Chapter 21
I did my duty throughout Christmas and Epiphany to keep Elizabeth informed of what went on in and outside of Hatfield.
We never wrote or spoke a word that could be misconstrued or used in evidence, as I was able to convey the information to her in our code. I sewed what she needed to learn, and she read it in silence.
When Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion had come precariously close to costing Elizabeth her life, I’d been angry with the gentlemen who had put her into such a position.
This time, things were different. Two years ago, Mary had simply wanted to marry whom she pleased, even if her choice of bridegroom was not popular. Now, she burned people alive because they clung to their beliefs.
I did not truly understand the full horror of it all until early in 1556 when I had cause to travel to London. My route brought me near Smithfield on a day when several burnings took place.
Two women and a man, the women fairly young, the man elderly, were being led to three pyres. The day was cold and misty, damp under leaden skies.
“Shopkeeper’s daughters,” a woman said near me as I strove to view the scene over heads around me. “And their old uncle.” She lowered her voice. “A shame to see it.”
The woman took in my fine clothes, fur-lined cloak, and the servants waiting for me, who gazed in as much shock as I did at what was transpiring. The woman I spoke to was middle class, and she was aware that most wealthy gentlewomen served Mary in some capacity or other.
“A shame, I agree,” I said, then added, “I am with the princess.”
The woman’s grim countenance lightened. “Blessings be on her, I say. The blessings of God be upon her.” The woman then abruptly closed her mouth and moved from me, as though she feared she’d said too much.
In the center of the cleared space, the two women were being bound to their biers, the man openly weeping. I tried to turn away, to flee the sight, but the dense crowd hemmed me in.
The number of people between me and the pyres prevented me, mercifully, from seeing everything, but I could still hear and smell. Torches were lit and thrust into the wood, but the damp had got into the pyres and the sticks scorched and smoldered. Before long, the girls began shouting and pleading.
“The wood’s too wet,” a man near me shouted. He swore. “It’s too wet to burn ’em quick.”
The cries of the girls turned to screams. I heard nothing from the elderly man, but I glimpsed him standing in the midst of smoke and smoldering wood, tears running down his black face, his hair singed and gone.
“Fan the flames,” one of the young women cried. “Good people, I beg of you.”
Several people pushed forward, trying to help them end their lives quickly, but the guards shoved them back.
I desperately scrambled away, squeezing between people who openly wept or shouted for others to help the victims. The smell of slowly burning flesh pursued me as I fled, as did the girls’ pathetic screams.
“Stopped. It must be stopped.” Tears ran down my face, and I growled the words between clenched teeth. I’d become separated from my servants, and passers-by stared at me as though I were a madwoman, but I did not care.
I scuttled from one side of London to the other without realizing it, my skirts dragging in mud and filth, my shoes ruined.
Anguish and anger dogged me every step of the way. The thought of Mary sitting in her palace, watching the river for any sign of Philip’s return and feeling sorry for herself, infuriated me beyond reason.
“Stopped. It must be stopped.” I babbled the litany over and over, my tears unceasing.
I’d reached Somerset House, my feet somehow taking me where I needed to go. Aunt Kat came hurrying downstairs when I stumbled in through the front entrance and caught me in her arms.
“It must be stopped,” I sobbed into her shoulder.
“’Twill be, love.” Aunt Kat stroked my hair as she’d done when I’d been a young lass, and let me cry. “That is why we work so hard, my dear. To stop her and her foul bridegroom. We will win through.”
I did not very well see how we could win anything. It was fine and good for men to sit around tables and make vague plans, but I began to itch for something tangible to do, though I was not certain what.
Aunt Kat and the others had not been idle, however.
Aunt Kat had collected pamphlets against Mary, which she distributed to all she could.
Lord Robert Dudley, though living mostly at Norfolk now that he’d been released from the Tower, still attended Mary’s court from time to time, and had many chats with his old friend Colby.
Colby, in turn, passed on plenty of information to us about Mary.
Lord Robert even went so far as to sell land from one of his properties and smuggle the money to Elizabeth, for raising an army. Elizabeth accepted it and thanked him sweetly.
In March, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was condemned to burn.
During his imprisonment, he’d signed six statements recanting his conversion to the reformed faith and affirming his loyalty to the Pope.
But then Cranmer, who’d made it possible for Henry to divorce Mary’s mother and wed Elizabeth’s, did the remarkable.
At his condemnation, he gave an eloquent speech, much to the distress of his accusers.
I have written many things untrue, and for as much as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished. For if I may come to the fire, it shall first be burned.
And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ’s enemy and antichrist with all his false doctrine.
I imagined the gaping mouths and angry starts of the host of Mary’s bishops who’d put the old Archbishop on trial.
They’d confidently believed they’d terrified Cranmer into siding with them and supporting Mary’s stance on the heresy laws.
But in the end, Cranmer died a martyr, another around whom Mary’s opponents would rally.
I heard that when Cranmer stood on the pyre that was to burn him, he’d stated in a loud, clear voice, “This is the hand that wrote, and therefore shall it suffer the first punishment.”
He’d thrust his hand into the flames and held it there until he died. Mary had been so angry, Colby reported, that she’d overturned the furniture and gone to bed ill.
Stopped. It must be stopped.
I would stop her. No matter if I died for it, as long as I ended Mary’s cruelty, I would consider it a deed well done.
During my stay in London, I received a message from my stepfather. He and my mother were lodging near Lincoln’s Inn, and he demanded that I visit them. My mother had been writing to me all winter, continually hinting about my unmarried state, but this was the first summons I’d had.
I ground my teeth and ignored their first message, but the second one was borne by a large manservant who would not leave until I accompanied him.
“Why should they be in London at all?” I growled as the stoic man led me toward Fleet Street. “They have a snug house in Buckinghamshire in which to roost.”
The manservant said nothing. I could not slip away from him, as he was watchful and strong, and presently we came to a modest house that I entered with trepidation.
My stepfather, Sir Philip Baldwin, was a wealthy man, and the house he’d hired reflected this.
Tapestries hung on the walls to guard against drafts, and the floors bore clean rushes scattered with herbs.
A gallery encircled the second floor of the house, its elegantly carved railings polished and smooth.
A maidservant met me at the door and led me up the staircase to this gallery, the wooden steps creaking under her tread. The maid was as tall and strong as the manservant—their resemblance in build and taciturnity made me guess they were brother and sister.
If my mother had awaited me alone in the cozy room that the maid ushered me into, I might have tolerated the visit well.
As it was, my stepfather sat near the fireplace on a chair filled with cushions.
It was the only chair in the room. My mother reposed on a bench, albeit softened with small tapestries, her head bent over some stitchery.
Neither my mother nor Sir Philip rose as I entered. They waited in silence, as though expecting me to pay them the deference I would a great lord and lady.
My mother, once Margaret Champernowne, then Mistress Roussel, and now Lady Baldwin, was complacent and plump like a partridge in a nest. She wore an elegant French hood that lined her rather round face, and had wide rings on every finger.
My mother had been slim in my childhood, but good living and rich food had put much flesh on her bones.
My stepfather had dark hair going gray at the temples and a hint of ruthlessness that my mother lacked.
Sir Philip was loud in his support of Mary and had benefited from it.
Mary had given him a sinecure with an income, and I’d heard that Sir Philip was as proud of his small position as he would be a dukedom.
I curtsied with feigned respect, trying not to let my impatience show. As I straightened, my mother held out her hands without rising from her bench.
“It is grand to see you, daughter.” Her gaze hungrily roved my bodice and velvet sleeves. “Are those facings silk? So pretty you look. A credit to us, I have always said.”
Sir Philip was less impressed. “You will sup with us, Eloise,” he said. A command, not a request.
I went to my mother, took her offered hands, which were warm and moist, and kissed her cheek.
“I cannot stay, sir,” I said, turning to Sir Philip. “We ride to Hatfield soon, and there is much to be done.”
Sir Philip sent me a chilly smile. “You will not be returning to Hatfield, daughter. It is arranged. Tomorrow you will be betrothed to Sir Henry Felsham, a friend who is in need of a wife. As you are in need of a husband, he has agreed to marry you.”
The bottom could not have dropped out of my world more assuredly than if I’d fallen from atop a tower. I gaped at Sir Philip while time slid by, the fire crackled pleasantly, and a group of men passed, arguing, in the street below.
“I would have more words of gratitude.” My stepfather’s growl snapped me out of my daze.
I raised my head and gazed at him with imperiousness worthy of Elizabeth herself. “I will not,” I said in a clear, ringing voice.
The ruthlessness in Sir Philip’s eyes turned swiftly to savagery. I saw in him a man who would do anything to obtain what he wanted, and I understood that my mother had long since learned to be meek for him.
“You defy me?” he said in furious incredulity.
“I am your guardian, Eloise Rousell. I would think you delighted to rid yourself of a low name and rise in the world. Felsham is a wealthy gentleman, with three estates. You will be Lady Felsham, and your son will inherit his baronetcy. What I have done for you is far, far more than one of your sort could hope.”
“One of my sort,” I repeated. “How dare you?”
“Eloise,” my mother tried.
My stepfather launched himself from his cushions and slapped me across the face. “Ingrate.” Spittle flecked his lips. “Blood tells, as I knew it would. You will marry him, and he will have the keeping of you. That is all.”
I touched my fingers to my stinging cheek, barely feeling the pain. “I am twenty-two years old, nearly twenty-three. I do not need your permission to marry as I please.”
Sir Philip raised his hand to slap me again, but my mother made a noise of distress. He glanced at her in derision but took a step back. “You are impudent and disrespectful,” he informed me. “Felsham will cure you of that. He is not afraid to punish his wife.”
My fury mounted. “I cannot leave the service of my princess. She does not like her ladies to desert her. She will never allow me to go.”
“Your monarch is not Elizabeth, but her majesty, Queen Mary,” Sir Philip said with a sneer. “I am certain Mary will give me every power to take you from Her Grace’s household and marry you where I see fit.”
I had no doubt he could do just that. Mary was soppy about her true and loyal subjects, and she’d gleefully send away Elizabeth’s favorite little seamstress if she had excuse to do so.
I forced my voice to cool. My gamble might not work, because Mary still might have the power to stop me, but I had to try.
“I cannot marry your friend,” I said, returning my stepfather’s irritated glare with an icy one of my own. “I am married already. Last week in a parish church in Bedfordshire. To a Mr. James Colby.”
Silence descended upon the room for a few thick moments. Then my mother let out a little scream and pressed her hands to her face.
My stepfather gaped at me exactly as I had gaped at him, before he lifted his hand and expertly and thoroughly beat me.