Her Highness, the Traitor (24 page)

“I?”

Before the men could answer, I heard horses slowing to a trot behind me, and men speaking in a foreign tongue I did not understand. I turned to see four men, richly dressed in clothing that was not in the English style, and their servants. They were accompanied by a fifth man, of an inferior rank and wearing English clothing, who said to the guards, “These are the imperial ambassadors, sir. The queen sent me to conduct them hastily to Beaulieu.”

“Ah, yes. They are expected.” The guards waved the ambassadors through.

“Wait, I beg of you!” I caught the queen’s messenger by the arm. “Can you conduct me to the queen, also?”

The man stared at me. “And who would you be?”

“The Duchess of Northumberland. There is an absurd misunderstanding. This man says that the queen has refused to see me even before I craved permission to see her.”

“There is no misunderstanding, Your Grace. I heard her give the orders myself. If you attempted to see Her Majesty, you were to be turned away and sent back to London where you belong. Now we must be off.”

The ambassadorial party moved past me, looking in my direction and talking amongst themselves. I could just make out the names “Northumberland” and “Dudley” and “Suffolk.”

I tried another approach. “I am not well, and there is no place to sleep around here, I am told. Please? Cannot the queen allow me the Christian duty of hospitality tonight?”

“So you can slip into her presence somehow? Your Grace, there is no point in this. We have our orders and are following them.”

“But why? What harm can it do the queen to hear my plea to her, upon my knees?”

“Even on her knees, a Dudley may find a way to poison Her Majesty.”

“
Poison?
”

“There are the gravest suspicions that your husband hastened the king’s death. The queen is taking no chances. Now begone with you! Go to London, and do not intrude yourself upon the queen until you are asked, or you will find yourself in the Tower again.”

He took my bridle and firmly guided my horse around.

There was nothing to do but obey. We rode a mile or so, tears pouring down my cheeks, and then found a place by the side of the road where we could rest our weary horses. It was well past midnight when we set out again.

As we plodded down the road, now nearly deserted of travelers, we heard the sound of approaching horses. I froze with dread. At this hour of the night, save for desperate supplicants like me, no one was out but robbers. But the face I saw in the lantern light a few minutes later was no robber. “My lady of Suffolk!”

“Yes. I am on my way to see the queen. I have been much delayed. Do you come from her?”

“No. She would not suffer me to come near her. I was turned away. She may do the same with you.”

“I am willing to take my chances,” Frances Grey said. “I am her cousin. That counts in my favor. I must be going.”

“Wait! My lady, I am desperate. She will not see me. I have done nothing to merit such treatment. She thinks John poisoned the king! Will you tell her he is innocent of that and beg her to allow me a moment of her time when she comes to London? Just a moment? You are my last hope. Tell her that I will speak to her behind prison bars, even, if that is what it takes.”

“I will mention it.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

The Duchess of Suffolk nodded curtly. Then she and her companion—her master of horse Adrian Stokes, a man so handsome few husbands would have permitted him to serve in their wife’s household—cantered away.

On July 28, Harry was arrested. “I expected as much,” he said calmly as his servants hastened to pack his belongings while the men sent to Suffolk Place to seize him waited patiently. “Don’t forget my books, please. I don’t want to trust to the queen’s taste.”

Kate, who had been unceremoniously sent home by her father-in-law to await the annulment of her unconsummated marriage, and Mary, whose betrothal had been called off, were crying as Harry calmly sipped ale to fortify himself for the barge ride to the Tower. “Don’t worry, chickens,” he said. “The new queen’s a kind lady, and I’m sure she will be merciful. Your mother is going to speak to her. Isn’t she?”

I nodded affirmatively.

“They’re cousins, and old friends. Something will be worked out. I’ll be home in no time, and so will Jane, I’ll wager. Speaking of wagering, did you pack my cards?”

***

Queen Mary, on her slow progress to London, had reached Beaulieu, where the girls and I had visited her some years before. It was there Jane had insulted one of her ladies about the Mass, so I could only hope Mary had put that incident out of her mind or would attribute it to girlish ill manners.

“I really don’t know what to say to the queen,” I confessed to Adrian Stokes as we rode along the congested roads. I had followed his advice and chosen an old, plain riding habit and a nondescript horse for my journey instead of traveling in my litter, emblazoned with Harry’s arms and mine. I could not remember ever traveling with so few people, and I was grateful that in addition to a lady, I had Master Stokes on horseback beside me, for not only was he athletically built and forceful looking, he was a good companion. “There is no question that I betrayed her when I allowed my daughter to be put on the throne, but what else could I do? King Edward wanted it that way. Could we have said no?”

“I do not think it would have been wise to try.”

“Yet Mary herself resisted the king for many years, and her father before that for a time,” I recalled. “It was foolish of us to underestimate her. I see that now.”

Because our horses were good ones and any accommodation we could have managed to find would be unsuitable, we did not stop overnight to break our journey but simply rested frequently. It was well after midnight, then, when I saw a rider emerge from the mist like the ghost of our misfortunes: the Duchess of Northumberland, coming toward London. The four days her husband had been a prisoner had aged her by so many years.

“The queen would not let me see her,” she said, tears running down her face. “I begged—I even humiliated myself in front of the imperial embassy. When you see her—if you see her—would you please speak to her for me?”

“I—”

“We both have children in the Tower,” Jane said. “What is good for one of us is good for both of us, don’t you agree? If I can only persuade her to set my husband and sons free, your Jane is bound to follow. The queen will not have a young girl in the Tower when all of the men who aided her are free. But I must see her in order to accomplish anything. Please!”

She fiddled with a ring on her finger. For a moment, I thought that she, a knight’s daughter, was going to attempt to bribe me, a king’s niece, with it. But she kept on absently twirling it, as she sat her horse in the chilly night and babbled about how setting her husband and sons free would solve all of our problems. I could finally take no more. “I must go. It is very late.”

“Yes. I am sorry I have detained you. Please do what I begged of you.”

“I will do what I can.”

“Please do. The imperial embassy is there by now. God only knows what slanders have traveled with them.” Her tears started afresh. “People are spreading so many lies about John to the queen. He loved the king like one of his sons. He wept for him. He would never have harmed him. He did everything to save him. He never would have harmed the queen, either. Neither he nor the king meant her or the lady Elizabeth any ill. They would have been married and given large estates, that is all. They—”

We had to finally just ride away from the Duchess of Northumberland; she would have detained us there the rest of the night, otherwise. It was not until two in the morning that we reached Beaulieu. Though the guard on the road had let me pass without incident, the lateness of the hour put me in fear I would be turned away once I arrived there. Instead, I was allowed to doze in one of the queen’s outer chambers until Mary had arisen and said her morning prayers. Where I would have gone I had no idea, for so many people had gathered in the neighborhood, there was not even a barn in which to sleep for three miles round.

Having made myself seemly, I knelt before the queen, who gazed down at me mournfully. “Your Majesty, I beg you for your forgiveness,” I said when invited to speak. “I have done you an incalculable wrong.”

Mary shook her head. “We had thought that you were our friend.”

“The king called me to him, Your Majesty, and told me that it was his decision that my daughter take the throne. It was not my decision, not Harry’s, and not Jane’s. It was the king’s—and Northumberland’s.”

“I believe it was mostly Northumberland’s,” Mary said, momentarily slipping out of the royal plural. “I never trusted that man, and I believe that he exerted enormous power over my poor brother.”

I have asked myself, many a night, if I could have done otherwise than seize upon the opportunity offered me. Perhaps a saint could have, but if I have learned anything from those dark days of July 1553, it was that I was not a saint. “There are rumors that he did worse than that. There are rumors that he hastened the king’s death with poison.”

“We have heard them. Do you believe them?”

I voiced the suspicions that had no place in logic, perhaps, but which were always in my heart. “I can tell Your Majesty that when I last saw the king, a woman was in his bedchamber who had no business being around the king—she spoke of mysterious potions that she was giving him, and of people visiting her in secret. Such a woman might have well been capable of poisoning His Majesty. I can also tell Your Majesty that soon after Lord Guildford and my Jane were married, Lord Guildford fell ill. Jane was not affected, but I believe it possible that the dish that was served to him was meant for her. In the Tower—when she was constantly in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland—her hair started falling out in clumps. And, Your Majesty, my husband, too, fell ill. He is not a sickly man, and although my Jane was ill last year with the sweat, she has otherwise been a healthy young woman. I have no proof, but I cannot put aside as coincidence that Harry and Jane fell ill after they began coming in contact with the Dudley family.” For good measure, I added, “There is even a rumor that after Northumberland was captured, an apothecary who had been employed by him threw himself in the Thames.” I had not taken the rumor seriously when I heard it, it was true, but in my fervor to accuse, I saw no reason not to pass it along.

Mary nodded gravely.

“It is also true that the lord Guildford repeatedly expressed a desire for a crown and that his mother encouraged him openly. She was furious when my Jane—acting as a queen out of a sense of duty to the men who forced her into acting as one—refused him the crown matrimonial. If my Jane had been got rid of, I believe Guildford would have claimed the right to rule England. Your Majesty’s right to rule England.”

“Northumberland will die,” said Mary.

I looked up at her.

“He may die in the true faith or as a heretic, as he chooses, but he will die. Whether or not he actually poisoned the king, we could not keep such a man alive, for he deliberately subverted the law of succession set down by our most noble father. Such treason cannot go unpunished except by death. His wife has attempted to come to us, we hear. The imperial ambassadors met her upon the road. She is not a bad woman, but it is common knowledge that she is deeply in love with the duke”—a shadow of sadness passed over the queen’s face—“and that she would likely do anything for him. We will not risk our person in her presence.”

I shut out the Duchess of Northumberland’s tear-stained face, begging for me to intercede with Queen Mary. “Jane?” I ventured. “She never asked for the crown. It was Northumberland’s manipulations that put it on her head. And Harry—he loves Jane dearly, Your Majesty, more than me or my other daughters. She is the pride of his life. He could no more resist the chance to put a crown upon her head than a child can resist a sweet, but he truly meant no harm to Your Majesty. He proclaimed Your Majesty upon Tower Hill and tore down Jane’s canopy himself, although it broke his heart to do so.”

“Rise, Cousin.” I obeyed, and the queen embraced me. “We will grant your petition as to your husband. We do not forget that your mother was a friend to our mother when others had gone to that great whore, Anne Boleyn. Nor have we forgotten your silence when we confided to you our foolish plan to flee from England.”

“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Our pardon is not without conditions. Until we can trust your husband, he must stay away from court—and we will not tolerate any insolence from him against our religion. Let that be known to him.”

“I will, Your Majesty. I thank you. But Jane—”

Mary shook her head. “We cannot let your daughter leave the Tower at this time. Not until the kingdom is stable under our rule and before those who were most culpable have paid the price. Even if she was manipulated by Northumberland, your daughter acted as a queen, and she was old enough to be held responsible for her actions. We cannot free her at this time. It would be a sign of weakness.”

I could realistically not ask otherwise, I knew. “But will Your Majesty spare her life?”

“Yes,” Mary said without hesitation. “The girl shall not suffer for the mistakes of her elders.” She smiled. “You must be very weary and famished after your journey. Stay and rest the night before you set off back to London.”

***

I rode back to London the next day, well rested and well fed, bearing the news to my daughters that Harry would be released and that Jane, though she would have to remain a prisoner for now, was safe from death. I had barely settled in when the Duchess of Northumberland arrived at Suffolk Place. “Did the queen see you?”

“Yes. She agreed to free Harry.”

“Did you ask her if she would consider seeing me?”

I could not quite bring myself to lie. “I am sorry, my lady. There was no opportune time.”

The Duchess of Northumberland stared at me. For a moment, I thought she was going to scream or strike me. Then, worse, I thought she would begin to cry. Instead, she said, “I will trouble you no more with my pleas, your lady. I wish you and your family well.”

As she turned, leaning on a servant, and slowly walked to her barge, I wished she had struck me.