The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  I took a breath, and continued.

  “Does the name Stafford mean anything to you?”

  He thought a moment. “Wasn’t that the family name of the Duke of Buckingham?”

  “Yes,” I said. And then: “He was my father’s oldest brother.”

  Geoffrey’s voice went flat and careful. “The third Duke of Buckingham was tried and executed for high treason fifteen years ago.”

  “Sixteen years ago,” I corrected him. As if it mattered.

  “And he was arrested for plotting to overthrow the king because of his nearness in blood, to take the throne for himself. Some thought he had a better claim to it than Henry Tudor.”

  “I don’t suppose this is the time or the place to say that we know my uncle to be completely innocent of all charges?” I asked.

  Geoffrey grunted. “No.”

  Then came the question I was waiting for. “So you are close kin to the king as well?”

  “I am not a woman of the court,” I said defensively. “I was last in the presence of the king ten years ago.”

  He repeated, “You are kin to King Henry the Eighth?”

  I sighed. “My grandmother and King Henry’s grandmother were sisters.”

  “And your cousin Margaret?”

  “My uncle the duke’s daughter.” I swallowed and pressed on. “The duke’s illegitimate daughter.”

  Now it was his turn to go quiet, to look out the side of the barge.

  “Thank you,” he finally said. “I begin to understand.”

  “But you don’t understand everything,” I said in a low voice.

  I could feel the oars begin to pull in a different way. We were slowing down, and I needed to make Geoffrey aware before it was too late.

  “I am a novice at Dartford Priory in Kent,” I said in a rush. “I left my order in secret before dawn to reach London. I don’t expect to be allowed to return, but if so, I intend to take my final vows by the end of next year.”

  There was silence from Geoffrey. And then I heard something from him. At first I thought with horror that he was crying. But no, it was more like choking.

  Anger singed my veins as I finally realized what it was. Laughter. He was doubled over, shaking with it.

  “How dare you make a mockery of me?” I said.

  He shook his head and slapped his knee, hard, as if he were trying to stop the laughter, but couldn’t.

  “I come to London to represent my master at a state execution,” he said, more to the river than to me. “I save a young woman from harm, then linger for a pair of fine brown eyes, and see what happens? Ah, Geoffrey . . .”

  His words were a shock. “So much for your show of chivalry,” I hissed. “I told you at Smithfield to leave me alone, and you wouldn’t. What happens to you now is—”

  Suddenly, Geoffrey sprang forward and gripped me by my shoulders. “Close your eyes and don’t turn around,” he whispered, his warm breath curling into my ear.

  I couldn’t believe he would touch me. Using my manacled hands like a club, I pushed him away and he fell into the bottom of the boat, hitting his head with a yelp of pain.

  And then, as if compelled to do so, I turned around.

  Our boat had slowed as it approached a large bridge. Every twenty feet or so a torch blazed, creating a string of soaring lights across the wide dark river.

  Between the torches were severed heads on spikes.

  There must have been a dozen of them, although I only saw one clearly, the one closest to me. The head’s rotting flesh was black. The flicker of a nearby torch filled its hollow eye sockets and leaped into its gaping mouth. It made it seem as if the head were coming alive and smiling down at me in delight.

  A loud noise filled my ears, and sweat curdled on my skin. I shut my eyes tight, trying to erase the horrific vision. But it was too late. My stomach heaved, as if an unruly animal leaped inside me. I bent over and gripped the side of the boat with my manacled hands. “Help me, Mother Mary,” I gurgled.

  For what seemed like an eternity, I fought it. But I lost. Doubled over, I vomited into the boat, a sour string, hardly anything, for I’d eaten not a bite since riding in the cart to Smithfield all those hours ago. Coughing, I dashed the spittle off my chin with the back of my trembling hand.

  The oarsmen rowed the boat under the bridge. The water slapped against the dank stone arches. I shuddered, knowing that right above me stretched the heads of the executed.

  My eyes flew open at the gentle touch of a hand on my shoulder. I took Geoffrey’s cloth, the same one he’d offered at Smithfield. I ran it over my face.

  I looked at Geoffrey. “I’m sorry this is happening to you,” I said.

  “I know.” A smile curved his lips, but not a mocking or angry one. He peered over my shoulder; the smile vanished. I watched his whole body tense.

  Our boat was turning. We entered a narrow waterway, with high walls on each side. A huge, square blackness loomed over us, swallowing up the low-lying stars and faint gray clouds; it was, most certainly, the Tower.

  “It’s the crown or the cross,” Geoffrey Scovill said, in so low a voice I barely heard him above the loud slap of the oars.

  “Pardon?”

  “We must all choose which comes first, which we owe primary allegiance to,” he said. “The rebels of the North chose the cross.” He jerked his head back toward the fearful bridge. “You saw where that leads.”

  I didn’t need to ask Geoffrey Scovill where his loyalties rested. For him, the choice was simple. As for myself, I couldn’t help but think of Sir Thomas More, the brilliant, brave soul who said on the scaffold, “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.” Had it been simple for him, I wondered, to embrace martyrdom?

  In those few minutes left before we arrived at the River Gate of the Tower, I did nothing but pray. I prayed for the soul of Margaret, for the recovery of my father, for the freedom of Geoffrey Scovill. I prayed for the strength and wisdom to guide my words and actions. I prayed for grace.

  Two groups of men stood waiting for us at a narrow stone landing carved into a massive brick wall. Lit torches were affixed to the sides of an arched doorway, the gated entrance yawning open.

  The larger group, all wearing bright uniforms of red and gold, helped the oarsmen of our boat bring it around, parallel to the landing. When the boat was tied to, a man leaned down and stretched out a hand to me, careful not to meet my eyes.

  As soon as my feet touched the landing, one of the men from the smaller group stepped forward. He was young, with a well-trimmed beard and bright, nervous eyes. “Mistress Joanna Stafford, you are admitted to the custody of the Tower,” he called out, more loudly than seemed necessary. It was such a small area. “Yeomen warders, take them in.”

  I heard a loud thump behind me and turned. Geoffrey lay at the feet of a yeoman warder on the landing.

  “Has he fainted?” demanded the young official.

  “Yes he has, Lieutenant,” the yeoman warder answered, disgusted.

  “He was hurt at Smithfield,” I told them. “He took a heavy blow to the head. He is innocent of any crime; his name is Geoffrey Scovill.”

  Everyone acted as if I had not spoken.

  The yeomen warders bent down and picked up Geoffrey and roughly heaved him through the archway, carrying him in feetfirst. As they passed, I could see fresh blood spreading under Geoffrey’s bandage. He must have hit his head again on the stone landing.

  “He needs a healer, surely you can see that,” I said to the lieutenant.

  “You are not here to issue orders to us, mistress,” he said, his lips pressing thin with anger. “You are under arrest.”

  “And what are the charges?” I snapped back. “By whose authority am I arrested?”

  A movement on the far end of the landing caught my eye. Another man stepped forward. He was much older, about sixty, and as he came closer to me, into the circle of torchlight, I saw he was dressed in expensive deep-green velvets, his puffy sleeves full
y slashed. A thick gold chain hung round his neck. Such attire was appropriate for a high court function, a celebration. The ludicrousness of his attire was made even greater by a joyless, sour face.

  “I am Sir William Kingston, the constable of the Tower,” he said tonelessly. “You are here by express command of His Majesty.”

  “How can that be?” I asked.

  Sir William stepped closer still and I saw the deep wrinkles of exhaustion creasing his face. “After the disturbance at Smithfield, a messenger rode to Greenwich, where the king and queen are in residence,” he said. “The king was apprised of the situation, and it was his pleasure that you, your father, and the third party involved be brought to the Tower pending a complete and thorough investigation.”

  “Is my father here now, in the Tower?” I asked. “What is his condition?”

  Sir William did not answer. Instead, he reached out and, with a long velvet-clad arm, pointed at the dark archway.

  “It is time to go inside now, Mistress Stafford,” he said.

  They waited to see what I would do, the constable and the lieutenant. I’d heard stories of prisoners dragged screaming into the Tower. I would not become one of them.

  I bowed and turned toward the archway, and, with yeomen warders marching in front of me and the rest of the men behind, I entered the Tower of London.

  5

  Stafford Castle, April 1527

  I don’t want to be married.”

  Margaret was seventeen, and I was sixteen. It was late at night, in my bedchamber. We were lying next to each other in bed, in our nightclothes, huddled together for warmth. It was spring, but my room was cold. It was forbidden to light a fire at night after Easter, one of the many economies we practiced at Stafford Castle.

  I pulled a blanket higher, up to our chins, as I searched for the right thing to say. I’d been pained to hear of Margaret’s marriage plans earlier that day, because it meant I would see even less of her, but it was selfish to say as much. Now that she’d confessed she didn’t even want to be a wife, I was at a loss.

  Something came to me.

  “I don’t want to be maid of honor to the queen,” I said.

  Margaret shook her head. “I can’t blame you for that.”

  Our respective fates had been discussed at dinner that day, in the great hall. It was a room rarely used for meals anymore, but an effort was made because of the occasion. My cousin Elizabeth, the Duchess of Norfolk, had come to visit for a fortnight, without her husband, of course. She’d brought not only her favorite companion, Margaret, but her eight-year-old daughter, Mary, and, oddly, her brother-in-law, Charles Howard. I had never much liked Elizabeth, who was older than me and quite haughty, and I had no use for any Howard, but this visit was most welcome for bringing Margaret back to me.

  The Staffords and the Howards had once been the two greatest ducal families in England. The marriage of Thomas Howard, heir to the dukedom of Norfolk, to Elizabeth, the daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, was a glorious match. Her fiancé was much older, and a widower, but he was a rising man of the court, a commander on the battlefields of France, Scotland, and Ireland. She took his hand and promised God to honor and obey him.

  What a blessing she could not see into her future, see the execution of her father, the ruin of the Stafford family, and the wretchedness of her marriage.

  After the Duke of Buckingham was put to death in 1521, his estates, all of his castles and lands and income, were seized by the king, with one exception: Stafford Castle, the family seat, built on a hill in the reign of William the Conqueror. I had lived there most of my life. The duke’s oldest son, my cousin Henry, was permitted to hold it and draw income from the land surrounding. He settled in the crumbling castle with his family, joined by my father, mother, and myself. The rest of the Stafford clan, the cousins and aunts and uncles, dispersed, including Margaret. Elizabeth insisted that Margaret come live with her, to keep her company. And so she did. Our many letters went back and forth, but I saw Margaret only when they came back to Stafford Castle for visits. My father traveled to London once a year, to maintain the small house he’d been able to hold on to, but my mother and I always stayed behind. We no longer had money for traveling.

  I didn’t understand Margaret’s marriage. Not only did she seem glum at the prospect, but at dinner Elizabeth was actually distraught about it.

  “He’s one of my husband’s retainers, this William Cheyne,” said Elizabeth, angry patches of red flaring in her hollow white cheeks. “He’s asked for Margaret, and the duke agreed, without consulting me. He’s quite happy that Cheyne will take her without dowry.”

  “Then it’s a love match?” asked Ursula Pole Stafford, my cousin Henry’s wife. She was heavy with child, her third pregnancy in five years.

  “Margaret hasn’t spoken more than a few words to him!” Elizabeth cried. “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of losing her to a rough young husband. How could I sleep at night, knowing what crimes he might be committing against an innocent girl?”

  Margaret got up and stroked Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Hush, do not be troubled,” she said. As always, Margaret worried more about her fragile older half sister than herself.

  All might have been well if it weren’t for the seventeen-year-old sitting on Elizabeth’s other side, Charles Howard. “Come now, Duchess,” he drawled, “don’t some ladies relish crimes in the night?”

  Elizabeth drew back from him, her lower lip trembling. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she jumped to her feet and began pulling on her long sleeves.

  “Do you see this?” she cried. And after a moment, as she pulled the sleeve higher, we did see it, a long, faint, yellowish-purple bruise mottling her thin right arm. “I saw my husband, and the duke told me to cease my oppositions, that I must live with him and sleep beside him again. I asked him where would he put his whore, and he did this to me.”

  We sat there, aghast, as the duchess turned to the right and to the left, holding up her arm to us with some sort of strange, terrible pride I couldn’t understand. Of course, if her father the Duke of Buckingham were alive, Norfolk wouldn’t dare beat and humiliate his wife so. We all knew that.

  Little Mary Howard looked down at her plate, and I wondered what she thought of her father.

  “Sister, calm yourself,” pleaded my cousin Henry. The most important thing to Henry and Ursula was to keep the family safe, to avoid all controversy and criticism, so that there would never again be grounds for suspicion.

  Now, for the first time, my mother spoke, in her heavily accented English. “Duchess, we are grateful for your help in gaining a position for Joanna with the queen.”

  All eyes turned on me, as I shifted, uncomfortable, in my seat.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Despite everything, the queen is still devoted to you,” she said to my mother, who smiled triumphantly.

  When my mother was younger than I, only fourteen, she had left her country as a maid of honor to Princess Katherine of Spain, who was bound to marry Prince Arthur of England and be queen of his island kingdom. Katherine wed Arthur, who died young, and then his brother, Henry, and finally became queen. My mother Isabella served her devotedly through it all, and six months after Katherine was crowned, she married the king’s handsome cousin, my father, Sir Richard Stafford, one of the finest athletes in the land. Another marriage that began with the highest of hopes.

  I was born less than two years later, and shipped to Stafford Castle, to be cared for by governesses and tutors and maids. My mother’s place was with the queen, and I saw her only a few times a year. It was not an unusual arrangement.

  The Duke of Buckingham was arrested, tried, and beheaded when I was ten years old, and everything changed. All Staffords were unwelcome at court; one of my older uncles was imprisoned along with Buckingham but later released. My parents were never charged with any crime, but they were banished. My mother was forced into the country, away from the queen, who meant everything to her. The size of the staff at Stafford
Castle was severely reduced, and so she took me in hand herself. My faraway, glamorous mother was now close at hand, unhappy—and paying close attention to me.

  Elizabeth wrinkled her nose at her plate. “This venison is fine enough, but aren’t we to have a fish course?” she complained.

  We who lived in Stafford Castle winced. My father had spent two days hunting from dawn to dusk to ensure fresh game for our company. He was not as unhappy as my mother with a life in the country; he took a vigorous interest in managing the properties and farms and animals. The more time he was out of doors, the less he saw of my mother, who found endless fault with him. Her litany of complaints filled both my father and me with misery.

  “This isn’t Arundel Castle, Sister,” Cousin Henry said morosely.

  Elizabeth sighed and turned back to my mother: “I hope you’ve instructed Joanna well. The court is more permissive than when you were there. Not the household of the queen herself, she is a saint, but—”

  My father, sitting next to me, threw his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Joanna is the best girl in the whole world,” he said firmly. “No one need ever fear for her virtue.”

  My cheeks reddened. This was the most embarrassing dinner conversation imaginable. Across the table, Margaret smiled with sympathy.

  Charles Howard snickered. “It’s not the ladies of easy virtue the queen needs to fear, we know that.”

  Elizabeth shot him a look of warning, and her brother-in-law shut up. His words made absolutely no sense to me.

  I couldn’t wait to commiserate later with Margaret, in my room, and to ask her questions about her fiancé. Once we were alone, I asked her if it was true she barely knew the man she was meant to marry.

  “I’ve only spoken to him once,” she said. “But he looks at me all the time. It makes me feel strange.” A faint line creased between her eyes. “Tell me about entering service for the queen,” she said, anxious to change the topic.

  “That’s all my mother’s talked about for years. Training me, drilling me. Embroidery, dancing, music, wardrobe, deportment, four languages. I have to be absolutely perfect—everything depends on it.” My stomach churned.