by Brandy Purdy
45
Mary
He left me alone, surrounded by heretics, traitors, and enemies, to fend for myself, and live in fear for my life and crown, hardly daring to eat lest someone slip poison into my food or cup, and afraid to sleep. For when I did sleep, an incubus in Philip’s form would come to visit and ravish me in lewd dreams that made my body gasp and groan and sigh and go through all the motions of passion, making my heart beat fast as if I had climbed to a great height and then leapt blindly, not knowing whether I would land on a soft feather bed or be impaled upon the sharp rocks below sticking up like phalluses to taunt me. I always awoke with a start to find my nightgown pulled up to my chin, my legs spread wide and wet between, and my fingers wet from touching myself. Some of my ladies always slept on pallets in my bedchamber when I was alone, and they saw and heard these wanton displays the Devil tricked and coaxed out of me, and ran giggling to tattle, and soon word spread throughout the court and whenever I appeared before their knowing eyes I felt as if I were being burned on a pyre of shame.
He was not with me on my birthday. He was not there to smile and drink a loving cup with me when Susan and Jane presented me with a goodly supply of Dr. Stevens’s Sovereign Water, a potion made of exotic and mysterious spices mixed into Gascony wine, promising “death-defying longevity well past the normal span allotted to mankind.”
He was not at my side on Easter Sunday when upon my knees in a linen apron I humbly washed the feet of forty-one poor women, one for each year of my life, and kissed with ecstatic devotion the sores of one-and-forty more suffering from scrofula.
He was never there when I was ill with “menstruous retention” and “strangulation of the womb” to hold my hand when the doctors had to bleed me from the sole of my foot to bring on my courses and bring me relief. He was never there when I suffered toothaches, heart palpitations, and megrims.
When he bothered to answer my letters at all, there were no words of love or tenderness, only clipped and curt businesslike phrases. They said he did not welcome my letters and each day when yet another one arrived was wont to exclaim, “The Queen of England is nothing but a nuisance!”
They said he was busy dancing in Antwerp, and getting drunk on Flemish beer, that he had cast off his rigid sense of decorum like a winter coat when the weather warms and given himself over to debauchery and pleasure. They said he had developed a passion for masked balls and was likely to attend, whether invited or not, any wedding celebration he could find. They said he was likely to hammer at any hour on any door of any Flemish nobleman and demand beer and to be entertained and to exercise his droit du seigneur to bed any woman he desired, even the wives and daughters of his hosts or just a pretty maidservant.
I wept and howled and screamed like a madwoman and took a knife to his portrait. “God often sends bad husbands to good women!” I raged as I slashed it to ribbons. Then I sat on the floor for hours, weeping with remorse, as I tried to piece it back together again. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away!” I sobbed.
And everywhere I went people seemed to be singing a mournful ballad of lost love that began:
Complain my lute, complain on him
That stays so long away;
He promised to be here ere this,
But still unkind doth stay.
But now the proverb true I find,
Once out of sight then out of mind.
Ceaselessly, relentlessly, my enemies tormented me with crude drawings, pamphlets, broadsheets, and doggerel verses about Philip’s antics and excesses in the Low Countries. They pictured me as a wrinkled old hag suckling my young Spanish husband at my sagging breasts and labeled me “Mary, the Ruin of England. She robs England’s coffers to send money to her faithless husband.”
They said marriage had aged me ten years; they feared that sorrow would drive me to take my own life. Some even prayed that I would. They said that after I was dead Philip would marry Elizabeth, claiming that he had already secretly petitioned the Pope and been granted a dispensation.
He said he would come back to me if I would finance his war with France, if I would overrule my Council’s adamant “No!” We had no quarrel with France, they said when I begged and pleaded with them, and England had no reason or responsibility to pay for Philip’s warmongering. Furthermore, it would bankrupt the nation. But the only way I could get him back was to provide him with money and men. If I did, then he would come back to me and be my loving husband and share my bed again. Why couldn’t they understand?
And I, in my desperate love and need for him, was willing to bleed England dry as Philip’s faithlessness had bled my heart, if only he would come back to me. To feel his touch again I was willing to do anything. I sent him £150,000 and after eighteen months of waiting, hoping, begging, pleading, and yearning, he, at last, came back to me.
46
Elizabeth
Wearing a god-awful gown of bloodred and gold stripes trimmed with heavy, dripping gold fringe, and delicate pink satin ribbons and bows, with a collar so high and tight topped by a tiny white ruff, it made her look as if her head were overly large and teetering on a plate balanced on top of a pillar, Mary ran out to meet him.
As every church bell in London rang and the choir from the royal chapel sang “Hallelujah!” and the Tower guns fired a welcoming salute, she bunched up her skirts, hitching them high above her knees, and ran to him, looking for all the world like an eager dog scampering to lick her master’s face when he returned home after a long absence. She flung herself at his feet, like Sappho hurling herself off the cliff, with all the passionate force of a cannonball, kissing first the toes of his dusty boots, then clutching at his hands and covering them with ravenous kisses and bathing them with her hot, salty tears.
All the time Philip stood there stiff and straight as a soldier at attention, calm and imperious in his gold-trimmed garnet velvet. I watched as, over Mary’s hunched and kneeling figure, he shared an amused glance edged with the intricate lace of cruelty, with the woman everyone knew was his latest mistress—the beautiful and worldly, voluptuous, full-hipped and ample-breasted, golden-haired Christina, Duchess of Lorraine. She had once been a reed-slender widow of sixteen, who, whilst posing for Holbein, had quipped that had she been born with two heads she would have gladly placed one of them at my father’s disposal and thus declined his invitation to become his fourth wife.
It maddened me to see him standing there, calmly accepting Mary’s devotion as if he were a golden idol meant to be worshiped and adored. Mary did not see the flame of gloating triumph blaze up briefly in his cold serpent’s eyes, nor did she, I think, notice the twitch of his leg, as if he were holding himself back, striving not to kick her. I turned away then, sickened and saddened, to see my sister, the Queen of England, debasing herself so before this most unworthy and callous man who cared nothing at all for her.
It also sickened me to know that later that night, in just a few hours, at the flower pageant Mary had devised to welcome him, behind the diaphanous curtains of a barge, in a gown bedecked with honeysuckles, pink roses, and buttercups, with golden shafts of wheat in my hair, I would be lying in his arms. The look in his eyes when he turned them my way told me so. And that was indeed what happened, but as I lay back against the silken cushions, listening to the water lapping gently against the barge, while Philip eased down my bodice and kissed my bare breasts, I was haunted by the memory of Mary down on her knees kissing his dirty boots as if they were a holy relic, and had to close my eyes against my rising nausea. When I could stand it no more, I pushed him away and struggled to my feet, claiming I was taken of a sudden ill by the onset of my courses. I went alone, back to my apartments, and sat on the window seat and hugged my knees and stared up at the stars, reflecting upon how love makes slaves and fools of women, and we are, in truth, better off without it and the meanness of men and the misery it brings.
Of course the maliciously minded made sure that Mary found out who and what the Duchess of Lorrai
ne was. And Mary made a fool of herself, ordering the Duchess’s possessions carried out of her rooms and taken down to the ground floor of the palace, as far away from her husband as she could decently lodge a noblewoman and honored guest from a foreign land. At table she seated the voluptuous, golden Christina as far away as possible from Philip, trying to block his view of her with lavish subtleties created in his honor by the royal pastry chef. And whenever there was dancing, Mary did all she could, making a complete fool of herself, to keep Philip and his “Fair Christina” apart, even digging in her heels and tugging at his arm to make him stay with her. And when her efforts failed and Philip spoke sharply to her, publicly reprimanding her for her rudeness and behaving like a barmaid jealous of the attentions her favorite patron bestows upon another instead of like a queen, she burst into noisy, wracking sobs and fled the Great Hall, leaving us all to stand in stunned and silent amazement until Philip clapped his hands and called for the musicians to play and led his “Golden Duchess” out to dance a most sensual and provocative rendition of the volta.
Sickened, I turned my back and walked away; I could not abide to see my sister so humiliated in her own palace. I tried to go to Mary but found her door barred against me. She would not let me in or deign to talk to me and I heard her tear-choked voice, muffled by the thickness of the oaken door, shouting at me to go away.
47
Mary
I gave him the money and the men he demanded but he wanted more—to share my government and wear the Crown Matrimonial. He wanted a grand coronation to publicly proclaim him England’s King.
“A woman ruling absolute and alone is an absurdity, a perversion and abomination in the sight of God and man,” he said to me, pacing before me, with his hands clasped behind his back, like a stern schoolmaster delivering a lecture. “God sent me to you, Mary, to lift this burden from your shoulders; you are clearly not capable of bearing it alone.”
“But, husband, the people fear Spanish rule!” I protested.
“How else should I rule but as a Spaniard?” Philip snapped back at me. “I am a Spaniard, not an Englishman!” He said this with such pride for his Spanish heritage and such obvious contempt for the English that I could not ignore or mistake it.
“But at our wedding banquet you drank a toast of English beer and said . . .”
Philip snorted derisively. “I know perfectly well what I said. That was for appearances only, to win the people’s good regard. Have you not learned the power of appearances by now? Even Elizabeth, a woman young enough to be your daughter, understands. . .”
“Why must you always say that?” I petulantly demanded.
“Why should I not say it?” Philip countered. “It is the truth. Are you so cowardly that you must shrink from it?”
“I don’t want to talk about Elizabeth!” I cried. “I cannot give you the crown you desire, my love, for my people . . .”
“Are stupid, blundering sheep who need the firm hand of a good and skillful shepherd to guide them,” Philip interrupted. “Someone like me. But if you cannot give me what I ask”—he sighed and spread his hands—“then I must depart. My pride will not allow me to stay in a country where I am not respected and have no authority. . . .”
“No!” I ran to him and flung myself at his feet, grasping his hands. “You cannot leave me again!”
“You have humiliated me, Mary; I serviced you like a stud does a brood mare, I gave you a child that you failed to deliver, which is not my fault, but where is my reward? Your love and gratitude are insufficient. For all that I have endured, I deserve the crown and have earned it many times over. But if you will not give it to me, then I shall have no choice but to leave and never return.” With those words he pulled his hands away from me and started for the door.
“Beloved, please.” I ran after him and caught at his sleeve. “I need a little time to persuade the Council, but I promise, when you return, victorious from your war, I shall crown your head with a wreath of golden laurels, and then, at Westminster Abbey, the Bishop shall bestow upon you England’s crown so that you can feel pride in being my consort. Your wish and will are commands that I will dutifully follow until the day I die!”
“Very well”—Philip nodded—“then I shall stay a little longer.”
“Thank you!” I bowed my head and fervently kissed both his hands. “Thank you!”
And that night, in the privacy of my bedchamber, when Philip stood naked before the mirror looking at his favorite person, I swallowed my shame, and put my pride aside with my clothes, and did all he asked of me.
In truth, I would have gone naked, clothed only in God’s love, if it would have pleased him. I would have done anything to make him stay. There were moments when I thought Philip made me weaker instead of stronger as he claimed, but he was my husband, my lord and master, my Christ on earth, and his word was law. And, God help me, oh how I loved him and oh how I sometimes hated him for it! I begged for his favor like a dog begging for a bone, and I hated myself for it, that I was willing to grovel and stoop so low. I was the only daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, I should not have had to beg anyone for anything, but I did, outwardly shameless but inwardly filled to the brim with shame. I was a beggarmaid in brocade and diamonds, begging for my husband’s love, or even just a token, some sign of affection, and everyone knew it. I saw the pity and contempt in their eyes when they looked at me, and I saw it in my own when I looked at my face in the mirror.
48
Elizabeth
He stayed only long enough to get what he wanted—money and men to fight his war with France—then Mary was left alone again standing on the crumbling precipice of a country she had brought to the brink of ruin.
To provide the money he demanded, coins had to be newly minted, which caused a panic as the value of the currency dropped alarmingly. With threats to take away their titles, lands, and estates, or even sentence them to death, she bullied the Council into doing Philip’s bidding, and seven thousand English men were sent to fight a war that was not of their making. And when Philip wrote to her demanding even more money, Mary sold Crown lands and her jewels to raise funds for Philip.
I was of the party that accompanied them to Dover and watched in sad and pitying silence as Mary, dressed in dramatic black and trailing veils, extravagant mourning for the imminent departure of her love, stood on the icy quay and declared, “My heart is already in mourning for your absence,” as she made her passionate and tearful farewells to the husband who, I knew in my bones, would strike her if she asked of him one more time, “You will come back to me?”
I could see the impatience and irritation twitching his cruel little mouth and simmering in his cold blue eyes, dangerous as a shark-infested sea. I watched her cling to him, anxious for reassurance, her voice and chin all aquiver and her face swollen and red beneath the ceaseless cascade of her tears. But even she, in her besotted blindness, I think, could see that he would never return to her no matter what words his lips spoke.
Before he boarded his ship, he took her aside, reminding her that, since she had failed to give him a son, I remained her lawful successor, and as such I deserved to be treated with respect, and if he should hear otherwise . . . He left the rest unsaid, a threat hanging like a sword on a frayed rope above her head.
Mary stood on the docks of Dover and waved until his ship was not even a speck on the horizon that even the most sharp-eyed amongst us could discern, and then I went to her.
For once, she did not push me away. She looked at me with such sadness in her face, before she burst into tears and fell into my arms, weeping on my shoulder and clinging tight to me as if she were a brokenhearted child, which, I realized then, in a way, for all her forty-one years, she was.
I stroked my sister’s sob-shuddering back and held her close, but I said nothing, for there was really nothing that I, or anyone except Philip, could say, and he was gone forever.
We returned to London and I watched my sister go through t
he motions of life like the Shadow of Death. She would sit at the head of the Council table without hearing a word. She would just sit there, lost in thought, and stare at Philip’s portrait on the wall, or else sign death warrants by the score to send yet more Protestants to the stake.
She wore black mourning and her eyes were always swollen and red-rimmed from weeping. She did not sleep but sat up the whole night through writing passionate letters to Philip, pouring out her heart and soul to him; letters I daresay he didn’t even bother to read and hardly ever answered. When he did deign to write it was always requests for more money, men, and arms, and reminders that he should have the crown. She kept messengers standing by at all hours, stationed all along the roads, and ships at the ready in the harbor, to carry forth her letters. She even kept the kitchens busy baking batches of Philip’s favorite meat pies, then rushed these culinary offerings of her love out to him on our navy’s fastest ships.
Whenever word reached her of Philip’s adulteries—as it invariably did—she would lash out like a madwoman, seizing a dagger and attacking his portrait, or else tearing it from the wall and ordering her servants to take it out, kicking and screaming at it as they dutifully carried it away to the attic. Later in the night, holding a candle aloft, clad in only her white nightgown and bare feet, with her red-gray hair hanging down her back in a frightfully thin, wispy braid, she would emerge from her bedchamber like a ghost and go in search of the banished portrait and kneel down before it, reverently, as if it were an altar, or Philip himself, and tearfully apologize and worship it with tears and kisses until, exhausted and in sore need of rest, sleep mercifully overwhelmed her. Many a time the morning light found her thus, curled up like a puppy at the foot of Philip’s portrait.
I could not bear to see her in such a state and, as soon as I could, I left for Hatfield. Listless and distracted as she pined and dreamed of Philip, Mary let me go, either forgetting or choosing to ignore the Spanish Ambassador’s sage injunction that one should keep their friends close and their enemies even closer. She was so tired by then, I don’t think she cared anymore, though I wish I could say instead that she had learned to trust me again, and knew that I was not, and never had been, her enemy.
