“She gives greater rewards. Her rewards are yet to come; you’ve spent all yours.”
“You ungrateful bastard!”
“No bastard, unless what the rumors say is true—that Robert Dudley was your lover long before he became your husband, and that I’m his son.”
“If I told you I did not know, would you believe me?” I could hardly believe I was speaking those words.
“I’d rather not. I’d rather think that I inherited the earlship of Essex by rightful descent. Mother, let’s forget this. I spoke hastily.”
Yes, let us forget these rash mutterings. I smiled and patted the place next to me on the cushioned window seat. “I am happy to have you here,” I said. He visited me seldom these days, busy with his London dwelling. It had been Durham House, then it became Leicester House, now it was renamed Essex House. No matter its name, it was one of the grandest on the Strand. He had come by it through my marriage to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, his stepfather. He would not have his blood, then, but was happy enough to inherit his house!
“You would rather we be at Essex House, I think,” he said.
“Nonsense! Do you not find Drayton Bassett exhilarating?” I teased him. After my too-quick marriage to Christopher Blount, a man almost my son’s age, following the death of Leicester, discretion had advised me to live far from court in the countryside of Staffordshire. If Her Majesty had never forgiven me for snatching her long-suffering love from under her nose and marrying him, the hint that perhaps I had amused myself with a young lover as well had earned her implacable hatred. To steal one’s man was injurious; to betray or spurn him afterward was a crime. But I do not admit that I betrayed him. What was a lonely widow to do? I had many debts. The vindictive Queen had hounded me for Leicester’s debts, stripping my home of all the movable goods. As if that would bring him back to life and return him to her. No, he sleeps in Warwick Chapel, and his marble monument completed my financial ruin. In his will, he lauded me as his “faithful and very loving and obedient careful wife.” He also called me “my dear and poor disconsolate wife.” Obviously I had to overcome my grief as best I could, with Christopher. So ... as the Queen’s own Knights of the Garter’s motto says, Honi soit qui mal y pense—“Shame upon him who thinks evil of it.” Leicester was pleased with my services as a wife, and there the matter should end. On his monument is engraved, in Latin, that I, his moestissa uxor—tenderest wife—out of my love and conjugal fidelity, caused this to be raised to the best and dearest of husbands. Of course, I wrote it myself.
To my surprise, my son smiled. “There’s a part of me that would be content here,” he said. “In truth, a part of me that longs for a quiet life in the country.”
I laughed, but I could see that he was sincere. “My son, you don’t know what you are saying!”
“I don’t belong at court!” he burst out. “I’m not that sort of creature. To remember what to say to each person, the better to use them, and to hide my true feelings so they can’t use me—Mother, I find it repugnant!”
“It is, indeed, hard work,” I said cautiously.
“I am not a courtier! I am not the stuff of which they are made.”
“Yet you do so well as one,” I reminded him.
“For a little while. But I cannot keep it up. Every day I fear stumbling, falling from that place I have sweated so in climbing to. There are natural courtiers, like Robert Dudley—some say that was his main or only talent—and Philip Sidney. How easy it was for them!”
I turned his head so he could look out the window. “Take a long, slow look,” I told him. Drayton Manor lay surrounded by an oak grove and, beyond that, fields. The village of Drayton Bassett nearby had barely an alehouse, a smithy, and a church and vacated convent. It was four days’ ride from London under a sleepy sky. “After walking these grounds four or five times, riding across the meadows, and praying in the church, what would you do?”
“Well, Mother, what do you do?”
“I plan how to get back to court, and so would you, my dear. Solitude and rest are only craved by those whose lives are so hectic and demanding they cry out for surcease. For those of us who have nothing else, the quiet life is a dead life. I know you and your restless nature. You’d not last a month here.” I would not allow him to throw his life away! “So let’s have no more of that talk. Come here for respite, but not to retire.”
He jerked his head back around. Now he was going to pout. I found his moodiness quite tedious.
“So, what is next for you? Do you not think it is time to choose a bride ... the right bride? You are twenty-two and need an heir.”
He just continued to sulk and tap his feet. “When I’m ready!”
“You’re ready now. Perhaps if you were married, Her Majesty would see you as more stable, more fit for some high command. And if you married wisely, that could go a long way toward advancing the family.”
“One sister married wisely, to a baron, and the other foolishly, to that Perrot fellow, and enraged the Queen.”
“All the more reason why you must repair the damage.”
“The damage to what? The Queen’s temper?”
“The family’s situation. You have a title with no treasury. Earl of Essex! High and fine sounding! It trails a thousand expenses but has no income from lands or houses, mines or ships of its own. Marry and correct this lack. You cannot live like an earl if you do not have the means of an earl. And if you would succeed at court—”
“I’ve told you, I don’t belong there!”
What was I to do with him, my stubborn, wayward boy? I loosed my harshest barb. “What kind of soldier whines, cries, and sulks? Did Philip Sidney blunder when he bequeathed his sword to you, upon his deathbed? Sidney, the noblest soldier and chivalrous courtier who has lived in our times? You shame his gift!”
“I cannot be Sir Philip Sidney. There is only one!”
“He saw himself in you. Trust him. And ... need I remind you of the other ways in which we have irritated Her Majesty—”
“Name them! None could compare with yours!”
“There was your refusal to let her use our manor at Chartley to house the Queen of Scots. Did you not realize a royal request is a royal command? And what did you do? You said no, because you were afraid the trees on the grounds would be cut down for firewood to warm her! Then you said you were afraid she would damage the interior out of spite because she disliked your father. Of course, the Queen just overruled you. The large moat there meant that they could monitor Mary’s visitors more easily. That was all they wanted Chartley for.”
“She did damage the fireplace!”
“She wasn’t there long enough to damage much of anything. Walsingham and his spies caught her in their trap, and by that time next year she had been executed. Plenty of trees were still standing. And need I remind you of the insult to us, that your inheritance of Kenilworth has now gone to Robert Dudley’s bastard son? That glorious estate, which should be yours ... Oh, recapture the prestige we have lost. And the first step, the first step, is to marry!”
He jumped up, clapped his hat on his head, and made for the door. He almost collided with Christopher on his way in, barging past with no apology. Christopher, good-natured soul that he was, only turned and looked back in puzzlement. “He’s in a hurry,” he said. “But where is there to go?”
“Exactly what I was telling him,” I said. “From here, the only beguiling road is the one leading back to court.”
“Ah, now, you speak like you weren’t born in the country.”
“Those who are born in it are the ones most anxious to get away.”
“My dear, we must just molder here,” he said. “Molder away together.” He began to kiss my neck.
Ah, but being almost twenty years younger, he could leave this country exile after I was truly moldering in my tomb. I did not know, could never have guessed, that I would outlive him by more than thirty years. Of course, his life span was not a natural one.
I returned his kisses, and soon we were up in the bedchamber, taking our pleasure in the still noontide. Christopher was a vigorous lover; what he lacked in nuanced skill he made up in enthusiasm. Youth is a marvelous thing. Not that I was old; I was forty-six, in my prime. Never had I felt more lusty, more desirable, more in command of my charm. How shall I compare my lovers? My first husband, Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, was timid, unimaginative. I was not even twenty, and knew nothing. In fact, I was so ignorant I thought I did not like lovemaking! Only later did I discover it was Walter’s lovemaking I did not like. I endured the nothing in the nights and we did have five children. Then Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, appeared and taught me—or did I already know but had not been able to practice?—passion. It made me think I loved him. Later, when we were married, he was older and tired. The splendid courtier with his gleaming chestnut hair, his sumptuous wardrobe, his straight-backed bearing, was replaced by a middle-aged man with a paunch, thinning hair, and a face that stayed red whether he was drinking or not. His long list of female conquests meant that his bed skills were finely honed, and they did not desert him. But he was no longer stunning to look upon; he no longer made a startling presence when he entered a room. Perhaps to the Queen he still did; perhaps she saw him only with the eyes of desire of her youth. Perhaps they both did: Since they had never consummated their attraction, it remained locked in perfect preservation. He did not see her thinning cheeks, her sharpening nose, her unnaturally tinted wigs; she did not see his puffy face, his balding pate, his stiff gait. Ah, love!
Christopher gave a great sigh of satisfaction and lay looking up at the sloping eaves of our chamber. Outside all was still, in the midday hush between work intervals. Soon the farmer would return to his fields, the smith to his anvil. But for us, no hasty repast, no mug of ale, just partaking of each other’s bodies.
Christopher, plain Sir Blount, made me happy. He helped me forget my turbulent past and helped me bear the tedium of exile. He was good to molder with. If one must molder.
After he had left the chamber to return to his tasks, I lingered upstairs. The day was a fine one, the spring sunlight clear and sharp. I opened my wardrobe chest; a shining green square-necked dress called to me. It was March and the leaves were unfurling, the grass springing bright and piercingly emerald. I needed my gold and emerald necklace to go with the dress.
For an instant I felt an actual pain in my chest—what I imagine a stab to feel like, although I have never been stabbed—as I remembered that Christopher had sold it last year. Year by year he had sold off pieces of my jewelry to maintain us. At first he had let me choose which to sacrifice, but that was torture. Now he quietly took one, almost at random; it was less painful that way. There was also a lag before I discovered it was gone, so I got to possess it a little longer, in my mind at least. We were in even worse straits than I had told my son just now, because I did not want him to feel desperate, but we were. Leicester had left a heap of obligations for us to pay. His devoted Queen was not so devoted as to forgive him his debts to her, and relentlessly collected them. Being an earl brought its own expenses to my son, but little income. My jewelry kept us afloat for now. But Robert had to make his fortune with the Queen and save us all.
I would not end like my grandmother Mary Boleyn, poor and far from court. She, too, had married a man of no means and her junior in years, and was banished to the country, where she died young. Some say I inherited her easy virtue, her allure, and her looks, that I am more like her than anyone else in my family. She died just a few months before I was born. Perhaps her sad ghost entered me and said, “Do what I could not, my granddaughter. Use your eyes and laugh as your fortune.” Well, I did not manage that. But my son can.
13
ELIZABETH
April 1590
Today I had several audiences, so must attire myself suitably. Today I wanted tawny. Tawny, yes, the one with the gold embroidered sleeves. Not the one with the braiding at the neckline. As for the jewels: I had one of the finest collections of jewels in Europe, but that made choosing harder, not easier. Green today? I fingered the items with emeralds or jade in them. Knowing my fondness for emeralds, both Francis Drake and Robert Dudley had generously gifted me with them. But their gems were too large for this morning’s audience. Then there was a badly designed necklace I had taken pleasure in buying (through a second party) from the estate of Lettice when her new boy-husband was hocking it. I would never wear it, as it did not come up to my standards of workmanship. But that was the point: to own it and not wear it.
Near it lay a tiny gold and emerald pin of a frog on a lily pad. Tenderly I took it out and examined it. François Valois, Duc d’Alençon, had given it to me, in the early days of our courtship. He had taken his nickname of “The Frog” in good sport, commemorating it with this jewel. I pinned it on, thinking how long it had been since I had worn it.
Alençon . . . As I passed through the gallery on the way to my audience, suddenly our old ghosts came shrieking toward me, pleading for a return to possibilities. Once we had stood here and I had kissed Alençon and placed a ring on his finger, before witnesses, and declared that I would marry him. That constituted a legal betrothal. And indeed, the order of service for our marriage ceremony had already been approved by the French commissioners and my prelates. The Virgin Queen had almost become a wife.
I paused and looked down. The wooden balustrade was the same, dark oak intricately carved. But the faces that had beamed up at us at our announcement faded away, as did Alençon’s in the light of day. It was long over. At the time, the doctors had told me I likely had another six years of motherhood ahead of me. Now that window had shut. If I had married him, would I have six children by now? Three? One? And all the succession worry would not be plaguing me now.
I hurried past the haunted spot.
The audiences were dull, just the usual pleadings for money. (Is there, ultimately, any other kind?) The French Protestants wanted us to commit money and arms to shore up Henri IV, Prince of Navarre, in his fight to retain his crown; the military advisers wanted more ships and weapons and to invest in firearms to replace the old-fashioned longbow. “It was fine for Henry V but is outmoded now,” they pointedly told me.
“Guns are inaccurate and clumsy,” I reminded them. “And all the paraphernalia, the powder and the shot, are an ongoing expense, and delicate to boot.” A little damp, and the powder gave up the ghost, leaving the gunman unprotected.
“Bows and arrows have their own drawbacks,” said one man. “The gut stringing them, the feathers on the arrows—”
“God’s death! Do you think I know nothing? Do you think I have never handled bow and arrow? Of course there are weaknesses, but less expensive ones than guns have.” They call me pinch-purse and stingy, but it is not by choice. No, by God, if the realm were wealthy, we would have a warship for every citizen and shiny armor for every soldier! But we are not, and must turn our gowns and make a brave show. We have not done so badly for all that.
I was relieved to leave. It was enough to put a person in a bad mood all day. But as I reached the door, a messenger handed me a note, telling me that Walsingham was sinking fast.
I must go to him. He had dragged himself to council meetings all through March, despite his physician’s warnings. “Nothing can save me,” he had said. “I might as well be working, right up until the end.” But had it hastened that end?
I changed my attire to the simplest I had and immediately set off in the royal barge to Barn Elms, where he lived surrounded by those trees at the bend of the Thames upstream from London. The journey was not a long one from Whitehall to his landing pier, and I was there by late afternoon.
My arrival caused a stir. I brushed the niceties aside. Then I brushed the objections aside.
He is not fit to receive you.
He does not want you to see him in this state.
You must not expose yourself to what afflicts him.
“I am here to minister to my
friend, yea, to feed him with my own hand if need be,” I told them.
Inside the house it was very dark; the late afternoon sun barely stabbed through the windows. Most were east facing, looking out toward the river. I smelled the unmistakable odor of illness, which grew stronger as I mounted the stairs to his sickroom.
Frances met me. “Your Majesty, it is not meet that you enter,” she said. “My father has sunk very low.”
“Should not those who love him be with him?” I answered. “When do we need them most?”
She looked surprised, as if she expected me to shrink from ugliness. “Now,” she admitted, opening the door for me.
I could make out a large bed deep inside the room. One window did face west, providing rosy-tinted sunset light. Walsingham was lying motionless, barely discernible under the blankets and bedding. He did not waken when I approached.
Even in this flattering light, his face was yellow. All his features were shrunk and shriveled, as if his flesh had burned away. He had sunk fast since his last council meeting. The illness was swift and merciless.
“Francis,” I whispered, finding his hand and taking it in mine, “how do you do?”
A foolish question. How could he answer it? But it was merely to arouse his attention.
“Not well,” he groaned. “They will be here soon for me.”
The angels? “Yes, to take you home to that spot in heaven you have earned.”
“No one earns it,” he croaked. Good Protestant to the end.
“Francis,” I said, “you leave a mighty space gaping. No one can fill it. But I thank God for having had you all these years. You have saved me, and the throne, on more than one occasion.” Oh, what would I do without him, his vigilance and his genius?
“Guard it well,” he said. “And other forces will arise. Trust not the French. Oh, that I were here to wrestle with them!” He gave a weak cough. “But I must not question the wisdom of God in calling me now.” Again, the good Protestant. Yet I questioned; I questioned all the time.