London

  “I still don’t believe you,” Meredith said, and walked on.

  But it was true; and by that evening all London knew it. The theatres were ordered to close. Worse yet, poor Ben Jonson, one of the writers of The Isle of Dogs, had been put in gaol for contempt, while his fellow author Nashe had fled. In the theatre community people were deeply despondent. “I shall have to go back to haberdashery,” Jane’s father miserably remarked. The actors were distraught. Even the Burbages, who had repeatedly tried to see the Privy Council, could say nothing encouraging.

  Only after a week was there any piece of news.

  “We are permitted to leave the city to go on our tour,” the company was told. But when someone asked “After that, will we be allowed back?” he was given a shrug and a curt: “Who knows?”

  Amid all this gloom, the person who kept their spirits up was not a member of the company at all.

  Edmund Meredith was a tower of strength. “This is only done to frighten us,” he told them. “The Privy Council has been mocked and it is teaching us a lesson.” And when Fleming remarked dolefully that some of the council were as puritan as Ducket, he only laughed. “The court must still be amused,” he cried. “Do you suppose the queen means to spoil her Christmas entertainment for the Puritans?” And because he was a gentleman, whose father had been at court, they mostly supposed he must know something that they did not.

  Jane loved him all the more when she watched him gaily put heart into the little group of spare actors and small fry who gathered at the Fleming house. She thought what it meant to him, when his hopes were pinned entirely on his own play. There was a nobility in his bravado. Some days later, when the troupe set off in their wagons, and he kissed her goodbye with the promise “We shall come through this together”, she had never felt so close to him.

  The summer months were very difficult for Edmund Meredith. He had been proud of his performance in front of the Flemings. He knew he had cut a good figure. But did he really feel confident about the future? Three days after the announcement, things were even more difficult when his anxious cousin Bull came to his lodgings at the Staple Inn to ask about his fifty pounds.

  “Keep calm,” he had counselled. “This will pass.” But after Bull had departed, shaking his head, Edmund experienced a profound gloom. What was to become of his play? And what indeed am I, he thought, without it? What was to be his fortune in men’s eyes?

  At the end of summer, while the players were still on tour, he encountered Lady Redlynch.

  He was introduced to her by his friends Rose and Sterne. Her husband, Sir John, had died the previous year and at the age of thirty, alone and without children, she had nothing much to do. Despite his own depressed state, he felt a little sorry for her.

  He need not have worried. Lady Redlynch, having been born a West Country merchant’s daughter, knew perfectly well how to take care of herself. Thanks to Sir John, she already had a handsome house in Blackfriars, and she promised to take a personal interest in the business of the new theatre. She had fair hair, wide blue eyes, inviting breasts and, rather charmingly, a voice like a little girl, which vanished entirely when she was in a hurry. Meredith amused her. She liked witty men. She decided to take him as a temporary lover at once.

  By late October the situation was still unchanged. The theatres stood empty and silent; the costumes lay unused in the wardrobe. The Burbages had been to the Privy Council again. It was said that Will Shakespeare had been hatching something with his patrons at court, but nothing definite was heard. Each day, actors came to Fleming’s house for news and asked: “Is it all over then? Shall we go?” Not yet, they were told. Not yet.

  Edmund came by each day. He was admirable. Always light-hearted, yet always calm. He had frequently gone to inspect the Blackfriars theatre, he told her. Everything was ready for performances to begin.

  “Just be patient,” he urged. “The audience is waiting for the theatre to be restored. They will not be denied for ever.”

  There was no doubt, Jane thought, that he cut a fine figure. How proud of him she was. There was something else about him too: a new confidence, a sense of potency. She found it strangely fascinating and it sometimes exercised her imagination during those dull days.

  It was one of the actors who finally told her that Edmund was sleeping with Lady Redlynch.

  In early November Edmund Meredith sent the letter. It was a daring move, but he could not stand the tension any longer.

  The affair with Lady Redlynch had been a success. Though they were discreet, the fact that a few men gossiped was enough to make him look a fine fellow in the eyes of the fashionable world. But at times, recently, he had wondered if the affair had run its course. Perhaps he had had enough of her somewhat padded charms. He was also a little afraid. Once or twice he had sensed that she might be considering marriage. He dreaded a pregnancy too. Precautions were few and crude in Tudor England. As a barrier to conception, a lady and her lover might use a handkerchief; but it did not always work.

  He thought of Jane Fleming, though this worried him less. She would probably never know; and anyway, if she did, a man with a reputation was all the more attractive to a young girl.

  But what about his play? To be a gallant lover was a fine thing, but it still begged the essential question: “What can I say that I am?”

  Though he had kept up his cheerful face, over three months after the ban was announced Ducket and the aldermen were still looking complacent and the Privy Council maintained its ominous silence. His friends at court had heard nothing; nor had Lady Redlynch. The usual theatre scene would normally have begun, but the days passed uselessly. And then one day: “I must know,” he told Lady Redlynch. He decided to send the message. When Lady Redlynch asked him what sort of missive it was, he answered simply:

  “A love letter.”

  It was written to the queen.

  Of all England’s rulers, none has ever understood as well as Queen Elizabeth I that the key to monarchy is theatre. Indeed, the Elizabethan court, with its constant public displays, its tours of the counties and its calculated, stage-managed receptions for foreigners, was one of the cleverest theatres ever devised. And at the centre of the stage, gorgeously dressed in brocade encrusted with pearls, a huge lace ruff encircling her neck and head, her gold-red hair piled up or freely flowing, stood Elizabeth – daughter of royal Harry yet born of her people too, the Renaissance princess, and virgin queen whose glittering radiance was a star to every Englishman.

  For many years this part, of the virgin queen, had been a necessary role. Threatened by Europe’s dangerous powers, she had protected her little kingdom by hinting at marriage with one or another of them. But she had long ago grown used to it. Her courtier favourites, men like Leicester and Essex, had always pretended they were in love with her, and she had pretended to believe them. No doubt, sometimes it was true; for Elizabeth was a woman too. But who can ever say, in statecraft, what is theatre and what is real? One mirrors the other. And so if now, threatened by parliaments who wanted to know her successor, old Elizabeth, face painted, hair dyed, still played the virgin queen, who could blame her? She did it to perfection, rising each season like a phoenix from her ashes, surrounded by gallants who made her withered autumn like a spring.

  Edmund’s letter was perfect. It was, in fact, the best thing he had ever written. The terms in which he addressed the queen were those of an unknown admirer. Inspired by her he had written a play that might amuse her. Yet now, utterly downcast, he learned that all further plays should lie in darkness, never to be lit by the radiance of her eyes. The conclusion of this protestation was just what she liked.

  But if your Majesty thinks that heaven, of having pleased you, too good for me, then I had rather I, and my poor verses, should remain in perpetual darkness than offend your sight.

  He ended it with the suggestion, almost as though she were a girl again and they were secret lovers, that if there were any hope for him, she should at a certain time and
place, where he could clearly see her, let fall her handkerchief.

  It was the sort of thing she loved.

  Dusk had already fallen but Jane was careful as she made her way past Charing Cross. There were plenty of people about and the couple ahead were entirely unaware of her presence.

  The great palace of Whitehall was a series of handsome courtyards surrounded by brick and stone buildings. There were walled gardens, a tiltyard for jousting, a chapel, a hall and a council chamber; also, some lodgings reserved for visitors from the Scottish court, known as Scotland Yard. The palace was, to a large extent, open to the public, and since its gates straddled the road from Charing Cross to Westminster, people came through all the time. The queen allowed her subjects to cross the yard to the river stairs if they wanted a barge. They could even come to see the tapestries on the great stairs or watch the state banquets from a gallery. They could also stand about at times like this in the hope of seeing her.

  Edmund and Lady Redlynch passed through the gateway and entered the palace courtyard. Jane followed them.

  There were several dozen people gathered in the yard, a number bearing torches. November, despite the cold, was usually a cheerful time at court, for in the middle of the month, on the anniversary of the queen’s accession, there was a big pageant at Whitehall and a joust. Some of the spirit of these coming festivities seemed to have infected the crowd, which was in a happy mood. Edmund waited eagerly.

  Minutes passed. The torches flickered. And then she came. The doors of a council chamber opened. Two, four, six gentlemen in gorgeous tunics, short cloaks, their hands resting on jewelled swords stepped out. Then pages, carrying torches. And then, six more gentlemen, carrying a litter in which, magnificent in a billowing, jewel-encrusted dress, a huge lace ruff, and wearing a tall feathered hat against the cold, sat the queen. A cheer went up. Slowly, stiffly, her painted face like a mask, she turned and seemed to smile. My God, thought Edmund, thinking of his perhaps too gallant letter, has she grown so frail? Yet a moment later she partly dispelled his doubt, for in reply to the usual cry – “God save Your Majesty” – her voice rang out across the yard, as clear as it had to her troops before the Spanish came: “God bless you, my good people. You may have a greater prince, but you shall never have one more loving.”

  She said it every time, and it never failed to please.

  They carried her across to the doorway that led to the great staircase. After that, for a short while, she was lost to view. But then, at the entrance to the gallery leading to the private apartments, suddenly candles appeared. Then more. And a few moments later, at a slow and stately pace, the little cortège made a decorous procession down the gallery, the queen walking now, the candlelight gleaming on her jewelled dress as she appeared behind one glass window, then another, and then another. It was charming; it was magical; it was haunting; it was, Edmund realized, pure theatre.

  And at the third window, there was no mistaking it, she paused, half turned, raised up her hand in silent salutation, and let fall a handkerchief.

  Jane followed Edmund and Lady Redlynch back all the way to Ludgate and into the city. Once, as they crossed the Fleet, she heard them laughing. She followed them also as they turned into Blackfriars and went into Lady Redlynch’s house.

  In the shadows of one of the gateways she watched Lady Redlynch’s house for three long hours, until its last lights were out. Then she slipped back through the city and walked in the darkness up the empty lane to Shoreditch.

  At dawn the next day, Edmund awoke with a new hope and, thinking of Jane, decided it would soon be time to part from Lady Redlynch; but Jane had not slept a wink, and she was still weeping silent tears.

  “We are to present four plays at court.”

  They were all there in the room – the two Burbage brothers with their heavy-set, clever faces; Will Shakespeare; the other leading actors.

  “I told you it would be so.” He had gone to the Burbages the morning after the incident with the queen, to put heart into the company. At first they had not believed him. Then word had come from the royal household that the Master of the Revels ordered them to prepare a selection of their best-loved plays for the court festivities at Christmas.

  “We shall offer them three by Shakespeare, including Romeo and Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the elder Burbage went on, “and one by Ben Jonson.” He smiled: “If they accept that it will mean the poor fellow’s to be forgiven.” He paused for a moment. “There’s something else, too, even better news in fact. It won’t be announced until the New Year, but the ban on plays is going to be partly lifted. The Privy Council will license us and the Admiral’s men to continue public performances. So,” he summed up, “for us at least, a reprieve.”

  Edmund felt a wave of excitement.

  “So my play can be performed.”

  There was a cough from one of the actors. The two Burbages looked awkward. For a moment no one said anything, and then, with a quick glance of reproof at his companions, it was Will Shakespeare who spoke.

  “My friend,” he said, “I fear you must prepare yourself. The news is also bad.” His eyes were kind.

  “How so?” Edmund asked.

  “We have no theatre.”

  “But the Blackfriars . . .”

  Shakespeare shook his head. “We dare not use it.”

  “Two days ago,” Burbage took up the story, “the Privy Council received another letter, from Ducket and many others in the Blackfriars. Hearing that we might be reprieved, they’ve protested yet again. They will not have us there. And with matters so much in the balance . . .” He shrugged. “The risk’s too great.”

  “Yet Lady Redlynch believes . . .” Edmund began, but paused when he saw the others exchanging glances.

  “She was one of those who signed the letter,” Burbage gruffly said. “I’m sorry.”

  For a moment, Edmund could not speak. He felt himself go red. She had deceived him.

  Shakespeare came to the rescue. “She has a house there. Ducket’s powerful.” He sighed. “I for one know that a mistress may change her mind.”

  “All is not lost,” Burbage continued. “For the time being at least, we have a theatre where we can put on some plays.”

  “Then my play . . .?”

  The awkwardness returned. Shakespeare looked at Burbage as if to say: it’s your turn now.

  “That’s the difficulty, you see,” the bearded man went on. “Much as I like your play,” he looked unhappy, “in the theatre we shall occupy – it would not suit.”

  “In short,” Shakespeare came in. “We’ll have to use the Curtain.”

  “The Curtain?” The bear-pit. The playhouse for the lowest of the low. Few of the fashionable folk he knew would be persuaded to set foot in it. As for the usual audience, even Shakespeare’s bawdiest efforts would be above them. His own sparkling display of courtly wit . . . “They’d hiss it off the stage,” he groaned.

  “You do agree, then?” Burbage seemed relieved. “If another company wishes to use it, of course,” he went on, “you are free to approach them.”

  “There’s only the Admiral’s men, our rivals, at present,” Edmund said.

  “In the circumstances, though,” the other Burbage quickly replied, “we could not hold you back.” To which the others murmured assent.

  It was only then that Edmund remembered his investment. “I lent you fifty-five pounds,” he quietly stated.

  “And it shall be repaid,” Burbage said firmly.

  “Only,” Will Shakespeare came in, with a rueful smile, “not yet. For the truth of it is we have no money.”

  It was perfectly true and Edmund saw it must be. Not a penny from the huge Blackfriars investment, no theatre, no plays performed, no income. The court performances would bring something in, but only enough to keep them going.

  “Be patient,” Shakespeare said. “Our fortunes may improve.”

  But that was small comfort to Edmund, who had just discovered his mistress had cheate
d him and whose play was as good as lost. And when the next day he encountered his cousin Bull, who asked him once again how matters stood, he could not bear to face him but muttering quickly that all was well, he hurried away in cowardly flight.

  He did, however, summon enough spirit to manage his parting from Lady Redlynch with some style. He sent her a letter professing his admiration in terms of such extravagant hyperbole that, by the time she was through, she could not fail to suspect that he had grown tired of her. He then broke the news: the Blackfriars theatre they had both so fervently hoped for had been destroyed by vulgar hands. His anguish, which he knew she would share, was so great he was retiring from the sight of men.

  And not even the brightness of your eyes nor the loyalty of your heart can draw me back again.

  She would, he fancied, understand the message.

  But what of poor Jane Fleming? It was two days after the letter that, still in a very melancholy mood, he went up to the house at Shoreditch. He realized he had hardly spoken to her since the encounter with the queen. But on his arrival at the Fleming house, while she was entirely friendly, he found her strangely different. As she went about her tasks, she seemed to take no special notice of him. He asked her if she would like to walk with him. Not now, she said. But later, then. Perhaps some other time.

  “Is there a reason for this coldness?” he asked, thinking of Lady Redlynch.

  “Why no, sir.” She smiled and seemed surprised. “I am not cold.”

  “Yet you will not walk with me?”

  “As you see,” she gestured to the heaps of costumes that would now be needed, “I have much to do.” Again she went about her work, quite cool, but almost ignoring him. Unwilling to risk rejection yet again, he picked up his hat and left.

  1598

  The early months of the year had been bleak for Edmund. His literary efforts had gone nowhere. He had taken his play to the Admiral’s men, but they had regretfully refused it. “This is too good for us, too fine,” they had said politely. And after that nothing. A month had passed. His gloom had deepened. Then another. The solemn season of Lent had come. Then, the transformation.