The Manner of Amy's Death (3 page)

      Across the panelling
, I’m cringing.  She hates Syon Place, whatever the urgent business the Duke of Northumberland is plotting, and it’s a poor substitute for a day’s strawberry picking at Ely House!

      “Amy
, I’m sorry but there’s no choice in the matter.  You will go.”

      “I most certainly
will not
go,” says Amy in her high-horse strident tone.

      “I don’t understand what you have against
Syon Place,” says Robert’s equally loud voice.  “It’s exactly like Somerset House, built in the same style, modern and fashionable.  Most women at court would envy you the choice of two beautiful houses, not to mention our other mansions, Ely House and Durham Place.”

      It’s true. 
We live in the best palaces in all England.  Not bad for two country girls from a manor in Norfolk!  Robert’s family, the Dudleys, are very wealthy and all powerful and some say Robert’s father, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Lord President of the Privy Council, is the most influential man in all England.  He advises the young fifteen year old King, Edward, and the King listens to him and, more often than not, does his bidding.

     
Somerset House, where we now live, was built a few years earlier by the Lord Protector, the Duke of Somerset and King Edward’s uncle and first adviser.  He was, at the time, even wealthier than the Duke of Northumberland but Northumberland was ambitious, pushed him aside and helped to arrange his downfall.  Now poor King Edward, who is only fifteen and whose health is poor, has seen both his uncles, first Sudeley, after the Elizabeth affair, and then Somerset, executed for treason on trumped up charges, and only has Northumberland and his family and friends to depend upon.  Edward had loved his uncles, his mother Jane Seymour’s brothers, and was devastated by their downfall - so distraught that he had his pet hawk tortured to death to show his advisers how raw his feelings were.  It was not a pretty sight by all accounts. 

     
Many people hate Robert’s father, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.  The Duke of Somerset had been well liked and it was rumoured that his trial and execution had been on false charges. And then again there are others who simply resent the influence and ambition of the Dudleys.  We do not belong to a popular family!

      Somerset H
ouse, on the banks of the river, was designed in the Italian style with beautiful tall windows and wide corridors exactly like Somerset’s other newly built property, Syon Place, which is nine miles out of London in Richmond.  Unfortunately Somerset did not live to enjoy either of his two palatial houses.  He was beheaded last year  …… and Robert’s father, Northumberland, was chief of the plotters of this extravagant man’s downfall. 

    
On Somerset’s death, the Duke of Northumberland became the most important person in the land and had possession of Somerset’s houses in addition to property of his own.  But even this was not enough.  Inflamed by his own position and soaring ambition, he forced the Lady Elizabeth to exchange with him her even more magnificent palace, Durham Place, for Somerset House.  Elizabeth was furious at the time but Northumberland was even more powerful than she, Henry VIII’s daughter, so she had to agree.  How Amy did laugh!

      Until, that is, Amy discovered that
Elizabeth wanted Robert as the keeper of her new London home and that this would demand frequent communications between herself and Robert at Hatfield, Elizabeth’s ‘home in the country’! 

     
Amy and her rich and handsome husband have been living here for the past six months and I am here with them, Kate Brereton, a gentlewoman companion, best friend and confidant, to the Lady Amy.  For a young woman not yet twenty two, Amy’s going up in the world; her stars have been in the ascendant since her marriage to Robert three years ago and now she has fortune beyond her wildest dreams.  Four years earlier, this pretty country girl with a Norfolk accent, daughter of a wealthy landowner and Lord of the Manor in the Norfolk countryside, had no such expectations and we little thought we would one day live in a noble family that attracted envy, fame – and fear.

      My thought
s are interrupted by Amy’s shrill voice.

     “I just don’t like it at Syon.  It makes me feel uncomfortable and it has a bad atmosphere.  It seems to bring ill fortune to everyone who’s there.”

      I know
what Amy means.  We’ve often discussed it.  It’s not just the fact that Northumberland ‘inherited’ it when poor Somerset went to the block.  Syon House was built on the site of a monastery emptied by Henry VIII after he had executed one of the monks in a public and sickening way at Tyburn, hung, drawn and quartered for a religious disagreement, gutted while still alive, a terrible punishment.  But the monk had revenge. 

     
When Henry died in 1547 his coffin was placed in the monastic church at Syon to rest overnight on its way to interment at Windsor and two guards reported hearing an explosion from inside the coffin.  When they went to investigate they found that the coffin’s lead seal had burst open when the gases in the decomposing body exploded and a dog was licking the dead sovereign’s blood, and other things, from the floor.

      The strange thing was that this
appalling event fulfilled a prophecy that Henry would pay for the terrible things he had done by having his body eaten by dogs after he died.  The following morning the plumbers were sent for and the coffin was sealed again before being taken on the rest of its journey to Windsor.  It’s a horrifying tale and I’m going to have nightmares tonight!

      “Now then Amy,”
says Robert, “I know what you’re thinking but the monastery’s no longer there.  Somerset demolished it when he built his new house on the same site.  So come now, let’s not be foolish.”

      “Well the house didn’t bring poor
Somerset much luck either.  But I don’t suppose your father cared about that.  He was the one who profited.”

     
There’s a moment’s pause before Robert’s indignant outburst.  “And so have you profited, my fine lady.  I didn’t hear your objections to wealth at our expensive wedding at Sheen Palace, which, I would like to remind you, is not a dagger’s throw from Syon where you now refuse to go!  Now you put on airs and graces and pretend false fancies.  Oh, how you’ve changed Amy!  Go back to your own father’s tumbledown manor house at Syderstone if you’re too precious to do
my
father’s bidding in a time of need.”

      “You know very well that we never lived at Syderstone.  I lived with my mother at Stanfield Hall, Robert.  Have you forgotten?”
  snaps Amy, “And you were only too eager to visit me there, as I recall.”

      “Stanfield or Syderstone. Go back to the fields of
Norfolk if you don’t wish to give me the support a husband deserves.  Otherwise you
will
obey me!”  Robert is shouting ever more loudly.

      There’s a silence and the sound of weeping.

      “I’m sorry, Robert.  Forgive me.  You’re quite right.  I do want to be a good wife to you and I will join you and do your father’s bidding.  It’s just that ….. we are so seldom together these days.  You are at court all the time and I stay here with Kate for company.  At least here I’m closer to you and I do see you sometimes - but if we move to Syon, I’m so afraid that I’ll be left there when you return to court; you here in London and me nine miles up the road at Richmond.  That’s not how a husband and wife should live, always apart.  No wonder we have no children, Robin.”  Amy uses the affectionate form of address that she always uses when she’s trying to manipulate Robert.

      “My sweet Amy, w
hy would I want to be away from you?  Listen, Amy.  There’s a reason my father is calling the family together.  Things are happening quickly and we have to act.  The young King Edward is dying and will not last the week and you may yet have a brother-in-law as King of all England.  How would that suit you?  My family will no longer be the servants of kings, we will be kings ourselves!  But, Amy, you must not breathe a word of this to anyone, not even to your good friend, Kate.  My dear wife, don’t you understand?  Elizabeth and Mary will be nothing.  You need not give a fig for Elizabeth.  My brother, Guildford, and Lady Jane will be King and Queen before the end of July.  Just mark my words.”

      When I hear this
, my blood runs cold.  This has to be Northumberland’s most ambitious scheme yet to further the Dudley family, and the most dangerous.  Robert and his loveable younger brother, Guildford, are right at the heart of the conspiracy and their wives, Amy and the highly intellectual Lady Jane, will be implicated with them in the plot.  It strikes terror into my heart.  The punishment for women involved in treason and plotting is burning, the most dreadful death anyone could imagine.  What will become of us all?  Where will Northumberland’s ambition end?

      A
fter some whispering, there’s silence then giggling next door.  Amy and Robert always make up their quarrels in bed, so Amy tells me.  But I cannot sleep.  Robert’s father is playing a dangerous game.  Doesn’t he realise that the people will want Edward’s half sister, the Lady Mary, as Queen? The Duke of Northumberland must be completely out of touch with the popular mood in London.  His plotting will bring us all down with him.

A Change of Plan

Th
at night sleep evades me.  I lie tossing and turning, sometimes dozing a little, descending into nightmares where Amy, Jane and I are surrounded by flames and we’re trying to run away from a man dressed in black.  We’re screaming and begging for pardon as the flames lick round our feet.   I wake again in a sweat and then I’m half dreaming that we are back at Stanfield in the peaceful countryside of Norfolk, far away from the machinations at court. 

     
I awake once more with a start and look at the window.  It’s July and the nights are short.  Soon I see the first grey light of dawn and hear the birds singing outside.

      There’s a knock on my door and Amy saunters in.  She’s looking very pleased with herself as she jumps on my bed
, spreads her nightgown over her knees and sits smiling at my bleary eyes.

      “I’ve got somethin
g to tell you,” she says in teasing voice.

      I can hardly say, “I know,” without her realising that I’ve heard all the conversation from the previous night, although how she can think that anyone could
not
have heard, I can’t imagine.

      “We’re going to
Syon House immediately,” she says, “Robert is with the grooms, organising things.  The horses are being saddled as we speak.”

      “I thought you didn’t like Syon.”

      “I don’t but it’s very important.  All the Dudleys will be there and the Council too.  Can you keep a little secret?”

      Inwardly I sigh.  Poor Robert!  Did he for one moment think that Amy could keep news of such momentous importance to herself?  I let her explain and, when
she’s finished, I say, “But how can Robert’s father think to depose King Edward when the poor young man’s not yet dead?  This is treason and we’ll all suffer for it.”

      “Ah, but he
soon will be dead
, Kate,” says Amy.

      “No!  You’
re quite wrong.  The King was seen at the window of Greenwich Palace a few days ago.  The news was that he’s still very ill but not close to death.  He may yet recover.”

      “My dear
Katherine, sweet Kat, how simple you are!  Robert told me everything as we lay in bed last night.  His last appearance was a plot to make him appear healthier than he was.  The news of his true state of health has been suppressed so that the succession will go smoothly with no interference from Mary.”

      “But the Council will decide upon the Princess Mary.  King Henry left provision for
the succession before he died and made it a law passed by parliament; first Edward, his son by Jane Seymour, then his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.  The people love Mary as they loved her mother, Queen Katherine of Aragon.  They’ll want no other Queen.”

      “The people will have whoever the Council says they will have
and Robert says that King Edward wishes it to be Lady Jane.  She’s Edward’s cousin and perfectly acceptable and both Mary and Elizabeth are the bastard daughters of divorced mothers.”  Amy says this with a certain amount of relish and a satisfied smile.

   
  “Besides,” she says, “Jane’s an evangelical and follows the new religion, as does Edward and all of us.  The people will not want a return to the old religion and Mary is a devout Catholic.”

      This isn’t quite what I’ve heard among the servants.  They tell me that many people in
London would welcome a return to the old religion just as long as the monarch was head of the church and not the Pope in Rome.  And they have a lot of sympathy for Mary.  I think, but I don’t say, that maybe the Dudleys are out of touch with the popular mood in the country.

      “Has the Duke told Prin
cess Mary of her brother’s imminent death?”  I ask.

      “No,” says Amy excitedly, “That’s the best bit.  She still thinks her brother is ill but not close to death and Robert’s father has asked her to come to
London to visit him at his sickbed.”