A crown in darkness : a novel about Lady Jane Grey

by Mullally, Margaret, 1954-

  The pains twisted Catherine's body. She had never dreamed that childbirth would be like this. Perhaps there was something wrong. She was bathed in sweating panic. Had Tom done this to her? Was it because of him that she suffered so? Had he poisoned her because he wanted to marry Elizabeth and was prevented from doing so while Catherine Parr lived?

  'There is a conspiracy against me,' she murmured, tossing from side to side. Her face was hot and perspiration streaked the gold-fringed cushions on which she rested.

  A movement beside her distracted her attention. The Lady Jane, not quite eleven years old, was at her bedside, her lovely eyes huge with fear.

  'Did you say something. Madam?' she asked.

  'No, it's nothing, Jane.' She paused, fighting for breath. 'I feel my time is near.'

  'Shall I fetch the midwife?'

  'No, not yet. It's not that urgent. And you know you shouldn't really be here. But you are not like others. You are loyal, you are steadfast. You would never betray anyone who loved you. How can I thank you, child; you who have been with me through good fortune and bad, silently fighting my enemies and helping me to stumble back to strength?'

  'Madam, you should rest.'

  Catherine obediently sank back on to the cushions, while Jane smoothed her tangled brown hair and bathed her face in cool, scented water.

  'You knew about Tom and — and Elizabeth, didn't you?' Catherine said, her face grey and distorted. 'You should have told me — spared me the humiliation of finding out myself.' Her voice trailed away in a sobbing gasp and she gripped Jane's hand and whispered, 'It hurts.'

  'I won't leave you. Madam,' Jane promised.

  Catherine didn't hear her. Her mind was a torment. How much, she asked herself, had Jane always known?

  In her agony, she forgot that Jane had been her friend. Feverish and cold by turns, aching with pain, she only knew that the girl had deceived her. And she allowed her wild thoughts to rush on until they crammed her frightened brain and she screamed aloud.

  The women hurried to her bedside, the curtains were swiftly drawn and Jane was ushered out of the room.

  Bewildered, Jane sought out the Admiral, who was sprawled inelegantly across a sofa, his face cupped in his hands and his broad, virile shoulders shaking.

  He didn't look up until she whispered his name.

  'Get the hell out of here!' he shouted, flinging his arm across the trestle table beside him and overbalancing a jug of mead.

  'Tom, I've come to talk to you.' Jane sat down beside him.

  He groped for her hand, almost crushing it in his strong fingers. 'Will she be all right?' He looked oddly childish in his fear. 'Is she in pain? I heard her cry.'

  'She is in a little pain, but the midwife says it's nearly time, my Lord.' But, even as Jane spoke, a low, savage groan creaked from the lying-in chamber. Seymour cowered.

  'If anything happens to her, it will be my fault,' he declared grimly. 'She was upset by what I did to her but I didn't mean it. You know that, Jane. It's just that Elizabeth was there and ...'

  He broke off, desperate in his self-condemnation, and the little girl shrank from the hard, bright reproach in his eyes and the brutality in his voice. Why must he torture himself and her by talking about such wounding matters that were better not discussed?

  She listened, horrified, as his voice went on, bitter and malicious, but so desperate that it stabbed her to her heart.

  'Please, Tom, I understand,' she implored, stroking his bowed head.

  'Before God, you don't.' Tom poured himself another cup of wine. He had been drinking heavily all that afternoon and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, all the merriment gone from them.

  'I think of her, Jane. I think of her lying there, so fragile and small, suffering because of me.'

  'She loves you, so she would prefer to suffer alone than have you endure the pain with her,' she said. 'But when the baby is born and you're both clinking glasses to its health, all the suffering will be a thing of the past, like a nightmare that doesn't matter any more.'

  'I hope so,' was all Tom said, with abrupt cynicism.

  And Jane, her senses wearied by so much anxiety, foolishly thought, 'So he loved her and not Elizabeth.'

  Catherine Parr died, shortly after giving birth to a baby daughter. She died accusing the Admiral of poisoning her because he desired the Princess Elizabeth.

  Jane was stunned with grief and shock. It seemed totally incredible that the woman who had been as a mother to her would never talk to her, read to her or confide in her again. She wept in the solitude of her bedroom, puzzled and alarmed by the mystery of death. Her thoughts went back to a deep black night in the old red palace of Whitehall, when Henry VIII was rotting slowly to death, but this was different. Henry Tudor had been a distant monster who frightened and intrigued her, but Catherine was her friend.

  'Not fair,' her shaken, defiant spirit wept. It was to be the retort of her girlhood.

  Catherine was laid to rest on a mockingly golden morning in September. Lady Jane, who was Chief Mourner, stood directly opposite the Admiral, solemn yet childlike in her stately black robes.

  Seymour's handsome face was pale and haggard. The death of his gentle wife had struck a terrible blow at the big man, and he was shut inside his sorrow, refusing comfort from everyone who proffered it. Jane, lonely and miserable, would have broken down that barrier he had built but he held her, and everyone else, at arm's length.

  Her attention was claimed by the sombre dark hangings which bore the arms of the Seymours and of Henry VIII, who had been Catherine's third husband. For so long, Catherine had been Jane's leading lamp, a person to watch and to learn from. Subconsciously, she had long ago begun to emulate the lady's air of serene dignity. Now, the glow of the lamp had been extinguished into dark oblivion, and there was nobody left who could guide an enthusiastic eleven year-old. She must go on alone.

  The Minister, observing that the Chief Mourner was paying little attention to his sermon, glared at her. Guiltily, Jane tried to concentrate on ecclesiastical matters. The rest of the day passed in a chilled mist of unreality. Thomas Seymour, Jane and the rest of the household were now in residence at Seymour Place and, as soon as the funeral was over, and they had returned there, Tom stalked off in the direction of the stables without a word to anyone.

  'It's the shock,' murmured kind old Lady Seymour, with a sympathetic glance at the little girl's stricken face. 'He loved his wife dearly and he's taken it very hard. It will take him a good while to recover.'

  Jane returned Tom's mother's smile, although she felt stiff and hurt, as if somebody had beaten her.

  'Sit down on that stool, child. I'll have a drink fetched for you.' Jane was glad of the mug of warmed mulled wine that Lady Seymour pressed into her shaking hands.

  'Will the Admiral ever be the same again?' she managed to ask presently.

  'Why bless your heart, child, he'll get over it. Time heals the most battered heart - it's nature's wonderful way. If not, we would all go mad under the strain. No, he will recover. I've never known Thomas to be defeated by anything yet. I remember him as a boy, trying to ride a half-crazed mare. Every time the wicked creature threw him, he leaped back into the saddle, and lucky he was that he wasn't killed. Edward, his brother, would never take such mad risks. He was always the cautious member of the family. His mind was carefully locked against intruders.'

  'What about your other son, Henry?' enquired Jane, momentarily distracted from her distress.

  Lady Seymour's ageing eyes glimmered with fond tears as she thought of her second son and Jane caught a glimpse of the beauty that had once caused the poet Skelton to dedicate one of his most tender verses to this lady — Mistress Margery Wentworth as she had been before her marriage.

  'Ah, Henry never wanted a life of glamour. He was content to remain a country squire, even when my daughter married the King and we Seymours were at the height of royal favour.'

  'I suppose you never expected her to catch the King's
eye.'

  'No,' sighed Lady Seymour, remembering her pale, unremarkable daughter Jane with some sadness. 'She was never beautiful and I often wondered if she had a brain at all, though evidently she had. But she was a discreet girl who didn't believe in letting the world know of her ambition.'

  'Didn't she care that Queen Anne was put to death in order to make way for her?' Jane blurted out. She had always despised what she knew of Jane Seymour, considering her as sly as she was meek. 'I don't think she was very kind.'

  'Jane was far kinder than her predecessor, Anne Boleyn, ever was,' said Lady Seymour. 'When she became Queen, she had the Princess Mary reinstated at Court after years of banishment, and was quite motherly towards the poor girl.'

  'She acted in her own interests,' thought Jane, and was about to say so, when she remembered that Lady Seymour was Queen Jane's mother, and never for the world would she offend Lady Seymour. The old lady must have guessed her thoughts, for she shook her grey head and reproved softly, 'One must not think too harshly of the dead. My daughter did what had to be done. She had no choice. She had many virtues, but being as human as you and I, she had her faults too. Anne Boleyn was hard and insolent and cruel with a shockingly black temper but, had she been otherwise, she would never have got where she did. She never cared what she said and openly invited attack but she was punished horribly and we must try to think kindly of her.'

  That night, Jane awoke, screaming shrilly, from a nightmare that was to haunt her until the end of her life.

  She sat up in bed, trembling and crying with fright, her hair tumbled about her shoulders and her small fists tightly clenched. Through a swirling mist of terror, she felt the warm protectiveness of strong arms closing about her, drawing her towards safety, rescuing and reassuring her. She was dimly aware of a hand tenderly caressing her long hair and a low, deep voice comforting her. It was Tom who drew her on to his knees and soothed her tortured cries. Jane clung to him, her terror slowly subsiding in the warmth and kindness of his being.

  'Was it a nightmare, my poor darling?' asked Tom, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  Jane nodded and shuddered, the hideous memory fresh upon her.

  'Oh Tom, it was horrid. I dreamed I was walking alone in the grounds at Bradgate. There was a thunderstorm and the heads of the oak trees had been cut off.'

  'How barbaric! Was it the thunderstorm that frightened you?'

  'No! Well, perhaps a little. But then I began to cry and I turned to ask someone why my oak trees had been cut down. Then I realized that my head was not on my shoulders. Frightened, I sought it and found it among the trees, lying in the grass covered with blood.' Jane began to cry again, as she recalled the nightmare.

  'It was only a dream, darling,' Tom assured her. He stared adoringly into her young face. The fear he saw riding in those enormous staring eyes sent a painful arrow directly to his heart. She was like a wild fawn, fleeing the huntsman. Catherine would have known how to deal with this childish fear, he thought, with a stab of pain.

  They both heard the soft patter of feet outside, and presently Lady Seymour appeared in the doorway of Jane's bedroom.

  'What is happening?' she demanded, and the candle she held threw mocking shadows against the oak-panelled walls.

  'Jane has been riding the nightmare, Mother,' explained Tom. 'But all's well now.'

  'I expect today's events were too much for her.' Lady Seymour patted the girl on the shoulder consolingly. 'Go to sleep now, child. Come, Thomas, we'd better leave her. And Thomas, I do wish you wouldn't prance about the house with your chest bare. It's — it's most — unseemly.' She pursed her lips in displeasure.

  'At least,' thought Jane, when she was left alone in her bedroom, 'at least I have the light of the candles.'

  As the weeks passed, the Admiral became more and more reckless. He seemed intent on influencing the young King against the Protector. He bribed him with money. He also made remarks about religion which were thought to be both tasteless and dangerous. His handsome blue eyes had fallen upon his young ward, Jane, and he began to consider her as a wife.

  Jane, at eleven, was not without attraction, although she was still too young for marriage. Her fair hair had deepened to a shade of ruddy gold, her clear skin glowed white and her eyes, steadfast and beautiful, faithfully mirrored her soul. His practised eye noticed that she was beginning to develop physically.

  He had planned to marry her to the King and benefit from the young couple's grace but now, observing her under a new and flattering light, he saw no reason why he shouldn't marry her himself.

  True, he was not in love with her, but he was very fond of her and he believed they could live in amiability together, and she reminded him most romantically of his dead wife.

  He had mourned Catherine sincerely for a time, and he really believed that he had loved her more than he had loved any other woman before, but life still carried too much meaning and he had no intention of moping for a dead woman for the rest of his life. He had loved Catherine, but she was dead and he must learn to forget her.

  Jane was young and clever and gentle, as Catherine had been, but she had a toughness that Catherine had lacked.

  But the memory of Elizabeth still had the power to claw at something sensitive in his heart and he was torn between his deep affection for Jane and the madness of his desire for Elizabeth. Moreover, he had an uncomfortable feeling that Jane would refuse to marry him. She was constantly prattling about marrying the person she fell in love with and he had learned by now that Jane's ethics seldom faltered.

  He happened to meet the Princess Elizabeth's cofferer, Thomas Parry, in London that Christmas and had a stimulating conversation with the man.

  'Her Grace blushes whenever Your Lordship is mentioned,' Parry informed him. 'I'm sure she would never do so were she not a little in love with you.'

  Tom stroked him beard contemplatively. He questioned Parry about Elizabeth's lands. 'According to the late King's will,' he explained, 'she should receive lands worth three thousand pounds per year.'

  'Indeed!' exclaimed Parry, as though he had been hitherto in ignorance of the fact.

  Tom smiled knowingly. 'Indeed it is so, Master Parry,' he said slyly. 'I wonder why she doesn't coax them to grant her lands in, shall we say, Gloucestershire or Wales perhaps.'

  'Why, near to Your Lordship's own estates,' observed Parry brightly.

  Tom refilled his companion's cup, grinning mischievously. 'Think about it, you calculating rogue.'

  And back at Hatfield, Parry did think about it. He spent the long wintry evenings huddled by the fireside with a cup of Malmsey and the affable company of Mistress Ashley. She was a frivolous woman but she proved to be a most eager listener, and never was a woman more ready for a gossip. They both enjoyed those placid hours, sipping spiced wine, munching saffron cakes and idly discussing the Admiral and the Princess. Mistress Ashley's artless chatter proved to be quite revealing and Parry silently absorbed it. He kept Tom Seymour informed of his discoveries.

  'I would have imagined,' the pink-cheeked governess said, on one such occasion, 'that she was attracted to that new young tutor of hers — Roger Ascham from Cambridge. I vow and swear. Master Parry, it's a sight to see my little Lady making eyes at him across the schoolroom table, and he obviously admires her.'

  'She'll fall in love with a hundred men before her hair turns white,' said Parry. He felt that this bore a philosophical ring, so he repeated it proudly and helped himself to a richly deserved tansy cake.

  'Yes,' he continued, munching placidly. 'She's her mother's daughter, for all that she has Old Harry's hair.'

  'I knew Queen Anne Boleyn well,' mused Mistress Ashley. 'I've never met a more admirable nor a more beautiful woman. She would have wanted me to look after her child.'

  'She was quite a woman, eh?' Parry said, with a rather odious leer.

  Mistress Ashley, feeling it was beneath her dignity to do anything but ignore his implications, did precisely that.

  M
aster Parry even dared to approach Elizabeth, though with more diplomacy and only when she was in a submissive mood.

  Elizabeth was quick to discover his motives. She encouraged him to flatter her, as she did all men, but she was invariably clever and evasive when Tom Seymour's name stole into the conversation.

  Disappointed but not disheartened, Thomas Parry continued to prattle with Mistress Ashley about Elizabeth's affairs. He visited the Admiral frequently, usually bringing detailed accounts of all that Elizabeth had said and done. He was not above embroidering his stories a little, either, to enliven them somewhat.

  'She loves the Admiral truly,' he told Mistress Ashley. 'Poor little thing. It breaks my heart to see how bravely she tries to hide her feelings. I wonder what will become of them both?'

  Mistress Ashley shook her head, her excitable imagination aflame at the thought of the two despondent lovers whom Fate had chosen to keep apart. She simply couldn't resist talking about it.

  'When the Dowager Queen died, I said to My Lady, "Your old suitor who wooed you after King Henry's death is now free again!" She said no, but I told her she knew perfectly well that she wouldn't refuse him if the Lord Protector and the Council gave their consent to the match. Then she flew into such a rage as you've never seen and burst into tears. I think it's shocking that she should even think of a man with so evil a reputation, and poor Queen Catherine scarcely cold in her grave. And I have grave suspicions about what actually did take place between those two down at Chelsea.'

  Parry drew his chair closer to hers encouragingly. Mistress Ashley, a little flattered by his attentiveness, went on, 'He used to come to her bedroom every morning, and in his nightshirt too, if you please. He would tickle her until she woke up, then he would chase her about the room. She pretended to be afraid of him but she loved it. I was scandalized, and told the Admiral as much, but I got nothing but threats for my pains. He swore to tell the Protector that his character was being defiled.'

  They shook their heads virtuously at a depraved world in which decent people weren't protected from even hearing of the vices of their unchaste brethren.