Free The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy

by a pair of rose-perfumed candles tinted the most delicate shade of pink, were a flagon of ale and two golden goblets adorned with a rich, glittering pattern of garnet hearts and diamond lovers’ knots. But of the intruder there was no sign.
    Returning to my room on the heels of my guards, with Susan and Jane keeping close on either side of me, I went to the window and squinted out into the dark night. And there below me that familiar voice boomed out that annoyingly familiar bawdy tavern tune again.

    I gave her Cakes and I gave her Ale,
I gave her Sack and Sherry;
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
     
    I gave her Beads and Bracelets fine,
I gave her Gold down derry.
I thought she was afear’d till she stroked my Beard
And we were wondrous merry!
     
    Merry my Heart, merry my Cock,
Merry my Spright.
Merry my hey down derry.
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
     

    “Unleash the hounds!” I ordered, bristling with outrage. But he merely laughed at me, throwing back his head as he broke into a jig, kicking his legs up high and blowing kisses to me, before he had to flee with a bevy of barking dogs at his heels. After that night, I never saw him again.
    Some weeks later the Spanish Ambassador came to dine with me. He told me he had heard that the Lord Protector’s brother, the Lord Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour, had petitioned the Council for my hand in marriage, and that he had already most presumptuously begun to woo me until he was ordered by his brother to desist as neither of them was meant to marry a king’s daughter.
    “If such is true, I know nothing about it,” I answered. “As for his courting me, I have only seen the man once or perhaps twice at court celebrations, and I have never spoken a word to him in my life.”
    Later that evening as she helped me to undress, my faithful Susan ventured to inform me, in the most deferential terms of course, that such was not exactly the case, and that I had seen Thomas Seymour several times in the guise of that mad fool stranger we had called “The Cakes and Ale Man.”
    “I naturally assumed you knew, M’am,” Susan said.
    “No, indeed I did not know,” I assured her, “and I doubt I would have even if I had seen him close enough to discern his features. But if that is his way of wooing, his technique leaves much to be desired.”
    “I quite agree, M’am,” Susan replied, “though he is said to have quite a way with the ladies, I think the rumors give him more credit than he deserves, as do the London moneylenders.”
    After “The Cakes and Ale Man” had come and gone, all lapsed back into normality, but it was only the quiet before the storm.

6
     
    Elizabeth
     
    I could not remain at court, for the Lord Protector had decreed that during the King’s minority, while Edward was unmarried, it would not be seemly for single ladies, including the King’s sisters, to reside at court. I thought I was destined to go, yet again, back to Hatfield, and languish there for many years to come, with only occasional visits to Mary and the court at Christmastime to relieve the tedium, but Katherine Parr came to my rescue once again. I was like a daughter to her, she said, and she dreaded so to part with me, and asked me if I would like to come live with her.
    It was a dream come true to be at cheerful Chelsea, Katherine’s redbrick manor house set in a verdant green heart of woodlands, parks, and gardens overlooking a usually placid expanse of the Thames. The mullioned windows welcomed in the sun as if to dare the gloom to intrude, and everyone, even the lowliest servant, always went about with a smile on their face; everyone was happy at Chelsea. And I settled happily into a quiet routine of study and pleasant pastimes in Kate’s company.
    And there was a mystery to spice up this bland but nonetheless pleasant existence—titillating gossip that Kate had a lover. And so soon after my father’s