by Jeane Westin
Mary sat in the circle around Her Majesty and joined her naturally vibrato voice to the song. The queen looked up and nodded, no recognizable emotion showing in her kohl-rimmed eyes.
“When I was fair and young,
Then favor graced me. . . .”
The queen’s fingers plucked the strings as if she had no pain in them, though Mary knew she did most mornings. And Her Majesty sang no more with her ladies, since her voice was now hoarse and cracking.
“How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe.
How many sighing hearts, yet I the prouder grow . . .”
Mary looked down and saw that she had twisted the tansy stems, and their petals had begun to wilt in her hands.
As the queen started the chorus, without announcement or warning, the doors to the privy chamber burst open and Essex rushed in. Lady Margaret squealed, her hand flying to her throat. Lady Anne Russell, who had taken Lady Fitton’s place, turned white and slumped in a chair.
The earl, looking the gallant young lord in shining black velvet, starched white ruff and flowing curls, threw himself at the queen’s feet and grasped the hem of her gown, kissing it as if to devour lace, pearls and all.
“Most beloved queen of my heart—” His voice rumbled low and intense, filling the chamber with masculine passion.
He got no further. The queen snatched her gown from his hands and leapt to her feet, her lute landing on the carpeted floor. She backed away from his desperate effort to clutch at her, saying no word, nor calling for her guard. The cold scorn on her face would have frozen any sensible man.
The earl, though off balance, stood upright. Frightened for the queen, Mary came as close to Elizabeth as she dared. If Essex drew his sword to deliver a blow, she would take the thrust.
But it wasn’t Elizabeth who faced danger. The queen did not flinch and advanced on Essex. He held his arms up for her to walk into, but she knocked them wide, pushing her fists against his chest until he stumbled backward.
The earl was obviously astonished. “Majesty! I beg you . . . speak to me. . . . Listen to my sorrow. I have been desolate these eleven months without your love to guide me away from the mistakes of youth and crazed ardor. In truth, Your Grace—”
The queen advanced again, no sound coming from her, no softening of her cold stare. She showed no hot anger, only hard contempt in every gesture and every line of her face, her corded neck thrust forward. She pushed him again. And again, he stumbled backward, his mouth working, but now no intelligible words exiting. He had obviously relied on the nearness of his person to melt her to forgiveness as it always had.
With one final thrust that must have taken all her strength, she pushed him into the antechamber and slammed the doors in his still unbelieving face.
Mary approached Elizabeth’s back, worried that she might be near collapse from her exertions. “Majesty, may I ease you with a little wine?”
The queen whirled about, her face triumphant. “This crooked carcass needs no food or drink to best such foolish men. He thinks I need him, that I cannot let him go . . . that he is the stronger,” she said, scarcely above a whisper, and then in full voice: “Pish!”
Only Mary heard all the words and understood their meaning, knowing that they were the best part of the queen’s victory over Essex and her own heart.
Elizabeth crossed to the lute on the floor, picked it up and struck a solid chord, croaking, “‘... and I the prouder grow.’ ”
For the rest of the afternoon she sat alone before her fire, admitting no one, though Cecil, Raleigh and others of her privy council sought audience. Her usually straight posture showed every sign of exhaustion, and Mary stayed near and busy, plying her embroidery needle on a piece of pillow linen.
Later in the great dining hall, Mary sat next to John, sipped apple wine and dipped a salad radish in the salt, repeating all that had happened. “John, Her Majesty said no word to Essex. It was most strange, even frightening. But after he was gone she repeated what he said of her at Essex House.” Mary shivered. “She loved him and gave him everything and now he shows that he was false. I may never forget the terrible look on her face. I have never seen such before.”
“Quiet yourself, Mary,” John said softly. He broke bread for her plate and, using a hooked knife, speared a piece of meat from a large pork pie in its trencher, ladling its meaty pudding and spicy broth on top. “I think it means that Essex is now completely lost to the queen’s affection.”
“What will he do?”
“If he takes good council, he will leave for the country and not return.”
“Will he take good council?”
“No.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, although Mary felt the pressure of his thigh against hers and returned it until, too heated for the heavy food, she shifted her leg away. She dared not look at him, but pushed her pudding aside, having no appetite left. “The queen needs me more than ever, John.” Her voice trembled.
He did not look at her. “I am a man, Mary. Waiting for you is an agony.”
Her eyes made tears, but she would not allow them to slide to her cheek. “I am a woman, John. Misery is not yours alone.”
The pressure of John’s knee returned, warmer than before.
Bowing his head, John whispered, “I humbly beg pardon, mistress.” He struggled to regain calm. “All is not lost. The longer she withholds the warrant for the salt tax from Lord Howard, the more time we have to plead our cause.” He raised his pewter tankard. “Here’s to his lady’s health.”
She drew a deep, trembling breath, and glimpsed what John must have seen, her breasts pushing against her gown as if they would escape into his hands. She reddened and gathered her courage. “What did you say to my grandfather? And he to you?”
Mary hoped anyone observing them would not know that they spoke words between chewing their food. They had tried to feed gossip through the court that John’s absence had cooled their interest.
He speared a piece of fish. “I took him a prize ram, which he thought to refuse, but could not bring himself to do.” John smiled. “He is not a stupid man to refuse a gift that would better his flock and his purse.”
“But he is proud and would not accept your gift if he had not changed his heart in some way. Did he say anything about Lord Howard?”
“In truth, he did not mention him, or you, nor did I. We talked of his better prospects for the next lambing season, though you were in our minds, sweetheart.”
She was amazed and a tad angered, her words tinged with sharp humor. “Am I then the prize dam?”
“My sweet,” he said, not bothering to hide his amusement, “it might have been put into his thoughts that he would prefer his grandchildren in Somerset near Bath rather than in the north with Lord Howard.” He cocked his head and looked at her, his eyes crinkling. “It cannot be wrong to encourage such desire in a halting old man without a male heir.”
“I did not think you so devious.”
“Old habits, Mistress Mary, but used now to greater good.”
She stood and curtsied, a tremor of a smile she couldn’t stop reaching her lips. “There is still some rogue in you.”
He bowed where he sat, spooning up some pudding. “You will be glad of it someday.”
She laughed now, unable to hold her amusement inside. “Soon?”
He licked his spoon. “If almighty God is good.”
Or almighty queen. She could not utter such traitorous blasphemy aloud, but God help her, she thought it.
“Tomorrow night, then,” he said in a low voice. “We need to talk more, to plan without every eye on us.”
“But it’s not wise . . . to be alone, John,” she said, but was unable to say the word no, which should have made her more cautious.
“Meeting perhaps lacks a certain good judgment, but is absolutely necessary,” he said, his voice even softer, but at no less an urgent pitch, “or I do assure you, Mary, Mary, if I cannot hold you, I will run quite spectacu
larly wild through all of Whitehall.”
All that fall and winter, while John, as Queen’s Champion, was sent on one and another mission, Mary continued to hope against her reason that all would be well with them at the end, that this was God’s test for true lovers. Although her grandfather’s letters were more affectionate than ever they had been and even called John generous, there was no bending in him. So she was left with the daily round of duties for the queen, and with her hope—perhaps all that she would ever have of John in this life. But the second she thought it, she rejected the idea. And what was that but more hope? John had told her so and now she knew it.
In January of 1601, Lady Howard breathed her last, but as Mary prayed almost hourly for rain, the swollen rivers and streams overflowed in flood, and roads from the north became impassible for horse or carriage. She began to believe that God was not in favor of her union with the northern lord. It had to be the almighty. He was the only one who could defy Elizabeth Tudor.
By February, news reached the queen’s council that Essex House was seething with plots, and these plans had reached a crescendo. The queen called Robert Cecil to her.
“Lord Secretary, there is much churning of people and wild talk about my lord Essex.”
“Yes, Majesty. There is an urgent rumor that he plans to surprise the court and take your person captive. I am aware and have spies in his midst.”
“He would kill a queen!”
“No, Majesty, though he would force you to call Parliament and alter the government.”
“Alter!” The queen was outraged at the top of her voice. “Does he seek to make me a figurehead in my father’s kingdom?”
Cecil’s answer was tongue-in-cheek, but no less true. “He sees the need, Majesty, for you to accept his advice in all things. Chiefly, Your Grace, to have all his enemies arrested and tried.”
“You, Pygmy?” Her voice was soft and the nickname used lovingly.
Cecil nodded. “Me most of all, madam. And many others not loyal to him.”
“This is treason!”
“If he tries to accomplish his aims . . . yes. But the proof must be stark for all the people to see.”
Mary saw the sting of those words in the queen’s hands as they clutched her gown.
“Your Grace, there is more.”
“Christ’s nails and chains! What more could there be?”
“He has sent one of his men with bribing gold to have Richard II played in the Globe this day.”
Elizabeth leapt up and began pacing and thinking aloud: “So that our people of London will think to help him depose me as Boling broke deposed Richard.”
“Tempted, I would say, Majesty. But I have sent a herald through London streets proclaiming Essex and his followers traitors.”
“Call him before the council to explain himself.”
“Your Grace, as chief councilor, I have already summoned him. He replied that he was too ill and refused a physician.”
“Then send my Lord Keeper Edgerton and the Lord Chief Justice to arrest him . . . on a litter if necessary.”
“Majesty, Sir John, your champion, returned to court this morning.”
“They were once friends.” She hesitated. “Send Sir John, as well. Perhaps their old friendship will work to quiet the earl’s hot head.” She added grimly, “Before it is too late.”
Cecil made his limping way to her writing table and laid several parchments upon it. “These are arrest warrants, Your Grace. In addition, I have taken the precaution of doubling the palace guard. Essex has upward of three hundred men under arms.”
The queen rushed to sign all necessary orders, which flew from her hand to Cecil’s.
Mary hastened to John’s rooms and into his bedchamber. He had thrown his dusty travel cloak on the reed floor matting and was warming himself with mulled wine before the fire.
He stood on sight of her, his arms wide. “Did anyone see you?”
She resisted stepping into his welcoming embrace. “John, listen. The palace is seething with news of Essex—”
“What? What has he done?”
“The queen sends for you to help with his arrest.”
“Arrest! It has finally come to that?”
“Arrest will surely follow his appearance before the council.”
They both heard a loud knocking at his antechamber door and a voice announcing John’s summons. “Sir John, you must attend my lord Cecil at once.”
John grabbed up his thigh-high boots warming by the fire.
“Have a care, John.” Mary spoke softly as she watched him grab up his heavy cloak and sword. She stood close and knotted the ties about his neck. “Essex is planning to take the governance of the realm into his hands.” She quickly repeated all that she had heard of Cecil’s news.
John shook his head in disbelief. “He has gone too far. The queen will suffer words against her person, but as he touches her scepter, he is a dead man.”
“He believes all London will rise against Her Majesty if he calls them to it.”
“He was ever overconfident of his own charms.”
She could not help herself. “That is a failing of many men, my love.”
He tilted her chin. “But not true of me,” he whispered, his lips nearly touching hers. “I have charms as yet unused and ready.”
She laughed. With his kiss on her lips, he left, though she thought herself quite impossibly foolish, sending him away to danger with merriment. Yet she knew that was how John wished it.
At the Whitehall Palace water stairs, John joined Lord Keeper Edgerton, the Earl of Worcester and Sir William Knollys, kin to Essex’s mother, in Edgerton’s boat. They were rowed across the Thames to Essex House, the river now unfrozen where a month earlier a frost fair had had half of London gliding about on their bone skates. Even so, jagged ice occasionally swept past as the rowers pulled hard against the incoming tide.
Clutching his heavy cloak about him, John spoke aloud his thoughts. “My lords, we go to a lion’s den. Why could we not bring a heavy guard?”
“Why warn him of an impending arrest when he may come peaceably to answer the council?” Edgerton asked.
John thought there was little chance of that. Were they bait to push Essex into full, flaming rebellion?
John, his heart pounding, stepped from the boat onto the earl’s riverside pier. Essex and his allies, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Christopher Blount and a rabble of followers at his back, came out upon the pier, their swords, primed pistols and dirks drawn. One soldier even pissed his disdain, arching the stream in their direction.
Edgerton, planting his staff of office, said in a very commanding voice, “My lord, lay down your weapons and come at once to the council at court. The queen commands you to obey.”
Knollys added in a choking voice, “Robert, I swear you will be honorably treated.”
John saw a flash of understanding cross the earl’s face as he realized that any resistance put him beyond the aid of either kinsman or friends. Yet it was not in Essex’s nature to hold a sensible thought for very long, especially one that challenged his idea of his own destiny.
With men eager to fight pushing behind him, the earl’s eyes swept the queen’s men and fixed on John. “Et tu, Brute?”
At that moment John knew that Essex thought himself a Caesar and others the traitors. There was no hope for him.
“Take them,” Essex said, and his men swarmed about Edgerton, John, Worcester and Knollys, taking their weapons and tossing them to the ground.
“Kill them,” someone yelled.
“No!” Essex ordered. “We may have need of hostages. Lock them in the library upstairs.”
John, his hands tied with his own cloak, was relieved of his purse by a leering ruffian, then shoved past Essex, who put a hand to his shoulder. “You could have been part of this and had a glorious future in my service.”
John could not answer. How could he respond to a fantasy growing in a man’s mind like a malignant tumor
that took away all space for reality? Rough hands pushing him, John stumbled up the stairs and heard the key turn in the lock. He stalked to the window and looked down on the seething mass of men below.
Essex’s voice carried to the upper floor. “Now we go to free England from those scheming traitors Cecil and Raleigh!” He rushed forward, men crowding behind him.
Edgerton, his face choleric, pushed John aside, uselessly shaking his head at the rabble. “They are madmen.”
“My lord,” John said, “we must get word to the queen that Essex is loose in the streets with a mob at his back, bent on rebellion.”
“We are imprisoned, man.”
John rushed to the door and put his shoulder to it, joined by Knollys, but the heavy oaken planks did not give. John turned his back to Knollys. “Untie me.”
Within minutes he was free, freeing Knollys, who untied the others. He began to fasten their cloaks together to make a rope.
“What is your purpose, Sir John?” Edgerton asked, frowning.
“To stop Essex and warn the queen.” He heaved a chair through the window, shattering the glass, then tied the bulky rope to a heavy table and pushed it against the wall beneath the window.
“The rope’s not long enough,” Knollys announced, catching hold of John’s arm.
John paid no attention, but, standing on the jutting stone sill, tested the rope against his weight, then finally began to lower himself. His feet felt for toeholds on the rough stone, but in the end he jumped well over his own height to the cobbled courtyard below. He felt the sharp pain of his ankle giving way and scraped his knee, but the triumph of being free lessened the hurt.
He hobbled to the pier, but the Lord Keeper’s boat had been cut free and was floating toward London Bridge. He grabbed up his sword and dirk, fortunately left behind on the courtyard stones, and, steeling himself to his ankle pain, moved rapidly toward the Strand. He arrived just in time to see Lady Essex leaving in her carriage, calling from the window, “Good citizens, as you love my lord Essex, rise up and protect him!”
