The Heretic Wind: The Life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England Judith Arnopp (best books to read in your 20s .txt) 📖

and rant and cast punishment on thesubjects I swore to love, and all the while I can see myself doing it. Shameand anger vie for position in my broken heart.

The good,tender, loving Mary has been usurped by a bitter, angry Mary and the good queenhovers just above, watching with great disappointment while I allow the bad queento destroy us both.

I do not wantthis. I want to be kind. I want to lead the sinners away from heresy but theywill not listen. Nobody listens! They leave me no choice.

It is threeyears since the trial of Bishops Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. At the time, theywere questioned most rigorously by Gardiner and the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner,and their guilt was plain. The verdict of death by burning was issued rightaway but I have a soft heart and have put off their sentences … until now. Allthree are clearly heretics, yet only Cranmer recants.

I always knewhim for a hypocrite.

He has been myenemy since I was a child. It was Cranmer who supported my father in hisdivorce, and was ever a friend to the goggle-eyed whore. Since then, I havenever been able to look on his face without a shudder of revulsion. Now, I havehis life in my very hands.

So, why do Ihesitate?

A memory stirsof my mother’s misery, the great shuddering sobs she shed when she finallyrealised she had lost her husband to a whore.

“My pearl!” Ihear my father’s voice again as he tosses me in the air, catches me deftlybefore planting a great wet kiss on my cheek. It is sunny, the verdant gardenbright and full of joy.

Cranmer spoiledall that. He stole it from me. He destroyed my mother and had me named abastard, all so he could lure my father into the hands of a witch; his fellowheretic.

Cranmer is notdeserving of mercy.

I order thatCranmer be made to watch while his friends, Latimer and Ridley, burn. He must knowbeforehand the reality of what he is to suffer. In early October, he is takento a church tower from which he will bear witness to the heretics’ end. During thesix months in which he will be imprisoned, he can think of it before he himselfis led to the pyre. It is meet that he should suffer, and I will brook noargument.

But, on theday of his death, I wish I’d given him a swifter end, or had him silenced inthe Tower. Had I done so, I’d have robbed him of the opportunity to fashion forhimself a martyr’s end.

Rochesterpulls off his cap and holds out a rolled parchment. I look at him. He ismiserable these days, as if he bears the weight of England on his shoulders.But it isn’t he who must carry that burden. It is me.

I take theparchment and turn away to quickly read the transcript of Cranmer’s finalwords. Then, I move into the light, and read more slowly the words that are scoreddarkly on the page:

‘And now Icome to the great thing that troubles my conscience more than any other thingthat I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writingscontrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear ofdeath and to save my life if it might be; and that is all such bills which Ihave written or signed with mine own hand since my degradation: wherein I havewritten many things untrue. And foreasmuch as my hand offended in writingcontrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished, for if I maycome to the fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him,as Christ’s enemy and anti-Christ, with all his false doctrine. And as for theSacrament...’

“God damn himto Hell!” I scream as I dash the paper to the floor. He is dead but how Iwish he were not so I might punish him further.

He has the victory.With his last words, he turns himself into a victim, a wronged man of God, andin doing so, he condemns me as a monster. This is how I will beremembered. A vengeful queen, steeped in the blood of her foe.

For a longtime I stand at the palace window and instead of the tranquillity of the privygarden, I see the horrors of the heretic fires that are burning at Smithfield.The ashes blow east across the city, glowing red in the heretic wind and, whenthe embers settle, they are scattered at my feet.

I am not doingthis for myself. I am doing it for my country, and for God. The peoplewho are dying are sinners in the greatest degree, they refuse to renounce theirsin. I would gladly pardon and embrace them back into my church if they wouldonly recant. I begin to tremble. I cannot make it stop. It was not supposed tobe this way.

I bury my facein my hands.

St James’ Palace – November 1558

“YourMajesty! Your Majesty!” Someone is tugging at my hands, pulling them from myface. I gape into darkness, grip their wrists, and blink in vain in my effortto see. There is nothing; nothing but blurred outlines, black shapes against adeeper, bleaker darkness. A cold sweat breaks upon my forehead. I am in Hell.

“Susan?”

My heart hammers, an anvil ofiron. Someone sits close to me, takes me into their arms and rocks me as if I ama child. At first, I think it is my mother, but then I remember she is dead …long dead.

Of course, I recall as thepresent trickles back and is made solid. I am at St James’, in my sick bed,likely to never leave it. I am safe and warm, and a few loyal members of mycourt still remain. Just the last few who have lingered to see me through thelast hours. The rest have gone, run to ingratiate themselves with Elizabeth.

The next queen.

The hell of the last fewmonths clarifies and I recall the fires at Smithfield are still smouldering. Ihave not completed my task. I have failed in every degree. The Catholic churchis not yet secure in my realm, the people do not love me as they