The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (9 page)

My whole body got cold, but my face got hot. I felt rather than saw a presence slip beside me. Roger Ascham. Then I remembered his words. "Act like a Queen, always." I could not swallow. I cleared my throat and Sir Robert went on.

"It is also my duty to inform you that the Lord High Admiral has just been arrested by order of the council and taken to the Tower." I found my voice, and made sure it was clear and full of contempt.

"By what right does the council accuse me of treason?" He smiled. Does a scorpion smile? He looked like a scorpion. "Did you not have an affair with Sir Thomas Seymour at Chelsea?"

My head was spinning. Think like a Queen. "No. I did not.”

“Did you not know that constitutes treason? For him and for you?”

“I have not committed treason," I replied.

"Your Mr. Parry and Catherine Ashley are singing a different tune in the Tower right now. It is strange what the mind can remember when the body is threatened with death, isn't it?" Another grin from the scorpion. I felt Roger move closer to me

."I am second in line for the throne," I said. "How dare you speak to me this way?”

“I have the authority of the throne behind me," he said.

"Don't bully me," I said. "I remind you, I may be Queen someday, and I will remember it if you do."

That quieted Sir Robert somewhat, though it did not stop him from ordering his men to encircle the house, to confiscate the weapons, to herd the house servants into one room and guard them, to round up my knights and yeomen and do likewise. He gave Roger Ascham the choice of going to his rooms or staying with the servants. Sir Robert would question me this day. He would not leave until he got the answers he wanted. And he would begin here and now.

He bade me sit. The fire in the great hall was crackling when he began and near ashes when he stopped. I was given neither food nor drink nor anyone to stay with me. It was just he and I, alone. He took the superior position, pacing back and forth in front of where I was seated, as if I were on trial. Questioning. "Did you not promise not to marry until you got the permission of the council and the Protector?”

“I had no intention of marrying, sir.”

“Not Sir Thomas Seymour? He came around seeking Mr. Parry's advice about your estates. Is that not true?”

“Yes. But I had naught to do with it.”

“Did he ask you to wed him?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you say?”

“I did not agree to wed anybody.”

“Did you know about his plan to kidnap your brother and set up another government?"

I gasped. "No.”

“He broke into your brother's rooms while he was sleeping. He shot your brother's dog and attempted to kidnap him. He has had dealings with false coinage and with pirates, in particular with Black Jack. He has promised their ships safe conduct in return for a portion of the spoils, and he has arrested the captains of the Royal Navy who will not give these thugs safe conduct. As if all that weren't enough, he tried to kidnap the King to set up his own government with himself as Protector. He's had the chief counter of the Royal Mint, a man named Sherrington, shaving off gold coins for a year to accumulate four thousand pounds' worth to finance his rebellion. He has men, guns, powder, plans, and an armory at Holt Castle. It has been discovered by spies." Oh, Tom, Tom, I thought. You always were rash. But this! I tried to keep a stoic expression on my face.

"And did you not carry on an affair with him at Chelsea before his wife died?" Sir Robert persisted.

"No. I took part in no such affair.”

“My wife was one of the ladies-in-waiting for Queen Katharine and she heard about the carrying-on. Do you say my wife is a liar?”

“Sir, your esteemed wife may have heard false information. There were many rumors thrown around about me.”

“What would you say if I told you that Mrs. Ashley and Mr. Parry both admitted to this under questioning?”

“I would say you frightened them into submission." Oh, I would not live through this. I was trembling. When the fire was low and the great hall was chilled, he called for a servant to bring wood, to bring him some supper. And he ate there in front of me, offering me nothing. The questioning went on until all the great clocks chimed twelve midnight. Then he rose and said I was to go to bed. No, I could not have my own maids. He went out into the hall and called for someone, and an old hag of a limping woman came in and accompanied me upstairs. She smelled of the barnyard and I thought I saw bugs crawling in her hair. Did Sir Robert do this to me intentionally, to break me? Of course! But I won't break, I promised myself. I will act like a Queen. I was under arrest. It was a temporary situation, after all. I supposed he must treat me so. I fell into a fitful sleep, thinking of Pussy Cat and Mr. Parry in the Tower.

When I was allowed out of my chamber the next morning, I saw that the house was full of soldiers, coming and going as they pleased, dirtying the place with their soiled boots, smirking at my maids, and ready to start fights with my knights, who stood loyally in the great hall, ready to fight to the death for me. Roger Ascham was nowhere in sight. Sir Robert questioned me for two days, during which I had to use all of my wits to stay ahead of him. Several times I told him: "I have done nothing. How can I be charged?" Once he asked me: "What would you say if I told you they are about to execute Sir Tom?”

“I would say that if they give him a fair trial and he is proved guilty, so be it." But inside I was dying. Take Tom's head from his shoulders? As had been done to my mother? Sir Robert had known the effect that would have upon me. He was watching my face closely. "It appears the council is denying him an open trial. They have drawn up a bill of attainder. Have you anything else to say, Princess Elizabeth?" A bill of attainder, a definite conclusion of his guilt.

"Yes. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten for two days. And I'm concerned over the welfare of my people. Where is my tutor? Where are my knights? Your soldiers have tramped all through my house. It smells of horses and men."

My show of strength, my quick thinking, my wits had impressed him. He told me that the written confessions of Cat Ashley and Mr. Parry were exactly alike. They told of my being smitten with Sir Tom, of my and his sexual play in my chamber, of the day Katharine caught me on his lap, kissing. But they told no more. They told no more because there was no more to tell. Mr. Parry and Cat Ashley both had been threatened with torture, shown thumb screws and other instruments of pain, so their confessions were believed to be the truth. There was nothing in the confessions to connect either them or me to Sir Tom's conspiracy to overthrow the government.

"I see no definite proof of treason," Sir Robert said. Shortly after that he withdrew. He left with his men and horses and I had to gather my trembling self. Both Roger Ascham and William Grindal had taught me that the truth always solves matters. And so now, inwardly, I thanked them. I dressed myself in a deep blue-colored velvet gown. Over it I put a stiff stomacher. There were separate lace sleeves and at least fifty tiny buttons on the front of the gown. I struggled, dressing myself, but I must do it. Then I put on my ruby cross and went downstairs and like a Queen, set my maids about cleaning and sweetening the house.

I ordered applewood fires and the fragrance of lilac for my chamber. I ordered a dinner to be cooked for myself and Roger Ascham and my knights, of my favorite foods. I was starving, though I could scarce eat. I awaited word of my Pussy Cat and Mr. Parry. Before he left, Sir Robert had made a parting shot by telling me that there was a rumor about that I was pregnant with Tom's child.

After dinner I wrote in anger to the Protector, telling him to have this rumor put down, that it was slander to my family name as sister to the King and daughter of Henry VIII. And that I must see my brother, Edward. I finally got permission to go. I arrived at the palace on a windy, cloudy March day, my knights and yeomen accompanying me. But there was no Pussy Cat Ashley to comfort or encourage me, and my maids could not fill that role. I found Edward in his presence chamber, surrounded by his squires and servants, his maps and telescopes, his magnetic needle and astrolabe. He loved comets and rainbows. He loved to talk about the New World and sending ships out to explore.

"Make way for the sister of the King!”

“Elizabeth!" He reached out a slender hand. Oh, he'd gotten so tall! At eleven his face had thinned so that the jawline defined a troubled youth. His eyes seemed over-large and mournful. I knelt at his feet and he raised me up and hugged me, and I felt in the hug all the longing and fear he was feeling. He sent his men from the room so we could be alone.

"The matter you wrote to the Protector about has been taken care of," he told me. "The rumors are quelled. I am sorry you had to endure all that, Elizabeth, but your name had to be cleared.”

“Edward, are they going to execute Tom?”

“I am afraid so.”

“But can't you stop it?”

“I think, right now, that the Protector himself couldn't stop his brother's execution," he told me. "Tom was going to kidnap me. He shot my dog, Elizabeth. He poisoned Katharine. You know how I loved Katharine.”

“I don't think he did that, Edward. It's a vicious rumor.”

“Well, of course you wouldn't believe it. You loved him. But I dare not go against the council or my Protector. And I wish you would separate yourself from Thomas, Elizabeth. He wanted to overthrow my government. There was treason!”

“What about Cat Ashley and Mr. Parry? Will you let them out of the Tower?”

“Ah," he said, "two foolish but lovable people. I know they told the truth. And my Uncle Tom, when questioned, never implicated you or them in his schemes.”

“You will let them go, then?”

“For you, yes." We hugged again, and I felt the tremendous burden of loving anyone bearing down inside me. On the twentieth of March they beheaded Thomas Seymour. His brother, the Protector, did not go to the execution. They said that on Thomas's last night he wrote two secret letters, one to me and one to my sister, Mary. I never received one. Neither did she. But we were told the contents. In the letters was an admonition to "overthrow the Protector and bring him to the same end." Tom gone. A dashing, handsome courtier, full of devilment and laughter and at the business of breaking women's hearts every day. That's how I had first seen him. But he had another side--a scheming, dishonest side--that dealt in betrayal every day. How could such a force be gone from the earth? Despite all that I had learned about him, I could not accept it.

I fell into doldrums, with headaches and body aches and loss of appetite. And then, one fine day in June, two things happened. Roger Ascham leaned forward across the table in the middle of my lessons and asked my permission to take a sabbatical. "I'd like to travel abroad for a while," he said. "I need to fill up my soul with wisdom. You are grown now, Princess. You are becoming wiser than I. I need to replenish my mind so I can continue to teach you. I am drying up here."

I never thought of Roger as having a mind that could "dry up." But I did wonder sometimes how he could teach all day, five days a week, and never stop talking and reasoning and conjecturing.

"I give my permission," I said in as dignified manner as I could. "But I shall miss you."

"You have just come through a tremendous crisis with all the aplomb and wisdom of a Queen," he said. "You can do without me for a while. I shall miss you too."

On that same day, Cat Ashley and Mr. Parry came back to me. She begged my forgiveness after a moment or two of hugging. "For what?" I asked.

"For not standing by you. For talking. For telling them about ..." Her voice trailed off.

"There is nothing to forgive," I told her. And him.

"We have all come through some dreadful nightmare and we must now rest and heal." Pussy Cat told me about her dank cell, about her jailer, a man who treated her well, and about how she had constantly "asked for you, Princess. I think my position as your nurse saved me much pain in prison."

Mr. Parry told me about Richard Rich, the Chief Inquisitor. "He is known to be the most devious and heartless they have," Mr. Parry said.

"They made us talk; they showed us the rack and thumb screws. I am sorry.”

“You told the truth," I assured them both. "And it was just that. And it didn't amount to treason."

A moment later, our first moment alone, Pussy Cat looked at me. "My lady," she said, "you have grown up. You are a little girl no longer."

There was fear in her face. I was not yet sixteen.

***CHAPTER ELEVEN

In spite of myself, I went into weeks of brooding after Sir Thomas's death. I put aside my silks and velvets and wore white, plain and simple, that summer. I developed crippling headaches again and took to my bed. Cat did not know what to do with me so she tiptoed around my chamber making clucking noises and calling me "child," she who had said I was finally grown up. I also missed Roger Ascham and his quiet encouragement. I could not eat and I lost weight. Sir Tom. I could not stop thinking of him, of the way he had made me feel. He had been convicted of three and thirty counts of high treason. He'd been accused of having ten thousand men ready for an insurrection. He had not died well, they said. He made no last-minute speech, he did not ask for forgiveness, he did not bless the King. He had to be dragged to the block on Tower Green and went to his death fighting his jailers to the last.

"Never again," I told myself once more. "Never again will I let any man hold sway over me."

It was 1549. Four months went by with my scarcely seeing anyone except members of my household. To lift my spirits, Edward sent me some household gifts, mostly tapestries. Twenty-one pieces in all, five showing hunting and hawking scenes and four with the history of Hercules, others with scenes from the Bible. He sent me dozens of Turkish carpets, a rich bed canopy with matching curtains, two chairs upholstered in cloth of gold and red velvet, and thirteen velvet and embroidered cushions for window seats. To accommodate these new furnishings we redecorated Hatfield. I had the great chamber that was the main reception room refurbished. It was where my knights and yeomen spent their time, as guards of honor. The same was done to the presence chamber, where I received important visitors. The place needed a new face inside and I thought perhaps it would brighten things. It came to me from those I had spying for me at court that my marriage was under discussion. The proposals came in, one after another.