Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Sandra Byrd

  I nodded to him, shocked that I’d had no idea he had returned. I looked at the council faces; they were grim. He nodded back but did not smile, and I was overcome with fear.

  Lord Jesus, protect my husband.

  “We thought you would like to be present for this,” Elizabeth said to me, indicating that I should sit upon a chair near, but not at, the table.

  I sat down and Walsingham began. “As you know, Majesty, in the early summer months of this year, I had uncovered some correspondence from an English seminary student named Ballard, and also Mendoza, lately rejected from this realm in the last plot against the Queen’s Majesty by Mary of Scots, and now Spain’s ambassador to France. Ballard asked what Spanish support there would be should English Catholics seek to overthrow you. Mendoza replied that there would be an invasion this summer to support it. Ballard recruited young Anthony Babington, a rich and well-born young Catholic man, and told him that while a Mr. Savage would actually carry out your murder, the plan would be successful if there were more men involved. And so our Mr. Babington, who had already served as a runner for letters and other goods from Mary to her supporters while she was at Chartley, agreed to recruit several others in this plot.”

  I looked at Thomas, but he would not meet my eye, which made me uncomfortable. I soothed myself that he was here before me and not in chains in the Tower, and so all must be well.

  “Throughout the summer, Babington plotted and gathered supporters who debated the best way to murder you, whether it be in your litter, or while you hunted in a park, or perhaps even in your very own Presence Chamber.”

  The queen inhaled sharply, but she was no novice to plotting against her and waved her hand. “Continue, Sir Francis.”

  “In July, Babington, feeling certain that his communications were private, took Mary into his confidence. They were exchanging letters through waterproof pouches in the caskets of beer delivered to Mary, for her household, and paid for”—he looked at Elizabeth—“by Your Grace. Babington began by writing, ‘My dread sovereign and Queen,’ and then told her that there was a significant plot at home and abroad to kill Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, on the English throne.” He looked down and read from a document “ ‘For the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by excommunication of her made free, there be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and Your Majesty’s service will undertake that tragic execution.’ ”

  I reached over, by impulse, and took Elizabeth’s hand in mine for a moment, forgetting that we were among the men. She squeezed it kindly, and then withdrew it again to her lap.

  “And Mary responded . . . ?” she asked. Though I knew she must have been briefed before this, likely many of the others did not know.

  “She did not disagree with or protest in any way the plans laid for Her Majesty. Instead, she wrote, ‘The affairs being thus prepared and forces in readiness both within and without the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work, taking order, upon the accomplishing of their design I may be suddenly transported out of this place.’ ”

  Walsingham continued, “Plans were made to meet Mary as she hunted, for a party to greet her and secret her away to a place where she would remain safe while Your Majesty was being murdered. The men would then bring Mary safely to London, where she would be proclaimed queen. One of the men who had gained the confidence of Mary, and was among the plotters with Babington, was John Gorges.”

  I gasped and coughed. A page was sent for a glass of watered wine, and though I normally drank sparingly, at this I drank my full cup.

  Walsingham brought his portion to a close. “Babington caught word of the breach and fled to London, where he colored his skin with the pigment of green walnuts and hid in the forest; he was caught and is now imprisoned along with many of his conspirators. Some, like John Gorges, fled to the Continent before they could be apprehended.”

  “Thank you, Sir Francis. And now, Cousin Gorges, I await your report of the capture of Mary.”

  I cocked my head and looked from Thomas, to Walsingham, to the queen. Thomas had apprehended Mary?

  He stood and spoke, his voice clear and firm. “We rode out toward Chartley, but she had been told that there was a riding party waiting to meet her. She, along with her doctor, her butler, and some others, had planned to kill a fine buck that day. She’d dressed splendidly, assuming, perhaps, that this might also be the day of your death and her victory. Once she saw me, and not Babington, she grew alarmed.

  “I approached her politely, on your behalf, and said, ‘Madam, my lady the queen finds it very strange that despite the agreement reached between you, you have conspired against her and the kingdom, which she would never have thought if she had not seen the evidence with her own eyes. As far as she understands, some of your servants are involved. The rest will Sir Amias to say you.’ ”

  So Elizabeth had already seen the letters. But of course. She saw them but said nothing. But Thomas had said nothing to me as well?

  “Paulet, of course, knew we were to meet her there and ensured that many of her servants were with her. She began to shriek to her men that if they be any men at all they take up arms, immediately, for her defense and installment on your throne. And indeed, her secretary sought to knock me off my horse. But most of them, at that point, knew there was no use. Mary was conveyed to Tixall, nearby, and her secretaries to London. Her quarters at Chartley were searched by order of Sir Francis”—he looked at Walsingham—“and three large caskets of materials were conveyed back to your court.”

  This appeared to be the first time that Elizabeth had heard Mary’s response. “She’s a wicked murderess, and her treacherous dealings toward me, the one person who has been the savior of her life for many a year, are unforgivable!”

  I, and Thomas, were politely dismissed as the queen and her councilors began to debate where Mary should be held, and when and how she should be brought to trial.

  Thomas walked down the long hallway with me and I took his hand in mine. “Please, let me care for you. You’ve ridden hard many hundreds of miles.”

  He nodded. “I am tired unto death,” he said.

  I took him back to our chambers and sent a servant for hot water. I stripped him of his dusty riding clothes and bathed him. I rubbed his muscles with ointment and mint, fed him, and put him abed.

  In the morning, we broke bread together and I tried to speak with him of his journey. “I am so proud of the work you have done on behalf of Her Majesty,” I said. “I should have liked to have prayed for you. . . .”

  He did not respond; I understood. It was a secret mission and he was not allowed to share the details. I was just so relieved that he was back, and well, and . . . not treasonous. “You’re tired, I understand,” I said. “We shall have weeks ahead to speak of this, and other things.”

  He smiled at me, but it did not seem genuine. If anything, now that this situation was over he seemed more distant to me than when he’d had a secret to keep. I was confused. I moved forward with affection, he parried me with distance. Soon enough, I let my overtures dwindle, confused but unwilling to be rebuffed again and again.

  He rested on and off for more than a week, and I did not press him for more information. He seemed pleasant in my company, but cool. I wavered between being faint with relief that he had been in the employ of Walsingham and angry beyond measure that no one had thought to take me into such a confidence: not my husband, not the queen. In my better moments I understood that they had kept it secret to protect my husband from harm should word of his surprise appearance be leaked when he had clearly infiltrated the group, for information, through his cousin. I could hardly be angry, justly, with Thomas, as I had not taken him into my confidence, either.

  But Walsingham, that was unforgivable. He let me believe, when I gave him the ring, that my husband might be guilty of recusancy, at best, or treason at worst, perhaps not trusting Thomas himself.

>   Did anyone at this court ever trust anyone else? Not husband, not mistress, not friend?

  No sooner had Thomas recovered than the queen sent him north again. The council had wanted to convey Mary to the Tower, where Babington currently resided. “His wife fled,” Thomas told me coldly. “Abandoned him and left their two-year-old daughter behind, rejecting her family in favor of the crown.”

  TWENTY

  Year of Our Lord 1586

  The Palace of Whitehall

  January: Year of Our Lord 1587

  Sheen

  The queen insisted that Mary be taken to Fotheringay Castle, and not the Tower, and Thomas was to convey her there. She sent a letter for Thomas to deliver; I was present as she dictated it to her secretary: “You have, in various ways and manners, attempted to take my life, and to bring my kingdom to destruction and bloodshed. I have never proceeded harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you, and all made manifest.”

  Some weeks later, after having returned, he told me of their travel together. I was encouraged, as he had stopped, some time ago, sharing details of his journeys. I now understood why.

  “She suffers badly in the joints, and rode for the entirety of the four-day journey. She tried repeatedly to charm and please me as I rode by her side, another man on the other side of the carriage, each of us with weapons lest her supporters try to find another means of escape. She protested her innocence to me. And I told her that I hoped it was so.”

  “She is guilty,” I said.

  “Beyond a doubt, a dozen times over. A cat may have nine lives, but she’s spent ten, and she will not live out the year. She responded to the letter Her Majesty sent by saying, ‘I am not so base as to wish to cause the death, or to lay hands on an anointed queen like myself.’ ”

  I shook my head. “Those who are quickest to protest the wrongs of another are guilty of those wrongs themselves. She seeks to shame Elizabeth into commuting her death sentence.”

  “Will she?” Thomas said. “Will the queen allow her to die this time, if her trial proves her guilty?”

  I inhaled, thinking of Elizabeth’s mother, an anointed queen who was beheaded when her daughter was but a young child, the memory of which I knew still bedeviled her. “I hope so. But I know not.” I turned toward him and put my hands on his face. “I am so proud of you. This was a difficult, dangerous task, one in which the queen and Walsingham must have thought carefully about before appointing the right man to carry it out.”

  He took my hands in his own for a moment, but not to hold them, rather to gently remove them from his face. Then he shook his head. “I am glad that the queen is safe, at last, from Mary and her bloody, wicked plans. But John Gorges is fled from his wife and children forever, and all know I am the cause of it. One of my mother’s Poyntz relatives was involved, too. He apparently made his way to France. They had my assurance, as family, when they shared details with me and allowed me to get close to Mary at the end. I feigned recusancy. ’Twas one reason why Mary was not alerted until it was too late. In order to keep faith with the queen, I broke faith with my family, who trusted me. What kind of person does that?”

  “You have chosen well,” I told him. At that, he looked at me for but a moment longer than necessary, sighed before kissing my cheek, and took his leave.

  I sat there, relishing the rare feel of his lips on my cheek until it faded into a memory and I could sense it no longer. I dried my eyes, and went back to service.

  • • •

  The queen knew that pamphlets had been used to sway the public she loved and who loved her. This autumn, ahead of Mary’s trial, she asked the brilliant, hunchbacked son of Lord Cecil, Robert Cecil, to write one and have it circulated. It was to explain her reluctance to execute Mary. Robert Cecil did a brilliant job, though the queen needn’t have worried. Most of her subjects were eager to have Mary, a traitoress many times over still suspected of murdering her husband, meet her Maker and explain herself to Him in person.

  The queen’s enemies, who wielded long forks and desired to help themselves to the meat of her realm, would prove a different matter indeed.

  The trial commenced on November 15. Though it was held in front of only thirty-six peers, there was not a person at court, from the lowest maid in the buttery to the highest earl, who did not know, in detail, everything that was done and said at the great hall at Fotheringay. When Mary entered, she was said to have exclaimed, “Alas! Here are many councilors but not one for me!” She was not allowed a defense, but was able to defend herself well, with wit and courage. I found it disturbing that Babington and the other plotters were executed ahead of Mary’s trial. Would it not have been prudent to call upon them for evidence? This did not trouble Walsingham, nor many others. There might well have been a chance that Mary had been misled, or that evidence had been contrived against her. But, as in my young Frances’s favorite Aesop’s fable, Mary had cried wolf once too many times with her deceits.

  The thirty-six peers appointed to hear evidence were not allowed to deliver a verdict. They did reconvene, however, in the Star Chamber at Westminster and debate the evidence in front of others, including Thomas. All but one agreed that she was guilty of compassing, practicing, and imagining Her Majesty’s death.

  The queen thanked them for their nearly unanimous verdict, but still she was loath to write a warrant for Mary’s execution. Perhaps she recalled the times when her own sister had been pressed to write out a death sentence for her but had stayed her hand. Elizabeth begged her councilors to consider how her enemies would look upon her if she agreed to have Mary executed. They already looked upon her as a bastard heretic. “When it shall be spread that for the safety of her life, a maiden queen could be content to spill the blood even of her own kinswoman, what shall they think then?” she asked.

  “Majesty,” Cecil objected, “they are not unwilling to spill your precious blood; in fact, as time shall prove, they are overeager to do so. Mary was wont to spill your blood and she did not care if it was done neatly, or if you were struck down while hunting in your own park!”

  The queen wavered. She assured them of her love and her thankfulness for their caretaking. “As for your petition: your judgment I condemn not, nor do I mistake your reasons, but pray you to accept my thankfulness, excuse my doubtfulness, and take in good part my answer answerless.”

  Her council was nearly undone by her indecisiveness, but I felt it should be credited to her that she was not eager to execute Mary. Cecil said that if the queen could not come to a speedy resolution her people would call this a “Parliament of words but no action.”

  He did not have to wait long for relief. Soon thereafter the queen agreed that Mary was guilty of treason and she was sentenced to death on December 4. Bonfires were lit day and night in London as the citizens celebrated. All that remained was for the queen to sign the death warrant . . . which she did not do. It brought to mind her indecisiveness years past with Norfolk.

  “Watch,” she told me once she’d agreed with the verdict. “The vultures will begin to swarm, but they won’t be wanting to pick from Mary’s corpse, but ours.”

  From Scotland came word from King James that if his mother’s life be touched or her blood be meddled with, he could no longer remain on good terms with the queen or estate of that realm. He continued by saying, “King Henry VIII’s reputation was never prejudged but in the beheading of his bedfellow.”

  Elizabeth was livid. “It should not be my father with whom he concerns himself about the execution of a wedded bedfellow,” she railed. “For his mother snuffed out the life of her bedfellow—his father, Darnley! Mayhap he should think upon that!”

  From France came word that Henry III would “look upon it as a personal affront” if Mary was executed. Elizabeth took pen in her own hand and said that such words were “the shortest way to make me dispatch the cause of so much mischief.”

  And yet at night, when I
rubbed her thin shoulders, the knots were not only felt but were visible. And she’d yet to hear from the greatest threat of all, Spain. “I have no will to see her executed,” she said, standing near the cages of her quiet songbirds. “She has come to me as a bird that had flown for succor from the hawk.”

  Mary wrote, thanking Elizabeth for the happy tidings, expressing joy that she was about to be at “the end of my long and weary pilgrimage.” She concluded by saying, “Yet while abandoning this world and preparing myself for a better, I must remind you that one day you will have to answer for your charge, and for all those whom you doom, and that I desire that my blood and my country may be remembered in that time.” She sought, deviously, to undermine Elizabeth, threaten her, and cause her pain until the end. It was Mary and her ilk written about in the book of Jeremiah: “Can the leopard [change] his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”

  The queen wanted Lord Robert back from the Netherlands, and Lord Robert wanted to return. Thomas volunteered to go and convey her agreement to him, which surprised me, for he was nearly always gone now, and I’d thought he’d relish the opportunity to stay at home.

  The queen told me, after he’d gone, that she meant to knight Thomas upon his return and appoint him as Master of the Wardrobe. I kissed her hand and prayed to God that would loose his demons forever.

  I returned home for three days to set my household in order before the Christmas season. One afternoon I found a scrap of paper with a bit of a poem on it. I asked the tutor to my older children, “Do you recognize this?”

  He took it in hand and within a minute said, “Yes, of course. The poet is Thomas Wyatt, and it is written in the hand of your cousin Sofia.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hoping I hid my anger and dismay. I knew, at heart, that she had not meant this for Upjohn. As the tutor took his leave, I read it again before folding it up and securing it in my gold girdle purse.