Lady in Waiting: A Novel (32 page)

To effectively write Mary out of the line of succession, however, the King and his councilors had to somehow alter Parliament’s Statute of Succession and make the case that His Majesty’s half sister was the illegitimate issue of an annulled marriage, and therefore an unbefitting successor. Princess Elizabeth, a devout Reformer, would have been a more ideal successor, but she was the daughter of a queen who’d been beheaded for adultery. If Mary was to be bypassed, Elizabeth had to be also. Next in line was Frances Brandon Grey, Jane’s mother. Here is where Nicholas surmised that John Dudley’s plan began to take shape. Frances Grey was beyond the age of childbearing, and she had no sons. Her daughter Jane, however, was young, healthy, of childbearing age. And an impassioned Reformer.

Dudley surely told Jane’s parents back in late April that he had a plan in place to put their daughter on the throne and that part of that plan included Frances deferring to Jane as the successor as well as securing the marriage of Jane to Dudley’s son. That would explain the hasty betrothal, the quick wedding, and even Jane’s overheard whispered conversations in the Dudley household after her marriage.

John Dudley had known for months that the King was dying.

There was a second reason Dudley counseled His Majesty to rewrite his will. With Jane on the throne, and his son as her husband, little stood in John Dudley’s way in terms of power and influence. With this plan he would effectively keep papal influences out of the affairs of the Crown, and he’d have a son sitting at the right hand of the Queen of England. And one day there would be a Dudley heir on the throne.

Everything Nicholas supposed made sense to me. And I knew Jane had been used in the most appalling of ways.

“Poor Jane!” I lamented.

Nicholas said it would behoove us to pray for her. And for our country. The days and weeks ahead would not be without incident.

I asked him what he meant, and he said it is never a trouble-free transition when a monarch dies without an heir.

On the tenth day of July, Nicholas and I left the quiet school grounds—all the lads had gone home for the summer holiday—and took a carriage to watch Jane’s processional on the banks of the Thames. Jane was escorted from Syon House to the White Tower by barge, and the riverbanks were teeming with men and women of all ages and stations curious to see the young lady whom King Edward had chosen to succeed him.

The crowds were quiet, subdued. There were no joyous shouts or happy music to accompany the procession. I could barely see Jane as she made her way from the barge to the steps of the Tower, flanked as she was on all sides by the powerful men who had orchestrated this strange turn of events. She walked with difficulty, wearing a richly appointed gown I did not recognize. At one point I saw that her feet had been shod with thick wooden clogs to make her appear taller.

“She looks afraid,” I whispered to Nicholas.

Ahead of us a man in a merchant’s cape turned to another man. “She’s not even the daughter of a king.”

“Watch your tongue!” the other man rasped.

“Princess Mary’s the rightful heir!”

“Hush! I’ll not be listening to this. You’ll have us both hanging by ropes!”

“It’s not right what Northumberland has done. He’ll not succeed. Mark my words.”

The second man shook his head and moved away from the merchant and his treasonous diatribe.

I reached for Nicholas’s arm, and he led me away, back to our carriage and our quiet rooms at the school.

Over the next two days, the news on the street and in the pubs was that John Dudley had attempted to abduct and imprison Princess Mary before she learned of the King’s death and Jane’s succession. The plan was thwarted, however. Mary escaped the snare Dudley had set, and from a secret hiding place, she had written the Privy Council promising clemency if they renounced their actions of the last few days and swore allegiance to her, their rightful sovereign.

On the fifteenth day of July, I received my second letter from Jane.

I handed the note to Nicholas, speechless.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, his eyes never leaving the parchment, the heavy black ink or the rich royal seal.

“Nicholas! How can I not? She is the Queen!”

“She is a pawn in a very dangerous game. I do not want you part of it.”

He handed the letter back to me.

“But how can I refuse?” I asked.

Nicholas looked away, his brow crinkled in thought. “I shall come with you. I will ride in the coach, and I will accompany you inside the Tower. I will wait for you outside the room where you meet her. That is how it must be.”

“But what if her guards do not allow you to come with me?”

“Let them arrest us both, Lucy. If Jane wishes to see you, she will no doubt pardon us for insisting on my escorting you. You know her better than I. Do you think she will punish you, of all people?”

I did not think she would. But Nicholas’s fear alarmed me.

When the coach came for me, I told the footman that Mr. Staverton would escort me. And I said the same to the guards who attended us when we arrived at the Tower. And though they frowned with displeasure, they did not forbid Nicholas to accompany me inside.

Nicholas was made to sit along a row of chairs upholstered in green velvet. Other lords and ladies were milling about, and they stared at him. He was not one of them, and they knew it. He looked after me as I was led away from him. I turned once, and he dipped his head toward me, an unmistakable gesture that he would be waiting for me when I returned.

I was taken past other rooms where men and women scurried about, dizzily attending to matters like ants defending a hill of dirt. I recognized no one. We made our way to private apartments, and then the attendant escorting me turned to a woman whose back was to me.

“Mrs. Staverton is here,” the attendant said to her.

She turned and I was relieved to see Mrs. Ellen.

“Lucy,” she said, almost a whisper. “Come with me.”

I followed her into a room decorated in rich tones of Tudor green and white and gilded with gold. At a far window, in a gown of creamy pink, Jane stood, much like she stood the day I met her at Sudeley Castle. Alone. Silent. Yearning for the world outside the glass.

She turned and I fell to my knees.

“Your Highness,” I said.

I heard Jane say Ellen’s name, and Mrs. Ellen silently left us, closing the door behind her.

I was alone with the Queen.

She came to me, then reached for my hands and bid me wordlessly to stand.

I rose unsteadily.

“I am so glad you came,” she said.

I laughed. “It’s not as if I could refuse, Your Highness.”

She smiled too, but it seemed to lack any form. “So. About that fitting.”

“We can try for August instead, Your Highness,” I quipped.

Her smile seemed to gain weight for a moment and then just as quickly deflated. “Quite. Come sit with me, Lucy.”

She led me to a long couch upholstered in heavy brocade fabric, and we sat.

I waited for her to speak, like always. After a long moment of silence, she did.

“Every morning I wake up thinking surely I am back at Bradgate, and I’ve only been dreaming an outrageous charade that I am Queen.”

“Sometimes I do too, Your Highness. Sometimes I think it must be a dream that my dear sweet Jane is my Queen. But it is a good dream, Your Highness. England is blessed of God to have you on the throne. I know that.”

She looked past me then, her gaze on the world outside the panes. “I can feel it crumbling, like a house of sticks.” Jane spoke as if alone in the room. “I can feel it starting to collapse.”

“What … what is crumbling, Your Highness?”

Jane inhaled heavily and turned her gaze from the window. “My resolve.”

“Your resolve?”

“When my parents and Northumberland told me the King was dead and I was his chosen successor, I told them they were mistaken. Horribly mistaken. Princess Mary was the heir to the throne. They insisted the King wanted me to take his place, not Mary, not Elizabeth, not my mother. Me. The King wanted me to keep England from falling back under Catholic rule. ‘Only you can do this for England, Jane,’ they said to me. ‘Only you.’ I alone was to save England from mindless allegiance to creeds that do not embrace grace. I alone. God had put me here to save my country. And I believed it.”

“Is it not true, Your Majesty?”

Jane looked down at her folded hands in her lap. “I do not think now it was God that put me here, Lucy. I think I may have stepped ahead of him.”

“But the King wrote in his will …”

“What Northumberland told him to.”

“Your Highness …”

“Guildford wants me to name him King. Can you believe that? He wants me to petition Parliament to make him King. His mother expects it. Northumberland expects it.”

“Oh, my lady!” A queer revulsion swept over me to think of it. Guildford as my King.

“I refused, of course. I shall continue to refuse. He tried to leave the Tower. Guildford did. He wanted to go sulking back to his mother, because I won’t make him King. I had to have guards fetch him back. Can you imagine how terrible it would look if the Queen of England can’t even manage her own marriage?”

“They … cannot make you, can they, Your Highness?”

“No, Lucy. They cannot. There are things no one can make me do.
I have finally realized that.” She said it like she had always had this privilege. I stared at her in awe.

“There were moments, on the first day, and on the second, when I thought I would make my parents, Edward Seymour, even you, Lucy, proud of me. I imagined I might do some good with the power and influence that comes with the title of queen. But every hour since I agreed to this plan, there are forces mustering against me, within and without.”

“Your Highness?”

But she moved on. “Lucy, did you put the ring in a safe place?”

“The ring is in my bureau drawer, Your Highness.”

“Perhaps you should hide it away somewhere? And please tell no one it is mine. I would very much like to have it back one day. I do not know when that will be. But I am afraid for what the future holds. Would you do that for me?”

Her voice sounded childlike and afraid for the first time since I had come into the room with her.

“Of course, my lady.”

She stood and I rose to my feet too. I bowed.

“Thank you, Lucy. I am sorry I had to tell you to come on business for the royal wardrobe. I did not want anyone asking questions.”

“I did start on a dress for you, my lady. It’s very soft velvet, the darkest of blues; it looks like the sky at midnight. Nearly black. With tiny pleats and tapered sleeves with cuttes of ebony satin.”

Jane smiled. “Perhaps then we will see each other for a fitting in August after all?”

“I will come whenever you call for me, my lady.”

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Pray for me, Lucy,” she breathed.

“Always,” I whispered back.