In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean (книги хорошем качестве бесплатно без регистрации .txt) 📗

She was so sure of herself, so vain, so confident of her power to charm.

“Where would you go?” I asked.

“I thought to Ashridge, Your Majesty. The air there does me good.”

“Very well. You shall go.”

She fell to her knees once more and kissed my hand.

“Your Majesty is so good to me.”

So good? When I had recently sent Paget and Arundel to test her loyalty? She was appealing in her way, and I was as unsure of her now as I ever was.

I called to one of my women to bring me a box of jewels, and from it I selected a pearl necklace. I put it round my sister's neck.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she went so far as to forget the respect she owed to the Queen and put her arms round me and kissed me. Or did she really forget, and was this another of her gestures?

Then she drew back, as though alarmed by her temerity. “Forgive me, Your Majesty… sister…”

My reply was to draw her to me and kiss her cheek.

“You will recover quickly in the healthy atmosphere of Ashridge,” I said; and then I dismissed her.

Renard shook his head over my decision to let her go.

“I would prefer,” he said, “always to have that young woman where I can see what she is doing.”

ELIZABETH CONTINUED TO OCCUPY Renard's thoughts. He would not be happy until she was out of the way—either in another country or in her grave. I sometimes wondered whether some charge would be trumped up against her. I must be watchful of that. I did not want to have my own sister's blood on my hands. Marriage was a better idea.

The Emperor evidently thought so too. He suggested that Elizabeth be betrothed to the Prince of Piedmont.

She stubbornly refused to consider this. Of course she did. She wanted the English throne above all things.

Renard was annoyed with her, but I could see that he had a grudging admiration for her, too. I think sometimes he wished she were the Queen with whom he had to work. They would have understood each other better than he and I did.

However, there was no way of getting rid of Elizabeth through marriage. She was clearly determined on that.

Christmas had come, and it was in January of the following year, 1554, when Gardiner uncovered the plot.

The news of my proposed marriage to Philip of Spain was leaking out, and the reaction was as I had feared it might be.

The French ambassador called on me. He was clearly deeply disturbed. Did I realize the dangers? he wondered. Philip would dominate me.

I replied haughtily that I was the Queen of this realm and intended to remain so.

“Husbands,” replied de Noailles, “can be persuasive.” He added that his master, King Henri Deux, did not like the match at all.

That was no news to me; I was fully aware that he would dislike it and do all he could to prevent it.

Every day seemed to bring home to me more and more the danger of my position. Though I had been crowned Queen of England, there were others who had envious eyes on that crown. Oddly enough, they were all women. There was Lady Jane Grey in the Tower at the moment, my prisoner; but perhaps she did not want it for herself, it was others who coveted it for her. There was Elizabeth, patiently waiting to step into my shoes; and in France was the young Mary, Queen of Scots, who, by becoming the wife of the Dauphin of France, had made Henri Deux cast speculative eyes in its direction.

This was no news to me. I knew very well that the French would dislike the Spanish match.

My position was as dangerous as it had ever been. There had been no peace for me since that day when my father had decided that he wished to be rid of my mother.

I needed a strong man—someone to care for me, to stand beside me and help fight off my enemies.

Philip of Spain would help me to do that. I should have the might of Spain behind me. It would be a good match.

But the news of my intended marriage was already causing trouble.

I knew that Edward Courtenay was bitterly disappointed. He had pretended to care for me, but I often asked myself if he really did. I had been attracted by him. Who would not have been? He was so good-looking and charming, and his history was so touching. The idea of such a man being prisoner all those years for committing no sin but having royal blood in his veins. It was admirable that, during those years in the Tower, he had educated himself so that he was as polished as any courtier; all he lacked was horsemanship and outdoor skills, for how could he have practiced those, confined as he was? Yet I doubted not that in a year or so he would vie with any.

I was fond of Gertrude, his mother, whom I had made a lady of my bedchamber. She was constantly extolling the virtues of her son. So there was another who was disappointed.

I did not realize how deeply this disappointment had gone. I had been hearing rumors about him. He was extravagant; he mingled with a fast set; it was said that this included relationships with loose women. I excused him.

He was a lusty young man and he had been shut away for a long time; in any case I had ceased to regard him as a possible husband. I could see that to marry such a man, just because he was young and handsome, was not the way a queen should act. I had, I confess, been a little overwhelmed by his grace and good manners and his show of affection for me. But I was not so easily deluded. I knew that I was not good-looking, that I showed signs of age, and I should have been a fool if I had not understood that it was my glittering crown which dazzled, not my person.

I was sure I had done the right thing in agreeing to marriage with Philip of Spain. He was not expecting a beauty; what he wanted was a queen, and he would not be disappointed in that respect.

The members of the Council were constantly on the alert, and they knew the Spanish marriage was not going to be popular. Gardiner discovered that a certain Peter Carew of Devon was going through the towns of that county, telling people that they must not allow the marriage to take place. It would be letting the Spaniards into the country. They were a harsh and cruel race, he warned them, and they would be bringing Spanish laws into England. There were sailors in Devon who had come into the clutches of the evil Inquisition and had, by great good luck, escaped. Let the people listen to their stories of hideous torture. The Spaniards would rule England, and the Queen would be merely the wife of a foreign king. There must be no Spanish marriage.

There was only one thing for the Council to do, and they did it. They ordered Peter Carew to come to London for questioning. But Carew realized what was happening and, when he did not come and they sent guards to arrest him, he had already disappeared.

It was disturbing, for there was no doubt that there would soon be revolt in Devon.

Stephen Gardiner came to me and begged an audience. When I received him, I saw at once how grave he was.

“I have news which will shock you,” he said.

“This revolt …” I began.

“Carew has escaped, as Your Majesty knows. He is a bold fellow with a colorful past. He has led a life of adventure, and he is the sort men choose for a leader.”

“It is a pity he was not forced to come before the Council. He should have been arrested and brought here.”

Gardiner nodded slowly. Then he said, “I have discovered what was afoot.”

“Then pray tell me.”

“As the rising was in the Earl of Devonshire's territory, I thought of questioning him.”

“Yes,” I said uneasily.

“He has confessed that he knows of the plot to oppose the Spanish marriage. He says he took no part in it, but when I questioned him he was very ready to tell me about it.”

“He is a weak young man, easily led, and he has become ambitious,” I said.

Gardiner agreed. “It is good that we have this warning,” he said. “It enables us to put down the revolt with less trouble than we should have if it were allowed to develop. There are certain people of whom we must be watchful and… Courtenay is one.”