Page 15 of The Rest is History
It’s easy to look at the formal portraits of that time and feel like the people in them are an enigma (though the ones of kids dressed like mini adults always break my heart). It’s easy to imagine that these people didn’t love and feel and rebel like we do.
It’s easy to feel removed from them, and their lives, and their heartaches.
But this miniature was different. The same trinket that Henry presumably fondled and obsessed over and carried around as he used its contents to make a weighty decision was sitting there. In front of fifteen-year-old me, in a glass case, in the middle of a twenty-first century city.
It was the first time I felt like the veil between us and those who’d gone before us was whisper-thin.
But not the last. It’s a feeling I’ve had again and again over nearly two decades, and a feeling I’ve tried my hardest to share with the kids I teach.
And I have it again here.
Big time.
My feet rest on the same wooden planks that supported Wolsey and Henry and Henry’s queens. (I mean, presumably. I have no idea if the floorboards are original. They look pretty old). My eyes stare up at tapestries and stained glass that provided warmth and distraction for my alter ego, Anne Boleyn, in her coldest winters.
And it seems that if I could shut my eyes, I could feel her presence.
That is, if Shelby wasn’t chirping in my ear, breaking the mood.
She points to the raised stage.
‘We’ve had some great larks here. The guys who play these roles during the week do a lot of fake banquets for the school trips. The kids love them.’
I blink. ‘What other characters are there here?’
She cocks her head. ‘Well, Henry and his queens. Wolsey. Cromwell, sometimes. Mary Tudor. Elizabeth. Not Edward—too boring. Everyone co-existing in happy harmony, obvs. And then downstairs in the kitchens, there are a few actors and historians who pretend to be chefs and kitchen boys and telling the visitors how it would have been.’ She pauses and smiles mischievously. ‘Oh, and the Grey Lady, of course.’
‘You mean Lady Jane Grey?’ I ask.
‘Nope, babe. The Grey Lady. The ghost.’
‘What the actual fuck?’
She sniggers. ‘I know, right? This place is supposed to be haunted as fuck. She’s either Katherine Howard, or someone called Sybil Penn. I think she was Edward VI’s wet nurse.Anyway, she died of smallpox here, and apparently, she’s one unhappy lady. Loads of people claim to have seen her spinning.’
I stare at her, goosebumps appearing under my thick costume.
‘That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Yep.’
‘You haven’t seen her, have you?’
‘Nah,’ she replies cheerfully. ‘Don’t think I’m the type ghosts bother with. You might be, though.’
‘Thanks for that,’ I say. ‘Super helpful.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You died here, didn’t you?’ I nod at her. ‘Jane, I mean.’
‘Certainly did. She’s supposed to haunt the place too—apparently she pops up on Edward’s birthday.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I mutter.
She bumps me with her elbow. ‘Let’s go find your delicious king, shall we?’
Suddenly, the prospect of coming face to face with Charlie as Henry seems almost attractive.
