Read The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase for Free Online

Heavenly Spheres?” I said so loudly that Father hushed me with a nervous glance over his shoulder. Seeing we were still alone, he grinned at me.
    “That is my clever girl! It is a book of theories written by a Polish astronomer named Copernicus. I have set Dee in search of a copy for the two of us as well.” Father sobered. “But the book is forbidden. You must not tell anyone about it, Nell.”
    “I promise.” I had gathered up quite a store of secrets on my trip thus far.
    “Copernicus made many calculations,” Father said. “He believed that earth is not the center of the universe at all. That the earth revolves around the sun!”
    “But that is silly! I am quite sure God said . . .” I thought about what Father had said. “Do you believe Copernicus is right?” I was not certain who I should believe if it came to cudgel play between my father and God.
    “Perhaps we are not as important as we think we are,” Father said. “That would be a nasty shock to most people, would it not?”
    Then he kissed my nose and I knew he had won.
    “Mother would not like it. She says everything we read in the Bible is true. That is why the Catholic priests are wicked. Because they keep all the reading to themselves.”
    “It is best we keep this theory our secret for the time being. If we tell those who do not understand they will get angry.”
    “I had a belly full of angry tonight,” I said. “It made me feel sick inside.”
    Father scooped me down from the stones and hugged me against his stiff leather doublet. I leaned back in his arms, the sight of his face comforting me.
    “Can I tell you a secret, too?” I toyed with the black strands of his beard.
    “You can tell me anything, Little Bird.”
    “Mother does not like my princess. In fact I am quite sure Mother hates her.”
    Father said nothing, just leaned his bristly cheek against mine. Then he said, “You know that before you were born your mother served Katherine Parr, our bluff King Hal’s last wife?”
    “Mother and the princess said she was very kind. King Henry was not. I do not think a person can cut off their own wife’s heads and be bluff at all.”
    “A very astute observation. After the king died, Princess Elizabeth was given into Katherine Parr’s care. It was a new beginning, a chance at a better life. Your mother visited me at Calverley from time to time, but mostly she stayed with the dowager queen at the Old Palace in Chelsea, hoping her friend could be happy at last.”
    “The lady should have been happy with King Henry dead! He could not cut off her head anymore.”
    “Even when you believe you are safe, life can catch you unawares, Nell,” Father said softly. “In the end Katherine Parr suffered more heartache at Chelsea than she’d known at the king’s hand. Your mother blames the Princess Elizabeth for that. But the Lady Elizabeth was just terribly young, hungry for someone to love.”
    “The princess told mother she misses the dowager queen every day,” I confided. “Did the dowager queen love the princess?”
    “Yes, poppet. With her whole heart. And all would have been well for both of them if the dowager queen had not taken a new husband.”
    “After all the bad things the king tried to do to her?” I asked, bewildered. “Why would she want another one of those?”
    “She fell desperately in love,” Father explained.
    “That does not seem like a wise idea.”
    “Love is seldom wise. Katherine Parr made three marriages out of duty. At thirty-five she had been wife to two old men, and then queen to a cruel king. Who can blame her for being greedy for joy after all she had suffered, poor lady?” Empathy filled Father’s face in the lantern light. “She married in secret with your mother as witness.”
    “Did she marry another king?” I asked.
    “No, sweetheart. She wed Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, the Baron of Sudeley, one of the most ambitious courtiers of his age.”
    “Could he read Greek, Father? Or