and little Elizabeth was no longer my enemy but a motherless child, a forgotten daughter, just like me. Then the other queens …’ She almost smiled. ‘One after another, three other women came to me and I was ordered to curtsey to them as queen and call them Mother, and none of them came close to my heart. In that long time I learned never to trust a word that any man says and never even to listen to a woman. The last woman I loved was my mother. The last man I trusted was my father. And he destroyed her, and she died of heartbreak, so what was I to think? Will I ever be a woman who can trust now?’
She broke off and looked at me. ‘My heart broke when I was a little more than twenty years old,’ she said wonderingly. ‘And d’you know, only now do I begin to think that there might be a life for me.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, Hannah!’ she sighed and patted me on the cheek. ‘Don’t look so grave. It was all a long time ago and if we can triumph in this adventure then my story is ended happily. I shall have my mother’s throne restored, I shall wear her jewels. I shall see her memory honoured and she will look down from heaven and see her daughter on the throne that she bore me to inherit. I shall think myself a happy woman. Don’t you see?’
I smiled uncomfortably.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
I swallowed on my dry throat. ‘I am afraid,’ I confessed. ‘I am sorry.’
She nodded. ‘We are all afraid,’ she said frankly. ‘Me too. Go down and choose a horse from the stable and get a pair of riding boots. We are an army on the march today. God save us that we may make Framlingham without running into Lord Robert and his army.’
Mary raised her standard at Framlingham Castle, a fortress to match any in England, and unbelievably half the world turned up on horseback and on foot to swear allegiance to her and death to the rebels. I walked beside her as she went down the massed ranks of the men and thanked them for coming to her and swore to be a true and honest queen to them.
We had news from London at last. The announcement of King Edward’s death had been made shamefully late. After the poor boy had died, the duke had kept the corpse hidden in his room while the ink dried on his will, and the powerful men of the country considered where their best interests lay. Lady Jane Grey had to be dragged on to the throne by her father-in-law. They said she had cried very bitterly and said that she could not be queen, and that the Lady Mary was the rightful heir, as everyone knew. It did not save her from her fate. They unfurled the canopy of state over her bowed head, they served her on bended knee despite her tearful protests, and the Duke of Northumberland proclaimed her as queen and bent his sly head to her.
The country was launched into civil war, directed against us, the traitors. Lady Elizabeth had not replied to the Lady Mary’s warnings, nor come to join us at Framlingham. She had taken to her bed when she had heard the news of her brother’s death and was too sick even to read her letters. When Lady Mary learned of that, she turned away for a moment to hide the hurt in her face. She had counted on Elizabeth’s support, the two princesses together defending their father’s will, and she had promised herself that she would keep her young sister safe. To find that Elizabeth was hiding under the bed covers rather than racing to be with her sister, was a blow to Mary’s heart as well as to her cause.
We learned that Windsor Castle had been fortified and provisioned for a siege, the guns of the Tower of London were battle-ready and turned to face inland, and Queen Jane had taken up residence in the royal apartments in the Tower and was said to lock the great gate every night to prevent any of her court slipping away: a coerced queen with a coerced court.
Northumberland himself, the battle-hardened veteran, had raised an army and was coming to root out our Lady Mary, who was now officially named as a traitor to Queen Jane. ‘Queen Jane indeed!’ Jane Dormer exclaimed, irritably. The royal council had ordered Lady Mary’s arrest for treason, there was a price on her head as a traitor. She was alone in all of England. She was a rebel against a proclaimed queen, she was beyond the law. Not even her uncle, the Spanish emperor, would support her.
No-one knew how many troops Northumberland had under his command, no-one knew how long we could last at Framlingham. He would join with Lord Robert’s company of horse, and then the two men would come against Lady Mary: well-trained, well-paid men, experienced fighting men up against one woman and a chaotic camp of volunteers.
And yet, every day more men arrived from the surrounding countryside, swearing that they would fight for the rightful queen. The sailors from the warships anchored at Yarmouth who had been ordered to set sail to attack any Spanish ships which might be hanging offshore to rescue her, had mutinied against their commanders, and said that she must not leave the country: not because they had blocked her escape, but because she should be mounting the throne. They left their ships and marched inland to support us: a proper troop, accustomed to fighting. They marched into the castle in ranks, quite unlike our own draggle of farm labourers. At once they started teaching the men gathered at the castle how to fight and the rules of battle: the charge, the swerve, the retreat. I watched them arrive, and I watched them settle in, and for the first time I thought that Lady Mary might have a chance to escape capture.
She appointed an almoner to send out carts to bring in food for the makeshift army, which now camped all around the castle. She appointed building teams to repair the great curtain wall. She sent scouring parties out to beg and borrow weapons. She sent out scouts in every direction every dawn and dusk to see if they could find the duke and Lord Robert’s army in their stealthy approach.
Every day she reviewed the troops and promised them her thanks and a more solid reward if they would stand by her, hold the line; and every afternoon she walked on the battlements, along the mighty curtain wall which ran around the impenetrable castle, and looked to the London road for the plume of dust which would tell her that the most powerful man in England was riding at the head of his army against her.
There were very many advisors to tell the Lady Mary that she could not win a pitched battle against the duke. I used to listen to their confident predictions and wonder if it would be safer for me to slip away now, before the encounter which must end in defeat. The duke had seen a dozen actions, he had fought and held power on the battlefield and in the council chamber. He forged an alliance with France and he could bring French troops against us if he did not defeat us at once, and then the lives of Englishmen would be taken by Frenchmen, the French would fight on English soil and it would all be her fault. The horror of the Wars of the Roses, with brother against brother, would be re-lived once more if Lady Mary would not see reason and surrender.
But then, in the middle of July, it all fell apart for the duke. His alliances, his treaties, could not hold against the sense that every Englishman had that Mary, Henry’s daughter, was the rightful queen. Northumberland was hated by many and it was clear that he would rule through Jane as he had ruled through Edward. The people of England, from lords to commoners, muttered and then declared against him.
The accord he had stitched together to darn Queen Jane into the fabric of England all unravelled. More and more men declared in public for Lady Mary, more and more men secretly slipped away from the duke’s cause. Lord Robert himself was defeated by an army of outraged citizens, who just sprang up from the ploughed furrows, swearing that they would protect the rightful queen. Lord Robert declared for the Lady Mary and deserted his father but, despite turning his coat, was captured at Bury by citizens who declared him a traitor. The duke himself, trapped at Cambridge, his army disappearing like mist in the morning, announced suddenly that he too was for Lady Mary and sent her a message explaining that he had only ever tried to do his best for the realm.
‘What does this mean?’ I asked her, seeing the letter shaking so violently
