Just a Girl

by Jane Caro

  ‘Nay, nay, my lady.’ He shook his head and waved his hands from side to side to underline his point. ‘There is no execution planned today.’ He read my expression and added, ‘Nor on any other day, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Then who is that man?’ My voice had risen now and there was panic in it.

  ‘Now, my lady, now, calm yourself. It is but Sir Henry Bedingfield, lately come to take charge of the Tower and your ladyship’s person.’

  ‘Who is he?’ I frowned. His name was unfamiliar. ‘Is he such a man that if my murdering were secretly committed to his charge, he would see the execution thereof?’ I would have asked more questions, such was the pitch of my fear, but at that moment, the man in question entered the room.

  ‘My lady Elizabeth,’ he said, sweeping off his hat and bowing low in front of me.

  ‘Sir Henry.’ I extended my hand, but it trembled. I noticed and so did he.

  ‘No need for alarm, my lady.’ He straightened up. ‘I am merely here to escort you to a more pleasant place.’

  Heaven? I wondered. But I soon learnt that Sir Henry was no wit with words. What he said he meant, quite literally. ‘Why so many men to escort one such as I, my lord?’ I said, still believing that my end was fast approaching.

  ‘As a mark of respect, my lady, a mark of respect for the old king, thy father and the queen, thy sister.’

  ‘And where are you taking me? Where is this pleasant place you speak of?’

  ‘The queen, madam, has seen fit in her infinite mercy to place her manor of Woodstock at your disposal for the time being, and I am to be your host there.’

  ‘Host, is it, Sir Henry? Well, I have heard it called worse things.’

  ‘I know not what you mean, my lady – but, then your reputation for wit precedes you.’

  ‘All the way to Woodstock, it seems.’ Perhaps they meant to assassinate me on the journey, or, more likely to do away with me in the quiet isolation of the Oxfordshire countryside. Even if Bedingfield knew nothing about it, perhaps one of those soldiers out there, any one of them, might be briefed and paid to be my executioner.

  Despite the clatter and clamour of Sir Henry’s arrival, it was another tedious and anxious fortnight before we were finally released from the Tower. His company of soldiers littered the gardens and pavements below my chambers, playing cards and drinking ale – too much ale, on many an occasion, so that my ladies often had cause to open my windows and call on them to move away or be silent. Churlishly and the better to mark my lack of status, they generally refused to budge an inch. It was orders, they declared, to keep a close watch on ‘the prisoner’. And they increased, rather than decreased, their noise and rough antics. So I was under no fond illusions as we left the Tower and made our way up the Thames, to Richmond. Host rather than gaoler I might now have, but captive I yet was and as vulnerable to the assassin’s knife, potion or garrotte as ever. Still all I wanted was to survive and all my energy focused upon it.

  With the memory of my recent agonising journey by barge to the Tower still fresh in my mind, I was relieved to see that on the first day of our journey, at least, the sun smiled upon us and the Thames carried our small craft on its back as gently as a lamb. But it was not to be many hours before my sense of relief was stolen from me.

  ‘I have a gift for the Lady Elizabeth.’ An unwelcome cry pierced the still of the afternoon as we disembarked at Richmond. Sir Henry and his soldiers turned to look at the breathless and travel-stained messenger, who had obviously ridden at speed to greet us on our arrival. I looked also, I could not help myself, but then turned away, shuddering at the thought of where this unwarranted and unasked for intrusion might lead.

  Did he have some coded message for me, from some supposed well-wisher? Worse, was he foolish enough to think he could hide some such message about his person? Or, was it a plan, set up by my sister, Bedingfield and his men, so that they could make me look the traitor no matter what I said or did? Had they released me from my prison merely to snap the trap shut again – catching me by the neck, like some foolish mouse that had thought itself safe enough to nibble at the cheese? I looked up with a desperate yearning to the open blue skies above. I wanted no more than that freedom – no messages, no gifts or surprises.

  ‘I know nothing of this man,’ I whispered to Sir Henry, ‘nor of any gift.’

  The soldiers stepped in front of the messenger and crossed their lances to stop him approaching any closer.

  ‘I come from the French ambassador,’ he cried, ‘with a gift to ease the Lady Elizabeth.’

  ‘Tell your master I want no gift,’ I snapped. Antoine de Noailles had already lost the queen’s favour for meddling with Wyatt. What new foolishness was this?

  ‘’Tis merely apples, my lady,’ he said, lifting the heavy bag he had at his side.

  ‘Seize him!’ commanded Bedingfield, and the hapless courier was hauled from our sight.

  It was indeed merely apples, thanks be to heaven, and sweet and juicy they were – or so I was told. I myself had not the stomach for them. Innocent though they proved, and innocent as I was of wanting nought but to be left alone, the apples gave my gaoler the excuse he needed to separate me from my people.

  ‘But I knew nothing of the Duc de Noailles’ gift. He took it into his head to send me apples! Am I to be forever held responsible for other people’s foolishness? How can I protect myself from the whims and fancies others get into their heads? If I am to be eternally punished for their follies, I will indeed suffer much.’ I protested bitterly when they came to take my attendants away, but to no avail. I shed tears as they departed from my sight. It felt even more like a plot to me, now that they had an excuse to remove any hostile witnesses who might tell of the murder I was sure was about to be committed.

  ‘Pray, sir,’ I called to my gentleman usher, the same who had soothed me as I cowered in the rain at the gates of the Tower, while he was led by armed men around the corner and out of my sight. ‘Pray! I desire you and the rest of your company to pray for me.’ Then I drew breath and heartily raised my voice, so all could hear. ‘For this night, I think to die.’ Such slender protection, but words were all I had – words that could be reported throughout the kingdom, if, perchance, my worst fears were realised and I woke not on the morrow.

  Perhaps, though slender, the protection those few words afforded me was enough, for although I did not wake the next morning, ’twas only because I had not gone to sleep in the first place. The night was long but quiet and I lived to see the dawn and to be loaded upon a warped and broken litter. Relieved to be alive, I set out on yet another journey as prisoner, clinging awkwardly to my hobble-de-hoy transport, afraid that I would be tipped out at any moment and gloomily aware of the jolts, bruises and aches that would await me by day’s end.

  Yet, despite my discomfort, I now look back on my journey to Woodstock with affection. Unlike my journey to the Tower, when the bitter, icy weather and the memory of recent rebellion kept people inside, this journey proved to me and to my enemies that, regardless of my long incarceration, the good people of England had not forgotten me. Right well I remember the lift in my spirits when the scholars at Eton cheered me thrice over as our procession went by. ‘God save Your Grace!’ called the boys and ‘Long live the Princess Elizabeth.’

  ‘God save Queen Mary!’ I called back to them, always conscious that my every word and deed was written down and reported in the hope that it could be used against me. The people of England also told of my words and deeds, but with different purpose. They rang the church bells in my honour in one hamlet, and many of the knights and squires required to house our party in the evenings treated me like the royalty I was, much to Sir Henry’s displeasure. What irritated him the most, however, was the way the country folk streamed from their houses to the roadside and cheered me on my progress. I annoyed him, too, by lifting the curtain of my broken down litter and smiling
and waving back at them as best I could, while gripping the side of the vehicle to prevent myself being tipped out at any moment. The honest acclamation of the people gave me more than good cheer: it gave me courage. Great and powerful though my enemies might be, and as fervently as they wished me dead and buried, the good people of England were stronger and they wanted me very much alive. It was their will, I slowly realised, that kept me safe. It was in their affection that I found my power.

  Woodstock was as dreary a prison as I had expected: a run-down and neglected hunting lodge, ill befitting one of my pedigree, but remote and inaccessible enough for my enemy’s purpose. My days there quickly became as long and wearisome as they had in my other prison. Thanks to the stout-hearted loyalty of those we passed on our journey, I no longer believed they intended to kill me – merely to immure me in the countryside, out of harm’s way. While I studied my Catholic tracts, translated my texts, practised my lute, chafed against my isolation and begged Sir Henry to let me write to my sister, Mary married the King of Spain amid much celebration. To my considerable chagrin, even on this momentous occasion, I was not permitted to send even a line of congratulations. I was to be comprehensively excluded. My continued existence was at most a dark shadow at the back of my sister’s mind. How I envied the lodge’s milkmaid who sang so sweetly as she came and went, morning and afternoon, to tend to her business. Her case was so much better and her life so much merrier than mine.

  We had arrived at dreary Woodstock in the late spring; we sat within its grounds throughout summer and into autumn. By October, as the days drew in, Sir Henry had to bring his soldiers down from the hills and inside the gates of the lodge at night, because it became too cold for them to remain so exposed. Worse, as he grumbled oftentimes to me, he had to begin paying for them and for some of the much needed repairs to the rundown hunting lodge from his own pocket. This news depressed me further, not on behalf of Sir Henry – for whom I had conceived a robust dislike – but because it proved how unimportant I was and how thoroughly I was banished.

  Despite the headache-inducing hammer and saw of his joiners, come November, the wind still whistled uncomfortably under wainscoting and along corridors, and my attendants and I huddled ever closer to the smoking fires and tried to keep warm by fanning the flames of our resentment and our anger. Kat Ashley and Elizabeth Sands no longer spoke to one another and I had to be careful not to appear to favour either one of them. We had so little to do that each began to count the number of words and smiles I bestowed, and sulk if I favoured the other with as much as an extra syllable. On any pretext I could, I sent one of them off to confer daily with my cofferer Thomas Parry, who had taken up much more agreeable and comfortable lodgings at The Bull in Woodstock village. From there, to Sir Henry’s consternation, we were kept abreast of developments at court.

  ‘My lady, my lady!’ Elizabeth Sands had come running from the village, red of face and short of breath. Boredom had led many of my attendants to take solace in food – food that I was paying for – and some were showing signs of their indulgence. Elizabeth, whose dresses had had to be let out by another inch or so, was now bent before me, clutching her side, her bosom heaving as she attempted to catch her breath.

  ‘What is it, Mistress Sands? What excites you so?’

  Unable to form any words, she waved her hands at me in a gesture asking for patience.

  ‘Don’t wave your hands like that at Her Grace!’ snapped Kat Ashley, quick as always to pick fault.

  ‘Hush, Kat,’ I said, turning back to Elizabeth, whose face had become an alarming shade of puce. ‘Something momentous has occurred.’

  ‘Aye, my lady, that it has,’ she replied, able to form words at last. ‘The queen, my lady–’ She paused again to catch her breath.

  ‘Yes, yes, what about the queen?’

  ‘The queen is with child.’

  Even Kat Ashley was rendered speechless by the news. I stepped towards Elizabeth. Her breathing had almost returned to normal. ‘You are sure of this?’

  ‘Aye, my lady. The news is all over the village and Thomas – Master Parry, begging your pardon, my lady – himself heard the town crier proclaiming the news. I am sure if you ask Sir Henry he will confirm it.’

  I turned to my chair and sat down. This was the news I had been dreading ever since I heard she had wed. It meant that for the next few months, at least, I would again be in a strange, uncertain place. Childbirth is notoriously dangerous, particularly to a small, unhealthy woman as old as my poor sister. So it was possible many things might happen. ‘How far gone is she?’

  ‘I know not, Your Grace, but they say the babe is expected in the spring.’

  ‘As soon as that?’ Once more, I felt buffeted by winds that were beyond my control. While being the second person in England was an unhappy fate, I could see no advantages in being once more the third. I would be no safer and, in fact, might be less secure. I knew full well it was my status and closeness to the throne that helped prevent my sister actually removing me from the succession altogether. As my importance diminished, my chance of a quiet death increased. But, as always thanks to my strange and difficult position, it was even more complicated. Because of the religious divide in England, my importance would both decrease and increase with the birth of a Catholic heir.

  Protestant zealots would feel they could no longer merely wait for Mary to die and see me ascend the throne in God’s good time. No – many would feel the need to take matters into their own hands, and the clouds of conspiracy would darken once more above my head, whether aided by me, or no. And, after all the months of incarceration, I could see how sheer boredom could lead any prisoner to yearn for release, by whatever means, and how such yearning could lead one into intrigues and thence into dangerous waters indeed.

  Yet, as I said, childbirth is dangerous and I knew that Mary could easily die. My mind turned immediately to my beloved stepmother, Catherine Parr, who had been near on Mary’s age when she died in childbed. Not only Mary, but the whole country was embarking on a time of great peril. A pregnant queen who rules in her own right is a different proposition from one who is merely consort to a king. If a queen consort dies giving birth, she can be replaced. If a queen regnant dies, by whatever means, all the inevitable uncertainty and anxiety that surrounds a change of government follows. If Mary died, but left a living child – an infant – who would rule as regent? England would once again face all the hazards of being ruled by a child. Philip would return to Spain and appoint a Spanish proxy to rule England on his behalf, perhaps: a recipe for insurrection and instability, aye, even for out-and-out rebellion. If this occurred, would I then find myself at the head of an army leading a rebellion against my infant niece or nephew? My heart thudded at the picture such a thought conjured up in my head. I might rebel against a Spanish regent, but if Mary’s child were rightful king – as he would be – it would be foul treason to unseat God’s anointed from his throne. By rights, I should be regent until the child reached his majority, but I knew there was little chance of my sister or her advisors allowing such a thing to come to pass. Philip’s view on this I did not know. Perhaps his grasp of politics was better than his wife’s. For surely such a solution would be the safest course, allying Protestant and Catholic English under one authority, acceptable to both.

  And if Mary and her child both died, as often happened? My heart began to beat in earnest at this seditious but utterly unavoidable thought. Well, then I would be Queen.

  ‘What means this, my lady?’ Kat whispered.

  ‘I know not – except that things will change. Whether for better or for worse remains to be seen.’ And, with that, I rose from my chair and walked to the window, spattered now with icy rain, as if whatever the future held was out there, able to be seen, walking towards us up the avenue.

  Long grey fingers of daylight have reached around my window coverings and penetrated my chamber. One ghostly finger rests ge
ntly on my knee, another upon this page. I can push the candle further away from me and still see clearly enough to place words upon the paper. Others will be stirring throughout London now, ready for this day of days. The bakers will have been about their task for hours, only waiting now for their loaves to prove. The nightwatchmen will be yawning and stretching, anticipating their day’s rest after their night’s labour. A few drunken revellers may still be wending their way home, humming snatches of drinking songs. The housewives and scullery maids will be poking sleepily at embers dying in grates, teasing them reluctantly into flame. They will begin to prepare the morning meal for their still sleeping households and, perhaps, parcels of food to be eaten later in the day, when they stand with the jostling throngs lining the route my coronation procession will take from Tower to Abbey.

  Perhaps they will soon step into the half-light to buy new-baked bread for the purpose. Some diehards may already be claiming their vantage points, determined to see more than a glimpse of splendour. Coronations, parades, mummeries, beheadings, hangings, floggings, drawings and quarterings, witch duckings, cock fights, bear baitings, wrestling matches, horse races, riots, protests and triumphal marches – all tease Londoners from their homes, drawing them irresistibly with the promise of spectacle and relief from the humdrum. There is nothing the people like better than a show, whether it be the fear and terror of the traitor’s last moments on the scaffold, or the laughter and squeals that greet Punch and Judy.

  Today it is their new monarch’s job to give them awe and pleasure. Please God the spectacle we have planned will earn the crowd’s acclamation, not its ridicule. Please God that all goes to plan, that no horse, soldier or monarch, stumbles, forgets a part or farts. All must be solemn, touched by the hand of God as befits God’s anointed. For as I reflect on all the twists and turns that led me to this place, at this hour, hale and hearty, God’s anointed I must be and intended for queen all along.