“It is not a jest!” Jane cried, looking as though she was about to burst into tears.
Guildford heaved an exaggeratedly languid sigh. “Life is a joke, Jane. Better to laugh through it than to cry! Don’t you think I know that everyone laughs at me? But what they don’t know is that I laugh first!”
Just for a moment, as I waddled along, struggling to keep up and not let Jane’s black velvet prayer book slide off the slick white satin cushion, I thought I saw the ghost of sadness in Guildford’s eyes, but it flitted past so tantalizingly swift, I was never really sure, though in my heart I always felt certain that I had in that moment caught a glimpse of Guildford Dudley’s soul. But whatever it was, he shrugged it off and laughed and Kate gave a joyous whoop and flung another handful of rose petals over their heads.
Once in the royal apartments, Guildford tossed Jane onto the bed and called for wine. “I’m rather parched,” he added as Jane floundered amidst her full skirts and cumbersome train and kicked her feet in the clunky cork chopines and screamed for Kate and me to “get these things off!” We hastened to unbuckle the leather straps only to have Jane seize them from our hands and fling them across the room. She was aiming for Guildford but hit the big silver mirror he was standing in front of instead. Guildford calmly stepped aside, utterly unfazed, sipping his wine as the mirror shattered. “You shouldn’t have done that; that’s seven years bad luck,” he remarked. “Now your eyes shall have to be the mirror I see myself in.”
With a scream, Jane flung herself back on the bed, arms and legs wide, and began kicking her feet and pummeling the bed with her fists just like a child in the throes of a tantrum. Then, all of a sudden, she heaved herself up, her face flushed crimson and chalky pale all at the same time and covered with a pearly sheen of sweat. Nearly falling, tripping over her skirts as she went, she began tearing at her clothes, ripping laces and fastenings, desperate to get them off, slapping Kate’s hands away and knocking me down when we tried to assist her. “I’m burning up!” she screamed. “These sweltering velvets are a foretaste of the flames of Hell, lit by the bonfire of our vanity! God save me! I can feel the flames already, burning inside me, devouring me!”
Without even trying to unfasten the clasp, she tore Cousin Mary’s necklace from her throat, cutting the back and side of her neck, and letting the broken links of gold and deep red rubies fall like tears of blood onto the floor. Kate tried to go to her and press a cloth over the cuts, but Jane snarled like a mad dog and shoved her away. Once she had stripped herself down to her shift and torn off her garters and stockings, Jane raced across the room to the washstand where the heavy white porcelain pitcher and basin sat, lifted the pitcher high, and poured the water down over her upraised face, sighing with ecstatic relief as it drenched the front of her shift and dripped down onto her bare toes to puddle on the floor.
A lusty gleam came into Guildford’s eye as he saw how the water had plastered the thin white lawn shift to her form and turned it nigh transparent. He thrust his wine cup into Kate’s hand and said in a regal tone, “Be gone! The King would be alone with his Queen!”
Kate giggled and grabbed my hand and as we pulled the door closed behind us we couldn’t resist peeping around and catching a last glimpse of Guildford struggling to lift our kicking, squirming sister into his arms, and carry her, fighting and protesting all the while, back to the bed.
“Kiss me the way you did in the meadow at Chelsea, Jane!” he urged as Jane snatched up a pillow and bashed him over the head, rumpling his beautifully arranged curls and sending white feathers wafting down over them like snow.
“Oh ho!” Guildford chuckled as he lunged to pin her down again. “I thought I’d married a dove, but I see I am saddled with a scorpion instead! But, nay, she shall not sting me; I shall saddle and tame her instead!”
As Jane continued to struggle and thrash beneath him, Guildford went on as though they were a loving couple having a delightful breakfast table conversation.
“Father thinks it’s high time we produced an heir, and I agree.” He nodded, darting swiftly across the great, gold, damask-covered bed when Jane managed to break free and grabbing her ankles and pulling her back to him. “A beautiful golden-haired boy,” he continued as he nonchalantly flipped my sister over, flat on her back, just like a pancake, then clambered atop her, wrestling to get hold of her wrists. “Or girl. If it’s a boy we shall name him Prince Gillyflower, and if it’s a girl . . . Princess Gillyflower! It has a certain charm, don’t you think? I think we should name all our children after flowers, so they will surround us like a beautiful bouquet. Wouldn’t that make a fine portrait! The two of us sitting most regally clad upon our thrones with our children clustered about us dressed in clothes embroidered and adorned with the flower they are named for! Of course, all our children will be blond like me; how could they even contemplate being anything else?”
“You’re a fool, a vain, contemptible, empty-headed fool, and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” Jane screamed and kept screaming until Guildford leaned down and stopped her with a kiss, and we hastily shut the door and slumped against it, hugging each other and giggling.
“No, Jane, you hate yourself because you desire me and feel betrayed by your own flesh and lust,” were the last words we heard Guildford say, muffled by the thick, ornately carved wood, and then it was all moans, groans, and cries of delight, and Jane’s “I hate you! ”s were uttered with a breathless fervor that exposed them for the lie they were.
“She loves him.” Kate smiled as she sat back against the door and hugged her knees. “She really loves him!”
The next few days passed in a constant flurry. Our lady-mother decreed that Jane must now dress to suit her royal station and called in a whole army of dressmakers, seamstresses, and embroidery women, and Kate and I were there to attend our sister as she thrashed and pouted her way through the fittings that followed.
I tried to placate her by choosing fabrics and designs of a more subtle opulence, but only the dark, stark, and plain would satisfy Jane, and these our lady-mother slapped away with the most emphatic disdain. Vainly I offered up silks and damasks in aquatic hues of blues and greens and jewel vibrant sapphire and emerald satins and velvets, but Jane thrust them away.
“People expect elegance and glamour from their queen,” I endeavored to explain as I helped lace a glum-faced Jane into a high-collared midnight blue satin with a yoke, kirtle, and under-sleeves of the same blue stitched with shimmering jet flowers. “They will be so disappointed if you appear before them in plain black or gray. The people take pride in their queen’s jewels and gowns, at seeing her look her best.”
But Jane simply replied that they should look to their souls instead “and endeavor to purge and wean themselves of their pride and vanity.” When I tried to coax her into a misty gray velvet with a low square bodice bordered with moonstones and pearls, Jane snatched the scissors from the nearest seamstress and snipped the jewels away, insisting that they be replaced with a border of plain black silk braid and that the neckline be filled in with a simple white lawn partlet devoid of embroidery.
But we persevered, bringing her gowns, kirtles, and sleeves in shades of cinnamon, mulberry, walnut, crimson, purple, ruddy embers, moss green, and a beautiful tawny rose brocade trimmed with pearls and rabbit fur.
In the end, Jane threw up her hands and cried, “Do as you will! I want neither the Crown nor the regal wardrobe that goes with it, but no one cares what I want! So do as you will; you will anyway, no matter what I say!” With that she stood stoic and still and flung her arms wide, as though she were bracing herself to be nailed to a cross, and shut her eyes, and let the seamstresses swarm around her.
While in the room across from Jane’s, Guildford submitted to the tailors’ ministrations with a kingly grace. I found that he welcomed my opinions when I, passing the open door, timidly said that gold embroidery would suit that cinnamon velvet far better than crimson. “You have an eye for fashion, little gargoyle,�
�� Guildford complimented me. “Henceforth I want you here for all my fittings. Get her a comfortable chair. One that will ease her back, not a stool, you oaf!” he barked at his poor valet. Thus I passed many pleasant hours comfortably ensconced amongst the beautiful fabrics and trimmings I loved so, while my brother-in-law, handsome as a sun god, stood unabashedly naked before me and let the tailors drape him with swathes of shimmering, jewel-colored satins, silks, brocades, and velvets, and even sat beside me, with our heads together, as we examined the various buckles, buttons, and brooches the jewelers brought.
Guildford was particularly excited about his coronation clothes, but simply could not set his mind on a single color, much to the despair of the tailors, who tore at their hair as they had already started, then stopped, six coronation suits already. “I shall be perfect in purple!” he would enthuse, then later that same afternoon declare, “I shall be ravishing in red!” or the next morning upon awaking decide, “I shall be glorious in green!” Then, while taking a turn in the Tower gardens, he would turn to me, nibbling uncertainly at his lower lip, and inquire, “Or should it be blue? I am always becoming in blue, and Mother says I am most piquant in pink. Just think how striking I would be in silver with my hair blazing like gold in the sun!”
But I just smiled and said, “If ever an occasion called for gold, this is the one.” And Guildford nodded and smiled and finally made up his mind.
“What better occasion than one’s coronation to deck oneself entirely in gold? I was made for gold!” he cried. Then he went on to fill the tailors’ hearts with joy when he told them to go ahead and finish the other suits that languished in various states of completion—“for one can never have too many clothes, and I intend to be the best dressed king England has ever seen; if she is not careful I shall even outshine my own queen.
“I shall dazzle them,” he went on. “When they see me, my subjects shall think they’ve died and gone to heaven and an angel stands before them! And upon the steps of Westminster Abbey, when Jane and I emerge, hand in hand, crowned, with robes of ermine flowing from our shoulders, I shall sing!”
“No!” Suddenly Guildford’s brothers—Ambrose, John, and Robert—who had spent the day sitting at a nearby table playing cards, bolted up, sending chairs crashing and cards flying, as they shoved past the tailors. Their mother, who often observed the fittings, sitting on the window seat smiling over her embroidery and nodding approvingly at every word Guildford uttered, gently made her way to Guildford’s side and laid her hand lovingly upon his shoulder.
“Darling,” the Duchess said gently, “you don’t really want to waste your voice on the common rabble—dirty, uncouth people who are incapable of appreciating the gift God has given you—do you?”
“It seems almost sacrilegious to me,” John ventured.
“Yes”—Ambrose nodded vigorously—“and in your ermine robes—think how hot and heavy they shall be—you are apt to overtax yourself!”
“Yes,” Robert added emphatically, “and what if you were to faint from the heat, excitement, and strain of it all? The people might think that their new king is a weakling. And you know the Spaniards and the French are always watching; their ambassadors shall be right there watching your every move and recording every word you speak so the story would soon spread abroad. And if they think you are weak, it could mean war!”
“You are right.” Guildford nodded sagely. “How fortunate I am to have the benefit of my family’s loving wisdom to guide me. Very well, I shall wait until the banquet, when I have been divested of my ermine robes, had my brow massaged with rosewater, and eased my throat with cooling wine, and then I shall sing for our noble and refined guests, who are certain to appreciate the precious gift I shall give them.” Then, before his loving family could object further, he clapped his hands and called for the tailors to resume his fitting.
“My son is the most beautiful boy in the world,” the Duchess of Northumberland said softly, admiringly, as she watched Guildford being draped in gold.
“Until he opens his mouth,” Ambrose, standing behind her, added glumly as his brothers nodded.
Later that afternoon, when Jane was seated morosely on her throne in the presence chamber, the Crown was brought to her, by the Royal Treasurer, the Marquis of Winchester, to ensure that it fitted and, as our lady-mother said when she preempted the honor of placing it on her daughter’s head, “to see if it suits.”
Jane shrank from it, as though she feared it, even as the Marquis spoke comfortingly, assuring her that, “Your Grace may take it without fear.”
“It is not my right!” Jane whimpered, but her protests fell on deaf ears as she slouched lower, cringing away from it, whining piteously as she suffered it to be set upon her head. She barely tolerated it a moment before she put it from her, letting it fall with a great clanking clatter onto the stone floor.
The Marquis of Winchester gave an appalled gasp, and our lady-mother gave Jane’s arm a vicious pinch.
Guildford picked the crown up and held it at arm’s length, eyeing it critically. “And where is my crown?” he demanded. “You haven’t even come to measure my head yet!” He turned accusing, icy green eyes on Winchester.
“I—I—one shall have to be made, Your Grace,” he stammered.
“No!” Jane cut him off savagely, snatching the crown roughly from Guildford’s hands and thrusting it blindly at the Treasurer. “A crown you shall not have! You shall not be king! Your father thought to play kingmaker when they forced me to marry you, but he shall not succeed! I shall create you a duke, but nothing more!”
“I will be made king by you and by Act of Parliament!” Guildford insisted. “I shall settle for nothing less. It is an insult, and most demeaning, for you to be queen and I, your husband and consort, only a duke!”
“You will never be king! Never!” Jane shouted.
“Oh yes, I will!” Guildford countered. “If you don’t make me king, I’ll . . .”
Those lords and ladies standing nearest watched avidly with bated breaths and crowded as close as they dared, eager to see who would win this battle of wills.
“You’ll what?” Jane demanded, folding her arms across her chest and glaring hard at Guildford.
“If you don’t make me king, I’ll”—Guildford gave a tantalizing pause before he rushed on, throwing the words down like a challenge to a duel—“I’ll leave you forever and go home to my mother!”
Jane turned slowly, stretched out her arm, and pointed. “There is the door, you lily-livered, mollycoddled milksop, go on back to your mother; I’m surprised that you’ve even been weaned!” With these words she turned her back on Guildford and flounced sulkily back to slouch sullen-faced upon her unwanted throne. When Mrs. Ellen, so long accustomed to the role of governess, leaned over and whispered a gentle reminder about ladylike posture, Jane glared daggers at her.
“Yes, my love,” Guildford said icily, “but you know it would be much simpler if you just called me Guildford, but I daresay a girl who reads Plato in Greek can’t help showing off and striving to impress everyone with her vocabulary in any language even when there’s no need!” Then he was striding out the door, the very picture of elegant indignation.
A few moments later, hearing a commotion outside, Jane bolted from her throne and hurled herself at the open window, leaning so far out I feared she would fall and ran to be ready to wrap my arms around her legs and act as her anchor if need be. Adopting the most imperious tone I had ever heard come from her, Jane called down to the guards, ordering them to stop Guildford from leaving the Tower. “Although I have no need of my husband in my bed at night,” she said scathingly, in a loud, clear voice that would have made the most potent man wither, “by day his place is by my side!”
When Guildford reappeared, Jane ran up to him, and, for a moment I thought she was going to launch herself at him with arms swinging. But instead, she stopped, panting angrily before him, and, with her chin thrust high, announced, “Your father forced me to as
sume this throne that is not mine by right and shall be my downfall, but you shall not desert me like a rat fleeing a sinking ship; when we sink—and we will!—we shall go down together! If my life is forfeit because of your father, yours shall not be spared!”
“Oh!” Guildford sighed. “I am touched beyond words that you want us to be together until the day we die; is that not what you are saying, my lady-wife? Really, we must teach you to say these things in a sweeter and more romantic and affectionate way, a more feminine manner that does not instantly call to mind salty-tongued sailors. Even though I can see through these angry and insulting words to the truth that is in your heart, some might be deceived and take you seriously. We don’t want the foreign ambassadors reporting back to their masters that the King and Queen of England hate each other and quarrel like a sailor and a fishwife!”
The assembled lords and ladies chuckled softly at Guildford’s jest.
“Oooh!” Jane seethed, balling her fists and stamping her feet in frustration, before she stormed into her bedchamber and slammed the door. A moment later she opened the door again, stuck her head out, and screeched, “I hate you!” before slamming it again.
“Careful, Jane!” Guildford called after her. “People will think we’re in love!”
But the argument didn’t end there. That night after Guildford had slipped naked between the perfumed silk sheets and snatched away Jane’s beloved volume of Plato’s Phaedo and flung it across the room, his mother barged in, dark braids bouncing indignantly down her back, in her lavender damask dressing gown and lace-frilled cap. She was carrying a sumptuous gold-tasseled and embroidered emerald velvet dressing gown and a pair of gold-slashed green velvet slippers that she had kept for hours warming before the fire.
“Come, Guildford!” she said, holding the dressing gown out for him to slip his arms into, then kneeling to slide his feet into the slippers as though he were a little child. “I, your loving mother, cannot permit you to share the bed of such an ungrateful, undutiful wife who denies you the kingship that you deserve, and, as her husband, is your right!”
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