Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (72 page)

When Philpott returned to Calais the next morning, he brought another missive from Botolph. In this one, Botolph requested that his debts be repaid in ducats from Parma or in French crowns. He also wanted Ned to send him the books he’d left behind.

“And he asked to borrow your servant,” Philpott added. “He wants Browne to go with him as far as Bruges, as it is unwise for a gentleman to travel alone.”

Since Ned was already planning to send Browne as far as Gravelines to deliver Botolph’s money and the other items, he agreed. It hardly mattered if his man rode on a little farther.

“And he said you had some coins for me,” Philpott added.

Belatedly, Ned remembered the broken papal crowns. After that, try as he might, he could not quite shake the niggling fear that Botolph might have been serious about herring time.

A
S
M
ARCH TURNED
into April and April advanced, it became abundantly clear to Nan that Catherine Howard would succeed in pushing out Queen Anna. The king rarely left Catherine’s side and was clearly besotted with her.

On the twenty-third of April, Lord Lisle arrived at court. He paid his respects to the king, but then he retreated to his lodgings, pleading the sudden onset of illness. Nan, worried about him, visited him the following evening. Her stepfather was the oldest man she knew and, in spite of his usual robust good health, he could not live forever.

She was relieved to find him in good spirits in spite of being propped up in bed and wrapped in furs. He greeted her with a thunderous sneeze. His eyes were red and watery. He’d rubbed his nose raw and used handkerchiefs littered the counterpane. Nan kissed his cheek in greeting, then stepped back a prudent distance.

“I sound worse than I feel.” Lisle swabbed his dripping nose. “This is only a nasty catarrh. A few days’ rest and I will be back to my old self.”

“I devoutly hope so, my lord.” When he fell into a fit of coughing, she found a pitcher of spiced ale on the sideboard, filled two cups, and handed him one of them.

“I have incentive to recover quickly.” He sipped and gave a contented sigh. “I have every expectation of being elevated in the peerage during this visit to court. An earldom, Nan—what do you think of that?”

“That you have served the Tudors long and well and deserve a sign of royal favor.” Nan perched near Lord Lisle’s feet, sinking down into the soft feather bed.

“Honor will be pleased. She and your sisters are in good health. So is my daughter, Frances, and the child she gave birth to last May.”

The baby, Nan recalled, had been christened Honor Bassett. Mother
and child remained in Calais while Nan’s brother continued to study law at Lincoln’s Inn. It was a sensible arrangement, as the marriage had been. Frances’s union with her stepbrother kept her inheritance in the family. According to Ned Corbett, the two got along as well as any married couple.

That reminded Nan that she had not seen Ned for some time and that, during his last visit, they’d quarreled. When she’d heard that John Husee had left Lord Lisle’s employ, she’d-half expected that Ned would be appointed to fill his place, but the post was still vacant.

Thinking of Ned—to be honest, missing Ned—inevitably reminded Nan of the son she had borne him. It had been even longer since she’d seen young Jamie. With both Cousin Kate and Catherine Howard suspicious of her, she’d not dared risk a trip into London. She’d consoled herself with the knowledge that even if Jamie were her legitimate child and his father some wealthy nobleman, she’d not be able to spend much time with him. Cousin Mary rarely saw her boy. Even the Countess of Rutland, who regularly journeyed to Belvoir Castle with Cat in tow, had a limited amount of time to spend with her children.

“The young seigneur de Bours has been to visit,” Lord Lisle said when he’d recovered from another bout of coughing. He frowned. “That is a matter I must broach with the king as soon as I recover. The lad wants to marry your sister. A letter from his uncle, as head of the family, formally proposing to open negotiations, arrived just after I left Calais. Your mother sent it on to me in Dover. I must have the king’s approval before I can go forward in the matter.”

“I cannot think why His Grace should object to Mary’s betrothal. She has no Plantagenet blood in her veins.”

“True. Perhaps I can leave the business until later. I have a great deal more to speak about with His Grace. These are difficult times in Calais.” His fingers fumbled with the fur he kept wrapped around himself. His brow furrowed, adding new creases to a face already deeply lined with age.

“Has something in particular happened?” Nan sipped the spiced ale,
untroubled by any premonition of disaster. There was always unrest in the Pale.

“A most nefarious plot against the Crown,” her stepfather said.

“Treason?” That, too, was all too common. Someone always seemed to be fomenting rebellion or preaching sedition.

“Of the worst sort—betrayal by members of my own retinue.”

Suddenly uneasy, Nan slid off the foot of the bed and set her cup on the sideboard. “Who has betrayed you, my lord?”

Lisle rattled off a list of names, but Nan heard only one—Corbett.

Her heart stuttered and she couldn’t remember how to breathe. Ned … and treason?

“Sir Gregory Botolph conceived the dastardly plan. The depositions contradict each other on numerous points, but it seems certain that Botolph went to Rome, met with Cardinal Pole, and conspired with him to open the gates of Calais to England’s enemies during herring time, when the town is crowded with strangers.”

“Enemies?” Nan echoed in a choked whisper.

Lisle’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “No one was too clear about what army would come. The French, perhaps. Or the emperor’s men. Someone allied with the pope, that much is certain. When Clement Philpott first came to me with his story, I did not believe him. But when those he accused were questioned, they confirmed everything he told me.”

“Where is … Philpott now?” Nan did not dare ask after Ned. If she spoke his name, the tremor in her voice would betray the depth of her concern for him. She clasped her hands together to hide their trembling.

“Philpott, Corbett, and the rest are in the Tower of London. After they were examined in Calais and gave their depositions, they were brought over to England in the greatest secrecy. I suppose the torturer will have a go at them now, although I suspect they have already confessed everything they know.”

Nan squeezed her eyes shut, but nothing could block out the horrible images crowding into her mind. She had heard terrifying stories about men stretched on the rack until they would admit to anything just to put
an end to the pain. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. It would not do to let the extent of her agitation show. Any association with a traitor could put a man, or a woman, at risk of being accused of that same crime.

When she had regained a measure of control, she asked, “Are all those arrested equally guilty?”

Lisle blew his nose before answering. “Corbett admits to no more than a single meeting with Botolph in Gravelines and to helping the fellow retrieve money owed him and a few belongings he left behind in Calais. But Corbett did not just convey those things to Botolph. He ordered his manservant to accompany the villain partway to Louvain. He helped Botolph escape the king’s justice.”

Nan blinked at him, and only with difficulty grasped his meaning. “Do you mean to say that all these men are imprisoned in the Tower of London while Sir Gregory, who devised the scheme, remains free?”

“Exactly so. He is at large somewhere in the Low Countries. Flanders, perhaps. No one knows. The king’s agents are trying to track him down. In the meantime, because I brought this treasonous plot to light, Lord Cromwell assures me that I will remain high in royal favor. As soon as I am well again—for you know how His Grace abhors sickness!—I will present myself to King Henry. An earldom is in the offing as my reward for diligence. I am sure of it.”

Nan tried to match his smile, but she was glad the light was dim in the bedchamber. She had a feeling the expression on her face was closer to a grimace. If Lord Lisle did not see the flaw in his logic, she was not about to point it out to him. She had no doubt that Clement Philpott had also expected to benefit from exposing the plot.

Nan suspected that her stepfather would return to Calais with no greater honors than he already possessed. That the plot had been conceived on his watch would count against him in the king’s eyes, and Cromwell would likely use the debacle to have him replaced as lord deputy.

She felt pity for her stepfather, but she did not fear he’d come to any real harm. What Ned Corbett faced, however, terrified her. When she
had coaxed Lord Lisle into telling her all he knew of the prisoners, she made her excuses and returned to the maidens’ chamber.

Her eyes blurred, blinding her as she fumbled her way out of her clothing and into her bed. Her heart felt as if it had been rent in two. She wanted to wail and tear at her hair, but she was not alone in the dormitory. She could only lie still, silent tears coursing down her cheeks, until she finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

One of her lover’s letters was carried in her bosom when she was found by Lord Sussex … and this, with various others, she threw down the garderobe on the advice of the daughter of Lord Hussey of Lincolnshire.

—Elis Gruffudd of the Calais retinue, Chronicle (translated from the Welsh Mostyn MS)

Mary Bassett hath written with her own hand as much of the effect of the letters cast into the jakes as she can call to her remembrance, as she saith, which we send you here enclosed, with certain other French letters found in the house.

—the Earl of Sussex and Sir John Gage to Lord Cromwell, 5 June 1540

12

Ned Corbett woke from a nightmare, the scream of agony lodged in his throat. Sweat covered his body in spite of the chill of the stone walls and floor. He wrapped the single blanket he’d been given more tightly around his shoulders and fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and curl himself into a ball.

He was still in a bad dream, but he was not going to wake up from this one. Hiding from the truth would do no good, either. He lay on his back on a straw-filled pallet and stared at the bars on the nearest window. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London, charged with treason. He had not been tortured yet, but it was only a matter of time. His imagination had already supplied the gruesome details.

Afterward, as a confessed traitor, he’d be taken out of his cell, marched under guard across the bridge over the moat, past the Lion Tower and through the gate. They’d deliver him to the Guildhall for trial, but the verdict would already be a given and the punishment, too. Then it would be back to the Tower until it was time for one last journey, this time to Tyburn.

Hanged, drawn, and quartered.

That was the fate of traitors.

Ned swallowed hard and swiped at the sweat on his face with one dirty sleeve. No. He must not give up. All he had to do was stick to the story he’d already told, the one that left out all the details Botolph had given him in Gravelines.

Ned had admitted he’d taken personal belongings to Botolph. He’d even confessed to having possession, briefly, of the ten broken crowns, although he’d claimed he’d never opened the packet. But he’d steadfastly insisted he knew nothing about any plot to overthrow Calais. The only one who could say that was a lie was Botolph himself. As far as Ned knew, the villainous priest was still at large on the Continent. Ned sent up a silent prayer for the other man’s safety. His own life might depend upon the priest’s continued freedom.

In all honesty, he
was
guilty of treason.

He should have reported Botolph directly to Lord Lisle as soon as he returned from Gravelines. He should have turned on his friends. That might have saved him. Then again, it might not have.

Ned stared at the cold, damp stones hemming him in. His cell was separate from the one where the others were being held, the men arrested because Philpott had done exactly what Ned should have. Philpott’s mistake had been to wait several weeks after his return to Calais before he succumbed to panic. Then the fool had told the truth, admitting to even the parts that were certain to condemn him to death.

Ned covered his face with one arm. There was no hope for any of them. He’d known that as soon as they’d been taken from Calais and put aboard a ship in the middle of the night to be brought to England.

A muffled groan escaped him. His servant, Browne, had also been arrested. Ned had no idea how involved Browne had been in Botolph’s scheme. It was possible the priest had subverted Browne’s loyalty and sweet-talked him into joining the conspiracy. Or Browne could have been an innocent bystander. Ned was not worried that Browne could testify against him in regard to the Botolph plot, but Browne did know Ned’s other secrets.

He knew Nan Bassett had been Ned’s mistress before she was the king’s.

A
FTER THE
M
AY
Day tournament at Whitehall, the court moved to Greenwich for Whitsuntide. Nan carried out her duties as a maid of honor with an outward appearance of calm, but her heart ached and her mind was always in turmoil. She’d heard nothing more about Ned since her stepfather’s announcement that he was in the Tower. Her imagination painted terrible pictures: Ned being tortured; Ned dying; Ned executed in the horrifying way traitors were put to death. She had never felt so helpless, not even when she had first discovered that she was with child.

She tried to take heart from her stepfather’s continued presence at court. The king seemed well disposed toward him, but although King Henry had elevated Thomas Cromwell in the peerage to Earl of Essex—the title Lord Parr had expected to be granted in his much-despised wife’s name—His Grace had not advanced Lord Lisle. Nan thought it unlikely that King Henry’s benevolence would extend to a pardon for any of the men in Lord Lisle’s retinue, not even at the request of a pretty maid of honor.