To Shield the Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  “We wanted to see you,” Cecil told me. “After all, we brought you here.”

  “Your husband served Sir Thomas well,” Lady Mildred said gravely, “and through him, the queen. Your mother, too, was well liked in her day. The Faldene family is still remembered at court although it is years since any of you were here. Your mother left it long before our time, of course, but some of the older people can recall her.”

  They had led me to a comfortable, cushioned settle and Sir William was pouring wine for us all. He had a neatly combed fair beard and intelligent blue eyes, with a permanent crease between them, of anxiety and concentration. Being Elizabeth’s Secretary of State was not a restful occupation. Before keeping this appointment, I had felt shy of meeting him, but it was his wife, oddly enough, who struck me as the more formidable of the two. Her face was full of strength and intellect. She made me nervous even when she was being friendly, as she was now.

  “It’s said of your mother,” she told me, “that she was kind to Queen Anne. She was still at court when Elizabeth was born and I believe tried to comfort the queen when she began to slip out of the king’s favour, because the child was a daughter and not a son.”

  “I think that’s true,” I said. “My mother spoke of her court life now and then. She was fond of the queen. She didn’t believe the charges that were brought against her. I remember saying that to Sir Thomas Gresham, once.”

  “He remembered, and passed it on to me.” Cecil nodded. “And I have told her majesty. You are aware that she never speaks of her mother?”

  “Yes, Lady Katherine Knollys warned me about that.”

  “She greatly admired her father,” said Cecil, “and she can’t remember her mother, as far as I know, but she is consistently good to those who are linked to her mother, by blood or by kindness. That is why she agreed to give you a place here. We hope, most heartily, that you will do well.”

  “Most heartily,” Mildred confirmed.

  Cecil handed me my wine. “We shall not pay you special attention after this,” he said, “but not because we’ve forgotten you. It would be wiser, that’s all. At court, one is always on a slippery footing and it’s as well not to arouse envy.”

  Considering the state of my finances, I was more likely to inspire pity or scorn, although I didn’t say so.

  “And you can come to us if ever you are in any difficulty,” said Lady Mildred, and Cecil nodded in agreement.

  “In effect, you have no family,” he said. “Sir Thomas has told us all about you. There was, alas, no place in his household vacant which you could fill, and when we said we would sponsor you at court, he was relieved. If necessary, we will be your family. We would like you to promise that you will turn to us if you are in any trouble.”

  I was so touched that my eyes stung. It was a long time since anyone had offered me that kind of support. I gave the promise, although I wasn’t sure how far I meant it. I could see plenty of difficulties ahead, and all of the same sort, but one couldn’t ask people like the Cecils for alms, for the paradoxical reason that they might actually offer some. I would not trade on their goodwill. I was no whining beggar, whatever my father-in-law might say.

  • • •

  Gossip about possible or impossible marriages for the queen went on all the time. Everyone expected her to choose a husband soon, and tongues wagged constantly on the subject. She had refused Philip of Spain; she couldn’t under present circumstances marry Robin Dudley, but there were other foreign princes and other homegrown noblemen too.

  The Earl of Arundel, Henry FitzAlan, was said to have hopes but I had seen for myself what Elizabeth thought of him. He was not only a quarter of a century older than she was, with a bulging middle, but also had something like a genius for irritating his sovereign lady. In addition, he was one of the Catholic councillors inherited from Queen Mary. “In days gone by, he alternated between regarding Elizabeth as a menace to the peace of the realm, and a poor young girl in need of protection,” Lady Katherine Knollys once told me. “I think she finds both memories uncomfortable.”

  Arundel, in fact, was chasing a dream. When the bright young folk of the court got together and laid odds on the chances of the various contenders, they estimated his at five hundred to one against.

  For the moment, the queen showed no inclination to choose anyone. “We have our war in Scotland to deal with first,” I heard her say once, when another councillor, the Earl of Derby, tried to raise the matter with her informally. Derby was another of Queen Mary’s former councillors, and he had favoured the union with Philip of Spain. I wondered what he thought of the Scottish war, because I supposed that from his point of view, England was on the wrong side. He never, of course, said as much, but he certainly had a long face when news came that the foe wished to negotiate.

  Cecil was sent to Edinburgh to represent England at the peace talks. He came back in July, with a peace treaty signed, but by then, the atmosphere at Elizabeth’s court had changed. Gone were the days when the queen would abandon any diversion, no matter how absorbing, if a matter of business came up.

  Cecil had returned with a difficult mission successfully accomplished, the Catholic influence in Scotland reduced almost to nothing and England that much safer because of it, only to find that Elizabeth, who should have been loading him with rewards and giving banquets in his honour, had scarcely any attention to give either to him or to the responsibilities of reigning.

  That was the time when the sizzling nature of the attraction between the queen and Robin Dudley, her Master of Horse, really became apparent.

  3

  Dudley’s Dilemma

  “Apparent” was a mild word for it. It was the kind of attraction which sends the ambient temperature up whenever the two people concerned are together, and they were together a great deal. When the queen danced, either for her private amusement or on official occasions, Dudley would be there to partner her. When she walked, in gallery or garden, Dudley was in attendance. When she rode, he rode beside her; when she went out in her coach, he rode beside that and talked to her through the window. She normally dined in private, or with a few chosen companions. Dudley was chosen nine times out of ten. Wherever they were, they followed each other with their eyes.

  The only place in which they were not together was the queen’s bedchamber. Kat Ashley took care that two of the queen’s ladies always slept in the anteroom at night. I now knew that Kat Ashley had not always been a model of discretion in the past and in my opinion she still wasn’t—I thought she allowed the queen’s women to gossip far too much—but she was careful about that final point. The queen might call Dudley her sweet Robin but they were not lovers.

  Or not yet.

  Everyone thought they soon would be, and even before Cecil came back from Scotland, the situation had most of the council fairly biting their tongues with rage. Dudley wasn’t popular. His father had been beheaded for treachery, and he himself was no more than a knight. He was no one’s ideal candidate for the kingship.

  Most of the council were quite outspoken on the matter, at least when the queen and Dudley couldn’t hear them, and as for Sir Thomas Smith . . .

  Smith wasn’t a council member, but one of Cecil’s legal advisers. For a courtier and a lawyer, he was amazingly rough tongued. “A sound political marriage, that’s what England needs,” he declared, one hot morning when we were sitting on our horses in the main courtyard at Richmond, ready to go hawking, and waiting for the queen to appear. The day promised to be scorching, but nothing could have been much more scorching than Smith’s powerful voice as it went on to announce that what the country didn’t need was a swollen-headed horse-master swanking about in ermine.

  “Dudley’s married already, mercifully,” the Earl of Derby pointed out. Edward Stanley of Derby was much the same age as Sir Thomas, but he was polite where Sir Thomas was outspoken, spare and dapper where Sir Thomas was large and untidy, Catholic where Sir Thomas was Protestant.

  Of the two of t
hem, I preferred Sir Thomas. There was something cruel about Derby’s thin mouth. It was said that in Queen Mary’s day, he had encouraged her enthusiastically in persecuting heretics, and that because of this, he rarely came to court. He was believed to be here now simply because he wanted to keep an eye on sweet Robin. Robin Dudley was the one subject on which Derby and Smith agreed. They might differ on everything else, but Dudley they unanimously loathed. It almost drew them together.

  “Only, of course, because he’s married, there’s a risk of scandal,” Derby added ominously.

  “There’s a worse risk than that. If his wife dies . . . ”

  “Ah, yes. She’s said to be ill, is she not?” said Derby. “But Cecil visited her on his way back from Scotland and he says there’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “Mighty disappointing for Dudley, if so,” said Smith.

  Arundel, who was also nearby, said, “Shhh,” in a reproving tone, but there was no stopping Thomas Smith, who continued to give tongue in those all too resonant accents.

  “The sooner the queen’s suitably married, the better. For all her crown and sceptre, she’s a woman and she needs a man and some children like any other woman, and the country needs an heir. Someone ought to tell her.”

  “We have,” said Derby. “The council, I mean. Though in more respectful terms. But while Dudley’s on hand, it’s useless.” He removed his russet velvet cap and wiped his sweating hairline with a handkerchief. “It’s too hot for hawking today. In another hour the park will be no better than a frying pan.”

  “And I had a late night last night,” drawled a tall, arrogant-faced individual called Sir Richard Verney. He was one of Dudley’s men and I wondered whether he minded hearing his employer spoken of so scathingly, and whether he reported what he heard to Dudley afterwards. No one seemed to be worried about it. “Personally,” Verney complained, “I’m likely to fall asleep in the saddle.”

  “You shouldn’t sit up till dawn at card parties,” said somebody. Everyone laughed.

  “Well, it won’t be any hotter than that damned Irish gelding Dudley’s bought for the queen,” Smith said. He scowled at the animal in question. Caparisoned suitably for its royal rider, it was being held by a groom. It kept on trying to circle round him and we had all moved our mounts away from its heels. “Anyone would think that she wanted to break her neck,” said Sir Thomas.

  “I’ve warned him about that horse,” said Verney, “but he never listens to advice.”

  “I know. I was there. I heard. He told you not to be such an old woman, and three grooms and a coachman heard him too,” said Smith with a chuckle. Verney’s high cheekbones flushed with annoyance. It occurred to me that people didn’t worry about criticising Dudley in Verney’s presence because he probably agreed with them.

  “One day,” he said grimly, “he may wish he’d heeded me. Ah. Here comes the queen.”

  “And Dudley,” muttered Sir Thomas Smith.

  • • •

  The court had moved about during the summer but we were back in Richmond by July. It was one of Elizabeth’s favourite palaces and she was particularly fond of riding and hawking in the park. She wouldn’t call off a hawking expedition just because of a heatwave. I was among those present because of my ability to ride on my own and not just as a pillion passenger. Few ladies possessed this accomplishment, and the queen valued those of her women who did. When she found that I was one of them, she gave me leave to borrow certain animals from the royal stables.

  However, I had to take whichever was available and this time I found myself on a little blue roan mare called Speedwell. Speedwell was young and only recently broken in, and was still liable to shy at everything, from a blackbird flying across the path to a deer breaking cover to somebody sneezing. Riding her meant being constantly alert, and in this sultry weather, it was a strain.

  The queen and Dudley might be too engrossed in each other to notice the weather, but the rest of us were wilting before we were well out into Richmond Park. Sir Thomas Smith, astride a massive weight-carrier, was crimson in the face before we even left the courtyard.

  It was very, very hot. The gentle hills of the park quivered with heat haze and the open stretches were like griddles, on which the grass and bracken were turning yellow. In the woods, the leaves hung as though weary and when we came in sight of a pool, the glitter of the water was enough to make one’s eyes ache. The beaten earth paths were baked hard, and here and there we saw the shimmer of transparent wings, where ants’ nests were swarming. Flies buzzed round horses and riders.

  Dudley and the queen rode, as usual, side by side, Elizabeth on the excitable Irish horse, a bay with a broad white blaze, and Dudley on a powerful black. He was so much a part of it that even those who disliked him most still watched him with unwilling admiration. He carried a goshawk which could take a rabbit. The queen had a hobby hawk which could not but which was still capable of taking bigger prey than the merlin usually carried by ladies. Most of the gentlemen had goshawks like Dudley but one or two were sharing. Among these was a stranger, a lean dark man, who, I now gathered, was Arundel’s guest and had arrived at court the day before. He had kept quietly back and out of the conversation in the courtyard but was now riding beside his host and taking a turn now and then at flying Arundel’s bird. I wondered if he wouldn’t rather have stayed indoors with a cool tankard of ale. I knew that I would.

  The women in the party, apart from the queen and myself, included Lady Katherine Knollys, who rode her showy but well-mannered chestnut mare with an air, and Lady Catherine Grey who was balanced uneasily on top of a phlegmatic brown gelding. She was no horsewoman and only came hawking because it was the proper thing to do, and as the heir to the throne—well, in Protestant eyes, anyway—she must be seen regularly close to the existing incumbent. Or as close as she dared to come. She seemed afraid of getting too near to Elizabeth’s restive bay.

  Behind us, as usual on these outings, were the attendants and falconers, some mounted and some stumping along on foot. People flew their hawks and handed over the haul of larks, blackbirds and thrushes to the mounted attendants, who took them back to be stowed in the bags on the shoulders of the foot people. The bags didn’t fill very fast, for the haul was poor. Even the songbirds preferred to rest in the shade in this temperature.

  The flies were infuriating. I swatted at them with a frond of bracken I had plucked by leaning perilously out of my saddle, and prickled with sweat in my heavy riding dress, and was thankful when at last we turned for home.

  The queen and Dudley still led the way, with Lady Catherine Grey on Elizabeth’s other side, although she still kept a wary space between them. The palace turrets were drawing blessedly closer and I was thinking in terms of cool drinks and a rest, perhaps, on my bed, when Arundel caught sight of a wood-pigeon on the wing, seized his goshawk from the wrist of his guest, who chanced just then to be carrying it, and flung it into the air.

  What happened next, happened quickly. The hawk, taken by surprise, dithered on the wing for a moment and its shadow alerted the quarry, which fled for the safety of a wood where the branches would keep the hawk from swooping. Its alarmed, flapping flight brought it directly over our heads. By then, the hawk had seen it and given chase. She dived, steeply and fast, plunged below the pigeon, rose and struck her quarry in mid-air. Hawk and pigeon together descended into our midst with a vehement beating of wings and a flurry of dove-grey feathers. They landed between the queen and Lady Catherine Grey and right in front of Speedwell, and all three horses, even Lady Catherine’s placid gelding, simultaneously plunged, snorting.

  Lady Catherine clutched wildly at her saddle pommel while her horse pranced sideways. Speedwell stood up on end, pawing the air, and the queen’s horse laid back its ears and bolted, straight off the track and across a rough downward slope full of tussocks, rabbit holes, sharp dips into narrow tracks, and all manner of perils for a horse too frightened to look where it was going.

  Dudley swore and
spurred instantly in pursuit, but although the bay pecked once, it did not fall and Dudley caught up within a hundred yards. Stretching out a powerful hand to the bay’s bridle, he hauled it round in a curve, slowing it down. In a few moments, they were on their way back to us at a controlled trot, with the queen laughing and telling Dudley she could have pulled up unaided if he had left her to it, and teasing him because his face had gone bloodless.

  Meanwhile, Lady Catherine’s mount had backed into the horse which Arundel’s guest was riding and he, in response to Lady Catherine’s squeals of fright, had gallantly seized her gelding’s bridle to steady it.

  I had to steady Speedwell myself and stay in the saddle as best I could. Arundel, the only other person near enough to reach me, was too busy gaping in horror at the drama round the queen to notice my plight. Lady Catherine’s rescuer glanced concernedly towards me, apologising with his eyes for the fact that his hands were too full to be of any use to me. I gripped the pommel between my knees, kept my seat even though Speedwell was nearly perpendicular, dragged on the curb, and pulled her jaw towards her chest. She settled back on to all four feet and I spoke to her soothingly, while edging her away from where the hawk was now mantling fiercely over her prey.

  Arundel, face pale and jowls wobbling, dismounted to gather up hawk and quarry. As the queen and Dudley rejoined us, he stammered out an apology, but the queen continued to laugh, as though danger had merely stimulated her. “It was scarcely your fault, Henry. How were you to know the pigeon would decide to fly back over us?”

  “Nevertheless, madam, I cannot say how much I regret . . . ”

  “No harm done,” said Dudley, but added, with an edge on his voice, “The day’s sport is over. No more flying at game, if you please, ladies and gentlemen. Lady Katherine, will you ride beside her majesty, please? Your horse is steady and will have a calming influence on hers.”