Bloody Mary by Erickson Carolly 1943-

Author:Erickson, Carolly, 1943-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mary I, Queen of England, 1516-1558, Queens
Publisher: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday
Published: 1978-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

hand to see mv Lady out of the country and in safety, and I was the first man to suggest it. And if you understand me, what I say is not that my Lady does not wish to go, but that she wishes to go if she can."

Dubois had no time to split hairs. It was a question of yes or no, he said, and further conversation was perilous. By now Van Meeckeren's warships would have been sighted off Harwich, and within hours the Council would know of their presence. The decision had to be made at once. Rochester now took Dubois by surprise once again, telling him that Mary wanted to talk to him in person. Could he come to Woodham Walter? At first the Fleming refused, but after a day of dickering with customs officials and the town bailiff over the price of his grain, the buyer, and the amount of the duty (waived because the grain was for Mary's household) he finally consented.

The sun was low in the sky as Mary's servant Henry led Dubois "by a secret way" to Woodham Walter. Once there the secretary had another talk with Rochester while he waited for Mary to receive him, and he found the controller more mysterious than ever. Rochester told him "a mighty secret"—that Edward's death was imminent. He was "quite persuaded the king could not outlast the year," he said, "for he and others knew his horoscope to say so." Astrological prediction was rampant at Edward's court, and had already led to several arrests; apparently the controller was privy to some such reading of Edward's stars. If he passed on his occult information to Mary—and there is no reason to believe he did not—it could account for the dilemma she faced in deciding whether to stay or go. Rochester had one final card to play. He had already hinted at treachery from within Mary's establishment; now he said plainly that he knew of some threat so ominous that if either Mary or Dubois knew of it they would abandon all thought of the escape. "Neither she nor you see what I see and know," he warned. "Great danger threatens us!"

When Dubois was finally summoned into Mary's presence he found her to be calm and dignified. She inquired after the health of the emperor and regent, and thanked the secretary for all that he and Scepperus were doing to help her. She seemed strangely unmoved by the excitement of the adventure that lay ahead of her, and Dubois soon learned why. She had half decided not to go after all. "I am as yet ill prepared," she told Dubois. She had begun to pack her things for the journey, putting as much as she could into long hop sacks, but there was still more to do. "I do not know," she went on, "how the emperor would take it if it turned out to be impossible to go now, after I have so often importuned his majesty on the subject.

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