Young Bess (32 page)

She lay back on her pillows and knew that she could do nothing more but wait for the next move.

It came with the public announcement of the King’s death. The heralds proclaimed Jane as Queen at street corners, and their printed Proclamations, stuck up in market squares and church porches all over the country, justified her succession on the ground that the King’s sisters were both bastards.

It was Sunday, and preachers all preached the same doctrine: Jane alone was the true and rightful Queen. A servant rode back from Amersham where he had heard a little man with a beard like a billygoat thump the pulpit and scream, ‘Woe! Woe to England!’ if she allied herself to the enemies of the Gospel – by which Mr Knox intended Mary.

No one could tell Bess where Mary was – alive or dead – free or a prisoner – in England or escaped – (as she had often planned) to the Netherlands.

But there was far more that no one could tell her about Mary. She lay by the new open windows, and the clang and peal of church bells acclaiming Jane as Queen of England floated in on the golden early July air. Would the country tamely accept her, or would they rise on behalf of Mary, as she had so boldly assured Barney they would?

She had not felt as bold as she had sounded. Dudley held whatever army there was, and the navy (all those ships lying off London all ready to attack! ‘Spice Islands my nose!’ she had exclaimed. It had smelt gunpowder, not spices); he held the Tower and all the great nobles in his pay. He was the greatest soldier England had had for years; he had succeeded in Scotland where Somerset, a sound and ruthless general, had failed; he had succeeded against the revolution.

Would he succeed now? Or would that inveterate bungler, Mary?

And if Mary did succeed, what then?

Dudley was the only man Mary had ever feared, except her father.

Nobody feared Mary. Her gruff good-natured laugh; her overdressing coupled with her simplicity and utter ignorance of the world, ignorance that had begun as a secluded girl’s, devoted to her deeply religious mother, and had fixed into an old maid’s; her inability to say anything she did not mean (‘to be plain with you,’ it was always accompanying some fresh gaffe); all these things had made her, among those who knew her, a figure of fun, certainly not of any mystery or alarm.

But Bess, lying in the warm July sunshine, shivered as she thought of her half-sister. Would it be better for herself if Mary won instead of Dudley? Dudley was utterly
unscrupulous, ruthlessly bent on his own ambition, and would sweep anyone who interfered with it out of the way without remorse.

But Mary was unpredictable. She would never do anything that she did not feel to be right – but what might govern those feelings? Her starved emotions, her bitter broodings on the past and the wrong her father had done her mother, had twisted her judgment, of which she had never had much. She could not see nor reason clearly, but acted on impulse, letting her heart govern, and not her head. That ought to be well, since Mary had a good heart. But a female heart rampant could be a terrifying thing.

Under Mary’s essential goodness of nature there lay the sickening uncertainty of hysteria. That quagmire, that welter of shifting angry unhappy emotion, blind, bottomless, a bog on a black night, was always there, waiting to engulf her, and anyone who was so unfortunate as to be having any dealings with her at that moment.

Jane might well turn out to be as much of a bigot as Mary.

But Jane was not an hysteric. Jane’s fury of righteous indignation would be a deal less dangerous than Mary’s sobbing paroxysms of grief over her sainted mother,

‘May God preserve me from good women!’ sighed Bess.

But there she had to lie, on the horns of a dilemma, between two very good women.

The church bells broke out again into a peal of joyous triumph. A white butterfly fluttered in and flapped about the room. She got out of bed, caught it and let it fly out of the window, watching it join a cluster of its fellows and go dancing all together, up, up, like flecks of light against the
green glory of the sunlit trees, until suddenly she remembered she might be seen at the window.

She jumped into bed again, and looked at her face in the little hand-mirror. It was sufficiently white not to need any rubbing with chalk. Her teeth were chattering with fear; but she laughed.

Something in her that had lain numb all these four and a half years, since Tom Seymour’s death, was quickening her pulses to a terrified yet heartening throb.

Now at last again, when at any moment she might lose it, she knew how sweet life was, and hope; yes, and fear too, since it had made her want to keep that life, want passionately, with all the wild excitement of a young lover’s desire, to live, and to be Queen.

M
ARGARET
I
RWIN
(1889–1969) was a master of historical fiction, blending meticulous research with real storytelling flair to create some of the twentieth century’s best-loved and most widely acclaimed novels, including
The Galliard
and
Young Bess
.

The Galliard

Young Bess

Elizabeth, Captive Princess

Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain

If you enjoyed
Young Bess
, read on to find out
about more books by Margaret Irwin …

To discover more great fiction and to
place an order visit our website at
www.allisonandbusby.com
or call us on
020 7580 1080

ELIZABETH, CAPTIVE PRINCESS

July, 1553. Sibling rivalry has never been more turbulent and perilous than between the daughters of King Henry VIII. Queen Mary Tudor has just won possession of the throne, but her younger half-sister – the beautiful and vivacious Princess Elizabeth – holds the hearts of the people. Knowing this, Mary banishes her sibling to a country retreat, determined to keep her as far away from court life as possible.

But Mary’s health is fading fast and her power beginning to crumble. The people of England are crying out for a new monarch and it seems, at last, they may have their wish and crown their beloved Bess as Queen. In these treacherous times, when all about her lies secrecy and deception, Elizabeth must rely on her faith and courage if she is to rise to fulfil her destiny.

ELIZABETH AND THE PRINCE OF SPAIN

Philip, Prince of Spain, the unwilling bridegroom of Queen Mary, has been warned about the Queen’s half-sister, the young Elizabeth. According to all reports, she is a heretic, a rebel and a potential enemy, and has ‘a spirit full of enchantment’. An alluring description and one that immediately intrigues, rather than deters, the foreign prince.

Accused of treachery by Mary and under threat of death, Elizabeth’s life hangs in the balance. Only Philip, idolised by his ageing wife and able to sway her decisions, holds the power to save the courageous young princess. And so Elizabeth must advance warily towards her destiny, running the gauntlet between Bloody Mary’s jealousy and Philip’s uneasy ardour.

THE GALLIARD

The young and trusting Mary, Queen of Scots, is sailing home to her kingdom after years in exile. The danger from her cousin, the English Queen, has not lessened since she first departed. Religious divides threaten to tear the nation apart and, across the border, Elizabeth keenly watches this new threat to her throne.

Amid the furious turmoil and uncertainty in her Scottish kingdom, Mary finds she has one loyal servant – James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a ‘glorious, rash and hazardous young man’ known to all as the Galliard. In Bothwell’s courage and love for her, Mary finds serenity, and though fate works against them, no force can conquer their spirit.