B009RYSCAU EBOK (23 page)

“He is garrisoning the Tower and has sent his son Robert after her with orders to bring her to London.”

William snorted with scorn. “It will need more than Robin Dudley to stop the Lady Mary.”

“Northumberland has the promise that France will come in on his side.”

Dear God, Bess thought, it was real war that was about to be unleashed. Thank heaven the children were here in Derbyshire, far from London. But Jane . . .

“Where is Jane Grey?” she asked.

“She was at Suffolk Place with her mother, but she was being fetched back to Syon when I left London.”

Where the Dudleys could keep her in their grasp, Bess thought, and no doubt try to make their son Guildford king regnant, not just Jane’s consort, snatching power from the hands of the Greys. Poor Jane. She had not wanted the crown, would have been content to be left to her studies. Bess turned to William, feeling lost.

“What are we to do?”

“Wait. For as long as we can.”

Uncertainty and anxiety ate at Bess for two long days, until another messenger arrived with fresh news from London.

“Mary wrote to the privy council demanding their allegiance to her as Edward’s rightful heir,” William told Bess. “She’s been proclaimed queen in Norfolk, and parts of Suffolk, too. Nobles, gentlemen, and the people in their thousands are flocking to her with arms. Dudley was wrong to dismiss the plans of ‘a mere woman.’ Now he’s got a war on his hands and he’s not ready. He’s gathering arms and munitions at the Tower, and recruits are being offered ten pence a day to join his army. ‘Jane the Queen’ may be signing orders to the lord lieutenants of the counties demanding their support, but whether they will obey remains to be seen.”

Oh, Jane, Jane, Jane.

“But if Jane has already been proclaimed queen?”

“It doesn’t mean the people like it. They don’t like Dudley and don’t trust him. They think he supports Jane Grey only because he means to put his son on the throne, or even to make himself king. No matter the proclamations that Mary and Elizabeth are bastards, or the reminders that Mary is a Papist. Mary is the daughter of Henry and Queen Catherine, whom people still love. And the countryside isn’t London—evangelicals are rare birds outside of town. I think most folk would rather have Henry’s daughter, Papist or no, than let the Duke of Northumberland rule. And here is worse news for Dudley—it’s said that he’s treating with the French, and is willing to replace Jane with the Scots queen if that will bring him the support of France should the emperor take up Mary’s part.”

“So England would be the prize to be won by the empire or by France.”

“Exactly. And where think you Englishmen will stand on that?”

“But if Mary prevails, then Jane . . .”

“Would be guilty of treason.”

Bess felt sick, and clapped a hand to her mouth. The penalty for treason for a woman was burning alive.

“But none of this is her doing!” she cried. “It’s all her father and John Dudley. Surely Mary knows that. And she’s like an aunt to Jane—she could never harm her.”

William’s face was grim, but she could see that he was struggling to find words of comfort for her.

“Likely not. As you say, she knows the ambition for the throne does not come from Jane.”

Bess felt suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed and sank into a chair. The child in her womb kicked, as if he felt her turmoil. She put her hand on her belly, as if to calm the babe as well as herself. She and William and the children were all safe here at Chatsworth. Perhaps they might ride out the storm and come to no harm.

“Bess.” William stooped at her side. “We can stand aside no longer. The time has come for action. I will raise as many men as I can, and go to join John Dudley.”

A wave of terror swept through Bess.

“But why?”

“If Mary becomes queen, many will suffer greatly for it. Our friends. All of England. The matter now hangs in the balance. Dudley will need every man he can get if there is any hope of keeping Jane on the throne.”

Jane, Jane, Jane.

Bess stared at him, feeling numb. “But what if he fails?”

“Then many will die. I must do what I can to prevent it.”

* * *

W
ILLIAM HAD GONE.
B
ESS LAY IN HER BEDCHAMBER, WHERE SHE
had retreated with a pounding headache. She took up the little portrait of Jane Grey that stood near her bed and studied it. Those keen, bright eyes, the determined chin with its dimple, the delicate hands. Jane was strong, no question, but surely the threat of civil war and foreign invasion was too great a weight for those slender shoulders. And if Dudley should fail . . .

Bess got to her knees and prayed.

God my Father, let Thy care watch over my dear husband, my only harbor in troubled seas. Grant that John Dudley and his forces may be victorious. And protect my Jane. Jane the queen, if so she be, but most of all my sweet beloved Jane. Give her Thy infinite strength and wisdom, and guide and protect her as she treads this treacherous path.

* * *

T
HE DAYS SEEMED TO DRAG ON ENDLESSLY.
H
ERE IN THE
countryside, summer was in glorious reign. But Bess knew that even as she went about her daily life, supervising the running of the household and estate, seeing to the dairying and the baking, the brewing and the plans for the harvest, matters of great importance were moving inexorably forward in London and elsewhere.

She had had no word from William, but riders passing carried news that the country was rising to support Mary’s claim to the throne. She had been proclaimed queen in Buckinghamshire, and armies of men were rallying to her at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. Five royal ships had mutinied off Norfolk and now stood at her command.

Bess was both relieved and terrified at the sight of William’s secretary John Bestenay pelting down the road to the house.

“My husband?” she cried, before he had dismounted.

“My lady, I have no news of him—I come from London—but I bring a letter writ to him from Sir William Cecil.”

Inside the house, Jenny and Aunt Marcella followed Bess as she led Bestenay to William’s study. Once the door was closed behind them, Bess broke the seal on the folded square of paper that Bestenay handed to her. A smaller letter fell out of it, and as he bent to retrieve it, Bess saw that on it was written her own name, in Jane Grey’s writing. Bestenay handed it to her, and she clasped it to her bosom. Jane was yet well, or had been a few days since. But Bess could not bring herself to open the letter, for fear of what ill tidings it might bring. She found no comfort in Bestenay’s grim face.

“What is the news?” she asked.

“It is over, is the sum of the news.”

Aunt Marcella gasped, and she and Jenny stood arm in arm, their faces grim. Bess wrapped her arms about herself. Where was William? He could be dead even now. And what of Jane? She clutched Jane’s letter like a kind of talisman. If she held the letter in her hands, then Jane was well.

“Read me what Cecil says.” She strove to keep her voice calm and steady.

Bestenay opened the letter and read.

“The nineteenth of July, 1553. This day the Earl of Pembroke proclaimed Mary to be queen at the cross in Cheapside, to the great joy of the people. Bonfires were lit and the bells of the churches rang forth, as they had not done when the Lady Jane was proclaimed queen but ten days ago.”

“So Pembroke turned,” Bess said. She thought of William Herbert, godfather to her newest child, sitting at the christening dinner across from William Parr, whom he had now abandoned to the uncertain mercy of Mary Tudor. And so many others would suffer, too.

“Harry Grey knew he was beaten and gave in without a fight. When the soldiers sent by the privy council came to the Tower, he ordered his men to down their weapons, and went forth to Tower Hill to read the proclamation declaring Mary queen. When he returned he tore down the canopy of state with his own hands and told his daughter Jane that she was queen no more.”

Jane’s face came clear to Bess’s mind, and she longed to be with her and to comfort her. Jenny and Aunt Marcella were weeping quietly.

May God damn Harry Grey,
she thought.
His ambition overran all sense. And how many others will he take down with him?

“Grey and his wife are gone to Baynard’s Castle,”
Bestenay read on,
“to plead with Pembroke that all they did was at the behest of John Dudley. After they left the Tower, the guards had orders to let none else leave. Jane Grey, along with her husband and his mother, are prisoners.”

“Oh, God, no!” Bess gasped, staggering as though she had been struck, and Jenny and Aunt Marcella caught her in their arms.

“Do you wish to lie down?” Jenny asked. “Let me help you to your chamber.” Her face was gray with worry.

“No. I am well. The child is well.” Bess put a protective hand to her belly. She looked to Bestenay. “Read the rest of the letter.”

“John Dudley and William Parr are yet in the field,”
he continued,
“but if they are taken alive and returned to London, there is naught but death awaits them here. Mary is queen, it is most certain. I enclose for your lady wife a letter from the hand of one who loves her well. Yours in haste, William Cecil.”

Bess looked at the small square of paper in her lap and broke the wax that sealed it. The sight of Jane’s writing brought tears to her eyes and she wiped them away so she could read.

My dearest Bess: It is hard to believe so much has happened in the few weeks since I last saw you, at my wedding. I will not recount the events as I am sure you have heard them all from those whose thoughts are clearer than mine. I am here at the Tower where I came as queen and from which, perhaps, I will never depart. I wish you were with me. You ever knew what to say to me to ease my fears and to still my whirling thoughts.
My cousin Mary, now the queen, has always been kind to me and I hope will show me mercy. Without that, I am lost. Pray for me, dear Bess. With love always, Jane.

O God, protect her,
Bess prayed,
for those on earth who should do so have cast her to the dogs.

* * *

W
ILLIAM ARRIVED BACK AT
C
HATSWORTH THAT NIGHT, LOOKING
like a ghost.

“Thank God, thank God you are safe!” Bess repeated, burying her face against his chest and holding him tight. She raised her eyes to his face. “You are safe? Your men?”

He nodded. “The news from London came to us before we came close to reaching Dudley. If any have reason to ask, I shall say that I was riding to the aid of Queen Mary. And none can prove that was not my aim.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Twenty-first of December, 1553—London

A
STIFF BREEZE WAS BLOWING ON THE RIVER, BUT
B
ESS DIDN’T
care. She was on her way to see Jane Grey at the Tower, and her heart felt lighter than it had in months, for Jane expected that Queen Mary would shortly pardon her and send her home to Bradgate, and she was now allowed to walk free in the Queen’s Garden within the Tower walls.

It would still some of Bess’s frantic worry to see Jane with her own eyes, to be able to touch and speak with her. Sheltering at Chatsworth had kept her family out of danger, but left her desperate to know what was happening in London. Once the trial and execution of John Dudley had taken place in August, William had urged that they return to town and she had agreed.

“We must go back sometime,” he had said. “My only livelihood is with the crown. And our surest footing is to stand squarely by the side of Queen Mary. An easy path lies open to us—we shall ask her to be godmother to the babe that is coming.”

So back to London they had gone, Bess in her seventh month of pregnancy. As always, the sight of London had brought mixed feelings, but she knew that William was right. They could not hide in Derbyshire forever.

She had nearly fainted when William told her on the thirteenth of November that Jane Grey had been convicted of treason and condemned to die by burning. But he had assured her that Mary would pardon Jane. So a few days after their son Charles was born on the twenty-seventh of November, he had been christened in a Papist service, with Queen Mary as his godmother. In a further step to securing the goodwill of the queen, William and Bess asked Mary’s longtime ally Bishop Gardiner to be one of the child’s godfathers. Bess wept with rage and shame at the thought of smiling at Gardiner, recalling his plot to bring down Catherine Parr, and his sending Anne Askew to the flames. Only the knowledge that she was securing a safer future for her family steeled her to go through with it. But she had insisted that the second godfather be Harry Grey, whom Mary had pardoned.

“We stand by the queen, to be sure,” she told William, “but I will not have the Greys think that all their love and care for me is lost. They are yet our friends.”

And now she was ascending the stairs to the warder’s lodgings where Jane was kept. A servant opened the door. Voices sounded in the background.

“Bess!” Jane launched herself into Bess’s arms, and they clung together weeping. When Bess pulled back to look at Jane’s face it seemed to her that Jane was more pale than usual and there were shadows beneath her eyes, making her look far older than her sixteen years.

“Oh, my darling girl,” Bess cried. “I feel as though I’ve been holding my breath these past months. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see you once more, whole and well.”

They walked in the garden, both bundled against the cold, with Jane’s three ladies-in-waiting trailing behind. Dark clouds scudded overhead and there was frost on the ground, but Jane insisted that the winter air would invigorate her.

“You can’t imagine how it has depressed my spirits to be kept shut up this long while. Just to see the sky overhead, to feel the wind in my face, reminds me that I am alive.”

“God be thanked,” Bess said.

“And I do thank Him, every day. I pray for the people who are so led astray that they have now returned to the Mass and other Popish ways that had been repudiated.”

“But Jane,” Bess said in alarm, glancing over her shoulder to hear who might be listening. “The queen decreed the return to the Mass! Surely you do not speak of such things?”

“I do and I must.”

“No, I beg you, do not so! Is it not enough that your father is pardoned and you will soon be free? There is nothing to be gained by standing in opposition to the queen.”

Jane’s face was sad. “Do you not see, Bess, that to fall in, uncomplaining, with those who advocate a return to Rome would be like acquiescing to the will of Satan? Agreement of purpose is not always a good thing. Why, there is unity among thieves, murderers, and conspirators.”

Bess felt despair wash over her. How was it possible that anyone could value the form in which faith was practiced more than life itself? What did it matter whether people took communion, or whether they believed that Christ inhabited communion bread and wine? But a glance at Jane’s face told her it would be useless to argue further. She took Jane’s arm in hers.

“Well, I will pray only that soon you will be back at Bradgate, among your books, where you like best to be.”