Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

40

The tempest began with a downpour in the early evening of the sixth day of July. Before long, hailstones fell from the sky. They crashed against the windows that overlooked the Thames, peppering them so hard that cracks appeared in the expensive glass. The wind howled. My ladies lent their shrieks to the cacophony until I ordered them to be silent.

“It is only a storm,” I said, turning away from the disturbing sight.

My chief waiting gentlewoman, Mistress Crane—known as Birdie both for her sharp blade of a nose and her surname—let out a terrified shriek and pointed at the window behind me. “The hailstones have turned bloodred! It is an evil portent. Soon real blood will be spilled.”

Frowning, I looked for myself. It was true that the hail did have a pinkish tinge. “It is only light reflected from the setting sun,” I said, still striving for calm.

“But the storm clouds obscure the sun.”

A flash of lightning and the nearly simultaneous crack of thunder saved me the trouble of answering. I gave thanks that Winchester House had been built on a sturdy stone foundation. We would remain safe so long as we stayed within its walls, no matter how unnatural the weather. I was not quite ready to believe in omens, but I could feel the odd quality to the air. It made my skin prickle.

Cautiously, not quite certain I wanted to take a closer look, I approached the cracked window. The water in the Thames roiled and churned. It had swamped several wherries, caught halfway across the river when the storm hit. Passengers and boatmen alike clung to the overturned watercraft. Bigger vessels docked at the many wharves along the riverfront were likewise battered by the high winds and driving rain. The hail, at least, had passed, but the strip of ground below my window was littered with gray-white pebbles, some as big as tennis balls.

Lightning flashed again and I gasped as it struck one of the many church steeples in the city. The spire slowly tumbled to the street below. Now that, I thought, was a bad sign. My gaze shifted downriver, toward Greenwich. I could not see that far, but my thoughts continued on past London Bridge, past the Tower, straight to my husband and his deathwatch.

If nature rebelled at the loss of a king, then Edward was gone.

Superstitious nonsense, I told myself.

But what else could account for the devastation in front of my eyes? As I watched, a house on the opposite shore was swept away by the rising water. “A heavy rain at high tide always causes flash floods,” I murmured, but a shudder racked my body from head to toe.

The storm passed as abruptly as it had begun. When night fell, I lit every candle in my privy chamber and waited. I knew something momentous had happened, but it was nearly midnight before Will arrived home.

“He’s dead?” I asked.

There were tears in Will’s eyes as he confirmed that King Edward had departed this life at the exact hour the storm had struck London. “He suffered terribly at the end, Bess. Poor lad. He’s at peace now.”

“And we are left behind to carry out his wishes.”

“His and the duke’s. Northumberland wants to keep the king’s death quiet for a day or two, until everything is in readiness to proclaim Jane queen.”

“Until he has Princess Mary in custody, you mean.”

“He’s dispatched his son Robin with a small force to secure her person. And he’s sent word to his duchess to inform Queen Jane of her new status.”

“And Lady Jane’s mother, Lady Suffolk?”

“She met in private with the king a few days before his death and agreed to cede her claim to the throne to her children.”

I wondered how Northumberland had coerced her and her husband into giving up the chance to rule England themselves, but I did not ask. All that mattered was that they had, and that the Lady Jane, who would support the religious reforms of her predecessors and with them my marriage to Will, was now queen of England.

Will stayed the night. We made love in silence, finding satisfaction and comfort in each other’s arms, but it was not a celebration. He left to return to Greenwich at the crack of dawn.

I boarded our second, smaller barge and was rowed upriver the short distance to Durham House. Although the sun was barely up when I arrived at the water gate, Jane Northumberland was already dressed in court finery.

“How fares our new queen?” I asked.

“Wretched girl. She is not here. She is at Chelsea.”

“Be careful, Jane,” I said with a weak smile. “That ‘wretched girl’ is queen of England now.”

“I should have locked her in her chamber.” Jane’s words carried more heat than was her wont. “She’s been difficult from the first. And once my lord husband informed her of her new status as King Edward’s heir, she grew more unmanageable still.”

“It is only natural she should be upset at the news that His Grace was dying. They spent a good deal of time together when they were younger.” When Tom Seymour was her guardian he’d seen to that. Tom had meant to marry Lady Jane to King Edward. I wondered if the girl had known of his plans for her.

“She was surprised, I suppose, by her good fortune,” Jane Northumberland allowed, “but she seemed willing enough to accept that Mary Tudor should not rule, given Mary’s religious leanings. The only thing that seemed to bother my new daughter-in-law was that she had taken her mother’s place in the succession. She demanded to speak with Frances, and when I refused permission, pointing out that the king’s death was imminent, she left on her own, hiring a wherry to take her to Suffolk Place.”

The girl’s boldness astonished me. I’d not thought her so enterprising, or so determined to have her own way. “You got her back, I trust.”

“She refused to return. I had to send word to Frances that I would keep Gil here until his wife relented. Lady Jane—Your pardon, I mean Queen Jane has grown very fond of her husband. Or at least she’s learned to like the coupling. Frances obligingly reassured her daughter that she does not want the crown for herself, but the foolish girl still balked at coming back to Durham House. Frances and I compromised by sending both newlyweds to Chelsea.”

“Perhaps it is just as well.”

For once, I was the one soothing Jane Northumberland. She was more settled in her mind by the time her daughter, Mary Sidney, arrived at Durham House. Mary had a sensible outlook on life. I supported her suggestion that she should be the one to inform Queen Jane of King Edward’s death and bring her to Syon, another of Northumberland’s houses, this one on the Thames, near Richmond Palace. There those of us most closely involved in the matter would gather to form a water procession that would end at the Tower of London.

“Mary is closer to the new queen’s age,” I argued. “Queen Jane will be more inclined to trust her than one of us.”

“But she is my daughter-in-law,” Jane Northumberland objected.

“And you will be there to greet her when she arrives at Syon.”

A few hours later, after the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk arrived at Durham House, Mary Sidney left to fetch Queen Jane. She was instructed not to tell the new queen that King Edward was dead. That unhappy duty was to be left for the Privy Council. At the same time, the Duchesses of Suffolk and Northumberland and I, as Marchioness of Northampton as well as Lady Northumberland’s close friend, embarked for Syon. By the time Queen Jane arrived there, so had the Duke of Northumberland and Will and other councilors. Lord Guildford Dudley was conspicuous by his absence. He had not been at Chelsea when his sister arrived. The new queen’s father, Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, was hastily dispatched to find him.

Together with the two duchesses and several other ladies who were privy to what had happened, Geraldine Clinton among them, I waited in an anteroom while the councilors informed Queen Jane that she was their new sovereign.

After a considerable time had passed, Mary Sidney hurried in. “The lords are having difficulty explaining the situation to Her Grace. My father requests your assistance, Lady Suffolk.”

When Frances followed Mary Sidney into the other room, Jane Northumberland and I were close behind. The Duke of Northumberland had seated Queen Jane on the dais in a chair placed under the canopy of state. While we listened, he told Her Grace that King Edward was dead. He spoke of the legacy His Grace had left and then officially informed Queen Jane that Edward had nominated her to succeed him.

Her Grace promptly burst into tears and was inconsolable for some minutes. When she could finally speak, she blurted out what was in her heart: “The crown is not my right and does not please me. The Lady Mary is the rightful heir.”

Shock rippled through the chamber. Jane Northumberland gasped aloud. Frances Suffolk took a step toward her daughter, hand raised as if she would slap sense into her. She stopped short of landing a blow, remembering that it was treason to strike a queen.

“Your Grace wrongs both yourself and your house,” Northumberland said. “It was King Edward’s command that you succeed him. The Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth have no legal claim to the throne. Their mothers were never married to King Henry VIII, while you, Your Grace, are a direct and legitimate descendant of King Henry’s father, Henry VII, through his daughter Mary, your grace’s own grandmother.”

“It is your duty to your faith to accept the crown,” Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, told her daughter. “Would you give England back to Rome?”

Neither argument had any effect on Queen Jane. She continued to sob.

At that moment, the Duke of Suffolk arrived with Gil Dudley. That young man did not resemble either Harry or Jack physically, but I searched his face, hoping to find some vestige of his brothers’ sense of responsibility. Lord Guildford seemed hesitant to thrust himself forward and remained silent, but his eyes never left Queen Jane. Was that out of genuine concern for her? Or because he was waiting for his father’s orders?

I sidled closer. When I was near enough, I caught hold of Gil’s sleeve and tugged on it to get his attention. “A gentle wooing would not go amiss,” I whispered. “Your bride is frightened by the burden so suddenly thrust upon her. Let her know that she has someone with whom she can share it.”

Gil followed my advice, approaching the queen to offer first a handkerchief and then kind words. Light touches followed. She turned her tear-ravaged face to him and listened and in the end accepted the responsibility she owed both God and country. With her tall, handsome husband standing behind her chair of state, Queen Jane allowed those gathered before her to pledge their fealty.

We stayed that night at Syon, celebrating with a great banquet. Queen Jane retired early, with her husband. The next morning, we set out for London, traveling downriver on barges from Syon to Westminster. I felt as if I had never truly seen the city before, with its towering walls of silver-gray stone and redbrick. The houses of the gentry and lesser nobility, simple structures of wood and plaster, were dwarfed by Westminster Abbey and Whitehall Palace. We stopped at the latter so that Queen Jane could be dressed in a green velvet gown trimmed in gold. Gil’s garments were a dazzling white, so that the Tudor colors would be on display.

“Her Grace is too short,” Northumberland complained, looking Queen Jane up and down. She was a tiny girl and looked even more so standing next to her husband. “The crowds will not be able to see her.”

The problem was solved by a high, white, close-fitting headdress heavy with jewels and by attaching three-inch chopines to the bottoms of Queen Jane’s shoes.

We moved on to Durham House to dine. While we ate, the Privy Council made final plans. Then we were on our way again, traveling downriver through the city of London to the Tower of London. The royal apartments there had been prepared to receive the new monarch.

It was a heady journey. Huge crowds gathered and cheered, although they must have been puzzled by the display—the king’s death had yet to be announced. Queen Jane and Lord Guildford were not the only ones resplendent in luxurious fabrics and glittering jewels. We all wore our best. I had rarely seen so many diamonds and sapphires and emeralds. When the sun struck them, they shone in all their brilliance.

Cannon boomed as we approached the Tower. By the time Northumberland helped Queen Jane onto the wharf, rumors of the king’s death had begun to spread. The crowd expected to see Princess Mary and was confused when Queen Jane and her young husband appeared, walking beneath a ceremonial canopy. Having this held over their heads clearly indicated royal birth, but no one recognized the couple.

“They do not know her,” I whispered to Will.

“As soon as we are safely within the Tower’s walls,” he whispered back, “proclamations will be read to announce to the people of London that Jane is their new queen.”

We passed through the Lion Gate. Waiting just inside were the lord lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward Warner, and his wife. Once Queen Jane passed by, Aunt Elizabeth enveloped me in a warm hug. I had seen her from time to time since her marriage, but not often. I promised to come and sup with her in the lord lieutenant’s lodgings and then hurried after Her Grace.

“This way, Lord Guildford,” Sir Edward said when Queen Jane had been shown into the royal apartments. “I will take you to the consort’s lodgings.”

“You will address me as Your Grace,” Lord Guildford said.

“You are not king, Gil,” Queen Jane said in a soft voice, laying one hand on her husband’s white satin sleeve.

He stiffened and glared at her. “I will be.”

“No, Gil, you will not. You are my consort only.”

“I was promised—”

“Not by me.”

Gil continued to protest in heated terms. The queen remained firm. She had issued her first royal decree and did not intend to change her mind. After a few more minutes of fruitless argument, Lord Guildford stormed off in high dudgeon. His mother went after him.

Queen Jane studied those of us who remained, then told everyone to leave except her own woman, Mistress Tilney, and young Lady Throckmorton, a knight’s wife.

I exited the royal apartments and went in search of Will. We were to remain in the Tower for the time being. Officially, I was one of the great ladies of the household to Queen Jane.

When I found him, I recounted the scene between Queen Jane and her husband. “Her Grace may not be as easy to control as Northumberland believed,” I warned, “and yet I think she may have the makings of a strong ruler. She certainly put Lord Guildford in his place!”

The Duke of Northumberland, and Will with him, left the Tower after dinner on the thirteenth of July. Mary Tudor had eluded capture by Lord Robin Dudley and was gathering support in the countryside. Northumberland forces, six hundred strong, were mustering at the duke’s Durham House and at the royal palace of Whitehall and would march out, passing through London, the next morning. This army included Will and three of Northumberland’s sons—Jack, Ambrose, and Robin Dudley—but Gil would remain with Queen Jane in the Tower.

A few privy councilors were also to stay behind, among them my father. We supped together with Aunt Elizabeth that evening in high spirits. We were confident that Mary would be in custody within the week and Queen Jane’s hold on the throne secure. I gave a passing thought to Elizabeth Tudor, but everyone said she had no legitimate claim to the Crown and I soon forgot about her again.

On the morning of the nineteenth, Queen Jane announced, after breaking her fast, that she intended to leave the Tower to attend a christening at the church of All Hallows Barking.

“You cannot go,” her mother said. “It is neither safe nor seemly for you to leave the Tower before your coronation.”

“I promised Master Underhill that I would stand godmother to his six-day-old son.” The queen’s lower lip crept forward in a pout.

“Send a proxy,” Jane Northumberland suggested. “That is what queens do.”

“I suppose it is.” Her Grace looked thoughtful. “Lady Throckmorton, you will go in my stead. You are to name the boy Guildford, after my husband.”

“As you wish, Your Grace,” Lady Throckmorton said. “May I ask a boon? I should like to dine at my own house afterward and retrieve one or two things I did not have time to collect before I came here.”

Queen Jane graciously granted permission.

Soon after Lady Throckmorton left the precincts, my father sent word for me to meet him in the lord lieutenant’s lodgings. I was glad of the excuse to leave the queen’s apartments. The day seemed likely to proceed exactly as those preceding it had—uneventful, even dull, with entirely too much praying for my liking. I was counting the days until Will’s return, but had no premonition that everything was not going smoothly. By now, I was certain, Mary Tudor had been captured.

“I am about to leave, Bess,” Father said. “It would be best if you came with me.”

“Leave?” I stared at him blankly.

“The other lords of the council have already fled.”

The image of rats leaving a sinking ship sprang immediately to my mind. A sick feeling crept into my belly. “But why?” I whispered.

“The tide has turned. Mary Tudor is marching toward London at the head of an army. The common people flock to her. In their understanding, she is her brother’s rightful heir. That matters more to them than their fear of a return to the Church of Rome.”

“But . . . but King Edward made his cousin Jane his legal heir. We are only carrying out the late king’s dying command.”

His pitying look told me that this signified nothing. A terrible coldness encased my limbs. The people had turned against Northumberland, and Will was with the duke’s army. He was in danger. My legs suddenly felt too weak to support my weight. I grasped Father’s arm for support.

He broke my hold with no more effort than it would have taken to dislodge a clinging toddler. “There is only one course open to us now, Bess, if we want to avoid attainder for treason. Pembroke, Clinton, and some of the others have gone to the Earl of Pembroke’s London house, Baynard’s Castle. I will join them there and together we will proclaim Mary queen. I pray to God this gesture will be enough to save me from the headsman’s ax. If you know what’s good for you, daughter, you will make haste to Winchester House, gather up those possessions most dear to you, and abandon the rest.”

“But where am I to go? And what of Will?”

“Cowling Castle should be safe. You can take refuge there with your mother.”

“What of Will?” I repeated.

Father sent a pitying look my way as he opened the door. “You can do nothing for him. He’s too entrenched as Northumberland’s second in command.”

As shaken by Father’s abrupt change of allegiance as by his news and his warning, I turned to Aunt Elizabeth after he’d gone. “I do not know what to do,” I wailed. “Will expects me to stay here with Queen Jane, but if I could find him, warn him—we might escape Queen Mary’s wrath if he joins the others at Baynard’s Castle.” What did I care who ruled England, so long as Will was safe?

“If your father is right,” Aunt Elizabeth said, “we will all suffer for our support of Queen Jane. I have no advice to give you, Bess. I am worried about my own husband’s fate.”

“How could things change so fast?”

“Bad luck.” Some of my aunt’s old bitterness, absent since her remarriage, surfaced when she added, “Did the duke think Mary Tudor would not hear rumors that the king was dying? He should have secured her person weeks ago.”

I returned to Queen Jane’s apartments in a troubled state of mind and nearly collided with Geraldine, Lady Clinton, hurrying the other way. She hesitated when she saw me.

“Is something amiss?” I kept my voice level but my heart was in my throat.

“I . . . I am unsure how to answer you.” She avoided meeting my eyes. “My husband has sent word that I am to join him immediately at Baynard’s Castle. He . . . he bade me tell no one that I am leaving.”

At this proof of what Father had already told me, I clamped down hard on my growing fear and forced myself to smile. “You must go, then, and at once.”

“Come with me, Bess.”

But I shook my head. “I cannot go yet.”

Inside the queen’s apartments, nothing seemed to have changed. But even as that thought crossed my mind, a messenger delivered a note to Queen Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk. A look of pure horror crossed his face before he blanked out all emotion. Quietly and without fuss, he left the room.

I told Jane Northumberland what my father had said, but I did not mention Geraldine’s defection. Her absence would be noticed soon enough.

“Nonsense, Bess,” the duchess said, and refused to discuss the matter further. She was as blind as I had been to the possibility of failure.

An hour passed before the Duke of Suffolk returned. Protocol demanded that he bow upon entering the presence of his sovereign, even if she was also his daughter. Instead, he walked straight up to her chair and spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “The Lady Mary has been proclaimed queen. Soldiers have arrived to claim the Tower in her name. I have ordered my men to lay down their arms and surrender.”

The Lady Jane Grey, queen no more, stared at her father in disbelief. Then her hands clenched into fists on the arms of her chair. Her voice was cold and brittle. “You helped persuade me to accept the crown, and now you would take it from me.”

Suffolk did not reply in words, but he took hold of the canopy of state under which his daughter sat and ripped it from its moorings. The Lady Jane fled to an inner room, her ladies and Jane Northumberland trailing after her. The Duchess of Suffolk stayed behind to question her husband in low tones, and after a moment they left together, abandoning their daughter now that she was no longer queen.

I stared at the empty chair. A moment ago, it had been a queen’s throne. Now it was just an ordinary piece of furniture again. The torn canopy lay on the floor where Suffolk had thrown it, ruined, as everything we’d hoped for had been ruined by Northumberland’s failure to capture Queen Mary.

Once Mary was officially proclaimed queen, I would no longer be at court, no longer be Marchioness of Northampton, and no longer be married to Will. For Will the future might be even more bleak. To Queen Mary, Will was a rebel. If her men captured him, she’d execute him for treason. King Edward’s will would be meaningless against the might of a victorious army. Lady Jane Grey’s right to be queen. My right to be married to Will. Both would be overturned because the people supported the heiress they knew—a king’s daughter—over a royal cousin most of them had probably never heard of.

But I’d wager they all knew that the Duke of Northumberland had married that cousin to his own son. Their leaders, and no doubt Queen Mary herself, imagined a dastardly plot in the triple weddings of last Whitsuntide. No amount of argument was likely now to sway them from that false conclusion. Father was right. It was too late for Will to salvage anything. We had been too closely linked to Northumberland for too long.

I rested my forehead against the cool stone of a window casing. Eyes closed, I fought tears of despair. My thoughts circled round and round, going nowhere, until finally, drawing in a deep breath, I lifted my head and looked out at a view of the Thames and Southwark and my gaze fell upon my own home, Winchester House.

Suddenly I knew what I had to do. I would be no use to Will if I was trapped in the Tower. Escape was still possible.

If Will could elude capture, he would look for me at Winchester House, not here in the Tower of London. Once we were reunited, we could go into exile in France. Will had friends there, people he had met when he’d gone to the French court as an ambassador of the king.

I left the royal apartments in haste and made my way through the Tower precincts and out through the Lion Gate. No one tried to stop me. As I hurried along Thames Street on foot, I caught a glimpse of Lady Throckmorton returning from the christening she’d attended as Queen Jane’s representative. I started to call out to her, but thought better of the impulse to warn her. I could not risk drawing attention to myself. She passed into the dark maw of the fortress that was both palace and prison, never suspecting what awaited her within, and the heavy gate closed behind her with an ominous crash.