by Susan Kay
Burghley came into the room leaning heavily on his staff and snapped his fingers to the Queen’s remaining women, signing them to leave. For a moment he awaited Elizabeth’s angry reaction to his unprecedented impertinence, but she was staring into the fire as though she had not even noticed. Too exhausted to care, he thought quickly, and for once his excitement outweighed his concern. If he ever had a chance to master her will, it was now—
He surpassed himself with his own eloquence that night, and she listened, supine in her chair, like a snake mesmerised by its charmer, while his soft voice needled, reproached and cajoled in turn, undermining her determination with powerful rationality. She could not dispute the truth of a single word he spoke. It was inevitable, this execution, it was just, it was even a kindness to release the wretched woman from this cruel suspense.
“…and after all, madam, what have you against it save an instinct, which may be wrong?”
That broke the charm which was slowly drawing her towards submission to his will. She sat upright and glared at him.
“My instincts are never wrong,” she said acidly, and dismissed him unsatisfied once more.
When he had gone, she was aware of an aching need for sleep, an exhaustion so great she could hardly stand upright while her women disrobed her. She refused to take Lady Warwick’s posset, certain that dreamless oblivion must claim her the moment she lay down, and so they blew out the lights and left her alone in the darkness.
And then it began again. A thought, like a little rat, scuttled through the rushes of her mind, and was followed instantly by another. Feverishly they chased each other, pausing here and there to nibble spitefully behind her eyes, until it seemed that her whole brain was on fire.
Her speech to the parliamentary delegation:
It is sad that I who have pardoned so many rebels, winked at so many treasons, should now be forced to proceed against such a person…I have had good experience of this world. I know what it is to be a subject, what to be a sovereign…Princes are set on stages…it behoves us therefore to be careful that our proceedings are just and honourable.
Just and honourable.
She recalled Mary’s miserable son, James, her god-son, writing to tell Leicester how foolish he would be “to prefer my mother to the title”; and, indeed, the deputation he had sent to plead Mary’s life had been half-hearted and hypocritical in the extreme. James wouldn’t shed a single tear if his mother died tomorrow. So much for children! Perhaps she had been fortunate never to bear any after all.
She closed her eyes and against the dark background of her lids saw the bloody carnage of Mary’s last battle in Scotland. Langside! Screaming men and horses, panic-stricken, riderless, plunging hoof-deep in gore and trampling bodies where faint life still lingered. Across the night a mud-spattered girl in a torn gown rode desperately for her life, fleeing from the treacherous pursuit of her own subjects, riding against all sound advice to England and her cousin’s sanctuary, deceived by the spurious promise of friendship symbolised in a glittering diamond. I am now forced out of my kingdom and driven to such straits that, next to God, I have no hope but in your goodness, my dearest sister.
Elizabeth got up suddenly and lit a candle, groping on the bedside table for the letter she had received from Mary a few days ago. Leicester had advised her not to answer it, and it had lain there ever since.
Do you wish me to return the jewel you sent me now or later?
She bit her lip with shame and her eyes wandered and were riveted by another line.
…because I fear the secret tyranny of those into whose power you have abandoned me, I beg you not to permit me to be executed without your knowledge…
A vision of the block paralysed Elizabeth’s imagination. The roll of drums, the flash of a blade in the sunlight, a black-haired bauble tumbling soundlessly into the bloody straw…
“Anne! Anne!”
Lady Warwick ran in from the Pallet Room, with a shawl over her night rail, and found the Queen sitting on the edge of her bed, trembling violently. She looked up as the Countess reached her side and her eyes were wild.
“Has Leicester retired yet?”
“I don’t know, madam, but I expect so, it’s long after midnight. Shall I send to inquire?”
“No—yes! Ask him to come here, Anne, if he is still awake—but they are not to disturb him if he sleeps.”
“Yes, madam.”
Oh God—let him be awake!
Ten minutes later Leicester, dressed in a velvet robe trimmed with sable, was lifting her hand to his lips and gently fending off the little spaniel who had bounded from the foot of the bed to welcome him.
“Down! There’s a good boy—been keeping you awake, has she?”
“Not him,” said Elizabeth shakily, “he’s been snoring like a pig by the fire all evening. How these dogs can sleep!”
“No conscience,” said Leicester shrewdly, and sitting on the bed handed her the draught she had refused earlier, serving as taster himself. “That will quiet yours for tonight at least—drink it to please me.”
He looked tired in the candlelight, his high colour unnatural and unhealthy. She humoured him and swallowed the draught and as she did so, his eye fell on Mary’s letter, face upward on the high pillows.
He swore volubly, as he reached for the sheets of paper.
“So this is what drives you from your meat and wrecks your sleep! A pity she employed less cunning in her own kingdom, she might not now be in this pass. Oh, Elizabeth, don’t let her torment you like this. The Lord knows her guilt was plain for all to see at her trial.”
Elizabeth looked away and began to play with the golden fringe of the coverlet.
“So plain that not one original document was brought in evidence against her, nor were her secretaries brought to testify! She accused Walsingham of forgery and who is to say she was not right?”
Leicester leaned forward and covered her hands with his own.
“She’s guilty, my love—as guilty as Babington and the rest.”
“Then if she’s guilty why won’t she confess? God knows, it’s all I need to save her life.” She stared distractedly at the letter on the bed. “I suppose she never believed I would dare to let it go so far—perhaps a letter was too cold and impersonal. But she’s had time to reflect now—don’t you think perhaps if I saw her—”
“That is the very last thing you wish or dare,” he interrupted suddenly. “If you think Burghley’s spent all these years making sure the two of you never met only to give way now—” He stopped. There was a truculent expression on her face and he hastily assumed a more conciliatory tone. “It wouldn’t be wise now—would it? And in any case I’m willing to swear it would be a waste of effort. She will never confess and damn herself for ever in the eyes of the world. Believe me, I have seen her and I know her stubborn pride will take her to her death rather than dishonour. The delay is too dangerous, madam. If she would rather die a martyr than live, then for God’s sake let her. She’s had a dagger at your throat for nearly thirty years! The only rational act—”
“You think it rational to execute a sovereign? You think I can cut off her head without any repercussion?”
“The blow to the Catholic faith here in England will be fatal.”
She struck the coverlet irritably.
“Oh God, Robin, what a fool you are if you honestly believe that.”
“Even Burghley calls her the ‘Queen of the Castle,’” Leicester reminded her pointedly.
“Then he, like you, ought to know that the early Christian Church was built on the bones of martyrs. Her execution will be the greatest thing for the Catholic faith since the Crucifixion—even Walsingham won’t douse that candle. Hang every priest in England and there’ll still be good Catholics in every village. And the moment she dies the path to England is clear for Philip. Do you want to see the Inquisit
ion set up here in London? We’ll have a damn good view of it, no doubt, with our heads stuck on the city gates! Why should a man go in fear of his life because his creed differs from another? God knows, I wish I had a faith to die for.”
He was shocked into silence, horrified by this open declaration of atheism. Talk like this, overheard by hostile ears and betrayed in public, could drag her from her throne, despised by Catholic and Protestant alike.
“Let it rest,” he said anxiously. “You are fighting the opiate.”
She began to laugh as the drug clouded her mind and released her inhibitions.
“You,” she said wildly, “always so afraid He might be listening. If you will not hear me I shall speak to Walsingham instead. I’ll say ‘Damn all religion and damn all men!’”
She swayed across the bed towards a silver handbell, but the room was distorted to her drugged sight and in her growing confusion she could not lay her hand upon it.
It was a trivial frustration, yet suddenly the final straw, sufficient to precipitate the hysteria that had been threatening for many weeks.
“I won’t do it,” she sobbed. “I won’t be forced. I shall pardon her.”
“You can’t do that.” He was aghast at the suggestion. “She’s been tried and condemned before the world—and if she’s indeed innocent of this crime, she’s been guilty of others. Adultery—murder.”
“So was my father! I don’t seem to remember anyone suggesting that he should have been executed for his crimes against humanity—God knows, there were enough. He left more corpses in his wake than a tom-cat leaves litters. Oh, he was open-handed with death was my father—but not quite so generous with coffins. She never had one, did you know that? He gave her a coronation but not a decent burial. All day she lay in a pool of blood until one of her women found an arrow chest, too short for any normal corpse—but not for her. Late May it was, a hot summer’s day full of flies—odd how they always know where to find carrion—”
Frozen in his chair, he listened helplessly to her tortured laughter.
“Shall I send an arrow chest for Mary?” she demanded suddenly. “Or the sword of a French executioner? They say the French are very good at it. They ought to be, they charge enough, £23.6s.8d.—that was the going rate in my mother’s day, the best that money could buy—”
She laughed again and then began to cry, falling on her pillows and beating them savagely with clenched fists.
“It will be the end of every monarchy in Europe—you’ll see that, all of you, when it’s too late to do anything about it.”
That was her conscious reason against it—a good reason, he had to admit; but her unconscious reasons frightened him a great deal more at the moment. Death by the axe; he had always suspected she was not quite sane on the subject.
Leaning over the bed, he lifted her into his arms and held her in an embrace so hard it crushed the sobbing out of her.
“Listen,” he said desperately, “be calm and listen to me. There is another way—”
He waited till the sobbing became a whimper that trembled at length into silence, and all the while he chafed her cold hands, so cold that it seemed as though the blood had ceased to run in them.
“Assassination,” he said slowly. “Poison in her cup, a pillow while she sleeps, there’s a dozen ways it could be done. It would free you of this burden and if you agree—I will arrange it with Paulet.”
She was silent. He waited a few minutes to allow her to absorb the implications of his suggestion, then added quietly, “I was always in favour of it. Right from the beginning it has been the only course to take. You see that now—don’t you?”
Silence.
He looked down and found she was asleep, dead asleep in his arms with one finger in her mouth like a child. He laid her gently on the pillows and drew the covers around her.
After tonight, he was more strongly convinced than ever that murder was the only way. He had seen and heard enough to fear that the stroke of an axe would sever far more than Mary Stuart’s neck.
Well, he had done his part. He had planted the seed.
All that remained now was to water it tenderly and pray that it bore fruit.
* * *
January crawled into February on leaden feet with the death warrant still unsigned. The Council despaired and the people milled in the streets of London, clamouring for the head of the Scottish traitoress. Rumours flew like wildfire in the explosive atmosphere, rumours that Mary had escaped, that the Spaniards had landed, that London itself had been set on fire.
At last the Lord High Admiral bowed sombrely over the Queen’s hand and warned her of the unrest in the city streets.
“Madam, the people will not tolerate much more of this suspense. They grow dangerous in their fear for you.”
She went to the window and stared out bleakly.
“Strike or be stricken,” she said in Latin. After a moment she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Walsingham is ill, as you know, my lord—the warrant is in Davison’s keeping. Let it be brought to me at once.”
For six weeks Davison had hung around the Queen’s apartments waiting for this summons and, as he hared back through Greenwich Park, it crossed his mind that it was entirely typical of her to send this summons when he was snatching his first spell of air and exercise for many days. He had been caught napping and he had the terrified suspicion that by the time he reached her presence she would use this unforgivable delay as an excuse to send him packing. The Council would skin him alive!
“But I wasn’t to know,” he argued furiously with himself. “I wasn’t to know—I’m not a mind reader, damn it!” He rushed into his closet, grabbed the warrant and a handful of other papers requiring her signature and bolted down the corridors, like a mouse in a maze.
He arrived in the Queen’s room, red-faced, sweating and out of breath, expecting abuse; but to his astonishment she turned from her quiet contemplation of the gardens and welcomed him gaily.
“Good morning, William.” She smiled sunnily at his hat which he had forgotten he still wore and he flushed scarlet as he snatched it off. “Such a lovely day—I see you have been out.”
“A short walk in the park,” he managed to gasp.
“Ah yes, exercise—” She seated herself calmly at her desk and held out her hand for the papers. “Exercise is a cure for all ills. I believe physic to be false and unnatural to the human body.”
There was something very terrible in this easy good humour after all those weeks of tortured indecision and he entertained a fleeting suspicion that her mind was unbalanced. She began to sign the papers without looking, chattering all the time like a magpie. And there was the warrant! Her pen flew over the surface, adding that twirling, fantastic signature and she tossed the paper on to the floor at the side of her desk.
There was a long moment of deadly silence before she looked up at him.
“Are you aware of what has just occurred, Davison?”
He swallowed nervously, unable to take his eyes off the paper on the floor.
“Fully aware, Your Majesty.”
“And are you not heartily sorry to see it done at last?”
“I am sorry for the necessity, madam.” His voice was quaking. Why had Walsingham had to take to his bed now of all times and leave him, poor unsubtle Davison, to handle this momentous issue? “But, of course, not to see Your Majesty take the honourable course,” he added hastily.
Again that terrifying smile flashed at him and made him shiver involuntarily. She signed the rest of the papers without a murmur and then glanced down at the warrant on the floor, frowning at it as though in an effort to recall what it was.
“Take that to the Lord Chancellor for sealing, as secretly as you can, Davison, but be sure you show it to Walsingham first—the joy of it will probably kill him outright.”
He was suddenly very anx
ious to get away from her dreadful levity and as he bowed and backed towards the door, he heard her begin to talk feverishly to herself.
“It’s done—it’s done at last—but I never desired it—all my friends know how it grieves me—yes, they all know—I would have thought by now that one of them—”
His hand touched the door handle.
“Wait!”
Slowly, reluctantly, he crept back to her desk, dreading what he might hear. She looked up and pinned him with a steely glance.
“I consider it a remarkable thing that those who guard her have not seen fit to ease me of this burden—”
“Madam—I beseech you—”
“Go to Walsingham.” Her voice was suddenly as cold and hard as a snap of ice. “Together you will write to Paulet and tell him to shorten the life of this Scottish Queen in private.”
“But, madam.” He gesticulated in wild despair. “This is neither honourable nor wise.”
“Wiser men than you have suggested it,” she snapped angrily. “You will write to Paulet, do you understand? And from now until it is done I wish to hear no more about it.”
* * *
Paulet sat in his icy room and fingered Walsingham’s letter in horrified amazement. Paulet was hard and cruel and far from clever, but he was not a fool. He had no personal regard for the Queen of Scots, but had had a very healthy regard for his own life; and he had a shrewd suspicion what the reward for obedience would be in this case. The role of scapegoat was not one that particularly appealed to him.
He took up his pen and wrote with self-righteous regret that he could under no circumstances “make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience as to shed blood without law or warrant,” neatly passing the responsibility back to his Queen.
* * *
Davison flapped out of the Queen’s room and rushed to Sir Christopher Hatton’s apartments in a fine twitter of nerves.
“Sir—sir, I need your advice.”
Hatton was alert immediately.
“What’s amiss?”
“The Queen—the Queen, sir. I was with her just now. ‘Is the warrant sealed?’ she asks. ‘Why yes, madam,’ I replied. ‘Jesus, why all this haste!’ says she—I’m afraid, sir, I’m very much afraid of what she really intends—and—and of how it affects me. I recall the late Duke of Norfolk’s execution and her animosity towards those who urged it upon her. My shoulders are too weak to hear such a burden alone—I beseech your assistance with the Council.”
