Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

46

The city rallied behind Queen Mary. We heard that she gave a stirring speech at the Guildhall, then retreated to the Palace of St. James—the house King Henry had built in the middle of the open fields west of Whitehall. Tom Wyatt and his army dithered on the Southwark side of London Bridge, then marched upriver in search of another way across the Thames.

“Every other bridge will have been broken down as well,” I said when Griggs brought the latest news to the house in Carter Lane. My aunt and I huddled there, afraid to venture out. Although she was Lady Warner now, some of her neighbors knew of her connection to the rebel leader. Others had seen her current husband taken away by the queen’s men.

Aunt Elizabeth was bitter. “My son’s father raised a fool,” she lamented.

Wild rumors proliferated until no one knew what to believe. Then the weather conspired to make everyone’s life a misery. Shrove Tuesday dawned dark and wet and the downpour soon turned the streets into great water-filled pits. I could only imagine what quagmires the roads outside the city had become.

The next day dawned bright and numbingly cold.

“The Earl of Pembroke and Lord Clinton took Wyatt straight to the Tower after he surrendered,” Griggs reported, “and Thomas Brooke with him.”

“What of William and George?” I asked.

“Captured but not yet in the Tower.”

“Is there any news of Will or my father?”

“Nothing, my lady.” Griggs scratched his large, slightly flattened nose and frowned. “But that’s good news, isn’t it? It would be all over London if they’d been hanged.”

I took what comfort I could from that.

Two days later, the bodies began to appear—executed rebels hanging on every city gate, in Paul’s Churchyard, and at every crossroads. The remains were left in view for a full day as a warning and then were replaced by more victims of Queen Mary’s vengeance.

Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley were executed on the twelfth of February. On the nineteenth, my brother Thomas was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Maidstone. I did not understand why he had been singled out, but I was sick at heart that all his youth, his promise, would be snuffed out even before he attained his majority.

On the twenty-third of February, Lady Jane Grey’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, was executed.

Aunt Elizabeth and I supported each other, moving through those terrible days with little to sustain us but prayer. No one came near the house in Carter Lane. Only Griggs went out to dispatch letters and bring back news and supplies. It was early March before any of the frantic messages I sent to Will’s wife, Viscountess Bourchier, finally produced a reply.

This time when I went to court, it was to see the queen.

Queen Mary received me in a private room, seated in a chair on a platform under a canopy. She was surrounded by russet-clad ladies, Nan Bassett among them. Anne Bourchier was present, too, dressed in finery befitting her rank. Music played softly in the background.

The last time I’d seen Her Grace, she’d come to court to visit her brother. She had been a splendid sight then, but she was dressed even more extravagantly now. Her gown was a rich mulberry red embroidered with hundreds of pearls. Rings glittered on every finger. And yet, all the rich trappings in the world could not disguise the air of melancholy that clung to her. If she was relieved to have retained her throne, she did not show it. Instead she looked as if the burden of ruling England had already worn her down.

I had heard she’d been crowned king as well as queen and wondered if that made her responsibilities greater. Once slender, then thin, now she appeared emaciated. The lines in her face were deeper, and her skin was so pale that I could see the veins in her forehead. Had she been anyone but the person who held my husband’s life in her hands, I might have felt sorry for her.

“Your Grace,” I said as I curtsied.

“Mistress Brooke. You have come to plead for your kinsmen?”

“My father and brothers,” I said, “and one other who had naught to do with the late treasons against Your Grace.”

“You may state your case.”

I told her first of Father’s efforts on her behalf, omitting his reason for sending the French dispatches to Bishop Gardiner and warning the Duke of Norfolk and refusing to surrender Cowling Castle until he had no other choice. Then I painted a picture of my brothers as young men deceived by a clever, lying rogue—their own cousin. It was not difficult to blacken Tom Wyatt’s reputation. His roistering days with the Earl of Surrey had been notorious. Even as a sheltered, unworldly princess, Mary Tudor had apparently heard the stories.

“I will consider what you have told me.” Her Grace’s words were a clear dismissal.

“There is one other innocent in this,” I said in a rush. “Sir William Parr knew nothing of the conspiracy. He was in prison when the rebels met and plotted. It was only by chance that he was associated with anyone connected to the uprising.”

I did not want to say straight out that Sir Edward Warner had been one of the original conspirators. I had no way of knowing if the queen was already aware of that fact and I did not wish to repay Aunt Elizabeth’s many kindnesses by driving another nail into her husband’s coffin. On the other hand, I would do anything, sacrifice anyone, to save Will.

“Sir William Parr is not your concern,” the queen said.

I bowed my head in acknowledgment, but I could not stop myself from trying one more time to convince Her Grace to spare him. “I have accepted that we had no true marriage. I was not with him when he was arrested. But I know Sir William’s heart, Your Grace. He did much regret having assisted the Duke of Northumberland. He would never have joined yet another conspiracy against the Crown.”

The queen’s oddly mannish voice remained stern. “I will consider your request, but if I do release Sir William it will be on the condition that you never see him more. He is another woman’s husband. If I should hear that you and he have returned to living in sin, I will be obliged to imprison you both and keep you apart by force.”

“I understand, Your Grace.” I backed out of her presence before I gave in to the temptation to say anything more.

I left the palace uncertain as to what Queen Mary meant to do with Will. She had made no promises, only threats. And when, on Palm Sunday—the very day the conspirators had originally planned to stage their uprising—Elizabeth Tudor was incarcerated in the Tower of London, I despaired of ever seeing my Will again. Many disappeared behind those walls. Few were released. Jack Dudley was still a prisoner, along with his younger brothers, Ambrose, Robin, and Henry. Their mother, with whom I’d kept in touch by letter, had been unceasing in her efforts on their behalf. She haunted the court and inundated the queen with petitions for her sons’ release, but nothing she had done had secured their freedom.

And then a miracle happened. It was on Good Friday, the twenty-third of March, that Queen Mary issued pardons to the men she called “the greater rebels” involved in Tom Wyatt’s rebellion. Will was one of them. He was released the following day and came at once to the house in Carter Lane, accompanied by my father and all three of my brothers.

“Have you all been pardoned?” I asked when I’d kissed Will thoroughly and assured myself that he was in good health. In contrast to the last time he’d been a prisoner, he appeared to have been well fed and supplied with adequate heat.

“I was never indicted,” Father said, “and do not require a pardon. A letter I wrote to the queen before I escaped from the rebel camp, detailing the siege of Cowling Castle and my efforts on Her Gracious Majesty’s behalf, inclined the queen to mercy. And it did not hurt that the Count d’Egmont, an old friend from my time in Calais, interceded for me. He is a good fellow, for all that he is a cousin of the king of Spain.”

“We have not received pardons yet,” Thomas said, speaking for himself and William and George, although he had been the only one of the three under sentence of death, “but we’d not have been released if she did not intend to grant them.”

“She awaits the payment of my fine.” Father’s good cheer dimmed. “The pardons will be forthcoming as soon as she receives her money.” He shook a finger at his sons. “Your lives did not come cheap, lads. The family coffers will be lighter by nearly five hundred pounds before this is over. Perhaps I should reconsider whether you are worth the cost.”

Since we all knew that Father would pay far more than that to keep his family intact, this led to a spate of relieved laugher and joking. I did not find as much amusement in this byplay as the others did, but I was relieved to have them all safe. I sat beside Will as he sipped a hot posset, touching him now and again to reassure myself that he was truly there.

“What of you, my love?” I asked. “Did anyone tell you why the queen released you?”

“Other than the fact of my innocence and the lack of any evidence against me?”

I had to smile at his wry tone. “Other than that.”

“I’m told that Her Grace no longer believes she has anything to fear from me. The Spanish ambassador wanted my head, but Queen Mary assured him that I will be faithful to her from this day forward.”

“How can she be so certain of that?” George asked. Lounging in front of the fire with his feet up on a stool, he had been watching us through half-closed eyes.

“Because I left the Tower with nothing but what I am wearing on my back.”

“An odd reasoning,” William said. He stood with his back propped against the window frame, as much at ease as George was. “I should think that would make you resent her the more.”

“She has left me with my life. For that I am grateful.”

Father looked up from the hearty stew Aunt Elizabeth had served all the returning warriors and gave Will a sharp look. “What will you do now, Parr? Where will you go?”

“You cannot stay here.” Aunt Elizabeth spoke for the first time. Her husband had not been released. Her son, too, remained in the tower. He had not yet been executed, but it was only a matter of time before he faced a grisly death.

“No,” Will agreed. “I cannot, but there are other old friends who will take me in, I think. At least for a little while.”

I cleared my throat. “There is a way for you to regain the queen’s favor.”

Every eye fixed on me.

“She wants you to reconcile with Anne Bourchier.”

“Never!”

“You’d only have to pretend. She does not want you any more than you want her.”

“I’d rather swim the Thames in the middle of winter.”

“That cold, is she?” my brother William quipped.

The tension in the room dissolved in cleansing laughter, but the lighter mood did not last. They soon had the whole story out of me—my earlier meeting with Will’s wife, before he was released the first time, and my interview with Queen Mary, arranged by Viscountess Bourchier. I concluded my tale by telling them of the threat against both Will and me if we did not separate.

Although it clearly grieved him, Will agreed that it would be unwise to offend the queen. “You’ll be better off at Cowling Castle for the nonce.”

But Father was shaking his head. “We do not need more attention paid to us. There is only one way I could welcome Bess back into the bosom of her family and stay in the queen’s good graces. I’d need to arrange a marriage for her.”

“I am already married!”

“No, you are not. You’ve lost that battle. We’ve all lost. We have no choice but to accept and rebuild. No more rebellions of any kind. Your only safety, Bess, lies in letting me choose a husband for you.”

I knew he meant well, that he wanted only what was best for me, but some small part of me hoped for another miracle, a way to stay with Will. “I cannot marry another. I will not.” I turned my beseeching gaze to Will. “Perhaps we can still escape into exile. Or perhaps the queen will die!”

“Devil take it, Bess! Do not say such a thing aloud!” my father said.

“There’s no one here but family, Father.”

“In these troubled times, a kinsman can be as deadly as a sworn enemy.” He sent Aunt Elizabeth a pointed look. She glared back at him, having lost as much as any of us by her son’s ill-conceived uprising.

Will said nothing. Like my father, he wanted to keep me safe. As I had been when I’d told the queen I’d give Will up, he was willing to sacrifice our happiness for our lives. But I had never intended our separation to be permanent. Someday, somehow, we would find a way to be together again. I had to believe that or there was no point in living at all.

My brother George broke the silence. “If you won’t come home, where will you go?” he asked.

I drew in a steadying breath. If Cowling Castle was not a choice, then there was only one possibility left. “To Chelsea,” I said. “To the Duchess of Northumberland.”