For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

1

It was hot, even for August; the foul odors from the river, carrying the threat of pestilence, hung in the sullen air that sultry day; but the crowds who were assembling on Tower Hill were oblivious of discomfort. Traders had left their shops or stalls in Candlewick Street, East Chepe, and the Poultry; horse-dealers were coming from Smithfield Square; the goldsmiths from Lombard Street, the mercers of Chepeside had deserted their houses, realizing that there could be little business at such a time. Apprentices, risking a whipping, crept out after their masters, determined to see what could be seen on Tower Hill that day.

Laughing and jesting they came. All men and women believed that the hardships of Henry VII’s reign were behind them and the days of plenty were at hand. No more cruel taxes would be wrung from them; no more fines; no more impositions. The old miser King was dead and in his place was a bonny golden boy who laughed loudly, who jested and made sport, and loved to show himself to the citizens of London.

It was he who had provided this day’s pleasure for them; and it clearly indicated what they might expect of him.

“God bless King Hal!’ they cried. “See how he pleases his people! He is the one for us.”

The cheers for the King mingled with the jeers for the traitors. Some apprentices had made two effigies which they held high above the crowd, to be mocked and pelted with refuse.

“Death to them! Death to the extortioners! Death to the misers, and long life to King Harry!”

Jostling, cursing, laughing, they surged about the hill. At the summit, close to the scaffold, members of the nobility were gathered. The bell of St. Peter ad Vincula had begun to toll.

At the edge of the crowd, not venturing into it, stood a boy. He was pale, soberly dressed, and was staring, mournful and bewildered, at the weather-washed walls of the great fortress which seemed to stand on guard like a stone giant. So grim, so cruel did it seem to the boy, that he turned his gaze from it to the green banks where the starry loosestrife flowers were blooming. He remembered a day—long ago it seemed to him now—when he had taken his little brother to the river’s edge to pick flowers. He remembered how they had strolled along, arms full of blossoms. The flower of the water betony was like the helmet a soldier would wear, and he was reminded that soldiers would soon be coming out of the great prison, and with them would be the men who were to die on Tower Hill that day.

“Death to the traitors!” shouted a man near him. “Death to the tax-gatherers! Death to Dudley and Empson!”

The little boy felt the blood rush to his face, for his name was John Dudley, and his father was one of those who would shortly lay their heads upon the block.

He would not look, this little John. He dared not. Why had he come? He knew not. Was it because he had hoped to see a miracle? His father had seemed to him the cleverest man in England; and not only did he seem so to John, but to others, for Edmund Dudley, a humble lawyer, had become chief adviser to the King. But kings die, and often favors die with them; and a friend to one king may be a traitor to another; and if that king is desirous of winning his people’s love, and those people demand a man’s head as a symbol of his love—then that head is given.

He was standing up there now, the father of the boy. Little John stared at the ground, but he knew what was happening, for he heard the shouts of the people. Then there was silence. He looked up at the sky; he looked at the river; but he dared not look at the scaffold.

His father was speaking. The well-remembered voice rose and fell, but the boy did not hear what he said.

Then all was silent again until there came a shuddering gasp from the crowd. John now knew that he was fatherless.

He stood, helpless and bewildered, not knowing whether to turn shuddering away or to run forward and look with the crowd at his father’s blood.

Now the executioner would be holding up his father’s head, for he heard the cry: “Here is the head of a traitor!”

He wondered why he did not cry. He felt that he never would cry again. The shouting people, the gray fortress, the sullen river—they seemed so indifferent to the plight of one more orphan.

Such a short while ago he had been John Dudley, eldest son of a king’s favorite minister, with a brilliant future before him. Now he was John Dudley—orphan, penniless—the son of a man whom the King had called a traitor.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “John,” said a voice, “you should not be here.”

Turning, he saw standing beside him a man whom he knew well, a man whom he had looked upon in the light of an uncle, one of his father’s great friends in the days of his prosperity—Sir Richard Guildford.

“I … wished to come,” said John haltingly.

“I guessed it,” said Sir Richard. “’Twas a brave thing to do, John.” He looked at the boy quizzically. “And not to shed a tear!”

He slipped his arm through that of the boy and began to lead him away.

“It is better for you not to be here, John,” he said. “What would they do to me?” asked the boy.

“What would they do if they knew I was his son?”

“They’d not harm you, a boy of … how old is it?”

“Nine years, sir.”

“Nine years! ’Tis young to be left alone and helpless … and your mother with two others.”

“They will take all we have …”

Sir Richard nodded. “But ’twas not done for the love of your father’s possessions. It was done to please the people. Who knows …” He looked at the boy shrewdly, but stopped short.

“Did the people so hate my father then?” asked the boy incredulously.

“Kings must have scapegoats, my boy. When a king does what his subjects do not like, that is the fault of his statesmen; it is only when he pleases them that the credit is his. It is the late King against whom the people cry out. Your father and Sir Richard Empson are the scapegoats.”

The boy clenched his fists. “To be a scapegoat! I like that not. I would be a man … and a ruler.”

Then suddenly he began to cry, and the man, walking beside him, helplessly watched the tears roll down his cheeks.

Sir Richard understood. It was natural that the boy should cry. He did not speak for some seconds, then he said: “This day you shall come home with me. Nay, do not concern yourself. I have seen your mother. I have told her that I would find you and take you to my home.”

They had now reached the river’s edge where a barge was waiting; and as they went slowly up the river, the sobs which shook the young body became less frequent.

At length they alighted, and mounted the privy steps which led to the lawns before Sir Richard’s home.

As they entered the mansion, and crossed the great hall, Sir Richard called: “Jane! Where are you, my child?”

A girl, slightly younger than John, appeared in the gallery and looked down on the hall.

“I have a playmate for you, Jane. Come here.”

Jane came solemnly down the great staircase.

“It is John,” she said; and the boy, looking into her face and seeing the tear stains on her cheeks, knew that she too had wept for his father, and was comforted.

“He has suffered much this day, Jane,” said Sir Richard. “We must take care of him.”

Jane stood beside the boy and slipped her hand into his.

Sir Richard watched them. Let the boy forget the shouts of the mob on Tower Hill in the company of little Jane. He was safe with Jane.

As Sir Richard Guildford watched John Dudley grow away from his tragedy in the months that followed, he recognized in him that strength of character which had been Edmund Dudley’s. He was excited by the boy, sensing in him latent ambition, the will to succeed, the passionate desire to bring back honor to the Dudley name. Sir Richard could look with pleasure upon the growing friendship between his daughter and this boy; and nothing less than having John in his own house and bringing him up as his son would satisfy him.

It was not difficult to arrange this, for Sir Edmund’s widow and her children were forced to look to relations and friends for help, and Lady Dudley was only too glad that Sir Richard had taken this interest in her son.

It was Sir Richard’s custom to talk to the boy, to nourish that ambition which he knew was in him; and one day, as they walked in the City to Fleet Lane and over Fleet Bridge and on to Ficquets Fields, Sir Richard talked of John’s father.

“Your father was a great man, John. When he was your age, his position was little better than your own.”

“Nay sir,” said John. “It is true that my father was the son of a small farmer, and himself but a lawyer, yet he was descended from the Lords Dudley; and I am the son of a man who is called a traitor.”

Sir Richard snapped his fingers. “The connection with the Lords Dudley was never proved,” he said, “and I doubt it existed outside your father’s imagination.”

The boy flushed hotly at that, but Sir Richard went on: “Oh, it was clever enough. Dudley needed aristocratic ancestors, but he found them for himself. No doubt he made good use of them. But between ourselves, John, there is more credit due to a man when he has had to climb from the valley to the top of the mountain than when he starts near the top.”

John was silent and Sir Richard continued: “Just for ourselves we will see Sir Edmund Dudley as the son of a farmer, himself a lawyer, yet such a master of his profession that the King sought his aid and through him and his friend Empson, ruled England.”

The boy’s eyes had begun to shine. “The son of a farmer merely—and he one of those who ruled England!”

“What should that teach you? Just this: No matter how lowly you may be, there is no limit—no limit—to the heights to which you may climb. Think of the King. Dare he look too far back? Is it not true that his Tudor ancestor was the son of a groom, and a bastard? Think, boy, think! This is treason and I’ll whisper it. Dudley or Tudor? Is one better than the other? Remember it. Always remember it. Your father had great ambition. It may be now that he looks down from Heaven on you … his eldest son. It may be that he asks himself: What will my son do in this world? Will he rise as I did? Will he learn from my mistakes? Has he the fire within him which will make him a great man? John, I doubt not that your father looks down from Heaven upon you and prays and hopes.”

John did not forget those words. He was determined to be as great a man as his father.

In the games he played, he was always the leader. Already he was Jane’s hero. Sir Richard was pleased as he watched the growing affection between John Dudley and Jane Guildford.

Sir Richard’s position at Court had brought him into contact with the King, who was as yet a careless boy in love with pleasure, yet a boy with an awakening conscience. Sir Richard thought that the King’s conscience might play its part in the future of his young protégé.

Henry still frowned at the name of Dudley. He was well aware that the execution of his father’s favorite and adviser had been carried out for the sake of his, Henry’s, popularity. Henry had not yet come to terms with his conscience. It could not yet persuade him, as it would later, that Dudley and Empson had deserved their fate, so the very mention of the name Dudley brought discomfort to him. But when Sir Richard subtly begged royal permission to ask the Parliament for the repeal of the attainder against the Dudleys, Henry was almost eager to give that permission.

Let the boy inherit his father’s wealth. The King did not want it; he had that vast accumulation of riches, which his own father had amassed through his thrifty reign, to squander. Yes, let the attainder be repealed. Let the son of Edmund Dudley have his father’s riches. The King could then feel happier when the names of Dudley and Empson were mentioned; he could put aside the thought that those two men had been executed to placate the people from whom much of his father’s wealth had been extorted.

The first step was therefore taken. John was no longer penniless. He was a rich parti for young Jane; although he could not yet go to Court.

Sir Richard came home full of excitement. “See what I have done for you, John!” he cried. “Now it will be your turn.”

“Yes, now it is my turn,” said the solemn boy.

Jane watched them gravely, wondering what this was all about. But there was no need to explain such matters to Jane. She was happy because her father was happy; and she saw in John that deep brooding concentration which she respected although she could not share it.

As they went out to the stables together she said: “Something good has happened, has it not?”

He nodded but he said no more then for he did not wish the grooms to hear.

As they rode across the clover-starred meadows, he said: “I am no longer without means. My father’s fortune is to be returned to my family.”

“John … does it mean you will go away?”

He smiled at the fear in her eyes. “If I went away, I should come back. You know, do you not, Jane, that when we are old enough we are to marry?”

“Yes, John,” she answered.

“You will be happy then, Jane. So shall I!”

He was sure of her contentment—as sure as he was that one day he would be a leader of men. It did not occur to her that this might be arrogance on his part; if he was arrogant, then, in her eyes, arrogance was a virtue.

As they cantered across the fields she was thinking of their future, of their marriage and the children they would have.

He too was thinking of the future, but not of his life with Jane. Jane’s love was something he took for granted. The thunder of horses’ hooves seemed to say to him “Dudley—Tudor!”