Courtenay rose and stood before her. Did he hesitate a little too long? Was the smile he gave the Princess a little too friendly, a little too overcharged with admiration?
The Queen had turned impatiently.
“Have a care,” the spirit of Anne Boleyn might have warned her daughter.
But Elizabeth, cautious and clever as she habitually was, could never resist inviting admiration. To her it was life itself—as necessary as the sun and air.
Who could understand that better than Anne Boleyn? She would certainly wish to warn her daughter.
Jane Dudley, the Duchess of Northumberland, was a brokenhearted woman. In a few short weeks she had lost most of what had made life good for her. John, her husband, was dead. He had shared his father’s fate. The cruelty of that stunned her; and yet it was not wholly unexpected.
In the solitude of her house in Chelsea, which was all that was left to her of her grand possessions, she mourned bitterly. It was futile to weep for John, but what of her sons? With the exception of little Henry, who was too young to have been suspected of treason, they were lying in the Tower. John, the eldest, was already sentenced to death. Ambrose, Robert, and Guildford were all awaiting trial.
As she walked from one deserted room to another she cried out: “Oh, John, why were you not content to live in peace and happiness? We had riches; we had comfort. You placed our beloved sons and daughters in danger. It was not only your own life that you risked.”
She must act. She must do something to save her sons.
She had become like a miser, gathering together a little store of her precious possessions which had been overlooked when her goods had been confiscated. She intended to offer them as presents to any who would help her to save her sons. This was the only task which was left to her.
Dared she crave an audience with the Queen? Was it possible to ask Mary to pardon those who had plotted to destroy her? They had sent her to the Tower when they had taken John, but quickly released her, and she feared that if she tried to see the Queen she might be sent back to her prison. Not that she cared if she were. The discomfort of a cell would mean nothing to her. But if she were imprisoned, how could she work for her sons?
In the days of her husband’s greatness many had come to him with petitions for help; they had offered him money and costly goods. John had amassed a fortune in those years when he had ruled England. Now she herself would plead, as others had pleaded with him. She would offer everything she possessed. She would gladly live in poverty for the rest of her life if her sons might be free.
Each day she walked to the palace. Sometimes she saw people who in the old days had flattered her and thought themselves fortunate when she exchanged a few words with them. Now they turned away. It was not due to pride, or scorn, or unkindness. It was fear. Naturally they were afraid. How could they show friendship to a woman whose husband had plotted against the Queen, to a woman whose son was married to the girl they now called the impostor Queen?
“Oh, God, help me!” prayed Jane.
She was almost demented. She went by barge to the Tower; she would stand in great distress contemplating those impregnable walls.
“What will become of you all?” she murmured. “My John … Ambrose … my poor Guildford and my gay and handsome Robin!”
Elizabeth knew of the plight of the sad Duchess and wished that she could help her. But how could she of all people plead for the Dudleys’ release? Her own position was too precarious for her to risk pleading for others.
Already the Queen was casting suspicious eyes upon her. Already Gardiner and Simon Renard, the Spanish ambassador, were seeking to destroy her. And they were not alone in this endeavor. Noailles, the French ambassador, was as dangerous as the other two, although he pretended to be her friend.
He would seek her out when she walked in the grounds that he might speak to her alone.
He told her: “My master knows your position to be a dangerous one. You have my master’s sympathy. He seeks to help you.”
“The King of France is noted for his goodness,” said Elizabeth.
“I will tell him how you speak of him. It will enchant him.”
“Nay. He could not be interested in the opinion of such as I am.”
“Your Grace is mistaken. The King of France is your friend. There is much he would do to save you from your enemies. He deplores that you are deemed a bastard. Why, he would do all in his power to reinstate you.”
She looked at him coolly. “But alas it is not in your royal master’s power to have me proclaimed legitimate. Such must surely be left to the decision of the mistress of this realm.”
She left him and she knew that he was angry.
She was too clever to be deceived by an offer of French friendship. She knew full well that Henri Deux wished to destroy her, so that, should Mary die childless, the field would be clear for his own daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth knew, as she made her way to her apartments, that danger was all about her. It would be so easy to become involved in plots with the French. She understood the schemes of the crafty Noailles. He wished to entangle her, to make her betray herself in a way which would lead her to the scaffold.
There was no friendship for Elizabeth in France or in Spain, and she would never be deceived into thinking there was.
Much as the Princess loved the gaiety of the Court, she began to yearn for the peace of her country houses, for only far from intrigue could she have any great hope of survival.
Gardiner was speaking against her to the Queen because she refused to go to Mass. Yet what could she do? She knew that a very large body of Protestants looked to her as their leader. If she accepted her sister’s religion as wholeheartedly as Mary wished her to, it would mean that those Protestants would say: “What matters it which sister is on the throne?” She would lose their support and she would not gain that of the Catholics. So she must hold out against the Mass for as long as she could. But how long could she hold out? Gardiner was urging that she should either be brought to Catholicism or to the block.
The Queen sent for her.
Mary was cold and Elizabeth’s heart quaked as she knelt before her.
Oh, to be at Hatfield or Woodstock where she could suddenly feel her old malady stealing over her, where she could beg for a few days’ grace to recover before she made an arduous journey to see the Queen! It was not so easy here.
“We have heard that which does not please us concerning you,” said Mary.
Elizabeth answered in a mournful voice: “I see plainly that your Majesty has but little affection for me, yet I have done nothing to offend you except in this matter of religion. Your Majesty must bear with me, must excuse my ignorance. Remember in what religion I have been brought up. Your Majesty will understand how I have been taught to accept my religion and no other.”
“You are old enough to recognize the truth.”
“Ah, your Majesty, if I had time to read and learn, if doctors might be sent to me …”
It was the old cry: “Give me Time.” Time had always been her friend.
Elizabeth looked at the pale face of her sister. How ill she looked, how white and sickly! Only a few more years and then … Glory!
The thought gave her courage.
Mary was frowning. One of her dearest wishes was to bring England back to Rome. This girl, young as she was—frivolous and coquettish—could do much to prevent this. Mary must weaken the Protestants, and what weakened a force more than the knowledge that one whom they looked upon as a leader had capitulated? There were three religious sections in England now. There were the Anglo-Catholics, who followed the religion established by Henry the Eighth, which was the same as the old religion with the exception that the sovereign, not the Pope, was the head of the church; there was the Protestant Church, now established as the Church of England since the Protestant Protectorate under Edward VI; and there was the old religion, which looked to the Pope as its head. The last, in the Queen’s eyes, was the true religion, and the one which she wished to see established throughout her realm.