Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey (8 page)

Sir Thomas mourned, locking himself away in his study. But first he sent for me.

I braced myself for more scolding, more recriminations. But it was not to be. It was as if the scene in Katharine's chambers had never happened. He was completely becalmed. "Jane, I wish you to be chief mourner. Can you do this for me?"

"Yes, sir." I felt a rush of joy.

"And I wish you to write to Elizabeth and tell her. Will you do that?"

I would do anything, but I simply said "Yes, sir" again.

I'd been crying, and he saw it. "Don't cry, Jane. She is in heaven."

"But she is all I had on this earth," I sobbed. "All who loved me."

"You are loved, Jane," he said quietly. "But you are too good, that is your problem. The rest of us aren't. We are simply human. And you bring us to task by your very presence."

"I don't mean to be that way, sir."

"Then don't be. I'm inviting my mother to come and stay. To keep the household together

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and make it a proper one. I expect your father to write and demand you come home now, since it is not a proper household anymore. But I shall not give you up. I go this afternoon to see the King. Edward. Is there anything you wish, Jane?"

"Take me with you."

"No. You are chief mourner. Remember your duties."

"Yes, sir."

He left. And again the world went cold.

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TEN

T

o be chief mourner was an honor, and I tried to remind myself of that as I sat in the chapel with Katharine's body deep into the night while people came and went.

I was not afraid to be alone with her coffin. There were many candles, and the people who came were so many that I scarce had time to think. I must greet them for Sir Thomas. I must wear long black robes and welcome everyone. I must listen to the sermon next day, by a Mr. Coverdale, who had translated the Bible into English. I must be first in line to follow the corpse to the grave.

But I could not believe they were taking my Katharine to the grave. She had been so alive, so

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warm, so dear, and now she was snuffed out like a candle. I could not accept that.

They named the baby Mary and a special nurse was brought in to see to her, but Sir Thomas seemed not to have too much interest in the child.

A note did come around from my father to Sir Thomas, expressing his concern because it was "not a proper household anymore." He wanted me home.

To make it proper, Sir Thomas did indeed send for his mother, and she came.

She was a small lady of ancient age, with white hair, and for some reason I was surprised to see how tender he was with her.

"I know you will love Jane as if she were my daughter," he said to her. And I felt that mayhap part of him, at least, had forgiven me.

And so it became a proper household again. People came and went; I did my studies and played my music. And I sewed with old Lady Seymour. She told me stories of Sir Thomas and Sir Edward when they were boys. "They would kill each other if left alone in a room together," she said.

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Then she told me of another son, who never went to court, who was forty now and whose name was Sir Henry. "He doesn't fancy power or glitter," she said. "He stays to himself. He's a farmer, a country squire."

"Thomas, being the younger, is a loveable rogue," she said, "but Edward is too serious in his role of Protector.

"Did I ever tell you of the day King Henry stopped at our house and first met my daughter, Jane? Oh, he was taken with her, I tell you.

"I think Thomas sees much of her in you," she told me.

"I am afraid he is displeased with me," I confessed.

"He's displeased with himself these days. Don't let his abruptness hurt you. He has lost his wife and is having dealings with men I do not consider honest. He resents the power his brother has over King Edward, and I am afraid he would do anything to topple him."

"Anything?"

She shook her head and put her finger over her lips.

She told me how her daughter Jane had

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attended the beehives at home, how she took care of the linen and the flower garden. "She was a good girl," she said. "And now here is Thomas with both his sister and his wife dying in childbirth. Be patient with him."

She was. She made no complaint when Thomas had his "men visitors," who came on beautiful horses with gentlemen-in-waiting, and drank wine and ate far into the night. I glimpsed them once in the dining room. They seemed to be plotting by candlelight. They whispered. They mumbled. They roared with laughter, and Thomas one of them. I heard talk of ships and ports and cargo and money.

And then too he was away a lot. Once when he was away, the other brother came around-- Sir Henry. He came on a good horse but he came alone, no gentlemen-in-waiting, no retinue of eager young men.

He was a likeable man, affable, benign of countenance, concerned about animals and the hay in the fields. He smiled at me and called me lovely "My little brother has all the luck," he said.

But at supper he made no effort to keep it

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from me as he told his mother how worried he was about Thomas.

He spoke of a castle in Cheshire that Thomas owned, that he was shoring up in case of revolt. Of a trip Thomas had made to Boulogne to see to defenses there. About his mustering a small army in hopes of displacing Edward as Protector. Of his wanting to marry Elizabeth right after Katharine's death.

I shivered at such talk. Was Sir Thomas truly so reckless? I knew that if these things were so, he was playing with fire.

"Talk to him, Mama," Sir Henry said. "He creates his own destruction."

The months went on until summer became winter. Sir Thomas came and went. I scarcely saw him even when he was home, although I would see him on occasion in the front hallway when I was coming in and he was going out.

"How are your studies?"

"Fine, sir."

"I've spoken with your tutor. He says your Greek could be better."

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"He is mad over Greek."

"So should you be."

And he'd be off, riding through the fallen leaves that were on the ground, on his handsome horse with his retinue of men.

That winter there were rumors--stories that seemed to spring up from the frozen ground. How could the same stories, the same rumors that were in London, travel out here?

I was in the barn one day when I overheard one stableboy telling another:

"A midwife, a wise woman, was wakened one night last September by a horseman wearing a green velvet mask. He bade her mount the horse he brought, put a blindfold over her eyes, and brought her to a place in the forest. The house was large and she was brought through many rooms. Then finally they removed the blindfold, and she found herself in a room richly furnished, and on the bed lay a young maid in labor. Her hair was rich and red. And she brought forth a a babe that the masked man took from her and carried out into the night and gave to a waiting couple.

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"The midwife was paid in gold. And told never to speak of what she had seen and done this night. And she was taken home. And there are those who say the mother of the child is the Princess Elizabeth, and the house was Hatfield. Yes."

I froze hearing that. Could it be true? Did such things truly happen on God's good earth? I knew that rumors spread like the plague during the long English winters. People were bored and told stories around the fire. But this! It made me angry, but I could do nothing. To deny it would only give it more life. I tried to forget and hoped it would go away.

There are rumors that are soon forgotten, and those that take on a life of their own and become more true than truth.

For such a rumor was Sir Thomas taken.

It was February, snow was falling, and inside Chelsea Manor all was warm and comfortable and safe when the horseman rode up that day.

There was a rattling at the front door. A manservant went to open it, and in they stepped,

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men who said they came in the name of King Edward.

I hear the words still. "Sir Thomas, you are under arrest for treason and murder." The words were like cannonballs hurled into our quietude that day, but Sir Thomas only laughed, called for his cloak, and kissed his mother, who was walking around the men folding and unfolding her hands and crying.

"Don't cry, Mother. I'll be back before nightfall."

"Not likely," one of the men said.

"Not from the Tower," another put in.

I was trembling. What was all this about. Murder? Treason? My cousin Edward had ordered this? Or was this the work of the Lord Protector, Sir Thomas's own brother? I thought again of the rumor spoken by the stableboy.

I looked at him. "Sir Thomas," I said.

But he was giving some instructions to his mother.

"Sir Thomas," I said again, and he looked at me then, but he did not say any soft words, or comforting ones, or even gallant ones.

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"Take care of my mother," he admonished me.

So he

never

had forgiven me, never, for my telling Katharine the things I told her. And I knew, as I watched him go Out the door, that he never would.

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ELEVEN

O

ur days of anguish became a week, then two. Lady Seymour was distraught. She had no hope and kept talking about how her son Edward, the Protector, had always wanted his brother Sir Thomas out of the way. "I saw my daughter Jane wed King Henry and die when she gave birth to the boy king," she said continually. "I am grandmother to the boy king who has signed an arrest warrant for Sir Thomas, his favorite uncle. And I should have hope?"

"Why has the little king done this?" she would ask me. "Why?"

Why, indeed? I longed to go and see him, but could not leave the distraught Lady Seymour.

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Then help arrived in the person of Sir Henry, come for a visit.

He stayed two days, and his presence in the house was like a breath of spring air.

He came, he said, to see his mother again, to comfort her, to try to make inquiries about why Sir Thomas was being held. "They aren't giving him a trial,'' he said. "There's mischief afoot. It turns out my brother was mustering an army to overcome Sir Edward as Protector," he told his mother. "That's the treason part of it."

"The murder part" he spoke of was the rumor that took on a life of its own and became people's truth. "They are saying that he poisoned Katharine."

There,

I thought,

there is the reason the King signed his arrest warrant.

Young Edward had always loved Katharine. He considered her his second mother. Either that, or Edward, his Protector, had convinced him to sign the warrant. Oh, had the young King changed so much since I last saw him? Or was he unduly influenced? I must find out!

Sir Henry and his mother talked and planned. He would go to Sir Edward, the Lord

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Protector, he said. As the eldest brother he'd give him a piece of his mind. What did he mean by sending men around to arrest their brother in front of their mother like that?

When I saw him making ready for the trip, I begged to go. "Take me, Sir Henry. I can talk to the King. We are friends."

He was a kindly man of medium height and no dash or flair like Sir Thomas, but his kindness was real. And his eyes knew things I wished Sir Thomas's eyes had known.

"His brother will put Thomas to death," was all Lady Seymour would say.

"No brother will ever put another to death," Henry tried to reassure us.