XXVI

And in grene waves when the salt flood

Doth rife, by rage of winde:

A thousand fansies in that mood

Assayle my restlesse mind.

In the last days of June 1550 a small fleet of Flemish ships crossed the Channel in foul weather. There were four large warships and four smaller vessels, under the command of Cornille Scepperus, admiral of the imperial fleet, and his vice admiral Van Meeckeren, and as they made their way through the heavy seas the lookouts kept a close watch for English and French ships. On Sunday the twenty-ninth they came within sight of the Kentish headlands, and turned northward past the Thames mouth and up along the Essex coast. As evening fell the fog closed in, so dense the sailors could not see from bow to stern, and the captains spent an anxious night worrying that they might run aground on a sandbank or that when the fog lifted they might find themselves to be miles away from the main body of the fleet. But in the morning all eight ships were still together, and that day they sailed farther up the coast to the vicinity of the Blackwater, where they were to wait to convey Mary back across the Channel to safety in Flanders.

It was a bad season for the venture. With the approach of summer fears of rebellion rose. Landowners in every county fortified their country houses and pledged to keep ready a contingent of armed men in case of trouble, and the local constabularies were in a near-constant state of alert. The grievances that had compelled revolt eleven months earlier had grown sharper. Prices and rents were higher, and landlords in many places were exacting rents on fields that had not been plowed the previous year because of the disturbances. None but the gentry were allowed to keep weapons, and the cottages and barns of the villagers weresearched frequently for hidden arms. These measures only increased the undercurrent of resentment, and in the north and west the peasants were boasting they would rise again. Only three weeks before the arrival of the Flemish ships an incident over the capture of several highwaymen led to rioting in Kent. Ten thousand peasants assembled at Sittingbourne, setting off a wave of reaction that swept through the southeast. Officials were sent off to “scour the country” for rebels, and arrested and punished anyone making the slightest sign of opposition. One man who “began to murmur and make certain speeches” was taken and sentenced to have his ears cut off. A force of a thousand mounted men was sent into Kent to keep the peace, and another four thousand were kept in readiness on the island of Sheppey opposite the coast.

All through the spring and summer foot soldiers were being levied by the thousands. Some said they were being sent to guard Calais, others that they were to be used against the rebels at home. The new imperial ambassador Scheyfve wrote to the emperor that a force of eight thousand men was being equipped and trained to serve on twelve warships to guard the coastal waters against invasion. “All gentlemen, noblemen and merchants are said to entertain a great fear that your Majesty may declare war because of religion,” he explained, “and for other causes too.”¹ The roads and lanes of Essex were full of marching men that June, and a diffuse threat of war hung over the little port of Maldon, near Mary’s manor of Woodham Walter, where she was to go on board the cornboat that would take her out to the Flemish fleet.

Mary had been thinking of escape for months. She knew she would come under increasing persecution from Dudley and the Council, and that when their patience ran out she would be imprisoned and possibly executed. They would not hesitate to shed her blood out of respect for her rank, fear of her cousin the emperor, or from any ethical scruple. “It is evident to all,” Mary told Van der Delft, that the Council members “fear no God and respect no persons, but follow their own fancy.” It was also evident that they would act soon. By late April Mary had resolved not to “delay till she was past all help,” but to save herself as best she could. She made her plans to get out of her house, past the guards and the local watch, out to a small boat that would carry her to deep water where she hoped a ship of the emperor’s navy would be waiting for her.

She told the ambassador her plan, and convinced him she was in earnest. Acting on the emperor’s orders he tried one last time to dissuade her, reminding her that, if Edward should happen to die while she was out of the kingdom, she would have a slim chance of defending her right to the throne. But she had already thought through that possibility many times, and had come to the conclusion that she would never be allowed to succeed. “There is nobody about the king’s person or in the governmentwho is not inimical to me. They would be so afraid of me that before the people heard how it had pleased God to deal with the king, they would kill me by some means or other.” Van der Delft came away believing Mary meant to do as she said. “She is quite determined not to wait here till the blow falls, for any consideration whatever,” he wrote to the emperor, adding that she had already taken the first step by moving to Woodham Walter, a house only two miles from the port of Maldon and best situated of all her residences for reaching the coast without detection.²

It was at first arranged that Mary’s escape would be coordinated with a change of ambassadors. Van der Delft had been in England nearly six years, and had long since begun to suffer from the time-honored complaints of the ambassadorial service: gout and bankruptcy. His recall would not cause suspicion, and once he had formally taken his leave he could divert his ship to the waters off Maldon for long enough to meet the boat bringing Mary out of the harbor. His replacement, the Dutch merchant Jehan Scheyfve, was to be kept in ignorance of the plan, both for his own protection and to ensure that no hint of it would leak out.

By mid-May the change of ambassadors had been arranged. Scheyfve arrived; on May 30 Van der Delft officially took his leave. But from here on problems arose. The man Mary had counted on to take her in his boat from Maldon harbor out to sea—a “trusted friend” of her controller Robert Rochester—changed his mind at the last minute, and when Van der Delft came to see Mary to finalize the arrangements no one had been found to take his place. At the same time, all the towns and villages near the coast were put in an increased state of alert. Householders were told to watch the back roads and lanes by night, and not to allow anyone to pass without an urgent errand. “There were no roads or crossroads, no harbors or creeks, nor any passage or outlet that was not most carefully watched during the whole night,” Van der Delft wrote.³ It was obvious Mary could not get away unless she traveled on foot, heavily disguised, and with only one or at most two others with her. She was willing to do this, and begged him at their last interview to send any boat he could find, even a fishing boat, to rescue her. He left, promising to return for her himself as soon as he could. He meant to keep his promise, but once in Flanders he succumbed to gout and age, and lapsed into fatal illness. He died raving about the plans he was making to save the princess of England.

With the death of the ambassador it was left to his secretary, Jehan Dubois, and the regent of Flanders to engineer Mary’s escape. The emperor had set off earlier in the month on a journey through his German lands, and could not take charge of the arrangements, but he wrote to his sister indicating approval of the scheme she and Dubois worked out. Itcalled for Scepperus and Van Meeckeren to sail to England and to cruise the coastline as if looking for pirates, while Dubois would take a ship with a light draught up the Blackwater to Maldon. He would pose as a merchant selling grain to Mary’s household; while his boat was being unloaded Mary would be smuggled aboard. By the time her absence was discovered she would be on one of Scepperus’ ships and on her way to Brussels.

On the morning of July I the eight ships disposed themselves according to plan.⁴ The four warships under Van Meeckeren rode at anchor off Harwich, while the four smaller ships went in toward the coastline, between the sandbanks and the shore, ostensibly to seek out the coves and inlets that sheltered pirate ships. Scepperus was in one of these smaller ships, and Dubois preceded him in a lighter oared boat of the kind used by grain merchants. At midafternoon they were in the tidal estuary opposite Stansgate. There Scepperus remained, while Dubois went the rest of the way to Maldon, sending his brother-in-law Peter Merchant on ahead in a smaller boat to pass the word that the rescue ship was on its way.

Dubois arrived in Maldon harbor before dawn on the morning of the second, and sat down to write to Mary’s controller to say that everything was ready for her flight. Before he finished the letter, Merchant and a servant of Mary’s called Henry came on board, and it was apparent at once that they had met with a delay. Dubois was expecting Mary herself; now he found that she was not prepared to leave after all. He made his note to the controller as urgent as possible. “I am obliged to write now to point out to you that there is danger in delay,” the note read. He explained that there were four ships in the coastal waters and four others just off shore waiting to escort Mary across the Channel. To reach them undetected would be risky unless they sailed with the next tide. As he wrote the tide was at its highest; it would be lower each successive night, making navigation of the Blackwater increasingly difficult. “I must add that I see no better opportunity than the present one,” he added, “and this undertaking is passing through so many hands that it is daily becoming more difficult, and I fear it may not remain secret.”

Henry took this message to Rochester, and returned just at dawn to say that the controller wanted to meet with Dubois. At first the secretary was reluctant; the longer he stayed the greater the danger of discovery, and any meeting with Rochester would be certain to arouse suspicion. He ran a grave risk of being taken and executed as a spy, and the slightest indiscretion by the controller or one of his sailors could give him away. He finally agreed to meet Rochester in the graveyard of St. Mary’s church, an out of the way location not far from Woodham Walter, and once there he and the controller went on to the house of a villager Duboiscalled Schurts. There in the privacy of Schurts’ garden they talked, the Fleming nervously and somewhat irritably, the controller in a tone full of dark insinuations.

Rochester was evidently opposed to the escape. In the first place, he said, Mary could not possibly get past the watchmen posted every night at every passage leading to the waterside. Secondly he hinted strongly that there were spies in her household who would get word to their contacts the instant they saw her leave the house. Her household, he said, was “not so free of enemies to her religion as she imagined,” and besides these specific dangers the countryside was up in arms, and the watchmen were doubly suspicious of anyone they found on the roads late at night. Besides, he said, Mary was not in imminent danger; the Council was not likely to deprive her of her mass until later in the year, and if necessary another escape plan could be devised and carried out then.

By now Dubois was confused. He had come to England in response to Mary’s insistent pleas for help. He recalled how she had spoken to Van der Delft at their last meeting, where both Dubois and Rochester had been present. She had been fully aware of the dangers then—of the persecution, harassment of her servants, and probable imprisonment she faced if she stayed, and the risk of capture and possible forfeiture of her right to the throne if she left. After these points had been discussed several times over, she laid the logic of the situation aside and spoke from her heart.

“I am like a little ignorant girl, and I care neither for my goods nor for the world, but only for God’s service and my conscience.” Mary knew herself well; she saw that beyond her capacity for shrewdness and discernment she was impelled by simple fidelity to the religious ideal that had now become central to her personality. She regretted leaving those who served her, realizing that in her absence they might “become lost sheep, and even follow these new opinions.” For their sake she would willingly stay, as long as she was left in peace by the Council. But Dudley and the others were unpredictable, arbitrary—even cruel. “If there is peril in going and peril in staying,” she concluded, “I must choose the lesser of two evils.” The morning after this conversation Van der Delft had sent Dubois to Mary one last time, to see whether she was still anxious to go. She assured him she was. And to put the issue beyond all doubt Mary had sent Dubois a letter a few days afterward, saying she was eagerly waiting to hear that the rescue boat was on its way.⁵

Recalling these events of only four weeks before Dubois could hardly believe that Mary would hesitate to leave now, and suspected that the controller was attempting to prevent her from going for reasons of his own. Rochester sensed his distrust.

“Sir, I beg you do not judge me thus,” he said, “for I would give myhand to see my Lady out of the country and in safety, and I was the first man to suggest it. And if you understand me, what I say is not that my Lady does not wish to go, but that she wishes to go if she can.”

Dubois had no time to split hairs. It was a question of yes or no, he said, and further conversation was perilous. By now Van Meeckeren’s warships would have been sighted off Harwich, and within hours the Council would know of their presence. The decision had to be made at once. Rochester now took Dubois by surprise once again, telling him that Mary wanted to talk to him in person. Could he come to Woodham Walter? At first the Fleming refused, but after a day of dickering with customs officials and the town bailiff over the price of his grain, the buyer, and the amount of the duty (waived because the grain was for Mary’s household) he finally consented.

The sun was low in the sky as Mary’s servant Henry led Dubois “by a secret way” to Woodham Walter. Once there the secretary had another talk with Rochester while he waited for Mary to receive him, and he found the controller more mysterious than ever. Rochester told him “a mighty secret”—that Edward’s death was imminent. He was “quite persuaded the king could not outlast the year,” he said, “for he and others knew his horoscope to say so.” Astrological prediction was rampant at Edward’s court, and had already led to several arrests; apparently the controller was privy to some such reading of Edward’s stars. If he passed on his occult information to Mary—and there is no reason to believe he did not—it could account for the dilemma she faced in deciding whether to stay or go. Rochester had one final card to play. He had already hinted at treachery from within Mary’s establishment; now he said plainly that he knew of some threat so ominous that if either Mary or Dubois knew of it they would abandon all thought of the escape. “Neither she nor you see what I see and know,” he warned. “Great danger threatens us!”

When Dubois was finally summoned into Mary’s presence he found her to be calm and dignified. She inquired after the health of the emperor and regent, and thanked the secretary for all that he and Scepperus were doing to help her. She seemed strangely unmoved by the excitement of the adventure that lay ahead of her, and Dubois soon learned why. She had half decided not to go after all. “I am as yet ill prepared,” she told Dubois. She had begun to pack her things for the journey, putting as much as she could into long hop sacks, but there was still more to do. “I do not know,” she went on, “how the emperor would take it if it turned out to be impossible to go now, after I have so often importuned his majesty on the subject.”

By this time Dubois was thoroughly bewildered. Something or someone had nearly convinced Mary not to attempt to leave—at least not forthe present. Yet she had begun her preparations, and now asked Dubois if he would take her rings back with him. Without presuming too much he tried to persuade her that no better opportunity was likely to come in the future, and that if she was bold enough to send her rings “she might as well go with as after them.” Here she turned to Rochester and to Susan Clarencieux, who had been keeping watch at the door throughout the interview, and the three spoke together for a few minutes. It was during this hurried conference that Mary made up her mind. When she turned back to Dubois her look and manner were different. She was decisive, practical, precise. Whatever consideration had deterred her earlier had been pushed aside.

She spoke rapidly now, asking detailed questions, making certain every contingency was reviewed. She could be ready on Friday. She and her ladies would go to the beach at four in the morning “to amuse herself and purge her stomach by the sea,” as she often did. At four the watch retired and the roads would be clear. She asked Dubois whether the tide would be high enough, whether he could get word to Scepperus, what Van Meeckeren might be expected to do. As they made their final arrangements she grew more voluble, telling Dubois things Rochester had kept to himself. The very day Van der Delft left London two royal galleys, the Sun and the Moon, came up the Blackwater to anchor off Stans-gate. No warships had ever come so far up the river before, she said, and what was more, one of the galleys was captained by the vice admiral, “the greatest heretic on earth.” “It is more than time I was hence,” she added, growing more and more vehement, “for things are going worse than ever. A short time ago they took down the altars in the very house my brother lives in.”

Just then there was a knock at the door of Mary’s chamber, and Rochester went out. When he returned his face was white. “Our affair is going very ill,” he said in an undertone, speaking chiefly to Dubois. “There is nothing to be done this time, for here is my friend Mr. Schurts, who has ridden hard from Maldon to warn me that the bailiff and other folk of the village wish to arrest your boat, and suspect you of having some understanding with the warship at Stansgate”—Scepperus’ ship. They meant to arrest Dubois and his crew, board his boat and find out exactly what its purpose was. The secretary was dismayed. The delays had been fatal, just as he predicted. If the officials did board his ship the secret would be out for certain. His sailors had not been told that they were coming for Mary, but he had overheard them guessing at the truth, and remembering the abortive escape planned many years earlier.

Rochester’s announcement had a profound effect on Mary. She lost her command of the situation and grew fearful. “What shall we do?” she asked Dubois. “What is to become of me?”

The controller elaborated on the danger. “My friend here says there is something mysterious in the air, and that you had better depart at once, for these men of the town are not well disposed.” Schurts would try to take Dubois back to Maldort by a back road, hoping he could bluff his way through if he were questioned by saying that Dubois had gone to Woodham Walter to get payment for his grain. There was no longer any chance that Mary could reach the harbor, even if she could find the courage to make a desperate run for freedom. “They are going to double the watch tonite,” Rochester had learned, “and what is more post men on the church tower, whence they can see all the country round—a thing that has never been done before.”

Dubois did not hesitate. There was nothing more he could do; the matter was out of his hands. Mary, temporarily paralyzed with anxiety, kept repeating over and over “What is to become of me? What is to become of me?” He was sorry for her, and unquestionably loyal—he was quite literally risking his life to bring her out of England—but he could serve her best by leaving as quickly as he could, before the suspicions of the men of Maldon could be confirmed.

The few moments that remained before dark were used to piece together the outlines of an alternative plan. Mary had recovered her composure, and it was she who suggested that the next attempt could be made from Stansgate, which had the advantage of being closer to the open sea. She would go back to Beaulieu in two or three days, and send a servant of hers to Dubois in Flanders with complete instructions for the second attempt. As the secretary left Mary told him to send her best wishes to the emperor and his sister. “You see,” she said to him finally, “that it is not our fault now.”

It was nearly midnight when Schurts and Dubois reached the outskirts of Maldon. There were twenty men on watch, headed by the bailiff in person, and Schurts had to bribe them to let the secretary pass by promising to give them the grain unloaded from his boat earlier in the day. The boat had been drawn up to the bank, and the tide was rising; just after two o’clock they cast off and started down toward the open sea. As he passed the church tower Dubois looked up to see the lookouts Rochester had warned him of, but there was no one in sight. He had some difficulty on the outward journey—in his haste he had left his best sailor behind on shore—but at nine the next morning he came up to Scep-perus’ ship and reported all that had happened in the last forty-eight hours.

For five days the Flemish ships hovered near the English coast, waiting out a violent storm that came up as Dubois left Maldon. No English ships challenged them, though the Council in London knew their location and guessed the reason for their coming long before the storm cleared.

But whether through an informer among Mary’s servants or some other means they also knew that the heir to the throne had not escaped, and were taking precautions to make certain she never tried to leave England again. On July 7 Scepperus gave the orders for the return crossing. The eight vessels set sail for Flanders, with Dubois at work in the vice admiral’s cabin writing a detailed account of his adventure. With them went Mary’s last hope of rescue while her brother lived.