The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (14 page)

News was precious to me. "Yes?”

“Your sister is to wed Prince Philip of Spain.”

“We all saw that coming.”

“England will be a subject of Spain. And of the Pope. She must be stopped." I felt the beginnings of a plot.

"What will be will be," I said.

He lowered his voice. "Sir Thomas Wyatt is planning a revolt." Sir Thomas Wyatt. I knew of him. His father had loved my mother. The son had made his name by being successful in many military operations.

"What will be, will be," I said again. "I want no knowledge of it." Croft could be a spy, sent to implicate me. Or he could be with Wyatt, wanting my support. Either way I was in trouble. "I want nothing to do with this," I told him. "I want to know no more." But I did want to know more. I was starving for news.

I sent my trusted knight John Chertsey out to sniff around and find what he could. He was a master of disguise and dressed himself as an ordinary citizen. He even changed his voice somehow. He came back the last week in December. "The rebellion is to take place on Palm Sunday, Princess, the day the Prince of Spain and all his people are to arrive in London. Its primary purpose is to put down the Prince and prevent the marriage. They know it is a sacred day and no one will be working and the roads will be clear. They intend to march on London.”

“How many men do they have?”

“Some four thousand.”

“And the leaders?”

“Besides Wyatt there is Lord Henry Grey, father of Jane, who still hopes to see his daughter on the throne, and Edward Courtenay, who feels angry at your sister for putting him aside and planning to wed Prince Philip. There are others....”

“Do you think they have a chance?”

“Princess," he predicted, "this is December. By March the whole plot will have leaked out. It did not take much for me to find out about it." As it turned out, he was right. The last plot to overthrow Mary failed miserably. Jane was not crowned Queen, and instead she was further incriminated. On February eighth the latest grim news to me came by Chertsey, who had again gone abroad to scout. "The plot failed, Princess. Wyatt mustered his forces at Kent. The Queen sent the Duke of Norfolk out against them.”

“But he's eighty years old," I protested. Chertsey shrugged. "He had a detachment of the guard and five hundred city whitecoats. Wyatt had split his men. He came to Southwark, at the southern end of London Bridge, to find the drawbridge up and guarded with cannon. He fled to Ludgate, but was finally taken and is now in the Tower along with the other rebels.”

“Thank you, John. Is there something else?”

“Yes. The Queen rode out at battle's end to see the dead bodies, the men screaming and blood all over the place. Astride her horse she heard someone say, "This will happen again and again as long as Lady Jane Grey lives." He looked as if there was more.

"And?" I asked.

He was hesitant, but I nodded my head and he told me. "The plan of Wyatt was to overthrow the Queen and put you on the throne, after they had married you to Courtenay. Now they speak of you as if you had a hand in the plot. It has endangered you, my lady. As badly as it has endangered Lady Jane." Never before had I truly felt that my life was in danger. Now I did. If Mary thought I had helped plan to overcome her government, my head would not long be on my shoulders. I went to bed that night and waited to hear the hoof beats of soldiers approaching Hatfield. Near dawn I fell asleep. They came when I had been asleep only about an hour. I heard the thundering of horses' hooves when they were still miles from Hatfield. They came just as dawn was breaking, a hundred horsemen strong in velvet coats, and a hundred more in scarlet cloth trimmed with velvet. All were armed. They carried my sister's standard. To take one Princess, apparently, was the job of a herd. I was still in my robes when they came into the house-- my great-uncle Lord William Howard, Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis. With them were Dr. Owen and Dr. Thomas Wendy, both of whom had attended my brother, Edward, when he died.

"I can't go. I'm sick. Look at me!" Even as I spoke my arms, chest, and face were breaking out in a red measles-like rash. I drew up my sleeve to show them my blotched arm, but the doctors only ushered me upstairs to examine me. Cat stood by nervously. They blamed my reddened skin on "nervous energy," and insisted I was well enough to travel. If I could not ride a horse, I would be taken in a litter. I dressed in white. They put me in a litter and carried me. I was carried through Smithfield and along Fleet Street to Whitehall. The Queen refused to see me. I was lodged that night in the shabbiest of Whitehall's chambers. I could not eat, I could not sleep. I could only cry, to Pussy Cat's dismay.

Then Chertsey, my head knight, came to my quarters, to tell me that Lady Jane and her husband, Guilford Dudley, had died that very day I was taken, beheaded for their part in the plot. Her father was soon to be beheaded. Though I had never liked her, my heart broke. She was only sixteen! How young to die! Had she gone to the block quietly? Or was she hysterical?

"I'll wager she scarce knew of the plot," I told Chertsey. Just as I knew nothing of it. Would I too lose my head? The council questioned me for days. They came constantly to my chamber and set themselves up as paragons of loyalty to Mary and tried to get me to confess I'd been part of the plot. I had been allowed only two ladies with me besides Cat; two gentlemen, Mr. Parry and John Chertsey; and four servants. Guards were placed outside my door. They asked the others to leave when they questioned me.

Bishop Gardiner and Lords Arundel and Paget did the questioning. They tried six ways at once to name me guilty at the onset. I dodged their questions like a squirrel dodging stones thrown by a small boy. Bishop Gardiner was the worst. "You are Her Majesty's main target for refusing to return to the Old Faith. What will she tell her new husband when her own sister refuses to embrace it?" I knew that the outcome, for me, would be life or death, that any day they might come in and say I was condemned to the block. For I could not prove I had not been part of the plot.

"You weren't in communication with Sir Thomas Wyatt?" they asked.

"No.”

“Do you deny that Sir James Croft came to you and told you of the plot?"

"I knew nothing about a plot. If told, I would not have wanted to know.”

“Sir Thomas Wyatt has accused you of being a strong backer of the plot. Do you deny this?”

“I never met Sir Thomas Wyatt except for seeing him in court. You must have tortured him to get him to say this." How I held up I will never know. But I met them eye to eye. I never looked away or faltered. I did not let my voice waver. It was strong and clear and at all times the voice of a future Queen. And then, toward the end of the third week, it happened.

Gardiner himself came to tell me that the Queen had given him orders. "You are to be taken to the Tower," he said in that cold, grating voice of his. "Make ready to be moved." As a final act of vehemence, Mary took away all my people except Pussy Cat and two maids.

"This way, my lady." The council led me to an ominous-looking barge at the pier. You went to the Tower by water. So many had, and never returned. I shivered all the way in the light rain of a dreary March day. And even though my Pussy Cat held my hand, it didn't help. I was terrified. And then there was the Tower, nightmare of every Londoner's dreams, replacing hell as the ultimate seat of punishment. And there was the Traitor's Gate, through which all prisoners were led to climb the slimy steps and up through dark archways that smelled of waste and contaminated water, of death and despair. They were waiting for me: a dozen yeomen of the Tower with the Lord Lieutenant, as they must wait at the gates of hell for the worst sinners to enter.

"I can't go in there," I sobbed.

"You must, my lady." The voice was kind, as was the touch, helping me out of the barge. Who belonged to that voice I did not know, but I did know that if I lived and someday became Queen, I would find out and reward the man tenfold. I had to step in the filthy cold water that lapped over the bottom steps. Someone else put out a hand to help me.

A few of the wardens and workers came out and looked at me from the top of the stairs. Then, as if someone had given a signal, they all knelt and called out, "God save Your Grace!" Somehow that gave me the courage I needed to climb the slippery steps to Traitor's Gate.

"I am innocent of charges brought against me," I said. "I am no traitor. I cannot go through there."

The Lieutenant of the Tower put out his hand. "Come, Your Grace," he said gently.

"When they send me to the Tower Green I will have a sword from France sent to do the job on my neck," I told them, "like my mother did. I will not have a clumsy English axe.” Somehow, with the help of the Lieutenant of the Tower, I got to the top and went through Traitor's Gate. They put me in the Bell Tower, the tower next to Robin. How odd to find the playmate of my childhood alongside me in this place of depravity and death! They took away Cat Ashley, which caused that good woman to burst into tears, and I had to comfort her instead of her comforting me. They took away my ladies too, and gave me Isabella Markham, who was married to Sir John Harington, and another lady by the name of Elizabeth Sand. Both were very pretty and yet not shallow. Both attended to me with kindness and respect, which was a great comfort.

From my window I could see the scaffold. I could watch, if I wished, as Jane's father and uncle were beheaded. I did not wish to watch. Outside the cold walls the March wind whistled and betimes turned into gales. At night the wind moaned for all those who had spent years in this terrible place. When the sun came in during daytime, it only seemed to create shadows. The walls ran with dripping water. The halls echoed footsteps and the calls of the guards, and at night I could hear moans and betimes screams of the other prisoners.

So I passed my days as a prisoner. Daytime, I read my Book of Common Prayer or sewed or embroidered, or talked with my ladies. Meals were not bad. My table was set with the proper silver and plate and goblets, and somehow I suspected that what was being put before me was far better fare than the ordinary prisoner got. The days went on. How had Courtenay lived in here since he was a boy of twelve? How had Lady Jane done it for months, all the while seeing her own death coming?

The doctors visited me and said I was in good health except that I needed some fresh air and sun. Dr. Owen said he would ask Sir John Gaze, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, if I could walk outside a bit every day. March became April. The rushes on the floor of my lodging began to stink. And every day when one of the Queen's men came to bait me, I thought he was bringing a warrant for my death. Mary did not kill Courtenay. She spared him because of his royal blood. And that gave me hope.

And then one day, the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower came into my chamber. My heart near stopped as he knelt before me. "News, your ladyship. Yesterday Sir Thomas Wyatt was executed. And before he died he admitted that you and Courtenay had naught to do with the plot. Thanks be to God."

My ladies talked with the guards and so the word came to me. After they executed Thomas Wyatt his body was cut up and put in a basket in a cart and brought to Newgate, where parts of it were hung all over. His head was parboiled to preserve it and placed on top of the gibbet at St. James. But somebody stole it away within a week. They told me that when the people of London heard I was pronounced not guilty, they celebrated in the streets. They lit bonfires and demanded my release. They drank toasts to "the young red-haired Bess." Because I was proven not guilty, I was allowed outside to smell the blessed fresh air, to walk on the battlements, to hear birds overhead.

It was still April. The world had come alive. Though I was still a prisoner, my heart was restored. In my first week of such unheard-of freedom I was allowed to walk in the garden. Spring flowers were all in bloom and had never looked so lovely to me. I gazed at the azaleas and irises and lilacs and daffodils as if I had never seen such before. Children were playing nearby and I was told by a guard that they were the children of the jailers. They lived here. What a place to bring up children, I thought.

The guard smiled at me. "They are happy," he said, as if reading my thoughts. All the guards I passed smiled at me and gave bows and answered my questions.

They called me "Your Grace."

One day as I was walking in the garden a small boy came up to me. In his hand he held a bouquet of flowers. "For my ladyship," he said, with a little bob of his knee.

"Why, thank you, child. Where did you get them?”

“From the woods and water meadows nearby. The gentleman had me give them to you.”

“What gentleman?”

“Up there." He gestured with his head to Beauchamp Tower. "Says these ones in the middle be ragged robins, and I should point them out to you." Tears came to my eyes.

"Thank you, child. Tell the gentleman I thank him."

***CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Flowers from my Robin! Was he, even at this moment, looking down on me? I looked up at the small windows of Beauchamp Tower. Was there someone in the window? Was he waving, or was it my imagination? Just in case, I waved back and then I smelled the flowers. A beautiful nosegay, come from my Robin, whom I hadn't seen now in how many years? Did he know what I'd been through, what I had suffered? But what of his suffering? He was under the sentence of death for his part in helping put Lady Jane on the throne in the first place. He and his father and brothers were still in prison, not knowing if each day was to be their last. I must get a note to him. Would the boy come tomorrow?

Would I get the Lieutenant of the Tower, good man that he was, in trouble, by passing a note? Should I ask his permission? No, for that way I would get the little boy in trouble too. I had learned from another guard that the child was just five, that his name was Henry Martin, and that he was the son of the Keeper of the Queen's Robes in the Tower. No, I could not get the little fellow in trouble. Could I send my Robin something? No to that as well. Too many good people would be hurt, perhaps even Robin himself. I went back to my lodgings, which had been aired and sweetened in my absence. I showed the flowers to my ladies, who oohed and aahed over them as if they had come from the Queen's knot garden. But out of my own window I could see that the scaffold had not been dismantled yet. Were they not finished with their work, then?