Tudor Throne Page 24

  Pining for his lost love, and lost chance to wear a crown, Courtenay moped around for days weeping and wearing deepest black mourning. He even sent Mary a little black coffin with some sort of animal’s heart inside it as a symbolic gesture, albeit a gruesome one, of his grief. Then he made the foolhardy decision to accept an invitation to dine with the French Ambassador, who urged the gullible young man to shake off his gloom and take heart; if the Queen herself would not marry him, perhaps her younger, prettier sister would. He went on to captivate Courtenay by painting a pretty word picture about what a beautiful couple we would make, me with my Tudor-red tresses and milk-pale skin, a vibrant living reminder of Henry VIII, and he the very image of the tall, majestic blue-eyed golden-haired Plantagenet kings, comparing him to the great Edwards who had ruled before, when in truth his character was more like that of the weak and foolish, volatile and unstable, Edward II, who had let his kingdom go to wrack and ruin while he frolicked with Piers Gaveston. And when the Ambassador painted us with golden crowns on our heads, and Mary deposed or dead, and us sitting on a pair of golden thrones in robes bright with jewels and edged with ermine, the susceptible Courtenay realized he was in love with me and rushed straight out to pick a bouquet of buttercups and then rush breathlessly to throw himself at my feet and declare his love for me.

  Every time I turned around there he was doffing his feathered hat and bowing to me, sending me childishly writ verses so gushing and sugary they nearly brought on a bilious attack of indigestion or gave me a toothache, and trinkets and gifts he either bought off street peddlers or picked up about the court and my servants later had to discreetly return to their rightful owners. Once he even knelt with his lute outside my window and serenaded me all through the night though the poor lad couldn’t carry a tune even if some obliging soul had put it in a box for him. Ever afterward he would have the court musicians play that same melody and ask me to dance, always making sly reference to his serenade. “That song has been haunting me,” he would loudly proclaim, then turn to me and ask, “Do you know why, My Lady Princess?” To which I invariably replied, “Perhaps it is because you murdered it, My Lord? It is a common belief, I am told, that ghosts often return to haunt their murderers.” Other times he would creep up close behind me and whisper in my ear that red hair denoted passion and how he longed to put a gold ring on me so he could lead me to his bed for a game of stallion and mare, asking me did I not think as the last remaining Plantagenet heir and a Tudor princess we were “fated to be mated.” “I want to ride a young filly, not an old maid,” he said, with an unsubtle jerk of his head toward Mary.

  He was supposed to be Mary’s suitor, not mine, yet he now made it plain that his affections had changed course, tempering it with neither kindness nor tact, flaunting it in Mary’s face that he preferred me, the younger and prettier sister. And even though Mary no longer favored him, declaring she could not love a man who disported himself with whores and lost his dignity so utterly when in his cups, she was nonetheless upset that he had transferred his affections to me and had cast off his mourning robes and mended so quickly the heart he vowed that she had broken and, I fear, blamed me for it, though anyone with eyes could see that I did nothing to encourage him.

  Every time Mary saw us together I felt my blood freeze and the back of my neck prickle as if the headsman’s ax was poised to strike. I saw the anger in her squint-narrowed eyes, and I felt the flames of her jealousy reach out and scorch me.

  I knew that those who opposed the Catholic regime saw me, their beacon of hope, and young, addle-brained, easily led Edward Courtenay, and the pretty picture we made together, as the perfect figureheads for a Protestant rebellion. There were whispers all about, so loud sometimes they were practically screams, giving voice to all manner of schemes from the careful and cautious to the flamboyantly bold and brazen to dethrone Mary and put Courtenay and me, such a pretty Protestant pair, on the throne as King and Queen. But I would have none of it; I blocked my ears and walked steadfastly on, pretending that I did not hear. I wanted no part in any of their plots. If I ever became Queen it would be by God’s will, and the People’s, not through any rebellion or conspiracy. I would not have my sister’s blood shed for my sake to forever stain my conscience.

  But Mary heard the whispers and they fed her fear and mistrust. She refused to grant me leave to retire from court, to go back to Hatfield or one of my other country manors. She wanted to keep me close, so she, and her spies, could keep an eye on me. She wanted to know all I did and whom I spoke with and even what letters I sent and received. She began to snub me publicly, to show that I had offended and disappointed her. Once when I stood ready to accompany her, albeit unwillingly, to Mass, she passed me by, openly shunning me, as if I did not even exist, and bade our cousin Margaret, the Countess of Lennox, a loyal and favored lady-in-waiting whose devotion, both personal and religious, was never in doubt, to walk into chapel with her and even sit beside her.

  And she was still trying to turn back time. She had Parliament declare the marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon legitimate, thus reaffirming and emphasizing her own legitimacy and my bastardy. She ordered a large painting of her parents, clad in black, gold, and ermine, sitting side by side on a pair of gilded thrones, holding hands, and sharing fond and loving glances, whilst their loving and devoted daughter, and lawful successor, Mary, sat at their feet, between them, also clad in black and gold, gazing up at them in rapt and worshipful adoration as if she knelt at an altar in veneration of a pair of saints, and beside her lay that eternal emblem of fidelity—a dog, her svelte little Italian greyhound.

  After it was completed, there were many occasions when she would ask me to walk with her in the gallery where it hung, prominently displayed, and have us pause before it, to admire it, to comment on the beauty of the carved Spanish pomegranates and Tudor roses, the entwined initials, H&K, that adorned the gilded frame, or what fine, accurate likenesses the artist had wrought. “They seem to live and breathe!” Mary would sigh, clasping her hands over her heart as she stared up at the idealistic portrayal of the loving couple and the smiling, fresh and radiant-faced little girl with the wealth of marigold curls sitting at their feet. It was a child’s memory, not an adult’s reality.

  It was a portent, I think, of the blindness of her madness. Mary would blunder and stagger her way through her reign like a blind woman, so shortsighted that she would never see what she needed to see until it was right in her face and far too late to avoid collision and calamity.

  But my own eyes were wide open and I saw it all. Mary was already alienating her Council. She made it clear as the finest Venetian glass that she trusted the Spanish Ambassador more than any man living, except her cousin the Emperor, for whom his ambassador stood proxy. But in her idolization of Charles, Mary forgot one crucial fact—a monarch always acts in his, or her, own best interests, as does, by extension, any ambassador in their service; they are servants dedicated to serving their monarch’s and country’s best interests, even though they smile and behave with kind deference and concern to those whose favor they are courting; it is all part of the game. Renard was a velvet-tongued liar who would have happily seen Mary turned out of her kingdom in her petticoats if it would have benefited his master, but Mary believed every word he said because she wanted to believe, and sought his advice over that of her own Council when, regardless of religion, whether they were Protestant or Catholic, those men were all first and foremost Englishmen, and even though they might act out of ambition, self-interest, and greed, they would always serve England before they would Spain, or any other country. But Mary was too blind to see that, and whenever she desired advice or wanted to confide in someone, there sly Renard would be, with the pearly nacre of his smile agleam and the loyalty of a devoted lapdog shining in his dark serpent’s eyes, walking by or seated at her side, from which he never strayed for long. It was as if they were bound together at the hip by an invisible tether.

  Thus, the people of En
gland gradually came to believe that their queen, born of a Spanish mother, loved Spain more than she did England and its people, and they began to look to someone else—to me—to give them what was lacking. And when the whispers began that the Queen lusted for a Spanish bridegroom it was as if Mary had taken a keg of gunpowder into her bed; she had fallen into full and blinding love with self-destruction and had lit the fuse herself and none could dissuade or stop her.

  That was one of the few things Mary and I had in common; a time came in each of our lives when lust made blind fools of us both, and passion pushed us into the arms of danger. When I fell over the chasm, I pulled myself back up, I fought to save myself, to become like a phoenix and rise again. I could only pray that Mary would be able to do the same, for if she married Philip, she would fall. I wished my sister and I were close enough that I might sit down beside her, take her hand in mine, and tell her all about Tom Seymour, and all that I had learned dancing in the arms of danger. But, had our positions been reversed, had she sat down and bared her heart to me, would I, blinded by passion and folly, have listened? No, I think not. Bold and confident in my newfound sensuality, I would have fancied that I knew better. So I kept silent, for this reason, and also out of fear that if I bared my heart and exposed the naked truth about myself, I might also be giving Mary a weapon to use against me. The Loss of Trust is the Black Death to any relationship; whether it kills it fast or kills it slow, the end result is always the same.

  25

  Mary

  My Council tried to dissuade me. My subjects were openly hostile to the marriage, fearing England would become a province of Spain, yet another coin in the Hapsburg purse, as a wife’s property becomes her husband’s upon their marriage day. They also feared that Philip would embroil us in his costly foreign wars, that he would bleed our nation dry of money and men to settle disputes in which England had no part, and bring the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, and its torture and burning of heretics, with him. And the common, uneducated masses harbored a deeply entrenched but erroneous belief that all Spaniards were cruel and haughty and given to drunkenness, lechery, and thievery, and even murder at the slightest provocation. Catholics and Protestants alike forgot their differences and united in their opposition to my Spanish bridegroom, and raised their voices as one outside my palace or whenever I passed to shout, “No Spaniards on England’s throne!”

  But my heart was set on Philip—I would have no one else. The very thought of any other husband was torture to me. And I had given my word; I had solemnly laid my hand upon the Holy Scriptures and sworn that I would be Philip’s wife, and I could not go back on it, nor did I want to.

  In my heart, I was already his, body and soul, and waking and sleeping, my mind teemed with dreams of our life together. It had already been noted by my court—some brash gentleman had even dared tease me about it—that whenever I sat I would gaze to the side as if a certain someone already sat beside me. I would gaze at his fantasy-conjured figure with yearning and a wistful, faraway look in my eyes and a dreamy little smile upon my lips, and my fingers would rest tenderly upon the arm of my chair and ofttimes caress as if another’s hand lay beneath mine and our fingers intertwined in a loving flesh-and-blood knot. And my ladies, who took it in turns to sleep on a pallet at the foot of my bed, had reported that often in my sleep I would breathe the name “Philip!” in a long, drawn-out sensual sigh, and hug and caress the pillow beside mine and extend a leg as if I meant to drape it over or entwine it with another’s.

  I spent hours every day staring at his portrait and I had confided to Ambassador Renard that the very mention of Philip’s name was poetry to my soul and filled my heart with ecstasy, whereupon he kissed my hand and said, “Ah, Madame, there can be no doubt, you have come to understand what love is.”

  “Oh, Señor Renard, I know I have!” I breathed as I felt my entire person lit from within by love. “I know I have!”

  But my Council simply could not or would not understand.

  “I consider myself His Highness’s wife,” I heatedly informed them in a storm of tears as I leapt up from my chair at the head of the Council table, “and I will never take another husband, never! I would rather lose my crown and my life! And if you force me to take another husband I shall die, I tell you. I shall be dead within three months, and have no children, and then you will all be sorry!”

  Unable to control the storm of emotion raging inside me, I ran from them, sobbing loudly, stumbling over my skirts, and nearly colliding with the wall, in my wild, tear-blinded haste. Behind me I knew they were murmuring and shaking their heads, no doubt comparing me to a greensick girl in the throes of her first love, but I could neither help nor change what I felt. The truth was, hurtling over the bounds of reason and common sense, I had fallen in love with a painted face in a gilded frame and a paragon spun from the good reports of others, a man I had never even met, and I could not bear the thought of losing the chance to be with him and belong to him.

  26

  Elizabeth

  At last she relented and allowed me to leave court, to go to my house at Ashridge. But I knew the eyes of Mary’s spies would follow me wherever I went, never would I escape their scrutiny, and I must take care not to walk into any of the traps they laid for me. I knew that the Spanish Ambassador was doing his utmost to turn Mary against me, adding fuel to the bonfire of her suspicions and mistrust, and urging her to send me to the scaffold. He was also ardently campaigning for the unwilling Protestant usurper, Lady Jane Grey, to be put to death, even though she was in truth the innocent tool of ruthless and power-hungry men. Like Mary, Renard was determined to see Catholicism flourish again in England as the only religion, and to kill any and all weeds that might choke or overtake those fragile, beautiful blossoms of faith and grace.

  Mary herself came out to see me off despite the coldness of the day. Before I climbed into my litter she removed my russet velvet cloak and fastened a rope of lustrous white pearls round my neck; then, even as I breathed my thanks and admiration of her gift, she replaced my old cloak with a new one of fine sable lined with flame-colored satin. And after clasping them in a sisterly farewell, she tucked my hands into a matching muff adorned with a large crucifix brooch encrusted with rubies. I felt something cold and metallic inside the muff. It was an ornate gold picture frame of the sort that holds two portraits, face to face, and opens and closes like a book. This one was all done in Spanish pomegranates and red and white enameled Tudor roses, so I was not at all surprised when I opened it to behold the faces of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, angled so they seemed to gaze lovingly and longingly at each other, painted no doubt by the same artist who had done the larger black and gold portrait that hung in the gallery.

  I forced myself to smile. “How lovely!” I exclaimed. And, in truth, the frame was fine and the artist was talented. “Thank you, Mary.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I cannot tell you what this means to me.”

  And indeed I could not. It would not do to tell her it made a great din and clamor like an alarm bell ringing inside my mind warning me, “Be wary, oh be wary of sister Mary!”

  Just as I started to climb into my litter, I impulsively turned back and grasped Mary’s hands. Intently, I looked into her eyes, trying with all my might to make her see that I meant her no harm, only goodwill, and wished most fervently that suspicion, jealousy, and religious differences had not erected this icy wall between us.

  “Mary . . .” A lump rose in my throat as I tried to find the right words. “Dear sister, I know there are many who would speak ill of me, and, seeking to make mischief, run to you bearing tales about me.” I knelt then in the snow before her, still holding her hands. “All I can do is assure you that you are my sister and my sovereign and as both I wholeheartedly give you my loyalty and my love, as, despite the differences between us, I always have. May I presume upon your generosity and humbly beg one favor of you?”

  “You may,” Mary said softly, her voice a tremulous whisper, a
nd I saw upon her face wariness jousting against her innate desire to believe as she looked down at me.

  “Thank you!” I said most fervently, and kissed her hands, before I looked up at her again, begging her with my eyes and all my heart to believe and trust me again. “I humbly implore you, should you ever hear any evil spoken of me, that you withhold your judgment and do not condemn me unheard; allow me first to speak to you so that I may kneel before you, as I do now, in loyalty and love to my sister and sovereign, who are one and the same, and clear my name of any stain others might try to sully it with.”

  Mary nodded mutely and raised me to my feet, tears shimmering in her eyes, and her lips aquiver, as she embraced me and kissed both my cheeks.

  “I promise,” she whispered, clasping my face between her hands. “I give you my word as your loving sister and queen that I will do as you ask.” She hugged me close again and said into my ear, “You were such a sweet, precocious little girl, I used to pretend you were my own. It breaks my heart that we have come to this”—she drew back and held me at arm’s length—“that there are times when we face each other almost as . . . enemies!” A sob broke from her at the last word.