Her Highness, the Traitor

by Susan Higginbotham

  “Oh?” I said dully.

  “Later I changed my mind.”

  “When?”

  “When the old Duke of Suffolk knighted me. Your father was there. My friend—my friend Edward Seymour was there, the people who’d never had much to do with me because of my father were there, but you weren’t there. I missed your presence. I wanted you there to kiss me and tell me you were proud of me. That’s when I realized that I did want to marry you.”

  I twined my fingers into John’s. His grasp was as strong as ever. “I can’t even think of when I decided I wanted to be your wife. It seems that I always did. I don’t know how I will bear this.”

  “You will. You are strong. Were you there today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise me you won’t come tomorrow. Someone from here will come to tell you once it’s finished. I don’t want you to see me behe—like that.”

  “I promise I will not come.” But what did one do while one’s husband was being executed? Read? Sew? Practice the virginals? Perhaps I could consult the Duchess of Somerset. I pushed back the nervous laughter that was beginning to overtake me; if I started laughing in such an insane manner, I might never stop.

  “Sit in your garden where it’s pretty, you and my girls, when the time comes near. It is the picture I will hold in my mind. It will be a comfort to me.”

  “Very well. I will sit there.” To calm myself, I looked around the chamber. Hanging on a clothes rack next to the bed were a light gray gown and a matching doublet—the clothes John would wear tomorrow.

  Like a good husband, John asked, “Do they meet with your approval?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” John was silent for a while, stroking my hair. Finally he said, “I requested that the Duke of Somerset’s sons come here today, to see me take the Mass. I asked them for their forgiveness for executing their father.”

  “But he plotted against you.”

  “I know. But his death has gnawed at my conscience nonetheless. It eased it a little, speaking to them. Of course, they probably won’t forgive me, any more than Katheryn will forgive Queen Mary. But at least I tried.”

  “And you have really embraced the old religion?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t that way at first. I renounced my Protestant faith in the hopes of saving our sons. And it has, at least one of them. Jack won’t die with me tomorrow as I had feared. But it has brought me comfort since then. After all, so much has gone ill with England under the new.” He touched my cheek. “I don’t expect you to embrace the old religion straightaway. These things take time. But I hope someday you will.”

  I was silent. New religion, old religion were the same to me now; they shared the same cruel God, who was taking away from me the man I loved better than anything else on earth. Or maybe there was no cruel God. The wicked thought that there might be none at all was one I was trying very hard not to let push its way into my mind. But I would not distress my husband in his last hours of his life with my newfound doubts. “I will try.”

  “That is all I can ask.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out an inexpensive rosary. “Everything I have here will go to the Crown, but the queen won’t mind if I give you this.”

  I wound it around my wrist before John locked me into another embrace. We stood there for a while, whispering loving words to each other through our tears. Then John said, “The girls will be getting weary up there, and the guards might think we’ve gotten up to something. We’d best call them back.”

  “Yes.” But I did not move until John gently disengaged me and knocked at the chamber door as a signal to his guards.

  The girls silently came in, and John kissed and embraced each of them in turn. Then he turned, for the last time, to me.

  “Good-bye, Mouse,” he said and kissed my lips. “God keep you.”

  The guards pressed around us and hurried us downstairs to our waiting boat. It was a mercy, I suppose, that they did not allow me to turn and look backward, for the last sight I had of my John was his smiling face as he bid me farewell.

  36

  Frances Grey

  August 22, 1553

  When the day appointed for the Duke of Northumberland’s execution came round, Harry insisted we should be there. It was necessary, he said, to show our loyalty to the queen so she would prove more sympathetic toward our imprisoned daughter. “And to us, as well, my dear! We are not exactly basking in royal favor at the moment.” So on August 22, we rode to Tower Hill, leaving kindhearted Kate and squeamish Mary at our house at Sheen, a former priory. I wished I could have found an excuse to stay there with them.

  Over days of interrogation, Northumberland had denied poisoning the king. There was nothing, he had said repeatedly, he had wanted more than to see the king live to an old age. The old woman had been a desperate measure to cure the king, who had consented to her ministrations when all else failed. Asked whether he had poisoned Harry, he had snorted with laughter; asked whether his wife had poisoned Jane, he had lost his temper for the first time since his arrest and had demanded to know the name of the whoreson who had made such an allegation. Reluctantly, the queen and her council had decided there was no ground for charging him with the king’s demise. In any case, there was no need; there were plenty of other grounds on which to sentence him to death.

  There were at least ten thousand people at Tower Hill, I guessed, but Harry and I stood well away from the common people, who were busy jostling for a better view and taking bets over how many strokes it would take to sever Northumberland’s head. We were in a little stand by the scaffold that had been set up for the nobility, for many others besides Harry and me had decided this would be an apt occasion to demonstrate their loyalty

  Beside me stood the Earl of Hertford and his younger brother. Somerset’s death, like everything else that had gone wrong in England since the death of King Henry, was now being blamed entirely on Northumberland’s ambition and greed, and it had been deemed fitting that the former Protector’s sons attend the beheading. People kept coming up to the boys to grasp their hands and congratulate them, as if the duke’s downfall and execution had been arranged especially for their gratification, and I had seen that they looked more uncomfortable than triumphant. I smiled at Hertford, who looked resigned to yet another congratulation upon the duke’s imminent demise. “Your mother must have been thankful beyond words to see you again.”

  Hertford looked startled, then smiled—the first genuine smile I’d seen from him that morning. “Yes. And I was glad to see her, too.” He paused. “Is Lady Katherine here?”

  “No. She stayed home. She is very softhearted. She cannot stand to see people suffer, even traitors.”

  “I like a soft heart in a woman.”

  I resolved to invite the young earl to supper one day.

  A beating of drums sounded, and we all turned to see the Duke of Northumberland, wearing a gown of pale gray damask and surrounded by armed men, as he slowly made his way up Tower Hill. Beside him, chanting in Latin—to the puzzlement of the crowd, which had grown used to English—were Nicholas Heath, the Bishop of Worcester, and several other priests.

  Northumberland climbed the scaffold where the executioner, wearing a white apron, limped as he stepped aside to make way for the duke and his party. The duke quickly removed his gown, revealing a black jerkin and gray doublet, and handed it to an attendant. The crowd grew still and silent as he walked to the east rail of the scaffold. “Sirs and friends,” he said, “I have come to die as you see, having been condemned by the law, and I declare and confess that I have grievously offended God, and I beseech you earnestly that you would implore God for my soul, and if there be any here or absent whom I have offended, I crave their forgiveness.”

  “God forgive you,” the people chorused dutifully.

  Beside me, the Earl of Hertford stared a
t the ground. I patted him on the shoulder.

  Northumberland went on, “I beg you to accept humbly the work of God, because He does all for the best, and as for me, I am a miserable sinner and have deserved to die, and I am rightfully condemned by the laws. But although it is true that I was chief in bringing those things to pass for which I have been condemned, it is also true that I did it by the instigation of others.” He paused, and I felt everyone on the platform with me tense. “But I will not name them, for I will hurt now no man. I forgive them as I myself desire the forgiveness of God. And I beg you all to bear witness that I am taking leave in perfect love and goodwill with everybody, and to aid me with your prayers in the hour of death.”

  The duke paused and stared out over Tower Hill before he continued, “Brethren, you are not ignorant in what troubles this realm has been and now continues, as well as in part of the reign of King Henry, as from then until this day, all of which are notorious. I know well that there is no one of you but knows what has befallen us for having departed from the true Catholic church, and believed false prophets and preachers, who have persuaded us of their false doctrines, and have brought me as the chief offender in this and other things to the extremity which you behold, as they have done to many others, as you know. For which I ask God’s pardon, and declare to you that I die a true Catholic Christian, and confess and believe all that the Catholic Church believes.”

  Harry started to snort, and then recalled himself.

  “And I warn you, friends and brothers, that none should believe that this great novelty and new conscience arises from being urged upon me by any or that any have persuaded me in this, but I tell you what I feel at the bottom of my heart, and as you see I am in no case to say aught but truth. And thus I charge and enjoin you straightly that you give no credit to the preachers of such false doctrine. And consider, brethren, what I say, and do not forget that I charge you to have no let or shame in returning to God, as you see that I have not, and to consider what is written in the Apostles’ Creed, ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints.’ And I, though ignorant, could say more upon this, but you may reflect and consider it with an impartial mind. And if this does not satisfy you, think upon the miseries in which so great a multitude has lived and died in Germany, one against another, and that they have been trampled down for having forsaken the Catholic faith, wherefore God has forgotten them as he has forgotten us. And if this does not move you to feel as I have declared to you, let each one make his private reckoning and consider how it has fared with him in his own condition. And if he is not utterly blind, I am sure that he will come into this my true knowledge. And therefore I again charge you to embrace what the Catholic Church believes, which is what the Holy Spirit has revealed from generation to generation from the time of the apostles until our days, and will continue until the end. And live peaceably, and be obedient to the Queen’s majesty and her laws, and do that which I have not done.

  “I could go on with this talk, my dear people, as I have a thorough experience of the evil which has befallen this kingdom, but you know that I have something else to do, to which I must prepare as time is running short. And now I ask the queen’s majesty to forgive the offenses committed against her. And I have a firm hope of obtaining it, as she has already extended her mercy and clemency towards me so far that whereas she could have made me die, without any judicial proceeding or examination, in the most infamous and cruel way by dragging, hanging, and quartering, as I have been up in arms against Her Majesty, nevertheless by her mercy and goodness she has been contented to have me brought to my judgment and to have my case settled according to the law, by which I am rightfully and fairly sentenced. Her Majesty has also extended her clemency and mercy towards me in the way of my death. Therefore I hope that by her graciousness and bounty she will remit her anger and indignation against me, for which I heartily ask you all heartily to pray our Lord to preserve the life of our majesty so that she may reign on you for many years to come, in honor and happiness.”

  Northumberland moved away from the rail and knelt in the fresh straw in the middle of the scaffold. Flawlessly, as if he had been practicing in his cell, he recited a series of psalms and prayers in Latin. Then, having stripped to his shirt and tied the blindfold the lame executioner handed him, he crossed himself and lay down on the beam, then abruptly rose up. The crowd gasped. Was he going to declare all he had just said and done to be a sham?

  The duke’s blindfold had slipped down over one eye. Without pausing to take a last look at the summer sun beginning to break through the morning clouds, Northumberland adjusted it, lay down quickly, and struck his hands together. As I cringed against Harry, the executioner—stronger of arm than of leg—swung his axe, dispatching the duke with one stroke as the crowd roared its approval.

  Harry winced as the executioner raised Northumberland’s head. “I hope he wasn’t looking to get himself a last-minute pardon with all that Catholic twaddle,” he whispered to me.

  “Harry—”

  “Oh, I know, my dear. There but for the grace of God—and the queen—go I. But there’s no need to keep reminding me of it.”

  In a very short time, John Gates and Thomas Palmer, two underlings of the duke, followed him to the grave. As the crowd slowly dispersed, I watched as the executioner tossed Northumberland’s rich clothing over his arm and as the three bodies were laid inside a cart. The most guilty had paid for their sins—and, I could not help but think, for ours, as well. Now, I prayed silently as the mingled blood of the three traitors ran down the scaffold and the death cart rattled toward the Tower, England would be at peace. We could begin afresh, and my girl would soon be free.

  37

  Jane Dudley

  August 22, 1553

  I did not sleep that night after leaving John at the Tower. I stayed in my chamber, praying and weeping. When dawn came, I dried my eyes and dressed, using more care than I had as of late. Then, followed by Henry Sidney, my daughter Mary, and my ladies, I took Katheryn’s hand and walked out to the garden, where we sat watching as the sun broke over the Thames.

  The church bells tolled seven, and John’s half sisters joined the vigil. Eight, and a couple of my cousins came to sit with us. Nine—the hour John was to proceed to the scaffold.

  I fingered my rosary. It was a string of beads to me, nothing more, but it was a string of beads my John had held, at least. Unbidden, the Latin prayers I had said as a much-younger woman came back to me, and I began to repeat them in a whisper. Perhaps John, dying his Catholic death, was saying them, too.

  The sun was high in the sky when John’s servant from the Tower arrived by skiff at Chelsea’s landing. As I went to meet him, he took off his cap and held it to his heart. “It is done, Your Grace. I am most heartily sorry.”

  I realized then that the entire household had come out to the garden, the same garden where Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour had courted and giggled in what seemed now to be a more innocent time. Everybody stood silent, their heads capless and bowed. Some were weeping. I managed to command my voice. “Please take the rest of the day to mourn my husband,” I said, blinking back tears. “He was a good and fair master.”

  “Aye, he was,” my servants muttered.

  Henry Sidney took Mary into his arms, while Mistress Blount offered similar comfort to Katheryn. Maudlyn Flower took my arm. “Please go in and lie down, Your Grace. I will give you something to make you sleep.”

  I shook my head. “I would like to walk for a while. By myself.”

  “My lady…”

  “I need to be alone.”

  I turned away and set off walking aimlessly down the bank of the river. Someone from my household was protectively dogging my footsteps, I soon realized, but he stayed at a respectful distance, so I did not care. Most of the time, I was crying. At last, I grew so tired I could walk no longer, so I sat on the ri
verbank, where I childishly hugged my knees and watched the watercraft go by. Most people in London travel by water, John’s seven-year-old voice informed me.

  How cruel my father had been, to marry me to someone I would come to love so dearly.

  Grief, I found, would not keep me awake. Too exhausted from my sleepless night and from weeping and walking to hold my eyes open for long, I drifted off. For a few happy hours I was transported to my childhood in Halden with John until a touch awoke me. “My lady? It’s getting ready to rain. Please let me take you home.”

  I looked up to see one of my servants, leading my horse. I nodded and let him help me to my feet and into the saddle. Then, as the rain began to fall, I rode back to a home to which my John would never return.

  38

  Frances Grey

  October 1553

  On October 1, 1553, the crown King Edward and the Duke of Northumberland had wanted to go on my own daughter’s head was put on that of Queen Mary. With Jane in the Tower, Harry and I took no part in the coronation; doing so would have been too awkward for words. Yet a couple of weeks later, Harry was allowed to take his seat in Parliament—albeit belatedly—and I was summoned to Mary’s presence.

  My cousin smiled at me and quickly ordered me to rise. “Your daughter has written us a letter,” she said, handing it to me.

  I read the long letter slowly, tracing the perfectly formed letters with a finger and imagining the voice of the daughter I had not seen since July.

  Although my fault be such that, but for the goodness and clemency of the queen, I can have no hope of finding pardon, nor in craving forgiveness, having given ear to those who at that time appeared, not only to myself, but also to a great part of this realm, to be wise, and now have manifested themselves the contrary…Although my fault may be great, and I confess it to be so, nevertheless I am charged and esteemed guilty more than I have deserved. For whereas I might take upon me that of which I was not worthy, yet no one can ever say either that I sought it as my own, or that I was pleased with it or ever accepted it…