The Virgin Elizabeth

by Robin Maxwell

  Then, still rattled by the unexpected complication, Thomas set about finding the correct key to the King’s secret bedchamber door. His hands shook as he fingered the keys, and his fumbling irritated him. It was a sign of weakness to be frightened into tremors. He was stronger than this, Thomas told himself, and willed his hands to stop their shaking. He had previously marked the all-important key with a ring of red paint, and now, with the greatest care, he .slipped it into the lock. He could hear the iron mechanism click and tumble gently Once the door was unlocked, he sighed audibly with relief and blessed Highsmith for his good work. The dog, its head cocked slightly to one side, watched Thomas as he pushed against the door to open it.

  It did not budge.

  What was happening? Why was the unlocked door not opening? It was, it dawned on him then, bolted shut. Bolted on the inside! The dog had been left outside and the door bolted from within, clearly because the King feared for himself. Trusted no one.

  An eleven-year-old boy had outsmarted them all!

  Thomas flared with rage. He would not be thwarted by a child. He threw the key ring down and, without thought to consequences, began to kick the door in with his heavily booted foot. Instantly the hound began barking loudly A commotion could be heard within the bedchamber, the voices of Edward and his keepers — amongst them Fowler, who Thomas assumed could be counted on to assist him in the kidnapping.

  Suddenly the frantically barking dog lunged at Seymour and sank its teeth into the flesh on the back of his thigh. Thomas yelled in pain and whirled to face the beast, glaring at it in fury. He saw not a poor snarling hound protecting its master, but every villain that had conspired to undermine his glorious future.

  He loosed the pistol from his waistband, aimed with precision, and fired once. The dog was propelled backwards by the force of the shot, its blood splattering the antechamber wall.

  There was a child’s cry of outrage from within — it was clear the intruder had shot his dog — and the sound of booted feet coming from inside the bedchamber, no doubt Edward’s front-door guards. Coming Seymour’s way. With a curse and a final splintering kick at the secret door, Thomas fled back through the warren of rooms, never bothering to close or lock their many doors behind him.

  Racing through the final door into the main corridor, he plowed directly into a patrol of palace guards. Standing white-faced and cringing behind the patrol was Belmont, and with him Longly and Pierson, the only conspirators he’d been able to rouse for the task.

  Seymour wrenched himself free of the soldiers’ arms and pulled himself up to his full towering height.

  “Take me to my brother,” he demanded of them icily.

  “Our orders are to take you directly to the Tower,” answered the head guard firmly but courteously.

  “God blast your filthy orders, I will see my brother!”

  “It will go better for you, Admiral, if you do not struggle. We prefer not to restrain you.”

  “I’ll have your head for this,” he snarled, then glanced at his cohorts and saw a look of such naked terror in their eyes that he was instantly silenced, himself seized by their unspeakable fears.

  The four men were marched to the palace quay and placed aboard a rough barge — an ignominious conveyance for the High Admiral of the King’s Navy — and on the ebb tide floated downriver through the Traitor’s Gate of the Tower of London.

  Edward, poor lost and friendless child, saw no sleep that night, just wailed and mourned the loss of his favorite hound. He cried too, and prayed fervently that even one nobleman lived in all of England who truly wished him well and might guide him with honesty and compassion into his majority.

  King Edward the Sixth, heir to Great King Henry, eleven years and three months old, prayed in vain.

  Another of Henry’s children that night saw the death of hope and of love everlasting. As she rode through the bitter January night, Elizabeth’s tears mingled with the thick London fog on cheeks that still burned with fresh humiliation and rage. Her mind had been no clearer than Thomas Seymour’s when she’d fled his house moments before him. She could ill discern the source of her anger, for she was as furious with herself as she was with the faithless, betraying beast she had once called her beloved.

  Thomas had attempted and almost succeeded in ravishing her — a princess of the blood — and she had, in a state of blind stupidity, walked naively into his trap. Only the Fates had saved her. What lucky star, Elizabeth wondered, had protected her tonight? She must, when she had recovered from the tragic affair — if that were even possible — consult an astrologer on this evening’s portent.

  Thomas, Thomas! she cried silently. She had been so sure he loved her. From the first moment, the first touch … Had this always been his plan? The idea further chilled her already icy body, the sweat of fear wetting her boy’s disguise from within, the cold night air from without.

  At least her journey home through the streets, thickly black except for the occasional point of lantern light hanging at the door of a late-night tavern, had thus far been easy. But that too was about to change.

  “Hey, boy!” came a drunken voice from the cluster of ruffians loitering outside the Red Rooster Inn as she passed it. A beefy hand clamped around Elizabeth’s ankle. Shocked by the suddenness, she let out a high-pitched shriek.

  “ ‘Tis no bloody boy!” cried another drunk. “Look at ’er ’air!”

  Though the grabbing hand had not stopped her forward motion, and she spurred her horse faster, she could tell several of the men were chasing after her — and, to her horror, she heard the sound of at least one horse’s hoofbeats echoing on the cobbled streets behind.

  Elizabeth stifled panic. She must be close to home by now. Both Crosby House and Seymour House were located on the Strand, on the banks of the Thames. She had avoided using the river as a conveyance, for it was so public. Now, as she raced down the road to evade her drunken pursuer — perhaps another rapist — she mouthed foul oaths at herself for having gone into the strange and fabulously dangerous streets alone.

  Were those the lights of Crosby House ahead? Elizabeth was suddenly aware that the clattering hoofbeats she heard were entirely those of her own horse. The ruffians had given up the chase. She slowed her mount to a trot and began to suck in great gulps of the dank river air to calm herself. It was indeed Crosby she now approached. She would have to present a collected appearance and demeanor to her retainers, who would, by now, be aware of not only her disappearance but her deceit. Kat Ashley would be livid to have been sent on a fool’s errand.

  Elizabeth knew that she could not conceal this night’s doings — for she would never have risked her loved ones’ wrath for less — but she had determined that she must never allow them to know of Thomas’s appalling conduct toward her. She would simply pretend she had gone cold to the idea of the marriage to him, and none of their convincing or pleading would begin to change her mind.

  She cared not at all that the stable hands knew her true identity now. She could see by their faces that Peter and Ned had already been roundly chastised for failing to notice that the “messenger” they had given a horse to had been the princess Elizabeth. As they helped her down from her mount, she muttered embarrassed apologies, wondering all the while how she could have thought so little of the consequences of her rash act.

  The Ashleys and the Parrys were waiting grim-faced and fully dressed in her bedchamber when Elizabeth, disheveled and perspiring, opened the door. At least they had spared her the humiliation of a more public reprimand. No doubt the entire household had been sent into a frenzy when her disappearance had been noticed. Now it occurred to her how transparent her destination was, and she wondered if they had sent someone to Seymour House to fetch her home.

  The four retainers stood silent, waiting for Elizabeth to speak. Only in that moment did she remember that a condition of urgency so terrible to Thomas Seymour had occurred that it had halted his ravishment of her, even allowed her to escape. If it had been
so important, thought Elizabeth before she spoke the first word to her servants, perhaps it had some significance beyond this evening’s debacle.

  “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” asked Kat with more ice in her voice than Elizabeth had ever in her life heard.

  “I have nothing but apologies,” said Elizabeth, willing herself to be calm.

  “No explanations?” said Thomas Parry.

  “I think...” Elizabeth began, “that I have been temporarily mad.” It was not enough. They stared at her, demanding more. “I went to see my lord Seymour ... in his home.”

  “In his home,” repeated Kat. “Dressed as a boy.”

  “I did not wish to have my movements known.”

  “We have guessed that, Princess,” said Parry in a wry tone.

  “What was the purpose of this assignation?” said Kat in the voice of an inquisitor.

  “To discuss our marriage.” Elizabeth’s simple statement had the sound of a question.

  “Your marriage?” said Kat. “Whilst we here have been advocating this match, you have been studiously naysaying it.” Her voice had risen to a shrill pitch. “What perverse notion has you rejecting Thomas Seymour’s suit on the one hand, and on the other sneaking off like a common slut to consummate it!”

  “Kat!” John Ashley’s hand went to his wife’s arm to calm her.

  “The visit was meant not to consummate our lust for one another,” said Elizabeth, relieved to be speaking the truth before she began weaving her fabric of lies and omissions. “He was a gentleman —”

  John Ashley snorted audibly. He was the one amongst them who had never hidden his distaste for the Admiral.

  “And we were discussing the methods by which we might secure the Council’s approval of our marriage.” Elizabeth hesitated. What reason could she give to justify the change in feelings toward Thomas Seymour of which she must convince this trio?

  “Why are you so disheveled?” asked Blanche Parry mildly. “Did he lay a hand on you?”

  “He did not,” Elizabeth insisted. “But... as he spoke to me,” she went on slowly, conceiving her story as she went along, “I began to see him in a different light. I remembered that he had betrayed his beloved wife, and I suddenly wondered if he would not do the same to me after we were married.”

  Kat turned suddenly away, mortified, knowing that she had supported Thomas Seymour’s outrageous pursuit of Elizabeth whilst he was a married man, and had thereby assisted in heaping pain upon the kindly Catherine Parr.

  Elizabeth went on. “Thomas began to protest that the same would never happen with us, but the more he protested, the less I believed him.” She was warming to her story now, for in her heart Elizabeth knew that had she been possessed of a clearer head, this imaginary conversation between herself and Thomas might well have taken place. “I understood that I had somehow become bewitched by him, in the same way that Catherine had been.” She looked directly at her nurse. “And Kat… and even you, Parry.”

  Her servants stood stock-still. This fifteen-year-old girl was speaking a truth that none of them could gainsay.

  “Then,” Elizabeth went on, “we were interrupted by Lord Seymour’s servant, who came shouting into his rooms —”

  “You were in his bedchamber!” cried Kat, recovered from her chastising.

  “— that someone named Sherrington’s house had been searched,” she went on, ignoring her waiting lady, “and that the armory at Holt Castle had been discovered. Lord Seymour, enchanted though he was by my presence, grew alarmed and, without even a proper farewell to me, bolted from the room. I was flabbergasted, confused. Then hurt, then angry,” Elizabeth embroidered. “Finally I realized that Thomas had only confirmed my worries about his character. I left immediately” — she paused for effect — “and on the way home I was accosted and chased by some drunken men.”

  “Oh, my sweet Elizabeth!” cried Kat, coming to put her arms around the Princess. “You’re not hurt?”

  “I escaped them unharmed, Kat,” she said calmly, “but that is why I look so disheveled and probably smell like a goat.”

  Kat and Blanche exploded with relieved laughter, but John Ashley and Thomas Parry, Elizabeth could see, were exchanging worried looks.

  “Was nothing more said of Sherrington’s house or Holt Castle?” inquired John Ashley.

  “No. Of what significance are they?” asked Elizabeth.

  There was a pause as her servants gathered their thoughts.

  “If I’m not mistaken, a man named Sherrington is chief counter at the Royal Mint,” said Parry, though he could not seem to make more of the fact. “And Holt Castle,” he went on, “I cannot say”

  “’Twas an armory found at Holt Castle, Parry,” interjected John Ashley accusingly. “Have you been paying no attention to the gossip being whispered of your hero Seymour? That he’s been planning a revolt?”

  “A revolt!” cried Elizabeth.

  “He’s spoken of nothing like that to me,” insisted Thomas Parry indignantly “We spoke only of Elizabeth’s holdings and properties —”

  “We hear what we wish to hear,” muttered John Ashley, disgustedly, “see what we wish to see.”

  Parry took a threatening step toward John Ashley.

  “Gentlemen!” shouted Kat. “It will do us no good to fight amongst ourselves.”

  “You see,” said Elizabeth pointedly, “the Admiral’s influence works its evil on all of us, even without his presence.”

  Everyone was silent as they contemplated the Princess’s words and saw the truth in them.

  “I fear we are all in great danger,” said John Ashley finally and with quiet certitude.

  No one contradicted him. Blanche Parry’s lips began to quiver.

  “You two,” Kat ordered the husbands, “leave us now. We must get the Princess out of these wet things and to bed.”

  “Bed! How shall I sleep, knowing what I’ve done?” cried Elizabeth. “We must talk to one another, all night if need be, and make sense of what is happening!”

  The sudden sound of heavy pounding on the riverside door silenced the members of Elizabeth’s household and froze the very blood in their veins.

  “Guard of the Privy Council! Open up!”

  Though the shout was muffled, each of them understood both the words and their terrible implication.

  “Get her into bed. Hurry,” whispered Parry to Kat Ashley and his wife. “We’ll see to the guard.”

  “No,” cried Kat. “First to your rooms. Put on your nightclothes and slippers. ‘Tis the middle of the night and we, of course, know nothing of Thomas Seymour’s shameful doings.”

  “Right,” said John, moving quickly with Parry into the upstairs corridor. “And you into your nightgowns, ladies,” he reminded them.

  “John, Parry,” cried Elizabeth after them. They turned back at her words. “I’m sorry. So very sorry.”

  They nodded. Then they disappeared. Elizabeth gave Kat and Blanche a desperate look.

  “No more time for sorries now, Elizabeth,” said Kat in a businesslike tone. “Let us get you out of these clothes.”

  The five of them, all in gowns and slippers, feigning the grogginess of having been roused from a dead sleep, came slowly down the great stairs. They were whispering urgently amongst themselves, for only moments remained before they would be face to face with the Council Guard, and from then on anything they might say would surely be used against them.

  Kat said, “All here promise to reveal nothing of what transpired ‘tween the Princess and Lord Seymour. Agreed?”

  The quartet murmured, “Agreed,” then Thomas Parry added with heartfelt passion, “I would rather be pulled limb from limb by four horses than divulge a word that would hurt our Elizabeth.”

  This caused tears to spring to the girl’s eyes. But Kat saw and, stopping to grasp Elizabeth’s shoulders, shook them once.

  “No tears, Elizabeth. Shock. Outrage, perhaps. But no tears. We have done nothing wrong.”


  “All right,” said Elizabeth, wiping the moisture from her cheeks and eyes. “If only we had more time to —”

  “Well, we haven’t,” hissed Kat, “so we will do our best. You in the lead,” Kat ordered Elizabeth. “ ‘Tis your household and we are but your servants.”

  They came to the bottom of the stair and arranged themselves with the Princess in the fore, followed closely by the two couples. In the foyer half a dozen armed soldiers and their captain stood waiting at attention. The leader stepped forward as the party of five approached.

  “What is the meaning of this visit at so ungodly an hour, Captain?” Elizabeth said sternly to what appeared to be the Guards’ leader.

  “Lord Thomas Seymour,” he began, then gulped as though reluctant to continue, “has this night been arrested for conspiring against the King of England, and divers other treasonous crimes against the State. All accomplices and parties with whom Lord Seymour is known to have collaborated —”

  “Accomplices?” cried Elizabeth.

  “We collaborated with no one,” said John Ashley decisively as he stepped forward, shielding Elizabeth’s body with his own. “We protest this intrusion and demand you leave here at once.”

  “I have my orders, sir,” said the captain of the Guard, his confidence bolstered by those orders.

  “From whom!” demanded Kat Ashley.

  “From members of the Privy Council and the Protector himself,” answered the captain. At a tiny movement of his head his men broke into two groups of three.

  “Katherine Champernoun Ashley and Thomas Parry, identify yourselves.”

  “No, no!” cried Elizabeth. She flew into Kat’s arms.

  The woman’s body was rigid with fear but her voice was unnaturally calm. “No tears,” she said quietly. Into Elizabeth’s ear she whispered, though the words were strong as a battle cry, “We have done nothing wrong.” Then she pushed Elizabeth to arm’s length and stepped forward to stand with Parry who, grim-faced, was avoiding Blanche’s eye. Three of the soldiers surrounded the pair.