Will raked one hand through his hair in exasperation. “Don’t you understand, Bess? There is more at stake here than religion.” He captured my face between his hands. “If Mary becomes queen and returns England to the Church of Rome, our marriage will be invalidated. I will still be married to Anne Bourchier.”
Stricken, I could do no more than stare at him. He dropped his hands to my shoulders but held my gaze with his serious light brown eyes. “There may yet be a way to preserve what we have, both the Church of England and our marriage.”
“Tell me.”
He steered me to a long, padded bench with a low back. “It is King Edward’s idea, his wish. Months ago, in secret, His Grace composed what he called a device for the succession. He does not want either of his sisters to inherit.” Will snorted a laugh, but it had no humor in it. “In truth, he does not want any woman on the throne, but there’s no help for that.”
“After Mary and Elizabeth come the children and grandchildren of King Henry’s two sisters—all females,” I said slowly, remembering that Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, had three daughters and her late sister only one child, another girl. “Why not Princess Elizabeth then? She is sound in religion and she is King Edward’s half sister.”
“Is she? There has always been some doubt about her legitimacy.”
“One has only to look at her to see she’s a Tudor.”
“But King Henry executed her mother for adultery. The taint lingers. In any case, King Edward’s plan is to leave a will, as his father did, setting out the order of succession. He will disinherit both of his sisters because King Henry annulled his marriages to both their mothers, making Jane Seymour, who gave birth to Edward, Henry’s first true wife.”
I nodded, although I had difficulty following the logic of it all. “Who succeeds, then? The little queen of Scotland is descended from King Henry’s eldest sister.”
“King Henry passed over that line and King Edward wishes to do the same. His Grace’s first version of the device left the crown to ‘the Lady Frances’s heirs male’ and ‘for the lack of such issue to the Lady Jane’s heirs male.’”
“But Frances Brandon has no sons. And the Lady Jane has only just married.”
“I know.” Will’s voice was sharp, his manner agitated. He moved restlessly from window to table, pouring himself a cup of wine, then leaving it behind as he returned to my side. “The king soon realized that he would not live long enough to see any sons born to either woman, so he has made a change in the wording. The crown now goes ‘to the Lady Frances’s heirs male, if she have any such issue before my death’ and ‘to the Lady Jane and her heirs male’ by default.”
I stared at Will in shock. “To the Lady Jane and her—do you mean to say that His Grace has cut the Duchess of Suffolk out of the succession in favor of her eldest daughter?”
“Say rather in favor of her daughter and her daughter’s husband. No one really expects a woman to rule England.”
“I did not foresee this.” I stared down at my hands. They were clasped so tightly in my lap that my rings had left deep impressions in the adjoining fingers.
“Nor did any of us, not even Northumberland.”
“Guildford Dudley will be king.”
“Yes.”
A self-centered seventeen-year-old younger son would rule England. I felt slightly ill. It had been my suggestion that he wed the Lady Jane.
Still, it might all come right. Gil’s father would continue to be the power behind the throne. Perhaps very little would change, after all.
“A King Guildford is better than a Queen Mary,” I said, but my voice sounded uncertain even to my own ears.
“It is not as if we have a choice, Bess. We must support him or lose everything.”
“We will. Others will, too.” We were not the only ones who had much to lose. I managed a brave, bracing smile, but I prayed with all my heart that a miracle would occur and young King Edward would recover.
40
The tempest began with a downpour in the early evening of the sixth day of July. Before long, hailstones fell from the sky. They crashed against the windows that overlooked the Thames, peppering them so hard that cracks appeared in the expensive glass. The wind howled. My ladies lent their shrieks to the cacophony until I ordered them to be silent.
“It is only a storm,” I said, turning away from the disturbing sight.
My chief waiting gentlewoman, Mistress Crane—known as Birdie both for her sharp blade of a nose and her surname—let out a terrified shriek and pointed at the window behind me. “The hailstones have turned bloodred! It is an evil portent. Soon real blood will be spilled.”
Frowning, I looked for myself. It was true that the hail did have a pinkish tinge. “It is only light reflected from the setting sun,” I said, still striving for calm.
“But the storm clouds obscure the sun.”
A flash of lightning and the nearly simultaneous crack of thunder saved me the trouble of answering. I gave thanks that Winchester House had been built on a sturdy stone foundation. We would remain safe so long as we stayed within its walls, no matter how unnatural the weather. I was not quite ready to believe in omens, but I could feel the odd quality to the air. It made my skin prickle.
Cautiously, not quite certain I wanted to take a closer look, I approached the cracked window. The water in the Thames roiled and churned. It had swamped several wherries, caught halfway across the river when the storm hit. Passengers and boatmen alike clung to the overturned watercraft. Bigger vessels docked at the many wharves along the riverfront were likewise battered by the high winds and driving rain. The hail, at least, had passed, but the strip of ground below my window was littered with gray-white pebbles, some as big as tennis balls.
Lightning flashed again and I gasped as it struck one of the many church steeples in the city. The spire slowly tumbled to the street below. Now that, I thought, was a bad sign. My gaze shifted downriver, toward Greenwich. I could not see that far, but my thoughts continued on past London Bridge, past the Tower, straight to my husband and his deathwatch.
If nature rebelled at the loss of a king, then Edward was gone.
Superstitious nonsense, I told myself.
But what else could account for the devastation in front of my eyes? As I watched, a house on the opposite shore was swept away by the rising water. “A heavy rain at high tide always causes flash floods,” I murmured, but a shudder racked my body from head to toe.
The storm passed as abruptly as it had begun. When night fell, I lit every candle in my privy chamber and waited. I knew something momentous had happened, but it was nearly midnight before Will arrived home.
“He’s dead?” I asked.
There were tears in Will’s eyes as he confirmed that King Edward had departed this life at the exact hour the storm had struck London. “He suffered terribly at the end, Bess. Poor lad. He’s at peace now.”
“And we are left behind to carry out his wishes.”
“His and the duke’s. Northumberland wants to keep the king’s death quiet for a day or two, until everything is in readiness to proclaim Jane queen.”
“Until he has Princess Mary in custody, you mean.”
“He’s dispatched his son Robin with a small force to secure her person. And he’s sent word to his duchess to inform Queen Jane of her new status.”