Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  ‘A burden so heavy would be more than my humble shoulders could bear. I fear I would prove unequal to standing in the footsteps of the great Sir Walter.’

  Carey’s answer would have been very different if he had thought the Queen serious. His instincts as a courtier made him wary of offending a man as powerful and quarrelsome as Ralegh unless the reward were sure. It would be folly to risk burning himself in stoking the fire of the Queen’s malice.

  ‘Nonsense!’ she chided him. ‘In all my dominion there can be no broader pair of shoulders. The pity is that you are not better favoured in other parts. In faith you are right to shun comparison with Sir Walter.’

  The Queen spoke with a sneer, glancing from Carey’s rough features to Ralegh’s handsome countenance and bearing.

  His wits alert, he chose to misunderstand her words.

  ‘Indeed, Your Majesty is mistaken. Nature has favoured me exceptionally. Should proof be required it shall be forthcoming whenever my sovereign shall so desire. Every part of my being stands proudly at your service.’

  Ralegh laughed first, followed by the other guards, then - after an awesome pause - the Queen herself.

  ‘The bragging wretch shall not pleasure me, but you may leave me alone with him. God’s wounds, I do believe that in truth Great Harry’s blood runs in his veins. If I should scream, do you return with all speed.’ She signed to Ralegh and his men to retire.

  When they had gone she gave Carey her hand and the dark eyes softened. The reference to Great Harry foretold a change of mood. Her father, King Henry, and Lord Hunsdon’s mother, Mary Boleyn, had been lovers before he married her sister Anne. Mary’s first-born son was said to be the King’s and not her husband’s, but while Carey’s father lived the Queen had never called him more than cousin.

  ‘Robin,’ she sighed, stroking his hair as he knelt again, ‘it does my heart good to see you. Your father’s death has been a grievous sorrow to me. The manner of his parting has aged me. He had no just cause for bitterness.’

  ‘I am sure of it,’ he replied. ‘It must be that pain clouded his mind: he told me once he had as much gravel inside him as would mend the road from Hackney as far as Wanstead. His last clear wish would have been to cause his sovereign no distress. Happily I can discern none. Your splendour shines undimmed.’

  ‘You may flatter me, Robin, but I know the truth. I am young no longer and age makes me melancholy.’

  ‘We are all the subjects of time,’ Carey ventured, ‘even Your Majesty. But looking on your unblemished beauty, none would believe it.’

  ‘Enough of that,’ she told him. Her moods were changeable as April weather. ‘What tidings from the north?’

  Openly and without prevarication, Carey told of all his toils and troubles on the Border. The Queen listened intently. At his tale of the capture and hanging of Geordie Bourne her eyes glittered and she nodded approval. On his treatment of Sir Robert Kerr she made no comment. Since she did not inquire after his wife, Carey dared make no mention of his own Elizabeth.

  ‘So,’ she said when he had finished, ‘you are a fine servant of the Crown and have come to me for the East March.’ He did not deny it.

  ‘You are an honest rogue, Robin, and you shall have it. At least it may quiet your father in his tomb.’

  Instead of thanking her, he boldly seized his opportunity and begged for Berwick too. She took no offence, but slapped him on the arm like a naughty child.

  ‘Indeed you shall not have Berwick. What will you be demanding next?’

  ‘Money that is owed to me for my office. That, and Norham for my sons lest I am killed in your service. If Your Majesty pleases.’

  ‘You would make yourself and your family snug on the frontier. That brazen wife of yours has put you up to this.’ The black beads of suspicion glinted again. ‘Tell me what intercourse you have been having with the Scottish king.’

  ‘None, on my honour. I have neither seen nor heard from King James since my last embassy at your command. Soon there may be no occasion. It is the talk of the Border that his health is poor.’

  As he had expected, her eyes lit with joy at the prospect of her nearest heir’s decease.

  ‘He was ever puny,’ she declared, ‘and a drunkard and a sodomite to boot. It is strange that he acknowledges his queen’s child as his own. I trust him not. Continue to hold no intercourse with him, unless you wish to incur the pain of my severest displeasure. Now come.’ She stood unsteadily. ‘The buck grow impatient for my arrows. You may escort me to my standing.’

  She took his arm and in this manner they walked together round the terrace to join her waiting attendants. On raising their eyes from bowing at her coming, his two brothers were overcome with confusion. Even Mr Principal Secretary, whose powers of concealment were held to be unrivalled, failed to conceal his surprise.

  ‘My Lord Burleigh!’ The Queen addressed him in a ringing voice so that all could hear. ‘Oblige us by paying our faithful cousin, Sir Robert Carey, five hundred pounds from the Exchequer, and take note that I have appointed him warden of the East March in place of his lamented father. My grant to him of the castle of Norham and the crown lands with it is to be renewed in favour of him and his sons. Let him have the money and patents under the Great Seal without delay. You have my command.’

  Nevertheless, a week passed between the issue of the Queen’s command and its execution. The interval was a measure of the power and resentment of Burleigh and his son. Carey’s slender store of ready money quickly vanished in bribing their clerk. His brothers lent him no assistance. They were busy, he learned, plotting to secure the governorship of Berwick for brother John, but the Queen, it was reported, slyly repulsed them with the answer that she would require a governor who was on good terms with her new warden in the march.

  Will Killigrew provided Carey with a bed while he was forced to kick his heels. Late into each night they refought the campaign in Normandy over their wine-cups and speculated whether Essex would summon them for service once more. According to Killigrew, when the Tudor dynasty had run its course, Elizabeth’s successor would be civil war, unless Essex chose to make the future secure by assuming the role of kingmaker. Then their places in the world would be assured.

  ‘What of Ralegh?’ Carey inquired.

  ‘Ralegh is dangerous but disliked. He speaks of the King of Scots with contempt, but who knows whether he conspires with him in secret?’

  ‘One of these two will decide the succession - Essex or Ralegh, for Burleigh will assuredly be dead before the Queen.’

  ‘We must not forget his son,’ Killigrew warned, ‘nor the Howards.’

  One forgot the Howards at one’s peril, Carey mused. In the century since Edward IV’s chamberlain, Sir John, had won the hand of the last Mowbray heiress and taken the dukedom of Norfolk, they had risen to hazardous heights. Henry VIII had married, and then executed, two of them and arraigned two more as traitors. During succeeding reigns the house had recovered, and under Elizabeth boasted the only dukedom in England. She had executed the Duke for aiming at the throne and imprisoned his heir without trial. Their titles were curtailed by act of attainder, the dukedom annulled. This was the family whom Carey had had in mind when he told Overbury of the need for a head or two to fall beside the block.

  Hydra-like, the Howards had grown other heads. They had multiplied: wealthy, ambitious and tainted with the suspicion of covert Popery. Thomas became the richest, Henry the cleverest, Charles the boldest. As Lord Howard of Effingham, Charles had commanded the English fleet against Spain. High Admiral still, he was Earl of Nottingham now, his countess one of Carey’s sisters. Like Carey’s brothers, she had refused to receive him. Unlike his brothers, she had become a Howard and embraced their cause. In the faint stir of manoeuvring round the throne, Howards and Careys were emerging as rivals despite the ties of blood.

  ‘Has that brood not yet learned the price of treason?’ Carey exclaimed.

  ‘Ask your sister,’ Killigrew retorted. ‘T
hey are like a vine. Cut them back to a bare stump and they will burgeon and bear fruit again as soon as the climate and season are right. If the King of Scots is as weak-minded a fool as he is reported, and if Essex moves too slowly or too fast, Howards may yet rule England in the King’s name.’

  Carey’s second sister, Lady Scrope, remained true to him. Since their time together in Carlisle, she had become the most favoured of the Queen’s ladies. It was she who whispered in the Queen’s ear that her brother was like to be ruined by the expense of staying at court, sighing for his patents. The royal explosion which followed sent the Cecils scuttling and settled the matter in a trice. Before leaving, Carey received a promise from his sister that she would send him word when the time was ripe for Essex to come to the Queen’s protection. Then, so she said, Ralegh and the Howards would be removed from office, along with all the rest who fed on the fat of the realm like vultures on carrion.

  6

  St Neots, Huntingdon, Stamford. Carey rode north without escort. His groom he had despatched as a forerunner, bearing news of his success and notice of his return. The money extracted from Burleigh’s tight fists would be paid to him in Berwick.

  The single-handed raid on his monarch had brought him rewards beyond fondest expectation. A further spell of exile would prove more bearable on the terms secured. He looked forward to twitting his wife on her faint-hearted counsel. The wheel of fortune was turning, the goddess Nemesis beginning to smile on him again.

  The rich soil at the heart of England he viewed in passing with the jealous eye of a Borderer. Already notions of a longer return to the civilized world were stirring in his mind. A girl working in the fields caught his eye and fancy. She looked plump and appetizing. When he reined his horse she ran into a copse in alarm. He rode on. His wife expected him.

  Whatever might happen to the Queen, old Burleigh would soon be a spent force. That much was clear and to be welcomed, but the image of the crookbacked son marred Carey’s contentment. For that Sir Robert he felt as little regard as he had for his namesake on the Border. Less indeed. Where then should he seek allies? No friendship was possible with Ralegh, although a man of his own mettle. An open quarrel had been averted, but no adherent of Essex could expect favours from that quarter.

  With enemies such as these, and with Essex himself unapproachable and unpredictable, Carey brought himself to recognize the folly of antagonizing the Howard faction. He regretted not making his peace with Catherine the countess, his eldest sister. This could have brought him the patronage of his father’s old wenching companion, the Lord Admiral, who had known him from his boyhood.

  Grantham and Newark. Then Doncaster, where he spent the night. As the miles passed and London receded, his sense of isolation grew. What advancement could he hope to achieve by playing politics from Norham? There he could do nothing for himself, and without an agent at court he must remain a banished cipher.

  His future rested with one person, a woman. Not with the Queen, nor with his wife, but with his sister Scrope, the well-named Philadelphia. She had gained him the deputy warden-ship in Carlisle and would surely help him again. As lady-in-waiting she could furnish him with eyes and ears in the Queen’s own boudoir. Thus provided, distance need not impair his prospects. When the time for action came, when a move threatened, whether from the Cecils or the Howards or from Essex or Ralegh, Carey would be as privy to it as the Queen herself. Meanwhile, as his sister had warned him before he left court, a prudent man could do worse than avoid the toils of conspiracy by removing himself to the furthest end of the kingdom. Let him await events in safety, not least one which it was high treason even to whisper: the Queen’s death.

  Prudence had never been a Carey virtue - Robert Carey’s least of all. Between York and Newcastle his thoughts turned in another direction. To the north. Suppose he were to open negotiations with James of Scotland, not as an ally of one of the factions at the English court, but on his own account? All the long way through the northern counties temptation beckoned him, despite the Queen’s sternest command. As one of few Englishmen to have met the King and received favours from him, he enjoyed an advantage which it would be cowardly not to explore.

  On his first embassy to Edinburgh James had shown particular concern for his safety when the mob became angry at the news brought from England. The English Queen had tried their credulity beyond endurance by describing the death of the Scots Queen at the hands of an English executioner as a ‘miserable accident’, and her ambassador seemed likely to suffer for it. On the second occasion, when he resolutely refused to cross the Border until Burleigh’s orders had been confirmed by the Queen in writing - for fear they should disown him and denounce him as a traitor if the negotiations proved not to their liking - James had greeted him as an old friend and admired him for a ‘right saucy knave’. He had written to the Queen in such terms that her rancour at Carey’s mistrust had melted. Burleigh’s had not, for he had set the trap.

  The further north he travelled, the higher his spirits rose. Danger was to be welcomed. To dare was to live, success the child of boldness. All at once he found his failure to obtain Berwick rankling. Why had he not summoned courage to press the Queen harder? Then indeed he would have held the bridge between the two kingdoms, between the present and the future. He could only console himself that now no governor could turn him out of Norham and the march; certainly not his brother John. In his own tumbledown castle on the doorstep of Scotland, he was well enough placed. Enough of sighing for what might have been. He had done well, and courtcraft, he told himself, was women’s work, better in the deft fingers of his sister.

  Women’s work put him in mind of his own Elizabeth. Soon he would be embracing her, punctual to his promise of the hour. Newcastle behind him, he parted from the Berwick road and the tower of Norham came into sight as dusk was gathering. She would be eager as ever to show pleasure at his homecoming. In his mind he could hear already her false whispered protests at the roughness of his greeting.

  Even as his loins quickened, the crack of a pistol shot broke the picture of his thoughts. The sound came from behind. He put his head down and rode on faster. Round a bend in the road two armed horsemen stood in his path, and it came to him that the shot had been a signal.

  Without hesitation he reined his horse and drew his own weapon. A second pair of horsemen rode out from cover to bar his retreat. Then the four of them closed on him, pistols in hand. His loins quickened again, this time at the imminence of death.

  ‘Throw down your arms, Sir Robert,’ one of them called. ‘Throw them down and have no fear. We are commanded to bring you before our master.’

  Incensed at the accusation of showing fear, Carey kept his pistol levelled at the other’s breast and with his free arm drew his sword. If need be, he would die fighting cackhanded like a Kerr.

  ‘Throw down your own arms,’ he called back and they laughed at his impudence.

  ‘The name of your master,’ he demanded.

  ‘That you will discover when you meet him.’

  ‘Disclose it now or I shall not accompany you.’

  ‘You will do as you are bid,’ replied their leader, advancing on him and signing to the others to do likewise.

  ‘Not a step nearer if you value your life,’ Carey warned him. ‘Your voice betrays you for a Scotsman, but since you know my name you needs must know my office too. The penalty for violence to an officer of the Queen is death. Lay down your weapons this instant or face the consequences.’

  The laughter died on their lips and they halted uncertainly. Deeming one against four sporting odds, he continued to defy them. They were rough men but too well clad and armed for night riders.

  ‘I know your master well,’ he shouted. ‘He has tried once before to take me in ambush. Go back and tell him that if he desires speech with me he must cross the Border himself. It will be a pleasure to entertain him at Norham again. I promise him, on my honour, that he will pay in full for his misdeeds.’

 
‘Beware if you insult our master.’

  ‘He is a villain and a master of villains.’

  Carey spat in contempt and brandished his sword. He prepared to charge, but a second shot from behind brought him to the ground. Falling, he felt no pain and knew that they had shot his horse. He rolled clear, agile as an acrobat, but before he could recover himself they were on him, seizing his arms and binding his wrists with rope.

  Forced to mount behind the leader, he offered no further resistance. ‘You will all hang for this,’ he promised them and said no more until they approached Norham.

  The outline of the castle rose stark in the last glimmer of twilight. When he saw it he shouted until his mouth was roughly stopped with a gag. From inside the walls no one raised the alarm. He calculated how much time would pass before his wife grew restless and despatched the lieutenant to search for him. Then he thought of his ambushers and their foreknowledge of his coming, and how his messenger must have been intercepted. If that were so, Elizabeth would think him still at court.

  Stealthily they crossed the Tweed into Scotland, and his captors puzzled him by heading north. Kerr and Bourne territory lay far to the west. Tracks northwards meant the Humes, with whom he had no quarrel.

  After an hour’s ride they dismounted at a tower and his escort thrust him inside. A cluster of uncouth Scotsmen stared at him curiously and he stared back intently, peering in vain into their shaggy midst for familiar faces. One of them, a handsome swaggerer, came forward and ordered his mouth and wrists to be freed. Together they entered the main chamber. ‘Sir Robert Garey,’ he announced at the door.

  The room was dark and, unlike the outer chamber, almost empty. A man sat on the only chair, his hat on the table in front of him. His face lay on the table beside it, buried in his arms in weariness. In the candlelight the resemblance to Kerr was sufficient for Carey to call out that he would see him hanged for this. When the face was raised with a startled jerk, he saw his mistake.

  ‘I had expected to be the unwilling guest of Sir Robert Kerr,’ he explained, falling to his knees. ‘I most humbly beg pardon of Your Majesty.’