by Jean Plaidy
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when we came to Whitehall and entered the palace through the gardens. At least it was not the Tower. If I could see Mary, if I could explain my innocence, I believed I could convince her. She would not want to shed my blood; she had been lenient to Jane Grey; how much more so would she be toward her own sister?
The suspense was almost more than I could bear and I did not now have to feign illness. I was, in fact, a prisoner; I had been allowed to keep with me only six ladies, two gentlemen and four servants from my own household. The others whom I had brought with me were sent away. Guards were stationed at the doors of my apartments in the palace and none of my household was allowed to leave.
There was one consolation. Mary was under the same roof. If only I could see her! I was innocent. I longed to be Queen, it was true, but I had no wish to replace her. I accepted her as the true Queen while she lived. I must let her know this.
I begged the guards to take a message to her, and this they did. The reply was that the Queen had no wish to see me.
It was not long before the questioning began. I was interrogated by Gardiner and Lords Arundel and Paget, and I quickly understood that they were all determined on my destruction. They tried to force me to admit guilt. I stood resolute, insisting that I had known nothing of the insurrection and I had had no part in it.
“Do you admit that Lord Russell came to Ashridge and asked you, on behalf of Sir Thomas Wyatt, to remove far from London?”
“I admit this was so, but I remained, for being innocent I saw no reason for running away.”
“You have had other communications with Sir Thomas Wyatt.”
“I have had none.”
“He has accused you and Courtenay with complicity in this plot which was for you to marry Courtenay and take the throne.”
“It is lies. Do you believe what a man says under torture?”
“He has mentioned your name and that of Courtenay who is lodged in the Tower.”
I felt sick with fear. If these men were lying about me what hope had I of proving my innocence?
“Letters have been intercepted between Wyatt and the French Ambassador.”
“To what effect?”
“That there is a plot to marry you and Courtenay and set you on the throne.”
“Why should the French Ambassador support such a plot?”
“Because the French are against the Spanish marriage.”
“Do you imagine they would support me? They have a pretender to the throne of their own—Mary Stuart.”
“There were letters.”
“It is all lies.”
Innocence is a powerful advocate and mine helped me to stand out against them. The fact that Wyatt had implicated me was damning. How could he? But how can one question what a man says under extreme torture?
At last the questions ceased and I was left alone.
The weary days passed. Mary would not see me. Each day I waited. Each day the fears increased.
It was difficult to get any news but I did hear that Wyatt and Courtenay were in the Tower under sentence of death and it seemed very possible that I should soon be in like case.
From the window I could see the white coats of the guards who were stationed round the palace lest there should be an attempt to free me. More guards were at my doors. They were determined to keep me closely watched.
Then one day what I had been dreading happened. The Earl of Sussex came to me with another member of the Council to tell me to prepare to leave.
“For what destination?” I asked fearfully.
Then came the answer which I had long feared. “You are to be lodged in the Tower, Your Grace.”
“No!” I cried and covered my face with my hands.
Sussex said gently: “It is the orders of the Queen, my lady. The barge is waiting to conduct you there.”
“I cannot go to that place,” I said. “It is not for honest subjects of the Queen.”
“My lady, these are my orders and I must obey them.”
There was a kindliness about him. He did not wish me ill as Gardiner did.
I said: “I must see the Queen.”
“The Queen will not see you, my lady.”
“If I write to her would you take a letter to her?”
He hesitated. He knew that the Queen did not want to receive a plea from me, but he was a good man and I was young and I suppose appealing.
There was another thought which occurred to me. I was next in line to the succession. Events often took an unexpected turn. Perhaps he remembered that he could be dealing with his future Queen.
Whatever the reason, he softened and said that if I wished to write to the Queen, he would do his best to deliver the letter.
I sat down at once and reminded her of our last meeting when she had promised that if she heard anything against me, she would not condemn me without giving me a chance to defend myself, and it seemed that now I was condemned, for I was to be sent to the Tower, a place more suitable for a false traitor than for a true subject of the Queen. I did not deserve such a fate, and I prayed to God that I might die the most shameful death if I did. Therefore I was pleading with her to let me answer to her before I was sent to the Tower, and if that was too late, before I was condemned. I reminded her that I had heard that Thomas Seymour had said that if he had been allowed to see his brother, he would never have been condemned to death. I prayed that the evil persuasions to set one sister against another would be shown to her to be false as I knew them to be. I begged her to see me that I might assure her of my innocence.
It was the Saturday before Palm Sunday, and clearly they did not wish the people to see me conducted along the river on such a day. The plan had been to take me after dark so that I could not be seen and thus the people would not know I was being taken to the Tower until I was safely there.
However, in allowing me to write my letter over which I took some time, Sussex had made the mistake of missing the tide. There was consternation for this meant that the journey along the river could not be made until daylight. My spirits were lifted a little—a very little—because they should set such store by the people's not seeing me, which showed it was something of which the good citizens would not approve. My enemies knew of my popularity and even if they believed me guilty of trying to stop unity between England and Spain, they would not be so averse to that either.
It was decided that I should go during the time of morning service when there would be few people about. At least that gave me a few more hours of freedom from that terrifying place.
At nine o'clock on the Palm Sunday morning I was taken to the stairs. I had to walk through the gardens to the river and all the way I was praying that someone would come to my rescue.
I looked back at the palace. There were people watching but no one came forward to speak to me.
“I marvel,” I said bitterly, “what the nobles mean by suffering me, a prince, to be led into captivity, the Lord knoweth wherefore, for myself I do not.”
The barge sped quickly along the river. They were very nervous, those men. My words had sunk home. I was the heir to the throne and I was being hurried ignobly into captivity.
The tide had not yet risen high enough to allow us to shoot the bridge and the fall of water being so great at that point, there was danger to the boat. The boatmen declined to go forward. I was exultant. Were they telling me that they would not be party to this terrible action which was being taken against me?
My escorts however insisted that we proceed. The Queen had expressed displeasure that I had not been taken to the Tower on the previous night as had been arranged. There would be great trouble if there was further delay. She would be very suspicious, construing it as a reluctance on the part of her subjects to imprison her sister. The stern of the boat struck the piles at the side of the bridge and for a moment I thought we were all going to be thrown into the river. I did not greatly care. But the barge righted itself and we were on our way.
“These are our orders, Your Grace” was the reply.
The rain had started. It was a blustery March day. Palm Sunday! It was a time for rejoicing although the following week the fickle people had cried, “Crucify him.”
“My lady, you must alight here,” I was told.
The water was splashing about the stairs. “How can I?” I asked. “Must I walk through the water?”
“My lady, you must.”
So I stepped out and the water splashed over my shoes.
The Lieutenant of the Tower had come out to greet me and someone offered me a cloak which I declined. I said in a loud voice so that all could hear: “Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs.”
Several of the warders and servants of the Tower came out to see me, and I was deeply moved when many of them knelt down and cried out: “May God preserve Your Grace.”
How that heartened me! Even as a poor prisoner I had not lost the power to draw out their affection. Some of them were weeping and I knew that this was because they did not expect me to leave this place alive.
Before me rose the gate—the Traitor's Gate—and I could not bring myself to pass through it. I sat down on the cold stones and stared ahead of me.
The Lieutenant of the Tower came to me and said gently: “Madam, you sit unwholesomely.”
“It may be that I am better here than in a worse place,” I answered. One of my ushers burst into tears and seeing him thus weeping gave me strength.
“Come,” I said, “you should be comforting me, especially as you know the truth, that I am innocent of charges brought against me, so that none has any cause to weep for me.”
I stood up and allowed myself to be led to the room which had been prepared for me. It was on the first floor of the Bell Tower—a large vaulted chamber with three pointed windows and deep window-seats.
The door was bolted on us. I sat down wearily, damp, cold and desperate.
That which I had feared for so long had befallen me. I was a prisoner in the Tower of London.
WITHIN THOSE DARK stone walls there were many memories and chief of these must be of my mother. In such a way had she been brought to this grim fortress; the same despair had been hers. Her husband had been determined to destroy her; my sister felt the same about me. But did she? I could hardly believe that of Mary, and I could not help feeling that had I been able to speak to her, she would have listened to me. I remembered so vividly that terrible moment in the courtyard when my terrified mother had held me up to my glittering, all-powerful father. His cold indifference was what had made it so hard to bear. Was Mary indifferent to me? She was surrounded by men who wished to destroy me because they thought I was a threat to their ambitions. Mary believed that I was damned because I refused to accept her faith. She was not devoid of sisterly feelings, but she was a fanatic and fanatics let no human feelings stand in the way of what they believe to be right. Mary intended to bring England back to Rome and I stood in the way.
The days seemed endless; the nights even longer. Kat had not been allowed to come with me and how I missed her! But I had one or two good friends with me. Lovely Isabella Markham who had recently married Sir John Harrington was one, and Elizabeth Sand another. They did their best to make me comfortable.
Isabella said: “Did you notice how respectful the guards were, my lady? They remember you are the King's daughter. They will treat you well.”
“Being the King's wife did not save my mother from death.”
They were silent. They knew I only spoke of my mother in moments of extreme stress.
I put my hands to my throat and said: “When they send me out to Tower Green I shall ask for a sword to be sent from France. I will not have the axe.”
They all fell to weeping and I had to comfort them.
The following day Gardiner came with nine Lords of the Council and when I saw my hated enemy I feared the worst. He had come to extract a confession from me to the effect that I had been involved in Wyatt's schemes, and began by accusing me of receiving letters from the traitor.
“I received no letters from Wyatt,” I insisted.
“Letters from him to you have been intercepted,” retorted Gardiner.
“Then perhaps that is why I received none.”
“Wyatt has confessed to your involvement.”
“Then Wyatt is a liar as well as a traitor.”
I was always at my best in these verbal battles and in spite of my terrible fears I answered the questions lucidly, and Gardiner could not trap me.
One of the members of the Council, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, looked uncomfortable while Gardiner was badgering me. Arundel was an ardent Catholic. He would see me as a danger to the plans for a Spanish marriage and the conversion to Rome, and I had thought he would be a deadly enemy; oddly enough I seemed to arouse some compassion in him. Perhaps in spite of my proud and fiery nature and my determination never to be subdued by any man, there was something essentially feminine about me. I had noticed it many times and this quality seemed to arouse a certain protective instinct in the opposite sex. Now here it was with Arundel. Because of the ever-present danger in which I stood, my awareness had intensified and I saw his attitude changing as Gardiner proceeded with the questions.
At length he held up his hand and looked at Gardiner with some distaste. “It is clear to me,” he said, “that Her Grace speaks truth and for my part I am sorry to see her troubled on such vain matters.”
Gardiner was very annoyed with Arundel, particularly as some other members of the Council were swaying toward the Earl, and Gardiner saw that he was losing sympathy—and with it authority.
They took their leave and when they did, Arundel went on his knees and kissed my hand. That gave me new courage. I had a certain power of which people were aware but I must not allow myself to be deceived by undue optimism and must try to look clearly into the hearts and minds of my enemies. How much of the deference these men showed me was due to my own personal abilities and how much to the fact that I was young and Mary was ill and aging? How many were asking themselves: This young woman who is being persecuted could be our Queen one day. What then? She will remember me this day.
But I had begun to regain a little of my spirits and with that came hope.
One day seemed to merge into another—so alike were they. When I awoke my first thoughts were, What will happen today? I used to dream that the people rose up and came to free me. They had always loved me better than Mary. They said I was my father's daughter, that I looked like him, that I had his spirit. Would any care enough? It was significant that my room was immediately below the great alarm bell. Had they put me there to remind me that at any attempt to escape that bell would ring out, warning my captors of my flight?
In my mind I died a thousand deaths during those weeks. I would wake in the morning and put my hands to my throat. My mother had said hysterically, when she knew what her fate was to be: “I have a little neck…” I wished I could stop thinking of her.
Such mental anguish must have its effect on the body. I became ill and had to keep to my bed. This alarmed my jailers and I was quick to sense their uneasiness.
The day for Wyatt's execution came and on the scaffold he made a brave speech in which he accepted full responsibility for his actions and wholeheartedly withdrew the accusations he had made against me and Courtenay under torture.
I was greatly relieved because now there was no true case against me. Gardiner, Renaud and all my enemies would have to be very careful before they sentenced me to death. It was like a reprieve.
News drifted in from the outside world. My servants talked with the guards and so I learned something of what was going on. Wyatt's body had been barbarously treated after the execution and parts of it were exhibited over the town, while his head was attached to a gallows at Hay Hill n
ear Hyde Park.
When I heard that after Wyatt's confession Courtenay was released but exiled, my hopes rose. Surely they could not keep me prisoner now! Wyatt had confessed that he had wrongfully incriminated me and that I had nothing to do with his insurrection, so what reason had they for keeping me in the Tower?
A very big one, they might say. I was a menace to the plans for returning England to Rome, which the greater majority of the people did not want. I would not be the first person of royal blood who had been sent to a lifetime in the Tower for no other reason than that she or he possessed a claim to royalty.
But they were very much afraid. My health was causing anxiety. They wanted my death but they did not want to be accused of causing it.
A doctor was sent to me and it was suggested that I should take a little air and exercise. There was what they called a lead—a very narrow path— which the warders used when they wanted to get from one Tower to another. This path between the battlements went from a door in the Bell Tower to one in the Beauchamp Tower. I could have no hope of escaping from this narrow path and just in case an attempt was made, two guards were to walk in front of me and one behind.
Even such a small concession was welcome. It was pleasant to be able to escape from the stone walls to the fresh air even with such restraints.
I was quite friendly with my guards for that affinity with the common people was ever present in my nature and they were courteous to me—partly because no doubt they remembered that I would one day be their Queen.
We would pause on the path and look round and I would ask questions about the Tower of which they were very proud and knowledgeable.
We would walk right along the lead to the Beauchamp Tower.
“I'll swear there are prisoners in there who would long to walk along the lead as far as the Bell Tower,” I said.
They agreed that this must be so and one added: “I know of one who more than most chafes against inactivity, my lady.”
“Oh? And who might that be?” I asked. “Lord Robert Dudley. He is there… poor gentleman…a most handsome nobleman of much grace. He is under sentence of death and knows not each day when he wakes whether it will be his last.”
