Tudor Throne Page 23

  “But Jane does not want to be Queen!” I protested. “She never did. It was forced upon her; so surely there is nothing to fear from her?”

  “Madame, your kindness is commendable, it is a goodly and godly feminine virtue, but a sovereign must think first and foremost of the good of their kingdom. They cannot always follow their personal inclination to be merciful. I regret, the Lady Jane’s very existence is a serious threat to the life and security of the Prince, and as long as she lives, Prince Philip cannot set foot in England; the Emperor will not allow it.”

  “But I swear upon my life, Prince Philip shall be safe!” I cried.

  Renard shook his head sadly. “I am sorry, Madame, but I regret . . .”

  I felt my heart shatter. Happiness had been in my grasp and now it had been most cruelly snatched away and in the tussle fallen and shattered like a fragile glass bauble.

  “Leave me!” I motioned for Renard to withdraw as I fell weeping before the altar, begging the Blessed Virgin to help me. I had come so close to having all my dreams come true. And now . . . now I must choose between the life of my innocent cousin and my personal happiness; my chance to be a wife and mother as I had always dreamed of and enjoy the God-ordained purpose and fulfillment of all womankind. It was too cruel! I didn’t know what to do.

  I was determined to be merciful. She was only sixteen, just a child, a battered and badly used child. She had not taken my throne on purpose, it was not done out of spite or malice or a belief that it was her right; she had been beaten and forced and even as she accepted she admitted she did wrong and it was mine by right, not hers. Of course, I would have to sentence her to death, as a formality and a warning to others, but I fully intended to pardon her. I had thought to keep her safe in the Tower, out of harm’s way, away from the immediate personal peril of her parents, and her vain and vapid, but also reputedly quite cruel, peacock of a husband, as well as beyond the reach of the Protestant rebels, until I married and had a child to safeguard the succession. Then I would set her free. After all, it was not a cruel imprisonment and she seemed to be quite content, holed up with her beloved books. But now . . . her very existence put my dreams, and England’s future, in peril. In the end, it all boiled down to her death or the death of my dreams. One or the other must be sacrificed.

  I took from a drawer a miniature likeness painted of the Lady Jane and drew up a comfortable chair before Prince Philip’s portrait, and for a long time I sat there gazing first at one and then at the other, knowing that I must sacrifice one of them. Losing Philip would be like death to me; I knew I would never find another man who would suit me even half so well, and time was not on my side. I was closer to forty than I was to thirty; I needed to bear an heir before it was too late and Mother Nature’s hourglass ran out for me, but having Philip would mean death to Lady Jane.

  Life had not been kind or fair to that little lady. I could picture it all in my mind, like a series of tapestries on the wall, woven together from the various threads of gossip, letters, and reports I had received.

  She had been wakened from a sound sleep and ordered to dress. She was taken in the gray light of dawn to Syon House. Northumberland himself escorted her, and Guildford, preening his golden hair and pouting at being woken from the sound sleep that was so necessary for him to look his best, to the Presence Chamber where a bevy of noble men and women awaited them. Since Edward’s death the throne had sat empty beneath the gold-fringed canopy of estate. As Jane entered, the gentlemen knelt and the ladies curtsied, doing reverence to the startled and confused girl.

  Dazed and uncomprehending, Jane faltered and seemed about to bolt. Northumberland’s hands shot out to stay her. His eyes boring commandingly into hers, he took her hand firmly in a grasp that threatened to crush the delicate little bones beneath the snow-white flesh and forcibly dragged her, shaking with fright, up the steps of the dais to the throne and, with steely hands on her frail shoulders, made her sit, speechless and stunned, as he read out a proclamation announcing the death of King Edward VI and that before his death he had altered the succession to disinherit both his sisters and name his cousin, the Lady Jane, Queen of England.

  At these words, Jane sprang up then, just as suddenly, fell down in a dead faint. There she lay in a crumpled heap of gray velvet skirts and wavy chestnut hair. No one made a move to tend or assist her; impatiently they waited for her to recover. Even her own husband made no move to help her; instead he made a great show of polishing his nails against his velvet doublet and admiring them and the flash of his rings in the candlelight. When Jane came to, she burst into tears upon realizing that this was really happening and not some hellish nightmare.

  She lay sobbing on the floor, whilst the nobles looked away, embarrassed, pretending not to see. Not a one of them was moved to pity that poor frightened, helpless girl, alone and misused, with no one to turn to for assistance, comfort, or advice. At last her mother, the irascible and impatient Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, strode over, as powerful as a plow horse, and leaned down and grasped Jane’s arm and yanked her to her feet and shoved her back onto the throne. The crown was waiting for Jane to try on and, slapping down the feeble little hands, like frightened, flapping white doves, that rose and tried to push it away, Frances crammed it down on Jane’s head and thus crowned her daughter Queen of England.

  “The crown is not my right! This pleases me not!” Jane sobbingly protested. “The Lady Mary is the rightful heir!”

  “Shut up, you stupid little girl!” Frances hissed, giving her cheek a swift stinging slap and the soft flesh of her upper arm a savage pinch that made Jane yelp and cower back against the velvet cushions of her unwanted throne.

  Then, smiling broadly at the assembled courtiers and Councilors, Frances smilingly declared, “It is most becoming, is it not?” gesturing to the crown glittering upon the tousled head of her tearstained and trembling daughter.

  And all agreed that it was indeed most becoming and a perfect fit for their beautiful young queen. And Guildford Dudley declared that he wanted one for himself set with sapphires fine enough to rival his beautiful eyes. Beside him, his doting mother agreed that would look breathtaking.

  Then at first light they were forcing Jane’s bruised and battered body into an elaborate gown of Tudor green and white furred with ermine and adorned with gold embroidery, emeralds, diamonds, seed pearls, and enameled Tudor roses of red and white, and brushing her hair out to a gleaming, glossy shine, and crowning it with a jeweled hood to match her gown. About her neck they fastened the ruby necklace I had given her for her wedding day, which made her again tug and fidget and complain that it cut her throat. Then her nurse, Mrs. Ellen, knelt to strap a pair of chopines with high, cork-platformed soles onto Jane’s tiny feet to lend her the illusion of height. And they were on their way, with the domineering Frances, glittering murderously in cloth-of-gold and bloodred rubies, acting as her daughter’s trainbearer, and Guildford, his golden hair shining like waves of molten gold, resplendently jeweled and costumed in green and white velvet, roughly taking her arm. Thus, Jane most unwillingly tottered out, teetering on her unaccustomed high heels, to board the barge that would carry her to the Tower of London where she was to lodge in the royal apartments until her coronation. It was deemed safer to convey her there by barge instead of in the traditional procession through the streets thronged with stony-faced and silent people, not a one of whom raised their voice to wish her well. They all sulked and glowered and longed for me, their one true queen. And as Guildford smiled to show off his perfect teeth and waved to the crowd, Jane stared down at the floor, her chin quivering with the tears she was trying not to shed, and tugged nervously at the ruby necklace that encircled her throat, complaining that it cut her and she couldn’t breathe.

  That night in the royal apartments, Guildford insisted on a crown of his own. Jane refused him, whereupon Guildford burst into tears and threatened to go home to his mother. In his nightshirt, he ran to fetch her and she came barreling in, in
indignant haste, with her nightgown flapping about her bountiful form, and delivered a harsh tongue-lashing to her daughter-in-law, “so ungrateful for the gift she had been given in Guildford,” then took her son’s hand and said, “Come, Guildford, you shall not lodge with such an ungrateful wife!” Smarting with humiliation, Jane sent guards to bar them from leaving the Tower. “I have no need of my husband in my bed,” she explained, perhaps, as some suspected, intending it as a slur upon Guildford’s masculinity, “but by day his place is by my side.”

  In the days that followed, Jane became sick with fear and worry. Unable to keep food down, and with her glorious hair starting to come out in clumps, she became convinced that Northumberland was poisoning her, to get rid of her, so that he might make his son, Guildford, reigning king instead of mere consort.

  Then the people rose up in favor of me, the Treasurer absconded with the money, and the Council deserted, all running as fast as they could to me. When it was all over and she heard the distant sounds of rejoicing in the city, Jane breathed a sigh of relief. She was alone in the Presence Chamber when her father came in and ripped down the canopy of estate from over her head.

  “You are no longer Queen,” he brusquely informed her. “You must put off your royal robes and be content with a private life.”

  “I put them off more willingly than I ever put them on,” Jane replied. “I gladly relinquish the crown. May I go home now?”

  Her father ignored the question and turned on his heel and left, abandoning her like all the rest, hurrying back to the London town house where his wife was hastily restoring the chapel to full Catholic splendor and getting out of storage their rosaries and crucifixes. On his way home, he paused on Tower Hill to wave a hastily procured rosary in the air and shout at the top of his lungs, “God save Queen Mary, our one true queen! Long may she reign!” He tossed a few coins in the air for good measure and the benefit of the common folk standing nearby.

  Alone in the Presence Chamber, the weary Jane gladly got up from her unwanted throne and went back to her bedchamber to doff the splendid gown of jet-spangled mulberry velvet she had been laced into that morning.

  “I am glad I am no longer Queen,” she said to her nurse, Mrs. Ellen, as she unlaced her. “No one can ever say I sought the crown or was pleased with it.”

  And then, exhausted, thin as a reed and pale as her shift, Jane fell into bed, believing that her ordeal was over.

  The next morning she arose, dressed in plain black, and wrote a letter of apology to me, explaining that though the crown was forced upon her, she knew she had done wrong to accept it. “It did not become me to accept it,” she admitted. “It showed a want of prudence.” Then, letter dispatched, she took up her Greek Testament, and settled herself on the window seat to resume her studies.

  How could I send such an unfortunate creature to the block? I thought of summoning her, to talk with her privately, but I knew that if I did, I would never be able to do what I feared I must. If I saw and spoke with her, I would never be able to condemn her. It had been the same with Father. Once he had decided upon a death, he never saw the condemned again, lest their pleading words and tears turn his heart and sway him to mercy. And what good would it do? I knew I had nothing to fear from Jane—she did not want my crown. It was those Protestant rebels who would espouse her cause, whether she wanted them to or not, whom I had to fear and worry about, not Jane herself. Jane, the fervent Protestant, was the figurehead for the Protestant warship. It was as simple as that. And as such, it was not safe to let her live; she was a weapon that would be used against me again and again. Unless . . . A smile lit up my face and my hand rose to clasp the jeweled cross at my breast. Unless I could rob the weapon of its ammunition. If Jane embraced the true faith, she would no longer be a threat!

  I would send a good and kindly teacher—I knew just the one: Dr. Feckenham, the Abbot of Westminster—and give her every opportunity to save herself. Now Jane’s fate would be in her own hands, and no longer in mine; she herself would decide whether she was to live or to die and, whatever happened, my conscience would be clear and blameless. I fell to my knees and thanked God for shining a beacon to show me the way. “Thou are indeed the light of the world—my world!” I breathed in fervent gratitude.

  24

  Elizabeth

  That stupid fool jackanapes Courtenay lost whatever wits he had—if he ever had any to start with—in the Tower, and when he was set free, rather than be grateful and keep a firm grasp on his head, he seemed determined to risk losing it at every turn.

  First he courted Mary, behaving as if she were the sun, moon, and stars, and made the world move and the tides ebb and flow for him.

  He chose to make his feelings known in a particularly spectacular fashion. To celebrate “the ascension of this heavenly beauteous queen to an earthly throne,” he chose to replicate the tournament that our father had arranged to celebrate Mary’s birth.

  Courtenay, who had spent his formative years in the Tower and thus had been denied the proper tutelage befitting his quasi-royal station, had never in his life sat a horse, and all, if anything, he knew about horsemanship and the arts of war came from stories and books. But he decided not to let his deficiencies stop him. Thus, I suppose, for sheer determination, he must be applauded.

  As Mary sat in the royal box overlooking the tiltyard, politely applauding, “The Last Sprig of the White Rose” rode out to the center of the tiltyard mounted on a white horse. Both Courtenay and his snowy mount were splendidly arrayed in golden armor and crimson silk embroidered with the golden pomegranates of Spain, and both the rider’s helm and his horse’s head were adorned with graciously swaying plumes. And as Henry VIII had done thirty-seven years before, Courtenay sported a badge identifying himself as Sir Loyal Heart.

  Alas, this beautiful tableau was spoiled when Courtenay tried to bow to the Queen from the saddle and first his golden helm, followed by the gilt-armored Courtenay, crashed onto the dusty ground. Blushing furiously, he nonetheless composed himself and presented Mary with a beautifully wrought golden pomegranate that opened to reveal portraits of Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, and their beloved little princess, “Mary of the Marigold Hair,” as Courtenay called her. He then proceeded to recite a poem he had written of the same title, about which the less said the better. He then fell thrice more trying to remount, then shouting curses at his horse and calling it “a sulky brute” he raised his gilt-armored foot to kick its rump and fell with a great crash onto his own. Embarrassed and agitated, he got to his feet, seized his horse by the bridle, and stalked off the jousting field.

  But he was not done humiliating himself. When he was again in the saddle and ready to compete in the first joust, he dropped his lance in terror, hugged tight his horse’s neck, squeezed his eyes shut, prayed, and held on for dear life as it galloped toward his opponent, who didn’t need his lance to unhorse Courtenay. Left to his own devices, he tumbled off himself. In the tiring tent afterward, I heard it said, when his squires stripped him down, Courtenay’s linen reeked of urine.

  Undaunted, Courtenay, having heard of the sugar-candy and marzipan fairyland Henry VIII had created for his beloved daughter on her sixth birthday, wanted to give Mary a fairyland of his own devising and continued his wooing that night with an open-air banquet and pageant. I was amongst the maidens dressed in diaphanous flowing gowns of pale gold-spangled rose, green, and cream, with diamond-dusted fairy wings strapped to our backs, and our hair cascading down our backs, glistening with diamond dust, and crowned with wreaths of gilded rosemary and bejeweled silken wildflowers who danced before the Queen with gold ribbon sandals laced round our naked feet, while Mary and her most favored ladies sat in a flower-bedecked fairy bower upon a great heap of silken cushions illuminated by jewel-hued lanterns.

  Courtenay himself made his entrance mounted on the same white horse he had ridden—for lack of a better word—at the tournament, somehow managing not to drop the silken cushion with an elaborate crown of
gilded rosemary and jeweled flowers with which he meant to crown “The Queen of My Heart.” A pearly horn was strapped to the horse’s forehead to transform it into a unicorn and, when Courtenay grandly made his way to the Queen and bowed low before her, the horse also bowed low and charged.

  Mary and her fairy-gowned ladies fled hastily, some tittering in amusement, others shrieking in alarm. But Courtenay did not know anything was amiss until he found himself floundering facedown in the Queen’s hastily vacated bower, the gaping hole in his torn breeches showing more than was proper to Her Majesty and her court, as he burst into tears and began to scream for the royal physician to come and save him from the cold embrace of Death.

  Showing Courtenay the same compassion she would have shown a wounded child, Mary knelt upon the cushions beside him, modestly turning her face away from the red rose welt now blooming on the bare bottom of “The Last Sprig of the White Rose,” and held his hand as the royal physician applied ointment and a bandage. She stroked his fair hair and begged him not to cry anymore and gave him a diamond ring that had belonged to our father, which Courtenay promptly mistook for a betrothal ring and threw his arms around her neck and kissed her.

  Blushing hotly as she floundered upon the heap of fat cushions in Courtenay’s eager embrace, Mary struggled free, gathered up her skirts, and fled back into the palace.

  Back in his apartments, Courtenay proceeded to get gloriously drunk on elderberry wine. He ripped the gold fringed and embroidered blue velvet curtains off his bed and draped them round his body and, despite the late hour, sent his manservant running to fetch his tailor to come cut the fabric to fashion his coronation suit. He then decked his wild and rumpled golden curls with dandelions and bluebells to simulate a gold and sapphire crown and snapped the gilded leg off a chair to serve as a makeshift scepter. Then, still swathed in the blue velvet curtains, he climbed up onto a table to make a rather explicit speech about what he would do to his queenly wife on their wedding night, the sum of all the knowledge he had acquired visiting the Southwark whores several nights a week since his release from the Tower to make up for lost time and his lack of carnal knowledge. And when the diamond ring slid off his slender finger and down a rat-hole in the floorboards, Courtenay tried to dive in after it and knocked himself unconscious and spent the rest of the night snoring on the floor. He appeared the next day with a royal purple lump the size of an egg protruding through his golden curls only to discover Mary turning a distinctly cold shoulder to him when he ran up to her and tried to embrace his “wife-to-be.”