by Jean Plaidy
In despair Robert asked permission to leave Court, and to his even greater despair it was granted.
He went to Kenilworth, asking himself if his dream were over. Not only did he fear that she would never marry him, but it seemed she had taken a violent dislike to him.
He tried to interest himself in enlarging the castle and extending its parks. When Kenilworth had come to him it had been a small estate, but he had spent thousands of pounds enlarging and beautifying it; and now it was one of the most magnificent places in the country.
Robert soon found that more trouble lay ahead, when his kinsman and servant, Thomas Blount, came riding to Kenilworth Castle. He had brought news that a man had sworn to Norfolk and Sussex that he had, for the sake of the Earl of Leicester, covered up a crime which the Earl had committed some time since; this concerned the death of Leicester’s wife which without doubt had been a case of murder.
The man who was thus attacking him, said Blount, was Amy’s halfbrother, John Appleyard.
“He has been talking in Norfolk, my lord; and this having come to the ears of those noble lords, they have lost no time in seeking out Appleyard and promising him rewards if he will say in a Court of Justice in London what he has been saying to his rustic friends.”
Robert laughed wryly. He said: “To think I have rewarded that man. Much land and possessions he owes to me. In the last years he has asked me now and then for help, but since I left Court I have not responded to his requests as readily as I did, so he must seek to be revenged on me.”
“My lord,” said Blount, “you must deny this charge. You have done so before. You will do so again.”
Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Once,” he said, “I was the Queen’s friend. Now I no longer enjoy that privilege. I see now that but for her I should not have escaped my enemies when Amy died.”
“But for her, Amy would not have died!” said Blount fiercely.
“The verdict was accidental death!” retorted Robert.
But he was listless. For the first time in his life a woman had turned against him and, no longer desiring his company, wished to be rid of him.
He was growing old. He was not the man he had been. Some of his ardor for living had deserted him.
Kat was alone with her mistress and, said Kat, this was like the old days before her dearest Majesty was called Her Majesty in public, and only in private by those who loved her.
“I remember it, Kat,” said Elizabeth.
“And the cards, dearest lady?”
“Aye, and the cards.”
“And now we have Master Cornelius Lanoy working for us to produce his elixir, you no longer have need of poor old Kat Ashley to look into the cards for you.”
“Will he produce it, think you, Kat?”
“If he should do what he says he will, dearest, he will find an elixir which will give eternal life and youth! Make sure that none but your own darling lips drink of it, for if it becomes common property that will do us little good. With everyone perpetually living and perpetually young, it would be as though Time stood still.”
“Nay,” said the Queen, “it shall only be Elizabeth who drinks of Lanoy’s mixture; but perhaps I’ll let my dear old Kat have a sip for old times’ sake.”
“Just a sip, Madam!”
“Mayhap two sips, for where should I be without you? If I am to live forever I must have Kat with me.”
“The man is a fraud, Madam.”
“Is it so then, Kat? Perhaps you are right.”
“You believe in him because Your Majesty believes that all the good you hope for will come to pass. Mayhap therein lies the secret of greatness. Others say ‘It cannot be.’ Great Bess says ‘It shall be!’ And because she is a witch and a goddess, there is good chance that she will be right.”
“You talk like a courtier, Kat.”
“Why, my love, you’ve lost another aglet from your gown. ’Tis the ruby and diamond, I’ll swear. And I wanted to fix it on the cloth of gold you’ll be wearing this night. And do I talk like a courtier then? But courtiers no longer talk as they once did.”
“What means that?”
“That one, who talked better than any and whose words pleased Your Majesty more than any I know of, is no longer with us.”
Elizabeth was silent.
“He is sad, I trow, to be away from Court,” said Kat.
“Doubtless he amuses himself with the women round Kenilworth!” snapped Elizabeth.
“You should not be jealous of Lettice Knollys, my darling.”
Elizabeth swung round, her eyes blazing and shining with tears; she slapped Kat sharply. Kat put her hand to her cheek and grimaced.
Then she said: “’Tis a pity. That ruby and diamond aglet will be lost, I swear; and it makes the pair.”
“Oh, be silent!”
Kat obeyed, and after a while Elizabeth burst out: “Why do you stand there sulking? Why do you not speak of him if you wish to?”
“Have I your gracious permission to speak of the man, Your Majesty?”
“What is it you have to say of him?”
“That it is sad to see Your Majesty fretting for him.”
“I fret for him! Leave fretting to that she-wolf!”
“To whom, Your Majesty?”
“That harlot, that lewd woman, that Lettice…or whatever her name is. She married some man…Hereford, was it? I pity him! I pity him!”
“Ah!” sighed Kat. “It is a sorry thing to see a man, once proud, fall low. The dogs are at his throat now, my lady. They’ll drag him to death and disgrace, if I mistake not.”
“Dogs! What dogs?”
Kat whispered: “His great and mighty Grace of Norfolk. My lord of Sussex. My lord of Arundel. They are the dogs who will tear our pretty gentleman to pieces. Does Your Majesty not know that they have taken John Appleyard and put the man to question? He swears that he helped to cover up the murder of his half-sister for the sake of Robert Dudley.”
Elizabeth was staring straight ahead. It must not be. Old scandal must not be revived. Amy Robsart must not be dragged from her grave to smirch the Queen’s honor.
“So,” went on Kat, “I say it is a sad thing to see a great man brought low. Why, those are tears in your sweet eyes, my darling. There! There! It matters not that your Kat sees them. Do you think you deceived her? You love him, and you think he loves Lettice better…or would if she were the Queen.”
Elizabeth laid her head suddenly on Kat’s shoulder. She murmured with a catch in her voice: “The Court is so dull without him, Kat. These…these others…”
“They are not the same, my love.”
“No one is the same, Kat. We were together in the Tower, were we not. Can I forget him?”
“Of course you cannot.”
“Heneage…”
Kat blew contempt in imitation of her royal mistress.
“A pretty man,” she said, “nothing more. The lioness amuses herself with a pretty puppy. But they’ll have the people against my lord of Leicester, dearest Majesty. The dogs are at his throat. They’ll say: ‘The lioness has left him to his fate, and he is wounded…’”
Elizabeth stood up. Her eyes were shining, for she felt it to be good when inclination and common sense could march together. “We’ll have him back at Court,” she said. “I’ll recall him. I’ll not let the dogs get him, Kat. You shall see how they go slinking away. As for Master Appleyard, he shall wish he had never left his orchards! Kat, there must be no more scandal, though. He must have done with his arrogance. I’ll not brook that.”
“Shall I look at the cards?” suggested Kat.
“Nay, not now. He shall just return to Court as a gentleman we have missed. It is merely because he has so many enemies that I shall have him back. I would not wish it to be thought that I forgot those I once loved.”
“And still love?” said Kat quietly.
So he came back to Court and his enemies retreated.
John Appleyard confessed that he had been offere
d a reward to speak against Robert; he admitted that his brother-in-law had been very generous to him in the past, and that it was since he had fallen into disfavor that his gifts had ceased. Had John Appleyard whispered against the Earl of Leicester when he had been accepting those gifts? He had not. So it was only when he did not receive them that he thought unkindly of his generous brother-in-law? John Appleyard was glad to slip back into obscurity.
The affair of Amy’s death was not to be revived.
Rumor started up again. Was the Queen contemplating marriage with Leicester? She had dropped Heneage now, and appeared to have no special favorite. She must marry someone soon. Did she think that because she was a Queen she could defy the passing of time?
When Parliament was opened and the Queen asked for certain monies which she needed for her exchequer, she was met by stern opposition from the House of Commons.
It was pointed out to her that she was still unmarried and that the country needed an heir. The Commons refused to discuss the money bill unless the Queen would give her word to marry without further delay. There was an alternative; if she was set against marriage so strongly that she would not undertake it, she must name her successor. There was a great deal of argument; blows were exchanged in the House. The Commons, in an ugly mood, finally approached the Lords, demanding that they join them in their stand against the Queen; and this the Lords, after some hesitation, decided to do.
Elizabeth might accept what she called insults from the Commons, but she would not from the Lords.
Robert, understanding now that it would be wise for him—as there was no hope of marrying her himself—to support the marriage with the Archduke Charles, allied himself with the Lords and Commons. He knew that, if he did not, he would stand alone, and he was no longer sure of the Queen. During his exile, he had discovered the power of his enemies. He surmised that this was really what she wished him to do, for his exile had been partly due to her wish to show foreign powers that she had no intention of marrying him. He had been greatly heartened by her summons to return to Court, and it had been wonderful to realize that when he appeared to be deserted and his enemies ready to attack, she should have come to his aid. Yet she herself had been involved in the scandal attached to Amy’s death, and her motive in recalling him might not have been entirely due to her wish to see him back at Court. He must play her game, which was, after all, out of necessity, his own. So now he ranged himself with those who were urging her either to marry, or name her successor.
She turned on them angrily. She dismissed Pembroke as a swaggering soldier. Let him get back to the battlefield, for it was all that he was fit for. As for Norfolk—he was a little too proud. It would be well for him to remember how her father had dealt with some of his family. Then she turned to Robert.
“And you, my lord of Leicester, you too have abandoned me! If all the world did that, I should not have expected it from you.”
Robert knelt before her and tried to take her hand. “Madam,” he said, “I would die for you this minute if you were to command it.”
She pushed him away with her foot. “Much good would that do me!” she cried. “And it has nothing to do with the matter.”
Her eyes went to the Marquis of Northampton, who was recently divorced and had married a new young wife.
“It is a marvelous thing, my lord, that you dare talk to me of marriage with your mincing mumping words. As if I did not know that you have just most scandalously divorced one wife and taken another.”
And with that she turned and left them all staring after her.
Uncertain how to act, the Lords and Commons began to concoct a petition. They were determined that the Queen should either marry or fix the succession; but when Elizabeth heard that they were doing this, she summoned certain leaders from both Houses to appear before her. There she harangued them with fury.
“You and your accomplices tell me you are Englishmen and bound to your country, which you think will perish unless the succession is fixed. We have heard the Bishops make their long speeches telling us what we did not know before!” Her eyes flashed scorn at them and she said with an air of great wisdom: “That when my breath fails me I shall be dead!” She laughed. “That would be a danger to the state, they think. It is easy for me to see their object. It is to take up some cause against me.
“Was I not born in this realm? And were not my parents born in this realm? Is not my Kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth that I should be suspected of having no regard for the same? How have I governed since my reign? I will be tried by envy itself! I need not use too many words, for my deeds do try me.”
She glared at them and continued: “This petition you prepare is, I understand, to consist of two points: my marriage and the succession. My marriage you noble lords put first—for manners’ sake! I have said I will marry. I hope to have children, otherwise I would never marry. I suspect you will be as ready to mislike my husband as you are now ready to urge me to marriage; and then it will appear that you never meant it at all. Well, there never was so great a treason but might be covered under as fair a pretense.
“You prate of succession, my lords. None of you has been a second person in this realm as I have and tasted of the practices against my sister. Would to God she were alive! When friends fall out the truth appears; there are some gentlemen in the Commons now who, in my sister’s reign, tried to involve me in conspiracy. I would never place my successor in the position I once endured. The succession is a baffling question, full of peril to the country, though, my lords, in your simplicity you imagine the matter must needs go very trim and pleasantly. I would honor as angels any who, when they were second in this realm, did not seek to be first, and when third, second.
“As for myself, I care nothing for death, for all men are mortal, and though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of my realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”
She was invincible at such times, in every respect a ruler. Those who had spoken with her were for stopping the petition, but other members of the Commons insisted that they should proceed with it.
Elizabeth recklessly forbade them to discuss the matter. Then members of the Commons talked of privilege. There were now three questions demanding discussion instead of two: the Queen’s marriage, the succession, and the privilege of the House.
Elizabeth knew when she had gone too far. Cautious Cecil was at her elbow advising her, and once again she recognized his wisdom. She lifted the veto on free discussion. She could be gracious when she knew herself at fault. Not only were they at liberty to discuss, she said, but she had decided to remit a third of the money for which she had first asked. Thus she came safely through a difficult situation; but the questions of her marriage and the succession were still open. She had given her word to marry, and she would marry the Archduke, she said, if she could be assured that he was not ill-formed, and ugly of person.
Exasperation filled the minds of those about her. Such feminine views should be suppressed. But it was well known that she could not endure ugly people near her. Only a few days earlier a lackey had been taken from her immediate service because he had lost a front tooth.
The Archduke was the best match available, she was reminded. The Earl of Sussex was sent to Austria to report on him, and sent back the news that his personal appearance left nothing to be desired, and that even his hands and feet were well-shaped.
“There is,” said Elizabeth, “the question of religion.”
The statesmen about her had now divided into two parties—one under the Duke of Norfolk, the other under Leicester. They could not agree as to the proposed marriage. Norfolk and his followers were for it. Robert, sensing her reluctance, which meant a rebirth of his own hopes, was against
it. The Queen was still cool to him, but he knew her well enough to realize that she was not eager to marry the Archduke, and wished for this division between her statesmen.
It was characteristic of her that while she worried about her suitor’s personal appearance, while she became again coquettish and entirely feminine, she suddenly should put the matter so clearly before them that they were astounded by her insight and the truth of what she said.
“You talk of my marriage!” she cried. “You talk of the succession. My friends, look at France. There the succession is happily fixed, you would say. Yet that country has been torn by civil war. Look at Scotland! There is a Queen who married as you, my lords, would have wished. She has produced a fine son and that, my lords, is what you would say is a good thing. And here, in this country, there rules a barren woman. Yet, my lords, in this poor country under this poor woman, you have enjoyed peace and growing prosperity. What this country—what any country needs—is not an heir to the crown, but peace…peace from wars which torment it and suck away its riches. A week ago a man went to an altar while the service was in progress and he cast down the candlesticks and stamped upon them. There are many to support that man. In this country religious differences have not made wars. But what if your King were of the Catholic Faith, my lords? What if he wished to lead your Church back to Rome? We should have troubles such as you now see in France between Catholic and Huguenot. Nay! It is not a husband for your Queen that you need. It is not even an heir to your crown. It is peace. Think of my sister who made a foreign marriage. Think of these things, gentlemen, and see whether I am wrong to hesitate.”
As before, she had made them pause. She had shown them the statesman hidden behind the frivolous woman.
Now the coolness between them was over. She could not hide her pleasure in having him beside her. He was not to be arrogant, she wished him to understand; he was not to think her favor was exclusively his. He was never so far to forget his respect for her as to go courting another lady of her household. He was her servant, her courtier, but a very favorite one.
