Her Highness, the Traitor

by Susan Higginbotham

  “Don’t tell Harry. He would be angry.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. He would be shocked, actually, for I am not a habitual drunkard, Master Stokes.”

  “I did not think so.”

  “My mother had a poor head for wine, and she drank little of it as a consequence. Usually I try to follow her example. But…” I lost track of what I was going to say and giggled instead.

  “I remember seeing your mother once or twice. She was a beautiful woman.”

  “Yes.” Half to confide, half because I badly needed the support, I leaned against Master Stokes. His belief in the sobering effects of fresh air had been woefully misplaced; I felt giddier than ever and more reckless than I ever had in my life. “Did I ever tell you that my mother seduced my father?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she did. It was easy, I suppose. She was the Queen of France, after all, and she was very beautiful. Mind you, she was a widow, and they married immediately. But it was still a seduction.” I snorted. “She used to tell me the story of their marriage. She made it sound so very respectable, but I could read between the lines. I am not entirely stupid, no matter what Harry and Jane say.”

  “They say that?”

  “Not in so many words. But they think it. Why, he did not even bother to tell me about the Protector. And yet he told Jane!”

  “Perhaps he did not think you would be interested. Your ladyship is not a friend of the Protector, are you?”

  “No. But it is the principle of the thing! Husbands should tell their wives these things. Not only their daughters. I am nothing to him, Master Stokes, but something to get with child now and then, and as of late, I have failed even at that.” I shrugged in a way I had learned from my mother, who in turn had learned it from her brief stay at the French court. “But of course, to get a woman with child, you must lie with her, and he hardly ever does that. He says it is because I almost died giving birth to Mary, but in truth, Master Stokes, I think it is that he simply does not care.”

  “My lady—”

  “Oh, I know, I should not be telling you this. But who else can I tell? It is not the sort of thing one wants to tell another woman. We have our pride. And, too, I am the Mar…Mar… Mar… the something of Dorset. Many a woman would like to be me. Why should I disillusion anyone?” My head was beginning to hammer. I made an effort to rise. “I am going to go and get some more wine.”

  “No. That would be unwise.”

  “But I am unwise. In fact, some think me downright stupid.” I leaned back against Master Stokes’s shoulder and closed my eyes. “I may be stupid, but at least I am not ugly. You don’t think me so, do you?”

  “No.” Master Stokes gently dislodged me from my resting place. “I am going to find your ladies to help me escort you to your chamber. You need to sleep.”

  “My ladies think you are quite handsome. Do ladies ever tell you that, Master Stokes?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they should. You are handsome. And very, very kind.” Master Stokes attempted to raise me to a standing position, but I shook him off. “And you won’t tell Harry about this?”

  “No.”

  “You swear?”

  “Yes, if you promise to let me help you up so I can find your ladies.”

  “Very well,” I said, attempting to rise also and instead sinking back to the ground. I giggled again. “But it will not be as easy as you think.”

  Somehow, Master Stokes got me to my feet at last and back to the hall, where I sagged on a bench as he went in search of my ladies. Fortunately, my sodden condition went unnoticed: all eyes were on the hobbyhorse prancing about and emitting guttural neighs that sounded suspiciously like George Medley.

  Master Stokes quickly arrived with my ladies, who had been looking for me. I blew him a parting kiss good-bye as they steered me toward my chamber. “Good night, kind and handsome Master Stokes,” I said. “Don’t let some lady seduce you. You are innocent about such matters, I fear.”

  “I won’t, my lady,” Master Stokes promised.

  Mercifully, my ladies managed to haul me away before I could give any more parting advice to Master Stokes.

  I longed to spend the rest of the next day in bed, nursing my hangover and my shame, but I was the Marchioness of Dorset, after all, the highest-ranking lady present, and I had to act up to my station. So I struggled into my riding dress—even the feather that adorned my cap drooped as if hung over—and rode out to the hunt with the rest of the household, Master Stokes by my side. How many times had I told him the previous night he was handsome? At least, I consoled myself, I had not tried to seduce him. As we rode at the tail end of the hunting party, every step my horse took feeling like a hoof on my head, I said, “I believe I asked you several times last night not to tell my husband of my foolishness, Master Stokes, but I will ask you again nonetheless.”

  “There is no need, my lady.” Master Stokes smiled. “Indeed, my lady, I must confess that after our encounter last night, I myself overindulged. I have very little recollection of what happened before and afterward.”

  I looked into Master Stokes’s deep blue eyes, which bore no sign of recent dissipation at all, and shook my head. “You are a poor liar, Master Stokes, but I thank you.”

  ***

  Our next stop on our journey to London was worlds away from George Medley’s house: Beaulieu in Essex, a home of the lady Mary also known as Newhall. “Will we have to go to Mass?” asked Jane as we rode side by side.

  No inkling of my regrettable behavior at Tiltey seemed to have reached Jane, or anyone else besides Adrian Stokes and my ladies: the Lord was certainly entitled to some heavenly thanks for that, Mass or no Mass. “Yes, if she wishes us to attend with her. She is our hostess and is entitled to that courtesy.”

  “Perhaps she won’t let us be present,” Jane said hopefully. “We are heretics in her eyes, after all.”

  Mary was indeed at Mass when we arrived at Beaulieu, which gave my daughters and me time to freshen up after our journey and to admire a special feature of my own luxurious chamber: the bathing room. Even Jane looked awed as we stepped inside and played with the faucets: one for hot water, one for cold. “May we take a bath tomorrow, Mama?” Kate asked.

  “Of course,” I promised. I turned to my youngest daughter, who appeared wary. “It’s quite safe,” I assured her. “Just like the tubs we use, only this one has its very special room.”

  We could have enjoyed admiring the bathing room and the other luxuries of Beaulieu for a while longer, but shortly thereafter, Lady Anne Wharton, one of Mary’s waiting women, came to lead the four of us to her mistress in the great hall. We walked past the indoor tennis court, once enjoyed by Anne Boleyn’s brother George, and by the side chapel. Sitting on the altar in a splendid receptacle was something that had long been banished from our own altar and from nearly every other altar in England: the Host.

  Lady Wharton genuflected in front of the Host and made the sign of the cross. I was about to follow suit, out of respect for the lady Mary, when Jane spoke up. “Why do you do that?” Exaggeratedly, she looked around. “Is the lady Mary out here?”

  “I make my curtsey to Him who made us all,” Lady Wharton said coolly.

  Jane widened her eyes in mock puzzlement. “Why, how can he be there that made us all, when the baker made him?”

  “Jane!”

  Kate tittered under her breath while Lady Wharton flushed with anger. “The lady Mary awaits you,” she said. “Come.”

  I glared at my daughter, but there was no time to reprove her, for Mary, clad splendidly in a red gown that appeared almost gaudy, stood before us. She embraced my girls and me in turn. “So you are on your way to London,” she said. “The Tower menagerie has taken over the government there, you know.”

  “I have
heard but little of this business, actually. Harry has been much concerned with his own affairs.”

  “Oh? Well, time will tell, but in my opinion, there is but one motive behind this action against the Protector. Envy and ambition, namely, that of the Earl of Warwick, the most unstable man in England. I have never liked him.” She put up her hand, and the ladies around us all stopped what they were doing to hear her speak. “Don’t ask me why. He has never been less than civil to me, and his countess is very pleasant. But there is something about the man I don’t trust. Perhaps it is simply that he is the son of a traitor. Such things will out.” She lowered her voice. “They tried to involve me in their scheme, you know. They told me that if I gave them their support, I would be allowed to act as the king’s regent. I refused. I want no part of their plots, and how long would I last as regent anyway? They harass me about performing my religion now, far away from court. What would it be like if I tried to practice my religion at court?”

  I was silent, not knowing what to say. Although the matter had been overshadowed for a time by the drama surrounding the downfall and execution of Thomas Seymour, the council had made sweeping religious changes that year—abolishing the elevation of the Host and the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, dear to Catholic hearts and anathema to Protestant ones. Every house of worship was to follow the new Prayer Book, a copy of which was tucked into my own coffers, and the Mass was to be said entirely in English. Harry and Jane had been delighted at the changes—wishing only that they had been more extensive—as had the king. But Mary had been appalled. She had continued to hear the Mass exactly as it had been heard in her father’s lifetime, and when the king’s council ordered that she conform to the new laws, she had increased her two daily Masses to three. The king himself, writing a couple of months before he had been dragged by the Protector to Windsor, had scolded her for her intransigence. Yet the matter had gone no further than a scolding, and the government, wishing to maintain good relations with Mary’s uncle, Charles V, had left the matter there. Harry had sniffed, “Mary might like to think of herself as a potential martyr, but the council isn’t obliging the poor dear.” Even I could not help but think she was being treated rather leniently under the circumstances.

  Mary turned to look at my daughters. Kate and my own Mary had looked politely bored during our exchange, but Jane had clearly been fighting to keep herself from speaking. “But that is enough of that. What fine girls you have, Frances! And I have a gift for each of them.” She nodded to Susan Clarencius, who handed a velvet box each to Kate and Mary. They lifted the lids and squealed their thanks at the sight of the golden cramp rings inside. “You, Lady Jane, have a gift more suited for your years.” Mary indicated a large coffer at her side.

  With Susan’s help, Jane dutifully opened it. Inside was an ensemble of tinsel, cloth of gold, and velvet, materials so rich that the garments could have belonged only to Mary herself. “Why, it will hardly need altering,” I said as Jane held the gown against her slim figure. “And that color suits you wonderfully.”

  “Yes, I thought it would,” Mary said with satisfaction.

  “I thank Your Grace,” Jane said. She handed the garment to a servant, who carefully placed it back in its coffer.

  She might as well have been thanking King Henry’s sister for a piece of fruit.

  ***

  After dinner, Mary went to conduct some business. As we were on our own for the time being, I went to Jane’s chamber to survey Mary’s gift once again.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Elizabeth Tilney. She fingered the velvet wistfully.

  Jane looked at the clothing coolly. “What on earth can I do with it?”

  “Why, wear it,” Elizabeth said.

  “You are so similar in stature, you could wear it at dinner tomorrow,” I put in. “Rose could have it ready for you by then with no difficulty at all.”

  “I’m not going to wear it,” Jane said. She shut the coffer resolutely.

  “Why on earth not?”

  “It is not fitting to wear such outlandish material. The lady Elizabeth, who follows God’s word, eschews such frippery, and so shall I.”

  “You most certainly will wear it, and you will wear it here in the lady Mary’s household,” I said. “It is an honor to be given such a gift from the king’s sister, frippery or no frippery. Why, it is finer than any of my own gowns!”

  “Father will not expect me to wear it.”

  “I don’t care what your father expects. I am your mother, and the lady Mary is my cousin! I will not have it said that I have not raised you to treat her with the respect she deserves. She is next in line to the throne. Have you forgotten that?”

  “I hope she never sits upon it. She is a Papist. She has no busin—”

  I reached for Jane and shook her hard, then dealt her a smart slap across the cheek. “You have behaved abominably since we have come here,” I said when I had released her. “Do you think I didn’t notice how insolent you were to Lady Wharton? Are you so stupid—yes, that is right, stupid—so as to think that she will not tell the lady Mary what you said to her? And this dress! It is worth a fortune, and beautiful besides that, and you acted as if you were conferring a great favor upon the lady Mary by accepting it! Well, this has come to an end. You will allow Rose to make the necessary alterations, and you will wear it at dinner tomorrow, and you will smile and be pleasant to Mary. Do you understand?”

  Jane’s face bore a white mark where I had slapped her, and she was fighting back tears. Looking at her, I longed to take her into my arms, but I forced myself to stare at her coldly. “Yes, my lady,” she whispered.

  “Good. I will send Rose to you shortly. If you are anything less than cooperative, I assure you I will hear about it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Good. Tonight after supper, there will no doubt be card playing. You will probably be asked to join the lady Mary and me at her table. If so, you will give no sign that you are not enjoying yourself, or the slap I dealt you just now will look like a pinch as compared to what you will receive. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Good. Stay here until you are sent for. I wish to see no more of you for now.” I touched Kate and little Mary, who were staring at me with unmitigated terror. They’d never seen me scold Jane, or anyone, with such fury before. “Come along, girls.”

  ***

  That evening, we did indeed play cards, and Jane indeed sat with the lady Mary, Susan Clarencius, and myself. She was a model of good deportment, speaking only when spoken to by her elders, smiling graciously at all the appropriate moments—and trouncing the princess mercilessly. Furious at my daughter as I still was, I could not help but smile as I watched Mary’s servant duly hand Jane her winnings. I hadn’t, after all, instructed her that she had to lose.

  The next day at supper, Jane appeared in Mary’s dress. So well did it suit her, it was difficult to believe it had been made for another woman. “Why, you look beautiful,” I whispered as Jane took her place beside me, her back rigid and her smile fixed. “Like a young lady of fifteen. If your father could see you now! He would be so proud.”

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  Mary entered and took her place of honor in between us, smiling her approval at Jane’s garb. She took a dainty sip of wine, and I followed suit. Jane picked up her own wine cup and lifted it to her lips. As I watched, the heavy gold cup tipped in her hand, spilling its contents all over Jane’s elaborate gown. “Oh, no! How clumsy of me.” Jane turned toward Mary, her eyes pleading. “I have ruined it, and you were so kind—”

  “It is no matter,” Mary said, her smile as fixed as Jane’s had been a few moments before. “A mere accident.”

  ***

  “I didn’t mean to, my lady! Truly!” Jane looked up at me pleadingly as I, in the privacy of her c
hamber, jerked her to me. Suddenly I realized she looked a great deal like my mother in times of distress. “It was an accident, just as I told the lady Mary. I was flustered with all of those people looking at me in my dress, and it was a heavier cup than usual. Please, my lady, believe me.”

  I relaxed my grip upon Jane. Was she telling the truth? After all these years of motherhood, I could not read her well enough to guess. Perhaps Harry could have. The thought wearied me so much I released her and let my hand drop to my side. “Very well. I shall take your word for it and not punish you. It is only the front panel that was ruined, after all. But if I ever find out that you acted deliberately…”

  Jane cautiously stepped back and dropped a miniature curtsey. “My lady, I promise, I did not. In truth,” she confessed in a low voice, “I am sad I spilled the wine on it. I thought I looked pretty in it.”

  “You did look pretty in it.” I put my hand on Jane’s shoulder and was gratified to see she did not flinch. “There is no shame in being a pretty girl, Jane. Nor is there any shame in being pleased about it or in wearing colors that suit you, as long as you don’t let your head get turned. After all, you wore bright colors when you lived with Queen Catherine and Thomas Seymour.”

  “But he was a traitor. Wasn’t he?”

  I’d never spoken to Jane about Tom Seymour’s death, I realized suddenly. “Yes, but he had some good qualities. Were you sorry when he died?”

  Jane looked at me with troubled eyes. “A little.”

  “That is natural. He was kind to you, after all.”

  A knock sounded at the door, and one of my men entered, rather to my dismay, for I could have gone on speaking to Jane in this confidential manner all afternoon. “My lady, the lady Mary has asked that you and the lady Jane accompany her to Mass.”

  Jane looked so horrified, I had to smile. “Tell her I will gladly do so, but that my daughter will not be able to. She is er—being punished.” I glared at Jane, who dropped her eyes hastily. Was she suppressing a conspiratorial smile?

  I would be glad to get to Dorset House, I decided as I readied myself for Mass. The Grey women had not had much luck with wine on this journey.