Young Bess

by Margaret Irwin

  ‘Yes, yes, but you don’t understand. That is for the ordinary prisoner at law. This is a Bill of Attainder.’

  ‘And why deny to your brother the justice you’d give to the ordinary prisoner?’

  ‘Attainder is a perfectly constitutional proceeding. It is part of the course of the law.’

  ‘Then dang and blast the law! I want justice.’

  The Protector shifted his ground.

  ‘You asked me what the prisoner has said. The whole Council waited on him in the Tower, with the exception of Archbishop Cranmer and myself, and told him the charges against him, and he refused to say one word in answer to them – except in open trial.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘I? But – naturally – it would have been too painful – for both of us.’

  ‘Not as painful as getting beheaded.’

  There was a stunned pause. Then Henry added, ‘Why won’t you give him a fair chance in open trial?’

  ‘I? I? It is not my doing, I took no part in drawing up the articles against him. Nor at his examination in the Tower – I told you I was not there.’

  ‘And again I say, why not? Tom might ha’ spoken to you.’

  ‘I spoke to him before. I gave him full warning again and again. So did others. Old Russell warned him. He wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘I’m not asking what was said before the trial—’

  ‘I tell you, it wasn’t a trial.’

  ‘And in God’s name, brother,’ roared Henry, rising slowly to his feet and leaning over the little table behind which Somerset had entrenched himself, ‘why not?’

  ‘The Council decided against it, for the better avoidance of scandal. It is doubtful whether an open trial would have given him any better chance. Anyway, the Government decided against it.’

  ‘The Government – the Council—’ Henry repeated slowly. ‘What then are you? You sit on a high seat above all the rest of the Council. You act at times without consulting them. This Court of Requests is set up by you, and judged by you alone. You try cases without any other judge. You reverse decisions made by other judges. Yet, when it is a case of life and death for your own brother, you make as if to wash your hands of it, like Pontius Pilate. It can mean but one thing – that you want Tom’s death. You alone gain from it. No one else gains anything.’

  ‘The whole country gains, if the country is at peace.’

  ‘It will not have peace. Nor will you. Hark’ee, Ned, this is but a feather of your own goose. Kill Tom, and you’ll put a rope round your neck. The country calls you the Good Duke. They won’t if you kill your brother. No one will stand by a man who doesn’t stand by his own kith and kin. They’ve heard how your guards took him at Mother’s house, with her there. They don’t like that.’

  The Duke looked at him as though he neither saw nor heard him. Henry spoke a little louder, but gently, for his brother’s face was white and piteous. ‘Taking him at Mother’s house, and she standing by. You shouldn’t ha’ done that, Ned.’

  Ned sat quite still, staring before him. What was he seeing? Henry felt anxious. Was Ned, as they say, himself? There was a queer look on him, the look, it might be, of a man whose horse was riding straight for a precipice, and he with no power and perhaps no will to stop it.

  When at last he began to speak it was in a different voice, no longer low and measured, disdainfully impersonal. It was sharp and querulous, the voice of a complaining schoolboy who at any minute will burst into tears.

  ‘Mother this and Mother that,’ he cried. ‘Is Master Tom always to shelter under her petticoats? Precious little mother’s darling, he’s shown how he stands by kith and kin, hasn’t he? Working against me all these two years, doing his best to pull me down, and she – she never sees it. Oh no, she wouldn’t! Tom can make mincemeat of me for all she cares. All she cares about – all – all – is that he shall be safe, her spoilt brat, and that is all she’s ever cared about. You know it too. We were never anything to her, as soon as she’d got Tom.’

  It was utterly bewildering. There was Ned gone clean back to being a child again, sobbing his fury under the old apple tree in Broom Close because he had been blamed for something that he said was all Tom’s fault. These clever fellows who came to the top and ruled the Kingdom didn’t ever know how to grow up, seemingly.

  ‘Well, but in nature she loved him best.’ Henry spoke carefully, as to a child. ‘He was the youngest and always gave her a deal more trouble than the rest of us. Feminine kind are like that. And they like Tom. Men do too. It’s in nature.’

  He wished he could make it plain to Ned. He had always seen it so plain.

  All of romance he had ever known had been bound up in that babbling baby creature who had always rushed into danger as soon as he could toddle: into the green duck-pond or the bright fire, straight up to the fierce stallions or mastiffs or the ring-nosed bull, all of which Henry had always known he must not touch, and at once dragged Tom away. But so soon was Tom standing up to Henry himself or to anyone who opposed him, so soon he shot up taller and handsomer and livelier than any of them, so soon he had darted away from home out into the world, and brought Henry back a whiff of the scent and colour of strange countries and foreign wars, had talked with the Sultan and cracked jokes with the King of France, and sent Henry strange treasures fashioned by dark heathens who wore petticoats.

  Henry’s hunting-cap at home rested on a round hat-stand of blue and white pottery with Arabic inscriptions; on his sideboard was a Persian dish five hundred years old, with a gay little bird on it sprouting into a serpent’s tail at one end and at the other a smiling woman’s face in jaunty cap and collar as modern as a lass of today. Tom had told Henry with a dig in the ribs that he sent him his rarest finds for the pleasure he had in hearing him say ‘Ar, mighty feat and pretty.’

  If he lived as long as Methuselah he’d never cram as much into his years as Tom had done in even one of his dazzling kingfisher flights across the Continent.

  Henry had always been rather awed by his elder brother, had adored his younger, and taken it for granted that he himself was the stupid one who did not count – but not so stupid that he couldn’t see that the women would love Tom best. Odd that the clever ones should be so stupid.

  But nothing of this could he say to Ned, for the poor fellow was fair beside himself, mouthing his face all awry as he talked, and it white to the lips, rolling his eyes round the room and grabbing at one unhelpful thing after another on the table, just as he had done in those queer unchancy rages he had had as a boy.

  But now he was not a boy, and Henry felt deep in his bones that he was witnessing that terrifying thing, the rage of a weak man in mortal fear.

  It was a case of Tom’s life or his, Ned said; there could not be two Protectors, nor even two brothers in power; for himself he cared nothing – but Tom would ruin his great work for England. He worked for the future and for others – but Tom only for the present moment and himself. Tom would always undermine his authority; the country was not big enough for them both, and that was the plain fact of it – and why should he show any consideration for Tom, who had never in all his life shown any for him?

  Henry waited till the storm spent itself out and a shaken yellow-faced old man had shrunk back, cold and exhausted, into his huddled furs.

  Then he said, ‘’Tisn’t right, Ned, that’s all that matters. Take it that Tom’s not done right by you – well, you can’t help that. But you can help this. Bible says you should forgive your brother, not seven times only, but seventy times seven.’

  The Protector passed a feverish hand over his brow. It came away damp. Mechanically he murmured, as he had often found it well to do, ‘That may be a mistake in the translation.’

  ‘It’s God’s holy word, isn’t it?’ persisted Henry.

  ‘Oh yes, yes, and a dozen fellows at work on it. Miles Coverdale isn’t the only Hebrew and Greek scholar in England. Miles acknowledges himself that he’s used five other translations in it.
’ He began to wonder wearily if he had been wise to push forward this business of the English Bible – you couldn’t tell where it might lead to, when every ploughman, however simple and ignorant, started quoting it to suit his purposes, profaning the Sacred Word in every ale-house and tavern, just as the old King had complained, and rightly, Ned now thought.

  He would not doubt it; he would not lose faith and hope in himself, nor yet in the humblest of his brethren – but how could he believe in himself or anything else while this clod stood and gaped at him and preached to him, yes, to him, of his duty to his brother?

  ‘Go back,’ he shouted suddenly, ‘back to your stables and your pigsties! What can such as you understand of me, and of the work I have been called upon to do?’

  As if in answer to that hoarse strained shout, a servant entered hurriedly, looking rather aghast. But it was to announce an unexpected visit of King Edward, and with him John Dudley, Earl of Warwick.

  They came in, leaving their gentlemen-in-waiting outside, and with only Barnaby Fitzpatrick still in attendance at the royal elbow. The Protector rose in haste, and bowed very low, so Henry did too, though – dear Lord! – it seemed a queer way to go on to a small boy who was your nephew when all’s said and done, and in a private room and no affair of State.

  He took a good look at the lad, who was complaining about something in a high fretful pipe; he wasn’t shaping as well as Henry had hoped, not much taller nor sturdier than at his Coronation two years ago, and he’d been small even for a nine-year-old then. Peaky too. Kept too hard at his books by the look of him. Young plants never grew well indoors. He’d like to turn him out to grass for a year or two to kick up his heels and run wild, and loosen that set small mouth that shut like a trap as he finished speaking.

  By which time Henry had heard what his nephew had been saying.

  ‘It’s intolerable. Why don’t you stop it? The people shout at me in the streets, they yell “Justice for the Admiral!” A woman called out that I was an unnatural nephew, and she wished she had the jerking of me – me! And look at that!’ He stuck out his foot and the Protector backed as though suspecting a kick. ‘Mud! Mud on my stocking. Someone threw that – at me!’

  ‘One cannot prevent people calling out in the street, Your Grace.’

  ‘Why not? My father would have. Is this your freedom of speech for all? There’s been too much of it.’

  John Dudley’s cool voice slid between the child’s angry treble and the exasperated answer that his uncle was just beginning. ‘Indeed, my lord, His Majesty has grave cause for his annoyance if the people are encouraged to think they can insult the Crown with impunity.’

  The Protector’s hands began to twitch with nervous rage – (How well Henry knew that clenching of the fists, blue-white at the knuckles. If you touched them they would be as cold as frogs.) ‘What does Your Lordship suggest I should do?’ he rasped. ‘Order out the guard to fire on them because some street urchin, who’s probably no longer there, threw a clod of mud some time before? Will that impress them with the royal justice?’

  He turned sharply on his nephew, ‘I have yet to learn how it is Your Majesty is out riding with the Earl of Warwick when you should be at your Hebrew with Mr Cheke?’

  Edward drew back from him. ‘There’s the match of Rovers and Prisoners’ Base in ten days’ time. How am I to have a chance of winning if I never practise?’

  He looked appealingly at Dudley, who smilingly said: ‘Mea culpa! Let me be His Majesty’s whipping-boy instead of young Barney this time. The day was fine, the royal head ached, and it is certain the King needs practice to give him a fair chance in the match I’ve arranged. He draws no strong bow as yet, though a very pretty shot.’

  Edward flushed with pleasure, then turned to his uncle with his upper lip sucked in and his under stuck out. For two pins, it seemed to say, his tongue would follow it.

  It began to dawn on Henry that if the King had been turned against his youngest uncle by his eldest, he did not like his eldest any the better for it.

  The Protector burst out, ‘Am I the King’s guardian or am I not? How can I have any authority if the moment my back is turned every Tom, Dick, and Harry works against it?’

  ‘My name is not Tom,’ said Dudley softly. ‘I trust you will not confuse the matter. It is not I who am in the Tower on charges of undermining your authority.’

  ‘With as little reason, maybe,’ came an unexpected voice. Something had boiled up in Henry’s head, and boiled over. They turned and stared at him, those fine gentlemen, as mum and mim as a couple of calves. As for the little lad, he looked at him as though a piece of the furniture had given tongue.

  ‘Who is this – gentleman?’ Edward asked with a slight emphasis on the last word.

  As Ned didn’t seem able to collect his wits or his words, Henry answered: ‘Your Uncle Henry, Your Grace, up from Wolf Hall.’

  ‘Another uncle!’ The boy turned away.

  But Henry wasn’t going to let go of his chance. ‘You’ve a finer uncle than me in the Tower. Have justice done to your own flesh and blood. Give him a fair and open trial. You are the King. Show it.’

  The King and the Protector spoke at once. But Henry only heard the boy’s voice shrilling hysterically above the man’s expostulations.

  ‘Uncles – uncles everywhere – always quarrelling – bullying me – keeping me from my bow, wanting to make me a butterfingers. And Uncle Tom’s a bad man, he’s dishonoured my sister, he poisoned my stepmother so as to marry her, he—’

  ‘Christ have pity!’ shouted Henry, silencing both boy and man. ‘Are these the lies they’ve been telling you? Even a child should see their falseness. The Queen’s own brothers are almost the only loyal friends to stand by Tom now. Would they do so if he’d poisoned their sister? Let Tom confront his accusers. Give him the chance you’d give to any common thief or murderer.’

  The Protector had got his hand on his shoulder and was trying to shove him out of the room, while the Earl of Warwick stared with an expression of detached interest.

  Henry knocked off the hand as though it were a fly. ‘Hark’ee, brother, you shall hear me, aye and the lad too, before you’re rid of me. “Whoso causeth one of these little ones to stumble, it were better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck and he were cast into the uttermost depths of the sea.”’

  Then he went. The Earl of Warwick’s eyebrows rose slightly as he looked at his colleague.

  ‘Is that another mistake in the translation?’ he asked.

  Edward, alone with Barney at last, was fuming at him. Barney had shown him respectfully that he hadn’t liked Edward’s manners to his Uncle Henry. Edward said that he was sick to death of all his uncles, a lot of nobodies who wouldn’t be anybody but for him, but just lumps of Wiltshire mud and he wished to heaven they’d stayed there – ‘that oaf, that clod, to thrust his way into my presence and speak to me like that – he my uncle! They’re all alike – knaves, bullies, upstarts. These Seymours!’

  Barney felt it better not to stress the King’s own half of Seymour blood. He said, ‘In my country the lords of the land treat humbler people, even peasants and servants, with as much courtesy and friendliness as those of their own kind.’

  ‘Yes, dine at the same table, feed out of the same dish, don’t they? We English had to pass a law against it. In your country they live like savages.’

  The King swung out of the room and slammed the door. Barney stood looking after him.

  ‘These Tudors!’ he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lady Tyrwhitt had been appointed by the Council as the Princess Elizabeth’s new governess: an awkward position for the lady, for the Princess herself flatly refused to recognise her as such. Haughtily she declared that Mrs Ashley was her governess; she had not so demeaned herself that she needed any other set over her. In fact, she would rather have none at all. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt’s opinion was that she needed two! But he had to admit to his master that ‘she canno
t digest such advice in no way’.

  His wife told him that the girl sulked all day and wept all night. It was all the result they could boast, though she had now been under their constant supervision for more than a month. The confessions of her servants had led to none of any value by herself. She wrote a deposition that echoed theirs, and went no further – except for her bright assurance at the end that this was all she could remember at the moment of her dealings with the Admiral, but if anything came into her head that she had forgotten, she would promptly add it! It sounded far too good to be true. So did the close resemblance between her account and that of her servants. ‘They all sing the same song,’ wrote Sir Robert glumly, ‘which they would not do unless they had set the note before.’

  But he grew more hopeful as he reported, ‘She begins now to droop a little’; this when he had let her know that things were going badly for the Admiral, his horses already given away, his property plundered, his servants discharged.

  But she did not droop if anyone spoke against him; she flared out then in his defence as passionately imperious as a reigning Princess. Could nothing teach her that she was a helpless prisoner, in danger even of her life?

  The Protector wrote to impress her with the fact, and demanded an answer; Tyrwhitt wrote a rough draft for her to copy and send as her own, admitting her faults and submitting herself to his merciful forgiveness.

  She scarcely looked at it. She would write to the Protector, certainly, but she needed nobody’s suggestions as to what to say.

  She sat down, pen in hand, a tight determined smile on her face, the smile of a fighter. And not in mere defence. She would carry the war straight into the enemy’s camp.

  ‘Master Tyrwhitt and others have told me that there are rumours abroad that I am with child by my Lord Admiral. My Lord, these are shameful slanders. I shall most heartily desire Your Lordship that I may come to the Court, that I may show myself there as I am.