The Last Tudor Read online

  “My mind is on heaven,” I say steadily.

  “No, it isn’t,” she says with a sister’s sharp wit. “You think that she is going to forgive you without you apologizing. You think that you are going to win where John Dudley failed. You think that you are going to proclaim your faith and everyone is going to admire you for it, just like Roger Ascham, the tutor, does, and that ridiculous man in Switzerland.”

  She catches me on the raw. I am furious at the insult to my spiritual teacher Henry Bullinger. “You’re jealous!” I spit at her. “You name great men, but you have never understood their teaching.”

  “Jealous of what?” She raises her voice. “Of this?” Her gesture takes in the low-ceilinged interconnecting rooms, the view over the enclosed gardens, the Tower walls beyond them. “You’re in prison, condemned to death, your husband a prisoner condemned to death. There is nothing here that I would be jealous of! I want to live. I want to be married and have children. I want to wear beautiful gowns and dance! I want life. And I know you do, too. Nobody could want to die for their faith at sixteen. In England! When it is your own cousin on the throne? She will forgive you! She has forgiven Father. Just ask her forgiveness and come home to Bradgate and let us be happy! Think of your bedroom there, of your books. Think of the river path where we ride!”

  I turn from her as if she were tempting me. It is easier if I think of her as a worldly temptation, a little gargoyle-faced thing, not my pretty blond sister with her simple appetites and her foolish hopes. “No,” I say. “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: but whoso loseth his life for My sake shall find it.”

  I hear her little whimper as she faces the door and raps on it to be released. She has not been taught to argue as I have been taught from babyhood; she has education but no scholarship. It is very unlikely that she could ever persuade me of anything, my silly little sister. But I am moved by her tears. I would comfort her if I could, but I am called. I don’t turn to her but I remind her: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother-in-law.”

  “Mother,” she says, muffled from behind her sleeve. She is mopping her streaming tears.

  I am so surprised that I take her by the shoulder and turn her round to face me. “What?”

  “Mother,” she says again. “It’s supposed to be son against the father and the daughter against the mother, not mother-in-law. You got it wrong because you hate Lady Dudley. And that just shows you, Jane. This is not the Word of God. This is you trying to get your own back on the Dudleys. You hope that the queen will forgive you without you changing your faith, and then John Dudley, who died renouncing his faith, will look like a coward and a heretic and you will look braver than him.”

  I flare with rage at her simplicity. “I am a martyr to your stupidity! You understand nothing. I am amazed that you know the Scripture, but you use it wrongly, to shake my confidence. Go now; and don’t come back.”

  She turns to me and her blue eyes blaze with the Tudor temper. She has pride, just like me. “You don’t deserve my love for you,” she says, with her own silly logic. “But you have it anyway, when you least deserve it. Because I see the trouble you are in even if you are too clever to know.”

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  FEBRUARY 1554

  I had thought that the queen would release me for Christmas, but the twelve nights come and go and while the rest of the country is forced to celebrate the Lord’s birth with a Latin Mass, I praise Our Lord as a good Christian should, with prayers and reflections and no pagan bringing in of the green, no masquing or idolatry, no excess of drink or food. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever kept a Christmas so well before—my day was entirely devoted to prayer and meditating on the birth of my Savior, and reading my Bible. There were no presents and no feasting, and that is how I have always wanted to spend Christmas, and I have never been allowed this isolated purity before. I am so glad to be alone and fasting.

  “But how completely miserable!” Katherine wails. She comes from our London house, with gifts from my mother and father, and a new hood from her own wardrobe. “Jane, couldn’t you get a bough of holly? Not even a Yule log in the fireplace?”

  She releases a little tame robin that has come with her, and it perches on the empty stone lintel and trills, as if to complain that there is no greenery and no music.

  I don’t even answer her; I just stare her down, until I see her lip tremble and she says feebly: “Surely, you must be so lonely?”

  “I am not,” I say, though the truth is that I am.

  “You must miss us, your sisters, even if you don’t miss our lady mother.”

  “I have my studies.” But they don’t take the place of conversation, even the frivolous foolish conversation of ignorant girls.

  “Well, I miss you,” she says boldly, and she comes into my arms and puts her wet face into my neck and sobs loudly into my ear. I don’t repulse her, I hold her tighter. I don’t say, “I miss you too,” for what would be the point in both of us crying? And besides, I am living my life as a disciple of the Lord. I should miss nothing. If I have my Bible, I need nothing else. But I hold her tightly, as if I am holding a puppy: it is comforting though meaningless.

  “I have a secret to tell you,” she says, her damp cheek against my ear.

  “Go on.” We are not alone but my lady-in-waiting is seated at a little distance, beside the window for the light on her sewing. Katherine can whisper into my ear and the woman will think that we are crying together.

  “Father is raising an army.” It comes to me like a thread of sound.

  I can hardly hear her. I make sure that I keep my face hidden. “To rescue me?”

  I look as if I am weeping on Katherine’s rounded shoulder though I have to control myself not to jump and scream with delight. I always knew that my father would not leave me here. I always knew that if my lady mother could not persuade Queen Mary to release me, then my father would fetch me by force. I always knew that they would, neither of them, just leave me here. I am their eldest daughter, and the heir to the Queen of England. It’s not as if I am a nobody who could be easily forgotten.

  “Is it not terribly dangerous?” I ask.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” my sister whispers back. “Nobody wants Queen Mary any more. Not now that she’s marrying the Spanish prince.”

  My mind is whirling. I didn’t know any of this.

  “She’s marrying?”

  “Philip of Spain.”

  “There will be an uprising against him? They will put me on the throne in her place!”

  “I think so,” Katherine says vaguely. “I think that is the plan.”

  “It’s not an uprising for Elizabeth, is it?” I ask, suddenly suspicious.

  “Oh, no,” she says. “Elizabeth has become a papist. She has asked the queen to send her crucifixes and chalices for her own chapel, and she has put her chaplain in a surplice and cope.”

  Not even a featherhead like Katherine could misunderstand signs like this. “Are you, at any rate, sure that Father is coming for me?”

  She nods. She has grasped this fact at least. “I am certain.”

  We pull apart and her eyes are shining and her cheeks are flushed.

  “Take the bird when you go,” I warn her. “You know I don’t like them.”

  To wait for rescue, knowing that your heavenly and earthly fathers have not forgotten their faithful daughter, is to be on the brink of adventure. It illuminates my days and makes my prayers passionate and hopeful rather than apologetic, waiting for a pardon. I knew, I always knew for a certainty, that the people of England, having been free to read, free to think, and free to pray directly to their Savior, would never return to the slavery of the mind and soul of the papist Church. I always knew that they would rise up against the Antichrist as soon as it was clear to them that their faith was being betrayed. It was a matter of time, it was a matter of faith. I must wait and be patient, as He is patient.


  And more than this: I could have warned Queen Mary that any husband would want to take the crown—for this is just what happened to me. This is just what Guildford did as soon as they proclaimed me queen. Our cousin the eleven-year-old Mary Queen of Scots in France will find that her promised husband will usurp her power, too, as soon as he is old enough. God has placed husbands over their wives. They will claim their place even though the wife is a queen and should be set over them. Queen Mary may be old enough to be my mother but I feel that I could tell her: this is what men do. They marry a woman who is their superior and at once they envy her position, and at once they usurp her. This is why there have never been ruling queens in this country, only regents when the king is away. This is why there are no duchesses on the Privy Council. If a man wins an honor, it is his; if a woman wins it, then it belongs to her husband. This is why the queen executed John Dudley, but spared me. She read what I wrote; she saw that the throne was inherited by me but claimed by him for his son. She knew at once that I might be true but Guildford covetous. I could have warned her that any husband would steal her power and that the English people will never accept a Spanish king. She is not eight months into her reign and already she has destroyed herself. I am sorry for her, but I have no regret that my father is arming against her.

  So must it be; so may die all heretics.

  I wait for the hour of my rescue, but it does not come. I wait for Katherine to come and tell me what is happening, but she does not visit me either. Suddenly, I am not allowed to walk in the garden or on the flat roofs of the Tower buildings, but nobody will tell me why. The days are dark, with mist off the river and lowering clouds. I don’t want to walk in the garden anyway, I tell Mrs. Partridge. There is nothing growing at this time of year, the trees are bare of leaves, the green itself is a patch of mud. There is no need for anyone to forbid me. I am imprisoned by wintry weather, not by the will of the queen. Mrs. Partridge compresses her lips and says nothing.

  From somewhere in the City I can hear the noise of men shouting and the rattle of handguns going off. Without doubt it is my father, coming for me at the head of his army. My books are tidy on my table, my papers tied together, I am ready to go.

  “What is happening?” I ask Mrs. Partridge quietly.

  She crosses herself, as if it were a natural gesture to ward off ill luck.

  “God forgive you!” I say at once at the terrible gesture. “What ridiculous waving about are you doing? What good do you think that would do anybody? Why not clap your hands to scare away Satan while you’re at it?”

  She looks me directly in the eye. “I pray for you” is all she replies, and she goes from my rooms.

  “What is happening?” I shout. But she closes the door behind her.

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1554

  I have a visitor, John Feckenham, whose idolatry is proclaimed by his long cream-colored woolen robe, tied at the waist with a leather thong, and a white hood that he pushes back from his square flushed face. A Benedictine monk, come to visit me, poor fool.

  He catches his breath from the climb up the stairs to my rooms. “Steep,” he manages, gasping, and then ducks his head in a bow. “Lady Dudley, I’ve come to talk with you, if you’ll have me.” He has a strong accent, like a butcher or a dairyman, nothing like the refined accent of my Cambridge-educated tutors. It makes me smile, as if the cowman was preaching.

  “I have no need of guidance from a blind man in darkness,” I say quietly.

  “I have weighty news for you.” Indeed, he looks quite bowed down with whatever he has to tell me. I think of my father, on his way to me now, at the head of his army, and I know a clutch of fear in my tender belly. I hope that nothing has gone wrong. But surely, if something had gone wrong, they would not send a strange heretical priest to tell me? A fat heretical priest with a round face and an uncouth accent? It is to insult me.

  “Who has told you to give me this news?” I ask. “Who burdened you, a heavy man, with such weighty news?”

  He sighs again, as if he is sad as well as blown. “I’m not here to chop logic with you,” he says. “The council commanded me to give you the news and the queen herself has ordered me to free you from the superstition in which you have grown up.”

  “To free me from the superstition in which I have grown up?” I repeat coldly.

  “Yes.”

  “How long do you have?” I force a laugh.

  “Not long,” he says very quietly. “They have confirmed your sentence of death. I am so sorry. You are to be beheaded tomorrow. We don’t have long at all, Lady Dudley.”

  I feel as if I am struck dead by the very words. I can’t breathe; my belly, always quivering with flux, goes suddenly still. I dare say that my heart ceases to beat. “What? What did you say?”

  “I am truly sorry, my child,” he says gently.

  I look into his broad flushed face. “What?”

  “You and your husband, Guildford Dudley, are to be executed. Tomorrow.”

  I see that he has tears in his eyes. The tears, and his awkwardness, his flushed face, his stertorous breathing, convince me more than his words.

  “When did you say? When?”

  “Tomorrow,” he says quietly. “May I talk with you about your immortal soul?”

  “Oh, it’s too late for that,” I say. I cannot think straight; there is a noise in my ears and I realize it is the rapid thudding of my heart. “Oh, there’s not enough time to attend to so many things. I did not think . . . I did not think . . .” In truth, I did not think that the queen my cousin would turn vulture; but I see that her false religion has driven her mad, as it does so many.

  “I could ask them to give me more time to wrestle with your soul,” he says hopefully. “If I could tell them that we were talking. If I could assure them that you might repent.”

  “Yes,” I say. “All right.” Even a day may give my father time to get to me. I must stay alive so that he can rescue me. Every day he comes closer, I know it. He will not fail me; I must not fail him. Even now he may be fighting a battle south of the river. I must be here when he crosses the bridge.

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1554

  John Feckenham comes at dawn, as he promised, carrying with him his box of tricks of bread and wine and goblet and stole, candles and incense and all the furniture and toys that he can bring out to confuse the unwary like a village mountebank making merry for silly children. I look at his wooden box and I look at his honest face.

  “I am not going to change my religion to save my neck,” I say. “I am thinking about my soul.”

  “I, too,” he says gently. “And the queen has given us three days to talk of holy things.”

  “I always liked to study and debate.”

  “Then talk to me now,” he says. “Explain to me what you understand by these sacred words . . . Take ye, and eat ye, this is my body, which is broken for you. This do in the remembrance of me.”

  I nearly laugh. “Do you not think I have been disputing the meaning of this almost all my life?”

  “I know it,” he says steadily. “I know you were raised in error, my poor sister.”

  “I am not your sister,” I correct him. “I have two sisters only. If there was a brother, I would not be here now.”

  I can hear the clatter of a guard at the Lion Gate and the noise of many men coming into the Tower. I hear the shout to stand, and the noise of men allocating cells. I know that I look startled. “I’d like to see . . .”

  He doesn’t move from his seat so I suppose that he knows who they are bringing into the Tower under arrest. I go hastily to the window and look across the garden. I recognize my father, my poor father, and a ragtag of men, arms gone, standards down, horses gone, clearly defeated.

  I turn back to Feckenham. “My father is arrested again?” I ask him. “You came here with words of advice but you didn’t tell me this, the one thing that I didn’t know, that I need to know!
”

  “He was treasonous again,” he says bluntly. “He and Sir Thomas Wyatt tried to enter London at the head of their army.”

  “To save me!” I say with sudden anger. “Who could blame him for trying to save me when I am under sentence of death and he has loved me for all my life? I have been his favorite daughter, devout like him, a scholar like him. How could a man like that leave his daughter to die without lifting a finger to save her? Nobody could ask it of him.”

  We are quiet for a moment. I am facing him, flushed and with tears in my eyes, and he looks resentful, like a pork butcher, cheated in the market over the price of sausages. He drops his head and his ready color spreads over his broad cheeks.

  “He didn’t rise up for you,” he says gently, and his words are like a bell tolling the death knell. “Not for you, my dear. He rose up to put Princess Elizabeth on the throne. But it is because he rose for her that they are going to execute you. I am sorry, my child.”

  “He raised an army for Elizabeth?” I can’t believe it. I have told my father what sort of girl Elizabeth is. Why would he rise for her, so malleable in her faith and so unreliable as a house guest?

  “He did.”

  “But why kill me, if my father rose for Elizabeth?” I whisper. And then, scholar that I am: “It makes no sense. There is no logic.”

  His wry smile tells me that he agrees. “The queen’s Spanish advisors want to show that no one can survive rebellion against them,” he corrects himself, “against Her Majesty.”

  I hardly care. All I care about is my father. “He was not coming for me? He was never intending to save me? It was all for Elizabeth, and not for me?”

  Feckenham knows that this is the worst thing. “You would have been released, I am sure.” He sees the downturn of my mouth, and the angry tears in my eyes. “We cannot know what the conspiracy planned until they confess. Shall we pray to your Father in heaven who loves you? You always have Him.”