Queen of This Realm

by Jean Plaidy

  “Very well,” I answered tartly, “with your new wife. Very well indeed until the she-wolf shows her fangs.”

  He looked at me sadly.

  “How could you, Robin? How could you so deceive me?”

  “You gave me no hope. You showed your preference so clearly for the Frenchman.”

  “Robert… you fool! You know why, don't you?”

  “I wanted a son. I could not go on… hoping. I had realized after all these years that my hopes would never come to anything.”

  “We belong together,” I said, “you and I. Nothing can alter that … nothing … no one can come between us. Whatever happens, you know that.”

  He nodded.

  “We have been through much together,” I went on. “We are part of England. Your life and mine are interwoven. So will it ever be…”

  “I know. That is why I could not bear that you should spurn me.”

  “You should have thought what my feelings would be before you took this disastrous step.”

  “You would not have me. You had wounded me deeply with that simpering Frenchman.”

  “You know why. You are a fool…a jealous fool.”

  “I admit it.”

  “I command you now to get well. You shall…in time… come back to Court.”

  “My dearest Majesty…”

  I felt my face harden. “You …” I said firmly. “You… alone. I never want to look again into the face of that she-wolf.”

  So in a very short time there was reconciliation between us. I had accepted the fact that he was married; but I promised myself that Lettice Knollys should be denied the Court for as long as I ruled over it.

  POLITICAL EVENTS WERE taking a serious turn. We could not afford to keep Anjou dangling indefinitely. The Treaty of Nerac had been signed, which meant that there was an end to the religious wars that had kept France busy for so long, and therefore the French were now free to take action elsewhere. We must be careful not to offend them. Our eyes were still on the Netherlands; moreover, the King of Portugal had died without issue and Spain was on the point of taking over its close neighbor, which would make it more powerful than ever.

  “We must in no way alienate the French at this time,” said Burghley. “We cannot go on putting off the marriage. Your Majesty must make a decision and if you have no intention of marrying, it would be better to go no farther in this.”

  “And incur the wrath of the Queen Mother and the whole of France as well as my little Anjou! Would that be wise?”

  “Wiser than doing it later. So unless Your Majesty has decided that you will indeed marry, perhaps we should be considering how best to break off negotiations.”

  “This matter may be left in my hands. Let us make ready to welcome the Duc d'Anjou.”

  They were all convinced that I intended to marry my little French Prince. Simier was delighted with his success and word was sent at once to the Duc and the Queen Mother that I was all impatience to see my lover.

  I was expecting the worst. The reports I had heard of him were not encouraging. I knew that he was disfigured by the smallpox for I had corresponded with his mother concerning remedial lotions. I knew that he was small and ugly. At Court they were asking themselves how I, who had always been so impressed by good looks, could tolerate such a creature.

  When I saw him I was rather touched. It was true that he was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. He was of exceptionally low stature and I admired tall men; his skin was hideously pockmarked—the elixirs, in spite of his mother's protestations, had been ineffective—and in addition to ruining his skin, the disease had worked its mischief on his nose so that it appeared to be split in the middle, and as it had from his birth been long, it hung down over his mouth. He reminded me of nothing so much as a little frog.

  To compensate this he had the most beautiful manners I had ever known; he bowed gracefully and appeared to shrug aside his unprepossessing appearance as though he were unaware of it, and that made one forget it for long periods of time. His conversation was brilliant, for he was quite erudite, and to my astonishment I found myself enjoying his company. I was sure we looked incongruous together—he, so much smaller than I, looking up at me with that sophisticated adoration at which the French are so accomplished, and which made the compliments of my own men seem rather gauche.

  So having been prepared for his ugliness I was not entirely displeased with my French Prince. I quickly christened him Little Frog, a term which amused him; and I had a brooch made in the shape of a frog. It glittered with diamonds and precious stones and I allowed him to pin it on me; and every time we met he would look for it and smile with satisfaction to see it prominently displayed.

  My ministers were often in a state of exasperation. I dallied with the young Prince. I kept him at my side. I showed my pleasure in his company. Perhaps shrewd Burghley guessed that I was still smarting from Robert's behavior. However I prepared myself to enjoy the attentions of my little Frog Prince.

  I never for one moment lost sight of the danger of the situation or that to offend the French could be disastrous for England. We had our spies in Spain and I was well aware what a deadly enemy Philip was. He had connived at plots to murder me; indeed he had given his full support to them. If he moved into the Netherlands, he would have no difficulty in bringing his armies across the Low Countries and from there it was an easy step to England. I had concentrated on the building of my Navy but I knew that it could not stand up against the might of Spain. Burghley had no need to point out to me that it was imperative that we did not affront France. If it were not for the fact that they hoped to see the Duc d'Anjou King of England, they might even attempt to land in Scotland, gather together disgruntled Catholics and march to free Mary of Scotland.

  Dangers beset me on all sides and so much depended on how long I could go on playing the game of courtship with the Frog Prince, thereby holding the French at bay and giving the Spaniards qualms at the prospect of a strong alliance between France and England.

  Even those ministers who respected my shrewdness and knew that I was as capable as anyone alive of playing a devious game, wondered how I could go on holding off my little Frog.

  Fortunately this visit was to be a brief one of twelve days. Later he would come again, of course, and then there would be no excuse for delay—but I should have to find one.

  My behavior with him—our tender gestures, our lovesick looks—those of mine no less than his—had convinced many people that there was going to be a marriage. Burghley, Bacon and such men in my close counsels knew that I was not going to marry, but the rest of the country believed I would. It was necessary that they should, for no indication must reach the French Court—and their spies in England were numerous—that my intentions were otherwise.

  My subjects showed their great aversion to the match; and this was one of the rare occasions when I was angry with them. They seemed to think that I had been bemused by this ugly little Frenchman and that our union would be ridiculous since I was old enough to be his mother. As if I did not know that! They seemed to be of the opinion that I was a silly old woman who sought to be loved by a young man. And all the time I was pretending to consider marriage to save plunging them and my realm into war. Oh, I am not pretending that I did not relish the flattery, the extravagant manifestations of the great passion I inspired; I will not even say that I did not sometimes let myself believe in them. I had to, to play my part convincingly; and I did it for England. I never had intended to marry any man—not even Robert; and that decision stood firm. At the same time I dared not let our enemies guess that I was engaged in a piece of diplomacy.

  I was, therefore, very angry when a pamphlet was brought to my notice. This had been written by a certain John Stubbs, a Protestant and puritan, a learned young man who had graduated from Cambridge. His intense fear and hatred of the Catholics was apparent, but I knew that he was expressing the views of others—perhaps more influential than himself—and the fact that I was being
so misunderstood and could do nothing to correct the people's views of me infuriated me.

  The title of the pamphlet was The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French Marriage if the Lord forbid not the Banes by letting Her Majestie see the sin and punishment thereof.

  There was nothing disloyal to me in the pamphlet; indeed Stubbs's character emerged as most loyal; he had merely allowed his hatred of Catholicism and the French to overcome his common sense. He saw in the proposed marriage the very foundations of our country being destroyed and to quote him “Our dear Queen Elizabeth led blindfold as a poor lamb to the slaughter.”

  To hear myself described as a poor lamb led to the slaughter was more than I could bear. When I thought of how, since my accession, I had kept my country out of war, how I had served my people with unswerving devotion—and then to be thought of as a poor lovesick fool, for foolish a woman must be in her mid-forties to imagine a young man in love with her, splendid as she may be and ugly as he was—I was very angry.

  I read more of the pamphlet which went on to say that I was too old for childbearing and to stress the state of health which prevailed in the Valois line. It was God's punishment on their flesh and bones for the lives of debauchery they had led. He finished by praying to Heaven to give me honorable and long sovereignty over my people with no ruling commander— especially the French Monsieur.

  I could not accuse him of disloyalty to me, but his references to my age and the implication that I had been deluded, as some foolish girl might be, by the blandishments of a practiced libertine, set my anger simmering.

  Stubbs, his printer and his publisher were brought to trial for publishing a seditious libel. They were found guilty and sentenced to that punishment which my sister had introduced when there was so much written about her marriage to Philip of Spain. It was that the guilty man's right hand should be struck off.

  It was a cruel sentence and I deplored it; yet I could not control my wrath.

  The printer was pardoned. He had merely printed what he had been given to print. It was different with the writer and the publisher.

  I shall never forget that November day. It fills me with shame even now, and I knew as soon as it happened that I should have stopped it; I should have done so if it had not been for the ridicule I fancied the man had heaped upon me while I was striving all the time to do what was best for my country. Alas, my fury was not calmed in sufficient time.

  So those two men—Stubbs and Page the publisher—were brought out from the Tower wherein they had been kept, to a scaffold which had been set up before the Palace of Westminster. There was a vast crowd to see the sentence carried out. I was sure that everyone in that crowd must have expected a last-minute message to stop the barbarity which was about to be performed on two good men.

  But it did not come. First Page's hand and then that of Stubbs were struck off with a cleaver driven through the wrist with a beetle; and the wound seared with a hot iron. Page cried out: “I have left there the hand of a true Englishman”; and Stubbs said: “God save Queen Elizabeth.” Then both men fell fainting to the ground.

  When the news of how bravely they had met their punishment was brought to me, I was overcome with remorse for I knew that it should never have happened. I could have lost my subjects' esteem even more than I was in danger of doing through the proposed marriage. They might think me foolish to be bemused by an ugly little Prince, but they would still love me; they would feel very differently about an act of cruelty.

  When I was furious with myself it was one of my less pleasant traits to try to blame someone else. I sent for Walsingham and asked him why he had not discovered that the pamphlet was about to be published. Did he have a secret service or not? How could he have failed to suppress it?

  Walsingham was not a man to mince his words—unlike most around me. I think he was too sure of my need of him—as was Burghley. He more or less implied that he had known the pamphlet was about to be produced and he agreed with the sentiments expressed in it.

  I was angry with him and told him maliciously that he should prepare to leave for France because he should be one of those whose duty it was to bring about negotiations for the marriage.

  The next criticism came from none other than Philip Sidney. I could scarcely believe the young jackanapes had had the temerity to write to me in such terms. But he was a bold young man—quiet, serious and clever, and he was, after all, Robert's nephew. He wrote:

  “How the hearts of your people will be galled, if not alienated, when they shall see you take a husband, a Frenchman and a papist in whom the very common people know this, that he is the son of the Jezebel of our age—that his brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to massacre our brothers in religion…”

  I knew how strongly Philip Sidney felt about the massacre which had occurred on the Eve of St Bartholomew for he had been in Paris at the time. He was a Protestant and must have lived in terror during that terrible time, English though he was and therefore aloof from the quarrels of Frenchmen.

  “As long as he is Monsieur in might and a papist in profession, he neither can nor will greatly shield you, and if he grow to be a king, his defense will be like that of Ajax's shield which rather weighed down than defended those that bore it.”

  Wearily I tossed the letter aside. I wondered if Robert had seen it. Robert was against the marriage, of course. He would see his power greatly diminished if I took a husband. But you, my sweet Robin, I thought sadly, though back in favor will never be quite so close to me again now that you have taken that she-wolf to wife.

  What should I do to Philip Sidney? I could not cut off his right hand.

  The impertinent young fellow should be sent abroad for a while. I did not want to see him for some time. Perhaps in due course he would realize— as all my subjects might—that I was flirting so outrageously with the Frog Prince to prevent their being plunged into war.

  WHEN I HEARD that Robert had a son my feelings were mixed. At first I rejoiced, for I knew that it was what he had longed for. What man does not want to see himself reproduced? Robert was no exception. I heard that there was great rejoicing at Leicester House and that a special cradle had been made for the child and it was draped with the most costly crimson velvet. It would be very splendid as everything was in Leicester House—and in every residence of Robert's.

  I remembered when he had acquired Leicester House. It was about ten years before. The house was situated on the Strand and the gardens which ran down to the river were very beautiful. Many a time Robert and I had strolled among the flower beds to where the water lapped the privy steps and we had watched the craft sail along the river.

  Then I imagined her there—the she-wolf—proud with the son she had produced. How like her to get a son! And so soon after the marriage! I could picture her smug, triumphant face with those magnificent eyes demanding admiration. And when I thought of her I was so angry that all my pleasure in Robert's triumph disappeared. I should have been the mother of his child. I could have been… but at what cost! My independence! My sovereignty! They were my life. I could never have given them up—not even for the satisfaction Lettice was enjoying now.

  And where was he? Was he in attendance on the Queen? Indeed not! He was preening himself as the proud father at Leicester House.

  The Countess of Leicester indeed! I heard she gave herself airs. She had her own little court at Leicester House…at Wanstead…at Denbigh… at Kenilworth… wherever they happened to be. And how had he acquired his wealth and fine houses? Through his Queen. I had given him everything … and here I was alone … childless while that she-wolf sat in triumphant state.

  Thinking of that newly born child my thoughts returned to another. It was at Kenilworth that I had seen that child who bore a remarkable resemblance to Robert.

  Douglass Sheffield! What was that story? He had married Douglass, so Douglass was reported to have said. Robert, of course, denied that there had
been a marriage. But there was the child.

  Just suppose there had been a marriage. Then Madam Lettice would not in truth be Leicester's wife and the little boy of whom they were so proud in his crimson velvet cradle would be a bastard.

  The thought soothed me. I sent for Sussex.

  When he arrived I said I was a little anxious about Lady Sheffield. I had heard that she was suffering from a mysterious illness. What did he know of her?

  Sussex replied: “Your Majesty need have no anxiety about the lady now. She was ill—mysteriously ill, indeed some thought that she might have been poisoned—but she has recovered miraculously and is now Lady Stafford. She married Sir Edward Stafford and they appear to be living very happily together.”

  “I am glad that she recovered, but was she not said to have made a previous marriage?”

  Sussex knew very well that I was aware of the scandals concerning Lady Stafford. Naturally I would be, as they concerned Robert.

  “Life has worked out very satisfactorily for her now,” began Sussex.

  “That may be, but if she were in fact previously married and her husband is still living, she cannot be married to Stafford.”

  Sussex looked perplexed and I went on: “I want you to look into this matter.”

  He was still bewildered. “Your Majesty will remember that the lady claimed to have been married to the Earl of Leicester.”

  “I do remember it,” I said, “and if this is indeed true, my Lord Leicester must return to his true wedded wife.”

  “But Leicester—”

  “He has gone through a form of marriage with the Countess of Essex, yes; but if he was really wed to Douglass Sheffield, the marriage to Lady Essex is no marriage at all, and if it can be proved that he was married to Lady Sheffield, he shall return to her.” My calm deserted me and I shouted: “They shall live together or…he can rot in the Tower.”

  Sussex regarded me with dismay. I had betrayed myself, but I did not care. All I wanted was revenge on Lettice Knollys.

  I INSISTED THAT there must be an inquiry. Lady Stafford must be questioned and I would be present at the examination. Sussex was against it. He was one of the very few men in my Court who dared go against me and he had exasperated me many times. I had raged against him, called him an idiot, told him he ought to be banished from Court. All of which he had taken with resignation; but when I called him traitor, he protested with righteous indignation and seemed not to care how he offended me. He was a man who would state his opinions no matter what such frankness brought down on his head; and I must respect him for that. He knew I would never banish him from Court. Honest men were rare and if Sussex lacked the brilliance of Burghley and Bacon and the charm of Robert, Hatton, Heneage and the rest, he was an honest man. I had not a more faithful servant at my Court.