The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  Mary snorted inelegantly. “Not a single one of them has the courage of his convictions! Even Tunstall and Gardiner gave way before my father’s mighty will.” As she herself had done, but only in order to save her life! The bishops of Durham and Winchester had been in no such danger, and had only stopped short of her father’s mandate when it included denying the pope. And still they had managed to walk the line, and were only called to account when Edward came to the throne.

  Just at that moment a mighty boom was heard. Mary hastily withdrew her hand from Renard’s sleeve. Her hands flew to her face. “Oh dear God, it is done!” she cried, and with that expostulation, burst into tears.

  Women’s tears usually had the power to move him, but not the queen’s. He sincerely hoped that if Her Grace ever married and sought to gain a boon from her husband that she never tried to use weeping as a weapon. Her eyes turned red, her nose ran, and her face became distorted in a most unpleasing manner. His best response to the queen’s outburst, he felt, was silence. He sat quietly while Mary sobbed, and until she regained her composure.

  “I am sorry,” she said, blowing her nose with an inelegant honk. “The cannon tells me that the duke of Northumberland has just lost his head. I am sorry for it, in spite of all. I would have spared him if I could. I tried. I delayed his execution by a day, trying to find a way.”

  And why, wondered Renard, would one have wanted to do that? More female logic! All she had accomplished was to raise false hope in the victim and prolong the man’s agony. She should have forged ahead loudly and publicly, and made it clear to any who would doubt it the fate that awaited anyone who tried to depose her. Instead she had shown herself to all as a weak and vacillating woman, unfit to rule.

  “I would that Your Grace had tried the other culprits at the same time,” he said. “As long as the Lady Jane lives, she is a danger to Your Grace’s throne.” Why could she not see this? Instead, all she saw was her young cousin, whom she was convinced had been manipulated and taken advantage of. From what his spies at court had told him, this was far from the truth. It may have started out that way, but in the short space of nine days, Queen Jane had begun to manage the kingdom, and to all appearances, in a more effective manner better than its current queen was doing.

  Mary looked taken aback. “Oh, I could not very well have done that,” she said, shaking her head. “Besides, she is in the Tower and out of reach of those who would seek to exploit her.”

  “In the Tower, yes,” said Renard. He steepled his hands under his chin. “Yes, that is well, but…”

  Mary bristled. “I will hear nothing against it,” she said shortly. She had just been about to lay her hand on his arm, a sign of marked royal favor, but she withdrew it abruptly.

  “The Lady Elizabeth is likewise a threat to Your Grace. Now there is a lady who cannot be tried for treason…” Yet! he thought, “…but who ought to be in the Tower as well.”

  Mary lifted her chin. Why would Renard insist on giving her the self-same advice that her own Council had given her? She had hoped that he would have been more agreeable to her policies; she had been counting on his support. “She is well enough where she is.”

  Renard struggled to keep his countenance bland. Well enough where she is! Banished from court to her home at Hatfield, with no restrictions save that she was not allowed to move house without seeking permission! God alone knew what schemes the wench was involved in. She was a sly one and no mistake. And Her Grace thought that mere banishment from court a meet manner in which to keep the reins on her crafty sister! More fool she! Very well, then. He was the Special Imperial Envoy and the queen had asked him to attend her, ostensibly to give her advice that she was unwilling to take from her own Council. Whether or not she chose to take it from him was her own affair.

  Mary was not certain of it, but for some reason she felt as if the interview were not going well. This was her own dear cousin’s envoy, the next best thing to having Charles himself here with her. She must try again.

  “Dear Renard,” she said, leaning forward and placing her hand upon his arm once more. “I appreciate your good counsel and will think on all you have advised.”

  A blatant lie, he thought.

  “Would Your Grace like to taste the wine of Burgundy? I have brought some for you, from your cousin, Mary of Hungary.” Anything to get away from the constant threat of that hand on his arm! He made to rise, but Mary forestalled him.

  “Please,” she said. “Do allow me.” Mary arose and went to the sideboard where the wine Renard brought had been breathing since the interview began. She poured the wine from the carafe into two delicate glass goblets. As she handed Renard his glass, she placed a hand on his shoulder, then walked back to the sideboard to retrieve her own glass.

  “Now,” she said as she seated herself once more. “I have asked you to come to me because I need your opinion on a most delicate matter.” Mary leaned forward and placed her hand on top of Renard’s. “My dear Renard, I look on the emperor as my father now, and you are here for me on his behalf; therefore, I look on you as my own cousin.”

  Renard shifted in his seat, in the process subtly withdrawing his hand from under the queen’s. Such familiarity made him uneasy. The queen had not yet asked the question he was dreading; where was her dear father when she so desperately needed his help? Perhaps she would never ask it; mayhap she truly believed that the emperor had been preparing to send troops and money, but happily, as they were not needed after all, they never came.

  “What is this delicate matter?” he asked. He leaned as far back in his chair as he could and clutched his wine glass in both hands.

  “It concerns the funeral of the late king, my brother,” Mary replied. “I wish to hold a Requiem Mass for him but the Council have advised against it. May I count upon you to support my position? For I fully intend to order it such.”

  Renard considered. How to approach such a sensitive issue? “Your Grace,” he replied carefully. “Would that be wise? Forgive me, but the late king was no Catholic. All know this. Should he not be laid to rest in the religion that he professed, and in which he died?” Part of his new mandate from the emperor, now that it was clear that he must stay in England for the time being, was to counsel the queen to move slowly in matters of religion, so as not to give the lie to the emperor’s assurances that he did not intend to interfere in English affairs. All in good time!

  Again Mary bristled, as she seemed wont to do if her will were crossed. “I will not see my brother committed to the grave like a dog! My father’s Act of Six Articles may have wrought some changes in the manner in which the Catholic faith was to be practiced in this country, and rest assured, I intend to address this aberration as soon as ever I can! But even by that law, my father would have required that a Requiem Mass be sung for Edward! My brother was young, Renard, and allowed himself to be influenced by self-seeking men and seditious priests. I can do no less than to bury him properly and hope thereby to save his innocent soul. Besides which, a Protestant funeral would make the Lutherans even more audacious than they already are. If I were to allow such a thing, it would proclaim to all and sundry that I dare not do my own will!”

  At least when her back was up, she made no attempt to reach out and touch him.

  Renard drew a deep breath He was a diplomat and he must do his job. He had not yet experienced the famous Tudor temper, but he could see it looking out at him from the depths of the queen’s eyes. “Your Grace,” he said. “has a most difficult and delicate task ahead to bring the English people back to the true faith. One cannot expect to undo twenty years of change in a fortnight, can one? One must move slowly, carefully. One must…woo.”

  Mary slammed her open hand down onto the arm of her chair so hard that the wine sloshed out of her glass and onto her skirt. Renard, so fastidious, knew a moment of relief that the queen’s gown was as deep red as the wine she had spilt on it. “Did God make me wait twenty years before He vouchsafed the rule of this country to m
e? No! I waited nine days and then it was handed to me on a platter, my men kept safe and my enemies vanquished, without a life lost or a drop of blood being spilt! Shall I then keep God waiting to claim his kingdom of England?” She tilted her chin defiantly. “Besides which,” she said, “I have already written to the Holy Father beseeching him to lift the Interdict under which this sad land has languished these many years. And that is but the beginning!” Her eyes glittered as she spoke.

  Merciful God, thought Renard; to take such a step without consulting anyone! Neither her own Council, nor the Emperor! Did the woman not realize that she rode the wave of her current popularity on the strength of the promises she had made to move slowly in matters of religion? He narrowed his eyes. Apparently not! He had been trying to tell her as much, but she would not listen. So be it! He would report to the emperor that his cousin was a difficult woman who could not control her own Council, who had not the first idea whatsoever how to rule her kingdom, and who was hard-headed, inflexible and resistant to all good advice. And added to her list of offences was the fact that she had needlessly delayed her coronation for months, preventing him from going home to Brussels. This was supposed to have been a temporary, and short, embassy. But now…

  Renard inclined his head and gave Mary his rare smile, but it did not reach his eyes. “As Your Grace will,” he said lightly. He would be certain to impress upon his Imperial Highness that they must get her married, and fast.

  Richmond, October 1553

  The pillow upon which her head lay felt as if it were on fire. She grasped it, punched it, turned it over, and for a few blessed moments, enjoyed the coolness of the other side. And then it too turned traitor and became uncomfortably warm. She had never been able to understand why if one were burning with fever one required a fire piled high enough to rival the flames of Hell. She groaned.

  “And serves you right, too!” said a gruff voice.

  Mary smiled. “Dear Gertrude,” she said. She always addressed her closest servants familiarly in the privacy of the bedchamber. “Of thy mercy, a sup of ale and a little less fire, if you please.”

  Lady Gertrude sniffed. “What you need is good vinegar soak.” But she did as Mary bid and walked to the hearth, seized a poker, and rolled two blazing logs out onto the front apron, where they ceased to smolder. “There now,” she said. She replaced the poker and walked to the sideboard, where she poured Mary a mug of ale. She turned with lifted eyebrow and said, “I suppose ye won’t be wanting it mulled?”

  Mary sat up, rolled her eyes at Lady Gertrude’s little joke and reached out for the cool mug. She took a small sip, and then a longer pull, and handed the mug back, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “And why do you say I deserve to be ill? That is not a very Christian attitude, you know.”

  Lady Gertrude placed the mug on the table beside Mary’s bed and crossed her arms, preparatory to reciting her litany of admonitions. “Your Grace rises at dawn to hear Mass, then having taken neither sup nor crumb, you work until after midday!”

  Mary lay back, her arm across her eyes, and from the depths of her pillows she muttered, “There is much to be done.”

  Ignoring Mary’s response, Lady Gertrude continued as if the queen had never spoken. “Then long after all have had their dinner, you eat nary enough to keep a bird alive, and all whilst granting audiences, hearing petitions, and attending the Privy Council.”

  Again the muffled voice said, “Would you have me shirk my duty?”

  “Duty?” guffawed Lady Gertrude. “Duty to God, duty to country, what of duty to self? Is the body not the temple of the soul, then?”

  It was true; the first months of her reign had been characterized by little else besides hard work, and she had first been overtired, and then ill. In her zeal to see to everything that needed seeing to, she worked every waking hour that she was not at Mass. She observed the canonical hours as if she were a monk, retiring to bed only after she had attended the Midnight Office. It made for a very long day indeed. But God had made his expectations clear, and she must not disappoint Him.

  Mary sighed. She supposed Lady Gertrude was right. Her present condition was likely directly attributable to overwork. But what was she to do? A fractious Council, a country on the brink of financial ruin, religious factions threatening to boil over, foreign affairs to see to, and constant worry about all the other things she knew needed her attention but that she had not the time to even think about. And now her autumn complaint was once again wreaking havoc with her! She was plagued with headaches, fever, even her heart had turned traitor and sometimes raced in her breast as if it were a rabbit fleeing a hawk in an open field.

  Lady Gertrude gently lifted the arm that Mary was using to shield her eyes from the glow of the fire and placed it by her side. Then she felt the cooling sensation of the vinegar-soaked cloth that Lady Gertrude placed upon her brow. She breathed in and out very slowly, hoping to convince the old lady that she slept. Truth to tell, she simply had not the strength to spar with anyone at the moment, not even her lady of the bedchamber. She had worn herself to a frazzle and now business would have to wait.

  Lady Gertrude had taken the bait and seating herself by the fire, took up her embroidery.

  After a few moments Mary relaxed into a state of half sleep and half wakefulness. In this state she seemed to be able to see things very clearly. And perhaps the strong October ale was working on her, too.

  At first the thoughts came to her disjointedly, but after a few moments, sorted themselves into a semblance of order. Foremost in her mind was Edward’s funeral. In the end she had decided to allow both services; that was just, after all, and seemed to assuage the ire of both religious camps. A private Requiem Mass had been sung in the chapel in the White Tower, attended only by close relatives and friends, but Mary had made certain that all knew of it. That had been followed by a Protestant service in the abbey at Westminster. The abbey would have to be reconsecrated in any case. A slow tear escaped her eye and Mary peered through her wet lashes to make sure that Lady Gertrude did not see, and seeing, begin to fuss over her again. She shut her eyes and slipped back into her dream-like state.

  Thoughts of Edward had the power to move her unspeakably, but hard on their heels there always followed thoughts of Dudley. His death did not haunt her; he had deserved his fate, and she had done what she could to mitigate it. The fact that the duke had renounced his Protestant faith when faced with imminent death had been a glorious turnabout, a coup of inestimable value to her efforts to restore the true faith to England. Gardiner and many others believed that Dudley had changed his mind solely to obtain mercy for his family, but she did not believe that to be so. The manner of his reversion to Catholicism seemed to her to be genuine and heartfelt. It was as if he truly believed that because God had deserted his cause, and prospered her own, that he had been in grave error, and must repent. Whatever had so moved him, he had been confessed and had taken Holy Communion the night before his death and had seemed the better for it. And his speech from the scaffold was so eloquent, his atonement so persuasive and stirring, that she refused to believe that it was not genuine. And then one swift blow of the axe had ended it all.

  If Dudley’s objective had been to save his family, it had been achieved; his sons were still in prison, and there they would remain for the time being, but she had refused to execute them even though they had been convicted. On this her decision was firm, and her Council knew better than to plague her any further on the subject.

  The effect of Dudley’s epiphany on the Protestants of England was an enigma to her. Some took their leader’s recantation as a sign that it was now acceptable to return to the old religion. When she rode through the city, it gratified her enormously to see the spontaneous reappearance of altars and candles, statues and images of the Virgin placed back in windows and in their garden nooks from which they had been removed so long ago. And this without any overt proclamations or statutes. It was true that she had issued a proclamation
banning interpretation of scripture and teaching of religious matters, except at university; but that only forbade the Protestant preachers from compounding their error any further, it did not mandate a return to the old faith. That would have to wait, as impatient as she was, until Parliament sat in the fall and could repeal the necessary laws and enact new ones.

  It did trouble her to know that although she had so far shown what she felt was extraordinary patience in the matter of religion, that there were defamatory pamphlets circulating against her rule, and that there had been violent demonstrations outside churches where the Mass was being sung. Sir Robert and the rest of the household staff had been so alarmed that Mary had increased her personal guard by eight hundred mounted guardsmen and two hundred foot soldiers. Likewise Anne had been fretting over the possibility of trouble at Richmond, and so Mary had ordered that eight cannon be brought there from the Tower.

  It had not made good hearing at the time, but Renard was right when he said that twenty years of reform could not be reversed in a moment’s time. But the people would learn. She would teach them. All in good time.

  There were so many problems to be solved, so many issues to be debated, so many details to be seen to. But this was the very stuff of rule, and she felt that no matter how difficult it would be to manage it all, this was what she had been born to do.

  But not alone. She needed a husband to share the burden of rule with her. If the truth be told, politics bored her; she wanted, she needed, a helpmeet to sit beside her on the throne to see to the secular aspects of governing the realm, whilst she concentrated her efforts on the religious. But who? A tiny smile curved her lips at the thought. From no suitors, she now had two. Gertrude’s son, her cousin Edward Courtenay, he who had been in the Tower since the age of ten; and Charles’ son, her cousin Philip.