Текст книги "In the Shadow of the Crown "

Автор книги: Jean Plaidy

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Courtiers are subservient to their masters; not so the people. They have means of expressing their feelings which are often denied those in high places.

They were on the road…groups of them… cheering me.

“Long live our Princess Mary! Long live Queen Katharine! We'll have no Nan Bullen!”

That was music to my ears—particularly when they called me Princess.

I smiled, acknowledging their greetings. I hoped my father would hear of the people's attitude toward me. I was sure it would give him a few qualms of uneasiness.

All too soon the journey was over. I had arrived at Hatfield Palace, and I felt as though I were being taken into prison.

MISERY DESCENDED UPON ME. Lady Shelton was anxious to let me know that I was a person of no importance and that if I gave myself airs it would be the worse for me.

I treated her with a cold contempt which so aroused her anger that she told me that if I persisted in my stubborn ill behavior she had been advised to beat me.

“Advised by whom?” I asked.

She did not answer but I knew. She was so proud of the fact that she was related to the woman they called the Queen.

During the first days of our encounter I knew that she would never lay hands on me. When she insulted me, I would draw myself up to my full height and merely look at her. I was royal and perhaps that was apparent. I could see little lights of apprehension in her eyes. What was she thinking? “One day this prisoner could be Queen of England? It would be wise not to antagonize her too much. To strike her would be quite unforgivable.”

I found just a slight elation in the midst of my gloom to know that, although she might make me uncomfortable in a hundred ways and abuse me verbally, she would never lift her hand against me.

Hatfield is a beautiful place, but I was alone and desolate, deserted by my father and separated from my beloved mother and the Countess.

All the attention in the household was for the baby. The Princess, they called her. I would not call her that. To me she was sister, just as the Duke of Richmond was brother. There was no difference. They were both the King's illegitimate children.

Sometimes I dream of those days. They are remote now but I can still conjure up the infinite sadness, the deep loneliness, the longing for my mother and the Countess, the abject misery. I felt then that whatever happened I could never be truly happy again.

Sometimes I thought the object of the household was to humiliate me. The Duke of Richmond had a fine household; the King made much of him. But, of course, it was different with me. I was a continual reproach to him. I was there at the back of his mind, jerking that mighty conscience of his so that it refused now and then to do his bidding. Hatfield! The very name means blank misery, a certain feeling of hopelessness which is what comes to those in prison with no indication of how long their incarceration will last, wondering if only death can release them from the wretchedness of their days.

But I suppose nothing is complete gloom. Although in the beginning I had resented the Husseys, I was now rather glad that they were with me… particularly Lady Hussey, who, I was sure, had great sympathy with me. Once or twice she had addressed me as Princess. It may have been deliberate. On the other hand she had been accustomed to referring to me thus before it had been forbidden to do so. But so bereft was I of friends that I was grateful for that little show of sympathy.

Then I had the two maids who had come with me to Hatfield. They served me loyally and showed in a hundred ways that they regarded me as their Princess.

There was another blessing. It so happened that Elizabeth's governess was Lady Bryan, who had held the same post to me during my early years.

There seems to be a bond between a motherly woman and a child to whom she has been close in infancy. It may have been because Margaret Bryan was a kindly woman, or it may have been because there was that early bond between us, but it soon became clear that she deplored the way in which I was treated under Lady Shelton's rules. Looks were exchanged between us, and then we found opportunities of talking. She brought me some comfort, and I shall always be grateful to Margaret Bryan.

A great deal was happening. I suppose that year was one of the most momentous in history.

The Nun of Kent had been arrested soon after I arrived at Hatfield. She was sent to the Tower with some of her associates. When they were brought before the Star Chamber, they all confessed to fraud, and Elizabeth Barton was accused of trying to dethrone the King, which was, of course, treason.

Christmas came—the most dreary I had ever spent. It was cold. It was long since I had had new clothes, and I saw no means of getting any. I was not allowed to have my meals served in my room. If I wished to eat, I had to go down to the hall and seat myself where I could; and if I did not go, nobody seemed to care. Except, of course, Margaret Bryan, who surveyed me with some anxiety. She assumed the role of nurse and talked to me as though I were a wayward child.

“What good is this doing?” she demanded. “It is hard for you but you must make the best of it. Going without food is not going to help you.”

I said, “You and my two maids are the only friends I have. Perhaps Lady Hussey is…in a way.”

I saw the tears in her eyes. I knew it was difficult for her to speak to me, for she might be noticed, and if she were she would be sent away. But as she saw I was growing more and more wan, she became reckless. I had once been her charge and she could not forget it. Moreover as any good woman would be, she was appalled at the manner in which my mother was treated.

She said to me, “If I came to your room after the household has retired, we could talk.”

I was overcome with emotion. I felt as though a light had appeared in a dark room, and it brought with it a glimmer of comfort.

It was Margaret Bryan who kept me sane during that long time. Sometimes I felt an urge to throw myself out of a window. It was a sin to take life…even one's own. It was that thought which restrained me. My great comfort was in prayer. I was sustained by reading the holy books, by remembering the sufferings of Jesus and trying to emulate his example. At least I had managed to subdue Lady Shelton sufficiently to escape the humiliation of physical punishment.

And there was Margaret Bryan.

When the house was quiet, she would come to my room. I was terrified at the risk she was taking, for I knew that, if Lady Shelton discovered, she most certainly would be sent away; she might even be imprisoned. I was sure both the King and Anne Boleyn were very much afraid of the people's feelings for my mother and me.

She was helped in this by one of the maids who was a sweet girl and wanted to do more for me. I was afraid her devotion would be noticed and she sent away; I told her that would sorely grieve me.

There was a secret understanding between us that she should pretend to be brusque with me, in common with the others around me. It was very important to me that she should stay near me, and although she thought of me as the Princess, it was necessary that she did not show this.

It was little incidents like this which sustained me. Later she became bolder, and it was through her, with Margaret Bryan's help, that letters from my mother and even Chapuys, the Emperor's ambassador, were smuggled in to me.

One day Margaret told me that the King was coming to Hatfield to see the Princess.

Now was my chance. If I could speak to him face to face, surely he would not fail to be moved by my plight. I would plead with him. I would make him understand. I must see him, I told myself.

The house was in tumult. The King was coming! I wondered whether she would be with him. Surely she would, for it was the baby they would come to see… her baby. If she came, there would be no hope of my seeing him. I was sure of that.

I thought of what I must do. I would throw myself at his feet. I would beg him to remember that I was his daughter.

The great day came.

My little maid was agog with excitement. “They say Queen Anne is not coming to Hatfield because you are here,” she told me.

“Surely she will come to see her own child.”

“They say she will not.”

“If he comes alone …” I murmured. The girl nodded. She knew what I meant.

And at length he came. It was true that Anne Boleyn had stayed some miles away and he would rejoin her after the visit.

I could smell the roasting meats; I was aware of the bustle of serving men rushing hither and thither in the last throes of preparation for the royal visit. And at last there he was, riding into Hatfield.

I was in my room… waiting. Would he send for me? Surely he must. Was I not his daughter? He had come to see one; surely he must see the other, too.

The hours wore on. Margaret came to tell me that he had been with Elizabeth and seemed mightily pleased with her. Margaret glowed with pride every time she mentioned Elizabeth. “He is now feasting in the hall,” she went on.

“They are in a panic in the kitchens lest anything go wrong.”

Surely he must ask: Where is my daughter Mary? Why is she not here?

But I could not go unless he sent for me.

The hours were passing. He was preparing to leave and he had not sent for me. Perhaps he had not asked about me. I must see him, I must.

But he was not going to send for me, and already they were riding out of the palace.

I dashed to the balcony. There he was. I stood there, looking down at him.

I did not call his name. I just stared and stared, my lips moving in prayer. Father…your daughter is here… please… please…do not leave without seeing me. Just a look…a smile… but look at me.

And then something made him turn, and for a few seconds we looked full at each other. He did not smile. He merely looked. What thoughts passed through his head, I did not know. What did he think to see this palefaced girl who had once been his pretty child, shabbily clad, when once she had been in velvet and cloth of gold, an outcast in his bastard daughter's household… what did he think?

He had passed on. He did lift his hat, though, in acknowledgment of my presence as he turned away.

All the gentlemen around him did likewise.

I had been noticed. And that was all his visit meant to me.

I WAS HEARING NEWS of my mother through Margaret and my maid.

When they moved me to Hatfield, they had tried to move her from Buckden to Somersham, at the same time dismissing part of her household. I had been worried about her being at Buckden which is a most unhealthy place, but Somersham is worse. It is in the Isle of Ely and notoriously damp, and as she was suffering from excruciating pains in her limbs, I was sure that would have been disastrous for her. I often marvelled at my mother's indomitable spirit and the manner in which she clung to life. She must have known that she could not live long in Somersham, and the thought occurred to me that my father—lured on by his concubine—might have thought it would kill her to stay there long. Her death would make things easier for them, and I was sure it was what the concubine desired—if not my father.

My mother had defied the commissioners sent to carry out my father's orders; she had shut herself in her room and sent word down to them that if they wished to remove her they must break down her door and carry her off by force.

They could have done this, of course, but there was a rumor that the people in the neighborhood were bringing out their scythes and other such implements implying that, if the Queen were taken, her captors would have to face the people, and this made them hesitate.

The result had been that my mother had remained at Buckden.

I heard what her life was like there. She found great comfort in prayer. I did too, but she was more intensely involved. Religion was all-important to her. It was becoming so with me, as it does with people who have nothing else to cling to. She, however, would never rail against her misfortunes, but meekly accept them. That was the difference in us. She passed her time in prayer, meditation and sewing for the poor. There was a window in her room from which she could look down on the chapel, and there she spent a great deal of her time. I was thankful that she had a loyal chamberwoman who cooked for her. Several new servants had been assigned to her, and naturally she must feel suspicious of them.

It is a terrible state when someone you once loved can be suspected of trying to poison you. I understood so well what she was suffering. After all, I was undergoing something similar myself.

She was constantly in my thoughts. I worried about her and the Countess. I often thought of Reginald and wondered what he was doing now. All I knew was that he was on the Continent and that he had further enraged the King by writing to advise him to return to my mother. Should we ever see each other again? Would that love between us which had begun to stir ever come to fruition?

I thought then what little control we have over our destinies. It was only the all-powerful like my father who could thrust aside those who stood in their way—but even they came up against obstacles.

In January of that momentous year 1534, anticipating the verdict of the court of Rome, my father ordered the Council to declare that henceforth the Pope would be known as the Bishop of Rome, and bishops were to be appointed without reference to the See of Rome. It was the first step in the great scheme which he had devised with the help of Cranmer and Cromwell. It was to have far-reaching effects which must have been obvious to everyone.

Very soon after, the Rome verdict was announced. My father's marriage to my mother was legal, and the Pope advised the King to put Anne Boleyn from him immediately.

My father retaliated by announcing that the children of Queen Anne were the true heirs to the throne and that all those in high places must swear on oath to accept them as such. All over the country preachers were instructed to applaud the King's action and revile the Pope.

It could not be expected that this would be received quietly by everyone, and there were naturally those who were ready to risk their lives and stand in opposition to the King's command. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were two of those who were sent to the Tower.

There were murmurings of revolt throughout the country. People continued to blame Anne Boleyn.

I was more frustrated than ever. It was maddening to receive only news which was brought to me through Margaret Bryan and my maid. I often wondered how true it was. Could it really be that the country was in revolt, that they were calling for the restoration of Queen Katharine and the religion they—and their ancestors before them—had known throughout their lives?

How could the King suddenly sever his country from Rome? And just because the Pope would not grant him the right to put his good wife from him and set up his concubine in her place?

I think he must have been very disturbed. He had always courted popularity so assiduously; he had revelled in it, sought it on every occasion; and now when he rode out he was met by sullen looks, and when that woman was with him there were some bold spirits who dared give voice to their disapproval. He must fear that we were trembling on the edge of disaster… perhaps even civil war.

There were rumors that the Emperor was going to invade England, to rescue the Queen, depose the King and set me up as Queen. It was frightening to be in the midst of such a storm.

Attention was turned on Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent. Cromwell had made much of her confession—and those of her adherents. He wanted the whole country to know of the deception. I supposed that was why she had not been executed at the time of her arrest. I think they were trying to incriminate others… all of those who were making things difficult for the King. Sir Thomas More had once listened to this woman's prophecies with interest, and he was incriminated, but, clever lawyer that he was, he was able to extricate himself from the charge, although he was still in the Tower because he refused to agree that my father's marriage to my mother was invalid and he would not accept that Anne Boleyn's children were the true heirs to the throne. Panic was spreading all over the country; people were discovering that their bluff and hearty King could be cruel and ruthless. They did not yet know how cruel, how ruthless—but they were beginning to suspect.

All those who had professed interest in the Nun—and there were some in high places—now wished to dissociate themselves from her.

However, the King was determined to show the people what became of those who opposed him; but in spite of all the trouble she had caused him, the Nun's confession was gratifying to him. She said, before the crowds who had come to witness her last hours at Tyburn, that she was a poor wretch without learning who had been made to believe she had special powers by men who encouraged her to fabricate inventions which brought profit to themselves.

Poor creature, she was hanged with those who had been her close associates.

Each day we waited to hear what would happen next. Lady Bryan was very fearful on my account. She tried to hide it but she asked my chambermaid to take special care with my food.

If I was in this dangerous situation, I asked myself, what of my mother? How was she faring? If only I could have seen her, if only we could have been together, I could have borne this. I was growing thinner and very pale; I suffered from headaches and internal periodic pains and difficulties. I would find myself babbling prayers and asking Heaven to come to my aid.

My little maid came in one day and said, “Madam…Princess… there are two cartloads of friars being taken to the Tower. People watch them. They stand in the cart, their hands together in prayer. People are asking, is that going to happen to us all?”

Later Margaret told me that the Franciscan Order had been suppressed. Then I knew that the King's attention had turned on me, for his commissioners came to Hatfield. They searched the rooms of all those about me; and to my horror they took Lady Hussey away with them.

I was appalled. She had not been a great friend to me in the way that Margaret Bryan had but she had shown a certain sympathy for me. She had always treated me with respect and had on occasion called me Princess. I trembled lest they should take Margaret. She had been very careful, but I could not think of any misdemeanor Lady Hussey had committed.

Later I learned that she had been imprisoned because she had been heard to address me as Princess and on one occasion had said, “The Princess has gone out walking,” and on another asked someone to take the Princess a drink.

What a pass we had come to when a woman could be in fear of losing her life because she had made such a remark!

I worried a great deal about her; I prayed for her; and I was delighted when I heard later that, after a humble confession and a plea to the King for mercy, she was released.

There was a change in my household. Everyone was terrified. It says a great deal for Lady Bryan's courage that she continued to visit me and bring messages, taking mine in return. It would have been certain death for her if she had been discovered.

My mother might hear of Lady Hussey's arrest. What anguish that would cause her, for her fears would not be for herself but for me.

I was fortified by messages from Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador. My maid, being in a humble position, was not watched as some like Margaret would be; she had sources outside the palace, and through her I kept in touch with the ambassador.

I had his assurance that the Emperor was watching events with the utmost care. If it had been possible, he would have come to rescue my mother and me. He could not do this. François was now an ally of my father and the Emperor had to be watchful and could not leave his own dominions. I understood this, and it was comforting to know he was aware of what was going on.

Chapuys wrote that he had information of a plot to execute my mother and me because we refused to accept Anne as the true Queen. That was what others were suffering for, and the King could never be at peace while we lived.

There were times when I thought death would be a way out of my miseries; but when one comes close to it, one changes one's mind.

Now, I hesitated every night before lying down; I searched my little room for an assassin; I paused before taking a mouthful of food. I found I would tremble at a sudden footfall. I was eating scarcely anything. I prayed for guidance. And then suddenly, the idea came to me that I might escape.

Could I do that? I had friends to help me. Would they be prepared to risk their lives for me? Perhaps my father would be glad to see me go and rejoice…even reward those who helped me get away. Oh no, wherever I was, I should be a menace to him, and particularly so in the care of the Emperor, my cousin. It was dangerous but I needed some stimulation at that time.

So I planned my escape. I had a letter smuggled out to Chapuys. He must help me. I could no longer endure this way of life.

Chapuys was considering what could be done and, I supposed, how my escape would affect the imperial cause. That was always a first consideration. But I imagined the Emperor would not find me an encumbrance, and if I were in his care I should be a continual anxiety to my father, which would please my cousin. So … there seemed a possibility that the escape might be arranged.

It was at this time that all the months of anxiety, the lack of food and my deep depression took their toll of me. I awoke one morning and was too ill to lift my head.

Lady Shelton came to me. She was in a panic. They wanted me dead but everyone was afraid of being accused of killing me.

There was much activity in the house. Vaguely I was aware of it.

Then I found myself being carried out in a litter. By this time the fever had taken such a hold on me that I was not aware of what was happening to me.

They took me to Greenwich.

I learned about this later when people were more ready to talk to me. The King was in a dilemma. He must have been hoping for my death and at the same time afraid of the stir it would raise. For six days I lay at Greenwich, unseen by a doctor, while the fever took a greater hold on me. I was delirious, they tell me, calling for my mother.

My father sent for Chapuys, to tell him that I was dangerously ill and that he wanted the ambassador to select doctors to send to me. If he would do so, my father told him, they should be sent to me with the royal doctors.

Chapuys was uneasy. If he sent doctors and they failed to cure me, how would that affect the Emperor?

It amuses me now to imagine those men all watching me on my sickbed and wondering what my life or death would mean to their politics.

My father was surely hoping for my death and thought I could not live long when Dr. Butts announced that I was suffering from an incurable disease. Chapuys, on the other hand, had said that Dr. Butts' words were that I was very ill indeed but good care might save me, and that if I were released from my present conditions the cure would be quick.

I was now under the sole care of Lady Shelton. I had been robbed of Margaret, who of course remained with Elizabeth; and my little maid had been suspected of working for me. She had been threatened with the Tower and torture if she did not confess, so, poor child, she admitted to a little. It was enough to bring about her dismissal. So there I was, sick until death and friendless.

I kept calling for my mother, but there was no one to hear me or care if they did.

I owe a great deal to Chapuys. He may have used me as a political pawn for the advancement of his master's cause, but he saved my life. If the King was sending out rumors of my incurable illness, Chapuys had his own way of refuting that. There were hints of poison.

My mother sent frantic messages to the King. “Please give my daughter to me. Let me nurse her in her sickness.”

The requests were ignored. But the people heard of them and they did not like what they heard.

My mother had at this time been sent to Kimbolton Castle—a grimly uncomfortable dwelling in the flat Fen country where the persistent east winds I feared would greatly add to her discomfort.

People gathered about the castle as they did at Greenwich where I lay. They mumbled their displeasure; they cried, “God save the Princess!” in defiance of those who declared that I no longer had a right to that title.

There was an uneasy atmosphere throughout the land. The King was now Supreme Head of the Church in England, and the break with Rome was complete; so it was not only the treatment of my mother and myself which was threatening revolt all over the country.

I often wondered whether my father paused to think what he had done when his desire to marry Anne Boleyn had possessed him. He would have visualized an easy divorce, marriage to his siren and a succession of sons. And how differently it had turned out! The break with Rome, the cruelty to his wife and daughter and still the longed-for son had not arrived. What he had done could not possibly endear him to his people.

And there was I—expected to die. Then at least one of the causes for disquiet would be removed. It was a realization I was forced to face. My father must be praying for my death. Nevertheless he dared not withhold help from me entirely, and Dr. Butts was attending me. He was a man whose loyalty to his profession came first. I was his patient now and he was determined to save my life. He knew the cause of my illness. It was not the first time that I had been ill, though I was not fundamentally weak. I had been made to suffer deprivations and such anxieties as I hope few people have to endure; and these had had their effect on me. My mother was ill, too, but her ailments were more of a physical nature—rheumatism, gout, chest complaints brought about by cold and uncomfortable dwelling places. She was saintly and her religion sustained her; she was made for martyrdom. Not so myself. I too had suffered from deprivations but it was not they alone which had brought me to my sickbed. I suffered from a smouldering resentment, a hatred against my persecutors. Mine was more an illness of the mind. If I could have been with my mother, if I could have taken the example she set, I would recover, I knew.

Now I must lie in my bed, sickly and alone, longing to be with her that we might comfort each other. If Lady Salisbury could have come to me, that would have helped. But my father did not want me to be helped… unless it was to the grave.

He did come to visit me because of the grumbling discontent in the country. I was vaguely aware of him at my bedside.

I heard him mutter to Lady Shelton, “There lies my greatest enemy.”

Afterward I discovered that he had not asked to see me but that the good Dr. Butts had forced himself into his presence and told him how ill I was and that he knew the cause and begged him to send my mother to me; whereupon the King rounded on him, calling him disloyal and declaring that he was making too much of my illness for political reasons.

The doctor was abashed but nothing could shift him from his ground. He insisted that if I could be with my mother that would do more for me than a hundred remedies.

Why did I want to go to Kimbolton? demanded the King. So that I and my mother could plot against him, raise armies against him? “The Dowager Princess Katharine is another such as her mother, Queen Isabella of Castile,” he said; and he went on to rave about my stubborn behavior, which was part of a plot to raise people against him. Already people in high places were turning to us.

Yes, he was certainly afraid.

I wondered if he knew then that certain nobles in the North were intimating to Chapuys that they would be ready to support the Emperor if he invaded England in an attempt to bring the Church back to Rome and restore my mother to her rightful place and make me the Queen after dethroning my father.

A story was being circulated about a girl of seventeen or so—my age– who impersonated me in the North of England, where it was unlikely anybody had seen me. She went from village to village telling a sad story of the persecution she had suffered, explaining that she had escaped and was trying to reach the Emperor. Her name turned out to be Anne Baynton and she collected a fair amount of money, so she did succeed in deceiving people. It showed their sympathy to me that none attempted to betray her and instead were willing to help her on her way.

Meanwhile I lay sick in my bed, hovering between life and death.

At length I did begin to recover, for Dr. Butts was determined that I should. He had to prove that my sickness was not incurable. I had always known that he was the best doctor in the kingdom. He was aware of the cause of my illness, and although it was due to a certain extent to illnourishment, it was the sheer misery which I had suffered which was the chief cause.

And as I returned to health there was born in me a determination to live to fight for my rights. I had been through so much that there was little worse that could happen to me. I was denied the company of those I loved; those of my friends who would visit me were turned away. I was kept from my mother; I was deprived of the company of my dear Countess; and Lady Bryan was no longer with me. I told myself I had touched the very nadir of my suffering.

I was very weak and scarcely able to walk across the room; but at least I was alive.

To my surprise, one day I had a visitor.

I was astonished when Lady Shelton came to my room. She said, “Her Grace the Queen commands you to her presence.”

I felt suddenly very cold, and my hands began to tremble.

Lady Shelton was smiling at the prospect, I presumed, of a royal princess having to obey the command of that woman.