Just a Girl by Jane Caro

privy stool, from chair to bed again, made him sweat and groan and his skin burn fiery red. His breathing was laboured and his tiny eyes darted from face to face with terror. He wept and prayed a great deal, and claimed ghosts sat onthe end of his bed at night, taunting him. He clung to Catherine and she reassured him, prayed with him and soothed his fears. He became so dependent on her that he could not bear her to leave his side.
    In the winter of 1546, Edward and I were sent once more to the country. By this time, Mary and her household came rarely to court. As she had been since the days of my mother, she was in almost permanent disgrace for still refusing to acknowledge our father as the head of the church, and the primacy of the Church of England, so we saw but little of her. Life was easier for Mary in the country, away from the intrigue and tension that surrounded my father and stepmother, particularly now, as he was ailing. Men began to think of power and position, conscious that, as the next king would be my brother, a mere boy of nine, the man who had his ear would rule the kingdom.
    The tension at court increased daily as it became clear that my father would not live much longer, no matter how tenaciously he clung to life. He sat at the great table one last time at Christmas and then he took to his bed. The court fell into a kind of anxious torpor. No real government could take place while all England waited for one king to die and another, a mere stripling, to take his place. Great men plotted and schemed – none more avidly than my brother’s maternal uncles, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and ThomasSeymour, Admiral of the Fleet (the very same Thomas my stepmother would far rather have married). Despite their usual differences, as my father lay slowly dying, the Seymour brothers were united in their aim to secure the throne for their nephew and keep him firmly under their stewardship. And they had another ally in their plans for power. My stepmother, the queen, remained much influenced by her past love. The admiral took full advantage of her fond feelings towards him and, when it became clear my father could fight on no longer, persuaded her not to send for my sister, brother or me.
    Later, I asked my stepmother if the king had said any last words to her before he sank into his final stupor. I dared not hope that he would have any in particular for me, but perhaps he might have whispered his old pet name for me, Madame Ysabeau. She told me his old friend and servant Sir Anthony Denny had been the last living soul my father spoke to. Good Sir Anthony, she said, had been the only man brave enough to warn my father that his time was nearing an end. Denny asked his old friend and prince if he would like to speak to anyone in particular to make his peace with God, and my father answered thus – but in such a whisper that poor Sir Anthony had to draw closer to make out the words – ‘If I had any, it should be Dr Cranmer, but I will first take a little sleep. And then, as I feel myself, I will advise upon the matter.’ After that, my fatherclosed his eyes and his voice was heard no more. I cried when my stepmother told me what he had said, for it seemed to me he had not made his peace with God and still had not accepted that – as for all other men – his fate was to die. That he still felt a ‘little sleep’ would be enough to restore him to himself seemed unbearably poignant to me.
    Once he had breathed his last, the queen took her place by his side and prayed devoutly for his soul, but the new king’s uncles wasted no time. As soon as the doctor pronounced the king dead, Edward Seymour gave instructions that the door to the death chamber be barred and that no one but the queen and his brother be allowed to enter until his return. Then he mounted his horse and rode posthaste to Hatfield, to his nephew, the new King Edward VI, and, as it happened, to me.
    Edward and I were