The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (11 page)

"What about Dom Luis of Portugal?”

“The new Protector is unwilling to meet the expense of my dowry." We were silent for a minute; then she spoke. "Have you ever wondered," she asked, "how we could both be illegitimate? If I'm illegitimate, you're not. And if you are, then I'm not. But both?”

“Our father settled that when he drew us up in line for the throne," I told her. She nodded. Then the music struck up again, and Robin and his wife went dancing by.

"Why do you stare so at Robin Dudley?" she asked. "I know you were children together. Can't you see he's married?”

“We're still friends," I told her. "Haven't you had enough trouble and confusion on that score?" It was my turn to blush. "I never see him. How could I? I'm never at court and neither is he. Since his marriage he's been living in the country at his Manor of Hemsley, near Yarmouth.”

“Incidentally," she said, "I hear that Amy is terrified of public life. That she is extravagant and has numerous gowns she is too shy to wear, that she is terrible at keeping a home, a disaster with servants, and has no talent whatsoever except that she is an heiress." I felt reassured. Did Mary know more? I asked but she shook her head. Then Edward came over to join us.

"Ah, my two favorite sisters," he joked. We talked awhile, the three of us. Edward told me that he'd had a letter from Roger Ascham, that my tutor was at the Council of Trent. We talked about everything except religion, and when he got up to leave, being needed across the room, Mary looked at me. "You are his favorite," she said, "not I."

"I don't think that, Mary.”

“Well, can't you see the tension between us? One of these days it's going to come out in the open, our argument over religion. Protestantism is the official religion of England these days. He can't bear that I won't embrace it. He knows that I have six chaplains in my household and celebrate Mass every day. If not for the Emperor of Spain demanding that the council allow me the freedom to practice my faith, I don't know what would happen to me. Remember, he wants to keep good relations with Catholic Spain, and my mother came from there."

The visit turned out to be exhausting on account of Mary. I was never sure what to say to her or what she would say to me. One minute she was like a pussy cat, the next a tiger, and all the while I was there I prayed she and our brother, the King, would not come to blows over religion. I stayed in the palace for Christmas and for a few weeks afterward. Then I collected my people and went back to Hatfield to find some peace. On the twenty-second of January, 1552, Lord Somerset, the old Protector, was beheaded on Tower Hill, much as his brother had been before him. He went to his death with dignity, walking proudly to the block and blessing the King. And after the deed was done the crowd surged forward in hopes of dipping their handkerchiefs in his blood, because for some strange reason, their mood had changed and they now considered him to be a martyr.

In March I went to court again, this time riding in with a great number of Lords, knights, and gentlemen, a company of yeomen and two hundred ladies and gentlewomen on horseback. I was welcomed warmly and Mary was not there, so a great deal of tension went out of the visit. I played for hours at chess with my brother. We rode out together. I enjoyed watching him at tilting. He rode well and almost looked as if he were in training to be a knight. He put on evening revels and musical recitals for me. And, though it was still cold, we bundled up and took trips on the river on the royal barge. He took me to a muster of his men-at-arms on Blackheath, and we watched acrobats and high-wire artists. Edward loved them. We watched a play written for him by Nicholas Udall and we rode through London together, surrounded by his guards, yeomen, and knights. I went with him to inspect the naval dockyard at Portsmouth. But by the end of the month, all the activities started taking their toll and he began looking pale and coughing again. I returned to Hatfield in hopes that he would quiet down in his activities.

Despite my precaution, at the beginning of April, right after I went home, I received a letter. Edward had fallen "sick to the measles and the smallpox." Yet on the twenty-third of April he was well enough to take part in the St. George's Day Celebrations at Westminster Abbey. He wrote to me, telling me how he had worn his heavy velvet Garter robes and that "this summer I intend to go on a royal Progress, to tour part of my kingdom, to meet my subjects, to be seen and to be entertained in the houses of the great nobles who live en route.

"I had a feeling that I should see him before he left and so I made another trip, this time to Greenwich Palace, where the court was staying for the summer." I am thinking," Edward told me as we walked through the lovely knot gardens, "of changing the line of succession."

He looked feverish to me, and the spaces between his coughing fits were getting shorter and shorter. "Why should you be thinking of succession now?" I asked lightly. He bent to pat his new spaniel, who accompanied us.

"Because I am ill, Elizabeth. Very ill. Only these noodle heads around me won't admit it. I summoned, in secret, the Italian doctor and astrologist Girolamo Cardano. I gave him permission, though it is against the law to cast the King's horoscope, to cast mine. He said he saw the omens of a great calamity. He told the council that all I need is rest, but he told me I have all the signs of consumption. And so I must think of who is to take my place." ‘Someone," he finished, "has to be thinking around here. My council are all puppets. So I have decided to act. I can't have Mary be Queen. She is still Catholic. Can you imagine what that would do to England?" I reached out to him, but he stepped away. "I'm thinking of naming Lady Jane Grey as Queen when I die." He had another coughing spasm. It lasted long enough for me to turn cold and then collect myself. "Jane Grey?" I echoed.

"Yes. She visits me often. We are of the same mind about religion and in matters of state. She completely applauded my giving the priory of St. Thomas at Southwark as a hospital for the sick and my other acts of charity. She believes, as I do, that the council should be divided into committees. And, like me, she is all for continuing our father's policies, to name a few things." She is a fanatical Protestant, I thought. But yes, she will suit your purposes. "I have thought of you, Elizabeth, but consider it this way. Jane was supposed to be my wife. Sir Tom adopted her for that reason. We were just waiting until we got older. And you are so young and so innocent, I would not put this terrible burden on you. Not yet. What think you of my decision?" What thought I? I thought that at least he should have asked me if I wanted to rule and let me decline. As if reading my thoughts he said, "Elizabeth, there would be open war in the land if I named you. I don't suppose for a minute that Mary could not raise an army against you." He was right. Naming me before Mary would never do.

"You have made a good choice, Edward," I said. "We are bound to obey you. You are King." But I could not but wonder how much he had been influenced by Northumberland, Robin's father, who knew that if Mary took the Crown, all would be over for him.

In April of 1553 Roger Ascham returned from Europe. He rode the long road from London in his fine new cloak on a rainy day to see me. Cat Ashley ushered him in all in a flurry, offering him some sweet Tokay wine. "My lady." I was in bed with one of my headaches, but Cat had dressed me quickly in a sea green bed gown as his arrival was announced. And opened the window to the warm, if drizzly, April day. He came into the room and made his bow. He took off his hat and I saw that he now wore his hair shoulder length, that his boots were highly polished, his shirt the whitest, and his doublet of velvet. He who used to appear before me in a dusty black gown had learned much of dress in Europe.

"Roger, I've missed you.”

“And I you, lady. But I fear for your health.”

“Dr. Turner has declared it no more than one of my headaches brought on by womanly ailments.”

“Ah, so you finally admit to being a woman--you, who I thought would never grow up.”

“Sit, Roger." He leaned over and kissed my hand, and then sat. "Tell me about your travels. About the Council of Trent." He sighed.

"It was supposed to have been a league of nations, sitting down to civilly discuss matters of religion and policy. A friendly discussion between Papists and Protestants, if such a thing could ever be. But they discussed everything else: the tumult in Africa, the organization of Europe into a solid front against the invading heathen Turk, the march of the German emperor into Austria. Religion became secondary.”

“Have you visited court?”

“I have just come from there. William Cecil, the secretary, sends his regards."

Cecil, the young, Protestant, Cambridge-educated lawyer, who was a member of Parliament and had somehow taken it into his head to befriend me of late. I called him "my spy," for he frequently kept me apprised of what was going on in court when I wouldn't have known otherwise. Something told me I would need his services in the future. "And my brother, Edward? Did you see him?”

“His condition is deteriorating. That is all I can say. It is against the law to ...”

“Tell me."

He sighed. "He is becoming weaker as time passes. One of the royal physicians, Dr. George Owen, said he would be dead by June." We fell silent for a moment. Outside the rain pattered. From somewhere in the house came the delicate music of one of my maids on the virginals.

"And what will you do now?" I said, giving the conversation a new turn.

"You no longer need tutoring, my lady, do you?" he asked.

"No. But I wouldn't be averse to you reading the classics with me every day and staying here. Now what else have you to tell me about court?”

“The Lord Protector, Northumberland, has betrothed Lady Jane Grey to his son Guilford, the youngest." I nodded. "He wants to make his son King.”

“There are those who say he uses his sons for his own ends. Well, he has five at his disposal." He glanced at me. "I am sure that Robin is beyond reach of his ambitious intentions.”

“Go," I said. "I must rest." Robin. What had he to do with his father these days? Surely his father needed him. Did he back Northumberland in all he did? Why didn't he write to me? Because he didn't want to involve me? Oh, Robin, when will I see you again? Summer heat lay over the land like a wet blanket you could almost see. The corn was growing nicely, I'd been told, as were the wheat and barley and vegetables. But it was a terrible June and July for me. I had just taken a powder for my head and some Jesuit bark for my slight fever when I heard a rider come galloping up to Hatfield. In a few moments I heard a commotion at the door and then steps on the stairway and down the hall. Cat Ashley came in bearing a parchment for me. I took it, my heart thundering. Was Edward dead?

It was from Sir William Cecil, telling me that Northumberland was making a secret treaty with France, promising to give back Calais, the only land holdings England had there, in exchange for money and troops. "He has also," Cecil wrote, "forced London merchants to lend him fifty thousand pounds and sent armed forces to man the chief strongholds in the kingdom in case the people should rise in Mary's favor when Jane is named Queen.

"I had instructions to destroy the note as soon as I read it. So I did. On July third came another message from Cecil: The Duchess of Northumberland had visited Jane Grey, who was living at Chelsea, where Sir Tom had left her with his mother. She told Jane that when God called Edward to Him, it would be needful for her to go to the Tower, because Edward had made her heir to the realm. The Tower was where all newly minted monarchs went just before their coronation. Edward must surely be dying. I forced myself out of bed. I called my maids to help me dress. I wore bright red in defiance of death, with an over-skirt of gold brocade. I had my maids do my hair and even put pearls in it. I went downstairs, weak but determined to be up and about when the news came. I wondered about Mary. Were her spies sending her bulletins? Was she preparing to rise up against Jane Grey when Edward died? What army did she have, what ammunition and provisions?

I went out into the courtyard in front, blinking in the harsh midday sun. I sat in a chair under the shade of a large oak tree and immediately was attended upon by my maids, who brought me a tall, cold glass of lemonade and bade me keep out of the sun. I saw the rider in the distance, in a cloud of dust like a mirage, coming closer and closer. Soon I saw that the horse was black and my heart skipped a beat. Now, I thought, now, please God, don't let it be.

My knights seized the reins of the horse as it clattered to a stop and the rider slipped down. He was wearing the green and white of my brother's court. He handed over another letter. This time it was from Northumberland. They handed it to me and my eyes scanned the words Edward and gravely ill and asking for you. Northumberland entreated me to come immediately to Greenwich Palace, in Kent, east of London, where Edward lay. I ran to the front door and into Cat Ashley's arms.

"I must go," I said, "to the palace. Edward is asking for me." That night, I had my maids and Cat Ashley make ready for a visit to the palace. I told my knights we would leave in the morning and they assembled the yeomen to make plans to travel. We were in the courtyard the next morning, with the sun beating down to assure me it would be another blistering day. My yeomen were packing my luggage, my maids running in for last-minute things, when we saw another rider coming down the road. As the rider approached, I saw that the horse was not black. It was the familiar dappled gray that had delivered its rider with messages from Sir William.

Breathless and sweating, the man drew up his horse. "Water," he said, "for me and the horse."

It was gotten. He gulped a full tankard of it then wiped his mouth. "Give me the parchment," I ordered. He wiped his mouth with his hand.

"Princess Elizabeth, there is no parchment. The words are in my head and meant for your ears only." I motioned for everyone to move away. When they did, the young man leaned toward me. "From Sir William. A warning. Northumberland wants to lure both you and your sister to London, where he will render you incapable of resistance. He may imprison you both. Or have you executed. Do not go. Stay here. Plead sickness. Mary is not going."