Tudor Throne Page 16
“Tittle-tattle? Servants’ gossip?” I exclaimed. “With that you would condemn me? Surely, Sir Robert, you do not take that as gospel truth! Servants love to gossip about their betters. I daresay your own kitchen maids and laundresses have their share of tales to tell!” I said boldly, brazenly trying to fight down the red tide of shame that was rising inside me as I remembered all that had passed between Tom and myself beneath my stepmother’s roof.
“Alas, they are too numerous to be entirely discounted as gossip. I even have here”—he rifled through the pages—“a report from a midwife who claims she was brought blindfolded to attend you when you gave birth to the Lord Admiral’s child, which was then most foully disposed of, thrown living into the fireplace and burned to ashes, she claims. Many have heard this tale and believe it to be true.”
“How dare you! How do you dare?” I leapt to my feet and boldly gathered the loose folds of my full, shapeless white nightgown behind me, drawing the fabric taut against my slender body to outline my flat belly and small, firm breasts. “Do I have the look of a woman who has ever borne a child, My Lord?”
“Looks, like words, can be deceiving, Princess.” Sir Robert shrugged, unmoved by my display.
I snatched the papers from him and flung them high, letting them fly and fall where they would. “And these are words that lie!” I shouted. “Bring me pen and paper!” I commanded. “Now!” I stamped my foot so hard it bruised the sole. “I will write at once to my brother, and the Council, and I shall demand that a proclamation be published far and wide throughout the land giving the lie to this false and base slander! I shall not have my name sullied by some slack-jawed, loose-tongued, slandermongering midwife telling tales to lift herself out of obscurity and get the town gossips and her neighbors to treat her at the alehouse! It is the attention she thirsts for, and it is this lie that provides the brew to slake it! And I will have my innocence proclaimed from one end of England to the other so that every man, woman, and child knows of it!”
Sir Robert went to the desk and pulled back the chair, indicating that all writing implements I might need awaited me there.
I crossed the room in three long strides and sat down and took a sheet of parchment and selected a quill and bent diligently to my task, letting my outrage take flight as my pen flew back and forth over the page, the quill biting deep and shaking like the wings of an avenging angel as I wrote. When I had finished I did not bother to seal it but simply thrust it at Sir Robert and asked him to convey it immediately to the Lord Protector.
“I will have my innocence proclaimed from one end of England to the other! I shall have it shouted into every nook and cranny of this realm until every man, woman, and child knows that Elizabeth Tudor is no man’s doxy!” I declared, and then, with my head held high, I swept grandly from the room and upstairs to my bedchamber without waiting for Sir Robert to give me leave to retire.
When I burst through the door I nearly collided with the curtsying black-clad figure of Sir Robert’s grim, sour-faced wife, still clad in deepest mourning for her beloved former stepmother, Katherine Parr.
Lady Tyrwhitt was also Kate’s stepdaughter by her first marriage, and by her expression clearly believed the rumors swirling about myself and the Lord Admiral.
“My Lady Princess,” she said in a voice as hard as her face, “in the absence of Mrs. Ashley, I am commanded to serve you as your lady-governess.”
“Get out!” I stamped my foot at her. “If I can’t have Kat I will have no one, and certainly not you, My Lady Gaoler!”
“It is the Council’s pleasure that I remain,” she said frostily, drawing her back up full straight.
“But not yours!” I challenged.
“No, Madame, it is most certainly not my pleasure, but . . . duty calls.” She turned her attention to turning back my bed, giving the pillows such shakes and slaps as she plumped them that I had the distinct impression that she wished them my head instead so that she might box my ears and slap and pummel me. “Bad blood tells!” she hissed harshly, each word coinciding with a slap to the pillows. “Like mother, like daughter! You stole Kate’s husband the same as Anne Boleyn stole Katherine of Aragon’s!”
Furiously, I yanked the pillow from her hands and flung it across the room.
“Get out!” I said in a voice low and murderous. “Else you regret it, Madame, for I am not only Anne Boleyn’s daughter but Henry VIII’s as well and you would never have dared be so free with your opinions in my father’s presence! And if you are to serve me, even though we both dislike it, then you will bridle your damned scold’s tongue and treat me with the respect that is due a king’s daughter!”
She took a step back and I saw the shadow of fear flit across her face before she lowered her head and bobbed a brief curtsy. “As you wish, Madame. Good night,” she murmured as she hastily backed out and shut the door behind her.
Once she was gone, I let my façade of bravado and strength crumble, like an aged and decayed marble pillar, and collapsed, facedown and weeping, onto my bed.
I slept through a whole day and night until the following dawn. Then I rose and dressed to do battle with Sir Robert again. Did St. George feel this exhilarating yet daunting mixture of courage and fear, determination and dread, when he went out to slay the dragon? I wondered as I descended the stairs.
In the difficult and trying days that followed, Sir Robert continued to try to wile and beguile a confession out of me, repeating often that my youth excused much, as did my weak and fragile female sex. I was, he opined, more sinned against than sinning. The lion’s share of the blame lay rightly upon Mrs. Ashley’s shoulders, he claimed, for as my governess she had charge of me and should have known better than to encourage a scoundrel like the Lord Admiral to court me.
Even Mary seemed to believe the worst of me and sent a brooch of the penitent Magdalene to speak for her as a silent but nonetheless stinging rebuke. I was tempted to throw it in the river, but in the end good sense prevailed and I buried it at the bottom of my jewelry casket so I would not have to look at it. The ruby was a large one with much sparkle and a deep, rich color, and perhaps one day I could have it reset into a design less pious and more pleasing.
This experience had taught me a valuable lesson—that I could neither trust nor depend on anyone, not even the governess who had loved me like a mother for most of my life. For she betrayed me too, I discovered, when they laid her rambling hysterical confession before me, setting it all down in black and white how Tom had come to dally with me so many mornings at Chelsea and had even once cut the dress from my body leaving me almost as naked as Eve in the Garden of Eden.
I realized now that the only person I could truly trust and depend on was myself. I must learn to stand and walk alone, Semper Eadem. “Be always one,” and trust no one: That would be my motto for the rest of my life. Henceforth, I could never lean on anyone, or let my guard down, never confide in a friend, or set down on paper that which might harm or damn me if it were read by others. Even though as a princess, and perhaps someday a queen, I would live my life surrounded by others, I would always be alone. Even if I did not like it, I must learn to accept and bear it, for it was the reality of my life. Semper Eadem. I, Elizabeth, Elizabeth I—if Destiny ever decreed it—would always be alone.
But shining through the treachery was one bright beacon of hope. We had acted foolishly, unwisely, and indiscreetly, but none of us had committed actual treason. Somehow, even in the terrible place that was the Tower, surrounded and perhaps even confronted with the hellish implements of torture, Kat had had the wit not to admit that she had ever encouraged me to marry Tom, for to do so, without the Council’s consent, was indeed treason.
“These are my loyal and faithful servants,” I said calmly to Sir Robert as I laid aside Kat’s and Mr. Parry’s equally damning and rambling confession, “and I will not have them coerced by fear of torture into making false statements. Yea, My Lord, we have all played the fool where the Lord Admiral is concerne
d. We were all, I admit, gulled by his charms, but the question of matrimony was never broached. Mrs. Ashley, from the time I was of an age to understand such things, was always at great pains to impress upon me that I must never even think of a man as a suitor for my hand unless he came with the approval of the Council. And, indeed, My Lord, I never have; I have never thought, either seriously or frivolously, of marrying anyone, least of all Thomas Seymour. Though he fooled and flattered me for a time, which doth, even with my youth, reflect badly upon me and my brains, I never could suffer a fool in the real world and out of motley, and certainly not, even if the Council had allowed or even encouraged it, in the marriage bed.”
Tom believed that he would best his brother, but in the end it would be the other way around and Fortune’s Knave would break Ambition’s Fool as the Wheel of Fortune spun round. And all too soon my vain, handsome, cocksure Tom would lay his head on the block, and the mouth that had once rained hot kisses upon me and sung to me of cakes and ale would be silenced forever.
When they brought me word that he had died, they watched me very closely, thinking that when confronted with such news my face would betray the truth inside my heart. They thought that grief would loosen my tongue and all my most deeply guarded secrets would come pouring out on a torrent of tears. But I refused to oblige them.
I stood up straight, my eyes fever-bright but my flesh marble-pale, like a tall, slim, white taper in my virgin white gown, my flame-colored hair appearing all the brighter against my pallor, and shook my head and sighed, “Today died a man of much wit but very little judgment.” Quotable, succinct, and true; I daresay no poet could coin a more apt epitaph for Thomas Seymour.
Sir Robert flinched before me as if a wasp had stung him, and his lady-wife shook her head and heaved a sigh. “As cold as ice” she called me, as I walked out into the orchard where I could be alone, awash in a late-afternoon sunset that painted the sky with streaks of crimson, as if the very sky was bleeding for Tom, with the buttercups nodding knowingly and whispering against my white skirt.
It was true, my heart had frosted over, and I was cold; a core of ice had come to replace the fire of passion that had once burned so bright within me.
He died and I survived. And that day a part of me died too. Blinded by passion, like the blindfold Tom had tied over my eyes the day he led me to the heart of the hedge maze, I had nearly followed him blithely and blindly through the gates of Hell. I had walked into a trap, and I had had a narrow escape, jumping clear just moments before the trap snapped shut. But I hadn’t escaped unscathed. My virtue was maimed and marred, my honor was scarred, but I had survived—that was the important thing! Unlike my mother, I had been granted a second chance and I would never take that for granted. Sex, I had discovered, enslaves the female and empowers the male. When a woman surrenders to a man she becomes like the fly ensnared in a spider’s web, and it is only a matter of time before she dies. But this fly had broken free and flown away while the spider instead had died, strangled by his own web.
Tom had stained my honor like a virgin’s bloodstain on a clean white sheet. And when people looked at me I feared that they could see that stain. I wanted my virginity, and my honor, back. Thus, from the day the scandal broke like a storm cloud above my head, pelting me with a heavy relentless rain of shame and suspicion, I began to effect plain white gowns, the virgin white of new-fallen snow and eggshells, lily white, the perfect white of a pearl, the shimmering nacreous flash of a fish’s belly, white—the unstained, unsullied color of purity, the emblematic color of virginity with which I would whitewash the bloodstain. I vowed to always keep my body straight and slender, to never let it grow womanly and round with the curves that bespoke fecundity, and to wear pearls about my neck, in remembrance of both my mother, whose favorite necklace had been a simple strand of white pearls with a golden B, and of the lustrous rope rash and reckless Tom had put briefly about my throat, and which I had broken before it could choke me like a noose. Now with pearls of my own choosing coupled with a straight, reed-slender form and a wardrobe of white dresses I would symbolically reclaim what had been taken from me—my virginity.
In that moment I said farewell to my dreams—there would never be a husband or children or lovers for me, only the flirtation, the dance, the prelude to romance but never the climax or fulfillment.
At midnight there was a knock upon my chamber door. I rose from my bed and drew on my dressing gown, and opened it to behold the sorrowful face of Tom’s manservant, the very one who had once stood above us on the staircase at Chelsea and showered us with red rose petals.
Wordlessly, he handed me a small square of black velvet, and vanished into the night.
I knew before I unfolded it what it contained—the garnet and ruby heart on a band of golden lovers’ knots, the rubies the color of freshly spilt blood and the garnet the hue of dried, dark, and clotted blood.
All of a sudden I felt as if I were indeed holding Tom Seymour’s heart in my hands. I swayed upon my feet as the truth sank in. Tom was dead. Never again would he hold me in his arms, never again would I feel the warmth of his body, his hot kisses and bold caresses, and the molten liquid thrill they kindled between my thighs. I would never again see him smile or hear him laugh or singing lustily of cakes and ale.
With an anguished cry, my fist closed tight around the ring, feeling the hard bite of the metal and gems, and clutched it to my own heart. I fell in a dead faint as, from beyond the grave, the ghostly voice of memory sang inside my head:
I gave her Cakes and I gave her Ale,
I gave her Sack and Sherry;
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
I gave her Beads and Bracelets fine,
I gave her Gold down derry.
I thought she was afear’d till she stroked my Beard
And we were wondrous merry!
Merry my Heart, merry my Cock,
Merry my Spright.
Merry my hey down derry.
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
15
Mary
Things did not get better, only worse, as I continued to flout the Council’s edict banning the Mass, throwing my chapel doors open wide in welcome to all faithful Catholics who wished to come, and celebrating Mass as many as six times a day. Those noble families that, despite fear of persecution, still clung to the true faith, vied to send their daughters to serve me, quite correctly praising my household as “a true school of virtuous demeanor and the only safe harbor for honorable young gentlewomen given to piety and devotion.” I knew it was only the threat of war from my cousin, the Emperor, that kept me safe, and I clung to the ultimatum he had issued to Edward’s Council as if it were a talisman. But living in constant fear took a drastic toll on me; my nerves frayed and unraveled, dreams of assassins lurking in the shadows kept me awake at night or disturbed my sleep with violent and terrifying dreams, and my mind began to turn seriously to the thought of escape.
Finally, I took up my pen and wrote adamantly to the Emperor, stressing the dangers of my situation. “If my brother were to die,” I wrote, “I should be far better off out of the kingdom, because as soon as he were dead, before the public knew it, they would dispatch me too. There is no doubt of that, because you know there is nobody in the government who is not opposed to me.”
I showed my letter to Charles’s ambassador, the good Francis van der Delft, before I entrusted it to him to deliver, but he urged me to wait. “Act in haste, repent at leisure,” he recited like a schoolmaster, adding that to run away would seem to some the same as renouncing my claim to the throne, and if my brother were to die I might have great difficulty in recovering what I had, by my actions, appeared to renounce; the people might not take to a queen they thought ready to bolt like a frightened rabbit running back to its hole at the slightest sign of danger or difficulty.
But I pleaded with him, knowing that he was
about to retire due to failing health, to take me with him, to make conveying me to safety his last loyal act of service.
“The men who sit upon my brother’s Council fear no God and respect no persons, but follow their own fancy. The most dangerous crime a person can commit in England today is to be a good Catholic and lead a righteous life. And I would rather die than give up my religion! My cause is so righteous in God’s sight that if His Imperial Majesty favors me, I need take no further justification in delaying, until I am past all help! When they send me orders forbidding me the Mass, I shall expect to suffer as I suffered once during my father’s lifetime!” I cried vehemently as I clung to his arm, my tears making damp spots upon the velvet. “I must fly beyond their clutches before the blow falls, as when that time comes they will order me to withdraw thirty miles from any navigable river or seaport, and will deprive me of my most trusted servants and, surrounded by strangers, and reduced to the utmost destitution, they will deal with me as they please. They know I would rather suffer death than stain my conscience. I beg you to help me, so that I may not be taken unawares. I am like a little ignorant girl, and I care neither for my goods nor for the world, but only for God’s service and my conscience. If there is peril in going and peril in staying, I must choose the lesser of the two evils! As soon as I am safe in my imperial cousin’s dominion, I trust him to act in my best interests and see that I am not cheated or thwarted of my just right to reign if it so pleases God to take my brother’s life!”