Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Sandra Byrd

  And, at the last, Drake captured the St. Philip, a Spanish merchantman laden with spices, bullion, jewels, and expensive fabrics, just before arriving, hailed as a hero, in Plymouth.

  “Her Majesty asked me to meet Drake, knowing we are friends, but also to inventory the haul for her,” Thomas said to me one morning. He showed me the letter he’d received from the council.

  You shall first deliver our letter to Sir Francis Drake and acquaint him with your instructions: you shall see the bills of lading of the prizes taken: you shall see what is best to be conveyed hither by land or sea, and what to be sold locally: you shall consider the safest means of transport: you shall cause all coffers and boxes you judge or know to have gold, stones, jewels, etc., to be opened before Sir Francis Drake and yourselves. . . .

  “The queen will take her thirty-five percent and then the rest shall be divided upon the investors. And Francis is rich,” Thomas said, but with no rancor. All England loved the man we knew to be our own pirate; men wished to be like him, women wished their husbands were. I simply wished for my husband to return to me.

  The queen sent Thomas because she knew him to be meticulous to the penny; she knew where every cent in her kingdom was, to whom it was due, and what was due her. Although she would treat Drake fairly, she never gave anything away without necessity. “Drake’s actions will delay Philip as he must restore his lost fleet, if he can, and will give England more time to prepare. But it will also spur him on to brutal war if he can; he is no man to be tweaked by a woman, queen or no.”

  I had not brought up the topic of the Wyatt poem with Thomas; what would I have said? There was no evidence at all, except the fear that lodged in my heart like a bone in the throat, that told me it was meant from Sofia to my husband. With war imminent, it did not seem a likely time for me to try to solve the problem of Sofia’s potential marriage or my own. And so, like the hulls of those burnt galleons, Thomas and I drifted.

  Whilst Thomas was at Plymouth, the queen met with her councilors to plan fortifications against the Spanish. And then, in the midst of things, came a package, by sea, from the czar Ivan the Terrible of Russia.

  We were at Richmond when the queen received an emissary of the czar. The queen met him in a private chamber flanked by me, Anne Dudley, Mary Radcliffe, and some other ladies as well as some of her noblemen.

  “My master would like you to consider his gifts, and perhaps, his hand in marriage,” the envoy said, which brought a fit of giggles from the maids in the back of the chamber and a stern look from Her Majesty. At fifty-four, she was flattered to be still considered matrimonial material. Mary and I opened his packages in the presence of the queen; he gave her four pieces of Persian cloth of gold and two whole pieces of cloth of silver, a fair large Turkish carpet, one hundred black, very rich sable skins, and two gowns of white ermine.

  The queen was gracious and instructed me to find some suitable gifts to return to Ivan with his servant, but she had no intention of marrying him.

  Later, in her chamber, we ladies wrapped ourselves in the black skins and the queen in her gown of white ermine. I taught her a few words of Russian, which I had learned as a girl in the north, and as she ably mimicked me, we ladies burst out in laughter.

  It was a much-needed moment of lightheartedness, as it came clearer each day that war was upon us.

  • • •

  The months passed and we prayed against and prepared for the Spanish. Thomas spent much of his time working for Lord Howard of Effingham, the queen’s cousin and lord admiral, and even Essex, as he prepared Hurst Castle and all ports north and south to withstand Spanish attack if they could.

  War was upon me at my home, too. The queen spent much of early 1588 at Richmond Palace, which was rare, but which I relished, as I was able to stay in my own home and enjoy my children as we were but a few feet away. One evening, as I bent down to retrieve a ball that Edward had rolled down a long gallery and into Thomas’s room, I spied something under Thomas’s bed frame.

  I leaned down and picked it up. It was a dainty, jeweled slipper. Sofia’s slipper. I sank to the floor and bade Edward to play with his brother for a moment.

  What must I do? I prayed. What can I do? I recalled the story I’d shared with Her Majesty, of the bosom serpent in the garden.

  It only took one serpent to destroy Eden.

  And then a second thought: it also took two willing participants.

  I wrote to Mary Herbert.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Spring: Year of Our Lord 1588

  Richmond Palace

  Langford House

  Summer: Year of Our Lord 1588

  Whitehall Palace

  English Coast

  I decided that I had to find out for myself if there was deceit afoot in my home or if I was, in my weariness, threading together unrelated incidents. Thomas had not yet returned from Hurst, but he would that evening; to that end, his secretary was already at Sheen.

  “Could you please write a note for me?” I asked him.

  “Certainly, Lady Northampton,” he said, wary. I had my own secretary, after all.

  “Please just pen, ‘If you want to make plans together, privately, meet me tomorrow evening in the large closet off of the long galley,’ ” I said. “Half nine. And then sign it, ‘Gorges.’ ”

  He cocked his head. “Not Northampton?”

  “No,” I said brusquely. “I am a Gorges as well, am I not?”

  He nodded. “Yes, of course.” He sealed the note and stamped it with Thomas’s seal, as that was all he had at hand.

  “Please deliver this to my cousin Sofia,” I said. “But speak nothing else to her, on pain of termination.” I could tell that concerned him; I was easy mannered most of the time.

  I checked on my children after they had dined; we had been so often at Richmond that they had thawed to me and clamored for my attention after dinner. It was all the sustenance I needed; besides, I was too worried to eat. Sofia had taken dinner in her chambers. Perhaps she’d sensed my mood, or perhaps she was planning for a rendezvous.

  Thomas returned home the next day, weary. I did not meet him or speak to him, even after he sent for me. Once I had my servants ensure that he was abed for the night, well before eight, I took the slipper and Wyatt poem in hand and went to the closet, where I waited, alone, in the dark.

  It had not escaped my attention that I was here in a closet confronting a woman, a relative, who desired to tryst with my man. The first time, with Karin and Philip, I had been but a girl who was willing to overlook the ill done her. This time, I was neither a girl nor willing to ignore or excuse treachery.

  This time, I would fight.

  At exactly half nine the door crept open. I could see her, because of the torches still lit in the hallway, but she could not see me.

  “Thomas?” she called into the dark as she moved forward. She had dressed most becomingly, perhaps most unseemly for an unmarried woman, and had brushed her hair to a shine.

  As she grew closer she saw that it was me, and not Thomas. She recoiled.

  “You were mayhap expecting to see someone else?” I asked. I held up the slipper and the scrap of paper to her. I didn’t need to ask anything else; her face betrayed her.

  “I meant no harm,” she said. “I was often alone. Thomas was often alone. We became . . . companions.”

  “Companions!” I shouted, not caring who heard me, though the children’s chambers were on another floor, and this wing was far from them.

  “I have no one,” she said. “You have left me bereft and alone.”

  “You came here on my good graces, at my good pleasure, and my long hours of service have kept you these many years while you plotted against me: to take my home, my husband, and my children.”

  “It’s not hard to rob the house that goes untended,” she retorted.

  I held my hand at my side so I would not strike her. Was she void of remorse or conscience? It put me in mind of one of Master Lyly’s lines: all is
fair in love and war. I would not give her the man she wanted, a nobleman, so she’d determined to take mine.

  “I have made arrangements for you to travel to Wales,” I said. “Lord Pembroke is now governor of Wales, and they reside at Ludlow. Young Upjohn is nearby and is still willing to take you to wife, though I cannot understand why.”

  “Wales?” she shrieked. “What is in Wales? Nothing. Barbarians!”

  I lowered my voice. “The forebears of the Queen’s Majesty come from Wales. Is she, too, a barbarian?”

  At that she shrunk. She knew I would not fear to tell Elizabeth of those sentiments.

  “You could return to Sweden,” I said, “in shame. Your choice. You have until tomorrow morning to let me know which you choose. You have been an instrument of trouble in my home, and you are no longer welcome here.”

  She dipped a saucy bow and left the room. I waited until she left and then I followed behind her and walked into Thomas’s chamber unannounced. I stood near his bed. “I should like to speak with you,” I said, waking him.

  He rolled and turned toward me. “Now?”

  I picked up a vase that was next to his bed stand and threw it at a wall that was not hung with tapestry. It shattered and water dripped down the wall, leaving the blooms askew on the floor. Truly alarmed, he got out of bed, put on some breeches, but remained bare-chested to delay, I gathered, our conversation no more.

  “Have you bedded her?” I asked quietly.

  He looked at me bewildered, but sleep-drunk no longer. “I do not know of whom you speak,” he said.

  I reached over and took his quill and ink and threw them against a wall. “The pretty miss you recite such fine poetry to,” I said, shaking the scrap of poem at him. “Wyatt?”

  He looked confused. “I recite poetry to no one,” he said, “but you.”

  “Have you bedded her?” I asked him quietly. I held up the slipper. “I found this under your bed.”

  He looked at me without flinching. “No. But she’s asked me to, more than once. She came to me at night and sat on the foot of my bed, whereby, I suppose, she left a slipper. I didn’t bed her. But I considered it.”

  I went forward to strike him and he caught my wrist in his hand before I could. I stood there, trapped, and when he was sure I was not going to strike him he let go of my wrist and backed away.

  “And what if I had bedded her, eh?” he asked. “Would that be something to run and tell Walsingham? Perhaps he could have me followed and flogged for it.”

  I grew cold. “Walsingham . . .”

  “Oh, yes,” Thomas said. “You went running to him with the recusant ring instead of asking me, your husband, what it was. He was so proud of you, of your loyalty.”

  “Mayhap if you’d told me first, I would not have had to run to anyone!” I shouted. “Where’s the loyalty in that?”

  “I trusted you to understand that I would always have your best interests in mind and there was no way I was going to risk you, or our children, until the plot had been defused!” He ran his hand through his hair. “All of this!” he continued. “The missions, the fortress, the envoys, the courts, the errands, the ultimate betrayal of my family and the risk of my life. All of it,” he said, “I do for you. So you would have pride in me, and be not ashamed that you had taken me, untitled, as a husband. And what is my thanks? Bearing tales to Walsingham.”

  He sat down on the bed, silent. “All of this, Elin,” he finally said, “I’ve done for you. But you are never here. A man wants a wife who carries his name, who is home to greet him when he returns, who hunts with him and reads with him and plays chess with him. Who warms his bed. Is that so hard to understand?”

  I crumpled onto the floor. “No,” I said. “In truth, it’s not.”

  “You’re gone more often than not,” he said. “Sofia is here more often than gone.” He looked at me. “But I haven’t bedded her. I swear that to you. I haven’t bedded her.”

  I put my head in my hands and began to cry. He came from the bed and sat with me there, on the floor. “Elin,” he said. “Elin. Do not mourn so.”

  “How did it come to this?” I asked. “Not so long ago you and I held one another, defying the queen, promising to love one another and let nothing and no one come between us. And here we are, with nothing left to bind us together.”

  He held my hand and clasped his finger over my wedding ring and then drew my hand to his lips. And then he put his lips on mine and kissed me softly. I kissed him back and before many more moments had passed he picked me up from the floor and helped me from my gown and moved me to the bed.

  I spoke many languages at court, and Thomas did, too, but there was one language that he spoke only with me, and I with him. We used no words to reassure one another in that language that there were yet many unshakable bonds of love between us.

  Afterward, I did not sleep, nor did he.

  “Where did the Rosary ring come from?” I asked him, touching the wedding band of gold on his finger.

  “My cousin,” he said, voice still sorrowing. “I had to win them to confidence, misleading them into believing that I was a Catholic so they would share the plans they had with me, plans not for good, but for evil, for overthrowing the queen and replacing her with Mary. I regret deceiving them, but there was no other way.”

  “Is that why you hadn’t gone to church with me?”

  He nodded. “I worshipped in private, though.”

  I slid nearer to him. “You do not have to explain yourself to me. It was my error.”

  “And perhaps mine,” he said. “I could have shared more, but, well, we were grown apart and you are always with the queen and—”

  I put my finger to his lips. “I have told Sofia that she can choose between Wales and Sweden.”

  “Will Upjohn have her?” he asked.

  “I believe so. I’ve been honest with Mary about my concerns all along, and she told me that Upjohn was taken with Sofia, as he preferred a spirited woman.”

  “I well understand that,” Thomas said.

  I looked at him with surprise and hurt.

  “Nay, nay, love, not Sofia, never.” He kissed me. “A spirited woman.”

  I sighed and settled back. “And yet, even with her gone, that shan’t solve our problems,” I said.

  “There is no solution.” He looked away.

  I lay my head on his chest. This was my moment, perhaps my last chance, to show my husband what he meant to me. I had made many missteps along the way, but I would not make one now.

  “I shall leave Her Majesty’s service,” I said. “Not altogether. I shall be present from time to time, but in the main, I shall be with you and the children.”

  He sat up, dislodging me. “What?”

  I sat up and drew the coverlet about me. “I shall leave her active, constant service.” Lady Knollys, after all, had worked herself to death in service of the queen, to the detriment of her husband and children.

  Thomas had remembered that, too. He shook his head. “It cannot be done. If she would not allow Lady Knollys to leave her service for but even a short time, nor Lady Cobham, she will certainly not allow you to leave. She depends upon you. She loves you. She craves your comfort and companionship.”

  “So do you,” I whispered as I took his head in my hands.

  He pulled me to him so I would not see the tears that I felt instead. “I do. But she will not abide it. She will disallow it.”

  “She can hardly throw me in the Tower,” I said, trying to jest though I did not feel like it.

  “No, she can do worse,” he replied. “She can strip us of our lands, our titles, our commissions, our rents, our offices, our grants, our gifts, and everything we need to raise our children, educate them, and marry them well. We could be left with no preferment at all. Look at poor Davison. He sits, still in the Tower a year later, for lawfully carrying out her order.”

  “I am willing to risk that if you are,” I said.

  He drew my ear near and
whispered in it. “ ‘Tangled I was in love’s snare, oppressed with pain, torment with care, of grief right sure, of joy full bare, clean in despair by cruelty—But ha! ha! ha! full well is me, for I am now at liberty.’ ” He looked me in the eye. “That’s Thomas Wyatt. And it be only for my wife.” He pulled me toward him and we made love again while the sun rose.

  As I got dressed, he asked, “When shall you tell her?”

  “After the war with Spain is over,” I said. “If you agree.”

  He nodded. Neither of us wished to abandon her at the most difficult hour in her rule.

  • • •

  I called Sofia to me later that day.

  She spoke but one word. “Wales.”

  “Prepare your belongings,” I said. “I shall take you to Salisbury and you shall be met there by some of the Pembrokes’ menservants, who will take you to Upjohn. I shall give you a lady maid as your wedding gift.”

  At that, she softened, perhaps expecting nothing at all. I did not wish to ruin her life. I merely wished for her to not ruin mine.

  I sent word to the queen that I would not be at court that day but requested an audience with her that evening, and word came back that the queen had agreed.

  My husband and I spent the day bow hunting, he behind me, his arms around me, and I cared not at all if I killed a stag because I had recaptured the only thing that mattered. It put me in mind of a saying: a bow long bent at last waxeth weak. My marriage was bent to the point of breaking, and I must repair it.

  We spent the late afternoon in one another’s arms, again, in my chamber, because on the morrow I would leave for Salisbury and he for Dover as the country prepared for war.

  “If something should happen . . .” I began. In truth, I knew not which something I meant: war, the queen, an untimely death.

  “If something should happen, Elin, we are already whole,” he said, kissing me into silence.

  “Hans mun är idel sötma, hela hans väsende är ljuvlighet. Sådan är min vän, ja, sådan är min älskade.”