The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  The duke of Somerset showed not much more common sense than the brother he had so recently sent to his death without giving him either a trial or even a chance to explain himself. Van der Delft believed that John Dudley, the earl of Warwick, was the evil genius behind an intricate plot to do away with both of the king’s uncles, and she was beginning to believe it herself. To have masterminded a plot to play the brothers off against each other that spelt both their dooms was ingenious. And to think that Dudley was nothing more than her former Master of Horse! It was disgraceful. The true nobility had been replaced by parvenu lords; commoners with no history or experience of government or rule. That she should be thinking this to herself as she walked the long hall to the throne was indeed ironic; she had never thought to see the sun rise on the day when she defended the Duke of Norfolk, even privately to herself. But it was true; Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk, may be a lot of despicable things, but he was noble, almost royal, and he was in the Tower whilst these…there was no other word for it, these amateurs, were ruining England with their pedestrian attempts at government. Despite their high ideals, they were failing completely to grasp the realities of the situation. The Council and their government was a disgrace, and even if there was nothing she could do about it, she would never be seen to condone it.

  She and van der Delft, and the Imperial Secretary who followed behind them, were made to kneel a full five times at intervals as they approached the king. It was all Mary could do to hide her smirking lips and raised eyebrows. Her father had never required such nonsense, and it was the measure of the men around the present king, a child still, that they felt it necessary. Certainly Edward would never have thought of such a thing. He was not any more royal for a few additional bows. Mary almost let out an inelegant guffaw at the thought that all this genuflecting should have been saved for the Mass…she wondered if the misguided men of the Council had ever even thought of or drawn such a parallel. But it was plain to her, and the thought was amusing, despite the dire circumstances of her audience on this day. To the men of the Council it was supposed to be a day of reckoning for her; well, they should not get what they wanted from her, even if it cost her life. They would not dare to harm heir to the throne, if not for her sake, then because the Emperor would rise in such anger that these men would be swept aside like the pawns they were.

  The room was silent; she realized that she had been lost in thought and that it was time for her to address the king.

  “My Lord,” she said, in her firm, gruff voice. It was a voice that carried well, and could be heard clearly in all four corners of the great expanse that was the king’s presence chamber. “I am come at your bidding to court.” She paused for effect; if one read between the lines, it was plain that she meant at the king’s bidding, and at no one else’s. “What would Your Most Gracious Majesty have of me?”

  But she knew as well as everyone else that Edward would not be allowed to speak. The Protector would, as always, answer for the king. Edward kept his eyes trained on a point above her head and to the far end of the vast room.

  Somerset rose and banged his staff three times on the wooden platform upon which he stood, next to the king and the throne, but not, thankfully, under the royal canopy. “You are summoned forth to answer for your crimes, in that by hearing Mass not in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer, you are in defiance of His Majesty’s law. How say you to the charge?”

  Again Mary paused for effect. Then she took a deep breath and in a firm voice she said, “I have offended no law, sir, unless you refer to the recently enacted laws that were made by Parliament at the behest of the Council, which none of you had any right to do. If anyone has offended the law, My Lord it is all of you; my father never intended England to be a Protestant country, as you well know. None of you have any right to make laws contrary to the Act of Six Articles.” It was the same old argument, and little different from the conversation that she and the Protector had had at Syon House so long ago.

  “We make these laws in the king’s name,” boomed Somerset. “We need no other authority than that.”

  Mary reflected at another great irony; that she should be defending the Act of Six Articles. But it was all she had at this juncture. “My Lord, you well know that by making such laws as the Act of Uniformity that you have exceeded your mandate; you cannot make such laws in the name of a king who is still in his minority. You are not permitted to exercise the authority of the Royal Supremacy; all know this to be true. And my brother, the king, is still a minor and unable to do so himself. And I am not the only person who thinks as much, my lords. Does not the West Country rise in contempt and opposition to your new so-called laws? And do not Bishop Bonner and Bishop Gardiner languish in the Fleet for agreeing with this assessment? My father’s will is clear, my lords; any lawyer could tell you so.”

  From the corner of her eye she saw Edward bristle at this affront to his authority, but there was nothing for it; she spoke truth. Edward, as she had said many a time, was too young to make decisions about religion, and the Council was not at liberty to make such laws in his name.

  Striving to keep her temper, Mary allowed her gaze to sweep the room and she alighted briefly upon each member of the Council. Then she said coldly, “My Lords, you have enacted laws that are at odds with my father’s laws and against his express wishes, without any authority to do so. Well you know that all of you are where you are because my father raised you up and placed you there. And now you defy him in his very grave, and the result is that the people of England have risen up in rebellion against you.”

  The Lord Protector’s face turned a mottled red and he took a step forward on the dais. He pointed down at her and roared, “Do you deny that your own servants were involved in the uprising in Cornwall?”

  Mary did not flinch; she tilted her chin upwards and said, “Most vehemently, sir. I have no servants in Cornwall!”

  Somerset spluttered and then rejoined, “By your refusal to obey these new laws, you set an example of disobedience to the entire nation! You will not, henceforth, Your Grace, hear Mass in your household and you must, from this day forward, conform with the new faith or be in defiance of the king, your brother.”

  It was Mary’s turn to bristle. “Your unlawful Act of Uniformity mandating the use henceforth of the Book of Common Prayer will not be accepted by me, or by any men who abhor, and rightly, the reduction in the number of saint’s days, the wearing of plain vestments by the clergy, a service in English instead of Latin, and a religious service in which there is no elevation of the Host. How could such be called a Mass, and how can anyone’s soul hope to be saved by it? That is why the people rebel, my lords, and will continue to do so regardless of my views or actions.” Mary drew another deep breath and in her loudest voice she said for all to hear, “Sir, I will never change my religion under any circumstances, and I will conform to no law made while my brother is still in his minority. I shall continue to obey my father’s laws, to which I have committed. And I will continue to follow the dictates of my conscience; and for the avoidance of doubt, let me say plainly before you all that I will never act against my conscience.”

  Somerset smoldered with anger, but said nothing.

  Van der Delft had schooled her well; part of diplomacy was knowing when to be silent, and she met the duke’s silence with her own. What more was there to be said, in any case? All knew that the Protector’s position was becoming increasingly unstable; she would seek to take full advantage of that. He was becoming all the time more autocratic, irrational and hot-tempered; this annoyed the Council, but what exasperated them completely was that Somerset had seemingly abandoned all pretense at consulting them on matters of importance. This had progressed from a matter of mere annoyance to one of alarm. Something must be done. For now, the issue of the Mass and her religious views seemed of paramount importance due to what was now being called the Prayer Book Rebellion in Cornwall and Devon; but soon the crisis would shift to Somerset’s dangerou
s propinquity to appease the rebels in order to hold onto his power. If she were patient, his actions would soon shift the attention of the Council from her own situation to the increasing need to curb the Protector’s dictatorial method of government.

  For now, it was a standoff; she would wait to play her last card, that of the support she could count on from her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor. But one thing was certain; there would be more trouble in the land. While this grieved her, she must be patient. One day, she hoped, she would be able to set things right. If not through her own rule, then through Edward.

  Edward. She stole a glance at her brother. He sat as still as a statue on his throne under his canopy of estate. For all the good he was able to do, he might as well have been a statue. She had heard some people, Protestants who had read the Bible in English, railing against the current government. They had quoted scripture and shouted that woe be unto the country whose king was a child. For that one and only time, she agreed with them.

  Chapter 29

  “Mary…made her opposition to the Council’s policy abundantly clear.”

  – David Loades

  Westminster Palace, September 1549

  The council room was hot and very still; not a breath of air stirred. The Protector was absent, having gone to see to details that had arisen concerning the construction of his new London mansion, Somerset House. It was a rare opportunity; usually the Duke of Somerset was in council, lording it over all.

  Several of the men on the Council had tried to warn the Protector that his style of government had alienated all but a few, but none more often and more sincerely than Lord William Paget. Paget had been risen to prominence by Bishop Gardiner, which had brought him to the attention of King Henry; the king had recognized Paget’s fine mind and rare abilities. Paget had therefore, over the years, held many lucrative and powerful posts. In King Henry’s last years, Paget had been one of the king’s chief councilors, and was the man he turned to most often for advice. Paget was a straightforward and plain-spoken man, a rarity in English politics.

  The dark horse on the Council was John Dudley, formerly Viscount Lisle, but according to the dictates of the old king’s will, lately raised to the eminence of Earl of Warwick. Dudley surveyed the men around the table but kept his opinions to himself. He was playing all of the men of the Council like so many chess pieces; he was always at least four or five steps ahead of them. Many of his moves had already yielded fine results; Thomas Seymour had been sent to the scaffold by his own unstable brother. Dudley smiled to himself. It was almost too easy, and if he loved anything, he loved a challenge.

  But the stakes he was playing for were too high for carelessness or complacency. Dudley enjoyed the game, but he was playing to win. And winning to him meant a revenge so sweet that it was possible that no man had attained such perfect vengeance ever before. He would never know for certain if such was the case, but he would have wagered his own soul that it was.

  His father, Sir Edmund Dudley, had been instrumental in amassing the enormous wealth garnered by King Henry VII after that king ended the civil war that in later years would come to be known as the Wars of the Roses. Sir Edmund and his partner, Sir Richard Empson, made many enemies collecting from the nobility the massive debts owed to the crown; King Henry was in desperate need of funds to build his fledgling Tudor dynasty. The Dudleys were then in high favor, and fate seemed fair fit to keep them there. But when the king died and his son took the throne, young King Henry VIII, anxious to curry favor and popularity with the people, sent Dudley and Empson to the scaffold for their financial deeds, which had displeased many in the name of the king.

  John Dudley had been very young, only eight years old, when his father was executed. But even at that young age he had seethed with hatred for the Tudors and vowed vengeance for his father’s unjust death. Disinherited and penniless, he had been taken in by the Guildford family, and lucky he was; not many would have risked the royal anger by giving succor to the son of an attainted traitor. But by then the royal attention had been diverted elsewhere…the young king was spending the fortune that Dudley’s father had helped to amass as fast as his fertile imagination could devise expensive entertainments.

  Young John applied himself to his studies, to the art of war, to the manly pursuits; he excelled at them all. He waited silently and bided his time. He attached himself to powerful men at court such as Charles Brandon, Cardinal Wolsey, and Thomas Cromwell. But he was clever enough not to be caught up in the fall from favor of any mentor. He was so shrewd and cunning that by the time young King Henry had become old King Henry and died, John Dudley had been high in royal favor despite his early disadvantages, and had been named a Knight of the Garter. He had been created a viscount, then an earl, and he had his eye now on a dukedom. With patience and careful planning, he would realize all of his ambitions and more. When he had finished, the revenge he planned to exact on the Tudors for the murder of his father would be complete and very, very sweet.

  Dudley was so subtle in his ways that none, as far as he knew, had any inkling that he was the mover behind the wedge that had been driven between the Seymour brothers; the Protector was dithering and uncertain, the admiral blustering and foolish, and it had been ever so easy to play one brother off against the other until Thomas’s death at the hands of his own brother was the result.

  Had Dudley been less calculating, he would have fought the move to make Edward Seymour the Protector; but in supporting the Council in flouting the king’s will and foisting responsibility upon one so little capable of shouldering it, he had set up both the Seymour brothers for disaster. Thomas was dead already, and if Dudley’s next move on his mental chessboard succeeded, the Duke of Somerset would soon be cast down from his lofty eminence.

  And who would slide into his place, ever so quietly, ready to take the helm? John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. And then he would be ready for his next move, and the move after that.

  But first things first. The Protector was off inspecting the construction of his fine new London home. Its setting was spectacular; it had been John Dudley who had, secretly, convinced the Protector that no other building site could possibly do. The Protector had been convinced, and proceeded to raze the homes and churches that would have to be sacrificed to the duke’s stunning new view of the Thames. There was grumbling aplenty, but the clincher was the charnel house that had been unceremoniously blown up to make way for the Protector’s new mansion. Displacing the poor and despoiling churches for building materials was unpopular to be sure, but defiling the dead was blasphemous and the uproar had been tremendous. God would have His revenge on the Protector for such a deed…and John Dudley would be his instrument.

  When Kett’s Rebellion had broken out in July, no one suspected that the Earl of Warwick had been its engineer. The Protector’s power base was eroding and yet another rebellion, this one a dispute over the widespread enclosure of common land by the nobility, was just what was needed to help further Dudley’s plans.

  Dudley had a reputation, well-deserved, as the finest soldier of his time. The victory at Pinkie Cleugh had been his own, but he was glad to let the praise fall to the Protector. The men who counted knew whose the victory really was. And who had the Protector called upon to quell Kett’s men, when his feeble attempts at appeasement had failed utterly, and had had no other effect than to turn the nobility against him? At the Protector’s request, the Earl of Warwick had descended upon Norfolk like an avenging angel in the name of the king, and when he was done, the rebellion was finished and two thousand men lay dead in the fields.

  In the minds of the people this new rebellion was clear evidence that law and order were breaking down and anarchy would soon be the inevitable result. And when the people had had enough of the inept Protector, the Earl of Warwick would be waiting to step in and take charge. For that was what everyone wanted; someone to take responsibility so that they did not have to. King Henry was gone; his awesome personality, which had held the country
in thrall for so long, was no more, and the Protector was not even a pale shadow of such a one. Young King Edward could be discounted entirely; he was a boy and had not an ounce of the charisma or physical presence that his father had enjoyed. He would always need guidance, despite his erudition. He believed what he was told. And John Dudley would soon be doing the telling. The Protector would be overthrown and John Dudley would become king in all but name; his father, Sir Edmund, at last avenged.

  New Hall, October 1549

  Until she had seen and lived at Sheringham, New Hall had been Mary’s favorite residence. She had been bequeathed many new properties in her father’s will, certainly some more grand than New Hall or Sheringham, but these two remained closest, in her heart, to what she would have called home. But Sheringham was no place to be in October; already the icy winds were blowing off the Russian Steppes, howling across the North Sea, and were battering the coast of Norfolk. Mary had come to the conclusion that only the people who had been born and bred there could survive the fall and winter in such a place, and be content.

  New Hall boasted a fine pond; the fish from it often provided the fare for her table. But today it provided, in addition, a lovely place to walk to from the palace. Mary’s ladies had all pled indisposition of one sort or another; that was all right with her. Moments of solitude were few and far between for a princess of England. For form’s sake she had enlisted old Dodd to accompany her. He followed at a stately pace, leaning heavily on his stick, whistling a tune. He knew when his mistress wished to be alone, and kept his distance. Soon he would find a likely tree and sit beneath it to doze.

  The day was fine for October, at least in Mary’s estimation; but she knew why her ladies had all excused themselves from her morning walk. For such as they, it was too cold. But Mary found the cold air bracing and believed that it held certain virtues for one’s health, provided one dressed properly for it. Her cloak was lined with miniver and sported a matching fur collar. She was warm enough.