“My father would never let me go.”
“Certainly he would not. It would be a great blow to him if he thought you were with the Emperor, for if he declared his marriage to Anne Boleyn nall and void, you are the heir to the throne.”
“But he has declared his marriage to my mother was no true one, and it was said by the bishop at her funeral service that she admitted it, which was a lie, I know … but it was all done at my father's command.”
“That was before he knew that Anne Boleyn had lost the child. All is different now. Her reign is over.”
“They say that he plans to put another in her place.”
He nodded. “We cannot be sure which way events will turn but you must be prepared.”
“What do you suggest?”
“This is highly secret. If it were mentioned outside these walls, it could cause trouble…great trouble. It would cost you your life and there would be little I could do to save it. I should immediately be sent back to Spain. You understand the importance of secrecy?”
“I do.”
He nodded. “My plan is to get you out of this place. There will be horses waiting to take us to the coast, and there we shall cross to Flanders.”
“I shall be taken to my cousin?”
He nodded.
“Now, we must plan. Could you get away without your women's knowledge?”
“I have few servants now, you know.”
“That is good.”
“There are some whom I can trust.”
Chapuys shook his head. “Trust no one. You must slip away unseen. No one must know that you have gone until you are on the sea.”
“They are here. They would see me leave. Unless I gave them a sleeping draught.”
“Would that be possible?”
“I think so…if I had the draught.”
“That would be an easy matter.”
“I should have to avoid Lady Shelton.”
“Would that be difficult?”
“Less so now. She is not so watchful as she once was. She no longer acts like my jailer.”
“This sounds plausible. We should have horses waiting. We could get to Gravesend easily from here… and there embark. You will be hearing more of this from me.”
After he had gone, I lay in my bed thinking of it. I should be taken to my cousin. I remembered so well that occasion—years and years ago it seemed now—when my mother had held my hand and we had stood on the steps at Greenwich while the barge came along. I could see my dazzling father and beside him the young man in black velvet with the gold chain about his neck… the young man with whom I had been told I was in love.
He had broken our engagement, but I had forgiven him that now. I understood that monarchs such as he were governed by expediency. I forgave him for that and for not coming to my rescue as a knight of chivalry and romance would have done, however difficult.
I was no longer romantic. Events had made me cynical, yet still there was a softness in me. I was capable of loving deeply, which was clear by the sorrow the loss of my mother was causing me.
SO WE PLANNED and Chapuys visited me often. Lady Shelton made no objection. Chapuys was deeply anxious that all should go well, for if it did not, there would be dire consequences.
He told me that he was making arrangements with the utmost secrecy and would bring the sleeping draught to me when it was to be administered. I had practiced what I must do. I had made a careful study of how I should go without passing Lady Shelton's window. We must wait for a moonless night when all would be ready.
Lady Shelton came to me the day after I had had a visit from Chapuys and he had told me that, as soon as the moon waned, we would put our plan into action.
She said; “Madam, my lady, we have orders. We leave tomorrow for Hunsdon.”
“But …” I cried, “why?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Orders,” she said tersely.
After she had gone, I sat on my bed and stared at the window. This would change everything. We could not go tonight for the moon was too bright. Someone would almost certainly see me creeping across the garden. Besides, the horses would not be ready. Everything had to be perfect. Had someone heard? How could I be sure? There were spies everywhere. I could not believe that it would be someone in my household.
Chapuys came to see me in some consternation.
“Hunsdon,” he said.
“Hunsdon! It will be too difficult from Hunsdon. We could not do it in a night. We should have to ride through the countryside. We should have to change horses. We should be detected. Everything depends on the closeness to Gravesend.”
“What do you suggest that we do? That we give up the plan?”
“Not give it up. Postpone. You will be moved again perhaps. Let us hope it will be back here. One thing I am certain of: we cannot do it from Hunsdon.”
I was not sure how disappointed I was. Now that I had lost my mother, I often thought I had lost my interest in life and my reason for living.
So the plan was set aside and in due course I came to my home at Hunsdon.
I HAD CEASED to brood on what my fate would have been if the escape plot had proceeded, for events were moving very fast at Court. The rift between the King and Anne Boleyn was widening; his feelings for Jane Seymour were deepening; and people were rallying to the Seymour family as before they had to the Boleyns. Chapuys was excited. He believed that the marriage was about to be declared invalid, and he considered what that would mean to me. But if my father was enamored of Jane Seymour, his desire would be to get a son from her; he could still do that if he divorced Anne, for now that my mother was dead he would be free to marry, even in the eyes of the Pope—though my father did not have to care for his opinions now. We all knew that he could without much difficulty cast off Anne Boleyn. He only had to trump up a charge against her. Adultery was the most likely for, according to reports, she was always surrounded by admiring young men, and her attitude was inclined to be flirtatious with them.
Chapuys was watching the situation closely, and his visits to me were more frequent. He told me that my father had people looking into the possibility of a divorce.
“There seem to be some difficulties,” said the ambassador. “All the proceedings were so closely linked to his marriage with your mother, and he does not want that brought out again. It will remind people of his quarrel with the Pope. He just wants to rid himself of Anne Boleyn as simply and speedily as possible.”
“What do you think he will do?”
“He might try charging her with adultery, which would have farreaching effects. Treason to himself… foisting a bastard on the nation as the King's child… all good reasons for getting rid of her.”
It was long since I had thought of the child Elizabeth. How I had resented her when we were both at Hatfield and I was more or less a member of her household. Poor baby, it was no fault of hers. Yet I had hated her. That was just because I had been insulted by her taking precedence over me. Now I thought: Poor child, is she to be treated as I was? What will become of her?
The winter was over, and spring had come; and my father was still married to Anne Boleyn. I heard rumors of the quarrels between them, how she had discovered him with Jane Seymour behaving like lovers, how she had raged and ranted against him and had been told she must take what her betters had before her. So he remembered my mother and admitted the anguish he had caused her. And the proud, brazen Anne Boleyn, how would she take that?
Everyone knows what happened on that May Day, how they were together at the joust at Greenwich, how the King did not speak to Anne as she sat beside him in the royal lodge, how she took out a handkerchief, wiped her brow and allowed it to flutter to the ground, how one of the courtiers—Norris, I think—picked it up on his lance and held it to her with a bow, how the King suddenly turned away in anger and so the joust ended.