Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Sandra Byrd

  “Oh, oh, yes!” she said. “Perhaps Essex?”

  I firmly shook my head. “Essex is out of the question.”

  “But for you, a marquess was not out of the question!”

  “He sought me, not I him,” I said gently.

  “And yet the queen, she intervened on your behalf?” she persisted.

  “For William,” I said, though that was not strictly true. I had developed the bud of a friendship with Elizabeth by then, but Sofia was not the kind of woman she was drawn to in friendship; the queen enjoyed wit and charm in all of her courtiers but her true friends had a softness of spirit and, in some ways, a motherliness. We women are most often drawn to our opposites as friends. Perhaps they foil us, complete us.

  “I can help you,” I said, “find a good squire, a good man, a man with means.”

  “But no noble?” she pled.

  “No,” I said. “That I cannot help you with.”

  “That you will not help me with,” she insisted, and at that, I grew tired. I stood and dismissed her.

  “Good eve, Sofia.”

  She said nothing, but turned her back and went to the small chamber I’d assigned to her and then firmly closed the door.

  • • •

  I had hoped to have a respite of time with my husband, even if it were at court, after summer Progress, and had mentioned it to the queen.

  “I had thought to send him to the Netherlands, as an envoy to Robert,” she said. “I want someone I know I can trust to deliver sensitive material—and to report back to me, in all truth, how Leicester does.”

  The queen had finally decided to outright support the Netherlands as they sought freedom from their mutual foe, Spain. Where she had spent years, perhaps, her enemies might say, dithering and vexing herself about whether or not she would upset her powerful enemies, she had of late begun to strike with more courage and daring, leaning upon her council, of course, but mainly upon her own best judgment.

  “Do you want to go?” I asked Thomas one night as we dined together, alone. “I shall miss your company.”

  “Do I have a choice?” he asked, his voice weary. “And we so rarely keep company together that I sense we have grown more accustomed to being apart than together. And yet, I am pleased that the queen honors me thusly. It’s a mark of high esteem to send me to Leicester.”

  I had made a gift of the potato to him at an earlier meal and, while he had seemed charmed at the intention, it had not wrought the desired effect.

  I went to bed alone and shed quiet tears for the truth that my husband had spoken. We were as comfortable, or perhaps more so, apart than together. I could not warm the linens that night and a steady rain cried down the window panes.

  Shortly before he left, the queen awarded to us, jointly, the Manor of St. Ives, Hemingford Grey, and Hemingford Abbots, along with Houghton-with-Wyton and all their incomes. As typical, the reversion of properties and rents, when called, went back to the queen and not to our heirs.

  I helped Thomas pack and sent special instructions with his servants to make sure that he ate well, as he seemed tired and weary of service. After he left, I wished that I had included a personal note of some kind in his bags. Truthfully, I’d been too busy to write one had I thought of it earlier.

  After he left, I decided to look through his chests and coffers so that I might make an effort to mend any of his clothing while he was away. It wasn’t that our seamstresses or tailors couldn’t do it, it was more that I knew he would appreciate the touch of my own hand on his clothing, particularly his ruffs. I pulled open some drawers and took two or three garments in hand. In the fourth drawer, closest to the floor, of one of his chests there was a jewel case, and within the case nested a ring I had not seen before.

  It was gold, but all round it were fastened small jet beads. I sat upon the floor for a moment, wondering where I’d seen such a ring before, as I knew I had. I prayed and asked the Lord to bring it to mind and memory. Of a sudden, I could see Thomas’s cousin John Gorges wearing the ring at a weekend’s stay with us. He, too, wore the expensive leathers I’d seen on Thomas.

  I heard footsteps coming down the hall and quickly snapped shut the case and stood.

  “Are you well, Cousin?” Sofia asked me as I steadied myself.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I am looking after Thomas’s mending.” I curled my fist around the ring case, covering it with my hand, but I knew she had seen it. I don’t know why I felt the need to hide it from her. But I did.

  One afternoon as I sat in my chamber sewing with Mary Radcliffe, I decided to ask her what it was. She trusted me, and I her. I had taken it from the box and put it on a nearby table.

  “Do you recognize this ring?” I asked her. She set down her linen work and took it in hand.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she said, and looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

  “I found it in the great hall,” I said, unhappy with the lie. “It’s so unusual, I thought I should seek its owner and return it to him.”

  Mary shook her head and handed it back to me with as much revulsion as if it were a viper. “It’s a recusant’s ring.”

  “A . . . what?” I asked, genuinely confused.

  “A Rosary ring. As Rosary beads are banned, recusants wear these rings privately so they may keep count as they recite the Rosary,” she said. “I suggest you give it to Walsingham. It is not cheaply made. Whoever owns this ring has rank, and money, and is a traitor.”

  “I shall, indeed,” I said, casually setting the ring back upon the table. I tried to pick my needlework back up, but my hand trembled so that I could not control the stitches. Without a doubt, Mary noticed, too.

  • • •

  That autumn, Parliament met, though they did not often do so during Elizabeth’s reign. Before they sat, a group of loyal Catholic nobles and gentry appeared before the queen with a signed petition to assure her that they owed their loyalty to her and denying that the pope had any right to authorize regicide, which they declared to be “false, devilish, and abominable.” Elizabeth received them graciously and said that she in no way questioned their loyalty, and reiterated that she had no wish to make windows into men’s souls. “A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing,” she reassured them. “There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.”

  ’Twas not the first time, nor, I was certain, would it be the last, that I basked in the honor and privilege of giving my life’s service to such a monarch.

  However, Parliament’s members made it clear that they felt very differently. They spent their sitting season closing up, among other items, holes in the recusancy laws. If an alleged recusant were able to avoid being served a summons, a notice was posted on the church door requiring him to show up in court. If he failed to show in court, fines were levied against him again and again, and his lands and monies could be forfeited, up to two-thirds of all he owned.

  Additionally, anyone at all might be required to swear the Oath of Supremacy, declaring that the pope had no spiritual authority in England. Peers were assumed to concur, though others may be required to prove their agreement at any time, and peers were not exempt from protecting any known recusant.

  I sweat a cold sheen. I, of course, was a peer. Thomas was not.

  NINETEEN

  Year of Our Lord 1586

  Windsor Castle

  The Palace of Whitehall

  At the New Year’s celebrations that year, the offerings to Her Majesty were particularly thoughtful—and expensive. Lord Howard of Effingham, one of the queen’s many cousins, the lord admiral of her navy, and a quiet Catholic, gave her a beautiful amulet of a phoenix emerging from a bed of ashes. Inside were eleven jeweled letters: Semper Eadem. Always the Same. It was a particularly touching gift, as semper eadem was also her mother’s motto. She caught my eye and held it when she handed it off to me, then glanced down at the locket ring I’d given her and winked so only we two could see. I winked in retur
n.

  As I sorted through her gifts, deciding which would be passed along to others, which she would keep, and which she would soon wear, I said as I drew near, “This is a particularly beautiful prayer book, Majesty.” The book, bound in gold, was strung with gold chains that could be securely fastened upon Her Majesty’s waist girdle. “On one side is enameled a serpent, with a quote from the book of Numbers.” I turned it over. “And on the back is the Judgment of Solomon.” I read the passage from the book of 1 Kings quoted in enamel print: “ ‘Then the king answered and said, “Give her the living child, and slay not: for she is the mother thereof.’

  “The first side rather puts me in mind of a story of Aesop I’ve told my young Elizabeth of late,” I said as I clipped it to her girdle with her nodded permission. “And reminds me of your cousin Mary of Scots.”

  The queen, more sensitive than ever, said, “Indeed?” with the particular edge to her voice that alerted us to proceed with caution.

  “Go on,” Mary Radcliffe urged me.

  “There once was a strong, benevolent lady who was walking through a frozen rose garden in the grievous chill of winter when her slipper brushed against something on the cobbled path. She saw that it was a snake, stiff with cold and nigh on dead, having run the fool’s errand of leaving its own nest to seize a better one.” The room grew quiet but I continued. “Forswearing her initial hesitation, the lady placed the serpent close to her bosom, where it quickly warmed. When it revived, the serpent resumed its natural nature, bit its benefactress, and poisoned her with a wound unto death.

  “ ‘Why have you done this?’ she cried. ‘I have only sought to assist you!’

  “ ‘You knew full well what I was when you drew me close to your heart,’ replied the cunning viper.

  “ ‘I am justly rewarded, then,’ the lady sorrowed, ‘for pitying a serpent.’ ”

  There was no happy outburst at the end of my tale, as there had been when I’d shared of Idun. This was a much more serious matter and the queen knew I meant the lady in the garden to represent herself.

  “And do you have a story at hand for the other side of this prayer book?” she asked with irritation as she flipped it over. “We have no doubt that you must, as you are rarely in want of something to share.”

  I heard the edge to her voice; she did not like to be instructed by anyone, though, in fairness, she could be counseled by almost anyone she trusted.

  “Of course! The other side, of course, represents you, Majesty. Always the good mother, always willing to sacrifice yourself for the well-being of your child, England.”

  At that she smiled, because she knew that I had parried with a compliment to blunt the sting, but that I’d meant both.

  The queen’s councilors came then, and we ladies were dismissed. Before I retired, I heard Walsingham say that they had found the husband of Eleanor Brydges, she who had tried to poison the queen and had poisoned herself instead, involved in treasonous Catholic activity. He had just crossed to the Continent before they were able to apprehend him.

  I retired to my own chamber, troubled. Was there a snake in my own garden? Where had Thomas come upon that ring? Was he, like so many of his family, still secretly Catholic at heart?

  I would have said, “No, no, never, this is my husband and I know him well.” But we had grown distant from one another. It had been two years since Bridget was born and we rarely slept together. We did not share a bed, we did not share dreams, and he did not often attend church with me, though he was bound by law to do so; and he did not tell me, any longer, to where he was riding or share details when he returned.

  Perhaps he was a better player than I had ever imagined.

  A person’s leanings did not make him a traitor, and as had been proved with Norfolk and Mary, there needed to be hard evidence of action. Walsingham had once told me, with Eleanor retching from poison down the gallery, that by sharing my concerns I could forestall anything terrible from happening.

  I could bring the ring to Thomas himself, but if he were truly given to the Catholic faith, and freeing Mary, I would only be warning him to be more cautious in his planning. And if Thomas had already acted and been branded a traitor, he would be executed. If I were in some way implicated by not bringing forth evidence when I knew of it, and I clearly now did, the law declared that I could be executed as an accomplice. My children would be orphaned, their parents attainted. Francis Throckmorton, a good man caught up in sudden religious zeal and the charm of Mary of Scots, had neglected to consider what would come of his wife and ten-year-old son were he caught, and caught he was.

  At the moment, I loathed England and its steady storms of treachery. My faith felt far and foreign to me, used by this side and that for nothing that resembled Christ at all. I had no idea if I could trust my husband, but I could not leave my children unsheltered. And perhaps, perhaps if suspicions were raised by Walsingham, whom Thomas respected and feared, there was time to warn him off from any foolery.

  Some hours later, after wrestling with my conscience, I sent one of my lady maids to Sir Francis Walsingham with a note. An hour later, I heard a knock upon the door.

  “My good lady marquess?” he said as he took a bow. I flinched, not only at the man, but at his appropriation of Her Majesty’s nickname for me.

  “Come in, Sir Francis,” I said. “Please, have a seat.”

  I had dismissed my servants, so I served him a goblet of wine myself. “I have some . . . concerns,” I said. “About my husband’s family. And perhaps about my husband himself.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, stroking his long beard. “You can rest assured in my confidence and concern, my lady,” he said. “What you share with me will go no further.”

  I explained to him the many heated discussions that had taken place over the matters of faith, loathing myself as the words flew from my mouth. Loyal, are you? I scolded myself in my head. In truth? Traitor. Liar.

  “Do you have any other concerns?” he asked.

  “Well, after Thomas had left for the Netherlands, I found this in his drawer,” I said. I handed over the recusant’s ring.

  “Yes, I’d heard you’d found one,” he said.

  At that I displayed my shock and he held back a smile. Who had told him? Surely not Mary Radcliffe, who trusted me implicitly after the Eleanor Brydges situation. But I had told none other.

  Then I recalled, Sofia had seen me with it. Had it been her? Or had she told someone who told someone?

  I said nothing, but as I handed it over to him I wondered what would have become of me if I hadn’t called for him, since he knew I was cherishing this ring at my bosom.

  “You have always proved most loyal to the queen,” Walsingham said as he stood to leave. “That shall not go unrewarded, no matter the cost, and I shall keep the concerns of your family, and children, uppermost in my mind.”

  “I bring this to your attention, Sir Francis, so that you can defuse a wick that is likely not yet lit, if it even exists at all. You told me, during the Eleanor Brydges affair, that if I let you know what I knew, you could arrest ill will before it kindled at my door. I expect you to keep your word.” I opened the door for him and drew myself up, head held high, and said with a trace of sarcasm, “You are like a master hawker, Sir Francis: breaking us all to hand, keeping a blind hood on us till you decide where you want us to hunt, and fly, and kill.”

  He laughed. “Well said, Lady Northampton. I, like you, hunt only and ever for one mistress: the queen.”

  “That’s true, Sir Francis,” I said. “I’ve been serving the queen for more than twenty years. And you?”

  “Seventeen,” he said, bowing stiffly before he took his leave.

  After I let him out I sat upon my bed and cried, and then I was filled with cold dread; it sank in my belly and would not be dislodged even after I spent nearly an hour sobbing. How had it come to this? Had I just condemned my husband to death, or had I rescued him from folly? Had I protected my children from being orphaned and
living with the curse of an attainted father and mother, or had I broken their home?

  I sensed we had many deceptions between us now. Each was like an inch, or a foot, or a mile that parted us. I considered for a moment the idea of telling Thomas of all this. But I could not. In my heart, I knew he would never forgive me for putting the queen’s interests above his own.

  I could only hope and pray that naught should come to pass.

  • • •

  If some had chanced upon me exactly ten summers earlier—when I was drunk with love for Thomas and he with me, we two, so ready to bear the wrath of the queen or anything else to be together—and told me that ten years hence our love would have grown cold, I should have laughed. I did not laugh now. Like a river that had been blocked of its natural course, our affections had taken a sharp turn, and though I stood in the middle and tried to redirect the flow, time and circumstance overflowed me.

  I knew not why, but the queen had canceled her Progress that summer and we spent much of it at court in Windsor, her natural stronghold. I made provision for my children, but with the exception of Bridget they seemed to miss me not at all. They spoke nearly perfect German, thanks to Sofia, whom they conversed much with but heartrendingly little with me as I was so often away. Thomas returned from the Netherlands in late June. In August, the queen sent Thomas north again.

  “Shall I come with you?” I asked.

  “Nay,” he replied. I packed for him and we lay together but we did not make love; in truth, I could not remember with clarity the last time we had joined our bodies. As he rode away, his long blond hair pulled back in a queue, his body still fit and firm from riding, my own flesh ached for him. I shook it off and returned to court.

  I’d been blending a perfume for Elizabeth when she sent for me to come to her council room. I set down my herbs and musk and then wiped my hands on a linen before tucking my hair back into obedience. And then I walked down the gallery.

  When I arrived, she sat at the head of a long, thick table. Walsingham and Cecil were there, as were most of her other advisors; Lord Robert was still in the Netherlands. Standing at the end of the table was Thomas.