by David Belbin
Next day, I tried to bring the matter up with John again.
‘Please don’t speak of this,’ he said.
‘But, I need…’
‘It is not my place, Your Grace.’
I understood why John didn’t want to get further involved. He feared for his position if he meddled in politics. But who else could I turn to? Elizabeth lived with Uncle Thomas. Seeing me on the verge of tears, John spoke softly.
‘My duty is to educate you,’ he explained. ‘I must not overstep the mark.’
John looked away, embarrassed. He knew that he had let me down.
That night, I told Fowler I no longer wished him to sleep in my bedchamber. Only, when I put my head down, I couldn’t sleep at all. My dog, Jester, slept in a basket in a corner of the bedchamber. Quietly, so as not to disturb my servants, I crept out of bed. Trying not to wake my pet, I picked up Jester and carried the spaniel back to bed with me.
Jester was no longer a puppy. He was growing far more quickly than I was and was heavy to hold. If only I could become a man as quickly as a puppy became a dog. Then I could tell my uncles what to do, or to hell with them!
Next to me, on the silk sheets, Jester whimpered a little before returning to a deep sleep. There was nothing on his mind beyond being fed in the morning and running around my endless gardens. How I wished I could change places with him!
The warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart were comforting. Soon, I slept too. But even my dreams were haunted by responsibilities.
8 The Queen and the Princess
Uncle Edward’s Scottish campaign ended in failure. My possible fiancée, the little Queen of Scots, escaped to France, where she was soon engaged to the infant dauphin. In a way, I was relieved. Who wants to be engaged at ten?
As soon as Uncle Edward returned from Scotland, he sent for his brother. Uncle Thomas, I heard, was threatening to make this the blackest Parliament in the history of England. When Edward accused him of neglecting his admiralty duties, Thomas denied it and dared his brother to send him to the Tower.
But they were blood relatives. Soon, the two brothers were friendly again. As for me, after his threatening behaviour, I kept my distance from Uncle Thomas. Then I heard that Queen Catherine was going to have a baby. This was very good news. I thought fatherhood might improve Uncle Thomas’s temper.
As Protector, Uncle Edward made only one change that affected me. My beloved tutor, John Cheke, was banished to Cambridge for taking money from the King (the small gift I had made him a few months earlier). I had lost the one person I could safely confide in. I missed Elizabeth more than ever.
Elizabeth was nearly fifteen, and her life was in turmoil. But nobody told me. What happened next I only found out later (from statements given to the Council by Elizabeth herself and others).
My sister Mary disapproved of Elizabeth staying with Uncle Thomas and Queen Catherine. She wrote inviting Elizabeth to live with her, but Elizabeth liked it where she was and politely refused.
It turned out she liked it too much. One day, when the pregnant Queen visited her stepdaughter’s room without warning, she found Elizabeth in her husband’s arms. My sister was sent away the next day.
My stepmother gave birth to a healthy baby, called Mary, but died a few days after the birth, just as my own mother had done. So I lost a second mother. The first time, I’d been too young to mourn. This time, I was king, and it would have been unseemly to show distress.
Elizabeth was very ill the following summer. There were rumours that she had miscarried Uncle Thomas’s child. The rumours were probably false. But I cannot be sure. She and I were no longer close. I had nobody close.
At least my relationship with Uncle Edward improved. Now that I was keeping my distance from his brother, it was hard to remember why I’d ever turned against Uncle Edward. That summer, out at Hampton Court, I hunted often. I spent so much time in the company of older boys that I felt and acted older than my eleven years. My companions no longer treated me as a child. In the evening we would put on masques (mostly plays full of revenge, often ending with the death of the Pope!). Or we would play cards. The Bible warned against gambling, but it was excellent sport. I was relieved to be away from the intrigues of Whitehall. Even my stepmother’s death did not depress me for long.
One day Uncle Edward visited Hampton Court to discuss affairs of state with me. We were walking in the gallery when, unexpectedly, Uncle Thomas appeared. He had journeyed from London just to see me and seemed put out to find his brother already there.
Uncle Thomas joined us, putting on his oiliest voice. ‘Since I saw you last,’ he said to me, ‘you’ve grown up to be a good-looking young gentleman.’
I muttered something. It had only been two months since our last, embarrassing encounter, but he looked different too. He was showing his age, and had lost another tooth, disfiguring his smile. Though he was still the Lord Admiral, Uncle Thomas’s influence at court was much weakened by Queen Catherine’s death. He didn’t seem to realise this, or register that things had changed between us. The Lord Admiral carried on talking as though his brother wasn’t there.
‘I trust that within three or four years, you will be able to rule for yourself. Your Grace will be sixteen years old. I trust by that time Your Grace will be able to support the men that you choose, with such rewards as fall in Your Grace’s gift.’
I said nothing, glad that Uncle Edward was there. Uncle Thomas had his maths wrong. It would be more than four years before I was sixteen and I would not be a full king until I was eighteen. Uncle Thomas rambled on, not waiting for me to reply. Maybe he thought that I couldn’t speak freely because of his brother. But it was much more than that. I no longer felt comfortable in my uncle Thomas’s company. I wanted him to keep away from me.
9 A Dead Dog
Like all kings, I had my spies. At Whitehall, Uncle Thomas had been overheard telling people how unprotected his nephew was. It would be easy, he’d argued, for him to steal me away and keep me in his house. I’d be happier with him, he said.
There was another disturbing matter. When she was nine, Lady Jane Grey had been sent to live with Queen Catherine to learn manners and social graces. After my stepmother’s death, Jane should have left Uncle Thomas’s household and returned to her own family. Instead, Uncle Thomas did a thing he’d been planning since my father’s death. He bought the guardianship of Lady Jane (still fifth in line for the throne) from her father. Uncle Thomas had always thought that I should marry Lady Jane when we were both older. It was clear what he was playing at.
But there was no advantage to England in my marrying Jane. Uncle Edward would want me to make a marriage which expanded my kingdom. So, even though she lived in France and was engaged to a French prince, the little Scottish queen was still the favourite choice to be my bride.
I was becoming worried about my safety. My sister Mary still attended the Catholic Mass, which Uncle Edward was doing away with. But many people in England were practising Catholics and they were desperate to replace me with a Catholic queen. I could easily be murdered in my bed at Hampton Court. Without telling anyone, I took to locking my inner door at night, leaving Jester in the anteroom between my chamber and the next. That way, if anyone tried to break the door down, Jester’s barking would alert me.
One night, not long before I was due to return to Whitehall, I was woken by Jester barking. He never barked needlessly. I sat bolt upright, fear flooding through my body. As I waited, wide-eyed, I heard somebody trying the door. Finding the door locked, whoever it was tried all the harder to open it. Jester barked louder. They had a key, I could hear. It must be one of my men. I feared a fire and ran to the door, meaning to unbolt it. But if it was one of my men, why wasn’t he calling to me? Jester barked more fiercely. Then I heard my dog attack whoever was outside. The man in the antechamber swore.
I heard two gunshots. Immediately, there were rapid footsteps beyond the antechamber. Jester didn’t bark any more. Shakin
g, I realised what must have happened. By then, I could hear men running from all over the house, roused by the noise of the gunshots. Finally, through the thick door, I heard the familiar bluster of my uncle Thomas.
‘I am here to visit His Grace, the King. Why is his room bolted from the inside? How can this be allowed? Suppose he were to be taken ill? Unhand me!’
When I was sure that he was surrounded, I unbolted the door. My uncle Thomas, gun still in hand, was too distracted to notice my presence. I stood in my nightgown and watched as my yeomen questioned him. At last Thomas gave a mumbled explanation of what he was doing outside my room, in the middle of the night, with a gun in his hand.
‘I wished to know whether His Majesty was safely guarded.’
Some of the men seemed to accept this. I did not. At Uncle Thomas’s feet, unnoticed, lay my faithful friend Jester. He’d tried to protect me to the end. The dead dog’s blood seeped across the stone floor.
I didn’t venture out until they had taken Thomas away. Then I asked one of the yeomen how he had got in. It seems my uncle had climbed a wall and entered through the privy garden gate (for which he had a counterfeit key). Then he had made his way, undisturbed, to my bedchamber.
I don’t know what was going on in Thomas’s mind. Was he intending to talk to me or to kidnap me? Why did he bring a gun? Did he think, after all that had happened, I would still support him in becoming Protector? Whatever possessed him to make him kill my pet dog? Did he mean to kill me?
I had been a fool to trust him. But he was the bigger fool by far.
I buried Jester in the privy garden, digging the earth myself, damping it down with the first tears I had shed since my father died. Then I ordered that my uncle Thomas, the Lord Admiral, be sent to the Tower.
10 Traitors
Uncle Edward didn’t tell me what was happening at Thomas’s trial until it was nearly over. He was protecting me, I suppose. He thought I was still fond of his brother.
The Council heard thirty-five charges against Uncle Thomas. John Dudley, with his intelligent eyes and strong face, led the prosecution. It appeared that, after kidnapping me, Uncle Thomas meant to murder his own brother. Uncle Edward, the Protector, was made to look a fool.
More and more bad things came out about Thomas at the trial. My sister Elizabeth, now fifteen, was questioned for two weeks. She was suspected of plotting to marry Uncle Thomas. She admitted this had been discussed in her house, but insisted that there was never any agreement. There had been rumours that she was pregnant by Thomas. She denied them, adding that she would never have married before my sixteenth birthday or without the Council’s permission. But she had to say that. To do otherwise would be treason.
Day after day – all day – they questioned Elizabeth and her servants. My sister was tough. They did not break her. Eventually, they had to send her home.
Uncle Thomas demanded to be tried by jury rather than by the lords of the Council. He thought commoners would be more sympathetic to him. Dudley told Uncle Edward he’d be mad to allow it. As Lord Admiral, Thomas should be tried by other lords. That was when the Council had to put me in the picture. They couldn’t act without the King’s authority.
The meeting of the Council went on for a very long time. Every member agreed: my uncle Thomas was guilty of treason. I listened carefully to all the evidence. Was Thomas a true traitor? He wanted whatever he could get, but I didn’t believe he wanted me dead. Nevertheless, I agreed with the Council. Justice had to be done. I spoke from a complicated script which Uncle Edward had written for me. I tried to learn it by heart but still mucked up a little.
‘We do perceive that there is great things objected and laid to my Lord Admiral, mine uncle – and they tend to treason – and we perceive that you require but justice to be done.’ I hesitated, for my next words were a death warrant for the uncle I had once loved and admired. ‘We think it reasonable – and we will well that you proceed according to your request.’
After I’d spoken, the Council applauded heartily. I was their king and I had done what needed to be done. But Uncle Edward’s position as Protector had been undermined. From that point on, when the Council needed to make a decision, many looked first to John Dudley.
A week after the trial, the members of the Council came to me, led by Dudley. The great general spoke to me with passion and humility.
‘The Council feels that your uncle Thomas’s execution should go ahead without further troubling his brother, the Lord Protector.’
‘Why?’ I asked, for I did not want to undermine my uncle Edward.
‘The Protector is a great man,’ Dudley told me. ‘Some people think that he is too kind for his own good – his refusal to burn witches, for instance, or to allow death by boiling in oil… some see these as signs of weakness.’
‘Is it weak to be kind, or to give heretics a little time to change their mind?’
‘I agree, Your Grace. And I am merely trying to show the same kindness to the Protector. If you would sign this? It would be the work of a moment.’
I took the death warrant from him. Dudley was right. This was my responsibility. What kind of society expects a man to order the execution of his own brother? Then I read the warrant. By law, Thomas should be hung, drawn and quartered: the most horrible of deaths. I could not allow my once favourite uncle to be so tortured. I changed the wording. Then, with steady quill, I signed the warrant and handed it to Dudley.
‘I have ordered a simple beheading,’ I told him.
‘Very good, Your Grace. I’m sure the Council will appreciate the wisdom of your generosity’.
On the eighteenth of March, 1549, the night before his death, Uncle Thomas wrote notes to Elizabeth and Mary, sealing them in his shoe. But he was betrayed by his servants. The notes were found and destroyed. I still wonder what he was thinking. Elizabeth knew Thomas best. This day, she wrote to me, died a man of much wit and little judgment.
11 Night Flight
Things were coming to a head. That summer of 1549, when I was nearly twelve, there was rioting and unrest throughout England. There were two main grudges – land ownership and religion, and people felt very strongly about both of them.
For years now, rich landowners had been fencing off common land – land which had once belonged to everybody – for their own private use. No wonder poor people were getting angry. As Protector, my uncle had been raising taxes too. Nobody likes paying more money, especially when they don’t have much to begin with. Added to all this, the Catholics of England weren’t prepared to accept my religious reforms. They weren’t going to give up their old religion without a fight.
When things go wrong, leaders get the blame. As Protector, Uncle Edward was losing popularity fast. After his brother’s execution, he always seemed to be in a bad temper. Some blamed his nagging wife. Others blamed the economy, or the disastrous war in Scotland. Members of the Council complained that Uncle Edward never listened to advice. Worse, he kept changing his mind. One month he’d make new laws about religious reform or land rents. The next month he’d overturn them.
Dudley could see which way the wind was blowing, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready for any of it.
The first uprising against us was in Cornwall. Soon, landowners were under siege in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. I had been king for less than eighteen months.
Next, my sister Mary’s Catholic supporters started riots in Norwich, only twenty miles from her house. Exeter and Norwich were soon taken by the rebels.
My armies took back the towns. However, a rebel army, three thousand strong, remained just outside Norwich. John Dudley led the army against them. I daydreamed of being by his side, of proving myself as a warrior, like my father. And I waited.
It was September before Dudley returned to London, victorious. His men had destroyed the rebel army, mercilessly slaughtering every single man. We should all have been celebrating, but while Dudley went to meet the Council, Uncle Edward rode out in the opposite direction to v
isit me in Hampton Court. And he brought five hundred troops with him.
‘I have sent for Dudley,’ he told me. ‘We have matters to sort out.’
I didn’t understand why my uncle couldn’t see Dudley in London. Still, I looked forward to the great general’s arrival. His success with the rebels was all the more welcome because of my uncle’s failures in Scotland.
But Dudley stayed in London. My uncle dictated a letter to the Council, demanding Dudley’s presence. I had no choice but to sign it. After that was done, Uncle Edward paced the long corridors of Hampton Court, waiting for Dudley to arrive. Time crept by. It was a relief to leave him that night, go to my bed. But I had no sooner gone to sleep than my servants awoke me. Uncle Edward marched into my bed chamber, his face pinched with anger.
‘We have to go to Windsor,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safer there.’
‘Safe from whom?’ I asked. Windsor Castle was in a forest. Once its gates were locked behind me, it would be the devil’s own job for an enemy to get in.
‘I’ll explain on the way,’ Uncle Edward said. ‘We must leave at once.’
I wasn’t happy to be treated this way. Only my uncle could get away with it. I wondered, not for the first time, how we would get on when I came of age, in six years’ time. Then, uncle or no uncle, I would be fully in charge. I didn’t think he’d like it.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Uncle Edward as my valet packed some clothes.
‘A he told me. ‘Our support in the Council is falling away’
Did he mean my support, or his? My uncle seemed to think of himself as in charge. Wasn’t I the King? Or was I a mere pawn? On that very day, I discovered later, the members of the Council had set out for Hampton Court to see me, but my uncle had sent them a warning – if they tried to take me, he would have them arrested as traitors. So except for four men, they stayed away. Archbishop Cranmer and three other members of the Council carried on to join us. That was all the support my uncle had left.
