Her Highness, the Traitor

Part II





24

Frances Grey

February 1553





Are my brother’s physicians quite sure that he is well enough to see me?” the lady Mary asked as we rode through Fleet Street toward Westminster, I on her left and the Duchess of Northumberland on the right.

“Very sure,” I said, and Jane Dudley murmured her assent. “It is nothing more than a cold.”

We had at least two hundred horse in our procession, the palfreys bedecked as brilliantly as the lords and ladies who sat astride them. Colorful as our company was, however, we were almost swallowed up by the gloom of the February day. And yet this was a joyous occasion: the king and his sister Mary had put aside their differences regarding religion for the time being, and the king had decreed that Mary be received in London with the highest of honor.

Unfortunately, the king had taken ill on the same day Mary entered London, so she had had to wait several days before she could see him. With London so damp and gray, I was not at all surprised the king was ailing, nor was I worried about his health. It was only surprising that we were not all in our beds.

The weather, however, had not kept the Londoners from enjoying the fine show of the lady Mary riding to court. “How kind they are to cheer,” Mary said now as we left behind one particularly enthusiastic street corner. “It is for my mother’s sake, you know. The Londoners always did love her. Unlike that Anne Boleyn creature,” she added.

The Duchess of Northumberland, who had been friendly with Queen Anne, looked at her horse’s mane.

My husband and the Duke of Northumberland, flanked by scores of knights and gentlemen, awaited the lady Mary outside of the gates of Westminster. No sooner had our party pulled within sight than the dukes and the rest sank to their knees, doing reverence to Mary. Almost, I thought as we made our slow, stately way past the kneeling men, as if she were queen.

***

“My brother and I had a very nice visit,” Mary said as my daughter Jane and I sat with her and her ladies that evening. Mary had issued the invitation outside of the presence of the Duchess of Northumberland, who no doubt would be hurt later when the inevitable court gossip informed her she had been excluded. But Mary and I were, after all, first cousins, while Jane Dudley was a mere knight’s daughter from Kent. “We talked only small talk. I did not bring up the subject of the Mass, and that is just as well, I suppose.”

“The council is not interfering with your hearing it?”

“No. For now, anyway.” Mary sighed. “Perhaps it was just as well my brother was ill. He might have lectured me about my beliefs if he was stronger.” She frowned. “He was ill just last year. Do you think Northumberland is making him do too much work?”

“It was the measles. Anyone might have them. And there was a great deal of sickness last year. Northumberland’s daughter-in-law, my own Jane, myself…”

“Well, I cannot help but worry. But he did seem to be amending, thanks be to the Lord.” The lady Mary crossed herself, then turned to Jane, who had been docilely listening to our conversation. “Have they found a husband for you yet, Cousin?”

“No, my lady.”

Mary looked at me inquiringly. “There was talk of the Earl of Hertford, but with the Duke of Somerset’s attainder and death, that is no longer a possibility,” I said. “But my daughter is still young.”

“That is what they said about me at one time,” Mary said bluntly. “Don’t let her chance slip by.”

“My daughter should have no difficulty attracting a husband. She is learned and extremely accomplished.”

“But some men may not like a woman who is too learned.”

I had to give Jane credit for maturity; two years before, she probably could not have endured this conversation in silence. “Harry’s great pleasure has been to bring up Jane as an educated woman. He would not match her to such a man.”

“No doubt,” conceded Mary. She glanced at Jane critically. “She’s a pretty young lady, in any case. But it is a pity you can’t do anything about the freckles. Have you tried the sap of a birch tree?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Jane clench a dainty fist.

***

“So she told Mother she would send for some recipes to get rid of my freckles,” Jane told Kate back at Suffolk Place, the grand home, once my father’s, which we had inherited when my brothers died. “As if we haven’t tried them all! And it’s not as if my face is one mass of freckles anyway.” Jane held up a mirror and frowned into it. One flaw Mary had not mentioned was that she was slightly shortsighted. “Only a few scattered around my nose. They aren’t large.”

“I can’t believe she’s giving anyone lectures on her appearance,” Kate said. “She’s no beauty herself. If she weren’t the king’s sister, people would call her downright plain.”

“Kate!”

“Well, it’s true, Mother.” Kate, the reigning beauty of my three girls, shrugged.

Jane continued in Mary’s gruff voice, “‘Some men may not like a woman who is too learned, little cousin.’ As if Father would marry me to some cowherd! Any man I would wish to marry would be pleased to have a learned woman as a wife,” said Jane. She traced the finger on which she would have worn a wedding ring. “Mother, are there plans to marry me?”

“It is as I told the lady Mary, there are none at present. But you are almost sixteen. That was the age when I married your father. There will most certainly be men seeking your hand for their sons.”

“But what of my studies?”

“There is no need to stop your studies when you are married. Queen Catherine did not, and you yourself have corresponded with William Cecil’s wife, haven’t you? But they must take second place to your duties as a wife—and eventually as a mother.” Jane looked so stricken, I patted her on her shoulder. “You will adapt, as all of us must do.”