The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  The steady rocking of the litter and the impending twilight worked with the long day on the road to put her into a doze. She did not realize that she had dropped off until she was awakened by the sound of shouting voices. She lifted the leather flap that had been tightly tied to keep out the damp and saw a procession of torches.

  “Master Waldegrave!” she called into the gathering darkness. “What is to do?”

  Mary’s steward rode close by her litter at all times; he leaned from his saddle.

  “They carry an Imperial standard, Your Grace,” replied Waldegrave.

  Mary was very near-sighted, but Edward Waldegrave was not; he recognized Jehan Dubois from a distance.

  “It is the Imperial Secretary, Your Grace.”

  Dubois! Sent to meet her, perhaps? But surely that would have been arranged beforehand? Finally she saw him. “Good Jehan,” said Mary familiarly. She held out her hand, and Jehan grasped it. Using this an as excuse, he pulled her close.

  “A warning, Your Grace,” he said. “The Protector thinks to move the king, tonight. My master has only just heard of such a plan, but his source is reliable.”

  Mary bit her lip. “He has no intention of letting me see my brother,” she said bitterly. It was so unfair! It was this very bait that had lured her from Norfolk. Mary loved her brother, despite all of the heartache that had led up to his very existence, and even despite the fact that he had usurped her rightful place in the succession.

  “There is more,” whispered Jehan. “Parliament will pass an act tomorrow repealing the Act of Six Articles. There is no question about it.”

  She could never support the Act of Six Articles, but its repeal was a step in the wrong direction. And this was not just a step; it was the leap over the chasm between Rome and Reform.

  She had been bound for St. James’s Palace, where she had planned to spend the night. After a meeting with van der Delft on the morrow, she was then to have left for Syon. If she wanted to see Edward, that plan was now moot.

  Even as her mind turned on the change of plan, she still had the presence of mind to ask, “Good Jehan, how does the Imperial Ambassador?”

  Jehan smiled. “He is well, Your Grace, and sends his felicitations.”

  Suddenly Mary took a decision. “Master Waldegrave, where is Lord Cobham?” Without waiting for an answer she turned to Jehan and said, “Pray tell His Excellency that he has my most hearty thanks for sending word. He will know, I think me, that we will not be meeting on the morrow, as we had planned. Ah! Lord Cobham. Do you have a swift rider?” He nodded. “Send an outrider to the Duchess of Cleves at Richmond, and bid her make ready for me just a little early. None of us will see our beds this night until the hour is late, but even so we will arrive at Richmond one day early. Master Waldegrave, tell the rest of the contingent to make their way to St. James’s, and send a sturdy escort with them, but spare me a few good men. I intend to ride to Syon tonight. Now.”

  Such decisiveness could not be argued; the men sprang into action, and before long, the party had split between those going into the city as planned, and the group of riders headed west.

  Mary was an excellent horsewoman, and it was not yet completely dark; but even when it was, there would be a bright moon. Ten more weary miles on horseback at the end of a day in the litter since dawn! But there was nothing for it. It was clear that the Protector planned to play a game with her called Capture the King. Where had their friendship gone? She had become quite close to Edward Seymour and Anne Stanhope whilst the king was courting Jane. Lady Somerset, as Anne now was, was still her Good Gossip. They had exchanged letters regularly until the king’s death. The Somersets had charge of her brother, and of this, at first, she had been glad. Then both of them had changed.

  Just after her father’s death there had been much discussion of herself being named regent, with Edward under her direct care, but that would have been contrary to the king’s will; as much as some people thought that a viable idea, others disagreed. And in the midst of all the discussion, it was announced that instead of the sixteen regents that King Henry’s will had decreed, there would be but one Lord Protector of the Realm and Keeper of the King’s person. Even Somerset’s own brother had objected! So it would seem that the flouting of the king’s will was an inevitable fait accompli.

  But even so, the emperor himself and the papal curia had not at first recognized Edward as king, lest they prejudice Mary’s own right to ascend the throne; had she been of such a mind, all of Catholic Europe would have come to her aid. But she had not. She accepted her brother as heir, his mother after all had been Catholic, and the king had not meant for the Reformed faith to replace Catholicism in England. She could not blame her brother for the untoward interference of others; he was innocent and she grieved for the situation in which he had been placed by the unscrupulous men around him.

  As the riders raced on through the night, Mary could only hope that she would be in time to see her brother. And she must do her best to reason with the Protector, for the sake of the peace of the realm.

  Syon House, November 1547

  The wind had picked up considerably and by the time Mary arrived at the gates of Syon she was chilled to the bone. The dark days of autumn always heralded her melancholy. Everything seemed to be dying. Never was she so disheartened as in the fall of the year. And now here she was, striding down the well-worn stones of the east cloister towards the apartments of the Abbess. But Dame Agnes was far from England; she had been living in the Netherlands these many years with her nuns. Mary and the Dame corresponded regularly, but to be here, on this dark night, with the harsh moonlight throwing naked shadows across her path, caused such a wave of utter desolation to sweep over her that she almost lost her balance.

  Her step faltered and immediately Master Waldegrave asked, “Is aught wrong, Your Grace?”

  Mary sniffed and wiped away an errant tear. It made her heart twist to recall the times she had visited Margaret here with Frances in her wake. It had been their great joy to see Dame Agnes and to pay their respects to her. In her mind she suddenly evoked an image of the Dame in the stillroom with her arms up to her elbows in the huge copper vat of potpourri. At her side was the Fair Geraldine, whom they had been trying to save from the attentions of the earl of Surrey, her white head bent low over a cutting board upon which she was decapitating dried roses for the vat. It was with a feeling of great weariness that Mary now passed by that self-same room, its great wooden door with the elaborate iron findings closed and locked, no friendly candle burning in its little round window.

  They reached the end of the corridor and before them were the Abbess’s apartments. The halberdiers raised their poleaxes with a flourish, eyes straight ahead, and in one fluid movement also reached to open the doors for her.

  Perhaps it was her utter exhaustion or it might have been the shock of going from bitter cold to sudden warmth; but the sight of the Dame’s apartments with unfamiliar things in them gave her such an overwhelming feeling of disorientation that for a moment she was speechless. It was the way things looked in a dream; familiar places that were not quite right because the sleeping mind could not reconstruct what the eye had seen in wakefulness.

  “Your Grace,” said Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, Lord Protector. Her brother Edward’s uncle…Jane’s brother.

  Mary was torn between her memories of Jane and the disappointment she felt that the Seymours had gone from being such good friends to becoming, she must face it, her adversaries.

  “No ceremony, please, Edward,” said Mary, holding forth her hand.

  “We were not expecting you until tomorrow.”

  “No,” said Mary sharply. “I expect you were not.”

  “There has been a change of plans,” said the duke.

  Mary arched her brows. “Indeed?”

  “The king left for Ashridge this morning.”

  Mary could not hide her disappointment. “Why, Edward? Why are you doing this?” Perhaps she could st
ill reach Edward Seymour; it was probable that there was no reaching the Lord Protector.

  “Your Grace,” said Edward carefully. “I believe that God has placed this opportunity within my grasp, to bring the Reformed faith to England. I ask you, what other purpose could He have?”

  “Do you presume to know God’s purposes then, My Lord?” asked Mary. “You astonish me.”

  Edward thrust out his chin. “It is clear to me.”

  Mary shook her head. “My Lord,” she said. “I fear for you. But I fear more for my brother and for the people of England.”

  “No one cares more for the people of England than I,” rejoined Edward. “That is why I pursue my course. I must act according to the dictates of my conscience. Just as you must do.”

  Mary shed her cloak and stood by the fire, warming her hands. Everywhere she felt the presence of Dame Agnes. It unnerved her to be in these rooms, and she not there.

  “Well, then,” said Mary. “Do you then try to convince me that it is God’s will that you neglect and contradict my father’s wishes? What you are so bent on doing is likely to cause great discord throughout the land.”

  “Think you not that encouraging the people to refute the law of the land sows discord?”

  Mary remained silent.

  “The king intended all of this, but died before he could see it done,” said Edward.

  Suddenly Mary rounded on him. “Then why, my lord, did my father stipulate in his will that masses shall be said for his soul in perpetuity? And my father intended,” she emphasized the word, “for Edward to be raised in the Catholic faith.”

  The duke stroked his long beard. “Those clauses were written early on, long before the king changed his mind.”

  “I do not believe you,” Mary said. “I know when the will was written, Edward. I am not entirely without resources.”

  “All right,” said Edward. “But you know that the king hated Sacramentarians and papists alike. Both extremes were equally unacceptable to him. You know this to be true.”

  Mary shrugged.

  “Yes,” said Edward, nodding his head. “You know this is true. We are not extremists, Mary,” he said, now making his own play on their past friendship. “We wish only to free the people from superstition and ritual.”

  “If that is your true position, Edward,” she said, “then God pity us both. I am heir to the throne; I am afraid that a collision between myself and the Council on religious matters is inevitable. I cannot support the decision to repeal the Act of Six Articles.”

  Resources indeed! thought the Protector. He shook his head. “You simply parrot what you have heard Gardiner say.”

  Mary rounded on him once again, her eyes flashing. “God’s wounds, Edward! Can you not conceive that I am perfectly capable of thinking and speaking for myself?” She had never been close to Gardiner; he had switched sides during the divorce and she had never forgiven him. “Edward,” she said. “I see that you have changed from the days when you were plain Sir Edward. God’s Blood, man! Consider what you do! The king, your nephew and my brother, is the holder of the titles Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Church. Regardless of my personal feelings about this, the fact remains that the power rests only with the king, and not with you. You are to protect, Edward, but you do not; you usurp. Your role, which should have been the role of the entire Council, is to see to the good of the realm until Edward’s eighteenth birthday, and this ought to be done according to the dictates of my father’s will. But you have strayed far from that, sir.”

  “That which I do, I do in the king’s name,” replied Edward. His position was solid, he felt; the princess could say what she liked, and he would go his own way.

  Mary threw up her hands. “Is not that the very point I have been trying to make? Do my arguments fall on deaf ears? I see that we have been speaking at cross-purposes, my lord. Neither you,” she said, looking him directly in the eye, “nor Parliament have the right to interfere with any of my father’s laws. All such changes should await Edward’s majority. Can you not see this? Edward is a fine scholar and a credit to his father in his desire for knowledge; but he is too young to make decisions regarding religion. Until the king comes of age, sir, no one, including you, ought to be exercising the power of the Supreme Head of the Church. You and the Council have overstepped your bounds, misrepresented my brother, abused your authority and your position of trust, and have taken shameful advantage of the king’s youth.” She was almost pleading with him; and if she were, she knew that it would be in vain. She knew full well what he was doing, and why he was doing it. The Protector wanted to establish the Reformed faith in England and he did not want to wait seven years to accomplish his purpose. And she was powerless to stop him.

  But still, she must try, for her brother’s sake. “My lord,” she said. “Laws may be enacted and wills set aside, but there is no one who possesses the right to interfere with the one true religion.”

  “Hmph,” said Edward. “You sang a different tune in 1536, Your Grace. You agreed with your father on the issue of papal authority, agreed that he was the Supreme Head of the Church of England, agreed that your mother was never married to your father, and that you yourself are a bastard.” He did not say this with spite or malice; he simply stated it calmly as fact.

  Mary’s eyes flashed. By God, red blood ran in her own veins; she began to wonder what flowed in Seymour’s. She shivered. “All know I was forced to say those things. I never believed them in my heart.”

  Edward did not respond.

  “My Lord,” she said “Edward’s minority is not the time to make major religious changes. What if, when Edward is older, he changes his mind?”

  Edward shook his head, stroking his red beard softly. “He will not,” he said.

  Mary snorted. “No, I suppose not. But there are those who will argue that such changes as you plan to make, made not by the king in truth but by his ministers, will have no force.”

  Their eyes met.

  “I am willing to take that risk,” he said.

  Richmond Palace, January 1548

  Mary sat at the virginals playing a complicated tune. Her eyes were closed as her be-ringed fingers flew over the keyboard. The music was lively and something about it made Anne feel very cheerful.

  Mary had come to her at Richmond cold, tired and distraught after her interview with Edward Seymour. She had failed to see her brother; she had failed to convince the Protector that only disaster lay ahead for the realm if he pursued his present course.

  Anne had cosseted her stepdaughter and fussed over her, making her eat when she did not wish to, tempting her with toothsome dishes, and letting her sleep until late in the morning. That Mary was in the throes of her mysterious autumnal malady was plain to see, and Anne was at a loss as to what else to do for her. Mary had at first protested, saying that she wished only to be left alone; but something in her heart told Anne that giving Mary something to fight against was the only thing keeping her from falling deeper into her extraordinary decline. After a while, Mary had given herself up to Anne’s ministrations and, in Anne’s estimation, was the better for it.

  Early in the New Year Anne reminded Mary that her year of mourning was almost at an end. Apparently, Mary needed no reminding; as day passed day, and the days began their inexorable process of lengthening towards spring, Mary’s fragile cheer seemed to be returning. She talked of little but Philip and their plans, and how close to actually happening that it all now was.

  Since her father’s death, Mary had received several letters from Philip, always through Anne, so as not to set propriety at naught; he was fighting for money when he was not fighting for his brother; always fighting. And waiting. Mary could think of no reason why the Council, whose approval she must have to marry, would not approve of her marriage with the duke; he was of good family, he was Protestant, and he did not have the resources or the inclination to support Mary in any bid for her brother’s throne. In short, he was the perfect c
andidate. The fact that she would have to justify her choice to her cousin, the Emperor, did give her pause, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it. And God send it would be soon.

  Then the news had reached them that the Dowager Queen was with child. The emotions that played across Mary’s face as she read Catherine’s letter had not been lost on Anne, who sat close by stitching an altar cloth. Mary put her hand to her mouth, her eyes welled with tears, and she had…most intriguingly…begun to laugh. Anne stopped her sewing, her hand held in mid-stitch, waiting for Mary’s laughter to subside. She had been surprised that Mary received such a letter; as far as she knew, Mary and Catherine had had a falling out the year before and had not corresponded since.

  Finally, the laughter subsided and Mary said, “Dearest Anne, these are glad tidings indeed! The Dowager Queen is with child!” In her letter, Catherine explained how her courses had seemed to cease, and how desolate she had been. She had so hoped for a miracle. Nothing in November, then missed again in December; early in January she had missed for a third time and was sunk in despair. So that was that. There was no chance now; probably there had never been any. Still, she had dared to hope…her love for Thomas was so great that she could not believe that their passion would not result in a child of their love.