Her Highness, the Traitor

by Susan Higginbotham

  In the days before the trial, John conducted many of the interrogations of the witnesses himself, including that of Somerset. Each day he returned to Ely Place looking more disheartened, and a little older.

  “I had no idea the man had come to hate me so much,” he said one evening. Then he went to his chamber and shut himself up there until the next morning.

  ***

  At five in the morning on the first day of December, a barge, shrouded in fog, carried Somerset from the Tower to Westminster for his trial. Eager to catch a glimpse of their hero in his barge, two men leaned so far over the Thames that they plunged into the water and drowned.

  I stayed at my brother-in-law’s home at Tothill Street, hard by Westminster, waiting for news. It came in fits and spurts from John’s men.

  Somerset defended himself at the trial, batting back the charges against him with an ease that suggested, had life given him a different start, he could have found a career in the law. He had raised men, certainly, but only for his own protection for these uncertain times. He had never planned to raise the North, where his influence was but small. He scoffed at Palmer’s story of the banquet, saying his tale was more suited for Boccaccio than to the pleasant land of England. He demanded that Crane, whose confession was read at the trial, be produced to testify in person. But when questioned about whether he had planned to kill John and the rest, he said quietly, “I did speak of it, and think of it, but changed my mind.”

  Hearing the account of his testimony from the messenger, I shivered in the warm chamber in which I sat.

  The afternoon dragged on as the lords deliberated Somerset’s fate. Now and then, the cry would go up, “God save the Duke of Somerset!” Then I heard the pealing of bells, followed by shouts louder than any heard yet.

  I flung open a window. “What news is there?” I shouted like a fishwife to the crowds passing below.

  A man turned up an exultant face to me. “The good Duke of Somerset has been acquitted. He will go free!”

  “Northumberland will hang within a week, I reckon,” added his companion. “We’ll see who’s the traitor now!”

  I slammed the window shut and collapsed to the window seat, shaking.

  Feet ran up the stairs. “It’s true?” I said to the messenger. “Somerset was acquitted?”

  “Yes, Your Grace—but only of the treason charge. He was convicted of felony. What those dolts don’t realize is that he can still hang for that. If I were you, Your Grace, I’d get home before they figure that out.”

  “The people love Somerset that much?”

  “I’m afraid they do, Your Grace.”

  ***

  Toward Christmas, John flung into my chamber and placed a coin in my hand. “What does this look like to you?”

  I studied the coin. It bore the three royal lions, but they looked misshapen. “They look odd. What happened?”

  “The die broke. Tell me. Do these lions look like the bear and ragged staff of Warwick?”

  “No.”

  “Tell that to the people. That is the latest lie they are telling, that I have produced coins at Dudley Castle bearing my own insignia. It is a sign of how I am aspiring to the crown.”

  “John, no.”

  “I am gathering together vast amounts of money—like my father did—and I am listening to prophecies saying the king will not live long. Nay, I am commissioning them! There is no end to my evil and perfidy now that Somerset has been convicted of felony. I just wonder how I find enough time during the day to accomplish all of it.”

  He tossed the coin on the floor, where it fell with a clang. “They are saying now that I have planned to try him for treason since he was first put into the Tower back in ’49, that I have been poisoning the mind of the king against him. Are they fool enough to think that I would have married his daughter to my eldest son, if I meant ill to him? As for poisoning the king against him, it was not I who dragged the king to Windsor Castle without warning and terrified him with tales of the wicked King Richard. It was not I who never bothered to ask the king for his opinion on a matter. It was not I—”

  “John! Calm yourself, my dear. No person of intelligence could possibly believe you meant harm to Somerset. We all know you tried your best to work with him.”

  John sighed. For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the clock, its case etched with representations of the planets, which ticked on the mantle. I loved clocks, and John had faithfully bought them for me ever since we had first become wealthy enough to afford them. “One thing you can say about my wife,” he had joked, “she always knows what o’clock it is.”

  He retrieved the coin and turned it in his palm several times. Then he said, “I’ve been talking with Somerset in the Tower.”

  “What about?”

  “At first, I just wanted to know if there was any unfinished business—any men lying in wait to murder me. He said there weren’t, other than the man Berteville we already had.”

  I shuddered. Berteville, a French mercenary, had confessed to being approached by Somerset and his men, but had never reached the point of carrying out his scheme. For giving evidence against Somerset before his trial, he had been freed.

  “Since then, we’ve just been talking. Mostly about our old days fighting together, and about the situation now with Scotland and France. He did apologize for plotting against me. He swore he would have never given the order to kill me if it came down to that. Sometimes we just play a game of cards together. He worries about his wife a great deal. I’ve promised that she shall come to no harm, although there’s probably evidence enough to convict her of felony, too.” John stared at the clock. “He’s never asked me to intercede with the king for a pardon or asked that his life be spared. He expects death.”

  “Would you intercede with the king if he asked?”

  “Yes.”

  Then why, I almost asked, did my husband not tell that to Somerset? But the question died on my lips. John had pardoned Somerset once, and he had abused his kindness. Why should John risk pardoning him yet again? Instead, I said, “Then I hope he does not ask. Do not think me hard. It breaks my heart to think of Anne and the other children he will leave behind. Even to think of the widow he will leave behind. But I would not have you risk your life again to assuage your conscience. In fact, I pray you do not urge the king to pardon him. You cannot trust him, and even if you could, what if his friends decided to carry out what they thought were his wishes? Don’t tempt fate once again. I love you too much for that, John.”

  John turned his face to mine and kissed me gently. “Even if all of England hates me?”

  “Especially if all of England hates you.”

  ***

  Somerset’s fate was not the only thing that preoccupied the court that season. The king, remembering the pleasure his father had taken in masques and disguisings, had decided to revive the old custom of having a Lord of Misrule preside over the Christmas revelries. John, eager to please the king in all things, especially with Somerset in the Tower, had duly appointed George Ferrers, a courtier of literary tastes, to that position. For the past couple of weeks, the elaborate preparations had engulfed the entire council, and the king had taken the greatest interest in their progress, even reviewing the various scripts and altering them to his satisfaction.

  On Christmas Day, the court gathered at Greenwich, where we heard the king’s chapel. The music, composed by Thomas Tallis, put us all in a reflective mood, but not a downcast one, and even John seemed in good spirits. As we proceeded into the hall to enjoy the evening’s entertainments, he squeezed my hand in a way I knew meant we would have a happy night together in my bedchamber.

  “Today is the day Misrule will make his appearance,” the king said with an eagerness that made him appear suddenly younger than his fourteen years. “Yesterday, he sent an embass
y to us to announce his coming. It should be splendid!”

  “I have every hope that it will be, Your Majesty,” said John. “Sir George has been laboring mightily.”

  “We don’t know how Misrule will appear,” the king confessed. “We asked purposely not to be told of any of his plans for his entrance.”

  Will Somers, the king’s fool—still spry despite his advanced years—juggled and jested, then let out a fart of such resonance that the king jumped in his seat before breaking into enthusiastic applause. This was followed by a procession of men and boys dressed up as the Pope, bishops, and priests—I recognized my younger sons, Guildford and Hal, among them—who paraded through the hall, bearing a tabernacle in a shape that made the men in the hall roar with laughter and the ladies blush. The French ambassador passed a hand over his eyes, and the Venetian ambassador shook his head grimly and muttered something in a tone that made me grateful I did not understand Italian.

  The Pope bowed to the king and the court. “The body of the Lord,” he announced and opened the tabernacle with a flourish to reveal a monstrance, shaped similarly to the tabernacle, containing a bright red Host. The Duke of Suffolk roared with laughter, and even his bookish daughter, the lady Jane, let out a squeal of delight. Only the Duchess of Suffolk appeared not to be amused. She was, I remembered, on the friendliest of terms with the lady Mary, who fortunately had stayed away from court.

  Another bishop stepped up and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Your Holiness,” he announced. “The Lord’s body stinks.”

  The priests and bishops gasped and held their noses. The king clapped.

  “What can we do, Your Grace?” wailed Guildford in his acting debut. (I could not help but give motherly applause here.)

  The Pope pondered while the other players strutted around him, similarly in deep thought. Then two courtiers, dripping with jewels and wearing doublets with sleeves that hung so low they almost tripped them up, minced into the room. “When my lady love tells me I stink—”

  The younger of the two courtiers asked, “Your lady love tells you that you stink?”

  The players murmured behind their hands, then went up to sniff the older courtier. “He stinks,” they announced.

  “My lady love never tells me that I stink,” said the younger courtier. He held up a perfume decanter. “Generous applications of this elixir keep me smelling sweet, so much so that the ladies cannot stay away from me. In fact—”

  Three boys, dressed as young ladies, rushed into the room and to the side of the younger courtier. One dropped at the courtier’s feet and gazed up at him worshipfully, while the other two each draped herself over the courtier’s shoulders and glared at her rival.

  The Pope stared thoughtfully at the perfume bottle, then at the monstrance. After an interval of staring back and forth, he raised his finger in triumph. “I have found a solution!” he proclaimed. “May I, good sir?”

  The young courtier, occupied with his three women, nodded in boredom and allowed the Pope to take the perfume. Accompanied by chanting in Latin, the Pope bore the perfume to the monstrance, then took the wafer from the monstrance and solemnly dipped it in the perfume. To the sound of trumpets, he held the wafer aloft and sniffed it. “Perfection!” he pronounced.

  The bishops and priests turned from the audience, dropped on their knees, and began worshipping the wafer drenched with perfume. Then the young ladies abandoned the courtier, giving him a parting kick of contempt. Pushing their way into the ring of bishops and priests, they arranged themselves into a trio by the monstrance in the same adoring pose in which they had surrounded the courtier. “The body of the Lord! And what a body!”

  The king clapped wildly, and the rest of us followed suit.

  Bowing, the company left the room, to be replaced by Diana, the moon goddess—this time, represented not by a boy, but by a shapely, beautiful woman in a sheer gown. She bowed to the king, who ogled at her and her two female attendants.

  Diana took her attendants by the hand, and the three executed a graceful dance. Then a curtain was pulled up, revealing a huge crescent moon on wheels.

  The goddess swept her hand toward the moon. As a fanfare played, a door concealed in the moon opened, and a platform swung out. On the platform stood George Ferrers, wearing a crown and robes of purple and carrying a scepter. “Your Majesty—my lords—my ladies. The season of misrule has begun!”

  ***

  The Lord of Misrule kept the court busy beyond belief over the twelve days of Christmas. There were interludes, masques, jousts, banquets with so many dishes I lost count. Each night I fell into my bed at Greenwich, exhausted from all of the merriment. But the prisoner in the Tower could not be forgotten, especially when a scaffold was erected by the Eleanor Cross at Cheapside. There, a group of young knights were tried and convicted for not having obeyed Misrule the day before, but the sentence of execution was carried out on a hogshead of wine and a bag of coins instead, and the contents of each distributed among the crowd. I could not help but feel pity for Somerset, kept closely in his prison this time (no Christmas visits from the duchess), as the headsman swung his axe against the barrel.

  Even when Twelfth Night passed, the festivities did not end, for on January 17, twelve gentlemen, including my three eldest sons and Henry Sidney, tilted at Greenwich. Snug in furs, I watched as Jack, Ambrose, and Robert rode out, feeling altogether too much maternal pride as the January sunlight glistened upon their armor.

  Near me were Robert’s wife, Amy, and Ambrose’s wife, Nan. Seated next to me, or rather on my right with the width of a good-sized human being between us, was Jack’s wife, Anne, Countess of Warwick. Feeling for the poor girl, whose parents, the Duke and Duchess of Somerset, were both in the Tower, Jack had made much of her over the past couple of months, giving her fine clothes and many pretty presents, and I had tried to fill the role of a mother to her. But our efforts were to no avail, and indeed, how could they be, under the circumstances? I wished the girl was not so slender; before her wedding, her father had asked that the consummation of her marriage be delayed until she was sixteen because of her physique, and we had honored his wish. If she had borne Jack a child, or was expecting one, she might have been, if not happy with us, at least less unhappy.

  The countess stared blankly at the knights, neither appreciating nor troubling to admire Jack’s skill as he ran against his opponent. (Jack took after his father, who had been a fine jouster in his younger years.) I touched her shoulder and attempted to draw her closer to me. “I see Jack is wearing your favor.”

  “He took it from me. I did not give it to him.”

  “Oh.”

  “My head aches. I would like to return to my chamber.”

  “Of course, my dear.”

  “I am not your dear.”

  “It is only a manner of speaking, Anne. I meant no harm. Shall I send our physician to you?”

  Anne rose and shook out her skirts. “No, I need no physic for my headaches. I often get them, and the only thing that helps them is to lie down in darkness and quiet, as Mama could tell you if she were not in the Tower.” She looked over her shoulder as her page began to help her away. “Besides, I would not trust any physic which came from a Dudley.”

  I sat there open mouthed. No one else had heard the insult, spoken in a low tone; Amy and Nan were discussing Amy’s new gloves, while Guildford and Hal, both slightly too young and inexperienced to joust publicly, were consoling themselves by criticizing Jack’s every move. Mary’s mind was back somewhere in the court of King Arthur, where it would reside until her own husband took his turn in the lists, and Katheryn, her father’s darling, was leaning on his shoulder contentedly as he explained to her the various strategies Jack was taking. For a moment, I thought of following the girl and giving her a well-needed shaking: how dare she speak of me and my family so disrespectfully—and slanderously—
even in her present difficulties? It was not something that should be borne.

  Yet I did bear it, knowing what distress hearing of the remark would cause John, who with Katheryn at his side looked at peace, as he had not been for weeks. Instead of confronting my daughter-in-law, I sat still on my bench and prayed to myself that whatever Fate had in store for Somerset, it would be determined soon, so Somerset’s shadow would no longer hang over our every family gathering.

  Four days later, I got my wish: King Edward signed Somerset’s death warrant.

  ***

  For anyone who had been a member of King Henry’s court, it had been almost impossible to avoid attending executions. Indeed, some courtiers had become virtual connoisseurs of death, critically eying each performance upon the scaffold as if the condemned were a new player come to court. Had the doomed person dressed perfectly, as had Anne Boleyn? Had he managed a witty quip, as had Sir Thomas More? How large a crowd had he attracted? Did he falter in his last speech, or deliver it clearly and well? Had the executioner been given a generous sum of money by the deceased?

  I was not one of those who delighted in such ordeals. True, I had attended the executions of Katherine Howard and her accomplice in adultery, Jane Boleyn, but that was out of pity for a queen I had once served and had found it impossible to dislike, exasperating as her royal whims and as foolish as her actions had been. My one concern had been to keep from fainting or vomiting. I had managed to avoid both, though only because I averted my eyes at the proper time. Never again, I had vowed, would I attend another execution.

  Yet on the morning of January 22, the day set for Somerset’s execution, I rode to Tower Hill to watch the duke die.

  I was not supposed to be there. John, who had moved to Westminster with the king the day before, had not forbidden it, but he had not anticipated I would make such a trip, either. Why I felt impelled to witness this I did not know; I had never been close to Somerset, even at the height of my husband’s friendship with him, and I certainly had no warm feelings toward him after he had plotted to destroy my husband. But his wife and I had once been friends of a sort, and his fourteen-year-old daughter was my son’s bride.