The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (15 page)

The next day I walked out again, and again the boy came, this time with a bouquet of forget-me-nots. "The one man in Beauchamp, he gives me coins every day, and I get up early in the morning and pick them from Fenchurch fields."

I clutched them to my breast. "What is the man's name?"

"Lord Robert Dudley. He says to tell you he is still your faithful Robin.”

“Tell the man I thank him, that I think of him," I said. The boy nodded and ran off. Oh, Robin. The next day Henry Martin told me that "the man's wife did come. But all she did was cry. He doesn't give her flowers." Oh, Robin. It went on that way, every day that week. And then, on the eighth day of my walk, as I was being escorted back to my lodgings by a guard and we passed a low brick wall, I saw eight black ravens line up on top of it. I knew they would not fly away, that their wings had been clipped so they could not fly, in keeping with an old legend that when the ravens left the Tower, it would fall. They stood stock-still, eyeing me with their beady eyes as I passed. All eight of them. One for every day of my walk. That night the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower did not visit me as he usually did when the day was done to see if I needed anything. That night came instead a man who walked like a soldier, who was clad all in black like a priest, and who gave only the slightest of bows as he came into my apartments.

"Madam, I am Sir Henry Bedingfield. I have orders. You are to pack your things and get ready to depart this place tomorrow."

The words were so frightening to me that I could see them hanging in the air between us, echoing as if in a tunnel. "For what reason?" I asked.

"It is not given to you to know. I have my orders. I will be by at the crack of dawn tomorrow to see you out. But you should know that the Queen has banished Edward Courtenay from the kingdom." I felt ready to faint and after he left had to sit down. My ladies brought me water and smelling salts. "They are going to kill me tomorrow," I said.

"No, Your Grace," both assured me. "He did not say that. And didn't he say Her Majesty pardoned Edward Courtenay?”

“Yes, but banishment. Where will he live abroad? Banishment from England can be as bad as death. Will she banish me?" But I knew somehow that it would be death for me and I scarce slept that night. I thought about Sir Henry Bedingfield. As I could recollect from my history, his grandfather had entertained my grandfather at Oxburgh Hall, near Swaffom. His grandfather had fought beside my grandfather in victory at the Battle of Stoke in 1487. His father had been the jailer for Catherine of Aragon, Mary's mother. Now he had become my jailer and I could only imagine Mary's satisfaction. When I did fall asleep, it was only to have screaming nightmares about Mary's mother being jailed and sick and dying at Kimbolton, and my father refusing to let the child, Mary, see her mother before she died. Now I knew why I sometimes heard screams in this place at night. And now, this night, others could hear mine.

I was up early, insisted on being dressed in white, and started giving away my jewelry to my ladies. I could not eat breakfast, and I looked in vain for the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, but he did not come. Instead Sir Henry Bedingfield came with a dozen armed men, some the Queen's own Guard. They took up positions outside my lodgings, at the gates of the Tower, along the paths. So, I thought, this is the way it is to be. As I stumbled out into the misty morning, I heard the echo of seagulls over the river, smelled its dampness, and could not help but notice that the eight ravens were still lined up on that stone wall, looking at me as I was led away. Surely that was a sign, but of what? And speaking of signs, was I not to be allowed spiritual counseling? Then I near stumbled on my way to Tower Green and the scaffold, and was assisted by two soldiers. But we were not on our way to the scaffold! We were walking down to the riverfront; that was why the gulls and the smell seemed to permeate the air.

"But this isn't the way to ..." My voice faltered.

"To a barge on the river, Your Grace," came Sir Henry Bedingfield's voice, a little kinder now. "You are going on a journey.”

“No! Not to the wharves. Not on a ship," I pleaded. "I do not want to leave England!”

“Woodstock is in England, lady. You are under house arrest. You are a prisoner of the state." Oh! I felt happiness. I was not to be banished from England! The River Thames was smooth and shining on the twentieth of May, the day I was helped into the barge to go upstream again. And though it was early of the morning and no one was yet up and about, as our barge passed the Steelyard, home of the wealthy Hansa merchants, cannon boomed halfway through our journey, echoing off the water. Cannon. A salute for me. Would Mary curse them, hoping the town would not know I was being released? Someone had disobeyed any orders she had given to keep my departure secret. It made my spirits soar. Woodstock was my destination, but that was five days away. We continued on upstream until we reached Richmond, a dozen miles away.

Sir Henry Bedingfield--my jailer now, but a kind and decent man--told his men to tie up at the pier of Richmond. In the distance I saw the strange outline of turrets and domes: Richmond Palace, which my grandfather had had built. We stayed the night. As we were ferried across the Thames the next morning, I saw a group of my knights and ladies standing on the bank waving to me. I got Sir Henry's permission to write them a note. It was from the Bible: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

As we traveled through the countryside that day, the people came out of their houses and threw flowers and came up to me with sweetmeats and cider. "God bless the Princess!" was the constant cry. Sir Henry did not like it. He sensed discontent with the Queen. So we pushed on and he would not even let me stop to thank them.

The next night we stayed at the dean's lodgings at Windsor. I was constantly under guard. The rules were simple, Sir Henry told me. "You are to be kept under guard, but treated as may be agreeable to Queen Mary's honor, state, and degree. You are to have no conversation with any suspicious person outside of my hearing. Neither are you to send or receive any message, letter, or token to or from any manner of person."

We spent the next night at Sir William Dormer's house at Buckinghamshire, and the next at Lord Williams of Thames’s Rycote at Oxfordshire. And everywhere we went, people were waiting on the shore for me: scholars from Eton, men, knights, and women with more flowers and cakes and wafers. They crowded me; they said, "God bless you, Bess." They cheered, they rang church bells, and Sir Henry had all he and his men could do to keep the peace. Then we had to travel through the villages of Oxfordshire. In every one, Wheatley, Stanton St. John, Islip, and Gosford, people turned out to celebrate me, to cheer.

Finally we arrived at Woodstock, in the outlands of Oxfordshire, the ancient royal estate where kings had hunted for centuries. The place rose out of the woods like a haunted castle, with missing slates on the roof and broken windows gaping in the shadows. It was a near ruin. It had a huge outer courtyard and an inner one not much smaller. And Sir Henry liked it because it had only three doors to be locked. There was no mention of the open windows through which one could try to escape. But where would one go? The outbuildings were a ramshackle mess. The gardens were overgrown and the bushes needed pruning. Weeds grew up in the brick walks. Neglected flowers bloomed sadly, with no one, until now, to see them. I learned what banishment felt like. It was almost worse than the Tower. There was no Robin here, though I hadn't seen him in the Tower. There was no Henry Martin to bring me flowers. I even missed the ravens that had lined up to stare at me.

I knew what these old, rundown castles in the outlands stood for. They were places where one went to die, places where prisoners were put to grow old in exile, to be forgotten. My fate was worse than that of Anne of Cleves, the wife my father had rejected. At least she was still allowed to come to court, to be a part of things. And in banishment I stayed for ten months, near kept under lock and key, without my Pussy Cat, who'd been taken from me. A week after my arrival my knights had come to help guard me from harm. I was allowed only three maids. But the people of the countryside knew I was there.

One day I was summoned downstairs by Bedingfield. "A young man is here to see you." Robin? My heart leaped. But no, I didn't know this young man.

He bowed. "John Fortescue, your ladyship. A student at Oxford." Oxford was only five miles down the road. He brought three books for me. But, because it was discovered that he was a stepson to Mr. Parry, the books had to be sent to London to be examined by the council. They were approved and came back, to my delight. So Sir Henry didn't want me to converse with suspicious persons? Yet next came another young man, named Christopher Edmonds, bearing fish and two dead pheasant cocks. Bedingfield checked his background to find that he was the stepson of Lord Williams of Thames. We ate and enjoyed the fish and the pheasant. Then came one Francis Verney, a son of a rich and influential Buckingham-shire family, bringing a lapdog. Sir Henry was driven near daft by the visitors. Who was smuggling me messages? Who was whispering plots to get me out of here? I felt sorry for the man. He was not mean or demeaning. He tried to be kind without being friendly. He had his orders to follow, and would follow them to the death. But he could not take my measure.

Soon I and my knights and ladies laughed rings around him. The best sport we had was with Mr. Parry. Mary wanted him away from me, but Sir Henry did not want responsibility for the bills. And those were to be paid by me, I soon was told. I was to pay Sir Henry, my jailer, and his staff and the household help. The council paid only his soldiers. Sir Henry realized we needed Mr. Parry to pay the bills, so he had Parry housed at the Bull Inn in the town of Woodstock. Soon the Bull Inn was making all kinds of money on visitors and those who came to stay a day or two. My people. Bringing messages. And from Woodstock my faithful servants found reasons daily to visit Mr. Parry, and he, in turn, sent me news of events I would otherwise not know about. And so I learned of Mary's marriage to Prince Philip of Spain. They married at Holy Cross in Winchester. I was glad not to see Mary play the dewy-eyed bride, because she was near forty and with graying hair and I could not think of her as such. Would she have children with him? If she did, my turn in the succession would be ruined. Yet, could I pray she didn't? Mayhap what Mary needed was a child to devote herself to. Mr. Parry's complicated group of informers told him all about the wedding. First the groom, then the bride, walked from the west doors of Holy Cross to the steps of the sanctuary. Mary was given away by four nobles. Her wedding ring was a plain gold band. And according to an ancient rite, she promised to be "bonny and buxom at bed and at board."

After the wedding ceremony, they traveled through the countryside, hunting and dancing. At Windsor, Mary had Prince Philip installed as a Knight of the Garter. She herself placed the collar around her husband's neck. Well, let her be happy, I thought. She has waited long enough. As long as she doesn't allow him power as King of England. And then I worried about Robin. Would she take it into her head to execute him? Oh, how I prayed for Robin! Well, I thought, if I'm going to pay the bills, I'm going to live in decent lodgings. And so I had Sir Henry hire gardeners to set the outside in order; painters to redo my chamber, my sitting room, and the kitchen and dining hall; men to repair the roof and the broken windows of Woodstock.

Soon Sir Henry, who could not complain because it was my money, was following my orders. My people had even more reason to visit Mr. Parry at the Bull Inn. He had to approve all expenditures and pay the bills. "You are setting up your own court and kingdom, Princess," Richard Vernon remarked to me one day. And the thought struck me full face. I was, even in exile. Was this what pretenders to the throne did, then? In the fall my people came back from the Bull Inn one day to give me the news that Mary was going to have a baby and the midwives said it would be a boy. And in the fall came the news that Robin still lived.

"Bess!”

“Pussy Cat!" We embraced on the front steps of Woodstock as she alighted from the carriage. It had been ten long months since we'd seen each other and now we both shed tears.

"I wrote dozens of letters to the Queen, asking her to let me come to you," she said in a tearful voice as her head rested on my shoulder. "And now that I'm here, I'm almost jealous that you got on so well without me.”

“You old Ash-Cat.”

“I'm starved. Do you have something to eat?"

"Of course, you old dear. Do you think I starve just because you're not around?" We spent the winter undisturbed at Woodstock. There even came a rhythm to the days, with me riding out with my knights or staying indoors and reading Greek and Latin and attending Mass every day to keep Mary happy. We had music and good food and I almost forgot the worries of the outside world until Sir Henry received a letter one March day bidding me return to court.

"Why?" I asked.

"To attend your sister at her lying-in. And because Prince Philip thinks it about time he met his dear sister Elizabeth."

The letter came to Bedingfield on April 17. And just like that, we were given orders to pack up and head back to London. My imprisonment, though I was still guarded, was over in a second. What was it all for? I asked myself. And then I told myself, This is what you can do if you are Queen. Imprison a person in the Tower or at Woodstock as befits jour whim, and then set her free in the blink of an eye. It is called power, fool, and you will have it one day. We arrived at Hampton Court on the twenty-ninth of April, at dusk, and we entered privately on the garden side to the Prince of Wales's Lodging, where I was given a suite of rooms for myself and my people. Sir Henry showed me the secret access my suite had to the royal apartments. The next morning we awoke to bells ringing and anthems being sung throughout the palace, and the news that the Queen was delivered of a son. But by that afternoon the rumor was afloat that the news was false.