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

back … she is the onlycompany worth having these days. She doesn’t argue, she doesn’t flatter…”

“I am here, YourMajesty. I didn’t leave.”

I grope forher and the comfort of a small smooth hand creeps into mine. IgnoringCornwallis as he takes leave of me, I urge the child to sit again.

“Your eyes arebad again today, Your Majesty?”

“The sightcomes and goes, child. One day I can see shapes and colours, the next I seenothing at all. Today is a dark day but tomorrow I might look upon your faceagain.”

“And the painin your belly?”

“Not so bad thismorning. Don’t worry, I shall live to finish my tale.”

“What was itlike to be queen, after so long of being ill used? Did you wreak vengeance onyour enemies straight away?”

I laugh, andmy chest crackles with the effort.

“Some of them,but with others … leniency was best. Those I allowed to live were spared forthe sake of England. The men who had supported me were good men, stout Catholicsand loyal to the realm but … they were not politicians and state craft is aspecialised matter. I had to pardon some whose heads I would rather have taken,but a monarch’s life is always one of compromise ... or it should be.”

Richmond – September 1553

As I had expected, there are manycomplaints from the Protestants in and around court. I am advised to treat themwith forbearance, and hope that Rochester is right when he advises me that persuasionrather than force is a better method of ensuring the return of the true faith.

Simon Renard, anambassador from the court of my cousin, Charles, quickly becomes my loyaladviser. Trying to ignore their failure to come to my aid when I needed it, I placemy trust in him. I invite him to attend me without the knowledge of my counciland he comes under cover of darkness.

He is small,dark and bearded with large sad eyes like a spaniel. He bends over my hand, hislips rather too moist on my wrist.

“I agree withthe advice you’ve been given,” he says when I put it to him. “Leniency andpatience is the best path … although your cousin, the Cardinal, will bedifficult to convince.”

Cardinal Pole,the son of my dearest friend, Margaret, is renowned for his intolerance. He fiercelydesires England’s return to Rome no matter the cost.

“I know littleyet of such things, Renard, but even I can see that it is a matter that shouldnot be hurried.”

“Let them comeback to grace of their own volition, Your Majesty. I am sure that once they seethe error of their ways, the preferment good Catholics receive, they willrealise it to be for the best.”

It is notuntil it is over that the full extent of the damage caused by my brother’sregime becomes evident. They destroyed centuries of devotion; stripped thecathedrals and the parish churches bare. They silenced our religious music, ourLatin prayers, and smashed our glorious architecture; our statues, ourbeautiful stained glass. So much has gone and so much of it is irreplaceable.

 I amdetermined to return as fully as I can to the old ways. I will replace thegreat roods burned in the heretic fires. I will restore the gilded lofts, the highgleaming altars of the true church, but I must do it slowly, by degrees.

When theabbeys fell in my father’s time, the church properties were given to some ofthe most powerful lords in the kingdom. To demand the return of what they nowsee as their homes will only offend and alienate them against me. It is notenemies but friends I need.

Within a fewdays of taking back my crown, I realised the loyal men who helped me were notpoliticians. I was forced to maintain the council that served my brother. Theypushed a usurper onto my throne yet I now have to trust them; I can only hopethat the realm of England means more to them than their aversion to me. It iswhile I am pondering on their dislike of me that I remember Norfolk is still inthe Tower, as he has been since the last days of my father’s reign.

There weremany in England who cheered my father’s death, but I have no doubt Norfolktopped the list. Had the king not died when he did, the duke would surely havefollowed his son to the scaffold.

Lazily, Irecall my terror in the face of his mistreatment. I can punish him now. I havehis houses, I have his wealth. Now, I can take his life.

The only thingthat stays my hand is his support for the old church. He can help me eraseheresy from this land as no other can. I push aside the memory of hisill-treatment and sign his release from the Tower.

A few dayslater, he comes into my presence, and I discover his arrogance is untainted byyears in a Tower cell. He has shrunk in body, his skin is jaundiced from lackof air, but all else remains the same. Even his nerve.

He removes hiscap and stiffly lowers himself to his knees. “Your Majesty,” he says and I waitunsmiling and watch his discomfiture increase.

Clutching thearms of the throne tightly, my knuckles white, I suppress the teenage girl thatstill lingers within me and longs to batter him about the head … until itresembles a baked apple. I wonder if he too remembers that day or if it is lostamid a thousand other insults... Our eyes meet and I see that he does. He bothremembers and rues it.

“My lord.” Mylips curl into a sneer of their own accord. “You seem to be in good healthconsidering the years you have languished at the king’s pleasure.”

“Oh, my bonesdo ache a bit, Your Majesty.”

I expect theydo. He must be eighty if he is a day but I feel no pity. Where was hiscompassion when he was in his prime and I a young defenceless girl?

“You must besurprised to see me here, on the throne of England, my lord … after you fought sohard to keep me from it? I imagine you thought it a day that would never come.”

“Indeed, itmakes me very glad, Your Majesty. Had I been free I would, of course, haveridden in your