A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1 (12 page)

Emphatically she refused the offer from the Duke of Savoy.

The Queen and her ministers were annoyed, but mildly; and temporarily the matter was allowed to drop.

She lived quietly in the country for a few weeks, eagerly learning all she could of what was happening at Court from her friends who were still there.

News came—wild news, news which might lead to triumph or disaster. Wyatt had risen in protest against the Spanish marriage. Letters asking for her support had been sent to her, but she would have nothing to do with such a rebellion. She knew that her hope of success lay in waiting. She knew that Courtenay was concerned in the Wyatt plot, and handsome as he was he was weak and untrustworthy; and if the plot were successful, the Duke of Suffolk, who was also one of the leaders, would surely hope to bring his own daughter Lady Jane Grey to the throne rather than help Elizabeth.

No! Rebellion was not for her.

And she was soon proved to be right, for Courtenay turned traitor in a moment of panic and confessed the plot to Gardiner, so that Wyatt was forced to act prematurely. The rebellion failed and Wyatt was under arrest; Courtenay and Suffolk were sent to the Tower, and the order went forth that Lady Jane and Lord Guildford Dudley were to be executed without delay. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, letters written by Noailles and Wyatt, intended for her, were intercepted and put before the Queen.

When the summons came, Elizabeth knew that in all the dangerous moments of a hazardous life, there had never been one to equal this.

There was one thing she could do. She could go to bed. Alas, she declared, she was too ill to travel; and indeed, so terrified was she, that her illness on this occasion was not altogether feigned. She could neither eat nor sleep; she lay in agony of torment—waiting, listening for the sound of horses’ hoofs in the courtyard which would announce the arrival of the Queen’s men.

It was not long before they came.

They were not soldiers come to arrest her, but two of the Queen’s physicians, Dr. Wendy and Dr. Owen.

Her trembling attendants announced their arrival.

“I cannot see them,” said the Princess. “I am too ill for visitors.”

It was ten o’clock at night, but the doctors came purposefully into her chamber. She looked at them haughtily.

“Is the haste such that you could not wait until morning?” she asked.

They begged her to pardon them. They were distressed, they said, to see her Grace in such a sorry condition.

“And I,” she retorted, “am not glad to see
you
at such an hour.”

“It is by the Queen’s command that we come, Your Grace.”

“You see me a poor invalid.”

They came closer to the bed. “It is the Queen’s wish that you should leave Ashridge at dawn tomorrow for London.”

“I could not undertake the journey in my present state of fatigue.”

The doctors looked at her sternly. “Your Grace might rest for one day. After that we must set out without fail for London on pain of Her Majesty’s displeasure.”

Elizabeth was resigned. She knew that her sick-bed could give her at most no more than a few days’ grace.

She was carried
in a litter which the Queen had sent for her; and the very day on which she set out was that on which Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley walked the short distance from their prisons in the Tower to the scaffold.

Some of the country people came out to watch the Princess pass by, and she was deeply aware of their sympathetic glances. They thought of the lovely Jane Grey, who was only seventeen; she had had no wish to be Queen, but the ambition of those about her had forced her to that eminence. And perhaps at this moment she was saying her last prayers before the executioner severed that lovely head from her slender body. The people could feel nothing but pity for that young girl; and here was another—this young Princess who might be on her way to a similar fate.

For once Elizabeth was desolate and afraid. She was delaying the journey as much as possible because she believed that Mary’s anger might cool if given time. Therefore each day’s delay was important. She spent the first night at Redbourn and her second halt was at St. Albans. Oh, that she might rest a little longer in the comfortable hospitality of Sir Ralph
Rowlett’s mansion! But they must go on to Mimms and to Highgate. She made a point of resting as long as she possibly could at these places, and the journey took ten days, far longer than was really necessary.

When Elizabeth reached London it was to find a subdued City in which many gibbets had been erected. Men were hanging outside the doors of their houses; there was a new harvest of heads on the Bridge. London had little heart to welcome the Princess who was sadly conscious of her own uneasy head.

But as she passed through the Capital, which had always been friendly to her, she roused herself from her melancholy. She had the litter uncovered that the people might see her all in white, a color which not only set off the glory of her hair, but seemed to proclaim her spotless innocence; she sat erect and proud, as though to say: “Let them do what they will to an innocent girl.” And if the people of London felt that at such a time it would be unwise to cheer the Princess, they did not refrain from weeping for her; and they prayed that she might not suffer the fate which had befallen the Lady Jane Grey.

She was taken to the Palace of Whitehall.

It was on
the Friday before Palm Sunday that Elizabeth, in her closely guarded apartments at the Palace, heard from her attendants that Bishop Gardiner with some members of the Queen’s Council was on his way to visit her.

At length he stood before her—the great Bishop of Winchester, one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and her declared enemy.

“Your Grace is charged,” he said, “with conspiracy against the Queen. You are charged with being concerned in the Wyatt plot.”

“This is a false accusation.”

“Letters are in the Queen’s possession which will prove that you speak not the truth, and it is Her Majesty’s pleasure that you should leave this lodging for another.”

Elizabeth could not trust herself to speak; that which she had most dreaded was upon her.

“Your Grace is to be removed this day to the Tower.”

She was terrified, yet determined not to show her fear. She boldly answered: “I trust that Her Majesty will be far more gracious than to commit to that place a true and innocent woman who never offended her in thought, word, nor deed.”

“It is the will of Her Majesty that you should prepare to leave for the Tower this day.”

An impulse came to her to throw herself upon her knees and plead with these men. Instead she stood still, looking haughtily at them.

“I beg of you, my lords,” she said, “either to plead my case before the Queen or to ask her graciously to permit me to see her.”

Gardiner answered: “The Queen’s orders are that you shall prepare to leave at once.”

The Earl of Sussex was moved by her youth, her courage, and her desperate plight. He said: “If it be in my power to persuade the Queen to grant you an audience, I will do so.”

They left her then, and when they had gone she collapsed upon a stool. She covered her face with her hands and whispered: “So did my mother go to the Tower … never to return.”

All that night
she waited for a summons from the Queen. Her servants told her that the gardens surrounding the palace were being patrolled by guards; they were in the palace itself, for it was greatly feared that there might be some plot for her escape.

The next day the Earl of Sussex came to her to tell her that she must leave at once, for a barge was prepared and the tide would not wait. She wrote a note to the Queen and pleaded so earnestly with Sussex to take it to her that he was deeply moved.

“My lord Earl,” she implored, “I beg of you to take it now.”

He hesitated, but he could not resist her pleading and he took the letter to the Queen.

Mary was enraged. This, she cried, was a ruse of her sister’s. Did not my lord Sussex realize that she had duped him into missing the tide for that day?

The next day was Palm Sunday and there was nothing to prevent her going to the Tower.

She had not been taken on the midnight tide because it was feared that in the darkness a rescue might be possible.

As she walked to the barge she murmured: “The Lord’s Will be done. I must be content seeing this is the Queen’s pleasure!” Then she turned to the men who walked beside her and cried out in sudden anger: “It is an astonishing thing that you who call yourselves noblemen and gentlemen should suffer me, a Princess and daughter of the great King Henry, to be led to captivity, the Lord knoweth where, for I do not.”

They watched her furtively. How could they be sure what she would do? They—stalwart soldiers and statesmen—were afraid of this slender young girl.

The barge sped quickly along the river, while the Londoners were at Church, that they might not see her pass by and show her that sympathy which they had never failed to give her. Quickly they came to the Tower—that great gray home of torment, of failure and despair.

She saw that they were taking her to the Traitor’s Gate, and this seemed to her a terrible omen.

“I will not be landed there!” she cried.

It was raining and she lifted her face that she might feel the rain upon it, for when would she again be at liberty to feel its softness? How gentle it is! she thought. How kind in this cruel world!

“Your Grace …” urged Sussex.

“Must I then land here … at the Traitor’s Gate? Look! You have misjudged the tide. How can I step into the water?”

Sussex put his cloak about her shoulders to protect her from the rain. In sudden pettishness she threw it off and stepped out. The water came above her shoe, but she did not heed it. She cried in a ringing voice: “Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these
stairs. Before Thee, oh God, I speak it, having no other friend but Thee alone.”

As she passed on, many of the warders came out to see her, and some of them brought their children with them. The sight of these small wondering faces calmed the Princess. She smiled wanly at them, and one little boy came forward on his own account and, kneeling before her, said in a high piping voice: “Last night I prayed God to preserve Your Grace, and I shall do so again.”

She laid her hand on his head. “So I have one friend in this sorry place,” she said. “I thank you, my child.”

Then several of the warders cried out: “May God preserve Your Grace.”

She smiled and sat down on one of the damp stones, looking at them almost tenderly.

The Lieutenant of the Tower came to her and begged her to rise. “For, Madam,” he said, “you sit unwholesomely.”

“Better sit here than in a worse place,” she retorted, “for God, not I, knows whither you bring me.”

But she rose and allowed herself, with those few women who had been permitted to accompany her, to be led into the Tower.

The Earl of Sussex still walked beside her. “Your Grace,” he murmured, “you will understand that I like not this task which has been put upon me. Rest assured that I shall do everything in my power to ease your stay in this place.”