Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Sandra Byrd

  He sipped from his goblet. “Her fiancé in Sweden left her, you know.”

  I set my own goblet down on a nearby table. “I did not know that.”

  “She was set to marry him in September, but he found someone with more money and a better title and returned her dowry. Then your Thomas arrived and she spent quite a bit of time at court, and with your mother and sisters, during his stay. When Thomas mentioned how much you’d missed your family, Sofia offered to return to England with him to be a companion to you. She’d spent some time with the ladies who had returned with the princess, learning English and, I suspect, yearning for adventure . . . and wealth.”

  “And how does my sister Karin Bonde?” I asked with just the smallest bit of residual pain.

  “She’s well, and happy, with fine children, like yourself,” he said softly. “All are glad that you met with such good fortune in England, the highest-titled woman in the land after Her Majesty.”

  “I am thankful,” I said. Sofia had quickly excused herself from discussions with several squires and neatly positioned herself next to the eldest son of an earl. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out who was most nobly titled.

  “I take it there are no more marquesses in England right now?” Eric teased. “Or dukes?”

  “Not presently,” I said.

  Eric looked again at Sofia. “She may find herself disappointed.” Those same highborn men she sought soon disentangled themselves from her pretty company.

  I enjoyed the visit from the Swedes, but in spite of the gift of exquisite horses that Eric had brought for the queen, the Swedish delegation had, once again, neglected to bring enough money for their own keep, much less anything more to pay back the debts that King Erik and Cecelia had amassed on two visits.

  “I’m sorry, Majesty,” I said as I rubbed ointment into her hands one morning before she slipped on her gloves. “I have paid, from my own purse, any debts that Eric Brahe amassed during this visit. But he told me that King Johan has refused to pay any more of his brother’s debts, as he was known to be a madman.”

  “If he was known to be a madman, why did they try to foist him upon our realm and our person?” she sniffed. Then she flipped her hand over and squeezed mine. “We know that this is none of your doing,” she said. “Be content. King Johan is well known to be vain, haughty, and unwise. You cannot undo that. And you are English now, my fiery marchioness.”

  “Do you refer to my hair, my temper, or my dash through the jugglers?” I asked.

  “Why, all three!” she said. But she, known for her own fire, meant no harm but a compliment by the comment. I left anything else unsaid, lest I be considered disloyal to either King Johan or Queen Elizabeth.

  The next month I was required to attend upon Her Majesty at Cecil’s grand home, Theobalds, which he’d had built with perquisites from Her Majesty. Thomas was not to accompany me, as the queen had set upon him the task of assembling a team of players who would become her very own acting troupe, the Queen’s Men.

  “It’s a great honor,” I said. “You know how fond she is of entertainment.”

  He sighed. “Yes, I know she intends it as such. But perhaps assembling jugglers and players isn’t quite the same as assisting in the greater matters of the realm.”

  “She trusts you, as you are such a fine player yourself,” I said.

  “I suspect Her Majesty does not knight those who assemble the evening’s entertainment,” he said with a grimace. “And I prefer that Blagrave continue as Master of Revels.” I knew Thomas was disappointed that Elizabeth had not raised or rewarded him for his work in Sweden.

  “And Walsingham is involved,” he said. I thought it odd he would even mention that.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Players travel,” he said. “From home to home, throughout the country. They speak with servants, they learn things. I believe Walsingham truly enjoys the theater, but he lets no opportunity to sift information for the queen go by undisturbed.”

  After I returned from that magnificent manor, I retired to await the birth of our next child. “Do you want another son?” I asked Thomas one night, tentative.

  He shook his head. “I do not know. It’s not as if he can replace Francis.”

  I agreed. “I’m afraid that if it’s a son, it will feel as though we’re setting Francis aside in his favor.”

  Thomas laced his fingers through mine, a warm and lovely gesture he hadn’t made for so, so long. I burst into tears and he drew me near.

  “There, now, love, what is wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Should it be a girl, or a boy?”

  Thomas took my face in his hand. “I don’t believe you’ll get to decide, now, will you?” He freely smiled, and I hadn’t seen him do that for some time, either. It dried my tears and I smiled back.

  “That’s true.”

  “We’ll take what the Lord sends,” he said.

  He sent a boy, in His mercy and wisdom, and our young son did not replace Francis in any way in our hearts, but he did remind me that God is a God of life, and that life follows death though we most often fear it may not.

  “What should you like to name him?” I asked Thomas.

  “Theobald,” he replied as he readied himself to leave for the coast, and Hurst Castle. “A family name.”

  “Theobald?” It surprised me.

  He left the next morning without saying good-bye, in a hurry, I supposed, to get on with his duties. I told myself that he hadn’t wanted to disturb me so soon after childbirth, but oh, how different ’twas from the birth of our Elizabeth, when we slept together, chastely, every night, even before my churching, when I would be declared pure and able to return to church and community after childbirth. He did not wait for my churching to be complete before he left. In fact, we did not often attend church together of late, and it troubled me.

  I looked out the window, hoping to catch sight of him as he rode off, but he was gone.

  Later that month, before I left home to return to the queen, I made arrangements for an artist to come and paint portraits of my children, a large one of them together and then miniatures that I might take with me when I was away from them.

  “I shan’t want to sit for a portrait painter, Mother,” Elizabeth said. “It shall be dull.”

  “I understand, love,” I said. “But I miss you so dearly when I am gone.”

  “Then,” she said matter-of-factly, “you must miss me all the time.”

  Sofia reached out and took my daughter’s tiny hand in her own. “I shall sit with you and tell you stories of the north to pass the time.”

  At that, Elizabeth clapped, and Frances, who wanted to do everything her sister did, clapped, too. Young Edward and our newest son, Theobald, were too young to clap, but I had the sinking suspicion that if they were old enough they’d join in enthusiastically.

  • • •

  That November a man from Warwickshire made his way to London with a pistol and was heard to be shouting that he was come to see the queen, “a serpent and a viper,” and that he meant to shoot her through and hoped to see her head set on a pole.

  He’d so noisily informed all of his evil plans well before he reached the castle, and so was apprehended and was no longer a threat. However, that same month, a more serious plot for the queen’s life was uncovered.

  Francis Throckmorton, a man very close to the court, was arrested after six months of surveillance by Walsingham and his quiet minions. Walsingham’s officials burst into Throckmorton’s house, and he, still dressed in his nightcap and gown, raced up his stairways to attempt to set afire his correspondence.

  “He was restrained,” Walsingham reported to the queen shortly thereafter, while I was attending to her as she prepared for the evening ahead. He had a look of quiet satisfaction on his face, like a man who had eaten but not yet digested a particularly rich meal. “And we were able to acquire those letters.”

  “And what, pray tell, did they reveal?” the queen asked dri
ly.

  I was no friend of Walsingham—he gave me a shiver as though I had wet clothes on—but I did think the queen could be more gracious and thankful for his endeavors.

  “He was midway through a letter to Mary of Scotland advising her of English ports that would be friendly to a Spanish or French invasion on her behalf.”

  “A letter,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “May I press for more information, Majesty?” Walsingham asked. He emphasized the word press.

  The queen’s clerk of the council, Robert Beale, was a man of strong Protestant faith and he’d recently published a paper decrying the use of the rack as barbarous and illegal. He’d been largely ignored.

  “Yes,” the queen said. “And report back to us on what you find.”

  That night I told Thomas what I knew.

  “I could hear a man being racked when I was imprisoned after our wedding,” he said. “He began by moaning like a woman in childbirth, but by the end he was pleading for his mother, for his priest, for God and His angels to come and rescue him.”

  “Did he live?” I asked.

  “I know not for certain,” Thomas said. “But I think not. They wrung him like a rag and then threw him in the corner to die, untended by any but the rats, which are nearly as big as one of the queen’s spaniels.”

  When Walsingham came to report to Elizabeth what he had learned from the racking, he proceeded to tell her in the Presence Chamber, in front of not only her councilors but her ladies and many who were about the court. He would dare not make so public a report without her implicit permission. What cause had she for making this so well known?

  “He made a full confession, Majesty,” Walsingham began, his black beard wagging. “He told that the Duke of Guise, Mary of Scots’s cousin, was planning to attack England from the south.”

  I closed my eyes but for a minute. Did they never tire, these royals, of cousins?

  “The goal was to deprive you of your crown and state, by which means, I daresay, to deprive you of your head.”

  The queen stood up, face flushed, and snapped shut her fan. “Go on.”

  “Ambassador Mendoza”—Walsingham turned and looked directly at the man himself—“has given his reassurances that Philip of Spain would aid and assist in any way necessary.”

  Mendoza did not shrink at all.

  “Philip has been plotting for my throne for twenty-five years!” the queen shouted. “Since he could not pilfer it in my bed, he seeks to steal it like a common thief through the back door.” She turned to Mendoza. “Return to your quarters, complete your tasks at hand, and pack your trunks to return to Spain!”

  “They are already packed,” he said, bowing, showing that his spies had already told him what was to come.

  That angered her further. She took a glance at one of her ladies, Bess Throckmorton, who wavered like a willow. The queen sat down again under the canopy of state. “And Throckmorton?”

  Walsingham licked his lips. “He had written to Mary, and she responded to him, thanking him for his efforts and asking him how many English citizens could be counted upon to come to her aid when her cousin the Duke of Guise arrived on these shores to restore her rightful crown. Northumberland helped, too.”

  “Ungrateful! Impudent! Each year we pay for the upkeep and maintenance of her household, which numbers forty-eight presently. And even as we are working on her behalf to restore her Scots’ crown to her unworthy and light head, she is plotting against us to take our crown instead and provoking the pope and other foreign potentates to attempt against us and our realm.” The queen abruptly dismissed everyone but Cecil and Walsingham.

  I came alongside Bess Throckmorton and took her cold hand in mine as we walked toward our chambers. I held it tightly to quell the tremor that ran within it. “Do not fear, Bess,” I said. She was young, perhaps of the age that I had been when I had first arrived at the English court. “Her Majesty well knows that each family has those who serve her truly and those who are treacherous. She will not harshly judge you.”

  Bess squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Helena,” she said. “Francis Throckmorton is my cousin.”

  Some months thereafter, her cousin Francis was executed at Tyburn. Henry Percy, the Eighth Earl of Northumberland, who had well served the queen for many years, was found shot through the heart in his simple Tower bed. Suicide was the official inquiry verdict. Murder, Clemence said some whispered, at the behest of the queen or her men.

  SEVENTEEN

  Year of Our Lord 1584

  The Palace of Whitehall

  Sheen, Richmond

  Winter: Year of Our Lord 1585

  Wilton and Langford, Salisbury

  That year found me with child again. Whilst it was not quite an immaculate conception, it was something of a miracle as it was a rare night that Thomas and I spent in one another’s company any longer, and when we did, it was disappointingly perfunctory. I was mainly waiting upon the queen; as the Scots situation grew tenser she relied upon her principal ladies to keep her entertained and soothed. Thomas was often away, on the queen’s business, though of late he did not share with me the locations of his destinations or how long he would be gone. He simply shrugged off my questions; hurt, I stopped asking and turned toward my own duties, keeping those details to myself as well.

  One day, as I laid out the jewels the queen would wear that week, coordinating with the Countess of Nottingham, who was in charge of the robes, she noticed that my midsection had swelled.

  “My grandfather Boleyn said once that his wife brought him a child each year,” she said to me, in a rare reference to her mother’s family. She fingered the locket ring, in which hid her mother and herself; she never took it off and that brought me great pleasure these nearly ten years after I’d gifted it to her.

  “I am apparently trying to keep up with your illustrious family, Majesty,” I said. My back hurt and she noticed and bade me sit near her.

  “How do your children?” she asked.

  “They are well. Elizabeth is by turn a pirate or a lady, but she runs the household in my absence,” I jested. I knew my daughter, though but one of many named after Her Grace, brought her pleasure.

  “The others grow by turn, too,” I said. I dared to broach a topic that had long been on my heart and mind and that Thomas had urged me to speak of with the queen. “Perhaps, Majesty, after this babe is born, I might be given leave to spend more time with them. They grow so quickly . . .”

  “Of course, you should take the time to repose till you are churched,” she said, smoothly moving beyond the request she knew I’d made.

  I recalled Lady Cobham, an especial favorite of the queen and the mother of seven, recently hoping to get leave to rest her weary bones in the country, but the leave was denied. I felt for her as a mother, as a lady of the bedchamber, and also, as she was a relative of sorts to both of my husbands. We had grown to be friends.

  I was both weary of court and wishing to spend more time with my family, and thrilled with court and its many intrigues and the hard-won friendships and fulfilling duties I immersed myself in each day.

  Some months later, the queen called both Thomas and me into her Privy Chamber, alone. “We have a gift for you,” she said. “We are giving you the former priory at Sheen, near Richmond Palace, as a residence for you, for life, so you may be nearer to your family when you wait upon us at court.”

  I smiled and leaned forward to hug her, which she seemed to tolerate but which I knew she truly enjoyed. “Thank you, thank you, Majesty. You know Richmond is a particular favorite of mine, with the gardens, and to live nearer by will be a great delight.” I had always loved Sheen. It was the most important gift she had ever given me, and what’s more, she gave it to both Thomas and myself jointly.

  Thomas nodded with respect. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said. But although he was perfectly proper, he was not as enthusiastic as I was, and I knew why.

  “Are you not pleased with the gift?” I aske
d him later, in my luxe apartments at court.

  “’Twas kindly given,” he admitted. “But by providing Sheen to us, for life or until she decides to revoke it, the queen is allowing the children and me to be closer to court, and you, but not giving you direct leave to spend more time with us.”

  “Still, ’tis a great honor. Many courtiers and foreign ambassadors have coveted lodging near Richmond for many years.”

  “I know,” he said, and then looked beyond me. “I’ve got someone to meet shortly. Can we speak of this later?”

  I agreed, and kissed him afore he left. He kissed me back, but not with passion. He closed the door behind him, and I sat on a chair, hands in my lap, for an hour, wondering why he couldn’t be happy with the gift of Sheen and if I was wrong in feeling so.

  We moved in shortly thereafter, and after some changes, we made an occasion to invite the queen, and her close circle, to our new home for one of the first performances by the Queen’s Men.

  I had been feeling remiss in my caretaking of Sofia; she had come to England to be a companion to me, and although I had provided company to her when I could, and for her English education, I had not had much time to spend with her. Apart from court, I had little time of my own. So I had a fine gown made for her of midnight blue silk shot through with gold and she wore her hair down, long and shimmering, as was her right as a virgin.

  “Can I assist you with your clothing?” I asked Thomas, meeting him in his new chamber.

  “No, thank you. Tobias has already laid out something suitable,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, all right.” Tobias was Thomas’s closest manservant. “Perhaps after dinner, then, I might return with you and we can discuss the events of the evening?”

  He nodded politely. “Perhaps.” Thomas indicated that he would meet me at dinner; Sheen was large enough that we each had our own bedchambers. They were near one another, but it was the first time in our married life that we did not sleep in the same bed each night when we were in the same house. I spent a moment wishing, perhaps, we were at the less-opulent Blackfriars instead.