MARYE, THE QUEENE
Thus day followed day, whilst in the great world without, England was
preparing to see her premier lord arraigned before his peers on a charge
of murder. And in one of the smaller chambers of her own private
apartments at Hampton Court, Mary Tudor sat alone, praying and thinking,
thinking and praying again.
Not a queen now, not a proud and wilful Tudor, passionate, cruel, or
capricious, but only a middle-aged, broken-hearted woman, with eyes
swollen with weeping, and brain heavy with eternally reiterated desires.
To save him! to save him!
But how?
That he had committed so foul a crime as to stab an enemy in the back,
this in the very face of his own confession Mary still obstinately
refused to believe. The rumours anent the presence of a woman in that
part of the Palace and at that fatal hour had of course reached her
ears. Jealousy and hatred, which had raged within her, had readily
fastened on Ursula Glynde as the cause, if not the actual perpetrator of
the dastardly crime.
That a woman was somehow or other connected with the terrible events of
that night, every one was of course ready to admit, but in what manner
no one was able to conjecture.
A murder had been committed. Of that there could be no doubt. Don Miguel
de Suarez had been stabbed in the back! Not in fair fight, but
brutally, callously stabbed! and he a guest at the English Court!
Of this barbarous, abominable act the Duke of Wessex stood
self-convicted.
Impossible, of course! Preposterous! pronounced his friends. He! the
first gentleman in England, brave to a fault, fastidious, artistic, and
a perfect swordsman to boot! The very accusation was ridiculous.
Yet he stood self-convicted.
Why? in the name of Heaven! Why?
"To shield a woman," said His Grace's friends.
"What woman?" retorted his enemies.
The name of Lady Ursula Glynde had been faintly whispered, yet it seemed
almost as preposterous to suppose that a beautiful young girl--refined,
gentle, poetic, scarce out of her teens--would have the physical
strength to commit so foul a deed, as to think of His Grace in
connection with it.
Yet, in spite of that, the idea had gained ground, that the Lady Ursula
Glynde could, an she would, throw some light on the mystery which
surrounded the events of that terrible night, and no one brooded over
that idea more determinedly than did Mary Tudor.
The young girl had of course denied all knowledge of what had or had not
occurred. There was not a single definite fact that might even remotely
connect her with the supposed enmity between Wessex and Don Miguel.
The Cardinal was not likely to speak, for the present turn of events
suited his own plans to perfection.
My lord of Everingham was away in Scotland, and news travelled slowly
these days. As for the Queen, she had nothing on which to found her
suspicions, save her own hatred of the girl and the firm conviction that
on that same night, an hour or two before the murder, Ursula and Wessex
had met. She had then seen and upbraided the girl in the presence of my
lord Cardinal and the ladies; His Grace was not there then, but what
happened immediately afterwards?
Had she but dared, Mary Tudor would have submitted her rival to mental
and bodily torture, until she had extracted a confession from her. All
she could do was to confine her to her own room in the Palace; she would
not lose sight of her, although the young girl had begged for permission
to quit the Court and retire to a convent, for the silence and peace of
which she felt an unutterable longing.
The Duke's trial by his peers was fixed for the morrow.
It was but a fortnight since that fateful evening. His Grace had been in
the Tower since then, and by virtue of his high influence and of his
exceptional position had demanded and readily obtained a speedy trial.
Twenty-four hours in which a queen might perchance still save the man
she loved from a shameful and ignominious death. And she had thought and
schemed and suffered during fourteen days, as perhaps no other woman had
ever thought and suffered before. She was queen, yet felt herself
powerless to accomplish the one desire of her life, which she would have
bartered her kingdom to obtain: the life of the man she loved.
But to-day she had pluckily dried her tears. The whole morning she had
spent at her toilette, carefully selecting--with an agitation which
would have been ridiculous, considering her age and appearance, had it
not been so intensely pathetic--the raiment which she thought would
become her most. She had a burning desire to appear attractive.
Earnestly she studied the lines of her face, covered incipient wrinkles
and faded cheeks with cosmetics, spent nigh on an hour in the
arrangement of her coif. Then she repaired to a small room, which was
hung with tapestry of a dull red, and into which the fading afternoon
light would only peep very gently and discreetly.
Since then she had paced that narrow room incessantly and impatiently.
Every few moments she rang a handbell, and to the stolid page or
servitor in attendance she repeated the same anxious query--
"Is the guard in sight yet?"
"Not yet, Your Majesty," reiterated the page for the tenth time that
day.
It was nigh on three o'clock in the afternoon when the Duchess of
Lincoln at last came with the welcome news.
"The captain of the guard desires to report to Your Majesty that the
Tower Guard, with His Grace the Duke of Wessex, are at the gates of the
Palace."
Mary, with her usual characteristic gesture, pressed her hand to her
heart, unable to speak with the sudden emotion which had sent the blood
throbbing in her veins. The kind old Duchess, her wrinkled face
expressive of the deepest sorrow and the most respectful sympathy,
waited patiently until the Queen had recovered herself.
"'Tis well," said Mary, after a while. "I pray you. Duchess, to see that
His Grace is introduced in here at once."
When she was alone she fell upon her knees, a great sob shook her
delicate frame. She took her rosary from her girdle and with passionate
fervour kissed the jewelled beads.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God!" she murmured amidst her tears, "make him
listen to me! . . . pray for me . . . intercede for me, Queen of Heaven,
mystic rose, tower of ivory, holy virgin, our mother . . . pray for me
now . . . I would save him, and I would make him King. . . . Queen of
Heaven, aid me . . . Mother of God, make him to love me . . . make him
. . . to love me! . . ."
After that she rose, and carefully wiped her tears. She cast a glance
at a small mirror which stood on the table, smoothed her hair and coif
and forced her lips to smile.
The next moment there was a knock at the door, a clash of arms, the
sound of voices, and two minutes later His Grace of Wessex was in the
presence of the Queen.
She held out her hand to him and he stooped to kiss it. This gave her
time to recover outward composure. Her fond heart ached at sight of him,
for he seemed so altered. All the gaiety, the joy of life, that buoyancy
of youth and ever-ready laughter which had always been his own peculiar
charm, had completely gone from him: he looked older too, she thought,
whilst his step even had lost its elasticity.
Mary motioned him to a seat close beside her. She herself had wisely
chosen so to place her chair that the light from the window, whilst
falling full on him, left her own figure in shadow.
"I trust, my lord," she began with a trembling voice, "that my guard at
the Tower are showing you all the deference and doing you all the honour
which I have commanded, and that your every comfort in that abode of
evil hath been well looked to?"
"Your Majesty is ever gracious," replied Wessex, "far more than I
deserve. The kindness shown me by every one at the Tower hath been a
source of the deepest happiness to me."
"Nay! if I could . . ." began Mary impulsively.
Then she checked herself, determined not to let emotion get the better
of her, ere she had told him all that she wished to say.
"My lord of Wessex," she resumed more firmly, "will you try to think
that you are before a sincere and devoted friend; not before your Queen,
but beside a woman who hath naught so much at heart as . . . your
happiness? . . . Will you try?"
"The effort will not be great," he replied with a smile. "Your Majesty's
kindness hath oft shamed me ere this."
"Then, if you value my friendship, my lord," rejoined Mary vehemently,
"give me some assurance that to-morrow, before your judges and your
peers, you will refute this odious charge which is brought against you."
"I crave Your Majesty's most humble pardon," said Wessex. "I have made
confession of the crime imputed to me and can refute nothing."
"Nay, my lord, this is madness. You, the most gallant gentleman in
England, you, to have done a deed so foul as would shame the lowest
churl! Bah!" she added, with a bitter laugh, "'twere a grim farce, if it
were not so terrible a tragedy!"
"Nay! not a tragedy, Your Majesty. Better men than I have made a failure
of their lives. So I pray you, think no more of me."
"Think no more of you, dear lord," said Mary, with an infinity of
reproach in her voice. "Ah me, I think of naught else since that awful
night when they came and told me that you . . ."
There was a catch in her throat and perforce she had to pause. Oh! the
irony of fate! The bitter satire of that wanton god, called Love!
Wessex looked at this proud Tudor Queen with a deep reverence, in which
there was almost a thought of pity. This lonely, middle-aged woman,
passionate, self-willed, who loved him with all the tenderness of
pent-up motherhood! yet, try how he might! he could only respond to her
true affection with cold respect and deep but unimpassioned gratitude!
Yet was not her worth ten thousandfold more great than that of the
wanton, whose image still filled his heart?
The one woman he honoured, the other he must perforce despise, and
yet--such is the heart of man--he was more ready than ever to give up
life, honour, a great name, and still greater destiny, so that the
worthless object of his whole-hearted affection should be spared public
disgrace.
He would not have named Ursula Glynde in this chaste, virgin Queen's
presence, the very remembrance of that awful night was a pollution, but
proud and haughty as he was, he dwelt on that memory, for it was the
last which he had of her.
Mad, foolish, criminal, sublime Love! The sin of the loved one was
dearer to him than all the virtues of which other women were capable,
and whilst Mary Tudor would have given him a crown, he found it sweeter
far to accept ignominy for Ursula's sake.
Perhaps something of all these thoughts which went on in his mind was
reflected in his face, for Mary, who had been watching him keenly, said
after a while with a tone of bitter resentment--
"My lord, I know that your silence over this mysterious affair is
maintained out of a chivalrous desire to shield another . . . a woman.
. . . Ah, consider. . . ."
"I have considered," replied Wessex firmly, "and I entreat Your Majesty
. . ."
"Nay! 'tis I who entreat," she interrupted him vehemently. "Let us look
facts in the face, my lord. Think you we are all fools to believe in
your cock-and-bull story? A woman was seen that night flying from the
Palace across the terrace . . . who was she? . . . whence did she come?
. . . None of the watch could see her face, and the louts were too
stupid to run after her . . . but there are those within this Court at
this moment who will swear that that woman was Ursula Glynde."
Strangely enough this was the first time, since that fatal night, that
this name was actually spoken in Wessex' hearing: it seemed to sting him
like the cut of a lash across his face. For that one brief instant he
lost his icy self-control, and Mary saw him wince.
"Ursula has been questioned," she continued, "but she remains obdurately
silent. Believe me, my lord, you waste your chivalry in defence of a
wanton."
But already Wessex had recovered himself.
"Your Majesty is mistaken," he rejoined calmly. "I know naught of Lady
Ursula Glynde, and I defend no one by confessing my crime."
"You'll not persist in that insensate confession."
"'Twill not be necessary, Your Majesty, my judges have it in full, writ
by mine own hand."
"You'll recant it."
"Why should I? 'Twas done willingly, in full possession of my faculties,
under no compulsion."
"You'll recant it!" she persisted obstinately.
"Why should I?"
"Because I ask it of you," she said with great gentleness, "because I
. . ."
She rose from her chair, and came closer to him. Then as he,
respectfully, would have risen too, she placed a detaining hand upon his
shoulder.
"Listen, my lord," she said, "for I've thought of it all. . . . This is
not a moment when foolish prejudices and mock modesty should stand in
the way of so great an issue. . . . I would throw my soul, my future
life, my chances of paradise on that one stake--your innocence. . . ."
"Your Majesty . . ."
"Nay, I pray you, do not waste these few valuable minutes in vain
protestations, which I'll not believe. . . . There's not a sane man in
this country who thinks you guilty. . . . Yet on this confession your
judges and peers will condemn you to death . . . must condemn you, so
that the law of England is satisfied--and you, my lord, will suffer
death with a lie upon your lips."
"The truth," rejoined Wessex firmly; "'twas I killed the Marquis de
Suarez."
"A lie, my lord, a lie," protested Mary passionately; "the first you've
ever told, the last you'll be allowed to breathe. . . . But let it pass.
. . . I'll not torture your pride by forcing you to repeat that
monstrous tale again. Would I could wrench her secret from the cowardly
lips of that hussy. . . . Oh! if I were a man . . . a king like my
father! . . . I'd have her broken on the wheel, tortured on the rack,
whipped, lacerated, burnt, but I'd have the truth from her!"
Wessex took her hand in his. She was trembling from head to foot. The
inward, real Mary Tudor had risen to the surface for this one brief
moment. All the cruelty in her, which in after life made this wretched
woman's name the byword of history, seemed just then to smother her very
womanhood, her every tender thought. At the touch of Wessex' hand she
paused suddenly, shamed and in tears, that he should have seen her like
this.
"Before she came you said many sweet words to me," she murmured, as if
trying to find an excuse for her terrible outburst. "Ah! I know . . . I
know . . ." she added, with a bitter tone of melancholy, "you never
loved me . . . how could you? . . . Men like you do not love an
ill-favoured creature like me, old, bad-tempered . . . with something of
the brute under the queenly robes. . . . But . . . you had affection for
me once, my dear lord . . . and an unimpassioned love can bring
happiness sometimes. . . . I would soon make you forget these last
terrible days . . . and . . ."
Her voice had sunk down very low, almost to a whisper now, the hand,
which he still held in his own, trembled violently and became burning
hot.
"And no one would dare to whisper ill of the King Consort of England."
He turned to her; she was standing beside him, her hand imprisoned in
his, her face bent so that he could not meet her eyes. But there was
such an infinity of pathos in the attitude of this domineering, haughty
woman wilfully humbling her pride before her love, that with a tender
feeling of reverence he bent the knee before her and tenderly kissed her
hand.
"Ah, my sweet Queen," he said with gentle sadness, "I am and always will
be your most devoted subject--but do you not see how impossible it is
that I should accept this great honour, which you would deign to confer
upon me?"
"You refuse? Is it that you have not one spark of love for me?"
"I have far too much veneration for my Queen to allow her to sully her
fair name. If being avowedly guilty I were acquitted by Your Majesty's
desire, 'twould be said the Queen had saved her lover . . . and then
married a felon."
"I would stake mine honour, that no one shall dare . . ."
"Honour is already lost, my Queen, once it is at stake."
"But I will save you," cried Mary with ever-increasing vehemence, "in
spite of yourself, in spite of your confessions, in spite of all these
lies and deceptions. . . . I'll save you in the very teeth of your
judges and your peers, and proclaim to the whole world that I saved
you--guilty or not guilty, proud gentleman or felon--because my name is
Mary Tudor, and that there is no law in England outside my will."
Pride and passion almost beautified her. Her love for this man was the
one soft, tender trait in her strange and complex character, but
Tudor-like she _would_ have her way, she would rule his destiny, command
his fate, tear and destroy everything around her so long as her caprice
held sway. But he had suddenly risen to his feet, and stood confronting
her now, tall and erect, with a pride as great, as obstinate as her own,
a haughty dignity which neither Queen nor destiny, neither sorrow,
disgrace or fear had the power to bend.
"Ere that dishonour fall upon us both, Your Majesty," he said firmly,
"the last Duke of Wessex will lie in a suicide's grave."
Her eyes were fixed upon his, and he, carried away by the poignancy of
this supreme battle fought by his pride against her passion, allowed her
to read his innermost thoughts. He had nothing to hide from her now, not
even his love, miserable and desperate as it was: but he wanted her to
know that not even at this fateful moment, when he stood 'twixt a
scaffold and a crown, did he waver in the firm resolve which had guided
him throughout his life.
He would _not_ become the tool and minion of a Tudor queen--loving
enough now, but endowed with all the vices and all the arrogance of her
race; he would not barter his life in order to become the butt of
contending political factions, the toy of ambitious parties, flattered
by some, hated by most, despised by all. A courtier, a lapdog, an
invertebrate creature without power or dignity.
Bah! the hangman's rope was less degrading!
And Mary, as she read all this in the expressive eyes which met hers
fully and unwaveringly, realized that her cause was lost. She had staked
everything on this one final appeal, but she, a Tudor, had struck
against an obstinacy greater than her own. She could not flatter, she
could not bribe, and he was--by the very hopelessness of his present
position--beyond the reach of threats or punishment.
He saw that her heart was admitting that she was vanquished. The
hardness within him melted into pity.
"Believe me, my Queen," he said gently, "the memory of your kind words
will accompany me to my life's end, it will cheer me to-morrow and
sustain me to the last. And now for pity's sake," he added earnestly,
"may I entreat Your Majesty to order the guard . . . and to let me go."
"That is not your last word, my lord," urged Mary with the insistence of
a desperate cause. "Think. . . ."
"I have thought--much," he replied quietly. "Life holds nothing very
tempting at best, does it? The honour of the Queen of England and mine
own self-esteem were too heavy a price to pay for so worthless a
trifle."
Mary would have spoken again, but just then there was a discreet knock
at the door twice repeated. She had perforce to say--
"Enter!" and the next moment a page-in-waiting stood bowing before her.
"What is it?" she demanded.
"The Lord High Steward has arrived at the Palace, Your Majesty,"
announced the page, "and the Lieutenant of the Tower demands the
prisoner."
"'Tis well! you may go."
"The Lieutenant of the Tower awaits Your Majesty's pleasure and His
Grace of Wessex in the next room."
"'Tis well. The Lieutenant may wait."
The page bowed again and retired.
Then only did Mary Tudor's self-control entirely desert her. Forgetting
all her dignity and pride, her self-will and masterfulness, she clung to
the man she loved with passionate ardour, sobbing and entreating.
"No! no!--they shall not take you!--they dare not! Say but one word to
me, my dear lord . . . what is it to you?--'twere all my life to me.
. . . What should we care for the opinion of the world?--Am I not above
it? . . . so will you be when you are King of England. . . ."
Wessex had need of all his firmness, and of all his courage, to free
himself as gently as he could from her clinging arms. He waited until
her half-hysterical paroxysm of grief had subsided, smoothing with
tender hand her moist hair and burning forehead. She was a woman beside
herself with grief, almost sublime in this hour of madness.
"I will not let you go!" she repeated persistently.
Through the door there came the sound of a slight clash of arms. The
Lieutenant of the Tower and his guard were impatiently waiting for their
prisoner. Wessex saw Mary's whole figure stiffen at this muffled sound.
Like an enraged animal she turned towards the door. For one second he
wondered what she would do, how much humiliation her uncontrolled
passion would heap upon him, through some mad, impulsive action. He
jumped to his feet, and, regardless of all save the imminence of this
critical moment, he seized both her wrists in an iron grip, striving
through the infliction of this physical pain to bring back her wandering
senses.
She looked him straight in the face with a tender and appealing gaze
"Did you not know that I loved you even to humiliation?" she said.
"May God and all His angels bless you for that love," he replied
earnestly, "but before Him and them I swear to you that if you do not
allow the justice of your realm to have its will with me, I'll not
survive your own disgrace and mine."
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out that picture of unbendable
determination expressed in his whole attitude, and which she at last
felt that nothing would conquer. The rigidity of her figure relaxed,
the fury died out from her heart, she only felt inexpressibly sorrowful,
helpless and broken-hearted.
"God be with you, my dear lord," she whispered.
He kissed her hands: all the fever had gone out of them, they were icy
cold: there was neither arrogance nor obstinacy in her face now, her
eyes were still closed, and one by one, heavy tears fell down her wan
cheeks.
The pathos of her helplessness and of her crushed pride made a strong
appeal to the sentiments of tender loyalty which he had always felt for
her, who was his Queen and Liege Lady. He saw that she was determined
not to break down, that she was gathering all her courage for the
supreme farewell.
"I beseech Your Majesty to allow me to order the guard," he urged.
She tottered and would have fallen, had he not put out his arm to
support her.
"Do not forget that you are a Tudor and a Queen, and remember," he added
quaintly, as her head fell against his shoulder, "remember . . . I am
only a man!"
He led her back to her seat, then he touched the handbell, and when the
page appeared he said firmly--
"I am at the Lieutenant's service."
He knelt once more before the Queen and finally bade her farewell. She
could neither speak nor move, and scarcely had the strength to take a
last look at the loved one, as with a firm step he passed out of her
sight.
There was a clash of steel against steel, a few words of command, the
sound of retreating footsteps, then silence.
Queen Mary Tudor was alone with her grief.