The Last Tudor

THE TOWER, LONDON,

SPRING 1563

Mary comes to see us, bringing me some fresh-baked little breads formed into the shape of men with currant eyes from the royal bakery for Teddy, her arms loaded with little gifts.

“Heavens, what are these?” I ask her.

She is laughing, spilling presents on the table. “As I walked through the city people recognized me and gave me things for you. I was all but mobbed. My guard is showing the lieutenant all the things that he carried, to make sure there are not notes among them.”

“Gifts?” I ask.

“All sorts of little toys and fairings. The people love you. Everyone shouts out to me that you should be released and allowed to live with your husband. Everyone in England thinks you have done nothing wrong and should be freed. Everyone—I mean really everyone—from the ladies at court to the sluts of Smithfield.”

“They call for me?”

“I think they would march for you.”

We say nothing, looking at each other for a moment. “No marching,” I say quietly. “Anyway—praise God that you did not take the smallpox,” I say, kissing her. It is awkward for me to bend over and she notices it at once.

“It would be large pox on me,” she remarks. “What’s the matter with you? Have you hurt your back that you are so stiff?”

I wait till she has hauled herself onto the chair and then I put my finger across her mouth to prevent her crying out. “I am with child,” I whisper in her ear.

She is wide-eyed in my grip until I release her.

“My God, how?” she demands.

I laugh. Mary is always so practical. “Since they found against us, the lieutenant has let Ned come to me most nights,” I say. “We bribe the guards and we spend all night together.”

“When do you expect the birth?”

“I am not sure. Soon, I think, within a month or so.”

She looks anxious. “Katherine, you must keep it secret, for everyone is speaking of you at court. The people who call for you to be free would go mad if they knew you were carrying another baby in here. They would storm the Tower for your release and the guards would throw open the gates. I think Elizabeth will be forced to name you as her heir, recognize your marriage as valid and your son as heir apparent.”

“Really? I know the lords are advising her to name me . . .”

“She attended parliament, and in the church service before the opening the dean himself told her that she must marry, in his sermon! Then both Houses told her, one after another, that she must name her heir. They won’t tolerate a deathbed nomination of Robert Dudley. She has gone too far now. She has lost the loyalty of the lords and the parliament by that mistake. She spoke to the lords in council very fair, and told them that it must be her choice, and they told her flatly that she must marry and make an heir or name one, that they wouldn’t be commanded by her passions.”

I gasp at her. “They never said that!”

“I can’t begin to describe the scenes at court. She summoned Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, and he said to her face in front of all of us ladies that if she was going to be ruled by passion, then he and all the lords would prevent it.”

“He dared to say that to her?”

“He did. And he wasn’t the only one. Everything is different since her illness. I can’t tell you how much everything is changed. I think she feels that she betrayed herself. Everyone saw how much she loves Dudley. She put him before the good of the kingdom. The lords and her advisors think she has betrayed her country. Nobody trusts her now; nobody believed she would go so far as to name Dudley to rule England. Everyone feels she has shamed herself and let us all down.”

“What did she say to Henry FitzAlan?”

“She was so furious, she started to rage and then she burst into tears. You’ve never seen such a thing. We ladies didn’t know what to do. She was speechless with tears, and he just looked at her and bowed and went out and she flung herself into her bedroom and slammed the door as if she was a child in a temper. She didn’t come out for the rest of the day—but she has never sent for him again.”

I look at Mary. I am quite stunned by this description of Elizabeth becoming a furious child instead of a commanding queen. “My God, she has lost her power,” I say wonderingly. “If FitzAlan can scold her, she has lost her power over her court.”

“And Robert Dudley has none. Did I tell you that on her deathbed she willed a fortune to his valet?”

“To Tamworth?” I ask, remembering the man who rose up from his bed and went to guard the door without surprise or question, as if he had done it many times.

“On her deathbed,” Mary repeats. “So now everyone says that it proves that he guarded the door while she was with Dudley. She is completely shamed and Dudley too.”

“Nobody supports him for Protector of the Realm?”

Mary makes a contemptuous face. “Not one. Not even he speaks for himself. He says that Henry Hastings should be heir, but that’s only because they are brothers-in-law. Not even Dudley dares to claim the protectorship. It was the delusion of a fever, and it shows that the only thing the queen thinks of when she is about to die is leaving her kingdom to her lover and hiding their secret shame by paying off his valet.”

“And the parliament will force her to name an heir?”

“They won’t grant her the money for the army in France unless she does. They have her in a vise. She has to send money for her troops, and parliament will only give it to her if she names her heir—if she names you.”

“She can’t name anyone else?”

“There is no one else.” Mary’s eyes are bright. “I can’t tell you how many friends I have at court now. You would think I was six feet tall. Everyone is my friend and everyone has been heartbroken for you. I have dozens of messages for you. Everyone knows that it has to be you. Even Elizabeth. She will have to announce it any day now.”

I pause for a moment so that I can feel my triumph. “It’s certain, Mary? I can’t stand another false hope.”

“It’s certain,” she says. “She will have to name you. She has to name someone, and there is no one else.”

“And release me,” I say.

“Of course release you,” my sister confirms.

“And Ned, and name him as my husband.”

“She has to. She cannot put a woman’s whim against the will of the parliament. She has publicly promised that she will take advice, and name her heir, and nobody advises anyone but you.”

“Is she very scarred by the pox?” I ask, thinking of Elizabeth’s frantic vanity.

“She’s doing all she can to overcome it. She has only a few marks on her face and she’s painting them out. They cut her hair when she was in the fever, so she’s wearing a wig of red horsehair. But she looked well when she went to parliament in her scarlet robe trimmed with ermine. One or two said that she looked so young and healthy she could give them an heir next year if only she would marry now.”

“But she’ll never marry at their bidding,” I predict.

Mary shakes her head. “I would swear that if she can’t have Robert Dudley, she’ll never take anyone. Most people think she showed that herself, naming him as her heir.”

“Then why does she not understand that I had to marry for love?” I ask. “If she is in love so deep that she would risk her kingdom? Why does she not sympathize with me?”

Mary shakes her head at the plaintive tone in my voice. “Because she’s not like you,” she declares. “You don’t understand her. Everyone thinks she’s a woman blown about by passion, that her heart comes first. But she’s not. She’s a woman who feels her passions but is not shifted by them. She’s determined and she’s selfish. She’ll never give Robert Dudley up, but she’ll never marry him either. She loves the throne more than him. He still thinks she will be unable to resist him, but I think he’s wrong. He’ll find he has the very worst of the bargain: always close to Elizabeth, but never on the throne.”

“You make her sound like a tyrant,” I whisper.

Mary raises her arched eyebrow. “She’s a Tudor,” she says. “They’re all tyrants.”

I gasp and put my hand to my belly, where I have felt a great heave. I bend over, panting with pain.

Mary is instantly alert. She jumps down from the chair and reaches up to put her hand on my bent back. “What is it? What is it?”

“Something moving,” I gasp, waiting in case the pain comes again. I straighten up. “Dear God, a terrible spasm.”

“Is the baby coming? Is it due?”

“How am I to know when it is due?” I say wildly. “I can’t see a wise woman or a physician.” I can feel the sensation coming on again, and this time I hold the arms of the old throne and pant like a dog as the pain rises and falls. “No, I remember this,” I say when I can get my breath back. “It’s coming now.”

“What can I do?” Mary rolls up her sleeves and looks around the room.

“Nothing! You must do nothing!” I am well enough to know that Mary must not be found here, assisting at the birth of yet another heir to the throne of England. “You must go, and say nothing about it.”

“I can’t leave you here like this!”

“At once! And don’t say anything about it.” I am holding my belly tightly in my hands, as if I would delay the remorseless movement of the baby and the irresistible rhythm of the pains. “Go, Mary! As soon as you are safely away I will send my maid to the lieutenant and he will get me a midwife. But you can’t know of the birth. You’ll have to wait with the court for news and then act surprised.”

She almost dances on the spot in frustration. “How can I leave you? My own sister? Without help? Here? Where Jane . . . where Jane . . .”

“To keep yourself safe,” I gasp. The pain is coming again. I feel the sweat stand out on my face, all over my belly. “I care for your safety so much. I swear I do. Go, Mary, and pray for me in secret.”

I am bent over the chair, so she stretches up on tiptoes and kisses my face. “God bless you and keep you,” she whispers passionately. “I’ve gone. Call your maid at once. Send me news without fail.”

She tiptoes from the room and the guard lets her out and shoots the bolts behind her. I wait for a few moments, riding another wave of pain, and then I shout: “Lucy! Come to me!”

There is complete uproar. The rooms are stripped for a childbirth and the Tower guards go running around the city looking for a midwife who can come at once, and a wet nurse in milk. The Tower servants drag in a daybed to my bedroom and tie a rope to the posts of my bed for me to pull in my labor, while I stride up and down the rooms and clutch the back of a chair when my pains come. They are coming quickly now; I can hardly recover between them. The dogs are everywhere underfoot, and Mr. Nozzle sits on the top of the wooden shutter and watches me with concern in his twinkly brown eyes. I send a message to Ned, and when I glance out of my window as I walk back and forth, trying to ease the constant ache in my back, I see that his scarf has been replaced at his windowsill. He is flying the Seymour standard and I laugh aloud at his joy, and have to steady myself by bracing against the wall.

My lady-in-waiting, Mrs. Rother, comes in, white as her linen, and a fat red-faced woman follows her. “My lady,” Mrs. Rother says. “I had no idea! If you had told me, we could have prepared. This is the best midwife we could find in a hurry.”

“Don’t mind me!” the woman objects, speaking in the sharp accent of a Londoner born and bred.

“I don’t mind,” I assure her. “I hope you will care for me and my baby. This is my second birth.”

She holds my hands in her comforting meaty grip as the servants behind me make up the daybed with clean linen, and bring in jugs of hot water, clouts and sheets, and linen torn up into swaddling cloths.

Lucy holds Teddy on her hip. “Should I take him out?” she asks nervously. “And shouldn’t the dogs go out?”

I am suddenly overcome with tiredness. “Yes. Put everything to rights,” I say to Mrs. Rother and Lucy. “I want to lie down.”

They guide me to the daybed and let me rest between my pains. “Tell my lord that I am well,” I whisper to Lucy. “Tell him I am merry.”

The baby is born that evening, a beautiful boy, just as I prayed. They pack my bleeding parts with moss and tie my breasts up with linen and let me lie in the tattered big bed. They have found a wet nurse and she sits beside me and feeds him. We show him to Teddy, who points and says, “Hee!” as if to tell the baby to gee up. But Ned is not allowed to come to me.

The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward, whispers through the half-open door from the presence chamber, “I have sent your news to the court, Lady Hertford. I am afraid that they will be most surprised.”

“Thank you,” I say, leaning back on the pillows. I am dizzy from drinking the mulled birthing ale. I know that the court will be more than surprised. Those who want a secure Protestant succession will be delighted—that’s almost everyone. Those who measure my claim will see that it is redoubled. Only Elizabeth will begrudge me this beautiful baby and resent my happiness. We will have to wait and see what she will do in her revenge.

She moves swiftly and spitefully. The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward, is locked in his own dungeon, and Ned is commanded to appear before the Star Chamber to answer charges of deflowering a virgin of the blood royal in the queen’s house, breaking prison, and ravishing one of the blood royal for a second time.

As he leaves the Tower to face his accusers I drape the Seymour standard over my windowsill, so that he can see that his babies and his wife are well, that we honor our name and that we will never deny it.

Of course, he does not deny us. But I don’t know what he says, nor how he bears his interrogation, till I get an unsigned note from Mary, written in unrecognizable script.

The Privy Council announced that you are the heir on the very day that they got news that you were with child. There was uproar, but it proves your marriage and strengthens your claim. Ned did well before the Star Chamber and swore that you were man and wife. He’s to be fined a greater sum than anyone could pay—and stay in prison indefinitely. The people of London are calling for your release, singing ballads and comparing you with our sister Jane. They demand the freedom of your sons, they are calling the boys the new blessed princes in the Tower. Send me news of your health and the babies. Burn this.