Eliza Rose Read online

  A few years ago, one of our researchers at Hampton Court was looking into the ‘ghost story’ of Katherine Howard, because we wanted to check the facts before installing a ‘ghost’ of our own in the Haunted Gallery for visitors to see. Indeed, we now have one: a very subtle silhouette of a Tudor lady crossing what seems to be a window, which is in fact created by a hidden projector. Most people don’t notice this projection of Katherine’s figure crossing the light, but sometimes, when the palace is quiet, it frightens the living daylights out of a more imaginative visitor who catches sight of it out of the corner of an eye.

  So this researcher of ours looked again at the plan of the palace, to check most historians’ belief that it was impossible for Katherine Howard to get from her rooms to the Haunted Gallery. This is not as straightforward as it sounds because of the changes made to the building over the last four hundred years. But, on examining the sixteenth-century plan of the palace, she noticed that there was indeed a little staircase – ‘the Queen’s Vice Staircase’ – that led from the queen’s apartments to the Haunted Gallery.

  She was quite surprised at this and doubted herself. So she then wrote to a Famous Historian of Hampton Court Palace, asking ‘Is it possible that you’ve got it wrong? Could the events that the “ghost” represents really have happened?’

  ‘No!’ came the reply. ‘Katherine Howard could not have run screaming down that gallery. It’s a silly story, anyway.’

  After she told me this, I looked at the plan myself, and I could plainly see that she was right, and the Famous Historian was wrong. It seemed to me that the Famous Historian hadn’t looked at the facts dispassionately, and that he’d given himself away with his comment that it was a ‘silly story’. I think that he didn’t want to give any more credence to this silly story about a silly girl, and therefore looked at the palace plan with prejudiced eyes.

  I felt quite annoyed by this on behalf of that girl who died nearly five hundred years ago. And as I learned more about the real Katherine Howard, the more annoyed I felt. She may have been young and foolish, but I felt that the odds at court were so heavily stacked against her that it was unfair that her lasting reputation should be as a silly little strumpet. What if there was something about her that we didn’t know, something that could cast quite a different light upon her actions?

  After thinking about this, I decided that I would write a new version of Katherine’s story myself, and the result is this book.

  Eliza is a made-up character, but many of the scenes and events – for example, when Anne of Cleves reveals that she doesn’t know how babies are made – really did happen, and there are sixteenth-century documents to prove it. Eliza’s home of Stoneton was inspired by South Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire, and her red hair borrowed from my two favourite indomitable redheads of the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I and Bess of Hardwick.

  Of course I can’t prove that the story I’ve told in this book is the real story, the true explanation for Katherine Howard’s horrible fate.

  But then again, no one can prove it isn’t.

  Acknowledgements

  My sincere thanks go to the people who helped me with Eliza Rose. They are: all my colleagues, past and present, at Hampton Court Palace, Felicity Bryan, Catherine Clarke, Daisy Goodwin, Hannah Sheppard, Zoe Griffiths and Deborah Noyes. But most of all I am grateful to my sister-in-law, Kersti Worsley, and dedicate this book to her.

  About the author

  Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity that runs the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and other sites, which attract more than four million visitors a year. Lucy also presents history programmes for the BBC on topics including royal palaces and the court, such as Britain’s Tudor Treasure with David Starkey. She has an exciting new project about Henry the Eighth and his court coming up on BBC One in 2016!

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in April 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  This electronic edition first published in 2016

  www.bloomsbury.com

  BLOOMSBURY is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © Lucy Worsley 2016

  Illustrations copyright © Joe Berger 2016

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4088 6943 7

  eISBN 978 1 4088 7012 9

  To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.