Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  “Back to Drury House for me,” he said, airily. “It’s in the fields, but who needs the river?”

  “We women will stay until the Queen orders us to depart along with the last of the servants,” I said. It was the nearest we could be to Robert.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, bowing, and taking my hand. He turned the palm up and caressed it an instant, too quickly for anyone to see, and looked me in the eyes. His face was blank but his eyes burned into mine. I remembered when those blue irises had filled my vision.

  “You are welcome,” I said, pulling my hand away.

  “And where’s the rehearsal to be?” A familiar, lost voice called into the room. Will stepped in, looking around in the gathering gloom. He stopped when he saw me.

  “Not here, Will,” said Southampton. “I’m moving. The servants have gone, and like a rat abandoning a sinking ship, I’m after them.” He looked slyly at me. “I had offered the hall here as rehearsal space for his new play. Will wanted to recite his part privately to see how it flowed onstage, before getting anyone else’s opinion.”

  “If I walk through it as an actor, it is far more revealing than reading drafts,” he said. He seemed embarrassed to have come upon me. Undoubtedly Southampton, in telling him the house would be empty, had implied I was moving. It would have been ideal private rehearsal space.

  “So you have returned to acting?” I asked. This stiff, impersonal conversation was awkward.

  “Only in small parts,” he said. “Nothing that would make a real difference in the performance.”

  “He gets tired of being himself,” said Southampton. “Oh, don’t we all?”

  “You are welcome to use this space. God knows it is being wasted. Just don’t mind the lack of attendants,” I said.

  “It is better without them,” he said.

  “You have had a hand in the politics of the day,” I said. “Your plays about English kings have been linked to Robert, and not to his benefit, as you well know. The flattering mention of him in Henry V has, alas, not come true.”

  “He hardly returned home with the Irish rebellion broached on his sword, as you so charmingly phrased it,” said Southampton.

  “He broached himself on his own sword,” I said. “If it makes me an unnatural mother to state it, then so be it. I am not blind to his faults.”

  “I have left English history as a subject,” Will declared. “I have been in ancient Rome, most recently, and now am engaged in Denmark. My newest effort is set there, at Elsinore.”

  “Politics again!” cried Southampton. “Anne of Denmark—King James’s wife—she’s from Elsinore! That was one of her family castles. James spent time with her there on their honeymoon. Are you hinting at the succession? You know it’s a hot topic.”

  Will smiled. “No, it has nothing to do with that. It’s a reworking of an old play about a Danish prince, Hamlet, whose father has been murdered by his uncle. You would agree, there is no connection to the present royal family.”

  “What part are you playing?” I asked. “You don’t look very Danish.”

  “I’m playing the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Since I have to wear a helmet, no one can tell whether I look Danish or Italian or Scottish.”

  “That’s good,” said Southampton, “because you don’t look any of those. You have the most boring, common English face I’ve ever seen.”

  “Why, what’s wrong with looking English?” I asked.

  “It’s the ‘boring, common’ part he objects to,” said Southampton. “Who of us wants to be that—although by definition that’s exactly what most of us are.”

  “You are welcome to use this space whenever you like,” I said, changing the subject. Robert had not wanted to be ordinary, and therein lay his doom. “I promise not to intrude.”

  The dreary business of dismantling proud Essex House continued. This was the second time I had witnessed it, and it wrung my heart. Both times were at her insistence. After Leicester died, she had ordered it stripped to repay his debts to her. (What sort of love was that?) Slowly and painstakingly, I had built it up again, only to have its contents vanish once more. At least this time I did not have to render the goods, only cover or store them to protect them from neglect. The rooms grew emptier, each chair removed or tapestry folded away a memory dismissed. Our living contracted down into a very few rooms, while the rest of the house was ghostly.

  Will did return, to help Southampton move or, rather, to help him sort through his papers to make sure none of his own were mixed in.

  “For someone so indifferent to publishing, you are very possessive about your scripts,” Southampton said.

  “I’m possessive so that they can’t be published,” said Will. “Why should the publisher make money that should be mine? If a stray copy should land in one of those men’s hands, they’ll print it and keep all the money for themselves. They’ll include all the mistakes—they’ll print any version, no matter how corrupt. Or, I should say, a version as corrupt as they are. So”—he hugged his manuscripts to his chest—“I will keep them close.”

  Southampton shrugged. “I don’t have any. I gave them all back. Look all you like.”

  “That is one reason I like having rich friends,” said Will. “I need never worry that they will rob me.”

  “I’ll collect the last of this tomorrow,” said Southampton. He turned to me. “Until next we meet, Lady Leicester,” he said, bowing smartly.

  May it not be at Robert’s hanging, I prayed. But even to say the words was to call it into being, so I was silent.

  Will continued poking through the pile of leftover papers on the floor. He knelt down, setting a candle to one side, looking carefully at each item he pulled forth. Finally, he held one up and said, “Aha! Here’s one overlooked.”

  It was only a single sheet. “That cannot be a full play,” I said. “It must be only one small revision.”

  “No, it’s a sonnet I wrote when he was my patron. In it I urged him to marry and replicate himself. So, since he has obeyed, it would seem to have done its work.” He waved it dismissively.

  Without thinking, I reached over and grabbed his arm. “Don’t destroy it!” I said.

  “Keep it, then,” he said. “I will always know where to find it, should I ever need to publish the sonnets. And perhaps, if his daughter grows up to be ugly, or, in any case, not as dazzling as he, he may need to consult them again.”

  He turned to look down at his hand, still clutching the paper, as he pressed it into mine. He moved quickly away and stood over the pile of papers, hands on hips. “That’s all, then,” he said.

  “Shall I expect you for a rehearsal?” I asked. “You are welcome to use the space.”

  “Thank you,” was all he said, turning to the door.

  I was left looking around my abandoned home. Oh, would life ever return to it?

  72

  ELIZABETH

  December 1599

  In the deepening twilight that is London in mid-December, church bells began to toll. The sound penetrated through the blue gloom bells began to toll. The sound penetrated through the blue gloom with a sharpness not possible in warm weather, an ominous ring, like the keening of grieving women.

  It meant that someone of great importance had died. But there was no one of that rank and stature near to death. Lord Burghley had gone, Sir Francis Drake had gone, Lord Leicester had gone, and now little men populated the court and the realm. Immediately I summoned Raleigh, stationed with his guards in the watching chamber.

  “What is this?” I asked. “All the churches of London announce a death.”

  “I shall inquire and bring an answer upon the instant,” he said, looking as puzzled as I.

  While I waited, I stood with Catherine looking out at the darkening waters of the Thames rippling past. There were fewer boatmen out in these blustery days, but still I saw a number of craft diligently making their way up and down river. Londoners were a hardy lot.

  “I h
ope people do not think it is I,” I said, with a light tone that did not match what I felt inside. I knew that people were attuned for those bells, that all across the land there was speculation about what span of my life still remained. They had been wondering ever since I turned fifty.

  Catherine knew better than to utter a platitude. She merely reached out and took my hand.

  “Ma’am!” Raleigh strode through the doors. “They say it’s the Earl of Essex. He sank low last night and now has died.”

  I had known he was ill, but he always collapsed with illness when things went badly for him. It was nervous prostration, not true disease. But this time he had succumbed. Still, it came as a shock.

  “The Irish flux, then,” I said. “Poor man. Send for Thomas Egerton. What a sad thing, to have the man in his charge die. I never meant to inflict this great a burden upon a man of such good conscience.”

  “The earl is gone,” said Catherine, shaking her head. “It seems impossible. Such a man, larger than all around him, cannot just vanish.”

  “Others, just as large, have vanished before him. There is no man too large for death’s jaws.” But I could not believe it, either. The beautiful, wayward child gone, before he had attained whatever it was he had been seeking. Now, as I remembered him, he seemed to go backward in time, shrink, grow younger and happier, until I was gazing at that enigmatic boy at his mother’s side who had refused to kiss me.

  Full dark had fallen before Egerton arrived. He swept off his cloak, glittering with night mist, and knelt.

  “Thomas, I am grieved for you and for him,” I told him. “Please rise. When did it happen?”

  He brushed his fair hair and said, “It did not happen. The earl is alive. Just barely, but alive.”

  “Then why—”

  “A servant from the house must have spread the word, and no one thought to verify it. It was well known that the earl was sinking, and the people just assumed that the illness had followed its natural course.”

  “Will it?”

  “I cannot say. He is weak, but he has been weak for some time. He does not seem to be losing ground.”

  “I shall send my physicians to him.” I was momentarily elated that he was not dead. Then, the pressing problem of what to do with him came back.

  “Send them to my wife as well,” he said. “She is gravely ill, and I cannot tend to her as I need to. The earl usurps all my care and attention. It is not he who is the prisoner, but I. Find him another jailer! Set me free!” Egerton burst out.

  “Why, Thomas, I did not know that your Elizabeth was not well,” I said. “Certainly you must not neglect her to hover over the earl, who is never content, no matter how much attention he receives. And as for another jailer—if there were another man so honest, strong, reliable, and as kind a friend to the prisoner, I would appoint him in an instant and relieve you. But there is not. So you must endure a while longer. If the earl survives, we will have a proper trial for him and settle his situation.”

  After he left, I turned to Catherine. “Only royal deaths are announced by bells. So this is what the people think of him?”

  “A state funeral can have such bells,” she reminded me.

  “Only with my permission,” I said. “I did not give it. I was not even asked.”

  My physicians confirmed that Essex was indeed very ill but the outcome uncertain. He was not exactly at death’s threshold, but any turn for the worse would push him over.

  “His liver is stopped and perished,” one of them reported.

  “His entrails and guts are ulcerated,” said another, shaking his head mournfully.

  “I shall send him some of my game broth,” I said.

  “He may be past that,” the physician said. “But knowing it came from your hand may prove healing.”

  It had not saved Burghley, but it was all I could offer.

  Christmas was coming, and a new century: the year of our Lord 1600. We would celebrate at Richmond this year, and in mid-December the court moved. As I entered the royal barge, I looked back at York House, so near to Whitehall. It was quite dark. Only a few lighted windows reflected in the black, lapping water.

  Richmond had been readied for us, and the palace was comfortably snug. The familiar boat-shaped bed with its sea-green hangings greeted me like an old friend.

  “You have been waiting for me, have you?” I addressed it. It is easy to imagine that our beds, chairs, and tables miss us. Certainly knowing that when I returned to one of my palaces all would be unchanged was a comfort to me.

  Catherine was with me, and the admiral would soon join us. Helena, living so nearby, would also come, bringing her family. The younger maids of honor and the ladies of the chamber were looking forward to the court festivities, hoping for a season of flirtation that might lead somewhere. Their trunks were full of new gowns and old family jewels.

  The Great Hall would be the focus of dances, banquets, and new plays. I had ordered it hung with greens, garlands, and holly.

  Although everyone was bubbly with excitement, and the palace glowed with decorations and anticipation, I could not shake a melancholy that had settled in my bones. This time last year Essex had been healthy and ready to embark to Ireland. We had danced together at Twelfth Night. But now I suspected that even then he had been corresponding with O’Neill, perhaps arranging their meeting. And I knew that he had also approached King James—secretly, he thought. If I wished we could somehow turn back a year, he must wish it even more.

  And there was something else—an uneasy superstition about the turning of the century, leaving behind the one I was born in. It felt vaguely unlucky, as if the new century would cast me out as someone who did not belong.

  As I stood in the bedchamber musing on this, Catherine knocked timidly.

  When I bade her enter, I saw to my surprise that her husband was there with her.

  “Why, Charles!” I said, ready to make a jest about his being in the bedchamber. But his somber face, and Catherine’s tear-streaked cheeks, stopped me.

  “He has brought sad news,” said Catherine. “It seems—it seems—” Her choking tears made it impossible for her to continue.

  “Marjorie Norris has died,” he said. “I came here as soon as I heard.”

  My heart stopped. I swear it. There was a pause where nothing stirred within me, and I felt myself falling, a great swooping gasp. Then it started up again. Beat. Beat. I gripped my hands together tightly and said, “How?” My voice was just a squeak.

  “It was grief for their sons,” he said. “Sir Henry sent word from Rycote. She never rallied from the loss of the last three in Ireland in such quick succession, he said, and just dwindled away. He was powerless to stop it—although when I last saw him he was withering away, too. He will follow her soon.”

  “That is fitting,” I said. They had been together for fifty-five years, a rarity for a marriage. But oh! I had been with them almost that long.

  “She will be buried in the family tomb at Rycote chapel,” said Charles.

  I would never see her again. That enormity only just now settled on me. Whether or not we had said formal good-byes did not matter. I had grown accustomed to the truth that one seldom says them to the people one loves the most. But never to hear her laugh again, never to walk together through the autumn leaves, never to hear her astute comment about someone again ... oh, this would be hard.

  “We will pray for her,” I said. And, sinking down on my chair, I did. But the prayer turned to one of thankfulness that God had given me such a faithful friend, and for so long. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” I said aloud. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” In the end, what else can we believe, if we are to survive?

  For the younger people, particularly those celebrating Christmas at court for the first time, I suppose it was a festive event. Certainly the fires blazed as brightly, the musicians played as sprightly, the snow flew as furiously, and the banquets were as sumptuous as of yore. If I had been seeing i
t through fresh eyes, it would have dazzled me. I got myself up in the richest gowns, draped my ropes of pearls over my bosom, affixed my jeweled hair ornaments, and sallied forth to my own tournament: a test of my skill in creating make-believe. I wanted the youngest to remember this when they were old, to be able to say, “I shall never forget Christmas in the old Queen’s court.” I owed it to them—and to myself.

  Nonetheless, I had a shiver of foreboding when midnight came and the entire century that began with “fifteen” slid into “sixteen.” To straddle two centuries is a fearsome thing; one does not have to be superstitious to tremble at the veiled years stretching out, disappearing in a fog of mystery. This century would outlive me; how many years would I be allowed to tread into it?

  Raleigh was standing beside me when the last few moments of 1599 flitted away. His sturdy presence made the absence of Essex all the more noticeable. What a difference a year can make in our fortunes.

  “Your Majesty looks glum,” he said. “That is no way to welcome the new century. ’Tis said whatever you are doing in the first minutes or hours, you’ll do all year. Whatever is troubling you, thrust it aside immediately, lest it stick!”

  I laughed. “You are good medicine, Sir Walter,” I said. “I was thinking only that I don’t like the sound of ‘sixteen’ as well as ‘fifteen.’ But I must get used to it.”

  “You should take as your model our dear Constancia,” he said.

  Constancia? Who was that? A Portuguese lady? I did not want him to realize I did not know, so I smiled.

  “The tortoise, Your Majesty,” he said pointedly. “Remember?”

  “Oh! I thought you meant a fair lady.”

  “She is fair—if you are a male tortoise. But there is none nearby. She must be lonely.”

  “All maiden ladies are not lonely, Sir Walter. And why should I take her as my model?”

  He shrugged. “The centuries come, the centuries go—she lives through them all, hardly noticing.”