Mary is twenty …
And despite Master Cromwell’s promise, she was left waiting. And waiting. Mary felt utterly stuck at Hunsdon House, waiting for a summons from court that never came.
Spring slipped into early summer. The news came through of the wicked lady’s fall and her death under the executioner’s blade at the Tower of London. It was just as Cromwell had foretold. Mary shivered when she thought of his power, his network of allies, his almost magical ability to get things done. Yet now, she reassured herself, he was on her side. They were working together.
Mary could hardly credit the tales that she was told of Queen Anne’s trial, the accusations made against her in the law court that she had been unfaithful to the king. Mary wondered if the truth had been tweaked there too, just as it had in the testimony about poison that she’d given to Master Cromwell to use.
It was perfectly true that she had been poisoned, but it was by her mother’s friends, rather than the wicked lady. And now the lady was dead! Killed at the orders of her own father.
That’s a person I met, many times, Mary told herself, who lives no longer. I talked to her, sat with her. I hated her, truly hated her. But did I really want her dead? Did God want her to die?
She did not really know.
Mary remembered herself as a young princess at Greenwich Palace, who’d complained that she was never allowed to play with other girls or read her books. Instead she was always supposed to be engaged upon a fight to the death. The old Mary seemed like a different person. My mother knew, somehow, Mary told herself, what was going to happen. It was a fight to the death between that lady and me, and I won.
At that moment, Mary knew exactly what God wanted her to feel, just as if He had spoken the words in her ear. She shivered with the sheer thrill of being still alive.
She wanted to run crazy through the orchard, and gallop on a horse as fast as Old Humphrey, and jump higher in a dance than any other courtier could. She was ready to live life again, at court.
She thought long and hard about how she would confront her father, challenge him with having abandoned her. She wanted to make him feel bad for having let her suffer for so long. She’d heard that he hadn’t even visited her mother’s grave. He sent no letter to acknowledge that Mary herself might be devastated. She wanted to make him pay for all that, before she could let him love her again.
But the summons from court still did not come.
Mary wanted to write to Master Cromwell, asking what was happening, but she feared to do so. It was all too dangerous to commit to paper. She had entered into a deal with the Devil. She’d agreed that if she gave testimony against Queen Anne, he would bring her back to court and to her father. It was … troubling, to say the least. She did not want to admit in a letter that she’d had any part in Anne’s downfall.
Mary slipped almost back into her old life at Hunsdon, walking, reading books, mooning about, waiting with Lady Shelton for something to happen.
But in those days her mother had been alive, pulling the strings behind the scenes, and there had always been the hope of a letter.
‘Ironic, isn’t it,’ Mary said to Lady Shelton, ‘that I am actually eager to hear from Master Cromwell, who has done me so many wrongs?’
‘But can’t you just live quietly, here at Hunsdon, and be satisfied?’ Lady Shelton asked Mary. There was an unfamiliar note of exasperation in her voice. Mary looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in some weeks. Lady Shelton was a little paler, her eyebrows less black. There was a thread or three of iron grey, now, in her hair. She’s growing older, Mary thought.
‘Do you really want to go back to court?’ Lady Shelton continued. ‘It’s a snake pit where … where my niece and your stepmother has just lost her life!’
Mary knew the answer. She had been taught it at her mother’s knee.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said. ‘I have to fight in the great fight. Princesses can’t just slip away or disappear. I have grown soft, living here. Some people, enemies of my mother, will always think that I’m a threat. I have to fight and win, or die. Really and truly. It is my duty.’
Lady Shelton sighed, and gave half a smile. ‘There’s no denying it,’ she said amicably, as she unfolded her rangy body from the seat in preparation for leaving the room, ‘you’re your mother’s daughter.’
Despite this, there was no opportunity for combat for many weeks. It was June before anything happened.
Finally, one warm day, Sir Nicholas Carew arrived, looking haggard and tired. There was a new stoop in his back. Mary remembered her mother’s frequent murmur, as they sat together in the stands at the tournament, that Sir Nicholas was ‘such a handsome man’. No longer was this quite true.
Mary thought this as he came striding over the grass towards her where she sat in the orchard. Her book was on her lap, although in fact she had just been sitting, staring vacantly, and thinking.
‘Cromwell has betrayed you,’ Sir Nicholas said shortly, as soon as their greetings were over. ‘He used your evidence in the secret trial. I heard as much from a man who was there. But he hasn’t got the king to agree to your return, as he should have done.’
‘But why not?’ cried Mary, incensed, taking in only part of what Sir Nicholas had said, the fact that she could not go back to court. ‘But he promised!’
Her heart had been set on leaving this dreary place, on starting a new life. Probably her mother would not have approved of her deal with Cromwell. Now she felt, like a kick in the teeth, that her mother would have been right.
‘He is a devil,’ Sir Nicholas said, ‘but a powerful one. And now I have something else to say that I think will displease you.’
Mary shook her head impatiently. She couldn’t take any more bad news. But then she remembered that he was trying to help.
‘The sticking point,’ he said delicately, ‘is the Act of Succession. It has become an … obstacle, in your father’s mind, that must be overcome before you return to your former place, despite the help you gave in bringing about the fall of the lady. And Master Cromwell has guaranteed to get your agreement to it.’
‘You mean, he still wants me to sign to say that I am not a princess?’
Now Sir Nicholas bowed his head, eyes trained on the grass.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Your father still denies that his marriage to your mother was valid. I thought he might change his mind after Queen Anne’s death, but he is stubborn, stubborn on this one thing. He thinks people will judge him.’
‘Judge him?’ Mary cried. ‘But he is the king. He cannot be judged like ordinary men. He can do anything he wants!’
‘Oh, but your mother would be sad to hear you saying that,’ he said gruffly, turning away. ‘He should obey the laws of God.’
‘How dare you tell me what my mother would or wouldn’t want?’ Mary snapped.
‘Let us not quarrel, princess,’ he said soothingly. ‘I spoke in haste. And you remind me of her, oh, so much, especially when you stand there with your hands clenched like that.’
Mary realised what she was doing, and gave a rueful smile. Yes, she was standing in the very stance of a blood-drinker. She tried to relax.
‘Your mother,’ Sir Nicholas went on, ‘was very … rigid in her views. It cost her greatly. It cost her something she valued above everything else, which was your company.’
Mary knew it.
‘But what would you have me do?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand. If I can’t go back to court, will I just stay here forever? Moulding away? Until someone remembers and decides that it really would be easier all round if I were to die, and perhaps moves me to the marshes myself. It’s intolerable!’
‘I think,’ Sir Nicholas said gently, then stopped. Mary felt a terrible foreboding chill as she suddenly guessed what was to come.
‘I think it’s time to compromise,’ he said. ‘If you sign, you can return to court, and build up the position of your friends. If the king were to die tomorrow then you, probably, would be acclaimed queen. He still has no son. But you must be on the spot, and known to powerful people. You can also speak up, at court, for our Old Religion, which Anne Boleyn did her best to destroy. And now her cursed soul has gone down to Hell, you can be with your father again. And perhaps be happy.’
‘But I don’t trust Master Cromwell!’ Mary cried. ‘And you spoke of my mother! She would not approve. You know I can never do this!’
‘Ah, but …’ He shuffled the papers in his hand. Mary saw that there were several. ‘Your mother’s friends have been in secret communication with your mother’s nephew overseas, the emperor. He has obtained this for you.’
Mary took it from him, examining it carefully. ‘It’s an absolution from the Pope,’ he explained. ‘You sign that you agree to the Act of Succession, and to your new status, then the very next minute you sign the absolution. This means that God will forgive you, and all good Catholics will know that you have not betrayed your innermost self. It is just for show.’
Mary sighed. So it had come to this. Even her supporters, the only people who seemed on her side, were advising her to give in – with a get-out clause.
‘I will think about it,’ she said. ‘Leave them here with me.’
‘Tonight, princess,’ he said. ‘I advise you to sign tonight. You should return to court and start to rebuild a life there. You should give heart to your mother’s friends, and you should see your father again. After all, you are his heir.’
He turned and went into the house. Mary sat on in the orchard, her mind lost in a maze of pros and cons. She felt unable to move, even to get warm. After a while she noticed that she was thirsty, but it was as if someone else were feeling the sensation, not her.
It grew cold as the sun began to set and dew started to gather on the grass.
She picked up both papers again. She suspected, somehow, that in the last few minutes she had made up her mind what to do, but she didn’t want to admit it just yet.
When she lifted her head, she could see the guards in the field beyond the orchard, and Sir Nicholas waiting patiently by the garden gate. Against the lighted windows of the house she could see Lady Shelton’s shape, watching and waiting. Everyone was watching and waiting and wanting her to sign.
Slowly, resignedly, Mary went inside. Her feet felt immensely heavy. She could hold out against her enemies, but not against her friends. At eleven o’clock, with a leaden heart, she picked up the pen and put her name to each of the two papers.
‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ she whispered, very softly, as her pen moved.
But then she heard, as if from far away, her mother’s own voice.
‘Press harder, Mary. The letters are too faint.’
For an instant Mary felt something like a little worm stirring inside her. She scarcely recognised it. It took her a minute or two to realise that it was something she hadn’t felt for a long time. It was hope.
If she couldn’t have them both, then it would be better to live with at least one of her parents once again. She couldn’t bear to be alone any longer.
