Her stepmother asked her, would she join him at court when the roads were fit for travel? Amy stammered in her reply, and felt like a fool, not knowing what was to happen next, nor where she was supposed to go.
‘You must write to him for me,’ she said to Lady Robsart. ‘He will tell me what I am to do.’
‘Do you not want to write yourself?’ her stepmother prompted. ‘I could write it out for you and you could copy it.’
Amy turned her head away. ‘What’s the use?’ she asked. ‘He has a clerk read it to him anyway.’
Lady Robsart, seeing that Amy was not to be tempted out of bad temper, took a pen and a piece of paper, and waited.
‘My lord,’ Amy started, the smallest quaver in her voice.
‘We can’t write “my lord”,’ her stepmother expostulated. ‘Not when he lost the title for treason, and it has not been restored him.’
‘I call him my lord!’ Amy flared up. ‘He was Lord Robert when he came to me, and he has always been Lord Robert to me, whatever anyone else calls him.’
Lady Robsart raised her eyebrows as if to say that he was a poor job when he came to her, and was a poor job still, but she wrote the words, and then paused, while the ink dried on the sharpened quill.
‘I do not know where you would wish me to stay. Shall I come to London?’ Amy said in a voice as small as a child’s. ‘Shall I join you in London, my lord?’
All day Elizabeth had been on tenterhooks, sending her ladies to see if her cousin had entered the great hall, sending pageboys to freeze in the stable yard so that her cousin could be greeted and brought to her presence chamber at once. Catherine Knollys was the daughter of Elizabeth’s aunt, Mary Boleyn, and had spent much time with her young cousin Elizabeth. The girls had formed a faithful bond through the uncertain years of Elizabeth’s childhood. Catherine, nine years Elizabeth’s senior, an occasional member of the informal court of children and young people who had gathered around the nursery of the young royals at Hatfield, had been a kindly and generous playmate when the lonely little girl had sought her out, and as Elizabeth became older, they found they had much in common. Catherine was a highly educated girl, a Protestant by utter conviction. Elizabeth, less convinced and with much more to lose, had always had a sneaking admiration for her cousin’s uncompromising clarity.
Catherine had been with Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, in the last dreadful days in the Tower. She held, from that day on, an utter conviction of her aunt’s innocence. Her quiet assertion that Elizabeth’s mother was neither whore, nor witch, but the victim of a court plot, was a secret comfort to the little girl whose childhood had been haunted by slanders against her mother. The day that Catherine and her family had left England, driven out by Queen Mary’s anti-heresy laws, Elizabeth had declared that her heart was broken.
‘Peace. She will be here soon,’ Dudley assured her, finding Elizabeth pacing from one window in Whitehall Palace to another.
‘I know. But I thought she would be here yesterday, and now I am worrying that it will not be till tomorrow.’
‘The roads are bad; but she will surely come today.’
Elizabeth twisted the fringe of the curtain in her fingers and did not notice that she was shredding the hem of the old fabric. Dudley went beside her and gently took her hand. There was a swiftly silenced intake of breath from the watching court at his temerity. To take the queen’s hand without invitation, to disentangle her fingers, to take both her hands firmly in his own, and give her a little shake!
‘Now, calm down,’ Dudley said. ‘Either today or tomorrow, she will be here. D’you want to ride out on the chance of meeting her?’
Elizabeth looked at the iron-grey sky that was darkening with the early twilight of winter. ‘Not really,’ she admitted unwillingly. ‘If I miss her on the way then it will only make the wait longer. I want to be here to greet her.’
‘Then sit down,’ he commanded. ‘And call for some cards and we can play until she gets here. And if she does not get here today we can play until you have won fifty pounds off me.’
‘Fifty!’ she exclaimed, instantly diverted.
‘And you need stake nothing more than a dance after dinner,’ he said agreeably.
‘I remember men saying that they lost fortunes to entertain your father,’ William Cecil remarked, coming up to the table as the cards were brought.
‘Now he was a gambler indeed,’ Dudley concurred amiably. ‘Who shall we have for a fourth?’
‘Sir Nicholas.’ The queen looked around and smiled at her councillor. ‘Will you join us for a game of cards?’
Sir Nicholas Bacon, Cecil’s corpulent brother-in-law, swelled like a mainsail at the compliment from the queen, and he stepped up to the table. The pageboy brought a fresh pack, Elizabeth dealt the stiff cards with their threatening faces, cut the deal to Robert Dudley, and they started to play.
There was a flurry in the hall outside the presence chamber, and then Catherine and Francis Knollys were in the doorway, a handsome couple: Catherine a woman in her mid-thirties, plainly dressed and smiling in anticipation, her husband an elegant man in his mid-forties. Elizabeth sprang to her feet, scattering her cards, and ran across the presence chamber to her cousin.
Catherine dropped into a curtsey but Elizabeth plunged into her arms and the two women hugged each other, both of them in tears. Sir Francis, standing back, smiled benignly at the welcome given to his wife.
— Aye, well might you smile — Robert Dudley remarked to himself, remembering that he had always disliked the smug radiance of the man. — You think you will have the high road to power and influence with this friendship; but you will find you are wrong. This young queen is no fool, she won’t put her purse where her heart is, unless it serves her interest. She will love you but not advance you unless it is for her own good. —
As if he sensed Robert’s eyes on him, Sir Francis looked up, and swept him a bow.
‘You are heartily welcome back to England,’ Dudley said pleasantly.
Sir Francis glanced around, took in the court of old allies, conspirators, reformed enemies and a very few new faces, and came back to Robert Dudley.
‘Well, here we are at last,’ he said. ‘A Protestant queen on the throne, me back from Germany and you out of the Tower. Who’d ever have thought it?’
‘A long and dangerous journey for all us pilgrims,’ Robert said, keeping his smile.
‘Some danger still in the air for some of us, I think,’ Sir Francis said cheerfully. ‘I’d not been in England five minutes before someone asked me if I thought you had too much influence and should be curbed.’
‘Indeed,’ Robert said. ‘And you replied?’
‘That I had not been in England five minutes and I had yet to form an opinion. But you should be warned, Sir Robert. You have enemies.’
Robert Dudley smiled. ‘They come with success,’ he said easily. ‘And so I am glad of them.’
Elizabeth reached out her hand to Sir Francis, still holding Catherine tight by the waist.
Sir Francis stepped forward and dropped to his knee and kissed her hand. ‘Your Grace,’ he said.
Robert, a connoisseur in these matters, admired the sweep down to his knee and then the style with which he rose. — Aye, but it will do you little good — he said to himself. — This is a court full of dancing-master-tutored puppies. A graceful bow will get you nothing. —
‘Sir Francis, I have been waiting and waiting for your arrival,’ Elizabeth said, glowing with happiness. ‘Will you accept a post on my Privy Council? I am in great need of your sound advice.’
— Privy Council! Good God! — Robert exclaimed to himself, shaken with envy.
‘I shall be honoured,’ Sir Francis said, with a bow.
‘And I should like you to serve as Vice Chamberlain of my household, and Captain of the Guard,’ Elizabeth continued, naming two plum jobs that would bring with them a small fortune in bribes from people wanting access to the queen.
Rob
ert Dudley’s smile never wavered; he seemed delighted at the shower of good fortune on the new arrival. Sir Francis bowed his obedience and Dudley and Cecil made their way over to him.
‘Welcome home!’ Cecil said warmly. ‘And welcome to the queen’s service.’
‘Indeed!’ Robert Dudley agreed. ‘A warm welcome for you indeed! You too will be making your own enemies, I see.’
Catherine, who had been in rapid conversation with her cousin, wanted to introduce her daughter who was to be Elizabeth’s maid of honour. ‘And may I present my daughter Laetitia?’ she asked. She beckoned towards the doorway and the girl, who had been standing back, half-hidden by the arras, came forward.
William Cecil, not a man to be overwhelmed by female charms, took a sharp breath at the beauty of the seventeen-year-old girl and shot an astounded look at Sir Francis. The older man was smiling, a quirky corner upturned at his mouth as if he knew exactly what Cecil was thinking.
‘By God, this is a girl in the very image of the queen,’ Cecil whispered to him. ‘Except …’ He broke off before he made the mistake of saying ‘finer’, or ‘prettier’. ‘You might as well declare your wife to be Henry VIII’s bastard, and have done with it.’
‘She has never claimed it, I have never claimed it, and we don’t do so now,’ Sir Francis said limpidly, as if the whole court were not nudging each other and whispering, as the young girl’s colour steadily rose but the dark eyes fixed on the queen never wavered. ‘Indeed, I find her very like my side of the family.’
‘Your side!’ Cecil choked on a laugh. ‘She is a Tudor through and through, except she has all the allure of the Howard women.’
‘I do not claim it,’ Sir Francis repeated. ‘And I imagine, in this court and at these times, it would be better for her if no-one remarked on it.’
Dudley, who had seen the likeness at once, was watching Elizabeth intently. Firstly she held out her hand for the girl to kiss, with her usual pleasant manners, hardly seeing her as the girl’s head was bent in her curtsey, her bright copper hair hidden by her hood. But then, as the girl rose up and Elizabeth took her in, Robert saw the queen’s smile slowly die away. Laetitia was like a younger, more delicate copy of the queen, as if a piece of Chinese porcelain had been refined from an earthenware mould. Beside her, Elizabeth’s face was too broad, her nose, the horsy Boleyn nose, too long, her eyes too protruding, her mouth narrow. Laetitia, seven years her junior, was rounded like a child, her nose a perfect tilt, her hair a darker copper to the queen’s bronze.
Robert Dudley, looking at the girl, thought that a younger man, a more foolish man than himself, might have thought that the odd sensation he was feeling in his chest was his heart turning over.
‘You are welcome to my court, Cousin Laetitia,’ the queen said coolly. She threw a quick, irritated glance at Catherine as if she should somehow be blamed for raising such a piece of perfection.
‘She is very glad to be in your service,’ Catherine interposed smoothly. ‘And you will find she is a good girl. A little rough and ready as yet, Your Grace, but she will learn your elegance very quickly. She reminds me very much of the portraits of my father, William Carey. There is a striking similarity.’
William Cecil, who knew that William Carey was as dark as Henry VIII and this girl were matching copper, concealed another indrawn breath by clearing his throat.
‘And now you shall sit, and you can take a glass of wine and tell me all about your travels.’ Elizabeth turned from the young beauty before her. Catherine took a stool beside her cousin’s throne, and gestured that her daughter should retire. The first difficult step had been achieved; Elizabeth had faced a younger, far prettier version of her own striking looks, and managed to smile pleasantly enough. Catherine set about telling her traveller’s tales and thought that her family had managed their return to England rather well, considering all the circumstances.
Amy was waiting for a reply from Robert, telling her what she should do. Every midday she walked from the house half a mile down the drive to the road to Norwich, where a messenger would ride, if he was coming at all that day. She waited for a few minutes, looking over the cold landscape, her cloak gathered around her against the achingly cold February wind.
‘It is too bad of him,’ Lady Robsart complained at dinner. ‘He sent me some money for your keep with a note from his clerk, not even a word from himself. A fine way to treat your stepmother.’
‘He knows you don’t like him,’ Amy returned spiritedly. ‘Since you never wanted a word from him when he was out of favour, why should he honour you with his attention now that half the world wants to be his friend?’
‘Well enough,’ the older woman said, ‘if you are contented to be neglected too?’
‘I am not neglected,’ Amy maintained staunchly. ‘Because it is for me and for us that he is working all this time.’
‘Dancing attendance on the queen is work, is it? And her a young woman as lustful as her mother? With a Boleyn conscience to match? Well, you surprise me, Amy. There are not many women who would be happy being left at home while their husbands wait on the word of such a woman.’
‘Every wife in England would be delighted,’ Amy said bluntly. ‘Because every woman in England knows that it is only at court that there is money to be made, offices to be won and positions to be granted. As soon as Robert has his fortune he will come home and we will buy our house.’
‘Syderstone will not be good enough for you then,’ her stepmother taunted her.
‘I will always love it as my home, and admire my father for the work he did there, and I will always be grateful to him for leaving it to me in his will,’ Amy said with restraint. ‘But no, Syderstone will not be good enough for Robert now he is high at court, and it will not be good enough for me.’
‘And don’t you mind?’ her stepmother suggested slyly. ‘Don’t you mind that he dashed off to Elizabeth at her accession and you have not seen him since? And everyone says that she favours him above all other men, and that he is never out of her company?’
‘He is a courtier,’ Amy replied stoutly. ‘He was always at King Edward’s side, his father was always beside King Henry. He is supposed to be at her side. That is what a courtier does.’
‘You are not afraid that he will fall in love with her?’ the older woman tormented her, knowing that she was pressing Amy at the very sorest point.
‘He is my husband,’ Amy said steadily. ‘And she is the Queen of England. She knows that as well as he does. She was a guest at my wedding. We all know what can be and what cannot be. I will be happy to see him when he comes, but until that day I shall wait for him patiently.’
‘Then you are a saint!’ her stepmother declared light-heartedly. ‘For I would be so jealous that I would go to London and demand that he take a house for me there and then.’
Amy raised her eyebrows, the very picture of scorn. ‘Then you would be much mistaken in how a courtier’s wife behaves,’ she said coldly. ‘Dozens of women are in just such a situation as mine and they know how they must behave if they want their husband to further his fortune at court.’
Lady Robsart left the argument there, but later that night, when Amy was in bed asleep, she took up her pen and wrote to her unsatisfactory stepson-in-law.
Sir Robert,
If you are now indeed as great a man as I hear, it is not suitable that your wife should be left at home without good horses or new clothes. Also, she needs diversion and company and a genteel lady to bear her company. If you will not bid her to court, please command your noble friends (I assume that you now have many once more) to have her to stay at their houses while you find a suitable house for her in London. She will need an escort to go to them and a lady companion as I cannot go with her, being much concerned with the business of the farm, which is still doing badly. Mrs Oddingsell would be glad to be asked, I daresay. I should be glad of your immediate reply (since I lack the sweetness and patience of your wife), and also of a full settlement of your d
ebt to me, which is £22.
Sarah Robsart.
Cecil was at his heavy desk with the many locked drawers in his rooms at Whitehall Palace, in the first week of February, reading a letter in code from his agent in Rome. His first act on Elizabeth’s accession to the throne was to put as many trusted friends, kin and servants in as many key courts in Europe as he could afford, and instruct them to keep him informed of any word, of any rumour, of any ghost of a rumour, which mentioned England and her new, fragile monarch.
He was glad he had got Master Thomas Dempsey into the Papal court at Rome. Master Thomas was better known to his colleagues in Rome as Brother Thomas, a priest of the Catholic church. Cecil’s network had captured him coming to England in the first weeks of the new queen’s reign, with a knife hidden in his bags and a plan to assassinate her. Cecil’s man in the Tower had first tortured Brother Thomas, and then turned him. Now he was a spy against his former masters, serving the Protestants, against the faith of his fathers. Cecil knew that it had been a change of heart forced by the man’s desire to survive, and that very shortly the priest would turn again. But in the meantime, his material was invaluable, and he was scholar enough to write his reports and then translate them into Latin and then translate the Latin into code.
Master Secretary, His Holiness is considering a ruling that will say that heretical monarchs can be justly defied by their subjects, and that such a defiance, even to armed rebellion, is no sin.
Cecil leaned back in his padded chair and re-read the letter, making sure that he had made no error in the double translation, out of code and then out of Latin. It was a message of such enormity that he could not believe it, even when it was in plain English before him.
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Page 64
