Виктория Холт - In the Shadow of the Crown

I was touched, and hurt that she could think this of me. I told her to rise and I embraced her.

I said to her, “No more. Whether you are guilty or not, I forgive you.” I took a ring from my finger. It was a beautiful diamond. I had given it to her on my coronation, telling her that, if ever she was in trouble, she was to send it to me and if possible I would help her. It had come back to me at the time she was taken to the Tower, and I had kept it ever since. Now I gave it back to her.

There was a radiance about her. She had come to me expecting to be sent to the Tower, and instead she had the pledge of my friendship. Her eyes were filled with tears. I was deeply touched, and suddenly she flung herself into my arms.

“You are once more my sister,” she cried. “I have your love and I am happy again.”

When she left me, Philip emerged from behind the screen. There was no doubt that he was greatly interested in Elizabeth. His eyes shone and he almost smiled. But it was not easy to know what he really thought of her.

He said, “You did well. You acted with dignity and tolerance.”

“And what did you think of my sister?”

“I think that much of what I have heard of her is true.”

It seemed an evasive answer, but I was delighted with his approval.

IT WAS ABOUT this time that I noticed one of my ladies behaving in a strange and almost secretive manner. This was Magdalen Dacre. She was outstandingly beautiful—perhaps the most beautiful of all my ladies. She was very tall and made dwarves of some of us, and she would have been remarkable because of her statuesque figure if for nothing else. Magdalen had all the virtues. She was religious and efficient. Perhaps some would say she was a little prim, but I liked her for that. I would not have wished to be surrounded by frivolous women.

I noticed that she was absent on one or two occasions. I asked for her and was told she was resting. She seemed to need a good deal of rest. I wondered if she were unhappy about something.

She was hardly ever present when Philip was there, but I noticed that when he was he treated her with great courtesy. He was courteous to all my ladies, but he did seem especially so toward Magdalen.

I wondered mildly about her, and then I ceased to think of her for something very important was about to happen.

I had not yet achieved my mission, which was to return England to Rome. It was too dangerous to do so at the moment. I did not want to plunge the country into civil war. At the same time I did feel that there should not be too much delay.

The news from the Continent delighted me. Reginald Pole was coming home.

He had been out of favor with the Emperor, for at one time he had made it clear that he opposed my marriage to Philip. I believed that his opposition was due to the fact that he thought I was too old for childbearing and that to attempt it would be dangerous to me. None wanted the return to Rome more than he did, but he believed it could be done without the marriage.

I daresay the Emperor thought that, if he came to England, he would be my chief adviser, which was very likely, and I was not sure that the Emperor wanted that. Reginald would doubtless have returned to England earlier but for these considerations. After all, he was no longer an exile. He had left the country only because he upheld my right to the succession; now I was Queen the way was clear for his return.

And now he was coming.

It was November, and I was now certain of my pregnancy. I was wildly happy, and the thought of seeing Reginald after all these years added to my joy. He was not strong and had had to take the journey by easy stages. There should be a royal yacht at Calais to bring him to Dover.

I was delighted to hear that he had arrived safely in England, and as he made the journey to Gravesend he was in the midst of an impressive cavalcade. At Gravesend the barge I had sent for him was waiting and, with his silver cross fixed on the prow, he sailed to Whitehall.

Gardiner received him at the water's edge, and at the entrance of the palace Philip was waiting for him. I myself stood at the head of the stairs.

With what emotion we embraced! The years seemed to slip away, and I was young again, dreaming of him, telling myself that one day he would be my bridegroom.

That was in the past. How old Reginald looked—yet handsome in an aesthetic way. He was frail, thin and of medium height, but he looked tall beside Philip. His hair and beard, which I remembered as light brown, were now white; but he still had the same gentle expression which I had loved.

“Welcome home,” I said.

“It is wonderful to see you. I know that, now you are come, all will soon be…as it should be.”

He congratulated me on my marriage. I raised my eyebrows, reminding him that he had warned me against it.

“I was wrong,” he said charmingly, reading my thoughts. “It has worked out in the best possible way. I am happy for you.”

He meant it. I wonder if he remembered the plans to get us married, how my mother and his had planned when we were both much younger. But nothing had come of it, and he had gone on his way—indeed he had had no choice, for if he had stayed he would have gone to the block with most of his family. And now I had Philip—whom I would not have exchanged for any man in the world.

It was wonderful to know that he was back, and perhaps even more so to realize what his coming meant, for he had come to help restore the Pope's supremacy in England which, I had convinced myself, was the reason why God had preserved my life and set me on the throne to work His will.

Gardiner came up the stairs.

He was to take Reginald to Lambeth Palace.

MY PLEASURE IN SEEING Reginald was married by the change in him. He was still handsome, still noble, but I sensed a deep sadness, and there was in him a bitterness against my father.

We met frequently and there were times when he and I were alone together. Then he talked of his family, all of whom—with the exception of Geoffry, who had tried and failed to take his own life and was now living abroad in exile—had been murdered. What affected him most was the death of his mother, who, he said, had been butchered on the scaffold.

“My mother,” he said, “was a saint. She was the most pious of women who had never harmed a living soul… and to be murdered so.”

I wept with him, remembering so much of my life with her.

“But it is over, Reginald,” I said. “Life dealt harshly with you and yours, and we do no good by remembering.”

He said, “I see myself as the son of a martyr, for such was my mother and I shall never forget her.”

“The past is over,” I said. “Many died and your family among them. We cannot bring them back. We have to think ahead. We have to continue with this great task which God has set us.”

He was certainly zealous in that cause. Three days after his arrival, the two Houses of Parliament were assembled to hear Reginald speak. He told them he had come to restore the lost glory of the kingdom.

A few days later Philip and I were presented with a petition from the two Houses to plead with the Legate to absolve the country from its schism and disobedience.

We were moving toward our goal. High Mass was celebrated at St. Paul's. The Act restoring supremacy to the Pope had not yet been passed but it was on the way.

There was a ceremony at St. Paul's at the end of November to celebrate my condition. It was very moving. The Virgin Mary was referred to, and the similarity of our names seemed significant. “Fear not, Mary,” the angel had said, “for thou hast found favor with God.”

The fear meant that they were all remembering my age and the dangers of childbirth, even to the young and healthy. They would certainly be remembering the last prince to be born, my brother Edward, whose coming had meant the death of his mother.