At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (42 page)

She held her sister while Elizabeth sobbed. It took a long time for her to recover her composure. Once she did, she had a grimly determined look on her face. “I will persuade the queen to ask for Edward’s life,” she vowed. “Let Wolsey force this trial. Let him convict an innocent man. The king can still grant Edward a pardon,
and
restore all that the Crown has seized.”

Anne did not correct her sister’s assumption that their brother was innocent. She prayed that Queen Catherine would believe it, too. The king would not, but it might not matter. She pictured King Henry and King Francis at the Field of Cloth of Gold—enemies who’d tried to kill each other only a few years earlier embracing like the best of friends. As long as there was hope of a reprieve, Anne meant to cling to it.

A
gents of the king arrived at Thornbury before dawn. They had already been to Penshurst and Bletchingly and others of the Duke of Buckingham’s houses to search for evidence to use against him. They had seized all of his property for the Crown.

Madge was newly risen from her bed and not yet dressed, nor was the duchess. Young Margaret, who had been reinstalled in the ducal nursery since January, was also rousted out of her chamber. All the women in the castle were herded together in the great hall. Amid much confusion and no few tears, they were informed of the duke’s arrest for treason.

The duchess glared at the leader of the king’s men. “Whatever my husband the duke has done, none of us here had any part in it.” Her voice was as cold and haughty as ever. “I demand that you allow me to return to my chamber with my tiring maid to prepare for the day. I have not even heard Matins yet.”

He was unmoved by her air of command. “You are in no position to make demands, my lady. You will remain here until I give you leave to go.”

Then he turned his back on her and barked orders at his men. They were to bolt the gates and outer doors. Then they were to go through Thornbury Castle, room by room, seizing money, jewels, and papers. Madge thought of the hiding place under the floor in her
bedchamber—she always created such a space in any room she occupied—and wondered if it would be safe from such a thorough search.

“What is happening?” the duchess wailed, for once losing her composure. “What are they doing?”

The duchess’s gentlewomen seemed at a loss. None of them answered her, nor did they offer comfort. Only Madge, who in her heart of hearts had long feared this day, went to her mistress’s side and led her to a window seat, taking the place beside her. She did not murmur consoling words. She had none to offer. But when the duchess calmed enough to listen, Madge began to speak quietly to her.

“The duke is charged with treason, my lady, as his father was long ago. My father was in the old duke’s service then. I remember what he told me of the day the king’s men came to seize his master’s possessions.”

The duchess swallowed hard, blinked away incipient tears, and clutched Madge’s hands with clammy, clawlike fingers. “Tell me,” she ordered. “What will happen to us now?”

Madge paused a moment to gather her thoughts. Her father had said that Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth had been left behind at Brecon Castle, the family seat before Edward chose Thornbury for that honor, when their mother and brothers fled. Lady Anne had been but a babe in arms at the time, but Madge did not suppose the duchess cared about that.

“These men will make an inventory of everything the duke owns,” she said, “from the finest golden candlesticks to the piece of moth-eaten tapestry stored in some forgotten chest. Then they will break up the household.”

“Where will we go?” Alarm gave animation to her face. Her eyes widened, her mouth worked, and her color rose.

“That I do not know. Perhaps to London to be questioned.”

“But we know nothing.”

One of the king’s men, overhearing and taking pity on the duchess, sidled closer. “You’re to be sent to one of your dower houses, my lady. When the dust settles, the king will no doubt grant it to you and let you live out your widowhood in peace. And you”—he met Madge’s worried gaze and winked—“if you are Mistress Geddings, you will be permitted
to retire quietly to the lands the duke gave you. Being unmarried, you hold them in your own right and they cannot be taken from you unless evidence be found of your complicity in Buckingham’s treason.”

Neither woman was much comforted by this information, but Madge thanked him all the same. Only after he had moved away again did she realize that the duchess still held her hands with a viselike grip. She felt the shudder that ran through the other woman’s body as if it racked her own.

“We will survive this,” Madge whispered.

“Edward will not,” the duchess said.

They sat in silence until the searchers returned, displaying a collection of treasures. The duchess bit her lip to keep from crying out in protest when she saw that they had seized her jewelry. Rings set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and white sapphires were tumbled into a pouch along with strings of pearls, gold brooches, and diamond-encrusted crosses. Silver spoons and silver and gold plate went the same way, along with wall hangings and books and even the cups and chalices from the duke’s chapel.

At length, the women were permitted to return to their chambers and dress, although valuables such as jeweled girdles and pearl buttons had all been taken away. Madge found her hoard untouched and quickly secreted on her person one little pouch of money and another containing baubles. Then she rejoined the duchess.

Eleanor Stafford, née Percy, Duchess of Buckingham and daughter of an Earl of Northumberland, stood straight and tall, facing down the king’s agents. “My ladies will accompany me,” she announced, “and we will ride our own horses.”

One of them started to object but the other sketched a bow. “The king bears you no ill will, my lady. We will not turn you out naked nor will we force you to walk to your new home.”

Madge suspected sarcasm, but they were not in any position to sneer at small favors. The duchess had realized the same thing. She hustled her women out of the castle and onto their horses before the king’s agents could change their minds. The house they were to be permitted
to occupy was a hard afternoon’s ride away, but if they encountered no delays they would arrive before nightfall.

The duchess turned in her saddle and held out a hand to Madge. Her gaze encompassed Margaret, who rode at her mother’s side. “You have property of your own, but I would account it a great blessing if you would remain with me. I have always appreciated your good sense and your loyalty.”

Madge hesitated, glancing at Margaret. The girl seemed shaken by the day’s events, but Madge doubted she fully understood what her father’s attainder for treason would mean for her. There would be no marriage now to an earl’s younger son. Fitzgerald’s wardship, along with everything else Edward had owned, was forfeit to the Crown.

Eleanor spoke softly. “He was the father of my children, too, Madge. For better or worse, we are family, and family should cling together in times of crisis.”

“Yes,” Madge agreed, her uncertainty dispelled like mist by the morning sun. “Yes, my lady, you have the right of it.”

This household—the people in it, not the place—had been her home long before she’d become Edward’s mistress and had remained her home after he turned her out of his bed. She would send for her mother to join them, since the cottage at Penshurst would doubtless be lost along with all the rest of the duke’s property. The duchess would take her in. And if the duchess had need of it, as Madge supposed she might, Madge would share what money she had salvaged to put food on the table and wood in the hearth. She’d have income from the land Edward had given her. That, too, could go to support them.

Madge did not hold out any hope that Edward would be pardoned, although she was sure that Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth would do all they could to save him. She found it easier than she’d thought to put Margaret’s future ahead of the pain she felt at his loss. Those Edward had left behind would band together. They would survive. Filled with a new determination, she used her reins to urge Goody into motion and rode away from Thornbury Castle without a backward glance.

T
he Duke of Buckingham has been indicted for high treason,” George announced, “charged with planning to depose and kill the king and take the throne for himself.”

“He would never have rebelled against the Crown,” Lady Anne objected. “At most he’s guilty of speaking out in anger, and of being credulous enough to believe the predictions of a mad monk.”

He’d listened to those prophecies for years. If he’d meant to act upon them, he’d have done so long ago. Anne had believed, for a time, that she’d be able to convince the king of that, but King Henry did not care that Edward would have been content to tend his garden at Thornbury, visit shrines, and plan a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And the cardinal was determined upon a trial.

Anne took comfort in her husband’s arms. His lips brushed lightly across her brow. She did not weep. She had run out of tears. But she allowed herself to cling to him, absorbing his solid strength. George had been her anchor since they’d left court, helping her learn to accept what she could not change.

“I still feel as if I abandoned Edward in his hour of need,” she whispered.

“Any effort made now on his behalf can only bring harm to others,” George murmured. “I will not risk losing you.”

“Nor I, you,” Anne replied.

The danger was very real. Her niece’s husband, Lord Bergavenny, had been arrested for no greater crime than once listening to Edward rant at him at Bletchingly. For accepting the gift of a doublet of cloth of silver, Bergavenny’s brother, Sir Edward Neville, long one of the king’s boon companions and friends, had been banished from court.

Four days later, Cardinal Wolsey made a great display of his wealth and importance by leading a procession of bishops and ambassadors and members of the nobility through London, riding under a canopy like a king. When they reached St. Paul’s, he gave a sermon against the Lutheran heresy. This was followed by the ritual burning of every Lutheran book his men had been able to confiscate. Some thirty thousand people gathered to watch the bonfire.

Edward’s trial began the following day. George attended the proceedings, even though he would have no say in the outcome. There was little question about the verdict. The Duke of Buckingham was condemned to die by the headsman’s ax on Tower Hill.

Anne’s sister sent word from court that she had persuaded the queen to plead with King Henry for the duke’s life and that Her Grace had been rebuffed. Queen Catherine’s failure ended their hope for a reprieve. Edward’s fate was sealed.

“I wish I could take back all the evil things I wished upon him when I was a prisoner at Littlemore,” Anne said.

With gentle hands, George stroked her hair, her back. “Your curses were not the cause of the duke’s downfall. They had as little effect as the monk’s prophecies. Less.”

Anne wanted to believe him, but she suspected she would always feel some guilt. The irony was that Edward had been right about one thing—the importance of family. These last trying weeks had shown her the true strength of her marriage. For the rest of her days, she knew she would have the courage to face whatever came her way—even her brother’s execution—because she had George at her side and their
children to go home to. There was to be another child in a few months. She drew even more strength and courage from that knowledge.

On the day Edward died, the seventeenth of May, the common folk of London protested the miscarriage of justice. A guard five hundred men strong had to be called out to escort the Duke of Buckingham from his cell to the scaffold on Tower Hill.

“He made a good death,” Sir Richard Sacheverell reported several hours after the headsman’s ax had fallen.

“Is there such a thing?” Anne asked. She sat with her head resting against George’s shoulder, feeling more tired and despondent than she’d ever been before.

“He might have railed against the king or the cardinal. Or tried to escape. Instead he accepted his fate and chose to die with dignity.”

“He was never so popular in his life,” George observed, “as in his going out of it. There is much weeping and lamentation in London today.”

“They believe Wolsey wronged the duke,” Sacheverell said.

“As well they should.” Anne dabbed at the moisture on her cheeks and forced a smile. “My lord cardinal will end up on a scaffold, too, one day. That is
my
prophecy, for death always seems to be the price for too much ambition.”

“What is your ambition, my love?” George asked. “Shall we return to court, or go home to the children?”

“I have already set Meriall to packing for the trip to Leicestershire, but there is one thing I must do before we leave London. Do you know where Edward will be buried?”

“In the church of the Austin Friars,” Sacheverell said.

“I would like to visit his grave.” She had not been permitted to see her brother during his imprisonment in the Tower.

Two days later, George escorted her to the churchyard. There was no monument. Anne doubted there ever would be. She knelt beside the spot where her brother had been interred and spoke from her heart.

“I forgive you, Edward,” she whispered, “and hope that you were able to forgive me for the part I played in your destruction. You did not deserve your fate. I would have all men know it.”

She reached blindly for George’s hand and drew strength from him when he clasped his fingers over hers.

“Here is my solemn vow,” she continued as tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “We will name the child I carry in your honor, a living memorial neither king nor cardinal can deny you.”

As soon as she spoke those words, Anne felt a weight lift from her heart. She did not know what the future would bring, but she walked toward it free of the burdens of the past.