Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean - Страница 29

“I admit this was so, but I remained, for being innocent I saw no reason for running away.”

“You have had other communications with Sir Thomas Wyatt.”

“I have had none.”

“He has accused you and Courtenay with complicity in this plot which was for you to marry Courtenay and take the throne.”

“It is lies. Do you believe what a man says under torture?”

“He has mentioned your name and that of Courtenay who is lodged in the Tower.”

I felt sick with fear. If these men were lying about me what hope had I of proving my innocence?

“Letters have been intercepted between Wyatt and the French Ambassador.”

“To what effect?”

“That there is a plot to marry you and Courtenay and set you on the throne.”

“Why should the French Ambassador support such a plot?”

“Because the French are against the Spanish marriage.”

“Do you imagine they would support me? They have a pretender to the throne of their own—Mary Stuart.”

“There were letters.”

“It is all lies.”

Innocence is a powerful advocate and mine helped me to stand out against them. The fact that Wyatt had implicated me was damning. How could he? But how can one question what a man says under extreme torture?

At last the questions ceased and I was left alone.

The weary days passed. Mary would not see me. Each day I waited. Each day the fears increased.

It was difficult to get any news but I did hear that Wyatt and Courtenay were in the Tower under sentence of death and it seemed very possible that I should soon be in like case.

From the window I could see the white coats of the guards who were stationed round the palace lest there should be an attempt to free me. More guards were at my doors. They were determined to keep me closely watched.

Then one day what I had been dreading happened. The Earl of Sussex came to me with another member of the Council to tell me to prepare to leave.

“For what destination?” I asked fearfully.

Then came the answer which I had long feared. “You are to be lodged in the Tower, Your Grace.”

“No!” I cried and covered my face with my hands.

Sussex said gently: “It is the orders of the Queen, my lady. The barge is waiting to conduct you there.”

“I cannot go to that place,” I said. “It is not for honest subjects of the Queen.”

“My lady, these are my orders and I must obey them.”

There was a kindliness about him. He did not wish me ill as Gardiner did.

I said: “I must see the Queen.”

“The Queen will not see you, my lady.”

“If I write to her would you take a letter to her?”

He hesitated. He knew that the Queen did not want to receive a plea from me, but he was a good man and I was young and I suppose appealing.

There was another thought which occurred to me. I was next in line to the succession. Events often took an unexpected turn. Perhaps he remembered that he could be dealing with his future Queen.

Whatever the reason, he softened and said that if I wished to write to the Queen, he would do his best to deliver the letter.

I sat down at once and reminded her of our last meeting when she had promised that if she heard anything against me, she would not condemn me without giving me a chance to defend myself, and it seemed that now I was condemned, for I was to be sent to the Tower, a place more suitable for a false traitor than for a true subject of the Queen. I did not deserve such a fate, and I prayed to God that I might die the most shameful death if I did. Therefore I was pleading with her to let me answer to her before I was sent to the Tower, and if that was too late, before I was condemned. I reminded her that I had heard that Thomas Seymour had said that if he had been allowed to see his brother, he would never have been condemned to death. I prayed that the evil persuasions to set one sister against another would be shown to her to be false as I knew them to be. I begged her to see me that I might assure her of my innocence.

It was the Saturday before Palm Sunday, and clearly they did not wish the people to see me conducted along the river on such a day. The plan had been to take me after dark so that I could not be seen and thus the people would not know I was being taken to the Tower until I was safely there.

However, in allowing me to write my letter over which I took some time, Sussex had made the mistake of missing the tide. There was consternation for this meant that the journey along the river could not be made until daylight. My spirits were lifted a little—a very little—because they should set such store by the people's not seeing me, which showed it was something of which the good citizens would not approve. My enemies knew of my popularity and even if they believed me guilty of trying to stop unity between England and Spain, they would not be so averse to that either.

It was decided that I should go during the time of morning service when there would be few people about. At least that gave me a few more hours of freedom from that terrifying place.

At nine o'clock on the Palm Sunday morning I was taken to the stairs. I had to walk through the gardens to the river and all the way I was praying that someone would come to my rescue.

I looked back at the palace. There were people watching but no one came forward to speak to me.

“I marvel,” I said bitterly, “what the nobles mean by suffering me, a prince, to be led into captivity, the Lord knoweth wherefore, for myself I do not.”

The barge sped quickly along the river. They were very nervous, those men. My words had sunk home. I was the heir to the throne and I was being hurried ignobly into captivity.

The tide had not yet risen high enough to allow us to shoot the bridge and the fall of water being so great at that point, there was danger to the boat. The boatmen declined to go forward. I was exultant. Were they telling me that they would not be party to this terrible action which was being taken against me?

My escorts however insisted that we proceed. The Queen had expressed displeasure that I had not been taken to the Tower on the previous night as had been arranged. There would be great trouble if there was further delay. She would be very suspicious, construing it as a reluctance on the part of her subjects to imprison her sister. The stern of the boat struck the piles at the side of the bridge and for a moment I thought we were all going to be thrown into the river. I did not greatly care. But the barge righted itself and we were on our way.

My dismay was great when we came to rest at the stairs of the Traitor's Gate. “Not here,” I cried out. “I am no traitor.”

“These are our orders, Your Grace” was the reply.

The rain had started. It was a blustery March day. Palm Sunday! It was a time for rejoicing although the following week the fickle people had cried, “Crucify him.”

“My lady, you must alight here,” I was told.

The water was splashing about the stairs. “How can I?” I asked. “Must I walk through the water?”

“My lady, you must.”

So I stepped out and the water splashed over my shoes.

The Lieutenant of the Tower had come out to greet me and someone offered me a cloak which I declined. I said in a loud voice so that all could hear: “Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs.”

Several of the warders and servants of the Tower came out to see me, and I was deeply moved when many of them knelt down and cried out: “May God preserve Your Grace.”

How that heartened me! Even as a poor prisoner I had not lost the power to draw out their affection. Some of them were weeping and I knew that this was because they did not expect me to leave this place alive.

Before me rose the gate—the Traitor's Gate—and I could not bring myself to pass through it. I sat down on the cold stones and stared ahead of me.