by David Field
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
‘Excellent. Very well, gentlemen, I see through yon window that the sun is well on its way past noon and I am somewhat overdue my midday Mass. You are excused the presence.’
As the two men bowed their way from the chamber, Mary could be heard muttering a veni domine under her breath and Gardiner crossed himself out of sheer habit. Leaving the royal apartments, the two men walked carefully over the wet grass of Tower Green and Norfolk looked up at the surrounding stonework.
‘By God, this is an evil place, Stephen. Thank Providence that we are out of it and pray God that we never return.’
‘Amen to that,’ Gardiner whispered as he once again made the sign of the cross, then looked towards where they were walking. ‘Go you back to Westminster, my lord?’
‘Indeed, but not by that route.’ Norfolk nodded towards St Thomas’s Tower slightly ahead and to their left, where by tradition the barges would moor when transferring important prisoners from the Thames to their place of imprisonment under the arch they called ‘Traitors’ Gate’. ‘Come,’ he invited Gardiner as he suppressed a shudder, ‘let us leave like honest men, through the Middle Tower and thence by humble wherry.’
As they descended Tower Steps there were several wherrymen awaiting custom. Norfolk chose an empty wherry whose oarsman was enjoying a dinner of bread soaked in goose fat and handed him enough coins to ensure that they would have the cramped vessel to themselves. As the boat pulled out into the main stream, taking advantage of the incoming tide, Norfolk nodded downriver to the Tower they had just left.
‘If we are to avoid returning there in shackles, we must be diligent in our service to the Queen. She asks much of us, but we cannot fail her. There are many who are destined to end their days there in the months to come, Stephen, and we must ensure that we are not among them.’
III
Norfolk headed the stately procession into Westminster Abbey for the coronation of the new Queen, his Earl Marshall’s staff of office held proudly aloft as he passed from the dazzling sunlight of a cloudless October day into the relative cool of the archway over the West Door that gave direct access into the nave. He was finally free of the ear-splitting cacophony generated by the thousands who had lined the streets to express their joyous sentiments, peddle their wares among the crowd and pick unguarded purses.
The lords and ladies traditionally entitled to a place in the ceremonial progress followed behind, their faces averted from the glaring sunlight. For most of them it was some minutes before their eyes adjusted to the gloom and they were able to look down the nave towards a nervous Bishop of Winchester who stood before the Sacrarium waiting to crown the fourth Tudor to sit on the English throne.
Somewhere in the leading ranks of those who followed behind Mary, but by no means in any place of honour that might be obvious to onlookers, walked Elizabeth, alongside Anne of Cleves, who had been content to remain in England following her rejection by Elizabeth’s father. There was some irony in their being alongside each other, because although they were the best of companions on the rare occasions when they were in each other’s company, Anne now lived in Hever Castle in Kent, one of the several estates that Henry VIII had showered upon her in his gratitude for her going quietly out of his life. Hever had once belonged to the ill-fated Boleyns before they fell from royal favour and Elizabeth’s mother had been in residence there when courted by the youthful Henry.
The ceremony over, Elizabeth and Anne were among those invited to withdraw into the Lady Chapel that had been built on the order of the Tudor progenitor Henry VII, where they could partake of refreshments and a fortunate few might take the weight from their feet along the padded benches that had been erected around the sarcophagus of Henry and his queen, Elizabeth of York. As was becoming customary, and to Elizabeth’s mild concern, she was immediately approached by the French Ambassador Antoine de Noailles.
‘Such a happy event for England and for a loving sister,’ he began.
‘Indeed, monsieur l’Ambassador,’ Elizabeth replied with a neutral smile, ‘although not without some physical discomfort.’
‘You are unwell, my Lady?’ he asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No, I referred only to the heat in there, not to mention the overpowering and conflicting perfumes. I feared for one moment that I was about to swoon. It was, I think, the weight of this coronet that tradition required that I place on my head.’
‘Such a small coronet,’ de Noailles observed, ‘and a thing of little weight. God willing, you will soon wear a heavier crown.’
‘Not for many years, God grant, monsieur l’Ambassador,’ Elizabeth countered, conscious of the lingering presence only a few feet away of the Spanish Ambassador Simon Renard, strategically positioned so that he could not only overhear what was being said, but could also employ his long developed talent for reading lips.
‘She said that, my dear Simon?’ Mary asked eagerly as the Spanish Ambassador faithfully reported what he had overheard during his next audience with the Queen, two days later in her private chambers in Placentia Palace in Greenwich.
‘Indeed, Majesty, in precisely those words. Perhaps you have misjudged her eagerness to become Queen?’
‘I doubt that,’ Mary sneered. ‘She is her mother’s whelp, after all, and her mother sought only the throne of England. She cared nought for my father, so why should her bastard daughter care ought for her sister?’
‘But Your Majesty can look forward to many more years of rude health, can you not?’ Renard argued tactfully. ‘For her, the crown of England must come much later in life — or indeed, not at all, should you marry and have an heir. Would that not cut her from the succession completely?’
‘If I adjudge you right, Senor Ambassador, you carry your King’s instruction to sound me out regarding a marriage with Spain?’
‘Alas, Your Majesty is too quick of the wit for my simple but honest mind,’ Renard replied with a flattering lowering of the eyes.
‘I am quick of wit, as you say, Senor Renard, but I am also aware of the state of things in Spain, given the ancestry of which I shall never cease to be proud. Your master and my cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos, is now well into his fifth decade of life, is he not, and he is also married?’
‘Indeed he is, Majesty.’
‘But he has a son, does he not? And would he by any chance be the handsome gentleman whose portrait was delivered to my chambers some days ago, with the compliments of your Embassy?’
‘Indeed, Majesty. You find him comely?’
‘Most certainly, in oils. But I am well aware of the guile of artists of every country, some of whom have even contrived to make me look like a simpering girl. Does your master’s son — my second cousin — resemble his portrait in the slightest degree?’
‘Indeed, Majesty. If anything, he is more compelling than his portrait, since he is blessed with a most gallant bearing and manly disposition.’
‘And it is being suggested that he and I might strengthen the ties between England and Spain by marriage?’
‘Indeed, that would fulfil a long-standing desire of my master to once more extend the hand of kinship and love across the divide between our respective nations that was so tragically created when his aunt — your dear late mother — was rejected in favour of La Prostituta.’
‘Are you authorised to propose marriage to me as proxy to your master’s son?’
‘Subject to the final details being negotiated, I am indeed. His name is Philip and he has admired your portrait.’
‘Hopefully the earlier one by Master John and not one of the more recent abominations?’
‘Whichever it may be, I have seen it and I am constrained to observe, if you will forgive me, that no portrait could possibly do justice to Your Majesty’s natural beauty and grace.’
Mary looked out at the Ambassador from under lowered eyebrows. ‘I will of course give serious consideration to what you propose, Ambassador, but you must remember tha
t, as Queen, I must seek the blessing of my Council.’
‘You need their permission in order to follow your heart, Majesty?’
‘I said “blessing”, Ambassador, not “permission”,’ Mary corrected him sternly. ‘Do not presume upon my good nature by suggesting that I am not mistress of my own bedchamber.’
‘Indeed not, and forgive me if I offended, Majesty. But may I inform my master that Prince Philip has not, at this stage at least, been rejected as a suitor?’
‘You may do more than that, Ambassador,’ Mary replied assertively. ‘You may advise him that I would be more than happy to strengthen the Spanish blood that governs England by marrying such a fine specimen of manhood.’
‘I shall do so with joy in my heart, Majesty,’ the Ambassador assured her as he bowed from the presence.
Having confirmed her right and title to the throne of England by coronation, Mary lost no time in summoning her Council, and there was much to be confronted regarding the state into which the nation had been allowed to slide after several years of factional warfare. It was as if God had ordered all the rain at His disposal to fall on England during that same period, as poor harvest followed poor harvest. The price of the few crops that had been rescued had rocketed skywards and famine was now a gaunt visitor to certain poorer areas of the realm in which the only food available to the people was what they could grow on their own sparse acres.
The currency had become debased and almost worthless in the inflation that had resulted from spiralling food prices, and whichever way one argued the cause of all the current maladies could be laid at the door of those who ruled the nation, determined its laws, governed its economy and guided its religion. The people reasoned that either God was punishing England for its leaders having turned their backs on Rome, or, if it had not been divine intervention, then poor national husbandry was to blame. If ever a newly constituted Council was in need of demonstrating its ability to govern and implement measures to rescue the people from imminent starvation, it was the one that Mary had assembled, even though she was suspicious of most of its members who, she could not bring herself to forget, had once preferred Jane Grey to her.
In the forefront of Norfolk’s mind as he looked down the long table at which he had, over the years, seen them all come and go, was that he would be well advised to let their new Queen have her head, if only to ease her mind regarding the loyalty of her most senior subjects. However, he was sorely tempted to intervene when Mary announced that whatever agenda might have been agreed in her absence, she wished to bring to the urgent attention of Council a matter most immediately touching the future of the nation.
‘I am, as I am painfully aware, no longer a young woman and my womb has but a few years left to serve my people. If England is to have a male heir, rather than another daughter of the late King Henry as its Queen, then it is imperative that I marry. May I take it that thus far there is no dissension?’
The Council members were eager to make an ostentatious display of their new-found loyalty, lest it be deemed suspect, so there was at this stage no dissent.
Mary continued. ‘As God has graciously determined, an opportunity has arisen for me to assume the role of wife as well as Queen. What is more, it will ally England with the most powerful collection of nations in Europe. I refer, of course, to the Holy Roman Empire.’
There was a stunned silence, as the Council members recovered from the shock of the sudden announcement.
Mary glared at each face in turn. ‘Do I hear silence because, like me, you are overawed by what this could mean for England’s future role in Europe? Or do you perhaps dare to believe that, in my late thirties, I am incapable of bearing a child — even a female one, if need be?’
The silence continued to hang in the shocked air and Mary grew more impatient at the sight of sagging lower jaws and eyes wide in disbelief.
‘One would imagine that I am proposing to go to it with the Antichrist, such are the expressions on your faces, like bullocks about to be pole-axed. Norfolk, what have you to say?’
Norfolk cleared the mucus of mortal terror from his throat as he ventured a reply in which tact was perfectly blended with common sense and self-preservation. ‘Naturally, we would all wish to see Your Majesty’s happiness enhanced by marriage and perhaps in due course motherhood, but there are certain important considerations of State that must be kept always in the forefront of our minds —’
‘Norfolk,’ Mary thundered from the head of the table, ‘pray preserve us from the preamble while you select some mealy-mouthed way of expressing your displeasure at my proposal and get on with it! Why should I not marry Philip of Spain?’
‘Spain has ever been our enemy, Your Majesty,’ Norfolk croaked.
Mary’s face set in angry defiance. ‘May I remind you, my Lord of Norfolk, that Spain provided England with my mother and therefore, in due course, with me? My father may have put her aside in order to bed a whore, who in due course spawned a bastard, but is it your considered opinion that my birth was an act of hostility on the part of my forebears?’
‘No, Your Majesty, of course not, but —’
‘Does anyone share this treasonous opinion?’ Mary demanded as she glared round twenty or so terrified faces. One by one they either shook their heads or dropped their glances to the table and Mary fixed Norfolk with a triumphant glare. ‘Well, Norfolk?’
‘Perhaps an Englishman, Your Majesty?’ came a small voice to Norfolk’s left and it was Gardiner’s turn to be pinned back by an angry flash of the Queen’s eyes.
‘Yourself, perhaps?’ she challenged him, to roars of appreciative laughter.
‘I am in holy orders, Your Majesty,’ was all he could offer by way of a rejoinder and Mary pressed home the advantage with another glare around the assembled company.
‘Can any man here suggest the name of an Englishman suitable to sire the heir apparent of England?’ No-one having suggested a name, Mary broadened her argument. ‘It is not just a question of Spain. Philip is his father’s heir in all matters and will in due course be the Holy Roman Emperor of half the known world, in addition to those parts of the New World that are being discovered every day. Spanish galleons ply the ocean weekly laden with gold, spices, sugar and other rich cargoes. Their navy is the finest in the world. The Empire now encompasses the Netherlands, Italy, the new Indies, Bohemia and Flanders.’
‘It now seeks to add England to its conquests?’ Essex could not prevent himself asking and there were several sharp intakes of breath.
Mary went visibly white in the face as she sought to swallow her anger before replying in a voice that had all the icy quality of a charnel house. ‘It will be a conquest only of the emotions, Essex. I will assume, out of charity, that this was your meaning. Or do I have cause to have you conveyed to a place where you may reconsider your opinion?’
‘No, Your Majesty, you take my true meaning,’ Essex assured her in a trembling voice.
Mary nodded and resumed her domination of the conversation. ‘Now that we have that agreed, and given the time that it has taken to obtain your loyal approval to what should have followed as a matter of course, we will adjourn this Council to another day to be advised by your Clerk. Good day, gentlemen.’
‘Dear God,’ Norfolk muttered to Gardiner as Mary swept out and the chamber began to clear of very frightened Councillors. ‘You see the lie of the future, Stephen? She must have her way, if we are to avoid the Tower. But only perhaps in the matter of her marriage; if we can survive that without the nation rising in uproar, then perhaps there is hope.’
‘I have been putting my mind to the issue ever since it was raised,’ Gardiner told him. ‘They say that Courtenay is close with her and she has long been a good friend of his mother, Gertrude Blount. Would he not make a suitable royal consort?’
Norfolk went pale at the mere suggestion, but composed himself sufficiently to respond with a logical argument against the proposal. ‘Courtenay spent longer in the Tower than either
of us, Stephen. Fifteen years, it must have been, and all because he allowed his name to be used in a futile and half-hearted rebellion against the late King Henry. How is it that he is now so favoured by Mary — did she also wish to see the Tudor line dethroned, so that she might live a simple life as a country lady?’
‘It’s certainly a mystery, Thomas. Not only did the Queen have him released from the Tower, but she created him Earl of Devon and bestowed upon him the honour of carrying the Sword of State in her coronation procession. Rumour has it that he will serve as commissioner in the trial of Robert Dudley, another son of Northumberland — Guildford’s brother — and will welcome the new Papal Legate, Pole, to our shores.’
Norfolk looked up sharply. ‘Cardinal Reginald Pole?’
Gardiner nodded. ‘You know him?’
‘The mystery deepens. Reginald is the only Pole to have survived from the rebellion that also implicated Courtenay, and that was only because the Pope protected him and even Cromwell dared not proceed against him. As for Courtenay, he seems to have escaped instant death because he is a royal cousin on the York side.’
‘Who was his relation?’
‘He’s a great-grandson of Edward, the last crowned Yorkist king before Gloucester was obliged to assume the throne for the sake of the nation. His grandmother was the Princess Catherine, which made him second cousin to the late King Henry and therefore more distantly related to Mary and Elizabeth. It was his father Henry, the Marquess of Exeter, who was destined to take the throne had the Exeter Conspiracy succeeded. Exeter himself was executed, along with most of the Pole family who were ferreted out as conspirators by that devil Cromwell. Exeter’s wife, Gertrude Blount, Edward’s mother, was also in the Tower for some years, but was released on the petition of the Lady Mary, as she then was. They were, and remain, great friends, because Gertrude’s father was Chamberlain to Mary’s mother Katherine and he went on to marry one of Katherine’s Spanish ladies.’
