The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (12 page)

I reached out and touched his arm. "Thank you. Thank Sir William. I shall keep his messages a secret to my death." The man nodded, and then mounted and slowly rode off. More secret correspondence from Sir William told me that Edward died on July sixth at Greenwich. He died a horrible death, I was later told by those who were there. He had bedsores all over his body. He had a tumor on his lungs. He had a swollen stomach, and he vomited and coughed without ceasing. A storm raged while he was dying. At Hatfield it seemed as if the heavens were coming down upon us, with hailstones making a horrible clattering noise, with lightning and thunder and wind. Sir William told me later too that the doctors insisted on giving Edward a remedy they had put together for him. It consisted of nine teaspoonfuls of spearmint syrup, red fennel, liverwort, turnip, dates, raisins, mace, celery, and pork from a nine-day-old sow.

"God deliver us from physicians," Sir William said. Dr. Owen and Sir Thomas Wroth attended him when he died. His valet, Christopher Salmon, was there, and his close friend Henry Sidney held his body as he died. The storm raged on all night. I scarce slept. But I knew somehow that this was no ordinary storm. There are those who say they saw my father pacing about on the battlements of Greenwich Palace as it raged, and as Edward died.

***CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Just outside the front courtyard of Hatfield was a tree, a huge silvery maple with a hole in the trunk. When we were children, Robin and I used to leave notes for each other in the hole, and Sir William Cecil's messenger had sent word via a letter that I should check the tree trunk at least once a week, because there might be a message there besides the ones delivered by his man. With all the events leading up to Edward's death I had forgotten to check. After Edward died, I went to the tree, and sure enough, there was a folded bit of parchment with a letter from Sir William. It was dated the thirtieth of May. I had missed it. It told how Jane Grey was wed to Guilford Dudley on the twenty-first of May. There were six white-robed bridesmaids. The wedding took place in the Dudley private chapel. The bride wore a gown of gold embroidery and wore her hair in braids. My brother had been too sick to go, but had sent costly jewels and gold plate. The festivities took place at Suffolk Place and then Jane was escorted back to Chelsea Manor, and Guilford went to his own home.

Northumberland was taking no chances. He did not want the marriage consummated yet, lest things change. Then it could always be annulled. Only later did I wonder how Sir William knew about the tree trunk. And with a reassuring warmth of my spirit I realized that Robin had told him.

Right after Edward died, a rider came garbed in all the finery of the court, with two knights guarding him. There was a letter from Northumberland. It was borne by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, a court official based at Greenwich. I invited him and his knights in for refreshment. He gave me the letter. It was a bribe from Northumberland. He would, he wrote, give me several properties that Edward held, including a new town house and the castles of Woodstock and Pontefract, plus promise of a queenly allowance every year if I would give up my claim to the throne. I went into my study to answer the letter. Woodstock! It was a dilapidated, ancient royal manor, far off in Oxfordshire where one could go if one expected to die. Pontefract! Scene of the murder of Richard II in 1400!

"You must first make this agreement with my elder sister," I wrote back, "during whose lifetime I have no claim or title to resign."

Sir Nicholas depa
rted, leaving behind him standards for Queen Jane and demanding we fly them from the front tower of Hatfield. But I intended to do no such thing. So there I was at Hatfield, daily reading the classics with Roger Ascham and riding and practicing archery, hearing nothing and daily checking the tree trunk and trying not to look down the road for messengers. There were other ways of learning the news. Travelers stopped by on their way from London, and my knights went to tilting tournaments, invited by noblemen in the area. I was invited too, but I declined. I did not want to leave Hatfield. My knights came back with gossip, which I learned to separate from real news. "On the seventh of July the Tower was reinforced," they told me. "On the eighth of July the city was informed of the King's death. On the tenth, Jane was brought to the Tower and proclaimed Queen."

Still I refused to fly her standards from the tower of Hatfield, though Cat Ashley urged me to. Then I found another letter in the tree trunk from Sir William that informed us that Mary was staging a revolt. Robin Dudley, under orders from his father, had ridden with men to Hunsdon, her palace, to arrest her, only to find that she had fled northeast to Kenninghall in the heart of her East Anglian principality. Men were flocking to her standard. She had landlords of her estates, neighboring Lords and gentlemen, as well as Catholic officials with her. She had scores of common people. Another letter was left in the trunk: On the eleventh Mary proclaimed herself Queen. Then the messages stopped again. Oh, I was at my wits' end. So my sister was raising an army and would fight. Then a couple of knights who were riding in the area stopped by.

Over wine, meat pies, and vanilla wafers, they gave us the news. Jane was not happy as Queen. When they told her of the honor, she answered, "The Crown is not my right, and pleaseth me not. The Lady Mary is the rightful heir." London was quiet. There was no rum piped into the streets, there were no bonfires or fireworks or celebrations of any kind. No lyrical poems were written. The people did not want Jane. They wanted a Tudor, not a Grey. I stayed quietly at Hatfield, sending out no letters, no replies to letters, and no ladies-in-waiting on errands, except to the apothecary. Of course they came home full of news.

By the twelfth of July, so many followers had arrived at Kenninghall and pledged themselves to Mary that she had to move them all to Framlingham, a commodious brick lodging built by the Duke of Norfolk in the twelfth century. It had thirteen great towers and a mighty wall, forty feet long and four feet thick. I would have done the same thing, I decided. I was fascinated by my sister's moves. She, elderly and alone, was acting like a King. Yes, I told myself, yes, there is something in us Tudors. I knew that I had the body of a woman, but I had the heart and stomach of a King. But I had never suspected the same of Mary. I followed her actions with great interest and grasped at scraps of information. Sir William wrote again: "Robert Dudley was routed at King's Lynn and forced to retreat to Bury St. Edmunds to wait for reinforcements."

As it turned out, I did not have to wait for letters from Sir William Cecil anymore. People came up to Hatfield's gates with news to give to me. My knights and yeomen were busy keeping them at bay. Mary had fifteen thousand men and the number kept increasing. The council wanted Jane Grey's father to ride out with an army to East Anglia, but Jane, for once acting the Queen, said no, Northumberland should go, not her father. Northumberland was the best in the kingdom. So he left, promising her, "I will do what within me lies."

But soon Mary was proclaimed Queen in Cheshire and in Devon. Even Robert Dudley, knowing he could not do as his father wanted, proclaimed her Queen. Four more counties proclaimed her. In the Tower, Jane's noblemen were leaving, her ladies-in-waiting were making excuses and parting from her also. Her treasurer had absconded with money. One morning Richard Vernon brought me a placard that had been nailed to Hatfield's front gate. It announced that Mary had been proclaimed everywhere but in London. Mary now had thirty thousand troops. Northumberland's men, realizing that to stay with him meant treason and death if Mary won, were deserting him in droves. He was left with a skeleton crew in the field, so he himself declared for Mary. On the nineteenth she was proclaimed in London. "Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and all dominions, as the sister of the late King Edward VI and daughter unto the noble King Henry VIII."

Now the city celebrated. Bonfires were lit up and down the streets, and rum flowed like water. Caps were thrown in the air and money was thrown out of windows. Trumpets blared, there was shouting and crying from the people, and bells pealed from all the churches. The city fathers gave orders that "fountains and conduits were to run with wine."

I feared for Robin. Would he be put in the Tower because of his father?

"Worry about Jane," Cat Ashley told me. "She's a slip of a girl at the beck and call of greedy, evil men. Now all have deserted her. What will she do?"

Indeed. We found out later that Jane's father burst into the royal apartments in the Tower and tore her canopy and told her she was no longer Queen. That she must lead a quiet life. Jane was happy, we learned. She wanted to go home. But her father said no, and she was locked in her royal apartments with whatever attendants were left while her husband, Guilford, went to the White Tower to be with his mother. He was like a baby duck, I was told. Always paddling after his mother. Jane had to be beaten twice by her parents before she would agree to wed him. Soon guards were placed at the doors of the Tower. Jane was prisoner. The sound of bells ringing all through the countryside came to us on the wind. Bells for Mary. They went on night and day for two days. Cat Ashley insisted we have a feast of celebration. "You never know what spies are about," she whispered to me, "and so we will celebrate for Mary."

I did not need further encouragement, and so a feast was planned. We invited our neighbors, the families of nobles, and knights and had feasting and dancing enough to give lie to anybody who said I did not support Mary. Then came a letter from my sister. The parchment had a red Tudor rose stamped on it, and though her script was not as good as mine, at least she had written it herself. "I send my greeting to my most beloved sister and bid you ride with me into London to give thanks for my deliverance and yours.”

“It's a summons," Cat told me. "Nothing less.”

“Which I dare not ignore," I answered her. I made ready to go to and greet Mary. The letter said we were to meet at Wanstead, to the east of Waltham Forest. But I would ride to London first, and establish myself at Somerset House, which I owned. On the twenty-ninth of July I left Hatfield with two hundred horsemen armed with spears and bows. Everyone wore the green and white of the Tudor clan. I rode through Fleet Street to make a grand show of it. Once I had established myself inside Somerset House, Richard Vernon asked to see me.

"Lady," he said as he bowed, "I have a concern.”

“Tell me.”

“I think you should not ride to Wanstead with all these men. It could be mistaken as a show of force to your sister, the Queen."

The sense of it struck me. Why had I not thought of it? What kind of a Queen would I make? I must think more clearly. "Thank you, Richard. Your opinion means much to me. You are right, of course. Tomorrow morning we ride out with only you and my other knights and a few yeomen.”

“I'm not thinking clearly," I told Cat Ashley. "What would I do without the advice of my knights?”

“It is why you have knights," she told me.

"But when I am Queen ...”

“You will still have them. And other advisers."

I noticed she no longer scolded me for saying what I would or would not do as Queen.

"I need Sir William Cecil," I said.

"You are doing fine. Trust yourself.”

“Do you think Mary will take me prisoner? Do you think she will make me become Catholic? I heard that Robin is in the Tower. Do you think she will have him put to death?”

“You ask questions that none of us can answer. Only this can I give you. Your knights would die for you before they allowed you to be taken prisoner. The people would revolt. She cannot make you Catholic in your heart, where it matters. And remember, your friend Robin proclaimed for her in the field."

Oh, what would I do without these good people around me? I did not want to ask. The next morning, with my knights and a handful of yeomen and ladies, we set out for Wanstead. I wore one of my old gray velvets, the only splash of color being the ruby cross at my neck. I wore white trimmings and allowed myself a circlet of pearls around my head, but around my waist I wore only a prayer book encased in silver filigree. Outside Mary's palace of Wanstead, crowds of people milled about, sat on the grounds, even walked in the garden.

My knights cleared the way for me to walk through. Inside, the great house was overpowering and echoing. Our steps sounded on the polished marble floors. Paintings and tapestries dwarfed us. Scribes and messengers were scurrying in and out, as were servants carrying huge platters of wine and fresh fruit, cheese, and bread. Mary was holding court. "Make way for Elizabeth, sister of the Queen, here at the Queen's command."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw them all, those gentlemen who now felt as comfortable in Mary's court as they had in Jane's and Edward's. Who could always change their loyalties as they changed white shirts and velvet doublets. There were the Earls of Bedford, Winchester, and Pembroke, all the senior Lords from the Privy Council, Lord Shrewsbury, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Lord Clinton, Sir William Pickering. Even my kinsman Lord Howard was there. The Howards were the most powerful Catholic family in the kingdom. My mother had been part Howard. Catherine Howard had been married to my father before he had her beheaded. And, sure enough, there were Sir James Croft and the Earl of Derby. I recognized them all from my brother's court. And there at a desk in a far corner was my friend Sir William Cecil, Secretary of State. All eyes were upon me as I was announced and went to kneel at Mary's feet.

"Your most holy Catholic Majesty," I said, "I thank God for your deliverance.”

“And I for yours." She got up, stepped forward, and raised me up. She kissed me. Her kiss was cold, her sentiments shallow, I perceived. The whole court was watching. What could she do? To my amazement she was dressed in red satin trimmed with gold. She wore diamonds and pearls, rubies and gold. How did we look together, I wondered, I in my plain gray, set off by my flaming red hair, and she in red satin that made her look pale and sickly? Did people notice? My time at Wanstead was like a dream. And the next day we rode for London. Together. I rode just behind her in the parade, followed by my knights and yeomen. All along the way people came out and cheered, waved banners, threw flowers, offered fruits and sweets, shouted blessings.