Free Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer

of the details, even down to her chopines, high wooden clogs strapped to her shoes to make her appear taller. Jane climbed clumsily up the stairs from the barge and tottered to the Tower and the royal apartments. She was told that she must stay there until her coronation.
    "And when is that to be?" Jane asked.
    "You will be informed when the time comes" was the reply.
    When heralds were dispatched to proclaim the word throughout London that Jane Dudley was queen and Mary Tudor a bastard unfit to rule, there was no rejoicing. The announcement was greeted by the people with silence.
    I listened attentively to all of this, outwardly calm and controlled. Inwardly, though, my head throbbed and my nerves were unstrung. "But where was Mary?" I asked Cecil hoarsely. "What of my sister?"
    "While all of this was happening, Mary was en route to Greenwich. Along the way she encountered a messenger who warned her of danger. Robin Dudley was preparing to leave London with three hundred guardsmen to capture Mary and take her prisoner."
    "My old friend Robin Dudley!" I felt my temper flare. "His deceitful father's deceitful son after all!"
    "So it seems," Cecil said dryly. "But Lady Mary heeded the warning and immediately changed her plans. With only two ladies-in-waiting and a half dozen gentlemen, she fled through the night on horseback in the opposite direction.
    "The next day—it was now the tenth of July—John Dudley informed Queen Jane that she must make her husband, Guildford, the king. Only twenty-four hours had passed, but by then she would have understood that John Dudley never intended for her to rule.
    "Jane called together some of the privy councillors and told us, 'If the crown truly belongs to me, then I shall make my husband a duke. But I will not consent to make him king.'"
    "She has more courage than I suspected."
    "Jane has great courage," Cecil agreed. "This insolence was too much for her mother-in-law. Her fury barely contained, the duchess turned to Guildford and hissed, 'If she is stubborn, then you shall be just as stubborn. You must refuse to share a bed with this shrew you call wife!' Then the duchess stormed out of the room, with Guildford obediently following at her heels.
    "That night we of the privy council received a letter from Mary, declaring her right to the throne. Robin Dudley had not been able to capture her after all! Lady Mary had arrived at Kenninghall, near Cambridge; she was free, and she was determined to be queen."
    "Go on, go on!" I said, impatiently pacing the formal pattern of the knot garden.
    "When John Dudley learned that powerful noblemen and common people alike were flocking to Mary's support, he prepared to fight. He assembled three thousand men at the Tower, armed with crossbows and pikes as well as cannons and gunpowder. He led his troops north toward Cambridge, boasting, 'I will put a quick end to Lady Mary's defiance.' But John Dudley forgot one thing: Mary is much loved, and nearly everyone hates him. Now, when he needed it most, the duke had no one he could trust."
    "Good, good, good!" I cried.
    "Hearing that John Dudley was on his way, Lady Mary left Cambridge and rode hard for East Anglia. Her castle at Framlingham is fortified with walls eight feet thick and forty feet high and watchtowers looking out to sea. As the news spread, people began to rally to her cause. Day after day they arrived, bringing whatever horses and arms they could muster, or sending carts of food and supplies. My messengers, quite breathless with the magnitude of it, reported to me that Lady Mary had somehow raised an army of twenty thousand! One after another the towns in the area proclaimed Mary as their queen."
    "But what of John Dudley?" I asked.
    "Things went badly for the duke. He had ordered seven warships to guard the coast to prevent Mary's escape, but the sailors mutinied. The next day two thousand seamen arrived at Mary's camp hauling a hundred enormous cannons from the ships.
    "Imagine how uneasy