She allowed me to return early to London and—when she could act easily and fast, secretly and unchallenged—she had me arrested and locked up in these three rooms, overlooking Tower Green, where the beheading of my sister plays over and over again in my mind’s eye whenever I look out of the window.
Of course, she’s not going to behead me. I am not so timorous that I imagine things are worse than they are. She is furious with me, but I have committed no crime. I will be held here, in moderate comfort, with my pets and my women, until the baby is born, until Ned comes home, and then we will both beg her pardon and be released, and we will have to live quietly at Hanworth until she forgets or forgives me. At the worst she will treat me as she does our cousin Margaret Douglas—with suspicion and dislike. Like her, I will raise my Tudor son, and laugh up my sleeve.
Like it or not, any boy of mine will be the next King of England; my rights will pass to him. This could make Elizabeth more kindly to me, as she can raise him as her heir, and then nobody can insist that she marry. But, since it is Elizabeth—a barren Tudor from a tyrannical line—it may make her angrier with me, as the prettier younger cousin who has done what she cannot. There is no way of knowing with Elizabeth. I cannot guess at her mind. I would never have imagined that she would imprison a woman about to give birth for doing nothing worse than marrying the young man she loves.
As she establishes her rule, the whole country and I learn that she is powerful and unscrupulous. I truly believe her to be a tyrant as wicked as her father, but I don’t fear that she will do worse to me than hold me in this shameful imprisonment until the birth of my son. She means me to be humiliated, and she has triumphed. Indeed, she has brought me very low.
“Oh, no, she plans far worse than this,” Mary my sister says, climbing up into one of my high dining chairs, and sitting back, her little feet stuck out in front of her.
“What could be worse?” I ask.
Mary is my only visitor, though the court has returned to London, and she is escorted by a woman who is certain to be spying on us and reporting everything we say. No one else comes to see me. My ladies are allowed to serve me, my gowns have been sent to me, my plates with my family crest and my silver forks; my linnets from Janey are in their cage. I have half a dozen of Jo’s puppies in their basket and Jo watches over them all as Ribbon the little cat watches her. Mr. Nozzle the monkey is exploring the walls and fireplaces of the three rooms over and over, round and round, going from tapestry to mantelpiece, table to floor, and back up high again. I feel worse for him than I do for myself, as Mr. Nozzle loves a garden in sunshine and these rooms are always dark and stuffy during the day and cold at night.
“The queen has decided that there was a plot,” Mary says quietly. “She thinks that the Spanish arranged your marriage with Ned and that they will turn her from the throne and make you queen and him consort, and your son will be raised as heir, as rival heir to the French candidate—the Queen of Scots.”
I stare at Mary. “This is madness. Ned is as staunch a Protestant as any in England, and I am sister to Jane Grey! Nobody can think that we would turn papist for the throne of England. Nobody can think that we would join with the Spanish!”
There is a tap at the door and the woman spy is distracted. “But she does,” Mary whispers quickly. “Because it’s exactly what she would have done herself. She would have done anything to become queen. She doesn’t realize that everyone is not the same. She would never marry for love, so she doesn’t believe that you did.”
“Someone must tell her that I meant no such thing!” I say. “Robert Dudley must tell her. William Cecil will tell her that I always reported the Spanish ambassador to him!”
Mary shakes her wise little head. “Oh Lord, it’s worse than that at court! Now she suspects both of them, too. Robert Dudley because he knew of your marriage—”
“Because I told him myself! And he told her the very next day!”
“And Ned is in France and on his way to Rome. She thinks he’s going to report to the Pope.”
“He’s with Thomas Cecil! Does William Cecil think that his own son has gone papist?”
“Exactly, I told you, it’s terrible at court. She says, over and over, why would the two of them go to Rome, if not to meet with the Pope? Did Cecil know? Is this his plot? It looks very bad.”
“Only if you think that everything is treason.”
The woman spy returns to her seat and looks from one of us to the other, fearful that she has missed something. We turn our bland, pretty smiles on her.
Mary folds her little hands in her lap and looks at me steadily. “That’s exactly what she does think, all the time. Especially of us cousins.”
I stand up and I pull my flowing gown tight over my belly so she can see how big I am. Since the shame of my arrest I have gone into loose gowns and anyone can see that I am nearing my time. “Do I look like a woman about to flee to Spain? Do I look like a woman capable of leading a treasonous army against the Queen of England?”
“Not to me you don’t,” Mary says steadily. “And I will go and talk to Cecil.”
“No, don’t do that.” I am so afraid of Mary being arrested as a fellow plotter. If they are mad enough to arrest me, they are mad enough to accuse Mary, too. “Don’t do anything. Just stay quietly at court and serve the queen as best you can. Try to behave normally. And don’t come again too soon.”
“You don’t want to see me?”
I can tell that she is hurt. “I don’t want you endangered. I don’t want another Grey girl in the Tower. Two is enough. We are both as innocent as Jane. I don’t want you locked in here, where they killed Jane and torment me.”
She pushes herself to the edge of the chair and drops lightly on her feet. She goes to the window and stands on tiptoe to look out to the green where her sister died. “I don’t doubt that she is in heaven,” she says staunchly. “I don’t doubt that you married for love and not for strategy. I don’t doubt that our destiny is to do what seems right to us, whatever people think.”
I close my eyes to block out the sight of the green. “I am sure she is in heaven,” I agree. “And I did marry for love, and I love him still. And of course we have to live according to our own conscience; but I do want you to be very, very careful with your appearance, your friends, and your faith.”
“I am,” Mary says, fearful of nothing. “I had permission to visit you from William Cecil, and I have to report back to him how I found you. I am his spy as well as your sister. I think everyone is a spy for someone or other.”
“You can tell him everything,” I say. “I have nothing to hide.” I catch the curious gaze of the woman spy who came in with my sister. “I have nothing to hide,” I repeat.
“I know,” Mary says. “I’ll tell William Cecil that you should be released to Hanworth. You should have your Seymour baby there, in Ned’s family home, and he should be christened in his own chapel.”
THE TOWER, LONDON,
AUTUMN 1561
It is hot and airless in the lieutenant’s small house, and I am not allowed out of my rooms, not to walk in the garden nor on the flat roof of the Tower where I could, at least, get a breath of air in the evening and see the sun set.
Every day the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward Warner, comes to my room and asks me who knew that Ned and I were in love, and who knew that we were married, who witnessed the betrothal and the marriage, and who encouraged us to do it and keep it secret.