Her Highness, the Traitor

6

Frances Grey

December 1547





I know you’re taking me into the chapel, Harry,” I protested, adjusting my blindfold. “There are those two steps. Where else could I be?”

“Patience, my dear, patience.” Harry led me forward a step or two, and I brushed against something that could only be a chapel pew. “There!”

Harry untied my blindfold, and I stared around me.

While I had been visiting friends, Bradgate’s chapel had been completely whitewashed. The images of saints that decorated the walls had been obliterated; the altar had been stripped of its finery. “Well? How do you like it?”

“It’s bare,” was all I could manage.

“Well, of course it’s bare,” Harry said reasonably. “All of that frippery gets in between us and the Lord.”

I turned my eyes again to the blank wall on my left. It had borne an image of the Virgin, commissioned by Harry’s grandfather, the first Marquis of Dorset, when he built Bradgate Hall in the last century. He must have found the best workman in Leicestershire for the task; perhaps he’d even chosen someone from London. Probably he’d come in regularly to check the progress of the work. His children and grandchildren had gazed at it countless times over the years as they squirmed in chapel; some had seen it when they were married or when their own children were christened here. And now with a brush stroke it had vanished, to be replaced by blankness. Bradgate was Harry’s ancestral home, not mine, but I felt as if I had been robbed of something. “It shall take some getting used to.”

“Better sooner than later, when abolishing idolatry and superstition is concerned. And this is only the beginning.” Harry looked around our stark chapel with satisfaction. “It’s a new world, my dear. Our Jane will be so pleased when she sees it.”

“No doubt she will.”

“Oh, and I hate to have you go away so soon, but you’ve an invitation, and I suppose it must be accepted. It’s from the lady Mary. No doubt you’ll get your share of images at her place.”

***

The lady Mary and I were first cousins, and close in age; aged one-and-thirty that autumn of 1547, she was only a year or so my senior. She was, in fact, my godmother, though of course being a mere babe herself at the time, she had christened me by proxy. When she was small, I had been brought to the princess’s household to play with her from time to time. Even when the failure of her mother, Catherine of Aragon, to give the king a living son had combined with the dark eyes of Anne Boleyn to turn the king against his queen, I’d still been able to visit my cousin occasionally. Then the king had married Anne, just a few months before my own wedding to Harry, and my poor cousin Mary had become more and more estranged from her father the king.

Harry might scoff about Mary’s fondness for the old religion, but it was her faith that had pulled her through those horrid years. Without it, she never would have had the courage to face up to her father the king when he tried to get her to recognize the validity of his marriage to Anne. Goodness knows, he had frightened me enough—and he had never been anything but a kindly uncle to me. He had even pinched my cheek at my wedding and told me what a beautiful bride I was. That was more, I reflected, than what my husband had done.

At Hunsdon, I was just in time for Mass. Mary held at least two a day, sometimes four. Mary gave me a disapproving look afterward; I’d stumbled on some of the responses and had coughed when the incense grew particularly strong. “I hear that your household has ceased to hear the Mass.”

“Yes.” I considered mentioning Harry’s other changes but thought better of it.

“The Protector has ceased to hear it also, as well as the Earl of Warwick. And the queen herself has joined the apostasy. I suppose I could have expected no less of her, however, after that marriage of hers. I just hope she does not corrupt my sister. But I must say that I am disappointed to hear that you have joined that crew. Your father would not have approved.”

I wondered if he truly would have cared; one theology had been much the same as another to Father, as long as it didn’t interfere with a good day’s hunting. “I have no choice, my lady. It was my husband’s decision.”

Mary looked wistful. I wondered now, with her father dead, whether she would at last find a husband. It was odd, not to mention a little sad, to see a king’s daughter past thirty and still unwed. She looked around at her little band of ladies, who had followed us from the chapel. “Well, shall we play cards?”

We walked into a chamber where a series of card tables, all neatly laid with cards and counters, awaited us. Susan Clarencius and Eleanor Kempe, who had served Mary for years, joined us. “How is the lady Jane?” Susan asked after we had played a round or two, Mary handily winning.

I found it much easier to speak of my daughter than to her. “She is faring very well in Queen Catherine’s household. She has not written recently, but when she did, she seemed quite happy. The queen is a stimulating companion, and the lady Elizabeth is quite learned herself, of course.”

Mary’s face clouded. She and her younger half sister were not very close; indeed, Mary had been known to wonder aloud whether Elizabeth might have been the by-blow of one of Anne Boleyn’s supposed lovers. I bit my lip and added hastily, “Of course, my Jane spends far more time with the queen than with the lady Elizabeth. They share only a few lessons, being several years apart. There is some gossip, though.” I looked at the queen for her approval, received it, and went on. “The Protector and the queen are still quarreling over the queen’s jewels, and now the Protector’s wife is in the middle of it all.”

“I’ll have nothing said against the Duchess of Somerset,” Mary said coldly. “She is a woman of virtue and a friend of mine.”

“Indeed,” I said, suddenly wishing myself back at Bradgate with its bare altars.