The Manner of Amy's Death (14 page)

      In Ap
ril there are more burnings in Chester and, in May, still more in Smithfield.  Queen Mary’s bloody ridding of religious offenders is spreading all over the country and it seems that no one will be safe.  Ordinary tradesmen and apprentices are the latest victims.  Butchers, barbers, weavers are all asked to renounce their beliefs and all refuse.  This isn’t what Mary had in mind; she wanted to demonstrate how weak we Protestants are in our faith; instead of which all the condemned men are prepared to face a hideous death rather than recant.  Amy’s ashamed that Robert’s father betrayed his faith to try to save his neck.

      The burnings have the opposite effect to the fearful subservience Mary had intended.  They inspire rebellion.  One
gentleman named Thomas Haukes was asked to lift his hand above his head if the pain of the fire was tolerable.  As the flames engulfed him he raised both hands and clapped them together in a gesture of triumph.  The onlookers cheered and clapped with him.

      Closer to home we have no desire to make martyrs of ourselves. 
Mary Sidney says that Henry’s warned her to follow the old style of religious ceremony in our chapel, restoring candles, pictures, images and the Latin mass.  This is, says Henry, no time for heroism.  The walls have ears and servants and friends are being encouraged to report any acts of ‘heresy’ to the authorities.

      After the Christmas festivities at court
and Lady Dudley’s funeral Ambrose and Elizabeth Tailboys returned to her property in Lincolnshire while Robert and Amy decided to stay here at Penshurst Place, having nowhere else to go. Young Henry Dudley has moved to his wife’s relatives in Essex.  Henry Sidney was hoping that the Queen’s coming confinement for the birth of her child would cause her to relent in her persecution of Protestant clergy but, as the time approaches, the burnings increase. 

       O
n 30
th
April there’s a welcome sound as church bells ring out and word is spread that the Queen has been delivered of a baby boy.  “Thank Jesus,” says Mary Sidney, “Now perhaps she will be restored to her right mind and the persecution will stop.”  We order a great feast for the servants and hear that, in London, there are feastings and celebrations in the streets.

      But the
re’s no sign of the new baby.  The Queen and Prince have not been seen in public and gradually there’s a general realisation that there is no heir to the throne, merely a false rumour spread from who knows where.

      
As spring changes to summer, Queen Mary announces that she’s been mistaken in her dates and that the baby will now be born later than she’d thought. 

      By mid-summer her nerve
s are obviously frayed.  There’s still no sign of the birth.  Even worse Robert, Ambrose and Henry, who’d been meeting some of their friends and supporters in the St Paul’s area of the city, have been ordered to leave London and not to set foot in it again on pain of death.  Queen Mary obviously suspects that Robert, as a Dudley and by all accounts a drunken, brawling Dudley at that, is too great a focus for rebellion to be trusted.   That’s just the news we didn’t need.

      “You were doing so well.  Getting along with Philip and the other Spaniards; and the Spanish amb
assador, Feria, who’s done so much for us.  What were you thinking of?  What were you doing at St Paul’s anyway?” reproves Amy when Robert returns to Penshurst.

      “Kindly refrain from speaking to me li
ke that, Amy.  Remember that I’m your husband and what I do in the city is my own business.  And I’ll meet whoever I chose - without your approval.”  With this Robert stamps out.

      “He’s meeting rebellious factions, I know,” says Amy with a worried frown.  “I know he is, Kate.  He’s just like his father, always plotting and
gambling on the future.  It’s like a giant game of cards to him but with higher stakes.”

      That evening Henry Sidney calls us all together to talk about the future.  He has to stay in favour with the
Queen and therefore must distance himself from any suggestion of dissent.  He’ll follow the official policy as far as religion and support for Prince Philip is concerned.  There’s a snort of disapproval when he says this and it’s from Robert.

      “I will never, never compromise my beliefs for anyone,” he says scornf
ully.  “Yes I like Philip and Feria but I won’t become a supporter of anyone who favours a return to Rome and idolatry.”

      “That’
s not what the Spanish want us to do.  They’re more practical than that.  They merely want to have the English as allies against France,” says Henry.  “What’s more they’re advising Mary to desist from this policy of burning so-called heretics.  They know it will not succeed in subduing people and will lead to rebellion.  Even Prince Philip’s confessor has publicly condemned the burnings but Mary and Bishop Gardiner take no notice.  In London and Essex there’s been yet another spate of executions.”

      “
Queen Mary doesn’t think the same as her husband,” says Robert.  “She’s determined to crush anyone who opposes her restoration of the Pope as head of our church in England.  She won’t stop with burning bishops, preachers and the poor and weak, Henry.  Just listen to what I say.  It’ll be the rest of us next.  The recent martyrs for our Protestant cause were no willing martyrs at all, simply defenceless people reported by their neighbours and even their kin for still following the evangelical form of worship.  We’ll all be at the mercy of servants, common people, money-lenders, anyone who bears us a grudge in fact.  And I, for one, do not intend to wait around for someone to report me to the magistrates or her spies on the Privy Council.”

      “She’ll soften when the baby’
s born,” says Henry confidently, “You’ll see.  We’ll have an heir for England and all will be peaceful again.”

      Robert gives a snort of derision.
“An heir?  A baby?  There are many who believe this baby is just wind and that there’s no baby after all.  Even if there were, what would it mean?  A Catholic Prince brought up to be as peevish as his mother.  I’d rather not witness that!”

      “Be quiet Robert.  You’
re too hot headed in these matters.  If you feel so strongly you must find lodgings elsewhere, with your brothers or your friends.  I won’t have my family brought into any plots regarding the Queen.”

      “Oh Henry, no!  Please allow Ro
bert to stay here with us.  He’s my brother and mother left him with so little to live on.  How will he and Amy get by?” says Mary desperately.

      “
Pray don’t trouble yourselves in my direction.  We’ll manage as we always do.” Robert is proud, angry and on his dignity.  “Very well; we wouldn’t put your household at risk, Henry.  Amy, take Katherine and Mrs Picto with you and pack the chests.  We’ll return to your cousins in Camberwell.  We don’t wish to stay where we’re not wanted.”

      So it is that we end up once more at the Scotts
, and then with Henry and Margaret Audley for a while, and then to the Hydes at Throcking, and then to the house of Ambrose and Elizabeth in Lincolnshire and finally to Stanfield Hall, the home of Amy’s mother, where we hear in November 1555 that Ambrose has, with the approval of Henry and Robert’s uncle, Sir Andrew Dudley, given the manor of Hales Owen, his inheritance from his mother, to Robert.  Queen Mary in a characteristic act of unexpected generosity had allowed Lady Dudley to keep possession of Hales Owen despite her husband’s treason. 

      
Such an act of kindness on behalf of Ambrose was totally unexpected.  Robert and Amy are overwhelmed and relieved.  Our precarious financial position is alleviated by the revenue from the Hales Owen manor and its farm lands and we will never again be poor and dependent on the charity of others.

Separation – Spring 1556

Christmas 1555 is a time of great happiness for Amy and Robert.  They have decided to look for a manor house of their own in
Norfolk and Robert’s now able to buy for Amy the kind of clothes that she once wore when his father was the most influential man in the land.  One of her presents is a beautiful diamond pendant and there are pretty gloves and a new saddle of leather and velvet for her horse.  I haven’t seen Amy so animated for a long time.

       Robert also has a
career to look forward to.  He’s acting as a courier for Prince Philip who had departed for the Low Countries several months earlier, soon after it became clear that his wife’s pregnancy had been a figment of her imagination.  Queen Mary is beside herself with grief and it’s obvious to all at court that her love for Philip is greater, much greater, than his love for the Queen.  Robert’s new role involves him in a lot of travelling to and from the continent to do the Prince’s bidding but Amy’s happy because her husband is happy; she hopes to see him from time to time when he delivers letters to ambassadors and other influential people at court.

     
The news from court is dreadful, however.  The old bishops, Latimer and Ridley, have been burned outside the walls of Oxford and, in March 1556, Archbishop Cranmer follows them to the bonfire.  The old man, having been forced to watch the agonising death of his friends, had fearfully recanted many times, denouncing his Protestant faith and hoping that his life would be spared.  The Queen was triumphant knowing that this would send a strong message to other rebels and Protestants.  However, Cranmer heard that his recantation would not mitigate his punishment and, in a brave speech before his execution, he had addressed the congregation and once more denounced the evils of Catholicism as he saw them.  At his execution he held his right hand into the flames so that it would suffer first for signing the documents of recantation.  It was a powerful image of defiance and not one that Queen Mary wanted.

      And Robert was quite correc
t.  Mary has now burned more and more ordinary people all over England, many reported for their religious lapses by jealous neighbours and one time friends.  The fires of Smithfield in London are causing much suffering and we’re glad to be far away from all the horror.

      The Queen
had so wanted a royal heir but her confinement never took place and there had been no baby, the whole disaster inspired by her desire to please her husband and her unwillingness to accept that her swollen stomach might be the result of illness or disease.  In early August the court had moved from Hampton Court where the birth of the baby had been much anticipated all summer long.  All the women hired to help with the new baby were dismissed and the crib sent away.  Elizabeth, who’d been ordered to travel to court to support her sister during her confinement, now returned home to Hatfield.     

       There’
d been no celebrations at court during Christmas 1555.  Philip’s return to the Spanish held Low Countries had caused the Queen to be, so they said, heartbroken at the double loss of husband and much longed-for child.  There had been no masques, dancing and jousting this year.  The Queen is now miserable and completely depressed.

      Amy, though initially pleased for Robert, is
destined soon to share the Queen’s sense of abandonment.  After Christmas we moved back to Mr Hyde’s house at Throcking and Robert began to spend long periods away from home with his brothers or with his uncle – or so he says. Amy’s too afraid to ask what his business is and allows him to go, unquestioned. 

      By March a comet has been seen blazing across the sky, warning us of civil strife and unrest, and we hear that parts of
London have been set alight by a gang of malcontents.  Even here in the pleasant countryside of Hertfordshire, people are predicting another accursed summer like the last, with rain and floods spoiling the harvest and causing famine.  There are mutterings that this is God’s vengeance on a state that condemns ordinary Christian folk to be burned alive and the comet is just a warning of worse things to come.  News of Cranmer’s death has spread and the Queen is becoming a figure of hatred.

     
Finally another crisis erupts for our family with the news of another anti-government plot. Amy’s only too aware that Robert, on his infrequent visits home, has spent much of the time in the company of his men, playing cards and talking late into the night or making strange and unaccountable journeys out and about the Hertfordshire countryside.  Even worse, we hear that Elizabeth, who is still at Hatfield House, has been implicated in the conspiracy as has Robert’s cousin, Sir Henry Dudley.  Hatfield is a mere ten miles from Throcking! 

      
Of the Dudley brothers there’s now no sign but a warrant is out for their arrest and their cousin Henry, who’s fled to the continent, has been declared a traitor.

      Amy’
s distracted as the weeks progress and still there’s no word of Robert or his brothers.  She had become accustomed to his prolonged absences but this new development is simply a repetition of the past – the possibility of the Dudley kin involved in rebellion against the monarch.  By May we hear that Elizabeth’s gentlewomen have been arrested and that the princess is once more under house arrest on suspicion of treason.  Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s closest friend, has been found to be concealing large amounts of seditious literature in her apartments at Somerset House, all calling for rebellion against the rumoured coronation of Prince Philip and against the restoration of Popish rule in England.   Elizabeth’s fate seems to be sealed.

      “But where is Robert?  Where is he?  Where is he?” moans Amy pacing the Long Gallery at Throcking, “Is he to remain a fugitive all his life and what am I to do?  Oh I knew that
Elizabeth would be his undoing.  I warned him.  I warned him. Oh she is an evil woman, Kat.  She’s evil.  I know now what he’s been involved in, why he wanted us to be close to her house at Hatfield.  What a fool he’s been.  And what will we do?  He’s sure to be arrested and executed for this.  Oh I can’t bear it, Kat.  What ever will I do?”

      In May a message arrives by an anonymous source to say that Robert is safe and well in
Flanders.  But what really surprises us is the news from court that Elizabeth’s been forgiven for her part in the conspiracy, which was obvious to all even though she made feverish denials of her involvement, and that her sister, Mary, has sent her a large diamond to show that she believes her explanation of ignorance and innocence!

      “Why would the Queen believe her, Kat? 
She cannot be so stupid.  Why is Elizabeth so suddenly forgiven?  She’s been causing trouble for years.  I would have thought that Mary would have been glad of an excuse to get rid of her. 
I
for one would be more than happy to see her head roll off the block.”

      “No, no.  Just think for a moment, Amy.  Prince Philip – I suppose I should say King Philip
of Spain now since his father’s retirement – has obviously intervened on Elizabeth’s behalf and Mary can deny him nothing.”

  
  “Why would he do that?  What’s Elizabeth to Philip?”

   
  “She’s nothing other than his protection against the French.  Mary’s getting older and, by all accounts, is not well at all.  If she dies and Elizabeth is executed, their young cousin Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots, is next in the succession to the throne of England.  With a French mother and already betrothed to the Dauphin, she’ll be allied to the French who are Philip’s enemies.  Of course Philip does not wish to see a huge English-French-Scottish state to rival Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor.  Of course he doesn’t want Elizabeth dead.”

       “Well that’s not what I want,” wails Amy. 

      So we’ll just have to see if the Queen, in time, will forgive the Dudley brothers too and whether Philip will still show them favour when, or rather
if,
he returns to England from the Low Countries.  Mary Sidney writes to us with the news from London.  There’ve been more Protestant burnings at Smithfield and some hideous atrocities on the island of Guernsey where it’s reported that a new born baby was cast into the flames with his mother and her kin.