Daughter of Time

January 1536

Eltham Palace

The sound of the seventh chime of the church bells awakens me from my slumber. As I raise my head from my pillow, the back of my neck, exposed to the cold morning air catches the chilly January morning. With the greatest of reluctance, I force myself out of the warm bed, hastening for the furred nightgown given to me by Lady Bryan last Christmas. She has been good to me while I have been here. Discreetly ensuring I was comfortable. That I am not sickening. I am grateful for that. I remember her in my prayers, the only woman of Elizabeth's service I can bear to go near as I kneel at my prie dui for my morning devotions, asking God to grant me the grace and fortitude to endure this exile, and the cruel treatment at the hands of my enemies, mercenaries of that woman.

I have been in enslaved in this servitude for two years now. Things have gone from terrible to catastrophic as the years have gone by.

I continue to live in a prison the fear. Trapped by the evils of one woman. My father now holds absolute power over the church. By the Act of Supremacy he now holds the title "Supreme Head on Earth of the Church in England". It is high treason to disavow this act, punishable by death.

All of the kings' subjects have been forced to swear an oath of loyalty to the act that displaces me as heir and to the supremacy. Lady Shelton could barely contain her eagerness to tell me that all my former servants had taken the oath. She even tried to convince me that my mother had submitted to it. Not that I would ever have believed it. For both my mother and myself there is only one mortal head of the church, His Holiness the Pope.

What is more shocking and harder to believe is what is being done to the religious houses in England. Secretary Cromwell, no doubt under the insistences of that woman, has begun suppressing religious houses under the guise of reforming them from the corrupt priests and monks that run them. Numerous Abbeys and Priories have been closed and their occupants forced into poverty whilst their wealth has been transferred to the King's exchequer

Ambassador Chapys does not believe a word of it. In the few letters Anthony Roke has been able to smuggle to me he writes that even the churches goods and altarpieces have been confiscated by royal officers. Goblets and plates once used for religious now sit in the private homes of the Cromwell's supporters. Some of it has even been granted to Elizabeth's household. I felt sick to my stomach to see the vessels used for Gods holy service in the hands of Elizabeths household officers, brazenly displayed for anyone to see. May God will forgive them for the sacrilege of receiving such wealth by such unscrupulous means, which seems to me to be no more than a complete violation of the seventh commandment.

At least not all the Kings subjects have abandoned their consciences. Chapys writes that the common people know it is evident the statute is of no value since they were compelled by threats and bribes to swear to it, the likes of which has never been seen before. Some men, however value the preservation of their soul, though the numbers are very small. My mothers' most ardent defenders, Bishop Fisher and more shockingly, Sir Thomas Moore, once my fathers' dearest friend, both refused to swear to oath and were sent to the scaffold last year, condemmed as traitors.

That witches father, Wiltshire even came to Hatfield, pressuring me to renounce what is lawfully mine. But of course, my answer was the same as it would always be.

The strains of the last three years have taken the toll on me. I have never been so ill as frequently as what I have been since this whole ordeal began. Though before God, I swear some of these are the effects of poison given to me by that witch who calls herself Queen. Migraines and agues have confined me to bed for days at a time. Not that I can sleep much. Every creak on the floorboards outside my chamber jolts me out of whatever slumber I have fallen into, convinced as I am that outside their lurks a sinsister figure ready to do me harm on the orders of that woman.