#philippaed

Though her cheeks had shed the frightful sallow of sea sickness, Lady Suffolk’s belly was still as unsettled as the tempestuous channel her ship had crossed in order to return to England. It churned with the memory of being pitched and rolled about in the underbelly of a mighty galleon, as cramped as it was dark, until at last the skies cheered – lifting from leaden gray to a pale yellow, the coastal cliffs of Dover searing through the mist like a molten blade through butter. Almost immediately upon returning to London, Katharine had set about making improvements to the Greys’ lavish suite of apartments at Hampton Court, in the style of her opulent chambers at Chambord. Fastidiously she replaced the drab damask curtains slung over the diamond-shaped panes in the windows with cloth-of-gold, embroidered with her mother’s royal coat-of-arms; swapped the old tallow candles with fresh bees wax, burning sweetly throughout each chamber, installed in costly candelabrum of silver; replenished her daughters’ closets with the newest French fabrics and patterns, a welter of pearl and diamond-edged hoods lining the oak table of the morning room, leaking with sunshine.

Though the ground still tilted disconcertingly, Katharine smiled admiringly at her work, two hands perched upon her narrow hips as she assessed the brightened space with pride. Yet as another wave of lingering nausea gathered within her like a great and sickening tidal, the Duchess was obliged to find perch on the velvet bench of the window, doffing the hood from her head and tossing it to the wall, milky droplets of pearls soaring into the air, rubbing the tender stretch of skin where her headdress was pinned and stabbed rather tightly into place. Katharine, never one to rest, would have liked to press onwards with all speed, perhaps even join her daughters for a hunt; but the airs of court had never been particularly salubrious, and travel had wearied her.

Alice Seymour had never been the type of woman at court to curate a gang of other noble bred young women, for even before her marriage and then her place amongst the train of Anne Boleyn, she had shunned the feminine gaggle of conversation and gossip that surrounded the usual affair of courtly glamour, instead choosing her allies by the historical ties made between her mother and the old crowd who had once served beneath the banner of Catherine of Aragon. That, some would say, was when the rumours began on loose tongues, shifting venom parting between lips to secure their place beneath the Queen in favour of shoving one beneath an incoming carriage — but, her behaviour had never quite lent itself to a life of chaste practice, and so, had instead forced her place amongst her flirtatious mannerisms, the lure of her blue eyes and the single turn of her head. 

But, there was room for change, and such a transition came in the form of her return to court after both becoming Lady Seymour and a mother to two children. What mattered the most then, beyond the flourish of her reputation and the truth that waited beneath wiggling tongues, was the wellbeing of her family and the memory of her late, beloved mother. An extension of this care was offered then to the Grey sisters, women caught between the slick edge of the chopping block and the executioner's blade, a position that she thought to pick them from — if she could help it. 

The Grey siblings had always been held at arm’s length, but that was not simply due to the blood that flowed through either woman’s blood. No, what seemed to sink deeper beneath her skin was the reality that her father had once thought his sister’s grandchildren a good choice of successor (for even though Henry Tudor never believed that his heirs would ever be so unfortunate to die childless, or the strength that came with his only true son was anything but secure, there was always a silent conversation on the what ifs posed by his council — whispers, then heightened by the rumoured legitimacy of the Prince and Princess), a favouritism that only relit a sense of fury in the late King’s second daughter. So, she kept the Grey daughters from her, often averting her eyes if they entered a room or purposely avoided conversation when found in a large mass of people. But with a large number of the court split apart en route to Dover, there was little to be done, and so when found face to face Elizabeth could only muster the calmness evoked by pretending that all had never been better. 

As Lady Regent, Elizabeth had taken to her role with diligence. With her mother’s soaring ambition and father’s hubris, she sat upon her brother’s throne as if she had been made to sit within its cradle. She embodied England in its entirety, adorned in crimson and gold with her hair cast down her back in a purposeful display of her unapologetic lack of modesty, coyness or any other traditional feminine value once ordained just how a daughter or wife ought to be when before the audience of court. Finally, met alone but for a handful of ladies in the last few hours of public court, Elizabeth greeted her cousin with a modest display, a tapestry of the Virgin Mary hung beneath her head in the same manner once put on for her mother at the time of her coronation — everything had meaning, even if the largest parts of her soul yearned for something and someone else entirely.