34

Elizabeth

While Mary planned to marry, I spent my days in dreary boredom and a state of constant worry; the anxiety gnawed like a ravenous rat at my mind every hour of the day and night; it never deserted me. I feared the dark circles, like violet bruises, beneath my eyes and the slight nervous tremor of my hands would become permanent parts of me. I thought she was a fool to proceed with her stubborn plan to marry Prince Philip when her people clearly abhorred and feared the thought of Spanish dominion and showed their displeasure with outbursts of violence and riots. Even from my own prison I knew the prisons were full of streetcorner firebrands whose only crime had been to speak out against the Spanish bridegroom.

Mary was throwing away her subjects’ love with both hands, but so in love was she with the prince in the portrait that she was too blind to see that. But even if I had been at court, I knew I would never dare tell her so; mistrust of me had crept into and sickened her brain until she suspected me of being behind each and every act of defiance and conspiracy in the realm. And it hurt my heart that it should be so. I still loved my sister, even though I did not like her, or approve of her policies and actions as Queen, but I would never have tried to pull her from her throne or snatch the crown from her head. If that was to be my destiny it would come to me in time, through the grace of God, and I was content to wait and bide my time, and at present I was in truth more preoccupied with the business of just staying alive.

I was sitting at the window, drumming my fingers irritably on the stone sill, and watching the ravens, when a knock sounded upon my door. Sir John Bridges entered with a bright and cheery smile, saying he was the happy bearer of glad tidings, and gesturing to the fat, gray-haired fellow who followed puffing in his wake, cradling his great protruding belly as if he were a mother-to-be cradling her unborn child. He was the sort of man who should have looked jolly, the sort whose apple-cheeked face was always wreathed with smiles and whose every word burbled with good cheer, but, alas, Sir Henry Bedingfield was a dour-countenanced man who rarely if ever smiled. He was a stickler for the rules and followed them to the very letter, meticulously dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s and never overlooking a punctuation mark. He was precise and exacting even when it came to the tiniest trivialities. He was one of Mary’s most ardent supporters.

Sir John smilingly informed me that my time in his custody had come to an end and I was to be released from the Tower and given over into the care of my newly appointed guardian, Sir Henry Bedingfield, who had come to escort me to my new home at the old palace of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, a former royal hunting lodge with a most romantic history. Henry II’s beloved mistress, the Fair Rosamund, had once lived at Woodstock, losing herself in the twists and turns of the maze her lover had created for her to evade his jealous queen, and a later king, Edward II, had passionately sported with Piers Gaveston in its perfumed bowers while another angry and jealous queen fumed in frustration.

As I prepared to take my leave, I fought down the fear rising within me. I could not stop thinking about the two little princes who had disappeared quietly within the Tower, the bright candles of their young lives cruelly snuffed out by an assassin who crept into their chamber as they slept. I kept seeing their radiant, beatific little ghosts as they had appeared to me that night. Would such, I wondered, be my fate when I reached the quiet, secluded environs of Woodstock? Would I myself become an unquiet spirit revealing my phantom shade to others in the night decades or even centuries after I had died? I feared it so much I dared not sleep. Far from London it would be so easy to do away with me—a poisoned cup, a silken noose, a pillow over my face as I slept. A malignant fever could be given out as the cause, and though there might be whispers and rumors of murder, given my history of illness, none could really dispute it.

Dressed for travel, with Kat and Blanche close beside me, I left my cell for the last time, glancing up at the wall-walk to wave farewell to my dear gypsy.

He doffed his plumed cap and fell to his knees, holding it over his heart, and blew me a kiss. “Till we meet again!” he called down to me.

Sir Henry Bedingfield himself came forward to hand me into my litter. As he took my gloved hand, I turned to him, taking him completely unawares, and bluntly asked, “If my murder were committed to your charge, would you see the deed was carried out?”

With an appalled and wounded gasp, Sir Henry let go of my hand. “Certainly not!” he indignantly exclaimed. “My Lady, I swear on my immortal soul that I have been charged with nothing but to protect you and keep you safe from all harm, whether it be from Catholics or Protestants. I would not harm a hair on your head nor allow it to be done by any other!”

I traveled, once again by litter, with Sir Henry astride his horse, riding at the head of the procession, and a number of guards surrounding me, to protect me, or so they said, though I knew it was to prevent any from attempting to rescue me.

As we made the journey a wonderful thing happened that made hope spring to vibrant rosy life again. The good people of England, honest and true, thronged the dusty roads, hailing me with warm words and showering me with blessings. They tossed bouquets of wildflowers and bunches of herbs onto my litter, and country housewives ran up to bob their curtsies and give me gifts of home-baked cakes and bread, tarts, and even rounds of cheese and jars of jam and honey. They shook their fists and railed against Sir Henry and the guards. And in every village through which I passed, the bells began to ring. In strict defiance of the edict that they be rung only for the sovereign, they rang their bells for me! Sir Henry was beside himself, sending riders dashing off to protest, shouting for them to silence those bells at once, threatening the villagers with the pillory and stocks, but they ignored him, and the bells continued to chime, and even when we had passed through and were but a speck upon the horizon, still the people cheered, “God save our Princess Elizabeth!”

And when it was time to dine or sup, to Sir Henry’s horror, the local gentry insisted on hosting banquets in my honor, treating me with all the deference and respect as if I were myself a queen.

When we passed through Windsor, the schoolboys at Eton came rushing out in their flapping black scholars’ gowns, shouting, “Vivat Elizabetha!” and tossing their caps into the air. Laughing, I conversed with them in Latin, quizzing them about their lessons, and doled out cakes to them, sharing my bounty.

“Tanquam ovis,” I said to the throng of young scholars, “I am taken like a sheep to the slaughter!” and the word quickly spread of the grave injustice being committed in their midst; the Queen was sending her own sister away, perhaps even to die, in obscurity, and yet more abuse was hurled at the flustered and irate Sir Henry and his men. To calm the crowd, some of the guards even declared that they were for me, and meant me no harm, only to safeguard me, swearing that they would lay down their lives in my defense.

Sir Henry continued to protest, swatting at the boys with his round feathered cap and riding crop, pulling at their black scholars’ gowns when they clustered round me, trying to shoo them away, but they, like the rest of the villagers, ignored him, nor would the bell-ringers obey his demands for “Silence!” either, and so we continued all the way through Windsor in a shower of blessings, flowers, cakes, love, and good cheer, all to the tune of church bells.

Nearly weeping with despair, again and again I heard Sir Henry bewail, “I was to take the Lady Elizabeth as a prisoner into private confinement, not upon a triumphal progress! What will Her Majesty say when she hears of this? She will think me remiss in my duty!”

But I just laughed at him as my heart surged with love, a warmer, deeper love than I had ever felt before. It made the hot passion that had roused me in the arms of Tom Seymour and Robert Dudley seem cold as the grave in comparison. These people, this country, I knew would be the great loves of my life, and I must do all that I could to sustain myself, to preserve my life, so that, someday, God willing, I could serve them.

I saw the hope burning bright in their eager eyes. They were frightened by my sister’s Catholic regime and the Spanish bridegroom who was soon to arrive—they feared greater harshness, another Spanish Inquisition, this one on English soil—and they were looking to me to save them. And I made a promise then and there, to the people of England, and myself, that I would never disappoint them.

All the way to Woodstock people lined the roads to see me pass, pelting me with posies, and even thronged outside the rusty sagging gates through which I must pass. And with one last rainbow shower of wildflowers and blessings upon me and a violent volley of hissed and shouted boos and shames and shaken fists directed at Sir Henry and the guards, my litter was carried through the crowd of well-wishers, and the gates of my new prison clanged shut behind me, and, with a sigh of relief, Sir Henry mopped the sweat from his flushed face which I thought, smiling to myself, looked rather like a giant strawberry drenched with dew.