A crown in darkness : a novel about Lady Jane Grey

by Mullally, Margaret, 1954-

  Lady Anne prudently withdrew. As she returned to her own apartments, the sweat was dripping from her palms.

  But as the days slipped by, for the most part uneventful, and no hard-faced troops came stamping up the wide staircase, except in their dreams, Catherine and Anne breathed more freely, assuming that Jane Grey had concealed their guilty secret. As for Jane, she never once referred to the incident, and gradually the Queen was moved to confiding in the solemn little girl whose discretion she had under-estimated.

  'He looks to me to supply him with heirs, but I think it unlikely, Jane. It's my suspicion ...' She faltered delicately at this point, then went on: 'I suspect that the King is incapable of fathering healthy boys. All those poor women can't have been barren.'

  'There is Edward,' Jane tried to reassure her. 'My mother says that anxiety can bring on a miscarriage, or make it difficult for a woman to conceive.'

  Catherine made an effort not to burst into tears. Jane was far too young to realize how desperate the matter was. And she could not know of the Queen's passionate love for Tom Seymour.

  Frequently, when Catherine was lying beside Henry at Hampton Court, she thought she heard the sobbing of poor Catherine Howard who had tried desperately to reach Henry while confined to her apartments. She hadn't succeeded and, as her captors dragged her along the gallery back to her apartments, her screams rang throughout the palace. Catherine Parr would never forget that day, never forget those terrible screams. She could not walk through the gallery that led to the Chapel without feeling a cold shudder crawl along her spine. And now here she was, Henry Tudor's wife, as Catherine Howard had been, and in danger of a similar fate. 'For I am a woman who has fewer years of child-bearing left and therefore my chances of being saved are few,' she told herself.

  A son would be her saviour. Henry demanded a son. He pestered her, calculated dates, asked her sharp questions about her health. She looked pale, he observed. Was she feeling sick? Had she cravings for certain foods? Surely her menstruation period was a few days late?

  'No, Your Majesty,' stammered Catherine, 'I — I feel perfectly well. The physician tells me I'm probably overdue because of anxiety.'

  'There is no reason for my wife to be anxious,' said Henry coldly. 'I'm not unkind to you, am I? You are given everything you want, and more.' He turned suddenly to Jane, who was standing behind his wife at the time. 'Lady Jane Grey, I was informed this morning that your parents want you to go home to Leicestershire. Does that please you?'

  'No, Your Majesty,' replied Jane candidly.

  Henry was taken aback. 'No! But surely you want to see your parents again?'

  'I would rather stay here with Her Majesty.'

  Henry laughed, his good humour miraculously restored. 'Your loyalty overwhelms me, child, but I'm afraid you must go home for a while. Your mother is with child again.'

  Chapter 3

  Jane sat alone in the schoolroom at Greenwich Palace, struggling valiantly with a rather difficult chapter of Virgil. Her hair had escaped from her velvet cap and she frowned as she read aloud from the leather-bound volume and gently scraped the paper with her quill.

  A sheet of sunlight slanted in through the mullioned window, casting brilliant patches on to the printed pages and the flowing handwriting that was a combination of the Greek scholar and the Italian style which was popular in the universities. The general atmosphere in the room was pleasantly studious.

  She was passionate about learning, and with that quiet determination already characteristic of her, was ploughing steadily through fields of Latin, Greek and French. She did a little mathematics, for it was a modern subject and her mother, wishing always to be in the fashion, wanted her to have some knowledge of it. Jane had already decided to discard it quite soon, having little love for it.

  Literature and history were also in their full flush with her and her new tutor, John Aylmer, had promised that she should begin Italian and Arabic within the next few years.

  Jane thought of her new tutor, whom she had met three months earlier on her return to Bradgate. He was surprisingly young, about twenty-two years old, and unlike the pompous old dons to whom she was accustomed. He was cheerful and energetic, rather handsome too, with dark hair, brown eyes and a tall figure. He could tell some fascinating stories about life in the European colleges. And his duties did not end with the classics. He taught her music and archery, went riding with her and played bowls with her and her sister Katherine.

  John Aylmer knew that the Reformed Faith held a great deal of fascination for Jane and, unlike most people, he did not try to discourage her for, at heart, he himself was a Reformer.

  Queen Catherine was another who smiled on Jane's Protestant leanings, sharing the child's religious views. She even held secret meetings in her apartments, during which a certain Anne Askew instructed her and her ladies in the Lutheran theories. She distributed books which King Henry had strictly forbidden, and the fact that Catherine Parr studied and discussed this forbidden theology seemed absurd to many people.

  But Jane knew that Catherine was a lady of culture and though she dared not quote Martin Luther as freely as Mistress Askew, it was natural that she should at least form her own opinions.

  Jane was alarmed for Catherine. Cautious to a certain extent, the little girl's sincerity was like a star, glittering against the dark sky of intolerance that loomed over Tudor England.

  She now called to mind a conversation which she had held with her mother during her recent visit home. Frances, pregnant again, had been more fractious than ever. She called Jane to her apartments and demanded the news.

  'Well, let me see, the Prince has a new pony and he let me ride it in the park and the King is considering planting some more elms,' Jane said, mischievously avoiding her mother's eyes. 'And then the French Ambassador complimented me on my dancing and ...'

  'Enough, enough!' Frances cried testily. 'This is all very well, but what about the Court? I know you're a great success in the Queen's service, but I hope you are not neglecting your friendship with His Highness. Remember, his affection is of the utmost importance. He is the one we want you to marry, not the Queen.'

  'Neither of them appeals to me as very interesting bedfellows.'

  Frances gave an unexpected chortle. 'And what about the King and Queen? How do matters stand between them?'

  'His Majesty seems to love her.' Jane was guarded in her reply.

  'Nonsense. He never loved anyone but that Boleyn bitch, and look what happened to her. Is the Queen pregnant yet?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Well, her chances of conceiving are not very good, poor thing.' Frances permitted herself a moment's contemptuous pity for Catherine. 'And if she does, she'll doubtless prove to be one of those sickly, miscarrying women. Whereas I,' she continued proudly, 'am once more with child.'

  'May God send you a healthy baby,' Jane said politely.

  Frances surveyed her daughter almost benevolently. Perhaps she wasn't such an obstinate little bitch after all. She was bright and perceptive, and, Frances believed, had plenty of courage. She wasn't shallow, like little Katherine. One could discuss things with her and have no fear of confidences being betrayed.

  'Why, Jane,' she said with a gruff laugh, 'you are more like me than I thought. Katherine is weak and vain, like your father, but you have my strength. You'll be able to look life in the eye and seize it by its sharp horns. But take care, girl. Don't make a display of your sympathy for the Queen. That woman is a fool. Any moment her enemies are going to strike and, instead of joining forces with Cranmer and the Seymours and working for the ruin of the Catholics, she helps them to destroy her. Such women deserve contempt, not sympathy.'

  Jane tried to shrug the memory of that conversation out of her mind. Catherine was clever. She would know how to deal with a political attack. The schoolroom door was pushed open with a groan and Sir Thomas Seymour's head peered round at her.

  'My charming Lady Jane.' He smiled and advanced towards her. '
I thought His Highness would be here. Where is he?'

  'The King insists that he rides every day and so he is to be found gasping in the hills,' explained Jane earnestly. 'The Prince isn't very strong, my Lord, and I fear such exercise will exhaust rather than refresh him.'

  'Treason,' Thomas teased, his eyes shining appraisingly as they met her grave and lovely ones. 'The King always knows best. Tell me, Jane, do you never laugh?'

  'Only when I am amused or happy. A scholar has little time for merry-making. Life is too short to be wasted.'

  He was touched by her sincerity. One day, he reflected, she may mean more to me.

  At present, two females largely occupied his thoughts. Catherine Parr, whom he could not have —yet: he loved Catherine as much as any ambitious man is capable of loving a woman. And there was the young Princess Elizabeth, who was such a dazzling, unpredictable creature.

  Elizabeth was knowledge and innocence; coquetry and modesty; fire and ice. He admired her pert tongue and her needle-sharp wits, her sudden unexpected displays of affection. She had a shrewd mind that functioned with the quick, conscienceless directness of the savage^ Her red hair and quick temper reminded him of a vixen and, he believed, he never liked her more than when she was in a temper, her greenish eyes slits of rage in her flushed face. He was waiting for Elizabeth to grow up.

  'Are you afraid of dying. Lady Jane?' he heard himself asking. 'You complained that life is too short.'

  'It's foolish to fear the inevitable,' answered Jane. 'It's far better to learn to accept it. Hiding from it won't make it less real. But I hate it when people are executed — cruelly, senselessly.' She lowered her voice. 'If ever I am Queen, no one shall be slaughtered because he speaks his mind. It's not fair.'

  Tom guffawed and fell to his knees in mock homage. 'Long live Queen Jane.'

  He followed Jane's troubled glance and saw that Elizabeth was standing in the doorway, watching them. Tom was reminded of her mother, Anne Boleyn, in one of her appalling rages. With her head held high, eyes snapping, cheeks tinted scarlet, she might well have been the turbulent Queen returned from the grave. Then the image of Anne churned into a tempestuous model of Henry Tudor. She roared at him, demanding to know how he dared to insult her father, the King. Tom tried to pacify her, but she stamped out of the room sobbing with rage, and fled to her bedroom. Mistress Ashley, busily occupied with a piece of embroidery, glanced up in dismay as Elizabeth burst into the room and sobbed out the unhappy story.

  'There, sweetheart, it was but horseplay,' said Mistress Ashley.

  Elizabeth laughed shortly. 'Not so, Kat. He plans to marry that child and see himself King. The Seymours are scheming upstarts, all of them. Just because their milksop sister attracted my father and enchanted him with her prim manners, they think they can all marry the daughters of noblemen. Well, there's no accounting for the taste of men. Jane Seymour was meek and stupid and had a face like sour cream, while my mother was truly beautiful. They said that, even in rags, she would have looked like a goddess.'

  She wiped the tears away angrily and began to whirl about the room like an angry, caged lioness. Her eyes glowed, her cheeks were flushed. There was a hard, mystic brightness about her that made her governess uneasy.

  'When I am Queen, they'll receive little mercy from me. For, more than anything, I want to rule this island. I want to be Queen in my own right, not merely a King's wife to be paraded before ambassadors and worn out with child-bearing. I want to have my father's greatness, to have his power of forcing my will upon the nation, but to be more subtle than he. I am meant to be Queen.'

  She broke off abruptly as a light knock sounded on the door. Kat hurried across the room and, opening the door, found a shame-faced Tom Seymour standing on the threshold, begging for an audience with the Princess Elizabeth.

  He was disturbed. His horseplay with Jane had upset Elizabeth, and there was no knowing how she would retaliate.

  If news of what had happened in the schoolroom reached Henry's ears there would be trouble, for Henry was very touchy about his Royalty. He was also terrified of dying, although he suffered no qualms about sending others to the block, and the lightest reference to any future ruler always made him sweat with fear - he hated to think of a time when he would not be there.

  Tom had therefore decided to seek Elizabeth out, and flatter her into forgiving him.

  She kept him waiting in the ante-room for ten minutes while she changed into a sober, almost matronly grey gown. Then she appeared, looking haughty, assuming an air of offended dignity that made Tom want to roar with laughter. However, he controlled his mirth and, with the utmost sobriety, kissed her hand.

  'Why have you seen fit to disturb me, my lord?' demanded Elizabeth, withdrawing her hand.

  'Disturb you, my Lady Elizabeth?'

  'Yes indeed. My ladies and I are working at our tapestry.'

  'A most refined pastime, and one more suited to your ladylike disposition than that of stamping and swearing like a Turk. You must find it most refreshing after such violent activity.'

  'You haven't answered by question,' snapped Elizabeth, somewhat spoiling the effect by kicking pettishly at a small, neatly embroidered footstool. The childish gesture was not lost on Tom, who grinned maliciously.

  'My dear lady, you under-estimate yourself. Should there be a reason for my wanting to see you? You should know better than that.'

  'And you, my Lord, should know better than to pine so ostentatiously for my cousin Jane.'

  'Oh, come now; what charms could a little girl of her age hold for me?'

  'She will not always be a little girl,' retorted Elizabeth. 'And when she is older, she'll be pushed towards the throne and men like you will be standing close by, waiting for her.'

  'And you, I suppose, have no desire for the crown?' Elizabeth's eyes sparkled with fun at that. They understood and respected each other.

  It seemed to Tom Seymour that, wherever he went, he collided with the Duke of Norfolk's beautiful daughter, Mary. Therefore, when he came out of Elizabeth's apartments after their reconciliation, he was not surprised to see her, drifting along the gallery at a very leisurely pace.

  'Thomas, the gods beam on you,' he told himself. It was not that he had any affection for Mary, or included her in his list of prospective wives, although he had to admit that she was beautiful. He knew that she wanted, more than anything, to be his wife but he had no intention of marrying her. Ever since the Seymours had made their first appearance at Court, they had been at war with the Howards. It was not only their extreme religious differences that caused strife between them. The Howards were obsessed with their noble ancestry and were naturally indignant when they saw an upstart family like the Seymours flourishing because the King lusted after one of its daughters. Norfolk, as a statesman, was suspicious of Edward Seymour's political capacity. Norfolk's son, the proud Earl of Surrey, found Thomas Seymour as arrogant as himself. Surrey believed that he himself had good cause to be arrogant, since the blood of Plantagenet and Charlemagne blended freely in his veins, but Thomas Seymour could not brag of such Royal descent and his arrogance was therefore inexcusable and intolerable.

  Thus, father and son mingled their causes for hostility and their hatred flared. They loathed the Seymours and the Seymours loathed them.

  Triumph came to the Howards when the pretty, faithless Catherine was chosen to share the King's throne and bed, but it was a fleeting triumph. Catherine's youthful indiscretions were uncovered and the fortunes of the Howard family threatened to fall with her.

  Even then, the young Queen might have been spared, for the sound of her gay, sweet laughter still tingled in the King's ears. But the Seymours struck. Edward Seymour wasted no time in publishing the humiliating facts of Catherine's deception abroad. It was a clever, pitiless move, typical of Hertford. For how could Henry keep a woman beside him when all Europe knew how she had cheated him? He would be the laughing stock of Christendom and nothing less than death frightened Henry so much as the
thought of cutting a figure of fun.

  Bitterness crept into the feud. One night in 1542, shortly after Catherine's execution, Surrey challenged Tom Seymour to a duel in the palace grounds. They fought savagely until a guard intervened. The penalty for fighting on Royal premises was the removal of the right hand. Norfolk exerted all his influence to save his precious son from such a grim punishment. Unfortunately for him, justice demanded that Tom Seymour should also be pardoned.

  And now Norfolk's daughter had fallen in love with the most disreputable of the Seymours and would stop at nothing to win him.

  'My Lord.' Mary swept Tom Seymour a curtsy, her heart beating so loudly she thought he must hear it. There was excitement in her wide violet eyes as she flashed him a smile.

  'My Lady.' Tom raised Mary's hand to his lips. 'I am confronted by a living garden whenever Your Ladyship comes into sight. Your hair is like marigolds, your eyes are like violets, your Ups are poppies and you are as fragrant as a rose.'

  'Oh, am I, sir?' Mary went pink with pleasure. 'I had no notion you were such a courtier. I had always thought bold seamen to be men of action rather than words.'

  'Madam, your beauty could inspire poetry in the most inarticulate of men.'

  Mary dimpled becomingly. Lord, she really believed it, Tom Seymour thought. Even young Elizabeth was inclined to probe suspiciously into the casual compliments he threw her way before accepting them.

  Having said his lines, Tom would have passed on his way with a courteous 'your servant, madam,' but Mary, reckless with excitement, laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  'My Lord...Thomas ... I have to speak to you.'

  He turned to her in surprise. 'Yes, madam?'

  Abandoning all her careful training in a moment, she spoke impetuously, hardly pausing to think.

  'My Lord, you can't be ignorant of the love I bear you. Everyone seems to know, except you. If you are unwilling to marry me, I'd prefer you to say so, though what reasons you could have I can't imagine. My family is one of the greatest in England, and I'm not an ugly woman.'