Just a Queen

by Jane Caro

  ‘What things, my lord? Necromancers commonly talk in riddles, but you, my plain speaking friend, do not.’

  ‘They say it predicts the death of a great personage, Your Grace.’

  I knew what he was implying: that the arrival of this comet meant that either Mary must die, or I would. ‘What would you have me do, my lord?’

  As I said this I walked to the window and looked across the city towards the comet emblazoned across the sky. The lead casements distorted the light so that its yellow glow fell across Walsingham and me in little jagged slivers.

  ‘Considering the recent Parry and Throckmorton plots, your Lord High Treasurer, William Cecil and I suggest we institute a commission of investigation into the complicity of the Queen of Scots and confront her directly at Sheffield with the evidence I have uncovered.’

  ‘She will not recognise your authority, my lord.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we must do what we can to uncover the level of her involvement. At the very least, the pressure may be enough to startle some of her accomplices into acting foolishly and bringing themselves out into the open.’

  ‘That is your design, my lord?’

  ‘Pressure of one kind or another always begets action, Your Grace.’

  ‘Aye, well this comet has certainly put pressure on me withal.’

  I considered Walsingham’s words. A commission could do little harm if Mary was as innocent as she relentlessly claimed and it was a serious thing indeed to ignore such a powerful omen from the heavens.

  ‘You may have your commission, my lord, but that is all you may have – for now.’

  Then I leant forward and flung open the great windows so that I could better see the eerie light that had so intensified my kingdom’s sense of unease. The heat, noise and smell of London immediately assailed me.

  ‘Ales iacta est!’ I called out at the blazing light in the sky. The die is cast.

  Sir William Wade duly led the delegation sent to Sheffield castle to examine the Scottish queen. As I had prophesied to Walsingham, with no need of a comet, Mary indignantly refused to co-operate. I did not find this surprising at all. Had our positions been reversed, if I had been the prisoner and she the queen, it is exactly how I would have responded. I have always thought of her as my shadow and me as hers. Perhaps this is why I have found her execution so grievously hard to deal with. But I get ahead of myself. When I sent the commission I had as yet not faced the consequences of the events I had put in train.

  ‘How long am I to be shut up in this dreary prison? I have not been tried, I have not been found guilty of any crime! I came here seeking sanctuary from a fellow queen, certain that she would aid me and arm me and help me regain my rightful throne – as I would have done for her. And yet you dare to question me about treachery!’

  Mary was incandescent with rage when my commissioners were ushered into her presence. Before they could explain the purpose of their mission, she had begun to list the wrongs done to her and to question their authority.

  ‘Your Grace, there are many people – even many foreign observers – who believe that your treatment at the hands of our gracious queen has been singularly merciful.’ William Wade ventured a conciliatory response to her tirade.

  ‘Mercy? Mercy has nothing to do with it. I am as much an absolute prince as your mistress Queen Elizabeth. I am not, never have been and never will be her inferior. It is not her place to bestow mercy on me, her equal in all things. I have been a queen since the cradle and I was crowned Queen of France, the greatest kingdom in all Christendom. Mercy is something a monarch offers their subjects but, unlike all of you, I am not a subject.’

  Were these words that I would have said in her place? She was a passionate and courageous woman, and a proud and haughty queen, but was she politic? Was that not always her weakness? She spoke as if her birthright gave her real rights, and yet every second of the past decade or two must have shown her the folly of that belief.

  She had been a queen since birth, as she said. When I was a child, no one ever expected me to become a queen unless by marriage. Was that the essence of the difference between us? She had been fortune’s spoilt darling during her formative years; I its neglected bastard. I knew where my rights really came from and it was not from God, comets or no. It was from my people, whose loyalty and support I held by acting as wisely as I could and by putting their interests first and my own second. I had both refused and contemplated marriage for their sake. As I once said to Cecil – rather shocking him, I fancy – I believe that the people have the right to control the public actions of their sovereign, while Mary believes they do not.

  ‘I am younger than your mistress the Queen of England, much younger, but my sufferings have made me look older. I live in grief and frustration, ground down by lack of freedom to the woeful estate in which you now see me. My circumstances are pitiable and, if you would condemn me, my lords, of I know not what crime, I will fear it not, for I see no other end to my misery.’

  Older she may have felt and older she may have looked, but she retained something of her fascination for men. I could see by Sir William’s expression as he related their conversation to me that Mary had made him genuinely pity her. As always, her power over men piqued my interest; I interrupted Sir William’s report.

  ‘How did she seem to you, my lord? In her appearance, I mean. Has she, as she claims, aged a great deal?’

  ‘She is a tall woman, Your Grace, and is now large in every particular. Enforced inactivity has seen her gain weight and the damp has aggravated the ague that comes with age. She is a little stooped and her hands are twisted. I did not see her when she was a young woman, but she looks every day of her age now. She does not compare to your radiance, Your Majesty. Beside you she is like a swallow to the sun.’

  I sat a little straighter in my chair and slipped my own wrinkled hands higher in my sleeves. I was grateful for my own slender frame. ‘But I interrupted you, Sir William. Please continue with your report.’

  ‘May I not ask my friends to help me? I have meant innocently and if they have done wrong, they alone are to be blamed.’ Such was her answer when Sir William asked her about the plots and conspiracies she had been party to. And when he laid out the proof she flared into anger once again.

  ‘You have not the rank to reason with me!’

  ‘We left her with tightened security, Your Grace, every visitor is to be questioned and no one may enter the castle without the express permission of your council. Whenever she rides outside the castle walls she must be accompanied by an armed guard.’

  ‘Poor queen in name only. The boundary of her fiefdom is narrowing rapidly.’

  Quietly and without my knowledge Cecil and Walsingham now drew up and signed a document called the Bond of Association. It attempted to control what might happen in the case of my death. The Bond guaranteed that only a Protestant could follow me to the English throne and that if none were immediately available a Great Council – made up of good Protestant nobles only – would rule in my stead until such a claimant could be found.

  When I discovered what the two men had done, I was furious with them. Such ordinary little men who dared to occupy themselves with the succession of those who could only be anointed by God. Had they so easily forgotten the chaos that followed John Dudley’s attempts to keep my Catholic sister from her throne? I had not. Nor had I forgotten the sullen, stubborn resistance of the people who knew full well who was their rightful sovereign. God puts princes in the way of thrones, but it is the people who make sure they ascend and who determine whether they remain on their seat.

  I made them change the Bond they had designed so that no reprisals could be visited against James, Mary’s son. I also then opened negotiations with the now fully grown boy to recognise him as the rightful King of Scotland, even though his mother was still alive. I did wonder what his response might be, because it involved disav
owing his mother. I knew that if I recognised him as the rightful king it would achieve a number of things distinctly to his advantage. It would strengthen immeasurably his hold on his throne and his prestige. It would start to make it clear that I intended him for my heir and, of course, further weaken the position of his mother, my rheumatic, choleric prisoner.

  Walsingham showed me a letter: King James’s letter to his mother, disavowing her title of queen. It played absolutely into our hands, but I almost winced as I read it. Ungrateful princeling, he was all for himself and cared nothing for her, that much was clear.

  ‘He has assured her that she will always be referred to by the honorific of Queen Mother,’ I said, looking up at my wily advisor.

  ‘He has, Your Grace, but,’ Walsingham presented me with another letter, ‘she is not well pleased with such a title.’

  I took Mary’s missive from him and saw the pain and fury her son’s self-serving letter had caused. So furiously had she wielded her pen that it tore scratches and holes in the parchment. Poor queen, she knew her hopes of release and resurrection were fading fast and, most ghastly betrayal of all, one of the people snatching her future from her was her own child.

  ‘I pray you to note,’ I read her words aloud, ‘I am your true and only queen. Do not insult me further with this title Queen Mother. There is neither king nor queen in Scotland except me.’

  It was not pleasant to read of her despair. ‘Her powerlessness at the hands of her own son moves me to pity, my lord Walsingham.’

  ‘She is powerless in all things legal, Your Grace, and that is just the time when desperation and fading hope may force her hand.’

  ‘Must we trap her further?’

  ‘We can only trap her if she does something that she must not do. If she could merely accept her situation and enjoy her quiet life without this constant plotting and scheming, I would have no interest in her.’

  ‘I was once second in line, my lord, and there were many who plotted and schemed in my name, whether I would have them do so or not. She is as much a victim of others’ foolish hopes and ambitions as of her own.’

  ‘It does not change the fact of the matter, Your Grace.’

  ‘And what fact is that?’

  ‘While she lives, your life is in danger.’

  We moved Mary back to Tutbury Castle the better to keep an eye on her. Poor lady, soon after her arrival, a Catholic priest who was confined in the room above hers, hung himself from his window. When she opened her curtains the following morning she was greeted by the horrifying sight of the suicide hanging in front of her, his lifeless feet banging against her sill. She wrote me a desperate letter that morning begging for her life and her liberty. I wept over it but did nothing.

  What could I have done?

  Twenty-three

  I have left my self-imposed isolation and I am seated at my desk again. Before me are paper and my quill, fully charged with ink. There is a letter I must write; there are functions and duties I must fulfil. The Queen of Scots is dead these four days and it is past the time when I must harness my grief and go on.

  I have discovered much about myself and about being a queen over the days I have shut myself away to mourn. I believe now that from the day the Queen of Scots fled her kingdom and threw herself upon my mercy, this was the only, the inevitable, end. My sister Mary once said of me that I was her death and she mine and I now see that so it was between my cousin Mary and me.

  I have spoken already of the unease that surrounded all of us, as fresh rumours of plots and conspiracies circled around my court daily. The last time I remember feeling anything close to happiness was almost two years ago, when the country celebrated the twenty-seventh year of my reign. A grateful population organised many parades and tributes to acknowledge the peace, stability and prosperity that my long reign had given them. Indeed, it is perhaps my longevity that my people should most be grateful for. Following my father’s death, Englishmen had to endure the brief and turbulent reigns of three princes in twelve years. They went from Protestant to Catholic and, when I inherited the throne, back to Protestant again. They endured a regency during my poor little brother’s time, a nine-day queen under tragic Jane Grey and the threat of civil war as Mary attempted to gain her rightful throne. And then, when she did just that, the English had to put up with the hated Philip of Spain. The English never can abide being ruled by a foreigner.

  I knew when I came to the throne that stability and predictability were what my people longed for and that is what I have always aimed to give them – as far as my frail flesh would allow. Over twenty-seven years my people have come to know me and, I flatter myself, many of them have come to love me. It certainly felt as if they did that November day in 1585 when all London came out to celebrate the anniversary of the proclamation of my sovereignty.

  Dressed entirely in white, I travelled in my gold state coach. Ahead of me rode my faithful and most loyal servant, William Cecil and with him Secretary Walsingham – a newer man, but one who has been at my side for more than a decade. Behind the coach rode Robin Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, my oldest friend, my closest confidant and the only man I have ever loved. When I claimed the throne of England I chose as my motto ‘semper eadem’, always the same. And, as I looked at the two grey heads in front of me and the balding head behind I felt a rush of affection and gratitude for their long, patient and loyal service. They had been always the same, as had I. As I waved at the assembled multitudes in response to their hullabaloos, my heart and thoughts were with my own good fortune in having selected such good and stalwart men to be my guides through the infernal difficulties of rule.

  It moves me to think of the overwhelming sense of gratitude and partnership I felt towards my old friend William Cecil that day. I sent him from my court in my terrible grief, fury and – yes – terror in the wake of Mary’s execution and, much as I value him and know that he has only my safety at heart, I still cannot bear the thought of bringing him back. Perhaps it is almost because of the faith I have in his judgment that I feel so particularly angry that even the brilliant Cecil could think of no better remedy for the dilemma of my cousin than to have her head. But, as we rode through the cheering crowds on that day not so very long ago, that dreadful calamity was still ahead of us and did not then appear inevitable – at least to me.

  Beside Cecil rode Walsingham, his taller, younger back clothed as always in black. He sat straight in the saddle whereas Cecil was nodding and ducking his head to acknowledge the crowd. Walsingham appeared to look neither right nor left, but I knew my spymaster was as always on high alert. He was scanning the faces in the crowd for danger or threat.

  Behind my carriage rode Robin. I recall that I often turned in my seat to catch his eye and share my delight in the occasion. As he rode past the cheering crowds, he doffed his feathered hat and waved it enthusiastically this way and that. As the crowd roared ‘God save Queen Elizabeth’, he joined them at full throat. As some threw roses at our procession, he caught them and threw them back – often aiming them at the prettiest girls lining the way. Once, when I was younger, such an action might have displeased me; now I smiled to myself and repeated semper eadem under my breath. Older my Robin might be, and more corpulent upon his horse, but he had not changed. He would have an eye for a pretty face until the day he died.

  As sure in the saddle as he was on his own two feet, my master of horse let the reins fall and joined the spirit of the occasion with every gesture. When he looked up and saw me laughing at his delight, he roared with laughter too and blew me extravagant kisses, a gesture that made the crowd cheer even more loudly. He gathered an armful of thrown roses and then rode up to my open window and handed them to me with exaggerated courtesy. I laughed, kissed one of the blooms and gave it back to him.

  ‘Long live Queen Elizabeth! Long live good Queen Bess! Long live Leicester! God save England!’

  I leant back aga
inst the cushions in my coach and hugged myself from sheer delight. It was a splendid day, a delightful day. I had forgotten how much the love of the people spurred me on. At that moment, in that coach, led and followed by my most faithful servants, surrounded by my people who loved me, I was deeply grateful that God had seen fit to allow me to rule England.

  It does me much good to remember that moment in light of the disasters that followed.

  The first disaster was that I allowed myself to be persuaded to go to war: a course of action that has never been my inclination. I hate the bloodshed of war, I hate the danger of it and, particularly, I hate the cost. As so often has been the case in my strange life, I was forced into committing myself to battle against my will. My poor little frog, my erstwhile suitor, the Duke of Anjou so lately appointed King of the Netherlands, had not enjoyed his reign for long. He died of a fever only a few months after he left my shores. Now Spain, seeing its advantage in the vacuum his unexpected demise had created, was rattling its sabres at the border. In terror, the Protestant majority in the lowlands turned to me for aid. Reluctantly I sent Robin to the low countries as my lieutenant general. Aware that their recurring lack of leadership made them particularly vulnerable to monarchs and princelings looking to expand their territory, the impudent fools then made my master of horse their governor general! Worse, his vanity piqued, Robin accepted the title, against my express orders. The lowlanders then added insult to injury by declaring him absolute general: one word away from absolute monarch! Was his ambition so monstrous that it could override his loyalty to me? I forced him to renounce the honour by reminding him that while he might have foolishly accepted a silly title, I had all the real power. I threatened that I would make peace with the Duke of Parma and offer the Spanish warlord the low countries on a platter just to humiliate their newly minted ‘absolute general’. That pulled them back into line.

  Eaten up with the blow to his vanity, Robin then proceeded to make a mess of the campaign anyway, winning me nothing and costing me much, including the loss of his nephew Sir Philip Sidney, a wise and good man, fatally wounded by an arrow. His mother, Robin’s sister and my dear friend, Mary Sidney, was devastated by her son’s death. Such heartbreak, such waste. She died only a year later. I miss her still.