Serve & Obey

Hampton Court

October 1536

I was twenty years old when I first came to court. It was considered by many, myself included, an old age to be entering the corridors of power for the first time, to be among those whose loyalty could change with the turn of the wind. To be in favour one day, and then cast out in disgrace, was a prospect almost as terrifying than the dreaded sweating sickness. That terrible, deadly disease that, in the summer of 1528 had wiped out almost a third of the Kings people, rich, and poor alike. It cared not who it eliminated.

I was one of the fortunate ones who survived. Closeted away in the healthy country air of Wiltshire, my family and I had little dealing of the sweat. However, it did not stop us from profiting from it.

My eldest brother, Edward, already established and rising high at court , wasted no time in securing one the vacant positions in the household of the Queen of England for me. And so for the first time, I entered in the inner circle of royalty. I walked the hallowed hallways the Queens of England walked. Little did I know that within seven years, I would walk them again, not as a maid, but as Queen of England.

My road to power is blood soaked. I will not deny it. Some will say the people who died for my sake were innocent. Some will say they were corrupted by the intoxicating allure of the court of my predecessor.

I try not to think of her, the woman who occupied the rooms I lay in now. She took to her chamber twice to bear the man who is now my husband a child.

Her first time was her triumph, though it was a hollow one. She shut herself away from the world, fully confident that when she emerged, it would be as the mother of a Tudor prince. However her special luck, that had led her to the forefront of power had deserted her, and when she did emerge weeks later, it was as a mother to a daughter. It would be the only live birth she would see.

Her last time, this January just past, was an early confinement. Too early for the child, reportedly a son, to survive to claim his crown.

It was only later I learned, that the child lost that January, was rumoured to have been seeded by her own brother. A vain, and shockingly sinful attempt to cling on to her power, which had grown flimsier since the birth of her daughter three years past.

Yet for all my sensibilities, I have followed her in her footsteps. I flirted with the husband of my mistress. I tempted him away from her. I wanted to be Queen, as she was. I hated her for her sinful life and her wicked deeds, but like so many others, I could not help but be fascinated by her. The style of her clothes, her elegant walk, the way a room would fall silent whenever she walked in, all hooked on the glamour of her. She was addictive, that I do not deny. But she had a streak so evil, that I do not doubt the charges that led her to the scaffold.

I saw her destroyed by the man who had loved her passionately for years. A man who adored women, I saw his love turn to hate, and then disgust.

There are those among his court, her sympathizers I suppose, who say it was her inability to bear a son that lost her head, rather than the charges themselves. And yet for some reason, I too have played the game. But I have played and won. The king took a liking to me. Me! Plain, plump, obscure Jane. A woman who was once coldly reminded that I was only "the daughter of a knight, of little standing, and even smaller fortune."

My only recommendation was my family's fertility, which by God's good graces has been bestowed on me. I have borne a child to my Lord King and husband. A legitimate child, and God be praised, it is that longed for son.

Never again will I suffer sleepless nights, worrying whether my courses will appear, or even worse, the little flutter inside of me that tells me a child lives in my belly, only to suffer the dangers of childbirth, and produce a daughter.

I have borne a son, a healthy, beautiful son. He grows strong in his cradle, the most precious possession his father has. His sisters too are besotted with him, and his fathers' people have greeted his birth with the heartiest of rejoicing.

Te Deums are still being sung in the churches. The bonfires have been lit numerous times, and on the night of his birth, a little under two weeks ago, two thousand shots were fired from the Tower. I do not doubt that he will grow to be a fine man.

Even now at only eleven days old. I know he will be the image of his father, his soft downy hair, red, the colour of the Tudors.

Yet for all my success, I cannot be at peace. I feel as drained as the day I bore him. I have no energy to do anything. All I long for is sleep