Elizabeth replaced the looking glass on the chest of drawers and saw the white quartz her father had given her as a child. It had disappeared for years, but, recently, she had discovered it, with Owly, her felt toy, in a box of her mother’s belonging. She remembered the fear of that early morning, when the news of her grandfather’s death and her father’s imprisonment had sent their lives spinning into turmoil.
Yet,she thought, as she gave one last glance around the bedroom which adjoined that of her husband’s,we Howards have survived and prospered.She looked at the glinting lights in the piece of quartz and thought,Perhaps there are angels in the sparkles as Papa told me when I was a child. Angels who protect us every day.
After her father’s surprise announcement of his intention to marry Agnes Tilney two years earlier, Elizabeth and her brothers had been devastated. It was Edward, the family peacemaker, who had persuaded the siblings to accept their father’s decision and to give their joint blessings. Elizabeth had struggled more than her brothers, for she felt Agnes’s affection towards her father was a betrayal of her mother and often wondered if there had been an arrangement between the earl and his bride-to-be before her mother’s death.
When it was announced that Agnes would travel to stay with cousins in Leicestershire until the dispensation was granted for the marriage, Elizabeth had felt relieved that she would not have to place herself under Agnes’s rule.
When Agnes returned to Sheriff Hutton a week before her marriage to the earl, Elizabeth knew her time there would be short. Elizabeth and her siblings had watched as their father and Agnes had said their vows in the chapel at Sheriff Hutton on 8 November 1497. Elizabeth had bitten down hard on her lip to stop herself crying. She knew she would never forgive her new stepmother for the indecent haste with which she had agreed to marry the earl.
The charm in her heart that had kept Elizabeth safe, even more so than the piece of quartz given to her by her father, was the knowledge her father and Sir William Boleyn had negotiated a generous wedding settlement. She would soon be leaving to be married herself.
Upon becoming Thomas Boleyn’s wife, she would receive a life interest in her husband’s lands in Sussex, the income from two Norfolk manors, including the advowson – the lucrative right to appoint the vicar – of Holkham Church, the income of three manors in Kent, to take effect after Sir William’s death and a crumbling abbey called Cerensthorpe which had been part of the Howard dowry trust. Surrey’s lawyers had then calculated the value of this, multiplying it by ten to come to the sum for Elizabeth’s dowry. This would be paid to Thomas in instalments and would represent Elizabeth’s inheritance from her father.
‘We’ll be rich,’ she had said to Thomas when they had been told the marriage settlement had been agreed.
‘We shall,’ he had replied. ‘My income from the court will add to our coffers and when I inherit the earldom of Ormond, we shall be even wealthier.’
‘Once we have a family, we’ll need every penny,’ Elizabeth had continued, pretending to be stern. ‘Our sons will need the best of everything if they are to rise high in the royal court.’
‘And our daughters?’ Thomas had said.
‘They shall be raised to be queens,’ she had said with a giggle.
‘You aim high, Lady Howard.’
‘I do,’ she had agreed. ‘Status is important for a woman in order to be safe. Happiness and respect are equally as vital, for they are what makes the marriage successful, and without these, titles and wealth are empty and valueless.’
Her parents’ marriage had proved these words and, in the two years since her father and Agnes had wed, she wondered whether this was why her father had married Agnes with such haste: had he fallen in love again? Had she? Elizabeth’s sense of loyalty to her mother would not allow her to consider this possibility. She and her brothers felt a sense of relief that, as yet, Agnes and her father were childless. Elizabeth did not imagine this would always remain the case but suspected her father’s endless journeys on behalf of the king were delaying them from starting a family.
The Earl of Surrey had spent long periods in Cornwall, quelling rebellions that had arisen due to harsh tax laws. When Perkin Warbeck had landed at Whitesand Bay in September 1497, promising to slash the excise duties, he had been welcomed warmly and declared to be King Richard IV by the rebel leaders on Bodmin Moor. The Earl of Surrey was one of the men alongside Henry VII’s chief general, Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney, to help capture Warbeck at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire. Henry VII had arrived in Taunton in October 1497 to receive the surrender of the Cornish army before returning to London with Warbeck as prisoner.
Now, determined to look her best, Elizabeth adjusted her gable hood, her fingers slipping in her haste to join the queen in her role as lady-in-waiting. Today, the only question on the lips of every courtier was: what would happen at the trial of Perkin Warbeck?
Elizabeth knew many people believed him to be one of the missing York princes, but when she had spoken to the queen,asking if she thought Perkin was her lost brother, Richard, the queen had shaken her head.
‘My brother was young when he disappeared,’ she had said. ‘He would have changed as he grew, yet there is nothing in Warbeck – no mannerism, no look – that I recognise as Richard. He also did not respond to one of the names we used to tease him with when he was a boy, one which annoyed him with such intensity, he would throw whatever he was holding if you addressed him thus. A memory like that wouldn’t fade.’
Elizabeth had been delighted when Thomas had been instructed to attend the trial.
‘Will you be asked to give a verdict?’ Elizabeth had asked.
‘Perhaps,’ he had replied.
This had been the previous week during their journey to London from Blickling Hall, but now they were here, the buzzing atmosphere of the court felt heavy with threat. Despite Warbeck having caused the king no end of problems, Elizabeth suspected there might be a last-minute reprieve.
A knock on the door caused her to look up sharply as her maid, Joan, entered the bedchamber.
‘It’s Lady Catherine Warbeck,’ said Joan in a low voice. ‘She wishes to know if you would accompany her to the queen’s chambers.’
‘Of course,’ said Elizabeth and, with a nod, dismissed the maid.
She gave herself one final check in her oval looking-glass before walking into the main chamber of her and Thomas’s rooms.
It was not unusual for Lady Catherine to arrive unannounced. Her rooms, since the most recent arrest of her husband, were on the same corridor as the Boleyns and the women had struck up a tentative friendship. Elizabeth could not imagine how desperate the woman must be feeling today.
‘Catherine, my dear,’ said Elizabeth as the two women embraced, ‘is there any news of a reprieve?’
‘No, the king is determined to push ahead,’ she said, her soft Scottish voice wavering as she bit her lip to stop tears. ‘I believe he has already made his decision. Perkin confessed when he was captured that he was not the heir, but I believe the king continues to have doubts. It’s why he allowed us to have a place at court. If only Perkin hadn’t been so foolish as to try to escape or to embroil the young Earl of Warwick in his plans, then, eventually, we may have been allowed to leave and live quietly somewhere.’
