Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  “The particulars?”

  “It is under the command of Don Martin de Padilla, admiral of Castile.”

  “Oh, God!” Padilla had been general of the oared galleys at the victory at Lepanto against the Turks and had defended the entrance of Lisbon against Drake in the ill-fated 1589 raid. “Unlike Sidonia, he is competent.”

  “There are about a hundred and fifty ships,” said Cecil. “The same size as the first Armada, as our 1589 Portugal raid, and as the recent Cádiz mission. We cannot confirm how many soldiers are aboard.”

  “We would not expect them to sail so late in the year. They could count on that. And knowing that, they could also count on our having disbanded our fleet, so we would be totally unprotected. Where is their target? Where shall they make landing?”

  He looked frustrated. “Our intelligence has not revealed it. It could be either Ireland, or, if England, the Isle of Wight, the Thames, or the west coast.”

  “In other words, anywhere!”

  He tugged at his ear. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  I clutched the arms of my chair, as if to draw strength and steadiness from the solid English oak. Attacked from within and from without. No standing army, and a disbanded fleet. What to do? What to do? I must decide, and quickly. Every hour counted.

  Cecil was standing, waiting for me to speak, ready to carry out whatever I ordered.

  “I must think,” I said. “You may stay the night in your accustomed chambers and in the morning take my orders back to London.” I had assigned Cecil permanent quarters in all the palaces so he could always be nearby if need be. I stood up. “Avail yourself of any of the fresh horses in the stable,” I said. “The autumn has never been lovelier, and you may find it soothing. I daresay you did not linger to look at the fields and meadows on your way here.”

  He smiled. “I did not,” he admitted. “But it would be a balm to do so now. I spend too many hours indoors at the council table.”

  “It will sap you,” I said. As it had me. “Beware of constant council tables and no exercise. A man needs to see the sky at least once a day.”

  After he departed, I should have taken my own advice and gone outside. I thought better in fresh air. But I had to tell Marjorie of the danger at Rycote. I hurried to my apartments and found her reading quietly, head bent into her book.

  Her hair was smoke gray at the part now, although the ends were still black, as befitted my Crow.

  “Marjorie.” I bent over and took her book gently. “Does this give you pleasure?”

  She looked up, her eyes still dark and clear. “Oh, indeed. I am learning about the fall of Constantinople.”

  “There is solace in history,” I said. “But now we must speak of the present, and its dangers.” I drew her up. “I have just had word that there is a threat against Rycote, and Sir Henry.” I told her what I knew.

  “Bartholomew!” she cried. “To think that sweet child would wish us harm. He was always following us about; his father had been a carpenter as well, and brought little Bart along on jobs. While his father worked building stalls and stairs, Bart would hang at my knee, asking questions. I gave him a pup once, from a litter we had.”

  “Marjorie, he is no longer a child but an angry man who bristles with violence. Cecil said Henry had been warned, but perhaps I should send troops to protect him.”

  “Oh, no. That would shame him. We have four surviving sons, soldiers all, and that is protection enough. I should go!”

  “Your sons are not here; they are in Ireland and the Netherlands. You must not go anywhere near. It would only give Bart a target. Should he capture you, he would have Henry in his hand as well.”

  “I am sure he would never harm me.”

  “Because you were kind to him as a child? The lion is not the same as the cub. No, you must not go!”

  Marjorie paced the room, her heavy footsteps sounding on the worn floorboards. She was a big-boned woman, broad and tall, as befitted the mother of six sons, all military men, one of them the ablest soldier in England: Black Jack Norris. I always found her as stalwart as a soldier herself, and she had calmed me in many a crisis. But now she was trembling. I touched her shoulder and she jumped.

  “I think troops would be prudent,” I said. “At least until Henry can rally his own.” Both he and Marjorie were in their midseventies. He was still vigorous, or liked to maintain that he was, being on horseback every morning before others were up on foot. But I appreciated how much of that might be posturing. He would need help; he would have needed it even if he were forty. The evil of those rebels, seeking to maim and kill, must be scotched, and quickly. That they would think of visiting such cruelty on my subjects was an insult to me, and they would answer for it. They must be met with force before they could do harm.

  She shook herself to gain control. “I always thought danger lay in foreign battlefields,” she said. “Home was the place you retired to in safety.”

  “In my land, that should be true. This is an aberration.” We had been spared the hideous wars of religion that tore apart Europe. “A short-lived one, I hope.” Then I told her about Spain’s Armada.

  “Oh, my dear lady,” she said. “Troubles from within and without.”

  I pinched her cheek. “Now do your duty of cheering me about the Spanish, as you always do.”

  She laughed, the old Marjorie again for a moment. Then the smile faded. “We must pray for another English wind to blow them to pieces,” she said.

  I sat glumly in my bedchamber, my face cupped between my hands. I had asked Catherine to bring me my jewels. I would have to pawn some; the painful selection must be made. Catherine had dutifully set down several coffers, all locked. She, as keeper of the Queen’s jewels, carried the keys.

  “This one has the historic Crown jewels,” she said, pointing to an ebony-inlaid one with a rounded top. “This one contains the everyday jewels, if you can call them that.” She touched a polished walnut one with gold fittings. “And this holds your personal ones.” That box was covered in mother-of-pearl.

  I would never sell the personal ones—the pearls from Leicester, the emerald pendant from Drake, the Three Brothers ruby pendant from my father and his heavy gold chain, the B initial necklace from my mother, the frog pin from François. No, never. So I pushed that one aside. No point in even opening it.

  Neither would I sell the historic ones. It was not possible. They belonged to England and must be here for the next person who sat on the throne. There was the thin gold coronet of Richard the Lionheart, set with tiny lapis studs from the Holy Land. There was a globule-shaped dark ruby worn by Henry V at Agincourt, inherited from the Black Prince; the square sapphire coronation ring of Edward the Confessor; a gold cross of Alfred the Great. I liked to take them out and tell myself the stories connected to them, such as the tradition that in personal combat with the Duc d’Alençon, Henry V almost lost the ruby when Alençon smashed at it with a blow to the helm, barely missing. We monarchs like to dare all, exposing our precious things in battle.

  Battle. It was because of battle I was having to sell these treasures. Battles on land, in the Netherlands, battles on sea, now battles at home. But Henry V, I promised him, your ruby did not survive Agincourt to be squandered now on the pitiful King of Spain.

  The everyday jewels ... I would have to start casting them out to keep myself afloat, like a sinking ship throwing off precious cargo to save itself. Drake had had to do so on his way home once, throwing overboard three tons of cloves worth a fortune, but worth nothing if he could not free his ship from the rocks where it was stuck. And so the spices floated away, and he floated free. Thus it must be for us, I thought, pulling out a delicate gold and pearl necklace with hanging droplets of sapphires—a gift from the ambassador of Denmark. Diplomatic gifts would be the first to go, the easiest to let go of. There were pendants with rubies and dull uncut diamonds, earrings with medium-sized pearls, nothing outstanding in either the workmanship or the gems. Those came from France, Swed
en, and Russia. Then there were the onyx necklaces from Spain, presented when we still had Spanish ambassadors here. The Spanish like black, I thought. Black jewelry, black-robed priests, black deeds.

  There were heavy gold bracelets, now out of style, presented by long-dead courtiers. They would yield a good price, though, for their gold, and the givers would never know their fate. Brooches that were so heavy they pulled embroidery, pins that did not fasten properly, rings that were too large and went round and round on my finger—those could go. I was getting a tidy little pile. But how many ships could they buy? How many soldiers could they provision? Nestled among them, incongruously, was the gold-painted wooden egg from the long-ago goose fair. I smiled. It, too, was a treasure—but only to me.

  Well, I had begun. I would pawn these and see what the yield was before I cut any deeper. I also had more Crown lands I could sell, although that was a last resort.

  Catherine did not make it easier. She stood behind me, looking sadly at the glittering heap. She leaned over and pulled out an amber necklace. “Oh, you aren’t going to sell this, are you? I remember when Ivan IV sent this!”

  “I never liked it,” I said. “It was an ugly color.”

  “But it was highly prized in Russia, where they like their amber dark.”

  “They are entitled to their preferences,” I said.

  “It was a shame about Ivan,” she said.

  “That he ended up called ‘the Terrible’?”

  “Yes, because he had great ability and insights,” she said. “Not the least, of course, courting your friendship.”

  “Well, rest him, wherever he now is.” He had become even more insane in his last days. On his deathbed he had taken the habit of a strict monastic order of monks and renamed himself Jonah. “I think I still have his sables. You are welcome to them for the winter. I know the cold is more of a hardship for you than for me.”

  “The winters are becoming harder to get through,” she said. “Every year, when spring arrives, I want to tell the trees not to hurry to leaf out, lest winter make another attack.”

  I laughed. “Like the Spanish,” I said. I stood up, feeling almost enfeebled. It was because of all the worry and inactivity, I told myself. I pushed myself away from the table. It was still an hour or so until sunset. “We need a walk,” I said. “Pray come with me. We’ll get Marjorie. We three old crows will take some exercise.”

  Nonsuch was the hunting lodge par excellence; whenever we came, the master of the hounds brought packs of the royal hunting dogs. But rather than hunt myself this time, I told the people of the area to hunt freely on the royal estate during this time of need.

  We headed for the grove of Diana, a paean to hunting. A gentle wood, it had a platform at its entrance where I normally would stand to shoot, but today we passed under it and into the woods proper. A thick carpet of fallen leaves crunched under our feet, releasing a pungent, spicy odor.

  “That smell is so peculiar to the season, it always means autumn to me,” said Catherine, from behind us. She was having trouble keeping up, and we slowed. Her plump body, swathed in mourning for her father, was not meant for fast walking.

  “Some say cloves or cinnamon smell the same, but I disagree,” said Marjorie.

  The golden avenue shone before us, beckoning us to its central feature, the cavern with its statue of Actaeon before it, surrounded by rocks and splashing water. Linking arms, we walked the autumnal aisle, three abreast, keeping faith and pace with one another. A great wave of gratitude swept over me, making me weak. These two women were the sisters I had created out of my own solitariness. My real-life sister could never have been a sister to me, with our mothers enemies; in any case, she was long passed away. I had taken friends and made them, as the Bible says, closer than a brother. Should I speak of these feelings?

  As we reached the great statue of Diana, shielding herself from the intrusive eyes of the hapless hunter Actaeon, the fleeting sunlight dappled her white shoulders, caressing them. Her eyes were narrowed, and she gazed mercilessly on the huddled form of Actaeon beneath her, just as he was changing into a stag so his own dogs would leap on him to tear him to pieces for seeing the naked goddess in her bath.

  “A lovely piece of work,” said Marjorie, “but the story always revolts me. The man saw her naked. He didn’t mean to. Why should he be killed for it?” She stared at the statue, challenging it, her jaw jutting as it did when she was annoyed.

  “Careful, or she’ll get angry at you,” said Catherine in her soothing voice, as sweet as the dying light falling in the grove. “She’s a goddess and must never be insulted.”

  “Virgins are touchy,” said Marjorie, slyly looking over at me. “We married women, well, it’s hard to insult us.”

  “Both of you have husbands who would never insult you,” I said. “Neither Sir Henry nor Lord Charles would do such a thing. It is, I think, more often you who try their patience.” But I laughed as I said it. Sisters, after all, can tease.

  “It isn’t I who tries Charles’s patience,” said Catherine. “What did you think of the letter where he cut Essex’s signature off?”

  Marjorie gave an explosion of laughter. “The question is, what did Essex think?”

  On the Cádiz mission, the rivalry between the two had exploded when Howard had enough of Essex’s always signing his name first on documents, so high that no one could ever sign above him, so he took a knife and cut Essex’s signature out.

  “He probably challenged him to a duel, which Charles ignored,” said Catherine with a sigh. “He’s such a tiresome boy.”

  A crackling alerted us that a deer was nearby. We stopped talking and waited. In a moment I glimpsed the deer’s nose, then his shoulders. He was wary, looking at the cavern. Shadows were fast growing, and he could not discern anything to alarm him. He ventured closer to drink, then he spotted us and bounded away, his tail flashing.

  “This Actaeon will live,” I said. “Caution has served him well.” I turned to look at each woman. “You both are fearful for your husbands, I know. One is in danger on his own lands, and the other must defend us at sea again. Without such loyal subjects, this Diana would not be safe. Never think I do not value, or understand, their constant sacrifices. And yours—for the constant worry on their behalf, and for serving me all these years, even though it means absence from them.”

  Wordlessly, they embraced me, silent in the moment.

  Then, as was her wont, Marjorie spoke. “Well, are you not the imperial votaress? We are your vestals, even though we are not virgins. And I daresay, the young ones you have tried to keep as virgins, you have had little success in doing so.” She gave such a laugh that had there been any deer still nearby, they would have fled.

  “The fair of face are often weak in resolve,” said Catherine. “Only you, Your Majesty, had both beauty and strength of will. The younger ones now in the privy chamber ... I don’t want to speak behind their backs—”

  “Oh, do!” said Marjorie. “It takes my mind off the things that are weighing on it. You are so kind, mild, and quiet, they let down their guard with you.”

  “They are exceptionally beautiful, but they seem so easily, well, seduced, like Bess Throckmorton was, and Elizabeth Southwell.”

  “That’s over and done,” I said. “Both of them.”

  “Mary Fitton is being pursued by that dirty-minded old uncle of Essex’s—William Knollys,” said Catherine. “He haunts our chambers, making excuses to seek her out. The man is married, yet pretends he isn’t.”

  “Mistress Fitton has that look,” snorted Marjorie. “A look that says yes, even when she is shaking her head no.”

  “And Elizabeth Vernon,” said Catherine. “I think she has a secret suitor.”

  “Another beauty with inviting eyes and inviting perfume,” said Marjorie. “But after all, they come to court to make their fortunes, as the men do. The men’s fortunes are in offices and appointments, the women’s in making a good marriage. We cannot blame them for
doing what comes naturally.”

  Twilight was here, and chill was creeping through the grove. We must leave while we could still see. “Come, my ladies,” I said.

  Carefully we made our way back to the palace grounds, feeling our way. Darkness grew so rapidly that by the time we reached the topiary garden, I could no longer make out anyone’s features. Ahead of us torches were already flaring in the courtyard. Stars appeared one by one in the sky; Venus glowed brightly near the horizon, as if she were taunting all the Actaeons of the world.

  We ate a quiet supper in the privy chamber, the younger women joining us. I looked carefully at Mistress Fitton and Mistress Vernon, but their demeanor was perfectly proper. The usual gallants of the court had stayed behind, so I was reminded of the saying “All women are chaste when there are no men.” After supper they entertained us with sweet melodies on the virginal and offered us wines they had flavored with herbs from Italy. A few sips would suffice, as the taste was strong.

  The young ones slept in the outer chamber, Marjorie and Catherine near me in the inner one. As we had a thousand nights and more, we made ready for sleep, they attending me, handing me my nightclothes and taking my day clothes away to be aired and then folded. I slipped into the adjoining room to my altar and prayer seat, there to pause at the close of my day, a nun keeping her own compline. The altar was quite bare, as befitted a Protestant one, but candles winked and jumped upon it, flanking the little vase of late-blooming musk roses and meadow saffron where a crucifix would be.

  It was now full dark. I could hear the sounds of night animals, especially the cries of owls. The barren fields must be full of hungry rodents; the hunting was good for raptors. The owls were full, even if the farmers were not.