Her Highness, the Traitor

by Susan Higginbotham

  Ambrose and Hal, each charged with taking the field against Queen Mary and proclaiming Jane as queen, also pleaded guilty.

  Because the archbishop had pleaded not guilty, the other prisoners had to wait until his trial was finished before their sentences were pronounced. At last—Cranmer having changed his plea after the Crown presented its evidence—each of the prisoners was called to hear his or her sentence. “Guildford Dudley, as you have pleaded guilty to high treason, I hereby sentence you to death by drawing, hanging, and quartering.”

  Hal’s wife, sitting next to me, clutched my hand. I fought back nausea.

  “Jane Dudley, approach the bench!”

  The only sound in the Guildhall was Jane’s skirts swishing against the floor. “Jane Dudley, as you have pleaded guilty to high treason, I hereby sentence you to be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the queen should please.”

  Frances Grey slumped over in a faint on Adrian Stokes’s shoulder. Jane’s face had not even changed.

  My two other sons were sentenced to die the same grim death as Guildford. Then the prisoners once again formed a neat line and exited the Guildhall, this time with the axe facing them as a signal to the crowd that they had been sentenced to death.

  Under the devoted ministrations of Master Stokes, who had all but knocked the curious out of the way so that his lady could come to herself in peace, Frances was reviving as I began to make my way out of the Guildhall. She looked up at me as I passed. “The queen promised me she would spare my daughter. Do you think her majesty will do so now that my child and your sons are under this dreadful sentence?”

  “You know her better than I do, my lady. Unlike you, I have not been allowed into her presence.”

  I had struck home. Frances blushed. Then she said, “I will beg for all of their lives if I see the queen again. In the meantime, I can at least pray that she spares my daughter’s life, and your sons’, as well. Will you do the same?”

  “I shall pray for all of them.” Then I added, “But it is the queen we must convince. God may be an easier matter.”

  40

  Frances Grey

  November 1553 to January 1554

  Jane’s condemnation at the Guildhall moved Harry to do what none of my own pleadings could accomplish: make his peace with the queen on the matter of religion. While he did not go so far as to consent to begin hearing the Mass, he did agree not to interfere with the legislation that was making its way through Parliament. Just as important to the queen, he promised not to oppose her marriage to Philip of Spain. In return, he received a public assurance of the queen’s goodwill and a private assurance that Jane would be safe. The dreadful sentence that had made me faint at the Guildhall was merely a formality. In time, Jane would go free. The queen was less certain about Guildford and the rest of the Dudleys—this time I had kept my promise to the Duchess of Northumberland and asked that she show them mercy—but no moves were made to carry out the sentences against them.

  I had no reason to doubt any of this. Indeed, when I came to court in late November, I found, to my immense embarrassment, that Queen Mary gave precedence to me and my cousin Margaret, Countess of Lennox, over the lady Elizabeth, who glared at us as she took her seat at a lower table.

  “It’s been like that ever since I came,” Margaret informed me as we relaxed in her chamber at Westminster later that evening. The queen was feeling poorly and had retired early. Margaret fingered the material of her rich gown, a gift from Mary, guiltily. “She has pampered me shamelessly since I have come to court. I can’t say I find it disagreeable, but she snubs the lady Elizabeth at the same time. It is awkward, to say the least. I pity the lady Elizabeth, but it is hardly my fault that the queen sees Anne Boleyn in her face whenever she looks at her.” Margaret lowered her voice. “The queen has even said that if she dies without issue, I will be the heir to the throne.”

  “Better you be anything else, Margaret! Trust me, you would be better off going back to Yorkshire and staying there for the rest of your life.”

  “I had forgotten how much you have suffered for your royal blood,” admitted Margaret. “But the queen always speaks highly of you, and she speaks very indulgently of the lady Jane. Surely she will free her soon.”

  “I hope so. Christmas will be dismal without her.”

  “Wait until the queen marries,” Margaret said confidently. “She will be in a humor to grant anything, maybe even get the lady Jane’s marriage to that Dudley boy annulled and let her marry someone whose family isn’t knee-deep in treason.”

  “Is she that pleased about the Spanish match?”

  “Pleased? She talks of nothing else among her women these days but Prince Philip. And I can’t blame her. His portrait arrived a few days ago, and I don’t know whether the credit is due more to Titian or to Prince Philip himself, but it certainly is a feast for the eyes. Mind you, no one else, other than Simon Renard, is happy with it. The marriage, I mean, not the portrait.”

  “So I have heard from Harry.”

  “Oh, my dear! Courtenay alternates between sulking and pursuing the lady Elizabeth, who can’t abide him. The French ambassador’s nose is out of joint. Gardiner is unhappy because the queen refused Courtenay, and the queen is unhappy because the Commons have been badgering her not to make the marriage. And, of course, the Commons are unhappy because the queen refuses to give up the idea of this marriage.”

  “Do you think she will be prevailed upon to change her mind?”

  “Not a chance,” Margaret said. “The more people cry out against her marriage, the more she digs in. The queen is as mulish as her father ever was, and King Edward, too, from what I hear.” She laughed. “Not that I lack a stubborn streak myself. In fact, I believe you are the only one of us cousins who escaped it.”

  ***

  After Parliament recessed, we stayed at Sheen instead of going to Bradgate, as Harry’s health had been suffering lately. Besides, with a daughter languishing in the Tower—though Jane was well fed and well supplied with comfortable furnishings and her beloved books and paper—neither of us had the heart to go to Leicestershire as if nothing were amiss.

  As Christmas drew near, Harry’s brothers paid us their accustomed visits, along with several men who had not visited us much before: Sir Peter Carew, Sir James Croft, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. They were more soldiers than scholars, not Harry’s usual choice of companion, I thought. But as they were congenial and well bred, and their presence was a distraction, I welcomed them to Sheen.

  As we played cards a few days before the anniversary of our Lord’s birth and the men enjoyed the wide varieties of wine we had on hand, the subject, despite my best efforts to the contrary, soon turned to the queen’s marriage. “Any news of the Spanish invasion?” asked Thomas Grey, Harry’s younger brother.

  “Nothing you haven’t heard,” said Harry. “Probably the Spaniards are arguing over who’s going to get which part of England once Philip coaxes the queen into handing it over.”

  “Oh, Harry,” I said. “Really.”

  “My wife lives in a state of happy illusion,” Harry said, picking up a card. His voice was slurred. “She believes that the queen is going to keep Philip in his place, and that England won’t be handed over to the Pope.”

  “I believe the queen will exercise common sense and not alienate the people.”

  Thomas Wyatt smiled at me. He was a handsome man in his early thirties, the son of the poet who had narrowly escaped being accused of adultery with Anne Boleyn. “We can hope.”

  “I think we should give her a chance to do what is right for England,” I said. Perhaps I had had a cup of wine too much myself, for I added, “After all, Harry has pledged to support her marriage.”

  Thomas Grey turned to his brother. “Is that true, Harry? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

  Harry shrugged. “It
could be worse. The queen’s husband could be one of the savages the Spaniards bring over from Africa.”

  “No,” said Thomas. “It would be better. She could teach him how to worship that bread of hers, and dress him up and put a crown on his head, and then she could leave the governing of England to Englishmen, while the savage begets a child upon her—or tries. That might be a bit much, even for a savage.”

  “This is abominable,” I said, pronouncing the word too carefully. I rose. “How can you speak of the queen so? She has been merciful to our daughter. We owe her gratitude, not vile jokes like these.”

  “Now, Fan, let us have our fun,” said Harry as I turned to stare. To call me “Fan” in front of men I hardly knew, he had to be well and truly drunk. “God knows we won’t be having it for long, once the queen takes all that’s ours back and gives it to the monasteries. Not once she milks us to pay for Spain’s wars and puts us at war with the French. Not once she sacrifices England so that she can find a little pleasure between her leg—”

  As regally as I could with my head beginning to ache, I swept from the room.

  ***

  Late the next afternoon, Harry, looking so hung over I might have felt sorry for him were he not my husband, appeared in my chamber. “Have you got anything else vile to say?” I asked.

  “Yes. I mean, no. I mean—oh, I don’t know what to say. Just read this letter. I received it yesterday before my brothers and the rest came.”

  I stared at the familiar handwriting, confident and upright as ever despite the fact that the author was imprisoned in the Tower. “Jane wrote this?”

  “Yes. It’s a fair copy of a letter she sent to Harding when she heard of his apostasy.”

  Thomas Harding was one of our former chaplains. Like a number of other clergy, he had abandoned his Protestant faith when Mary came to the throne. “How did she hear of that?” Though we wrote to our daughter from time to time, we—or at least I—carefully avoided any topics that might offend the queen. I thus spent a great deal of time writing about the weather, my plans for my garden, and Kate’s pets, all subjects I knew thoroughly bored Jane but at least would not send her to the scaffold.

  Harry shrugged. “We have friends in the Tower guard. But read the letter.”

  So oft as I call to mind (dear friend and chosen brother) the dreadful and fearful sayings of God, that he which layeth hold upon the plough and looketh back again, is not meet for the kingdom of heaven; and on the other side to remember the comfortable words of our Savior Christ, to all those that forsaking themselves do follow him, I cannot but marvel at thee and lament thy case; that thou, which sometimes wert the lively member of Christ, but now the deformed imp of the devil; sometimes the beautiful temple of God, but now the stinking and filthy kennel of Satan; sometimes the unspotted spouse of thy Savior, but now the unshamefast paramour of Antichrist; sometimes my faithful brother, but now a stranger and apostate; yea sometimes my stout Christian soldier, but now a cowardly runaway. So oft as I consider the threatenings and promises of the Divine Justice to all those which faithfully love him, I cannot but speak to thee, yea, rather cry out and exclaim against thee, thou seed of Satan, and not of Juda, whom the devil hath deceived, the world hath beguiled, and desire of life hath subverted, and made of a Christian an infidel.

  For pages Jane went on like this; the letter never seemed to end. Finally, I folded the epistle in half. I wanted to tear it in two.

  “Well?” Harry said. “Our girl minces no words, you’ll have to admit. A pity women can’t take the pulpit; she would be a natural for it.”

  “Harry, this is insane! How can she write foolish tirades such as this, when she is living under a sentence of death?”

  “But your precious queen is merciful, isn’t she?”

  “She is merciful, but she can be pushed too far, and Jane is trying her forbearance to the utmost. How could you encourage her to write this?”

  “I didn’t, as a matter of fact. She took it upon herself. But don’t you see? She may be writing to Harding, but it’s me she is thinking of, as well. I and all of the others who have sold our souls to Queen Mary.”

  “Harry, she means no such thing! You have not renounced your faith.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You have only agreed not to oppose the queen’s legislation and to support her marriage.”

  “Doesn’t that amount to the same thing, my dear?”

  “It does not.”

  Harry shook his head. “In our Jane’s eyes, it does.”

  “Harry, it does not! Jane is an intelligent young woman. She surely realizes that you are acting for her own good. If she doesn’t, whoever is smuggling those letters out for her should be told that. What is wrong with you? I can guess. You’ve been ill lately and had too much wine the night before on top of it all. You need to rest.”

  My husband ran a weary hand over his beard. For the first time, I noticed it was beginning to develop flecks of gray. In a few weeks, he would be seven and thirty. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right. Please go to your chamber and lie down.” I indicated Jane’s letter, which I still held in my hand. “This is seditious, Harry. Please, let us burn it, and hope that the original goes no farther than Harding.”

  Harry took it from me swiftly as I moved to the fire. “No. I want to keep it.”

  ***

  Over Christmas, Harry and I went several times to Richmond, where the queen was holding court. It was just a short distance from our house at Sheen. The lady Elizabeth had chosen to spend Christmas at Ashridge in Hertfordshire, so I was not put in the uncomfortable position of having to take precedence over her. Harry made no awkward comments about religion or the queen’s marriage, and our visits went smoothly.

  Then, around the third week of January, Adrian Stokes came to my chamber, his face grim. “Your Grace, I do not know how to tell you this.”

  “My daughter? She is ill?”

  “No. Your Grace, I have never known a kinder master than the Duke of Suffolk. No one who knows him can truly say otherwise.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. How could you? I have not told anyone besides Your Grace what I have learned. It pains me to say it. I have struggled for the last day or so about whether I should even say it, but Your Grace has been as kind to me as the duke has. It is something you should know.”

  I looked at Master Stokes a little impatiently as he stumbled on. “Those men who were here before Christmas. Sir Thomas Wyatt and the rest.”

  “Yes?”

  “They have induced the duke to turn traitor to the Crown.”

  I sank down into a chair, with Master Stokes’s assistance. “In what way?” I managed.

  “These are men who are bitterly opposed to Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage. I’m not entirely sure exactly what their objective is. To be honest, I’m not sure they are, either. Some want to force the queen to listen to her people and to break off her marriage plans to Prince Philip. Others want to force the queen to abdicate and put the lady Elizabeth on the throne. Still others want to marry the lady Elizabeth to the Earl of Devon and have them rule together.”

  “Oh, for mercy’s sake, tell me that they don’t want to put Jane on the throne again!”

  “No. At least none are saying so if they do. She’s too closely associated with Northumberland and his schemes, I think, for anyone to dare to propose that. The lady Elizabeth is a different matter. The people like her, even the ones who hated her mother, and because she wasn’t involved in any of last summer’s business, there are many who would gladly see her on the throne.”

  “Is she involved in this?”

  “Not that I can tell. Wyatt approached her, but she never replied.”

  “And how are they to accomplish this?”

  “Wyatt is
to lead a rising in Kent, Carew in the southwest, and Croft in the Welsh marches. The duke will be leading one in the midlands. Then they are going to converge upon London. The French are said to be involved, too. The risings are to take place on Palm Sunday.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Master Stokes said, reverting to formality. “You may ask me what business I had hearing of this in the first place. I will tell you honestly—none. I accidentally heard scraps of things which made me suspicious, and I remained alert for more, because I knew Your Grace would be concerned—and because I thought you should know.”

  “He has told me nothing. Nothing! I believed he would be faithful to the queen.”

  “I know. But, Your Grace, that is not the worst of it. It was not hard for me, a mere servant, to learn of this. I believe others may have learned of it, too, and at the highest levels. There are rumors that men are being arrested already. My lord Thomas Grey was here just now. He did not stay to dine with the duke, as he usually does. I believe he brought a warning.”

  “I must speak to Harry,” I said, rising. But when had Harry ever listened to me? I turned to Master Stokes. “Please come with me,” I begged.

  Harry had been ill with the stone, and I expected to find him in his bed when I was admitted to his chamber. Instead, I found him dressing and in conversation with his secretary, John Bowyer. “Harry. I must speak to you.”

  Harry nodded, and Bowyer hurried away. “Very well, my dear, but there’s little time to chat. I must go to Bradgate.”

  “Bradgate? Without me?”

  “I am afraid, my dear, some business has come up. It shall be accomplished quickly—”

  “There is no business,” I said, gathering courage from Master Stokes standing beside me. “I know what your intentions are, Harry.”

  “Intentions?”

  “For mercy’s sake, Harry, do not play these games with me! You have joined a conspiracy.”