Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,103

and begged her forgiveness, then came to Cambridge—”

“Take them away,” said Arundel. “The Earl of Warwick to the Beauchamp Tower, Lord Ambrose and Lord Henry to Coldharbour. The duke goes to the Garden Tower.”

“You could lodge him with me,” I suggested.

“No.”

John squeezed my hand tenderly as the guards moved in to take him away. “For mercy’s sake, my lord, can’t you let my lady go free? None of this business was her idea.”

“We’ll see,” Arundel said, looking at me but not into my eyes. He glanced at my own jailer, who had come to stand beside me. “In the meantime, my lady, I have no idea how you got here, but I will thank you to go back where you belong.”

***

Later, I heard four thousand men had been enlisted to keep order as John and the rest of the prisoners came to London, jeered at by the crowds who watched them pass and who pelted them with objects of various sorts all the way. Before entering London through Bishopsgate, Arundel, presumably not wanting the embarrassment of having his captive stoned to death, had ordered John to make himself less conspicuous by taking off his scarlet cloak, but that had not stopped the London mob from screaming vitriol at him, nor from waving the handkerchiefs stained with Somerset’s blood that so many had treasured as relics.

The mob was more subdued the next day when a new group of prisoners arrived, among them my son Robert, the Marquis of Northampton, and the Bishop of London. Now all of my sons were in prison.

Their captivity meant that a couple of hours after Robert had disappeared into the Bell Tower with Guildford, a knock came on my own chamber door. “Your Grace, now that your husband and sons are safely in custody, the council has ordered that you be freed. The crown has taken possession of Sion and Durham House, but you may stay at Durham House until other arrangements have been made.”

I did not much like the sound of that.

Attending me at the Tower were three ladies, a gentleman, and a groom. As the groom went to see to our horses and the others packed my belongings, I went outside and paced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of John or my sons at their windows before I left.

“It appears that your stay here has been a short one.”

I turned to see the Duchess of Somerset. Now that I saw her face-to-face, I found her hair was graying in spots, and she had a line between her eyes that had not been there before, but she was otherwise dressed well, if plainly. She even carried a pair of gloves. “Yes,” I said. “They are releasing me.”

“Edward wanted to marry our son to that girl. It is providential for our family that he did not succeed.”

“Yes.”

“Being shut up for a week seems to have damaged your conversational powers. I daresay if you had been here as long as I have been, you would be completely dumb.”

“I did try to influence John to release you, Anne. Your mother can attest to that.”

“Yes, she has mentioned it. She was disappointed, but I was not. I expected nothing different from John Dudley after what he did to my husband.”

“Anne, we have been through this! Your husband was not an innocent man.”

“And yours is? Subverting King Henry’s will to please the fancy of a sixteen-year-old boy is not guiltless behavior to me. But his judges will decide that. The biter may be bit.”

The attendants emerged from my lodgings, my coffers of belongings in their hands. “I must leave now.”

“Don’t let me detain you, then.” Anne Seymour turned away, then turned back to look at me. “I trust you will send my daughter back to me when I am free? With her husband in the Tower and you in reduced circumstances, it can hardly be pleasant for her.”

“If she wishes, I will gladly let her go to you.”

“Good,” the duchess said. “It may be necessary to seek an annulment. I am sorry, as I believe your son has been good to her, but one has to be practical about these things.”

“Yes,” I said. “One does.”

***

At Durham Place, I found I had plenty of company: even though John had not even gone to trial yet, the Crown had already begun to seize his goods, and the house was full of royal servants, meticulously writing down anything of value John and I owned. No place—not even my own bedchamber—was exempt from