The Other Henry VIII

Diamond or Glass?

12 March 1514 in the reign of His Majesty King Henry VIII and Queen Sophia (VERY unfortunately)

Dear Diary,
I love parties, generally. It's a great chance to flirt with strangers and annoy various woman of the court (cough cough, the other ladies in waiting, cough cough). At ten o'clock in the morning, I saw the Queen's birthday celebrations as a perfect opportunity to carry out my favourite pastimes—making men love me and women hate me— but more importantly, trying to attract the King. It shouldn't be too difficult, but Princess Clara is there also and the King is usually distracted when she is around. I have to admit that the princess is a beauty, but she is the heir to the throne of England too, and this is an incredibly annoying fact.
I think I could do better, anyway.
I dressed in my emerald-green gown, with a low, squarish neckline trimmed with gold ribbon and a tight bodice that smoothly ran into a tiny waistline decorated with more gold ribbon. It will do, I suppose, but it makes me wish that my hair was red like Lucy's. She looks simply gorgeous. My hair, I had to let down my back like the other ladies, combed out in its abundant black curls, and decorated with a gold net lined with small jewels on the top of my head. At first, I wanted to argue, because the dress would look far more fetching with a hood, but I would rather wear a net than embarrass myself by looking out of place.
The five of us—Lucy, Mary, Catherine, the Queen and I—made our way down to the throne room (really, it's the ballroom but it has thrones in it) and I took this time to admire Queen Sophia's attire. At 20 she is, I must admit, very good-looking. Many women you see who marry and have children usually stop spending too much time caring about their beauty, but she still has to uphold her title as the Queen Consort of England. I am irritated to say, Sophia does it well.
She is clothed is a splendid Crimson gown, trimmed with silver and gold, with rubies and diamond gracing her neck, ears and wrists. Her hair is let out, like the rest of us, but it falls in fetching waves rather than tight curls and a solid diamond-encrusted gold and silver crown sits on her head with one big ruby in the centre.
The perfect Queen.
We entered the ballroom, and a voice called out "make way for Her Majesty the Queen, make way." I sighed, and dutifully dropped a curtsey like I had to in front of the King. I made sure that I bent forward enough to let my hair fall in front of me and nearly hiding the perfect view of my breasts from under my low-fronted dress.
The King and Queen danced together of course, and I was very annoyed to see that the look they shares showed that Henry had not lost any love for Sophia. I planned to wait until the King asked me to dance, but men crowded around me so much that I had to dance, in the end. I danced the first dance with one of the King's advisors, Thomas Cromwell, and though I was rather distracted with watching the King and Queen, Cromwell was an excellent dancer. He looked at me differently to other men, not with greed and lust, but with respect and gentleness.
Something has stirred inside me, something I don't know.
I didn't dance with the King, in the end, and falling asleep tonight has been very hard. I lie here, thinking about how I felt with Henry compared to Cromwell.  It was different, I know. I also remember something I had heard people talking about at the banquet.
"The Queen is a real diamond, isn't she?"the person sitting on the right of me had whispered.
"Yes. What do you think of Diana Westerly? An odd one, isn't she?"replied the person opposite them.
"A little, but incredibly charming. I'm surprised the King hasn't fallen for her already!"
"Hush, hush. She's just like glass, really. Beautiful as a diamond, maybe sometimes more so, but when you test it, it really is just a fake." The two had nodded in agreement.
I was glass to the Queen's diamond, was I? Huh, we'll see about that.
I close with a very confused mind,
Diana Westerly