B009RYSCAU EBOK

by Gillian Bagwell

  Yet what good would this glory do poor Frances? Bess thought. The end of all was death and being eaten by worms, whether king or commoner.

  Why are you so morbid? she chastised herself. Her life was as happy as she could wish it, with Will’s love and constancy in daily evidence and her children all healthy and well on the road to successful lives. Willie and Harry would start at Eton College soon, and Frankie was eleven, almost old enough that it was time to start thinking about a suitable husband for her.

  Perhaps it was the season, when the short days and long nights somehow made her feel unreasonably that the sun might fail to rise someday and darkness would overtake the earth. Or maybe it was that she had only weeks earlier turned thirty-two. But that was nothing, surely. Her mother was hearty at close to sixty years of age, and she had every expectation of long life.

  But no one knows when their hour will come, she thought, crossing herself reflexively, for she had never lost the habit.

  Or perhaps the reason for her sadness was that despite their frequent lovemaking, she and Will had not conceived a child. True, they had only been married three months, but with her first William she had gotten with child almost immediately after their marriage and after every pregnancy, and she was beginning to fear that perhaps she was no longer capable of conceiving. The birth of poor Lucres had been difficult. Perhaps it had damaged her.

  She thought of a baby with Will’s eyes, of seeing another son grow from babyhood to boyhood and to being breeched, and tears came to her eyes. She knew that Will wanted children, and she longed to be able to give them to him—especially a son. And then she worried that perhaps God might think that she questioned his wisdom, and would take away something that meant much to her.

  Give me patience, she prayed. Give me satisfaction with the manifold blessings Thou hast given me, and let me continue in Thy loving care.

  * * *

  ONE EVENING IN EARLY DECEMBER WILL CAME HOME WITH A special spring in his step.

  “Her Majesty has given you a wedding present, my sweet Bess,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Indeed?” He was not carrying anything that she could see, and she guessed he was enjoying the suspense. “And what might that be, dear husband? Has she given you a holiday, that we might spend Christmas at Chatsworth?”

  “Not this year. But I think you will not mind it. You are to be made a lady of her privy chamber.”

  Bess had not been prepared for such news and gaped at him in astonishment. Ladies of the privy chamber outranked maids of honor and ladies-in-waiting. Only ladies of the bedchamber, who took it in turns to sleep in the queen’s room, held more privileged positions.

  “That’s—but—” She found she could not speak coherently.

  “It is a great honor,” Will said. “And a mark not only of her gratitude to me but of her respect and affection for you.”

  “She hardly knows me,” Bess finally managed to gasp.

  “It doesn’t take much knowledge of you to like you, Bess.”

  “Then I will strive to fulfill the trust she has placed in me.” She sat down suddenly on a chair near the fireplace, feeling faint. “Dear God. When do I begin? What do I do?”

  “She has bid you to attend her next week. And I’m sure that any duties she may ask of you will be no more than you performed for Lady Zouche or the Duchess of Suffolk. Attending Her Majesty while she dresses, seeing to her clothes, providing company and amusement. She loves music, you know, and I’m sure would be pleased to have you play upon the virginals.”

  “Her skill in that is greater than mine, I believe.”

  “Whatever is required of you, I’m sure you will perform it to perfection.”

  * * *

  LATER THAT NIGHT, AS THEY LAY IN BED, THE CURTAINS PULLED shut against the drafts, creating a little haven of love and safety, Bess was still thinking about the queen’s honor to her.

  “The queen owes you much, I think,” she said, her hand caressing the scratchy stubble of Will’s cheek. “More than you have let on.”

  “She thinks so, it is true.” His voice was somber, and she sensed that something weighty lay behind his words.

  “Will you tell me?”

  “It was during the time of Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, in which my father and many of my friends were also involved. I served Princess Elizabeth then, and as you know when Queen Mary insisted on the Spanish marriage, Wyatt’s plan was that Elizabeth should be put on the throne in place of her sister and married to her cousin Edward Courtenay, the Earl of Devon. But the plot was discovered and Courtenay was arrested. There was great fear that he would divulge what he knew, which was much, and so Wyatt and his allies were forced to act much sooner than expected.”

  Bess recalled those terrifying days, when she had secretly hoped that Elizabeth would be queen but had not known whom to trust, and could say nothing.

  “Sir James Croft came to Ashridge House where the princess was, to convey Wyatt’s urging that she remove to Castle Donnington, where Mary could not so easily get at her. She was very ill and in no condition to go anywhere. But she sent me to Tonbridge to give Wyatt her answer.”

  The hairs at the back of Bess’s neck rose to think of Will putting himself in such danger, for if Elizabeth had agreed, it would have been treason, and Will implicated with her if her involvement was known.

  “She supported the plot and would follow Wyatt’s plan,” she whispered.

  “Yes. And had we not been forced to act before all was in place, it might have succeeded. But Wyatt was captured less than a fortnight later, and soon there was a harvest of death. Wyatt’s men with whom I had spoken in Tonbridge were among the first to die.”

  “But not the last,” Bess said, her throat constricting with grief. It had been Harry Grey’s involvement in Wyatt’s conspiracy that had cost Jane Grey her life. Jesu, how close Will had come to dying for Elizabeth.

  Will pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head.

  “Mary ordered Elizabeth to court, ill though she was. The journey took a week, the princess riding in a litter and looking like a corpse. For that cruelty alone if for nothing else Mary should burn in hell.”

  In the days following Jane’s execution, Bess had been so devastated that she scarcely knew whether it was day or night, but she recalled William telling her of Elizabeth being sequestered at Whitehall.

  “Many were seized and imprisoned. Harry Grey and his brother, of course. Lord Cobham, Nicholas Throckmorton, Robert Dudley, and many more who were my friends. When I was arrested and taken before the privy council I knew that my only salvation—and that of the princess—was that they had no proof of my involvement or hers, for she was not so foolish as to have put anything into writing, nor was I.”

  “You must have been very afraid.”

  “I was. But I could not let them see it. I swore my allegiance to Mary and denied that I had stood with the rebels, even when they took me to the Tower and showed me the instruments of torture, which I knew had been in use on men who had less to hide than I. What they wanted most, of course, was proof that Elizabeth had been complicit in the plot. That was all that was needed for Mary to have Elizabeth put to death. But I would not be responsible for sending her to the block, though it cost my life.”

  Bess could hardly breathe, thinking of how terrified she would be in such circumstances.

  “I told them nothing.” His voice was hollow, and sounded near to breaking. “I told them nothing.”

  “Did they torture you?” She wasn’t sure she could bear the answer but could not forbear from asking the question.

  “They used me roughly enough.” His hand went to a scar on his cheek, his fingers brushing the pale line on his skin. Bess had wondered how he had come by it but had never asked. “They did not put me to the rack or the most severe means of questioning. I don’t know why. Perhaps because they thought if they killed me what I knew would be lost. But I think perhaps it was because I had so stoutly set my mind to de
ny that she knew aught of the plans that I came to believe it myself.”

  “She was in the Tower, too.”

  “Yes, and poor lady, she knew what men were suffering on her behalf.”

  “How long did they keep you?”

  “Four months in the Tower. Then I was taken to the Fleet Prison, and I knew that I had passed the greatest danger. It was another seven months before I was brought to a hearing. I was fined and my Somerset lands taken from me, but Queen Mary put me in command of a regiment and sent me away from London, and I had my life.”

  “Elizabeth knew,” Bess said. “She knew what you had done for her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “When I next saw her, not long before you came to Hatfield that day, she wept at the sight of me, and declared that she would be ever in my debt.”

  “Not only her,” Bess said. “But all of England, did they but know it, for preserving her life that she might reign.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Christmas Day, 1559—Whitehall Palace, London

  BESS STOOD ONLY FEET FROM QUEEN ELIZABETH, SURVEYING THE laughing and chattering crowd that filled the room. It was the same chamber in which she had watched King Henry and his court celebrate Christmas twenty years earlier. How far she had come, she thought. Then she had been merely one of Lady Zouche’s attendants, awed at the noble ladies and gentlemen who surrounded her, wearing the only gown she had that was good enough for such company. Now, she was a lady of the queen’s privy chamber, a titled lady herself, resplendent in a new gown of forest green velvet, her sleeves and underskirt heavily embroidered with gold, and wearing on her head a French hood of the latest fashion. Ropes of shimmering pearls cascaded over her breast, jewels sparkled at her ears, and her fingers were heavy with rings.

  Then she had been a budding girl, still a virgin, hoping that she might find love but wary of what marriage might mean. Now she had been thrice married, had borne eight children and buried two, and had finally found the passionate love that she had not even known that she sought until she met Will.

  She picked out his tall figure across the room, in conversation with Sir Robert Dudley. The two handsomest men in London, she thought, smiling. One of them is mine and the other the queen’s.

  “Lady St. Loe.”

  Bess turned to find Sir William Cecil at her elbow. When she had seen him at Hatfield House that autumn, she had noted that the sleeves of his doublet were fraying and his shoes down at heel. Now he wore a handsome black velvet robe, lined with fur, befitting his position as the queen’s secretary of state and head of her privy council.

  “Sir William, what a pleasure to see you. I was just thinking how it warmed my heart to see old friends who have weathered all the storms and are now standing safe in the sunlight.”

  “Indeed. And while I miss William Cavendish, I’m most pleased that your new husband is a man who has stood so steady by Her Majesty all these years.”

  His eyes went to Will, hand on the shoulder of Robert Dudley, leaning in to speak to him above the clamor of voices. The court had been thronged with suitors to the queen these last months, but it was Dudley who was ever at the queen’s side. She had recently made him Lord Lieutenant and Constable of the Tower, and many of his friends now held coveted positions at court. The Duke of Norfolk had publicly accused him of interfering in state matters, but the result was that Norfolk had been sent to the Scottish border to serve as lieutenant general, and Dudley was as close to Elizabeth as ever. More so, perhaps. It was whispered that he was her lover. And the rumors that he would find a way to be rid of his wife would not be quieted. Bess wondered what William Cecil thought; he had been the queen’s man for years, and though Elizabeth’s eyes did not light with love when she looked on him, she relied on his wisdom and advice more than that of any other man, Robert Dudley included.

  Bess glanced at the queen, surrounded by Duke John of Finland, brother to the hopeful Erik of Sweden; Baron Breuner, the representative of Ferdinand, the Holy Roman Emperor; the Spanish ambassador Bishop de Cuadra, also pressing the suit of the emperor’s son Archduke Charles; and the envoy of the King of Denmark, in his ridiculous doublet of crimson velvet embroidered with a heart transfixed by an arrow.

  “The siege continues,” she remarked.

  Cecil’s eyes flickered to the queen’s knot of admirers and he sighed.

  “Yes, here is a great resort of wooers and controversy among lovers. I would Her Majesty had one and the rest honorably settled.”

  “Then you think she will pick one of the foreign rulers? And not—someone more near to hand?”

  Will and Robert Dudley were now at the center of a laughing knot of men that included Robert’s brother Ambrose and brother-in-law Sir Henry Sidney, Sir James Croft, and John Appleyard, the half brother of Lady Dudley.

  “I see that your husband is among Dudley’s cronies,” Cecil said. “I mean no offense,” he added, as Bess glanced at him in surprise. “It is only that I am ever thinking who might speak a wise word in the queen’s ear.”

  “On what matter?”

  “If she takes my Lord Robert,” Cecil said quietly, “she will incur so much enmity that she may one evening lay herself down as the Queen of England, and rise the next morning as plain Mistress Elizabeth.”

  “But why?” Bess asked. She had always liked Robert Dudley. “He is Protestant, and the queen loves him. It is said his wife is very ill. Surely if they wait until sometime after her death . . .”

  “It is not just that he is married. You well know that his father and brother were executed as traitors, as was his grandfather. Yet she made him Knight of the Garter along with the three highest peers of the realm, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Northampton, and the Earl of Rutland, who have long served England. And he? He rides well and has a handsome leg and whiskers that curl.”

  Bess giggled despite herself and Cecil gave her a dry smile.

  “People mistrust the name of Dudley, and mistrust Lord Robert, thinking that he seeks to gain the throne for himself. If she were to look close to home she would do better to pick Edward Courtenay or Arundel or Sir William Pickering. No, there is not a man who does not cry out on him as the Queen’s ruin, and on her with indignation, and yet I have a great fear that she will marry none but the favored Robert.”

  Cecil’s eyes were tired and Bess noticed that his beard was frosted with gray as it had not been before.

  “I hope she will listen to your counsel,” she said. “For I’m sure you would guide her to what is best for England.”

  “She will listen. Whether she will act on my counsel is a different thing entirely.” He bowed and made his way toward Sir Thomas Parry.

  Watching the queen dance with Robert Dudley, Bess took the opportunity of seeking out Mary Grey. Although Mary was now fourteen years old, her tiny height, vivid red hair, and freckles made her appear younger.

  “Bess! What a joy to see you!” Mary exclaimed, as Bess bent to embrace her.

  “And you. I have thought much of you since your mother’s death.”

  “It is hard, at Christmastime, to be missing her. She would so much have loved to be at court now, and I cannot help but want to turn to her and see her smile.”

  Kate Grey danced past with handsome Henry Carey, the queen’s cousin and a favorite at the new court.

  “How stands the matter of Kate’s marriage to Edward Seymour?” Bess asked. “Your mother was so hopeful the last time I saw her.”

  “Alas, it is in a frozen state. My poor mother died before sending her letter to the queen, and now there is no one to speak for Kate, begging permission for her to marry Edward Seymour. He writes that perhaps they can importune the queen when the matter of her own marriage is settled.”

  The queen’s marriage again, Bess thought. So much hung on that urgent question.

  “And Kate must tread most carefully,” Mary said, “and do nothing to bring the queen’s wrath down upon her, for under the will of King Henry the crown would fall to Kate sho
uld something happen to Her Majesty, and thus Kate attracts plotters and suitors with their own ends in mind.”

  As had Elizabeth, when she stood next in line to Mary. And Jane . . . Bess’s heart clutched with pain, and from the anxious expression on Mary Grey’s face, she knew the poor girl must fear for Kate’s safety, with the shadow of Jane’s fate hanging over them.

  It was ironic, Bess thought, that even as Elizabeth was hindered from being able to wed the man she loved, so the unhappiness was passed down to poor Kate Grey.

  “Perhaps it will all come out well yet,” she tried to reassure Mary.

  * * *

  “GOD’S WOUNDS,” WILL SWORE ONE COLD MORNING IN FEBRUARY, AS he sat reviewing a letter. “I would the matter of the queen’s marriage were resolved. While it hangs fire I shall have no peace.”

  “What’s amiss now?” Bess asked.

  “Here is news of a Spanish plot to kidnap Kate Grey and marry her to King Philip’s son Don Carlos, and put them on the throne in Elizabeth’s place.”

  “Surely Kate can have no part in this scheme.”

  “No, no, but that matters not at all. Until the queen is wed and has a son, there will always be plots and intrigues against her life. But it seems that will be no time soon; she has at last made plain she will not marry the son of the Holy Roman Emperor nor yet Erik of Sweden.”

  “Every time I am at court I hear that all is the fault of Robert Dudley.”

  Will looked up at Bess and shook his head.

  “I’ve nothing against Dudley personally, but the rumors that he is the queen’s lover echo through the courts of Europe, and people lay the queen’s failure to marry at his door. I heard the French ambassador inquire yesterday whether England was so poor in men of courage that no one would assassinate Dudley, and he was but a quarter in jest, I think.”