AN: I'm going away on Tuesday, so I'm leaving you with a double upload to keep you going while I'm away. Enjoy!
Chapter 13
January 1547
I was sitting at the table in Kenilworth Palace, breakfasting with Blanche, when there was a sudden commotion outside and Anne, George, Mary and Edward Brandon suddenly burst in on us.
"Anne! Your Majesty! Lord Ormonde! Mary! Lord Edward! What's going on?"
I sprang up, startled at their abrupt, dishevelled appearance, wondering what on Earth the matter could be. I was not expecting Anne to drop to her knees before me.
"Your Majesty."
My eyes snapped to George Boleyn's face, then to Mary's.
"You mean…"
"Yes, Elizabeth. Your father's dead. The King is dead. Long Live the Queen!" George, too, dropped to one knee before me.
"Long Live Queen Elizabeth!" Edward knelt more slowly than the others, but the fervour that burned in his eyes and rang in his voice was enough to assure me of his loyalty to me a thousand times over.
Blanche looked from the kneeling adults to me and then half-rose.
"Bessie?" Her voice shook with grief and shock. As I had expected. The last two years had made her little better at controlling her emotions and her outer shell had hardly developed either.
I longed to fold her into my arms and hold her as she cried, but I wasn't just her older sister any more. I was her Queen.
In the end, it was the Lady Mary who gently took Blanche into her embrace and held her as she coaxed her into curtsying to me as befitted a Princess curtsying to her Queen.
I saw the respect my sister was paying me, as she had done once before, almost two years earlier, but this time, instead of pleasing me, it tore at my heart. The pain in her voice was so clear, it nearly brought me out in tears. I had to grit my teeth to keep myself together as I spoke to George Boleyn.
"How long ago?"
"Two days, My Lady Queen. We've ridden hard ever since."
"I don't doubt it, my Lord Ormonde and I thank you for it, but I think Blanche and I will retire to be alone for a while before we speak again."
I knew it was perhaps unwise to retire not knowing the full extent of the situation, but I was only sixteen. Sixteen and grieving for my father. And my sister was only eleven. She wouldn't even be twelve till June. She wasn't much more than a child. She needed comfort even more than I did. We needed each other. We needed to be together; to be sisters, to be the way we used to be, not Queen and subject.
And Anne understood that. When her brother, the new Earl of Ormonde since their father's death the previous autumn, she touched his arm with a quiet murmur.
"Let them be, George. They're only girls. Don't you remember what it was like when Papa died? When Mama died?"
He hesitated for a moment, then swept us a bow and went to open the door for us.
"As you wish, Your Majesty. Your Highness."
"All right, Lord Ormonde. Tell me what the current situation is."
That afternoon, still red-eyed from the morning of private grief that I had allowed myself in the company of my sister, I faced my step-uncle, ready to hear everything that he wanted to tell me.
"Your father's death was announced by Sir Anthony Denny two days ago and my sister, the Lady Mary, Lord Edward and myself rode here to Kenilworth almost immediately. We wanted to be the first to tell you."
"I see. Who else learned of my father's death?"
"The Duke of Richmond, of course. He is your half-brother and he was the closest to the palace of the three of you."
At George's words, I closed my eyes.
"Oh God. He'll make a play for the throne. We can be sure of that if nothing else."
"Yes, I'm afraid so. When we left Greenwich, less than a day after your father died, there was already talk at Court that he was planning to march on London."
"Then what do we do, George? He cannot be allowed to seize my throne! I am the rightful Queen, both by law and the will of the people. He is not the rightful King!"
"You need to gather your forces. Gather your forces, then march to meet him."
"But where do I go? If only I was near Hatfield…but up here, it is Mary who holds sway more than me. You know how conservative they are up here!" I groaned, silently cursing the day that Blanche and I had decided to come to Kenilworth.
"But we do have Warwick Castle, Madam. It is one of the greatest in England. Withdraw to Warwick Castle and raise your standard there. I should think every man, woman and child in England would rush to your side."
"I pray to God you're right, Lord Ormonde. But whatever else, I am my father's daughter. You can be sure that I will not let this throne go without a fight."
Just as I finished speaking, Edward Brandon looked in.
"We wait upon your orders, my Lady Queen." He exclaimed, saluting me with a respectful smile.
I sighed and pushed myself away from the table.
"Tell the servants and soldiers to prepare, Edward. We ride for Warwick within the hour. I want to get there before dark if at all possible. And send someone to watch my half-brother. I want to know his movements."
"As you wish." Edward bowed, flashed me another, much warmer, more reassuring smile and then left the room.
We raised our standard at Warwick and, as George Boleyn had predicted, hundreds of men, women and children flocked to join us.
Fully aware that we might yet find ourselves in open warfare before I could claim my rightful throne, I turned away as many of the women and children as I could, with the promise that, if and when we got out of this safely, I would remember their loyalty to me and to England.
Nobles, too, began to come to me, pledging their allegiance to the trueborn daughter of Henry VIII more openly than they had ever done when he was alive. Among them, among the many nobles and members of the gentry who joined us were four men all from one family, a family which, though I didn't know it at the time, was to become inextricably linked with me and mine. The Dudleys.
They travelled up from Suffolk with Sir Charles Brandon and the five of them, Sir Charles, Sir John and his three eldest sons, knelt before me on the cold morning of the 3rd of February, swearing fealty.
Grateful to see them all, for they were all five strong healthy men who, young though Ambrose and Robert were, knew how to wield a sword, I smiled down upon them and waved my hand.
"Rise, my Lord Suffolk. And you, Sir John. I am most pleased to see you. We may yet have need of every sword we can lay our hands on before I am seated in my lawful place on the Throne of England."
"Then rest assured you have mine, My Lady. Mine and John's and Robert's and Ambrose's."
I nodded. "I accept them gratefully, Sir John and I swear to you here and now that I will see you recompensed for your loyalty."
"To see you safe on your throne is all I seek, Your Majesty. That in itself would be recompense enough."
"Still, you will be rewarded." I promised. I knew, as I was hoping my half-brother and his advisors did not, that it was no good merely forcing people to fight for you. Not if you omitted to promise them anything in return. They might not always say so outright, but soldiers always expected to be paid for their toil in one way or another. If you thought ahead and rewarded them before they asked, you could sometimes win their true and everlasting heartfelt loyalty; loyalty that lasted forever and not just the loyalty of pretty words and a common cause.
That was what I hoped to do with as many of the Lords who were currently flocking to my side as possible. Foreign alliances were all very well and good and I thanked God that I had two sisters and a cousin of marriageable age, or nearly so, at any rate, to help in that regard, but foreign alliances wouldn't help me rule the English people. There were too many precedents of things going sour for that.
No. To rule the English people, I needed the nobility. And for that, I also needed loyalty. I had Suffolk, I knew that, because of Charles and Edward Brandon, and Ireland, thanks to Blanche, while the North loved both Mary and myself, at least as long as we stood together. As long as we did, I held the North almost in the palm of my hand, but they truly followed Mary, not me. If she broke from us, I'd lose them. Nor did I truly have the Midlands. Nor Wales, for all I was Duchess of Pembroke as well as of York. Nor even parts of the South like Richmond, where my brother Edward was lord and master.
I would have to win all those places over fully with justice, due rewards and time. Winning a family such as the Dudleys to my side was just the start of the battle.
Those thoughts in mind, I smiled down at the five men in front of me and dismissed them with another grateful wave of my hand, as befitted a Queen of England, Wales, France and Ireland.