Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean. Страница 32

Their eyes would fill with tears when I told them that I had been brought here because the Queen was not pleased with me. I was flattered because they could not understand how anyone could be unkind to me.

One day Susannah found a bunch of keys in the gardens. They must have been dropped by one of the warders when he was hurrying from one tower to another… Keys opened doors, reasoned Susannah; and she had seen the guards escort me to and from the gardens. Her experiences of the Tower told her that people were locked up there, so she thought that if I had the keys I should be able to open doors and escape.

She brought the keys to me.

“They are for you, Mistress,” she said. “Now you can open the doors and stop being a prisoner in the Tower.”

Her innocent eyes were full of love for me and delight in her cleverness in giving me the means of freedom. I put my arms round her and kissed her and I said that I wished some of the mighty lords of the kingdom would have done as much for me.

Martin cried excitedly: “They will open the doors, Mistress.” He looked sad suddenly. “You will go away.” He brightened. “We shall come to see you.”

I took the keys and said: “May God bless you, my children. But I do not think these keys will open the right doors. So you still have me with you.”

They clapped their hands and just at that moment one of the guards came out.

“I must ask you, my lady,” he said, “to give me those keys.”

I explained that Susannah had found them in the gardens.

He took them from me. I guessed that one of the guards must have lost them and was feeling very anxious about them, and the fact that they had fallen into my hands gave him twinges of anxiety, for although the keys would have been no use to me, there was something symbolic about keys— as the children had thought.

There must have been great consternation among the guards. The lost keys had been found, but the children had brought them to me. Just suppose they had been the keys to my prison cell. They must have been filled with terror to contemplate the consequences if, through the carelessness of guards, I was to escape from the Tower.

The next day when I went down to the gardens the children were not there. I was very disappointed. Not only had I lost them but also the heartening messages from Robert Dudley.

Then a few days later I saw Martin. One of the gates had been locked and he was standing on the other side of it. He stretched out his arms and said: “Mistress, I am to bring you no more flowers.”

Almost immediately his father appeared and taking him by the hand led him away.

I WAS MOVING fast into a very dangerous period and when I look back it seems as though Heaven was surely watching over me for I had at least one miraculous escape from death.

There was more and more opposition to the Spanish marriage and the near-certainty of having the Catholic Faith imposed on the nation. Already the use of English prayers and Protestant rites was prohibited, and the Protestant community, which was in the majority, was feeling restive. No one disputed Mary's right to the throne; on the other hand there was fierce opposition to her religious intolerance. Gardiner, aided by Renaud, the Spanish Ambassador, who since the proposed alliance with Spain had become one of the most important men in the Queen's Council, was agitating for my death. I was a great threat to the Queen and her projects, they pointed out, because I was the Protestant heiress to the throne. I realize now that Mary must have been distracted by the voices at her elbow. Her conscience would torment her if she agreed to my death; but she could not fail to see that I might stand in the way of her most cherished dream, and to a woman of Mary's unquestioning faith the life of one young woman was of small importance against the establishment of the Church of Rome in England.

Strangely enough the Catholic Earl of Arundel was against my death; so were Pembroke and Sussex. They were kindly men who could not agree to the murder of an innocent young woman, and my perilous situation aroused their sympathy. Then there was my kinsman Lord William Howard, Admiral of the Fleet. It was hardly likely that he would agree to the execution of a close relative who had been proved innocent of complicity in the Wyatt conspiracy. Moreover he held great authority, having the fleet at his command.

Therefore Mary had to go cautiously, and so anxious was she that she became ill. News filtered through to me that this was the case and I had, as a matter of fact, noticed a certain increase in the deference shown to me. I might judge the state of the Queen's health by this. My feelings were mixed. I had always had some affection for Mary. It was not overwhelming, I must admit. I thought her foolish to let religion rule her judgment, particularly a form which was not popular among the majority of her subjects. She was aloof—not a person who displayed much affection or encouraged others to—but she was my sister, and I had lived with her from time to time, and there was a family tie. Ever present, too, was the knowledge that her death could be my life—not the life of a prisoner, but that of a queen. I had had visions of people's storming the Tower, demanding my freedom and that of Lord Robert Dudley too. I could picture his kneeling to kiss my hand. I could hear the shouts of the people in the streets. The time was ripe now. I was no longer a child but a young woman capable of becoming the Queen of a great country. She is my sister, I kept telling myself. It was true and I was fond of her…in a way, as she was perhaps of me… but how can one help one's thoughts?

It was her ailing health which almost proved fatal to me.

One of my greatest pieces of good fortune was that Thomas Bridges, who had recently become Lord Chandos, the Lieutenant of the Tower, was a good and honest man, and one who was not afraid to do what he considered his duty. But for that I should never have walked out of the Tower alive.

He came to me in some distress to tell me that he had received a warrant for my immediate execution. Because the matter was presented with such urgency and there was no reason why the warrant should have been issued at this time, his suspicions were aroused. Had it been at the time when Wyatt was in the Tower and I was suspected with him, it would have been another matter; but my innocence had been established by Wyatt's confession on the scaffold. Moreover the Queen was confined to bed with a serious illness.

He read the warrant to me. I felt numb but I shed no tears. What I had dreaded had come to pass and I could not help wondering about my mother's anguish when she had been presented with such a warrant. Now it was my turn.

“When will this evil deed be done?” I asked.

“The order is that it shall be done without delay.”

“So be it,” I said. “My time has come. Those who shed my innocent blood will have to answer for their deeds to God.”

Chandos looked like a stricken man. I knew that he hated this to happen while he was in charge of the Tower, but of course he would have to obey orders.

When he left me I felt extraordinarily calm. One of my women came in and I told her what Lord Chandos had said. Poor woman, she fell into such weeping that I had to comfort her.

“Do not weep for me,” I said. “It is those who are left who are going to suffer. I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I have always been the Queen's faithful subject. My enemies have poisoned her mind against me and she will suffer deeply over this.”

I waited. I was praying silently all the time—not so much for deliverance as to be given the strength to face with courage what lay before me.

Lord Chandos came to me again. He dismissed my women and spoke to me earnestly. “I do not intend to carry out this order and I wish you to know that without delay.”