'So the deed is done,' she murmured bitterly. 'My lord husband is at rest.' Her voice broke with emotion. 'Oh Guildford, Guildford, I have wronged you shamefully, and I had no notion how very much you meant to me until this moment. Your beauty was not suited to the bitterness of death.'
Poor Guildford, who was in many ways more innocent than she. She had despised him because he had added to her misfortunes, but he had always loved her faithfully.
She had rejected him, rudely bolted the door of her inner world against him, spurned his loving attention. She realized now, when it was too late, that his mocking, careless words had shielded a rather shy, defiant love. In his peculiar, inexplicable way, he had loved her to the very end.
She herself was to die on the Tower green — a privilege that was preserved for important prisoners. Already the workmen were busily erecting a scaffold, giving little thought to the person who was to be destroyed on it as they jested and whistled and sang. Well, she didn't blame them. They didn't know her.
'You ought to have a little breakfast, madam,' Lady Throckmorton said, padding across the floor to her side.
Jane didn't hear. She closed her eyes, listening to the thudding of the resounding hammers. She thought angrily of her mother, who had helped to light the candle of her cruel fate. The guilty Duchess was free, but she, Jane, was to die. Was there no justice left on this earth?
Mankind was undergoing a drastic change. She was fortunate to escape. What was happening to England? What was happening to England's mistress, who seemed to have evolved from a kind, well-meaning spinster to a suspicious, bloody, tyrannical fanatic?
Jane's innocent blood must be shed for England, over whom she had reined for nine precarious days and she knew that, were her gaolers to come to her now and tell her that she was free, she would choose to die, for her heart was broken and her spirit longing for the relief that death alone could give.
Chapter 19
Her women dressed her carefully, helping her into the stately black velvet that she had chosen to wear for that painfully brief walk across the green. Black complimented her slim fairness and enhanced the almost transparent whiteness of her skin. But of what use to dwell on personal vanities at a time like this? Earthly pleasures were finished for her, and she must humbly yield her soul to God, and thank the Queen's goodness for having permitted her a comparatively private execution.
Master Partridge came to her, his kind, broad face puckered with anxiety.
'Master Partridge, why is there so much delay?' she fretted. 'This waiting and wondering is fraying my nerves, and I had hoped that it would all be over soon.'
'I'm sorry, my Lady. I can well understand your anxiety, but the block has to be transported from Tower Hill and, of course, it has to be scrubbed of my Lord Guildford's blood.'
Jane suppressed a shudder. She looked about the room furtively. Her ladies were out of earshot. She laid her hand on his arm. 'Did he — did he die quickly? He didn't suffer, did he?'
Partridge looked into the pale, worried young face, surprised and pitying. 'They say not, my Lady,' he said quietly. 'One swift blow from the axe killed him.'
Jane expelled her breath. 'I'm glad of that, Master Partridge. Truth to tell, I'm afraid. They say the axeman has been known to bungle. My husband was lucky, and Queen Anne Boleyn had a French sword, but for me it may require more than one stroke. I couldn't bear that.' She curved her hands about her childish white neck. 'Will it hurt very much?'
'I hope not, madam.'
She smiled slowly and he caught his breath. He had never realized how beautiful her smile was. He knelt before her and kissed her full, flowing sleeve.
'Master Partridge,' Jane said emotionally, 'I'm sincerely grateful to you for the kindness you have shown me during my months of imprisonment. I'm only sorry that the only worthy parting gift I have to give you is my prayer book.'
'If you write something inside it, madam,' replied Partridge, 'it will mean more to me than any other token.'
Jane fetched her quill and hastily scratched a few words inside the aged leaves.
Bridges and Feckenham, accompanied by a flock of halberdiers, marched into the room. Bridges, very much distressed by his unpleasant task, evaded her frightened look.
'Is it time already?' Jane whispered, holding a hand to her leaping heart.
'I'm afraid so, my Lady.'
Jane glanced about her prison, as though recording its memory to take with her to the tomb. The heavy books lying on the table presented such a homely image that she hated to leave them behind. Impulsively, she lifted one from the pile and said that she would take it with her to the scaffold. Resolutely collecting her courage, she shook her softer feelings from her and, lifting her black skirts, slowly descended the narrow staircase.
Pausing in the doorway, she stared before her, her brain fumbling to absorb the grim scene.
The little band of spectators who had come to gloat over her final downfall were grouped by the scaffold, shivering in the damp February morning air. Jane rejoiced to see them shiver. She regretted that a violent storm didn't suddenly rise in the heavens, but perhaps such an interruption would alarm her more than it would them. Still, it would add a dramatic tone to the procedure and cause poor Mary Tudor to rattle almost hysterically round her rosary.
'Well, I shall just have to walk out there and die,' Jane told herself sharply. 'And if I stop to wonder whether it's going to hurt a lot I shall fall down on this very spot and go crazy in front of all these people.'
There were many present who, Jane was ready to swear, would rejoice to see her suffer, but she would hold her head high and they would never know how frightened and nervous she was.
The morning was grey and misty. Walking very slowly to that tragic spot where two queens had already been beheaded, Jane struggled to resign herself to her fate. Feckenham shuffled along beside her, fiercely urging her to repent her life of sin and embrace the true doctrine before it was too late. Jane, irritated by his dreary droning, opened the book that she had brought with her from her room and proceeded to read aloud from it, until she could no longer hear his voice.
How she climbed the scaffold she didn't know, but she managed to do it with her natural gracefulness. Faces swam unsteadily before her eyes, but their drunken unfamiliarity helped to calm her a little. She walked to the rail and her clear voice came earnestly over the air.
From that great height she could see the full green river spinning leisurely in the distance and, for a brief moment, dying didn't seem such a difficult thing to do.
'Good people, I have come here to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. My offence against the Queen's Highness was only in consent to another, which is now deemed Treason. But it was never of my seeking, but by counsel of those who should seem to have further understanding of things than I, who knew little of the law and much less of the titles to the Crown. But touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I swear my innocence before God and before all you people. I pray you to bear witness that I die a true Christian and that I expect to be saved by none other means, but only by the mercy of God, and in the blood of His only son, Jesus Christ. And I confess that, when I knew the Word of God, I neglected it and loved myself and the world, and therefore this punishment is just and worthy because of my sins. I thank God for His goodness, for having given me time to repent. And now, good people, I beg you pray for me as long as I am alive.'
Feckenham, she noticed, was evidently enraged by this typically Protestant request, for it left no doubt in anyone's mind that Jane had not been influenced or impressed by his teachings, and had been a Protestant to the end. His broad face purpled threateningly as he acknowledged her parting blow. For it was a blow that he could never return.
To those who watched her, she looked like a child. They hadn't realized how young she was and now, as they looked upon a slim, white-faced girl in a black gown, with her reddish-gold hair piled high on her head and her great eyes as grey and m
isty as the February morning, they couldn't believe that she was anything but innocent. She was so fragile and pathetic as she stood in the straw, uncertain what was expected of her. Some of them remembered that poor Catherine Howard had wept all the way to the scaffold, but this unfortunate girl remained dry-eyed and proud. They had come to jeer at her and now they could not speak. Those who had wondered what on earth the handsome, dashing Guildford Dudley had seen in her, began to understand the love and loyalty that a person of her calibre might inspire.
As her huge eyes fell upon the executioner, a man of almost gigantic stature, he fell to his knees and almost sobbed for forgiveness, his sturdy exterior almost collapsing beneath her quiet scrutiny. But Jane shed no tears.
'To me you give grace,' he cried, a huge tear splashing on to her hand.
'And also my head,' added Jane, but without resentment. 'I implore you to make quick work of it.'
Mistress Ellen helped her to remove her gown and stood motionless, folding her hands against the black cloth of her kirtle. Someone placed the bandage about her eyes before she knew what had happened, and she stumbled to her knees as if in a trance, her hands outstretched, blindly groping for the block but she had misjudged its distance.
Until this moment, Jane had conducted herself with courage, but she had always been desperately afraid of the dark and now, in her blindfolded isolation, she lost her nerve.
'Oh, where is it, where is it?' she cried, the awful reality of death's closeness upon her. She was panic-stricken. 'I can't find it. What shall I do?'
Sir John Bridges helped her towards the block. Her lips moved to thank him but the words wouldn't come. Now it only remained for her to lay her head upon that shiny wooden surface and await the sharp fatal blow that was to chase her spirit from the earth. While she was still preparing herself, the axe struck and Jane died, not in a blaze of heroic splendour, but silently and unobtrusively, alone, even amid the crowds who witnessed her end. One blow from the axe ended her brief life, but all present agreed that the blood flow was excessive, coming from so small a corpse.
For several hours her body was left half-naked and bleeding on the scaffold, deserted in death as in life when things were not going well for her.
In the park at Bradgate, the gardeners, on hearing of the death of their beloved Lady Jane Grey, raised their axes and brutally struck the heads from the oak trees that she had so loved. It was their silent, remorseful tribute.
Towards evening, the cloaked figures of Mistress Ellen and Elizabeth Tylney hurried across the green. It had begun to rain and they were blinded by their tears.
The old nurse climbed the scaffold and sank to her knees in the straw with some difficulty, for she was beginning to feel the frailty of her years. She stared reproachfully at the mangled corpse, remembering, as if from an earlier life, that terrified voice crying, 'Where is it? What shall I do?' She was seeing again her mistress as a little girl whose parents had never wanted her. 'And that was the beginning of it all,' she muttered. 'But it's almost dark, and she is so afraid of the dark. We mustn't leave her alone.'
Mistress Tylney stared at the other woman in horror, thinking that she must have momentarily lost her mind. Aloud she said, 'They say she would rather have her coffin brought to Bradgate.'
'I know where she would rather be,' answered Mistress Ellen. 'She would not want to be with her bitch of a mother. What did she care for her? He cared for her. No, she must stay with him.'
Mistress Tylney Winked stupidly.
'Come, Bess, help me,' ordered the nurse. Brave and practical, she began to wash the blood from the cold, dead face.
As she set to work, Mistress Ellen's thoughts lay with the Lady Frances, whose brilliant child must be laid away in the dark too soon. She pitied Frances deeply, for she thought the woman a fool to have thrown away every hope of happiness with both her hands and to have cast her wit and energy into the fulfilment of her ambitions. Frances was cruel and greedy and malicious, and Mistress Ellen was thankful that she would never have to see her again. However, she spared Frances the sympathy that was always given to a bereaved mother, although she knew only too well that Frances was probably far from prostrate.
Together, the two women covered the mutilated little corpse with a black cloth and laid it in a small coffin which one of the workmen, on an unexpected humane impulse, had hastily constructed.
It was carried across the yard, into the quiet sombre chapel, and laid to rest beside the body of Lord Guildford.
The wretched couple, who were never happy in life, now lie peacefully side by side.
A crown in darkness : a novel about Lady Jane Grey Page 31
