The Scottish Queen, whom Queen Elizabeth had kept imprisoned for years, was eventually executed. It was said that the Queen was reluctant to sign the death warrant, that she said the judicial murder of an anointed queen weakened her own position, which was not very strong to begin with. She was likely right.
It was also said that Mary Stuart was found to be wearing a wig, that her own hair was almost gone and what little there was left was white. I felt little sorrow for her passing. She was a Catholic who had been involved in various plots to usurp Elizabeth as Queen of England and I recalled my father had little time for her, said she was a foolish woman who did not deserve the crown of Scotland, much less that of England.
The story which upset me was that her little dog was found hiding beneath her skirts after the execution. I thought that was so sad, that no one had thought to spare the little creature such a sight.
There was the threat of invasion from Spain, whose king had failed to persuade Elizabeth to marry him and now plotted to invade England and turn it back to the Catholic Church, making his daughter, Isabella, Queen of England. He was a very foolish man who should have known enough of the English to know it would never succeed, but like all Catholics, he believed that God was on his side. Strangely enough, I never heard my father say that. I think perhaps the violence in which he had been forced to participate during his time at the court of Mary Tudor, had made him realise that it was not what God wanted.
Eventually, after a reign of forty five years, Elizabeth died a virgin, leaving the throne to the son of the Scottish Queen who had plotted to take it from her. Ironic as it was, the people did not object. They knew that James VI of Scotland was the rightful heir and besides, he was a Protestant. That was enough for them.
I thought a lot about Simon and wondered especially if he had ever married and I wondered what sort of wife he had. I prayed she was worthy of him.
And the physicians had all been wrong. Joshua did walk again, with the aid of his sticks, and I know the feeling did return to his body. I know that because Susannah had another daughter, a little dark haired girl they named Bethany.
There are ghosts in this house though. No one can open the door to my parents' private place, even though it was not locked. It took a lot of strong men to push it open and when they did, the room was never empty.
The servants had changed the bed linen and smoothed it down, but the imprint of two bodies in the mattress and two heads on the pillows, refused to go away. I waited with my mother's maid, Nancy, while the boys brought in a new mattress and the maids remade the bed with crisp clean sheets, new bolsters and pillows.
"You were here when my mother came as a bride?" I asked her.
"I was, My Lady. I remember when His Lordship brought her home. I was young myself then, not much older than her. She was very pretty, but so frightened on her wedding night, we could do nothing to soothe her. She just sobbed and sobbed. That was when His Lordship came in and ordered the servants out for the first time. After that, he never allowed anyone in there with them. We all thought it a bit strange, but then His Lordship always did like to do things his own way."
I considered her words. Mother had been frightened, my father had turned out the servants but they had their first time in the clearing beside the church. So nothing had happened on their wedding night? His only thought had been to soothe her, to comfort her and be sure she was no longer afraid before he attempted to consummate their marriage. The knowledge touched my heart; it was so typical of my father, to think of her before himself. I recalled him telling my brother on the eve of his wedding to take things slowly, there was no hurry, to be sure he did not frighten his bride.
"There was a lot of turmoil the next few years," Nancy was saying, "what with them having to go and live at court and leave little Lady Alicia here with her nurses. Her Ladyship was always a devoted mother; it must have been hard."
I watched her carefully, trying to remember what I had been told about that time. Mother had said that he was at the court of Queen Mary, she had said nothing about being there herself. And Rachel had told me that his duties at court had taken him away from my mother for months on end.
"So, my mother was at court as well?" I asked, knowing that I should not be listening to servants' gossip.
"Oh, yes My Lady," she answered at once. "She was lady in waiting to the late Queen. She only came home when we lost your dear sister."
But she had never been in the service of Queen Mary. Mother told me that Rachel had taken her place, but if she was not here at Summerville all that time, where was she? I knew it was a question for which I would never find an answer.
I was silent for the rest of the time we waited, my thoughts rushing about in my head so fast I was in danger of getting a headache.
My parents lived apart. She could not follow his beliefs and it drove them apart; that is what she told me. They had met again when Alicia was dying, so Father was not the only one she had been parted from. It had to have something to do with Charles Carlisle’s comment: after what he did to you.
I would never know the answer and if she were here, she would refuse to tell me. She swore us children would never know the sorrows of the past and she had taken those secrets with her to the grave.
Eventually, they finished in the bedchamber but Nancy would not enter alone.
"My Lady," she said, "with all respect to yourself, I will not enter that chamber alone. That door has been propped open all morning, ever since the boys brought in the new mattress, and I have been trying to talk myself into going in there, but I do not have the courage. I can feel them there still."
"I will come with you, Nancy," I told her.
I cannot say I was not afraid but I did not think either of them were anything to fear. We approached the bed cautiously and I was suddenly small again, remembering that time when I had crept in here, my shock when I had seen them lying together naked. Nancy gripped my hand tight enough to almost break my bones as we approached the clean, crisp bed where we had just watched the maids put on fresh sheets. As we drew nearer, I distinctly heard a murmur, an endearment, a whisper. I heard breathing, the gasping breaths of two people making love. I stopped and stared at Nancy.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes, My Lady," she answered with a nervous quiver in her voice. "They's still 'ere ain't they?"
We carried on walking slowly to the bed, only to find that the new mattress and pillows and the crisp, clean sheets bore the imprint of two bodies and two heads.
THE END
HISTORICAL FACTS
The period between the death of the young Protestant King Edward VI in 1547 and the death of his half-sister, Catholic Queen Mary I in 1553 was one of the most confusing and turbulent in English history.
It is well known that King Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome and the Pope in order to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. He did not, however, break with the Catholic faith, instead he merely developed his own version of it. He destroyed the monasteries and smashed the idols more to gain their riches than from any matters of conscience and for years he adhered to his version of Catholicism.
His sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, tried to convert him to Protestant thinking but she had not totally succeeded in that when the King died. His only son, Edward, was raised by Protestant uncles and on becoming King at the tender age of only ten years, he supported those uncles in declaring Protestantism to be the religion of England.
Catholics were outlawed, the mass was outlawed, churches were plain with no statues or idols, the services were in English. This was the beginning of priests’ holes in large houses, where a Catholic family would hide a priest to say mass for them, but anyone found to be Catholic would be imprisoned and their property and wealth would be confiscated.
For six years most of the country was Protestant, or pretended to be. When the King died at only fifteen years of age his half-sister, Mary took the throne, after the very brief reig
n of Protestant Jane Grey. A fanatical Roman Catholic, Mary swore to bring England back under the rule of the Pope and the Roman Church. Priests who had been allowed to marry under her brother’s rule were forced to abandon their wives, Protestant writings and books were burned and the mass was re-introduced along with the idols which the Protestants had discarded. Once more there were relics of saints which people paid to touch, once more there was transubstantiation, the belief that the wine and bread of the Holy Communion actually became the blood and flesh of Christ, not merely a symbol of those things.
Her nickname of ‘Bloody Mary’ was well earned, as during her brutal campaign to return England to the Catholic church, she burned alive nearly four hundred Protestants as heretics, more than all previous monarchs put together.
Her marriage to Prince Philip II of Spain was not a popular choice, and despite two phantom pregnancies she never managed to produce an heir. On her death, her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Ann Boleyn succeeded her as Queen and reigned for forty three years until 1603.
There were a few attempts by Catholics to depose Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots, resulting in the Babington Plot and in Mary’s eventual execution at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire.
England had one more Catholic monarch, King James II, but he was ousted and the throne given to his Protestant daughter, Mary II and her husband William of Orange. Never again did a Catholic sit upon the throne of England and even today, 2015, no one in line to the throne is permitted to marry a Catholic.
The Act of Settlement 1701 precludes any Roman Catholic from the line of succession to the British throne. Prince Michael of Kent relinquished his claim to the throne on his marriage to a Roman Catholic.
Mary’s zealous campaign to return England to Catholicism poisoned the people against the Church of Rome and ensured that no Catholic would ever again sit on the throne of England.
HOLY POISON tells of ordinary people who lived through those times and were forced to either change their religion or pretend to, even though it was an important part of their lives. Many died horrible deaths by refusing to do so and this series, although fiction, is written for them – the Martyrs of the Reformation.
More Historical Fiction:
The Wronged Wife
The Adulteress
The Crusader’s Widow
To Catch A Demon
A Man in Mourning
The Gorston Widow
The Romany Princess
The Elizabethans Trilogy:
The Earl’s Jealousy
The Viscount’s Divorce
Lord John’s Folly
Mystery/Thriller:
Mirielle
Old Fashioned Values
Satirical short stories:
The Gatecrasher
Taking Care of Mother
The first chapters of all my books can be read at http://historical-fiction-on-kindle.blogspot.co.uk
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The Final Confession of Richard Summerville – Members’ Only Exclusive
This confession was written by Lord Richard Summerville, of the Holy Poison series, just before his death in 1578. He hid it away, as it was written to ease his conscience, not for the eyes of others. But it was found in 1917, when the War Office took over Summerville Hall to use as a hospital for wounded soldiers.
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Lord Malcolm’s Last Moments
Malcolm was the eldest brother and heir to the Melford title and estates in the trilogy The Elizabethans. He was tragically killed along with his father before the story begins but what no one in the family knew was that Malcolm did not die at the same time as his father. He could have walked away from the accident, but he chose to save something dear to him.
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HOLY POISON: Boxed Set: The Complete Series 1-6 Page 104
