In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,227

of Women. It was banned in England but this did not prevent reckless people bringing it into the country.

I was indeed the Jezebel. According to my father, I had been a bastard. I had no right to the throne. God must be punishing England for her sin in allowing a woman to reign over her. He referred to my “Bloody Tyranny.”

It was then that people began to call me “Bloody Mary.”

I was deeply unhappy. People were dying for their faith, it was true. But how many more had suffered, and as cruelly, in my father's reign? Yet no one had hurled abuse at him. He had sent them to their deaths because they disagreed with him; I had done so because these victims had disagreed with God's Holy Writ. Why should I be so stigmatized when none had questioned him?

There was disaster everywhere. Calais lost, and my people and my husband deserting me. My friends were dying round me. What had I to live for? Only the child which I deceived myself into thinking I carried in my womb. I had to. It was my only reason for living.

I was ill. There was no disguising the fact. I suffered from the same fever which had attacked Reginald. He was dying. Every time a messenger came from him, I feared it was to announce his death.

News came that the Emperor Charles had died. I felt deeply depressed. I had not seen him since my childhood, but I had always felt that he was there to help me in my need. He had not always done so, I know, but it had been comforting to know that he was there…a friend.

Everything around me was changing. I wrote to Philip begging him to come to me. I knew now that the swelling in my body was due to dropsy.

Yet another disappointment, but those around me had never believed it was anything else.

I left Hampton Court for St. James's. Something told me I had not long to live.

Philip would not come to me. He was too deeply involved elsewhere. He deplored the loss of Calais. “But we shall recover it,” he wrote. He had made me name Elizabeth as my heir, for, as he pointed out, if I did so, that would avoid the possibility of civil war.

He did not say he was expecting my death, but I guessed that he was. He would have been told of my increasing infirmity…of my poor dropsical body which had succeeded twice in deluding me into thinking I was about to become a mother. He told me Reginald Pole would comfort me. Did he not know that Reginald, wandering in a shadowy world of his own, was past giving comfort to anybody?

Susan and Jane Dormer were with me. Jane was very beautiful, young and in love with the Count of Feria, who was soon to be her husband. I rejoiced with her and hoped she would know all the happiness which had been denied to me.

I had asked her not to marry until Philip came back.

Now I thought, when will that be? Dear Jane must not wait so long. I told her so. “You are fortunate,” I added. “The Count is one of the most charming men I ever met and, Jane…he loves you. That is wonderful.”

Jane turned away to hide her emotion. In the depth of her own happiness, she would understand how I had suffered from my loveless marriage.

When one knows that death is close, one looks back over one's life and sees events with a special clarity.

I have made so many mistakes. Yet I cannot see where I could have acted differently, except perhaps in my emotions, my tendency—in love only—to look upon what should have been clear to me and distort it to fit my own needs and desires. Why could I not have accepted our marriage as one of state? So many women of my kind had to do the same. I had been too old for marriage. Why did I not see that? If I had not married, everything might have been different. I would have ruled single-mindedly. I would not have been seeking to please him and so led my country into war. I should have acted on my own judgment.

Had I succeeded in the mission God had set me? I was not sure. We had returned to Rome but not very securely. I could not see into the future. I wondered what my successor would encounter. She would be