Treason in Trust

by G Lawrence

  Many aspects of Catholic worship had been allowed to continue. Some altars had not been removed, and many churches had kept the rood screen. Visits by bishops were kept spare and infrequent on purpose. If I knew not what was going on, I had no reason to take action. I had kept alive ceremonies like the Maundy rites, and had not cracked down on village celebrations of saints’ days. Those who continued to follow the Roman calendar fasted on feast days in their homes, and hid rosary beads with which to pray. The only action taken against those who failed to appear for Mass was that they were fined, but they could use a clause I had added, for the express purpose of concealing men’s faiths, and declare they had been forced to miss Mass due to bonds of charity for a neighbour. I had been generous, but I had a feeling my men would declare all such leniencies had to come to an end.

  There had been resistance, of course. Allen’s college in Douai was a seat of trouble for me, and secret priests held Catholic Masses in homes. Bed sheets were put upon hedges, to signal that a Mass was about to take place, and priests were hidden in attics and cellars. But in general, my people were loyal, and we needed to remember that. It is all too easy to tumble into a pit of paranoia, and never find the light of truth again.

  “This will make Protestants suspicious of their neighbours,” I said to Kate Carey. “The Pope, in trying to kill me, has signed the death warrant of his own people.”

  “He thinks they are his people, of course,” she said. “And thinks, Majesty, as many rulers do, that the common man should be grateful to die in the service of their master.”

  “It is true… powerful men do not fight wars. They send others. I am no different in that regard.”

  “You are entirely different, Majesty,” Kate said. Her expression was so reminiscent of Kat when she scolded me that I almost took a step back. It was like seeing a ghost. “You do not send men into danger for no purpose,” Kate went on, not seeing the haunted look in my eyes. “You only send them when there is a genuine threat to England. The Pope had no cause to set men against you.”

  Our tentative truce of faith was in danger. I could only hope that English Catholics would remember their loyalty to me. The Pope had made me a target, and justified my death by faith, using men’s souls against them.

  And why now? I asked myself. Why had the Bishop of Rome not excommunicated me when first I made England Protestant? I suspected he had been bitterly disappointed that English Catholics had failed to rise, and was seeking to force them into action. Walsingham later discovered that Pius was acting on false information. He had been informed there were many more rebellious Catholics in England than there truly were.

  But there was another reason.

  By my mere existence, I threatened the Pope’s power. That is simply something he will have to live with, I thought. I had no intention of dying to please him, and no intention of altering England’s faith for that canting little monk.

  It was not only me who thought Pius rash and irresponsible. To my delight, France and Spain rounded on their spiritual leader, demanding to know why they had not been consulted. They condemned his actions. Phillip said he feared this would grant me an excuse to persecute Catholics. Quite why he thought I was after such an excuse, I know not. Unlike him, I did not make pyres of men. I executed traitors, but they were hanged or beheaded and the reasons were political, not pious. If men worked ill against my realm, they would die, but for betrayal, not for beliefs.

  At my command, the excommunication was kept quiet. I did not want my people hearing of this. I thought that the moment this got out, people would turn on their neighbours. I had no wish to see England become France, torn asunder by warring faiths. But I was thwarted not long after. John Felton, a wealthy Catholic, took it upon himself to nail the bull to the door of the Bishop of London’s house. Felton was arrested, tortured and executed, but his plans did not bear the fruit he desired.

  I had underestimated my people.

  As we all held our breath at court, thinking immediate assassination attempts or mass slaughter would erupt, there ensued a great outpouring of love for me, and sardonic attacks on Pius.

  The people of England were laughing at the Pope.

  Ballads for me and against Rome were sung in the streets, and pamphlets deriding the Pope were suddenly everywhere. The sound of mirth trickled through the air, and England chortled as one.

  “My people never cease to amaze me,” I marvelled to Anne Dudley, Ambrose’s wife, as we picked through the pamphlets. “We often seem dour and stoical beings, and yet, when something of true danger occurs, we face it with a merry smile upon our lips.”

  “The people take from your example, my lady,” she said, then burst into peals of laughter at one of the pamphlets.

  My bishops put up a more respectable battle against the papacy. The Bishop of Salisbury called the Pope a “wilful and unlearned friar” and declared he had no right to claim I was an unlawful Queen, for I was the daughter of York and Lancaster, and had been accepted by my nobles, Church, and people. He called me “a comfortable water in a dry place, as a refuge for the tempest, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” and reminded the people of the peace I had brought to England. Salisbury preached, saying we only had to look at ruined lands, such as France and the Low Countries, to see what blind adherence to the will of Rome brought. “God gave us Queen Elizabeth,” he roared over the cheering of the crowds. “And with her gave us peace.”

  At least some people appreciated my efforts.

  There were no further uprisings, only almost universal condemnation and mockery of the Pope. Known Catholics turned out to Mass to ask God to pour blessings upon me. This brought joy to my soul. The Pope’s sentence was called “a vain crack of words,” and to some degree this was correct, but it did lead to increased suspicion of Catholics.

  “Catholic intrigues must be treated as treason, now,” Cecil said at one of our midnight meetings.

  “They always were,” I replied. “If men rise against me, they are traitors to England.”

  Cecil was merry to think I was considering a hard line, but I was not. I was wholly uninterested in the personal faith of men, as long as they obeyed my laws.

  To my horror, the Pope’s sentence had another repercussion. It made everyone think that I needed to marry.

  Quite why everyone thought that as soon I had a husband England would be safe from all threat, I knew not. Who was this remarkable man who would deliver us from all evil?

  There is a flawed belief, born of the desperation life imposes, that one thing, just one little thing, can come, alter everything, and bring about peace, stability and joy. There is no such thing, just as there was no such man. The way to keep England safe was to proceed carefully, cautiously, and often, duplicitously. This was no game of children where one outright victor would arise swift and sudden. This was a long game that dictated slow and steady play. I was a master at this, although my people often failed to notice that.

  It is that way with the accomplishments of women. When I succeeded, frightened men would claim I only did so because of my Councillors. When I failed, they said it was my fault. This was important as, were I to succeed on my own, rather than just being lucky, as is so often claimed of the achievements of women, it would send their vision of the world into anarchy. Men are supposed to rule, and women obey. If I could rule well, the power of insecure men was called into question. In order for men to justify keeping women under their heels, we must be pitiable, weak, unable to take care of ourselves, and incapable of understanding anything of importance.

  I shook their certainties, unhinged their solid belief that women were feeble and useless. I made them anxious by defying what a woman should be.

  And I took great pleasure in doing so.

  Think not I was pressing for a revolution. I knew the world was not about to alter overnight to suit me. Women might have had the capacity to rule as ably as men, but they were not prepared to. They were not trained to. Some men kept their wo
men ignorant, so they would not see the faults in their husbands, fathers and sons. Some went further, using the fact that women were generally small, and men large, to demonstrate that since the sexes were not born equal in stature, they were not equal in mind or abilities. Sicknesses that women contracted, and men did not, were used to demonstrate that women were being punished by God for the sins of Eve.

  Some men did not think this way. They, like my father, educated their daughters, but those examples were few, and often the purpose of educating women was so they might support their male kin, not so women might claim and maintain positions of power.

  To the majority of men, the hardships imposed on women were not even noticeable. They did not think about them. The world was as it was because God made it so. Men were born to lead and women to patter at their heels. Men chose to leave their women ill-educated and vulnerable because that was how it was supposed to be. They saw not that they were degrading the entire population by keeping nearly half of it ignorant and utterly reliant on others. Men were not the only sinners in this regard, for women bought into the myth too, telling their daughters that their minds were weak, and reminding them of their place… always below their brothers, husbands and sons.

  The simple truth is men did not consider the unfairness of life for women because the world was, in general, a good place for men. They did not see we inhabited another world, one which was less just, fair, reasonable and safe than the one they strolled through. Our world was degrading, vicious… it allowed us to be attacked, physically, mentally and emotionally, and granted leave to those who would abuse our bodies by upholding the fiction that anything done to a woman must be her fault.

  Barred from official roles, with the exception of the unwanted and unpaid position of churchwarden, women had few chances to better themselves. Women could become surgeons, in theory, but if they dared they were likely to be laughed out of classrooms and more than likely attacked. Only one woman became a surgeon in my reign, Mary Cornellys, a woman of Bodmin.

  Women could become midwives, of course, and widows were allowed into trade if taking on their dead husband’s business, but opportunities were scarce.

  Marriage was the natural path many took, whereby a woman signed over all rights to property, her children, and her own body to her husband. Husbands could beat their wives, and did, and even I, with all my power, could not alter this. Queen I might be, but to restrict the rights of men, even if that meant opening them to women, was never going to be agreed by Parliament. Besides, most women would have thought it madness too, for they agreed beating was a just punishment for adultery, or disobedience.

  With educations restricted, rights and freedoms limited, and an overwhelming, traditional notion that at heart women were weak, evil and easily corruptible, no matter the evidence to the contrary, women were in no position to rule.

  It was therefore somewhat ironic that I, a woman, sat at the head of the social order of England.

  The thought that women were unsuited to rule was common but not universal. A passage of the Book of the Courtier said, “Think you not that we may find many women just as capable of governing cities and armies as men?” The belief women could rule was not common… but that did not mean it was abnormal.

  Change would come, of that I was sure. When women are raised to rule, are upheld not only by men, but by other women, as rational, empathetic, and equal beings, more women will wield power. I like to think I might have altered a few minds about the importance, rather than the insignificance, of women.

  Little steps are important, if any is to follow the path you have broken. The world is altered more often than we realise by tiny steps rather than bounding leaps. But there were many worthy women who were capable, and they, like me, found paths to power that no man could ever take.

  I wanted no husband, but the need for alliance was dire. My men wanted me to wed and produce a child so there would be an alternative to Mary, but I was no more a young maid. I was thirty-six and had little chance of producing a child without dying in the attempt. I had no intention of cutting my life short just to appease others.

  There were other reasons for my reluctance to bear a child. What if I succeeded? When Mary of Scots had produced a son, she had provided an alternative to her for the Scots’ throne. Would men do the same to me if I produced a son? And could I condemn a child of my own blood to the life of peril I had lived? Could I place a child in such danger as I had faced? James of Scotland was already alive; there was no sparing him from the perils of the Crown. His fate was bound to the throne, but to bring another into existence, so they might face all that I had… that thought did not sit easy with me.

  But procreation, no matter how valuable, was not the true reason they wanted me to marry. People like normality, stability… they accept what is commonplace as normal. Normal makes people feel secure, even though it is a fiction. I was different, and that scared them. The real reason people wanted me to marry was so they might slot me into a box, render me normal, make me as all woman should, in their limited opinion, be.

  Yet there is no reason why the extraordinary cannot be secure, or the strange should not be safe.

  My father had done much that was radical and unheard of, and although his people had been shaken by his actions, many could now see that England was a better, more independent kingdom, for his revolutionary decisions. Detractors would say he was blinded, bewitched by love, and perhaps this played a part, but love should be the starting point for our actions. In his case, it was love and perhaps obsession for my mother which had set off the spark that altered the course of English history. For me, it was love for England. I needed no spouse but my country.

  But a show had to be made. I sent men to resurrect the suit of the Archduke Charles. That man had been my potential husband more times than I could count. Since he was a committed Catholic, I knew many would oppose the match, but I only wanted to engage in talks of marriage as a distraction. Men would shout and argue, and eventually I would escape, still free as a bird.

  I had other plans. In an effort to distract Spain, I sought friendship with France. If I could become more valuable to them than the potential Mary presented, it would be good for me. That meant charming a snake.

  “I want word to spread,” I told Blanche and Anne Dudley, “that I admired a portrait of the Duc d’Anjou.”

  Blanche set the plan into motion. If I could convince Catherine de Medici that I desired her favourite son, the dissolute and, if reports were true, ridiculous Duc of Anjou, much could be achieved.

  I was not alone in hatching plots as winter turned to spring. Cecil was busy. For a long time, he had been planting spies in houses, courts and markets, but now, he stepped up his efforts. England could not risk all-out war with our enemies. Too weak to fight with men, we fought instead with minds.

  It was the beginning of a new time, when spies rather than soldiers would decide the fate of nations.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hampton Court and Greenwich Palace

  Late Winter- Early Spring 1570

  “I will come at once,” I said, fear riding my breath as Blanche told me that Pembroke had taken a turn for the worse.

  In the aftermath of the rebellion, and perhaps due to the strain upon him, Pembroke had become sick. I had thought it would pass, as he was a hale, gnarled root of a man, unlikely to be taken by Death at any time, but it appeared I had hoped for too much.

  “Majesty,” he wheezed when I entered, trying to rise. I put a hand to his weakened chest and gently thrust him back on his bed. His wife, Anne, one of Shrewsbury’s sisters, looked at me gratefully, but his little dog growled from beneath the safety of the covers.

  “He keeps trying to get up, my lady,” she said tearfully.

  “There is work to be done,” said Pembroke, lapsing into coughing so violently he turned a horrific shade of purple. As the hacking subsided, his faithful hound attempted to drown his master by licking him to death.

  �
�There are enough men to see to your tasks,” I scolded, taking a seat on his bed. “You need to concentrate on getting well.”

  After a small while of me scolding Pembroke heartily for not taking enough care of himself, I turned to see he had fallen asleep, with a smile on his face.

  “He loves you, Majesty,” said Anne. “Nothing pained him more than the notion that you thought him a traitor. He swore to me he knew nothing of the plotting in the north.”

  “And I believe him, Anne,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “Which is why I called him back to court whilst others remain under lock and key.” I smiled at Pembroke’s peaceful face. “He is a good man, who not only cared for me, but for my brother.”

  When Pembroke woke, surrounded by my doctors, I took his hand. “Did I ever tell you what a fool you are, old friend?” I asked, smiling.

  “Majesty?”

  “Anne tells me you are sorrowed to think I believe you to be a traitor,” I said. “I do not, and I would have you know that.”