by David Belbin
At times I feel better and go for short walks outdoors. There are no games now, no sport. I read and pray. I wish they would tell me what is wrong with me.
16 The King’s Device
It’s summer. Time is running out. In the city, rumours spread that I am dead already. Dudley makes me appear at a window of the palace so that the crowd can see me. I wave feebly, feeling as though I’m in a masque. The well wishers cheer half-heartedly, then go away.
Dudley asks my permission for his son, Guildford, to marry the Lady Jane Grey. I give it, warmly. He is plotting something, I know that. After the marriage, the couple do not live together. I can see what is going on. It will be easy to get Lady Jane’s marriage annulled if she has not shared a marriage bed with Guildford.
No marriage bed for me now. That’s one pleasure I will never know. The only feeling I have is in my stomach. The blood I cough up is purple-black and reeks so badly it would make those sick who smell it. I can’t sleep unless they pump me full of opiates to kill the pain. Nights merge with the days. Only one thought possesses me now, obsesses me. I must stop Mary from becoming queen.
Dudley brings me a woman doctor. Who has heard of such a thing? The medicine she gives me is potent and painful. She looks strange – small and round – but she insists that she can save my life. I’m sure that she’s a quack. Why, the medicine she gives me hurts even more than my disease. But I linger on. I should be dead by now. My nails are falling out. So is my hair. My skin flakes in all the places where it isn’t covered in scabs. My eyes are bloodshot, hollow.
I send for Dudley. When he comes, I am screaming with pain. He asks the quack to give me more drugs. I say no. I want to be able to think clearly.
‘I am not going to live to see sixteen, you must realise that.’
‘I fear it, Your Grace,’ Dudley replies.
‘I want to make a will.’
‘You cannot make a will before you’re sixteen, Your Grace. The law regards you as a child.’
Groaning, I begin to lift myself up. Dudley, concealing his distaste, reaches forward to help me. I spit the words which seal our fate.
‘I am the law. You … are my instrument. If I will it, so it shall be.’
‘The Council…’ Dudley begins, but I interrupt.
‘The Council will do what I tell them to do,’
‘I don’t know if that’s true, Your Grace,’ Dudley whispers.
‘Then we’d better find out,’ I reply. ‘Tell them I wish to disinherit the Lady Mary. My sister Elizabeth must become queen after I die. She will carry on what I have started.’
‘It won’t work,’ Dudley tells me me. ‘If you disinherit Mary, you must disinherit Elizabeth too. They are both bastards.’
We argue the toss for some time, until I am tired and can see no way around it. In truth, I’m not sure that Elizabeth will accept the throne if I disinherit Mary. For, if Mary fights back, and wins, she will have Elizabeth’s head.
‘Very well then,’ I say. ‘My father’s sister, the Lady Jane’s mother, is next in line.’
‘She can be persuaded to relinquish her claim in favour of her daughter.’
‘Get it done.’
When Dudley returns, a day later, I’m having a nightmare. My father, bloated and old, invites me to share his grave. Dudley is standing by me when I wake.
‘It is done. The time has come for you to write a will.’
Together, we work on the wording. Even so, when I write it down, I make a mistake about whose children follow who. Too tired to start again, I write a correction above.
‘You think your son will make a good king?’ I tease Dudley.
‘King Consort,’ Dudley corrects me. ‘The Lady Jane would become queen if…’
‘Consort or no, you will rule. You will make sure my work carries on.’
‘Oh yes, Your Grace.’
‘Better send Guildford to share his marriage bed,’ I mutter.
‘It is done, Your Grace,’ Dudley replies. I imagine the dull, oafish Guildford with the clever, sensitive Jane and I retch, spraying the bed clothes with purple sputum.
‘Have the papers drawn up,’ I order.
The rest is detail. Some members of the Council protest about my device to deprive Mary of the throne. There are arguments, even talk of treason.
‘I won’t let them stand in your way,’ Dudley tells me. ‘I have offered to fight in my shirt sleeves any man who dares challenge your will.’
‘Send the Council to see me now,’ I instruct him, and they come, man after man, to see me on my death bed. I ask each to sign a document, supporting my new will. If they argue or show signs of doubt, I fix them with a stare of such holy desperation, they cave in. Archbishop Cranmer asks if he might consult a judge before signing (he’s worried about committing treason). He is my godfather so I let him, for which he is grateful. John Cheke, now a Council member, is harder to convince.
‘I do not trust a god whose true religion disinherits orphans,’ he says. But in the end, he, too signs. Most agree willingly, for they love me. And who can deny such a holy king, in such agony, his dying wish?
Dudley sends away the quack. Rumours spread that he is poisoning me. Dudley is the sort of man about whom there will always be rumours. There are fresh rumours that I have died. One night a huge crowd gathers at Greenwich, hearing that I would show myself. But I can’t get out of bed. The next night they come again, but are told that the air is too chilly for me to appear. It’s July, but my bones feel as cold as the grave.
I’m sorry, Elizabeth, sorry it couldn’t be you.
The end must be near now. Men gather in my room. I can barely make out their faces. The doctor asks what I am doing and I tell him that I was praying to God. Where are my friends? Come closer. Hold me.
‘I am faint. Lord have mercy on me and take my spirit.’
Afterword
King Edward VI died on July 6th, 1553, aged fifteen. The cause of his death is not clear and will never be known, because his body has been lost. The best guess is that he died of tuberculosis. His pain was probably made worse by the doses of arsenic which a woman ‘doctor’ gave him to prolong his life. The use of arsenic led to accusations that the King was poisoned by John Dudley.
Lady Jane Grey was not aware of Dudley’s plot. Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be pronounced queen. But she refused to name her husband, Guildford Dudley, as king consort. Edward’s will, however, was fated from the start. While his father – a powerful and popular king – could get away with changing the law to ensure the succession he wanted, Edward could not. He was seen by many as Dudley’s puppet (ironically, the final conspiracy was undoubtedly Edward’s idea). Queen Jane had little popular support. There were no public celebrations on her accession to the throne. Mary gathered an army about her, and town after town declared her queen.
Queen Jane sent Dudley – now tired, old and very unpopular – to lead an army against Mary. By the time that his army got close to hers, most of his men had deserted. Nearly all of the lords of the Council had defected to Mary. For the first time in British history, public opinion had affected the future of the monarchy.
Queen Jane returned her crown jewels and was sent to the Tower. She was spared at first, but eventually executed (at a time when an example was needed). Queen Mary arrived in London to huge celebration. She forgave most of those who had opposed her, but this did not include Dudley, who was beheaded. As he was led to his execution, Dudley confessed that all of the charges against the former Protector, Edward Seymour, were completely false.
Mary’s bloody reign was even shorter than Edward’s. She married Philip of Spain, but had no children. Many Protestant ‘heretics’ were burnt, but she did not have time to reverse the reformation. Edward’s reforms were carried on by his sister, Elizabeth I, who became the most famous queen in Britain’s history.
Acknowledgements and Further Reading
Edward VI doesn’t come over well in many history books. I was surpr
ised by how often historians contradicted each other (particularly on the cause of his death). Many paint Edward as an unpleasant character – a rather raw deal for somebody who lived his life under enormous pressures and died so young. Books aimed at children are worse, often suggesting that Edward was a sickly child, whose death was inevitable. Until April 1552, this was far from true. I hope that the novel you’ve just read has corrected some common mistakes without adding new ones.
In Part One, I often used real dialogue drawn from contemporary sources, with only occasional compressions and simplifications. In Part Two, I was forced to invent much more, but Edward’s dying words are his. I’m particularly indebted to The Last Tudor King by Hester W. Chapman (1958, Jonathan Cape, out of print). Also to Edward VI by Jennifer Loach (1999, Yale English Monarch series) and Edward VI: The Threshold of Power, Edward VI: The Young King, both by W. K. Jordan (1968 and 1970, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, out of print).
The best readily available book about the period between Henry VIII’s death and Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne is Alison Weir’s Children of England (1996, Pimlico). This covers the lives of Edward, Mary, Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey and is a good read. I would like to thank the staff of Nottingham City Libraries for helping me to locate and allowing me to endlessly renew most of the books mentioned above. You can have them back now.
David Belbin
Glossary
Ambassador
An official of the highest rank sent by one country as its long term representative to another country
Antechamber
A small room leading into a larger room and often used as a waiting room
Bill
A written proposal for a new law
Clergy
The collective name for people ordained for religious service
Consort
The husband or wife of a reigning monarch
Coronation
The ceremony of crowning a monarch
Courtier
An aristocrat who attends a king or queen
Dauphin
Heir to the French throne
Devout
Very religious
Epidemic
Fast spreading disease
Hypocrite
A person who pretends to have admirable principles but behaves otherwise
Joust
Medieval tournament
Majority
Age of legal responsibility
Masque
A dramatic entertainment in which the performers wore masks
Realm
Kingdom
Revellers
Merrymaker
Suffice
Enough
Yeoman
Attendant to nobility or royalty
TUDOR FLASHBACKS
Boy King • David Belbin
Robbers on the Road • Melvin Burgess
The Eyes of Doctor Dee • Maggie Pearson
Gunner’s Boy • Ann Turnbull
also available:
WORLD WAR II FLASHBACKS
The Right Moment • David Belbin
Final Victory • Herbie Brennan
Blitz Boys • Linda Newbery
Blood and Ice • Neil Tonge
VICTORIAN FLASHBACKS
Soldier’s Son • Garry Kilworth
A Slip in Time • Maggie Pearson
Out of the Shadow • Margaret Nash
The Voyage of the Silver Bream • Theresa Tomlinson
This electronic edition published in October 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Text copyright © 2002 David Belbin
First published 2002 by A & C Black
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eISBN: 978-1-4081-6354-2
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