—Elizabeth Regina
Lammas Day
August 1, 1599
John Harington sat in his Dublin quarters, his windows open to a full moon and night breezes, his shirt damp and unlaced to his breeches, writing by candlelight. My sweetest girl, he began, then scratched it out, making a large blot of the effort. He crumpled the sheet and pulled another to him. He would be himself and not some love-sick lad mooning after the village beauty. He dipped his quill into the lampblack.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, he began again, and then grinned at the inky words from the child’s rhyme that were so fitting, though he didn’t wish Mary, queen of Scots’ final fate on his own Mistress Mary. He hoped the greeting would raise her temper enough to scold him by return dispatch far sooner than any sugary words. Even at this distance, across the Irish Sea and a good three days’ hard ride beyond to London, he felt her presence in the room. It was the sense of her upturned, lovely young face and dark eyes all about him that he had carried through the Irish campaign. After Essex had led them on three months of fruitless marching about the countryside subduing minor lords, who surrendered easily and then re-formed their troops behind the English, they had arrived back in Dublin. Half their army had been left behind to garrison small outposts, or as casualties of skirmishes, sickness and desertion. They had failed.
John knew that the queen must be wildly unhappy, because Essex raged after reading each one of her long letters. The earl paced his headquarters, railing at her woman’s lack of understanding military matters, but in truth, John knew, Essex could no longer see the main purpose that had been the queen’s command. Subduing Tyrone with depleted forces was now almost impossible without a miracle, and there were damned few miracles to be found in Ireland.
John pulled the candle closer, it being near eleven and full dark at last. Pleased again by his greeting on the page before him, he began to write:
I have received no recent word from you, though I expected to see a letter waiting for me on my return to Dublin. Now I eagerly await each London pouch, sweetheart. I dare call you that because I’m a soldier and familiar with bold advances, though not in this campaign.
There is no need to tell you of our lack of success, as I’m certain the queen has made our situation clear in very many loud, hard words heard by all. What you have not heard, because none can see into my heart, is how much I long to see you, to make my petition to the queen and to your grandfather. Do I presume your assent? Am I right that you return my feelings? That last day in the maze your kiss and concern for my safety told me all I needed to know. Perhaps not all, but the rest awaits another day . . . or another dream.
Though my cavalry led the charge into every skirmish, I have ridden through half of Ireland without injury, yet I carried a bursting heart over every field and hedge.
He looked up from the letter and out the window. A horse and rider had clattered to a stop at his door. He knew he must hurry if he were to add this letter to the next dispatches for London.
You wrote that, despite your grandfather’s prohibition, you were reading my translation of Orlando Furioso and did like it quite well and, better, did not pick apart my words. That pleases any author.
Readers like my books.
Yet other writers cannot them digest.
But what care I for when I make a feast,
I would my guests should praise me, not the cooks.
Yes, another of my epigrams, though one made just for your eyes.
Essex tells me with some pleasure that the queen will offer you to one of her Howard cousins. I cannot believe my godmother would force you to marry. She often has hidden purposes for her promises and as often changes her mind. When I return, I will plead with her. That leaves your grandfather, Sir William. There I take heart. If you disobey your grandsire by reading my Orlando, I can hope you will disobey again and consent to marry me. I have found in you the qualities of mind and spirit that I would have by my side for a lifetime. Only with you am I become the man I always hoped to be and, I hope, the man you want me to be. . . .
He heard a heavy tread upon the stairs and loud knocking, happy for the interruption before his letter took a loftier, even begging tone that would embarrass him as soon as it was in the dispatch pouch and beyond recall.
The messenger knocked again. “Sir John, my lord of Essex requires your attendance at his headquarters. At once, sir.”
He thought of several true endings to his letter . . . how his last thought of the day was of her and how he saw her in every dark-haired proud Irish beauty. He wrote neither, hastily signing the letter:
John Harington, Knight
He dripped hot wax on the folded sheet. Pressing into it his signet ring, he sealed it from other eyes and slipped it into his doublet.
A fast ride through narrow Dublin streets brought him to Essex on the outskirts. His Lordship paced the great hall of the manor he’d commandeered, alternately depressed and loudly outraged. As John waited to hear why he had been summoned, Essex dismissed his officers in the room, except for the Earl of Southampton.
“This is insupportable!”
Southampton, a man with the body of a stripling and a round lady-face, nodded sympathetically. “You bear the burden of too many slurs, Robert.”
Essex slammed a dispatch into John’s hand. “Read this and you will see what my enemies in the council—especially that God be-damned Raleigh and Cecil—have done to my reputation while I am on Her Majesty’s business, at risk of my health and very life.”
John immediately recognized the queen’s beautiful, flowing script in the close-written lines. Reading quickly, he saw in a minute that the queen’s sarcasm and fury were on full display. Her Majesty said plainly that Essex had accomplished little and at great cost, without taking one major rebel prisoner. It was clear that she blamed him and accepted none of his many reasons or excuses. She ordered him to march north and attack Tyrone at once and not to return until it was done. We do charge you, as you tender our pleasure, that you adventure not to come out of that kingdom without our warrant.
“Do you see,” Essex yelled loud enough to be heard in adjoining rooms, “how petticoat generals have little understanding of war and no care for my health?”
John remained silent. Essex didn’t expect an answer to his question. He assumed agreement. All the queen wrote was true, but Essex was livid because she would not agree to his many reasons for inaction and his desire to come back to court. He certainly did not call it failure, or blame himself.
Despite long acquaintance, John was a little shocked by the earl’s recklessness. Surely the queen had her private correspondents in this camp, and if she didn’t, Robert Cecil surely had. Was Essex so certain that he was still protected by the queen’s love? Was he so blinded by pride that he couldn’t see he’d whittled away at her affection by using her forgiveness too many times? Perhaps Mary had been right and Essex was a little mad. His next words confirmed Mary’s opinion.
“By heaven, I’ll take the army and march across England to the queen. I’ll remove my enemies Cecil and his friends to the Tower. Then the queen will act as I wish!”
John bowed and went to the door before he heard too much. It was treason to listen to treason, and someone surely was listening at this moment. Yet he had to try to reach Essex’s rational mind for one last time. “I beg you, my lord, think long before you take troops against the queen or say such aloud. That means you lead a civil war against the state and Her Majesty’s rule.” With no hesitation, though John knew that he made a firm enemy with the words, he added, “I can never join in such a scheme.”
Essex glared at him, then seemed to gain some control and veer away from rashness. “We will march into Ulster against Tyrone,” he shouted at Southampton. “If I am killed, she will be satisfied at last!”
Later that night, Essex, sleepless and distraught, walked among his snoring troops by torchlight. On his command, John followed behind him, fearing his mood. A man who though
t himself conspired against was capable of any rash action.
It was near dawn before action came. Essex ordered a select force to set out as a diversion to draw forces away from Tyrone.
“Send me to lead them, my lord,” John begged, preferring battle where he could face a real enemy than to watch this lord slowly lose his senses to inner demons.
“No, John, despite your opposition to my will, there are few men I can trust as I can trust you. I want you beside me.”
“My lord,” John said, bowing, amazed that Essex, who forgave no slight, had granted him so quick a pardon. Did Essex merely want to witness the death of the man who had taken a desired woman and refused to follow him into England? Essex had ever been impetuous, but not murderous. Though past behavior might not predict the future with this man who grew more reckless by the day.
At Nonsuch, the queen’s fairy-tale castle her father had built south of London, Mary had withdrawn to the antechamber with the other ladies. She busied herself with folding and refolding her gowns, which now numbered a dozen, trying to ignore the raised voice she heard from inside the queen’s privy chamber.
“One thousand pounds a day?” Elizabeth shouted. “God’s wounds! One thousand!”
Lady Warwick shepherded several whispering ladies away from the door, but not before everyone heard the queen’s words.
“Pygmy, does the Earl of Essex seek to go on a leisure trip through Ireland? He will bankrupt our treasury.”
“Majesty, it appears so,” said Raleigh, also with the queen and always ready to criticize his enemy when the queen was agreeable.
Though Essex was Robert Cecil’s open adversary and had been since they were boys together, Cecil spoke in his usual moderate voice. “Indeed, Majesty, there are great problems with this venture.” He paused. “Now the earl seeks two thousand additional troops. It seems that the diversionary force of horse he sent into Connaught was caught crossing a bog and slaughtered to a man.”
Mary’s hand went to her mouth to stifle the cry that had risen to her throat. Oh, sweet Lord, she begged, not John. Tell me it wasn’t John.
Cecil spoke. “I’m sorry to say that reports of Sir Conyers Clif ford’s death accompany the news.”
“A good and loyal man,” Raleigh added.
Mary stumbled back to sit upon her bed, dizzy with relief and for the first time made aware that her feelings for John had not been buried as deep as she hoped, nor had she hidden them from Lady Anne, who was staring at her.
The queen, in her inner chamber, exploded. “Good men and goodly treasure! And for what?”
“It seems that Ireland has defeated us again, Majesty,” Cecil said, though in a tentative voice.
“Never,” Elizabeth answered, and Mary could hear Her Majesty’s feet stamping about her privy chamber and imagined her with her sword in hand.
“Your Grace, there is some good news.” It was Cecil again. “My correspondents do tell me that His Lordship the earl makes preparations for an immediate march against Tyrone.”
“At last we take the field, Your Grace,” Raleigh echoed.
The queen was silent; then, in a lower voice but one all could hear, she said, “Cecil, tell him his queen orders him to take all care for his life.”
“At once, Majesty.”
Mary could easily imagine the thoughts behind Cecil’s calm face and Raleigh’s jealous one. The queen was pulled in two ways, one by her desire to conquer an unruly part of her realm, the other by her remaining fondness for a wild boy bequeathed to her by her Robin. How long could she overlook that the boy was now a powerful and dangerous man with an army behind him?
Lady Warwick answered a knock on the outer chamber door and accepted a letter from a courier. She looked at it, turned it over to observe the seal and frowned. Mary stepped forward without planning to do so.
“From Dublin for you, mistress,” Warwick said, holding the folded letter out to her.
Lady Margaret and the other ladies gathered round, but Mary slipped it into her kirtle, to their murmured dismay. When her duties were finished, she would go alone to a quiet place to read it unobserved, not here, where too many curious eyes watched.
Shortly, with all pomp, pounding kettledrums and trumpets, the queen marched through her palace to the presence chamber to hear the day’s petitioners. Mary walked at the rear of the ladies, having the lowest position among them, though courtiers were bowing as she passed, followed by red-coated yeomen guards. As she moved forward to take her place behind the throne, she felt John’s letter caressing her breast.
The presence chamber was filled with baskets of gilded fruit and draped with garlands of fresh flowers woven on cedar bark to mask the aroma of a summer palace crowded with people. Nonetheless, Elizabeth often raised her pomander.
Cecil announced the first petitioner. “Majesty, Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, craves audience.”
After some hesitation, the queen raised her hand in assent. “My lord, the peers of our realm are always welcome in our court.”
Mary shifted to see him better. Lady Katherine’s husband. The brave and handsome man who had kept her heart for a lifetime, whose name, not her hope for heaven, was the last word to pass her lips before a gush of blood from her corrupted lungs ended her breath and earthly troubles.
The now elderly earl approached slowly, using a stick to steady himself, and knelt, wincing when his bad leg settled on the unyielding marble floor.
“Your wounded leg should not rest on the cold floor. Rise, my lord.”
“My thanks for your kindness, Majesty,” Lord Edward said, standing.
His face was lined but still fine-featured, his gray beard streaked with the lighter color it had once been, and, with obvious effort, he kept his back straight.
Mary moved again to better see the queen. Hertford was part of an unattractive episode of Elizabeth’s reign, a reminder that she had separated her close cousin, Lady Katherine Grey, from her husband and sons until her death. The aged earl also was a reminder, and perhaps the worst one, of what her magnificent gown and jewels could not veil. Her own youth was now as much a memory as the earl’s young love.
“We always have a care for our old soldiers, my lord earl,” the queen said, raising her black silk-and-ivory fan.
Mary appreciated the way it matched Her Majesty’s black-and-white gown and tall crowned hat brimmed in the latest fashion. Chains of alternating black and white pearls wound round her neck, waist and wrists. No one could mistake the symbolism, for the colors were the universal symbol of virginity.
Edward opened a velvet-lined box containing a large and most perfect rare black pearl that shone from its core like a ripe grape penetrated by sunlight. He held it up to her, his head bowed. “This poor gift is the twin of the one I presented to Your Majesty on my first night in court. It is my hope, Your Grace, that you will accept this as a token of my love and obedience.” He looked up as the queen removed the box from his hand.
“We thank you, my lord earl.” She said nothing more, handing the box to Lady Warwick. Hertford looked disappointed, though she gave him a gracious nod of appreciation.
He shifted, leaning into his cane. “Your Grace, I have come to petition for my sons, Edward and William, both men now with sons of their own. I beg you to grant them legitimacy.” He attempted to hand her a written petition, but Elizabeth motioned for Cecil to receive it.
“My lord of Hertford, we will study your petition when it is accompanied by the marriage contract which proves your sons’ legitimacy. It is God’s ordinance that makes sons legitimate and not among our earthly powers. You petitioned us not five years ago and, long before that, spent some time in the Tower for that impertinence. Do not think that your age saves you from another visit.”
Hertford sagged on his stick, and Mary was afraid he would collapse. A gentleman usher stepped forward to add support and began to lead Hertford away. But the earl, with courage to spare, spoke again. “As Your Majesty wishes, but I beg you
to grant me one request. I would remove Kate’s body for burial at my manor of Eltham . . . for my boys’ sakes.”
There was no pity on the queen’s face that Mary could see as she motioned the usher to lead the earl away. Elizabeth’s fear of conspiring claimants to her throne was stronger as she approached her end than it had been long years ago, when she had sent Kate and Edward to the Tower.
Elizabeth stood, signaling that she would hear no more petitions that day, and they all returned to the queen’s privy chamber, where Cecil’s secretary waited with fresh news from Ireland.
“Is the battle won?” the queen asked, her body sagging with a fatigue she would not acknowledge.
Cecil scanned the dispatch and handed it to Elizabeth without a word. In seconds, the queen exploded in anger. “A truce until May! What accomplished? All my treasure and good English blood gone for naught! Tyrone has walked away from a dozen such truces.” Her face as red as her lips, the queen seemed to weaken and sat suddenly at her writing table.
“A little wine for Her Majesty,” Cecil called, and Mary responded quickly, presenting the glass on her knees.
Elizabeth took it with a hand she’d made steady with her great will, and sipped, hiding her face.
She lowered the glass. “My Lord Secretary,” the queen said, holding up the dispatch, “we will discuss this further with you in the council chamber at three of the clock, but we do not mean to ignore this disobedience by Lord Essex; indeed, we dare not.”
Cecil and his messenger bowed and backed away.
Lady Warwick motioned the ladies to withdraw and they all walked quickly into the antechamber, leaving the door slightly ajar to listen for the queen’s call.
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