by Jean Plaidy
“I knew him once,” I said. “He was at my father's Court with his father. We played together when we were children. The others I have forgotten but I remember Robert Dudley well. I am sorry he is in such state now, but his father rose against the Queen and has paid the price for treason, and Robert Dudley stood with his father.”
“His brothers too, my lady. It is not long since Lord Guildford and my Lady Jane walked to their deaths.”
“Poor Lady Jane! She was blameless. Her father forced her to it and she had no choice but to obey.”
I fell silent after that. I should not be talking thus; but then I was always over-friendly with those below my rank. It was what made me so popular with the people.
When I returned from my walk on the lead, I could not stop thinking of Robert Dudley. His position was more unsafe than my own for he was actually under sentence of death.
I shivered, hoping that he would escape such a fate. Why should I care? Didn't he deserve it? He was one of those who had tried to put Jane Grey on the throne. But only because he had stood with his father. It was Northumberland who had raised the rebellion and made Jane Queen for little over a week at the cost of his own life and those of Jane and his son Guildford.
The Queen was justified in sending Robert Dudley to the Tower and sentencing him to death for that matter.
All the same he had made quite an impression on me as a child and he had an exceptional charm. I did not like to think of his handsome head being severed from his body.
SOME WEEKS LATER I was told by the guards that permission had been given for me to take a walk in the Tower Gardens. It is amazing what pleasure such small concessions can give when one has so little; and I well remember my walk in the gardens where the spring flowers were in bloom and the air seemed so fresh and balmy.
Moreover there were children playing in the gardens and I had always been interested in children. I had the same affinity with them as I had with ordinary people. I could speak to them as I could to the people, without royal reserve—which is very rare in persons of high rank.
There was one charming little boy. He must have been about five years old, perhaps younger. He smiled at me and said: “Good-day, Mistress.”
I paused and asked his name.
“It is Martin, Mistress,” he replied. “What is yours?”
“Elizabeth,” I told him.
“Do you walk in these gardens often?” he asked.
“Whenever I can. Do you?”
He nodded. “We live over there.”
“Martin!” Someone was calling him. I looked round and saw a young woman hurrying toward us. She dropped a curtsy and I smiled at her.
“I trust, my lady, the boy was not annoying you,” she said.
“Far from it. We were enjoying our conversation, were we not, Martin?”
He stared at me, tongue-tied before the woman who I presumed was his mother.
She told me that her husband was Keeper of the Queen's Robes and that Martin was allowed to play in the gardens because they did not often have distinguished visitors to them.
I said: “I trust my presence here will not mean that Martin is kept away. I should be most distressed if that were so.”
She took the child by his hand and bobbed a curtsy.
“You are very kind, my lady. Martin is a friendly boy and likes to talk.”
“Then I hope there will be other meetings for us, Martin,” I said.
I watched while she took him away. I felt warmed by the encounter.
After that I saw Martin often. He would smile when he saw me and run to me gleefully. Once he brought me some flowers and I was so delighted with this show of affection that he made a habit of it.
One day he said: “There is a gentleman in there.” He pointed to the walls of the Beauchamp Tower. “I see him when I go with my father.”
“What sort of gentleman?”
“A very nice gentleman.”
“Does he talk to you?”
“Yes, he does.”
“As I do?”
He nodded.
“What does he say?”
“He says there is a princess in the Tower. My lady, is it you?”
“Yes,” I said. “And did you tell him that you had spoken with me?”
He nodded.
“And what did he say?”
He said: “Tell the Princess… tell the Princess…”
“Yes, yes.”
He was concentrating hard trying to remember. He said: “Tell her…”
“Yes, yes, tell her what?”
He frowned and finally burst out: “That I am thinking of her and—”
“And what?”
“How…I can serve her.”
“He really asked you to tell me that?”
He nodded vigorously.
“And you have not told anyone else… only me.”
Again that nod. “The gentleman said…”
“Yes, yes.”
“Only tell you… and no one else.”
I stooped and kissed him. “Thank you, Martin. You are a very clever boy.”
He looked pleased and when I went back to my prison I thought a great deal about Robert Dudley.
THE GLOOM SEEMED to be lifting. I felt alive again. It was ridiculous. I was still a prisoner in the Tower and my enemies were still plotting my downfall; but the thought that there was someone here—a young handsome man of about my own age—who was thinking of me, sending me messages, assuring me of his devotion, worked like a miracle with me. My health improved. The great occasions of my days were those interludes in the gardens. Another child had joined us. This was Susannah, the daughter of one of the warders. The children would walk with me and enliven me with their childish prattle and young Martin, with the dignity of his five years—I think Susannah could not have been more than three—conveyed messages between Robert Dudley and me. He was able to tell Lord Robert that his messages had heartened me and my thoughts were with him, even as his were with me.
It was an exciting game for the child, and his youth made him an excellent participator in the intrigue. I could have wished he had been a bit older though, then perhaps our messages could have been more productive; but I suppose if he had been I should not have been allowed this friendship with him.
There was little Robert Dudley could offer me other than comfort, nor I him. We were not such fools as to think about escape. That would be folly. Failure would surely cost me my head. What we did for each other was to establish a communion of friendship which I was to remember always, and often in later years my thoughts would go back to that garden and the messages of comfort which I received from the prisoner in the Beauchamp Tower. Robert's close presence gave me strength when I needed it and courage to endure what was waiting for me, as my responses did for him.
I do not know how long this would have gone on but for one unfortunate incident.
I used to tell the children stories of my life and they knew that I was a princess. I would describe the Court to them and the feasts which used to take place in the great banqueting halls. They listened avidly and it dawned on them that I must be living very differently as a prisoner in the Tower.
Their eyes would fill with tears when I told them that I had been brought here because the Queen was not pleased with me. I was flattered because they could not understand how anyone could be unkind to me.
One day Susannah found a bunch of keys in the gardens. They must have been dropped by one of the warders when he was hurrying from one tower to another… Keys opened doors, reasoned Susannah; and she had seen the guards escort me to and from the gardens. Her experiences of the Tower told her that people were locked up there, so she thought that if I had the keys I should be able to open doors and escape.
She brought the keys to me.
“They are for you, Mistress,” she said. “Now you can open the doors and stop being a prisoner in the Tower.”
Her innocent eyes were full of love for me and delight in her
cleverness in giving me the means of freedom. I put my arms round her and kissed her and I said that I wished some of the mighty lords of the kingdom would have done as much for me.
Martin cried excitedly: “They will open the doors, Mistress.” He looked sad suddenly. “You will go away.” He brightened. “We shall come to see you.”
I took the keys and said: “May God bless you, my children. But I do not think these keys will open the right doors. So you still have me with you.”
They clapped their hands and just at that moment one of the guards came out.
“I must ask you, my lady,” he said, “to give me those keys.”
I explained that Susannah had found them in the gardens.
He took them from me. I guessed that one of the guards must have lost them and was feeling very anxious about them, and the fact that they had fallen into my hands gave him twinges of anxiety, for although the keys would have been no use to me, there was something symbolic about keys— as the children had thought.
There must have been great consternation among the guards. The lost keys had been found, but the children had brought them to me. Just suppose they had been the keys to my prison cell. They must have been filled with terror to contemplate the consequences if, through the carelessness of guards, I was to escape from the Tower.
The next day when I went down to the gardens the children were not there. I was very disappointed. Not only had I lost them but also the heartening messages from Robert Dudley.
Then a few days later I saw Martin. One of the gates had been locked and he was standing on the other side of it. He stretched out his arms and said: “Mistress, I am to bring you no more flowers.”
Almost immediately his father appeared and taking him by the hand led him away.
I WAS MOVING fast into a very dangerous period and when I look back it seems as though Heaven was surely watching over me for I had at least one miraculous escape from death.
There was more and more opposition to the Spanish marriage and the near-certainty of having the Catholic Faith imposed on the nation. Already the use of English prayers and Protestant rites was prohibited, and the Protestant community, which was in the majority, was feeling restive. No one disputed Mary's right to the throne; on the other hand there was fierce opposition to her religious intolerance. Gardiner, aided by Renaud, the Spanish Ambassador, who since the proposed alliance with Spain had become one of the most important men in the Queen's Council, was agitating for my death. I was a great threat to the Queen and her projects, they pointed out, because I was the Protestant heiress to the throne. I realize now that Mary must have been distracted by the voices at her elbow. Her conscience would torment her if she agreed to my death; but she could not fail to see that I might stand in the way of her most cherished dream, and to a woman of Mary's unquestioning faith the life of one young woman was of small importance against the establishment of the Church of Rome in England.
Strangely enough the Catholic Earl of Arundel was against my death; so were Pembroke and Sussex. They were kindly men who could not agree to the murder of an innocent young woman, and my perilous situation aroused their sympathy. Then there was my kinsman Lord William Howard, Admiral of the Fleet. It was hardly likely that he would agree to the execution of a close relative who had been proved innocent of complicity in the Wyatt conspiracy. Moreover he held great authority, having the fleet at his command.
Therefore Mary had to go cautiously, and so anxious was she that she became ill. News filtered through to me that this was the case and I had, as a matter of fact, noticed a certain increase in the deference shown to me. I might judge the state of the Queen's health by this. My feelings were mixed. I had always had some affection for Mary. It was not overwhelming, I must admit. I thought her foolish to let religion rule her judgment, particularly a form which was not popular among the majority of her subjects. She was aloof—not a person who displayed much affection or encouraged others to—but she was my sister, and I had lived with her from time to time, and there was a family tie. Ever present, too, was the knowledge that her death could be my life—not the life of a prisoner, but that of a queen. I had had visions of people's storming the Tower, demanding my freedom and that of Lord Robert Dudley too. I could picture his kneeling to kiss my hand. I could hear the shouts of the people in the streets. The time was ripe now. I was no longer a child but a young woman capable of becoming the Queen of a great country. She is my sister, I kept telling myself. It was true and I was fond of her…in a way, as she was perhaps of me… but how can one help one's thoughts?
It was her ailing health which almost proved fatal to me.
One of my greatest pieces of good fortune was that Thomas Bridges, who had recently become Lord Chandos, the Lieutenant of the Tower, was a good and honest man, and one who was not afraid to do what he considered his duty. But for that I should never have walked out of the Tower alive.
He came to me in some distress to tell me that he had received a warrant for my immediate execution. Because the matter was presented with such urgency and there was no reason why the warrant should have been issued at this time, his suspicions were aroused. Had it been at the time when Wyatt was in the Tower and I was suspected with him, it would have been another matter; but my innocence had been established by Wyatt's confession on the scaffold. Moreover the Queen was confined to bed with a serious illness.
He read the warrant to me. I felt numb but I shed no tears. What I had dreaded had come to pass and I could not help wondering about my mother's anguish when she had been presented with such a warrant. Now it was my turn.
“When will this evil deed be done?” I asked.
“The order is that it shall be done without delay.”
“So be it,” I said. “My time has come. Those who shed my innocent blood will have to answer for their deeds to God.”
Chandos looked like a stricken man. I knew that he hated this to happen while he was in charge of the Tower, but of course he would have to obey orders.
When he left me I felt extraordinarily calm. One of my women came in and I told her what Lord Chandos had said. Poor woman, she fell into such weeping that I had to comfort her.
“Do not weep for me,” I said. “It is those who are left who are going to suffer. I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I have always been the Queen's faithful subject. My enemies have poisoned her mind against me and she will suffer deeply over this.”
I waited. I was praying silently all the time—not so much for deliverance as to be given the strength to face with courage what lay before me.
Lord Chandos came to me again. He dismissed my women and spoke to me earnestly. “I do not intend to carry out this order and I wish you to know that without delay.”
“You will not dare to go against the Queen's order.”
“My lady, I believe this to be no order from the Queen, but from others.”
“Please explain, Lord Chandos.”
“When I received the document and knew what it was, I was overcome with grief and I thought you should be warned at once in order to make your peace with God, for I feared the executioner would not delay his visit. But when I examined the warrant closely, I saw that it did not contain the sovereign's signature which is usual in these cases.”
“Not the Queen's signature! Then…”
“My lady, the Queen is very sick and has taken to her bed. It occurs to me that some may have taken advantage of this.”
“Stephen Gardiner has done this,” I said.
Lord Chandos did not speak but I guessed that he agreed with me. The Queen was ill and Gardiner was terrified that I might come to the throne, for he had clearly shown himself to be my enemy, so his plan had been to dispatch me speedily and when the Queen recovered—if she did—to present her with a fait accompli, and the country would be without its Protestant heiress.
“What shall you do, my lord?” I asked.
“I shall say that I refuse to carry out such an order except unde
r the command of the Queen.”
An immense relief swept over me because I believed fervently that she would not sign my death warrant until Gardiner, Renaud and the rest of my enemies could prove something against me. This would not be easy to do because I had committed no treason and I should take good care not to do so.
So Lord Chandos saved my life, for it was true that Mary had no knowledge of such a document and when she recovered and learned what had been done she was very disturbed. It must have occurred to her that one who would go so far as to send a death warrant, hoping that the absence of the royal signature would not be noticed, would stoop to any means to be rid of me. She, who was truly religious, did not want murder on her conscience.
I discovered later that her attitude toward me changed from that time, and she was most displeased if anyone spoke disparagingly of me. She referred to me again as her sister, and my portrait, which had been taken away and hidden, was restored to its place in the gallery beside her own.
She was very uneasy and clearly did not trust those about her. She must have been a most unhappy woman. I was in danger of imminent death but even at such a time I would not have wished to be in her shoes.
Chandos came to me. He was in a state of bewilderment.
He said: “The Queen is sending Sir Henry Bedingfeld to be in charge of the Tower and I think this is because of recent happenings.”
I was overcome with horror. “But, my Lord Chandos…do you mean that Sir Henry Bedingfeld is coming here to guard me?”
“It would seem so, my lady. I wish you well. I am sorry I can no longer be of service to you.”
“You have served me well, Lord Chandos, and that is something I shall never forget. Tell me… this Bedingfeld, what sort of man is he?”
“A stern Catholic, my lady, but I believe him to be a man of high principles.”
“One who would be ready to commit murder for a cause?”
“I think not.”
“Was it not his father who was the jailer of my father's first wife, Katharine of Aragon, when she was at Kimbolton?”
