28
Elizabeth
K
at shook me from a light and restless sleep, her face a gaunt, ashen, red-eyed mask of fright all wet with tears, to tell me that Lady Jane Grey was dead. Mary had signed the death warrant and sent our harmless, guiltless little cousin to the block, to pave the way for her Spanish bridegroom’s safe arrival.
I sat up in my bed and hugged my knees, letting my tears drip down on them, as I bowed my head and remembered the shy little scholar I had known, and not always been kind to, at Chelsea, the little mouse who wanted only to stay holed up with her beloved books, burrowing into them to feed her hunger for knowledge, who, even during her confinement in the Tower, pursued her study of Hebrew so that she might read the Old Testament in its original tongue.
I could see her shy, intent little face back in the schoolroom at Chelsea as she answered me when I asked why she was so passionate about her studies.
“I will tell you, Cousin Bess,” she earnestly confided, sitting down opposite me in the window seat. The pale golden sunlight streamed in through the diamond-shaped panes to cast a beatific nimbus about her chestnut hair and plain gray gown embellished with but a little black silk braid that her nervous nail-bitten fingers constantly tried to unravel whenever they were not occupied with writing, reading, or sewing. “I will tell you a truth which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me is that He sent me, with such sharp, severe parents, so kind and gentle a schoolmaster. When I am in the presence of either Father or Mother, whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, dancing, playing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, as perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened and tormented with harsh words, pinches, slaps, and other chastisements—which I will not name for the honor I bear my parents—to such a degree that I think myself truly in Hell, till the time comes when I must go to Master Aylmer, who teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, imbuing in me such joy in learning, as he has himself, that I think of nothing else all the while I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall to weeping, because whatever else I do but learning is full of great trouble and dislike for me. And thus my books have become so much my pleasure, and more, so that everything else is but trifles and troubles to me.”
Remorse filled me now at the memory. I had seen Jane undressed once, when I came into her room just as she was emerging from her bath to be wrapped in the sheet Mrs. Ellen held up for her. Jane had just returned from a visit to her parents, and I saw the bruises, ugly blotches of urine-hued yellow, gray-green, brown, and purplish-black all up and down her arms, buttocks, legs, and back, and silvery-white scars as if the skin had split during a brutal caning, all places that when she was properly dressed would never show. I had been so preoccupied with Tom then, I let it go. It did not properly register; I did not feel the outrage that I should, as I did now when it was too late. I wished now I had been kinder and the true friend Jane never had but always needed; perhaps I could have helped her. I should have done something! I should not have let my head become so soggy with lust that I failed to render aid to a soul in need, a little girl who lacked my own strength. I had learned the art of self-preservation early, to rely on and fight for myself, when my mother died and my father could not stand the sight of me, but Jane had not; she had been beaten down since the day she was born, she never had a chance, she never learned to fight, only to hide like a frightened rabbit in a den of books. Now she was dead and beyond all mortal help. Poor little soul, she never had a
real
chance to truly live!
“Godspeed, Jane,” I whispered fervently through my tears. “May you find with God in His Heaven the love and tenderness you were always denied here on earth.”
“Merciful Mary” had just spilled the blood of our kinswoman, a delicate girl she used to dress up like a doll, whose abundant waves of chestnut hair she used to brush, and whose now-severed neck she had decked with rubies for her wedding day, a girl she
knew
to have been innocent, the forced and bullied pawn of ambitious, greedy men jockeying for power in a real-life game of chess where the throne of England was the ultimate prize. Jane, whose only crime—and it was only a crime in fervent, fanatical Catholic eyes—was her unshakable devotion to the Protestant faith. She had been true to her conscience even as Mary had always been true to hers; even though they disagreed, they had that mule-stubborn devoutness in common, and Mary had killed her. That day I was ashamed to call her my sister. And if she could sign away the life of our cousin, what would she do to me, her own sister?
That night I dreamt of a small army of woodsmen striking the tops off the trees growing in a fine park. At each strike of the ax, blood spurted from their trunks, and as their verdant heads toppled they gave off bloodcurdling screams as the blood gurgled and spewed out. And in their midst, wandering frantic, frightened, and lost, hands outstretched as she staggered and stumbled, flailing and groping blindly amongst the falling, bleeding green branches, was a small, slender white-gowned ghost, the only color about her the bright red blood bubbling from her neck, trickling down to stain her gown.
“Where is it? Where is it?”
a hysterical little voice sobbed over and over, even though she had no head and thus no lips to speak the words with, just as Jane herself had done when she knelt blindfolded in the straw and reached out, groping blindly for the block.
I bolted up in bed screaming and did not dare close my eyes again for the rest of the night. Later, Kat would tell me that the woodsmen at Bradgate Manor, Jane’s childhood home, upon hearing of the death of their poor little lady, had taken it upon themselves to behead the trees in the park as a gesture of mourning for her.
They came for me soon afterward. I knew they would. Knowing and fearing that, and the uncertainty of the outcome, made me even sicker. Disbelieving my physician’s letter that I was far too ill to travel, Mary had thoughtfully sent two of her own physicians and her personal litter to bear me back to London with the utmost care and comfort.
For three days the learned doctors poked and prodded me; they scrutinized and sniffed my urine, felt my pulse, and noted my pallor, and finally diagnosed an imbalance of the watery humors, but nothing serious enough to keep me from traveling. One of them made so bold as to tell me that he thought fear or perhaps even—he begged forgiveness for the presumption—a guilty conscience was the root from which my illness stemmed.
The fear that death awaited me at the end of my journey made me even sicker, and my escorts slowed our pace to a mere walk lest they arrive in London bearing my corpse. As I lay back against the soft velvet cushions, my head and joints an aching agony, and my vision wavering as if I looked up and out at the world from under water, I fought down wave after wave of nausea. Sometimes it became unbearable and I had to shout for them to halt as I leaned over the side of the litter, Kat holding me so I did not tumble out, and gathering back my hair, as, dignity be damned, I vomited into the road until, exhausted, I slumped back against the cushions again, the bitter bile burning my throat and tears stinging my eyes.
At my insistence, I traveled with the curtains open wide, to give me air, contradicting Mary’s orders that they stay closed. The people saw me lying there pale and wan, as white as my gown, my flame-red hair glowing all the brighter against my deathly pallor, and shook their fists at my escorts, and shouted, “Shame!” and called the wrath of God down upon their heads.
Word quickly spread that I was being taken to London as a prisoner of my own sister, and the people rushed to line the roadsides. They tossed bunches of flowers and sweet-smelling herbs onto my litter and, hearing I was ill, more than one country housewife ran out to humbly bob a curtsy and present some tried and true remedy to me, assuring me that it would do me “a world of good.”
“God save our Princess Elizabeth!” I must have heard it shouted ten thousand times before I reached Whitehall, and every one was a shot of courage to my heart. The warmth of their love banished the deathly chill of fear, and my nausea eased. I sat up a little straighter as I returned their smiles and waves. I knew that I was loved and that I was not alone.
The London I returned to stank of death, starting with the rebels’ severed heads impaled on pikes adorning the city gates like grotesque gargoyles. I gagged and had to clutch my pomander ball to my nose, but the sweet, spicy scent of oranges and cloves was a poor defense against the stink of death. And on every street corner stood a gibbet with the rotting body of one or more rebels hanging from it like rotten fruit. I felt nauseous and faint. It took all my will not to order the curtains drawn, but I could not disappoint the people. They needed to see me, and I needed to see them, and hear their voices. We gave each other heart, and the strength to go on and face whatever lay in store.
When I arrived at Whitehall I was taken under guard to my apartments. The guards crossed their halberds behind my back the moment that I crossed the threshold. Further proof that I was indeed a prisoner. I pleaded to see Mary, I tried in vain to remind her of the promise she had made me when we parted, but my every request was denied. Instead, I was informed that I would be taken to the Tower upon the morrow, and must be ready at dawn, for the tide tarries for no one, not even a princess.
One hundred guards in white coats arranged themselves in attentive, straight-backed rows in the garden below my window, their white coats glowing ghostly in the moonlight. It was Mary’s way of telling me that escape was impossible. And every time I heard the rattle of armor, the clank of swords, the thud of booted feet, or a shouted command, four panic-filled words rang shrilly inside my head:
There is no escape!
I did not sleep at all that night. I could not, for above my head was a terrible din. My spiteful cousin, Mary’s pet, the Countess of Lennox, had established her kitchen directly above my rooms, and the whole night pans rattled and banged, clattered and clanged, as the smells of fish and meat and smoke seeped through the floorboards to further add to my discomfort and turn my fragile stomach until I had no choice but to keep a basin close beside me. I sat up the whole night through, dressed for travel, but in white to proclaim my innocence, waiting to greet the dawn and the fresh horrors it would bring, knowing that soon I would be locked up inside the Tower where my mother had spent her final days before she was taken out to the scaffold on the green to die. I watched the orange sun bounce off the silver armor and halberds of the guards standing at attention in the garden below my window and wondered how many sunrises I had left.
When the Marquess of Winchester and the Earl of Sussex came to me, I threw myself on their mercy, imploring them to let me write a letter to the Queen, my sister, before they took me away to a prison from which I might never return.
I watched them anxiously, pacing, gesturing, and murmuring as they conferred. I heard only bits and snatches of their conversation, but it was enough to tell me that they were both keenly aware that if my sister died without issue I would be the next Queen and might well remember any favor or courtesy they did me or failed to render me when I needed it most. Finally, the Earl of Sussex decisively stepped forward and said I would be allowed to write my letter and he would personally convey it into the Queen’s hands.
I thanked him profusely, then ran to my desk. I murmured a quick prayer, then took up my pen, knowing that this would be the most important letter I would ever write.
March I6, I554.
If any ever did try this old saying, “that a king’s word was more than another man’s oath,” I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to verify it to me, and to remember your last promise and my last demand, that I be not condemned without answer and due proof, which it seems that I now am; for without cause proved, I am by your Council from you commanded to go to the Tower, a place more wonted for a false traitor than a true subject, which though I know I deserve it not, yet in the face of all this realm it appears that it is proved. I protest before God, Who shall judge my truth, whatsoever malice shall devise, that I never practiced, counseled, nor consented to anything that might be prejudicial to your person in any way, or dangerous to the state by any means. And therefore I humbly beseech Your Majesty to let me answer afore yourself, and not suffer me to trust to your Councilors; yea, and that before I go to the Tower, if it be possible; if not, before I be further condemned. Howbeit, I trust assuredly Your Highness will give me leave to do it before I go, that thus shamefully I may not be cried out on, as I now shall be; yea, and that without cause. Let conscience move Your Highness to take some better way with me than to make me condemned in all men’s sight before my desert is known. I have heard in my time of many cast away for want of coming to the presence of their Prince; and in late days I heard my Lord of Somerset say that if his brother had been suffered to speak with him he had never suffered; but the persuasions were made to him so great that he was brought in belief that he could not live safely if the Lord Admiral lived, and that made him give consent to his death. Though these persons are not to be compared to Your Majesty, yet I pray God that like evil persuasions not persuade one sister against the other, and all for that they have heard false report. Therefore, once again, kneeling with humbleness of heart, because I am not suffered to bow the knees of my body, I humbly crave to speak with Your Highness, which I would not be so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true. And as for the traitor Wyatt, he might peradventure write me a letter, but I pray God confound me eternally if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter, by any means, and to this truth I will stand in till my death.
I humbly crave but only one word of answer from yourself. Your Highness’s most faithful subject, that hath been from the beginning, and will be to my end, Elizabeth