Treason in Trust

by G Lawrence

Even when she is a virgin, men will attempt to turn a woman into a whore, when it suits them.

  I ignored their slanders, knowing to grant them any time was a waste of mine. But others were concerned. Archbishop Parker wrote to Cecil saying that another man, taken captive at Dover, had also spoken against me, and the rumours he had unleashed were so vile Parker could not repeat them. Parker thought the rumours would cause civil war, leading to a Catholic government and my death, as an immoral spiritual leader was something people would not tolerate. Yet I am moral, I thought. Lies are not truths, Parker.

  “And what would you have me do, Cecil?” I asked.

  “Perhaps you should be more reserved in public, madam, to dispel the rumours.”

  “Then everyone will suppose them true.” I shook my head. “If I were a man, no one would think it strange I kept companions.”

  “But you are not a man, madam.”

  “Yet I am capable of having friends, as a man might, and not falling into bed with them. I am more capable than many men, for I hear the Duc d’Anjou beds his minions whilst also keeping a mistress. I will not send away my friends, Cecil, nor will I alter my behaviour. I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. It is those who spread rumours who should know shame, not I. I will not be punished for their falsehoods.”

  It was up to me to show these rumours false. I would do that by continuing as I ever had with no reference to foolish malcontents who took delight in spreading slander and infamy, simply because they could not understand me.

  *

  “A clock… for my wrist?” I asked as Robin presented his New Year’s gift. “What a novel idea, Robin.”

  It was also beautiful. Set with glittering jewels pressed into lustrous gold, the bracelet held a timepiece. I had never seen anything like it.

  But despite the jovial season, the atmosphere at court was tense that winter. Norfolk’s trial was swift approaching. There were many who thought he might be pardoned, knowing our ties of blood. Many more declared he deserved to die.

  “One day I am assured my only safety lies in his death, and Mary’s, and at others I cringe from the notion like a beaten hound,” I said to Hatton.

  “Perhaps you will receive guidance, Majesty.”

  “To the person who knows not where to go, there is no favourable wind,” I quoted from Seneca and sighed. I caught the scent of Hatton’s skin; civet and rosemary.

  When he fell silent, I glanced at him. “Will you say nothing, Lids?”

  He offered a sad smile. “I think, Majesty, you have enough people offering their opinion. The only one that matters is yours.”

  “And I know not what to do.”

  “Then perhaps nothing is what should be done.”

  *

  Norfolk stood trial that January. Shrewsbury presided as Lord High Steward, as the Duke faced a jury of his peers. The evidence was compelling. It took not long to decide his sentence.

  Shrewsbury wept as he told the Duke he had been found guilty of high treason, and sentenced Norfolk to the traitor’s death of hanging, drawing, and quartering. The usual practice, when the accused was a peer, was to commute this grisly sentence to beheading, offering mercy in a quick death. Some thought Norfolk should pay the full price and go to his death in ignominy and agony.

  As Norfolk was led back to his comfortable prison, I was rendered sleepless. Visions of the past came. Ghosts swirled in my mind, haunting me, hunting me. I thought of my mother, and the courageous end she had made of her extraordinary life. I thought of Catherine Howard, asking for the block to be brought to her chambers in the Tower, so she might practise walking to her death with grace and poise. I thought of Jane Grey. I thought of my father, sister, brother… all sending kin to their deaths, all living in fear of their own blood.

  For many nights, faces drifted in my weary mind, stealing sleep away. As my ladies slept, warm and peaceful on pallet beds in my rooms, I walked between my private chambers, my feet restless and my mind consumed with confusion. My footsteps echoed in the lonely halls, ringing against the steady beat of my heart. There was a dark maw where my heart should have been; a blank space, an aching, ineffable gulf, which promised that if I went through with this I would be rendered empty, soulless.

  Men had been executed for treason in my time, but not many peers, and certainly no family. There were other, more pragmatic, reasons for my concern. Norfolk had children, and he was popular. Killing him would breed me a fresh host of enemies of the most dangerous kind. Those who hate for lost love are the most vicious creatures. Did I want to create a new threat, which would dog me for the rest of my life?

  Norfolk did not rest either. He spent his days writing to his children, and pleading for them. Norfolk asked that Cecil become their guardian, for the two men had been friends once. I agreed, but on the most important question, I still had no answer.

  “I cannot do it, Cecil,” I said when he delivered the order for Norfolk’s execution. “I cannot.”

  “He is a traitor, and, more dangerously, an ambitious fool,” Cecil said. “If he were not your blood, you would not hesitate.”

  “But he is my blood.”

  “Any loyalty you owed to him, he removed when he agreed to this plot.”

  I could not refute his logic, but I could not sign. I sent Cecil away, saying I needed more time. He was afraid, worried I might surrender to the ‘womanly weakness’, as he called it, within me.

  But it was nothing to do with being a woman. It was to do with my morals, my personal code. I had despised my sister for killing Jane Grey, and my father for killing his wives. How could I turn my back on all I had thought and said? How could I become the monster I had feared?

  “The Queen’s Majesty hath always been a merciful lady,” Cecil said when it became apparent about court that I was undecided. “And by mercy she hath taken more harm than justice, and yet she thinks she is more beloved in doing herself harm. God save her to His honour long amongst us.”

  Despite these warm words of praise, I knew Cecil thought me a fool.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Westminster Palace

  Winter 1572

  “I am pleased to hear you did well,” I said to Drake.

  The young man had returned, his ships’ holds bulging with treasure stolen from Spanish ships and bullion routes in Panama. I had wanted none, even Cecil, to know of our secret plans and dealings, so my men could protest innocence convincingly, and because I had been unsure how our little ruse would go. Drake had promised me a share in his spoils nonetheless. He had also made valuable links with free communities of Cimarones, escaped Spanish slaves who had intermarried with natives of the New World, who sought revenge on their former masters.

  “They are an interesting people, Majesty,” he said. “When they realised we were out to harm the Spanish, they could not do enough for us. My men never ate as well as we did in their company.”

  The Cimarones had allowed Drake to leave a cache of stores at a safe harbour he had named Port Pheasant because of the multitude of birds who roosted there. We were ready for the first, but I was certain, not last, raid on Spain’s resources in the New World. Nombre de Dios, Spain’s great treasure house, was about to receive an uninvited guest.

  “I was pleased to hear England and Spain did not mend their relationship whilst we were at sea, Majesty,” Drake said. “I had to pause my ships outside Plymouth to check.”

  I smiled. “Fear not your home, Drake. I will ensure you are always welcome.”

  Drake made preparations for his new voyage. Spain was soon to get a shock, and I was determined to enjoy every moment of it.

  *

  In February I surrendered to Cecil and signed Norfolk’s death warrant.

  All that day I was restless, on edge, unable to think well of my resolution. I snapped at my ladies, growled at Robin, and even turned on gentle Hatton. I felt as though I were standing on a cliff edge, teetering, ready to fall.

  On the night before Norfolk was due to die
, I sent for Cecil.

  “I want it rescinded,” I said. “I cannot do it. Norfolk is bound to me, and I to him.”

  Cecil sighed, but seeing my abject distress, and understanding he could not countermand my orders, he sent word to the Tower. Crowds who gathered the next morning had to be content with watching two common men hang for their crimes in my kinsman’s stead.

  My Council could not understand my hesitation. Some thought me weak and others too merciful. I tried to ignore my detractors, but as Norfolk languished between hope and despair in his cell, so did I, in my comfortable rooms. Consumed by hopeless emptiness, I turned to music.

  I wanted to block out the roaming thoughts in my mind; one voice told me I was a fool to risk my life and the security of my nation. The second, sounding inside me as a gentle wave stroking the shore, spoke of mercy. The hard voice called the other a dullard. The gentle voice told its companion to be not so cruel.

  There was no resolution. I was torn and there was no stitching me back together. Either way, I would be a rent soul when this was decided, living in fear of repercussions and disgrace in God’s eyes for killing a kinsman, or dwelling in terror, facing no less onerous repercussions, if I set Norfolk free.

  I called often for music. It was a comfort, to listen, or to play. In playing I could lose myself … allowing my fingers to wend their way across keys or strings, and my mind wandering the tracks of melody and harmony. Even in listening there was comfort. And nowhere was music more sacred to me than in my royal chapel.

  Puritans wanted to ban all church music. They thought it distracted from true worship, and wanted nothing but silence and the voice of a priest in churches. I did not agree. Music was a gift from God and it brought people together, allowing a space in the noisy whirl of life to concentrate on but one melody. When I required peace, I turned to the men of my Chapel Royal, and to Thomas Tallis in particular.

  Tallis had risen from the post of an organist in Dover Priory to a singer in the Chapel Royal. He had served my father, sister, and brother, and had great skill in composition. Tallis was also a Catholic, and some, aware of this, resented and feared his prominent place in my Royal Chapel, thinking he would bring his faith into his compositions and infect me with it. But I understood Tallis. His faith was personal, not political. He attended Protestant services, and that was enough for me.

  Tallis was permitted a great deal of licence. He wrote in both English and Latin, and his genius produced some of the most evocative, magical, and awe-inspiring of works. He wrote songs of the Psalms in English, now allowed to be sung by congregations, and worked on pieces for Archbishop Parker, who hailed him as one of the foremost talents of my court.

  Music suffered elsewhere in the country, since the injunctions I had to impose to appease my Protestant subjects were strict. But some singing was allowed. Puritan zealots, not wanting to be a part of such a scandalous, ungodly event as music during Mass, left churches when psalms were being sung, re-entering only when the singing had ceased and they were rendered safe from the persuasions of the Devil.

  Quite why people thought God was a joyless grump, and all beauty, music and joy came from the ill-fated, wicked Morning Star, I knew not. It was hard for some to believe that God might have wished His people happiness, rather than relentless, continual suffering. I held suspicions that people who thought this way had endured loss and hardship, and went out to inflict suffering on others. There are people who lust to pass on pain, like a sickness.

  I believed that God was the author of music and wonder, and therefore, in my Royal Chapel, my men were protected and music flourished.

  My Chapel Royal boasted the largest choir in the country, with thirty-two gentlemen and twelve children. I paid generous wages, and the living conditions were comfortable, making it a much desired place to work. Puritans were only further incensed when another Catholic was sworn in as joint organist with Tallis that February. William Byrd was Tallis’s student, and a brilliant musician. He had run into trouble some years back whilst employed at Lincoln Cathedral, as his organ playing was deemed popish and his wages had been withheld. Tallis had been instructing him for some time, as he saw a great deal of potential in the man, and had spoken for Byrd.

  “He plays beautifully,” I had said. “But do you think his private thoughts will cause trouble?”

  Tallis knew what I was asking. He smiled, touching a hand to his hair, speckled with a fine dust of grey. He was getting old, and knew he had to train a replacement. “I do not, Majesty.”

  “Then swear him in, and make beautiful music for me.” I bent my ear to listen to Byrd’s playing. “Is this song for me?”

  Tallis smiled. “It is O Lord, Make Thy Servant Elizabeth,” he replied. “Byrd wrote this for you, Majesty. He thinks you all that is good in this world.”

  It was a pretty piece. Sung with six voices, one part ran thus; “O Lord, make Thy servant, Elisabeth our Queen, to rejoice in Thy strength; give her her heart’s desire and deny not the request of her lips, but prevent her with Thine everlasting blessing, and give her a long life, e’n for ever and ever. Amen.”

  At such a time, as many wolves about the world were howling for my blood, it was sweet to hear that some wanted life everlasting for me.

  Tallis was not completely correct. Byrd did cause some trouble, but nothing I could not deal with. He failed to attend Anglican services, for which he was fined, and kept a noticeably Catholic circle of friends. Many of his works were also performed in houses known to harbour illegal priests. Byrd wrote often in Latin, like Tallis, and the language was regarded as popish. They knew they could use it without harm. They had my admiration, and protection.

  My Council protested many times over the years, but I retaliated with fire and always won. The Chapel Royal was my private reserve. It was up to me what went on there. I also did not understand the objection to Latin. It was just another language, and a beautiful one. Latin had been used by the Romans long before they embraced the Christian faith, therefore it was not a language which solely upheld Catholicism.

  “Surely, before they converted, they were heathens?” Robin asked one day. “So either way, my lady, the use of Latin is not godly.”

  “I am Supreme Governor of the Church,” I replied. “It is up to me to decide what is godly. Churches all over England are dictated to by my Council and my Church, Robin, but I control my Royal Chapel.”

  Plenty thought my chapel too popish. My Communion table was draped and decorated like a Catholic altar, with gilt candlesticks, alms dishes and a crucifix. It was my prerogative, my right, and I defended it to the last breath. I needed to approach God on my own terms. My chapel was one of my sanctuaries, one of the few places I did not feel alone.

  Robin ceased to object, for he was a wise man. Other voices which lifted against me and my musicians were ignored too. It was good I did ignore my critics. In my Royal Chapel, music was celebrated, whereas everywhere else in England it was becoming rare. Due to my stubborn protectiveness, it would be said later in my reign that English Church music had no equal. Specialised, religious compositions, unequalled in brilliance, flowed from my chapel, keeping music alive in England. But for me, this joy of life might have died.

  *

  “Madam,” I scribbled with an angry quill from my chambers at Westminster, attempting, without success, to swallow a spasm of rage in my throat. “Of late time I have received divers letters from you, to the which you may well guess by the accidents of the time why I have not made any answer…”

  I was furious. Mary had written yet again, bemoaning her state. To my mind, she was lucky I had not signed an order for her death.

  “… But now, finding by your last letter, the 27th of the last, an increase of your impatience tending also to many uncomely, passionate, and vindictive speeches, I thought to change my former opinion and by patient and advised words move you to stay or else to qualify your passions, and to consider that it is not the manner to obtain good things with evil spee
ches, nor benefits with injurious challenges, nor to get good to yourself with doing evil to another.”

  I was become a scolding schoolmaster, but it was necessary. If there was anyone who needed a lesson in manners, it was my ungrateful, rebellious and duplicitous cousin of Scots.

  As I finished, thrusting my swan-feather quill back into its ink horn with such violence that I snapped the nib, I tossed my head. “There,” I muttered. “Let her understand how fortunate she is. Were I a less just prince, she would be on the block!”

  Mighty words, but they meant nothing. I had not reached a decision.

  I stalked off to a side chamber and took up a book. At first, I saw nothing of the pages, or their worthy words, but only a mass of grey and white as anger kept his grip on my mind. But, as ever, as I read, losing myself in the wisdom of others, surrendering to the flow and magic of words, I calmed without knowing it was happening, and anger fled my soul, irritated at my change of demeanour.