The queens promise, p.1
The Queen's Promise, page 1
Contents
Cover
A Selection of Recent Titles by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
The Queen’s Quest
Lady Hay’s Elegant Salon
The Highwayman
The Queen’s Bargain
Gilded Vanities
No Cake
Defenseless Doors
What Cause for Celebration?
Reports of War
Ripped Apart
Journeys
Longings
Siege
Network of Spies
Under Pressure
Printer’s Devil
Reunion and Separation
Acknowledgements
A Selection of Recent Titles by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
The Broken Kingdom Series
THE QUEEN’S PROMISE *
Illuminator Series
THE ILLUMINATOR
THE MERCY SELLER
Novels
THE HERETIC’S WIFE
* available from Severn House
THE QUEEN’S PROMISE
Broken Kingdom Volume I
Brenda Rickman Vantrease
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
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This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Trade paperback edition first published
in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD
Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Rickman Vantrease.
The right of Brenda Rickman Vantrease to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8793-1 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-915-3 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-971-8 (e-book)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
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In loving Memory
of
Don Wayne Vantrease
(1939–2011)
Kings are justly called gods for they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power on earth. God hath power to create or destroy; make or unmake at his pleasure; to give life or to send death; to judge all and to be judged (by) nor accountable to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure. And the like power have kings.
—James I in a speech to Parliament, 21 March 1610
May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here, and I humbly beg your majesty’s pardon and I cannot give any other answer than this to what your majesty is pleased to demand me.
—The Speaker of the House of Commons, William Lenthall, in answer to King Charles I, who came to Parliament in 1642 demanding the arrest of five members for treason
PROLOGUE
I know how to look death in the face and the people too.
—Thomas Wentworth upon being told a sizeable force had gathered to witness his execution
12 May 1641
London, England
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, hesitated at the last threshold he would ever cross, swallowed the fear clotting in his throat, and stepped across. The cool air of a May morning stiffened his resolve. His eyes scanned the crowd. In Wentworth’s last days, Charles Stuart had been remarkably absent among the friends who had come to mumble outrage and whisper awkward farewells. He was absent now. Do not worry, Lord Strafford. You have the word of your king. No harm will come to your person or your property. This sincere assurance had been offered when Parliament first summoned the Lord Deputy of Ireland to answer for the Crown’s actions in Ireland. Thomas closed his eyes, banishing the harsh reality of that empty promise, but he could not banish the sounds as two Tower Guards led him to the scaffold.
Amongst the jostling and jeering, other voices echoed in his brain. My lord Strafford, you advised the King to recruit an army of Irish rebels. Catholic rebels. Did you not? Speak, my lord, did you not? His accuser had pounded the table before him in such fury his full wig, slanted askew and leaned precariously over one eye, forcing the grim-faced prosecutor to stop in his tirade and adjust it. A few brave souls who appreciated farce when they saw it sniggered. Thomas, buoyed by the King’s promises, had answered with wry laughter. The prosecutor’s face was the color of cheap wine. He had growled, You find this charge amusing, my lord? A pause as he considered his manicure before looking up again. This is no laughing matter. Have you an answer?
How does one prove one’s innocence, Mr. Prosecutor, except to affirm it? I am the King’s loyal servant. I am England’s loyal servant. The charge is unfounded. Summon the King. Ask his Majesty.
The trial had not lasted long. The indictment when it was read aloud by the crier was a thunderclap in a clear sky. Treason. But as Charles had predicted, the prosecution came to naught. Yet Wentworth’s relief had been short-lived. The bill of attainder calling for his execution outside the parameter of English jurisprudence was stunning. Then, even then, Charles had repeated his promise with the same assurance, No harm will come to your person or property, Thomas. Trust your king. A bill of attainder without the royal signature is worthless.
A mustard seed of doubt had sprouted in the Lord Deputy of Ireland when Parliament stripped him of his title and property. Be assured you will be restored. Their action is powerless. Reason was on the King’s side. Pym and Essex and their henchmen were bold, but they were not fools to overplay a risky hand. That was precisely the time when he should have heeded that doubt and fled to the Continent like so many others. But that would have been treason and Thomas Wentworth was not a traitor. And he was not a coward.
After a farcical attempt to rescue him from the Tower, finally, abruptly, his sovereign had grown silent. The bill of attainder did now in fact bear the King’s signature and Thomas Wentworth’s destiny was to play out here on this crude wooden stage with one swift—pray God let it be swift—blow of the headsman’s axe. As he approached the wooden steps of the platform, he noticed the ragged laundry basket beneath the block, a profane receptacle placed to catch a nobleman’s bloody head. Outrage bubbled into his throat. It was an insult to England, an insult to the King, a deliberate slur upon the honor of a loyal servant who had served king and country nobly.
During the endless hours of the night, amidst the clanging and the hammering outside his Tower window, Thomas had disciplined his darting thoughts, preparing himself for this moment, rehearsing in his mind so that his body would not betray him. He had prayed for strength to end his life as he had lived it, in full possession of his manhood and his dignity. But in this pearly dawn, this fickle promise of a fine May morning, as he stepped onto the platform his skin grew clammy. His bones felt as if they were melting. He forgot to breathe.
Just one more battle, Thomas. Survey the field.
He took two deep open-mouthed breaths and looked out across the crowds, cheek to jowl as far as he could see all the way to the river’s edge. What field marshal could prepare for this? He’d seen men lined up to battle to the death, Irish Catholics and English Protestants, in great numbers on countless fields, listening for the trumpet sound that would begin the carnage. But this. Oh God, this was different. Surrounding the scaffold, below him on the streets, above him on rooftops, hanging over balconies, a bobbing current of angry faces howled and stamped—all screeching for the same thing: the bloody head of the King’s man in Catholic Ireland.
The heat of their wrath struck him like a blast.
What had he done to incur the hatred of such a multitude? Except to serve his king.
In the predawn the onlookers had gathered, cursing, laughing, their drunken jokes and bawdy songs drifting through his high Tower window. What were they celebrating? Spectacle seekers, he’d thought with dread. Such events always drew a crowd of the curious, the worthless, the idle. But this? He blinked to clear the image before him. Thousands of souls spread out before him, their voices growing louder with each second. Why had so many left their beds early, delayed opening their shops and harnessing their plows? Not just the idle and the curious, but ordinary Englishmen, common laborers, carters, farmers, even merchants. He swallowed hard. Made the sign of the cross. An angry roar exploded. The godly ones were well represented, their plain clothes pocking the crowd like ra
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to remember his confessor’s reassurances of the blessed afterlife. Though treason was not one of his sins, Thomas had much he needed to confess—not the least of which was his adulterous liaison with the lovely Lady Carlisle. Of all the earthly delights he’d known, Thomas thought, he would miss Lucy Hay the most.
Last night after he had drunk the heavy wine provided, she had come to him in a dream, comforting, soothing, an opiate to his fevered brain. He tried to summon her image now: her hair smelling of rosewater, the silken smoothness of her skin. His mind clung to it, to shut out the sights below. She had come to him in the Tower—what guard could resist her pretty pleas—urging him not to abandon hope. She had kissed him, telling him to take heart, she would plead directly with John Pym for a stay of execution. But on her last visit he had seen hopelessness in her eyes and felt more tenderness than passion in her embrace. She had known it would be the last time she saw him. He had known it too. Though neither could bear to say it. Wentworth’s only real regret with Lucy Hay was that he’d not had more to confess. He wished they’d become friends and lovers sooner. So much wasted time. He could no more repent his adultery with her than he could repent breathing. And how did one repent lack of repentance?
Archbishop Laud, a convenient though requested confessor who was also housed in the Tower awaiting trial by Parliament, had sighed in understanding. Wentworth figured he was dealing with his own regrets. Laud’s hands shook when he administered the Eucharist to the condemned man—because he was losing a friend or because the penitent’s fate presaged his own? In the hushed heart of the night, Wentworth had thanked him for his blessing and said, his voice deep with emotion, ‘Your grace, it will give me comfort if I know you are watching from your window when the headsman lifts the axe. I will know there is a prayer on your lips for my soul. Will you keep watch?’
‘I will keep watch, old friend. I will watch, and I will pray for you as your soul takes flight.’
Wentworth glanced up at that window now, but the scaffolding was too far away to make out a figure there. No matter. He had learned hard not to trust in the promises of princes—even princes of the Church.
What is to be done, must now be done. Quickly. Cleanly. As planned. Expedite. Don’t dawdle to buy one more pitiful breath and dishonor. Thomas strode forward, assumed the soldier’s stance, threw out his chest, feet firmly planted, and lifted his hands in a sign that he would speak. The crowd shushed itself in waves of silence, eager to hear this mighty King’s man plead for his life.
But Thomas would not plead.
He drew himself up tall and thrust out his chin, so his voice would carry. The unwavering strength of it surprised even him. He’d rehearsed the prophetic warning. It was to be a dying man’s invocation to reason.
‘I do freely forgive all the world,’ he proclaimed. He waited for the jeers to die down as the Constable of the Tower admonished the watchers to let the condemned man speak. He cleared his throat, took a powerful breath, drawing in courage with the air as if making a battlefield declaration. ‘I wish that every man would lay his hand on his heart,’ here he paused and sucked in another breath to gather volume with resolve: the crowd too seemed to be holding its breath, ‘lay his hand on his heart and consider seriously,’ another breath, this one stronger than the last, so that he virtually trumpeted the words, ‘consider seriously whether the beginnings of the people’s happiness should be writ in letters of blood.’
The last words hung in silence until a roar from the crowd, the bellow of a great enraged beast, erased them. But as he knelt to place his head in position, his mind conjured other sounds, other images: Lucy laughing, high silver tones … Lucy dancing at the Queen’s masque, invitation in her eyes … the rose-scented garden of that first stolen kiss—and more. How he would miss her generosity of spirit. And she would miss him. He was sure of it.
His young wife, his third, would miss him too, but she would find other comfort soon. And if the Archbishop’s theology was right, Thomas would find his first wife waiting to welcome him with the angels. He had loved her most, more even than Lucy. But it was not his first wife’s face that appeared before him now. He closed his eyes, fastening hard in his brain, the image of the Queen’s fountain, the fragrance of the roses, the touch of Lucy’s lips against his. That’s what he would take with him to the grave.
With one swift motion of his arm, he ordered the headsman’s stroke.
THE QUEEN’S QUEST
When I consider the caprice and arrogance of Buckingham, I pity the young king, who, through false council, is needlessly showing himself and his kingdom in such extremity. For anyone can start a war when he wishes, but he cannot so easily end it.
—from a letter written by Peter Paul Rubens to a friend upon the occasion of Charles I and Henrietta’s marriage negotiated by the Duke of Buckingham
Dover, England
February 1642
It was a rare English day, a day to ride to the hunt with Charles beside her, a day to play blind man’s buff in the gardens with the children. Not a day for parting. Sky and water should be gray on such a day as this, that hated, dreary English gray her soul despised. From the ship’s deck Queen Henrietta Maria shouted into the wind, ‘God save you, mon amour, mon cher ami,’ then louder, blowing kisses with her free hand, ‘mon cher cœur.’ Flying fingers sent sparks of color from her rings to light like jeweled butterflies in the sun-sparked harbor. With the other hand she clutched her favorite sad-eyed spaniel to her breast. The thrum, thrum, thrumming of his heart answered the frenzy of her own.
Mon amour, mon cher cœur. Words for whispering in the King’s ear, two beating hearts, one body, in the curtained bed of state at Whitehall or in the lodge at Richmond, or the tented pavilion in the forest glade where two of their children had been conceived. Her French endearments always pleased him.
In everything she strove to please him, save one. Once he had said to her, ‘You must remember, madame, that your son will someday be king. Do not fill his head with popery. It will only cause him great trouble.’ Afterwards she had taken pains to see that the children’s religious instruction took place outside his hearing.
This parting, this voluntary exile was Henrietta’s plan to help with Charles’ ‘great trouble.’ By the tall window, whilst Edward Hyde and the lords plotted with the King how best to put down the Scottish rebellion, Henrietta had hovered over her embroidery. She listened and watched. In their cocked eyebrows and conspiratorial glances, she had read an unfathomable circumstance: Charles needed money desperately. The royal treasury had been depleted by the uprisings in Ireland—and other things—and only Parliament could levy new taxes. Parliament refused. And yet, although Charles would not face the truth, Henrietta had gleaned enough to know that this Parliament would never fund another army for Charles Stuart—not as long as he had a Catholic queen. Nor would London’s militia, the Trained Bands under the control of the Puritan Commons, likely take up arms against the enraged Presbyterian barbarians gathering on the border. Not even for their king.
On the shore the Master of the King’s Guard muttered something in the King’s ear. Charles continued waving, not turning to leave. She leaned against the rail, throwing kisses with both hands now, remembering her own part in beggaring the treasury: The beautiful palace at Somerset House, the gilded chapel with Master Rubens’ grand painting, her retinue of Capuchins in their gold-threaded hoods. And Inigo Jones’ elaborate masques at the Banqueting House—oh what fun it all was. Her enemies said she was too extravagant, but she had given England a court of glory to rival any in Christendom and she would not repent it. The last scrape from the treasury had gone to support her mother’s extravagance when Cardinal Richelieu and Louis banned her from France and dear, kind Charles took her in.
Charles had been as pleased and proud as she at all the beauty and music and art until the day came that he shook his head and declared, ‘Edward Hyde says the treasury is diminished, dear heart. We must not seem to be quite so extravagant,’ and added he was going to have to recall Parliament, reminding her that in England only Parliament could raise taxes. He had few peerages left to sell and no more fees to levy. Some of the Lords had even gone to the Tower to keep from paying the ship-money levy, which they claimed was an illegal tax. That was more than a year ago. Shortly after he’d packed her mother and her extravagant household off to whatever duchy on the Continent was willing to harbor Maria de’ Medici.
