The Last Tudor Read online

  I spend my afternoons in study and my evenings in writing. I have no objection to the little house, to the garden below it, with the gate to the green and the white Tower dominating the site. I can live in my own world, like a monk in his cell. I am working on a new translation of the psalms, and also on my letter proclaiming my innocence to the queen. I think I must explain to her that if she has released all but my senior advisors—John Dudley and his sons—then she can release me. She has forgiven my mother, whose lineage put me on the throne, who is actually closer than I am to the crown; she has released Lady Dudley my mother-in-law, who insisted that I should try the crown. She can release me. It is nonsensical if she does not.

  “Your mother-in-law went to Queen Mary,” Katherine my sister whispers to me on one of her rare visits to bring me clean linen and physic, as I still have spasms in my belly and I am still bleeding a little. Mr. Nozzle the monkey balances on her shoulder, and puts his dark little face into his hands. “Lady Dudley the duchess went to Queen Mary; but the queen would not even admit her.”

  “No!” I am as diverted as a bawd on a fish quay offered a sprat of gossip. I recognize an ignoble gleam of family pride. “No! Really! Did she know that the queen had seen our lady mother?”

  “Yes, but of course our lady mother is of the royal family and a favorite of our cousin the queen. Are the Dudleys of royal blood?” She smiles.

  “No, of course not; but he is a duke.”

  Katherine shakes her head. “Not for long. I think they will take his fortune and his title.”

  “But why? Since the queen has forgiven so many others?”

  “He did a terrible thing,” Katherine points out. “You know what I mean . . .”

  She trails off and looks at me, widening her eyes, as if I, so much better read and better educated than she, must know the words she will not say. She puts up her finger to Mr. Nozzle on her shoulder, and he holds it as if for comfort.

  I look at her with a face of stone and then see the easy tears well up in her blue eyes.

  “Jane! You do know!”

  “I promise you I don’t know what you mean, and goggling your eyes at me does not tell me anything.”

  “Because he was a traitor,” she whispers. “He tried to put a false queen on the throne. It is a sin against the crown, the country, and God. Everyone says he must die. Because he was a traitor. It is not that he sent out papers or wrote letters, like our father did. It was not words; it was deeds. He took a proper army against the queen, and his sons proclaimed a false queen at the point of a sword. They’re all going to be executed. They have to be.”

  Still, I look at her blankly. “Die? The Dudley boys?”

  I don’t think it’s possible that these five handsome young men should die. It’s not possible that their father—such a calculating, cunning man—should negotiate his way to the scaffold. The boys are too vital, their father is too clever. None of them can die.

  “And you too, Jane,” she says, speaking slowly, as if she is spelling something out for our little sister, Mary. “You do know, don’t you know? Since you were the false queen that they raised up. The Dudleys have to die for proclaiming a false queen, and you were her. So they are saying that you will have to die, too.”

  I look at my pretty sister, the only one who has dared to speak this terrible lie. “Oh, no, they can’t kill me,” I am shocked that she should even say it.

  “I know!” She is in complete agreement with me. Mr. Nozzle nods his grave head. “I really think they can’t. Surely, they can’t? But the thing is, Jane, they say that they will.”

  Katherine is a fool and I have known this forever. I don’t even argue with her; for what is the point of citing authorities and giving her pages that she simply can’t read? I might as well speak to her monkey or her kitten. I know that I have done nothing but obey my father and mother, and then obey my husband and his father and mother. This is not treason. It is no crime at all. It is a God-given duty: Honor thy father and thy mother that thou mayest live long in the land, which the Lord thy God shall give thee.

  Queen Mary—who studied as I did, with Queen Kateryn Parr, all four of us, Kateryn, Mary, Elizabeth, and I bent over our books together—will know this as well as I do. I will “live long” upon the land because I have honored my father and mother. It would be completely contradictory if I were to be executed for obeying my parents. It would be to deny the truth of the Bible, and nothing can do that.

  I complete my explanation for the queen, and when I am completely satisfied with it for rhetoric and grammar and the cleanliness of the pages, I send it to her. I expect she will read it and follow my reasoning and order my release. I make it clear to her that I had no idea why Mary Sidney took me to Syon House, and that she herself probably did not know, either. I had no desire for the crown myself, and I still do not. Once they had persuaded me of the legality and the rightness of the act, I did the best that I could. I don’t see what else anyone can ask of me. I had to obey my parents and follow the logic of an argument. As it happens, I thought it was the right thing to do—but I cannot be blamed for thinking that God’s work would be best done by a queen who studies His Word and follows His laws and is not in thrall to Rome. I don’t explain that to the queen, because I know that she would not agree, and a righteous word is not always pleasing, even though the argument is incontrovertible.

  I write at length, telling the new queen that I was advised—indeed, ordered—to take the crown by those who were set over me as older and wiser. “The error imputed to me has not been altogether caused by myself,” I say—which is as tactful as I can be, given that all of her court and all of her present advisors were once mine. I don’t hesitate to blame John Dudley or his wife or son; indeed, I point out that I have been ill ever since I was forced to live with them, probably poisoned.

  While I am waiting for her reply I continue with my studies and with my work of translation. I send for more books. I need to consult the authorities as I work and it is hugely irritating that some of these books are not available to me now, because the Pope has ruled that they are forbidden books and nobody can bring them to me. Banned! They are banning books written about the Bible by thoughtful commentators on the Word of God. This is how the Antichrist makes his way into the minds of men and women. This is how political tyranny is supported by religion. It comes as no surprise to me when I cannot get hold of the studies that I need, and so I have to quote from memory and make a note in the margins to check them when I am released to my own library at Bradgate where I can read everything I want.

  I try not to be distracted by a tremendous noise from the City, cheering and trumpeting and church bells ringing. I sharpen my quill and turn the page of the Greek grammar that I am studying. Now I can hear the yelling of the apprentices and women shrieking with joy. I don’t go up on the walls to look down; I can imagine what all the fuss is about. I don’t really want to see my cousin entering London through Tower Gate in triumph and releasing her favorites from prison. I just hope that she sends for me soon.

  I understand that first the guilty must be tried and executed before the queen pardons me. But I wish that I had been spared the sight of the false priests and even that old Antichrist himself, Stephen Gardiner, the enemy of reform, the persecutor of Queen Kateryn Parr, going into the chapel at the Tower to celebrate Mass for the turncoat traitors. I take my cushion to serve as a kneeler and I set my back to the window and lean my forehead against the cold stone wall to pray for my immortal soul, as the wicked old man preaches a sermon and raises the Host and generally makes magic and paganism in the chapel where I have so recently prayed directly to God without the need of anyone swishing about here and there in robes before the hidden altar, waving incense or spraying water.

  Not everyone thinks as I do. My father-in-law, John Dudley, recants his faith, makes his confession, and abases himself before bakers’ bread and vintners’ wine, pretending that they are body and blood in the hope of pleasing the queen a
nd gaining a few years of miserable life in exchange for losing the full glory of heaven. Bread from the baker, wine from the cellar—the poor heretic swears that it is the real body and real blood of God. This is not faith as we have faith. This is superstition and magic. He has lost his immortal soul for this pathetic attempt to buy his life.

  They take him out, and Sir John Gates, who served him, and Sir Thomas Palmer, who did nothing more than a hundred others, they take the three of them out to Tower Hill and behead them like common criminals.

  I am deeply shocked. I can’t mourn John Dudley, I have no reason to grieve for him. My father-in-law at his last hour turned into a papist and so he died an awful death betraying the true reformed faith of my cousin the king and me, a far worse betrayal than the treason he confessed. At the end he thought to barter a few days of sinful life for the certainty of eternity, and he took the wrong choice then, as he did with me.

  “I am only young,” I tell my sister Katherine, who comes to visit me without invitation, “but I would not forsake my faith for love of life! But his life was sweet, he longed to keep it, you may say—”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that—”

  “So he might have thought the sacrifice of his soul was worth the while, you will say—”

  “Honestly, I wouldn’t—”

  “He did not care what it cost him. Indeed, the reason is good; for he that would have lived in chains to have had life—”

  She is breathless with trying to interrupt me. “I wouldn’t say any of that!” she protests. “But I can understand why a husband and a father of such handsome boys would not want to leave them, would swear to anything to keep his life.”

  “God says whoever denies Him before men, He will also deny them in His Father’s kingdom,” I say flatly.

  “But when the queen forgives you, you will have to pray with her,” Katherine reminds me. “I do it already. I sit behind her and I copy everything she does. Honestly, Jane, it makes no difference to me. Up and down and bowing and crossing oneself. Why does it matter? You would not declare against the Mass, surely? You would do all that they ask of you, you would bow when they raise the Host—”

  “It is pig swill. The Host, as you now call it, is pig swill,” I say flatly, and she claps her palms over her face and looks at me earnestly, through her fingers.

  “Jane . . .” she whispers.

  “What?”

  “You will talk yourself to the scaffold.”

  “I will never deny the Lord my God,” I say grandly.

  “Jane . . .” she says again.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to lose you.”

  I am diverted by the moving bulge in the pocket of her cape. “What have you got there?”

  “Ribbon the kitten. I brought him. I thought you might want him for company.”

  She hauls out of her pocket the white kitten with blue eyes. He opens his mouth in a tiny pink yawn and lolls a miniature rosy tongue. He has sharp little teeth and his paws are limp with sleep.

  “I don’t want a kitten,” I say.

  She looks ridiculously disappointed. “Wouldn’t he be company for you? I am sure he is not at all heretical.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  NOVEMBER 1553

  It is the command of this so-called gracious queen that us prisoners who denied her heresies and follow the risen Lord shall walk just like He did before the people. I know that it is she who is shamed by this masque, not me. I don’t fear being tried for treason, I am glad of it. I can give testament from the dock, I can be a Daniel coming to judgment. I am ready. I am to be tried with the handful of other remaining prisoners at London’s Guildhall, as public a disgrace as she can contrive. She does not realize that, for me, this is holy. I am honored to walk from the Tower to Guildhall to my trial. I am no more shamed than Jesus was carrying His cross. She thinks she will expose me to abuse from the crowd; but this will be my martyrdom. I am glad to do it.

  The streets from the Tower to Guildhall are lined with guards; our procession of prisoners is led by the executioner’s axe, followed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the godly priest who gave us the English prayer book, and who translated the psalms with my dear Queen Kateryn. He has been in the Tower since he opposed the queen introducing the papist Mass. He was my tutor with Queen Kateryn, I know him well; I have every faith that if he is following the axe, the Lord is going before it. I am proud to come behind such a good man. I would follow him to the gates of heaven.

  But unfortunately, I am not walking in his footsteps, for immediately behind him comes my husband, Guildford, pale and clearly frightened, and only then me, escorted by two of my ladies-in-waiting. Behind us come two other Dudleys: Ambrose and Henry. At least they look dignified and even defiant.

  I wear a black gown, a black hood trimmed with jet, and a black furred cape. I carry an open prayer book in my hands and I read it as I walk, though the small print jiggles before my eyes, and, to tell the truth, I can see nothing. It doesn’t matter; I know the prayers off by heart. The point is that I am carrying it, that I appear to be reading it, anyone looking at me can see that I depend on the Word of God, as spoken by His Son, as written in His testament, as translated by Queen Kateryn and me. I do not depend on the mumblings of a priest or the long service in Latin that greets me at Guildhall. I am redeemed by my faith in the Word, not by the crossings and the dippings and the fancy robes and the censing that goes on before the judges come in and cross themselves and whisper “Amen” and do everything they can to show that this is papist against reformer, lies against truth, heresy against God, sheep against goats, them against me.

  The trial is nothing but a recital of nonsense from men who know perfectly well what happened, but dare not say it now, to those who know it just as well but whose future depends on denying it. Everyone lies. I am not invited to speak, only to make a confession. There is no chance for me to explain the power of the Word of God.

  The judges, who are as guilty as the accused, condemn all the men to die by being dragged to their place of execution and there hanged, and then being cut down, their bellies opened and their entrails drawn out, and then their arms and legs cut off. This is hanging, drawing, and quartering, and it is exactly like a crucifixion. It will take place on Tower Hill, which they should rename Calvary. I listen to the verdict and I don’t even tremble because I simply cannot believe it. Queen Kateryn’s dearest friend and mentor to be eviscerated for heresy? It was Thomas Cranmer who gave extreme unction to the dying King Henry. He wrote the Book of Common Prayer. How can he be a heretic? How can his friend’s daughter disembowel him?

  As for me, my position is worse and equally contradictory. They sentence me to death by either the axe, like a traitor, or fire, like a heretic, on Tower Green. I listen to the lies they say and the deaths they threaten, and I am stony-faced. Anne Askew, a common woman, was burnt to death at the stake at Smithfield for our faith. Do they think that Our Redeemer, who supported her, will fail me? Do they think I don’t dare martyrdom as she did? I dare it—will they?

  I have faith. I think they will pass sentence but delay and delay, and when everyone is quiet and has forgotten all about us, they will release us all to our homes: Thomas Cranmer, the Dudley boys, me. The death sentence is a threat to frighten others into silence and submission. It is not my doom. I will wait, I will study, I will not fear. The time will pass, and I will be released to my home at Bradgate and I will sit at my desk beneath the open window and hear the birds in the trees and smell the scent of hay on the summer winds, and Katherine and Mary and I will play hide-and-seek in the woods.

  “I am not afraid,” I explain to Katherine.

  “Then you’re mad!”

  I take her hands, which pluck at her gown, at the basket that she has perched on her knees, filled with fruit, jiggling it as if it were a baby, the nephew that she will never have from me.

  “I am not afraid, because I know that this lif
e is just a vale of tears through which we pass,” I tell her impressively. “Blessed are ye men whose strength is in ye, in whose heart are your ways. Which going through the vale of misery, use it for a well and the pools are filled with water.”

  “What?” she asks wildly. “What are you talking about now?”

  I draw her to sit beside me on the window seat. “I am ready,” I tell her. “I will not fail.”

  “Beg the queen’s pardon!” she suddenly says at random. “Everyone else has done. You don’t need to renounce your religion, you just have to say you are sorry for the rebellion. She’s read your letter. She knows it wasn’t your fault. Write to her again and tell her that you know you were wrong, you will annul your marriage, you will attend Mass, and then you can live quietly at Bradgate, and I will live with you, and we can be happy.”

  “Do never think it strange,

  Though now I have misfortune.

  For if that fortune change,

  The same to thee may happen.”

  My sister gives a little scream. “What are you saying? What are you saying now?”

  “It is a poem I have written.”

  She is wringing her hands in distress. I try to take hold of her, but she jumps to her feet and goes to the door. “I think you are mad!” she exclaims. “Mad not to try to live!”