“Ach,” declared Anne, “Mine headt iss spinning. I understandt none off it, I am afraidt.” But she understood all too well the dominance of a husband. And a husband who was also a king could not be gainsaid. She had almost lost her head for less. Her husband had been chosen for her by her brother, and how happy, how proud she had been! She had gone overnight from being a spinster to the brilliant prospect of being Queen of England.
But then it had all gone so very wrong! For reasons that she had never fully understood, the King of England had loathed the thought of marrying her, but had had no choice once she arrived on his shores. And then she was made to suffer the humiliation of being bought off, divorced, and relegated to the status of “Sister of the King”. Her willingness to accept such dishonor was the only thing that had kept her head on her shoulders. And as if that mortification were not enough, she had then had to accept, all with apparent aplomb and a smiling countenance, the elevation of her erstwhile serving maid to her own former eminence of queen. What that ignominious swallowing of her German pride had cost her was something that she had shared with no other person; she would take the shame of it to her grave.
Katherine Howard had been a pleasant, unassuming creature, the soul of kindness to the deposed, divorced, embarrassed and utterly crestfallen lady of Cleves, but that did not lessen her heartbreak. For she had loved at first sight the golden giant that was Henry VIII, the man whom she had expected to be the Adonis to her Aphrodite, the Orpheus to her Eurydice. The fact that these famous lovers had made bad endings made no difference; their loves were legendary. She had never understood why Henry had abandoned her for the faithless Katherine. To Anne’s Germanic eyes, the girl was pingling and insipid next to her own voluptuous curves. Her perpetual virginity had been forced upon her; for once she had seen him, no other man but Henry would do, despite his shameful treatment of her. But Elizabeth’s vow to remain unmarried was a choice, and one that, as heir to the throne, was her prerogative.
She sighed. “At least you, mein libeling, shall haff der choice that I neffer hadt.”
Elizabeth considered. “I intend that it should be so. I am certainly not lacking for advice on the subject! The French ambassador sent me an urgent communication, warning me of all manner of dire consequences should I marry a Hapsburg, no matter whether it is Philip or Philibert. It was tantamount to a threat! I assured him I had no intention of doing so. But he does not fool me. Henri’s plan is to place his future daughter-in-law, Mary of Scotland, on the throne. The man must be mad. In any case, I shall never marry anyone.”
“I understandt,” said Anne, “that der qveen refussedt der Duchess Christina permission to try her handt at persuadink you to marry.”
“Indeed,” Elizabeth replied. “I never saw her.” Suddenly Anne stirred in the bed, and with a weak thrust, threw the covers off.
“Ach,” she cried. “It iss so hot!”
Elizabeth jumped up and fetched a cool, wet cloth to mop her brow, and while she held the clout to Anne’s forehead, fanned her with her other hand. This was how these terrible bouts started. How to distract her…? She was very curious about Christina of Denmark, the woman who might have been her stepmother, instead of Anne; surely Anne must have felt the same interest about the woman who might have married Henry in her stead.
“Did you see the Duchess of Lorraine whilst she was here in England?” asked Elizabeth.
Anne groaned; after the brief rest the fever now had her in its terrible grip once more. But Christina of Denmark had left no better impression on her than she had on Mary, and the question hit a nerve. Still writhing, her hands grasping the sheets with clenched fists, Anne responded, “Yess. She iss…very beautiful, you know.”
Christina had come to England with her own curiosity about the land over which she might have reigned as queen had she married the tyrant Henry. What were the women like who might have been her stepdaughters? Who was the woman that Henry had chosen after she herself had refused him? Who was this woman who was so disgusting, so revolting, that the king had married her with such great reluctance? And executed the man Cromwell who had arranged such a terrible match for him! And who had threatened that lady herself with the very beheading that Christina had predicted unless she allowed herself to be ignominiously divorced and shunted aside? Even more intriguing was that Anne of Cleves might also have been her sister-in-law had the emperor chosen William of Cleves as her husband instead of François of Lorraine. But Christina found not the repulsive creature she had expected, but a quite ordinary German woman who, if not a great beauty like herself, was pleasant enough of countenance and benign of personality. Their brief meeting had been little more than one royal lady calling upon another in a diplomatic setting, and Christina left their encounter feeling as puzzled about Henry’s reaction to the Lady of Cleves as most others who met her had done.
“Ach!” cried Anne. “It iss so coldt!” And with that she grasped the counterpane and pulled it to her chin, the chills racking her now wasted frame.
Elizabeth, truly alarmed, tucked the counterpane around her stepmother, added another on top of it and said, “I shall stoke the fire.” She did so, and with a worried glance back at Anne, she slipped out of the sickroom and into the outer chamber where Anne’s ladies sat. Because Anne had been deprived of so much, the king of England had not compelled her to send her German attendants back to the Continent, as was customary. All of her ladies were those who had come from Cleves with her so many years ago.
Elizabeth addressed Anne’s chief waiting woman. “What ails the Lady of Cleves? What says her apothecary?” she asked imperiously.
The old woman, with tears in eyes, held a saturated linen square to her runny nose. “Vee know not, Your Grace. He sayss it is an infectious fever, but one of vich he knowss naught.”
Elizabeth bit her lip. Anne’s illness was indeed strange; it was not plague, it evinced none of the sequence of symptoms that indicted the Sweat or even a tertian or quartan fever. “Fetch him,” she said. The old woman snapped her fingers and another of the ladies came to do her bidding. She whispered a few words in German and the woman scurried off.
Just then a commotion in the outer rooms reached a crescendo, the door opened, and there before her stood Sir William Cecil.
He bowed and said, “Your Grace, might I have a word? The matter is urgent.”
Elizabeth waved her hand and the rest of Anne’s ladies disappeared as though a conjurer had waved a magic wand.
“The French have invaded and taken the castle at Scarborough,” he said.
“Scarborough?” asked Elizabeth in surprise. “Why Scarborough? In the north? Why not London itself?”
Sir Robert shrugged. “At this point, we know not. Many reasons, perhaps. The French occupy Scotland. They have ships there; the attack was launched from the sea. They may think to now send forces to London by sea. As we speak, your kinsman, Lord William Howard, is mustering the fleet to sail north. Westmoreland is on the Scots border and will march south to attack them from the landward side. But the result is the same. England is now at war with France.”
Chapter 47
“In time of war it is entirely impossible for a woman to govern satisfactorily. All she can do is shoulder responsibility for mistakes committed by others.”
- Mary of Hungary
Chelsea Old Manor, May 1557
Mary was standing at the window when the Tower cannons boomed, and although she was expecting to hear it, the sound caught her by surprise in the quiet of Chelsea.
“Vat vass dat?” asked Anne sleepily.
Mary heaved a sigh. “That,” she replied, “was Lord Thomas Stafford being relieved of his head.”
Anne clicked her tongue. “Der poor man…”
A reproof rose to Mary’s lips but she fought it back. Anne had a natural sympathy for anyone, even a traitor, who must face the block, having once come so close to it herself. And her stepmother had been so very ill of late that not for the world would she have s
aid anything to upset her.
Mary turned away from the window but when she did she saw that Anne’s eyes were closed. She turned back and stood gazing out over the meticulously kept lawns. Anne did love her gardens. Everywhere were the flowers of May, their heady scents wafting into the sickroom on a warm breeze. The petals from the flowering trees fell like snowflakes and were scattered by the wind.
So another Plantagenet cousin had been executed. And this one from a long line of traitors to the crown, or so it would seem. For what had at first been taken for a French invasion of England at Scarborough had turned out to be yet another insurrection, another attempt at her crown. It was hard to decide which was worse.
Thomas Stafford was the grandson of both Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, and Margaret Pole, Lady Salisbury, her old governess. Deserved or not, both of them had been executed as traitors. He was also the nephew of her cousin Reginald, Cardinal Pole. Thomas had always been wild and uncontrollable, irresponsible, easily influenced; and Mary could not help but wonder under whose sway he had been when he committed this latest in his long line of follies. For Thomas had also been involved in both the Wyatt Rebellion and the Dudley Conspiracy.
Thomas had expected her, upon her accession, to restore the dukedom of Buckingham to him, along with her royal favor. He was furious when she refused to do so. In retaliation, he became a vocal protestor against her Spanish marriage. He had gone abroad and plotted with exiles on the Continent who sought to stop her marriage to Philip of Spain. Thomas always swaggered and blustered, but had, for the most part, been ineffectual in most of his endeavors.
But this time, someone had convinced Lord Thomas that Philip was planning to force his coronation on the English people and subsequently land thousands of troops onto English soil. Someone had further convinced him that he had a legitimate claim to the throne. Someone had persuaded him to commit the unforgivably treasonous act of quartering the arms of England on his banners and declaring himself king in her stead. He had declared her to be “the devilish Mary Tudor, unrightful and unworthy Queen of England.” And someone had provided him with French ships with which to attack Scarborough. Everyone jumped to the conclusion that French ships must needs have been provided by Henri of France, but she was not so sure. French ships had been seized many times in the Channel by both the English and the Spanish. Besides that, it simply made no sense. Henri was adamant that his future daughter-in-law, Mary of Scotland, was the rightful heir to the crown of England should she herself die childless. Henri had even gone so far as to request that Pope Paul declare Elizabeth a bastard so that even if she wanted to, she could not name her as heir to the throne. Therefore it made no sense for the French king to support a Plantagenet insurrection against the Tudor monarchy.
And it seemed very convenient that Westmoreland had been right there on the spot, ready to quell the incipient rebellion before it had even a chance of success.
What the whole incident had accomplished was to frighten the Council into action; war was immediately declared on France, troops mustered, ships assembled into a fleet of war. A threat to English soil had unified the Council and the nobility as no amount of parley or debate had ever been able to do; pockets and purses had been emptied into the treasury. Convinced herself of imminent disaster, Mary began brokering crown property to anyone who would buy it to raise cash for Philip to defend the nation.
But eventually it had become apparent that this was no French invasion, and Thomas Stafford was captured along with all of his men. Half of his supporters were hung at Scarborough and the rest brought to London for trial. Retribution was swift, with the result that on this very morning, Thomas had lost his handsome young head.
She sighed. Even up until a few months ago she would have thought the man mad; now she was not so sure. The people, who had loved her so and supported her cause so enthusiastically, were turning away from her. And onto whom were they casting their hopes? Elizabeth! But all was not lost…she might still conceive a child, and then all eyes would turn back to herself.
But there was no denying that everyone had had a fright, and the preparations for war, which had been the subject of so much bitterness up until the moment when all thought that England had been invaded by a foreign power, had moved ahead with lightning speed. It was now a fait acompli; Philip now had his men, his arms, his money, his supplies, his ships and even half a dozen cannon that had been borrowed from the Tower and sent to Dover. He had England’s declaration of war without the interim step of severing diplomatic ties with France. So why not just go ahead and send His Grace to France to quell the threat there, now that all was in readiness?
Why not, indeed. Mary nibbled a cuticle. Yes, it was all just a little too convenient. Just what, she wondered, had really happened in Scarborough?
Hampton Court Palace, June 1557
“Away!” cried Raul as he lofted his gyrfalcon into the air. The bird flew straight into the sun and then soared on the wind searching for prey and keening her warning cry.
Philip waved a bored hand and the queen’s hawksman, whom he had borrowed for the sake of Raul’s sport, sent the attendant yeomanry into the brush to beat the bushes. The ruse worked; a variety of small animals that had been cowering in hiding at the piercing sound of the falcon’s cry responded to this new and imminent threat by bolting out into the open. The bird spotted the movement, chose a victim, and with an ear-splitting screech, closed her wings and dove with astonishing speed. At impact small tufts of fur blew in all directions on the wind. The stately bird then stood placidly beside the lifeless creature, waiting for the hawksman to retrieve it and reward her with the expected gobbet of meat.
Raul threw his head back and laughed with pleasure, showing two rows of white, even teeth. “By the Rood,” he exclaimed, slapping his mare on the neck in his excitement. “There’s none that can touch her!”
Philip shook his head. “I have never understood this fascination with hawking,” he said. “If I want something dead, I prefer to kill it myself.”
There was no one within earshot; Raul smiled his knowing smile. “So I have come to see,” he said. “But there is not much sport in that, if I may be permitted to say so!”
Both knew to what each referred; misleading Lord Thomas Stafford and deceiving him into attacking Scarborough with the French ships with which they had provided him had proved almost disappointingly easy.
Philip shrugged. “The man was a born fool. Had we not led him to the block, he would have found his own way to it, I trow.”
The hawksman approached with the gyrfalcon perched sedately on his thick leather gauntlet. “Your Grace?” he asked, to enquire as to whether or not Raul wished to fly the bird again.
“What have we to show for the morning’s sport?” he asked.
The hawksman bowed and replied, “If it please Your Grace, three voles and two shrews.”
Raul grinned his wolfish grin. “Disgraceful,” he said. “What, such a show, for only that!” He shook his head to indicate that he would not fly the falcon again, and he loosened the straps on his gauntlet. The hawksman took the bird back to its perch and hooded and jessed it for the long walk back to the palace. As he placed the leather hood onto the bird’s head, she stirred and her bells tinkled delightfully, the pleasing sound of them carrying on the breeze.
Philip and Raul rode ahead, their horses picking their way delicately across the heath through the yellow gorse. As they crested a rise, they stopped to let the horses rest. “You know, playing agent provocateur is every bit as exciting as flying a hawk,” said Philip, with a gleam in his eye. “And far more subtle!”
“Ah,” replied Raul, thinking of his mighty gyrfalcon and the lowly voles and shrews that had been her quarry that day. “So what Your Grace is saying is that the prey ought to be worthy of the predator?”
Philip shrugged. “It is not my fault that Stafford was a dim-witted imbecile, for all he had royal blood. Were it not so, it would not have been so easy to convince
him that he had a viable claim to the throne and that he must press his prerogative to save England from the dastardly Spaniard and the Bastard Elizabeth. Lord Thomas has served a useful purpose, that is all. The Council could not be trusted to act. Dithering idiots, all of them. Even with the danger of war on their very doorstep, the queen still had to take some of them aside and threaten them with imprisonment in the Tower, and even with death, to spur them to action. But now at least we have that which we need, and more, to go to war; and all at the price of a man who might have done on his own what we convinced him to do for our own purposes. And our purposes are needful and right. Are you certain Ribault can be trusted?”
Raul waved an expansive hand. “As much as any renegade Frenchman can be trusted. Our dear Jean would sell his own mother for a ducat. No one will ever know that it was we who were behind Stafford’s invasion.”
“I find it ironic that Stafford believed that I intended to force my coronation on the English people,” said Philip. “While it is true that at first I did, for the sake of my pride, desire to be crowned; now I am glad that I never was. I am finished with England, and with my barren wife. Just let me depart this wretched place once more, and I vow that never will I return to it!”
“A departure that shall not be long delayed,” said Raul. “All is almost in readiness. The Spanish fleet is at Dover and will escort the English ships across the channel to Calais by the waxing of the next moon.”
It had been a busy month. Instead of the six hundred horse and six thousand foot soldiers that England was obligated by treaty to provide and which the Council had at first refused to sanction, Lord Stafford’s supposed insurrection had resulted in a muster of ten thousand cavalry, ten thousand foot, and a dozen ships, with a dozen more to follow. Organizing it all in such a short period of time had been a monumental task, but finally, all were assembled at Dover. Supplies arrived daily and those Englishmen in need of rehabilitation because of their involvement in past uprisings against the crown were demonstrating their loyalty, and showing their mettle; day by day they ensured that all of the weaponry and supplies were accounted for and loaded aboard the ships of both fleets, in readiness for Philip’s arrival from London and their departure for the Continent.
The Baker's Daughter Volume 2 Page 70