Just a Girl (12 page)

‘Come now, my lady,' said Winchester. ‘Your pen is idle. Let us depart.'

‘Grant me a moment, my lord – but a moment.'

‘No, my lady,' he said brusquely and, with his hand on his sword, he stepped towards me. I had no option then but to take up my pen and cross the empty sheet with close-hatched lines, so none could add words that
were not of my making. When it was done, I stood and faced my guards.

‘Now, my lords, I am ready for whatever fate has in store.' Brave words, perhaps; brave lies. I was no more ready than any other poor soul who had made the fateful trip before me.

I received no reply to my letter. Indeed, I was told later that my sister did not even read it – merely waved it away, complaining that Sussex and Winchester had failed to expedite their task quickly enough. And, in truth, the time it had taken to write my desperate words had bought me one more night outside the dreadful prison – the tide had turned by the time we arrived at the Thames, and I had to be lodged another night in Whitehall.

The next morning dawned doleful and grey and within an hour the heavens opened and the rain poured down unrelenting. While others were at their Palm Sunday worship, I was to be conveyed on the barge by my gaolers, accompanied by the handful of my attendants still allowed me. The barge was but flimsily protected from the elements and within minutes we were all soaked to the skin, shivering beneath the chill spring rains. Not just the weather, but the river itself seemed to be my enemy that day. The barge rocked sickeningly on its muddy waters, but at first I did not notice. In contrast with my frantic mood the previous
day, I now walked passively towards my fate and sat quietly where they put me on the barge. I felt blank, dazed, as if I slept still and was being transported to my prison in a dream.

Unblinking, I stared at the swirling brown water, fascinated by the creamy froth left behind by the oars as they rose and fell. My mind returned to the ancient stories of the River Styx and the journey of dead souls into Hades. I began to feel as if I were already dead and had left my body behind on the other side of the river, back in the corridors of Whitehall, where I was falsely mourned by all who saw it and no sooner buried than forgotten. My corporeal presence, myself, my warm breath, my thumping heart, my life – all seemed to me at that moment as insubstantial and fleeting as that froth. It came, made its pattern on the surface of the river, then it went, as would I – as would we all.

But my strange calm was shattered as I found myself shooting rapidly upwards, looking down upon Sussex and Winchester, who clung precariously to the railing. The threat of imminent death brought me back to life and instinctively I grabbed the side of the boat and clung on for what I once again recognised as dear life. Slowly I made sense of what was going on around me. As we had traversed the always-dangerous rapids by London Bridge, made still more predatory by the rising waters, the craft had tipped up on its end and
threatened to throw us all overboard. In their terror, my servants screamed and clung to me, and I only held my nerve by force of will. When the boat, thanks to the skills and strength of our oarsmen, had righted itself and the danger had passed, I recovered myself enough to reprimand my guardians. ‘My lords, methinks your charge is to see me imprisoned, not drowned.'

When we were at last safely docked, a new mood took hold of me. I was afraid, yes, but I was also angry and sullen. I would not go quietly or easily into unjust imprisonment. How I behaved in these moments would be discussed and analysed endlessly. If I was to end my days here, either soon or after many weary years of imprisonment, I wanted my last public moments to be more memorable than those of the froth on the river. We had arrived at the Tower's Privy Stairs and everyone else had hastened from the craft, impatient to discharge their duty, and get out of the rain, then warm and dry themselves before some fire, with a tankard of mulled ale, no doubt, as a reward for an irksome task well done. I stayed where I was, with the cold rain dripping down my nose, off the ends of my eyelashes and down the back of my neck. My poor gentleman usher was the first to notice that I had not followed the others.

‘My lady! My lady!' he called, turning to step back onto the barge. His tone alerted the others to my immobility and they all turned to look at me. Folding
my arms and pouting like a recalcitrant child, I surveyed them.

‘Enough of this maidish buffoonery!' snapped Winchester. ‘You will leave this boat, madam, and enter this place, if I have to come and hoist you out like any common baggage.' There was a gasp from the others who surrounded him as he used such language to the old king's daughter, but I reacted not at all, except, perhaps to lift my chin a little higher. It was not just my dignity that I was determined to maintain – a task made hard enough by the steadily dripping rain. My legs were trembling so and I was not sure that I could support my weight if I stood. I could not rid myself of the thought that what I was seeing and feeling now, my poor mother had also felt and seen before me. The cold rain running down my neck reminded me uncomfortably of the blood that oozed from hers in my dream. Winchester moved towards me impatiently, but Sussex barred his way with a hand.

‘Good madam,' he said, ‘come in out of the rain. We will not misuse you. We well know that you are the king our master's daughter, and therefore let us use such dealing as we may answer for hereafter – for fair and just dealing is always answerable.' At the murmur of assent that followed his wise words, from all lips but Winchester's, my legs regained some of their strength and I climbed from the boat onto the dreadful steps.

‘Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs,' I said and suddenly I was once again overwhelmed by thoughts of my mother – another true subject. I found I could not proceed and sat down on the slippery flagstones. My fear was so intense it seemed unsafe to stand and safer by far to sit, to keep low. I would even have crawled into a corner to protect my back from further outrageous fortune. Winchester exploded with fury at this action.

‘Enough of these dramatics, madam.'

‘Come in out of the weather, madam, do not sit so in the rain,' begged the lieutenant of the Tower.

‘It is better sitting here than in a worse place,' I said and at this my poor gentleman usher burst into loud sobs and I realised that many present pitied me, but I did not wish to be pitied. ‘Do not cry, good fellow,' I said to him gently. Then I turned to the assembled lords, officials and guards. ‘I know my truth to be such that no man will have cause to weep for me.' And with that, I gained the strength to march into the Tower.

My hand is stiff from the effort of pouring these words onto paper. Yet, how strangely comforting it is to sit here, once more within the thick and ancient walls of the Tower, and look back on those times of mortal peril – to recall my own terror, safe in the knowledge that, at least for now, I am as powerful a queen as my sister then was and this Tower is for my protection, not my punishment. It is important to set these words down now; it is important I do not forget the lessons taught me by those who have gone before. Most of all, it is important I never take my safety for granted, never become so enamoured of my own status that I forget what it was to be suspected, interrogated and to live, minute by minute, in fear of my own life. My mother forgot, so did poor Katharine Howard, John Dudley and my sister. My father did not, and nor did Queen Catherine Parr. Let them be
my models now. It is the art of survival that matters most for monarchs.

I did not believe I would survive when first I entered this place. My skin prickled and burned with apprehension, my innards churned and my bowels loosened. I held myself so stiffly and in such a constant state of readiness that my extremities, my hands and my feet, were constantly plagued by pins and needles. It mattered not how often I stretched them, or changed their position. They were so tight and so tense that they tingled. I could not sleep or cry. I could only pace, up and down, up and down, up and down. I now know why they describe the afflicted as wringing their hands. That is what we do, to rid ourselves of the life force dammed up inside us. It knows itself to be in great peril and would, if it could, fight for its liberty. So it was with me for the first few weeks of my incarceration. I was not permitted to leave my apartments and although I tried to sew, to chatter with my ladies and to read, my thoughts were as skittish as my hands. I ate but little, and when my ladies discovered that the officers of my household who brought the food to feed us in our prison had to hand those provisions to rough and anonymous soldiers, I ate even less. Most of my day, I paced – twenty steps in one direction and twenty in the other, stopping on every occasion I heard signs of life beneath my window, to peer out and see whether my time had yet come.

When Bishop Gardiner entered my cell during those first agonising days – the same Bishop Gardiner who had so lately dwelt as prisoner within these very walls – I could not but reflect on how quickly men's and women's fortunes can rise and fall, and on how dizzying is the journey. Though I knew he had not come to haul me to my scaffold or to slip a dagger between my ribs, I was afraid. He had come to pit his wits against mine, to see if he could drag a confession from me or, failing that, force an indiscretion that would see my head on the block. He had been a Catholic victim of my brother's Protestant reign and it seemed he thirsted to make me a victim in his stead. Though, to be fair, he no doubt understood better than most that my sister's slender mortality was all that stood between him and a return to his former prison. In the name of my sister, it was as much his own skin he was protecting as hers. Hence, of course, his zeal in her service. There are men serving me now who remind me of Stephen Gardiner and they are of great value.

I met his stern gaze and acknowledged his greeting, but my pent-up energy rose like a volcano within me, so hot and fierce that I had to breathe deeply before I spoke to control it. I saw no sympathy in his eyes or fellow feeling; no recognition that he had ever stood as I stood now, a prisoner, friendless and alone. He had been a prisoner of conscience, but I felt my case was worse. I was a prisoner of birth. Heat was not what I
needed; instead I needed the cold precision of steel if I was to thrust and parry successfully with this wily old swordsman. But heat was all I had – such a surfeit of it, indeed, that Kat told me my face was flushed bright pink throughout the interrogation.

Once the courtesies were over, we stood there – my interrogators, my attendants and I – for a moment or two in silence. Who was to begin this interview and how would they begin it? I was in a fever of anticipation, though my face was set in its calm mask, when the wily Bishop surprised me by moving directly to the question of my planned removal to Donnington Castle. How I silently cursed my supposed friends who had suggested such a strategy without as much as a by-your-leave. Out of fear I claimed I could not even remember owning a castle of that name. No sooner had the words left my lips than I recognised their folly. If I could have snatched them back, I would have. I quickly recalled my ownership of such a castle and then proceeded to regain my memory about some discussion between Sir James Crofts and officers of my household about a change of scenery.

‘But, my lord Bishop, what is that to the purpose?' I said to Gardiner. ‘Surely I have a perfect right to visit my own houses?' Even to my own ears, my protests sounded feeble and, for an agonising moment, I was engulfed by the paralysing terror that the bloody history of this place engenders. I felt sweat start up on
my forehead and a tremor begin in my extremities. My breath began to come in pants and my gorge rose within me, as if the contents of my stomach, meagre though they were, would escape from their internal prison at any moment. I began to feel faint and put my hand up to my forehead. I may have swayed, because Kat quickly pushed a stool across and gestured for me to sit upon it. Even my interrogators took a protective step towards me and one of them, the Earl of Arundel, suddenly fell to his knees.

‘Your Grace speaks the truth,' he said, looking directly at me. ‘And certainly we are very sorry that we have so troubled you about such vain matters.' I smiled wanly at him and lowered myself gently onto my stool. Female weakness had its uses. His gesture was what I needed, my panic subsided and as I drank the water another had offered me, I was aware that, thanks to Arundel, the interview had suddenly taken an unexpected direction. I saw the chance God had given me to regain control of myself. So I took it.

‘My lords, you do question me very narrowly,' I said. ‘But I am sure you shall not do more to me than God hath appointed; so may God forgive you all.'

Half an hour later, when my interrogators left my cell, they bore the faces of men who had come away with less than they had wanted. I was exhausted; the effort of maintaining control was almost too much to bear, but
I also felt more positive stirrings. Although they had told me nothing directly, the interview had made one thing very clear. The cruel caresses of the rack had not worked. The conspirators and that traitor Wyatt, who resided in some much fouler corner of this same prison, had not accused me any further or brought forth any previously unheard evidence. The case against me was weak; otherwise they would have had me to trial.

They executed foolish Wyatt in April, as the crocuses blossomed on the Tower lawn and the birds built their nests in the eaves. I had taken to sitting by the open casement with the warmth of the spring sun on my face. From that vantage point I could not see or hear Wyatt's final moments, but I was soon informed that from the scaffold he had declared my complete innocence. My attendants told me that his words were quickly spread about the city to general rejoicing. Good Sir Thomas, if you had lived I would have rewarded you. They say your father loved my mother once, and I secretly treasure the poems you wrote about her and my father. I like to think it was in her honour that you so staunchly protected me. Whatever your reasons, I am heartily grateful. The news of the reaction of the people of London also gave me cause to hope. Their good opinion was my only strength: the queen and her councillors would kill me at their peril.

Within days of Wyatt's death, I could feel the shackles that held me loosening a little. I was allowed to take the
air in the Tower garden every day and enjoy the sweet sun and the slow unfurling of the flowers. I was not permitted to pick any to cheer my dreary apartments, but Tom, the small son of the keeper of the wardrobe, began to greet me each morning with a charmingly ragged posy. Soon a bonny little girl not above four joined him daily with her own ragged gift.

‘What is your name?' I asked the first time she approached, prodded along by her proud father, who was one of my gaolers. She was silent and stared at me with round eyes, until he prodded her again.

‘Susannah,' she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear it.

‘And did you pick these yourself?'

‘Aye, Your Majesty.'

‘Nay, not “Your Majesty”,' I said, hastily glancing around to see if any had heard.

None had heard but her father. ‘Nay, not yet, at any rate,' he said to me, equally low.

‘“My Lady Elizabeth” will do very well, young Susannah,' I said to the girl, as I accepted her flowers. No sooner had I done so than her thumb flew to her little mouth, where it stayed, as she gazed upon me from under her long dark lashes.

‘Will you visit me again, tomorrow?' I asked and she nodded, holding her father's hand by this time, but still sucking earnestly upon her thumb.

For nigh on a fortnight, it was my pleasure to walk the garden with the two children's latest bunches of jonquil and primrose, crocus and daffodil in one hand, and Susannah's somewhat soggy fist in the other. Sometimes Tom brought a ball with him and we threw it around a circle; sometimes we hitched our skirts and played hide and seek, or I tied a kerchief about the children's eyes and we played blind man's buff. My time as a gilded prisoner was beginning to pass more pleasantly, particularly as the sounds of our games now brought a fellow prisoner to his window to watch us and I was able to wave and smile up to him, and enjoy the feeling of his eyes upon me. Poor Robin Dudley and his remaining brothers still languished in the Tower, in the cell that he had once shared with his ambitious but overreaching father, the lord protector, and his poor foolish brother, Lady Jane Grey's husband, Guildford. They had lost their respective heads months ago. As I tossed the ball back and forth I could not help reflecting on the sad pass all of us had come to, only a few short years since we had gathered at the wedding of Robin and Amy Robsart. Despite their peripheral involvement in the treason of their father, Robin and his kin remained prisoners and were, by most, forgotten.

When I returned to my own apartment, still hot and short of breath from the intensity of our games, I sometimes wondered if that was to be my fate also, to
live on in this dreary place for months, for years perhaps, until few remembered my existence. As a prisoner I was too dangerous to execute, but too dangerous to set free. Whether such gloomy thoughts assailed me because of the contrast between my sweet hour in the fresh air and the cold reality of the thick stone walls that all too quickly then entombed me, I do not know, but my daily respite was not vouchsafed me for long.

One day, when I went down into the garden, Robin Dudley and I contrived to speak to one another and pass the time right pleasantly. He leant out of his open window and called encouragement to Tom and Susannah, as each blindfolded in turn, they tried to catch me or one of my ladies, while we dodged their small hands about the garden – laughing with delight at the children's pleasure and our own relief at the exercise.

‘The Lady Elizabeth is behind you,' he cried, as Tom spun round on his heels and I darted to one side – but not too quickly. I remembered how my brother Edward disliked being bested at such games, and I slowed down so that Tom could grasp the edge of my gown and make it my turn to be the blind man.

‘Where are your helpful instructions now, my lord?' I shouted merrily, as I lurched about sightless behind my blindfold, arms outstretched to find my victim.

‘You need no help from me,' he said. ‘After all, you are famous for peeking.' I stopped in my tracks and
pulled off my blindfold. Arms akimbo, I prepared to defend my honour.

‘No longer, my lord,' I declared, ‘now that I have learnt to look fortune full in the face.' I caught little Susannah and tickled her to forestall any protests at the end of our game.

‘Yes, there is no place better than this one for learning such a skill.'

‘Any news of your fate, good my lord?' I asked in a different tone, walking across the garden to a point nearest his high window.

‘None, my lady. Sometimes I fear we have been forgotten here, so my brothers and I pass the time by carving our names and our family crest into the soft stone of our chamber. When they discover our forgotten skeletons, there will be some clue as to who we once were.'

‘Do not speak so, my lord. You are not forgotten; they merely wish that thinking so will increase your agony.'

‘And agony it is, relieved only by the few short moments when I can watch my old friend and princess play so prettily in the garden, taking me back to better days and lovelier places.'

‘It is agony that will pass, my lord. It requires but patience and faith in God.' Would that I had been able to take my own advice. My patience was soon to be even more sorely tested.