Just a Queen

by Jane Caro

  ‘We have been unable to come to any firm conclusion, Your Majesty. Five of our number are in favour of the marriage, seven are against it. So we resolved to ask you what you wish to do and be governed by that.’

  At this, each of the great and learned men of my council – Cecil, Knollys, Robin, Walsingham, Sussex – all of them, looked at me earnestly almost beseeching me. It was too much and I burst into tears.

  ‘I do not know what I want!’ I said to them through my sobbing. ‘That is why I asked you to pontificate on the matter. In my own mind I spend seven minutes against the marriage and five minutes in favour, then seven minutes in favour and five minutes against. You have been no help to me, my lords. No help to me at all.’

  Robin had remained silent, as was wise, yet it angered me. Had he been tormented in the way I was being when he decided to marry Lettice Knollys? Of course he had not; he was neither royal nor a woman. What I would not have given at that moment to be neither myself.

  Twenty-one

  It was during the Duke of Anjou’s second and longer visit to my kingdom that the clouds began to gather around my Scottish cousin in earnest. It was bad enough that my suitor was a Catholic. Now, according to my spymaster, the English Jesuits who had fled earlier in my reign were secretly returning home. They arrived at night, Walsingham informed me solemnly, and made their way across the countryside to safe houses where sympathetic Catholics hid them. Their mission, of course, was to bring my Protestant countrymen back to what they regarded as the true church.

  My instincts about Secretary Walsingham proved correct. His network of spies and informants kept my government abreast of all who arrived and everything they attempted. Daily my spymaster told me who gave the Jesuits shelter and what the fugitive priests were about. When we judged that the value of allowing these fanatics to roam freely was outweighed by the potential harm they could do, we pounced. We arrested them all. Tragically I doubt they converted anyone. All they had achieved was to alert us about the likely traitors in our midst. It was an ill-judged adventure on every level.

  Their leader was called Campion. I had met him when he was a much younger man and was impressed. I had been secretly pleased when I heard he had left my kingdom to practise his religion elsewhere. I did not want to persecute such a man. I do not want to persecute any men, but the zealots among them so often force my hand. Why can they not be satisfied with obeying the law outwardly? I have always said that I have no wish to make windows of men’s souls. What a man believes is of no interest to me as long as he is loyal.

  Oh Mary, I do understand how long imprisonment and the sense of wasted year after wasted year could have tempted you to risk everything on a chance. I cry real tears for you. It was those men of God who saw fit to do the tempting. They could have lived in peace, by making only a few compromises, and died in their own beds had they so chosen.

  ‘Here is the traitor Campion, Your Grace, as you requested.’

  Robin signalled for the prisoner to be brought forward. The man, who had chains around his wrists and ankles, shuffled a few steps and then sank to his knees.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he mumbled, while looking at the floor. ‘This is an honour I had not expected.’

  ‘Rise, good Master Campion.’

  I spoke in as gentle a tone as I could muster. It had shaken me to see how gaunt and dirty he was and how frightened. It is one thing to know you have prisoners, quite another to see them brought so low with your own eyes. The plump and laughing young man I remembered from St John’s College Oxford had disappeared entirely.

  Campion tried to rise but his weakness and no doubt his chains made it difficult. I took two steps towards him and offered him a steadying arm. He grasped it gratefully and still with difficulty hauled himself to his feet.

  ‘Fetch a stool for Brother Campion.’ I had not intended to use his honorific, but pity had melted my resolution.

  He sank onto the seat and rubbed ruefully at his ankles where, no doubt, the chains chafed at his flesh. I wondered, fleetingly, if they had tortured him. I did not inquire too closely about such things.

  ‘I am sorry to see you in such a state, my old friend.’

  ‘It is no worse than I expected.’

  ‘Yet if it was what you expected, why did you return? You were safe enough preaching your religion on the Continent.’

  ‘It is not what God intended me for.’

  ‘What I would not give to be so sure of God’s intentions.’

  ‘Ah, but you could be Your Grace!’ I could see his eyes light up with a zealot’s joy. ‘I could help you – advise you – be your confessor.’

  ‘You think to convert your queen to papism? You arrogant cur!’ Robin could not restrain himself.

  ‘Peace, Robin, there is no fear of that. Good Master Campion, I have brought you here in honour of our old acquaintance to try and save your life.’

  ‘I have no concern for my own safety, Your Grace.’

  ‘Have you not? That is a disappointment. Concern for your own safety may help you save others.’

  ‘Each of us knew the risks we were running when we undertook this mission. My companions have no more desire to save their own skins than I do.’

  ‘I do not doubt that the desire for martyrdom runs very deep in your brotherhood. But what of the poor souls who took you in? Who gave you succour? What of their safety?’

  He had the grace to look alarmed at my words, but, with a flash of the spirit I remembered from old, he had his answer ready.

  ‘That is out of my hands, I think, Your Majesty, and now rests entirely in yours.’

  ‘As does your own fate, good sir.’

  But the priest did not reply and began to mutter prayers under his breath.

  ‘No matter, as I have told you, I have a mind to be merciful. I do not want to take such a mind as yours out of this world. I am happy to let you live, but my ability to do so rests heavily on the answers you give to the questions I am about to put to you.’ I turned from the prisoner priest as I said this and spoke above his head to the Earl of Leicester. ‘Robin, you will be my witness so that none can say I gave this man special favours. If, by his answers, he proves himself able to abide by the laws of my kingdom, he will live. If he does not, then— Is that fair, my lord?’

  ‘More than fair, Your Grace, more than any such traitorous priest deserves.’

  I stepped towards the poor man and held out my arms to him a second time. ‘Can you stand, priest? It seems fitting that you should answer such questions in a more formal pose than perched on this stool.’ And I helped him back onto his feet.

  ‘Edmund Campion, as an Englishman born and bred, do you regard me, Elizabeth Tudor, second daughter of Henry VIII, as your lawful sovereign?’

  ‘I do, Your Grace, and as a glorious one at that.’ And the poor broken man attempted to bow.

  ‘Thank you, master priest. That is a heartfelt expression of loyalty and from one in such a position as you find yourself today, it is particularly appreciated.’

  ‘He says it to save his own skin,’ grumbled Robin.

  I ignored this, and smiled warmly at the poor man and, despite his brave avowals, I could see that hope was returning to him, hope that he could avoid torture, pain, humiliation and death.

  ‘Edmund Campion, as a Jesuit priest, do you believe that the Bishop of Rome can lawfully excommunicate me and damn my soul to hell?’

  I saw my prisoner’s face fall and the hope slide out of him, like water down a drain. A weariness descended upon me. Such a good man, an earnest man, but all in vain. This was the essential dispute between us: did I rule in my own kingdom or did the Pope? Did each Christian have his own relationship with God, or could it only be through God’s representative on earth? Over these questions so much blood had been spilt.

  ‘I … I … do not know, Your Grace. I am a humble priest only, lo
wly and of no account. Such matters are beyond my judgment.’

  ‘You would have done better to say that such matters were beyond the Bishop of Rome’s judgment and God’s to make alone.’ I signalled to Robin and the guards to take Campion back to the Tower and to his fate. There was nothing I could do for him now. ‘I will pray for you, Master Campion.’

  ‘And I for you, Your Majesty.’

  The other continental Catholic in my kingdom at that time, the Duke of Anjou, was now trying publicly to claim my hand. Despite signing the articles of marriage, I had carefully inserted an escape clause: to wit that my council, parliament and people must all approve of the marriage before I would undertake it.

  Anjou now saw himself as a better prospect because he had recently been appointed King of the Netherlands. Unfortunately his absence, far from making my heart grow fonder, had merely reminded me of how relatively uncomplicated my single life was. With all the wicked problems I had to confront daily, did I really want to create another in my bedchamber?

  Men often discard the women they claim to love once they have had from them what they so urgently sought. As I kept my poor suitor guessing I began to sympathise with the men who chase, seduce and then discard. Anjou had little to do in England whereas affairs of state claimed my attention. Most of the time my frog rode to hounds, played tennis and idled away his time and I grew faintly bored with him. In public, I was careful to be attentive and flirtatious, declaring my love for him loudly and once kissing him right on the lips in full view of as many ambassadors as possible. The court applauded and Anjou went into paroxysms of delight. I just felt a little sick. In private, I took to avoiding the duke as much as possible. I told Blanche Parry that I felt caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

  Spain was at the heart of my need for Anjou. I did not want to goad Philip into war, but I did want to keep him wary of a possible alliance with France. By doing so I hoped to distract Spain from meddling in Catholic Ireland – that constant dagger pointed at England’s Protestant heart.

  Increasingly I kept Anjou at arm’s length, often failing to see him for days at a time. Rumours were growing that I would no more come to the sticking point and marry this suitor than any of the others. Although idle, he was no one’s fool and eventually he could no longer bear his ignominious position and demanded an audience to discuss the situation. There was little I could do but grant his request.

  ‘It is kinder to tell the poor man the truth than to keep him dangling any longer, Your Grace.’

  ‘You speak wisely, Blanche, but I feel more dread about confronting the duke with my decision to remain single than I do when facing the tooth extractor.’

  ‘The pain will be as brief, Your Grace, and with as great a sense of relief when it is over. Take comfort in that.’

  ‘As long as no one is left spitting blood, Mistress Parry, particularly the King of Spain.’

  The duke arrived in my presence trailed by his entourage, including a solemn-faced Simier. How I wished that Anjou and I could have remained suitors by proxy only. Perhaps, I thought with a sudden flash of wisdom, that is why I find Robin so attractive. We may play at love, but it can never turn serious and maybe that is how I prefer to keep matters of the heart: at a safe distance.

  With a flourish and much drama, the Duke of Anjou, King of the Netherlands, younger son of Queen Catherine de Medici, strode towards me and sank to his knees. ‘Your Majesty, I think you do not love me as you did before.’

  ‘Of course I love you, my lord duke. You are one of my dearest friends.’

  ‘Friends? Pah! I do not wish to be your friend. I wish to be your husband, your consort.’

  I was taken aback by such a blunt demand for public commitment. For a few moments I could think of nothing appropriate to say. Fortunately my hesitation was all that was necessary.

  ‘Rather than leave England without you as my wife, and be mocked as a fool from one end of Europe to the other, I would rather we were both dead!’

  ‘My lord! I know that your feelings have got the better of you, but you must not threaten a poor old woman in her own kingdom!’

  ‘No, no madame, you mistake; I meant no hurt to your blessed person. I meant only that I would sooner be cut in pieces than not marry you and so be laughed at by the whole world!’ And my poor frog burst into tears of mortification.

  ‘Take this, my lord,’ and I offered him my handkerchief. ‘And calm yourself. Try to think of me as a sister.’

  Unfortunately this suggestion only increased the storm of sobs now flowing unhindered into my linen. I leant forward from my throne and put my hand on his shuddering shoulders. I made the right noises, but I realised Blanche had been exactly right. The pain was over; inside my own heart I felt as relieved as I can remember.

  I would never marry. Of that I was now certain. It was hard, at first, to make the irrevocable decision, but my gratitude to Anjou is genuine. He had reinforced my lifelong decision that a life lived as a virgin was vastly preferable to one lived at the beck and call of a man.

  And, yet, so changeable was I about my fate, only a few days later I found myself in a state of melancholy once more. I would never marry and the relief I felt about that was real and liberating. I would never marry and that meant I would always be alone, and the grief I felt about that was just as genuine. Not for the first time (or the last) I wished that God would make my fate and purpose clear to me, so that I need not always equivocate and doubt myself from one day to the next. Not for the first time (or the last) I silently berated myself. If I could not master my own emotions or even understand them, how could I master my kingdom?

  As I struggled with my ambivalence, I took up my pen and attempted to write about my own confusion.

  I grieve and dare not show my discontent;

  I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;

  I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;

  I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate.

  I am, and not; I freeze and yet am burned,

  Since from myself another self I turned.

  My care is like my shadow in the sun—

  Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,

  Stands, and lies by me, doth what I have done;

  His too familiar care doth make me rue it.

  No means I find to rid him from my breast,

  Till by the end of things it be supprest.

  Some gentler passion slide into my mind,

  For I am soft, and made of melting snow;

  Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind.

  Let me or float or sink, be high or low;

  Or let me live with some more sweet content,

  Or die, and so forget what love e’er meant.

  I called it ‘On Monsieur’s Departure’. Which Monsieur I meant, exactly, I was not entirely certain myself.

  Twenty-two

  Anjou had gone, but I felt a stubborn unease that continued to disturb my rest and my few carefree moments. It was a low dread, as if something terrible was approaching but I knew not what. I was not the only person to experience such anxiety. Daily, Walsingham brought me grim reports of Catholics who threatened my life and then, with myriad heavy sighs and a disapproving shake of his head, he shared with me the letters my cousin Mary thought she was sending secretly to the King of Spain and the Bishop of Rome – and their answers. Walsingham allowed the letters to reach their destinations, but only after they had been intercepted, decoded and their contents carefully copied. We all had the feeling that a noose was tightening; what we were not quite sure about was around whose neck. Was our intimate knowledge of the Queen of Scots’ secret manoeuvrings more dangerous to her than the rumours of rebellion were to me? Fear begets fear, in my experience, and somebody always suffers for it.

  A man, probably a harmless lunatic, travelled the country threatening to kill me. He died in custody – Wa
lsingham swore by his own hand. According to my spymaster, numerous plots to kill me and put Mary on my throne were thwarted by his network. I daresay that his relentless recitation of threats helped create my sense of impending danger and dread, and I doubt not that such a response was exactly what he and Cecil (and many others in my privy council) intended.

  Yet it was not only I and those whose well-being depended on my continued security who felt the approaching danger. The entire kingdom sensed that something was out of kilter. Rumours of strange sightings and ugly portents swept the streets. And there was real disaster. When the viewing stand at the Paris Gardens bear pit collapsed, killing many of those who had gathered to watch the sport, it was pronounced an ill omen. Puritans agitated against the theatre and general licentiousness. Catholics, the wisest of them, lay low and curtailed their behaviour even more tightly than before. Some, the foolish ones, chafed against such self-imposed restrictions and began to plot and scheme. Even the moderates began to feel frightened and so, as usual, grew less moderate.

  Representatives of the various points of view lobbied me furiously at every opportunity. I avoided the Puritans most assiduously; their solemn self-righteousness annoyed me more than the most flagrant of papists. Cecil and Walsingham were united in their belief that Mary was behind all the unrest and that until she was removed we could never rest ourselves. I refused to accept their recommendations. My unease notwithstanding, I would not persecute Mary further until I had actual proof of her treason. But then it seemed God himself intervened.

  In the summer, a strange light fell across London courtesy of a comet that streaked across the sky, its flaming tail bathing us all in an eerie glow.

  ‘The necromancers declare it is another portent, Your Majesty.’ Francis Walsingham had finished his daily recitation of the sins of the Catholic traitors, particularly the Queen of Scots. Now he placed his papers back in their folder and took a step towards the window through which the glow of the comet could be seen. ‘They say it foretells many things.’