Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  At least my own hot-bloodedness had netted me two titles. I could not see what theirs had netted them, aside from scandal. Lust should serve a purpose; lust should be used as bait. What fool just throws it away?

  The Queen ... The Queen knew how to use it as bait. She had been doing it her whole life. Now the bait had grown stale, but she did not seem to notice, and the young men at court were forced to pretend otherwise, to write sonnets about the fair wind caressing the pink cheeks of Diana, when the cheeks were in reality wrinkled and wan. Robert as much as anyone had to write such nonsense as “When Your Majesty thinks that heaven is too good for me, I will not fall like a star, but be consumed like a vapor by the same sun that drew me up to such a height. While Your Majesty gives me leave to say I love you, my fortune is as my affection, unmatchable.” But when I laughed about it, he would huff and defend her. One part of him believed what he was writing; another part wanted to believe it; and the last part was ashamed of himself for having to do it. To assuage his anger and shame, he took young women to bed. Too many of them. I feared that he had brought something untoward upon himself and was suffering from it. And I do not mean his reputation.

  Soon he would be reeling in, tipsy, with his companions from the tavern. They longed to spend their energies on a battlefield, but they were cooped up in the court, channeled into tamed, ritualistic war games like the tilts and not allowed to go farther away than a city tavern, lest she call them back at any moment on one of her whims. In these dark days of November the dusk, and the drinking time, started early.

  I paced the room. It was deadly quiet. Nothing for me to do but wait. I went to my rooms and busied myself reading. If I had had anyone to go with, I would have gone to the theater. I wanted something to take my mind off what was happening all around me. I did not care to visit Frances in her rooms, or even to play with the grandchildren. They gave me a headache.

  The light streaming in was thin, although it was nearly midday. I knew my son had come in late last night and was now reversing the days and nights, sleeping like a sloth. Frances and the children were up and gone; in any case, he slunk off by himself when he was on one of his tears. I would not have intruded in his marital chamber, but this was different.

  Pushing the door open, I peered into the darkened room. I heard heavy breathing, on the verge of, but not quite, snoring. There was an odor of sour beer and soggy wool. It was time to get him up. I jerked the bed-curtains open and was hit with a wave of the beer and wool smell, much stronger for having been concentrated within the curtains. He let out a wheezing, blubbering gasp, then sat up, grabbing at his hair.

  “So here’s Great England’s glory and the world’s wide wonder,” I said, quoting Spenser.

  He groaned. “My head—”

  “Is empty,” I finished for him. “Purged utterly of anything, just as your bowels undoubtedly are. Get up. What if the Queen sent for you?”

  “She won’t,” he said, shaking his head. “She never does, never does, never—”

  “That simply is not true,” I said, taking his hand to pull him out of bed. The years rolled away and he was a little boy again, until he stood upright and was a head taller than I.

  “She’s busy with Drake and Raleigh again,” he muttered. “Listening to their grandiose plans, financing them, taken in by their brags.”

  “Their brags? Raleigh perhaps, but as I recall, Drake did sail around the world, discovered a passage below the tip of South America, claimed a coastline in North America for the Queen—little things like that.”

  “He hasn’t done anything in five years. He’s a has-been.” Robert thrust his feet into warm slippers and made for the fireplace. “He’s old. In his fifties. His seafaring feats were done fifteen, twenty years ago.”

  “Defeating the Armada doesn’t count?”

  “He didn’t defeat it single-handedly.” He groaned. “Oh, Mother, please! It’s too early!” He huddled before the fireplace, rubbing his hands. “I need ale,” he said. “To clear my head.”

  “First there’s ale to muddy your head, then ale to clear it.” Nonetheless, I asked a servant to bring a pitcher of it.

  While we waited, I pulled back more curtains, to let as much of the thin light as possible in. Was it my imagination, or was his face blotchy? He was shivering as he stopped rubbing his hands and clasped his forearms.

  “How will you be able to ride at the tilt tomorrow?” I wondered out loud. “You can barely sit on a three-legged stool.”

  “Tomorrow I will be well enough,” he said.

  At least he had been assigned the last day of the three-day celebration. The observance had crept from the actual day out into St. Elizabeth’s Day. What a coincidence in nomenclature. Or was it just another example of the extraordinary hand of fortune that always favored her, in little things as well as big?

  The ale did seem to restore him. Like a plant that reverses its wilt after a rain, he took on color and strength and was soon holding forth on his various schemes and how they would all return bounty a hundredfold. I told him to get dressed and come to my chambers; I had something to show him.

  When he appeared, I had the midday dinner set before him, and he wolfed it down, smearing his napkin with the good cheese and custard.

  “Now that you are restored, good son, I need you to look at this.” I pushed the food tray aside and laid a book down before him, a thick-bound one that carried the scent of its newness. He stared at it, then shrugged.

  “You are familiar with it?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “What of it?”

  I stabbed the title with my index finger. A Conference on the Next Succession to the Crown of England. “It might as well be How to Be Executed for Treason. How do you come to be associated with it? Why, why, is it dedicated to you?” For the European author, “R. Doleman, from my chamber in Amsterdam,” had thanked Robert for past favors to “friends” and said that after Elizabeth’s death Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was the man in the realm who would have the power to decide between claimants to the throne.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “It is obviously Catholic propaganda, smuggled into England by Jesuits. Its style bears all the marks of Robert Parsons, Elizabeth’s most determined foe from the ranks of Rome. Claiming it is from Amsterdam is so transparent it is laughable.”

  Parsons directed the Jesuits and their English mission from Spain. Ten years ago he had landed in England, but when his companions were captured, he fled, to continue his work from a safe perch. Counterfeit pamphlets, rumors, and false evidence were some of his favorite methods of bringing down leading Protestants.

  “It’s meant to damage you,” I said. “Otherwise, why single you out and link you to things the Queen is most sensitive about—the succession and overpowerful subjects?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I have many enemies. People who do not want to see me succeed, people who whisper against me, people close to the Queen who fill her ears with lies about me—”

  “Oh, don’t start on the Cecils again.” He had become obsessed with the idea that they were dedicated to undermining him. “They didn’t write it.”

  “No, but they will be sure to show it to the Queen.”

  “Therefore, you must show it to her first. Lament the shame of it. Commiserate with her about it. Steal the show from the Cecils.”

  He drew himself up, cocked his head to one side. “That is what I had planned to do. Right after the tilt. But first I need another fitting for my costume.”

  I should have asked him the particulars about it, but costumes and masques bored me. Let the Queen squeal over them. I looked as he turned his face and the light played over his cheek. Perhaps I had been wrong; his skin looked clear now. But we were so seldom utterly alone that I must speak, and not waste it on idle talk of costumes. “Robert, it seems to me—mothers notice these things—that your health of late, of late—” Should I hint, state, or accuse? “Are you feeling well?” I would begin with a hint.

>   “Except when I have too much at the tavern,” he said. “I will try to avoid that from now on.”

  “I mean, not just last night, but for the whole past year. It seems—I think—you have changed. Your moods. Your rashes. Your sleeping. I fear you may have contracted the French disease.”

  “Because I’ve been in France, dear Mother?” He gave a winsome smile to warn me off.

  “It is in England, too, dear Son. And you have had more opportunity to avail yourself of women here than in France.”

  “No! I haven’t got it! Yes, there was a time when I feared ... But no, it wasn’t.” He smacked his fist into his palm and suddenly his face contorted in rage. “I came to him as a patient, horror stricken, shaking with fear. Oh, he treated me, and then he blabbed it about when he was in his cups, laughing about me to his friends, saying I had it, was pox ridden. Well, I got my revenge!”

  It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. No, surely he did not ... He could not have ... “Robert—is that why you trumped up those charges against Dr. Lopez, hounded him to death, raised the popular outcry when it seemed that legally he would escape you? For personal revenge?”

  “No, of course not! What do you take me for?”

  “I am not sure,” I said slowly. “There are days when I don’t recognize my son in you.”

  “That’s nonsense. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Someday, when your own children are older, you will. You think they are part of you always, but that is not true.” Let me get to the rest of the things concerning this stranger. “And speaking of children, is it true that you have been bedding Elizabeth Southwell and that she is with child?”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “I assume she will slink away from court when the time comes?”

  “I assume so.” He acted as if it were no concern of his.

  “And your friend Southampton celebrated his coming of age by sheltering friends fresh from committing a murder. Why, why, do you persist in these dangerous alliances? A lady from the Queen’s retinue, a man known for quarrels and violence?”

  “Spirited people sometimes overstep the bounds,” he said. “There is no life when a man or woman always has to keep within a circle. Southampton has many poets as friends as well as ruffians, and Mistress Southwell knows all the districts of pleasure that a woman can explore.” He paused. “Now my cautious friend Francis Bacon can offset the others. He has managed to worm his way into a position as Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary. All my friends are not in disgrace.”

  “Perhaps Bacon can do us some good in that position. Help the Queen incline her ear to us, so to speak.” The Dr. Lopez episode, supposed to win her gratitude for her deliverance, had done nothing of the sort. The sordid affair, source of shame and horror, had been deemed unmentionable, as if to deny that it had ever happened. I heard that the Queen still wore the ring, though.

  “He and his brother still work primarily for me,” said Robert. “The royal appointment is case by case only.”

  “All will be well.” I needed to tell myself that.

  I left his chambers. It was early afternoon, and the house was empty. There was nothing to do. Oh, to be barred from court was so boring. I could only hear and see things secondhand, utterly at the mercy of the memory and descriptive power of others.

  As long as I could have only secondhand excitement, I might as well go to the theater, I told myself. The new season was under way and there would surely be something amusing on. Even though he was dead, Marlowe was still being performed, but I hardly wanted to see The Jew of Malta. That friend of the enigmatic Southampton, Shakespeare, had some comedies and a bloody Roman play, but I was not in the mood for either. Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy would suit me best today. I grabbed my lacy face mask and summoned my coach.

  30

  ELIZABETH

  Christmas 1594

  I had given myself a Christmas gift. Two of them: Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. I had beckoned them back to court; their exile had lasted long enough. I decided to forgive them for their human lapses—Drake for his misguided preemptive strike against Spain that had fizzled so spectacularly and expensively five years ago, Raleigh for his transgression with Bess Throckmorton two years ago. Drake had busied himself with a new wife and civic duties in his Devonshire home. Raleigh surely had had enough of being cooped up in Sherborne Castle in Dorset with Bess, where he had decamped after his release from the Tower. Both men had parliamentary grants for new ventures. They were ready to go again, and I was ready to send them.

  In the meantime I had the pleasure of their company for the Christmas revels at Hampton Court, and of contrasting the smooth-tongued Raleigh with the plainspoken Drake, one a born courtier and the other best farthest from court. And all the while, the young Earl of Essex looking on, his envy piqued. Oh, it was all delicious. And I had earned the amusement, having been bedeviled by all three of them at various times.

  The festivities were to follow their usual schedule: The court would move to Hampton just before Christmas, and once there, the twelve days would be a round of banquets, music, masques, and plays. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men would put on the best of the season’s new plays as well as one or two old favorites like Doctor Faustus. The master of misrule would preside in the closing feast; and in between there would be New Year’s Day and the gift exchanges. My treasury had already weighed out the silver to be dispensed. It was a familiar routine, but there were always surprises—new people introduced, new styles unveiled, and, out of sight, new liaisons formed.

  Hampton showed well at Christmas, lending itself to greenery and decorations; the Great Hall seemed to store up past merriment, releasing it anew each season. For days, lighted barges with liveried boatmen delivered their masters and mistresses to the water steps, where they mounted and approached the first gate, laughing, their hooded cloaks streaming out behind them.

  Of course there were those few who preferred not to come, choosing to spend the holidays in their own houses; there were far more who wanted to come to court but were not invited. There were, after all, only so many rooms.

  They began arriving: first the lowest-ranking courtiers, invited for the first time, with their curious and eager wives peeping into the halls and stairways; then the more important personages; and finally the highest, each trying to arrive later than his rival. Some announced their eminence by sending a token reminder of themselves from their estates, where they were spending the holidays. The royal larder overflowed with game pies, blackberry comfits, honey from prized hives, and even smoked swans from the country. The musicians got to practice on the first, less demanding audiences and polish their performances for the critical listeners who would follow. Players rehearsed in the Great Hall; the Lord Chamberlain’s Men promised excellent drama chosen from the autumn’s new plays. There had been an explosion of new material after the theaters reopened in London, after the plague, as if the playwrights had done nothing in the meantime but sit in their rooms writing while the theaters were shut.

  There would, of course, be religious services, and Whitgift stood ready to preside, but business would continue right up until Christmas Eve. The French and Scots ambassadors dogged my every step, pretending to urge certain policies on me, in reality to spy for their masters. It was, as far as I was concerned, part of the festivities, and I would lead them into a merry maze. Hampton Court had a maze; that one was outside, and my diplomatic one would be inside.

  On Christmas Eve, as Archbishop Whitgift intoned the closing prayers of the service, rows of candles were lit all down the great passageway leading from the chapel royal, and cornets announced the glad arrival of Christmas.

  We held the Christmas banquet in the Great Watching Chamber, saving the Great Hall for the performance to come; its stage was being hastily erected while we ate; we could hear the banging and scraping over the sweet tunes of the lutes and harps. I had invited my forgiven adventurers to sit on either side of me; on their sides sat young
Cecil and young Essex, making a parenthesis of rivalry around Raleigh and Drake. Farther down the table were Admiral Howard, Catherine, Whitgift, Charles Blount, old Cecil, Helena van Snakenborg. My godson John Harington and various Carey brothers filled out the length of the head table. The other tables were a swarm of courtiers of various degrees.

  I shall not describe the food or the proceedings, for they follow an established pattern. What is memorable is what departs from the pattern. And now, like the Green Knight appearing at King Arthur’s winter festivities, a savage strode into the room, nearly naked except for a loincloth, an elaborate many-stranded necklace, and a dazzling feathered headdress. Much like an animal taken directly from a forest, he looked around at us, his eyes darting everywhere, as if searching for an escape. In his wake a white man followed and took his place beside him.

  Now Raleigh rose. “I bid you welcome, Captain Whiddon, and your guest from South America.” The white man nodded, then bowed to me. “Your Majesty, and all the good parliamentarians who voted funds for my exploratory expedition, I present the first fruit of my preparation,” continued Raleigh. “Jacob Whiddon, a captain who never hesitates to invade Spanish waters, reconnoitered an area on the South American coast near Trinidad for my proposed voyage there. He reports favorable conditions and brought this young man back to learn English so that he might act as our translator and guide.”

  “Speak, Ewaioma,” prodded Whiddon.

  The bronze man opened his mouth and said, in a surprisingly soft voice, “Ezrabeta Cassipuna Acarewana!”

  “That means ‘Elizabeth the Great Princess,’ ” said Raleigh. “I have explained to him that you are a great cassique, a chief of the north, who has many other cassiques at her command.” He extended his hand to Ewaioma, who approached the table. “This great cassique, my mistress, has freed the whole northern coast of Europe from Spain and is a constant enemy of its tyranny. They fear her, and she will protect you from the depredations of that evil empire. You may trust your land and your people to her.”