by Karen Harper
“Arrest this man for treason against the God-given queen of England!” Mary cried as guards leaped forward to take Edward’s arms. I gasped and threw myself at my husband, clinging to him as he dared to speak again.
“I was hoping you would have need of England’s Lord High Admiral for your God-given cause, Your Majesty,” he said calmly.
“Lord High Admiral no more! I must show no mercy to John Dudley and his minions!”
Finally I spoke. “Please, Your Majesty. Send me with him then—”
“Gera, no,” Edward muttered amidst the chaos as he was pulled away. “Stay with her; try to reason—”
“Very well then, your lady wife will go with you!” the queen cried. “My people must make their choices to whom they will be loyal. For England and Saint George!” she urged the common cry.
“For England and Saint George. Long live the queen!” a man’s voice behind us shouted, and the crowd roared as the shout spread. I clung hard to Edward’s hand as he was hustled toward the castle. Mary had made me choose between her and my husband, and so I had. I should have known to trust no one who held ultimate power, English power. “For England and long live the queen”? No, until the day I died, my cry must be for Ireland and the Geraldines!
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
At first I could not fathom that we were actually being sent to the dungeon, but down we went on a twisting staircase into the depths of the old castle. It was dark and dank, much worse than Maynooth’s cellar. Our guards hurried us along a narrow stone hall lined with wooden doors with small, square iron grates. One man had a lantern, but I could hardly see down here and I stubbed my toe against rough paving stones. With a hard hand on my upper arm, Edward held me up.
“Are there lights for the cells?” I dared to ask. I could not tell whether Edward was not speaking because he was resigned or enraged—and at the queen or me?
“Not with straw on the floors, milady. Can’t have a fire here.”
Keys jingled as the man with the lantern took an interminable time unlocking the door while the two armed guards hovered. Edward gripped my hand harder than I had held to his and pulled me in after him. Before I could try to read his face, the door slammed behind us, plunging us into blackness. The men outside shuffled away; silence reigned.
To my relief, Edward clamped me to him, my head under his chin, his arms around me tight, grappled chest to breast. “Thank God you are all right,” he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. “Despite their show of leaving, we must whisper,” he added as he pulled me away from the door until we bumped into a stone wall.
“I came to the Tower to find you,” I explained in a rush, “but I overheard Dudley tell his son Robert that the king was dead and to arrest Mary and get rid of her in the process if he could.”
“I didn’t know the king was dead until I faced Dudley down at the Tower, after Robert left with his men. I was furious he would dare to keep that from me—from the kingdom. By then, Collum had come to find me to say you’d gone out the window. You could have broken your neck, and at that point, I wanted to break it for you.”
“I just didn’t want us to argue. I wanted us to work together to help Mary and protect ourselves. I guess I did the wrong thing.”
“You didn’t. We both should have followed Mary’s banners, but I thought I could reason with Dudley. He’s gone mad with power—and now, at last, I think he knows he’s going to pay for it.”
“Poor Jane Grey.”
“Queen Mary’s cousin or not, I warrant she’ll never leave the Tower alive, or her young husband either. They say her parents beat her until she agreed to wed him.”
I shuddered in his arms. “I believe that. I’ve seen the marks on her before and now whatev—”
In midword, his lips covered mine, a possessive, demanding kiss, full of pent-up anger but of passion too. He leaned against the damp wall, and we clung in our mutual embrace and hungry kisses. When we at last came up for air, breathing hard in unison, time flew as we told each other all that had happened since we’d been parted. Finally, exhausted, shivering, we slid down the wall and sat on the stone floor with me in his lap, still holding tight.
“I will beg her to just send us into exile,” I told him. “We’ll go to Ireland and hide out there.”
“Fugitives and rebels, my love? Put to the horn and hunted as your brothers once were? Never that. Our new queen used the word treason to me and obviously wants a scapegoat. I’m hoping when she gets her hands on Dudley, that will be enough for her. But if not, our lands and my life could be forfeit.”
“No! No, that cannot be, not more of this. Not after everything with my first family!”
He held me tight again, then whispered, “Is there a light in the hall?”
I turned to look and had to squint at the sudden brightness. Could the setting sun slant in like this so far below the ground?
Voices. Among the men’s, one commanding, low voice I knew.
“Down here—the queen!” I whispered, and we scrambled to our feet, dusting ourselves off, I shaking out my skirts and tugging back my loosened hair as if being in a dungeon did not give us some excuse for how we looked.
The key scraped in the lock. The queen’s stocky silhouette filled the doorway. Mary Tudor stepped in behind two men, each holding lanterns. Until I saw that she held a scented pomander to her nose, I had not realized the rank smell of mildew and worse down here.
We bowed and curtsied and stayed down. “Rise,” she said.
We faced her, holding hands.
“I perhaps owe my very life to your wife, Lord Clinton. And now you owe her yours too. The admiralty must go to someone I can truly trust, but I am not so vindictive—or foolish—that I will rid England of a brave sea captain. On the morrow, you will be given two horses and provisions and be sent home to Lincoln—is that your northern seat?”
“Near there, Your Majesty. Kyme and Sempringham.”
“Then there you will stay until I have need of your service. I expect you to shore up support for me there. I have been reminded by Lord Jerningham that you once helped put down the rebellion against the Tudors in the north.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I carried letters from your father commanding others to hold the area.”
As he said that, he gripped my hand so hard I flinched. Did he think I would not hold my tongue through this? Did he think I would tell her I tried to deface or ruin those orders?
“Though I intend to show humility and forgiveness,” the queen continued, “even as our Lord Christ did to those who betrayed him, your former master will meet his doom. And I will not see your face, my lord—or that of your wife, since she has chosen to share your fate—until and if I send for you for further loyal service. Do you understand?”
“I do with gratitude, Your Majesty,” he said, and bowed again, pulling me down with him.
“Gera, I have a boon for you too. Partly because John Dudley wanted to keep your brother Gerald under his thumb, I shall return his title of Earl of Kildare to him when I settle all else, and mayhap I shall send him home to Ireland to help keep the peace there.”
“Oh, Your gracious Majesty, that would be such . . . such a brilliant strategy!”
“I am going now and will send someone to see you are brought upstairs to be fed and properly clothed before you set out on the morrow. Do not go back to London and do not make a show of your leaving here.”
Still with our heads down, we did not see her depart but heard the swish of her skirts and the scrape of her booted heels, then her low-voiced orders to someone in the hall. Such bounty from a Tudor, for Edward, Gerald, and me! From the darkness of despair to the light of hope, despite the loss of Edward’s admiralty and his place on the Privy Council. Our lands and lives—our future—not only spared, but a brave new beginning bestowed.
“I can’t bear for the Defiance to go to someone else,” Edward muttered through gritted teeth, “but we’re both damned good at earning our way back. And you have t
ies not only to Mary but also to Elizabeth.”
As we started to climb the narrow dungeon stairs, I told him, forcing a cheerful tone, “After all, most of my life, there’s been nowhere to go but up.”
LONDON
January 1554
Despite our second honeymoon, we worked hard to, as Her Majesty had said, shore up support for her in Lincolnshire. And it had given us solid family time with the children. But we were, thank the Lord, recalled much sooner than we had expected, for London was under attack by a peasant and Protestant rebel group and the queen wanted every good military man she could find to aid her. Though this rebellion was a dry-land one, Edward was summoned to protect the palace, and I went with him. I was grateful for the excuse to return to some influence near the throne but was agonizing over several things.
For one, the queen planned to marry Prince Philip of Spain this coming summer, and few Englishmen wanted our realm—yes, I must admit I saw England as my home as well as Ireland now—to become, in effect, a Spanish colony. Also, rumors were rampant that the queen had hearkened to her bishops and Spanish allies about persecuting—that is, burning at the stake—everyone who would not publicly declare for certain Catholic rites that the Protestants detested.
Although the queen had immediately released the Earl of Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk, who had been incarcerated in the Tower during Edward’s brief reign, Jane Grey and her young husband still languished there. As for that devil Dudley, he had been beheaded on Tower Green a month after his rebellion. Because I knew my husband had conflicting emotions over that, only in private had I lifted a congratulatory drink to Dudley’s demise. King Henry and John Dudley, dead at last, though there was much yet to do to return the Fitzgeralds to their proper fortunes. For that was the only way we could help lift our people from poverty, superstition, and the oppression of cruel English rule. I must do all I could to support not only my husband but the cause of my kin and home country, dear Ireland.
Other woes that assailed those I cared for at that time included that Parliament had once again declared the marriage of King Henry and Anne Boleyn null and void, so “the lady” Elizabeth was a bastard once again. I had corresponded with her during our exile in the north, and I was certain she was innocent of something else: The queen believed her half sister had instigated or at least sanctioned this so-called current Wyatt Rebellion. It was true that the rebels wanted the darling of the Protestants to have the throne in place of her sister, but that hardly meant Elizabeth was to blame. Yet I knew that, since the queen was still considering beheading her cousin Jane, what might she do with Elizabeth if she could prove—or concoct—treason against her?
“I cannot abide the queen’s younger sister being blamed for all this,” I told Gerald and Mabel as we sat together in Mabel’s rooms at Whitehall Palace, where we awaited Edward’s return from a royal audience. “She was not to blame for the Thomas Seymour mess, except for youthful bad judgment, and I am certain she would not have given her support to this revolt.”
Gerald held Mabel’s hand and trailed little circles on her palm with his index finger. They were betrothed but were delaying their wedding until the queen restored his title—Gerald’s idea, not Mabel’s. “Gerabeth,” he said, turning toward me and frowning, “I cannot believe you are always standing up for Anne Boleyn’s girl. Queen Mary will wed and have children, and Elizabeth will never get the throne.”
“I don’t care; I admire her. Sometimes she reminds me of myself.”
Gerald gave a snort, which quite annoyed me. “Just because you look a bit alike or have the same first name, my lady Elizabeth?” he goaded. He rose and walked to the window and scraped a small circle of frost off with his ring, for the winter winds were bitter cold. I forgave his rude manners at once. He was frustrated by waiting and felt penned in, and I understood that. He peered out toward the nearly frozen Thames. “I’ll go with Her Grace’s forces if they face Wyatt’s rebels, of course,” he told us, “but they should do what our people used to—fight in good weather and hunker down before a fire with a beautiful maid in the winter.”
He winked at Mabel and she smiled at him, lost in love. I recognized the feeling. Besides, they were suited. I had begun to turn her into an Irish rebel, and Gerald had completed the transformation. If—and when—she went home as Gerald’s bride, Countess of Kildare, I’d wager Mabel could match me for standing up to and for the Irish.
The hall door opened with a whoosh of chill air, and Edward rushed in. “You might know the queen has no standing army. She has tried to parley with Wyatt, but he replied with insolence, demanding her surrender instead of his. Her Majesty has ordered that men in the streets arm themselves. She is placing me in charge of protecting the palace, and the old Duke of Norfolk in charge of the city, but we must protect the city to save the palace. Gerald, with me. Ladies, keep close here. And, my love,” he said, pulling me to him and tipping my chin up, “that means no going out windows or tunnels to join the fray. Swear to me.”
“Yes. I’ll stay near the queen to remind her that you and Gerald fight for her cause. But Elizabeth cannot have given this rebellion her blessing. She’s too smart, too—”
“But she’s still young and has proven that she can make mistakes.” He kissed me once, soundly, as we old married folks, wed all of fifteen months, tried to ignore Gerald’s very fond farewell to his betrothed.
That was the last I saw of my husband for two days.
Even from Whitehall, we could hear the beating of distant drums, for men were being mustered as close as St. James’s Palace. Most of the foreign diplomats had fled, but, unfortunately, ferret-faced Simon Renard, the Spanish ambassador, stayed behind to spew his poison in the queen’s ear.
“Your Majesty, are you certain you can trust these men who have turned on the Tudors before?” I was told he had said. “The Howards would have taken the Tudor throne. Granted, the Earl of Surrey paid the price, but why did you free his father, Norfolk, from the Tower and give him a command? And Captain Clinton, once a rebel, always dangerous, wed to that rabble-rousing female Geraldine who wants her family to rule Ireland.”
If I had heard that firsthand, I would have scratched his Spanish eyes out. Instead, I kept near the queen, where I could keep my Irish eyes on him.
Tense hours followed, for Mary ordered her army not to fire the opening salvo. Short-tempered, she paced the long gallery overlooking the Thames. I had to wonder if I was cursed, for this could be the third siege of a castle I had faced in my thirty-one years on this earth, and I was a hapless pawn in all of them. How I wished I could hoist a battle banner, take a sword, and fight beside the men!
My lord’s former sailors moved all barges and boats from the Thames so that Wyatt’s forces could not use them to cross, but that merely delayed the rebels. They marched to Kingston and crossed the Thames at night to approach the capital from the west through Knightsbridge. All too soon, the four hundred men under Edward’s command, some civilians and some trained, were engaged in fighting, some of it hand-to-hand. What if Edward were wounded or killed, let alone what if he failed to hold his defensive line? Had the queen recalled him only for his military prowess in the past, or because he must save her to save himself?
As I chewed my lower lip and tried to ignore the roiling of my stomach, I saw Ambassador Renard sidle up to the queen again. He unrolled a piece of parchment I recognized: the drawing Edward had made to show the queen his defensive plan. I moved closer, shifting my way through the cluster of her ladies, as if we females could protect her if Wyatt’s forces breached the palace walls.
“Your most gracious Majesty,” Renard said, unrolling the parchment and frowning at it as if he had been bidden to criticize it, “will you not allow me to send for aid from Spain? Can we truly trust those who have served not only your enemy Dudley but the Protestant cause before? And as I have urged, not only your royal sister but Lady Jane Grey are becoming a touchstone for such rebels, sí. Best they both be kept under loc
k and key, if not sent far away.”
“Exile, Ambassador?” she replied. “Then my enemies would surely rally to their cause.”
“A permanent exile,” I heard him whisper. “Not only from England, but from this earth.”
“Your Grace,” I said, “forgive me, but this foreign ambassador is counseling you to do what, thank God, was not done to you. Outside forces hoped to use you for their purposes, but your loyalty to your family, even in difficult times, kept you faithful. I believe your sister is fully loyal and stake my life on my husband’s loyalty, and worry only about advice you get from foreign quarters!”
Mary listened intently, but Renard looked livid. “Your husband,” he cracked out, pointing at me, “is betting his life on his success today, sí, I tell you that!”
“Ambassador! Gera!” Queen Mary interrupted my next retort. “Both of you, leave my presence until you can calm yourselves and speak only of my God-given rights as queen. I do not need fighting of any sort in or near this palace! The Virgin Mary is with this royal Mary, and we shall prevail!”
I curtsied and went huffily from her presence, only to realize she might not prevail. I could hear the fighting coming closer, the sounds of guns and drums—even men’s shouts. Had my lord’s forces not held their defensive lines? As I paced in the corridor above the courtyard facing King Street, I managed to stop a messenger only because I recognized him, and called out, “Haverhill! How does my lord Clinton?”
Out of breath, he gestured to me but kept going. I lifted my skirts and ran to keep up as he gasped out his words. “We met the rebels with cannon shot and arms. Bloody fighting now. No one has taken Wyatt yet. But he’s sent a splinter group of men—around another way—and the queen must take cover. . . .”
Even as he spoke, chaos erupted outside. Everyone ran to the windows to look down. The rabble of guards in the courtyard shouted as a hailstorm of arrows from Wyatt’s approaching forces thudded against the windows. Several panes shattered and sprayed inward. Lurching toward him, keeping low, I grabbed Haverhill’s arm.
