“Ill of a fever.” He made a rueful grimace. “As who is not? I was sick myself shortly after Father died.” His flushed skin and persistent cough gave the lie to his claim that he had recovered.

I remained healthy, but I felt numb with grief and guilt and fragile in a way that I’d never been before. I could barely remember any longer what it felt like to be optimistic about the future. “I must return to Blackfriars,” I told George.

“I’ll take you,” he offered. “There is little either of us can do here.”

Our eldest brother, William, who had become Lord Cobham upon Father’s death, had matters well in hand for Mother’s funeral, just as he’d made arrangements for Father’s.

George and I left at first light the next day, taking Birdie Crane with us. With Mother’s death, Birdie had nowhere else to go.

We traveled by water and reached Blackfriars Stairs before nightfall. Griggs met me at the door of our little house, his face so grave I knew at once that he had more bad news to deliver.

“Is he dead?” I asked bluntly.

“Not yet, but he has taken a turn for the worse. I called a physician in. He says it is some new variety of ague that is raging throughout England. Our soldiers brought it back with them from France.” He spat to express his opinion of anything French.

I did not care where the disease had come from, only that it was killing my family. That Will might follow Father, Grandmother, and Mother to the grave was more than I could bear.

“The queen has been stricken, too,” Griggs said. “Some think the fever may carry her off.”

“The queen is about to die? Again?” I did not believe it. It seemed to me that all those I loved would be gone before Her Grace had the decency to succumb.

I nursed Will day and night, bathing him with cold cloths to bring down the fever, forcing him to drink strengthening broths. I tried every remedy Mother had taught me in the stillroom, but nothing seemed to help. Birdie Crane nagged at me to rest. She warned me that I risked my own health, but what point was there in living if Will did not?

When the bells began to ring on the seventeenth day of November, signaling the death of Queen Mary, I barely lifted my head from Will’s chest. I had fallen asleep sitting beside his bed.

Stiff and sore, I considered rising and going to the window. That required too much effort. Even when Birdie came in to confirm the news that the clanging meant the queen was dead and that her sister, Elizabeth, was queen, I felt no elation, no surge of hope. It was a struggle merely to overcome my sense of despair.

“Elizabeth?”

I gasped and turned to stare at Will. His eyes were open and clear for the first time in days.

I touched my hand to his forehead. The fever was gone.

“I’m here, Will,” I whispered.

“Not you, Bess.” His voice was hoarse from disuse. “Elizabeth. Elizabeth is queen?”

He’d heard the bells, heard Birdie’s announcement. “So it seems.”

He tried to throw off his blankets. “I must get up. I must ride to Hatfield. Everyone will flock to her now, seeking advancement. To stay away would—”

“You cannot go!” I pressed with both hands on his shoulders, forcing him back. When he lay still again, I glared at him. “You will kill yourself if you try to get out of bed too soon. You almost died, Will.”

“Then send word to her. Let her know we are her loyal subjects.” His agonized plea tore at my heart. “We must remind her, Bess. She must remember what we’ve suffered all these years at her sister’s hands. You must tell her.”

“I will write to her.”

“No. No, you must go in person.” With agitated fingers, Will plucked at his covers.

“I will not leave your side, not even to assure our future. If you die, Will, I have no future.”

He was too exhausted to argue for long. When he fell asleep, I wrote to Her Grace. The new queen was under no obligation to restore Will’s title or estates or marriage. And if she was as skilled at holding a grudge as others in her family had been, we had no hope of advancement. But I put my heart into my words and hoped for the best.

That done, I concentrated on helping Will recover. I made strengthening broths with my own hands, and gave him infusions of herbs to restore him to full health. In the days that followed, he continued to improve. I counted my blessings, resigned to accept whatever fate awaited us. We would continue the life we’d lived these last few years. What did it matter if we had titles or wealth? We had each other.

But one thing worried me. If the queen refused to restore the legality of our marriage, the Church of England could step in to separate us, as they had once before through the machinations of the lord protector. I’d been exiled to Chelsea. Will had been forbidden to see me again on pain of death.

Never again, I vowed. We would go into exile in France if we had to. After all, the former ambassador owed me a favor. A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped me at the irony of that!

Queen Elizabeth left Hatfield on the twenty-third of November, accompanied by over a thousand people. Over a thousand supplicants, I thought when I heard of it. With all of them vying for favor, what hope of preferment did Will and I have?

Her Grace moved into one of her own houses, the Charterhouse in Smithfield, outside the city gates, postponing her return to the Tower. I could understand why she was in no hurry to be installed there to await her coronation. She would remember all too well the months she had spent there as a prisoner.

The morning of the twenty-eighth of November dawned crisp and clear. Will was out of bed. He was still frail, but the Blackfriars precinct extended north to Ludgate and the houses along that wall overlooked the new queen’s route as she made her formal entry into the city. Will and I could sit in a window and watch the royal procession pass by.

When Queen Elizabeth came in sight, glittering with jewels and mounted on a brightly caparisoned palfrey, Will staggered to his feet and pushed the shutters open wider. He leaned out so far that I feared he would fall. I clasped both arms around his waist to keep him in. Only when I was sure he had his balance did I release him and glance away from his face.

Elizabeth Tudor’s piercing black gaze met mine. She had reined in her horse directly beneath our window.

Awkwardly, Will bowed while I made a deep court curtsy.

“We are glad to see you so well, my lord marquess,” the queen called out, using the title her sister had taken from him. “When you have fully recovered your health, you must come to court.” Her gaze shifted to me and she smiled. “And you must bring Bess—your wife the marchioness—with you.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On Christmas Day in 1558, William Parr resumed his seat on the Privy Council. On the thirteenth of January in 1559, he was restored as Marquess of Northampton and his divorce from Anne Bourchier was reinstated. His marriage to Elizabeth Brooke was legal once more.

By Royal Decree is the fictionalized story of Elizabeth Brooke’s life from 1542 to 1558, crucial years in English history. She was at the center of events and often a key player in them. I’ve tried to stay as close to the facts as possible, while at the same time fleshing out the personalities of the people involved and making their actions comprehensible to readers living in a far different world.

Among the things that seem strange today is the rarity of female friendships. Noble households were predominately male and often a nobleman’s wife was the only woman in residence aside from a few servants. Even cooks were usually men. Although I would have liked to give Bess Brooke another woman to confide in throughout the period of the novel, such a thing would have been very unlikely in real life. It is possible that Will Parr was her best friend as well as her husband and her lover. I’d like to think so. But that, too, would have been unusual for the times.

Most of the characters who populate this novel were real people. I found several biographies particularly helpful in researching their lives, among them Leanda de Lisle’s The Sisters Who Would Be Queen (2008), Eric Ives’s Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (2009), Susan E. James’s Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (1999), and David Loades’s John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (1996). The “Who’s Who” section at the end of this note will tell you more about the principal characters who were based on real people. You will find additional information on Tudor women at my website, www.KateEmersonHistoricals.com.

The only characters who are entirely fictional are Matthew Rowlett, Birdie Crane, Griggs, and Alys Guildford, although there was a Guildford among Queen Kathryn’s maids of honor and also in the Duchess of Northumberland’s household in 1555. I have, of course, invented dialogue, guessed at motivations, and extrapolated from the facts when there were gaps in history. I have not attempted to write in accurate sixteenth-century language. It would end up sounding like a third-rate Shakespeare imitation. I hope you will think of Bess’s story, told in her own words, as a translation into modern English and enjoy your trip into the past.

A WHO’S WHO

OF THE TUDOR COURT

1542–1558

Bassano, Jasper (d. 1577)

A musician, he came to England from Italy with four of his brothers under the sponsorship of William Parr. When Parr’s sister Kathryn became queen, they joined her household. By 1552, they were living in the Italian quarter of London (St. Mark’s Lane) where they made as well as played a variety of instruments.

Bassett, Anne (1521?–1557?)

A maid of honor to Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Kathryn Parr, and later a member of Queen Mary’s household, Anne (here called Nan) Bassett is also the protagonist of the previous volume in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series, Between Two Queens.

Bourchier, Anne (1517–1571)

Daughter of the Earl of Essex, first wife and child bride of William Parr (later Marquess of Northampton), she took a lover and had children by him. This allowed Parr to divorce her for adultery, but he was not permitted, by church or civil law, to remarry while she still lived. Anne came to court as one of Queen Mary’s ladies while Parr was in the Tower for conspiring to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne in Mary’s stead. Known as Viscountess Bourchier, she was instrumental in securing his release, since to have him executed as a traitor would have cost her both income and position. After Queen Mary’s death, Anne retired to rural Hertfordshire.

Brandon, Frances (1517–1559)

Daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary Tudor, by Mary’s marriage to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (both of whom appear in Secrets of the Tudor Court: The Pleasure Palace), Frances became Marchioness of Dorset through her marriage to Henry Grey, and Duchess of Suffolk after the deaths of her two half brothers in 1551. Frances Brandon is best known to history as the mother of Lady Jane Grey. After the executions of her daughter and husband, Frances married a commoner, Adrian Stokes.

Bray, Anne (1500–1558)

Lady Cobham and therefore Bess Brooke’s mother, she was one of those women who stayed in the background, but her tomb in Cobham Church assures us that she was “blest with her children’s love.” She died in the influenza epidemic of 1558.

Bray, Dorothy (c. 1524–1605)

Lady Cobham’s sister and Bess’s aunt, Dorothy was a maid of honor to Catherine Howard and Kathryn Parr. She had a brief, scandalous love affair with William Parr while Catherine was queen (see also Secrets of the Tudor Court: Between Two Queens) and later married Edmund Brydges. He succeeded to the title Baron Chandos. After his death, when Dorothy was married to a much younger man, she was known as “old Lady Chandos.”

Bray, John (c. 1527–1557)

Lord Bray was the brother of Anne and Dorothy Bray and Bess Brooke’s uncle. He conspired with rebels in 1555–6, but fought for King Philip at Saint-Quentin in 1557. He was wounded during the siege of that city and died of his injuries several months later.

Brooke, Elizabeth (c. 1505–1560)

Lord Cobham’s sister and Bess’s aunt, she was the cast-off wife of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet and the mother of Sir Thomas Wyatt the rebel. After her first husband’s death, she married Sir Edward Warner, lord lieutenant of the Tower of London under Edward VI and Elizabeth I.