The Last Tudor Read online

  I look at my stepgrandmother and I see the same twist in her mouth that I know I am showing. I am biting the inside of my lips so that I don’t cry over the death of the little pug, so that I don’t cry for the death of my sister, so that I don’t cry for the ruin of my house, and all for no reason, for no reason at all.

  We are all silent for a moment and then Sir Owen speaks. “But I have the linnets coming behind in the wagon,” he says, suddenly cheerful.

  “Not Janey Seymour’s linnets!”

  “Their babies, or perhaps their babies’ babies,” he says. “She had them nesting and breeding and we had to give some away and keep some as she ordered. But I have a bonny cage of singing linnets for you, coming after me in the wagon.”

  THE MINORIES, LONDON,

  SPRING 1568

  Bess St. Loe, our family friend and sometime ally, pulled off a triumph last year that makes me smile whenever I think of her. Aunt Bess buried her third husband and walked as a great heiress to the altar for the fourth time—but this time she surpassed herself—she netted George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and is now the richest woman in England second only to the queen, owning almost all of the Midlands of England.

  It would take a sadder little woman than I not to laugh aloud at the tremendous progress that Aunt Bess has made. Once she was a friend and a hanger-on at Bradgate, now she is a countess. Aunt Bess, born a poor girl and widowed young, glad of my mother’s favor, is now a great woman by her extraordinary business sense, and by marriage. Of course, I think that her good luck might serve me. A landowner such as Aunt Bess with thousands of houses at her command and acres of farms and villages could very easily house me in one of them. She is trusted by the queen; she could guarantee that I would not run away or plot with the Spanish, nor anything else that the queen pretends to fear, in order to keep me in captivity. If Aunt Bess will say one word for me (though I don’t forget that she never said anything for my sister Katherine), then I might yet be a free tenant near Wingfield Manor, Tutbury Castle, or Chatsworth House, or any of the other half dozen houses that she owns. If she were to be my landlord, I would need no guardian, I would liberate my stepgrandmother from her duties and Elizabeth’s irritable disfavor, I would be far from London and quite forgotten, and I could be free.

  I tell my stepgrandmother that I am thinking that Bess might speak for me to the queen and might offer to house me, and she encourages me to write to the new countess and ask her to use her influence with the queen—for she is still a lady-in-waiting, though now considerably higher up the ranks. I think that a little house, a very small house in a mean village, might be a source of great happiness to me. I might have Thomas Keyes’s children to live with me, even if I could never see him. And Mr. Nozzle would like a little orchard, I am sure.

  GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE,

  LINCOLNSHIRE, SUMMER 1568

  Elizabeth our cousin bears her grief for the loss of my sister Katherine so well that the court comes out of mourning in a month, and the May Day revels are among the merriest that have ever been. She recovers so well from her anxiety for her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, still held in prison, that she exchanges letters with Mary’s captor and the guardian of her little boy, Lord Moray—the Queen of Scots’ treacherous half brother. When Elizabeth hears that he has opened the royal treasury and is selling off Mary’s famous jewels to the highest bidder, she overcomes her much-praised anxiety for her cousin and makes an offer. His shocking betrayal and theft from his own half sister and ordained queen ceases to trouble Elizabeth, who outbids everyone to win the auction for a six-string necklace of pearls beyond price. I think of Mary held in Lochleven Castle as I am held at my stepgrandmother’s house at Grimsthorpe, and think how bitter it must be to her to learn that the cousin that she thought would rescue her has struck a deal with her captor and is wearing her pearls.

  But my cousin Mary wastes no time counting her losses and mourning for her miscarried babies. Later in the month of May we learn that she has broken out from captivity, broken out like a woman of desperate courage, and I think—I wish I had the bravery and the money and the friends to do the same. Mary rows herself over the lake, disguised as a page, raises an army, and challenges her false half brother to meet her on the field of battle. Elizabeth should send an army in support—she has loudly promised one—but instead she sends her best wishes, and they are of little effect. The Queen of Scots is defeated. This was her last throw, and now she is on the run and nobody knows where she is.

  She must be somewhere in the wild country of Scotland. The battle was outside Glasgow, in the west, not a country that she knows, nor one where she is likely to have friends. Her husband and greatest ally, Bothwell, is missing. Her cousin Elizabeth does nothing to help her. Mary is quite alone. We hear nothing for days, and then we hear that she rode thirty miles after defeat in battle, thirty miles by night over rough ground in darkness. She has found a safe hiding place, an abbey where they love their queen and her faith. If the English were to come to her aid now, it could still be all changed about in a moment. Mary could regain her throne; Elizabeth could have a beautiful cousin as a neighboring queen once again.

  We know this, even my stepgrandmother and her family and I, exiles from the court, at my lady grandmother’s house at Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, know this, because the whole country knows that Mary has called on Elizabeth and sent her a token. It is an object of such power that Elizabeth cannot refuse. It is the ring, the diamond ring that Elizabeth gave her five years ago when she swore eternal love and friendship and said that Mary should send to her in case of need, and that she would not fail her.

  I follow this story—all the world follows this story—as if it were a breathless tale published in printed sheets and sold by balladeers. It is an irresistible story of one great queen swearing infallible aid to another, and now the promise is called in. I cannot wait to hear where Mary is. I cannot wait to know what she will do next.

  I think Elizabeth must send her help. She should have sent an army to support Mary when she first broke from her prison. But now—our cousin is free and defenseless, now she sends the ring that will summon Elizabeth’s support without fail. Elizabeth has to be true to her public oath, has to rescue our cousin the queen.

  There is no news of any special grant going to Scotland. But of course, Elizabeth could send secret funds and tell no one. There is certainly no army mustering, for we would know of that, even tucked away here in the country. I think that perhaps Elizabeth will meet with the Privy Council and persuade them that they must support the Queen of Scots, so that majesty itself is not threatened. I think that perhaps she will call parliament and name Mary as her heir—finally take herself to that sticking point of naming her—so that the Scots can see that they may not attack Elizabeth’s kinswoman and heiress, that it is in their interest to return her to her throne so that Mary can pass on her title to her son and finally the thrones of Scotland and England will be united.

  There are rumors that the French will snatch her from the coast of Scotland. She is their kinswoman and she is desperate. And if they rescue her before we do, and the Queen of Scots is in French hands, how shall England be safe from attack? Will she not make another marriage to a great prince and win back her kingdom and remember her cousin Elizabeth as a disloyal breaker of a sacred oath, an unreliable ally, a false kinswoman? Will she not think of the English as false-faith enemies? Will she not take the throne by force that should have been offered her by right?

  Everything points to Elizabeth saving our cousin and restoring her to her throne. There are compelling reasons that she must do so. There is no good argument for any other course of action. As a kinswoman, as a fellow queen, as one who has given her sacred word, Elizabeth must help Mary. She cannot refuse.

  But still we hear nothing. I write to my aunt Bess on my own account, asking if, at a convenient moment, she will ask the queen if I might be set free to live in one of her houses. I ask it for the love I know that she bore my mother