Chapter 17
The journey down the Thames the next morning was one I would remember for the rest of my days.
The weather had turned for the worse with the tide, and a cold rain beat on us as I and one of Mary’s armed gentlemen assisted Elizabeth into the barge that would carry us downstream.
Sussex and Paulet accompanied us, though neither man looked happy about it.
Water ran from Elizabeth’s cloak and pooled in the bottom of the barge, its flimsy canopy little protection against the cold and wind. Mistress Norwich huddled against Elizabeth on one side, I on the other, as we tried to shield her from the worst of it.
I had been able to get word to Colby about our predicament, though there was little he could do. The lead guard had gazed at me most suspiciously when I’d darted out of Elizabeth’s chamber this morning with a pile of handkerchiefs and commanded that someone bring us clean ones.
The guard had inspected the cloths to see whether I’d buried a letter between the folds, but of course, I had not. I’d spoken a truth when I’d told Elizabeth that day at Ashridge that a thing written was tediously difficult to deny.
But stitches were not writing, at least not to those who couldn’t read the messages. The code Elizabeth and I had perfected could be used in handkerchiefs, cloaks, gloves, sleeves, and even stockings, which were given to a launderer and intercepted by someone Colby trusted.
In this way, I’d communicated during the rebellion where Elizabeth was and that she was safe. Anyone caught with the garments I’d smuggled from Elizabeth’s home, or her chambers in Whitehall, would never realize what information they contained.
The guard at last summoned a serving maid to take the handkerchiefs away and bring me more.
Now, Elizabeth’s barge made its way slowly downriver, past the pile of Somerset House, then the Temple on the north bank and the fields of Southwark on the south.
The shore was empty, but bells pealed from the churches and cathedrals—it was Palm Sunday, a feast day, and ordinary citizens rejoiced at the coming end of Lent.
The City’s wall flowed past, then the shadow of London Bridge, the houses built upon it appearing as though they’d tumble into the water at any moment. The boat rocked and tossed as we floated under the bridge, the strong current threatening to carry it into pilings on either side of us.
The boatmen strained against their oars, sweat mingling with the rain, while I clung to the gunwale with both hands.
I imagined Aunt Kat having to explain to my mother how I’d gone to a watery grave with the princess she despised.
Somehow, I suspected neither my mother nor stepfather would be very sorry.
The barge at last shot from under the bridge, the speed sending us toward calmer waters. We passed Billingsgate, and all too soon the crenellations of the Tower drew close.
The boatmen guided the craft out of the current to the landings, they being the only ones happy to reach our journey’s end. The barge bumped stone, the relieved boatmen throwing ropes to those waiting above to tie us fast.
Sussex immediately sprang ashore, as did Paulet, the elderly man hunched against the rain.
Elizabeth’s face was carved in icy anger. When one of her gentleman ushers climbed out and reached a hand down to help her to shore, Elizabeth remained under the canopy, folded her arms, and sat still.
The man gazed down at her, troubled, the rain streaking his beard and matting his hair to his head. “Your Grace, we must go in,” he said tremulously.
Elizabeth set her jaw and remained under the canvas. Paulet scowled and slid a fold of his cloak over his nose, as though irritated that his appointed task might result in a bad cold. He was nearly seventy, far too elderly for capers in the rain.
Sussex regarded her impatiently. “Your Grace, if you do not leave the boat, I must give the guards instruction to lift you out. I do not wish to do so, as I do not wish anyone to lay hands on your person.”
Elizabeth did not answer. She glared at Sussex with all the fury she could muster, letting it spill beyond him onto Paulet. Then, without a word to either of us ladies, she scrambled to her feet and launched herself up onto the stone wharf.
“Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed here,” Elizabeth stated. She then sat herself down on the stone steps, full in the rain, and folded her arms again.
I climbed out of the boat, my body cold and stiff. It was a black day, quite literally. The rain pelted from dark clouds, and the afternoon didn’t seem likely to be any brighter than the morning.
I expected Sussex to growl at Elizabeth to move, but he stood very quietly, waiting for her to choose what to do.
Hedging his bets, I thought once more. The other councilors, including Paulet, copied his stance. Only the gentleman usher, who was one of Elizabeth’s own men, seemed distressed.
“Your Grace, you must not sit here in the rain,” he said, anguished. He was nearly as elderly as Paulet, with a wife, children, and six granddaughters. I knew him as a gentle person, and now his kind eyes leaked tears. “Please, Your Grace, this is a bad place.”
“Better here than a worse place,” Elizabeth countered.
Her gentleman continued to quietly weep. Elizabeth gazed at him in exasperation, then she sighed and nodded.
Perhaps she took pity on the poor man—I could not tell. Elizabeth could be impatient with even the kindest people, and then she could turn around, soften her heart, and do everything in the world for them.
Elizabeth held out her hand for me, and I and the gentleman usher helped her to her feet. She swirled her cloak about herself in a dramatic fashion and ordered Sussex to proceed. Behind us, Paulet sneezed.
We walked along cold, flooded paths that skirted the ancient stone walls, our way lined with yeomen of the guard. A few pulled off their hats as she passed.
“God save Your Grace,” one said to her.
Elizabeth acknowledged him with a gracious nod.
The accommodations we were escorted to were bleak, though not the rat-infested dungeons I’d feared. It was bad enough—plain rooms that held small hearth fires, but nonetheless dreary.
The two ladies Elizabeth had been allowed to retain would be prisoners with her. We’d not be permitted to leave the Tower, in the event that we’d conspire with outsiders to rescue her. Mary had sent several of her own gentlewomen to watch over Elizabeth and keep an eye on me and Mistress Norwich.
Mary’s ladies waited in the long chamber that was to be Elizabeth’s, standing like jailers near a bed hung with heavy curtains.
Elizabeth glanced around the spartan room, not in despair but with haughty annoyance.
“Did Jane Grey stay here?” she demanded of Sussex.
“No, Your Grace. She did not.”
Colby had told me that at first, Jane had been allowed to live in the comfortable accommodations where she’d been originally housed with her mother, before she’d been moved to the half-timbered Lieutenant’s lodging.
From the windows of Elizabeth’s chamber, I glimpsed a corner of Tower Green, where Jane had met her death.
Elizabeth refused to look out of the windows. “You may leave us,” she said to Sussex, a royal personage dismissing him.
She turned from that retreating gentleman so she would not have to watch him refuse to bow to her.
Elizabeth flinched slightly when the heavy door of the outer chamber closed, and the key turned in the lock, but I was the only one who noticed.
We were kept inside the Tower for nearly two months to the day.
During that time, I saw few people, save the ladies waiting on Elizabeth and the elderly gentleman usher with whom I was allowed to run the occasional errand inside the Tower.
Anything that was needed from outside the walls—food, linens, and the like—was brought by men loyal to Mary and passed to the ladies Mary had sent.
I did my best to be guileless to find out what was happening in the outside world. I managed to pry some information from the ladies and gentlemen who were allowed to go back and forth from our prison, who were unwary enough of me to gossip.
First, they told me that Wyatt had steadfastly refused to say anything against Elizabeth, even when he was promised pardon for admitting that the entire plot had been instigated by her. Wyatt stubbornly would not speak, and neither would any of the others so questioned.
Second, the most damning evidence the council had against Elizabeth was the belief that she’d been preparing to move to her house at Donnington and fortify it. Elizabeth denied this at her preliminary questioning, feigning to forget she even had a residence at Donnington.
Of course she had not forgotten. William Cecil oversaw all her properties, and she consulted with him often, questioning him pointedly about each of her estates. She was careful of her money and properties, and we all knew it.
However, none of her accusers could come up with a scrap of evidence to prove she’d even contemplated moving to Donnington. So what if Sir James Croft and Wyatt had advised her to go? Elizabeth had stayed at Ashridge, hadn’t she?
Elizabeth stuck with that story, and the council could get no more out of her.
I began to have hope. If the interrogators could not come up with solid proof against Elizabeth, then they couldn’t risk bringing her to trial. If they stood her before a jury, as was her right, that jury might acquit her. If that happened, then by law she’d be free of all the charges.
As it turned out, the juries were plenty lenient with the conspirators.
Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Suffolk had been the obvious ringleaders, and they were condemned—Suffolk already dead.
Courtenay, who’d never hidden the fact that he’d hoped to be king one way or another, remained imprisoned, but Bishop Gardiner’s friendship with him kept him from trial.
After all, Gardiner argued, Courtenay had not actually done anything.