by Jean Plaidy
It was wonderful to know that he was back, and perhaps even more so to realize what his coming meant, for he had come to help restore the Pope's supremacy in England which, I had convinced myself, was the reason why God had preserved my life and set me on the throne to work His will.
Gardiner came up the stairs.
He was to take Reginald to Lambeth Palace.
MY PLEASURE IN SEEING Reginald was married by the change in him. He was still handsome, still noble, but I sensed a deep sadness, and there was in him a bitterness against my father.
We met frequently and there were times when he and I were alone together. Then he talked of his family, all of whom—with the exception of Geoffry, who had tried and failed to take his own life and was now living abroad in exile—had been murdered. What affected him most was the death of his mother, who, he said, had been butchered on the scaffold.
“My mother,” he said, “was a saint. She was the most pious of women who had never harmed a living soul… and to be murdered so.”
I wept with him, remembering so much of my life with her.
“But it is over, Reginald,” I said. “Life dealt harshly with you and yours, and we do no good by remembering.”
He said, “I see myself as the son of a martyr, for such was my mother and I shall never forget her.”
“The past is over,” I said. “Many died and your family among them. We cannot bring them back. We have to think ahead. We have to continue with this great task which God has set us.”
He was certainly zealous in that cause. Three days after his arrival, the two Houses of Parliament were assembled to hear Reginald speak. He told them he had come to restore the lost glory of the kingdom.
A few days later Philip and I were presented with a petition from the two Houses to plead with the Legate to absolve the country from its schism and disobedience.
We were moving toward our goal. High Mass was celebrated at St. Paul's. The Act restoring supremacy to the Pope had not yet been passed but it was on the way.
There was a ceremony at St. Paul's at the end of November to celebrate my condition. It was very moving. The Virgin Mary was referred to, and the similarity of our names seemed significant. “Fear not, Mary,” the angel had said, “for thou hast found favor with God.”
The fear meant that they were all remembering my age and the dangers of childbirth, even to the young and healthy. They would certainly be remembering the last prince to be born, my brother Edward, whose coming had meant the death of his mother.
I listened to the prayers with emotion.
“Give therefore unto Thy servants, Philip and Mary, a male issue.” I was always a little apprehensive about this manner of giving commands to God. Few would have dared treat me in the same manner! “Make him comely and in wit notable and excellent.”
All I wanted was a healthy son; and I was the happiest woman in the world at the prospect of having one.
CHRISTMAS HAD COME. I was delighted that my sister would be at Court to celebrate it with me. She did not appear often in public—only when her presence was commanded. Then she was subdued, and there was a secretive air about her. Philip was immensely interested in her. I often noticed his eyes following her.
I told myself: He is a little suspicious of her; he fears she may be plotting against me.
Dear Philip, he was so careful of me, and I was very happy that I had conceived so soon. It was a sign of fertility.
I was feeling quite ill at times but I rejoiced in my suffering. It was all part of pregnancy, which could be very trying to some women. I expected it would be particularly so for me, in view of my previous weakness.
I said to Philip, “Until this child is born, Elizabeth is the heir presumptive, and I believe she should be treated as such.”
He said he had no objection and was very affable to her, often seating himself beside her and engaging in conversation.
It was a great pleasure to me that they seemed so friendly toward each other but I did feel a little dismayed when Elizabeth was inclined to be coquettish. I thought Philip might have been a little disgusted. He was no Thomas Seymour to smile on or encourage such conduct. But so determined was he to be amiable that he made no objection.
I mentioned to him that he seemed very interested in her, and he replied that she was too near the throne for him to ignore her.
“She seems to be happy about the child,” I said, “but it has blighted her hopes.”
“She will understand that it is God who decides what is to be.”
“As we all must,” I said.
I put my hand over his, but his lay cold beneath mine. It was his Spanish nature. He did not seem to know how to respond to those little endearments, and therefore pretended he was unaware of them.
I said, “Philip, you do think it is right to treat my sister as heirpresumptive, do you not?”
“We must until the child is born.”
“So thought I. Then she must be seated at my table. And she must receive honors. That is right, Philip?”
“I believe that to be right,” he said.
“I am glad that she will have an opportunity to become acquainted with Emmanuel Philibert.”
Philip nodded gravely.
When it was seen that I was treating Elizabeth with the respect due to the heir presumptive, there were many to flock round her. Philip's eyes were speculative as he watched her success. If I had not known him well, I should have thought he was interested in her as a woman.
As for Elizabeth, she was in her element. I had never seen anyone recover so quickly, whether it was from sickness or fear of death; as soon as it was over, she seemed able to dismiss it from her mind.
Emmanuel Philibert was paying court to her. She accepted his attentions and then wide-eyed declared that she could never marry. I was irritated with her. She must have known what was expected of her, yet she put on that pretense of innocence which I knew was entirely false.
I sent for her and told her she was foolish. The prince was a good man; she was fortunate that he should agree to marry her.
“My dear sister,” she said, “I have a repugnance for the state of marriage. I wish to remain a virgin.”
“What! All your life!”
“It would seem so…at this time.”
“You are a fool, sister.”
She piously raised her eyes to the ceiling, accepting my judgement. But I could see the stubborn look about her mouth.
Later I consulted Philip.
I was feeling very ill now, and I know I looked wan. Philip was most anxious about me, and I was gratified that he showed such care for me.
He said, “She should not be forced to marry.”
“It would be difficult to force her.”
He nodded. “Let her stay. She is watched. No harm can come that way.”
I thought how kind he was, how considerate of others.
I told Elizabeth that the King thought she should make her own decision about marriage.
Her eyes lighted with pleasure, and she smiled secretively.
THE ACTS SETTING OUT the return to Rome were now confirmed, and those nineteen statutes against the See of Rome brought in during my father's reign were repealed.
It was not to be expected that the country would easily change, and there must certainly be dissenters. When Gardiner came to me and told me that the Council were going to enforce the old laws against heresy, I was disturbed.
I questioned this. In my imagination I saw the pale, martyred face of Anne Askew, and I remembered those days when my stepmother Katharine Parr went in fear of her life. Anne Askew and Katharine Parr had been good women, though misguided. I could not bear to think of people being tortured and burned at the stake.
“I think persuasion would be the best way to proceed,” I said.
“Your Majesty, with all respect, when has persuasion ever persuaded? These people are as firm in their beliefs as…”
“As you or I?”
“They n
eed guidance.”
“Then let us give them guidance.”
“The Council are of the opinion that the old laws should be enforced. Moreover, it is the Pope's wish.”
“All I wanted was to bring the country back to Rome, for the Mass to be celebrated openly and with due reverence. I must think of this.”
Gardiner looked at me with something like exasperation. Often he had deplored what he thought of as my woman's sentimentality. One did not govern a country on sentiment. If the law of the country was that people should worship in the way it was before my father broke with Rome, then that was how it should be.
I wanted to explain to him that it was different now. Since Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenberg, Protestantism had grown apace, and there were many Protestants in England who had flourished under my brother. Would they lightly discard those new beliefs and cheerfully return to the old? They certainly would not, and then…
“Let it be gradual,” I said.
“Perhaps you will talk to the King,” replied Gardiner.
He knew that I would. He knew that I sought every opportunity of talking to Philip, and he knew that Philip would doubtless agree with the Council.
I told Philip how gratified I was that we were restoring the true religion. We had come out of the sleep, as someone said, and we were now getting back onto the right course. It was what God had ordained for me, and I was achieving it.
“It is a matter for rejoicing,” said Philip.
“Philip,” I said earnestly. “I do not wish the law to be harsh.”
He never betrayed his feelings, but I could see his thoughts were much the same as Gardiner's had been and that he believed my misguided sentiments stood in the way of good government.
He said, “If the people will not come to the truth voluntarily, they must be led to it.”
“How can they be led if they will not listen?”
“When they see what happens to heretics, they will be led.”
“There will always be martyrs.”
“There will always be heretics and they must be removed.”
“I remember Anne Askew. She was a good woman, but misguided in her views. They racked her. They burned her at the stake.”
“You must understand. A heretic denies God's truth. What is there for him…or her… when they are brought before their Maker? It will be hell fire for them… eternal fire. That which is felt at the stake will be nothing compared with what is to come.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“I wish it need not be,” I said.
“There must be examples.”
“Each person must be given a chance to recant.”
Philip nodded. “That should be. And for the death of one, think of the thousands who will be saved by his example. It is easy to talk of martyrdom, but when the flames are actually seen to consume the bodies of those who sin against God, men and women will question their beliefs. It is the way to turn people to the truth.”
He persuaded me, and in January, when Parliament was dissolved, the way ahead was clear.
I wanted every person to have a chance to save himor herself. All they had to do was turn from the new learning to the old, true religion. I wanted all to know that I would be a loving monarch if my people would obey the laws of the land. I wanted no trouble. I wanted them to regard me as their mother. I wanted them to know I loved them and that, if I agreed to punishment—and this applied particularly to heretics, it was for their own good.
I said that all those who had been imprisoned at the time of the Wyatt rebellion should be released. I thought often of Edward Courtenay, with whom I had at one time considered a marriage. How fortunate I had been to escape that! In spite of his Plantagenet blood, he would have been a most unsuitable husband. How different Philip was!
I said he should be released from Fotheringay, where he had lived virtually as a prisoner since his release from the Tower. But he must not stay in England, of course. That could be unsafe. He and Elizabeth might plot together. She had sworn she was loyal to me, and I tried to believe her, but I would never really know Elizabeth. She was shrewd. The perils through which she had passed would have made her so. I must remember her dangerous flirtation with Seymour, which might have had dire results.
So Courtenay could go free only if he left the country. He went, with the injunction that he must not return to England without permission.
It was in February of that second year of my reign that the first heretic was burned at the stake for his religious opinions. His name was Rogers, and people gathered at Smithfield to watch him burn. In Coventry the rector of All Hallows Church was burned and at Hadleigh Rowland Taylor, a wellknown adherent to the Protestant cause, met the same fate. He was the parish priest and much loved, a man of great virtue, apart from his stubbornness in religious matters. He had protested violently when a priest had been sent to perform Mass in his church. His arrest and sentence to the stake had followed. But the most prominent victim was John Hooper, the Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester.
I was very distressed. Why could they not accept the truth? All were given the chance to. All they had to do was deny their faith and accept the true one, and they would be saved.
I did remember how I had clung to my faith and how I had put myself in danger by my firm adherence to it. But that was the true faith. I laughed at myself. These poor people deluded themselves that their was the true one.
Because Hooper was so well known, there was more talk about him than the others. He had been such a good man, people were saying: he had a wife who had borne nine children. I knew this. But he had been remonstrated with and given every chance. He had been arrested some time before on some petty charge, because Gardiner had intimated to me that he was a dangerous man. He believed so fervently in his style of religion, and people were moved by his eloquence and inclined to follow him.
Hooper had been in the Fleet Prison for some time, and he had made it known that there he had been treated worse than if he had been a slave.
Gardiner saw how distressed I was that this man had suffered death by burning, and he insisted that he had done much harm with his preaching and writing, and would have done more if he had been allowed to live. He had been offered every chance.
The day before his death, Sir Anthony Kingston had gone to him and begged him to recant, for to do so would save his life. But he would not. He said he would rather face the flames.
“He was a foolish man,” said Gardiner.
“Aye,” I replied, “but a brave one.”
I was deeply disturbed that there should be this religious persecution in my reign. I had wanted to be good to all my people. I almost wished that I was back in the past, when I was without responsibilities, even wondering who was seeking to destroy me.
Now the power was mine to destroy others, I could not rest. My nights were haunted by memories of my stepmother Katharine Parr. She came to me in dreams, side by side with Anne Askew.
“All these heretics have to do is recant,” I continually reminded myself. If they did, they would be received with joy. Is there not greater joy in the sinner who repents? They should have instruction. They should have time to learn. I would insist on that.
I was pleased when one of the Franciscans preached at Court, pointing out that burning at the stake was not the way.
I said to Philip, “He is right.”
But Philip did not think so. In his native country the Inquisition flourished. It had a beneficial effect, he insisted. People lived in fear of it. Only the reckless and foolhardy wanted to pit themselves against it.
After that sermon, there was a lull for a while, and then the arrests began again and the burning continued.
What was happening threw a cloud over my happiness.
It was April, and I believed that the birth of my child was imminent. I was to go to Hampton Court, where arrangements were being made for my confinement. Soon, I told myself, I should f
orget my troubles. In a few weeks from now I should have my child.
I then embarked on the most extraordinary and heartbreaking time of my whole life.
The first weeks at Hampton were peaceful. I was glad of the custom which decreed that a queen should retire and live quietly with her women, awaiting the great event.
Here Jane Seymour had come before me. She had given birth to a boy, and that had killed her—yet she had been young and healthy and ripe for childbearing, it had seemed.
Susan said I must not think of Jane. She had not been taken care of after the birth. She would see that I had every care.
And so we waited. I had the cradle placed in my room so that I could see it all the time. It was very elaborate and splendidly decorated—worthy of the child born to be King.
My dearest hope was about to be realized, and it seemed as though the days would never pass. I said to Susan that time seemed to have slowed down.
“It is ever so, when one is waiting,” she replied. “Very soon your time will come.”
I talked all the time of the child. “He will be a boy, I know it…a perfect boy. I can see him, Susan. He will be like Philip. That is how I would have him. But perhaps he will be tall…as my father was… although I am small and so is Philip… but sometimes children take after their grandparents. The child's grandfather was a big, fine man. I should like my son to be like him … as he was in his youth before … before … And my father's grandfather, Edward IV, was a big and handsome man.”
“Be the child large or small, you will love it just the same,” said Susan wisely.
“How dare you call my child ‘it', Susan?”
“We do not know that it will be a boy. It is wise at such a time to see what God will send.”
“I should love a girl, of course. But it is a boy that everyone wants. A King… not a Queen… but if the child is a girl, we might get boys after.”
Susan raised her eyes to the ceiling. She did not approve of my having a child at all. She thought I was too old and not strong enough. I could have been angry with her, but I knew all she thought and all she did was out of love for me.