The Queen's Captive Read online

  Everyone here knew Sir William Cecil, both for his eminence in England as a minister of the late, Protestant boy-king, Edward, and for his tireless support of the exile community. He was thirty-four, and several of the guests were his relations—Anthony Cooke was his father-in-law and John Cheke his first wife’s brother. Honor had known Sir William for years. But his home was London, where he carefully balanced a life of partial retirement under the strict, new Catholic reign of Queen Mary. He rarely left England. What had brought him all this way?

  “You are welcome, sir,” Honor said, going to greet him. “Come in and warm yourself. And sit you down to some supper before these home-hungry souls devour you first.”

  Cecil did not smile. “Honor, I must speak with you.”

  “And what of the people? How did they take the Queen’s rough handling of her sister?” Honor asked Cecil when they were alone, sitting before the fire in her parlor. She had never met Princess Elizabeth, but hearing now of her plight she recalled how everyone, whenever they talked about the clever and striking young Princess, did so with affection. Elizabeth inspired people. It was a power that Queen Mary could not ignore.

  “Widespread dismay,” Cecil said with feeling. “Indeed, they showed their love for Elizabeth when the Queen moved her under guard from the Tower and out of London, to Woodstock. That was in May. They traveled by water to attract as little notice as possible, but when the barge passed the Steelyard, the Hanse merchants had their gunners fire a salute to Elizabeth. It brought Londoners running out into the streets to see what the commotion was, and the event that the Queen had wanted to keep quiet turned into a noisy parade.” There was a flash of pride in his shrewd gray eyes. Five years ago, when Princess Elizabeth was fifteen, he had been named surveyor of her estates, an honorary post. He had been close to her ever since.

  “It was the same when they turned inland,” he went on. “The Princess was carried in an open litter surrounded by guardsmen, and the country people rushed from their hayfields and cottages to see her. They thronged her on roadsides and bridges. They showered her with flowers and cakes at every village, even as the guards bristled around her with their pikes. At Aston Rowant some villagers rang the church bells as she passed.”

  “Which must have put the Queen in a terrible fume?”

  “It did. She arrested the bell ringers. But this love the people bear Elizabeth may be what saved her. The Queen faced much hostility after she executed Wyatt and so many scores of rebels. The people grew sickened by the hangings. They would not have tolerated Elizabeth’s death.”

  Honor shuddered. Richard had been about to hang alongside those rebels. “You really think she was planning to execute the Princess?”

  “I know it. The chancellor prepared the order, drawn up with instructions to the lieutenant of the Tower. But the Queen did not dare sign it.”

  “For now,” Honor said, thinking it through.

  “Exactly. The Princess is far from clear of danger.” Cecil edged forward in his chair, tension in his voice. “Honor, the Queen has lost no time wrenching the realm back to Catholicism, just as we expected, since she married Philip of Spain.”

  The most Catholic prince in Europe, that was how Philip was known. “And the Pope’s legate? Has he arrived yet? We heard the Queen had invited him.”

  “Cardinal Pole will be in London by next month.”

  “Then the burnings will begin.” All over again, Honor thought, looking into the fire as it consumed the logs. Once, she had saved men from that fiery death. Once, she had been terrifyingly close to it herself. She thought that such barbarism in England had died with old King Henry. Not so, it seemed. How she pitied the hapless Protestants who crossed this new queen’s path.

  “I fear so,” Cecil said. “An English Inquisition. Which fuels the danger for the Princess. Queen Mary is only waiting for Elizabeth to make an error in religion, to fail to conform. That would give her the excuse she needs to execute her sister.”

  What a family, Honor thought. Mary had learned from their father when he cut off the heads of two wives.

  “It goes even beyond the Queen,” Cecil went on. “Ambassador Renard itches to remove Elizabeth. And plots it, I fear. Poison, perhaps. Or an assassin’s dagger.”

  Honor did not doubt the imperial ambassador’s agenda to bolster Queen Mary, who was a cousin of mighty Emperor Charles, and now his daughter-in-law as well. Renard would be ruthless, for his master’s sake, in removing any obstacle to Mary’s reign.

  “It is dire,” Cecil said. “The Queen keeps Elizabeth as closely guarded in Woodstock as in a prison, allowing no one near her except two women of her chamber, and those straightly chosen for their loyalty to the Queen. And every day she sends her councilors to press Elizabeth to confess her guilt in backing Wyatt’s rebellion. Elizabeth has resisted so far. But she is young, and so isolated, and friendless. It has left her adrift, bereft of trustworthy, experienced councilors.”

  Honor admired his devotion, but could not resist a small tease at his supreme confidence in his own abilities. “Councilors like you, Sir William.”

  “No, Honor,” he said soberly, “like you.”

  “Me!”

  “That’s why I’ve come. To ask you to accept a mission. Come home, I entreat you, and advise the Princess.”

  She could not hide her astonishment. “Advise her? To do what?”

  “Survive.”

  “You expect much of me!”

  “Everyone knows you survived worse.”

  “Not everyone, I hope, else from a dungeon I’d be advising no one.”

  “Everyone in our circle. Honor, this is no jest. Your steady strength is needed. The Princess’s very life is at stake. She must not fall into the Queen’s trap. The hopes of all reasonable Englishmen—the very future of England—lie in Elizabeth.”

  “Sir William, you flatter me. Truly. And I pity the young Princess. But even if I felt it was in my power to help her, I could not go home. Richard awaits a traitor’s death if he ever sets foot in England. You know that. He can never go back. And I will never desert him.”

  “Honor, hear me out. I—”

  “No. I’m sorry, but you’ve made a long journey for nothing.”

  He puffed his cheeks and let out an exasperated breath. “How does Richard manage such an obstinate wife?”

  She had to smile. “Is Mildred so meek?”

  “At least she listens!” He got up and kicked a stray ember back into the fire.

  Honor pursed her lips at the rebuke. “Do go on, sir.”

  He turned, composed again. “I am not such a fool as to come unprepared. I believe I can solve your problem.”

  “My problem?” Melancholy swept back as she thought how she and Richard were teetering toward bankruptcy. If Sir William could make that problem go away it would be a miracle.

  “Richard’s, I mean,” he said. “I believe I can secure him a pardon.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “Good God. How?”

  “The lord treasurer, the Marquis of Winchester, owes me a favor. I finessed his purchase of several lucrative manors in Devon formerly belonging to the abbey at Montcross. As one of the Queen’s closest councilors, he can draw up this order.”

  Honor sprang to her feet, daring to hope. “A pardon for treason? Or for killing Anthony Grenville?”

  “For everything. A general pardon.”

  “But…the Queen. Why would she sign it?”

  “She has signed several other pardons put before her by various councilors. I think it not impossible she would do so again. After all, she does not know Richard personally, his name is just one of many rebels’ names, and as I told you she prudently stopped after the first wave of executions, seeing the dark mood of the people. Besides, she is so happy now in the thrall of her marriage, I am told she thinks of little else but entertaining her husband with feasts and jousts and pageants. If Winchester puts the thing in front of her, I believe she will sign it without a second thoug
ht.”

  It was a miracle. Honor’s heart beat fast with excitement. But her sudden jump up sent the familiar pain flaring through her side, and she reached for the chair and sat again, carefully propping herself on one practiced arm to ease the soreness. Was she mad to consider this undertaking? Was she up to it? Was her body? And what actual outcome did Cecil expect? How long would she be expected to act as “councilor” to this royal personage she had never met?

  She put this last question to him, and he seemed about to speak, but stopped and gave a shrug of uncertainty that she sensed troubled him as much as her, for he was a man who loved precision. These were chaotic times, and he was doing the best he could for the Princess, someone he cared deeply about—that was all. Honor saw that the mission was terribly vague, her exact responsibilities unknown. Unknowable. Every inner voice of prudence and experience told her to be wary.

  But, to go home! She and Richard could restore his wool trade business. And eventually, when they were back on their feet, they could reunite the family. Home. Achingly, she thought of her abandoned garden at Speedwell House. She could be there in time to see the yellow exuberance of spring—scatters of celandines, sprays of forsythia, banks of daffodils.

  “We would need more than the pardon,” she said, anxious, but needing to know.

  “More?”

  “We have debts.”

  Cecil’s shrewd eyes registered the satisfaction of a win. “Money can always be found.”

  Seagulls wheeled, screeching above Speedwell as her bow carved the waves, reaching for England.

  Honor stood on the foredeck with Richard, hardly needing her winter cloak as the strong midday sun beamed down from a sky of cobalt blue. She had to hold up her hand against the brightness as she looked aloft. Everything was new, from the virgin white sails, to the freshly painted masts, to the taut rope rigging. She glanced back across the ship at Adam, standing high on the sterncastle deck, conferring with the helmsman at the wheel. She took a deep, contented breath of the cold air tangy with salt and freedom. The refitted ship pleased her enormously. But not, she knew, as much as it pleased Richard. It had done her heart a world of good to watch him and Adam these past weeks as they had thrown themselves into overseeing the carpenters, caulkers, riggers and sailmakers.

  “The old girl’s got the wind in her teeth,” Richard said, squinting his one good eye at the new spritsail gleaming in the sun. “It’s good to have her back.”

  “Never count us old girls out, my love.”

  He laughed. “Never.”

  She hooked her arm through his with a happy sigh. Her only pang was for her daughter. Isabel and Carlos at this very moment would be sailing into warm, southerly waters, bound for Peru. It was hard to think that, come spring, Isabel would face childbirth in a strange land without her mother at her side. But Isabel could rely on the strong arms of Carlos. He would take care of her. And Honor dared to hope that one day, when she and Richard had reestablished themselves, they would host a homecoming feast for their daughter and son-in-law, and their first grandchild.

  She gazed toward the horizon that cradled home. “Will you hire Winthrop back?” she asked. “Is he still in Colchester? And don’t forget to ask your sister to recommend a good housekeeper. You’ll need someone with her wits about her until I can get home. I don’t know low long I’ll be with the Princess at Woodstock.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Richard?” She turned to him.

  He was looking at her intently, his smile gone. “Honor, it’s not too late to change your mind. Princess Elizabeth has other friends to help her. Ones who wouldn’t be risking their necks.”

  “We’ve been through all this.”

  “But maybe not enough. We were so relieved at getting the pardon. But now that we’re really on our way back, I’m thinking I should never have agreed to Sir William’s bargain. In this new Catholic England, it could get you killed.”

  “I don’t accept that. It was so long ago, almost twenty years, it’s all been forgotten.” Nineteen years, to be exact. She could never forget. She had been tried by the church court for heresy, and convicted. Condemned to burn. She had escaped, and later, under the reign of the Protestant young King Edward, she had been safe. She understood Richard’s unease now about the zealously Catholic Queen Mary, but Honor wasn’t unduly troubled. Her conviction had been so very long ago, and the country had experienced so much upheaval since then, under three different reigns. Her personal history was a mere speck lost in the country-wide dust of all that former chaos. “It’s all forgotten,” she said again. “A new generation runs things now.”

  “The past could catch up with you yet. Does Sir William know?”

  “About our old missions, yes.” Before her arrest for heresy, she and Richard had smuggled persecuted dissenters out of England on his ships. “But about how and why we fled England back then, no. Heavens, Richard, he was fourteen at the time.”

  “Still, I don’t like it.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll just do what I can to help the Princess, then come home and live as quietly as a mouse.”

  He cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Some mouse.”

  “Other non-Catholics are doing it. Sir William himself is doing it.”

  Richard’s expression turned serious. “There’s the Grenvilles. That was just ten months ago.”

  Honor couldn’t suppress a shudder, remembering Anthony Grenville’s pistol, his deranged face, the searing bullet he had fired into her. She shook off the sickening memory. “Grenville is dead. So is the past.” She would not let ghosts frighten her.

  “Grenville’s dead, but his children are very much alive. And fast friends of the Queen. She’s made John Grenville a baron.”

  “But what can he do to you now? You have your royal pardon. He must accept that.”

  He said darkly, “Kin do not forget murder.”

  She was startled by the word. Murder. They never used it. They had found it better never to mention how Richard had bludgeoned Anthony Grenville to death.

  “Anyway,” he said, “it’s not me I’m thinking of, it’s you.” He went on firmly, as though settling the matter, “No, given all the risks, you’re safer in Antwerp. When we land, I’ll ride home and get the business rolling, you sail back with Adam. Sir William will understand. As soon as I’m on my feet again I’ll repay him.”

  “Go back? Run away again?”

  “It’s not running. We’ll just have two homes, Colchester and Antwerp, the way we used to.”

  “Only I’ll be barred from one.” She longed for an end to this gypsy existence, never secure, never completely safe. They had established themselves in Antwerp after fleeing all those years ago, but had returned to England in the mild reign of King Edward, and had lived quietly in Colchester for several years and prospered, Richard keeping the Antwerp house for business. But then Edward died and his sister Mary took the throne with a vow to exterminate heresy, and so, with persecution threatening them again, Richard had joined Wyatt’s rebellion. When it failed, he and Isabel had barely escaped with their lives. Honor had had enough of it.

  “No,” she said decisively. “England is our real home. The home of my heart. I won’t let these religious zealots run us off again, not the Grenvilles or Cardinal Pole or bloody Queen Mary herself. They can’t be allowed to keep attacking their neighbors. Burning people for their beliefs. Making Englishmen quake and dissemble like beaten children. Someone’s got to stop them. Until that happens, we’ll never be secure, not me or you or Adam or anyone.”

  He was looking at her now with a frown. “I thought you were going back to advise the Princess.”

  “I am.”

  “Are you sure that’s all? Because it sounds like you’re going back to try to make her queen.”

  3

  The Gatehouse

  December 1554

  Woodstock in Oxfordshire was far from the noisy money-making of London and its hectic royal court. The village lay in a steep
, wooded valley with the sluggish River Glyme at its feet. The people lived from harvest to harvest, and when those failed they felt want. The summer had brought the worst rains in years, punishing torrents that had left the fields and gardens an unhealthy bog. By winter, hunger haunted the poor.

  Though remote, the village had felt the royal presence for centuries. Woodstock Palace had been a hunting lodge since Norman times, and generations of English kings had come to hunt in the royal forests. Here, four hundred years ago, Henry I had kept a menagerie with leopards and porcupines. Here his grandson, Henry II, had kept his mistress, fair Rosamund Clifford. Yet the palace seemed haunted by death. It was at Woodstock that Henry II first clashed with Thomas à Becket, his friend and archbishop, who was later stabbed to death in his cathedral by Henry’s loyal men. Woodstock was a frequent retreat of King John, whose murderous rule, according to legend, kindled the revenge of Robin Hood. Here Henry III survived an assassination attempt. Here, in 1389, the Earl of Pembroke, a Christmas guest, was killed by a jousting foe.

  And here, Princess Elizabeth, by order of her sister, Queen Mary, had been kept under house arrest for eight months. The palace had been in sorry disrepair for decades and was now a palace in name only. Its dilapidated medieval buildings rose from the marshy riverbed, a managerial headache of crumbling stone, leaky roofs, and cracked window casements. The place, never meant as a jail, had few doors with locks, so for security reasons the man appointed as the Princess’s custodian, Sir Henry Bedingfield, had lodged her in the gatehouse.

  All this, Honor had learned from Thomas Parry, the Princess’s steward, as they conferred at Woodstock’s inn, the Bull. Each had been alerted about the other by Sir William Cecil, and now they were discussing how they might find a way for Honor to get in to see the Princess. They stood at the upstairs hall window overlooking the main street. The Bull’s customers were downstairs at dinner, and the clack of cutlery and whiffs of braised rabbit with leeks drifted up the stairs. Still, Honor and Parry kept their voices low, for they could not risk anyone, guest or servant, wandering by and overhearing. Parry had said he suspected that the village held at least one of the imperial ambassador’s spies keeping a vigilant, hostile eye on the Princess.