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Mary & Elizabeth - Emily Purdy (20 page)

BOOK: Mary & Elizabeth - Emily Purdy
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“Madame, I fear you may not see the King. It would do him more harm than good. You make him sad and melancholy, for in your person he sees all his good work undone.”
“No,” I challenged boldly, squaring my shoulders and meeting Northumberland’s cold, lying snake’s eyes, “he sees a strong woman who will not be cowed and ruled by greedy, soulless men like you, who do not fear the wrath of God because their greed for gold and earthly wealth and prominence blinds them to all else. No, in me he sees a woman who will, when she is queen, if God so ordains it, put all the wrongs right!”
“Oh, Madame!” Northumberland said mockingly, widening his eyes and bending and shaking his knees in a parody of extreme fear, “My knees are already shaking with fear!”
“And well they should!” I declared in all seriousness, and spun on my heel and strode briskly from the palace, slapping my riding crop sharply against my full black velvet and red satin skirts, a warrior queen-to-be in the service of God like my grandmother, the great Isabella, who had ousted the Moors from Spain, just as I would one day oust the heretical Protestants from England. That was my destiny!
18
 
Elizabeth
 
“M
y Lady, you must come at once!” Kat’s frantic cries from the foot of the stairs brought me at a run. There was a messenger from the Lord Protector saying that Edward was mortally ill, dying, and I must come at once if I wished to see him before he departed this life.
I ordered my horse saddled—my trunks could follow later by cart—and threw on my riding clothes. But then, inexplicably, just as my booted foot crossed the threshold to step out into the courtyard where my horse and the small retinue that would accompany me awaited, I felt as if a hand had reached out and forcefully yanked me back, adamantly shouting the word
“No!”
right into my ear.
So strong was the feeling, I could not ignore it. I had always had an instinct for self-preservation and I knew that my very life might hang upon heeding that warning voice regardless of whether it came from my conscience or some other source.
I gave a little cry and began to sway. I dropped my riding crop, and raised a hand to my brow as I staggered and slumped in the doorway before I let myself fall in a swoon cushioned by my skirts. My servants, led by a hysterically shrieking Kat, fidgeting and anxious to undo my stays so I could breathe unimpeded, rushed to bear me up, back upstairs, to my bed, and summon a physician.
From my bed, where I complained loudly of pains in my head and stomach to such an extent I easily persuaded my physician to send word to London that I was too unwell to travel, I heard the news that my cousin, Lady Jane Grey, had been married to Northumberland’s youngest son, Guildford, that petulant, gilt-haired pretty boy who was his mother’s preening pet peacock.
My poor little cousin had tried to resist the match, but had been beaten into submission by her parents, and forced to eschew her plain garb for a splendid wedding gown of gold and silver trimmed with pearls, diamonds, and gold lace, and walk sore-backed and stiff-legged to the altar where a vain golden bridegroom more in love with himself than he would ever be with her or anyone else awaited her. Curiously, neither Mary nor I had been invited to the wedding.
That was enough to tell me that these were the ingredients of a new stew Northumberland was brewing. Better to stay here, safe in my bed, I reasoned, and contemplate the position of the pieces on the chessboard of the nation before I made my move.
19
 
Mary
 
I
was on my knees in my private chapel at Hunsdon, praying for my brother, when Susan and Jane burst in to tell me that a messenger had arrived from court. Edward was dying, and begged me to come to him; he didn’t want to die with harsh words hanging between us.
Giving orders for horses to be saddled, and for a small retinue of four guards, a priest, and the more hardy Susan to accompany me, I raced up the stairs to don my riding clothes. As Jane helped me dress, while Susan went off to likewise prepare herself, I gave orders for her to follow with my trunks and a more suitable escort befitting my station. But right now I must travel light; speed was of the essence. Then down the stairs I ran, and out into the courtyard. Disdaining the proffered assistance of my groom, I sprang into the saddle astride—now was not the time to be ladylike—dug in my heels, plied my crop, and took off at a gallop, leaving the rest of my startled and amazed entourage to recover their wits and hasten after me.
I was frantic to reach Edward in time so that he could die in peace. And perhaps, on the threshold of death, between Heaven and Hell, he would listen to me and embrace the true faith with his dying breath; for this reason I had asked one of my priests to accompany me. As I galloped through the night toward London, my deep crimson skirts flapping up and down like red wings with the motion of my mount, my limp, thin hair slipping from its pins beneath my feathered cap, I prayed in time to the rhythm of the hoofbeats.
“Please don’t let it be too late, please don’t let it be too late . . .”
Suddenly I spied a dark figure standing in the road ahead, faintly lit by a lantern held in his left hand, while he extended his right to me, palm emphatically outward, fingers stiff and pointing up straight to the sky, in a gesture that screamed the word
halt!
I reined in my mount so sharply to avoid colliding with him that I nearly went flying over my horse’s head. My heart began to race and pound and my mind teemed with lurid and frightening tales of highwaymen who waylaid travelers and divested them of all their valuables and sometimes left them lying dead or dying in pools of blood in the dusty road while they galloped off with their ill-gotten gains.
As he came toward me, I saw he wore a dark hooded cloak and beneath it a scarf was wound so that it concealed the lower portions of his face, whilst the hood and a black mask hid the rest so there appeared to be only blackness where a face should have been.
“Who are you?” I demanded in a commanding tone, drawing myself up straight in the saddle. “How dare you waylay me like this? Do you know who I am?”
Silently, he came toward me and thrust a folded square of paper up at me. He wore no rings, I saw, so there was no signet ring bearing a family crest that I could identify him by, if he were indeed of a noble family as his commanding bearing seemed to suggest.
Puzzled, I bent my head and, in the orange glow of the lantern he held for me, I unfolded the paper and read:
The king is dead.
Turn back NOW!
You are riding into a trap.
Northumberland lies in wait for you.
His son Robert is leading an army to arrest you.
Prepare to fight for your throne.
Do NOT let them take you!
God save Queen Mary!
 
“Who are you?”
I demanded. “Is this . . . can this be true?”
He nodded his head once, most emphatically, and I knew the words written on that paper did not lie.
“Why do you not speak? Are you mute?” And then the truth suddenly dawned on me. “You don’t want me to recognize your voice!”
He stood before me in the road again and lifted his arm and jabbed his finger in an adamant point back in the direction I had come, over and over again, the gesture urgently screaming
“Go! Now!”
“Thank you,” I said falteringly, as the enormity of the words written on that piece of paper sank in. Edward, my poor dear little brother, was already dead—he had died a heretic instead of in the true faith—and Northumberland and his hell-bound lackeys were already moving to keep me from the throne that was my right by birth. I must not let them do it! “Whoever you are, I thank you.” And, fighting to hold back my tears, I turned my mount around, dug in my heels, and galloped back the way I had come, with my bewildered and mystified entourage following after.
Whoever the mysterious dark man who came out of the shadows to warn me was I never did discover.
20
 
Elizabeth
 
L
ying in the quiet of my bed, with the curtains drawn, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.
I had always known Edward would never make old bones. A recent attack of smallpox following hard on the heels of a virulent case of measles had fatally undermined his constitution, and a consumption of the lungs had set in. I heard he was worn to a shadow by a constant racking cough and often brought up blood.
Northumberland clearly relished his role as the power behind the throne and was loathe to relinquish it as he surely must with Edward’s death.
Mary was next in line to the throne, and as an ardent Catholic, would undermine the Protestant regime, reverse it out of existence in her vain attempt to turn back the clock to the happy days of her youth, and root out what she saw as heresy with all the zeal of a pig after truffles. She would never suffer Northumberland to continue in his current role or any other. He wanted to rule, not be ruled, and it would be folly to place him in any position of power. No, Northumberland would have to go first into the Tower and then up the thirteen steps of the scaffold. It would not be safe to let him live, even if sent into exile he would never stop plotting to regain power. And Northumberland knew that if I came to the throne instead of Mary he could not control me; no puppetmaster would pull my strings or put words into my mouth.
But, if, by some means, both Mary and I were excluded from the succession, then the next logical heir would be Cousin Jane—fifteen, meek, weak and, most importantly to Northumberland and her power-hungry parents, malleable. Easily intimidated, devoutly Protestant Lady Jane Grey might be an intellectual power to be reckoned with when it came to scholarship, but when it came to her own life, was a spineless quivering heap of fear who had been intimately acquainted with cruel words and physical brutality from babyhood; she would not be able to fight those who would force her onto the throne and cram onto her head a crown I knew she did not want. She had recently been forced into wedlock with Northumberland’s youngest son.
Now it all made sense. Northumberland was setting himself up as a kingmaker, to found a ruling dynasty of Dudleys with his youngest, fairest son, Guildford, to wear the crown on his gleaming crop of perfect golden curls.
Jane was just the means to an end, and might even afterward be disposed of if she became too bothersome once she had provided Guildford with a son or two, an heir and a spare to assure the succession. And it did not take a mind of astounding brilliance to see who would in reality rule the realm; vain Guildford had more interest in his wardrobe than in politics. Thus his father, Northumberland, the Lord Protector, would continue to hold the reins of power, king in all but name. Guildford would just be the pretty figurehead who so becomingly wore the crown.
But Northumberland did not look beyond the glittering façade of glory. His vainglorious concoction was in truth a recipe for disaster. He did not reckon on the English people.
Jane was all but a stranger to them. Some might have a vague notion of who she was, but they had not watched her grow up and suffer all manner of trials and tribulations as they had Great Harry’s daughters; Mary and I were the last remaining vital links to our father, that majestic figure of awe and fear, the king they had for so long known and loved, and they knew and loved us too.
And Jane, poor Jane, lacked the confidence to command. She was gifted with great intelligence, yes, but she did not have the quality of queenship, that aura of supreme confidence. She could never harness the hearts of the common people; the poor girl could not even meet the eyes of whomever she talked to. The people would see her at once as an usurper, Northumberland’s puppet, and they would rise up against this new regime and fight for what they knew was right—the ascension of the rightful heiress, Queen Mary.
I knew I had assessed the situation correctly when Northumberland sent a messenger to me, offering me a weighty bribe to formally renounce my claim to the crown.
I informed him that he must first make this agreement with my sister before he petitioned me, for as long as she lived I had no claim to renounce. Then I fell back against my pillows, assailed by the most violent head pains, and Kat shooed Northumberland’s lackey out and told him sharply to tell his master to bother me no more.
Left in peace, my privacy ensured by a physician’s certificate that I was too ill to be disturbed or to travel, and comfortably cocooned in my bed with the curtains drawn, and a comfit box filled with my favorite fruit suckets, I waited to see which way the winds of fortune would blow. Would Mary prevail or would it be the unwilling and unwanted usurper Queen Jane?
BOOK: Mary & Elizabeth - Emily Purdy
12.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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