In High Places
Page 104
She stopped when she reached the short steps that would take her up onto the scaffold. Suddenly she was seized with an absurd compulsion to laugh. She remembered at that moment what she had heard Sir Thomas More had said, as he had mounted the scaffold to his own death; that he would need help seeing himself up, but as to his coming back down again, that they must let him shift for himself. More had been a martyr to the faith as well; he had died for refusing to support the king’s marriage to Elizabeth’s mother. The Tudors, it seemed, were steeped in blood.
She sat thinking her own thoughts as the tedious death warrant was read out once again. She had left behind her a stack of letters it had taken her most of the night to write, as well as a codicil to her will. She could only beg God to grant that all would be done according to her wishes. There remained nothing left in this life to do except to leave it.
She became aware of the silence in the room when a movement caught her eye. The warrant having been duly read, the two executioners, who had up until that moment stood as still as statues, moved towards her.
“Madam,” said one. “You hear what we are commanded to do.”
“Aye,” Mary replied. “You must do your duty.” With that, she slid from the chair and began to pray in Latin. But her sonorous chanting was disturbed by some other sound, persistent, cacophonous. The Protestant Dean of Peterborough was attempting to drown out her Catholic prayers with his own.
“Mr. Dean,” she said, in the voice of queen; her words ringing to the very rafters. “I am a Catholic, and must die a Catholic. It is useless to try to move me to your faith. Be silent, I pray you; your prayers avail me but little.” She had been denied her last confession, absolution, and last rites. She could only pray that God would understand and not judge her too harshly for it.
No one wanted to interrupt the queen’s orisons; they waited patiently until her prayers ceased, and then the executioner asked, “Does Your Grace forgive us?” Each held out a beefy hand, gloved in black leather.
Placing a gold coin into each hand, Mary said, “I forgive you most heartily. For now I hope that you shall put an end to all my troubles.”
The moment had come. The men helped her to rise. She unbuttoned her petticoat, but her arms were stiff with rheumatism; she was unable to shrug off the heavy velvet garment. The executioners, one on each side, slid it from her shoulders; it landed at her feet in a black heap. A collective gasp filled the room as her undergown of scarlet satin was revealed. Scarlet was the color of blood…and of martyrs.
The tension in the silent room was almost unbearable. Into this charged atmosphere Mary said, “Truly, my lords, I never thought to have such grooms to wait upon me!”
Still no one made a sound.
Someone had taken the black cloth from the block. She regarded it dispassionately, as if it were to do with some other person. It was made of sturdy oak. The black velvet cushion had been placed before it. She knelt. Janet, thankfully dry-eyed after a night of weeping for the cruelty of her fate on the morrow, tied a white silken scarf about her eyes. She began to pray once more, but it was as if her mind were split; one part told her hands to feel for the block, and to lean her head upon it; the other part was already far away.
Suddenly she experienced the most exquisite agony; those who had assured her that she would feel nothing were wrong. How could they possibly know such a thing? But it was all right; her mind was not attending her body any longer. Already her thoughts had traveled the length of England, north to Scotland, and over the water to France. They came to rest at last beside her mother and her dear François.
THE END
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ackroyd, Peter, Tudors: The History of England
Beesly, E.S., Queen Elizabeth
Dunn, Jane, Elizabeth & Mary – Cousins, Rivals, Queens
Erickson, Carrolly, Bloody Mary
Erickson, Carrolly, The First Elizabeth
Fraser, Antonia, Mary Queen of Scots
Hume, Martin Andrew Sharp, The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth
Guy, John, Queen of Scots – The True Life of Mary Stuart
Jenkins, Elizabeth, Elizabeth the Great
Loades, David, The Cecils – Privilege and Power Behind the Throne
Loades, David, Elizabeth I
Loades, David, Mary Tudor – A Life
Mackay, Jame A., In My End is My Beginning: A Life of Mary Queen of Scots
Mortimer, Ian – The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England
Muhlstein, Anka, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart – The Perils of Marriage
Porter, Linda, The Myth of "Bloody Mary": A Biography of Queen Mary I of England
Ronald, Susan, Heretic Queen – Queen Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion
Somerset, Anne, Elizabeth I
Somerset, Anne, Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day
Strickland, Agnes, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots
Strickland, Agnes, Life of Mary, Queen of Scots
Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England
Weir, Alison, The Children of Henry VIII
Weir, Alison, The Life of Elizabeth I
Whitelock, Anna, Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen
Williams, Neville, The Life and Times of Elizabeth I
Wilson, Derek, Sweet Robin – A Biography of Robert Dudley
AFTERWORD
I have strived to be as factual and historically accurate as possible in writing this book. Where I had the actual words my characters used, I did my best to include what they said, and to build their fictional dialog and narrative using my best judgment about what each person might have been like based on what we know about them. That is, after all, the task of the writer of historical fiction: to fill the gaps in our knowledge of what really happened. I have used diverse sources (which many times were in conflict with each other on certain points and issues) in order to form as fair and objective opinion as possible about what I believe really happened. I weighed the facts, theories and opinions and then made my own decisions about what my characters might have said and done, and why.
There is a great deal of mystery surrounding both Elizabeth and Mary. Did Mary conspire to kill Darnley? Were the casket letters real, or were they forgeries? Was Elizabeth really a virgin queen? These are questions that must remain unanswered, because we simply do not know for certain. This leaves the writer of fiction open to speculation and assumption, with all of its vast wealth of possibilities. In any novel, one strives to keep the interest of the reader; but I do not believe that one ought to stray too far from the facts in order to take advantage of the fertile ground from which one plucks one’s version of the story. One of the great writers of Historical Fiction, Norah Lofts, said that writers of Historical Fiction do not say that what we write is the way it was, but only the way it might have been. I have tried to write using Ms. Lofts’ philosophy as my guide. I have therefore minimized my own “wanderings” from fact and historical record.
I sincerely hope readers of this story will feel that I have treated my characters, who were, after all, real people, with sensitivity and respect.
Bonny G Smith
Fairfax, Virginia
October 2018
About the Author
Bonny G. Smith is from Miami, Florida, where she lived until moving to the Washington, DC metropolitan area at the age of 13. Living in close proximity to the Smithsonian Institution and its many museums awakened a lifelong interest in history. Ms. Smith majored in Business at the University of Maryland, and minored in history, both Ancient and Medieval. After spending a lifetime reading history, biography and historical fiction, Ms. Smith decided to write her own novels about her favorite era, Tudor England; The Tudor Chronicles will consist of a trilogy of novels, starting in the late sixteenth century and ending in 1603. Living in the Washington DC area also piqued an interest in criminology and justice; the result is Ms. Smith’s Detective/Police/Crime novels. The Interpol Series traces the lives of two I
nterpol agents, who pursue a different crime in every book. Other books by Ms. Smith include Only the Heart Knows Why, a coming-of-age novella set in steamy 1960s Miami, and The Secret Lives of Inanimate Objects, a book of macabre short stories. Ms. Smith began writing in 2003 while still employed full time as a Certified Project Manager for several major corporations. She is now a full-time writer since retiring from a career in global telecommunications. She holds baccalaureate and master’s degrees from the University of Maryland. Ms. Smith lives in the Washington, DC area, in the United States of America. Ms. Smith is the author of six novels and a book of short stories, across four literary genre.
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