While grey clouds kiss and bruise the hills above the red bricks of Hunsdon House[1], a crow and a worm dance in a room inside. The worm, who is also a princess, would be a juicy meal for the crow. A morsel to be eaten soon, unless it will obey. For months, the sparrows have come and gone, chattering at this court, seeking to mend quarrels not of their making. Now, in the burgeoning warmth of summer, the worm clews to the bosom of her ladies.

    The crow warns, “In all our lives, although each season has its turn, such motion must in death conclude. You must yield, madam, or else your life is done. It is only right and proper, that all of us must bow before our master. Otherwise, the final season runs, and that will be the end to all your work”.

    The worm has tried to hide within the quiet turf, where buried secrets give her a burnished glow. For there it shares her place with bones of kings and gold or souls and other buried things. But now the passing of time has faded the turf’s green haze. The worm can only curl up, smaller, smaller, seeking mercy, imploring that her Maker protects his messenger through each and other shining night. So, then the worm eventually replies, “Thomas, should I truly cast aside, the holy love of my one lord? He surely knows that even if I give my word, he will know the secrets that I keep so buried deep. But between the two masters that I have here on earth, please tell me which one it is, to whom, that I should give my lie”.

    The crow simply hunches deeper in his coat of black, and offers no advice, but gives her papers to unseeing, sign.

    And so, although men take power from steel and sword, a queen must parlay only with her words. And all around, as trembling finches seek asylum with the cuckoos and magpies cease their mischief as murdering crows pass by.

(342 words, (plus 122 including footnote))

[1] In the summer of 1536, the twenty seventh year of Henry VIII’s reign, shortly after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Mary signed a Letter of Submission that acknowledged Henry as the earthly representative of God: “I do recognize, accept, take, repute and knowledge the King's Highness to be supream head in earth under Christ of the Church of England, and do utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome's pretended authority, power and jurisdiction within this Realm.”( Stone, J. M. The History of Mary I., Queen of England, London: Sands & Co., 1901.126-127).