For there was no time now for Mary to have headaches, or to cry, or to remember what her mother had said, and wonder what she would wish her to do.
There was only time to live every moment to its utmost; to review her troops, to inspect the mighty fortifications of her Castle, three moats with a walled causeway, and thirteen square towers; to superintend the mounting on these enormous walls, forty feet high and more than eight feet thick, of the navy’s guns, her first artillery, and as juicy a windfall as ever fell into a lady’s mouth, said the proud gunners. She appointed Sir Henry Bedingfeld Knight Marshal of her army and gave tactful directions that if any of them went short of food or clothing his captain should provide it as from himself and charge the amount to her. She appointed 500 men as her personal bodyguard. She ordered bakers to be sent from Norwich for her host, and malt to be brewed for it at Orford. She commanded all prisoners in Suffolk and Norfolk to be freed – they were mostly political prisoners and therefore safe to be on her side. She went on welcoming new arrivals.
Young George Howard rode up without the chalice he had looted from her, and very angry from his quarrel with Jack Dudley; and Lord Grey rode up with a swollen nose, and still angrier from his quarrel with Duke Dudley. The Earls of Bath and Sussex slipped away from the Council in London and rode to her. The Bishop of London rode to her to ask her pardon but got arrested at Ipswich.
And then Mr Secretary Cecil rode to her, sent by the rest of the Council to explain that they were all hers to a man, and had been so all along in their hearts; only Duke Dudley’s terrorism had made it necessary for them, ‘in order to avoid great destruction and bloodshed,’ to tell a certain amount of ‘pardonable lies.’ Mr Cecil explained so well that Mary told his sister-in-law, Mrs Bacon, that she ‘really believed he was a very honest man.’
Finally, the representatives of the City of London rode to her and gave her a red velvet purse that clinked with £500 in half-sovereigns.
It was all over. The miracle had happened. Well before July was out, her enemies had melted like snow in the hot sun; the all-powerful Duke was a prisoner, and all his sons had been rounded up and arrested. Mary had been proclaimed Queen in every town in England, last of all in London. The reign of Queen Jane had proved to be literally a ‘nine days’ wonder.’ And having begun to disband her army within a fortnight of its assembling, Mary rode in leisurely state to London to be Queen.
CHAPTER TEN
She rode through cities and a countryside alive and ringing, singing, shouting mad with joy in her triumph. Crowds ran for miles beside her horse, called down God’s blessing on her, wept for happiness. To them, hers was a personal triumph. She had come into her own after being so long done out of her rights, even as her mother, Good Queen Katherine, had been. Many in those crowds would gladly have risen and fought for Katherine of Aragon when, after she had been twenty years his devoted wife, King Harry put her away like any wanton and then hounded and worried her until she died. She had lain cold in her grave nigh on a score of years; but now her daughter, who had been bullied ever since, branded with illegitimacy, now she had triumphed for them both.
‘Eh, but your poor mother would have been glad to see this day!’ was the cry that many gave aloud, and was echoed deep in Mary’s heart.
But she did not see how entirely personal was their feeling.
To her, their joy was a clear sign of their faith in the old religion and their thankfulness that she would now bring it back to them.
God had chosen her, stupid, weak, backsliding as she had been, for she too had not dared withstand King Henry to the uttermost, she too had been forced to truckle to him, to her own and, far worse, to her mother’s shame. She had never forgiven herself for it; but now God had shown that He forgave her, He had chosen her for His servant, to do His work in England. His victory was not a reward to be selfishly enjoyed; it was a holy trust, His instrument to build God’s Church anew.
She would be harsh to no one, for she too had been guilty, but she would free this unhappy country from its crime of cowardice in following a King’s command into heresy, and bring the prodigal son happy and repentant back into the arms of the loving Father.
‘Look at her!’ exclaimed young Mistress Frances Neville to the Mistress of the Robes. ‘She looks ten years younger and really almost pretty.’
‘I can remember when she was really very pretty. You should have seen her on her eighteenth birthday listening to John Heywood’s poem in praise of “her lively face”, and it’s true again today, thank God, that it’s like “a lamp of joy”.’
‘But why choose that violet velvet?’
‘That,’ said Lady Clarencieux severely, ‘is the colour of our Blessed Lord’s coat.’
‘Ah, but our Blessed Lord did not live to be thirty-seven!’
‘I hear Frances’ laugh as usual,’ said the Queen, looking back at them; ‘what’s making you merry this time?’
‘Oh, Madam, who would not be merry at this time? We’ll never sing of ‘Jolly June’ again, but jolly July shall be the Queen of the months from now on for bringing our Queen, Merry Mary, to the throne.’
Mary’s quick flush of pleasure answered her gratefully; in contrast her laugh sounded gruff and husky, it creaked a little from disuse.
‘You managed that very cleverly,’ said Susan Clarencieux a trifle sourly as their horses fell behind again.
‘Oh, anyone can do that, she is so good-natured and easy-going. I hope she gets as kind a husband. I suppose she will marry – even now. Who do you think it will be?’
‘Well, her dear mother always hoped it would be the Lord Reginald Pole. And so did his mother. I often heard the poor Countess of Salisbury talking of it with Queen Katherine at their embroidery, when she was the Lady Mary’s governess.’
‘But he is a Cardinal now.’
‘He only took minor orders. The Pope could give dispensation. And it would redress a great wrong. King Henry put the old Countess of Salisbury to death for little other reason than that she was a royal Plantagenet, daughter of George Duke of Clarence.’
‘Well, he was put to death for the same reason by his brother Richard Crookback – and in a butt of malmsey wine! It is all so long ago, what does it matter now? I hope she’ll marry a great foreign prince.’
‘True, she was betrothed once to the Emperor himself.’
‘What, that old man!’
‘He is only fifty-two,’ replied the elder lady stiffly.
‘Oh, dear Clarencieux, don’t think of the years – think how he’s crippled with gout, and has to suck a green leaf all the time for his parched mouth. Heaven defend our poor lady from marrying Nebuchadnezzar! Besides, he’s talking of abdicating.’
‘Well, there’s his son Prince Philip.’
Frances Neville made no comment this time, but her eyes shone. Prince Philip, young, handsome, heir to half the world – what luck for a greying old maid!
Women’s voices laughed and chattered, horses’ hoofs squelched the leaf mould, wet from the recent squalls, the sunlight pierced the heavy summer foliage of the great trees in Epping Forest, knocking sparks of light from the jewels and bright metalled harness of the leisurely train.
The Queen rode with Jane Dormer, her favourite lady-in-waiting, beside her, a handsome young widow, clear-cut in her opinions and bold in expressing them. Lady Dormer asked her what they had all been wondering, what must happen to the Lady Jane Grey?
Mary did not see why anything should happen. Jane had written to her and explained everything. It was obvious that she had been a mere tool in the hands of the Dudleys (‘A dangerous tool,’ murmured Lady Dormer). Why, she had known nothing about the whole business till two or three days before, and had been practically forced into the Crown, as into her marriage – she had written that she had been positively ill-treated by her young husband and his mother. ‘I am sorry for her, though I admit I have never really liked the girl since – since—’
‘Since Your Majesty sent her that cl
oth of gold dress she never wore, because “it would be a shame to follow my Lady Mary’s example in finery, against God’s word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth’s example, who is a follower of God’s word!”’
‘Now, Jane, you know they had no right to tell us what she said, and indeed it was not that that I was thinking of’ (though her deep flush showed that she was), ‘but of that which should grieve all of us far more, that – that – I mean, about the baker.’
‘The baker?’ Lady Dormer was bewildered, then remembered and, devout though she was herself in her practical way, with some amusement that Mary could not bear even to repeat the story.
Jane Grey had been paying a Saturday-to-Monday visit to Mary at Newhall with her parents, and passing through the private chapel with one of Mary’s ladies noticed her genuflecting and asked if the Princess had come into the chapel.
‘No,’ was the answer, ‘the Host was on the altar, and I did reverence to Him who made us.’
‘Not so,’ said Jane, ‘the baker made him!’
And that too, of course, had been duly repeated.
‘But,’ said Mary, ‘it is all the fault of her upbringing. She has been taught to think so.’
‘She might at least have been taught not to speak so, and in your house. These Reformers have no manners.’
‘At least she is honest. And my poor little brother was very fond of her. There is something so pathetic in a childish love-affair.’
Lady Dormer thought her unduly sentimental. ‘King Edward would never have married her. Don’t you remember, Madam, how he wanted a grand foreign princess “well stuffed with jewels and rich provinces”?’
Mary laughed with her at his boyish conceit, but insisted on his romance. ‘My Jane,’ he used to call her when they played cards together. ‘Now, my Jane, you have lost your king, so you must take me for your King instead.’
‘Oh, but, Madam, he said that to me. It was I who was “his Jane” at cards, not Jane Grey! Of course I was older, but you know what children are like.’
Jane Dormer was so determined to claim the story that Mary let her have it. And it had stopped her worrying about what was to happen to Jane Grey. She herself was not worrying; she had made up her mind to have no more bloodshed than was absolutely necessary. Her reign should be as happy, as free from fear and hate and revenge, as she felt herself to be.
For now her soul was coming out of the dark forest of fear into the sunlight, even as she and her cortège rode out from under those dark ancient trees into the dazzle of golden fields. They were nearing the great house of Wanstead, where she would break her journey before entering her capital.
Another large company was riding towards them down the road through the bright corn, many ladies and gentlemen in glittering clothes and harness, and then hundreds of horsemen in white and green, their satin and taffeta coats shining like the waves of the sea. At their head rode a tall slight figure all in white, straight and gleaming as a drawn sword, whose hair blazed redder than the ripe corn.
The Lady Elizabeth had ridden out from London, with all the nobility attached to her household and all its horsemen in the Tudor white and green livery, to greet her sister and help escort her into her capital.
At sight of her, Mary felt a little cold shock, as though Fate had knocked at her heart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘You have made a quick recovery from your severe illness, sister!’
‘What better cause of recovery, Madam, could I have than the news of Your Majesty’s glorious, and, thank God, bloodless victory?’
‘And what was the cause of the illness?’
‘I must have eaten something,’ said Elizabeth demurely, and then with a side-glance at her half-sister from under downcast eyelids, ‘or was afraid that I might come to do so if I went to London.’
‘Who warned you that the King’s summons was a false lure?’ asked Mary sharply.
‘No one, Madam. I guessed – but not until I had all but started.’
‘You are very wise.’
‘Not as wise as Your Majesty has proved herself.’
‘I? Oh, I had a message.’ There was a tinge of bitterness in Mary’s voice. She herself would not have guessed.
Elizabeth longed to ask from whom the message came. But it was safer not. Mary’s tone to her had sounded a little tart. It would be better to go on congratulating, which she could do with complete sincerity. ‘I was not thinking only of our reasons to suspect that summons,’ – and her voice rose from its low tone to a proud and ringing note – ‘but of the extraordinary wisdom and courage, if I may say so, of every move you have made since then. The greatest general could have done no better – to advance intrepidly even before you had any army, but always to guard your line of retreat. The greatest monarch can have no more glorious triumph than yours – to be brought to the throne by something stronger even than your unquestionable right – the will of the people.’
‘It was the will of God,’ corrected Mary.
There was a brief silence that seemed to quiver on the air. Each sister had stated her creed, and with it the gulf that lay between them.
To Mary it brought a pang of discomfort, and fear. The will of the people was the will of God, in her sister’s eyes. Would Elizabeth be loyal to her? It was a question she had already pondered; it had even occurred to her just now when talking of her cousin Jane, that she might not have felt so leniently disposed had it been her sister Elizabeth. But why?
Jane was the white hope of all these ‘hot gospellers’ as they were called in the odious new phrase. But Elizabeth had always been extremely cool to them, though she affected their severe plainness of dress – no doubt from policy.
Jane had been downright rude to herself behind her back, but she must have known it would get round to her, and had not cared. She had only cared about saying what she felt to be right, regardless of whom it hurt – not surprising, perhaps, in anyone who had been so much snubbed and rebuked herself. Mary could understand that. But Elizabeth was never rude to her, wrote frequent charming letters to her ‘very dear sister’ full of kind enquiries and sympathy about her bad health, sent her her own favourite servants for any special purpose that Mary required, generally medicine or music.
Yet she never could feel sure of Elizabeth, never quite knew what she meant. You always knew exactly what Jane meant, however little you might like it. Jane was honest in every sense, not only truthful, but a pure and virtuous maiden. Was Elizabeth? Mary tried not to ask the question, to which she knew she could never give a fair answer, but only another question – how could the daughter of Nan Bullen, who had corrupted her father, lured him from his long allegiance to his true wife and true Church, so that he himself complained of her, ‘I was seduced by sorcery into this marriage,’ how could the daughter of Nan Bullen – whom the rough Cockney crowds had seen in her true colours, mobbing her for ‘a goggle-eyed whore,’ – be pure and virtuous?
Behind the flaming hair of Elizabeth she saw always the raven-smooth tresses of Nan Bullen, the Night Crow, as Cardinal Wolsey had called her, brushed glossily back from the bold clever forehead; behind those downcast white-lidded eyes of Elizabeth, sometimes pale as green water, and sometimes blue as the heart of a flame, she saw the black sparkling eyes of Nan Bullen that, as the ambassadors had discreetly said, ‘invited conversation’; behind the quiet grey or white clothes, all but those of a nun’s habit, which Elizabeth elected to wear, the outrageous dresses of black satin and velvet in the latest French fashion, each of them costing three times as much as a whole year’s dress allowance for the Princess Mary, which Nan Bullen had flaunted as a setting for King Henry’s most costly and ancient jewels.
Elizabeth had then been an infant; she was not responsible that she had then been declared heir to the throne, and her sister Mary, nearly eighteen years older, illegitimate and uninheritable. Nor was she responsible for taking precedence over her elder sister, who had had to walk behind her and bear up the baby’s ‘train’;
nor for her mother Nan Bullen’s message to the maids she sent to wait on the Lady Mary instead of Mary’s own devoted friends: ‘Give her a box on the ear now and then for the cursed bastard she is.’
But Nan Bullen had been responsible for Elizabeth, even as Katherine of Aragon, the daughter of Isabella the Catholic of Castile, Crusader against the heathen Moors, had been responsible for Mary. And Mary, knowing something of what she herself had inherited from her mother, could not fail to see the sorceress and seductress Nan Bullen in the downcast glance, the demure demeanour of this slim girl in virginal white, about whom scandal had whispered such shocking things over four years ago, when she was but fifteen.
And there again Mary knew another reason why she could not be fair to Elizabeth. Not only distrust, not only horror lay between them, but curiosity, yes and envy. This girl little more than half her own age, held behind her cool gaze more knowledge and experience of life than Mary had ever touched. Useless to disclaim all wish for such knowledge; to vow, as her mother had told her to do, that she would keep herself pure as any nun, not even desiring man’s love and marriage till it should happen of God’s will to her. She had desired it; she did desire it; she had never come within even speaking distance of it; and she was thirty-seven. How much had Elizabeth, at nineteen, already known?
She looked at her half-sister across the widespread gulf that this instant’s silence had made visible; and a question struck at her heart like an adder. Was Elizabeth even her half-sister? Was King Henry indeed her father? – or was Mark Smeeton, the handsome young musician who used to play the lute in Nan Bullen’s chamber?
Her voice came at last in a strained husky whisper, ‘A great while ago this story began.’
What did she mean? She herself did not know. She had a way of dropping out these unconnected, disconcerting sentences, and then hearing them hang on the air as though they had been uttered by someone else. It was one of the bad habits of a solitary. She must shake them from her; hold her first royal Court at Wanstead, kissing on the cheek each of the ladies presented to her by Elizabeth; reform her procession and ride on in state to enter her capital.
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