The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  And until Cardinal Pole agreed to bend on this issue, there would be no recall to England for him.

  Charles leaned forward over his pommel and patted his restive horse’s neck. The horns of the hunt and the smell of the fear of the hunted always made his favorite stallion uneasy. He turned to Pole and said, “It is more important now than ever before for the Interdict to be lifted from England. The Catholic heir to the English throne must not be born on tainted soil.” The question that these words evoked hung on the frosty air.

  Reginald was silent for a moment as he regarded the two sets of baleful eyes. Renard suddenly resembled the fox for which he was named; Charles’ eyes glittered green. This was the moment of truth; he must either give way or live his remaining years as an exile and a slave to the Vatican. He had almost been elected Pope once himself; but in his heart he knew that was not what he really wanted. More than anything, he just wanted to go home.

  Reginald took a deep breath. “I agree, Your Majesty. The birth of this child on holy ground is of paramount importance, as is the salvation of the people of England. I am looking forward to returning to my homeland and to supporting the reunification of England with the Church of Rome. What is done is done; alas, one cannot turn back time.”

  Renard and Charles exchanged furtive glances. They had won.

  Charles nodded his head at the cardinal and said, “I shall ask my daughter to recall Your Eminence immediately, and to begin drafting the bill for the English Parliament to reverse your attainder. We must lose no time; the bill for the reunification of England with the Church of Rome must be brought forward, passed, and ratified. The birth of my daughter’s child is expected in April.”

  Through all of this Reginald still could not understand why Charles referred to the coming child as his daughter’s instead of his son’s; the emperor was without doubt a very strange man. Reginald would be very glad to see the last of Brussels.

  The hunting party had long since disappeared into the forest and the horns could no longer be heard. But suddenly several of the mounted hunters emerged from its misty depths and behind them followed a troupe of huntsmen with a boar slung upside down on a great pole.

  “Ah,” said Charles. “We shall dine well this e’en!” And then apropos of nothing he said, “Your Eminence, it has been many years since you set foot in your native land, and even longer since I have done so. Might I suggest availing yourself of the services of my Good Renard? He is recently come from English shores, and I daresay, none knows the queen better than he does. My son is but newly acquainted with his wife. It might ease your adjustment to have someone there with you who knows the current state of English politics…and English politicians.”

  It was all Reginald could do to suppress a mighty snort. As if a Burgundian was in any position to help an Englishman understand his own people! And the queen, his own cousin whom he had known in her childhood! Renard would be a spy for his master and nothing less. Well, there was no help for it, he supposed; if conceding the point of the restitution of Church property and having to sponsor Renard was the price of his return to England, then so be it. He was understandably bitter about all the woes that had been visited upon him by Henry Tudor; but the king was dead these many years and was beyond his reach to exact revenge. If all that was left to him was the utter destruction of Henry’s legacy of the split from Rome, then that would be enough; it would be like destroying Henry himself. The fact that this revenge coincided so neatly with the aims of the Catholic Church and his own desire to be Archbishop of Canterbury and the spiritual leader of his country, made that vengeance taste all the more sweet.

  Renard sat his horse, gripping the reins as if he had been pole-axed; perhaps he had not heard aright? Could it really be true that after just two short months at home in Brussels, he was to be sent back to England? He could feel the tears sting his eyes, but he fought them back.

  London, November 1554

  Mary shifted on the cushioned seat in the carriage. There simply was no comfortable position in which to sit with her distended belly. The seams of all her dresses had been let out and her clothing was now very straight. The day was exceedingly fine, for which she was grateful; she wanted very much to show herself in her condition to the people.

  Philip rode alongside the carriage as it made its slow way from Whitehall Palace to Westminster. The sun shone; the people cheered. She was on her way to witness the culmination of her greatest ambition. Life was as nearly wonderful as it had been when she was a child, the adored princess, the apple of her father’s eye, the pride of her mother, the queen, and of her governess, Mother Pole. If only she still basked in the sunshine of the belief that Philip loved her, all would have been perfect. But there was hope; with this day’s work, she would have placed into her hands the weapons needed to show God that she was his grateful servant. She must now begin to repay the Almighty for his tremendous bounty, and for all the miracles that He had bestowed upon her. Once every heretic in England had either been converted, banished or burned, perhaps then God would bestow upon her the miracle of Philip’s love.

  As she smiled and waved Mary looked about her. It was the end of November and there was barely a leaf left on any tree. A sudden gust of wind brought the leaves up from the ground on which they lay and caused them to dance and swirl elegantly in the air. Birds sang and church bells rang. The royal trumpeters played a fanfare as she rode along waving at the cheering crowds; the clarion call was sweet and pure and seemed so rich that she almost reached out in front of her to try to touch the sound. Swept up in the excitement of this glorious moment, Mary felt tears well up in her eyes and her throat swelled with emotion. For today was the day for which she had waited, for which she had longed, for which she had suffered; the day upon which she and her blameless mother would at last be vindicated.

  The carriage stopped in front of the palace where she and Philip were to open Parliament on this auspicious morning. She was quite warm in the crimson velvet robe of state, trimmed with powdered ermine; it sat on her shoulders but was far too heavy for her to stand up and walk in on her own. Philip dismounted and his groom took his horse. He bowed and reached out his hand to her to assist her in descending from the carriage. It took four sturdy men to lift her train and carry it that she might walk.

  Philip donned his own identical robe; to great fanfare and cheering they entered the palace together, their swords of state carried before them by peers of the realm. They solemnly walked the length of the Great Hall and were led to a raised dais where Mary, as the reigning sovereign, took her place under the royal canopy. To her left sat the king, and to her right sat Cardinal Pole.

  Her cousin Reginald, his attainder finally reversed, had traveled from Brussels and arrived quietly in England, having come upriver in the royal barge to the water-steps at Whitehall Palace. Before him on the prow was mounted a great silver cross. Mary had been unable to contain her emotion at the sight of her cousin after so many years, and after the many travails they had both endured. The moment his foot hit the stone of the water-steps, she flew into his arms, tearful and incoherent, but just as suddenly as she had embraced him, she pulled away; one hand flew to her mouth in surprise, the other to her belly.

  “Forsooth!” she cried. “At the moment we embraced I felt the child leap in my womb!” It was just as when Saint Elizabeth had heard the Virgin Mary’s greeting, and John the Baptist had leapt in his mother’s womb in recognition of the Christ child that she carried.

  At this revelation Pole had closed his eyes and begun to sway and chant; all those present fell to their knees in mystical awe. Another miracle! They had all attended a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the joy of the queen’s quickening; the theme had been the biblical one of “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God”. Later Philip and Mary had accompanied the cardinal to Lambeth Palace. Their intent could not have been more clear; Lambeth was the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Reginald surveyed the
rich surroundings in which Thomas Cranmer had abided before becoming so vocal in his opposition to the return to Rome that he had been placed in the Tower. The cardinal looked about him with deep satisfaction. All this, soon to be his!

  And now here they were, with all of the people of England before them, as symbolically represented by the two houses of Parliament. It was just past midday but the Great Hall faced north and was already in shadow; a multitude of great torches flickered in sconces on the mighty stone walls.

  The moment had come.

  Cardinal Pole arose and surveyed the august assembly. The silence was so thick that one could have cut it with a knife. Finally he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross, and then said a benediction in Latin. When that was done he straightened his spine and rose to his full height, which was considerable, tilted his chin, and addressed the multitude.

  As the firelight played on his face, the cardinal raised his arms, his hands held palm outward in a gesture of peace, and in his great, booming voice he said, “Good people of England, greetings, and we hope we find you well. I am come to you with glad tidings! For I am here to return to you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven!” There was a moment of profound silence and then a great cheer went up, rising to the very rafters of the vast hall. The cardinal kept his arms raised in supplication and waited patiently for the hubbub to die down. When all was quiet again he continued on.

  “I am come,” he said, “not to compel, but to call again; not to condemn, but to reconcile; not to destroy, but to build. And touching matters of the past, they shall be cast into the sea of forgetfulness.”

  Another mighty cheer rang out, and when it was done, the Speaker arose from his seat, fell to his knees before the cardinal, made the required Act of Contrition, and then formally requested absolution from the Church of Rome on behalf of the entire country.

  Cardinal Pole made the sign of the cross and said, “Te absolvo.” He reached down and grasped the Speaker’s hand, aiding him in rising to his feet.

  Another moment of intense silence followed and then suddenly a great cry was heard by the entire host; Mary, the tears streaming down her face, sobbed openly. It was her moment of supreme triumph, of such utterly indescribable joy, such fulfillment, that there were no words for it. All of her suffering had been worthwhile. If only her gracious, beloved mother could have lived to see this day!

  All of a sudden everyone in the room was in tears; they fell into each other’s arms, embracing, weeping for joy. It was over. England was saved.

  It took a while for the room to settle down, but when all was quiet, Cardinal Pole once again addressed the assembly. With tears in his own eyes, he declared, “Henceforth this shall be a holy day in the land; forever after, this day shall be known and celebrated in England as the Feast of the Reconciliation.” He blessed them again and then took his seat to the sound of deafening cheers.

  Now the Parliament settled down to its business; Mary sat, still quietly weeping, as she heard the Parliament vote to repeal her father’s Act of Supremacy. No longer would she have to bear the odious title of Supreme Head of the Church of England. Now she was simply Defender of the Faith again. For this moment she had lived her life; her destiny was fulfilled. All that was needed was the safe delivery of the Catholic heir to the throne of England, that it all might not be in vain…and for Philip to love her.

  The final vote was for the reinstatement of the ancient Heresy Laws. It was, as of the moment that the law passed, illegal once again in England to hold and practice any faith but the Catholic religion. Defiance of these laws was punishable by burning.

  Greenwich Palace, January 1555

  The Christmas revels that closed the year out were the merriest that Mary could ever remember. Much to her relief, the terrible sickness that she had endured during the first months of pregnancy had abated with the child’s quickening. For hours on end sometimes she would sit, her hands clasped about the little bulge, thinking, this is my child. No longer just an heir to the throne, a nameless, faceless thing, but a baby of her own! The euphoria of Reginald’s arrival, the quickening of the baby in her womb, the awesome moment of England’s forgiveness, all these things had combined to put her into such a state of high emotion that the Twelve Days of Christmas and the celebration of the New Year had passed in a colorful, whirling blur of happiness. And in public, she could pretend that all was well between her and Philip; he was as solicitous as always, and none would have guessed that she had made her devastating discovery. Sometimes she even believed that all really was well; it hurt less to do so, and it enabled her to enjoy the things that actually were going right for her.

  So where had it all gone wrong? How, when, exactly, had that feeling of exhilarating joy, that mood of ecstatic jubilation, slipped away?

  She was now so very ill again that some days she could barely even rise from her bed. But this illness was different. It was not the morning nausea that she had almost welcomed once she knew its cause; this was just a general malaise that made her feel weak to the point of collapse. It was accompanied by a fearful dread that all was not well.

  The doctors and apothecaries could think of no other remedies than constant bleedings and doses of the odious poppy syrup. They insisted that bleeding from the foot was essential to cure what ailed her; even had she not been so weak and fretful, she was so footsore from the apothecary’s knife that she could barely stand and walk even to perform the most necessary of errands. And the poppy syrup gave her strange, disquieting dreams from which she awoke feeling very anxious; and the aftermath of this temporary oblivion was the dreadful headache for which the only cure was more poppy syrup. Was this unease never to end?

  Her back was to the door, but she heard it sliding open and without looking around she snapped, “I asked not to be disturbed!” Her servants knew that the queen was indeed ill with some new, mysterious malady, for never had she said an unkind word to any of them in all the years they had been serving her.

  “It is I, Cousin,” said a soft, lilting voice. “And just see whom I have brought!”

  Mary turned, her pale face drawn and her expression one of vast irritation. Then her eyes went wide and she exclaimed, “Margaret! And Dame Margery! Oh, but you are a sight for eyes so sore that they would make the angels weep!” She struggled to stand up; she was very unwieldy.

  “Dearest Cousin!” exclaimed Margaret. “I pray you, stay seated. Let us come to you.” Margaret and the Dame tossed aside their capes and gloves and sat beside Mary on the settle. “Poor dear,” said Margaret. “I am sorry to have been away so long. First Matthew was taken ill of a rheum, and then Henry became ill. It quite spoilt the revels. I came as soon as I could. What joy for your quickening with child! But, oh my dear, just look at you! Why, whatever is the matter?”

  All during Margaret’s chattering speech, Mary had not smiled and then her eyes filled with tears.

  The Dame was truly alarmed; she had expected to find Mary in blooming health, sleek, eliciting the glow that a woman in her sixth month of pregnancy should have shown. But instead she was confronted with this thin, pale wraith of a woman; the queen was so pallid that her skin seemed almost to have a greenish tinge, and her eyes were hollow-seeming, with dark rings under them.

  With her hands clasped about her distended belly, Mary said, “Oh, Margaret, Dame Margery, everything is wrong! I am so very ill again. And I…I am afraid.”

  Margaret took both of Mary’s hands in hers, while the Dame stroked her hair. “Of what are you afraid?” asked Margaret.

  The tears spilled over and Mary made no move to wipe them away. Indeed, she seemed oblivious to them, as if they fell so often from her eyes that she no longer heeded them. She drew a ragged breath. “I know not. Of everything!”

  Suddenly the shadow of her own difficult delivery of her son flashed through Margaret’s mind. She had been afraid, too; afraid of the unknown. And hers had been a difficult pregnancy and birth. But she had survived, indeed, when they had handed he
r the squalling bundle that was her firstborn son, all the fear and pain had vanished in a brilliant glow of sheer happiness.

  Margaret laughed, and squeezed Mary’s hands. “But dearest Cousin, it is only natural that you should be afraid. I was, and with good cause! It is painful but it is all soon over and you will forget the fear and the pain when you hold the heir to a Catholic England in your arms! I will not try to comfort you with empty promises, Cousin…my own mother, your lady Aunt, went seven times to the childbed, and for her, each time was worse than the last! I fear me that it may be the fate of Tudor women to suffer more than most in childbed. But you…”

  “…are far too old to be to bearing a child!” snapped Mary. “I am aware of the all talk, you know. Do not tell me you have not heard it!”

  Margaret had been in the north, but Dame Margery at Syon had certainly heard the disgusting gossip; the French had started a rumor that the queen was not really with child at all, and planned to substitute some villein’s child as heir to the throne; the Protestants purported that Her Grace was pregnant not with a child, but with a dog or a monkey, and had distributed handbills all over London making this preposterous claim. It was all quite horrible, and enough to disturb any gravid woman, let alone one in Mary’s delicate state; especially one who was under the tremendous pressure of being expected to deliver the Catholic heir to England. For Mary now found herself in almost the same position that her mother had been in thirty-five years earlier; she simply must produce a child that lived or all, literally, would be lost. Place on top of that the very natural fears of a first childbirth, and her advanced age, and it was no wonder that the queen was demented with fright. And it seemed that Mary was not alone in her great fear of death in childbed; the Parliament was so concerned that they had passed a new law naming Philip as regent for the child should the queen not survive the birth of England’s heir. Dame Margery wondered if it were not the Parliament who were demented; after all the unrest and ugliness that had resulted from the Spanish marriage, here was Parliament handing England to the Empire on a plate! Had they all gone mad?