Her Highness, the Traitor

18

Frances Grey

November 1551





What on earth are you doing to your hair?” demanded Harry.

My serving woman withdrew an iron from my hair and wound out a perfect red-gold curl. When all was done, my French hood would be covering a mass of ringlets. “For Mary of Guise, we ladies are dressing in the French style,” I said mildly. “One wouldn’t want her to think that Englishwomen are dowdy. Especially English duchesses.”

“Haddon—”

James Haddon, Harry’s chaplain, had made it his mission to improve us all, reminding us in his sermons about the vanity of dress and the evils of card playing for money. While I accepted that this was his duty, I could not help but find it annoying, especially since I had always been rather lucky at cards. Haddon had found even Jane wanting, much to her amazement. “He will just have to live with us tonight,” I said, nodding at my woman as she prepared to put a touch of color on my cheeks. “Trust me, the Duchess of Northumberland will be just as splendid. Why, even Jane has consented to wear that lovely gown that the lady Mary gave her.” She was also sporting a head of wanton curls, I started to add, but decided against it. Harry would find that out for himself shortly.

Mary of Guise, dowager queen of Scotland, was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Having paid an extended visit to her native France, where her daughter was living, Mary of Guise had decided to visit the English court on her way back to Scotland. Jane and I were among the ladies who had been appointed to greet her, and as Mary was a member of the powerful Guise family and had been used to the luxurious courts of France, it would be unthinkable for us to meet her in anything less than the highest of style. Since the news had come that the dowager queen had arrived on England’s shores, we ladies had been frantically refurbishing our wardrobes. The Duchess of Northumberland and I had sent several messages back and forth to ensure we were not wearing gowns that were too similar, and even Jane had been inclined to spend less time with her Hebrew and more time with her dancing master.

There were conspicuous absences from our ranks, however. The lady Elizabeth, who was having a bout of ill health, was not present. The lady Mary, who had been specially urged to come by the king, had also pleaded ill health. “Feigning illness,” Harry had commented, and I knew he was probably right. Mary and the council had been quarreling about the Mass all year.

My poor stepmother was not there, but that was no surprise; still mourning the loss of her sons, she was living quietly at Grimsthorpe, though the last letter she had sent to me showed she was coming to terms with their deaths. By far the most glaring absence, however, was that of the Duchess of Somerset. How she would have liked to have put on her finest clothes and jewels and meet the dowager queen! But two days after the Duke of Somerset had been seized on his way to a council meeting and taken to the Tower, the duchess had been arrested, along with her half brother and a number of the duke’s men. The duke and duchess were now in separate quarters at the Tower, their children—the youngest a mere babe—lodged with various relations. It was said the duke and his allies had conspired to arrest the Duke of Northumberland and shut him in the Tower, or even to murder him while he sat dining at a great banquet.

I found the rumors hard to believe, though I kept my thoughts to myself—especially around the Duchess of Northumberland. Instead, I concentrated on Mary of Guise’s visit and my jewels and my clothing and my hair, and hoped that somehow everything would sort itself out without bloodshed, as it had the first time the duke was arrested.

Somehow, though, I doubted it.

“Which gloves would you like to carry, my lady?”

“My newest ones,” I said. “I wouldn’t want the queen to think we are savages.”

***

At dinner, the king and Mary of Guise dined under the same cloth of estate, Mary’s words lost to me in her strong French accent tinged with a Scottish burr picked up during her stay in her adopted country. I sat at a table slightly below them with my old friend and first cousin Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, whose mother, Margaret, was my mother’s elder sister. As one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies, Margaret Douglas had scandalized the court by becoming secretly engaged to Anne’s handsome uncle, Lord Thomas Howard, and both she and her fiancé had been sent to the Tower by an outraged King Henry. Thomas Howard, poor man, had sickened and died there, but Margaret had been released, only to fall in love with yet another Howard. King Henry had finally found her a suitable husband, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, and she had obligingly fallen in love with him, too. Safely married, she now spent most of her time at Temple Newsam in Yorkshire. It was rumored her household was crawling with Catholics and Margaret herself could be found praying the rosary in the privacy of her own chamber, but Margaret, unlike our cousin the lady Mary, kept the matter of religion to herself. Instead, she chattered about her son, Henry, Lord Darnley, whose limning she kept in a locket around her neck, in readiness to show off at any opportunity.

“Do you miss being at court?” I asked after having duly admired the very pretty five-year-old Lord Darnley from every possible angle.

“Sometimes,” Margaret admitted, lovingly closing the case containing Lord Darnley’s portrait. “Yorkshire is beautiful, as is Temple Newsam, but sometimes it is too isolated for me, especially when my husband is gone.” She lowered her voice. “But every time I come to London, it seems someone new is in the Tower. Will they try Somerset soon?”

“I think so.”

“There are so many missteps one can make around here,” Margaret said. “The Lord knows, I made enough of them in my day. And the poor duchess is imprisoned, too, isn’t she?”

I nodded.

“Do you think they will execute her?”

“Surely not.”

“The duke?”

“I cannot say.” I dropped my voice even lower. “But I fear the worst.”

“So do I, and I have always been one to expect the best,” Margaret said. She sipped her wine. “No. This time when I go back to Yorkshire, I think I shall be quite pleased to be away from court.”