Disclaimer: I do not own everything if I did I would be a millionaire producer and Goddess Supreme ^_^

A/N: wow I did not expect any review but I am so excited to see at least three and positive response from all of you, as promised reviews equal faster updates so you know the drill! And to Unnamed visitor and another anonymous reviewer who left no pen name, and to Rachel and dani for reviewing this story. I would have loved to make this Henry/Anne but I am following Henry's historical character more than the romanticized version of the Tudors, and thanks Unnamed visitor for your review I appreciate it also as I do the others. There will be as you said a lot of interesting pairs, lets put it that way, and twists and turns in this story more than you would expect on all my other ones.

Today is May 19th and just to add I wanted to do a chapter dedicated on Anne Boleyn and her death changing as it did historically the fate of England and Henry's character forever. Initially I was going to do a huge, very huge, time jump but seeing the date I decided not to, so here it is.

~VXLP

Plot Summary:

Edward VI does not die in 1553 but lives to 1558. Mary never gets to be queen as she dreamed, her daughter -Edward's bride does. Elizabeth is born ahead of her time in 1516 as Mary being KOA and Henry's first child in 1510. Henry is granted his divorce and marries the first woman who becomes his infatuation (Anne returns to England and never goes to France) after her return from the Netherlands -Anne Boleyn in 1515 resulting in Elizabeth (b. 1516).

What happens later is a series of mishaps and chaos that change alter forever England and the course of the world itself!

"There is nothing more dangerous than falling prey to lust. Lust not love is impure it lead the body to corrupt itself, it leads to the death of the soul. When love is used for vengeance it leads to nothing but trouble, it is a sin before nature and before God."

~Fate revisited II by Anonymous

1532, May 19th.

Greenwich Palace:

"Boy give me my sword" In that second that Anne turned her head her life ended. As he promised the Captain of His Majesty's guard and keeper of the Tower green, he would be quick in his execution. The woman who'd once been the most revered queen of England, their May Queen, fell to the ground lifeless and her head rolled the steps of the platform that had been built especially for her. Few of her friends, many of her enemies assisted to her execution, those in between her former allies and sympathetic faces who felt guilt for being bystanders in her trial, all bowed their head in respect for a woman they had believed to have been another worthless lamb sent by her family to the slaughter.

England had become a nation of heretics and liars. You could not trust in your own shadow, your own son, your own wife could be the King or Cromwell's spies. Wolsey and all of the King's past friends and allies had fallen, victims of his own ambition and madly quest for total power.

He had sprung an act, an oath of allegiance, he called it the Oath of Supremacy. Those who did not sign both acts that declared him Supreme Head of the new church of England and pledge their complete loyalty to him renouncing the pope and other sacraments his late wife (who not to the surprise of the more illustrious minds who'd suspected her, and turned out to be a heretic) denounced as lies and blasphemy to the true word of god they said could only be found in the bible; were sentenced to a trial where most of them were declared as traitors and sent to their deaths. Others were put in prison waiting for their trials.

There was never a king more lust ridden and power hungry as Henry VIII, the boy who had come with so much promise turned out to be another Richard III and sharing all of Edward IV flaws and weaknesses when it came to women. Just what had ever made him fall for that witch and heretic Anne Boleyn (who like Katherine failed to give him a son) they would never know. Perhaps it was her beauty, maybe it was the way she spoke to him. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that, the women in his life had all been very easy including Katherine of Aragon, the woman he had been led to believe was his brother's wife. When her cousin came to the Imperial seat he vowed to his mad mother he would re-validate his aunt and her sister's marriage to Henry, thus annulling Anne's. Nobody accepted it, but with the sack of Rome it became inevitable. Anne's position became shaky, she saw herself as sharing the same fate as Katherine if she failed to produce another living heir, preferably a boy. What followed were more dead boys and girls who failed to see the light of day. "At least, it was whispered, Katherine brought us a son, a sickly boy but a son nonetheless who breathed for a month before death took him."

Now that Anne was dead people turned heads to one another. The game of pointing fingers was far from over. England was free from persecution of witches and hot goblins and heretics. They never knew the horrors of the Inquisition like in Spain and Germany had for many years, but they took advantage of England's shaky position to point fingers at their neighbors. They never burned anyone, besides the martyr Catholics prayed for by now as if the man had been ever a saint -who issued warrants and without the benefit of a trial (that was given to him) he burned six renown heretics. England had never been a nation that took pride in persecution until Henry Tudor came to the throne. He brought back economic prosperity to the land and law and order that had been lacking during the war between the Lancaster and York factions. They had hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps with the exception of the many taxes and executions of so called traitors during his father's reign. They had hoped but their hopes turned to dust when the last of his passions that had led him to madness was finally -for her enemies who sighed in relief believing this was the end of the madness- put to death.

~o~

Elizabeth heard the canons. Her mother's headless body would be buried the same day of her death. It should not be so. She should have a funeral worthy of a queen. My mother should be buried in the cathedrals were our past glorious kings and queens had been buried. If her mother had not been so stubborn in her adoration of Luther she would have been, and who knows? Perhaps her father would have granted her a place for her body to rest on while her soul was on her way to heaven. Her mother was treated in her last moments like below the beasts, she was now with the angels and all the heralds seated next to God in between Him and Gabriel. Her mother, the May Queen was buried next to the lowest of the nobility. Her mother the queen no more

"I have seen so much places, so many heartaches
so many dirty faces, so many things you couldn't believe
I won't stand in line for this ..."

~"Extreme Ways" by Moby

Walk away, his conscience told him. Walk away. Two times he heard the voice, two times he didn't listen to it. He never felt more foolish in his life than when he married those two she-wolves. They laughed whenever they ridiculed him, they were the cause of his misery and his longing for a son. A son, they all said they would deliver a son but none of his "wives" or the women he once considered his wives ever delivered him a healthy boy. Katherine failed twice, two times she delivered, two times she failed. The only time that she succeeded in bringing a healthy boy to the Tudor cradles had been with their son Henry Arthur. Katherine always swore she had been loyal and obedient. She appeared so, behind close doors it was a different story.

Henry Arthur he thought the boy was the answer to his prayers, but like all his brothers he had the death mark all over him. Katherine swore it would be her last failure and he had believed her. He loved her and he believed she loved him too. He had believed all her lies, he had believed she had been a virgin when they married -like Anne.

At least with Katherine he had an obedient woman, a wife who would never question his decisions in public, a wife who knew her place and knew better than to intervene in his amorous pursuit of women. Katherine would have drank to his bastard son Henry Fitzroy if she had still been around. Anne had refused to come to the celebrations in honor of his ONLY son. Henry Fitzroy. He had named his boy the Duke of Richmond and when Anne should have treated him with respect and honor his mother she had spat in his face all of his infidelities. She had unmanned him and put in question her own loyalties when she swore that the King of England could not get his wife pregnant because he was busy in other women's bed. He had never been so angry, and when she spilled the wine in Bessie Blount's face. That had been the last drop that spilled the cup. His patience was thinning and when he saw a way out of his marriage he took it.

Yes the pope had annulled his marriage, yes after that she had been the vehicle that influenced him to create his own church. Yes he had ordered the execution and gone against all papal decrees earning him an excommunication by the pope and bishops and whatever more there was in the Roman Church, of Warham and put in his place Thomas Cranmer -the Boleyn's former chaplain. He had put his loyalty to the test when he sent Anne to the tower, he turned up to be loyal. Minus the minor plead to allow the Lady Anne for a confession he gave Henry no cause to worry.

Jane Seymour -his mind whispered -she will be your wife. "She will be my wife" He voiced these thoughts to Cromwell the day of the woman who had once been the axis mundi of his life execution. Cromwell did not agree in the King's new choice of wife but he bowed his head. He knew better now than to question His Majesty's decision on who to wed. Cranmer had begged him to save the Lady Marques but he refused. Thomas had done the impossible to influence His Majesty and the Boleyns to opt for a separate faith, a true reformed faith free from all superstition and idols. His Majesty approved of idols, Thomas didn't, he saw the obvious flaw in them. It didn't do the people good to have someone to depend on all their lives, with God they could have a direct connection, a lawyer himself he knew too much lawyers, too many gods and intermediaries was never a good thing. Alas, the King to his chagrin and Luther who once -when the King had written a defense for the Catholic Church (before the sack of Rome and it the pamphlet had made his then wife the Boleyn girl very angry and jealousy -that her husband was still under the influence of Catholic 'fanatics' she called them)- denounced him, did so again. He spoke against the execution of the Lady Anne.

Luther, always the idealist had called the execution a sin before god and marriage. He praised the Lady Anne for her courage, he and others in Germany called her the perfect wife, she did not protest His Majesty's rule, he had said, and never had she been bowed to any other man or authority that wasn't her husband or any he did not command. She had become the people's queen, she had taken Katherine of Aragon's queen justly, the pope had praised her and his successor had rejected her. Katherine who was a woman of friends in high places, even in death she was still revered as a saint, had a powerful nephew who on her death vowed revenge in her name. He had succeeded but at what cost? The price for annulling her marriage to Henry had cost him the authority of the Roman church in England and one innocent life was lost today because of that man's actions.

Cromwell returned to his desk and shuffled through all his papers. Today marked the end of the golden world Anne had envisioned for herself and her daughter, and marked the beginning a new world, one Cromwell was not too sure anymore he wanted to be part of.

"Make a new name
let us open our eyes to the brand new day ...
It is a brand new day

I've taken hits like Apollo
but I am getting back up again
from the moment I saw her
I was hell bent on heaven sent
I am throwing rocks on your window -we are leaving this place together
they saw we are dreaming to big -I say this town's to small"
~"It's a brand new day" by Ryan Star

Her body was not yet cold when her father sent news that there was going to be another marriage, his marriage to one Lady Jane Seymour.

"What do we know about this Jane Seymour?" Mary asked after she withdrew her hand from the Imperial Ambassador's lips. She felt her mother had finally been avenged. For years she had yearned for this moment. It came at a high cost, her sister was now officially (not that she was before when the pope disowned her by annulling her parents' marriage -as he had done once before -wrongly- with hers) by English law a bastards. It was a unanimous decision that didn't need to be introduced in a bill in the house of commons. Cromwell had taken care of it nice and easy. He had a lot of enemies, everyone who couldn't stand seeing a man with noble blood in his veins wanted him death, but those same men who hated him were his allies. As long as he was her father's friend he was also theirs and they had to do their best to please the king either through his women or his "friends".

"Not much" Answered Chapuys truthfully. "But rest assured my sources tell me she is of our faith and has spoken to His Majesty in your favor"

She switched the subject, interrupting him to ask about her sister. Would Jane Seymour support her as she had support Mary? "Highly unlikely" Chapuys responded giving her his honest opinion once again. He disagreed with the way the King of England was conducting government. He could use the money, blood money and money he did not deserve, from the monasteries to foment the industry that was of high demand in England by the merchant class but instead he and Cromwell were using it to enrich the crown further. Parliament approved everything the King did and they did it only because with Henry VIII Parliament was strongest than it ever been under any other king.

"And Elizabeth?" She asked remembering her sixteen year old sister. It was not fair that she should be left destitute without a fortune and title like she'd been all these years. "Is she to be made a bastard like I have been bastard?"

The Princess had changed a lot in these sixteen years since her parents' annulment. She was reputed to be one of the most beautiful Princesses in Christendom. He himself did not fall prey to adulation but when he came to substitute Mendoza in the ano domini 1529; he had been immediately hooked by her beauty. Anne Boleyn's eyes were said to be the great attraction of the English court but Eustace did not see how. The so called May Queen was complete ice while the "Lady" Mary Tudor her stepdaughter was fire and her eyes held the hardness of all the hardships she lived through all these years, and a wisdom beyond her years. Eustace was impressed how nature worked, if Mary Tudor had been borne a boy he was sure that no matter how delicate her health was, His Majesty would never have thought twice of leaving his rightful wife Katherine of Aragon.

Eustace chuckled, he had been enchanted -he would never admit this- by the true Princess' sister. She was Tudor through and through, there was no question about it, but her eyes were the mirror image of her mother's soul, tainted with lust and ambition that knew no bounds. Eustace had to squeeze his fists very hard whenever he looked at Bess Tudor's eyes. He didn't want to be trapped like her father was by another Boleyn girl, and he was a man of the true faith. He would be betraying his Imperial oath and his oath to God to protect the woman who had stolen his heart, for a puttaine's daughter. Royal or not, his heart was harder than stone and he knew better than to fall for that kind of people.

"Ah yes, the brat is now a bastard"

Mary winced and blinked twice, her eyebrows arched. She looked behind her to her two ladies her father had recently -after the trials of Anne Boleyn and her many "lovers"- brought back into her service. Susan Clarenciux who had recently wed held a look that said she did not approve of her father's motion, and neither did Mary. She turned back to Eustace Chapuys, the only man that she knew she could trust and that she (secretly) loved. Her voice became hard and she took a step forward and said to him "Regardless of who her mother was, how many men she slept with, she is my sister and she is the daughter of the King, she is a Tudor like I am you would do well to show her the same respect and kindness as you have shown me Excellency" She emphasized heavily on the 'me' part.

Eustace swallowed, he knew they were close but he never expected that after all she had suffered at the hands of the harlot and her family she would continue to be impartial in her judgment of her sister. He composed himself quickly and expressed his deepest apologies and added -"... If my lady wishes I will speak to your cousin of both you and your sister"

Mary smiled mildly, any smart woman would say no but Bess was her sister and no matter what her mother did, she would remain so until the day of judgment day. "Nothing would please me more"

So it has begun. Bess heard the sound of the canons being played all day. The reign of the jolly May Queen, the most happy and indomitable spirit that ever walked the facet of this earth was over.

It was Jane Seymour's turn now to walk where her mother had walked, to sit where her mother and her sister -Mary's mother- had sat, to wear the St. Edward's crown if she succeeded in bringing her father a son -her father was taking more precautions this time -after Mary's and her mother he had decided he would not have any future wife wear the crown of St. Edward or hold the holy sphere and staff that kings normally held until his consort had proof their marriage was legitimate. It was sink or swim -all or nothing.

The England of her mother had become a place of chaos, conspiracies, deceit and betrayal lurking around every corner. You could not trust in your own shadow, her father she suspected with the sword grazing her mother's delicate, little neck, had transformed from the man of her dreams to the monster she was afraid to see every time she went to sleep.

Her father, a man who had dressed her in yellow in all her birthdays, a man who had given her everything, who swore he would always protect his "little women" her mother and her, had turned into a tyrant, another Richard III. And nobody, absolutely nobody had the stomach to stand up to him. She hoped, she honestly did that Jane Seymour would last longer than her predecessors. She was stepping into a big position one where only the noblest of blood were fit to occupy. Jane Seymour had noble and royal blood through her mother's side, the Seymour was an old and prestigious family and they would be more now that their pale daughter had been chosen as the king's next consort. But did Jane Seymour have the same blood as Bess' mother? Did she descend directly from Edward III like her mother and all her Howard cousins did? Or was she from a more distant branch that could only trace their royal lineage as far as Edward I? What was one Edward compared to three Edwards?

No matter what children this new woman gave her father, Elizabeth would continue to be the dutiful daughter because unlike Mary and Henry Fitzroy she had inherited the good common sense that was only found in the Boleyn clan. She would smile, she would show her love to this woman, but no matter what Jane Seymour accomplished whether it was through an heir or a crown adorning her head; she would never have the pleasure of knowing the kind, passionate, funny and at times loving husband that her mother did.

Her mother's death had been the death of her father's last bit of reason, he was slipping further into madness and no smiles or son could ever bring back England's renaissance Prince. He was gone, he had killed himself the day he killed her mother.

"Lady Elizabeth" Lady Bryan called to her, it was how she was referred to now. "Lady" instead of Princess or "Her Highness". Another bastard product of another disastrous marriage. Elizabeth turned, she did not let her sadness be shown. She had a lot to be sad for but a lot to be grateful as well. Her mother was in heaven. She believed in God, not in the God of magicians or the hocus pocus garbage that Catholic priests sold the ignorant masses, nor the strict and bias God of Luther. She believed that the powers that be, God, Jehova, Allah and whatever names other religions used to refer to it, did not punish. Whatever moral punishment a person received, he or she received it in this life. Aristotle said it. This life was all that mattered, the present and the future where what really mattered to Elizabeth. And if she wanted to be part of the future, she had to play by her father's rules. Unlike Mary she could not afford to rebel, right now she had become more despised than Mary had been.
Her sister would no doubt always be there to help her, but she had to be prepared for anything. You never know when human's dark nature is about to take hold. If it happened with the Plantagenet with the Lancaster and York fighting each other to wear the crown of England, what was to say that they -two sisters who had that bad blood coursing through their veins- were not about to relive their ancestors, their own father's mistakes?

"Yes?" She turned, the Lady Bryan no longer bowed to her former charge. Her sixteenth birthday was less than four months away and she was no longer obliged to. Nonetheless Lady Bryan felt an odd affection towards the Lady Elizabeth that she had not felt in all her years working with the royal family, not even with the Lady Mary. It would not take her long get used to the new arrangements, she was a practical woman like her son, she never asked and did what she was told.

Always so formal Elizabeth asked again seeing a dazed look cross her former governess' features. Bryan expressed sincere apologies and explained her father would come to visit. "So soon?" Elizabeth was taken little aback, she had expected her father would keep up for appearances' sake the image of a grieving husband or partner mourning for his youngest daughter's mother. Her father's depravity knew no bounds, but Elizabeth held her head up high, chin up and ready to take whatever came to her path as her mother had in her last moments.

"The King will come with a retinue in two weeks time. His betrothed will be his wife by then and he sends you this" Lady Bryan handed Elizabeth an enclosed letter bearing the Royal seal. "His Majesty's secretary Sir William Paget told me to tell you that he expects his daughters' best behavior, he will expect you and your sister to treat Jane Seymour with the same love and devotion as you have shown him Lady Elizabeth"

Elizabeth nodded. "If it is His Majesty written wish it will be done, you are to write a letter in my name Lady Bryan, if you can tell me now so I can do it myself and I will express to His Majesty that he can expect nothing but love and sincerity to him ..." she swallowed but at last she managed. "and his new wife"

The Lady Bryan was not in the least surprised with how "well" her former charge was taking the news. It had always been Elizabeth Tudor's character, she had inherited the best and the worst of her parents' behavior, she was neurotic, she was prone to fits of anger but unlike her parents she knew her limitations. And nothing Elizabeth Tudor ever did was without a reason -nature and God had done a grave mistake not to make the lion's true cub a lion.

Lady Bryan sent for parchment and soon Elizabeth was back in her desk putting her book and her bible aside, to write a letter to her father.

His dearest Majesty ... she began and left out any doubt or any cause that could give her father or his chief ministers suspicion. England was a court where you could not let your guard down, where only the meanest and blackest of hearts survived, and she had to be meaner and blacker than they if she wanted to be back in her father's and England's good graces, if she wanted to become not an extension of him or her late mother, but Bess Tudor -femme sole and forge her own destiny independent of him or any of the noble's help.
Her sister believed in destiny, Bess did not believe in staying long hours and praying. People like her prayed for miracles, people like Bess fought to make them truth. They saw a chance and they took it, no time to think, no time for regrets. It was the way of the world. The only man who saw her way and it was one man she admired, was a man she should consider her enemy as he worked for the enemy -Eustace Chapuys. He was hopelessly in love with her sister and her sister loved him in return, so much was his love for Mary he always refused to look at Bess. Bess held her laughter as she folded her letter and put it in an envelope. The man had many faces but he couldn't keep up with all of them whenever his eyes landed on Bess.

She shook her head, she had better things to think about. Neither he nor she had control over whom they chose, God and their respective masters would chose their spouses. It had been like that always and so it will remain. She sent for one of her ladies. "See it sees the King's eyes, go quickly" Her servant bowed and went running calling their page boy, giving him the same instructions her mistress told her. Elizabeth put her hand on her forehead. She would not cry, her mother was dead but her dream of building a better England, a kingdom united by one spirit, one mindset was not. As long as Elizabeth lived Anne Boleyn's dream would live on through her.

A/N: R/R!