The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  The princess was a clever woman in some ways, but to a diplomat’s discerning judgment, she had too little guile. She was far too straightforward in her thinking. Van der Delft feared that this would not stand her in good stead should she ever come to the throne.

  He stifled a sigh. “Your Grace, do you not see? You are heir apparent to the throne of England until His Grace, your brother is old enough to marry and produce an heir of his body. Even should the Council succeed in making a diplomatic match for him, he is not robust; it will be many years before he is…” Such a delicate subject! And she still a maid!

  Mary scowled and shifted uneasily in her chair. “Yes, yes,” she said “I know. It will be long before Edward is able to consummate any marriage he makes.”

  “Just so,” replied van der Delft. “Just so. And this places His Grace in the gravest danger from the plots of those who abhor the Protector’s religious changes and who wish to see the Mass reinstated and England restored to Rome.”

  Mary shook her head. “I would never approve of or participate in any conspiracy aimed at deposing my brother, despite his religious views. I told him as much when I saw him at court.”

  Van der Delft nodded. “And I am certain, Your Grace, that he believes you wholeheartedly. But the Council view you as a liability. They dare not throw you into the Fleet prison for your beliefs, as they have done with Bishop Bonner and Bishop Gardiner. But I am afraid the day may come, and it may not be far off, when you are sent to the Tower.”

  Mary slammed her goblet down on the table. “And that,” she exclaimed, “would be a grave mistake, and may very well spark the rebellion that the Council, and the Protector, seek to avoid!”

  “Yes,” rejoined van der Delft. “And a lot of good that will do Your Grace if they send you to the block! It is just such an excuse that they await.”

  “My cousin would invade and there would be war.”

  Van der Delft shrugged. “Perhaps. But the emperor is a political being. He cannot allow family matters to interfere with matters of state. As he proved when your lady mother was in dire straits. His Grace has warned the Council that he will not tolerate any undue pressure being put upon Your Grace to conform to the new law. The emperor has tasked me with obtaining a writ from the hand of the Protector himself with the full agreement and consent of all the Council, stating that you may continue to practice your faith unmolested. But beyond that, for now, he is not prepared to go.”

  “And have you obtained such a writ?”

  “I will broach the subject as soon as I return to court, Your Grace,” van der Delft replied. “But I do not hold much hope of getting it.”

  Mary sighed. “Your words strike me as hard as steel.”

  “I but try to make you see sense, Your Grace. You must be wary. Trust no one.”

  Mary smiled. “Ah, but I trust you, my friend. I am sorry to be so passionate. But I have no intention of backing down to these men. I am no longer a defenseless girl, as I was when my father beat me down and made me deny my mother’s marriage and my own royalty. These men do not scare me. And if my cousin cannot be relied upon, the people of England, who love me, can. And there is Edward.”

  “His Grace is in much the same position with the Protector that you were in with the old king,” said van der Delft. “He is kept short of money and made to devote all his time to his lessons. He is not allowed to be involved in statecraft, and is paraded out only when convenient or necessary to show the people that he is still, in fact, the king.”

  “Edward will not always be a child,” said Mary.

  “Yes, just so, Your Grace. A two-edged sword at best, I fear me.” Van der Delft obediently drank the last of his wine.

  Mary understood; despite their differences of opinion on religious matters, Edward loved her and would allow no harm to befall her at the hands of others. But her brother had made clear his feelings about her refusal to give up her religion. The duke of Somerset would always take the path of least resistance; he was ill-equipped to rule England and all knew it, including himself. But there was no denying that when Edward came of age she would face yet another dilemma.

  Hampton Court Palace, January 1549

  The night was cold and the stars glittered like ice in the midnight sky. As Thomas stepped from the boat onto the water steps, the stone was frozen so hard that the slightest step caused a ringing sound. But he was unconcerned; security around the young king, his nephew, was so lax that he need not fear even making that much noise. He had pointed out several times the slipshod manner in which the king’s household was run, to various Council members, but they had all ignored him; so had his brother, the Protector. Protector, indeed! The man may be his brother but his feeble attempts at government on Edward’s behalf were a joke. He, Thomas, was about to prove just how much of a joke. And when the people finally saw, when they finally understood, they would depose his brother and put him, Thomas, Baron Sudeley, in Somerset’s place as Lord Protector, and gladly.

  Instinctively Thomas put a hand to his hilt, but instead of a sword, he carried a pistol at his waist. He had a taste for expensive, exotic things, and with Catherine’s vast fortune and estates now at his disposal, he could indulge his every whim. He had accumulated a great deal of money from his arrangement with the Barbary pirates, but it was not nearly enough. He meant to reign, to rule, and for that, one must command great wealth. He had loved Catherine and he was sorry that she was gone, but it was better this way. He was no longer in her shadow, and he had her resources to do with as he pleased, without all that constant sermonizing. At times it had been like being married to a nun! The Dowager Queen had been far too pious for his taste, and her lecturing and moralizing had bored him unspeakably. Belief in God and repentance of sin was for the deathbed; he meant to live his life to the fullest. There were many on the Council who felt that with the death of the queen, his own influence had waned; he meant to prove them wrong. Very wrong!

  He approached the gate that led into the Privy Garden. He reached into his doublet. He had bribed a palace caretaker to make him a set of duplicate keys to the garden gate and to the king’s apartments. The man had been paid handsomely, and he had not disappointed; the key slid silently into the lock. There was no guard. Thomas smirked. What a fool his brother was! He closed the gate behind him. He was in.

  Thomas’s mind was on intrigue and he did not even give a second thought to the stone bench where he had taken Catherine on a winter’s night just such as this so long ago. He strode through the garden and gained the door that led into the alcove below his nephew’s rooms.

  Again, the key he had paid so much for proved the open sesame that he needed. He paused in case someone was near and had heard him enter. As he waited in the darkness, he thought of Elizabeth. She was the centerpiece of all his plans. At first he had thought that Mary, being next in line for the throne, should be his quarry. But no. She was already old at thirty-two, a bitter spinster with a stern countenance. He was willing to stake his fortune, which was considerable, that no such fire as had burned in Catherine burned in the Princess Mary. And she was a papist. If any evil should befall Edward, she would never be allowed to ascend the throne. He cared not which form worship took; he was not even certain he believed there was a God. But others did care, and Elizabeth would be the next queen, even if it meant that the Princess Mary had to be sent to the block. It was true that he could not marry Elizabeth without the consent of the Council, but what of that? He would simply force the issue. Had he not gotten away with it once before, marrying Catherine, the Dowager Queen? Once the marriage with Elizabeth was consummated, it would be a fait accompli, and none could say them nay.

  He had been researching legal precedents with which to supplant his brother as Protector; he had found none that would hold water. So he had attempted to persuade Edward to write a letter to Parliament stating that the Protector mistreated him and was unfit for the office of Lord Protector of the King. But even though Edward was obviously unhappy und
er Somerset’s aegis, Thomas could not induce Edward to betray his elder uncle. Thomas knew that his nephew held himself in great affection, but that, evidently, was not enough; Edward was a solemn youth, and Thomas began to suspect that he felt that he was gaining some sort of credit with this elusive God that everyone seemed to believe was so important, by being overly pious and miserable. Fools, all of them, the king included. But Edward was a child and could be forgiven his foolishness; his brother was a different story.

  All through the late fall and early winter, all through the Christmas revels, time seemed to brood; one could feel something in the air, something palpable. He had been holed up in his London home, finalizing his plans. He had made friends with, or bribed, most of the men closest to the king. He had used Catherine’s vast fortune to arm a considerable force that waited only for his command to take action. He could claim the loyalty of a great number of men all over the country who supported his planned coup. For such was his intention; he would gather his forces, win over king and Council, marry Elizabeth, and topple his brother’s weak regime before either the Protector or his cronies figured out what he was up to.

  Tonight was the second step; whilst his forces waited for word to march on London, he must seize the king’s person. In one fell swoop he would demonstrate how ineffectual his brother was as Lord Protector, and he would have the pawn in his possession, for the man who ruled the king ruled England.

  Nothing and no one stirred; the time was now. Thomas clutched the key to the king’s bedchamber in his hand and proceeded stealthily up the stairs.

  Hatfield Palace, March 1549

  At fifteen, Elizabeth was not beautiful, so much as striking. She had her father’s red-gold hair, but with the thick texture of her mother’s, and like Anne Boleyn, she wore it long, where it fell well below her waist. Her skin was as white and translucent as a water lily, and was set off by her mother’s mysterious eyes; their intriguing shape was Anne’s, but their color was a startling golden brown. Like both her parents, she was tall, but like her mother, she was slender as a reed. Even her fingers were long and thin, conducive to the hours of practice needed to perfect the italic handwriting in which she surpassed any pupil her tutor had ever had, and in which she took such great pride. Wordlessly, she handed the completed exercise to her tutor, Dr. Ascham.

  “Ah,” exclaimed Dr. Ascham, “no one executes the copperplate form with the perfection of Your Grace!” Never had he had such a pupil; the princess was hard-working and determined to excel, but so were many of the pupils he had taught when he was at Cambridge. What set the Princess Elizabeth apart from others was her innate intelligence and competitive spirit. None should be as smart, as accomplished as she; and therefore she applied herself with almost superhuman effort to every task she undertook.

  Elizabeth smiled and nodded, accepting the praise as no more than her due. “Shall we read our Cicero now, Dr. Ascham?”

  Dr. Ascham laid the writing exercise on the stack from the day before. He would study it later when he was alone, looking for any small flaw that needed further development. The princess insisted on flawlessness, and she should have it, although her temper flared when she was shown even the smallest error in her execution. But he did not mind; royal patronage was a feather in his already well-decorated cap, and it was worth the few moments of unpleasantness he suffered at the princess’s hands.

  Elizabeth retrieved the leather-bound volume from the shelf and laid it on the little inlaid table by the hearth. She seized a poker and stoked the fire. She did not mind the cold, but Dr. Ascham was feeling his years and she noticed that he shivered despite his place closest to the fire. He thought she didn’t notice such things, but she did. She had lost her former tutor, her beloved Mr. Grindal, to the plague the year before. He had been the tutor of her early years and she missed him sorely. Her stepmother had tried to foist a tutor not of her own choosing upon her, but she would not hear of it; Dr. Ascham had taught Mr. Grindal, and with Mr. Grindal gone, none would now do but Dr. Ascham. She had had her way, and Dr. Ascham had come from Cambridge to be her teacher.

  Elizabeth lifted the little book and began to read in her impeccable Greek. Ascham closed his eyes and gave himself up to the sheer enjoyment of listening to Elizabeth read. But for Elizabeth it was different. She had learned long ago that she had a special gift for dividing her mind between one thing and another. And so while she read page after page, she was able to think of other things. And once again her thoughts strayed to the Lord Admiral.

  Theirs was a tragic story. Thomas would have married her had he been able to obtain the consent of the Lord Protector and the Council; but they were all jealous of their power and would not even consider it. And so her beloved had married the Queen Dowager, for her vast wealth. That was only fitting; men did not marry for love alone, and had Thomas and she been allowed to marry, she was not blind to the fact that part of his reason was that she was in the line of succession to the throne of England.

  If only they had been allowed to marry, the events of that dreadful winter need never have happened. But what was even more tragic in Elizabeth’s estimation was that she had been fooled so completely. For as events had unfolded, it became glaringly obvious that Thomas was an unstable fool whom no one held in high esteem, and his follies had cost her not only her beloved servants and her reputation, but had almost cost her place in the succession and perhaps even her life.

  In January, in the dead of night, the Lord Admiral had broken into Hampton Court Palace into the very bedroom of the king, shot and killed Edward’s spaniel when it raised a fuss, and tried to kidnap the king’s person. Thomas had been arrested and sent to the Tower. The ensuing investigation revealed an intricate plot that involved so many counts of treason that his fate was never in question; he would die on the block, attainted and without trial. He had done so this very day; she knew the date for which his execution was set, but she dare not even acknowledge that she knew. She was in mourning for her stepmother, and already wore black, but now she wore it for Thomas, too. She could not cry; she could not grieve openly in any manner. And yet, despite what she now knew about him, that he was regarded by men of parts as no more than a pompous buffoon, she loved him still.

  Her beloved governess, Kat Ashley, had been taken from her and in her place the Protector had foisted upon her as governess Lady Tyrwhitt, a completely unsympathetic person, being Catherine Parr’s cousin; Lady Tyrwhitt had stopped just short of taunting her with the death of Thomas, who had been beheaded that very day on Tower Hill. But the lady had stood before her waiting for a response to her derisions, and Elizabeth knew she must make one. Without looking up from her intricate needlework, she had drawn a deep breath and said, “I am aware of the fate of the Lord Admiral, Lady Tyrwhitt.” She said this far more calmly than one would have imagined her capable of at that moment. And then she turned and met Lady Tyrwhitt’s cold stare with a steely countenance of her own and added, “Today died a man of much wit, but very little judgment.” And with that she had turned back to her needlework, ignoring Lady Tyrwhitt until she went away.

  What that display of cool composure had cost her only she knew. But when all was said and done, she had learned a valuable lesson, and it was one she would never forget for the rest of her life: Men were dangerous creatures, and she would steer clear of them from now on.

  Hampton Court Palace, June 1549

  Their footsteps rang hollowly on the stone as Mary, van der Delft and Jehan Dubois made their way from the royal apartments to the king’s presence chamber. This was one of those occasions such as van der Delft had described to her earlier in the year when he had visited her at Sheringham Manor…the little king, her brother, brought out in all his splendid regalia, under his ornate canopy of state, before an audience that included all the court and Council.

  For van der Delft’s predictions had come true; the Act of Uniformity outlawing the Catholic Mass and making the use of the Book of Common Prayer mandatory had sparked a danger
ous rebellion in the West Country, and Mary was being held accountable for it.

  Running the gauntlet between the outer chambers and the presence chamber was an education for Mary; she could tell by the expression on each countenance she passed whether they were for her or against her. Not a word was spoken, but she made a mental ledger of each faction. For. Against. Friend. Foe. No wonder good Jehan kept an unconscious hand on his sword hilt the entire way! He was a soldier first and Imperial Secretary second, and that was as it should be.

  There was no need for conversation; she and van der Delft had spoken far into the night about the strategies and tactics needed to survive this audience with the king and Council. If they thought for one moment that she would waver even for an instant, that she would give way even one iota on any point, they were very much mistaken.

  Suddenly the thought passed through her mind of the time when her mother, Queen Katharine, had faced down her father’s entire council, during the dark days of the divorce. The queen had parried every verbal thrust successfully. Even her enemies had admitted that her points were valid and eloquently delivered, though in the end they were irrelevant; what King Henry the Eighth of England wanted, he would have, and no amount of articulate persuasion on the part of the queen mattered one bit. Still, she had faced them down successfully and had walked away from that confrontation, upwards of twenty men against one lone female, with the upper hand. Her mother had indeed won many of the battles of that terrible time, but it was inevitable that she should lose the war. There was nothing for it now but to emulate her mother, and her grandmother, Queen Isabella of Spain, the Warrior Queen, as much as possible. Mary unconsciously straightened her back. Win or lose, she meant to do these female forebears of hers proud in the coming encounter.

  Their ringing footsteps were suddenly drowned out by the clarion call of the trumpets announcing her arrival at the doors of the presence chamber. She heaved a sigh of relief to note that only the royal standard hung from each gleaming instrument; Somerset had not yet exceeded his mandate to the extent of flying his own colors.