I understood, of course. She had risked his displeasure when she had talked to him of the Countess. She could not do it again by mentioning Elizabeth.
“It will change,” she assured me. “But as yet I dare not.”
I was liking her more every day.
She told me I must stay at Court. We had become such good friends that we should not be apart.
This was gratifying. Jane might be a mild creature but she was the Queen and might have a little influence on the King. It was an indication of how my character had changed that I could work out the advantages which could ensue from such a friendship. But on the other hand, I was fond of her. It was impossible not to be fond of Jane. I had a strong urge to protect her. She seemed to me like a lamb among wolves, unsuspicious of danger because, for the time being, they were not preparing to harm her.
So I did want her friendship and not only because of the advantages it might bring me. I even thought that at some stage I might be able to help her, for, one day, God knew, she might need any help she could get.
In the meantime she went on in her own sweet way and we were often together.
The King was pleased to see the friendship between us, though there were times when a tremor of fear ran through me because I thought I caught a gleam of suspicion in his eyes.
But Jane continued to delight in my company, and she confided to me that she very much wanted to bring Elizabeth to Court. “In time,” she assured me, “the King will forget her mother, and his attitude will change toward the child.”
I hoped so. But at the moment I must rejoice in my own return to favor.
All through that January I was with the Court. Jane whispered to me with great delight that she thought she was pregnant, and I rejoiced with her. By the beginning of March she was sure.
The King was absolutely delighted. At last he was going to get his son. When he did, he would know that Heaven approved of everything he had done to reach that happy state.
He talked continually of his son; he would pat Jane's stomach “Good girl,” he said. “This is the first of many.”
Jane was happy and at the same time fearful. She must have been feeling what the others had in their turn.
Would she produce the all-important son? And if not, what would happen to her?
SOON AFTER CHRISTMAS Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, had come to London to see the King. My father received him and listened carefully to his complaints. They should have consideration, he told him, and shortly he would make a visit to Yorkshire and visit the city of York, where his Queen might be crowned.
Robert Aske must have felt the visit was a great success, and he returned to his native Yorkshire. But of course the King was not going to give up the supremacy of the Church in favor of the Pope; he was not going to accept the Pope's judgement on his first marriage and declare me his legitimate daughter. I supposed he was just trying to show his benign nature to the people and hoped the revolt would simmer down.
But the people of the North were serious, and no sooner had Aske returned than a new revolt broke out. Sir Francis Bigod led this. The King marched north, and this time there was no miracle to save the rebels. They had no chance against the King's army. The leaders were caught and hanged in the cities where they had raised the revolt. Robert Aske came to London. This time he was sent to the Tower.
My father was done with peaceful negotiations. He was going to show these northerners who was their master.
Robert Aske was taken to York and hanged in chains, where his body was left for the crows and that all might see what happened to those who opposed the King's will.
The Pilgrimage of Grace was over, and the people, he hoped, had learned their lesson.
IT WAS AN ANXIOUS time for me because now I knew that every time there was an insurrection I should be in danger. There would always be a hint that the King was to be deposed, and I was the one who would be put in his place.
It was, of course, what I was working for; but it must come about in a natural manner. I was only twenty-one. Time was on my side. I felt in my heart that one day I was going to be Queen of this country and, when I was, my first mission would be to bring it back to Rome.
I was not yet ready for the task. I was too young. I had lived too far from the Court for too long. I had much to learn, and I must prepare myself. I must worship as my mother had—wholeheartedly. Religion must come first with me as it had with her; and the only reason why I could think and plan as I did, with a good conscience, was if I made it my first concern, my whole reason for living. I could believe that I had been sent on Earth for this one purpose: to bring the Church of England back to the true Roman Catholic fold.
So I could watch the decline of my father's health with mixed feelings. I was fond of him—odd as it may seem—but it is difficult to describe that unique temperament. One could hate what he did but not entirely hate him. One was warmed by his smile, though it might be fleeting; and to bask in his approval, uncertain as it was, brought a glow of happiness, a gratification, a delight that one had earned it. I cannot explain his charismatic charm; I can only think that it was that which kept men faithful to him— even those against whom he had committed the most outrageous and often barbaric acts.
With the Pilgrimage of Grace over and Jane pregnant, he was a happy man during those waiting months.
I was at odds with myself. I had become so fond of Jane. She admitted once her fear that the child might be a girl; it seemed unfair that she should suffer such anxiety over a matter in which she had no choice. Life was so unfair. If, through no fault of her own, she produced a girl, she would be despised, dubbed no better than her predecessors, and perhaps it would be the beginning of the end for her; on the other hand, if the child were a boy, she would be praised and fêted… good Queen Jane.
And my own position? As I said, I was fond of the girl. I wanted her to be happy; yet if she produced the boy, what of my hopes of achieving my mission?
It was not that I coveted the crown for myself. I wanted it for God and the true religion. It was a crusade, and I was to lead it. I was to bring this country back to the true Faith, which surely must find favor with God.
Now, long after, when I look back on all that happened, I can see why I did the things I did later. I had lived so much of my life on a precipice from which at any moment I could be hurled to disaster. That has an effect on people. Human life can seem of little value; it is the cause that is important. Yes, perhaps that is why I acted as I did. Am I trying to find excuses? Perhaps. But excuses there are, for our characters are surely formed by the events in our early years.
At this time I was fêted at Court, the dear friend of the Queen; and I had my father's favor—but how transient that favor could be everyone knew. The Pilgrimage of Grace had brought that home to me. Men's bodies were now rotting in the great cities of the North, reminding the King's subjects of what happened to them if they disobeyed him. I was his subject, and whenever there were risings of any sort, my name would be bandied about. They had known of my mother's unswerving faith, and they would believe that her daughter shared it. There would always be suspicions. I was not safe. At any moment the King's wrath could be turned on me.
I walked a dangerous path and, looking back, I see that it was even more perilous than I realized at the time.
The Pilgrimage of Grace and its outcome, the suppression of the monasteries… these matters hung over me, for I could not be free of them. In spite of the Queen's friendship and the King's newly discovered affection for his daughter, I lived in fear during those days when the Pilgrimage of Grace was remembered.
I traveled with the Court to Greenwich and back to Richmond and then to various other houses as the Court moved round for sweetening and visiting. And all the time my friendship with Jane was growing. I had not mentioned the Countess of Salisbury again, but I did talk to Jane now and then of Elizabeth; but, with the memory of the Pilgrimage of Grace still in his mind, the King was in no mood for listening to the plight of his young daughter.