When I had last seen him he had been the most handsome man I had ever known. He had stood taller than most men; he had always been recognized by his height and width at all those masques where he had delighted in trying to disguise himself. His complexion had been florid, but healthily so. Now it was purplish rather than pink. His weight had increased enormously. His was no longer an athletic figure. “Corpulent” would be a more accurate way of describing it. But it was his face in which the greater change had taken place. In the past there had been an engaging aspect. Could I call it innocence? Hardly. Perhaps rather a boyish delight in the world and himself which at that time had seemed endearing. Even in those days we had dreaded to see his mood change, which it had done now and then, and the small mouth would become a thin, straight line and the little eyes points of light almost disappearing into his full face. Much of the old benignity had departed. New lines had appeared to rob him of that quality. To look at him now, so large in his surcoat with the puffed sleeves barred with strips of fur and built-up shoulders which increased his size and made him a figure of splendor, completely over-awed me. I felt very small and insignificant beside such a glittering figure and I knew that I could never do what I had thought during my journey here that I might, which was to throw myself at his feet and beg him not to ask me to deny my mother and the Church of Rome.
To see him there, powerful and formidable in the extreme, I knew that I should never do it even if I could.
And beside him was his new Queen—slender, pretty, looking frail beside his great girth, gentle, welcoming, a little hesitant, but endeavoring to tell me she was pleased to see me.
I went to him and knelt. He gave me his hand, which I kissed. Then he made a gesture for me to stand up, so I did so.
“At last,” he said. “I rejoice to see you, daughter.”
I was trying to overcome my emotion and he sensed this. It pleased him. He saw me as the repentant daughter, asking for forgiveness because of her foolish behavior which had caused him pain.
I would have knelt to the Queen but she had taken my hands. She must have been about the same age as Anne Boleyn… but she seemed younger and I felt older in experience.
There was nothing false about the greeting she gave me. She smiled tremulously. “Oh welcome…welcome,” she said. “I have so wanted this meeting.”
The King smiled at her indulgently.
“The Queen speaks for us both,” he said.
He dismissed everyone so that we should be alone together, he said, and talk as a family should.
So we were alone and he spoke of his sufferings, of how he had been mistreated, but now that he had his good Jane beside him, all that was behind us.
He sat in the chair which had been provided for him, and Jane brought up one for me so that I could sit beside him.
“Your Grace must not wait on me,” I said.
“But it is what I want,” she told me with her rather girlish smile. “I am so happy. I have always wanted you to be at Court, and now you are going to be there.”
The King was evidently enamored of her. She was so gentle and seemed to me guileless. She was as different from Anne Boleyn as one woman can be from another. Therein, I supposed, lay her attraction.
Jane sat close to the King, who from time to time patted her knee. I thought she was like a little kitten, and I could not suppress the question which rose in my mind: How long can he be content with her?
Meanwhile she was eager to show herself my friend.
“We shall arrange for you to come to Court … in time,” said the King.
“Yes,” added Jane, “and it shall be soon.”
“I shall be leaving for the hunting season shortly,” said my father. “Perhaps after that.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said. Recently he had given himself the title of “Majesty” which was now generally used instead of the old “Your Grace.” After all, dukes could be Graces, but only the King—and Queen— Majesties.
“You are uneasy, daughter,” he said. “Do not be so. Now that you have confessed your faults, I forgive you freely. She who did you much harm has now reaped her just deserts. Witchcraft is a fearsome cult. It must be crushed wherever we find it. And now … if you will be my good child, I will be father to you.”
“You will be welcome at Court,” said Jane. “We shall be friends…we shall be as sisters.”
The King laughed at her. I thought her charming in her rather simple way.
He asked about my household at Hunsdon. I said that of recent date it had begun to grow.
“You shall have the comforts you once enjoyed before you were misguided enough to oppose my will.”
“I thank Your Majesty.”
“Aye… and you will find there will be much for which to thank me.”
Jane laughed happily. I thought she was really a good creature and was genuinely rejoicing in my changed fortunes.
I wondered whether I could mention Elizabeth but the dark look which had come into his face when he had spoken of her mother made me hesitate. Not yet, I thought, I must tread very carefully.
“Yes,” my father went on. “Be a good daughter and you will find me not ungenerous. I am giving you a thousand crowns so that you can indulge yourself. Get some little comforts, eh? I'll swear you could use them.”
“You are most gracious…”
His face had become soft and sentimental, as I remembered it from the past. “Aye… and ready to be more so…as you will find, will she not, Jane?”
Jane smiled from me to him. “The most generous King in the world,” she said ecstatically.
I thought how different she was from my mother as well as from Anne Boleyn. Could it be possible that this one could give him what he wanted? If she could provide a son, yes. And if not…I found myself looking at that white neck.
She had taken a diamond ring from her finger and held it out to me.
“It would make me very happy if you would wear this for me,” she said simply.
Then she took my hand and slipped the ring on my finger.
“You are so good to me,” I told her.
My father watched us, his eyes glazed with sentiment. How quickly his moods changed! I wished that I did not see him quite so clearly. Part of me wanted to go on believing in the image I had created in my childhood; but I kept thinking of my mother. On whose order had the Welsh beer been produced? Had she been poisoned? I thought of Anne Boleyn, the one for whom he had sacrificed his religious beliefs and had run the risk of losing his crown; and yet there had come the day when she had been taken out to Tower Green and her head had been cut off with a sword specially sent from France. What could I think of such a man? How could I love him? And yet, in spite of all I knew of him, in a way I did.
Poor little Jane Seymour, what would become of her?
The mood passed. Jane, with her simple reasoning, had an effect on us. She saw this as a family reunion and she made us see it as such. I lost some of my qualms; my father forgot that he was King; in that brief moment we were father and daughter, and Jane's presence, with her simple faith in the goodness of human nature, had created this scene in her imagination and, briefly, we accepted it.
It was a pleasant half hour. There was laughter: I was delighted to be with my father, for after all he had done, he was still my father, and such was the aura which surrounded him that I could suppress my fears of him. Whether it was love, I do not know; but it was something akin to it. And while we were together, I forgot that I was deceiving him, that I had lied to him; and he seemed to forget the past when he had had it in his mind to poison me or take my life in some way.