Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey (9 page)

But I don't think he believed it.

"The people don't like it," Henry told me, "that Sir Thomas was arrested in front of his mother and his ward, a slip of a girl. You can get away with so much as a nobleman. But the people mark what you do. Even King Henry kept his eye on the feelings of the people. They rise up if they don't like something, and they don't like these doings with Tom."

100

We were on our way to London.

"He has an eye for you, hey?" he said of King Edward. "Tom always said he would wed you to him."

I liked Sir Henry. I felt at ease with him.

"Yes, he has an eye for me," I said. "And I for him."

"Then mayhap he'll give Tom a trial. There are thirty-three charges of treason against him. They aren't planning on giving him a trial. They talk of a Bill of Attainder. Under it the person is not allowed to speak in his own defense. What rot. The Council questioned him in the Tower. Plain rot. Edward didn't even go."

"Your mother says Sir Thomas undermines Sir Edward's authority," I told him. "That Sir Thomas has been plotting against Sir Edward for the past two years. And that it will now be the death of one or the other. Do you drink she is right?" My voice shook.

"Don't listen to my mother," he told me.

I found Edward, the King, in his privy chamber under the royal canopy. In front of him on the table was a chessboard, and he was moving the

101

figures on it around and around, all by himself.

Behind him sun streamed through a stained-glass window, making shafts of color near his chair.

"Edward."

He looked up. "Jane, my friend! What a surprise! Come to me!"

I would have run, that was my first impulse, but I stopped myself and walked decorously to where he sat and knelt. "My liege," I said.

"No, Jane, no, don't kneel. We're alone. I don't often get

the

chance to be alone, but they told me you were here and so I sent them all away. Come, give me a hug."

I stood up and embraced him. His shoulders were still thin--he was still a little boy. And his face looked pale and wan.

"Edward, I've come to beg you for something," I said.

"I know, I know. Don't sign the death warrant for Sir Tom. He's my uncle, Jane; do you think I am fain to sign it? I have always loved Uncle Thomas. He was good to me."

"Then why do it?"

"Because I am King, and it is what kings do.

102

It has not been easy, Jane. I hate being King most of the time. But it is what I must do."

"The Lord Protector tells you this."

"He advises me, yes. He fears his brother. Thirty-three charges of treason are serious business, Jane. Uncle Thomas was forming an army to march against us."

"Not you. If he was planning anything, it was against his brother."

"It's the same thing."

"How will you feel afterward, signing a death warrant for one you love?"

"He poisoned Katharine. Everyone knows it."

"I don't know it and I was there. The whole time, I was there. He loved Katharine."

"He wants to wed my sister Elizabeth."

"He never said such to me. Or his mother. Rumors, talk, all of it. A man should not die for rumors."

"And what of the story going around about the midwife and the man in the velvet mask?" he asked.

"Oh, Edward, don't believe that. You know how people get in England in the middle of winter."

103

He looked at me. His face was pinched and white. "I'm sorry, Jane. You don't know how sorry I am."

He hugged me. And we cried together. And I thought,

I

will never be Queen, never. If the time ever comes, I will throw the crown at them all.

104

TWELVE

T

hey beheaded Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, on Tower Hill on a cold day in March 1549.

King Edward signed the death warrant.

Sir Thomas's own brother let it happen. He did nothing to stop it and he could have. He could have spoken soft words to the little king about his Uncle Thomas. He could have imprisoned Sir Thomas for a while in the Tower, until all was quiet again in the kingdom.

He could have remembered that Sir Thomas was his younger brother or recalled old times at home, or even done it in the name of King Edward's mother, their sister Jane.

He did none of these things, and so they cut

105

off the head of the man who, in Princess Elizabeth's words, "was wonderful but not too wise."

And true to Sir Henry's words, the people were not happy that the Lord Protector should allow his own brother to go to his death. The Lord Protector was losing his popularity.

To further their discontent there were other troubles: workmen without work, bad harvests the previous fall, and too many changes in religious beliefs. The people did not like changes and tended to blame their troubles on the ruling class.

My parents summoned me home. I left Lady Seymour with a heavy heart and went back to Bradgate. I would never believe that Sir Thomas was guilty of all those charges of treason. And I knew he hadn't poisoned Katharine.

Going home, after living away, was difficult enough. When I got there, I discovered that my parents had betrothed me to the Protector's son Edward, the Earl of Hertford. "Why?" I asked.

106

"Because there is no more chance, with Sir Thomas dead, of your marrying the King," my father admitted. "This will be a good match for you. You have met the younger Seymour, haven't you?"

"Yes, Father."

"And how do you think of him?"

"I don't like his father, but of him I think well enough."

"So then, you are betrothed."

I was eleven, going on twelve. When a girl was fourteen she was considered a woman. Truth to tell, I did not wish to be betrothed to anybody, but I knew there was no sense in protesting. As for love, how could I love anybody? I had loved King Edward. I still did. I had loved Sir Thomas. Not the way Elizabeth had professed to love him, no. My love was not dangerous. But it was genuine.

The only good thing about being in my home was that it was big enough for me to hide from my family during the day. And I needed to hide from my mother. For I was in disgrace since Sir Thomas's death. Even though they'd betrothed

107

me to the Earl of Hertford, they were still disappointed that I couldn't wed King Edward,

I was a big disappointment to them. And they treated me with disdain because of it

Mother questioned me constantly about Chelsea Manor, about life there, about Katharine's death. "Do you think he poisoned her?"

"No, Mother."

"Well, everyone says so. How could you have allowed such a thing to happen? You were there. Didn't you see?"

"I saw nothing. And he didn't poison her. Please don't disparage his name. He's dead."

For which I was slapped. "And this business with the Princess Elizabeth. Is it true. Did he flirt with her in her bedroom?"

"It was all in good fun. Katharine was there." I lied for Sir Thomas. It was the very least I could do for him, to stop his name from being dragged through the mud.

"Oh, get out of my sight. I send you to live with the Queen Dowager and the brother of the Lord Protector and you can't even do it right."

And so I ran to my chambers, where my sister

108

Catherine found me an hour or so later, hugging Pourquoi. "Jane, Jane, you'll never guess what."

"What is it, Catherine?''

"I'm betrothed!"

She was not yet ten. And she stood there in front of me, her gold hair around her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkling. Already she conducted herself like a woman, and being the prettier, found favor over me with Mother.

"To whom?"

"Henry Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke. And he's as dashing as your earl."

"I'm glad for you, Catherine. That's quite a match."

"You must tell me. How does one act when one is betrothed?"

"Much the same as you act now."

"Am I allowed to kiss him?" She giggled.

"It's only a formality, Catherine. And it can be broken off in an instant, and likely will be, if his fortunes change."

"Mother and Father are intent on having us all betrothed. They're planning now for Mary. They want her betrothed by the end of the month."

109

"Mary? No. She's not..." My voice failed. I thought of Mary, poor little hunchback Mary. She was just a child!

"Mother says she is most suitable. And you'd best not object, Jane."

"What's all the commotion I heard below?"

"There is more news. Mother's half brothers have both been killed in a terrible accident. They drowned crossing the channel on a ship in a storm."

"She never liked them. Is she distraught?"

Catherine giggled. "As distraught as anybody would be who has just inherited a title. Father is now Duke of Suffolk. A courier just arrived. They've got all kinds of money and new lands and castles."

I ran back downstairs. They were in Father's library, poring over legal papers. "You can't. You can't betroth Mary," I cried. "Please don't, she is such a shy child. She--"

"How dare you break in here and accost us like this?" Mother stood up. "Your father is now the Duke of Suffolk. Have a little more respect, please."

I curtsied low. "I'm sorry, Father, but I worry about Mary."

110

"Do you think we don't know what is best for her? You presume too much, Jane. Since you have returned from Chelsea Manor, you just presume too much."

I started to sob. They would sell Mary off like a horse, to align themselves with some other vein of royalty.

"Stop that blubbering,'' Mother ordered. "What they did to you at Chelsea Manor, I don't know. I think you are due for a visit with Princess Mary. She always has a sobering effect on you."

That's right. Ship me off again to someone else,

I thought. And when I come back they'll have my little sister Mary betrothed to some Irish nobleman, and she'll have to go off to live on the wild bogs and swamps of Ireland. Oh, I hated them both so much. How I missed Katharine and Sir Thomas.

As it turned out, I stayed at home for many long, dismal months. There was nothing dismal about Bradgate itself. Now that Father was Duke of Suffolk and Mother was Duchess, they put on all kinds of entertainments. There were always plenty of people around, houseguests who never

111

seemed to go home, huntsmen with their grand horses and green livery. There were nights when it was difficult to sleep for the noise that came from belowstairs, where my parents parried and gambled. And they hired the best for their parties. They hired drummers and pipers, Master John Heywood's troupe of child performers, Lord Russell's minstrels.

Sometimes the house was so full of people, you didn't know who you were bumping into in the receiving room, grand hall, or galleries. The stables were overflowing too, and I came to prefer to saddle my own horse radier than wait my turn for a groom to do it for me.

My father held many jousting tournaments. I did like to watch these from the pavilion in the tilting yard. It was exciting, seeing the knights charging at each other in all their armor, their horses snorting and garbed in all the trappings of the event.

We played our parts, my sisters and I, handing our silk kerchiefs over to the knights just before the joust. They would stuff them inside their breastplates and go to take their positions.