business, and they’ve somehow got a regulation made about how many worsted weaving looms can be allowed in the country. I know all about it because one of the Guild officials is my brother-in-law and often dines with me.’
The merchant grinned. He was a small, bald man, with bright grey-green eyes in a wrinkled face. ‘Since he is a relative, in a way, I took the liberty of telling him not to be a noddy. If folk want this new kind of cloth, I said, they’ll clamour till they get it. Your weaving shed’s big enough to take an extra loom or two! Apply for a licence and put in a couple of worsted looms. King Canute couldn’t turn the tide back and nor can you. But he wouldn’t have it. Nice man, in his way, and good to my sister, but when it comes to business he can’t see past the end of his nose.’
Turning round, he stepped nimbly on to a ladder, went up three steps and heaved a roll of cloth down to the counter below, where it landed with a thud. Stepping down again, he unrolled a length for my inspection.
‘This is good hardwearing cloth, if it being brown is all right with you. It’ll take a black or dark blue dye if you want …’
I bought it and watched while he put a length of twine round it, and put it in a hamper. Then he came out of the warehouse with me and Brockley helped him to add it to the load on the extra packhorse. Sybil and I – and Dale, too – would have new dresses and cloaks out of that, and making them would keep us busy for a while.
The pause at the warehouse had delayed our start and it was late in the evening when the chimneys of Hawkswood at last came into view. We had been sighted, and found a welcome waiting for us in the courtyard. As we rode in, our two half-mastiffs, Hero and Hector, bounded joyfully towards us and there were our three grooms, and Tessie with Harry in her arms, and beside her was our tall grey-haired steward Adam Wilder, beaming, and there was Gladys, with the leer that with her did duty as a smile.
From an upstairs window, two of our maids, Phoebe and Netta, waved dusters to us and in the kitchen doorway stood John Hawthorn, the cook, big and impressive, arms akimbo, and there behind him were his assistants, Joan and Ben Flood, respectively clutching a long wooden spoon and a rolling pin. Savoury supper smells drifted past them to add to the greeting and my stomach rumbled.
‘It’s good to be home,’ I said to Sybil.
It was slightly less good when, as soon as we were indoors and had changed and come down to the big hall to eat the supper that smelt so appetising, Wilder presented me with a letter bearing the Cobbold seal.
‘It came yesterday, madam.’
‘Thank you, Wilder.’ I broke the seal and undid the little scroll. It was an invitation to dine with the Cobbolds the following week. Anthony Cobbold understood, because of a chance meeting with Adam Wilder in Woking, that I had been to court but was likely to be home by then and it had been so long since I last visited. Please would I bring charming Mistress Jester and, of course, my two good servants the Brockleys. Master Cobbold awaited my reply with impatience.
‘I’m invited – or bidden – to Cobbold Hall for dinner next week,’ I said to Wilder.
‘I guessed as much, madam. John Hawthorn saw his cousin, the one who works at Cobbold Hall, only yesterday.’ Wilder smiled. ‘You have been in London with the queen, you see. Master Cobbold will surely want to hear your news.’
‘He’ll hope that Her Majesty’s power and influence will have rubbed off on me and that some of it will miraculously rub off on him!’ I said candidly. ‘I don’t suppose Jane Cobbold is overjoyed.’
‘I daresay she does her husband’s bidding,’ Wilder said mildly.
‘Just about,’ said Brockley, who had just come in from the stable, where he had been rubbing his horse down. ‘Thin ice over very cold water, if you ask me.’
‘I’ll have to accept,’ I said, with regret.