To Obey and Serve Read online

  The king dispatched Norfolk, Suffolk and Shrewsbury to quell the uprising. His strategy: to negotiate for peace on the rebels’ own terms, including a pardon for each one of them and a special parliament to be held in York to discuss the rest of their demands. The main leader of the Pilgrimage, Robert Aske, had ordered his followers to accept the pardon and disband, claiming he wanted no bloodshed. What kind of rebel-traitor seized the first opportunity for pardon? He would come to London to settle terms with the king. He was issued a safe conduct into the City and a hearty invitation to stay for Christmas.

  The court removed to Greenwich for the Twelve Days; the king did not want the mastermind of the Northern rebellion too near the City and armory. The Thames froze hard that winter, so that our party crossed on horseback, the clopping of hooves echoing far in the thin, icy air. Add to her other miraculous accomplishments: Queen Jane could now walk on water.

  Aske arrived on a grey day when the few flakes of snow dancing on the wind belied the bitter cold. He had ridden from York in only three days. I was relieved to see that, at first glimpse, Robert Aske didn’t look like the sort of man who would pillage cities and put infants to the sword. In fact, aside from his beard-stubble and spattered cloak, he was the very picture of gentility. He even appeared to have all his teeth, for he grinned often. Often he and the king walked the palace corridors together, deep in discussion; occasionally a laugh would ring out from one of them, and once I saw the king clasp Aske heartily on one shoulder.

  The queen too held a private audience with Aske, though I was not present. Still, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what they were discussing: the preservation of the monasteries, England’s return to the true faith. Chapuys came later to discover what was said, and I listened as I went about my tasks:

  “The king has ordered Cromwell to halt his inspections of the monasteries for now,” Chapuys said. His accent had not grown softer with his years in England. But then, neither had Nicholas’s. “An Imperial alliance would help preserve them, for Charles holds to the true faith and has vowed to fight heresy. You, my lady, must help him see that this French alliance is a slap in the Emperor’s face, and will make the Emperor think that England sides with Luther and his maniacs.”

  “I have tried, Chapuys; even this very evening at supper, I tried to persuade His Grace,” she said earnestly. I had helped served them at the private supper in her inner chamber; they had talked of plans for the Christmas celebrations, without a word of politics. “But I fear he takes evil counsel from other quarters.” She did not need to name names. “Aske is a good man, I am convinced of it; if he can win the king to his cause, His Grace will surely heed him to gain favor in the North country, will he not?”

  Chapuys only shook his head. It occurred to me that he’d known the king for many more years than she had, though he had the tact not to say it.

  The Queen received an urgent message from Cromwell himself on Midwinter Day; ordinarily she never communicated with him, seeming to loathe touching anything he handed her. She took his letter and retreated to her inmost chamber for hours, holding communication with no one. The king was at Westminster, and her sister Elizabeth was in Surrey with her husband. My uncle himself stood watch outside her door. Lady Beauchamp flew into a temper at being denied admittance, threatened to have him dismissed. That was gratifying to watch.

  I went that evening with a tray filled with partridge, oranges, wafers, hypocras wine—all the flavors of a holiday. My uncle shook his head. “Her Grace does not wish to be disturbed.”

  “Her Grace needs food and drink. I will not speak with her, you may be sure.” I kept my gaze level, and after a moment he reluctantly stepped aside.

  I entered and set down the tray without a word. She did not reproach my rudeness, but sat staring into the fire. “My father is dead.”

  Did she hope to bury me in secrets? But this could not remain secret for long. “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” I said.

  “So am I.” Her voice was soft. “It was far too easy for him.”

  The king invited his guest on the Yule hunt, and it was Aske’s shot that brought down the boar for the high table that night.

  When he arrived at the banquet, I drew in my breath. Here was no brawling barbarian, but a mannered courtier; he spoke well, and (I suspect) was trying to smooth his Yorkshire accent for our sake. It still came through, but in a way that was rather more pleasing than otherwise.

  He was a lithe, well-muscled man of middling stature, and something about his smile, the way he moved the food to his mouth, struck me as familiar. He was speaking now to the Lady Mary, on his left:

  “Yes lady, the cathedral at York is as fine as any you have here in London. We Northmen even like to think it the finest in England,” with a bow toward the queen,” though few of my countrymen have ever seen the marvels of your city to compare it to.”

  “But surely, Master Aske, a soldier sees many great sights in his travels?” the queen asked. She did not normally speak much at meals. Perhaps she nervous, or covering her grief, or both; the food on her plate was largely untouched. A server approached with a tray of salmon-and-fig pie. She waved it away. Her fingertips, I noticed, were peeled raw again.

  The king was watching her closely. He always made a point of observing her appetite.

  “Nay, sweetheart,” he said in a voice that was too loud even over the din of the great hall. “Aske here is a lawyer by trade. Soldiering is merely his hobby.”

  The words had a dangerous edge to them. The queen turned for her napkin, and Mary Howard offered it. I stood next to her, not moving my head but listening for every word.

  Aske said something I could not quite hear, and the king threw back his head and laughed. In that instant, it came to me who Aske reminded me of:

  Will Dormer. The same brown-black hair, the same grey eyes, even similar manners of holding a cup. I wondered if the king had noticed it too. I did not doubt that she had.

  “Spoken like a true lawyer! I knew a lawyer once,” the king mused, looking into his silver-gilt winecup. “A good lawyer, and a good man. He made a mistake, Aske. See that you do not repeat it.”

  “Majesty, I had meant to make this pledge before I left, but I will speak it out here and now, that all may witness.” Aske put down his bread and pushed back his chair, kneeling before the king with one hand over his heart. “I do willingly swear by my life that there shall be not one hand raised against you from now until Your Grace’s visit and the parliament in York.”

  The king raised his cup. “And we in turn shall joyously go to inspect the state of our realm in York, along with our most beloved queen. There she shall be crowned and anointed in your great cathedral, as no queen has since the Conquest.”

  Jane looked round, and I saw the telltale flush on her neck. Aske too was surprised, you could tell, but within seconds he had a reply: “And, God willing, with a prince in her arms.”

  A royal coronation was something most people counted themselves lucky to see in a lifetime. Within a few short years we were to see two.

  Several tables down, Cromwell was frowning.

  For Christmas the queen gave the king a Book of Hours, richly illuminated; to Lady Mary, a new gown of purple and gold velvet; to Aske, a satin coat the color of blood. To each of us she gave a length of linen and a small leather purse of coins. But to little Elizabeth, nothing.

  Sir John Seymour was interred at the priory at Wulfhall shortly after the Christmas revels were over. Only then did Edward and Tom leave from court to visit their mother. Elizabeth, the newlywed, did not leave her husband’s side. The Queen did not attend. Death, the ultimate usurper, had freed her from Wulfhall for good.

  Before Aske took his leave, he bid a formal farewell to the king and queen. “I have pledged that your kingdom shall remain quiet under my command, Your Grace, and I keep my promises.”

  The king smiled. “As we do, Aske.”

  Of course he was betrayed, even as the servitors cleared away the mess fr
om the Twelfth Night celebrations, even as he rode at all speed bringing news of the king’s concessions and pardon. His fellow Northerners did not, could not trust to the goodwill of their king, and the king was only too happy to prove them correct.

  When skirmishes broke out in Hull and Scarborough in January, Aske went personally to put them down, though he knew even then that his life was forfeit. His solemn promise to the king had been broken, and he would bear full blame, whether he had been involved or no. Sir Francis Bigod and Lord Conyers had no connection with Aske; their little stirrings had been no more than a beast roaring for show, whereas Aske’s army could have torn the kingdom apart had he so chosen. But Aske’s forces were dispersed, by his own orders, for he had trusted in the king’s promises.

  Norfolk and his forces now went gleefully about their duties, one son of the true Church charged with slaughtering others. They burned entire villages, executing anyone suspected to have been involved, even whole families. Arms and legs and heads were stuck up on spires and at crossroads, to warn others of the price of rebellion. The Earl of Derby promised some Cistercian monks immunity from the king’s wrath after they had reopened their closed abbey with a new abbot. When they surrendered to him, Derby had the abbot and two monks hanged before the horrified eyes of the rest. None of the terrified survivors were permitted to bury their dead. Trials were the privilege only of the nobility, though Aske gave himself up willingly. He was a man of his word.

  Yet the final months of Aske’s life paralleled the beginning of another:

  After the Northern carnage, the women around her now seemed to burst into sudden fruitfulness. From the chamberers to the queen’s own sister Elizabeth and her sister-in-law Lady Hertford, half the bellies clad in the rigidly proper gowns were swollen with new life.

  On a cold, clear morning in February, when the warrant for Aske’s arrest was proclaimed at every market cross and guildhall, the queen was sick into her basin. The doctors examined her and gave the joyous king the news that they had every reason to expect it to be a prince. Of course they had.

  In April, when the quickening of her child was announced, she appeared at Mass in a front-laced green gown, and a Te Deum was sung in St. Paul’s cathedral. Did she remember how he had compared it so favorably to his beloved cathedral at York, when they brought the news that he had been arrested there?

  In May he and the other lords were brought to trial at Westminster and condemned to the terrible traitor’s death, while she developed a passionate craving for cherries and quail. Some tyrants fiddle while cities burn; Queen Jane, who must needs limit her power to a much smaller scale, ate quails all that spring while Aske and the other lords languished in the Tower, awaiting execution, and Norfolk finished his bloody work in the blazing stench of June. It was the madness of Europe, of the Holy Maid, of Anne Boleyn all over again, combined into one “dreadful execution.”

  I would not pray for them. Not for her or the king, nor for England, nor for a prince. But as I lay with my head on Nicholas’s chest, I thought of my mother, how disappointed she’d have been.

  NOVEMBER 1537

  The funeral procession makes its way along the road to Windsor, the great hearse creaking beneath of the weight of Jane sealed in her lead coffin. Torches light our way even in the gray daylight, and the wind blows rawly down our necks, streams our veils into our eyes.

  The wax effigy atop the carriage copies perfectly her hair, her pale skin, her way of folding her hands, but looks nothing like her. This is how the king wants her remembered: perfect, still, silent. She will be immortalized in dynastic portraits and eulogies, the woman forgotten and replaced by a saint. Is this how all saints come to be? Prince Edward may not know what a saint is, by the time he reaches manhood.

  The fields this time of year run brown and white under the empty sky. Like the journey that brought me to court this time of year six years ago, our progress is slow. The journey from Hampton to Windsor, normally a morning’s ride, takes much longer with the elaborate hearse, the dignified procession of mourners and the half-frozen roads. Of those who walk behind her coffin--twenty-nine of us, one for each year of her life--I know only a few: Lady Rochford, obviously, ever present at the smell of a corpse. There’s the queen’s sister Elizabeth, and Anne Basset, small and blinking; Mary Zouche and Anne Parr; Mary Howard, good enough to marry a bastard Tudor but not permitted to become Queen Jane’s sister-in-law. But Tom would try any female, even the prune-faced Lady Mary, even little Elizabeth, if he thought it might raise his fortunes.

  Lady Mary is chief mourner, of course; behind her walks Edward Seymour’s wife, now Lady Hertford, and you can tell she’s not pleased at being second to a Papist bastard. Her fortunes rise with her husband’s, though not yet so high as they’d like. They—or rather she—tried to apply for governance of little Prince Edward’s household, you may be sure. The outrage, the indignation when it went to Sir William Sydney instead. She won’t give up that easily.

  Little Prince Edward is likely to grow up wrenched back and forth between one faction and another.

  After the funeral, we are to return to Hampton. The unmarried ladies are to board in the households of married gentlewomen, and the queen’s household maintained at full wages. Not to be disbanded, then; another queen is on the way. Any of the ladies in this procession might be her successor. She’ll have to be sufficiently anti-papal, yet not too Lutheran. And beautiful, of course. And brave. The Howards are torn about whether to place one of their own family before the king or encourage him to name Lady Mary as co-regent. They want strong Catholic hands on the reins of government, ones that will not be weakened by childbirth or timidity. What kind of ruler would Mary be? Has Queen Jane’s warm kindness melted the block of ice around her heart? Or will she be as vicious as one of King Leir’s daughters, bent on avenging past injustices?

  I want to leave this place. I cannot stay to watch what comes after this. I can hardly bear to hear the scurrilous whisperings, the speculation about beddings and weddings during her funeral itself. They have not even the decency to wait until she is beneath the ground.

  That is why I will marry Nicholas. There are other reasons. I cup my hands over my belly; a few months yet until the quickening.

  I stand in the quire of St. George’s chapel at Windsor, bidding farewell. The magnificent east window, with its colored-glass figures, is dark. Incense curls lazily toward the magnificent ceiling, and it’s cold in here. It was cold even on that warm September day when she and I stood here side by side, serving a lady who was no queen.

  This is where the king will lie, one day. An England without King Henry VIII; I cannot imagine it. Of all the wives he has had, and whoever else there might be to come, his final resting place will be at her side.

  She will never truly die, not as the others have. No one will remember Katharine of Aragon, a poor relict of a dead prince. Anne Boleyn’s name, if remembered at all, will be whispered as a horror to frighten children. But Queen Jane, the one who triumphed where others failed, has left a legacy that will live forever. The only one truly lost is of the young maid of honor who I once called my friend.

  Her phoenix emblem—so easy to make from Queen Anne’s falcon, so much easier on the

  glaziers and the privy purse—is draped over the casket. Rising from the ashes. On the silk banner is embroidered her motto. Not the one the king chose for her; the one she chose herself: Ardet ut vivat. She burns that she may live.

  I will remember her, and make her live again on these pages.

  EPILOGUE

  It’s been many years since I opened these pages; the binding crackles stiffly and the ink is faded far more than I expected. Perhaps my eternal legacy is even shorter-lived than I.

  My daughter writes me that Elizabeth, little Elizabeth of the muddy smocks and lonely childhood exile, has been crowned queen of England. She has no husband-king to sit beside her, having learned from her elder sister’s example. I marvel at it, and can think of no more fittin
g end to the tale.

  She writes to me in German. Of course, I’m sure whoever is in Cromwell’s place by now has spies who can read German, but it’s hardly worth the bother. A daughter’s light gossip, to delight her old mother on the continent—who could object?

  It might have been more fitting if I wrote about Edward, King Edward, sixth of that name. But Jane Seymour’s son did not live to his sixteenth birthday. He managed to do quite a bit in that short time, however – including executing both his uncles. Self-righteous little prig. I like to think she’d have hated him.

  I returned to the Low Countries after Nicholas died. He left me enough to set up a small household here in Munich, the city where he grew up. With the income from my mother’s estates, I could easily have set up a larger one. But that has passed to my daughter, or rather her husband, a good man with no ambition. I like him very well. They are not often at court, but they know enough to be wary; in their young lives they have weathered two great changes, from Edward’s zealous Protestantism to Mary’s Catholic fanaticism, and now to whatever Elizabeth may bring. She writes that the new queen cares not for peering into men’s souls, and that she has a great hunger for learning that she wishes everyone to share. In that she sounds like her mother. But her mother had some dark corners, and I expect the daughter will too.

  I dare not commit that to a letter, though I can write it out safely enough here; the servants don’t speak English.