The Irish Princess

  But since I had been back at court—especially since I had finally accepted that it would give me greater access to the king if I were with one of his comrades—I had taken to smiling at Sir Anthony. Mother, may God rest her soul, would be pleased I was finally harkening to the advice she’d given me the last day we were together. An older, powerful, wealthy man, she had said—yes, but at what price to me?

  “It is indeed beautiful, my lord,” I responded. “I thought you would be so busy preparing all the horses we will need for the progress that I would not see you until we were en route northward.”

  He smiled like a schoolboy who had been given a yuletide sweet, and offered his arm, which I took so that we strolled the gravel paths among the blooming rosebushes together. “I hope so much time in the saddle will not tire you, Lady Gera. My condolences again on the loss of your mother.”

  No thanks to your friend the king for making her life a misery, I longed to spit at him, but I said only, “That means a great deal from one who recently lost his wife.”

  “Well, not so recent that I have not picked up the reins of my life again. My family is all grown, you see, and wed, but for my youngest, Mabel, who will soon come to court. I am sure she will appreciate new friendships here, if you would be so kind.”

  “Of course, if you don’t mind her friend coming from a rebel past,” I said, unable to completely play the simpering maid. I had best get a reading right now of whether Sir Anthony was sent to keep an eye on me for someone else or for his own pleasure.

  “My dear,” he said, stopping and turning toward me, “you are here at His Majesty’s court, so obviously that past, which is no fault of your own, is no impediment to your future. I know all that Irish sadness is behind you, and so much brighter lies ahead. I shall look forward to riding off and on with you on our journey through the northern shires and, dare I say, our journey of life.” Then he added hastily, “Here at court.”

  He bent to kiss my hand, surprising me by turning it palm up before he did so. I studied him anew: Anthony Browne was an agreeable enough looking man, brown hair, with flecks of gray, brown eyes, brown beard and mustache, even brown garments today, though finely made ones. The other times we had talked, I had thought his bluff speech and manner a sort of brown too—bland and plain. But he had surprised me today, and the touch of his lips lingering on my palm was pleasant. As for that remark about life’s journey, perhaps there was some potential here for closer proximity to the king through at least a friendship with Sir Anthony Browne.

  Amidst the happy hubbub, as if I needed more reasons to detest the king, on May 27, 1541, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was beheaded for championing her rebel family, especially her son Cardinal Pole, who had criticized the king. Luckily for Cardinal Pole, like our dear Gerald, now Earl of Kildare, he was living abroad, out of the king’s clutches, though word was the king’s minions were trying to track him and arrest him too. The executed countess had been a close confidante and governess of Mary Tudor when she was but a child, and I could imagine how Mary mourned her loss. This king thought nothing of executing women who got in his way, let alone men—a warning to me, but one I could not afford to heed.

  For dire word came to the court from Ireland that Henry Rex had been declared not lord of Ireland, as was tradition, but its king.

  On June 13, but a few days before we set out on the progress, under great duress, the Irish Parliament met to formally declare and proclaim the king’s new title and power over the Irish. In a great company of Irish ecclesiastics and nobles, including the earls of Ormond and Desmond, the O’Brien and the O’Reilly—all at one time or the other allies or rivals of my father—everyone had been forced to give their approval. Of course, with the Fitzgeralds out of the way, or so everyone thought, the Irish were forced to accept this king and his heirs in perpetuity, as, I believe I later heard the decree was pompously worded, “Forasmuch as Your Majesty has always been the only defender and protector under God of this realm.”

  Again it was stated in Dublin that day, as in the Act of Attainder against my family, “The blood of the Geraldines is corrupted toward the Crown of England.” On and on with outrageous lies and insults, forced on a free, proud people. None of the good things our family had done to raise the level of living, to help educate and prosper our beloved people, were so much as mentioned.

  The very night before the court set out on the progress to flaunt the king’s power to his own subjects, I sneaked into the chapel and, before the altar on my knees, vowed to myself and God—Saint Brigid too—that the so-called king of Ireland would not find a defender and protector to keep him from Fitzgerald justice through me!

  CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

  Despite all I had seen perpetrated on the Fitzgeralds, Ireland, and the king’s own people, I did not fully grasp the awesome might of the Tudor king until that day the court set out from London. The great royal progress to the north, as it was called even years after, assembled and snaked its way northward, a massive, portable display of people, property, and power, with me in the midst of it.

  One thousand marching armed soldiers led the way, followed by eighty archers with drawn bows. Then, finely arrayed with gorgeous trappings on their mounts that Sir Anthony had prepared, rode the king, queen, and his closest nobles—I rode behind the queen at the back of that group. Next came our servants, including Alice, mounted or in carts, then wagons drawn by huge draft horses carrying two hundred tents, followed by five thousand packhorses laden with tapestries, clothing trunks, and plate for the three hundred courtiers. And to think that when we Fitzgeralds had ridden out in the sweet Irish summers to survey our lands and greet our people, we had gone with but twelve guards, one Geraldine banner, and hunks of meat, bread, and cheese in our saddlebags!

  But that was not all. More lumbering wagons and carts with food, staffed with enough servants to handle four months of meals in field kitchens, brought up the rear. They would be needed when we were not entertained at manor houses or castles. Along the way, the king and his men would hunt deer, and fish and fowl would be provided, enough to feed an Irish army on the move.

  When I had heard the stops our huge entourage would make en route, I was disappointed we would not visit Edward Clinton’s holdings of Kyme Castle or his new manor house I had heard he was building at some place called Sempringham. We would pass very nearby and go through Lincoln itself, the seat of his power in Parliament—so close but yet so far. It was only curiosity that made me want to see his lands, I told myself, for I was eager to take in every day’s vistas and villages.

  Although I loved being out in the countryside, away from London, the roads were so crowded with gawkers that we might as well have been prancing down London’s busiest fairways. Only some of the guards and soldiers marching before us were mounted, but dust was always our companion. At least the weather was quite good, with rains only at night, drumming on our tent roofs through the midland shires, even as we passed quite close to Leicester and Beaumanoir. Hours in the saddle, as Anthony Browne had warned, and cots at night made me stiff by day, for only the king and queen slept on down mattresses each night in their separate tents.

  We traversed more or less twenty miles a day, with all the stops for food and comfort. Endless hurrahs and “God save the king!” rang in my ears on this tour to what I’d heard both the king and Anthony Browne called the “brute shires.”

  But it did indeed begin to feel we were in the north when the temperatures dropped at night and the winds picked up, especially beyond Grimsthorpe Castle as we entered Lincoln-shire, Clinton’s home area, nearly two-thirds of the way to our destination of York. Grimsthorpe was a vast edifice owned by Charles Brandon, the organizer of this progress. After a comfortable single night there in real rooms in real beds, we pushed on and camped again in tents on a grassy plain surrounded by gentle hills.

  The buzz in the cavalcade that day had been that Lord Edward Clinton’s men would soon join us, after sailing the channel and co
ming up the great River Ouse with artillery for the king to flaunt in Lincoln and York. There bad feelings about the Northern Rebellion still seethed, though it had been put down five years before. So of course I was tense too, wondering if I would have to face Clinton again—and with some of the very guns that had blasted my beloved Maynooth and had convinced the traitor Christopher Paris to surrender our stronghold.

  But far more disturbing news was the word that had come with the daily London messengers and quickly spread about the camp: When my uncle Leonard Grey’s trial for dereliction of duty and treason had gone against him, he had cast himself on the mercy of the king. (The mercy of this king, the fool!) Thinking his holdings and life would be spared for the good services he had done the crown, he admitted he was guilty—and had been beheaded, a familiar fate for those I was kin to by now.

  Despite how he had betrayed us Fitzgeralds and deserved to die for that alone, I grieved for the man who had taken my family in and had brought me Wynne. At least, I grieved for his being so stupid as to trust this king—and, of course, I grieved for Alice too, who had loved my uncle even when she knew he planned to wed another. But so far, she was holding it all in.

  “You aren’t ill, are you?” Alice asked me as she made certain I was settled in the tent I shared with five of the queen’s other maids of honor. “You look peaked and you keep chewing your lower lip and frowning off into the distance.”

  “I grieve for him too, really, Alice. And, truth be told, it annoys me that they will parade through the so-called rebel brute north with the very cannons that blasted holes in my home in Ireland.”

  “I know. But my point is you jump like a startled rabbit every time his name is mentioned.”

  “Whose name? I spoke only of my uncle.”

  “Edward Clinton, of course.”

  She pulled my hands down and grasped them; I realized I’d twisted my single strand of pearls into knots. “My lady,” she said, whispering amidst the bustle of the others in the tent, “I know how it is to long for the unobtainable. I warrant you know that I was your uncle’s mistress after his lady died, but then he wanted to make another marriage . . . and now . . . look at him. . . .”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “I did not mean to ever speak of that to you, and you so young, but now that you’ve been at court and have seen the ways of the world, I . . . I never speak of him and I thank you for giving me a life away from him. Forgive me, for I know I’m babbling. During his trial, I agonized for him, but now my memories are so dear and yet so painful.”

  Though she was holding my hands as if to comfort me, I tugged her outside and walked her back by the slope of the hill beyond the fringe of flags and tents. “I am so sorry for your loss and grief, Alice, truly I am,” I told her, wishing I had better words of comfort, for she was crying freely now. “If it helps at all, please know that I am mourning my uncle too, for what kindnesses he did extend to me and to my family.” What would Magheen or Mother—before she became so sad herself—have said to help her? I wondered.

  “I-I know,” she stammered, “you have mixed feelings about him, my lady, for . . . for what he—he and I—did that night in Dublin when your uncles were taken. I only wanted to please him then, hoping he would . . . would keep me.” She tugged her hands free and produced a handkerchief from up her sleeve to blow her nose and wipe under her eyes.

  “Stay here a moment,” I told her. “I am going to tell the others I’ll be to bed later—not that they would miss me, since some of them are meeting their lords or lovers. Then we will talk more.”

  Inside the tent, I made my excuses and one of the women, I recall, whispered, “Is it Sir Anthony? For I heard him tell His Majesty he favors you greatly.”

  “I’ll not tell,” I said with a little smile I did not feel and a wave as I seized a shawl Magheen had made for me and darted back outside.

  Dusk was darkening into night. Stars were popping out overhead, and the northeast wind was picking up. Alice and I linked arms and walked away from the torches being lit and sat on the grassy brow of a hill where we could see the camp, especially the queen’s large, beflagged tent, which was always pitched near ours. We looked at the back of it, but I saw shadows as a few people moved about inside. This late each day on the progress she had never summoned us to her, and oft said she was quite worn out.

  Alice gave a sigh and wiped her eyes again. “It is hard to see others so happy in love,” she whispered. “The queen has been radiant on this tour, His Majesty’s centerpiece, his rose without a thorn. They seem a bit mismatched, but I wish them all happiness.”

  I didn’t, but I patted Alice’s shoulder. How much I had disliked this woman at first, but now I wanted to comfort her. In like wise, how much I had wanted to hate Mary Tudor, but found I could not. But no softening, no womanly weakening toward the king and his lackeys, Dudley and Edward Clinton.

  We sat in companionable silence and somehow that was enough. We had both suffered, but what woman had not? I felt a stab of sorrow for my mother’s plight, losing her beloved husband, her son Gerald, her brothers-in-law, and her home. And, silly girl that I was, I pitied myself.

  “What’s that ado over there?” I asked, pointing as mounted men and wagons lumbered into our camp, but as soon as I asked, I knew. Captain Clinton was here with the armaments he’d brought part way by sea. They would be carted the rest of the journey through the brute shires as a warning to rebels. I squinted into the growing dusk but could not make out which one he was among the riders. Sir Anthony had told me that Clinton’s duty was to deliver the artillery pieces here and then others would take over to get them the rest of the way. So would Clinton go on with the cavalcade or head home, not far away, as I reckoned it?

  I insisted on walking Alice to her tent, instead of the other way around, as she had me each night. She curtsied deeply to me with, “I am grateful to be in the service of such a lovely lady—lovely inside as well as outside.”

  Though we had been both in and out of tents this night, I knew what she meant and was deeply moved. However much I missed Mother and Magheen—Margaret too—it was good to have a companion who was a friend, and I felt, somehow, we’d made that transition this day.

  Still thinking of how young women needed the guidance of their elders, I saw the ubiquitous Jane Rochford, the queen’s guardian, slip out of the royal tent. She darted away at first, but then I saw her circle back to the rear of the tent, where she pressed her face to the canvas. Was she peering within through some slit I could not see from here?

  Watching the carts with cannons creaking in, I lingered on the hill where Alice and I had sat. At last Lady Jane moved, a mere dark form against the whiteness of the tent. But she did not go in the front entrance where she had come out, as I was expecting. Rather, she knocked on the taut canvas where she stood, then apparently unlaced a back entrance, when none of the other tents, as far as I knew, had such. Perhaps since the king had secret chambers and accesses in his palaces, the royal tents had a back entrance.

  When Lady Jane opened it to look in and windmilled her arm at whomever was inside, in the wan light I glimpsed the queen in a white night rail in a man’s arms, and not the arms of the king. Not even the arms of her secretary, Frances Dereham, whom she had summoned to her so many nights. It was a man who served the king in his chamber, one of his favorites, but not mature in years as were some of his staunchest comrades. It was the young and handsome Sir Thomas Culpeper.

  I saw the man and the queen part reluctantly, for he darted back to kiss her again and whirl her once about before darting out the back of the tent with a nod at Lady Jane. While she laced up the opening, so I could not see so much as a slit there, he strode away behind several tents in the opposite direction, then toward the king’s large tent across the grassy courtyard.

  And so, amidst all my agonizing, finally a piece of dangerous knowledge fell my way that could, if not bring down the king, at least hurt the man and his manhood.

  “Crazed and carel
ess, don’t you agree?” a man asked behind me in the darkness. I gasped and jumped up, though the voice was one I’d longed to hear. “But I can understand,” he went on. “I would almost hazard all for a taste of forbidden fruit myself right now.”

  Edward Clinton! I was so shocked I hardly took in his words at first.

  “How dare you seek me out!”

  “Sad to say, Irish, I just found a privy place to relieve myself, and, as I returned to camp, there you were. So what did you see and what do you plan to do with such dangerous knowledge? Will the king kill others to protect his pretty bride queen, and will you be foolish enough to be in his gun sights? Or will he kill only her—and her lover, of course?”

  “You . . . you saw it too?”

  “I did, and thought you were another of the queen’s ladies besides Rochford—which you are—but put here to keep an eye on others seeing what we just saw. But you are here to spy to get evidence against the queen to torment the king, aren’t you?”

  “You know nothing about anything, so leave off and leave me alone.”

  “I wish I could,” he said, seizing my wrist as I started away. “But I can’t trust what you might say that would implicate me too, when I want no treasonous complications. It’s possible this will all be hushed up when the king finds out, but I doubt it—rather it will be a bloodbath. If the queen is being so foolhardy, she will be found out and suffer for it without your help, though I know you are passionate for revenge against the king.”

  “You think you know everything about me.”