The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

  “But…”

  “Lettice, please, you know this is the only way. You have known since you were a young girl and you came to live in my household that you were chosen to play this role. Your father prepared and trained you from childhood for such a situation as this. You knew, one day, I might have to call upon you. I know what I’m asking could put you in danger but you were always so sure, so proud of this heritage.” Elizabeth stared into her cousin’s face, features so similar to her own, their colouring identical, her voice imploring, her eyes pleading.

  “It isn’t the danger to myself,” said Lettice, reaching up and placing her hand on Elizabeth’s cheek. “It’s the thought of leaving you here to face a potential invasion without me to take care of you.”

  “I’ll have Kate, Bess and Katherine, as well as the cousins, but knowing that you are fulfilling your part of the agreement with Robert will make it easier for me to face whatever happens here.”

  “Must we play it out as Father planned?” asked Lettice.

  “His plan is good,” sighed Elizabeth, “even if it will cause us to part.”

  The cousins stared at each other, their identical brown eyes reflecting the other’s sorrow at what was to come.

  “Very well,” said Lettice, reluctance lacing her words, “as my father planned, we will begin the rumour that you hate me, that you have never forgiven my marriage to Robert and that I am preparing to leave for the Netherlands.”

  “And between you, will you and Robert be able to keep the children safe?”

  “We have an army at our disposal — no harm will come to the heirs.”

  “Thank you, Lettice, thank you. I know this will put you in great danger…”

  “But do you think it will work, Elizabeth? If Philip really has discovered Artemis and Apollo’s true identities, will he be fooled?”

  “I will ensure he, at least, doubts his information,” said Elizabeth. “Nobody looking at us would think otherwise once they have the barest facts and have heard the rumour that there is a secret princess hidden in the midst of my court.”

  “In that case, Elizabeth, I am pleased to lead the trail away from you and your sister, while you and your brother do whatever is necessary to save this beloved realm of yours.”

  The two women gazed at each other for a long moment, then threw themselves in each other’s arms, embracing with all their might, clinging on as though this was their final farewell.

  Chapter Four

  “Babington has been caught.”

  Elizabeth spun around; her eyes wide with surprise. She thrust her bow into the hands of one of her stewards and walked to meet Katherine and Kate who were hurrying towards her. Ignoring the looks from the assembled courtiers, Elizabeth positioned herself between her two friends and slipped her arms through theirs.

  “Where? When?” she asked, drawing them away to a secluded bower where they would not be overheard. A stone seat followed the curve of the yew hedge while in the centre of the secluded grove a fountain decorated with a small, smiling, naked cupid played.

  Elizabeth and her entourage were in the gardens at Oatlands Palace in Surrey. Despite her wish to remain in the capital at either Whitehall or Richmond, the summer plague was so virulent it was considered wiser to depart to the countryside. The archery practise and subsequent competition that would be taking place during the afternoon had been at her suggestion. She felt it was wise for everyone to have recently brushed up on their skills, including herself.

  “He fled London a few days ago, aware he was being pursued by Walsingham’s men. He was hiding in a barn in Harrow when they cornered him. Walsingham has him in the Tower.”

  “What did Walsingham say?”

  “He hasn’t,” muttered Kate, “the information is from Mignonne. Claude Nau heard the news while they were at an inn near Fotheringhay Castle.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes in fury. “Thank goodness for Mignonne,” she said. She reached out her hand to take the translation of the coded note. “Babington suspected his part in the plot had been discovered and he tried to flee to the coast. Do we know anything else?”

  “I’ve had a number of letters from our ladies,” whispered Katherine, “but the tales they tell are very different from the plans we know Walsingham has constructed. My husband and brothers-in-law are well-informed men, Your Majesty, and I make a point of being in our chambers when they are discussing Walsingham’s latest escapades.”

  “And yet, Walsingham claims to tell me everything,” sighed Elizabeth. “Even after all these years he doubts my intelligence and my ability. It is a curse to be surrounded by idiot men.”

  Kate smothered a laugh.

  “Tell me, Katherine, what does Walsingham keep from me?”

  “He has men searching for the Catholic priest, John Ballard, who also uses the name Black Fortescue. Walsingham’s man, Nicholas Berden, has been watching him and claims both Ballard and Babington are in London with another man who is supposedly in the spymaster’s pay — Robert or Robin Poley…”

  “I know these names,” interrupted Kate. “Thomas Phelippes has contacted my husband in order to obtain arrest warrants for these men. Although, curiously, rather than fill in the paperwork with the names, he asked for them to be left blank, merely signed by my husband to make them legal and valid.”

  “Yet Mignonne and Apollo have both sent word saying Ballard has left London and is heading towards Northamptonshire. The men who have been left behind in London are decoys. They are being used to distract Walsingham and his men. Babington was trying to lead the spymaster away from Ballard.”

  “Northamptonshire?” queried Elizabeth. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s what Katherine Hastings, the earl of Leicester’s sister, wrote,” said Katherine. “On your orders, Artemis is making her clandestine trip across the country and she stayed for three nights at Hill Hall, near Abbot’s Bromley. The countess was the only member of the family in residence, as you know — her husband Henry Hastings is with Lord Leicester in the Netherlands.”

  “And from whom did the countess hear this information?”

  “One of her footmen. He is very loyal and has been in her service for many years. He had been on a journey to deliver alms and he overheard the conversation between two men wearing the livery of William Vaux, 3rd Baron Vaux of Harrowden. Vaux has known Catholic leanings and is descended from the Parr family. He was committed to the Fleet prison after being found guilty of recusancy on a number of occasions and, after that, he was tried in the Star Chamber in 1581, along with his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Tresham, and charged with harbouring a known Jesuit named Edward Campion. He was imprisoned in the Fleet again and fined £1,000 and we know he has connections with Babington. The men were heading to Little Harrowden in Northamptonshire and they were planning to meet a hunting party somewhere between Rugeley and Leicester.”

  “Hunting?” said Elizabeth. “What were the exact words?”

  Katherine paused while she thought. “There have been so many letters but I believe the phrase they used, as reported by the countess was, ‘they had heard there was hunting afoot and they would make merry with such sport’. Oh, Your Majesty…” gasped Katherine as she realised the turn of phrase was deliberate. “‘Hunting afoot’ is the code for the plot concerning Artemis.”

  Elizabeth knew the time had come to make a stand. “Kate, Katherine, prepare something suitable for me to wear to visit the Tower,” she said. “It’s time our spymaster listened to the clamouring voices from the Ladies of Melusine. We have wasted enough time in this dance of game and counter-game. If we are to prevent Philip from succeeding, we must put all our information together.”

  “But Elizabeth, I don’t understand…” began Kate.

  “Someone within Artemis’s household has betrayed her,” said Elizabeth. “As far as the world knows, she lays too ill to be moved at Tixall Castle. Only a few know that she has been wending her way through the country heading for safety at the Tower of Lond
on. If Ballard and Vaux’s men are heading towards Northamptonshire, they must have been told that within a few days Artemis will arrive in the village of Fotheringhay. I suspect they plan to intercept her somewhere along the route.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, no,” gasped Kate but Elizabeth had no time for emotion, not when so much was at stake.

  “Babington must be made to tell us what he knows. He has put my sister’s life in danger. I want to be there while they question him. The plague be damned, I’ve had enough of hiding here playing silly games. It’s time to be at the heart of the matter.”

  “I’ll arrange for the barge,” Kate muttered and hurried away.

  “Katherine, would you ask Burghley to meet us there, too? It’s time we called the privy council together again and not only to discuss the Irish and Dutch issues. I must take control of this ridiculous situation; I am sick of this silence and subterfuge. Katherine, while we travel, I will need you to write to my brother. I’m sorry that so much of the burden always falls to you, my dear.”

  “Elizabeth, it’s no burden,” said Katherine. “Artemis and Apollo are my family, too.”

  Elizabeth squeezed Katherine’s hand. Twisting the ruby ring around her finger, Elizabeth beckoned to her other women and they processed back to the palace to prepare for their journey.

  The Tower of London held many memories for Elizabeth, most of them tinged with fear. Her mother had died here, executed on trumped-up charges on her father’s order, and it was here she had been held while her older sister decided whether or not she was guilty of treason. Yet it was also the place Elizabeth had spent the nights leading up to her coronation. Even when held as a prisoner, her accommodation had always been in the sumptuous royal apartments. Babington would be given no such consideration. Deep in the bowels of the Tower were the dungeons: the cold, rat-infested cells where those who had committed treason and murder were held. She knew that it was down here Walsingham and his men used all manner of methods to extract information.

  “You don’t have to do this, Elizabeth,” said Kate, a few hours later as they made their way along the damp, dripping passageway.

  The journey on the Royal barge had been tense as Elizabeth and Katherine had written to the members of the Ladies of Melusine whose homes were situated along the route Walsingham had devised, convinced no one would ever discover their subterfuge, something which had been proved wrong. Each household was warned to be on alert for strangers and any whispers of unexpected ‘hunting parties’. They had also devised letters to the men leading the battle on the Pembrokeshire coast and to both Robert and Lettice Dudley informing them of the new threat and putting them both on their guard. As soon as they arrived at the Tower of London, Katherine had hurried away to despatch trusted messengers.

  “Walsingham’s men are sometimes overenthusiastic,” she said. “If they are aware I am in residence, they will temper their methods for fear of being punished themselves. We need information but he is not to be killed.”

  Turning a corner, two guards crossed their pikestaffs in front of the queen, barring her entrance.

  “How dare you?” roared Elizabeth, her nerves already stretched. “Move aside! I am Queen of England. You do not block my path.”

  “Orders of the spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. No one enters.”

  “You dare…” began Elizabeth but at that moment Thomas Phelippes, one of Walsingham’s most trusted codebreakers appeared out of the gloom.

  “What is the meaning of this noise?” he barked, then he saw Elizabeth and flew forward, pushing the two soldiers aside and dropping to his knees. “Your Majesty,” he gulped, “this is an unexpected visit.”

  “Get up, you stupid man,” snapped Elizabeth. “Where is Walsingham?”

  “He is otherwise engaged…” began Phelippes.

  “You mean he is torturing Anthony Babington?”

  “Questioning the prisoner, Your Majesty,” he replied. “Interrogating…”

  “Take me to him at once.”

  Elizabeth strode past him and Phelippes had no choice but to hurry along beside her. The two women walked with him further into the bowels of the Tower, where the walls were thick, the rooms were dark and the dampness of the river Thames oozed down the ancient bricks, clammy and cold, like the hands of the dead. At last, they reached a narrow corridor with a thick, scarred wooden door at the end.

  “He is here, madam,” said Phelippes. He shot a helpless look at Kate who shrugged. “Are you sure, Your Majesty? This is an unpleasant place.”

  Elizabeth pushed him aside and walked towards the door, banging on it three times. She waited, and when Walsingham opened it, she pushed past him into the stinking filth of the torture chamber.

  The man strung up high from manacles was younger than Elizabeth had expected. He had probably once been good-looking but now his head lolled forward, his chin rested on his chest; his brown hair was stiff and matted with sweat and blood.

  “He was hiding in a barn,” said Walsingham. “He fled his town house in London when he suspected it was being watched. He knew my men were looking for the Catholic priest and his conspirator, John Ballard, but when we realised we had been tricked and Ballard wasn’t there, Babington disappeared. Once he was out of the city, he changed into peasant clothes, cut his hair and smeared his face with mud in an attempt to disguise himself. My men caught up with him early yesterday morning when they were given a tip-off that a stranger with a ‘posh London accent’ was hiding on a nearby farm.”

  “What has he told you?” asked Elizabeth, her eyes fixed on the pitiful figure. “Can’t you let him down, Walsingham?”

  Her spymaster gave her a curious look. “This man was planning to assassinate you,” he said, “yet you wish to show him compassion? He has tortured countless men, women and children because they are not as devout as he would choose and you suggest mercy?”

  Elizabeth gave him a cold look. “Let him down, Walsingham,” she repeated. “I want the information he gives us to be the truth. I do not want him pushed so far beyond the limits of human endurance that he merely tells us what we want to hear in order to stop his own suffering. I believe this man to be a vile specimen of humanity and, in the end, he will be punished as such, but for now we need him alive and able to speak. Only use your most violent methods when you have no other option.”

  Walsingham glowered but did not dare to disobey a direct order from the monarch. He indicated to one of his men, who with a great clanking of keys released the semi-conscious man, helping him to the pile of sacks in the corner that served for a bed. Satisfied, Elizabeth turned away from the prisoner and focussed on Walsingham.

  “Has he told you anything new?” she asked.

  “He confirmed a few things,” began Walsingham.

  “Such as?”

  “That Philip II of Spain has been planning an invasion for some years and this is only the beginning of his battle to win the English throne.”

  “Was he able to confirm any names?” she asked, pushing aside her visceral fear of invasion.

  “No, all we managed to get him to tell us was that he and six other gentlemen had been specifically chosen as…” he paused, looking uncomfortable.

  “Tell me,” commanded Elizabeth, preferring to hear the worst from someone she trusted.

  “Six gentlemen who are still practising Catholics charged with your assassination.”

  “But we don’t know the names?”

  Walsingham shook his head. “Apparently, the final six were never decided upon.”

  “Convenient,” snapped Elizabeth. Standing over the wrecked body that had once been a man, she considered her next move. “Keep questioning him, Walsingham. We need names and details but leave enough of him to stand trial. I will see justice served and he’ll pay for his crimes.”

  Elizabeth turned away. She had no desire to watch Babington being tortured but her message had been delivered: Walsingham would do what was necessary but nothing more. She looked around at the imple
ments of torture: the rack, the manacles, the cabinet in the corner known as the Little Ease, where a man could not stand upright and the Scavenger’s Daughter which was an ingenious system of compressing all the limbs in iron bands. She knew an official order had to be given to authorise the use of these contraptions and as she had not given it, she could only assume either Burghley or Kate’s husband, Lord Effingham had signed the order. Men, she thought, conspiring among themselves to do what they feel is necessary.

  “Sir, I’ve found something…”

  Nicholas Berden raced into the dungeon then halted when he saw Queen Elizabeth and Lady Howard.

  “Show me,” commanded Walsingham, holding out his hand.

  “It was found sewn into the lining of his coat and it’s addressed to Her Majesty,” Berden said, his voice tremulous.

  Walsingham scanned the message, the colour draining from his face.

  “Show me,” demanded Elizabeth.

  “Your Majesty, no…” began Walsingham but Elizabeth had snatched the tattered, mud-stained piece of parchment. With each word she read, the room reeled.

  Kate ran to her side and took her arm, holding her steady.

  “This note is to me and it’s from John Ballard on behalf of His Majesty, King Philip II of Spain.”

  “Let me read it, Elizabeth,” said Kate, taking the note from Elizabeth’s shaking hand. “To The Imposter Queen, Elizabeth Tudor, heretic and usurper. His Royal Highness, Philip Habsburg, King of Spain, sends word that he holds the twins: Elizabeth and her brother, Nicholas, the children of Henry VIII and his fifth wife. Unless you abdicate and declare Philip II your heir, neither twin will be shown mercy.”

  PART FIVE: December, 2018

  Chapter One

  Christmas was fast approaching and Perdita and Piper had decided to drive to the capital, Andorra La Vella, for some last-minute Christmas shopping.