The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  Elizabeth was aware of Kat’s surreptitious glances, but she was too weary and too ill to engage her loquacious governess in conversation. It was best to feign sleep. It irked her that she felt so listless; hers was an energetic personality. She longed to be up and about, but even if she were, she would not be allowed to do what she wanted to do, nor to go where she desired. Because whether it was stated explicitly or not, she was her sister’s prisoner at Whitehall Palace, and nothing less. Else why had she been placed in a remote section of the palace, with guards three rooms deep stationed before her apartments? And she had requested rooms that were dry and warm and away from the river, and what had she been vouchsafed? Rooms practically right on the water! Her complaints to the chamberlain had gone unanswered, and in these dreary rooms she had stayed for three long weeks now.

  She had entered the palace with no pomp or ceremony whatsoever; indeed, she had not been officially received at all. At first she thought this was due to her illness. But as the days passed she still received no words of welcome from her sister, nor had Mary come to see her. This was no fit manner in which to treat the Heir Presumptive to the throne, and it did not bode well. The concern on the faces of the few servants who had been allowed to remain with her in the palace could not be denied; they spent their time exchanging worried glances and whispering in corners.

  For weeks now Elizabeth had been so swollen that her face, arms and legs were grotesque caricatures of her normal self. Her leeches and apothecaries were stymied by her illness, and could think of no other remedy than to bleed her. Her sister had sent Dr. Owen and Dr. Wendy to attend her at Ashridge, but they had only shaken their heads and clucked their tongues. She could pass very little water, and her back, head and extremities ached abominably. They would not let her drink because she was so swollen with fluid, and so her thirst raged; dropsy, they said ominously. Not likely, she thought. What was far more likely was that she had been poisoned. Her brother Edward had been in like case just before he died, and there had been talk of poison then.

  Not long after her arrival in London a new court physician, Dr. John Dee, had begged permission to attend her. Brave man! For if aught were to happen to her after his ministrations, he could very well be held responsible. But the draft of brooklime with which he had dosed her brought the first real relief she had known. She began to pass a bit more water and her swelling abated somewhat. Useful man! She would have to find a place for him in her household.

  It had not taken long to deduce the true reason for the royal physicians’ presence at Ashridge; her sister suspected her of complicity in Wyatt’s rebellion. Or if not Mary, then the Council and the Imperial ambassador; or perhaps all of them. Elizabeth knew herself to be innocent; several people had tried to engage her in the rising but Cecil had diligently guided her through the crisis. She must be watchful of every word, every gesture; and so she had been.

  She was the heir to the throne of England; but that throne was currently occupied by a woman who was about to embark on marriage and possibly motherhood at a very dangerous age. Notwithstanding the fact that she had no desire to attain the throne by any but legal means, Elizabeth certainly had no desire to attain it over her sister’s dead body. If God were to call her to oversee the welfare of the kingdom, then so be it; she would consent to attain the throne in no other way, and anyone who thought to say she had done otherwise was in for a very long argument. Unless they simply clapped her into the Tower and murdered her! It had been done before, after all.

  She had been truly frightened when she was informed by her great uncle, Lord William Howard, that even though she was sick unto death with some unnamed ailment, still she must hie to London at her sister’s command. She had begged and pleaded to be left alone until she was well, but to no avail. Finally, Kat had wrapped her in furs, and into the litter Mary had provided they bundled her; she had promptly been sick in the litter. A trip that should have taken only a few days, even with the state the roads were in, had taken almost two weeks. All she could recall of that nightmare journey was being cold, so cold; nauseated; and in excruciating pain. She should have been abed beside a warm fire with a hot brick to her feet and another at the small of her back, which was the only remedy so far that had brought her even temporary relief until Dr. Dee had come along with his brooklime. Instead she had been jolted in the rain and cold, over miles of muddy roads. If it were indeed her sister who sought to put her out of the way, her purpose had almost been accomplished!

  The day Elizabeth had ridden into London, she had dressed all in white to emphasize both her innocence and her sickly pallor. And she had insisted, as sick as she was, that the curtains of the litter should be drawn back so that the people could see her, and the sad state she was in. No one had cheered; London was not in a cheering mood just with the incessant rain and the stink of the dead bodies that lined almost every road into and out of the city. Never before had Elizabeth seen so many dead men. It was a most distressing sight, and the sickly sweet smell of the decaying corpses had served to exacerbate her nausea. But she could sense the sympathy of the people as she passed, and she hoped that they believed in her innocence.

  Her ruminations were disturbed by the sound of voices outside the door. There was no cause for concern; anyone who had been allowed to pass through three rooms of guards and both chamberlains must be a safe visitor!

  Without stirring or opening her eyes, she said “Kat, see what is to do.”

  Kat thrust her book aside and cried, “I knew it! I knew you were awake!”

  “Kat…”

  Kat let loose an exasperated sigh, bobbed a curtsey and said, “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Elizabeth heard more muffled voices, then Kat’s voice raised in agitation. Finally her governess came back and said, “Your Grace, it is Bishop Gardiner and Sir Henry Bedingfield, sent by the queen. I have told them that Your Grace is too ill…”

  At last! she thought. “No, Kat, it is all right,” said Elizabeth. “Here now, straighten the bed and bring my comb. Be quick.”

  # # #

  At first Bishop Gardiner was taken aback by Elizabeth’s extreme pallor. He knew that she had been ill, the royal physicians had confirmed this, but he had not realized just how ill she was until this moment. Still, ill or not, he was convinced that the princess must have been complicit in Wyatt’s rebellion, and he intended to prove her guilt to the queen. It was well-known that the princess was a heretic despite all her posturing about religious instruction and chapels at Ashridge; and he had no intention of allowing a heretic to ascend the throne of England. He had little faith in the queen’s ability to conceive at her age, and his actions must be based on that. The princess must be got out of the way. The only thing that worried him was how the devil was he to implicate Elizabeth without making things worse for poor Courtenay? He simply must find a way.

  It was ironic, he thought, that he had worked so diligently for the cause of this girl’s mother against the Spanish queen, in support of King Henry’s divorce. It very well could have cost him his head when the daughter of that queen had come to the throne; but Queen Mary knew that he was, whatever he was not, a good Catholic and a good royal servant. Indeed, the only excuse for his partisanship with the king against Katharine of Aragon was that he was a king’s man, right or wrong; and now he was a queen’s man in like wise. He had no personal spleen against Princess Elizabeth; he simply wanted her out of the way. In his opinion, that would be best for England.

  “Your Grace,” he said, inclining his head.

  Sir Henry Bedingfield likewise nodded at the princess but otherwise said nothing.

  Elizabeth regarded both men in silence. Bishop Gardiner she knew for an enemy; Sir Henry was an unknown quantity. He had the looks of a well-fed rat; plump, sleek, with dark, beady eyes and a nervous manner. She dismissed him as of no importance and let her gaze fall upon the bishop.

  “My Lord Chancellor,” she said. It was best not to address him with his religious title of bishop; she inten
ded to respond to this delegation in a purely secular manner. There had been just the hint of a question in her voice. What do you want with me?

  “Your Grace,” said Bishop Gardiner again. “I have come to offer you a way out of your difficulties.”

  Elizabeth did her best to suppress a snort. “Indeed,” she replied. “I am aware of no such difficulties.”

  Kat was doing her best to make herself unobtrusive by seeing to the fire. She did not want to be dismissed from this interview, which she was certain would prove to be most interesting.

  But Elizabeth, however much she loved her governess, knew her for a loose-lipped gossip. She had not forgotten her governess’s role in the affair of Thomas Seymour! She could take no such risk this time. “Kat,” she said. “Kindly locate Dr. Dee for me. I shall need another dose before long.”

  Gardiner bristled; the oblique reference to the fact that the princess was likely to be the worse for wear after this conversation was not lost on him. Had Elizabeth not been his enemy, he might have admired her subtlety. But as it was…

  Kat reluctantly completed her ministrations at the hearth and departed the room.

  Bishop Gardiner watched Kat out of the room, and as soon as the door closed behind her, turned his steely gaze onto Elizabeth. He had no intention of letting the princess, who was known for her quick wits, get the better of him. The girl’s mother had had a formidable intellect and a wicked tongue; it was likely that the princess had inherited all of Queen Anne Boleyn’s worst traits.

  “Your Grace,” he said once again. “All know that you are guilty of complicity in the recent treasonous rebellion against the queen. It were better that you confessed your guilt and threw yourself upon the queen’s mercy. Surely it will go better for you if you will do so.”

  Elizabeth sat in her bed, indeed she was incapable of leaving it just then; her back was to the elaborate headboard and she was glad of its support. She wished with all her heart that she had been up and dressed and able to sit with dignity in a chair. She felt at a disadvantage in her sick bed. Still, there was nothing for it.

  “I have no intention of confessing to a fault that I have not committed,” she said blandly.

  “Oh, come, Your Grace, there is no sense in denying your guilt,” said the bishop. “All know…”

  “All?” snapped Elizabeth. “And where, pray tell me, sir, are all these people getting their information?”

  A frontal attack might be best. “How,” said Gardiner, “do you explain the presence in the French diplomatic pouch of a letter in your own hand, to the queen?”

  “In my own hand?” rejoined Elizabeth. “I was given to understand that the letter was a copy that had been translated into French.” She had her spies, too!

  The bishop sputtered and said, “That does not change the fact that…”

  “That the French give as good as they get when it comes to subterfuge?” She smirked, a deliberate gesture meant to discomfit the bishop.

  “Then explain the letter that Sir Thomas Wyatt himself wrote to Your Grace, advising that you remove to Donnington!”

  Elizabeth returned Gardiner’s non-plussed look with one of wide-eyed innocence. “Was there such a letter? I received none.”

  “Your own servant, Sir William St. Loe, has testified that Sir James Croft had words with Your Grace, on behalf of none other than Sir Thomas Wyatt himself,” said Gardiner.

  “Indeed?” said Elizabeth, in apparent confusion. “I do not recall such a conversation. But I thought you said that there was a letter? May I see it?”

  “We have it on good authority that Your Grace was planning to hie to Donnington, to escape the consequences of your undoubted treason!” hissed Gardiner.

  “Escape?” said Elizabeth calmly, her thin, red eyebrows lifted in an impossible arch. “I had no reason to contemplate such a thing as escape.” She said the word with such emphasis that it sounded absurd to even use it. “I was far too ill to leave my sick-bed, let alone engage in conversation with suspected traitors; and even if I had not been sick unto death, how it is that you could expect me to stop the arrival of a visitor whom I had no idea was coming? And as far as a removal to Donnington is concerned, there was no such plan; but even if there were, may not one abide in a house one owns?”

  Frustrated, Gardiner could see that he was getting nowhere. It was time to fire his final salvo. “Wyatt himself has confessed and implicated you,” he said coldly. There! He thought. Parry that thrust!

  This time, Elizabeth did not attempt to suppress a snort of derision, and allowed it to escape her lips. “Anything Wyatt has said was more than likely uttered in fear for his own life; he thinks to save himself. Or perhaps Sir Thomas has collapsed under the threat of torture?” she said slyly. Or actual torture! She shuddered; she found the expression that flitted behind the bishop’s eyes at the mention of torture quite disturbing. The poor, misguided soul probably had been tortured. “In any case,” she said, “anything Sir Thomas Wyatt says has naught to do with me.”

  Gardiner was silent for a few moments, a look of smoldering hatred on his face. He had gotten nothing of substance out of any of the rebels imprisoned in the Tower, but he had thought that if he could convince the princess otherwise, that she would crumble. But Wyatt had refused to say anything other than that his purpose started and ended with preventing the Spanish marriage; the Duke of Suffolk adamantly stuck to his story that his sole purpose had been to reinstate his daughter Jane on the throne, even up to the moment of his execution; Sir James had admitted that he and Sir Peter’s object had been to place Courtenay and Elizabeth on the throne, but he had stated unequivocally that the princess had not been privy to their plans. Yes, he had stopped at Ashridge on his way to the Marches, but he had simply delivered a message from Sir Thomas…a verbal one…that the princess should depart for Donnington in order to be out of harm’s way. No, he had not spoken to the princess personally, and the reply he received…at second hand…had been both verbal and non-committal.

  “My lord,” said Elizabeth, her tone dangerously condescending, “have you any proof at all of your allegations?”

  The bishop was silent just that moment too long; he glared at her, while Sir Henry studied his shoes as if he had never seen them before.

  “My lords,” said Elizabeth. “It is clear to me, as I am certain that it must be to my sister, that any case you hope to make against me is based solely on supposition and hearsay. Lest there be any misunderstanding, unless you can produce proof of misdoing on my part, then I pray you, leave me in peace.”

  Neither man responded.

  A wave of weariness swept over her; her limbs ached and she could see her swollen cheeks protruding out from under her eyes. The errand on which she had sent Kat to find Dr. Dee had not been a false one; the only relief she could count on was the brooklime. Elizabeth raised her head imperiously. “Gentlemen, you will find no evidence against me because none exists.”

  Still, it worried her greatly that the charges of treason that had condemned her mother had been trumped up, and on such false evidence as Gardiner sought to postulate against herself, had lost her life. Would the same thing happen to her? What of her sister’s promise not to allow her to be condemned unjustly, and without a private hearing?

  If she were in Mary’s position, if she herself were queen, what would she have done? She thought for a moment. Mary had now suffered two attempts to usurp her throne, both involving close relatives. As unfair as it seemed, in Mary’s place she would want to be certain that the conspirators were identified and punished. Her own conscience was clear; her statement to Gardiner was not mere puff. He would find no evidence against her unless he invented it himself.

  Her sister’s reluctance to visit her was probably two-fold; no one really knew what ailed her and the queen could not risk exposure to any illness; and her sister’s advisors knew that Mary had a soft heart. It was better to let Gardiner and his ilk do their worst without the queen’s interference. As she had s
aid, no evidence could be found against her because she knew that there was none; and Mary had promised…she would cling to that.

  As she watched Gardiner and Bedingfield depart, a new worry hatched itself at the back of her mind. She, Elizabeth, was the daughter of the woman who had usurped Queen Katharine’s place in her father’s heart; she knew that much misery had been visited upon her sister because of it. Kat was indeed a gossip, and she had learnt much of her mother’s story, and her sister’s, from those chattering lips. If Mary desired revenge upon Anne Boleyn, what better way to get it than to allow the judicial murder of her tormentor’s daughter?

  Palace of Westminster, March 1554

  Mary sat back confidently in her chair at the head of the council table. She let her gaze wander as the men settled themselves into their places. Council meetings had taken on a new character since Wyatt’s rebellion. Many, including Mary herself, regarded her defeat of the rebels as yet another miracle bestowed upon her by God. She chose to see it not only as a miracle, but as proof of God’s sanction of her marriage to the prince of Spain. Some still abhorred the marriage, but God, it seemed, had spoken; Wyatt was defeated, and his cause, which was to prevent her marriage to Philip of Spain, a lost one.

  She could see now that her ambition to be married and with child before the snowdrops bloomed had been overly optimistic, even without the rebellion. And now it was too late; they were in Lent, and she could not marry in the Lenten season without a dispensation. Charles’ threat to postpone her marriage to Philip until her cousin Jane had been dispatched had sent her into a panic. It was this that had caused her such grief once the deed was done. She could not mourn for Jane as a person, but she did grieve at the thought that she had wanted very much to show her cousin clemency and had been prevented. She knew her own mind well enough to realize that she did not want Jane’s death on her conscience. But what was done was done, and now she hoped that Philip would soon be on his way.