Her Highness, the Traitor

39

Jane Dudley

November 1553





It is shameful to admit, but my sons’ imprisonment was probably the only thing that saved me from following John to the grave. Working to free them gave me a purpose to get out of bed in the morning. Without that cause to occupy me, I might well have just lay there each morning, listening to John’s clock tick beside me and dreaming of an impossible revenge against those who had made him their scapegoat. I might—there were days I contemplated it—have even died at my own hand. Only the knowledge that this would make my poor daughters the children of a traitor and of a suicide stopped me, I think.

As it was, my thoughts were loathsome, especially toward the one male Dudley who was not locked up or dead: Jerome. On the surface, I was as kind to Jerome as ever—mending his shirts, making certain he was taken for the rides he loved, letting him win large sums (in his eyes) from me in the very simple card games he could play—but each time I looked at him, with his face that would have been so much like John’s if it had had a glimmer of intelligence in it, I wondered why God had been so unfair as to take John while leaving Jerome. Useless Jerome, who had never had a woman’s love, who would never father children. Why, if the Lord had to take a Dudley brother, could he not have taken Jerome? That I hated myself for thinking such things did not prevent me at all from thinking them, especially since at least once a week, I had to retell Jerome the pretty little fiction I had invented for him about John’s death and Andrew’s and my sons’ imprisonment: John had fallen ill while traveling and had had to be buried abroad, but he had died peacefully and happily and would be waiting for us all in heaven. Andrew and the boys, as Jerome still thought of my five sons, were traveling on very important business for the queen. No, I did not know when they would be coming back: the business was that important.

Jerome would nod solemnly and return to his cards. But I had underestimated even his capacity for observation, for one day he asked, “Jane, why do you cry so much lately?”

Caught off guard, I could say only, “I miss John very much.”

Jerome looked at me reproachfully. “I miss him, too,” he said sternly. “But he is happier where he is now. You told me that yourself, so you should not cry.”

“I will remember that,” I promised. “And I will try my best not to.”

The other story I had woven for Jerome’s benefit was that I regularly went to court to visit the queen—which was half-true, at least, for on the days Mary received petitions, I went to court and stood in the most outer of the queen’s outer chambers, alongside all of the other motley supplicants begging for a crust of royal favor. The kinder of the guards, recalling that I was a duchess in name, at least, and seeing that I was no longer young, would pull me a stool, but that was the only concession I received. Each afternoon, after several hours of waiting, I would be told the same thing. “The queen is not seeing anyone else today. You must go home.”

I did not confine my begging to the queen herself, though. There were those who knew the queen who could put in a word for me at the opportune time, and I pursued them shamelessly. Poor Susan Clarencius! In those days, when no one wanted to be associated with anyone connected with John, she was the only person in the queen’s circle of women who showed me any favor, and as a result, I bombarded her with petitions—and gifts. If she used half of the sleeves I worked for her in the evenings, when I sat in my chamber at Chelsea with none but my ladies and John’s clock for company, she must have never needed another pair in her lifetime, and if there was a bad smell anywhere around her, it was certainly not my fault, for I made her sweet bags for every corner of her wardrobe. Yet as kind as Susan Clarencius was to me, even she could bring me no more satisfactory answer than: “She is inclined to show your sons and Sir Andrew mercy, but she will not make any decisions just now. You must be patient.” Then it turned to: “She is disposed to show them mercy, but this must wait until after her marriage.”

The queen’s marriage had been the leading topic in London that autumn, pushing aside even the fraught topic of religion. There had been two leading candidates, one an Englishman and one a foreigner, both of them about a decade younger than the queen: twenty-seven-year-old Edward Courtenay, now restored to his family earldom of Devon, and twenty-six-year-old Philip of Spain, the heir of the emperor Charles.

The most enthusiastic promoter of the match with Courtenay was Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, who had spent time in prison with him. Since their release upon Mary’s arrival in London, the bishop had assumed a positively paternal attitude toward the fatherless Courtenay and lost no opportunity to praise him to Mary. He had a hard task ahead of him, for Courtenay, shut up for all of his youth in the Tower, was completely without judgment. Told what to do by others for all of his formative years, he had no difficulty in following the commands of the tricksters, whores, and flatterers who collected around him once he was free and at last had money to spend. Yet he was an Englishman and a great-grandson of Edward IV, which for many was enough to make him an ideal husband for the queen. For my part, I suspected Courtenay would be a disaster for Mary: a Katherine Howard in breeches.

Philip of Spain was a different proposition. Already a widower with a young son, he had been helping to govern his father’s vast domains for several years. Simon Renard, the imperial ambassador, had been pressing him upon Mary as a husband since the very day the ambassador had arrived to Beaulieu to meet with her. By mid-November, I and the rest of the people learned what had already been known to those at court: Mary had decided to marry Philip.

My, what a furor that caused! The Londoners’ imaginations ran wild with tales of Philip emptying the treasury and sending its contents to Spain, of Mary herself being dragged screaming from Westminster and hauled (sometimes in a sack) to be imprisoned abroad as Philip put the crown on his own head, of Philip’s son by his first wife being made the Prince of Wales, of Englishmen being thrown out of their houses in the dead of the night to make way for the hordes of Spaniards who would be coming over with the king. And this was all before the details of the marriage treaty had even been negotiated.

I was one of the few people I knew who did not regard the Spanish marriage with dread. By all accounts, Mary had had no desire to marry one of her subjects, even if a mature man of the suitable rank could have been found. Philip was the son of the man to whom Mary had been betrothed as a young child and to whom she had never ceased to regard with warm feelings. A happy marriage for the queen could only bode well for my sons, for surely then she would be more kindly disposed toward me, who had been so happy in my own marriage. And if Philip could get Mary with child despite her relatively advanced age, then that augured even better for the future, for I would be able to appeal to the queen’s maternal instincts.

So I continued to haunt the court and to shower Susan Clarencius with gifts, and to pray each day that the marriage the queen desired so much would soon come about. In the meantime, on November 13, three of my sons and the lady Jane went to trial at London’s Guildhall. Jack already had a judgment of death upon him, and Robert’s trial had not yet taken place.

With Ambrose’s and Hal’s wives, I sat on a bench that gloomy November morning, waiting for the prisoners to be brought from the Tower. In addition to Jane and my sons, there would be a fifth defendant: Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had quarreled with John over a revision to the canon law and had been but a reluctant supporter of Jane, so it was generally believed the queen was finally exacting revenge for Cranmer’s long-ago support for the marriage of King Henry to Anne Boleyn. The archbishop had not helped matters, however, by circulating a letter denunciating the Mass.

As we waited, I saw Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, making her way to our bench. Apparently the Duke of Suffolk had been unable to come, or perhaps had not trusted himself to keep his temper at his daughter’s trial. Frances had two escorts: the ubiquitous Adrian Stokes, and Jane’s former Italian tutor, Michelangelo Florio. How many good-looking men did the woman need around her? Reluctantly, I moved down to allow her and her swains to sit, and the duchess gave me a tremulous smile of acknowledgment, which I failed to return.

Never could I forgive the woman for not saying anything to Mary in favor of John, futile as I knew it would have been.

With the Duchess of Suffolk settled into place at last, it was time for the prisoners, who had been led on foot from the Tower through the streets of London, to make their entrance, preceded by a man bearing an axe. At the forefront of the dismal procession was the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed by Guildford, then by Jane and her two ladies, and then by Ambrose and Hal.

Jane, wearing a black velvet gown and a black French hood, with a black velvet prayer book hanging at her belt and yet another black book in her hands, looked more an archbishop than the archbishop himself, save for her disadvantage of gender. She nodded at Frances, who dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief Stokes passed to her while Florio heaved a Florentine sigh.

I drank in the sight of my three sons, whom I had not seen since July, although their wives had been given permission to visit them. Their imprisonment was not harsh, and they all looked well-tended, though the exercise they were allowed—walking on the Tower leads—was far less than the sort of vigorous activity to which they had been accustomed. My sons each had a taste for fine clothing, and since the days of their young manhood, they had never gone to an event together without consulting with each other about what to wear. This trial was no exception. All wore short gowns over black embroidered doublets. The three of them sought me out with their eyes as they entered the room, and smiled.

I smiled broadly in return.

Sitting in judgment of the prisoners were the Duke of Norfolk, who had sentenced John to die, and fifteen others. One by one, the accused were brought to the bar. None had lawyers to assist them; it was not the way of a treason trial.

The archbishop pleaded not guilty. Then came Guildford’s turn. “Raise your hand.”

Guildford obeyed.

“Thou, Guildford Dudley who stands there are accused of taking possession of the Tower and of proclaiming Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, as queen. How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?”

My son did not hesitate. “Guilty.”

Jane was next. Accused of taking possession of the Tower and proclaiming herself queen, with the additional charge of signing writings as the queen, she asked, “My lords, if I plead guilty, may I speak afterward?”

“You may.”

“I plead guilty,” Jane said, as easily as if she appeared in court every day of her life. “Yet I would like to add that although I accepted the crown, I never sought it, and that some of those before whom I stand sought to place it on my head.”

Norfolk, who could congratulate himself on having had the foresight to be a prisoner in the Tower during the events in question, nodded curtly. “You are finished?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Stand down.”

Jane obeyed. Her reproof to the judges had been no more successful than John’s, but I could not begrudge her a speck of admiration for having made it.

Ambrose and Hal, each charged with taking the field against Queen Mary and proclaiming Jane as queen, also pleaded guilty.

Because the archbishop had pleaded not guilty, the other prisoners had to wait until his trial was finished before their sentences were pronounced. At last—Cranmer having changed his plea after the Crown presented its evidence—each of the prisoners was called to hear his or her sentence. “Guildford Dudley, as you have pleaded guilty to high treason, I hereby sentence you to death by drawing, hanging, and quartering.”

Hal’s wife, sitting next to me, clutched my hand. I fought back nausea.

“Jane Dudley, approach the bench!”

The only sound in the Guildhall was Jane’s skirts swishing against the floor. “Jane Dudley, as you have pleaded guilty to high treason, I hereby sentence you to be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the queen should please.”

Frances Grey slumped over in a faint on Adrian Stokes’s shoulder. Jane’s face had not even changed.

My two other sons were sentenced to die the same grim death as Guildford. Then the prisoners once again formed a neat line and exited the Guildhall, this time with the axe facing them as a signal to the crowd that they had been sentenced to death.

Under the devoted ministrations of Master Stokes, who had all but knocked the curious out of the way so that his lady could come to herself in peace, Frances was reviving as I began to make my way out of the Guildhall. She looked up at me as I passed. “The queen promised me she would spare my daughter. Do you think her majesty will do so now that my child and your sons are under this dreadful sentence?”

“You know her better than I do, my lady. Unlike you, I have not been allowed into her presence.”

I had struck home. Frances blushed. Then she said, “I will beg for all of their lives if I see the queen again. In the meantime, I can at least pray that she spares my daughter’s life, and your sons’, as well. Will you do the same?”

“I shall pray for all of them.” Then I added, “But it is the queen we must convince. God may be an easier matter.”