Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,101

allow me to serve you also.”

“Then it is settled,” Jane said. “Where do we stay?”

“The second floor of Master Partridge’s house, my lady, overlooking the Green. It is comfortable and airy, and you will have ample space.”

“Then let us go there now,” Jane said. “I am tired.”

Jane took leave of Harry, after which he disappeared from the room—going off, I suspected, to weep in private. I then took my daughter in my arms, “When I can, I will beg Queen Mary to show mercy to you,” I said in a low voice. “She and I were friendly in the past, and I hope that I can appeal to that friendship. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is to write to her, explaining what has happened. Do not denigrate her religion, whatever you do. Write as her young and penitent cousin. And it would do no harm to let her know your fears about poisoning.”

“But I have no proof.”

“That should not stop you from telling the queen about your suspicions. Present them as such, and let her decide.”

Jane nodded.

I was on the verge of breaking into tears. How could I leave my daughter a prisoner in the Tower? But I could do more for her outside the Tower than inside it, I knew. Besides, Mary would be merciful to her sixteen-year-old cousin. She knew where the blame should lie, and if perchance she did not, I would make sure she did.

33

Jane Dudley

July 19, 1553, to July 28, 1553

I am not a good prisoner; I found that out in the few days I spent in the Tower. I had been allowed to take all of the normal accoutrements of my life—my needlework, my prayer book, even a lute—with me, but all of these things sat unused in a corner, because I could not bend my mind to occupy myself with any mundane tasks. Instead, I paced up and down the room, then sat staring out of my window, and then when I tired of that, paced again.

Guildford was lodged in the Bell Tower; Jane, in the home of Nathaniel Partridge, one of the Tower jailers. I was in an almost identical house next to hers. My daughters and Jerome—all crying in terror, even Mary—had been taken to stay with Bridget, a widowed half sister of John.

My jailers had not been communicative at first, but an enameled ring had bought me the information that on July 20, John, hearing that the council had deserted Jane’s cause—and him—had walked to the marketplace at Cambridge and proclaimed Mary queen, even smiling and tossing his cap in the air as the occasion required. Then the Earl of Arundel—the whoreson who had said a tearful good-bye to him a week before—had come on Queen Mary’s orders to arrest him. My husband had fallen on his knees and begged Arundel to show him mercy, reminding him he had acted in everything with the consent of the council.

“My lord, you should have sought for mercy sooner,” the earl had replied.

And now my husband was on his way to the Tower. He would get here before Queen Mary, I supposed; she was coming from Framingham, where she had mustered her troops. Mary was proceeding to London in majestic slowness, allowing people to flock from everywhere to join her entourage as it approached the capital. John, and the rest of us, would have to wait until she arrived to learn our fates.

There were two groups of prisoners at the Tower: the old ones and the new. Young Edward Courtenay, then only a lad of twelve, had been put here in 1538 by King Henry, who had been convinced at the time the boy’s family was conspiring against him. Though no one had seen fit to let him out, his mother had been allowed to send in tutors for him, so he had grown into a well-educated young man, but one with no companions of his own age or degree. Recently he had found a new friend in Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, imprisoned in King Edward’s time for his refusal to support the king’s religious changes. With Mary’s arrival impending, they were considered almost as good as free, so I often saw them walking around Tower Green, talking earnestly, their guards at a respectful distance. The Duchess of Somerset, of course, was still here, with her mother to keep her company. Her steward, Francis Newdigate, frequently stopped by, bringing her news of her children and, the guards