The ‘great ones’ were come hot-foot from the Court and the Council, and for why? . . . to proclaim the Earl of Essex heir to the English throne – to arrest him on a charge of high treason – to restore him as his sovereign’s favourite – to kneel down at his feet – to make him kneel down at their feet – to have his head – to follow his lead – and so on. Everybody knew why they were there and no one had the faintest idea.
So this wasn’t going to be just another regular day at Essex House, after all, a day of ultimately peaceful turmoil and wild but swallowed words. Most likely, there’d be a few fiery adjectives thrown about before dark but there would also be an abundance of furious action. What I was witnessing here was the final throw of a desperate enterprise. It wasn’t surprising the Essexites were dressed-up. If they were going to succeed they wanted to be well-scrubbed and attired for the occasion. But if it all went wrong, they planned to go to their deaths, as smug as bridegrooms. The trouble was that they might drag me down with them.
Instinct told me to run. I turned round to look at the postern gate by which I’d entered. But escape that way was already blocked. The door was tight shut, barred and guarded. Signor Noti had been joined by a couple of other exquisites, although whether they were stopping anyone else getting in or preventing them getting out was a question I didn’t want to put to the test.
The impressive main gates to the courtyard were guarded by a detachment of halberdiers. We were sealed in, cribbed, cabined and confined. More to the point, I was sealed in.
While I waited on the event, I reckoned it would be less dangerous if I seemed to know what I was doing there. Accordingly, I cast my eyes about with a quietly purposive air, nodding or shaking my head with fervour when addressed and, in general, furrowing my brow while looking grim. There was not much play-acting involved in this pose. I estimated the numbers in the courtyard to be around three hundred or so – as a player, you get used to assessing the size of audiences. And an audience is what we were at this moment, waiting on the main players. There was even a kind of viewing gallery. Above the plumed or bonneted or helmeted or bare or bandaged heads in the courtyard, I saw faces, mostly women’s, crowded at all the windows on the front of the house.
Then a rippling movement passed across the crowd, like a breeze through a field of corn. At the same time the faces at the windows craned forward and downwards to see what was occurring under their noses. There was a stir at the top of the steps which fronted onto the main entrance. A gentleman emerged, followed by a handful of others. They too were in their high-day finery but it was the genuine article, rather than the trumpery items and gaudy apparel worn by most of the crowd below. Among the men on the steps I recognised Henry Wriothesley. But the principal player was Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex himself. Standing a little to his rear was a group of grey beards and white heads, whom I presumed to be the emissaries from Court and Council. For an instant I was gripped by the extravagant hope that these noble individuals had come to an accommodation indoors, so that we might all go home again with swords undrawn and harsh words kept in their sheaths. But a glance at their faces was enough to show that the parley which had taken place inside had, if anything, made the situation worse.
Even from a distance I could see that Essex’s visage was white and taut with strain. His head was thrust forward, with one ear cocked in the direction of a tall, dark man by his side and his eyes scanning a piece of paper which he held in his hand. This was the third time I’d seen Robert Devereux and once again I had the impression of a man who was somehow part-abstracted from his surroundings, for all the drama of the occasion. He reminded me of a player who is going through his motions and mouthing his lines but whose mind is elsewhere – with his wife or his mistress, or distracted by debts and other dolours.
Essex handed the paper to the tall man and then raised his arms, half for quiet, half in acknowledgement. When he started to speak I was surprised by the moderate, almost mild tone of his voice. His words carried to the corner of the yard where I stood but would not have travelled much further. I suppose I’d been expecting a firebrand, a ranter, like the Puritans to whom he gave house room. Of course he’d been sick for much of the previous year, sick in body (and, I could not help thinking, perhaps in mind). Now he appealed to the crowd in the courtyard for help. He said that they, his friends, had been summoned there that morning because he was in grave danger. At this there were murmurs of assent and sympathy, together with some deeper-throated growlings.
Essex continued, more in sorrow than in anger as it seemed to me. “I have been sent for by the Council . . .” Here he paused, almost to encourage the cries of “Refuse them!” and “They betray you!” which swelled up from the crowd. I saw how adeptly he was acting the persecuted man, with his moderate tone and injured words. I started to revise my view of him; if he was a player, then he wasn’t such a bad one. “. . . sent for by the Council, I say. But I mean with the help of my friends to defend myself. It is no offence if a man defend himself with the help of his friends.”
There were cries of “aye!” and “no offence, none”.
“But, my friends, it is only right that you should listen to Lord Keeper Egerton too. He has come with a message for me but I think it right to share it with you.”
There were loud murmurs at this, of which one made not far from me – “He can be the Lord Keeper of my arse” – seemed representative. Essex moved to the side of the little platform at the top of the steps while one of the greybeards stepped forward. I had to remind myself that this individual was a very great man indeed, one of the most powerful in the kingdom. I had to remind myself that this was no playhouse stage, and that these events were being enacted on the stage of the world, where the blood that may flow is real enough (and not the sheep’s blood that we employ in the playhouse), where men’s wounds are often fatal and their words scarcely less dangerous.
When the Lord Keeper spoke, it was with one eye on the crowd. Doubtless he was tailoring his words for us almost as much as he was shaping them for Essex, Southampton and the other principals. This perhaps made him more politic than he would have been in private. Certainly the short dialogue which followed had an almost ‘stagey’ rehearsed quality to it. These men were speaking at each other and to an audience.
“My lord,” Egerton began graciously, “our gracious lady the Queen has sent us to know the causes of your discontents and why you have assembled these men here today.”
“My lord,” Essex replied, “you may tell our gracious lady the Queen that the causes of my discontents and the cause why my friends are assembled here today are so close together that you might not put an hair between them. My discontents are theirs also – and these ‘discontents’, as you please to term them, I think you and the rest of the Council know well.”
“Then you must also know that you have the promise of the Council for a full hearing and justice for any grievances.”
“I know only that my life has been sought by the Council and that I should have been murdered in my bed.”
Essex now spoke in a loud, unsteady voice that was at odds with his earlier more-in-sorrow-than anger speech to us. Lord Keeper Egerton seemed taken aback by the vehemence of the Earl’s words. It was as if Devereux had departed from a play text. Now Egerton repeated the promise that the other’s grievances would be attended to. But Essex’s outburst had broken the relative calm of the beginning of the encounter, and there was a general stirring on the stage at the top of the steps as well as renewed murmuring in the crowd. Another of the greybeards – even more reverend than the Lord Keeper, if that was possible – now took centre stage in an attempt to restore order to the scene. Some wag identified him in my hearing as Popham, “the Lord Chief Injustice”. I couldn’t hear what Popham said but his gesturing was sufficient to show that he meant for all the great ones to step inside the house once again and confer in private. This was too much for many members of the crowd. They’d had enough talk; they craved actio
n. There was some outright shouting, including some from my Italian gateman.
“They will abuse you!”
“They betray you!”
“Cattivi! Cani!”
“You will be undone, my lord!”
“You lose time.”
The Lord Keeper must have realised that the crowd was entirely hostile to him and the other Councillors, and that nothing was to be gained by reason or argument, for then he did a brave thing. He turned to face us and placed his hat back on his head. This seemed to signify that he was no longer making way for little courtesies but was acting now with the full weight of his office. He cried out:
“I command you all upon your allegiance to lay down your weapons and to depart.”
Speaking for myself, I was so willing to comply with the command that I would happily have burrowed in my clothing and laid my little knife at his feet, as if to say “Look at me, a loyal subject of her majesty.” But my companions in the courtyard, after taking a moment to taste the seriousness of Egerton’s words and not liking their flavour, proceeded to spit them out again. At the same time Essex replaced his hat on his head (as if this was a signal that hostilities were now to be resumed), spun round on his heel and marched back into his house. He was followed by the others, both the emissaries of the Queen and his own group. From the yard came cries of “Kill them!” and “Throw them out the window!” Signor Noti was particularly vocal in demanding instant death, as befitted his nation and his temperament.
Well, I thought, this will make a fine tale to tell my grandchildren one day – of how I once kept distant company with Earls and Keepers of the Great Seal and the like, and was present at the unfolding of great affairs of state – that’s to say, if I lived long enough to sire the children who’d produce the grandchildren. At the moment this appeared doubtful. The mood in the courtyard was grim. Rapiers were being flexed, fingers pricked with dagger points.
I was right in my belief that no further indoors parley was intended for, within the space of a few minutes, Essex and Southampton reappeared on the steps in the company of some of his own gentlemen but without the Queen’s men. At first I thought that they might have been murdered inside the house but, although there was a look of resolution on the rebels’ faces, there was as yet no mark of bloody desperation about them. Whatever had happened to the Keeper and the Chief Injustice was probably no worse than involuntary confinement. The first shots had still to be fired in this battle. What had occurred so far was a shadow-play, a dumb-show.
Now everything happened very fast. Essex made a sign to the commander of the halberdiers and then he and Southampton with their retinue made towards the main gates. The crowd didn’t know whether to accompany them or to make way for them and, in the ensuing confusion, I found myself carried forward and then almost thrown against Henry Wriothesley.
“Mercury, you are here,” he said, grasping at my arm in the middle of the press. Absurdly, he sounded to my ears pleased to see me.
“My lord,” I said equally absurdly, as if we were meeting back-stage.
We were forced forward together by the squeezing of the crowd at our heels and shoulders. By this time the main gates had been opened and the whole company gushed out into the Strand. I’m not a military man but if there was an instant when the Essexites were vulnerable it was surely as they – we – were pouring into the public highway, confined between the gateposts and in disarray. But when I looked round the Strand, across which fell the thin sun of a winter morning, I saw only a few stragglers and a more disciplined group dressed in livery who were, I presumed, the abandoned attendants of the Lord Keeper.
I began to think that, if the authorities were so remiss as to despatch their greatest emissaries with only a handful of unarmed servants, then they were too sleepy, too secure. Where was Robert Cecil’s famous foreknowledge? What price Nemo’s machinations now?
I was still next to the Earl of Southampton.
“Is this your fight, Mercury, or do you come with another message from the playwright?”
“Neither,” I said, unthinking – or not wanting to be associated with this dangerous tide of men. In fact, I planned to take to my heels as soon as I spotted a convenient bend or corner.
“Then what are you doing here? This is a dangerous place, a dangerous time.”
He looked hard at me as he said these words, with the Essexites milling all about us, shouting and crying, clasping each others’ hands, leaning against one another like drunkards, brandishing swords and daggers so that they flashed in the sun. For some reason I felt disinclined to lie to Southampton – or maybe it was that I simply couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I – I am here as a witness.”
“Yes,” he said, seeming to accept what I said (which was, after all, a version of the truth and preferable to saying I was a spy). “A witness. We shall have need of those. In how many ages hence will this scene be acted over? How often shall we be called the restorers of our country’s liberty? Yes, we shall have need of witnesses.”
It was alarming that my innocent fragment of truth was being taken so seriously.
“Keep close to me, Mercury. I may need you during the day.”
This was the last thing I wanted to hear. It would make slipping away more difficult. It would make slipping away look like desertion or betrayal. Then I thought that if I lived through this tumultuous day, if I survived this fraught hour, I would indeed have something to report to those grandchildren of mine. More to the point, I would have a great deal to tell Nemo and so earn his eternal gratitude – or at least gratitude enough to get me out of the hole I appeared to have dug for myself in this respect, and maybe enough to help protect the Chamberlain’s into the bargain.
On the other hand, if fickle fortune favoured Essex and his followers, I’d be well placed to do . . . who knew what? Just well placed.
I’m faintly ashamed now to confess to these thoughts, which flashed through my mind incoherently, and in a fraction of the time it takes to read them. My main idea was still to get away, or if that was impossible to keep my head well down.
Where was the Earl of Essex during this period? He must have been at the edge of the group because there was a sudden surge to the right – that is to the east. Southampton moved through the press to rejoin his leader, urging me to accompany him. I might have broken away altogether at this point but it isn’t easy to extricate yourself from a moving mass, or at least to move in the opposite direction. Besides, I felt a strange reluctance to abandon Wriothesley. I reasoned that we had not yet come to harm, and that it would be prudent to float on this stream for the time being – or if not prudent then less dangerous than attempting to swim against it. I tried to make my way after Southampton but without being in any great hurry to catch him up, if you see what I mean.
Thus we moved eastwards down the Strand and past Temple Bar, tramping and swinging all the while through mud and puddles with the indifference of children who have their minds on greater things and who forget their mothers’ scoldings. While we were in the early stages of our march, Signor Noti strode along the edges of the company, urging us on with extravagant gestures and shouts of “Avanti!” and other incomprehensible foreignisms. I could not rid my mind of the thought: so this is what it is to be part (albeit an unwilling part) of a head, a rising, an insurrection! History’s smithy was hot. Great works were being beaten out in her forge, were they not? I wondered whether these scenes would be enacted, as Henry Wriothesley had claimed, in centuries yet to come. I wondered whether other great happenings – such as the assassination of Julius Caesar, or the fall of the noble town of Troy – had proceeded in this lame-brain, ragtag, half-meant fashion. Somehow I doubted it.
Now it was not so far from mid-morning and the sun beat on our heads with an unseasonable fierceness. There were some questions, shouted and whispered, about our destination. We were heading for the City but no one seemed to know exactly where we were going. And where were the cheering c
rowds, the faces packed at the windows, the supporters waiting to be picked up on the way? All the noise and the eagerness were coming from the few hundred of us who were streaming along, and not from the bystanders, of whom there were only a few – and those few seeming rather to be baffled than enthusiastic. As we passed between St Dunstan’s and Temple Church, the number of watchers was swelled by men and women exiting the churches. But, as far as I could judge from my position at the edge of the throng, they were gazing at us with surprise or shock, as if we were a party of apprentice boys. Believe me when I say that I took care to shout or at least to talk loud in support of the rowdy company in which I found myself, at the same time as holding in reserve an expression of scepticism, of distance, should it be required.
This was the strangest journey I’d ever been on, I thought. Then I remembered that only a couple of days earlier I’d walked half a mile with a dead man on my back.
There were more people on the street at the bottom of Ludgate Hill, where the slope had the effect of compressing and slowing us down, but they avoided meeting our eyes or, if they did, regarded us with outright fear and hostility. I noticed one or two mothers actually snatched up their little children and cradled them to their breasts or turned their faces to the wall. I glimpsed doors being hastily shut. If the Essexites hadn’t been so wrapped up in their own cause, if they hadn’t still been making a fair amount of noise about it, they might have noticed the dead silence of the streets.
Once we’d penetrated the City walls through Lud Gate it became known by some strange, unspoken process that our destination was St Pauls. The great churchyard is the heart, or navel, of the City, and on weekdays is crowded with humanity of all shapes, mostly crooked ones. Fertile ground for the rearing of a head, perhaps. But on the Sabbath a pallid respectability establishes itself briefly over the area. If Essex’s hope was that he would find the Sunday congregation just emerging and rather more ready to listen to his address than to a sermon, he was almost certainly too late. The morning service must have been finished some time since. In any case the silent streets and the barred doors smacked to me of the hand of the authorities.
Death of Kings Page 19
