28
Elizabeth
Kat shook me from a light and restless sleep, her face a gaunt, ashen, red-eyed mask of fright all wet with tears, to tell me that Lady Jane Grey was dead. Mary had signed the death warrant and sent our harmless, guiltless little cousin to the block, to pave the way for her Spanish bridegroom’s safe arrival.
I sat up in my bed and hugged my knees, letting my tears drip down on them, as I bowed my head and remembered the shy little scholar I had known, and not always been kind to, at Chelsea, the little mouse who wanted only to stay holed up with her beloved books, burrowing into them to feed her hunger for knowledge, who, even during her confinement in the Tower, pursued her study of Hebrew so that she might read the Old Testament in its original tongue.
I could see her shy, intent little face back in the schoolroom at Chelsea as she answered me when I asked why she was so passionate about her studies.
“I will tell you, Cousin Bess,” she earnestly confided, sitting down opposite me in the window seat. The pale golden sunlight streamed in through the diamond-shaped panes to cast a beatific nimbus about her chestnut hair and plain gray gown embellished with but a little black silk braid that her nervous nail-bitten fingers constantly tried to unravel whenever they were not occupied with writing, reading, or sewing. “I will tell you a truth which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me is that He sent me, with such sharp, severe parents, so kind and gentle a schoolmaster. When I am in the presence of either Father or Mother, whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, dancing, playing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, as perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened and tormented with harsh words, pinches, slaps, and other chastisements—which I will not name for the honor I bear my parents—to such a degree that I think myself truly in Hell, till the time comes when I must go to Master Aylmer, who teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, imbuing in me such joy in learning, as he has himself, that I think of nothing else all the while I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall to weeping, because whatever else I do but learning is full of great trouble and dislike for me. And thus my books have become so much my pleasure, and more, so that everything else is but trifles and troubles to me.”
Remorse filled me now at the memory. I had seen Jane undressed once, when I came into her room just as she was emerging from her bath to be wrapped in the sheet Mrs. Ellen held up for her. Jane had just returned from a visit to her parents, and I saw the bruises, ugly blotches of urine-hued yellow, gray-green, brown, and purplish-black all up and down her arms, buttocks, legs, and back, and silvery-white scars as if the skin had split during a brutal caning, all places that when she was properly dressed would never show. I had been so preoccupied with Tom then, I let it go. It did not properly register; I did not feel the outrage that I should, as I did now when it was too late. I wished now I had been kinder and the true friend Jane never had but always needed; perhaps I could have helped her. I should have done something! I should not have let my head become so soggy with lust that I failed to render aid to a soul in need, a little girl who lacked my own strength. I had learned the art of self-preservation early, to rely on and fight for myself, when my mother died and my father could not stand the sight of me, but Jane had not; she had been beaten down since the day she was born, she never had a chance, she never learned to fight, only to hide like a frightened rabbit in a den of books. Now she was dead and beyond all mortal help. Poor little soul, she never had a real chance to truly live!
“Godspeed, Jane,” I whispered fervently through my tears. “May you find with God in His Heaven the love and tenderness you were always denied here on earth.”
“Merciful Mary” had just spilled the blood of our kinswoman, a delicate girl she used to dress up like a doll, whose abundant waves of chestnut hair she used to brush, and whose now-severed neck she had decked with rubies for her wedding day, a girl she knew to have been innocent, the forced and bullied pawn of ambitious, greedy men jockeying for power in a real-life game of chess where the throne of England was the ultimate prize. Jane, whose only crime—and it was only a crime in fervent, fanatical Catholic eyes—was her unshakable devotion to the Protestant faith. She had been true to her conscience even as Mary had always been true to hers; even though they disagreed, they had that mule-stubborn devoutness in common, and Mary had killed her. That day I was ashamed to call her my sister. And if she could sign away the life of our cousin, what would she do to me, her own sister?
That night I dreamt of a small army of woodsmen striking the tops off the trees growing in a fine park. At each strike of the ax, blood spurted from their trunks, and as their verdant heads toppled they gave off bloodcurdling screams as the blood gurgled and spewed out. And in their midst, wandering frantic, frightened, and lost, hands outstretched as she staggered and stumbled, flailing and groping blindly amongst the falling, bleeding green branches, was a small, slender white-gowned ghost, the only color about her the bright red blood bubbling from her neck, trickling down to stain her gown. “Where is it? Where is it?” a hysterical little voice sobbed over and over, even though she had no head and thus no lips to speak the words with, just as Jane herself had done when she knelt blindfolded in the straw and reached out, groping blindly for the block.
I bolted up in bed screaming and did not dare close my eyes again for the rest of the night. Later, Kat would tell me that the woodsmen at Bradgate Manor, Jane’s childhood home, upon hearing of the death of their poor little lady, had taken it upon themselves to behead the trees in the park as a gesture of mourning for her.
They came for me soon afterward. I knew they would. Knowing and fearing that, and the uncertainty of the outcome, made me even sicker. Disbelieving my physician’s letter that I was far too ill to travel, Mary had thoughtfully sent two of her own physicians and her personal litter to bear me back to London with the utmost care and comfort.
For three days the learned doctors poked and prodded me; they scrutinized and sniffed my urine, felt my pulse, and noted my pallor, and finally diagnosed an imbalance of the watery humors, but nothing serious enough to keep me from traveling. One of them made so bold as to tell me that he thought fear or perhaps even—he begged forgiveness for the presumption—a guilty conscience was the root from which my illness stemmed.
The fear that death awaited me at the end of my journey made me even sicker, and my escorts slowed our pace to a mere walk lest they arrive in London bearing my corpse. As I lay back against the soft velvet cushions, my head and joints an aching agony, and my vision wavering as if I looked up and out at the world from under water, I fought down wave after wave of nausea. Sometimes it became unbearable and I had to shout for them to halt as I leaned over the side of the litter, Kat holding me so I did not tumble out, and gathering back my hair, as, dignity be damned, I vomited into the road until, exhausted, I slumped back against the cushions again, the bitter bile burning my throat and tears stinging my eyes.
At my insistence, I traveled with the curtains open wide, to give me air, contradicting Mary’s orders that they stay closed. The people saw me lying there pale and wan, as white as my gown, my flame-red hair glowing all the brighter against my deathly pallor, and shook their fists at my escorts, and shouted, “Shame!” and called the wrath of God down upon their heads.
Word quickly spread that I was being taken to London as a prisoner of my own sister, and the people rushed to line the roadsides. They tossed bunches of flowers and sweet-smelling herbs onto my litter and, hearing I was ill, more than one country housewife ran out to humbly bob a curtsy and present some tried and true remedy to me, assuring me that it would do me “a world of good.”
“God save our Princess Elizabeth!” I must have heard it shouted ten thousand times before I reached Whitehall, and every one was a shot of courage to my heart. The warmth of their love banished the deathly chill of fear, and my nausea eased. I sat up a little straighter as I returned their smiles and waves. I knew that I was loved and that I was not alone.
The London I returned to stank of death, starting with the rebels’ severed heads impaled on pikes adorning the city gates like grotesque gargoyles. I gagged and had to clutch my pomander ball to my nose, but the sweet, spicy scent of oranges and cloves was a poor defense against the stink of death. And on every street corner stood a gibbet with the rotting body of one or more rebels hanging from it like rotten fruit. I felt nauseous and faint. It took all my will not to order the curtains drawn, but I could not disappoint the people. They needed to see me, and I needed to see them, and hear their voices. We gave each other heart, and the strength to go on and face whatever lay in store.
When I arrived at Whitehall I was taken under guard to my apartments. The guards crossed their halberds behind my back the moment that I crossed the threshold. Further proof that I was indeed a prisoner. I pleaded to see Mary, I tried in vain to remind her of the promise she had made me when we parted, but my every request was denied. Instead, I was informed that I would be taken to the Tower upon the morrow, and must be ready at dawn, for the tide tarries for no one, not even a princess.
One hundred guards in white coats arranged themselves in attentive, straight-backed rows in the garden below my window, their white coats glowing ghostly in the moonlight. It was Mary’s way of telling me that escape was impossible. And every time I heard the rattle of armor, the clank of swords, the thud of booted feet, or a shouted command, four panic-filled words rang shrilly inside my head: There is no escape!
I did not sleep at all that night. I could not, for above my head was a terrible din. My spiteful cousin, Mary’s pet, the Countess of Lennox, had established her kitchen directly above my rooms, and the whole night pans rattled and banged, clattered and clanged, as the smells of fish and meat and smoke seeped through the floorboards to further add to my discomfort and turn my fragile stomach until I had no choice but to keep a basin close beside me. I sat up the whole night through, dressed for travel, but in white to proclaim my innocence, waiting to greet the dawn and the fresh horrors it would bring, knowing that soon I would be locked up inside the Tower where my mother had spent her final days before she was taken out to the scaffold on the green to die. I watched the orange sun bounce off the silver armor and halberds of the guards standing at attention in the garden below my window and wondered how many sunrises I had left.
When the Marquess of Winchester and the Earl of Sussex came to me, I threw myself on their mercy, imploring them to let me write a letter to the Queen, my sister, before they took me away to a prison from which I might never return.
I watched them anxiously, pacing, gesturing, and murmuring as they conferred. I heard only bits and snatches of their conversation, but it was enough to tell me that they were both keenly aware that if my sister died without issue I would be the next Queen and might well remember any favor or courtesy they did me or failed to render me when I needed it most. Finally, the Earl of Sussex decisively stepped forward and said I would be allowed to write my letter and he would personally convey it into the Queen’s hands.
I thanked him profusely, then ran to my desk. I murmured a quick prayer, then took up my pen, knowing that this would be the most important letter I would ever write.
March I6, I554.
If any ever did try this old saying, “that a king’s word was more than another man’s oath,” I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to verify it to me, and to remember your last promise and my last demand, that I be not condemned without answer and due proof, which it seems that I now am; for without cause proved, I am by your Council from you commanded to go to the Tower, a place more wonted for a false traitor than a true subject, which though I know I deserve it not, yet in the face of all this realm it appears that it is proved. I protest before God, Who shall judge my truth, whatsoever malice shall devise, that I never practiced, counseled, nor consented to anything that might be prejudicial to your person in any way, or dangerous to the state by any means. And therefore I humbly beseech Your Majesty to let me answer afore yourself, and not suffer me to trust to your Councilors; yea, and that before I go to the Tower, if it be possible; if not, before I be further condemned. Howbeit, I trust assuredly Your Highness will give me leave to do it before I go, that thus shamefully I may not be cried out on, as I now shall be; yea, and that without cause. Let conscience move Your Highness to take some better way with me than to make me condemned in all men’s sight before my desert is known. I have heard in my time of many cast away for want of coming to the presence of their Prince; and in late days I heard my Lord of Somerset say that if his brother had been suffered to speak with him he had never suffered; but the persuasions were made to him so great that he was brought in belief that he could not live safely if the Lord Admiral lived, and that made him give consent to his death. Though these persons are not to be compared to Your Majesty, yet I pray God that like evil persuasions not persuade one sister against the other, and all for that they have heard false report. Therefore, once again, kneeling with humbleness of heart, because I am not suffered to bow the knees of my body, I humbly crave to speak with Your Highness, which I would not be so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true. And as for the traitor Wyatt, he might peradventure write me a letter, but I pray God confound me eternally if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter, by any means, and to this truth I will stand in till my death.
I humbly crave but only one word of answer from yourself. Your Highness’s most faithful subject, that hath been from the beginning, and will be to my end, Elizabeth
As I neared the end I noticed that a goodly portion was blank below my signature, tempting and fertile ground for any forger seeking to put incriminating words into my mouth and “prove” my guilt so that Mary might have sure and certain evidence to condemn me, so I took up my pen again and drew wavy diagonal lines down the length of the page.
By the time I had finished the tide had turned, and it was too late to safely embark, so I must wait another anxious day and night, praying that Mary would remember and keep her promise and send for me so that I might kneel and plead my case directly before her.
Mary was furious when she found out what had occurred. She railed at Sussex for disobeying her, but he took it well, knowing he had done the right thing, and earned my everlasting gratitude.
But my words failed to soften her heart and she sent not one single word to me in response.
“My Lord of Sussex, I have a good memory,” I said softly, laying my hand on his arm and fixing him with a meaningful gaze when he returned the next morning to convey me to the Tower. “Thank you!” I added in a fervent whisper.
He nodded and bowed his head deferentially, to show me he understood, as he draped my gray velvet cloak about my shoulders.
We departed at dawn even though the wind howled and the rain shot down from the pewter sky like arrows, pelting and piercing us, stinging any exposed skin it touched. We had barely set foot outside before we were soaked to the skin, but still we made our way to the barge, trudging through the mud, our pace hampered and slowed by our water-logged clothes. The weight of water in my skirts caused them to slap and cling to my limbs, and more than once nearly caused me to fall. Kat and Blanche Parry, who accompanied me, had the same difficulty, and Winchester and Sussex, and our guards, were all most solicitous, reaching out each time to catch and steady us as we tripped and trudged our way to the jetty.
The oarsmen had to fight the raging current, and more than once the barge came close to capsizing; it was as if the swirling brown waters of the Thames were loathe to take me to Traitor’s Gate and would rather drown me instead. Kat, Blanche, and I clung fearfully together as the barge pitched and rolled, and Winchester and Sussex debated what to do, whether to make for shore or continue, expressing concern that we would be dashed against the piers of the bridge, but in the end we made it safely to that grim and foreboding fortress and docked at Traitor’s Gate, where Sir John Bridges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and six yeomen guards waited to receive me.
I could not bear to pass through that portal, knowing that most who entered there never came out except to lay their head on the block on the hill or the green. To do so seemed to be an admission of my guilt, and in despair I sank down upon the steps, even as the water rushed over my shoes.
“Your Grace, you must not sit here!” Sir John Bridges implored, concern etched deep upon his kindly face, as he held out his hand to me.
Sniffling, I turned my head away from that kind face and proffered hand. “Better to sit here than in a worse place!” I said, with a defiant toss of my head.
I shivered and wept and thought about my mother. Eighteen years ago she had passed through this portal, to a prison she would never emerge from except to die. Even now her headless body lay moldering in the crypt of the Tower’s chapel, St. Peter ad Vincula, St. Peter in Chains. Some even believed her ghost still walked the Tower, an unquiet spirit protesting the injustice that had robbed her of her life. Would I catch a glimpse of her phantom shade, I wondered as I sat there shivering, chilled to the bone, on the cold, wet, slimy stone steps. She also had worn a white gown and a gray cloak when she was taken by barge, I suddenly remembered hearing, and, glancing down at my own attire, shivered all the more.
Suddenly an ineffectually stifled sob intruded upon my miserable reverie and I turned to see one of the yeomen, a fair young fellow with hair the color of straw, sniveling, with his eyes full of pity as he looked down upon me from his great gangling height.
It was like a sudden slap across my face.
“Don’t cry for me!” I commanded. “No man need ever weep for me!”
I shot up, as fast as my sodden skirts would allow, trying not to stumble as they tangled themselves around my limbs, and walked boldly through Traitor’s Gate, into the Tower of London, with all the majesty and dignity I could summon, defying my resemblance to a drowned red rat, and vowing that I would hold my head up high until the instant the headsman struck it off, but it would never droop or fall of my own free will!
Framed by the dark yawning mouth of Traitor’s Gate, I paused suddenly and spoke in clear, ringing tones, my eyes commanding all who heard me to believe each and every word: “Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs. Before Thee, O God, do I speak it, having no other friend than Thee alone. O Lord, I never thought to come here as a prisoner!” Then I turned and looked at each of the yeomen guards one by one, meeting each man’s eyes. “I pray you all, good friends and fellows, to bear me witness that I come in as no traitor but as true a subject to the Queen’s Majesty as any as is now living.”
One of the yeomen muttered approvingly that I was indeed Great Harry’s daughter. “Aye, the livin’ spit o’ him!” he said proudly. “God preserve Your Grace!” he called after me, and I could hear his heart in every word, and those of the other guards as they took up his cry.
I paused a moment to face him, to nod my thanks. “Great Harry’s and Anne Boleyn’s daughter as well!” I said proudly; I could never forget the woman who had, out of her own tragedy and proud, defiant spirit, taught me never to surrender.
“Lead on, Lieutenant Bridges!” I said with feigned bravado. “Take me to my dungeon!”
“Oh no, Your Grace!” he hastened to assure me as he caught up with me. “We have a nice, comfortable room all prepared for you, with a fire to chase the chill out of your bones!”
The room was indeed pleasant for a prison cell—a goodly sized circular chamber with a vaulted ceiling and a great fireplace. There was a bed for me and pallets for my ladies, and there were three tall, arched windows with seats set deep into the thick walls where I might sit and take advantage of the light to sew or read, and also breathe in a little fresh air.
I was told, somewhat abashedly by Sir John, that my mother had lodged there before me. And for a few moments, curiosity overcame my fear, and I walked around touching the furnishings, hangings, and walls, wondering if she too had also touched these things. Had she sat in this chair, had she leaned her forehead against this glassy pane as she looked out, had her fingers idly caressed this tapestry, perhaps lingering to fastidiously pluck away a piece of lint or stray thread, had she lain awake and restless, her mind consumed with worry, in this very bed, had her anxious, restless, pacing footsteps worn at this very floor?
There were inscriptions carved crudely into the walls.
To mortals’ common fate thy mind resign,
My lot today tomorrow may be thine.
and
While God assists us, envy bites in vain,
If God forsake us, fruitless all our pain—
I hope for light after the darkness.
I ran my fingers over the words, reading them with my fingertips, and wondering if she, or some other doomed soul, had carved them. It might even have been poor Jane.
For the first time in many years I felt my mother was close to me. It gave me a strange sort of comfort to know what had been her prison was now mine. That I now walked where she had walked and slept where she had slept. Though I knew the floors had been swept many a time since she had walked here, I was sorely tempted to kneel down and lay my palms upon the floor, as if that senseless gesture could make me feel even closer to her. And I wondered if these feelings were a portent that I would soon be very close to her indeed, that I would follow in her footsteps up the thirteen steps of the scaffold. I thought I heard a rustle of skirts beside me then, and a voice from out of my past whisper urgently into my ear, “Never surrender!” The memory was so real it made me shiver. And seeing this, Kat and Blanche hurried to shoo me over to the fire and into some warm clothing, and with a weary sigh I gave myself over to their ministrations and soon found myself sitting bundled in a fur-trimmed robe by the fire as Kat vigorously toweled my hair and Blanche brought me a cup of warm spiced wine.
That night as I slipped wearily between the cold lawn sheets, the first of many nightmares in which the ax loomed large came to plague me. The headsman’s ax swooped down on me, and I heard the flap of the ravens’ wings, like a dark angel’s, as they cackled and cawed. I saw my own head, gray and ghastly with blind, clouded eyes, impaled upon a pike, my red hair whipping in the wind, as the ravens ravenously picked at me, tearing at my rotting flesh, until the bone showed pearly white beneath. Each time I would bolt up in bed with a scream on my lips, shivering as if the cold of death had already invaded my bones; try as I might, in the Tower, I simply could not get warm enough.
I spent many days sitting listless and morose in one or another of the three window seats, watching the ravens, or else beside the fire, staring without seeing into the heart of the flames as if they held the answers I sought, wondering how long I had left. I told Kat and Blanche that I had decided, when the time came, to ask Mary to grant me the favor of the swift and sharper sword, to send to France for an executioner as my father had done for my mother. If he could do that for the woman he had once loved after that love had turned to hate, then so too could Mary for the sister she had once loved and used to pretend was her own little girl.
And yet . . . despite my despondency, somehow I felt I was not alone. There was a benevolent, protective presence that hung about me in that grim place of bloodshed, tears, and tortured souls.
One night, when I lay in darkness after the candle I had left burning had gone out, I saw a spark out of the corner of my eye. I watched as that lone spark multiplied into many, and wondered if I were dreaming or if a horde of fireflies had invaded my room. And then, out of the thick stone walls, seemingly walking upon the air, appeared two beautiful naked, golden-haired little boys walking hand in hand. They were surrounded by a dazzling brilliance that lit up the room and their very skin seemed to glow with an inner rosy-gold radiance of such a startling beauty and innocence it brought tears to my eyes. They came to stand, hovering, beside my bed, smiling down at me with such indescribably sweet smiles lighting up their cherubic faces. There was nothing lewd about their nakedness; they were just beautiful, innocent children, far too beautiful for this world. The eldest one seemed to be about twelve, and the other, his little brother—I instinctively knew that they were brothers—appeared to be a year or two younger. Both had eyes the color of bluebells and thick, curly shoulder-length golden hair.
Suddenly my heart leapt in my chest, and for a moment I feared it would stop and cease to beat forever. In that instant, I knew who they were—the boy-king Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York, who had been foully done to death here in the Tower in the year 1483, smothered as they slept, it was said, their bodies buried at the foot of the stairs, upon order of their fiendish uncle Richard who coveted the throne for himself.
Still smiling down at me, they began to slowly fade away, the brilliance dimming, fading away, until I was left in darkness once again and fell into a deep sleep. I awoke late the next morning with a slight fever, feeling troubled and uncertain. I knew I would never know for certain if I had truly seen the ghosts of the murdered princes or if it had all been just a dream wrought by my troubled mind and this terrible blood-drenched place.
I continued to brood over it all that day, reliving that encounter, or dream, whichever it had been, over and over again, until, finally, I could stand it no longer and, when they continued to press me about what troubled me, I told Kat and Blanche about the pair of glowing golden naked boys who had come to visit me during the night.
Kat immediately set to weeping and wailing, hugging me so close I feared she would snap my ribs.
“Oh pet, it was a pair of Radiant Boys you saw, and the sight of them always means doom and gloom, and death coming soon to the one who sees them!”
“Stuff and nonsense!” sensible Welsh Blanche Parry declared. “Dry your tears, woman, and don’t frighten our princess with such drivel! My own grandam told me about Radiant Boys, and My Lady”—she knelt beaming at my feet and took both my hands in hers even as Kat continued to snivel—“you have nothing at all to fear! Rather, you should rejoice! The one who sees a Radiant Boy will rise to the summit of prosperity and wield great power! And you didn’t see just one, My Lady, but two! Two Radiant Boys! Oh just think what great things shall come to you!”
“Which is it to be then—Death or prosperity?” I wondered as, shrugging them both off, gesturing for them to leave me be, I went to stand by the window and watch the antics of the ravens while, in whispers, they continued to debate what the sight of a Radiant Boy truly meant. All I knew was that, whether it had been a true visitation from a boy who had been cheated of his chance to be king, or just a fever-dream, I would never forget it, but a part of me liked to think that one who would have been a great king but had been robbed of his destiny had come to smile down on and bless me, to show me that even though I felt lost in the dark now, a bright future lay before me, and he, hand in hand with his little brother, had come to be the candles to show me the way, to illuminate my destiny.