The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  Mary smiled. “Why, I am coming with you to Brussels, of course,” she said.

  The pained expression on the king’s face deepened. “Mary, why would you think such a thing?”

  Mary blinked. “Why?”

  “Yes,” said Philip. “Why?”

  “I met with Renard just before Mass,” she said. “He informed me,” and her tone held a mild rebuke; why had it been left to Renard to inform her? “…that Your Gracious Majesty has decided to leave my cousin the cardinal in charge of the government and the Council when we depart for Brussels. Our departure is imminent. I must pack.”

  “But Mary, why would you think that you would be going to Brussels?”

  For the first time a warning bell sounded in her brain. “Why would I not? I have not seen my cousin Charles since I was a child. I have never met my cousin, Mary of Hungary. And Queen Joanna was my blood aunt. She was my mother’s sister. Of course I must be present at her obsequies.”

  “The Council would never allow you to leave the country, Mary, surely you must know that.”

  “Allow? Allow?” Mary cried. “What am I then, queen or prisoner?”

  “Do not be ridiculous,” said Philip. “Of course you are queen, and no prisoner. But now is not a good time for you to think of leaving the country.”

  Mary bristled. “And why is that?”

  “Madre de Dios!” exclaimed Philip. “I could give you a hundred reasons. For one thing, your English rumor mongers would be certain to claim that I had abducted you and planned to murder you once your foot left English soil.”

  “God’s teeth! Now who is being ridiculous?” Mary’s face began to turn red; if only Philip had known it, this was a sure danger sign.

  “I am not being ridiculous,” replied Philip, endeavoring to keep his voice low and his demeanor calm. “Who was it that claimed that I planned to garrison the Tower with a Spanish army? Or that the troops massing on the Continent to fight the French were actually meant to invade England? Or that the Empire planned to absorb England so that it would no longer be a sovereign country? Every new rumor postulated is used as an excuse to harangue my Spaniards! I would not allow you to accompany me to Brussels for all the gold in the world! It would just cause even more trouble than my presence here has already done.”

  Mary seemed shocked at his words, although these rumors were not new to her. “But why have you left Reginald in charge in your absence, if we were not to go together? If I am here, what need is there of that?”

  “Ruling a country is not a woman’s business,” he replied. “Is that not why I was brought here in the first place?”

  Mary pressed her lips together in her annoyance. “You were brought here,” she said, “to assist me, as my consort, in ruling my country.”

  “Your country,” he said very quietly. “That is all England will ever be to me, Madam. I have tamed your council for you, secured loans for your depleted treasury at my own expense, and set all to rights with the Parliament. And still they do not see fit to crown me! I have stayed here, long after I should have departed, to wait for the birth of a child that never existed. Now it is time for me to go. And I am going alone.”

  At the mention of her false pregnancy, a subject that they had never explicitly discussed, Mary’s eyes filled with tears once again. Her lower lip quivered and her nose ran.

  Philip turned away in disgust. He hoped that his repugnance and the need to hide it was masked by the fact that he simply walked to the window and looked out over the water. He could see the ship that was to carry him to Brussels; never had there been a more welcome sight to his eyes!

  “You are leaving me,” said Mary.

  “Mother of God, I am not leaving you, Madam!” He pounded his fist on the window sill and turned to face her. “May I remind you that we are married in the sight of God? I will be gone a few weeks at the most.”

  Mary turned pale and the planes of her face shifted. Suddenly the desire to please, the suppression of her feelings, the disappointment, the anger, even her love, which she somehow had known that he did not want her to show, the proper wifely submission she had vowed at her wedding, exploded like a star in the heavens when its time was done. She was a Tudor when all was said and done, and although her melancholy nature belied displays of choler, everyone had a breaking point.

  “You lie,” she hissed. “I know very well your plans! You think to leave me, leave England. You think to annul our marriage and marry my sister! But I can tell you the pope will never agree. He will never grant you a dispensation!”

  It was true, he reflected. Even had he had such a plan, it had died with Pope Julius; the new pope, Giovanni Carafa, who had taken the name Paul IV, hated the Hapsburgs and had already started making trouble over lands in Italy that he felt belonged to the papacy. It would not be long before there was open warfare between the Empire and Rome if Charles would not concede to the pope’s demands.

  “You are wrong,” said Philip. “I seek only to make peace between you and your sister, which is especially important now that there is to be no heir other than her.”

  Mary had been pale before, but now her face blanched stark white tinged with a sickly green. “How dare you say such a thing to me! No heir! It takes two people, sir, to make a child!”

  Philip nodded slowly. “Indeed,” he said. How well he knew it! The Queen of England would visit no more false pregnancies upon him! “But we were discussing the Princess Elizabeth. I asked that you take her back into your affections and treat her in accordance with her rank. You agreed and then blatantly ignored your promise to me, your king and husband.”

  The tears now rolled down Mary’s cheeks; she had once thought that the very worst thing would be to quarrel with Philip; she had been right. When one quarreled one said all sorts of things in anger that one later regretted. She had actually called him a liar! And yet he stood there, so calm, so reasonable. To her it was simply more proof that he did not love her. He did not even care enough to argue or be angry. Her nose was running; she checked her sleeve for her linen square and found none. She ran her finger under her nose and sniffled.

  Philip felt his stomach turn at the sight and he spun around to face the window once more.

  “I did as you asked,” she said. “And my reward was to hear that you and your Spaniards have taken to visiting Elizabeth in her rooms every day, and that you gave her your ring!”

  So great was his disgust that Philip could not bring himself to turn around and face his wife. Still facing the window, watching the ship that was to be his salvation bob and weave in the choppy water, her colorful banners flying in the breeze, he said softly, “I suppose making Elizabeth go by barge to Greenwich instead of riding by your side in the carriage was a good manner in which to show your renewed affection? Your slights of the princess are lost on neither myself, nor on the people, who love her, Madam.”

  “You are making up to her so that when I die, she will marry you!”

  At this Philip swung around and his eyes were colder than she had ever seen them. “I shall marry whomever it is politically expedient to marry, Madam,” but too late he realized the double-edged sharpness of his words; on the one hand it revealed to the harsh light of day just why he had married her, and it also showed that he had indeed presupposed her own death.

  Mary began to sob; that he could not abide. Through her tears Mary watched as he bowed to her and departed the room. He closed the door very softly behind him.

  Two days later they said their goodbyes, not in private, but before the entire court. She had no choice but to maintain a royal demeanor. She stood by, dry eyed, while Philip kissed her ladies goodbye, one by one, as was the custom. When that ceremony was over, Philip’s courtiers each kissed her hand. Then they processed arm in arm through the palace, out into the garden and to the water steps. There Philip boarded a small boat that rowed him out to the great ship that would take him to Brussels; that would take him away from her!

  She had tearfully ap
ologized for her outburst, but Philip had not forgiven her; worse, he had pretended that the entire incident had never even occurred. So what need was there for an apology? She had begged to be allowed to accompany him over land to Dover, where he would stop until conditions in the Channel indicated that he might depart in safety for the Continent. But he had expressed his preference to go by ship to Dover, and she had not dared to protest.

  There could be no possibility of a child; he had avoided her bed since the news of her false pregnancy. Everyone knew; it was impossible to hide such a thing in so public a place as a royal court. All assumed that there was need of some period of recovery from whatever it was that had actually ailed the queen that had made everyone think she was with child.

  But Mary knew the truth; Philip had no desire for her, he never had, and he did not love her. Despite his words to the contrary, she did not believe that he would ever return to her.

  Mary watched the boat until it reached the ship; she was nearsighted and could not distinguish Philip’s figure among the blur of men on the deck. All she could do was to turn wearily back to the palace and go to her rooms. The king’s apartments had a grand view of the harbor. She could just make out the shape of the ship as it lay at anchor. After a while it started to move and she watched it out of sight. Once she could no longer see it, she began to sob. She cried bitterly far into the night; for her abandonment, for such she believed it to be; for her lost child; and for the terrible loneliness to come.

  Chapter 44

  “There never was a more steadfast lady than this queen.”

  – Simon Renard, Imperial Ambassador to the court of

  Queen Mary I of England

  Greenwich Palace, September 1555

  Mary listened with her eyes closed as the monks chanted the midday prayers. Sext was the hora sexta, the sixth hour after dawn, and many believed it to be, of all the canonical hours, that best suited to prayer. Nowhere could she find such perfect peace as in the little chapel of the Observant Friars, which was attached to Greenwich Palace. She had been born at Greenwich, and christened there. And the Observant Friars had been her mother’s favorite order. It was with the greatest pleasure therefore that she had financed the return of the Franciscan monks from the Continent, to which they had been banished during the great Dissolution of the Monasteries wrought by her father and Cromwell. Reestablishing the monastery had been an emotional undertaking, and one fraught with memories, both pleasant and painful. But it was one of the many tasks that she believed was her duty, to make amends to God for the great damage inflicted upon the Catholic Church in England by her father and her brother.

  But it was not enough. She must defeat Reform in England, wipe it out once and for all, if she were ever to regain God’s favor. And that God was still visiting his wrath upon unhappy England could hardly be denied. The rains had persisted throughout the summer. There would have been little enough to harvest; and harvest time would soon be upon them. But now there would be nothing at all. The swollen rivers had finally burst their banks and great floods had been visited upon much of the country. People and their beasts had drowned and their homes had been swept away as if they had never been. When autumn came and brought with it the cold weather, some of those who had survived the floods would have no food, no shelter, and little hope of survival.

  The time had come to act. And she knew exactly what must be done.

  “Your Grace,” said a soft, melodious voice.

  Mary opened her eyes and before her stood her cousin Reginald, Cardinal Pole. With Philip gone, the presence of her cousin was her only solace. Although he reminded her of the dark days of the past and their persecution under her father’s rule, he also reminded her of how they had both survived; and to her he was the living symbol of England’s reunification with Rome. She reached out her hand for his and smiled.

  “Dearest Cousin,” she whispered. The monks were still chanting and she had no wish to disturb them.

  Reginald sat down beside her and waited; finally the service ended and the monks filed out, leaving behind them only the faint scents of frankincense and the oil from their lamps. It was midday but it was so dark outside that it might have been nigh on dusk. The rain pattered against the windows and the sight of the sun was little more than a distant memory.

  When the last whisper of sandal on stone died away, Reginald turned to face Mary. “All three bishops have been found guilty of heresy,” he said.

  Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, had been instrumental in dismantling the Roman Church during the reigns of her father and brother; they shared responsibility for dethroning her mother, making Anne Boleyn queen of England, and causing her father to all but disown her and to make her a bastard by English law. Their heretical doctrines had ripped to shreds the very fabric of the Catholic faith in England. But the head of the serpent was Thomas Cranmer. Because of him, there were now many people in the country who had never known anything but the Reformed faith. Poor misguided souls! She must save them all. She had been trying to do so, most earnestly; the fires at Smithfield burned brightly most days, the wind carrying away to unknown places the ashes of those burned in the name of the reunification with Rome. But she must now strike at the head of the serpent to show God that she was His faithful servant.

  “I want them all burned immediately,” she said.

  Reginald shifted on the wooden pew. He placed his hands on his knees and blew the air out of his cheeks. “Your Grace, certainly, Latimer and Ridley shall be burnt as soon as the handover from the Church to the secular authorities can be effected. That will take at least a fortnight. But the Archbishop…”

  Mary brought the flat of her hand down upon the wooden seat; the sound reverberated throughout the tiny chapel. “No!” she hissed. “He is not archbishop any longer! He is a heretic and responsible for the presence in Purgatory of countless innocent souls! And he is the author of the untold misery that was visited upon myself and my mother! I do not want to hear of any impediment to his burning!”

  Reginald regarded his cousin in the flickering candlelight. There was no one else; Philip was gone and Gardiner was ill and could not be called upon to spend his dwindling strength attempting to persuade the queen that Cranmer must be spared the flames. It was up to him; he must convince her.

  Reginald reached out and took Mary’s hand. Hers was hard and cold; his were soft and warm. He encased her small hand in both of his large ones. “Mary,” he said. “Good Cousin, please, listen to me.”

  Mary shrugged and scowled, but she did not remove her hand.

  “Mary, think…if we could get Cranmer to recant, that would do irreparable harm to the cause of Reform not only in England, but in all of Christendom. Cranmer has been a shining light for all the Protestant sects, not just for the Reformed church here in England, but on the Continent as well. We must try to get him to renounce his beliefs for the evil doctrines they are. Yes, certainly, we could destroy the man; but how much more valuable to destroy his entire cause! Were he to recant and convert back to the Catholic faith, it would strike such a mighty blow that we might…you might…be responsible for destroying Reform itself.”

  Mary withdrew her hand from Reginald’s, rose to her feet and began pacing up and down the aisle. “I agree that the utter destruction of Reform is our duty to God. But Cranmer must burn. He must! With his death, Reform in England will die.”

  Reginald shook his head. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but that is most unlikely. Consider that we have burnt scores of heretics and it only seems to make the Reformers even more determined. If Cranmer burns, it will be a momentous event, certainly, but I believe that his death as a martyr...” Mary bristled at the mention of Cranmer as a martyr, but Pole continued bravely on, “…yes, as a martyr, Your Grace, for that is how the people will see it…will only serve to strengthen their resolve. Far better to take away from them their figurehead, for them to see him for what he really is; a confused,
frightened old man, who is willing to say or do anything to save his own life.”

  “I do not want his life to be saved!”

  Reginald had enjoyed a classical education, and he remembered quite clearly the Greek myths he had studied whilst learning that language. By some trick of the wavering candlelight, suddenly before him he saw not Mary, the queen, but Alecto, one of the three Furies, the goddesses of vengeance. For a moment he saw Mary as this frightening creature, with the blood of anger and revenge dripping from her eyes. Now he understood; Cranmer could say or do anything, recant or not; there was no hope for him, for the queen wanted him dead.

  Unconsciously he gripped his crucifix and whispered, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I shall repay.”

  For a brief moment, visions of her mother flashed before Mary’s tear-filled eyes. Her mother, crying for her husband, and the loss of his love; her mother, tearfully bidding her goodbye at Chelveston, for what they both knew might be the last time they ever saw each other in this life. Mary wiped the tears away and regarded her cousin with cold eyes. “Not this time,” she said.

  Oxford, October 1555

  The anguished cries became louder and more heart-rending; why did no one come to see what was the matter? Who was this tormented soul, he wondered, whose painful suffering manifested itself in such misery?

  “Eminence! Eminence!” came a voice from very far away. Was it not enough that some other inmate’s distress disturbed his sleep? Must they wake him, and interrupt what little rest he was able to get?

  He opened his eyes to find Richard Marshall, the dean of Christchurch, looking down at him, and regarding him with great concern. The dean held a candle whose flickering flame seemed like the light of the sun to Cranmer’s unaccustomed eyes.

  “I apologize for waking you, Your Eminence, but you must have been having a nightmare.”

  Cranmer blinked and shielded his eyes. Yes, that was it. Another nightmare. So it was his own screams that he had heard, wishing that someone would come to awaken him from his dreadful dream! But it was no dream; that which haunted his sleep night after night was real.