Philippa Gregory - The Queen's Fool

Elizabeth kept her eyes straight to the front and did not look left or right, but she sensed the dangling bodies at every corner; half of them were known to her, and all of them had died in a rebellion that they believed she had summoned. She was as pale as her white dress when she first got into the litter, but she was blanched like skimmed milk by the time we had ridden down King’s Street.

A few people called out to her: “God save Your Grace!” and she was recalled to herself and raised a weak hand to them with a piteous face. She looked like a martyr being dragged to her death and, under this avenue of gallows, no one could doubt her fear. This was Elizabeth’s rebellion and forty-five swinging corpses attested to the fact that it had failed. Now Elizabeth would have to face the justice that had executed them. No one could doubt she would die too.

At Whitehall they rolled the great gates wide for us at the first sight of our cavalcade walking slowly toward the palace. Elizabeth straightened up in the litter and looked toward the great steps of the palace. Queen Mary was not there to greet her sister, and neither was anyone of the court. She arrived to silent disgrace. A single gentleman-server was on the steps and he spoke to Lord Howard, not to the princess, as if they were her jailers.

Lord Howard came to the litter and put out his hand for her.

“An apartment has been prepared for you,” he said shortly. “You may choose two attendants to take with you.”

“My ladies must come with me,” she argued instantly. “I am not well.”

“The orders are two attendants and no more,” he said briefly. “Choose.”

The coldness of the voice that he had used with her on the journey was now barbed. We were in London, a hundred eyes and ears were on him. Lord Howard would be very certain that no one would see him show any kindness to his traitor cousin. “Choose.”

“Mrs. Ashley and…” Elizabeth looked around and her eye fell on me. I stepped back, as anxious as any other turncoat not to be linked with this doomed princess. But she knew through me she had a chance to reach the queen. “Mrs. Ashley and Hannah the Fool,” she said.

Lord Howard laughed. “Three fools together then,” he said under his breath and waved the gentleman to go ahead of the three of us into Elizabeth’s apartments.

I did not wait to see Elizabeth settled in her rooms before I sought out my fellow fool Will Somers. He was dozing in the great hall on one of the benches. Someone had draped a cloak over him as he slept, everyone loved Will.

I sat on the bench beside him, wondering if I might wake him.

Without opening his eyes he remarked: “A pair of fools we must be; parted for weeks and we don’t even speak,” and he sat bolt upright and hugged me around the shoulders.

“I thought you were asleep,” I said.

“I was fooling,” he said with dignity. “I have decided that a sleeping fool is funnier than one who is awake. Especially in this court.”

“Why?” I asked warily.

“Nobody laughs at my jests,” he said. “So I tried to see if they would laugh at my silence. And since they prefer a silent fool, they will love a sleeping fool. And if I am asleep I will not know if they are laughing or not. So I can comfort myself that I am very amusing. I dream of my wit and then I wake up laughing. It’s a witty thought, is it not?”

“Very,” I said.

He turned to me. “The princess has come, has she?”

I nodded.

“Ill?”

“Very. Truly ill, I think.”

“The queen could offer her an instant cure for all pain. She has become a surgeon, she specializes in amputations.”

“Please God it does not come to that,” I said quickly. “But Will, tell me — did Robert Dudley make a good death? Was it quick?”

“Still alive,” he said. “Against all the odds.”

I felt my heart turn over. “Dear God, they told me he was beheaded.”

“Steady,” Will said. “Here, put your head between your knees.”

From a long way off I heard his voice ask me:

“Better now? Swoony little maid?”

I straightened up.

“Blushing now,” Will observed. “Soon be out of breeches with the blood flowing this fast, my little maid.”

“You are sure he is alive? I thought he was dead. They told me he was dead.”

“He should be dead, God knows. He’s seen his father and his brother and his poor sister-in-law all taken out and executed underneath his window and yet he’s still there,” Will said. “Perhaps his hair is white with shock but his head’s still on his shoulders.”

“He’s alive?” I could still hardly believe it. “You’re sure?”

“For the moment.”

“Could I visit him without trouble?”

He laughed. “The Dudleys always bring trouble,” he said.

“I mean without being suspected.”

He shook his head. “This is a court gone dark,” he said sadly. “Nobody can do anything without being suspected. That is why I sleep. I cannot be accused of plotting in my sleep. I have an innocent sleep. I take care not to dream.”

“I just want to see him,” I said. I could not keep the longing from my voice. “Just to see him and know that he is alive and will stay alive.”

“He is like any man,” Will said fairly. “Mortal. I can assure you that he is alive today. But I can’t tell you for how long. That will have to satisfy you.”

In the days that followed I went between the queen’s apartments and Lady Elizabeth’s, but in neither place could I be comfortable. The queen was tight-lipped and determined. She knew that Elizabeth must die for treason, and yet she could not bear to send the girl to the Tower. The council examined the princess and were certain that she had known everything of the plot, that she had masterminded one half of it, that she would have held Ashridge to the north for the rebels while they took London from the south, and that — and this was the worst — that she had summoned help from France for the rebellion. It was thanks to the loyalty of London that the queen was on the throne and the princess under arrest and not the other way around.

Though everyone urged it on her, the queen was reluctant to try Elizabeth with a charge of treason, because of the uproar it would create in the country. She had been dismayed by the numbers who had come out for Elizabeth’s rebellion, no one could predict how many might come out to save her life. A further thirty men were marched home to Kent to be hanged in their own towns and villages but there could be no doubt that there would be hundreds ready to take their place if they thought that the Protestant princess was to be sent to the scaffold.

And worse than that: Queen Mary could not force her own determination. She had hoped that Elizabeth would come to court a penitent, and they could have reconciled. She had hoped that Elizabeth would have learned that Mary was stronger than her, that she could command the city even if Elizabeth could summon half of Kent. But Elizabeth would not confess, would not beg her sister for mercy. Prideful and unyielding, she continued to swear that she was innocent of anything, and Mary could not bear to see her with the lies on her lips. Hour after hour the queen knelt before her prie-dieu, her chin on her hands, her eyes fixed on the crucifix, praying for guidance as to what she should do with her treacherous sister.

“She would have beheaded you in minutes,” Jane Dormer said bluntly when the queen rose from her knees and walked to the fireside, leaning her head against the stone chimney breast and looking into the flames. “She would have had your head off your shoulders the moment she put the crown on her own. She would not have cared if you were guilty of envy or rebellion. She would have killed you for simply being the heir.”