Once again Gardiner was thwarted and Elizabeth held her rightful place in the succession, at least until Mary’s child was born.
When the news of all this reached her Elizabeth began to wonder what kind of a man her brother-in-law was? He did not have the reputation for being a fool, she thought, therefore he must have a reason for supporting her. She thought grimly of Gardiner. He was the hound always snapping at her heels, trying to pull her down and she vowed that should it ever lie within her power she would deal suitable with him. She turned her thoughts back to Philip and as her brain was equally as shrewd as his it was not long before she realised the motive behind his defence of her rights. Obviously he too wondered whether Mary could bear a child that would live. Should Mary die and he had opposed her he knew full well that he could expect no mercy from her hands and the people would never stand for his Regency. Her brother-in-law was a far-seeing man!
Winter at Woodstock was dreary to say the least. Christmas had been spent quietly and although repairs had been carried out the place was still cold and damp and quite cheerless and Elizabeth felt as desolate and deserted as the bleak gardens.
Spring came and in April, 1555, Sir Henry came to inform her that she was to go to Hampton Court for the Queen’s lying-in. Although this birth meant the end of her hopes she felt a little less despondent for at least it would be a change to be at Court away from this dull, soul-destroying existence.
She set out on the 20th April, a wild day with violent gusts of wind whipping the white clouds across the sky. The ladies in the party had great difficulty in keeping their skirts from blowing up and their hoods and veils upon their heads, while at the same time trying to control their mounts. Elizabeth had lost her own hood twice when a particularly violent gust tore it from her head and out of her hands and placed it upon the prickly branches of a Hawthorne at the side of the road. Her long, red hair was quickly loosed from its pins and whipped into a wild tangle by the wind. She dismounted whilst a groom went to fetch her hood.
“Sir Henry,” she called irritably, “pray, Sir, let me take shelter at the house yonder to tidy my appearance.”
“I regret Madam, that is impossible,” he called back.
She glared at him. “What a fright I must look,” she thought as she snatched her hood from the hands of the groom who had retrieved it. She sat down beneath the hedge and tied her hair as best she could and replaced the hood, pinning it securely. Suddenly a thought struck her and she laughed. “My grandfather plucked his crown from a Hawthorne bush at Bosworth so I have heard tell,” she thought. Perhaps it was a good omen that her own head-dress had been retrieved from a Hawthorne. Her temper restored she re-mounted and continued her journey.
Three days later she reached Hampton Court palace. There was no one of any importance to meet her and she was conducted to a remote part of the palace. She was still closely guarded and there was no relaxation of the vigilance. There was no word either from her sister.
After two weeks she had begun to wonder whether Mary even knew she had arrived but the next day she received a visit from the Earls of Arundel and Shrewbury, Secretary Petre and the hated Gardiner.
“My Lords, I am glad to see you for methinks I have been kept in great while from you, desperately alone,” she greeted them.
It was Gardiner who replied. “Submit yourself to the Queen, Madam, for should you do so I have no doubt that her Majesty will be good to you.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed and her temper rose. Coldly she replied, “I would rather lie in prison all the days of my life. I require no mercy from the Queen. I desire the Law if ever I have offended Her Majesty in thought, word or deed, besides in yielding I should speak against myself and confess myself to be an offender, which I never was, towards Her Majesty, by occasion whereof the King and the Queen might ever hereafter conscience of me an evil opinion. And thereafter I say, my Lords, it were better for me to lie in prison for the truth than be abroad and suspected of my Prince!”
“Take that back to your mistress, Master Bishop!” she thought furiously. “I am by no means beaten.”
With a savage look Gardiner took his leave.
He returned the next day.
“The Queen marvelled that you so stoutly use yourself, not confessing that you have offended,” he told her. “Do you think you have been wrongly imprisoned?” he asked her smoothly.
She was too wise to fall into the snare.
“No, my sister must deal with me as she feels fit,” she answered.
“Then Her Majesty willeth me to tell you that you must tell another tale ere you be set at liberty,” he replied, having obviously anticipated her reply.
“Then I would rather stay in prison with honesty and truth than go free still suspected!” she retorted.
Trying to throw her off her guard, Gardiner quite suddenly changed tactics. To her amazement and suspicion he dropped on his knees.
“Then Your Grace hath the vantage of me and the other Lords for your wrong and long imprisonment,” he told her.
“What vantage have I?” she questioned him. “You know, taking God to record, I seek no vantage at your hands for your so dealing with me. But God forgive you and me also,” she answered. “Go back and tell Mary that you have failed, old man!” she thought contemptuously.
Rising stiffly to his feet Gardiner bowed curtly and left.
She received no further visits for a week until at ten o’clock one night she received a summons from her sister.
“My God! What does she mean sending for me at this hour?” she thought as all sorts of wild thoughts flew through her mind. Was she to be taken back to the Tower or worse? “Dear God. I could not live through that again,” she prayed. She was still standing, clutching the book she had been reading when Susan Clarencieux, Mary’s close friend and Mistress of the Robes came to escort her. She smoothed her dress automatically and followed Mistress Clarencieux. Sir Henry and her ladies followed her as she made her way along the passages to Mary’s chambers. Her Gentleman Usher lead the way with lighted candles. She passed through the still, deserted garden—the garden where her mother had walked in happier days—and at last reached the staircase which led to Mary’s apartments and here she stopped for her party was to stay here. She was to go on alone.
She forced herself to ascend the stairs and when she finally entered the room she immediately fell to her knees.
“Your Majesty, I am innocent! I am a true subject. I beg Your Majesty to judge me so!” she appealed. “It will not be found to the contrary whatsoever reports have gone of me.”
She peered into the gloom of the chamber which was lit only by a few candles. She could hardly see Mary and she had the uneasy feeling that there was someone else in the room, although she could see no one.
Mary came towards her and Elizabeth was appalled at the change in her sister for her body was grotesquely swollen, her skin was sallow and jaundiced while her eyes were sunken. Her sister had aged ten years.
“You will not confess your offence but stand stoutly to your truth. I pray God it may so fall out!” Mary answered her bitterly.
Still Elizabeth felt the presence of another person in the room but she was convinced that it was not Anne this time.
Valiantly she replied, “If it doth not I request neither favour nor pardon at your Majesty’s hands.”
“Well, you stiffly persevere in your truth,” came the sharp reply. “Belike you will not confess but that you have been wrongly punished!”
“I must not say so, if it please your Majesty to you,” Elizabeth answered meekly.
“Why then, belike you will to others!” Mary flung at her.
“No, if it please your Majesty, I have borne the burden and must bear it but I humbly beseech your Majesty to have a good opinion of me and to think me to be your true subject not only from the beginning but for as long as life lasteth,” Elizabeth replied.
Mary looked down upon the slim, red-haired figure of her kneeling sister with tired
loathing. She wearily admitted to herself that Elizabeth had won for she had to accept her innocence and set her free. She had never doubted Elizabeth’s courage. “She will always lie to achieve her own ends,” she thought. She motioned the girl to withdraw and spoke a few words in Spanish to Philip who was secreted behind a screen.
Elizabeth looked up sharply. So that was whose presence she had felt, she thought.
After her sister had gone Mary sank wearily into a chair. Philip crossed to her and took her hand in his.
“She is clever,” he said with a trace of admiration in his voice.
Mary did not answer.
“She must be closely watched,” he continued.
Mary shivered and clasped his hand tighter for she felt that from the shadowy corners of the room the dark eyes of Anne Boleyn watched her with malicious triumph.
When Elizabeth reached her own apartments she fell onto the bed overcome with relief. She was free at last. Very soon she could leave this place, she would be rid of the spies who surrounded her—she would be able to go home to Hatfield.
A week later Sir Henry came to say goodbye. He was a greatly relieved man for it had been no easy task to be custodian to this girl. Elizabeth watched him go with a certain amount of regret as well as relief for a fairer, less prejudiced man it was hard to find. She was still confined to her rooms but permission had been given for her to receive visitors, although there were few who took the opportunity to do so.
“Afraid they may jeopardise their position,” she thought and made a mental note of the craven nature of courtiers.
Outside the palace the fires of Smithfield started to burn as humble and great alike were consigned to the flames for refusing to return to the Catholic faith. On the 30th April, one of Elizabeth’s ladies burst into the room flushed and excited.
“Your Grace, Her Majesty has given birth to a son!” she cried.
Elizabeth paled visibly but managed to stop herself from swaying. She turned away to hide the tears that had sprung to her eyes. Suddenly she thought, “I would have been informed earlier when her pains began for custom demands my presence at the birth and there has been none of the usual confusion that surrounds a Royal confinement.”
“Why was I not informed earlier?” she questioned the man.
“Madam, I do not know,” she replied.
As if to put an end to Elizabeth’s doubts she heard someone shouting as they crossed the garden that in London the bonfires were being lit, that the bells were being rung and the Te Deums sung in the churches. “Then it must be true!” she thought.
She dismissed the woman and sat down wearily to try to salvage some hope from the wreck of her dreams.
Strangely enough the celebrations ceased. There was no official proclamation of the birth and Elizabeth began to wonder. To her intense relief she was at last informed that the rumour was untrue but that it had leaked out before it could be suppressed. Fate was playing strange tricks upon her and she wondered how long she could endure this see-sawing of her hopes. As the days lengthened into weeks into months she realised that there was in fact no child. Mary’s illness and her desperate longing for a child had produced the symptoms of pregnancy but she carried no child in her womb.
Humiliated and ill, Mary withdrew into herself. Her eyes were red and swollen with continuous weeping. She was the laughing-stock of all Christendom for God had forsaken her, she thought. But why, she asked herself? Had she not done everything in her power to bring her people back into the fold? Was she not even now cleansing the souls of heretics with fire? Sadly she tried to take up the threads of life but it was not easy and it was so very hard to have to bear the pity of her friends and the ill-concealed triumph of her enemies.
The fires of Smithfield burnt more brightly as Bishops Hooper, Latimer and Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer refused to recant their beliefs and were led out to die. The people’s discontent—fed by growing resentment at the recent martyrdoms—smouldered ready to burst into flame at any time. Although Elizabeth sympathised with the Protestants she fervently prayed that no rebellion would suddenly erupt dragging her once more into disfavour and possible imprisonment.
On the 3rd of August, the Court moved to the country, to Oatlands and finally the farce of the processions and prayers for Mary’s safe delivery was stopped by Philip. Elizabeth did not accompany her sister for she felt that she needed time to breathe, to collect her thoughts and to re-plan. She knew that Philip—who considered that he had done his duty—was making plans to leave. To attend to urgent business connected with his father’s proposed retirement, he told his wife. And so on the 26th August, Mary and her husband rode to Tower Wharf to make the journey to Greenwich and then to Dover. Most of the crowds who turned out to see them pass wished fervently that His Most Catholic Majesty would never return!
Elizabeth, too, went to Greenwich but she made the journey in an undecorated barge for it was feared that she would attract more attention than the Queen.
Philip took his leave of his tearful wife with an outward show of affection and regret and advised her to treat her sister cordially. This she promised to do. Promising faithfully to return within the month he left the shores of the land he despised and by whose people he knew he was heartily loathed.
Mary stubbornly insisted in staying at Greenwich to await his return although Elizabeth was certain that England had seen the last of His Majesty of Spain. She made another note on the perfidy of men and swore she would never allow herself to be treated as Mary had been. Mary was polite to her in public but only because Philip had strongly advised her to be. Elizabeth in her turn attended Mass regularly for not to do so would be to court trouble, even death and she knew that she was not the stuff that martyrs were made of.
The rain continued and the ruined crops were not worth harvesting. The people knew that the winter would be a hard one. To add to the distress there were floods in many parts of the country and many animals were drowned. In London cellars were flooded out destroying valuable wines and other merchandise. October arrived but Philip did not for his business had been more pressing and complicated than he had originally thought, he wrote in reply to Mary’s pleas for his return. So a disillusioned Mary returned to London to open Parliament alone but before she left she sent for her sister.
“How calm, how self assured she is,” she thought as she envied the girl her youth and her independent spirit that had carried her through all danger. “I must return to London,” she informed Elizabeth, “you may return to Hatfield, should you so wish.”
Elizabeth bowed her head so that Mary should not see the gleam of triumph in her eyes. “At last, I am truly free!” she thought. Mary was old, so very old and Philip would not return. All she had to do now was to wait. Time had always been on her side and now in time she would see all her dreams realised. In time she would be Queen of this Realm.
“I thank your Majesty. I will go to Hatfield,” she replied.
As she left that dismal room where the smell of decay hung heavily upon the air she wanted to throw out her arms—to run and to cry aloud, “I have won! I am free! All will be mine!” But she slowly made her way back to her chambers for she would never commit such folly.
Chapter Twelve
On the 18th October, she left for Hatfield. She passed through the City to the cries of “God Bless the Lady Elizabeth!” “There goes Old Harry’s own!” some cried. She was their Princess and they wished fervently that some day soon she would be their Queen instead of “Bloody Mary” who caused true Englishmen to be burnt alive.
To Elizabeth never had the dismal, dripping countryside seemed so beautiful. She was twenty-one years old: she was free and she was returning home to Hatfield. She spurred her horse into a canter for she would be glad to be home.
As she reached Hatfield and rode up the drive she saw that the entire household was drawn up to greet her. Their mistress had come safely home and it was with joy and affection that they greeted her from the lowest, tow-headed sc
ullion to Thomas Parry her cofferer. After she had greeted them all she went inside and went straight up to her own chamber. She flung open the door and noticed that everything was exactly as she had left it. The bed with its curtains neatly looped back with plaited cords. The carved chest upon which reposed her combs and mirror. The wide window seat with the cushions she herself had embroidered.
She caught a glimpse of someone inside and walked in. She stopped dead, staring in disbelief and then she flung herself with a cry of joy into the outstretched arms of Kat Ashley.
“Oh! Kat, Kat, dear Kat!” she cried while the tears poured down her cheeks. For a few minutes neither of them could speak until Kat, wiping the tears from her eyes cried:
“Thank God! I never thought I should see you alive again, Bess.”
“’Tis all over now, Kat,” Elizabeth cried. Sobs choked her and she clung to Kat.
Kat had been frantic the day they had taken her away and she had hounded everyone for news and had never ceased in her efforts to learn what had happened to her mistress. Between laughter and tears Elizabeth told her all that she had endured since they had last met and it was late that night when a relieved and happy Kat prepared her equally happy mistress for her bed.
*
A few weeks later her old tutor, Roger Ascham, now the Queen’s Latin secretary, came to see her.
“A prudent man,” she thought, for like herself he had bowed to the inevitable and had outwardly become a good Catholic. She resumed her studies with a new vigour preparing herself for the not too distant day when dream would become reality. She particularly studied history because there she felt lay the key to affairs of State for she could learn from the mistakes of the Kings who had gone before her and gain from their victories.
A year passed. A year in which she worked quietly and prodigiously. A year in which Philip did not return and his ambassador, Renard, returned to Spain. A year in which her sister grew older and more sickly. In November news reached Elizabeth of the death of Bishop Gardiner; death had cheated her of her old enemy. He had a lot to answer for to his God, she thought, as she remembered the sickening smell of burning flesh that hung over Smithfield. He had been a worthy opponent, that fanatical old man. His death meant that Mary must now govern alone for he had been her most trusted advisor and Elizabeth, knowing her sister’s incapacity in that field, waited for the tumult she was confident would arise.
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