“At any rate, he wants to know who will come after him, if he dies before he can marry and get his own son.”
“The baby would be his heir?”
“If he doesn’t have a son of his own.”
This seems like a distant prospect. “But I gave my word,” I say. “You gave yours. To Ned Seymour.”
“Forget it,” he advises me briefly. “Edward Seymour is dead, and his boy Ned is with a guardian who will dispose of him as he thinks fit. Not another word about it. You have to be an obedient daughter, Jane, or you will be made to obey.”
My mother, bored of waiting, strides to his side.
I screw up my courage. “Please forgive me,” I say to them both. “But I have prayed on this, and I believe that I cannot marry anyone without being released from my promise to the former Earl of Hertford. I gave my word to you and you gave yours to the Seymours. There were no vows, but God sees and hears all. I cannot simply pretend that I never said it.” Near to tears at my own defiance, I look from my hesitant beloved father to my flint-faced mother.
“You can’t refuse us,” my mother says flatly, “because we are your parents, and we will make you.”
DURHAM HOUSE, LONDON,
MAY 1553
She is right, of course. And as if to emphasize the importance of the Dudley family, I am to stay at their great London palace, Durham House, and my wedding is to be held here. It is to be a joint wedding, there will be three brides: me, my sister Katherine, and the Dudley girl, Katherine, who is marrying Henry Hastings, the eighteen-year-old son of the Earl of Huntingdon. My little sister Mary is to be publicly betrothed, but her wedding and bedding will wait until she is older. Everyone seems very pleased about this, though they must see, as I do, that these are the great men of England signing an alliance in the blood of their children. I wonder if I am the only person who prays to God to tell me why these three men should need to be so sure of one another. What danger do they think they will face if they don’t lock each other into marriage? Why do we all six have to be married at once in the same ceremony? My sister Katherine thinks it will be to her advantage as she is undoubtedly the prettiest of us three brides. That is her only concern.
Clothes from the royal wardrobe arrive daily, jewels from the royal treasury are loaned to us, precious stones are given. My cousin the king is too sick to attend the wedding, but he sends us bolts of cloth: black silver cloth of tissue embossed with roses, purple and white tissue, cloth of gold and cloth of silver, a trimming for my hood of thirteen table diamonds, seventeen great pearls, a girdle of gold. The tiltyard is painted and hung with flags: there is to be a tournament. Everyone in London who has so much as a knighthood will come to the great dinner that the cooks prepare days in advance. There will be dozens of courses, the fountain in the central courtyard will flow with wine, hundreds will sit down to dinner in their finest clothes and eat scores of dishes, thousands will watch them. I will be at the center of attention, a Tudor heir, dressed as richly as a princess, marrying a Dudley boy.
“This is heaven,” Katherine says, holding a scarf of violet silk against her flushed face.
“No, it is not,” I tell her. “And it is heresy to say so.”
“It’s as good as Easter,” Mary says, her speech muffled by the pastry that she is cramming into her mouth.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” I say. “You are to be betrothed, but not to marry. There’s no excuse for gluttony, and stand up straight.”
Obediently, she straightens her back as Katherine twirls around, draped in cloth of silver, as we wait for the dressmakers. The groom of the royal wardrobe has sent more great bolts of velvet and silk, and Katherine already has some priceless lace draped over her head like a veil. “There’s no excuse for vanity either,” I say sourly.
“I am half in love with him already,” Katherine bubbles. “He came to give me a gold chain yesterday, and he pressed my hand when he left. What d’you think he meant?”
“My mother pressed my hand too,” I say, showing her the bruises on my wrists. “She tells me that is love, as well.”
“It is motherly love,” Katherine asserts.
Mary looks solemnly at the marks. Our mother, our nurses, our governesses, and our father have all beaten each of us, at one time or another. Only my tutor John Aylmer has had authority over me but never used a rod. I tell him that is why I love learning.
“It’s the best thing that could happen to us.” Mary parrots what she has been told. “It puts us in line for the throne.”
“It’s hardly the best thing for you,” I tell her. “You can’t give birth to the King of England.”
She flushes a little. “I am a girl like any other,” she says. “My heart is as big as yours, and I don’t doubt I will grow tall.”
Mary’s staunch courage always makes me melt. I hold out my arms to her and we hug. “Anyway, we can’t disobey them,” I say over her fair head.
“Don’t you love him? Even a little?” Katherine breathes.
“I will love him when we are married,” I say coldly. “I will have to love him then, for I will have promised before God to do so.”
My sisters are disappointed in the wedding service: they hoped it would be in Latin and filled with ceremonial and incomprehensible oaths, noisy with music and trumpets, drowned in regalia, drenched with holy water, and choking with incense. Instead, it has the simple honesty of my religion and I am deeply glad that the Dudleys are a godly family who turned to the reformed religion as soon as the king gave his people the Bible and the preachers spread the word. The purity of our wedding is a living reproach to the papist Princess Mary, who pointedly does not attend—neither the ceremony nor the two days of lavish celebrations that follow. Our cousin Margaret Douglas is not invited either. She is in Scotland, visiting the Nobody that she calls her father. Since John Dudley himself gave her a license to leave the kingdom I imagine that he wanted her out of the way.
I am not dressed plainly, as a Protestant should dress, despite my declared wishes. I wear royal purple with an overgown of gold brocade embroidered with diamonds and pearls. They spread my chestnut hair over my shoulders, and it hangs down below my waist. It is the last time I will wear it loose as a maiden. I am by far the grandest bride and Katherine, with her golden hair and her gown of cloth of silver, is by far the most beautiful. But I don’t begrudge her joy in her dress and her looks. If she had any sense, she would know it is just worldly show.