Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey (11 page)

"You'll do as you're told, Jane."

"I don't love him."

He laughed. "Love! You know better than to use that argument with me. Love has naught to do with it. Anyway, you will come to love him.

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Northumberland was just here. He wants you for his son. And we have promised."

"You had no right."

"Don't sass us, girl. Or I'll have you beaten."

"Beat me. I don't care!"

My father's voice softened. "You are fond of your cousin, Lord Grey de Wilton?"

"Of course. He's a dear gentle young man. Why can't I be betrothed to him?"

"Because we are thinking of him for your sister Mary. You would approve of that?"

"If Mary must be betrothed, yes. He's always been good to her."

"We are also thinking of Lord Constance for her."

"That fat old prig? Never!"

"Do as you're told, then, and your sister will be betrothed to Lord Grey de Wilton."

I felt everything inside me drop onto the cold dank floor that my soul had become. Betrothed to Guildford Dudley to save Mary? They knew I would. And oh, I hated them for the conceit of their knowing, for their manipulation of me. For making me so trapped. I felt

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like a fox in a leg trap.

Tears came into my eyes. But I fought them. I'd not cry. I'd not give them the satisfaction.

Oh, Sir Thomas, where are you?

I cried inside.

Queen Katharine, why did you

bave to die?

"Has a date been set for my marriage?" I asked dismally. I couldn't bear the thought of it.

"The twenty-first of May," my father said.

One month away!

"And it is your sister Catherine's wedding day also. To Lord Henry Herbert, the eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. We have done well for all our girls. What say you, Jane?"

"You aren't marrying Mary that day, are

Father had the decency to look embarrassed. "No. She can wait a bit. Well, what say you?"

"Nothing," I said. I knew there was nothing I could say that would matter. So why bother?

Father laughed. "It's like a knife in the breast to have a thankless child," he said. And I was dismissed.

I would write to King Edward, that's what I

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would do. I would tell him of the outrageous demands of my parents. I would have him forbid the match.

I did, but he did not reply. And so I knew my letter, and the next one, were kept from him. The boy king would never ignore a letter from me--he would, even if there was nothing he could do, reply. But he did not.

Rumors were rife that King Edward was not well, that he was failing. Now he had the smallpox. I knew I had to see him, especially if he was ill, so I decided to approach my father. And so, amidst all the hasty preparations for Catherine's and my upcoming weddings, I thought about how best to do it.

One did not approach Father for a favor unless one was willing to render a favor. Like my agreeing to be betrothed to Dudley to have Mary betrothed to Lord Grey de Wilton, everything was done in the bargaining style.

I decided to promise not to mention the matter of my betrothal, if I was just permitted to see Edward. And Father agreed to it. He was so

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happy that he was shortly to marry off two daughters, that I should have pushed for more. He might have agreed to anything.

I found King Edward shockingly ill the day I finally got to see him. He was recovered from the smallpox but coughed constantly.

"Only a few minutes," Northumberland said as he ushered me into the presence chamber. "He is weak."

I sat on a chair next to the throne where Edward insisted on sitting, though he was slumped over. He seemed feverish. What looked to be bruises were like half moons under his eyes, and his face was pinched as he tried not to cough in front of me.

Fear ran all through me. Wasn't there something they could do for him?

"The Italian doctor is here. He will make me well," he said. And he gestured with his head to a far corner of the room, where a man dressed in black was bent over a desk working on something.

"Dr. Cardano," Edward told me.

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"What is he doing?"

"Casting my horoscope."

I drew in my breath. "But that is not allowed."

He smiled weakly. "I allow it. I just will not allow the results to be bandied about."

I wished Northumberland would leave us, but he would not. He must have sensed that I might ask Edward to forbid my marriage. But I had made a promise to my father not to ask for that.

"So, you're to be married soon," Edward said with false brightness.

"Yes."

"I wish I could be there, Jane. But I dare not travel away from this palace."

"I know."

"I shall send gifts. The very best for you and your sister."

"Oh, Edward, my friend."

"Don't cry, Jane. You must be strong, for me. Promise me you will be strong for me."

I promised. And I hugged him when we parted, though I knew it was forbidden.

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Northumberland fair burst, watching us. He was pacing back and forth. "Come now, come, don't tire His Majesty."

"Jane," he whispered to me, "I must sign Lord Somerset's death warrant. Northumberland tells me I must. I signed a death warrant for one uncle, I don't want to sign one for another, though he was accused of treason."

"What if you don't?" I asked him.

"There is no choice, Jane. Oh, how I hate being King."

Before I left, he had gifts brought forth by his servants. Costly jewels, cloth of gold and silver tissue for the wedding dresses, and many other rich clothes. A crown of gold and silver brocade for me to wear.

I burst into tears. "Oh, Edward, I can't leave you!

We hugged again. If not for Northumberland, with his firm but kind orders, pulling us apart, I might never have left. "He needs his rest," he chided me gently. "Have your servants take the gifts, and know he'll be with you in spirit on your wedding day."

I was surprised at his kindness. I did not think

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the man had it in him. Some said his thoughts were all for the boy king, others said he was having him poisoned.

I left. In the gallery on the way out, I ran into Dr. Cardano. He nodded to me politely and stopped to talk. "What was in his horoscope?" I begged.

He shook his head sadly. "Ah, 'tis treason to predict the death of a king. All he needs is rest."

Half the people around Edward are lying and the other half protecting themselves,

I thought. How could he ever be well? There was no truth here. Look at Northumberland. He now owned three London palaces, two manor houses, and suites of rooms at Westminster and Whitehall. Why would

he

tell the truth?

I knew when I left that I would never see my cousin Edward again.

I knew that I could not believe any rumors or reports about him once I left the palace. That he could be dead two days and Northumberland would keep producing encouraging bulletins about his health.

It was not good when a king died. The people became frightened and restless. It was not good

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until another one was appointed in his place.

Only in this case, it would be a queen. Who? Mary, with her Catholic ways, undoing all my cousin Edward had done to make England a Protestant state? Elizabeth?

No, it had to be Mary. She was next in the line of succession. I did not envy her.

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FIFTEEN

O

n the way out of the palace I met Princess Mary and her ladies-in-waiting in the great entranceway. And they were, indeed, waiting, as if for a royal barge to take them down the Thames.

She looked up when she saw me coming. "Jane!"

"Mary!"

We had never been as sisters as much as she liked to pretend, but now you would think we were. All our attendants stepped aside to give us our privacy. Mary put her arm around my shoulder. "I've been waiting and waiting to see him. They won't let me. Is he still alive, then?"

"Yes."

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"And was he able to speak to you?"

"Yes."

"All I hear is wild rumors. He is dead, he is not dead. I will not wait another moment! I am the Princess! I am his sister!" Then softly: "How did you get in, Jane?"

I blushed. "Through my father." I hesitated, embarrassed. "Him and Northumberland."

"Ah yes, your father and Northumberland. They concoct all kinds of mischief between them. What happens when Edward dies, Jane?"

I lowered my head. "You are next in line for succession."

"Am I? Northumberland has been making overtures to me. Writing me letters, informing me of affairs of state and news of the court. Suggesting I again wear my family's coat of arms and giving me five hundred pounds to repair the dikes on my estate in Essex. Elizabeth has received nothing."

"He fears Elizabeth," I said.

"Still, I don't trust him. I think he is pacifying me. Oh, Jane, I must get into my brother's bedchamber. Will you help me?"

I was at a loss for what to do, when I turned

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and saw Dr. Cardano coming through the gallery. "This man can help you, I am sure. Dr. Cardano"--I reached out my hand--"please help Princess Mary get in to see her brother, won't you?"

He paused. With his black hood all but concealing his face, and his hands folded in front of him, he looked more like an executioner than a doctor. He bowed.

"Princess Mary," he said. "I am your humble servant."

"How is my brother?"

He shrugged.

"Dr. Cardano cast his horoscope," I said.

"Tell me," Mary ordered in a voice that had a good amount of queenly command. "Give me no false coin. Give me the truth."

I knew then that Edward was dying, because no one knew how to treat Mary. She could be queen tomorrow, or banished to the outlands. But here in court one did not take chances.

"I have seen the omens of a great calamity," Dr. Cardano said.

When I left, they were walking down the

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darkened gallery together, in the direction of Edward's apartments.

The cloth King Edward had sent home with me was quickly turned into a wedding gown by my mother's dressmakers. For a week I was measured and draped and prodded and turned and remarked upon. It was beautiful cloth and I should have been happy, but I wasn't. I was miserable with worry about Edward. He could, at any given moment, be dead, and we would never know it. So I went about my days knowing that while I ate, or studied, or was measured for that fool gown, Edward might be lying dead in the palace, and us none the wiser.

He didn't come to my wedding, of course. I could scarce say that I was at my own wedding, although I distinctly recollect parts of it.

It was on Whitsunday, which was the twenty-first of May, that I was wed. We took the barge on the river to Durham House in the Strand. It was one of Northumberland's great houses, and I remember how it was refurbished with Turkish carpets and new hangings of crimson and gold tissue, how we were received by the

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Northumberlands, the Warwicks, the Pembrokes, the Winchesters.

My gold-and-silver-brocaded gown was sewn with diamonds and pearls. My ladies braided pearls into my hair, which fell to my shoulders. And the whole Privy Council was present. I was aware of the closeness of my sister Catherine, for it was a double wedding. Of her echoing my saying of the vows, of the music, and all our attendants and my beaming parents. But it was like a dream. I was and was not there.