Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,62
I have always been one to expect the best,” Margaret said. She sipped her wine. “No. This time when I go back to Yorkshire, I think I shall be quite pleased to be away from court.”
19
Jane Dudley
November 1551 to January 1552
Whatever the people said later—and they said plenty of things—the Duke of Somerset was no Anne Boleyn, brought down by mere slander. There was evidence against Somerset, and it was damning. Sir Thomas Palmer claimed Somerset had been planning to invite my husband, the Marquis of Northampton, and others to a banquet to cut off their heads. Somerset was planning to raise the apprentices of London—a potentially unruly lot—in his favor. William Crane testified that my husband and other lords were to have their heads stricken off while dining at Lord Paget’s house. The Earl of Arundel, no friend to my husband, said he and Somerset and the duchess, meeting in the garden of Somerset House, had conspired to arrest John and the Marquis of Northampton, then throw them into the Tower. John Seymour, Somerset’s bastard brother, had seen Arundel, clad in an inconspicuous black cloak, visiting Somerset House. Michael Stanhope, the duchess’s half brother, had taken messages between Somerset and Arundel.
In the days before the trial, John conducted many of the interrogations of the witnesses himself, including that of Somerset. Each day he returned to Ely Place looking more disheartened, and a little older.
“I had no idea the man had come to hate me so much,” he said one evening. Then he went to his chamber and shut himself up there until the next morning.
***
At five in the morning on the first day of December, a barge, shrouded in fog, carried Somerset from the Tower to Westminster for his trial. Eager to catch a glimpse of their hero in his barge, two men leaned so far over the Thames that they plunged into the water and drowned.
I stayed at my brother-in-law’s home at Tothill Street, hard by Westminster, waiting for news. It came in fits and spurts from John’s men.
Somerset defended himself at the trial, batting back the charges against him with an ease that suggested, had life given him a different start, he could have found a career in the law. He had raised men, certainly, but only for his own protection for these uncertain times. He had never planned to raise the North, where his influence was but small. He scoffed at Palmer’s story of the banquet, saying his tale was more suited for Boccaccio than to the pleasant land of England. He demanded that Crane, whose confession was read at the trial, be produced to testify in person. But when questioned about whether he had planned to kill John and the rest, he said quietly, “I did speak of it, and think of it, but changed my mind.”
Hearing the account of his testimony from the messenger, I shivered in the warm chamber in which I sat.
The afternoon dragged on as the lords deliberated Somerset’s fate. Now and then, the cry would go up, “God save the Duke of Somerset!” Then I heard the pealing of bells, followed by shouts louder than any heard yet.
I flung open a window. “What news is there?” I shouted like a fishwife to the crowds passing below.
A man turned up an exultant face to me. “The good Duke of Somerset has been acquitted. He will go free!”
“Northumberland will hang within a week, I reckon,” added his companion. “We’ll see who’s the traitor now!”
I slammed the window shut and collapsed to the window seat, shaking.
Feet ran up the stairs. “It’s true?” I said to the messenger. “Somerset was acquitted?”
“Yes, Your Grace—but only of the treason charge. He was convicted of felony. What those dolts don’t realize is that he can still hang for that. If I were you, Your Grace, I’d get home before they figure that out.”
“The people love Somerset that much?”
“I’m afraid they do, Your Grace.”
***
Toward Christmas, John flung into my chamber and placed a coin in my hand. “What does this look like to you?”
I studied the coin. It bore the three royal lions, but they looked misshapen. “They look odd. What happened?”
“The die broke. Tell me. Do these lions look like the bear and ragged staff of Warwick?”
“No.”
“Tell that to the people. That is the latest lie they are telling, that I have produced coins at Dudley Castle bearing my own insignia. It is a sign of how I am aspiring to the crown.”