From Proclamation: Poetry will be the death of me:
“The muffled clink of harness and the soft hoof fall of a hundred horses were the only sounds that emanated from the column of riders as it emerged from the enveloping mist onto a low ridge.
Robert Dudley shivered as he gazed south along their planned route. The ridge line continued for perhaps a mile, then dipped down again into the blanket of mist that smothered the land.
“I dislike this marshland, Martin. All damp air that penetrates the finest clothing and mossy grasses that our horses’ hooves sink into with every step, squeezing out a puddle of water. Give me the high weald of Kent any day, with its dry, wooded, rolling hills and ancient pathways laid down by our Saxon ancestors.”
His lieutenant, Martin, readily agreed.
Hesitantly, he admitted to Dudley that he didn’t understand why they were continuing with these proclamations, anyway. Not now when they and presumably most of the population of the county had heard the rumour from London about the Council and Mary.
“If we believe the rumour, Mary was proclaimed Queen by the Privy Council at Cheapside several days ago! Yet we persist in travelling from town to town, declaring Jane to be Queen. Which lady is it? I am confused myself – God knows what the men are thinking!””