The Last Tudor

THE TOWER, LONDON,

WINTER 1562

Elizabeth recovers as if the devil himself was nursing her with satanic tenderness. Jane’s sister-in-law, who was Mary Dudley, nearly dies taking the pox from Elizabeth, and loses her famous beauty. I have no pity for her. It was she who took Jane by barge to Syon on the night that they made her queen. It was an ill-advised journey: and now Jane is dead and Mary will spend the rest of her life hiding her scarred face from the world, as if Dudley ambition has blasted their daughter’s beauty.

The queen has recovered, but the country is in turmoil. Everyone knows that she was near death and no heir named, and now word is rapidly spreading, from the great houses of London into the streets, that she tried to make a traitor’s son, a traitor’s grandson, into the Protector of the kingdom. Our queen tried to make her lover into a tyrant like Richard III. People are horrified that she would fail in her duty by dying without naming an heir, and then betray her country to a favorite. People speak of other royal favorites and the danger of an unsteady king. Ned gets a stream of messages from his friends and my supporters who are guests at private dinners held in secret by the reformist lords, who swear that an heir must be named to the throne of England, and it must be me.

“William Cecil is determined that you shall be named as heir,” Ned promises me. “He says that no one has a better claim, either by religion or inheritance, that Elizabeth knows this, that everyone knows this. He says that you must be released. Everyone agrees.”

“Then why are we still here?” I ask.

We are seated together in my room, enfolded in the shabby chair that once served as Jane’s throne. We are both half-undressed, warm from the bed, wrapped in a rug before the fire, sated with kissing and touching.

“I have to say that I’ve been in worse places.” He gathers me closely to him.

“I would spend every evening of my life with you like this,” I say, “but not under lock and key. Elizabeth has freed Margaret Douglas and her husband, the Earl of Lennox. Why not us?”

“They’re not freed,” he corrects me. “He’s been released to live with her, but they’re still under arrest. Elizabeth had to let him go to his wife because he cannot bear imprisonment.”

“I cannot bear imprisonment!” I exclaim. “Perhaps she will let us go to live under house arrest. We could ask for it, if they will not agree to free us completely. I could have my baby under your roof at Hanworth.”

“When we are freed, I will never come back here again. Only once a year to lay a flower on the tombs of our family,” Ned promises.

“Not even for my coronation? It is the tradition.”

“We will make a new tradition,” he says. “I am not having my son inside these walls again.” Gently, he touches my rounded belly. “Neither of them.”

“I like Windsor Castle best,” I say sleepily.

“Hampton Court,” Ned rules. “And perhaps we shall build a new castle.”

“A new palace,” I correct him. “We won’t need a castle. The country will be at peace. We can build beautiful palaces and houses and live as a royal family among our people.”

“A godly peace at last,” he says.

“Amen.” I pause for a moment, thinking of a new beautiful palace that we might call Seymour Court. “It will happen, won’t it?” I ask. “For we have had so many hopes and so much trouble.”

He considers. “Really, I think this time that it has to. She truly has no other credible heir, and this time she has gone too far even for her friends and advisors.”