Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century
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lower degree. Be a friend, I pray you, to mine; and do my hearty commendations to your good wife and to gentle Mr. Dennye. I die in the faith that you have ever known me to be of. Farewell, good friend.
"Yours dying, as he was living,
"NORFOLK."
These letters and some others did pass from hand to hand in thatafflicted house; and sometimes hope and sometimes despair prevailed inthe hearts of the great store of relatives and friends which oftenassembled there to confer on the means of softening the queen's angerand moving her to mercy; one time through letters from the king ofFrance and other princes, which was an ill shot, for to be soentreated by foreign potentates did but inflame her majesty's angeragainst the duke; at others, by my Lord Sussex and my Lord Arundel, orsuch persons in her court as nearly approached her highness and coulddeal with her when she was merry and chose to condescend to theirdiscourse. But the wind shifts not oftener than did the queen's mindat that time, so diverse were her dispositions toward this nobleman,and always opposed to such as appeared in those who spoke on thistopic, whether as pressing for his execution, or suing for mercy to beextended to him. I heard much talk at that time touching his grace'sgood qualities: how noble had been his spirit; how moderate hisdisposition; how plain his attire; how bountiful his alms.
As the fates of many do in these days hang on the doom of one, mucheagerness was shown amongst those who haunted my uncle's house tolearn the news afloat concerning the issue of the duke's affair. SomeCatholics of note were lying in prison at that time in Norwich, mostof them friends of these gentlemen; of which four were condemned todeath at that time, and one to perpetual imprisonment and loss of allhis property for reconcilement; but whilst the Duke of Norfolk was yetalive, they held the hope he should, if once out of prison, recoverthe queen's favor and drive from their seats his and their mortalenemies, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester. And verily the axe was heldsuspended on the head of that duke for four months and more, to theunspeakable anguish of many; and, amongst others, his aged andafflicted mother, the Dowager Countess of Surrey, who came to Londonfrom the country to be near her son in this extremity. Three times didthe queen issue a warrant for his death and then recalled it; so thatthose trembling relatives and well-wishers in and out of his house didlook each day to hear the fatal issue had been compassed, In the monthof March, when her majesty was sick with a severe inflammation andagonizing pain, occasioned, some said, by poison administered bypapists, but by her own physicians declared to arise from her contemptof their prescriptions, there was a strange turmoil, I ween, in somemen's breasts, albeit silent as a storm brewing on a sultry day. Undertheir breath, and with faces shaped to conceal the wish which bred theinquiry, they asked of the queen's health; whilst others tore theirhair and beat their breasts with no affected grief, and the most partof the people lamented her danger. Oh, what five days were those whenthe shadow of death did hover over that royal couch, and men's heartsfailed them for fear, or else wildly whispered hopes such as theydurst not utter aloud,--not so much as to a close friend,--lest thewalls should have ears, or the pavement open under their feet! My God,in thy hands lie the issues of life and death. Thou dost assign toeach one his space of existence, his length of days. Thy ways are notas our ways, nor thy thoughts as our thoughts. She lived who was yetto doom so many princely heads to the block, so many saintly forms tothe dungeon and the rack. She lived whose first act was to stretchforth a hand yet weakened by sickness to sign, a fourth time, awarrant for a kinsman's death, and once again recalled it. Each daysome one should come in with various reports touching the queen'sdispositions. Sometimes she had been heard to opine that her dangersfrom her enemies were so great that justice must be done. At othersshe vehemently spoke of the nearness of blood to herself, of thesuperiority in honor of this duke; and once she wrote to Lord Burleigh(a copy of this letter Lord Surrey saw in Lord Oxford's hands), "thatshe was more beholden to the hinder part of her head than she daredtrust the forward part of the same;" and expressed great fear lest anirrevocable deed should be committed. But she would not see LordSurrey, or suffer him to plead in person for his father's life. Yetthere were good hopes amongst his friends he should yet be released,till one day--I mind it well, for I was sitting with Lady Surrey,reading out loud to her, as I was often used to do--my Lord Berkeleyburst into the chamber, and cried, throwing his gloves on the tableand swearing a terrible oath:
"That woman has undone us!"
"What, the queen?" said my lady, white as a smock.
"Verily a queen," he answered gloomily. "I warrant you the Queen ofScots hath ended as she did begin, and dragged his grace into a pitfrom whence I promise you he will never now rise. A letter writ in hercipher to the Duke of Alva hath been intercepted, in which thatluckless royal wight, ever fatal to her friends as to herself,doth say, 'that she hath a strong party in England, and lords whofavor her cause; some of whom, albeit prisoners, so powerful, that theQueen of England should not dare to touch their lives.' Alack! thosewords, 'should not dare,' shall prove the death-warrant of my noblebrother. Cursed be the day when he did get entangled in that popishsiren's plots!"
"Speak not harshly of her, good my lord," quoth Lady Surrey, in hergentle voice. "Her sorrows do bear too great a semblance to our ownnot to bespeak from us patience in this mishap."
"Nan," said Lord Berkeley, "thou art of too mild a disposition. 'Tisthe only fault I do find with thee. Beshrew me, if my wife and theecould not make exchange of some portion of her spirit and thy meeknessto the advantage of both. I warrant thee Phil's wife should hold atight hand over him."
"I read not that precept in the Bible, my lord," quoth she, smiling."It speaketh roundly of the duty of wives to obey, but not so much asone word of their ruling."
"Thou hadst best preach thy theology to my Lady Berkeley," heanswered; "and then she--"
"But I pray you, my lord, is it indeed your opinion that the queenwill have his grace's life?"
"I should not give so much as a brass pin, Nan, for his present chanceof mercy at her hands," he replied sadly. And his words were justifiedin the event.
Those relentless enemies of the duke, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester,--who, at the time of the queen's illness, had stood three days andthree nights without stirring from her bedside in so great terror lestshe should die and he should compass the throne through a marriagewith the Queen of Scots, that they vowed to have his blood at any costif her majesty did recover,--so dealt with parliament as to move it tosend a petition praying that, for the safety of her highness and thequieting of her realm, he should be forthwith executed. And from thatday to the mournful one of his death, albeit from the great reluctanceher majesty had evinced to have him despatched, his friends, yea untothe last moment, lived in expectancy of a reprieve; he himself made uphis mind to die with extraordinary fortitude, not choosing toentertain so much as the least hope of life.
One day at that time I saw my Lady Margaret mending some hose, and ateach stitch she made with her needle tears fell from her eyes. Ioffered to assist her ladyship; but she said, pressing the hose to herheart, "I thank thee, good Constance; but no other hands than mineshall put a stitch in these hose, for they be my father's, who hathworn them with these holes for many months, till poor Master Dyxbethought himself to bring them here to be patched and mended, whichtask I would have none perform but myself. My father would not sufferhim to procure a new pair, lest it should be misconstrued as a sign ofhis hope or desire of a longer life, and with the same intent herefuseth to eat flesh as often as the physicians do order; 'for,'quoth he, 'why should I care to nourish a body doomed to such neardecay?'" Then, after a pause, she said, "He will not wear clotheswhich have any velvet on them, being, he saith, a condemned person."
Lady Surrey took one of the hose in her hand, but Lady Margeret, witha filial jealousy, sadly smiling, shook her head: "Nay, Nan," quothshe, "not even to thee, sweet one, will I yield one jot or tittle ofthis mean, but, in relation to him who doth own these poor hose,exalted labor." Then she asked her
sister if she had heard of theduke's request that Mr. Fox, his old schoolmaster, should attend onhim in the Tower, to whom he desired to profess that faith he didfirst ground him in.
And my Lady Surrey answered yea, that my lord had informed her of it, and many other proofs beside that his grace sought toprepare for death in the best manner he could think of.
"Some ill-disposed persons have said," quoth Lady Margaret, "that itis with the intent to propitiate the queen that my father doth showhimself to be so settled in his religion, and that he is not what heseems; but tis a slander on his grace, who hath been of this way ofthinking since he attained to the age of reason, and was never at anytime