The queen’s father had inherited the greatest wealth ever to be bequeathed to an English king from his frugal father, Henry VII, but he had managed to spend it all within the duration of his reign. His son had lost more and borrowed heavily under the direction of his Lord Protectors, worsening the toll, and Henry’s daughter who now wore his crown had been left with an empty Privy Purse, a parched treasury and an impenetrable sea of debt.
Abroad, they had borrowed too much for far too long. Credit was low and the continual debasement of the English coin had made repayment all but impossible. To continue as they had done would be to sink England further into debt. But not to borrow would be to let the treasury sit as it was, empty.
Like a dog chasing its tail, England’s troubles went round and round about.
Desperate to resurrect the finances of her realm, the queen closets herself, day after day, with the Lord High Treasurer, William Paulet.
Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. The word was on everyone’s lips but the system of collection and the processes for assessing and levying the dues owed were too ancient to be of use. There were faults and inconsistencies to be found at every turn. New avenues of revenue were oftentimes neglected too as measures to apply tax on new goods and imports remained either lax or altogether non-existent.
With the knowledge and the aid of Lord Paulet, the queen was painstakingly navigating her way through the quagmire of the realm’s finances.
To start, she ordered her ministers to undertake the creation of a new book of rates to be completed forthwith. She also ordered her council to see to the implementation of measures that would restore the integrity of the English coin.
Soon, the old currency of the previous reigns, debased to almost nothing, would be replaced with new issue. To further ensure England’s prosperity, the queen was pushing hard also for more foreign trade. Royal Charters were being given to companies to negotiate and navigate new trade routes to newfound lands. Commerce to Morocco and Guinea was to be expanded.
The queen wanted her people to thrive and she was impatient. She wanted to see all her reforms enacted, but everything was progressing at an agonizing speed, frustrating the queen.
And to further her consternation, the work to turn the people back to the one true faith continued to be slow. The burnings were many but the Protestants continued to run rampant here in England as well as abroad. Many had found sanctuary beyond these shores and they were fanning and hatching plots to overthrow the queen.
The plots came, thick and fast, one on the heels of another. The Dudley plot was cut down, foiled and destroyed but there was no shortage of men willing to die for the Protestant cause.
And now, Thomas Stafford, the heir to the dukedom of Buckingham was emerging. He had fled abroad when the Wyatt rebellion collapsed. Ever since, he worked, rousing opposition to the queen. To add to the queen’s woes, the French, ever eager to see England brought low had been tireless in lending its support to those who sought to visit destruction on Mary Tudor.
Already, whispers of a fleet led by Stafford, garrisoned with French sailors, soldiers and teeming with Protestant dissenters were making the rounds, threatening England with the promise of their imminent arrival.
So much strife, Jane wanted to cry, can we not have one day of peace?
Matching her step to that of her queen’s, Jane walked behind her sovereign, staring at the image her ladyship made. The queen was a small woman. Amongst her elaborate coiffeur, her long rope of hair shone with grey. Her slight shoulders were slumped, weighed down by the burdens she carried. But the queen’s back was ramrod straight, her faith unshakable and her will as iron as any king’s.
Jane’s belief in her sovereign remained absolute. For as long as she breathed she would forever believe in Mary Tudor.
Her majesty shall triumph. She shall.
The recent improvements to the queen’s health had given Jane chance to hope too. The swelling in the queen’s belly had receded somewhat and she no longer suffered from the bane of passing blood. The sweating and the gnawing pain in her side continued, but a few small and vital changes brought Jane as well as others cautious joy.
The queen’s woman’s courses had also resumed, and with that fortuitous event, hope for the future was rekindled. The queen could still bring forth. As long as her health continued to mend, Jane believed that the queen would one day secure the succession and make safe this realm forevermore.
And while Jane continued to pray for the health of her sovereign, the queen’s troubles continued to multiply. Her realm was calling out for change and she needed to meet each and every call, one by one, to ensure the welfare of her people.
The task was long and the work slow, but the queen was holding fast.
Closing her eyes, Jane lifted her face toward the waning sun, trying to capture a measure of warmth. These were sorry days in England, but God willing, better days would soon be nigh.
Here Jane, the queen called out to her.
Jane opened her eyes, moving forth, a smile on her lips. The ground below her feet was wet. Every year since the queen’s ascension had been wet. The rains had been drowning England in mud. The crops had refused to yield. The people were hungry.
My people, the queen had sighed over and over, they have suffered much in these harsh, barren years.
But there had to be brighter days ahead; Jane believed it, there simply had to be.
My queen, Jane curtseyed.
They had come to a stop before the royal roses. The queen gestured and Jane turned her eyes over the faded flora. Her eyes widened when she saw a small shy bud, growing amidst the thorns.
Your majesty! Jane’s smile broadened. Gently sweeping aside the leaves, Jane grinned, the roses, they are in bud!
For a moment, the deep furrow between the queen’s brows eased and she smiled, a rare tilt of her lips, that they are, Jane, that they are.
Soon all of England shall be in bloom! Jane effused, her heart dancing as a surge of hope raced through her being. But her joy was not to last. She spotted the men. Her exuberance deflated, her smile dying.
Your grace! Their urgent call made Jane stiffen. Fear made her heart seize as the queen’s councilors approached, their faces grim.
Folding her hands, Mary Tudor stood to her full height. She appeared regal and composed as they came before her and knelt.
Southampton, Westmorland and de la Pole. Jane saw the stern look on the men’s faces and her heart squeezed, tightening even further.
Well, what is it? the queen asked, her voice firm.
Thomas Stafford. He has landed in Scarborough with the help of the French, taken command of the garrisons there and declared himself the Protector of the Realm!
Jane gasped. Around them a sudden gust of wind blew, sending the roses with its delicate foliage and shy pink bud tumbling.
MARY
AGED FORTY-ONE
June
The French King refused to receive us, your majesty. Upon arrival, we were denied our audience as the king was proclaimed to have left on a lark. Mary’s man bowed low. The king had gone on a hunt, they declared, and indeed he did not return until nigh on three days hence, whereupon he was finally persuaded to grant us an audience.
Thence, as per your majesty’s desire we came before him to declare war. The man dared not lift his head, but the French king refused to hear our proclamation. He said he would not submit himself to the outrage, the man paused, weighing his words before deciding to speak, the outrage of having war declared upon him by a… a woman.
Mary struck the arm of her throne with the full force of her anger, sending the sound reverberating through her audience chamber.
Your majesty! Her council bowed. They had never seen her so roused. Your majesty!
Pressing one hand to her side, she tried to quell the bursting pain in her belly while she cast her eyes over the men before her. They were all of the male sex and they had all found submitting and bowing to a woman a trying task.
&nbs
p; A woman. Even when she held the crown, commanded the realm and wielded the powers of God’s anointed on earth, the one never ending refrain remained, I am still a woman.
No one would have ever treated her father thus. No one would have dared.
Her decision was made. They would go to war and she would teach Henri II of France a lesson to remember. Face me like a man, Henri, face me like a man. She was tired of facing his nameless shadows. She was tired of fighting him by proxy.
Outside, Thomas Stafford’s head hung from the ramparts; his rebellion had been snuffed out quickly and with brutal efficiency. And this time, Mary would not let the French go unpunished. They had tried her patience, trifled with the safety of her people and conspired against her not once, twice but thrice.
Using the Protestant traitors to set his sword at England’s neck, Henri II had plotted and schemed.
I have done my best to turn a blind eye, Mary fumed, and Jesu knows I have tried.
Hitherto, while the war between France and Spain raged, Mary had thought to safeguard her people by refusing to go to war. But now the die was cast.
Mary Tudor would go to war.
Spain and France. The two had been at each other’s throats. Their kings were like two cocks at crow. Both wanted Europe under their dominion. They had battled each other for supremacy for years. No one wanted to yield. No one wanted to concede defeat.
Mary had thought to spare her people the grief of war. England had enough troubles. They had no need for any further hostilities of any kind. With the English coffers already empty and honest men scarce, she had thought to withhold England from conflicts of any sort for as long as possible.
But the French king had tried her over and over. He had pushed her to the brink.
Now England would join the war and her queen would throw the full weight of her navy as well as her troops against Henri.
In the preceding years, the French king had been laying siege to Italy, claiming rights over those cities with the help and influence of his Medici wife. Steadily, Henri had encroached on Spanish territories, sending Europe deeper into the abyss. Philip and his father, far from being weak lambs at the slaughter, had retaliated in kind with devastating consequences. They had already spilled a river of blood and still the two were not done.
And now England would enter the fray. They would launch their attack from Calais, England’s last remaining stronghold on French soil, and they would do so as soon as her garrisons were ready.
The French king can do as he pleases, but he will answer for his affront when we hold victory in our hands! Mary proclaimed. We will give him a showing to remember. We will make him regret every foul word he has uttered against our person and every foul deed he has ever committed against England!
England shall triumph! And we shall regain all that is rightfully ours! We shall have victory as we did in the days of Henry V, whose warrior’s blood runs through our veins!
Raucous cries erupted as her council cheered. Mary cast her eyes over the men, her heart cold.
A woman, she wanted to laugh, a woman.
There was no mistaking the truth. She was indeed of the female sex, the weaker sex. But she would show every naysayer that had denied, denounced and shamed her, that she, Mary Tudor would never relinquish without a fight. She had the power, nay, the will to rule and fight with all the force of a king. She would make safe her people. She would have no more plots against her throne and the safety of her realm. The French Henri needed to be taught a lesson and Mary meant to do it.
I am my father’s daughter. She fisted her hands over the carved lions of her throne, the Lions of England. I am king here! I am king!
ELIZABETH AGED TWENTY-FOUR
July
The king had returned.
His wife had pleased him greatly by declaring war on France. It had always been one of his principal aims, to take England and her troops with him into his war. And finally, at last, it would be accomplished.
Ever since they were wed, Philip of Spain had been trying to bend Mary Tudor to his will. He had entreated, requested, cajoled and threatened, pointing her toward the path for war. But it was not his swarthy good looks, agile tongue or loving embrace that had seduced the queen into doing his bidding. Nay, it was the stupidity of the French king and his constant belittling of England that saw to the eruption of the queen’s anger.
Not once, twice but three times Henri of France had tried Mary Tudor’s patience. Winking and sending forth those he could summon, deploying them against her in plot after plot.
And who could blame him? The French king had a desire to see his son’s wife on the English throne. He was in lust with the idea of conquering this island; the island that had brought France such shame during the times of Henry V.
They have both played their piece, Elizabeth’s eyes were clear as she settled them over the horizon, and now England is poised for war. The English assault would be launched from Calais, the last English stronghold on French soil.
Such was the folly of man.
Elizabeth’s thoughts turned upon the French Henri.
They said he was a mighty king, a wise sovereign and a great warrior. They said he was as fierce as a lion on the field of war.
A mighty ruler indeed, Elizabeth crinkled her nose, if he is indeed so mighty, why does he send the Duke of Guise to fight all his wars? Nay, the French king likes a good joust over the horrors of war any day. And if he were indeed, as wise as they say, why would he belittle my sister?
I will not suffer the outrage of having war declared upon me by a woman, went the words of the French King. The tales of Henri’s insult had managed to reach even her ears, here at Hatfield. Elizabeth scoffed.
So much for the wisdom of the French Henri! There is no shame in being a woman, she hissed, no matter how you men will like to have us think it so!
We might be the lesser sex, the less worthy gender of the two, but that makes us all the more commendable, for we have to fight twice as hard to overcome every obstacle. Elizabeth gritted her teeth. There is no easy path for a woman. And if the male sex is so much grander, she sniggered, so much greater and so much more worthy, why do they persist in these petty jealousies?
The members of the male sex were always eager to abuse a woman for her weaknesses. They called themselves the superior ones, strong of limb and strong of will. But Elizabeth would like to see a world of men and the tragedies that would be theirs if they were left to their own devices.
If God hadn’t made Eve grace the earth alongside of Adam, Elizabeth sneered, the world would be a sorry place indeed. For war, Elizabeth arched a brow, the source of all woes, is the domain of men. The kings love it. They revel in it. They live it, breathe it and swear by it. They want the glory, the victories and the gold. They want their names to resound through the ages. What care do they have for the soldiers sent out to die in their stead? Elizabeth frowned. And now my sister will war. She has been ridiculed and bullied, laughed at and humiliated in her efforts to protect her realm. How shall she fare in this war?
Relentlessly, the queen worked, seeing to the rearming of her navy and troops, and in this, the final hour, the king made his return. Sweeping back onto these shores and into the bed of his wife, the king had come to take command of the English forces.
It was Philip that would lead the troops and he was eager to sail to the continent with them. He would not stay by Mary’s side for long. He had returned to these shores for his English troops, not for his English wife.
He has more lust for power and my sister’s troops then he has for her flesh. Elizabeth mocked. There was no denying it. Philip of Spain was rearing to deploy his English forces against his French foe. Hence, by necessity, his stay would be short. He was waiting for Mary’s final review of her forces.
For the coming battles, Mary ordered a complete refitting, borrowing large sum of monies to see to the rejuvenation and rearming of her army.
And while Philip was charged with taking c
ommand of the war abroad, Mary would remain here to see to her England. Her task was to raise capital for a campaign that England could not afford, tend to the matter of her reforms and forge on with the burnings that continued to light England up with terror.
Calamity upon calamity is all that we have had. Have a care sister, England tires of such strife.
But there was more.
The queen’s new path toward war with France had won her the animosity of the Pope, the friend of the French.
In anger, Pope Paul IV retaliated, recalling his Papal Legate, Reginald de la Pole, her sister’s Archbishop of Canterbury, ordering him to return to Rome to answer on charges of heresy.
Elizabeth suppressed the urge to laugh aloud.
De la Pole was outraged. All his life, he had worked to restore England to the Pope and now he was being summoned to answer on charges of heresy.
Funny that, snorted Elizabeth, that a man who spent his days dispensing the holy wrath of the Pope should be accused of the self-same crimes he was so merciless in persecuting.
Turn and turn about, so spins the wheels of all our fortunes.
As to be expected, the queen descended into a rage. Resolute, Mary refused to oblige. She kept the son of her Lady Salisbury by her side, refusing to either receive or recognize the new papal legate appointed to take his place. A defiant Mary ordered de la Pole to continue on with his good work. And while the other Cardinals leapt to De la Pole’s defense, in Italy, the Pope was embattled with his own legates over his alliance with Henri II.
There is no peace to be had, not even in the House of God. Elizabeth scoffed.
Nevertheless, ever the careful man, de la Pole, fearing the repercussions for his sovereign, sent his men as well as his letters onward to the Pope in Italy to undertake his case.
On and on, the sorry tale goes.
The man who has been charging and sending good Englishmen, women and children to the stake on charges of heresy has now being called to answer to them himself; what cruel irony is this? What justice can such a man dispense? He and his Master, the Pope, that Filthy See that claims to be all things holy; it is all of it mockery and lies, bile and shit. Riddled with corruption and rotting with deceptions of the worst kind, the Papal Legate and his master have made England their cesspit.
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