Conspiracy

“For when I am in the presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) … that I think myself in hell.”

Lady Jane Grey,  reported by Roger Ascham who visited her family when she was a young child.
Ives, Eric (2009). Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. Wiley-Blackwell.

Conspiracy

They lead you, blindfold, through the maze,
and leave you there, lost and alone – 
and whisper as they walk away;

then later, to an injured throne
you neither spurn nor wish to claim,
as rival families, and Rome

and Cranmer play their deadly game;
at last, they lead you to the dark,
your eyes wrapped in a fold again.

The giant axeman stands apart 
until the drumbeat sounds, and prays 
for kind precision in his task;

as unkind Delaroche betrays,
and – licensed by your mask – defiles 
you with a practised, coward’s gaze,

caressing you with brushstrokes, while
your unlearned searching hands reveal
a nine days queen, and still a child.

This poem first appeared in The Ekphrastic Review