FRAGMENTS OF A DYNASTY
Summary: inspired by the crying jag scene in The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory when Elizabeth had to sentence Thomas Howard. After beheading Mary, Elizabeth grieves mostly for what she has become. Pairings: slight mention of Elizabeth/Robert/Lettice. She sits trembling in a corner of her bed chamber. Although that is not what her Court is told. They are told that she is grieving in private for having to go against her beliefs and sentencing her beloved Scottish cousin to death. A lie. A very bad lie for the whole world knew how much she despised Mary, Queen of Scots. She is staring at her beautiful hands. Ivory white, long elegant fingers, very fine hands to sew, play instruments, and make grand gestures with. The royal ring to prove she is Queen of England sits upon one finger looking more beautiful than it ever did on Mary's fat hand, Edward's baby hand, and her father's meaty claw. She no longer sees fine white hands but monstrous claws soaked in crimson blood. She gasps and feels more tears running down her face. Warm moist droplets that she had not felt for quite some time. It wasn't that she loved Mary. She did not know Mary. Never allowed herself to because she just might let the intelligent, beautiful, bright girl into her heart and end up being heartbroken. But she loved the idea of Mary. A cousin, a relative, family. She has so little family left, oh the Howards can claim several degrees of a cousin to her but they were not really family. She rarely sees Henry and Catherine her most beloved cousins and she despises Lettice almost as much as she despised Mary. The red-haired whore who had stolen her beloved Robert Dudley away. And then there was dear Thomas Howard. A very close cousin who she could not quite bring herself to love because she knew he was Catholic and ambitious as all Howards are but she was just as heartbroken as she was now when she signed his death warrant. How could he force her hand like that? How could he set himself up as husband to Mary and therefore King of Scotland and heir to the throne of England? How could he betray the cousin he had kept an eye on since a young age? Oh in all honesty she knew how he could do it because all Howards and Boleyns had done it. It was in their blood. But it made her sick to the stomach and trembling with fear as the one curse she hoped to avoid has truly hit her as it had hit Edward and Mary. The curse of bloodthirsty beheadings and burnings especially of those who were once close to you in life. Her father had no problem beheading two of his most loved wives, his dearest friends, and his own cousins, one of which had raised his eldest daughter and was an eighty year old woman near death as it was. Edward had no issue with beheading his only uncles and link to his long dead mother. He would have beheaded her if he thought she was in on Thomas Seymour's plot. Mary also had no issue with beheading tiny little Jane Grey, a very close cousin and a beloved one at that. There was no remorse at destroying Cranmer who had been close to the family and was always polite and gentle to her. And now Elizabeth barely hesitated as she sent the last few members of the family to the block. She was a monster. She was a Tudor. And what was worse she was her father's daughter. And sometimes there was nothing more horrific than that.
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