Queen of This Realm

by Jean Plaidy

  Philip took advantage of the Queen's annoyance and that of her ministers in the interference of the French over Stafford to get further English help for Spain against the French; and having succeeded in this I fancy he felt that his visit was not altogether without results. He had not married me off, but he had succeeded in involving England in his conflict with the French.

  I was sorry for Mary after he had gone. She was so pathetic, so ill, so lacking in feminine attractions; and in her heart she knew that he had no love for her at all. Strangely enough it was to me she turned in those months which followed. After all, whatever conflict there was between us, I was her sister, and she was a very lonely woman. She had no friends of whom she could be sure, and her only hope of close contact with her own was through me.

  I knew this and I tried to be tender to her. I could not exactly love her. It was not easy to love Mary; and in those last days I could never be in her presence without thinking of those people whom she had sent to the stake in the name of religion. Indeed, if one rode out into the streets of London one could not but be aware of the pall of smoke which hung over Smithfield; and I was often sickened when I fancied I could detect the odor of burning flesh in the air. Yet she did not suffer any qualms about the terrible suffering which was being inflicted in her name.

  She was such an unhappy woman—but perhaps she should have been. If only she had not suffered so in her youth and seen her beloved mother so humiliated; if she could have married when she was young and had children, she might have been different. She was never one to show her affection— except with Philip. She was more honest than I. I could act and imply friendship when it was wise to do so. I could go to Mass, but when the time came I was going to stand firm as the Protestant Queen. All this I could do; but Mary never could. She would never dissemble and would always stand by what she considered to be the truth.

  We talked now and then together in a sisterly fashion. There was a possibility, she said, that she might yet have a child.

  I said I hoped she would be blessed.

  So I did, but not with a child. Sometimes I would wake in the night and start up thinking that my sister had been delivered of a beautiful boy. Then I would come back to reality and I knew in my heart that she would never bear a healthy child. I knew too that time was running out for her.

  I hoped it would not be long. I wanted to be Queen while I still had my youthful freshness, which was important to me. I was paid many compliments but I did realize that the nearer one came to the throne the more glowing they would be. I liked to think of myself as beautiful but in my franker moments I knew that while I was pleasant to look at, I lacked that beauty which many Court ladies possessed. I had my bright hair and my eyes were large and tawny which made them rather striking, but my eyebrows and lashes were pale. I needed long dark lashes and well-defined brows to show off my eyes. I was tallish and straight and elegant in figure and my white skin and hands and tapering fingers were my greatest beauty. So I was fair enough and being royal, I could be called a beauty. But when I rode through the streets to be acclaimed as Queen I did not want to have lost my youthful freshness.

  I spent my time between the Court and Hatfield, and during that time Hatfield was still something of a prison because I was guarded night and day and no one came and went without its being reported to the Queen.

  Sir Thomas Pope was always trying to divert me and I was often allowed to hunt. When we journeyed from one place to another we went in search of the hart and Sir Thomas always made that something of a ceremony. I would have my retinue of ladies dressed in white satin seated on their palfreys and my yeomen all in green, and I of course would be splendidly clad and the privilege of cutting the throat of the captured animal always fell to me.

  Gustavus Vasa, the King of Sweden, was asking for my hand for his son Eric and again I felt a mingling of excitement and determination to refuse, but it pleased me very much to be asked in marriage though I had every intention of refusing.

  The relationship between my sister and myself had so improved that when I went to Richmond to visit her she sent a royal barge for me with an awning of green silk decorated with fresh flowers—a mark of her respect for me and my position as her heiress.

  To be in her company might have been something of a strain but I was adept at guiding the conversation in the way I wished it to go, and because outwardly I accepted the Catholic Faith Mary was guileless enough to believe that I was converted. I had to avoid the subject of religion and the terrible events in Smithfield for if they were mentioned I feared I might show my repugnance.

  I was delighted that she made no effort to persuade or even force me to marry. She knew of the offer from Eric of Sweden which I had rejected, but I had carefully said in my reply that I should not dream of marrying without the Queen's consent, which had pleased her, for Gustavus had approached me first, which was unusual in these matters. I insisted that I had no wish to marry.

  “You will one day,” she answered.

  “As yet,” I replied, “the virgin state is the one I wish for.”

  She smiled at me. “There are great blessings in marriage,” she said wistfully.

  Blessings! Had she found them with Philip? An indifferent husband, whose sole reason for marrying was the power and political advantage it would bring him, whose visits to her were clearly distasteful to him, an unpleasant duty which must be performed in the hope of getting an heir, slinking off incognito for an assignation with the baker's daughter. Marriage! Oh no, not for me! Mary might have kept her dignity intact if she had never married.

  The more I thought of marriage—and when I did my thoughts were dominated by my mother—the less I desired it.

  The safe subject with Mary was the child she believed she carried and I was making some garments with the most delicate embroidery—at which I was quite good—and Mary was delighted with them.

  I shall never forget the sight of her as she sat holding the tiny shift in her hands and that look of bliss on her face as she contemplated the joy of having the child she hoped to bear. It was particularly poignant as I was sure— as was everyone else—that she would never have a child.

  But she softened toward me, and I toward her, because I saw her then as she was, a lonely woman reaching for affection. She spoke of Philip tenderly—and it was not the Philip he was but the one she had gulled herself to believe he was. “A great man,” she said, “and a great King. I am the luckiest woman on Earth to be his wife.”

  I could not bear it. I was not given to tears but I wanted to weep then.

  She twisted the ring on her finger. It was black enamel and gold. She called it her betrothal ring.

  “I look at it often,” she said. “It reminds me of Philip when he is absent. Of course, it is inevitable that he must be absent. He has a great country to rule. I would that he could be beside me all the time. One day, sister, you will know the blessings of a good husband.”

  I could scarcely prevent myself from protesting. I wanted no husband, least of all a power-seeking cynic like Philip.

  “This ring is so precious to me,” she said. “I have vowed it shall never leave my finger while I live.”

  I took her hand and kissed it.

  “I hope, sister, that it will remain there for a very long time,” I said, which was not exactly true. Yet I pitied her.

  Was it wrong to hope for Mary's death? Perhaps. But what had life to offer her but lost hopes, a heartless husband and a childless fate? Even more important, what had England to hope for under her rule? In any case one cannot help one's thoughts and I knew that I was the one chosen to lead my country from disaster.

  So friendly did she become toward me that she proposed to visit me at Hatfield. Sir Thomas Pope was thrown into a fever of anticipation and he and I discussed with great excitement how we would entertain the Queen. The cost would be enormous, but Sir Thomas was a very wealthy man and I was not poor so we determined to entertain the Queen in a royal manner. Sir Thomas had in his
possession a set of superb tapestries representing the siege of Antioch and I proposed that we decorate the state chamber with these. He was very ready to do anything to please me and agreed immediately.

  When they were hung we reviewed them with great pride and Sir Thomas said to me: “It may well be that when Her Majesty comes, she will urge you to marry.”

  “Sir Thomas,” I replied firmly, “since I have become mature I have made up my mind that I do not wish to marry.”

  He smiled indulgently, for we were the best of friends. “Your Grace will change her mind when some suitable person comes to you with the Queen's consent.”

  “My dear Sir Thomas,” I replied, “what I shall do hereafter I know not, but I assure you upon my truth and fidelity and as God be merciful unto me, I am not at this time otherwise minded than I have declared unto you. No, though I were offered the greatest prince in Europe.”

  He merely smiled at me. I was sure he thought my remarks were not to be taken too seriously.

  “Come,” I said, “let us talk of other matters. We should have a play to entertain Her Majesty.”

  So we went on with our arrangements. There was a play after supper which was performed by the choirboys of St Paul's which pleased the Queen. We had been careful not to arrange a boisterous entertainment but to concentrate entirely on the tastes of the Queen, which meant presenting music and singing. I accompanied one of the boys on the virginals. He had a pure and lovely voice which enchanted the Queen.

  It was a very successful visit and I was glad that Mary and I were on better terms and she seemed no longer to suspect me of plotting to depose her. One only had to look at her poor yellow face and her swollen body—not with child as she so fondly hoped, but with disease—to realize that she could not live for many more months.

  It was a disastrous year for her. The time had come when she had to accept that she was not pregnant and never had been. The protuberance which she had fondly hoped was a child was some growth within her. It seemed now that my accession was inevitable. She accepted it and so did Philip; and so did the people. With the coming of the new year, so disastrous for Mary, so thrilling for me, events were moving fast.

  Appeals were coming from the town of Calais, the only town left to England of all the conquests of Edward III and Henry V. The French, enraged by England's alliance with Spain, had marched on Calais and on a bitterly cold January day we heard that the town had surrendered to the Duke of Guise.

  Mary was frantic. Calais was not so very important; it was difficult to defend it; but it was the last possession on the coast of France and it had been held for generations as a symbol that the English still had one foot in France. And she had lost it because she had allowed Philip to persuade her to join him in war against the French.

  I often wondered then if that poor unhappy woman ever thought what disaster the Spanish marriage had brought to her and her country. Oh, what a lesson! The people had been against it and one must always have the people on one's side. Yes, the people had hated the Spanish marriage; it had brought a religious intolerance to England, not known since the persecution of the Templars. Men and women were being burned at the stake. Who was ever going to forget Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper? The marriage had failed to produce the only thing which would have made it worthwhile from Mary's point of view—and now the last disaster. The English had lost Calais.

  Unreasonable in her grief, the Queen begged the Council to spare no effort to regain the town which she called the chief jewel of our realm. The Council pointed out to her the cost of such an operation and if the town were regained it would have to be held at even more expense, for it was obvious that, having captured it, the French would be determined to retain it— and in short, the town was not worth the effort of recapturing it.

  Mary mourned deeply. She said that when she died they would find “Calais” written across her heart.

  Meanwhile life at Hatfield was changing. There was a less rigorous guard on me. Sir Thomas Pope had always been my good friend so there was little change in his attitude toward me. It was different with others. Visitors came to Hatfield from Court and there was a clear indication in their manner toward me that they already regarded me as their Queen.

  One of my best friends was Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, an ardent Protestant. In fact I detected a certain fanaticism in him which I did not share, for I did not like that stern unrelenting attitude from whichever side it came. It was dangerous, bred cruelty and intolerance and prevented one from changing one's mind when it would be wise to do so.

  All the same I knew that Sir Nicholas would be a good friend to me because in spite of recent deviation for form's sake, I represented the Protestants. He had been suspect at the time of Wyatt's rebellion and had only narrowly escaped death then. He was well versed in political affairs and had a wide knowledge of what was happening at Court; and his visits to Hatfield were becoming more frequent. I knew from Sir Nicholas how rapidly the Queen's health was declining.

  “There are rumors of her death,” he said, “even while she lives.”

  “One must be careful not to be misled by rumor,” I replied.

  “Indeed that is so, Your Grace. The Queen is so sick and clearly on her death-bed. People are being put in the pillory because they are saying she is already dead.”

  “I shall need proof before I believe it. And the burnings?” I continued.

  “They go on apace. It would seem as though the Queen believes that the more people who die in torment, the greater her glory in Heaven. As I left London a poor woman named Alice Driver was preparing for her death and the people had come out to watch her last minutes. She had already had her ears cut off and was calling Her Majesty Jezebel as they tied her to the stake.”

  I shivered. “The Queen knows of this… and death is close to her!”

  “The Queen believes she does God's work, Your Grace.”

  “It is beyond my understanding, Master Throckmorton,” I said.

  “The people are looking to you, Your Grace. They say when your turn comes there will be an end to this misery.”

  “There shall be, Nicholas, my friend. There shall be. It would appear to be near now but we must step with caution. I have faced death too many times to want to challenge it. I have my enemies. It is not too late for them to turn against me… while the Queen lives.”

  “Which cannot be long, my lady.”

  “You speak carelessly. I will not claim the throne until I am certain that my sister is dead. There is a ring she wears day and night. She calls it her betrothal ring because it was given to her by Philip. I will not believe that she is dead, until I hold that ring in my hand.”

  “It shall be my duty, Your Grace, to bring it to you.”

  And so I waited at Hatfield and each day when I rose, I wondered: Is this the one?

  THERE WERE SO many visitors to Hatfield, so many who wished me well. I often said to Kat: “How many of these men would be coming to me now if they thought I had little chance of mounting the throne? How many come for love of me? How many for hopes of what good will come to them?”

  “It is hard for queens to tell the difference, my love,” said Kat, wise for once.

  “Perhaps one can never be sure and since one cannot it is well to make certain that one never has a chance of finding out… unless one wants to.”

  “Oh, you are a shrewd one,” said Kat.

  At least I was sure of her love. It had remained steadfast through all my adversities and so would it be to the end of our days.

  We had one visitor at Hatfield who threw Kat into a flutter of excitement. In fact it had the same effect on me, though I was more discreet about it.

  So many visitors to Hatfield—so what could be so special about one more? He was exceptionally tall—not too broad but broad enough to give an impression of masculine strength to his elegance. He had dark hair and eyes, with a fresh complexion and the most perfectly shaped features I had ever seen… not too finely chiseled, as Kat sa
id afterward, but with that little touch of rough hew which was so becoming in a man. His clothes were rich, the colors not overbright but tastefully blended. He was the most handsome, the most graceful and the most attractive man I had ever seen—even including Thomas Seymour.

  I never forgot that meeting; all through the years I have carried with me the memory of Robert Dudley as he was when he presented himself to me on that autumn morning.

  I was told he begged an audience of me though I could never imagine Robert begging anything. He would ask it in a manner which suggested he was sure of success. Confidence was ever his way.

  When they told me that Lord Robert Dudley was asking to see me, I was excited even before I saw him. I remembered the boy I had known at my father's Court; even then there must have been some quality in him which impressed me; then there had been the time when we had been in the Tower together and the fact of his nearby presence had given me courage and lightened the dark days. Now here he was at Hatfield asking an audience.

  I went down and received him in the great hall.

  When he saw me he fell onto his knees. He took my hand and kissed it and lifted his eyes to my face.

  “Welcome to Hatfield, Lord Robert,” I said.

  “My gracious lady,” he replied. “It is indeed good of you to see me.”

  “There is no need to remain on your knees,” I told him.

  He rose and then I saw how tall he was, while he looked at me as though in wonder and I felt a glow of pleasure, for his gaze was not only of respect for my rank but deep admiration for my person.

  “Why have you come, Lord Robert?” I said to hide a certain confusion. “Is it for the same reason that many come to Hatfield now?”

  “I have just returned from battle.”

  “Yes. I believe you did good service for your country. And now you are here…as many others are.”