To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Her clothes were like the outer defences of a castle. I had to gaze hard to see past them, to the shield-shaped face, the golden-brown eyes under faint, arched eyebrows; the well-defined mouth. These too were defences of a kind for they told one nothing: her face was truly a shield. The eyes were watchful, determined to reveal nothing of their owner’s thoughts; the eyebrows were immobile; the shapely mouth devoid of passion. She looked more like a faery being than a human one.

  A hand, long and slender, the nails softly burnished, the length of the fingers deftly shown off by jewelled rings, was extended to me to kiss. “So you are Mistress Ursula Blanchard, formerly Faldene, and your mother, Anna Faldene, once served—at court.”

  I heard the faintest pause before the words “at court.” Carefully, I said, “That is so, your majesty.”

  “You may address me as ma’am. We see that you are in mourning, Mistress Blanchard. That is for your husband?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We will do what we can to fill your days and heal your grief. Here at court it would be perfectly proper for you to relieve your black clothes with a little more white or silver. A white or silver under-kirtle, perhaps, with matching sleeves. You have our permission.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, recognising that this was an order in disguise.

  “Black and white become you, however,” said Elizabeth. “They are my colours: did you know?”

  “N-no, your maj—ma’am. No, I didn’t know that,” I said, stammering a little in spite of all Lady Katherine’s strictures. I looked the queen in the face, hoping she hadn’t noticed or at least was not irritated.

  She hadn’t and she wasn’t. Suddenly she smiled, and fleetingly, I saw the girl beneath the satin and gold and pearls, the living, breathing princess inside the castle.

  “Welcome to our court, Mistress Blanchard,” said Queen Elizabeth.

  • • •

  The memory of that sudden, human smile stayed with me all the rest of that day, but when that night I retired alone to the tester bed in the corner room, sorrow and anxiety overtook me again. I lay there, longing uselessly for Gerald and Meg, and on top of all that, desperately worried about money.

  The magic of Elizabeth’s smile was forgotten. I remembered instead that she had practically ordered me to buy white or silver sleeves and under-kirtles, which I couldn’t afford, and that I must also, somehow, pay a maid I didn’t want and still support my daughter.

  And so it began, my slide towards unlikely adventures, down a slippery incline called economic necessity.

  2

  Slippery Footing

  I woke next morning heavy of heart and jaded from my restless night. However, my window showed me that the weather was still bright, and sunshine is encouraging. I made an effort, rose in good time and faced the business of the day. One of my first tasks was to interview the lady’s maid Katherine Knollys had found for me.

  To my relief, the woman was so anxious for a post that she didn’t haggle about her pay. Fran Dale was past her youth, with no savings and no family and was already regretting her refusal to go back to Yorkshire with her former mistress. In fact, she was on the point of retracting her resignation when I appeared, like a gift from heaven. I hired her, I confess, at a bargain rate, and tried hard to think of her as a bargain and not as a maddening expense. I did have some money left from Gerald’s small savings and his last salary payment. What I would do when that ran out, I preferred not to think.

  The next thing was that Lady Katherine Knollys introduced me to the queen’s principal lady, Kat Ashley, who came as a surprise, for she was not the impressive figure I expected.

  She was well spoken and clearly well educated, and she was certainly well dressed, but her plump face and her slightly protuberant blue eyes had an expression which made me think at once of tavern-keepers and village beldames. She had been in Elizabeth’s service since the queen was a child, and Elizabeth was employing her for love rather than suitability, I thought. Yes, the girl I had seen yesterday, looking out of the queen’s golden-brown eyes, was human enough, and capable of affection.

  However, when, that morning, I was taken to attend on Queen Elizabeth for the first time, the affectionate girl had been eclipsed by a very angry monarch. When Lady Katherine Knollys and Mistress Ashley brought me into the gallery where the queen was, we found it lined with courtiers, all keeping quiet and standing still, while her majesty marched up and down the black and white chequered floor, satin skirts swishing, costly shoes clumping and slender hands clenching and unclenching with an angry flash of gems. Just as we entered, she halted in front of a quailing individual in the dress of a messenger.

  “Oh, stop cringing, man. It is not your fault! We shall not cut your head off for bringing bad news. But if I had that impertinent chit here I might be tempted to cut her head off!”

  Swinging round, she caught sight of me and my companions. All three of us curtsied. Elizabeth fixed her gaze on me. “Ah, our new recruit, looking puzzled and alarmed. You must become informed of our concerns, Mistress Blanchard. We have just received word that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland in her own right and Queen of France by right of her marriage to its king, is not content with all these great honours but is styling herself Queen of England as well, and although we have sent a protest by way of our ambassador, she continues to have the heralds cry all three titles before her as she goes to chapel! What do you think of that, ha?”

  She barked the question as a man might. I said, “I am truly shocked to hear of this, ma’am.”

  She nodded and appeared mollified, but not for long. A paunchy middle-aged man in an elaborate mulberry velvet doublet at this point asked permission to speak. Elizabeth veered to face him. “Yes, my lord of Arundel? We are listening.”

  “It is only, ma’am, that Queen Mary is but seventeen and very pious. Perhaps all we are hearing is an expression of her youthful ardour for her faith, and her desire to see it bloom once more in lands from which it has been banished.”

  Across the gallery, a fair-haired young man clad in an azure doublet, extravagantly puffed breeches to match and skintight tawny hose which revealed how long and muscular his legs were, caught my eye and rolled his own eyes upwards, as if to say, “Lord preserve us from such nonsense.” A soberly dressed older man beside him nudged him reprovingly.

  A swarthy, hard-faced gentleman standing close to me glowered in the direction of Arundel and muttered, “Pompous ass!” I glanced at him curiously and he gave me a little bow. “Sir Robin Dudley, Master of the Queen’s Horse, at your service.”

  “This is Mistress Ursula Blanchard,” whispered Lady Katherine. “Newly come to court.”

  Dudley nodded but said no more because, like everyone else, he was too interested in Elizabeth, who was surveying Arundel in a way which made it clear that she agreed with Dudley and the young gallant in azure. For a moment I thought she was actually going to utter the words “You silly little man!” She did not, although I felt sure she had considered it.

  After a pause long enough to make Arundel blush, she said, “Piety? There is little difference between my faith and hers. We worship the same God; the rest is a dispute about trifles. No, my friend, what this concerns is power. A pious wish to expand what they call the true faith is as good an excuse as any for a country, or a ruler, with an urge towards conquest. Let us take up arms for God, they cry! And let us also, while we are about it, swallow up the rich pastures, the fine wool and creamy cheeses, the tin and iron of England! Faith? Bah!”

  “Ma’am, I meant only . . . ”

  “I know you did, Arundel. I know. You wished to reassure us. We are not unmindful.” Having embarrassed him, she had evidently decided to soothe him. As he bowed and murmured his thanks, she turned back to the messenger. “A reply to our ambassador will be made ready for you to take back to France. We will thank him for the pains he takes to keep us informed. You may withdraw.”

  The messenger retired with obvious relief
and the queen beckoned to Dudley, and began to talk to him. The anxious crowd of onlookers, seeing that the queen had recovered her temper, relaxed.

  Lady Katherine Knollys whispered to me, “You know about Mary Stuart, of course?” and I nodded.

  Lady Catherine Grey was known as the Protestant heir for the very good reason that until Elizabeth married and had children, there was an alternative successor in the Catholic Mary Stuart.

  Mary Stuart was another descendant from one of King Henry’s sisters. Ever since Elizabeth came to the throne, she had been claiming—to the indignation of Elizabeth and most of the council—that she ought to be our ruler instead, because King Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn hadn’t been legal and therefore Elizabeth was not legitimate.

  Fortunately, so far her claim was mere words, with little prospect of ever being anything else. Even the crown she did possess, the Scottish one, wasn’t secure. The Protestant Scots were in arms against her regency and although Elizabeth considered that for a people to rise against their sovereign—even an impertinent chit of a sovereign with designs on Elizabeth’s own crown—was a terrible thing, she had sent help to the rebels. England was beleaguered by Catholic powers, such as France and Spain. We could do without a Catholic Scotland. It was already well known that Sir William Cecil had threatened to resign as Secretary of State if Elizabeth wouldn’t help the Scots, and in the end she had agreed.

  Mary Stuart evidently hadn’t taken the hint. This was scandalous and worrying; but to me it was not only that. Like a warhorse which hears a trumpet, I found myself excited, pleased to be back in the heart of political affairs, just as I had been in Antwerp. I grieved for Gerald and ached for Meg, but nevertheless, in coming to court I had done the right thing, for I had somehow or other come home.

  • • •

  I settled down. I laid out a little money on a messenger to take my instructions to Bridget about buying hens and planting onions, and quietly sold a few pieces of jewellery. Lady Katherine Knollys was right: if I were known to be hard up, it would damage my standing among the other ladies. Lady Catherine Grey, in fact, sniffed my problem out almost at once and made several edged remarks, but fortunately I got on quite well with the rest and even gained a little admiration when I enlivened some of our sedentary hours of embroidery by telling them stories of life in Sir Thomas Gresham’s service in Antwerp. Lady Jane, who didn’t share Catherine Grey’s haughty attitude towards me, and often tried to jolly her out of it, was particularly enthusiastic. “Oh, do listen to Ursula!” she would cry, when I started an anecdote.

  I was careful what I said about Gresham, though. Most of my tales concerned amusing domestic panics behind the polished and expensive Gresham hospitality; or salty items of gossip about notables whose reputations did not matter in England. It was Lady Catherine Grey, whose vocabulary did not include the word “discretion,” who one day said, “Why don’t you tell us some of the real stories about Sir Thomas, Ursula? Or were you and your husband not highly placed enough to know them?”

  “Real stories, Lady Catherine?” I spoke lightly but I frowned at her. We were waiting for the queen to finish a conference with her treasurer, William Paulet, and we were gathered with our books and needlework in a large room through which other people could wander at will. The Spanish ambassador was wandering through it at that moment, though he was still, fortunately, out of earshot, talking to Kat Ashley by the window.

  “Yes. About Sir Thomas’s real work in Antwerp. Oh come on, Ursula. Tell us.”

  “Sir Thomas,” I said, “is a financier who is in the Netherlands to raise loans for the queen from the banks of Antwerp and Brussels.”

  “I’ve heard that he’s also raising funds by any means that he can think of—including bribing or blackmailing people and forging requisition documents, all so that he can spirit gold and silver bullion out of the Antwerp treasury and into the holds of ships bound for the Tower of London.”

  “You know more than I do,” I said in cool tones.

  “If it’s true, it’s a strange way to behave in a country where he’s trying to make friends with important people,” Lady Catherine said.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Lady Jane Seymour, kindly extending a hand for the needle which Catherine had allowed to come unthreaded, and putting the silk back through the eye for her. “You know how religion gets into everything. It’s like an oil flask leaking into a saddlebag.” There was a ripple of laughter from the other ladies. More careful than Catherine, Jane glanced round and made sure that de Quadra was still at a safe distance before adding, “The Netherlands are a Spanish province and Spain is Catholic. That makes the Netherlands treasuries fair game.”

  “And this is not the right time or place to discuss such things,” I said abruptly. “You gossip too much, Lady Catherine, and I fear you invent half the things you say.”

  “Gently, Ursula, gently,” said Lady Katherine Knollys reprovingly.

  “I am sorry,” I said. Here at court, neither curiosity nor an acid tongue were well regarded. On these occasions, I longed most terribly for Antwerp and for Gerald. Gerald had loved both my acerbity and my enquiring mind.

  However, it was important to silence Catherine Grey, because she was, of course, quite right. I was sorry that gossip about Gresham was evidently abroad in the court. He had indeed robbed the Netherlands treasuries, and while he was about it, he had also learned more about King Philip of Spain’s intentions and resources than King Philip would have wished either Gresham or Queen Elizabeth to know. Information about Sir Thomas’s activities would greatly interest Philip’s representatives in the Netherlands.

  I knew about those activities because Gerald had been caught up in them. Not highly placed enough to be informed of such things? If that remark hadn’t been so obviously intended to sting, it would have been funny. My open-faced, friendly husband had a remarkable talent for finding out who was vulnerable: who was in debt, who was hiding a record of embezzlement from a current employer, who was concealing a mistress from a wife he didn’t want to hurt or a wealthy father-in-law he dared not offend. Gerald, in fact, had been making his way as one of Sir Thomas’s recruiting officers for collaborators and spies.

  Lady Katherine Knollys had probably heard the whispers about Gresham, too, and despite her rebuke I think she knew why I had been so sharp with Lady Catherine Grey. She now soothed me with a smile. “But I can’t fault your discretion, Ursula,” she said. “For that, I commend you.”

  De Quadra and Kat Ashley were approaching. Katherine Knollys began a harmless topic of conversation. Catherine Grey bent over her work, looking sullen.

  I returned to my own work, admitting to myself that in a way, I enjoyed the need for caution and being aware of people like de Quadra, with their amiable expressions and their ever-open ears.

  If only, I thought, I could find a way of earning just a little more, I would in time, when I had grown used to being without husband or child (and learned not to be inquisitive or sharp), be very happy in the queen’s service.

  I found the court more exciting every day. The excitement hummed in the air and throbbed in the ground. It was in the glitter of the river as it wound past the palace of Richmond, in the singing of the musical weathervanes, in the splash of oars as brightly decorated barges brought dignitaries to audience with the queen; in the clash of pikes on the ground as noble guests were saluted, in the trumpets which announced that the queen was leaving her apartments, setting out to her council or to church or to hunt.

  Above all, it was in Elizabeth. As the days went on, I learned my way about the palace, and I came to know the queen at least as well as any of her attendants knew her, although always one felt that there was more to know, aspects which she would never reveal, which would remain forever hidden behind those ramparts of satin and embroidery and jewellery. What was not hidden, however, was the power of her personality, which radiated from her like the glow from a fire. To be in her company was to be where colours were brighter and air
was keener and words had double their usual meaning. Which meant being fiercely exhilarated and also very careful, both at once.

  Working for her could be tiring. Sometimes she was out very early, having taken a fancy to walk in the gardens or park or, in wet weather, in the palace galleries. Her ladies had to accompany her to prayers and then be there for the morning practice of dancing or music. As yet, because of my newly widowed status, I did not dance, but I had to watch.

  We always had to be near at hand even when the queen was busy with council or audience, and we had to go with her when she rode out in her coach to be seen by her people, or went hawking, or watched a tilt or a tennis match. However, if urgent business came up at any time, she would abandon whatever else she was doing and deal with it. This occurred several times within my first weeks, for the war in Scotland was reaching a critical stage, and messengers arrived constantly. When this happened, the council members would be called together and Sir William Cecil would be seen striding rapidly in the direction of the conference chamber.

  I very soon learned to recognise all the people of importance. The young man in azure and his soberly dressed companion, whom I had seen on my first morning, were, I learned, connections of Dudley’s, but people were vague about their names. They were not apparently notable. Dudley himself was very notable. Because he was so dark, people called him the Gipsy behind his back. The queen would sparkle whenever he came into the room and he was often in her company. He was the centre of the wildest rumours. His wife was never seen at court and one of the livelier rumours said that he was gradually poisoning her so as to be free to marry the queen.

  He was not a council member, though. I soon discovered who was and who wasn’t. The hierarchy of the palace allowed the queen’s ladies to be on conversational terms with most people. In fact, I did better even than that, for within my first few days I met Cecil and his wife Lady Mildred personally. They asked me to their rooms.