“Are we to go?” he asks. “Does my mother say we can go home now?”
“She says they have bolted the gates to keep us in, and they have arrested your father.”
He looks aghast. “I should have warned him,” he says. “I should have gone with him. If only I had ridden with him, at his side, as his son!”
“You’re drunk,” I say viciously. “And you know nothing.”
He nods, as if this is interesting information. “You’re right,” he tells me. “Right on both points. I am drunk. And I know nothing.” He gives a little giggle. “You can be very sure that half of London will be drunk tonight, and they will all know nothing. Especially, they will know nothing of us: us Dudleys.”
Guildford remains drunk for days, in his new rooms in the Beauchamp Tower where he is confined, without his court, without his friends, with only two servants to pull him out of bed in the morning and push him back into it at night. He is not allowed beyond his rooms, so I suppose he is a prisoner until Lady Mary pardons us. His mother keeps a silent vigil in my rooms. She is very poor company.
I study my books. Strangely, there is nothing for me to do. I am not allowed to leave the Tower, the gates are closed, but inside the high walls I can go where I like—across the green to the chapel, to the muniments rooms, to the gardens, to the stables. I like to walk on the ramparts between the towers overlooking the river in the evening. The cooler air settles my churning belly. I am still bleeding, I am still sick. Something is poisoning me. I don’t think I will be well till my father takes me back to Bradgate. I have started to dream that I am in my bedroom at home, overlooking the lake, but then I wake and hear the noise of the city and the flat light of the morning skies and realize that I am still far from my home.
I hear a clatter from the Byward Tower gate and peer over the wall to see who is entering. They are prisoners, there is a guard around them, and there are half a dozen men. I can hear the jeers of the crowd outside the gate, silenced when the gate slams shut and the bolts are drawn. I can just see the face of the leading prisoner. Lord, it is my father-in-law, John Dudley, walking proudly with his head up and his hat in his hand, and now I recognize his sons among the disgraced party. I thank God for His grace that my father is not among them. The Dudleys have been arrested and my father is free. He will be meeting our cousin Princess Mary and explaining how it came about, applying for my release. I thank God that it is the Dudleys who will be blamed for all this. It was their plan, and everyone knows it. They have been vaultingly ambitious for years, now they will be brought low, and serve them right.
The party is divided. My father-in-law goes to St. Thomas’s Tower over the watergate, and his sons are taken to the Beauchamp Tower to share their brother Guildford’s rooms. I watch them go down the steps, bowing their heads to enter the low doorway, and I feel nothing—neither sympathy nor fear for them. There is a little struggle as John Dudley tries to force his way down the steps to be with his sons. I can see the youngest, Henry, is crying. I suppose that Guildford will be glad to be with his brothers, but he will find that being drunk and knowing nothing will not save him now that his father is arrested.
I think I had better go back to my rooms, but when I get there I find that my clothes and my books have been moved, and I am now to live in the house of Mr. Nathaniel Partridge, the gentleman-jailer of the Tower. It is a pretty house, facing inwards over the gardens, looking towards the White Tower. My rooms are a good size and comfortable. I still have three ladies-in-waiting and a manservant. It makes no difference to me, I tell Mrs. Partridge, the wife of the jailer: “Outward show means nothing to me. While I have my books and my studies and I can pray, I need nothing else.”
She bobs a little curtsey, not the deep obeisance that she used before the Dudleys came in, under arrest. I find this very irritating, but then I remember that it is outward show, and I care nothing for it.
“Leave me,” I say quietly. “I am going to write.”
I think I shall write my account of these days, and send it to my cousin Princess Mary. I think I should explain to her how all that has happened was not of my doing, and, if the deathbed wishes of my cousin the king are to be ignored, then I am content to become a subject once more, and for her to be the heir once more; indeed, to be crowned queen. As Tudors we have seen, God knows, enough changes. Her own mother was set aside and accused of a sham marriage, her title taken away. She herself has been princess and then Lady Mary twice in her lifetime. Princess Mary of all people will understand that my title can be taken away as readily as it was forced on me and that my conscience is clear.
The next day, I hear a bustle under my bedroom window. By pressing my face against the cold windowpane I can just see that it is young Henry Lord Hastings, Katherine Dudley’s feeble husband, and it looks as if he is leaving the Beauchamp Tower where the Dudley boys are kept. He is laughing, shaking the hand of another man who has clearly come with the warrant for his release. The constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, stands to one side, his hat in his hand. Clearly, young Henry is once again an important man, no longer an accused traitor like his new brothers-in-law. Of course, Princess Mary is bound to be merciful to her friends, and Henry is related to her governess, Margaret Pole, who died at the very spot where they now so lightheartedly exchange compliments. Henry must be pleased to be out of the Tower, which has been such an unlucky place for his family. As I watch him leave, striding along to the main gate, I see another man is coming in.
They pass without even the smallest gesture of recognition, so I think it must be a stranger, and then I realize that of course Henry Hastings will make no gesture of recognition to anyone coming inwards. Like my husband, who said he was drunk and knows nothing, everyone will know nothing and recognize nobody in these days. Everyone who associated with the Dudleys will want to show that they know nothing and recognize nobody. Henry Hastings will be a stranger to anyone walking into the Tower: his own father is left in here, completely ignored. It is not safe to know anyone. And so it is done—Henry goes past this new arrival without another glance, just a little gesture of drawing himself away, a little turn of his head so their eyes do not meet.
Smiling at this bitter masque, I watch him go, and then I turn my attention to the newcomer. At first I don’t recognize him. His head is bowed, his steps are slow, he looks like all the men who come in now: as if the breath has been knocked out of them, cut down to the height of gnomes, as they were when they all kneeled to me.
So who is this new man, shuffling into prison? Which of my many self-appointed advisors is this, forced to face the wrong that he has done? I can see only the top and the back of his head but I feel certain that I know him—something about the set of his bowed shoulders, something about the dawdling feet. I cry out. Suddenly, I hammer on the thick glass of the window, hurting my palms as I slap them against the leaded panes. I scream but he cannot hear me. This broken man is the only one I can trust: “Father! Father! My father!”
I request permission for my father to be housed in my rooms. This is foolish of me: he is not a guest in the royal palace; I am no longer a queen to allocate the rooms. I am under house arrest and he is a prisoner in the cells. I realize that everything has changed: everything. Not only can he not live with me, I am not allowed even to see him. I demand to see my mother.
“She is not even in London,” the gentleman-jailer of the Tower, Mr. Partridge, says awkwardly. “I regret to tell you, Your . . .” he stammers over my title. “At any rate, she has gone.”