Just a Girl (13 page)

No doubt there were spies everywhere in the Tower, only too eager to report that I had managed to have conversation with Robin Dudley. It was hard to believe that anyone could find much to object to in my games with the keeper's children, but that was the means by which they managed to tighten their hold on me. The next day I was prevented from taking my usual hours of exercise and accused of receiving messages within the ragged posies the children presented to me daily. When I protested that they were welcome to search the flowers for any such communications, they told me the very flowers themselves could serve as coded messages.

‘What?' I said to my gaolers. ‘Crocuses for escape tonight and daisies for there's-a-horse-by-the-south-wall?' But my attempts at scorn did no good; none is as powerless as the prisoner, none as dependent on other's whims and fancies, whether for good or ill. No more did Kat, Mistress Sands, Blanche or I venture outside to play; no longer could I blow kisses to sweet Robin's window or plait daisy chains and sing songs with little Tom and Susannah. All I could do was sit and fret about my future or lack thereof, while engaging in a desultory struggle with my embroidery. The only fresh air I received was by way of my small windows and I heard nothing further of poor Robin and his brothers. I knew not whether they still languished in the Tower, or breathed once again the sweet air of freedom.

April melted into May and I remained a prisoner. My fear had dwindled to a kind of sullen restlessness. Sometimes I stared at the confines of my apartment for hours on end and such enforced idleness took its toll on all of us. My ladies began to squabble and bicker among themselves – Kat Ashley allowing her jealousy of Elizabeth Sands to find fault where there was none, and disrespect behind every utterance. I stilled their waspish tongues when I had the energy, but heard their furious muttering continue as soon as I went from one room in our apartment to another. We had begun to fall into a lethargic and aimless routine, with each day identical in every way to every other. Even my ladies' arguments were endlessly repetitive, right up until what turned out to be the very last day we spent as prisoners in the Tower.

‘Here, Mistress Ashley, I have mended the linen as you requested,' Elizabeth Sands said.

‘Aye.' Kat peered at the stitching. ‘And with such great clumsy stitches as would more befit a peasant woman than the daughter of a king.'

‘My stitches are as they should be. I have always found praise as a needlewoman.'

‘That's as may be – with the low knights and country squires you are used to attending.' This said with a snort that a horse could envy.

‘Kat–' At this point, I attempted to be gentle, yet admonishing. But even this was too much for her in our current extremity. Immediately she burst into tears.

‘Aye,' she said, sniffing where she had just snorted. ‘And you take her part, as if it were she, not I who has shared your troubles all these years, since you were no more than a baby. Do you forget that this is not my first stay in this fearful place?' She reminded us of her previous incarceration at least once a day and usually more often. I put my arms about her and attempted to hush her tears.

‘Now, now, Kat. I well know what I owe you and I well know all that you have suffered on my account – including your time in the Tower.'

‘Aye,' she said, her tears drying rapidly, ‘and not in surroundings as salubrious as these, let me tell you. I lay in filthy straw, with water running down the walls and the cries from the torture chamber ringing in my ears, and for what? For loyalty to my mistress, that was all, for being as good a servant as I was trained to be.
A good servant, Mistress Sands,' she said, peering from out of my embrace at her rival. ‘A servant who knows how to make dainty stitches in delicate linen, so her mending is well nigh invisible.'

Then freeing herself from my arms entirely, she picked up my poor shift and with one fierce tug, rent poor Elizabeth's careful stitching apart, creating another, deeper, tear in the fabric. Then she flung it back in the other woman's face. ‘There, do it again, you slattern, and do it better!' At this poor Elizabeth lost her composure and began to shriek, clasping my shift to her face in a vain attempt to muffle her distress. I was about to turn my back on the pair of them, when I heard a great hullabaloo outside our window.

‘Hush, hush!' I said. ‘What causes this commotion?' I scurried over and saw, to my horror, great phalanxes of soldiers clattering through the gates – more soldiers than we had seen in this place since my sister's triumphant ride into London to claim her crown. Led by a knight on horseback, they flooded into the courtyard, rank after rank of them, numbering well nigh one hundred.

‘Is this it, then?' I whispered to myself, as my ladies gathered around me, their squabble forgotten. I could only imagine they brought so many armed men because they feared they might need to control the populace at my execution. Kat and Elizabeth burst into fresh tears at the sight of this army and threw their arms about
each other for support. Unable to move or speak, I stood rooted to the spot. The nerves on the back of my neck began to tingle once more and a cruel hand took an icy grip on my vitals.

‘What means this?' I said as soon as I regained the power of speech, but no one could answer me.

Then we heard the noise of a key turning in the lock and my gaoler entered, but I did not immediately look away from the strange knight below. Was this my executioner? Please God, I prayed, let him be a French swordsman as severed the neck of my mother and not some clumsy butcher of an axeman. ‘Who is it that has arrived below?' I said. ‘Why does he bring so many armed men?' Then, unable to contain myself, I dropped my voice lower still and, on the verge of tears, said, ‘And, please, good gaoler, tell me whether the Lady Jane's scaffold is taken away or no?'

They would need a scaffold ready built, you see, if they were to behead me that day and I had heard none of the telltale sawing and hammering that usually accompanies such a grim task. If there was no scaffold, there could be no execution, or so I hoped. My gaoler instantly grasped my meaning.

‘Nay, nay, my lady.' He shook his head and waved his hands from side to side to underline his point. ‘There is no execution planned today.' He read my expression and added, ‘Nor on any other day, as far as I can tell.'

‘Then who is that man?' My voice had risen now and there was panic in it.

‘Now, my lady, now, calm yourself. It is but Sir Henry Bedingfield, lately come to take charge of the Tower and your ladyship's person.'

‘Who
is
he?' I frowned. His name was unfamiliar. ‘Is he such a man that if my murdering were secretly committed to his charge, he would see the execution thereof?' I would have asked more questions, such was the pitch of my fear, but at that moment, the man in question entered the room.

‘My lady Elizabeth,' he said, sweeping off his hat and bowing low in front of me.

‘Sir Henry.' I extended my hand, but it trembled. I noticed and so did he.

‘No need for alarm, my lady.' He straightened up. ‘I am merely here to escort you to a more pleasant place.'

Heaven? I wondered. But I soon learnt that Sir Henry was no wit with words. What he said he meant, quite literally. ‘Why so many men to escort one such as I, my lord?' I said, still believing that my end was fast approaching.

‘As a mark of respect, my lady, a mark of respect for the old king, thy father and the queen, thy sister.'

‘And where are you taking me? Where is this pleasant place you speak of?'

‘The queen, madam, has seen fit in her infinite mercy
to place her manor of Woodstock at your disposal for the time being, and I am to be your host there.'

‘Host, is it, Sir Henry? Well, I have heard it called worse things.'

‘I know not what you mean, my lady – but, then your reputation for wit precedes you.'

‘All the way to Woodstock, it seems.' Perhaps they meant to assassinate me on the journey, or, more likely to do away with me in the quiet isolation of the Oxfordshire countryside. Even if Bedingfield knew nothing about it, perhaps one of those soldiers out there, any one of them, might be briefed and paid to be my executioner.

Despite the clatter and clamour of Sir Henry's arrival, it was another tedious and anxious fortnight before we were finally released from the Tower. His company of soldiers littered the gardens and pavements below my chambers, playing cards and drinking ale – too much ale, on many an occasion, so that my ladies often had cause to open my windows and call on them to move away or be silent. Churlishly and the better to mark my lack of status, they generally refused to budge an inch. It was orders, they declared, to keep a close watch on ‘the prisoner'. And they increased, rather than decreased, their noise and rough antics. So I was under no fond illusions as we left the Tower and made our way up the Thames, to Richmond. Host
rather than gaoler I might now have, but captive I yet was and as vulnerable to the assassin's knife, potion or garrotte as ever. Still all I wanted was to survive and all my energy focused upon it.

With the memory of my recent agonising journey by barge to the Tower still fresh in my mind, I was relieved to see that on the first day of our journey, at least, the sun smiled upon us and the Thames carried our small craft on its back as gently as a lamb. But it was not to be many hours before my sense of relief was stolen from me.

‘I have a gift for the Lady Elizabeth.' An unwelcome cry pierced the still of the afternoon as we disembarked at Richmond. Sir Henry and his soldiers turned to look at the breathless and travel-stained messenger, who had obviously ridden at speed to greet us on our arrival. I looked also, I could not help myself, but then turned away, shuddering at the thought of where this unwarranted and unasked for intrusion might lead.

Did he have some coded message for me, from some supposed well-wisher? Worse, was he foolish enough to think he could hide some such message about his person? Or, was it a plan, set up by my sister, Bedingfield and his men, so that they could make me look the traitor no matter what I said or did? Had they released me from my prison merely to snap the trap shut again – catching me by the neck, like some foolish mouse that had thought
itself safe enough to nibble at the cheese? I looked up with a desperate yearning to the open blue skies above. I wanted no more than that freedom – no messages, no gifts or surprises.

‘I know nothing of this man,' I whispered to Sir Henry, ‘nor of any gift.'

The soldiers stepped in front of the messenger and crossed their lances to stop him approaching any closer.

‘I come from the French ambassador,' he cried, ‘with a gift to ease the Lady Elizabeth.'

‘Tell your master I want no gift,' I snapped. Antoine de Noailles had already lost the queen's favour for meddling with Wyatt. What new foolishness was this?

‘'Tis merely apples, my lady,' he said, lifting the heavy bag he had at his side.

‘Seize him!' commanded Bedingfield, and the hapless courier was hauled from our sight.

It was indeed merely apples, thanks be to heaven, and sweet and juicy they were – or so I was told. I myself had not the stomach for them. Innocent though they proved, and innocent as I was of wanting nought but to be left alone, the apples gave my gaoler the excuse he needed to separate me from my people.

‘But I knew nothing of the Duc de Noailles' gift. He took it into his head to send me apples! Am I to be forever held responsible for other people's foolishness? How can I protect myself from the whims and fancies
others get into their heads? If I am to be eternally punished for their follies, I will indeed suffer much.' I protested bitterly when they came to take my attendants away, but to no avail. I shed tears as they departed from my sight. It felt even more like a plot to me, now that they had an excuse to remove any hostile witnesses who might tell of the murder I was sure was about to be committed.

‘Pray, sir,' I called to my gentleman usher, the same who had soothed me as I cowered in the rain at the gates of the Tower, while he was led by armed men around the corner and out of my sight. ‘Pray! I desire you and the rest of your company to pray for me.' Then I drew breath and heartily raised my voice, so all could hear. ‘For this night, I think to die.' Such slender protection, but words were all I had – words that could be reported throughout the kingdom, if, perchance, my worst fears were realised and I woke not on the morrow.

Perhaps, though slender, the protection those few words afforded me was enough, for although I did not wake the next morning, 'twas only because I had not gone to sleep in the first place. The night was long but quiet and I lived to see the dawn and to be loaded upon a warped and broken litter. Relieved to be alive, I set out on yet another journey as prisoner, clinging awkwardly to my hobble-de-hoy transport, afraid that I would be tipped out at any moment and gloomily aware
of the jolts, bruises and aches that would await me by day's end.

Yet, despite my discomfort, I now look back on my journey to Woodstock with affection. Unlike my journey to the Tower, when the bitter, icy weather and the memory of recent rebellion kept people inside, this journey proved to me and to my enemies that, regardless of my long incarceration, the good people of England had not forgotten me. Right well I remember the lift in my spirits when the scholars at Eton cheered me thrice over as our procession went by. ‘God save Your Grace!' called the boys and ‘Long live the Princess Elizabeth.'

‘God save Queen Mary!' I called back to them, always conscious that my every word and deed was written down and reported in the hope that it could be used against me. The people of England also told of my words and deeds, but with different purpose. They rang the church bells in my honour in one hamlet, and many of the knights and squires required to house our party in the evenings treated me like the royalty I was, much to Sir Henry's displeasure. What irritated him the most, however, was the way the country folk streamed from their houses to the roadside and cheered me on my progress. I annoyed him, too, by lifting the curtain of my broken down litter and smiling and waving back at them as best I could, while gripping the side of the vehicle to prevent myself being tipped out at any
moment. The honest acclamation of the people gave me more than good cheer: it gave me courage. Great and powerful though my enemies might be, and as fervently as they wished me dead and buried, the good people of England were stronger and they wanted me very much alive. It was their will, I slowly realised, that kept me safe. It was in their affection that I found my power.