Her Highness, the Traitor

by Susan Higginbotham

  “When have you ever done otherwise?”

  “Your father wasn’t chaste at the best of times, as you know, and having a young wife didn’t change his stripes in that respect. There is none of that with Master Bertie. He sleeps in one of two beds, mine or his, and attends to two spheres of business, mine and his, and that suits me fine. Master Stokes, I daresay, would treat you just as well as my Master Bertie does me.”

  “But what makes you think Master Stokes would agree?”

  Katherine snorted. “Considering that you’re of royal blood and haven’t lost your looks, I can’t think of any reason why he would refuse. Besides that, he’s fond of you; all anyone has to do is look at your horses to see that. I’d wager the stable boys live in terror of anything being the slightest bit amiss.”

  “That Master Stokes is very competent at his position hardly means that he is sighing with love for me.”

  “He accompanied you to your daughter’s trial. He attended her execution. He was the one who warned you of your husband’s rebellion. What more proof do you need of the man’s devotion? He will do anything you ask—and you’re not asking him to do anything disagreeable, after all.”

  “I can’t decide this now. I must think about it—and pray about it.”

  “Of course you must,” Katherine said. “I will leave you to your thoughts, then.”

  ***

  I did pray and think about my decision, all through that night. I had been a widow for only three weeks. If I remarried, I would be rushing to the altar more quickly than my own parents, who had been considered too precipitate by many. Yet my stepmother had a point: the longer I remained unmarried, the more I risked having a marriage arranged for me by the queen. I knew she would not wed me to a brute, but she might well marry me to one of the men who had betrayed my daughter, or one of the men who had watched scornfully as Harry walked to the scaffold. The idea of giving my body to such a man repelled me. With Adrian Stokes, I knew I would be getting a husband who had always been loyal to me and who was kind, as well.

  And I would be getting a man whom I liked—nay, a man whom I had even imagined in my bed. Even as I flushed at the memory, I realized a woman could do far, far worse than to share her life with such a man.

  I knelt and prayed once more. This time when I arose off my knees, I felt I had received a heavenly answer at last. Or at least, I hoped it was a heavenly one, and not my own desire speaking.

  ***

  Master Stokes stood before me in the chamber where I conducted my business. Beside me, silent for once, stood my stepmother. I had asked her to be with me lest I lose my nerve. Besides, if Master Stokes refused, at least he would not have the ill manners to laugh in front of a third person.

  “I have called you here to ask you to do me a great favor, Master Stokes,” I faltered.

  “Ask it, Frances,” Katherine hissed.

  “I want you to marry me,” I blurted.

  “Your Grace?”

  “That’s what she’s asking,” Katherine said. “She—”

  “I can speak for myself,” I said. I looked pleadingly up into Master Stokes’s fine blue eyes and saw astonishment, but not unfriendliness, in them. “I fear that the queen will force me to remarry someone I do not care for, even someone who might use Harry’s treason as an excuse to treat me unkindly. I would much rather be married to someone I trust and respect and like, and that person is you.”

  “Your Grace, you must know you could do much better. I am merely a gentleman’s son.”

  “I know I could be truly miserable. And there is another reason I want to marry you. No one will ever try to put Mistress Stokes, or her children, upon the throne. I want no part of any more such schemes. Please, Master Stokes. You will be doing me the greatest of kindnesses.”

  “In that case, I will be pleased to marry you, Your Grace.”

  “Frances.”

  “Frances,” Adrian agreed. He stepped closer to me.

  I drew back. “But there is something else. Two things. I would like to delay consummating the marriage. I am still mourning my husband.”

  “And if she quickened with child so soon,” Katherine put in, “the babe might be thought to be the duke’s.”

  “Yes, that’s reasonable. The other thing?” Adrian asked quietly.

  “Some will say that I married for lust, or to spite Harry’s memory. I do not want to hear such unkind comments. For that reason, I would like to keep our marriage secret for now. Will you agree?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “Let me speak to you alone for a moment, Your—Frances.”

  Katherine obediently exited the room.

  Adrian looked at me, his blue eyes grave. “Are you sure about this, Frances? I have little love for Queen Mary, but I do not honestly believe she would force you into a marriage with someone you disliked. Nor do I believe that after this latest rebellion that anyone would attempt to seize the throne through you. I am honored to be your choice, but there may be no need to take such a drastic step as you are thinking of taking.”

  “I would prefer not to risk it. Besides, there is another reason, which I could not admit to in front of Katherine.” I swallowed. “She did very well on her own after my father’s death. I am not like her. The thought of managing in this world all alone terrifies me. I know that makes me a foolish creature, but that is what I am.”

  “I do not think you do yourself justice. But do you believe you would be happier if you were married?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Then may I kiss my future bride?”

  I nodded. Gently, Adrian put his lips to mine. “I’ll take good care of you, Frances,” he said, patting my cheek. “Just as I promised your husband.”

  ***

  Two days later, on March 9, Katherine and my two most trusted ladies rode to Katherine’s house at Kew, accompanied by Adrian in his usual position as my master of horse. No one could have guessed that we were a wedding party.

  Katherine had a priest—one who would soon be going into exile abroad—waiting for us. As Katherine, Master Bertie, my ladies, and Adrian’s younger brother William looked on as witnesses, we said our vows, Adrian in a firm voice, mine slightly shaking.

  Afterward, we had a small celebration—very small, lest those in Katherine’s household not in the secret suspect something odd. Then we rode back to Sheen as if this had been nothing more than a social visit to my stepmother. Adrian looked at me a little wistfully as our odd wedding party began to break up, but asked in his usual manner as a groom led my horse away, “Will your grace wish to ride tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  At the ceremony, Adrian had slipped a lovely gold ring—one upon which he must have spent a considerable part of his earnings—onto my finger. I had concealed it under my glove when I returned to Sheen. Alone in my chamber, I sat twisting the band, wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into. Then I slipped my wedding ring from my finger and placed it in a little coffer.

  ***

  Though Harry’s brother Thomas was executed in April for his part in the rebellion, my own position remained little changed. Bradgate was forfeit to the Crown, but I was given nearby Beaumanor and other lands, and I was allowed to remain at Sheen. I even had three girls in my care again: Harry’s niece Margaret Willoughby had joined my household.

  In early June, soon after Margaret arrived, my stepmother again visited, having been doing business in London. It was important business, I soon learned: Richard Bertie had left England. “And I am going to join him as soon as I can wrap up my affairs here,” said Katherine. “Bishop Gardiner called Master Bertie to him and made it very clear that if we did not conform to Papist teachings, England would be a very unpleasant place for us. He even dragged out the old story that I dressed up my dog in priestly robes and named him ‘
Gardiner’ and taught him to beg.” Katherine sighed. “Master Bertie denied it, which was quite honest on his part. That was a prank of my eldest son, the clever boy, not one of my doing.”

  “You would leave your country? Your little daughter?”

  “Not my little Susan, certainly. She will go with us. My country—well, with Prince Philip coming, it may not look like my country anymore. I know, I know!” I had raised my hand. “You don’t want anything said against him here after what happened to your husband and to Lady Jane, and I don’t blame you. But I do wish you would consider taking your girls—oh, and Master Stokes, too, of course—and leaving. You would be most welcome abroad, as Lady Jane’s mother. Do you know that your daughter’s letters are being printed, here and abroad?”

  “I am well aware of that.” I had my own printed copy of the letter to Harding, hidden well away in some old account books. “I allowed them to be placed into the printer’s hands. It was what my daughter—and Harry—would have wanted. But they would not want me abroad. Harry once told me that I had no strong feelings about religion and could not understand those who do. He was at least half-right. I have gone without Mass, and I have gone with Mass, and I feel exactly the same way about our Savior with either one. Why would I leave my country and wander abroad merely to avoid hearing a Mass?”

  Katherine shook her head.

  “Besides, I have already let you talk me into one great change.”

  “Ah, yes. How do you and Master Stokes get on?”

  “Very well,” I said. In fact, except that he no longer addressed me in private as “Your Grace,” and that we made the major decisions about the running of my estates together, our relationship had scarcely changed since we married.

  “Do you share a bed with him yet?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t make the poor man wait forever,” Katherine advised. She sniffed. “He’s a good man, Frances, but he’s not that good.”

  “I’m not ready yet,” I said firmly. “It is far too early.”

  ***

  In July, Mary finally married Prince Philip at Winchester Cathedral. The girls and I were not invited—that would have been unthinkable, as this was a marriage my husband had died trying to prevent—but after the queen and king, as Philip would be known, arrived at Richmond in August, I was commanded to see the queen.

  I had never seen Mary looking better in her life, or dressed more colorfully. She was festooned from head to toe in scarlet, relieved by lace and gold trim. “We regret having to execute sentence upon your daughter and your husband, my lady,” she said. “It was a necessity. We cannot encourage future rebellions by appearing weak.”

  There was nothing I could say to this except for, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “But now we wish to put the past behind us,” the queen continued, and I realized this was the last I would ever hear of Jane and Harry from her lips. “How old is the lady Katherine?”

  “She is almost fourteen, Your Majesty.”

  “She is an attractive girl, as I recall?”

  “Very much so, Your Majesty.”

  “She plays and dances well?”

  “My daughter dances better than she plays, but no one has ever found fault with either, Your Majesty.”

  “She is biddable?”

  This was not my Kate’s strong point. “She is willful, Your Majesty, but her nature is good.”

  The queen considered. “We should like to have her serve as one of our maids,” she said finally. “We will soon be making our entry into London with the king, and from thence we will go to Hampton Court. Can you have her ready by September? Our mother of the maids will inform you what is necessary in the way of clothing.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “You and your younger daughter, of course, are welcome at our court any time you wish to come.”

  Dismissed by the queen, I made the short trip to my house at Sheen, lost in thought. For Jane’s sake, and Harry’s, should I have refused the queen’s invitation to Kate? Even if I had dared to decline—and Mary had given me no chance to do so—I could not justify such an action. Kate and Jane had never been close, and I knew Kate’s mourning for her sister had been more dutiful than deep. As for Harry, he had been a kind father to all three of our girls, but his deepest attachment had always been to Jane. Kate’s main grief, it had to be admitted, had been for the death of her own prospects. Now she would be at court, with young men and their matchmaking parents to remark upon her beauty and to watch her dance and play…

  So at the beginning of September, I watched my second daughter get on a barge—sent for her by the queen—bound for Hampton Court. Even her monkey was making the journey. Queen Mary had given the royal permission for it to accompany Kate to court. She had made it a jaunty red cap and matching doublet especially for the occasion. “Don’t let that creature pester the bargemen,” I called in farewell as it showed great interest in an oar.

  Kate, who normally took great offense at the term “that creature,” simply laughed. Her coffers had been packed for days.

  Beside me, my youngest daughter pouted as the barge began to pull away. “Kate won’t be able to see me wave good-bye!” she complained. Her lip began to wobble. “Father would have put me on his shoulders.”

  “May I, Your Grace?”

  I nodded, and Adrian, who had been standing with the rest of the household to see Kate off, lifted petite Mary high into the air. She waved happily until Kate’s barge pulled out of sight. Then Adrian carefully set my daughter back on her feet.

  “Thank you,” I said. “That was so kind.”

  Adrian shrugged. “Kind? After all, I am Lady Mary’s stepfather,” he said into my ear.

  45

  Jane Dudley

  October 1554 to December 1554

  Since the Spanish entourage had arrived in England (“an invasion,” the malcontents liked to call it), I had acquired a new friend at court: María Enríquez de Toledo y Guzmán, Duchess of Alba. Fortunately, I was allowed to call her Maria.

  I had sought out the duchess for purely selfish reasons, as yet another contact to be cultivated to free my sons. I was granted an audience so quickly, I felt almost ashamed as we each settled on a stool.

  “There are few of us Spanish ladies here,” the duchess informed me after we had discussed King Arthur’s Round Table, which the Spanish had enjoyed seeing at Winchester, for a while. (You must not think this conversation went so smoothly as I report it. I was speaking my barely adequate French, the duchess was speaking Spanish, and a member of her household, who knew both languages and a little English, was gamely interpreting for us.) “The English ladies do not like us. They avoid us. We get homesick here.”

  “We English can be unkind to foreigners,” I admitted. “But we are all not like that.”

  “No, I see you are not. But you must pardon me. I did not understand who your husband is, my lady.”

  Even in English, much less fractured French, I was at a loss to explain. Everyone in England knew perfectly well who John was, or who they thought he was: a traitor who had manipulated the poor little king into changing his will and paid the price. The interpreter came to my rescue. He bent and whispered something in the duchess’s ear, finishing off with a cutting motion of his own neck that he was probably not aware of making.

  I sat there miserably, waiting to be turned out of the house, for the Spanish had enough enemies without receiving the wife of an attainted traitor, as well. Then the duchess at last spoke. “You must grieve his loss greatly, my lady. I can tell from your eyes, even though I do not understand a word that comes out of your mouth.”

  “Indeed I do.” Something in her own eyes made me add, “Each day when I wake I have hope, just in those first few moments before I am fully conscious, that it is all a bad dream, and that he is just away in
his own chamber.”

  I expected the interpreter to smirk, but he nodded gravely and rendered my words into Spanish. Then the duchess dabbed at her eyes. “I love my husband,” she said. I could make out the words even before they were translated. “We ladies were not supposed to be on this expedition. We were told that it would anger the English to come with too large an entourage. But I insisted on following my husband. Everywhere he goes, I go, if it is humanly possible.” When I had been made to understand this, the duchess spoke again. “Some people dislike my husband, the duke, too. He is a soldier, not a courtier. He has a foul temper sometimes, but never with me. He is the kindest of husbands. Did your husband leave children?”

  “Two daughters and four sons, now. All of my boys are in prison.”

  “In prison? For what?”

  “For obeying the Lord’s command that we shall honor thy father.”

  “The poor lads!” The duchess shook her head angrily. “They should not suffer for that. I have seen the queen but seldom, but my husband is King Philip’s chief advisor, and I will ask him to say a word on their behalf. My own sons are dear to me—but not, I confess, as dear to me as my husband.”

  In that moment, I knew I had made a friend for life.

  ***

  I would have been delighted to have Maria visit me at Chelsea, but the Spanish in London did not like to venture far from their lodgings in the city’s guildhalls except in large numbers. Though there was little actual violence, save for the occasional scuffle, between the Spanish and the English, there was a great deal of hooting and mockery, especially by the city’s boys, who had the miraculous ability to melt into nowhere when someone arrived to keep the peace. The London cutpurses had also discovered there was something in the make of Spanish purses that was peculiarly advantageous to their trade. So in the middle of October, I was rowed to the stairs near Maria’s house by one of my regular boatmen. “There’s some news, Your Grace,” he said. “Don’t know if it’s true, mind you. I guess you don’t want to hear it, though.”