Then there happened one of those miracles which seem, looking back, like Divine intervention and made me certain of my destiny.
When Lady Sussex was able to meet the French Ambassador she found not de Noailles, whom she had been expecting and who had been the instigator of the plot to get me out of England, but another in his place. Because the Dudley rebellion had begun in France with the backing of the King, de Noailles's communications with me had been noted and some intercepted. Consequently, he had been dismissed abruptly and his brother, the Bishop of Acqs, had been sent to take his place.
I never did understand why the Bishop should seek to protect me. He was certainly not following in his brother's footsteps. Or it may even have been that the King of France did not wish me to leave the field of action, and it had been seen by him that the de Noailles policy of capturing me was not the best for France. Whatever it was, the Bishop told Lady Sussex that if I went to France now, I should never come back, and if I hoped to wear the crown I should be on the spot when the moment came to take it.
When Lady Sussex told me this I saw how foolish I had been. I went onto my knees and thanked God for His merciful act in saving me.
Whatever happened, I must stay. I had come through great dangers. The end must be in sight, and if I could manage to keep alive for a little longer I should be triumphant.
I wrote to my sister assuring her of my loyalty. It was true that the men Peckham and Werne were of my household, but I had known nothing of their schemes any more than I knew of this ridiculous man who turned out to be named Cleobury and who had called himself the Earl of Devonshire.
Kat and the other members of my household returned to Hatfield and as soon as I saw them I began to feel better; my old strength returned and I marveled afresh that I could have been so foolish as to have almost committed an act which would have been fatal to my future.
So there I was at Hatfield—almost a prisoner inasmuch as I could not leave without the Queen's permission, and everything I did was reported to her.
* * *
IN THE FEBRUARY of the following year Philip returned to England.
Reports came to us that my sister's health was much improved and my immediate thoughts were that there might yet be a child. Moreover I wondered what Philip's reaction would be to the attempted risings which were an indication of the rumblings of dissatisfaction throughout the land. He must have had a purpose in coming. I was sure it was not merely to be with Mary.
The result of his return was a cordial invitation for me to go to Court. Mary appeared to have accepted my protestations of innocence and I imagined—with some amusement—that I had been invited at the urgings of Philip.
When I rode into London through Smithfield and Old Bailey and Fleet Street to Somerset House the people cheered me. I had wondered what effect my submission to my sister's will in religion, which had now become the law of the country, would have on them; but I was sure the dear good people were wise enough to know that I did what I did to preserve my life so that when the time came I could be alive to serve them.
At every turn they showed their love for me and I managed to convey to them that I was aware of the immense debt of gratitude I owed them.
It was wonderful to be at Court, where I was received with honor as the Queen's sister and heiress to the throne. Chiefly I was gratified by Philip's attitude toward me. I saw plans in his eyes when they alighted on me. He was not insensible to my youth and charms, and with the crown and all that meant I must have seemed to him a glittering prize. I would never marry him, but there was no harm—indeed there was every necessity—in letting him imagine that I might.
Mary was very simple. She was delighted that Philip showed such regard for me. She thought he would be suspicious of one who had been a heretic. Nothing of the sort! I had the impression that he was just waiting for the death of his wife.
I was, therefore, a little taken aback when he once more introduced the subject of Philibert of Savoy. Then I began to wonder whether I had correctly assessed his motives. If I married… what then? Who would take the throne when Mary died? Was he planning to set himself up as King and sole ruler of England? It could not be. Even his Spanish arrogance must realize that that would never be allowed.
I was adamant. I would not marry. I clung to the virgin state, I declared. Marriage was entirely repulsive to me.
He sighed and said his friend Philibert was the best of men. I reminded him that Philibert had been making love to the Duchess of Lorraine, so it seemed to me that, friend of Philip's though he was, he was something of a philanderer and I would have no mind to take such a husband, even if I had not resigned myself to the single state.
He made no sign but I heard afterward that he told Mary she should insist on my marrying. She was the Queen and I was the subject. There again I was mystified as to his real intentions.
But that was Philip, as I was to discover later—much later—he was devious and as dangerous as a snake.
There was yet another insurrection. A certain Sir Thomas Stafford had been at the Court of France where he had received some favors from Henri Deux who, it was believed, had urged him to attempt rebellion in England. The French King was growing more and more alarmed at the friendship between England and Spain which since the marriage of Mary and Philip had become very close indeed, Mary being completely under the domination of the husband she adored.
Stafford landed on the coast of Yorkshire and took Scarborough Castle with ease. He tried to rally men to his banner by declaring that, in marrying Philip, Mary had passed over the country to Spain, and that the Spaniards were about to land and complete the enslavement. The Inquisition was preparing to land on our shores. This was, of course, the way in which to arouse the people, but Stafford was not clever enough. His mission was known before he arrived for there were many spies at the Court of France.
An army had been sent up to Yorkshire under the Earl of Westmorland, and in a short time Stafford's men, who were helpless against trained soldiers, were routed and Stafford himself captured, and very quickly sentenced to the barbarous death of hanging and quartering which took place in May at Tyburn.
Fortunately I was not implicated in this, although the aim of every plot was to depose Mary and I was naturally the one to step into her place.
Philip was restive as he always was in England. His heart was in Spain; moreover I think he wanted to get away from the cloying affections of Mary. I knew that her sickly looks were repulsive to him, and whereas he might have stayed longer if she had not tried to force her affections on him, as it was he was very eager to escape.
Philip took advantage of the Queen's annoyance and that of her ministers in the interference of the French over Stafford to get further English help for Spain against the French; and having succeeded in this I fancy he felt that his visit was not altogether without results. He had not married me off, but he had succeeded in involving England in his conflict with the French.
I was sorry for Mary after he had gone. She was so pathetic, so ill, so lacking in feminine attractions; and in her heart she knew that he had no love for her at all. Strangely enough it was to me she turned in those months which followed. After all, whatever conflict there was between us, I was her sister, and she was a very lonely woman. She had no friends of whom she could be sure, and her only hope of close contact with her own was through me.
I knew this and I tried to be tender to her. I could not exactly love her. It was not easy to love Mary; and in those last days I could never be in her presence without thinking of those people whom she had sent to the stake in the name of religion. Indeed, if one rode out into the streets of London one could not but be aware of the pall of smoke which hung over Smithfield; and I was often sickened when I fancied I could detect the odor of burning flesh in the air. Yet she did not suffer any qualms about the terrible suffering which was being inflicted in her name.
She was such an unhappy woman—but perhaps she should have been. If only she had no
t suffered so in her youth and seen her beloved mother so humiliated; if she could have married when she was young and had children, she might have been different. She was never one to show her affection— except with Philip. She was more honest than I. I could act and imply friendship when it was wise to do so. I could go to Mass, but when the time came I was going to stand firm as the Protestant Queen. All this I could do; but Mary never could. She would never dissemble and would always stand by what she considered to be the truth.
We talked now and then together in a sisterly fashion. There was a possibility, she said, that she might yet have a child.
I said I hoped she would be blessed.
So I did, but not with a child. Sometimes I would wake in the night and start up thinking that my sister had been delivered of a beautiful boy. Then I would come back to reality and I knew in my heart that she would never bear a healthy child. I knew too that time was running out for her.
I hoped it would not be long. I wanted to be Queen while I still had my youthful freshness, which was important to me. I was paid many compliments but I did realize that the nearer one came to the throne the more glowing they would be. I liked to think of myself as beautiful but in my franker moments I knew that while I was pleasant to look at, I lacked that beauty which many Court ladies possessed. I had my bright hair and my eyes were large and tawny which made them rather striking, but my eyebrows and lashes were pale. I needed long dark lashes and well-defined brows to show off my eyes. I was tallish and straight and elegant in figure and my white skin and hands and tapering fingers were my greatest beauty. So I was fair enough and being royal, I could be called a beauty. But when I rode through the streets to be acclaimed as Queen I did not want to have lost my youthful freshness.
I spent my time between the Court and Hatfield, and during that time Hatfield was still something of a prison because I was guarded night and day and no one came and went without its being reported to the Queen.
Sir Thomas Pope was always trying to divert me and I was often allowed to hunt. When we journeyed from one place to another we went in search of the hart and Sir Thomas always made that something of a ceremony. I would have my retinue of ladies dressed in white satin seated on their palfreys and my yeomen all in green, and I of course would be splendidly clad and the privilege of cutting the throat of the captured animal always fell to me.
Gustavus Vasa, the King of Sweden, was asking for my hand for his son Eric and again I felt a mingling of excitement and determination to refuse, but it pleased me very much to be asked in marriage though I had every intention of refusing.
The relationship between my sister and myself had so improved that when I went to Richmond to visit her she sent a royal barge for me with an awning of green silk decorated with fresh flowers—a mark of her respect for me and my position as her heiress.
To be in her company might have been something of a strain but I was adept at guiding the conversation in the way I wished it to go, and because outwardly I accepted the Catholic Faith Mary was guileless enough to believe that I was converted. I had to avoid the subject of religion and the terrible events in Smithfield for if they were mentioned I feared I might show my repugnance.
I was delighted that she made no effort to persuade or even force me to marry. She knew of the offer from Eric of Sweden which I had rejected, but I had carefully said in my reply that I should not dream of marrying without the Queen's consent, which had pleased her, for Gustavus had approached me first, which was unusual in these matters. I insisted that I had no wish to marry.
“You will one day,” she answered.
“As yet,” I replied, “the virgin state is the one I wish for.”
She smiled at me. “There are great blessings in marriage,” she said wistfully.
Blessings! Had she found them with Philip? An indifferent husband, whose sole reason for marrying was the power and political advantage it would bring him, whose visits to her were clearly distasteful to him, an unpleasant duty which must be performed in the hope of getting an heir, slinking off incognito for an assignation with the baker's daughter. Marriage! Oh no, not for me! Mary might have kept her dignity intact if she had never married.
The more I thought of marriage—and when I did my thoughts were dominated by my mother—the less I desired it.
The safe subject with Mary was the child she believed she carried and I was making some garments with the most delicate embroidery—at which I was quite good—and Mary was delighted with them.
I shall never forget the sight of her as she sat holding the tiny shift in her hands and that look of bliss on her face as she contemplated the joy of having the child she hoped to bear. It was particularly poignant as I was sure— as was everyone else—that she would never have a child.
But she softened toward me, and I toward her, because I saw her then as she was, a lonely woman reaching for affection. She spoke of Philip tenderly—and it was not the Philip he was but the one she had gulled herself to believe he was. “A great man,” she said, “and a great King. I am the luckiest woman on Earth to be his wife.”
I could not bear it. I was not given to tears but I wanted to weep then.
She twisted the ring on her finger. It was black enamel and gold. She called it her betrothal ring.
“I look at it often,” she said. “It reminds me of Philip when he is absent. Of course, it is inevitable that he must be absent. He has a great country to rule. I would that he could be beside me all the time. One day, sister, you will know the blessings of a good husband.”
I could scarcely prevent myself from protesting. I wanted no husband, least of all a power-seeking cynic like Philip.
“This ring is so precious to me,” she said. “I have vowed it shall never leave my finger while I live.”
I took her hand and kissed it.
“I hope, sister, that it will remain there for a very long time,” I said, which was not exactly true. Yet I pitied her.
Was it wrong to hope for Mary's death? Perhaps. But what had life to offer her but lost hopes, a heartless husband and a childless fate? Even more important, what had England to hope for under her rule? In any case one cannot help one's thoughts and I knew that I was the one chosen to lead my country from disaster.
So friendly did she become toward me that she proposed to visit me at Hatfield. Sir Thomas Pope was thrown into a fever of anticipation and he and I discussed with great excitement how we would entertain the Queen. The cost would be enormous, but Sir Thomas was a very wealthy man and I was not poor so we determined to entertain the Queen in a royal manner. Sir Thomas had in his possession a set of superb tapestries representing the siege of Antioch and I proposed that we decorate the state chamber with these. He was very ready to do anything to please me and agreed immediately.
When they were hung we reviewed them with great pride and Sir Thomas said to me: “It may well be that when Her Majesty comes, she will urge you to marry.”
“Sir Thomas,” I replied firmly, “since I have become mature I have made up my mind that I do not wish to marry.”
He smiled indulgently, for we were the best of friends. “Your Grace will change her mind when some suitable person comes to you with the Queen's consent.”
“My dear Sir Thomas,” I replied, “what I shall do hereafter I know not, but I assure you upon my truth and fidelity and as God be merciful unto me, I am not at this time otherwise minded than I have declared unto you. No, though I were offered the greatest prince in Europe.”
He merely smiled at me. I was sure he thought my remarks were not to be taken too seriously.
“Come,” I said, “let us talk of other matters. We should have a play to entertain Her Majesty.”
So we went on with our arrangements. There was a play after supper which was performed by the choirboys of St Paul's which pleased the Queen. We had been careful not to arrange a boisterous entertainment but to concentrate entirely on the tastes of the Queen, which meant presenting music and singing. I a
ccompanied one of the boys on the virginals. He had a pure and lovely voice which enchanted the Queen.
It was a very successful visit and I was glad that Mary and I were on better terms and she seemed no longer to suspect me of plotting to depose her. One only had to look at her poor yellow face and her swollen body—not with child as she so fondly hoped, but with disease—to realize that she could not live for many more months.
It was a disastrous year for her. The time had come when she had to accept that she was not pregnant and never had been. The protuberance which she had fondly hoped was a child was some growth within her. It seemed now that my accession was inevitable. She accepted it and so did Philip; and so did the people. With the coming of the new year, so disastrous for Mary, so thrilling for me, events were moving fast.
Appeals were coming from the town of Calais, the only town left to England of all the conquests of Edward III and Henry V. The French, enraged by England's alliance with Spain, had marched on Calais and on a bitterly cold January day we heard that the town had surrendered to the Duke of Guise.
Mary was frantic. Calais was not so very important; it was difficult to defend it; but it was the last possession on the coast of France and it had been held for generations as a symbol that the English still had one foot in France. And she had lost it because she had allowed Philip to persuade her to join him in war against the French.
I often wondered then if that poor unhappy woman ever thought what disaster the Spanish marriage had brought to her and her country. Oh, what a lesson! The people had been against it and one must always have the people on one's side. Yes, the people had hated the Spanish marriage; it had brought a religious intolerance to England, not known since the persecution of the Templars. Men and women were being burned at the stake. Who was ever going to forget Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper? The marriage had failed to produce the only thing which would have made it worthwhile from Mary's point of view—and now the last disaster. The English had lost Calais.
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