by Jean Plaidy
I had helped him. I had sent Essex over with men, arms and money in order to uphold the Protestant Faith, in order to make sure that we did not have a menacing Catholic state close to our shores. And now he had given way… abjured his faith for the sake of a crown!
I wrote off in a fit of disgust to the King of France without giving myself time to consider.
“Ah, what grief! My God, is it possible that any worldly consideration could render you regardless of divine displeasure…”
After I had sent that letter I regretted it because I remembered the days before my accession when I had feigned to accept the Catholic Faith in order to keep alive. What had Henri done? Realizing that the French, by their very nature, were Catholics—just as the English by theirs were Protestants—and would never accept a Huguenot king, with that nonchalant good sense of his he had said: Very well. If the only king you will accept is a Catholic king, then, as I am determined to be your King, I must become a Catholic.
And so he had.
We were of a kind really. How many times had I said that the method of worship was not important? It was Christianity itself which mattered. He had not changed his faith; he was merely accepting the Catholic form of worship. He was too clever, of course, to have done otherwise. I could imagine his guffaw of laughter when he received my letter, for he knew, as well as I did, that if England had demanded a Catholic monarch, then I should have been a Catholic and as England wanted a Protestant ruler—I was that.
I was alarmed. That was at the root of my indignation; but I took some comfort from the knowledge that Henri would not be as fanatical as Philip, and I was sure would have too much good sense to attempt to invade us.
Essex had been very interested in Walsingham's secret service, and he knew that it had been of the utmost benefit to us during our conflict with Spain. He imagined himself as another Walsingham, having spies all over Europe to report to him so that he would know immediately the country was menaced.
He was no Walsingham, of course; but no doubt Frances had talked to him often about her father and had inspired him with the wish to follow in his footsteps.
It was because of these activities that he came to me with an astonishing story concerning Dr Roderigo Lopez, whom I had made my chief physician. The doctor had come to England about the time of my accession and he soon began to impress the medical world with his skill. He had become house physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he had made a name for himself not only by his skill in purging and bleeding but by introducing a very efficacious remedy for many ills. This was known as Arceus' apozema and Dr Lopez had talked to me about it. I was interested in such things and he found me a ready listener. I was quite fond of the man, so when Essex came to me and told me that he was a Spanish spy and was receiving orders from his masters in Spain to mix poisons with the medicines he prepared for me, I did not believe him.
I knew that Essex, in his endeavors to send his spies out round the world, as Walsingham had done, had tried to enlist the doctor in his service and had wanted him to return to Spain and worm his way into the King's household. This was not unlikely for he was famous for his skill. Thus he could become a spy for Essex.
I knew this because Dr Lopez himself had told me. I was most annoyed. This was another example of Essex's taking matters into his own hands.
I summoned Essex and berated him, telling him to look elsewhere for his spies and not try to rob me of one of the best doctors I had ever had.
At this time the Spanish nobleman Antonio Perez, who was being persecuted by Philip, had arrived in England and Lopez acted as an interpreter for him.
Essex had the notion that there were Spanish spies in the household of Perez and that they had come to England with orders to poison me; and he was looking for proof of this.
“The doctor has received a valuable jewel which is said to have come from the King of Spain,” Essex told me.
I replied: “The doctor has many grateful patients—myself among them.”
“I will show you,” retorted Essex; and he was sullen and angry. I really wondered why I endured his overbearing temperament.
I sent for the doctor and was especially gracious to him. He was such a tender, gentle man, and I was not going to turn against him just because he was a Portuguese Jew.
Essex was not one to give way easily, nor was he afraid to act without authority.
He caused a member of the household of Antonio Perez to be arrested. This was a certain De Gama and Essex had the temerity to make the arrest when De Gama was visiting Lopez, so that the arrest was made at Lopez's house.
Essex was now certain that Lopez was involved and he acquired the Council's permission to make a search of the doctor's house. He was very crestfallen when this revealed nothing incriminating.
I was elated. I sent for Essex and told him he was a very rash young man and had no right to accuse people of crimes which he could not prove; and he had better not behave in such a way again.
“You are wrong!” he cried.
How dared he! No one told the Queen she was wrong.
“You presume too much,” I shouted.
“I would presume in every possible way to protect your sacred person,” he replied.
And with a bow he left me.
He was intolerable but the way in which he had delivered that last remark softened me toward him. He really was genuinely fond of me and refreshingly frank—such a change from the sycophants who surrounded me.
Essex was indefatigable in his attempts to prove the case against Lopez. Another of Perez's attendants was arrested and put to the torture, when he confessed that Lopez was involved in a plot to poison me.
There was nothing to be done but arrest Lopez and conduct him to the Tower. He was tried at Guildhall where Essex insisted on presiding over the court, and the case for the prosecution was conducted by Sir Edward Coke, the Solicitor-General.
“This doctor,” declared Coke, “is a perjured and murdering villain, and a Jewish doctor worse than Judas himself.”
Robert Cecil came to tell me the result of the trial.
“He is found guilty, Your Majesty,” he said, “guilty of treason.”
I was very saddened. “Who would believe, Little Elf, that one who appeared to serve me well should all the time have been planning my destruction?”
I was not completely sure that he was guilty. Essex had been so determined to prove him so ever since the doctor had refused to act as his spy. I have never trusted evidence which is wrung from a victim by torture. I deplored the use of it, but I knew it was necessary. Yet who could trust the information which came out of it?
I was very uneasy about Lopez. He was sentenced to death, and when they brought me his death warrant, I found it hard to put my signature to it—so I did what I had done in the case of Mary of Scotland; I delayed doing it.
Essex said Lopez was unsafe.
“What if there should be an attempt to rescue him? What if he escaped and went back to his masters in Spain? Think of the knowledge he would carry. Your Majesty must sign the death warrant.”
“Essex,” I said, “you must stop this habit of telling me what I must and must not do. No one tells the Queen how she must act.”
“It seems that Essex does.”
“Guard your tongue, my lord,” I said. “It will be your undoing one of these days.”
Then he repeated a phrase which he had used in one of his letters to me and which I read often.
“Your Majesty may turn from me, but I never will from you. While you give me leave to say I love you, my fortune is my affection, unmatchable. If ever you deny me that liberty you may end my life, but you will never shake my constancy, for it is not in your power, great Queen as you are, to make me love you less.”
All my anger against him melted. He truly loved me. He would never pretend; he could not speak with such heartfelt devotion unless what he said was true.
I softened toward him. If he were brash, it was in my servic
e. Why should I complain of that?
I took a ring from my finger then. It held a ruby in a cluster of diamonds. I had chosen it because the unusual setting made it unique.
Then I took his hand and slipped the ring on his little finger.
“This is a bond between us,” I said. “If you are ever in trouble and need my help, send me this ring. I will remember this moment and how in it you assured me of your affection for me. Mine is in this ring. I shall always remember and come to your aid when I see it.”
He took my hand and kissed it; and later that day I signed Lopez's death warrant.
He was taken to Tyburn on a hurdle and before he was hanged and quartered he made a speech to the watching crowd in which he said that he had never thought to harm me and that he loved me as he loved Jesus Christ.
Someone in the crowd shouted: “Jew! You never loved Jesus Christ.”
And all the people there believed that in saying what he did he had admitted his guilt.
His death continued to worry me, because I still was not entirely convinced that he would ever have attempted to poison me. If it were really true that he would, then I knew nothing of human nature. I was sunk in depression as I always was after I had signed a death warrant for someone of whose guilt I was unsure.
I knew he had a wife, Sara, and five children. I gave orders that they were to retain his property, and later on his son was given a parsonage and a living.
RALEIGH WAS STILL IN THE TOWER AND I HAD NO DESIRE to release him. I was still very annoyed with him and he must be an example to them all. Essex was delighted. He had erred in the same way yet had not been treated so harshly and was now in higher favor than he had ever been. I was sure that rankled very much with Raleigh.
Robert Cecil did ask me if I thought he had been punished enough.
“It was not exactly a political sin, Your Majesty,” he went on.
“I will not have immorality in my Court, little man,” I said, “and that is an end of the matter.”
Of course Raleigh had stood with the Cecils against Essex. He was an able man and I believed that they missed him. That might be but I was not in the mood to release him, though I heard rumors that he was pining away in the Tower.
“Because he misses his playmate Bessie Throckmorton?” I asked.
“He says it is because he is denied Your Majesty's presence.”
“Fine words. Raleigh was always good at them.”
He clearly had his friends who were anxious to help and they brought these accounts to me.
I had passed along the river in my barge, I was told, and through his barred window Raleigh had caught sight of me. He had been overcome with frustration. He said he knew how Tantalus had felt, and he had made a futile attempt to dash out of his prison and escape. He had, of course, been caught by his guards.
“They will doubtless keep a closer guard on him in future,” was my comment.
It was not long after that when Robert Cecil mentioned that he had received a letter from Raleigh. “He mentions Your Majesty,” said Cecil.
“Is that so?” I asked with indifference.
“In fact, Your Majesty,” was the answer, “he talks and writes of nothing else.”
“Perhaps he is a little more thoughtful of my wishes in prison than he was in prosperity.”
“He is a man, Your Majesty,” persisted Cecil,” and men fall into these temptations.”
Of course he was right. I had understood in the case of Robert and Essex. What infuriated me was that these men were telling me that they lived only to serve me while they behaved shamefully in corners with my voluptuous maids of honor.
Seeing me softening a little Cecil said: “I should like permission to show you his letter, Your Majesty.”
I held out my hand.
“How can I live alone in prison while she is afar off—I, who was wont to behold her, riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus—the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph. Sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes playing on the lute like Orpheus. But once amiss, hath bereaved me of all. All those times are past, the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, can they not weigh down one frail misfortune?”
I liked what I read. Raleigh had always had a fluent pen and flowery words at his disposal. I knew of course that the letter had been written for my eyes to see. He had known his good friend Cecil was hoping to get him released from the Tower in order to help to put a stop to Essex's increasing rise to fortune. Raleigh had been his only serious rival. I saw through it all. But I did like the tone of the letter, and to know how much he was longing to come back to Court.
I handed the letter back to Cecil in silence.
“Would Your Majesty consider …” he began timidly.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I promise nothing, but I will consider.”
But I let two months pass before I gave the order for his release. Even then I would not receive him at Court.
I heard that he had married Bess Throckmorton. “And about time too,” I said.
They went down to Sherborne but I knew that he was longing to come back to Court, and I supposed I would allow him to…in due course.
ESSEX WAS CONSTANTLY worrying me to receive his mother at Court. I was set against it. I might in time forgive Frances Walsingham and Bessie Throckmorton, but one I would never forgive was Lettice Knollys. Seeing her would be too painful for me. I knew that she was very beautiful… even now; she had a young husband whom she had married as soon as possible after Robert's death, and there had been unpleasant rumors about her relationship with Christopher Blount before she married him. To me she would always be the she-wolf.
But she was Essex's mother. That always seemed ironical to me. With the two men whom I had most deeply loved, Lettice had been on the most intimate terms—the wife of one; the mother of the other. I could forgive her for the latter, but never for the former. Robert would always be supreme in my life and much of the savor of it had gone with his death; and she had been his wife. He had married her in spite of the fact that he knew how I would feel about the marriage. He could have ruined his career at Court and that he had done for her sake. Perhaps he had been sure of my unswerving love for him. But he had taken a mighty risk… and for her… that worthless she-wolf, who, some said, had been trifling with Blount while Robert was yet alive—and even worse that she had hastened Robert's end.
Receive that she-wolf! Give her the satisfaction of coming to Court! At least I had been able to deny her that.
She had tried to live like a queen. She had tried to rival me… not only with him, but in outward show. Oh, the impudence of that woman! Receive her at Court! No, I said firmly. But Essex never knew when to stop.
I would silence him and he would be sullen. Sometimes he dared stay away from Court, pretending to be sick. I believed he used that method as Robert used it, and as I myself had in the days of danger. But I was never sure—as I had not been with Robert—and I would be very upset wondering if he really was ill.
One day, during one of these bouts of illness—he really did look rather pale lying in his bed—he told me that he was upset about his mother who was most unhappy because I had shut her out.
He looked so mournful that I wanted to please him so I said: “I shall be passing from my chamber to the Presence room the day after tomorrow. I shall have to see those who are in the Privy Gallery.”
“Dearest Majesty.” His smile was brilliant and I suffered a twinge of jealousy. He loved his mother. There was no doubt of that.
“And you will speak to her? Oh, if you did, that would mean so much. She would be able to come to Court again.”
I said: “I have to speak to one or two as I pass through, you know.”
He kissed my hand rapturously.
After I had left him, I scolded myself. See Lettice Knollys! I hated the woman. Every time I thought of her I saw her and Robert together. How much worse it would be actually to s
ee her!
He had wrung that promise from me. Why had I given it? Because he looked so wan. Because I had wanted to please him. What had I said? I had not really promised that I would speak to her. I had merely stated that I would be passing through the gallery, which I often did. Some people were presented to me then…or caught my eye. Then naturally I would speak to them. But I had made no promise that I would speak to her.
The day came. I was in my chamber and my women were assisting at my dressing ceremony. All the time I was thinking: She will be out there. What will she be wearing? Something becoming. She had always known what suited her and she could look beautiful in the simplest of gowns. She would look young still. She was younger than I… but even she would be getting old.
Why should I see her?
“Is there a crowd in the gallery?” I asked.
One of my ladies replied that the usual crowd was gathered there.
I yawned. It was time for me to go. In a few moments I would be face to face with my enemy.
I had been forced to this. What right had Essex? I must not be so indulgent toward him. He gave himself airs. He had too high an opinion of his importance! He should be taught a few lessons.
“I do not think I will go to the Presence Chamber today,” I said. “One of you must inform the people waiting in the gallery that I shall not be passing through today.”
They were all surprised but they knew better than to hesitate.
My orders were carried out and the people in the Privy Gallery—Lettice Knollys among them—dispersed.
I laughed aloud. That would show Lettice that her son did not command me absolutely. And perhaps it would show her very clearly that I had no wish to see her again.
WHEN ESSEX HEARD what had happened he came storming to Court. He certainly looked pale and drawn, but he had arisen from his sick-bed to register his anger.
He really was a very rash young man and I marveled at myself for allowing him to act as he did. He would go too far one day.
He said: “You promised me… and you did not keep your promise.”
“My Lord Essex,” I retorted sharply, “pray remember to whom you are addressing this tirade.”
