The Heretic Wind: The Life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England by Judith Arnopp (best ereader for students TXT) 📕

this beautiful world, and if there is muck inthe garden, I will navigate a path carefully around it.

But they willnot leave me in peace. In August, three members of my household, Robert Rochester,Francis Englefield and Edward Waldegrave, are summoned to Hampton Court toappear before the council. They are accused of ‘keeping the princess in the oldreligion.’ This is nonsense, of course. They are my servants and do as Icommand them. I need no man to tell me how to think.

They returnfrom London full of ‘advice’ as to how I should open my mind to the newlearning, read heretical works and submit myself to the devil. They haveclearly been coached in what to say. I cannot in all conscience allow themanywhere near my household chaplains. Instead, I send them straight back to HamptonCourt with a verbal message for the king’s council, and a letter addressedprivately to the king. As they ride away, I bite my lip at the things I havesaid in it and wonder if I might have gone too far.

Having formy part utterly refused heretofore to talk with them in such matters, trustedthat Your Majesty would have suffered me, your poor humble sister … to haveused the accustomed Mass, which the King, your father and mine, with all hispredecessors did evermore use: wherein also I have been brought up from my youth,and thereunto my conscience doth not only bind me, which by no means will sufferme to think one thing and do another, but also the promise made to the Emperor,by Your Majesty’s Council, was an assurance to me that in so doing I should notoffend the laws, although they seem now to qualify and deny the thing… Bearwith me as you have done, and not to think that by my doings or example anyinconvenience might grow to Your Majesty or your realm

I fear that inthe writing of it, my brain seemed to overtake my fingers and I added: …ratherthan offend God and my conscience, I offer my body at your will, and deathshall be more welcome than life with a troubled conscience.

Now that theletter has been dispatched, I begin to fear the council might bear upon theking to act upon my offer. The thought of the Tower fills me with dread. It isa drear place, a palace of lost hope, peopled with ghosts and scented withtreason.

To my greatchagrin, my messengers are immediately incarcerated in the fleet. No amount ofcomplaining or ranting can persuade the council to free them. Consumed with amix of fury and remorse, I turn to Susan, who is my only friend.

“Oh Susan, Ishould not have instructed them to say such things. My hasty words have stolentheir liberty and Rochester is not well…”

“You were notto know, my lady, and the council should not have taunted you. They’ve no rightto treat you so. It is they who sin.”

“It is me theywant to lock up really but they daren’t – not with Spain waiting for an excusefor war. Rochester and the others are being used as my whipping boys; they sufferin my place and the council know that I am impotent against them.”

The door opensand a servant offers a letter on a tray. I take it, recognising the royal seal.I glance up at Susan and she smiles encouragingly … so I break the wax andunfold it.

“They arecoming to see me, on Tuesday next.”

“Who is, mylady?”

I hand her theletter so she can see for herself.

“The lords Rich,Wingfield and Petre; bringing further instruction from the king.”

The next fewdays pass in an agony of the unknown. They might come with chains to take meinto custody; they might come with an assassin to put an end to my impertinence.Briefly, I consider the possibility that they come to offer a solution that is suitableto us all … but no, I am certain that they will come with threats andadmonishments. I can sense it.

I keep themwaiting while I slowly attend to the final details of my toilette. Then,dressed in deep black velvet and as many pearls as I own, I descend to thehall. The servants throw open the door and I march in, my head high, ready forthe fight.

Three beardedfaces turn toward me. Their expressions are hostile, their eyes cold as theyregard me. The troublesome princess whom, I’d lay money, they wish had died inthe womb like her siblings.

They do notbeat about the bush. Rich draws out a piece of paper and starts to read fromit.

“We haveorders from the king; His Majesty does resolutely determine it just, necessaryand expedient that you should not any ways use or maintain the private Mass orany other manner of service than such as by the law of the realm is authorisedor allowed.”

I narrow myeyes.

“I am and everwill be His Majesty’s most humble servant but in matters of conscience I mustlet God be my guide. I cannot hear any service other than that left by myfather until such time as King Edward reaches his majority...”

And is nolonger led by fools, I add silently. Rich’s face grows purple, his eyesbulging with suppressed fury. It must be difficult to stand before a princessof the realm, bastard or not, and not take measure of one’s words. It must haveoccurred to them that I may one day be their queen. They know I will neverforget this. Lord Rich takes a deep impatient breath.

“These aredecrees laid down by the king…”

“Decrees putinto his mouth by the likes of you, my lord, and you, Petre. My brother canorder the kingdom as he likes but I will not be so ordered. I will lay my headon the block if I have to.”

My belly flipsat my own words and I send up a silent prayer that they take as little noticeof this as they have my other offers of martyrdom.

They bilge andbluster for a while longer; angry one moment, cajoling the next. I remain on myfeet, forcing them to stand too, preventing the meeting from becoming toocomfortable. We are eye to eye, chin to chin, their stubbornness matching mine,but their dislike cannot compete and neither can their resolve[CP3] .

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