Daughter of Time

June 1533

"I think a walk might help Your Highness," My lady governess, Lady Salisbury says gently, trying to prise me off my knees on the Beaulieu chapel floor.
I have been at prayer every day since my fathers' letters arrived, beseeching God to forgive him for his actions, and myself for the sin of hate that grows in my heart for that woman. I have tried so very hard to extinguish the fires of hatred that burn ferociously inside me for her. Yet it continues to kindle. I despise that devilish woman more than Satan himself.

"Come, Princess," she says softly with all the gentleness of my mother, helping me to my knees that have stiffened from my devotions.

She summons my companion and cousin, Margaret Douglas to accompany us on a walk to divert my attentions. As the daughter of the Dowager Queen of Scotland, my father's elder sister, Margaret has been brought up alongside me. She has been my closest friend throughout my life and the nearest I have had to a sister.

"Oh look Mary; the daffodils are coming out at last." She cries with a carefree gaiety I can only envy.

"They have come late this year." Lady Salisbury smiles, knowing that flowers are a love of mine

"Let's pick some," my cousin suggests, disentangling herself from my arm, rushing over to where the little buds have just started to bloom.

"They would look splendid with the violets, Lady Margaret," Lady Salisbury agrees. Turning to me, she adds: "Perhaps the Princess would like some for her chamber also?"

It is not an invitation for my cousin to pick some for me. It is more of a suggestion that I join my cousin in picking the flowers. Lady Salisbury has always believed that flowers lighten a mood as much as they lighten a room.

Margaret tries to engage me in conversation about the blossoming colours of flowers in the gardens, and designs for new gown as we select the daffodils, but it cannot lift me out of my sorrow.

I want to see my mother, to be able to write to her. I am missing her dreadfully. I have not seen her for over two years, and over five since I was last with both her and my father. Half a decade since we were last all together as a family.

The Sweating Sickness had come to London and the Court had fled in fear. My mother commanded my temporary return from Ludlow, where the illness had also broken out, and we spent one month together with my father, the King, at the house of my godfather, Cardinal Wolsey, another victim of that woman, who drove him to an early grave.

I had not known then that things were strained between my parents. To me, they seemed as they always had, devoted to each other and very happy.

Little did I know, until a few months ago how naive I had been to believe that all was well between them. For whilst my father appeared for all intents and purposes, to be the devoted husband, to his wife and Queen in public, he was, in secret, nursing a viper in his bosom.

He had fallen in love with another woman, meant to marry her and make her his Queen.

I have never understood how this might come to pass legitimately. Not even a King can break apart what God has put together

I am ignorant of knowledge on the workings of marriage, for I have no husband. Yet, I do know adultery to be a sin against God and the sacrament of marriage. I know well the love between my mother and father, for I have heard of it first hand from my mother herself. She told me of the love that had lain between her and my father.

No one will ever convince me that the love my father has for her, nor the love they have for me is tainted. Not even the ruling of the false court, that declared my mothers' marriage to be invalid, and Madame Pembroke to be the lawful Queen, will I ever believe it, much less acknowledge it.