“And that is another thing!” cried Gardiner. “The Bishop of London seems to have gone mad. There have been more burnings in his diocese than anywhere else. Even the queen said in the beginning that she wanted the thing done properly, and without vindictiveness or cruelty. But see what has happened! Many who have been accused were brought to the attention of the Church either by over-zealous parish priests, or neighbor seeking vengeance upon neighbor for some perceived slight.”
“And there is another issue,” said Renard. “Many of the burnings have been ill-conceived, and carried out in a manner that only adds to the horror of the thing. So many bungled executions! Damp faggots, green wood, wood piled so high that it burns fiercely below, but the flames do not reach the victim! It took John Hooper forty-five minutes to die. These heretics are supposed to be burned, not cooked slowly to death!”
“Yes,” said Philip. “We manage these things better in Spain, where we have been burning heretics for centuries. But Spain is a much hotter, drier country than England.”
Rarely was Renard passionate about anything; but he had witnessed Hooper’s death and had been sickened by it. “And the inept management of the execution itself aside, what of the cruelty shown to those condemned? John Rogers was not permitted to bid his wife and children goodbye. Death is very final, gentlemen, and a man has a right, no matter what his crime, to say farewell to his kith and kin.”
“Did you know,” said Reginald, “that nowhere in scripture does it say that heretics are to be burnt, yea, that none should be burnt for conscience’s sake? What it does say is much the contrary, in fact; that such a man should be allowed to live that he may be turned. I did try to tell this to Her Grace. But my cousin is firm in her belief that the heretics in England must either be turned or burned, lest they infect more with their false doctrines. You see, I have tried…”
Gardiner retrieved his wine glass and drained it. “It is such a shame,” he said. The tears still fell unheeded down his furrowed cheeks. The other men were somehow uncomfortable with Gardiner’s weeping; there was a special pathos about an old man’s tears. “The Catholic religion is not yet firmly reestablished in England. I fear greatly the harm that this doing. The situation is extremely delicate. After all this time, it would be a great pity indeed to lose England to the very thing we seek to destroy.”
Philip agreed; but he was also concerned about the great harm the burnings were doing to his own reputation. The Protestant movement, which was much more fragmented and in a state of disunion than many realized, was being united by this persecution; unfortunately, the focus of the unity was aimed at what the heretics perceived, wrongly, as Spanish domination. That was not only a very great pity, it was also patently unfair. Oh, if only the queen would give birth at last and free him from this place! Suddenly there was a just perceptible change in the sway of the barge; the tide had turned and they had reversed their course. Would that his wife could be swayed from hers!
“Such cruelty serves no useful purpose,” said Gardiner on a ragged breath. “Who will speak to the queen? Only Her Grace has the authority to stop the burnings.”
“I am afraid that none will be able to persuade Her Grace from this course of action,” said Reginald. “For the queen to agree to stop the burnings would now go against English law; but more important, such would be tantamount to condoning heresy, and that I know she will never do. It would be an affront to her own conscience to do so.”
Raul had been silent all this time, content to listen to the others. But there was one thing that puzzled him. “Does Her Grace not realize that to continue the burnings could lose her the love of her people? Her Grace’s popularity was born of the love that brought her to the very throne that gives her the authority she now wields.”
“Indeed,” said Reginald. “Many now wish Her Grace ill and are looking to be delivered by Elizabeth. The continued plots to place the princess on the throne in Her Grace’s stead demonstrate this. But it must be said; when Her Grace gives birth to the heir to England I suspect that the joy of the people will be so great that all will be forgiven…and forgotten.”
Philip raised his wine cup. Yes, the birth would solve so many problems.
“Let us drink, then, to the queen’s safe delivery, which cannot now be long delayed.” The child was due any time; when it was finally born he would be on the first ship to the Low Countries, and then his wife could burn every last Englishman on the island for all he cared!
Chapter 43
“She was naturally pious and devout, even [to the point of] superstition.”
- Bishop Burnet
Hampton Court Palace, May 1555
Elizabeth’s footsteps echoed loudly in her ears as she followed Susan Clarencius down the cresset-lit corridors to the queen’s lying-in chamber. Shadows played on the walls as they walked. It was late; all were abed, and the palace was unusually quiet due to the hour. How different Hampton Court seemed without her father and the large band of courtiers always in his wake! Now a silent yet pervasive air of anticipation and expectation seemed to hang over all. The birth of the queen’s child was imminent and it was this which engendered such an atmosphere of suspense.
She had not seen Mary for two years. It had been two long years of exile, away from the court, away from the excitement of London. Her sister had treated her very badly in her own estimation, and also in that of others. She had been virtually a prisoner at Woodstock; held without charge and without trial. All attempts to force the situation had failed. At first Mary would not even permit her to write. But after a while her sister relaxed that rule and Elizabeth had taken full advantage, sending her sister long letters proclaiming her innocence and begging for her freedom.
It could have been worse, but it was hard to see how; it was true that she was no longer in the Tower, but there the advantages ended. The Palace of Woodstock was abandoned, and she and her reluctant gaoler, Sir Henry Bedingfield, resided in the dilapidated Gate House, along with their servants and the guards stationed there. The guards were there ostensibly to protect her, but in reality, they were there to keep her confined. It was impossible to stay warm in the winter, it was unbearably hot in summer, and they were not even allowed to leave the miserable place for it to be sweetened. Her surroundings stank abominably, which added to her distress. It was an intolerable situation, and Elizabeth’s greatest wish at that moment, as she trod the long, dark corridors of Hampton Court, was that she might hold her temper when she finally came face to face with her sister.
Just as when she had been summoned to Whitehall Palace after Thomas Wyatt’s ill-fated rebellion, she, a royal princess and the queen’s own sister, had been received at Hampton Court with no fanfare or recognition whatsoever. It was tantamount to an insult; she was, at least for the moment, Heir Presumptive to the throne of England. And just as before, she had been kept waiting three weeks to receive any sort of official greeting, and to see and speak with her sister.
Elizabeth was surprised to receive the queen’s summons to Hampton Court, but Cecil had nodded his head in approval. The Heir Presumptive to the throne ought to be present at the birth of the Heir Apparent. The child who would take from her all her hopes and dreams! Elizabeth had been skeptical at the idea of Mary’s marriage, and later as horrified as any good English person at her choice of husband. But no one, herself included, had expected Mary to conceive a child at her age. But she had done so, and now that child was about to be born. At that thought Elizabeth had to stifle a laugh; one of the reasons for the delay in her audience with Mary was that a false rumor that the child was born had reached London, and the populace had gone mad with joy. The bells in every church from Hampton Court to London had been set ringing. In the city the shops were closed and people took to the streets to celebrate. Wine ran in the conduits and free food was set out. Bonfires were lit and the wild merriment went on long into the night.
London was a port full of ships; during that day and into the night ships had sailed for the Co
ntinent, taking with them the glad tidings that the Queen of England was safely delivered of a healthy prince and that mother and child were both doing well.
No one knew where the rumor had come from or how it had been started. When the truth was discovered and the waiting began all over again, the result was a disappointed, resentful and vastly irritated populace. Philip, whom she had not yet met, was said to be greatly embarrassed, and her sister very distressed.
Elizabeth had experienced a shattering despair, and then a feeling of great emptiness, when faced with the news that a prince was born who would displace her in the succession. In her heart, she had never really believed that Mary would bear a child that lived, a child who would usurp her position as heir. Suddenly she had felt hollow inside, desolate, without purpose. What would the future hold for her now? Her sense of security had lain in the knowledge that there was no other acceptable successor to her sister except herself. With the birth of Mary’s child she became irrelevant; and worse, expendable. And in time she might even come to be regarded as a rival to the queen’s child, someone dangerous enough to be done away with, if needs be.
When the news reached her that the child had not yet been born after all, she felt such a resurgence of hope, such a renewal of faith in her destiny, that she could barely contain her excitement. But she knew she must; her own servants could be trusted but she was well aware that she was spied upon. It was best to keep her emotions in check, to let none see or know what she was feeling.
So was it wicked to entertain the thought that perhaps her sister might die in childbirth? That the child itself might die? But she could not help herself. Each time she thought of what Mary was doing to England it put her into a cold rage. But somehow she managed to maintain her calm demeanor. The only thing that sustained her was the hope that somehow God would place her into a position where she might rescue England from the rule of her sister. If Mary must die to bring that ambition to fruition, then so be it. Women died every day bearing children; and Mary was thirty-nine and in poor health.
But it seemed that her sister was not her only enemy; Bishop Gardiner had attempted to pass a bill in Parliament disinheriting her. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the bill was defeated. Elizabeth was not surprised to hear that Sir William Paget was amongst her most vociferous supporters, but she was amazed to learn that Renard, the Imperial Ambassador, was most adamant that she remain in the line of succession. But Cecil had explained that should Mary die in childbirth, and her baby with her, there would be no one more acceptable to the English people than herself to rule the country. Her cousin Courtenay had amply demonstrated his complete ineptness, and her cousin Mary of Scotland was both a papist and, for all intents and purposes, a Frenchwoman. The last thing the Emperor Charles and Philip of Spain wanted was an England ruled by the French! England wanted neither Courtenay nor Mary of Scotland, and that left only herself. And her sister knew as well as she did that any serious attempt to disinherit her might serve to incite the people to rebellion once again.
What in the name of God was her sister thinking, she wondered? From the crest of the wave of popularity that Mary had ridden to the throne she had, little by little, lost the love and confidence of the people. She had married a foreigner, she was forcing the Catholic religion onto an England that had been free of the Roman church and its superstitious idolatry for twenty years, and now she was burning people by the score in the name of God and the pope. When the news of the burnings first reached her at Woodstock she had refused to believe it, thinking it to be no more than calumny against her sister. But she soon learned to her dismay that it was all too true.
Indeed, it seemed that the news was all bad; the exchequer was in dire straits, and even the weather had turned traitor. The rain of the previous year had returned in force and even now threatened the spring planting. Another year of failed crops could very well spell England’s doom, and with a depleted treasury, Mary would be hard pressed to buy grain from the Continent. The people faced the twin specters of hunger and famine.
But Elizabeth knew, as did everyone else, that if the queen delivered a prince to be England’s heir that the tide would turn once again in her favor. And then what would become of the Princess Elizabeth? An attempt had been made to banish her to Brussels; but again Good Paget, and others, had come to her rescue. The heir to England must not leave the country. Then Philip had suggested that they get her married. But to whom? That was the question! A catholic? Never would she agree to such a thing. A reformer? Never would her sister and the king allow that. Too dangerous! And then Philip had proposed that she marry his kinsman, the landless Duke of Savoy. Having no lands of his own, he could come and live with her in England. She had steadfastly refused; she had told Robert Dudley when she was seven years old and observing her father’s matrimonial exploits that she would never marry, and nothing had occurred in the interim to change her mind.
# # #
When they reached the doors to the queen’s chamber the halberdiers uncrossed their weapons and then opened the doors, which swung on silent hinges. Elizabeth blinked like an owl; the room was bright with candles, in contrast to the gloom of the passageways through which she had just marched to reach her sister.
Mary was seated in a chair by the fire; it was another chilly spring, with unceasing rain and wind. Even at that moment rain lashed the windows, and off in the distance the rumble of thunder presaged flashes of heat lightning every few seconds. At first Elizabeth did not see her sister, and then she did. Their eyes locked for a brief moment and then Elizabeth’s gaze dropped involuntarily to the queen’s belly. She had not really believed it until now; but seeing with her own eyes the bulge that had replaced her sister’s lap, there was to be no more denying it.
Mary’s eyes narrowed as she tilted her chin in triumph. There would be no throne for her imperious sister! She waved an authoritative hand at Susan, who hesitated for just an instant and then reluctantly curtseyed and departed the room.
Elizabeth was relieved; it would have been most uncomfortable to have to endure this audience with her sister in front of a servant. She hoped that Clarencius’s dismissal boded well, but seeing the look on Mary’s face, that hope was quickly dashed.
Elizabeth’s gaze flicked quickly about the room as she waited for Mary to speak. A beautiful counterpane and matching headpiece made of intricate Brussels lace adorned the royal bed; a gift, no doubt, from Mary’s kinswoman, Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands. Her mind was momentarily distracted; England should be producing such lace! She filed the thought away for later examination. Tables placed about the room were piled high with various types of embroidered cloths. There were clouts for the baby, smocks, breast cloths, wrappings of all kinds, swaddling clothes; the smocks to be worn by the queen had trimmings at wrist and throat worked in delicate silver thread that shimmered in the wavering candlelight. The cloth was so fine that it seemed as if, were it not weighed down by the elaborate embroidery, it might float away of its own accord.
But the most arresting sight in the room was the sumptuous, elaborately decorated royal cradle. It was swathed in gauze so fine that one could see right through it. And where there was no delicate fold of cloth one could see the gilded wood. Draped over the side was a beautiful christening gown, with a train so long that it trailed a full four feet from the cradle.
Amidst all the finery, shoved back against the walls so as not to intrude on the more pleasant aspects of the scene, were tables containing all the accoutrements needed for the royal birth. Amongst these mundane items glinted elegant Venetian glass casting bottles, their jewel tones reflecting the candlelight; they would be used to throw perfumed waters into the air, to sweeten the room when the birth began. Elizabeth had a sharp nose; she could make out the scents of lilac, rose, hydrangea, lily of the valley, lemon verbena. Had she but known it, lemon verbena had been Katharine of Aragon’s favorite scent; Mary had chosen it for that reason. But absent from the array was any trace of lavender
. Elizabeth had been too young to remember her mother as more than a shadowy image, someone who was kind and smelled nice; she did not know that lavender had been Anne Boleyn’s favorite scent, but Mary knew, and had forbidden it in her lying-in chamber.
“Well, sister,” said Mary. Only her hands gripping the arms of the chair gave away the fact that she was as nervous as Elizabeth about this long-delayed interview.
Elizabeth knew what was expected of her, but she was only willing to go so far. She sank to her knees, bowed her head and said, “I pray God to preserve Your Grace,” in a firm clear voice. “I am as true a subject to Your Majesty’s Grace as any, regardless of what has been reported of me by others.”
Mary narrowed her eyes and replied, “So even now you will not confess your offence.”
The room was silent except for the crackling and snapping of the fire. Elizabeth’s temper flared and she longed to defend herself, but that time was past. On the very day of her arrival at the palace weeks ago and on several occasions since, Gardiner, Arundel, Shrewsbury and Secretary Petre had been sent to harangue her into admitting her complicity in Wyatt’s rebellion. It seemed that regardless of the truth, Mary would believe what she wanted to believe, and expected others to pander to her fantasy. Well, here was one princess of England who would not! But she bit back her anger; a display of temper now could be disastrous.
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth, good sister,” cajoled Mary. “Confess, and I will be good to you for it.”
The Baker's Daughter Volume 2 Page 57