B009RYSCAU EBOK (14 page)

“No, they are at Northaw. London is no place for them, without someone to care for them, and I am so busy here. But I do miss having them about me.”

“What is the news at court?” Bess asked, as they moved to sit before the fire.

“Gardiner has done himself further harm, I think. He refused His Majesty’s request for the exchange of some episcopal lands, and now it seems he is barred entrance from the privy chamber.”

“And that is important?”

“That is very important, for it means being close to the king’s person. Every man fears his enemies will try to poison the king’s mind against him, and bring him down, and only by being near the king, or having friends near, can he defend himself.”

“Gardiner has earned himself many enemies,” Bess said. “Does he still have friends?”

“He has allies still, though they are growing fewer, and their power is growing less. Self-interest and fear bind men together, but as the ground shifts, so do their allegiances. Wriothesley can tell which way the wind is blowing, and now he seeks to ally himself with Edward Seymour and John Dudley, who lately he sought to destroy.” William smiled grimly. “Even Norfolk is courting Edward Seymour’s favor now. He has got the king’s permission to wed his daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, to Thomas Seymour.”

Bess thought of Thomas Seymour flirting with her and Lizzie in the privy garden. She had felt a thrill of excitement and danger when he looked at her that she never felt when she was with William. Such spice was alluring, she thought, but was not a dish for every day. She tried to imagine being married to Thomas Seymour. She would always wonder where his eyes were roving. William had got up to poke the fire into life and she studied his face. Intelligent, kind, calm. Life as his wife might lack passion, but with him beside her, she would feel the earth steady beneath her feet.

* * *

W
HEN
W
ILLIAM CAME TO VISIT
B
ESS ON THE EVENING OF THE THIRTEENTH
of December, she could tell even before he spoke that he was agitated. He kissed her in greeting but then paced instead of sitting.

“What’s amiss, William?” she asked.

“Great changes are afoot. Norfolk was arrested yesterday. And his son, the Earl of Surrey, today, as he dined at Whitehall. Both are taken to the Tower.”

Bess was astonished, and fear rippled up her spine.

“On what cause?”

“Surrey has been making trouble all along, contriving how he may secure the regency and control of the prince when the king is dead. And now that time is coming closer, and it seems likely that Edward Seymour will be given that position, Surrey hatched another plan—to replace the queen with his sister.”

“The king’s own daughter-in-law!” Bess cried. Mary Howard, the Duchess of Richmond, was the widow of King Henry’s bastard son Henry Fitzroy. “Besides, I thought she was to marry Thomas Seymour.”

“That was Norfolk’s plan, but she would have none of it, nor would Thomas Seymour. Surrey erred gravely in counseling her to angle for the affections of the king.”

“Come, sit,” Bess urged him. He let her guide him to a chair before the hearth and took her hand and kissed it as she brought him wine.

“Now tell me all,” she said, when she had got her own cup of wine and was seated beside him.

“The king is at Oatlands, as you know. A few days ago he fell ill of a fever.” William lowered his voice. “His life is feared for. The council has been meeting at Edward Seymour’s house, which may tell you in what ascendancy he is. I think he and Dudley thought to make hay while the sun shone, or to strike against Norfolk and Surrey while the iron was hot, to mix my figures of speech. For they accuse Surrey now of seeking the throne himself.”

“And does he?”

“Likely not, but was ill advised enough to replace the coronet on his coat of arms with a crown. Of course he says he bears them by right of descent from Edward IV, and it may well be, but the appearance is all in these things, and it looks very bad. His sister has hurt him, too; she says he declared that if God called away the king the Seymours should smart for it. The implication was that he would be in a position to do them ill, for he would have governance of the prince. But what has finished him is that his friend—well, friend no longer—Richard Southwell has given the council information that is enough to convict him of treasonous plots against the king. And the king hasn’t trusted Norfolk since the Catherine Howard mess. It’s a wonder he hasn’t found reason to be rid of him before now.”

Bess was afraid at the thought of yet another plot, more men swept into the maw of the Tower, more heads upon the block. But it was William’s patron Edward Seymour who had the upper hand, she reminded herself. And others who were friends of his and friends of the Greys. Surely this danger would not touch him or her.

“What does it mean?” she asked. “What will happen?”

“It means that Gardiner and Wriothesley and all their faction are down and will stay down. And for Norfolk and Surrey, it will surely mean death.”

* * *

T
HE TWELVE DAYS OF
C
HRISTMAS HAD BEEN SUBDUED, FOR THE
king was very ill, sequestered at the palace in Greenwich and attended by doctors. Only the queen, the Lady Mary, and a few members of the privy council were let into the king’s bedchamber.

Now the Grey household and a handful of friends were gathered for Twelfth Night supper. “You should have heard the king speak when he prorogued parliament on Christmas Eve,” William told Harry Grey, “chastising them like a schoolmaster over unruly boys. ‘Discord and dissension rule in every place,’ he roared, and ‘the Word of God is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern.’”

“I fear me that the lion has roared for the last time,” Harry Grey said quietly. “Let us hope that the cub is sharpening his claws.”

“The prince will be safe enough, and with wise heads around him,” William responded. “There are no more wolves, snarling and nipping at each’s heels now that Norfolk and Surrey are penned in.”

After supper, Bess and William retreated to the parlor where they had spent so many companionable hours together over the past months.

“Is the king really dying, then?” Bess asked.

“He can’t last long,” William said, nodding.

Bess hated the king for Cat’s death, for how he had frightened kind Queen Catherine, for his murder of the old Countess of Salisbury, and for the pall of terror that he had cast over England for so long. She imagined him as he must be now, his great bulk mounded over with bedclothes in a dark bedchamber, listening to the whispers of his doctors and councilors, and knowing that the one enemy he could not vanquish was hovering at the door. But as long as he breathed, she would fear him.

“God keep His Majesty,” she whispered. “And grant him comfort if not longer life.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Thirtieth of January, 1547—Dorset House, London

B
ELLS WERE TOLLING ALL OVER
L
ONDON.
S
TANDING AT THE PARLOR
window, Bess could hear the bells of the churches near Dorset House and the discordant tones from farther away, making the very air seem to echo with the clangor. King Henry was dead. As she gazed out over the city, she could feel nothing but relief and a slight sense of bafflement. How would England get on with a ten-year-old king?

She heard voices outside the room—Lady Dorset, and surely that was William talking to her. She smiled as they entered.

“I must see to some things,” Frances Grey said. “Bess, come see me when Sir William has gone.”

“Of course,” Bess said, but Lady Dorset was already on her way out of the room. William stood for a moment, looking slightly awkward, it seemed to Bess, before he came to her and kissed her. She gestured to the chairs before the fire where they had sat so often.

“Edward Seymour has gone to Hertford Castle to bring young Edward back to London,” William said after a few moments. “The prince will be proclaimed king tomorrow.”

“God save him, and grant him long life.”

“Amen to that prayer.” He took her hands in his. “Bess, Edward Seymour is now Lord Protector, and he assures me that I will be reconfirmed as treasurer of the king’s chamber.”

“I’m so pleased for you.”

“Yes, I’m very well placed now with his support. The young king likes me well, and God willing, I will prosper in the new reign. Which brings me to the reason for my visit. Bess, will you consent to marry me?”

Bess had known that William was likely to ask for her hand before long, but now the moment was here the proposal left her speechless for a moment. Marrying William would sweep her into an entirely new life, one she could not have imagined for herself only a few months earlier. She would be Lady Cavendish, wife to a man esteemed by the king and the men closest to him, stepmother to his children, and mistress of her own household. More than she had dreamed possible. William was watching her, and she noted with a surge of tenderness that his gaze held hope and also perhaps a little uncertainty.

“Oh, William. You do me much honor. I will happily be your wife.”

William kissed her hands, and then sank onto the chair beside her and, taking her face in his hands, kissed her deeply, in a way that he had never done before. His beard tickled her lips and she found that she liked it.

“Oh, my dearest,” he said at last. “I am so glad.”

Bess felt touched at the happiness shining in his eyes. A new world was opening before her and already she was sure she had made the right choice.

“When will we be wed? And where will we live?”

“I must be in London some of the time, and I will rent a house that will be comfortable for you, as now I only stay in lodgings. But I would like us to make our home in Northaw, where my girls are. They’ll love you, I’m sure.”

Bess smiled to think of becoming a mother to William’s daughters.

“As for when, perhaps in the summer? There will be much to do over the next months, as the young king’s council sets about their business. And of course there will be the coronation. So I thought better to wait until things are quieter. What say you to that?”

Bess had a sudden pang as she thought of leaving young Jane Grey and her little sisters. That would be a difficult parting. Northaw was a day’s ride from London, and she would be busy managing the household and estate. Perhaps Jane could come to stay, she thought.

“That suits me well,” she said. “It will give me time to plan and make myself ready for all that awaits me.” She had a sudden vision of her mother’s joy on learning the news and smiled at William. “I must write to my mother. She will be so happy. I cannot wait for her to know you.”

* * *

“
N
ORFOLK HAS CHEATED THE HEADSMAN,”
W
ILLIAM TOLD
B
ESS ON
a cold evening a month after the king had died.

They stood side by side in the parlor, watching a late flurry of snow drift past the windows.

“He will not die, then?” Bess asked. The Earl of Surrey had been beheaded on Tower Hill only a week before King Henry’s death, but though his father, Norfolk, had been condemned, he had not yet been put to death.

“No,” William answered. “He was to be executed on the morning of the day that the king died, but the order was never given to send him to the block. I think they don’t know what to do with him now. No one dares send him to his death, lest taking that step should one day lead to his own. Not even the Duke of Somerset.”

On the day of King Henry’s funeral, Edward Seymour, now Lord Protector, had made himself Duke of Somerset. The other regents were ennobled, too. Seymour’s ally John Dudley was created Earl of Warwick and William Parr was made Marquess of Northampton. Thomas Wriothesley, who had successfully negotiated the perilous tides in which he had swum and come safe to shore under a new king, was now Earl of Southampton. King Henry had refused to include Thomas Seymour among the regents, but he, favored uncle of the new king, was now Baron Seymour of Sudeley Castle.

“Events are moving fast,” William said. “Already the heresy laws are repealed. King Edward is a reformer.”

Bess thought of Anne Askew and the other evangelicals who had died so recently for their beliefs, which were now quite legal.

“And it’s an odd thing,” William said, “but the prophecy caught up with King Henry.”

Bess turned to look at William. His face looked eerie in the flickering candlelight. “Prophecy?” she asked.

“During the king’s great matter, as it was called, a friar preached a sermon to the king that if he cast away Queen Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn, dogs should lick his blood, as they had done Ahab’s. Well, on the way to Windsor, the king’s funeral procession stopped for the night at Syon, and the king’s body lay in the abbey overnight.”

Bess felt gooseflesh shiver over her body. Syon Abbey was where Cat Howard had last been free, before she was bundled shrieking into the boat that would take her to the Tower and her death.

“In the morning,” William continued, “it was seen that the lead coffin had ruptured and dark fluid had pooled upon the floor. A plumber was sent for to seal the coffin. His dog came along with him.”

“No—!” Bess gasped.

“Yes. When the guards came back into the abbey, they saw that the dog was licking the blood from the floor.”