Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Sandra Byrd

  We spent the summer on Progress, of course, and one evening the queen and I were alone playing chess, as we were wont to do. After I’d shared with her that I missed playing with William, she’d taken to inviting me to a game more frequently. My game had certainly become better as I sharpened myself against her, and as I had been well taught, I liked to think that I offered her a challenge as well.

  I was pleasantly surprised one evening when she herself brought up the topic of marriage. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. “I see and say nothing” was one of her mottoes. I was glad she raised the topic, as it would have been indelicate for me to do so.

  “What thinketh you of marriage?” she asked me.

  “It’s a holy estate,” I said, “to those who are called to it.”

  She nodded and moved a piece forward, carefully.

  “What do you think, Your Grace?” I moved a pawn one space forward to protect my queen.

  “Likewise,” she said. She considered the board, then stood up and moved back, looking upon it from afar. Once she sat down, she moved one of her knights. “With two knights available, it’s best to make good use of both.”

  Within a week, I mentioned the game to Thomas. “I think she was affirming that I could marry twice,” I said. “After all, why bring up the subject of marriage? Why speak of using two knights?”

  Thomas looked skeptical. “I don’t know, Elin. It doesn’t sound very forthright, and Her Majesty can be as forthright as any man.”

  “But she’s also as subtle as any woman,” I disagreed; I did not want to see his skepticism or recognize the truth in what he said. Neither of us said more, but he sent word to the church near his London home that we wished to be married upon our return from Progress. I couldn’t have been too certain of and at peace about Her Majesty’s meanings about knights, as I did not seek her permission before marrying Thomas. In my heart, I strongly suspected she would say no and I was not going to risk that. It was one thing to act without her permission, but far more deadly to act against her stated will.

  Thomas was willing to be bold for me, though of the two of us, he had the most to lose by angering Her Majesty. And yet, I would risk not only the perquisites and place I had at court but her friendship, which was dearer to me than almost any other. Almost.

  In the end, I was firmly decided. I would be a Valkyrie for him.

  • • •

  Because most courtiers spent the summer away with the queen, the weeks following Progress were largely taken up by their tending to their families and personal affairs. So it was with little difficulty that I absented myself from service in late August. Clemence and I had spent some evenings stitching the cloud-like silk into an ethereal wedding dress. I could not take any of the ladies at court into my confidence and have them stand stead at our wedding; to do so would have been to put them at risk. Thomas asked Francis Drake, who was thrilled, as we knew he would be, to be included in a daring undertaking, and Clemence was a witness, too. Although I was fond of Clemence, her presence underscored, perhaps, how difficult and different this marriage was from my first one, wherein the queen had been witness.

  Afterward, we returned to Thomas’s home in Blackfriars. It was not, of course, on the scale of the palace or of any of William’s homes, but it was tasteful and clean and well lit, with many rooms and a few servants.

  “I have also bought a grand property, Langford,” he’d told me as we’d discussed our plans before marrying. “It sits upon the River Avon, and while it is mostly ruins it has a magnificent presence and view. When Drake comes back and makes us all rich, we’ll have money enough to build a formidable house.”

  I’d agreed, to make him happy, but in all truth, I was glad enough to be with him wherever we might be.

  That night, we moved to his chambers upstairs. I bathed first, and when he emerged from the washing chamber he smelled of the spice preparation I’d made for him. He drew near to me and kissed me on the forehead, stroking my hair, and then my jaw, and then my lips. I pressed myself against him and drew in his breath as we were inches apart, face-to-face. Of a sudden, I had an idea.

  I pulled myself back from him and firmly planted my right hand on his left thigh. “I had a promise to fulfill,” I said. “From the night you tripped me. Now he need not feel unequal with his brother.”

  Thomas roared in laughter and came at me, tumbling me on the bed, and we sought each other in passion and joy.

  Afterward, as he ran his fingers lightly up my spine as we lay nestled together, I thanked God for this night, the wedding night I had dreamed of, and more, since I was a girl. Thomas recited a poem, whispering it from behind me:

  My love in her attire doth show her wit, It doth so well become her;

  For every season she hath dressings fit, For winter, spring, and summer.

  No beauty she doth miss when all her robes are on;

  But beauty’s self she is when all her robes are gone.

  I giggled and turned to face him again.

  We spent the days eating and laughing and jesting and reading lines together until it was time for us to return to court. We agreed I would go first and share the news with Her Majesty, and then Thomas would follow once the storm had quelled, if there were one. Our new life put me in mind of a Lyly line Thomas had once spoken to me as we looked forward to our wedding night: marriages are made in Heaven but consummated on earth.

  • • •

  My trial in regnis was to be private.

  “Come here, Marchioness,” the queen called me forward.

  I stood before her, then dropped to my knees. Not “Helena,” nor even “My good lady marquess.” “Yes, Your Grace,” I said.

  She looked at me, her eyes cool obsidian. “Is it better to be loved or feared?” she asked me, quoting the Niccolò Machiavelli translation we had read together a few months back. I had thought it to be satire, and had thought Her Majesty felt so, too, but now I was in doubt.

  “Loved, Majesty,” I said, answering for myself and not Machiavelli. “Or perhaps both.”

  “ ‘One would like to be both the one and the other,’ ” she quoted. “ ‘But because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.’ ”

  I opened my mouth to speak but she put her hand up and silenced me. She called forth one of her pages and said, “Please take the marchioness’s trunks from court and deliver them, and her, back to her husband’s home, which she is not to depart from, on pain of imprisonment. Should she choose that, she can join her husband in the Tower.”

  Who had told her? Clemence? Surely not. One of Thomas’s relatives? Drake? It was an unhappy reality of life at court that one never knew whom one could trust, though they be as close as linen to skin.

  All the way back to Thomas’s house I shivered in the early fall breeze, thinking, He cannot have been delivered to the Tower. But when I arrived his servant told me that was exactly what had happened. He had been arrested for marrying a noblewoman without the queen’s permission and conveyed to the Tower with little but the shirt he wore. It horrified me, and when I saw his grooming tools in our chamber I burst into tears. I unpacked my trunks, numb. Clemence came to me; I was never so grateful that she was in my pay and keep and not Her Majesty’s. She tried to cheer me, but I could not be cheered.

  Late that night, as I lay alone in Thomas’s large bed, I thought, Yes. We are certainly the couple left in Hell.

  THIRTEEN

  Autumn: Year of Our Lord 1577

  Blackfriars, London

  Year of Our Lord 1578

  The Palace of Whitehall

  Hampton Court Palace

  Blackfriars

  None came to see me, and every day I expected a messenger from Her Majesty either recalling me or stripping me of my titles and rents. Neither happened. I ate but little at first, but then I missed my monthly flux and, with a bittersweet realization, understood that I was with child. There was no way for me to share the gla
d tidings with Thomas so I asked the Lord to, instead.

  “Lord Jesus, please,” I begged in prayer. “Will you not assist us?” The wry thought occurred to me that, as in the case with my queen, I was seeking comfort and absolution after the event rather than guidance and permission before taking the course of action. Perhaps I’d been unwilling to risk hearing “No” from either sovereign. I did not think I would act differently, though, if given another chance.

  After some time in quiet, I heard the whisper of Holy Writ in my heart. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

  Within days, I knew what to do: write to my Lord Sussex, brother to my friend Mary Radcliffe, kinsman to Thomas, friend to me. He had been kindness itself when we stayed in his home upon our arrival from Sweden, a gentleman, still schooled in chivalry. I wrote him a letter and had it sent as quickly as I may.

  I urgently ask you (if sincere sorrow and contrition of heart, apart from any discomfort and inconvenience, is a sufficient punishment for an offense) if it might please you, in your merciful kindness, to help get back to the court. For if my cruel fate would add so much grief on me, neither the long suffering, prayer, repentance, or else can make good it, oh, my lord, in which utter despair I happen not then? Where should I direct my complaint? I cannot see any hope or consolation, but only utter despair on all sides. Therefore, if your worship pities me, an abandoned and banished creature, I beseech you to present my sad plight of Her Majesty.

  From my lonely abode in Blackfriars, the 19 October, the most unfortunate Helena Northampton.

  I signed it with William’s surname, of course. Even though I was married, until and unless the queen stripped it from me, I retained my title and rank.

  Sussex arrived several days after I’d sent a note pleading for his visit. I welcomed him with wine and comfit cake into the large reception room. He held me close for a moment. “Helena,” he said.

  I nearly broke down at the kindness in his voice. “You know I am exiled and that Thomas is—”

  “Imprisoned,” he said. “Yes, all know. Why did you not seek Her Majesty’s permission for the marriage?”

  I was able to be more honest with myself, and with others, after I’d had some weeks to reflect. “She would have denied it outright, and I deemed it safer to ask forgiveness than leave,” I said. “It’s apparent, now, how deep was my error.”

  “How can I assist you?” he asked.

  “The queen trusts you well. She knows you are true to her and have served her faithfully. You’re Thomas’s friend and kinsman, and, well, you and your kind wife have been compassionate and benevolent to me since I arrived in this realm. Can you . . . speak for us?”

  He shook his head. “I shall try,” he answered. “She will not hear your name spoken. She truly loves you and grieves your absence more than any of her ladies, save perhaps Lady Knollys.”

  “What can I do?” I asked. “Am I lost? I can serve her at court; it need not be any different.”

  “But it shall be,” he said. “And she knows it well. I will ask her to receive you.”

  “And then I will reassure her of my constant love and presence,” I said, taking both of his hands in my own. “Thank you, my Lord Sussex.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Marchioness.”

  Before he left, he turned to me and added something. “I’ve served the queen since she was but a child, and then a young woman, imprisoned in the Tower herself. During those years she, too, had to be abject and obedient to her brother, first, and then to her sister, who badly mistreated her. That is the way of rule. She does not ask of us what she has not required of herself, first.”

  “Yes, my lord. I understand.”

  As soon as he left, I fled the room and retched into the close stool, from anxiety or from the child, I knew not which.

  • • •

  The queen called me to court within a week. I put on a modest but becoming gown and applied some red to my white cheeks so I did not appear as careworn as I felt. The queen may have wanted to see that I was contrite, but she did not prefer the suggestion of ill health about her.

  There were others in the room this time; Anne Dudley gave a smile and it built my courage because she would know if the queen was going to dress me down, and would have warned me, I felt.

  When the queen spoke her first words, my knees buckled in relief. “My good lady marquess,” she said to me. “Come hither.”

  I came near and sank to my knees. She lifted me and indicated that I was to sit on the low stool next to her.

  “Why did you not ask our permission for your marriage?” she said. “Have we so ill used you? Do you love us so little that you cannot bring yourself to be honest with us? To trust us to guide in your best interests?”

  “Truly, Majesty, I trust you. You have never ill used me; on the contrary, you have offered nothing but kindness. I thought . . . I thought that the subject of marriage was one that brought you pain. So I did not raise it. When you raised the subject during our game of chess, and then indicated that each player may have two knights, I thought you were quietly sanctioning my second marriage, to Thomas.”

  I could see the puzzled look on her face as she sifted through memories. And then she laughed, not harshly, but neither with delight. “My good lady marquess, we were speaking of the proposal our counselors have urged us to consider for renewing the negotiations with the Duke d’Anjou for my hand,” she said. “And how could we have possibly been speaking of Thomas Gorges? He is not even a knight!”

  I flinched, then, at that insult, and was pleased Thomas wasn’t there. It was then I knew that she disapproved of my marrying a man of so low rank, which she had, in fairness, made clear to all many times. Perhaps, I thought, she was angry at those who married for love, despite rank, because she herself could not do so, though she wished to.

  “I beg your forgiveness, Majesty,” I said. “I am as contrite as I may be, God as my witness.”

  She nodded and placed her hand upon mine. “We recognize this, Helena.” She drew me near; perhaps the others could hear her, perhaps not. “I should be desolate without your companionship. Married women have children. My beloved stepmother, William’s sister Queen Kateryn Parr, died a brutal death after delivering her child, as did my brother, Edward’s, mother. Northampton, I knew, had not sired children, and therefore you were in no danger marrying him. But Thomas . . .”

  “I understand, Majesty.” This was not the time to tell her I was with child. I recalled Machiavelli, and the question he’d posed: Which is better? By loving me, she’d risked her heart.

  She kissed me on the brow, a lovely, welcome, perfect gesture. “This is to send you off in your new marriage.”

  Tears coursed down my face, and I spied some in her eyes, too. And then, one by one, she kissed my cheeks. “We shall welcome our cousin Gorges back to court, whence you both may continue to serve us well, as you always have.” She then smiled at me and quoted my phrase as I spoke it to Mary Radcliffe regarding Eleanor Brydges. “We, too, are able to turn the other cheek. Once.”

  • • •

  Thomas was freed and welcomed back at court; Elizabeth had given him more responsibilities, which was a doubled-edged sword. It raised his income and his significance, but it would keep him increasingly busy at home and abroad for the queen. Given the choice, he would have chosen a player’s life, I suspected. But which of us has such a choice?

  We entertained some of his family before the Accession Day celebrations. He had joined me in my apartment at the palace, as my rooms were thrice the size of his, and more comfortably furnished.

  I enjoyed meeting his Gorges relatives; William’s sisters had both died before I came to England, and although the Herberts were, in a way, relations, they were nothing like the sprawling mass of Gorgeses, a few of whom were often at court.

  After dinner, Thomas’s brother William excused himself, and as so
on as he’d left the room and but a few remained, Cousin John Gorges spoke up. I think he’d drunk too much wine, and I indicated to my servants to clear the goblets and bottles from the room.

  “Well, Thomas, since you’re highly placed now, I wonder if you can confirm something we’ve just heard: that Parliament desires to impose stunning fines for recusants and enforce that everyone in the realm partake of Protestant communion once per year. Truth?” He nervously twisted the ring on his finger; it was a strange design—I’d never seen one like it—a row of black beads encrusted upon a circle of gold.

  Thomas nodded. “They did request that, but Her Majesty forcefully rejected it. She’s said it before, and I’m sure need be she’ll say it again: she has no desire to make windows into men’s souls.”

  John covered his mouth with his fist, burped, and continued. “But the council has sent circulars to every diocese in the country asking them to name those known to be recusants.”

  “True, I’m afraid,” Thomas said, quickly turning the conversation. “And now, my wife looks to be weary; I’ve heard that carrying a child will do that, and glad I am that I’ll never know!”

  At that, those remaining in the room broke out in laughter and relief. The servants tidied up and spread the ashes in the fire, and Thomas and I retired to our bedchamber.

  We lay abed, his hand resting on my stomach, caressing our child though we could not, of course, feel him or her yet.

  “And so, all is well with you and Her Majesty?” he said. “No residual storm from last month?”

  “No,” I answered. “And yet . . .”

  He cocked his head at me.

  “What is it?”

  “I confess, I do love her as much as ever, and I know she senses that. But where I’d once thought her to be like the goddess Idun, now, perhaps, I think upon the tale of Frigga.”

  He turned toward me, player inside, courtier out, and urged me on. “Do tell the story, Lady Gorges!”