Everyone at court knows that they have adjoining bedrooms with only a door between them. They may go to their own rooms at night, but everyone believes that Robert Dudley’s valet stands outside his door all the night, because the Queen of England has crept through the hidden door and is inside. Even the country people, who should know nothing of the court, say that Elizabeth is besotted with her handsome master of horse, and many people think that they are married in secret already and that his poor wife, whatever her name is, will be put aside by order of the queen, just as her father, King Henry, put his wives aside to marry another.
Then the news comes that the Regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise, is dead and the power of the French in Scotland collapses without her to uphold it. Cecil is coming home to London. He has made a triumphant peace treaty; but now Robert Dudley swears that he has gained nothing for all his hard riding: Newcastle to Edinburgh and back again. Elizabeth now wants more than Cecil’s treaty: she demands thousands of pounds of compensation, the return of Calais, and Mary, the Queen of France, to be banned from using the royal crest on her dinner plates—everything from the most grave to the most trivial. She and Robert, like a queen and her husband, stand side by side before the whole court and greet William Cecil with a tirade of complaints.
The defeat of French rule in Scotland should have been hailed as a victory, but William Cecil, whose skill brought it about, is crushed by Elizabeth’s ingratitude to him, unable to hide his fury that she is taking advice from Robert Dudley. The court divides in rivalry between those who see Dudley as the unstoppable star—husband and king consort-to-be—and those that say William Cecil must be respected along with the old lords, and that Dudley is an upstart from treasonous stock.
Elizabeth, having lovingly declared me as dear to her as a daughter, promising me that she will be a mother to me, that she will legally adopt me, that she will name me as heir, forgets all about me in this new crisis: as the man who has been a father to her and the man who has been a husband to her will not speak to each other for fury. All the court is certain that Cecil will abandon her, that Dudley will ruin her. There are whispers of plots to assassinate him; she has opposition on every side. She dare not agree that a country may choose its own heir. If the Scots are allowed to reject their Queen Mary, why do the English have to accept Elizabeth? In her anxiety for her lover, for her future, for the very nature of queenship, she has no time for me, no time for any woman.
“But I like being forgotten,” Mary, my sister, remarks. “I suppose I am used to it, being so often below the eyeline. But it does mean that you can do what you want.”
“And what do you want to do, you funny little thing?” I ask indulgently, bending down so I can see her exquisite face. “Are you getting up to mischief like half the court? Are you in love, Mary?”
Janey laughs unkindly, as if no one would ever love Mary. “You can have my suitor,” she says. Janey is being pursued by our old uncle, Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel. He is a great survivor of wives—his first was my aunt Katherine Grey. Now he is free again and wealthy and desperate to put some royal blood into his golden cradle, into his rich nursery, into his family line.
“I don’t need your castoffs,” Mary dismisses the wealthy nobleman with a wave of her tiny hand. “I have an admirer.”
I am not surprised. Mary has the Tudor charm, and a kind nature that many a man would be glad to find in a wife. She would make a better wife than Janey Seymour, with her fragile health and her feverish energy. Mary is a little joy in miniature: when she stands before a knight in armor she can see her pretty face and her perfectly formed neck and shoulders reflected in his breastplate. If she were seated on a cushion behind a high table, and a man saw only our heads and shoulders, he would be hard-pressed to choose the greater beauty. It is only when she stands up that it is suddenly revealed that she is tiny, half-size. High in the saddle, on horseback, I believe she is prettier even than I am. She stands straight enough, she has her monthly courses—perhaps she could have a suitor, perhaps she could even be married.
“Every other lady in court is flirting. I am no different,” Mary says. “Why should I be different?”
“Oh, who is flirting with you?” scoffs Janey.
“Never you mind,” says my redoubtable sister. “For I have my business just as Katherine has hers. And I wouldn’t let you meddle with me as you do with her.”
“I don’t meddle, I advise her,” Janey says, stung. “I am her great friend.”
“Well, don’t advise me!” Mary says. “I have a great friend of my own, greater than both of you together.”
WINDSOR CASTLE,
AUTUMN 1560
I love Windsor Castle, the rides down to the water meadows by the river, the great park with the herds of deer moving quietly in a ripple among the trees, and the castle perched high above the little village. We are to celebrate Elizabeth’s birthday as if it were a feast as great as Christmas. Robert Dudley, as master of horse, appoints a master of ceremonies and orders him to hire players and choirs, dancers, and entertainers—jugglers and magicians. There are to be poets to hymn Elizabeth’s beauty; there are to be bishops to pray for her long and happy reign. It is to go on for days to celebrate the birth of a girl whose mother died on the scaffold accused of adultery and whose father did not recognize her as his own for most of her life. I could almost laugh aloud to see Elizabeth order the court to celebrate her birth, when the older people remember what a bitter disappointment the girl baby was at the time and how indifferent everyone was to her for so long.
Robert Dudley is everywhere—the king of the court, the master builder of Elizabeth’s happiness. William Cecil is self-contained inside a bleak silent fury. His hard-won treaty with France is to go ahead, but he gets no thanks for it. It is not celebrated as a diplomatic triumph, and he blames Elizabeth’s poor judgment on her infatuation with Robert Dudley.
The master of ceremonies designs a beautiful dance that all the young ladies of the court must learn. We are all to represent different virtues: I am to be “Duty,” Janey is to be “Honor.” She is well enough to dance, the flush in her cheeks has cooled and her eyes are not blazing with fever for once. Mary is to be “Victory” and stand at the top of a tall tower that hides her tiny feet and shows her as a beauty. The queen’s sergeant porter, the officer in charge of the safety of the whole court, is a tall broad man, bigger than any other, and they call him in to lift Mary into the top of the tower. Gallantly, he bows to her; she looks like a fairy under the feet of a giant. It is as good as a play. She puts out her little hand and he takes it to his lips, and then he puts his hands around her tiny waist and lifts her up. Everyone applauds, it is so pretty, and someone says that Mr. Thomas Keyes, the sergeant parter, must put his deputy on the gate and come in to play his part in the masque. Mr. Keyes bows, smiling, handsome in his Tudor livery, and Mary, her little hand buried in his huge paw, laughs and curtseys, her face bright.
Ned plays the part of “Trust” and is paired to dance with Frances Mewtas, who is a female trust—whatever that is—“Gullibility” perhaps. I wish that she would swap with me, but I cannot ask her without revealing that I want to dance with Ned, and he does not think to hint to her that she might prefer to be “Duty.” He even seems to enjoy her company. After their dance is finished they stand together, and when we all go outside to enjoy the sunset and take a glass of small ale, he goes with her hand on his arm and he pours a glass for her.
The dance goes off step-perfect. Elizabeth, enthroned, smiles as we dance before her, though I daresay she would rather be in Robert Dudley’s arms herself. I know that I would rather be dancing with Ned than watching him. Frances Mewtas has painted her face, I am sure of it. She looks ridiculous and she sticks to Ned’s side like a snail on a wall. I frown at him to show that I am displeased, and he looks blankly back at me as if he cannot imagine that the sight of another girl, her hand on his arm, looking up into his handsome face, might displease me. He is such a taking youn
g man, his smile so charming and his eyes so bright, I cannot bear to see him partnered with a little plain thing like Frances. I would have thought that she would have had the sense to know that he was longing to be with me. Surely, she can see that it would be a prettier dance if Ned and I were together?
I have to stand beside Elizabeth’s throne when the Spanish ambassador, de la Quadra, and the other ambassadors arrive to give her birthday gifts. I am to demonstrate that we are the best of friends, on the warmest of terms. I am publicly known as Elizabeth’s heir, and Cecil’s treaty proves that Mary Queen of Scots has surrendered her claim to the throne of England. Elizabeth remembers to turn her head and smile at me, and waves her hand to my little sister. My friendly intimacy with Elizabeth is choreographed, just like the dances. I am here to indicate that Mary Queen of Scots has no claim to the English throne, I am the heir-to-be and Elizabeth will nominate me at the next parliament.
De la Quadra bows very low and steps up to speak to the queen, but I am not attending to royal business; I am watching Ned, who is walking with Frances Mewtas through the people to the back of the hall where the candles throw intimate shadows and courting couples dawdle in the alcoves. I cannot see him, and I am not allowed to go to find him. This is an ordeal for me, and then I hear, almost in the distance, Elizabeth telling the Spanish ambassador that Robert Dudley’s wife is dead of a canker.
I am so shocked as the words penetrate my anxious surveillance of the back of the hall that I stop looking for Ned and I stare at Elizabeth. Did she really say that Lady Dudley is dead? “Or nearly so,” she corrects herself. “Poor woman.”
De la Quadra looks as stunned as I am. Only good manners prevent him yelping: “Qué? Qué?”
Why would Elizabeth say such an extraordinary thing? What woman is dead one moment and “nearly so” the next? Is Elizabeth blind and deaf to simple good manners? Does she not realize that it is not very charming of a mistress to release the news of an abandoned wife’s death as if it were a matter of mild interest? And then muddle whether she is dead or not? And if the woman is dead, why is Robert Dudley not at his home, ordering mourning clothes, arranging her funeral? Or if she is on her deathbed, why is Robert Dudley dancing at Elizabeth’s birthday feast and not at his dying wife’s side?
I long to find Ned and tell him this extraordinary conversation, but when the presentation of gifts is over, there is general dancing and I am still nailed to the dais behind Elizabeth, who is now whispering with Robert Dudley. Whatever she is saying, while he smiles down at her with his eyes on her mouth, they are not talking about cankers and deathbeds.
Ned is not among the couples on the floor. He is not among the men watching the women dancing. He is not cautiously working his way to the top of the room so that he can be near me. I can’t see him anywhere, and I cannot see Frances Mewtas either.
I am trapped on the dais with Elizabeth, and Ned does not come near me. I don’t see him again all night, though the court retires late as Elizabeth dances and dances, drinks her own health, and finally leads us from the room. Ned is nowhere to be seen among the men bowing as we withdraw. Frances Mewtas scuttles from one of the galleries at the last minute, all flushed, and joins the procession of ladies leaving the room.
I go to bed in tears, I am so furious and so pained. I did not think I could feel like this again. It is so much worse than the last time that I lost Ned. This time I have given him my promise, I believed us to be all but married.
I toss and turn in the hot sheets, and my lady-bedfellow mutters sleepily: “Are you ill, your ladyship? Shall I fetch you something?”
I make myself lie like a bolster but I can hear my hurt heart thudding in my ears. I hear the clock strike the hour, every hour from midnight till five in the morning, and only then, as it starts to get light and the servants start to clatter about and put fresh wood on the dying fires, do I fall asleep.
Elizabeth at chapel looks as if she has slept as badly as I have. I don’t know what is wrong with her. There can be nothing wrong for her. She has everything to hope for. Her rival is dying or dead; her birthday is celebrated throughout the kingdom as if she were a beloved queen; Robert Dudley is at her side, as smiling and relaxed as a confident bridegroom. But Elizabeth shrinks from him. She asks for Cecil to be sent for. She walks with him, her head bent towards him in low-voiced consultation. He is urging her to stand fast, as she trembles and leans on him. Something serious is happening, but I am so absorbed in looking for Ned that I cannot be troubled with Elizabeth and her sudden changes of mood.
The court walks behind Cecil and Elizabeth, who are clearly not to be disturbed, until Cecil bows and steps back and someone else leaps forward to be presented to the queen and ask her for some favor. William Cecil finds himself alongside the Spanish ambassador; Mary and I walk behind them, their slow pace suiting Mary’s short stride. I take her hand.
“I can manage,” she says, shrugging me off.
“I know you can. I just wanted some comfort. I am very unhappy.”
“Hush!” she says, unfeelingly. She is openly eavesdropping on the conversation going on ahead of us. I can hear snatches of Cecil’s talk, over the lapping noise of the water on the riverbank. He is complaining of Elizabeth—a thing that he never, never does—telling the Spanish ambassador that he is going to leave court, that he cannot tolerate another day of it. I pinch Mary’s arm. “Hark at Cecil!” I say, shocked. “What is he saying? He can’t be leaving court again?”
Mary drops my hand and walks a little closer to the two men, while I hang back. Nobody ever notices Mary: she should be one of Cecil’s many spies. She can weave her way around men as if she were a beggar child, and they never see her. She follows on their heels for a little while, quite unnoticed, and then she slows up and waits for me to catch up, her eyes shocked and wide, as if she has stared at horrors.
“He said that the queen and Sir Robert are planning to murder Amy Dudley, and Robert will marry the queen,” she whispers urgently, almost choking on her words. “Cecil said it himself! I heard him. He says that they are giving out that she has a canker and the queen will marry Robert, but that the country will never stand for it.”
“He never said that to de la Quadra?” I see my own disbelief in my sister’s face. “The Spanish ambassador? When every word he hears goes straight back to Spain! Why would Cecil tell him such a thing?”
“He did. I could not mistake it.”
I shake my head. “It makes no sense.”
“I heard it!”
“My God, are they really going to kill Amy Dudley? Shouldn’t we stop them?”
I see my shock on Mary’s face. “Who could we tell? How could we stop them? If Cecil himself knows and is not stopping them.”
“But the queen can’t just murder someone, not even a rival. It can’t happen.”
“Cecil says it will be her undoing. He says the country will rise against her rather than have a murderer on the throne. He says he is going to his home.”
I can’t understand any of this. Would Cecil really desert Elizabeth? The queen he has made? Would he leave her to commit a terrible crime that would cost her her soul and her kingdom? And if he did—I think, if he does—then will he come to me and offer to make me queen in her place?
“He said he couldn’t bear to advise her with Robert Dudley whispering in her other ear; he said that the country would never tolerate a Dudley as king consort.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” I say begrudgingly, thinking of my sister Jane refusing to crown this man’s brother, her husband, Guildford, because of the treachery of his grandfather. “No one would accept a Dudley near the throne ever again.”
“But to say it to the Spanish ambassador?” Mary is aghast. “He told the ambassador that she has no credit, that the country is bankrupted. I swear he said that she and Robert are going to murder Lady Dudley. He said it. He said it, Katherine!” She shakes her head in an odd gesture, as if she is tapping water from her ears. “I couldn’t b
elieve what I was hearing. Cecil, denouncing the queen—to the Spanish?”
“It makes no sense,” I say. But then my misery for Ned overwhelms me. “Nothing makes any sense,” I say bitterly, “and this court is a world of lies.”
Mary must have heard rightly, for there is no mistaking Elizabeth’s anxiety. She is avoiding Robert Dudley, and she spends as much time in her rooms as possible with the door closed to everyone but the ladies of her bedchamber. He used to stroll in and out without invitation, now the guards are before the door and nobody is allowed in. Publicly, she announces that she is unwell, but she prowls around her rooms like a woman more troubled in her mind than in her body. All of Sunday she is like a restless cat, stalking one way and then another. She goes to bed early, complaining of a headache, but I think it is her conscience that is paining her. If even half that William Cecil said is half true, then she has commissioned the murder of an innocent woman. This, I think, must be impossible; but then I remember her mother was Anne Boleyn, and they said that she used poison against her rivals. Can it be that Elizabeth is poisoning a rival? Can Elizabeth bring herself to kill a rival?
The next day is my day of duty so I have to wait on her again. She looks pale and sleepless and so do I. I cannot go looking for Ned as I am not allowed to leave the queen’s rooms without her permission. Frances Mewtas is not in attendance today, and for all I know, she and Ned are enjoying their leisure together. Together and unwatched. The thought of this is such a pain to me that I can hardly bear to stand against the wall, my hands clasped together, my eyes down, as Elizabeth paces up and down her privy chamber, twenty paces to one window, twenty paces to another. Robert Dudley comes in, and she tells him that she does not want to ride; she does not want to ride out this morning nor this afternoon, the horses can be unsaddled and turned out in the field, the court is not going out today.