Mary called to her a man whom she trusted completely; this was her old friend Sir Henry Bedingfeld.
“I have a task for you,” she told him, “which I would entrust to no other.”
“I shall execute it with all the strength at my disposal, Your Majesty.”
“I know it, dear Bedingfeld. That is why I give it to you. I know you will watch over her and that you will be just, both to her and to me. I speak of my sister.”
Bedingfeld was dismayed.
“Yes, my dear friend,” went on the Queen, “I have decided to put the Princess in your charge. You will watch over her night and day. Every action of hers will be noted and, if need be, reported to me. This is a difficult task I have set you, but, my lord, I do so because I know you to be one of the few about me whom I can trust.”
“I am your Majesty’s obedient and humble servant.”
But he showed himself to be perplexed, and Mary marveled that a man as courageous as Bedingfeld should be so disturbed at the prospect of guarding a young girl.
Elizabeth heard the approach of Sir Henry Bedingfeld with a hundred men-at-arms. From a window she saw them and when she knew that they were all about her apartments she feared this could mean only one thing, and her terrors returned. She clung to her favorite attendant, Isabella Markham, and cried: “Isabella, this is the end. I did not think I should greatly mind, but I do. My sister has sent Bedingfeld to see her orders carried out. Tell me … is the Lady Jane’s scaffold still in its place?”
“Hush, dearest Princess. I beg of you be calm as you always have been. Wait and learn what this means before you believe the worst.”
“Bedingfeld is my sister’s trusted knight. She has sent him to destroy me. I feared as soon as I entered this place of gloom that I should never leave it.” She cried out hysterically: “It shall not be an axe for me! I shall have a sword from Calais!”
Her ladies, knowing that she thought of her tragic mother, bent their heads and wept.
But it was not Elizabeth’s way to mourn for long. Very soon she became the imperious Princess. She cried: “Send for Bridges. Command him to come to me at once.”
When he came she demanded haughtily: “What means this? Have you not guards enough that you must send to my sister for more?”
“Your Grace refers to Sir Henry Bedingfeld and his company?”
“I do indeed.”
“Your Grace, this is not a matter for alarm, but for rejoicing. Sir Henry will soon present himself to you and tell you of his instructions. You are to leave the Tower.”
“To be freed?”
“You will be in the charge of Sir Henry, but no longer a prisoner in the Tower.”
Elizabeth was relieved. She was to change one captivity for another, but the Tower was a place of ill omen. But after a while she was conscious of some regret, for the Tower still held Robert Dudley.
The barge carried her from Tower Wharf to the Palace of Richmond, a strong company of guards accompanying her.
Her sister sent for her when she arrived at the Palace.
Mary, so recently recovered from what many believed would be a fatal illness, looked exhausted. She was nervously awaiting the coming of her bridegroom, with feelings which alternated between eagerness for him and apprehension as to what he would think of her.
The sight of her young sister—so healthful in spite of her recent imprisonment—filled her with melancholy and envy. What would Philip think when he saw this sister? Would he wish that she were the Queen of England and his bride?
But it was absurd to envy Elizabeth, whose life was in the utmost danger; and if Mary were wise, according to Gardiner and Renard, she would not hesitate to send that young lady to the block.
“So you are recently come from the Tower?” said Mary coldly.
“Yes, Your Majesty. By your great clemency, I come hither.”
“Many have spoken against you,” said the Queen.
“They lied who spoke against me,” said Elizabeth. “But Your Majesty is wise and recognizes the lies of a liar—as she does the poor babblings of those under torture—for what they are worth.”
“I am not convinced of your loyalty.”
Elizabeth opened her blue eyes very wide. “Your Majesty cannot mean that!”
“I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean. Now, sister, I know you well. Remember we have spent many years together. When there was trouble in your nursery, as I well remember, you had little difficulty in proving your innocence.”
“Your Majesty, it should be an easy matter for the innocent to prove their innocence. It is only the guilty who face an impossible task.”
The Queen waved a hand impatiently. “I have a husband for you.”
Elizabeth grew pale. She was tense, waiting.
“It is Philibert Emmanuel, the Duke of Savoy.”
“The Duke of Savoy!” echoed Elizabeth blankly.
She had expected death and had been offered a duke. To die would be the end of life, but to marry a foreign duke and leave England would mean abandoning all that she had hoped for. Only now did she fully realize how she had always longed to be the Queen of England. To resign her hopes would be as bad as death.
She said firmly: “Your Majesty, I could never agree to the match.”
“You could not agree!”
“I could not agree, Your Majesty.”
The Queen bent forward and said coldly: “What right have you to object to the husband I have chosen for you?”
Elizabeth was thinking of Robert Dudley as she had seen him through the bars of his cell—tall, dark, handsome … and those passionate daring eyes. If it were Robert … she thought. No, not for him would she abandon her dream. But she was not being offered Robert. She was offered a foreign prince whom the Queen favored because he was a vassal of Spain; and all things connected with Spain were good in the Queen’s eyes since she had taken a look at the picture of a short, trim young man who was destined to be her husband.
“There is only one reason why I could object to your choice, Your Majesty, and that is because I feel within myself that the married state is not for me.”
Mary looked cynically at her sister. “You … to be a spinster! When did you make up your mind to this?”
“I think, Your Majesty, that it is something I have always known.”
“I have not noticed that you have shown much maidenliness toward the opposite sex.”
“Your Majesty, it is because I have always felt thus that I have perhaps at times appeared to be unguarded.”
“Do you feel then that there is no need to guard that which you have determined at all costs to preserve?”
“Your Majesty, it is only necessary to put a guard on that which one is in danger of losing. My inclination for virginity being what it is, I had no need to restrain myself as have some maidens.”
“I would not have you come to me in frivolous mood.”
“Your Majesty, I was never more serious.”
“Then we shall contract you to the Duke of Savoy.”
Elizabeth folded her hands on her breast. “Your Majesty, I am of such mind that I prefer death to marriage.”
“I should not talk too readily of death. It could be reckless talk.”
“Your Majesty, I am reckless. I prefer death to betrothal to the Duke of Savoy.”
“We shall see,” said Mary.
She summoned the guard, and Elizabeth was taken back to her apartments, believing that her end was at hand.
She lay on her bed staring up at the tester. Her ladies were weeping quietly. She had come back from her interview with the Queen and had told them: “I think I am to die.”
Did she really prefer death to marriage with the Duke of Savoy?
For so many years she had dreamed that she would wear the crown. How many times had Kat Ashley read it in the cards? She could not give up that dream. But would she in truth rather die?