by J. D. Davies
What deed, you ask, friend Nicholas?
(It is still I, Matt Quinton, and these are the words grandmaman dictated to me when I was eleven years old. But I think she had forgotten to whom she spoke, and when she was speaking; her voice was clearer, almost younger, and I think she was back in the great Queen’s time once more. Even at that tender age, I knew better than to disillusion her.)
No, not to murder the king. Why, if murder was the objective, do you not think Gowrie could have had him killed easily enough at Perth, without all the dangers involved in smuggling him to the Constant Esperance?
No. At Fast Castle, James Stuart would be compelled to abdicate – compelled by the threat of the publication of the missing originals of the Casket Letters. Of this letter, above all. Cecil calculated, and perhaps he was not wrong in this, that James would be willing to abdicate in favour of his son if he received assurances that the said son would succeed the Virgin Queen, and the Casket Letters would be suppressed so as not to tarnish the reputation of England’s new King Henry the Ninth. After all, James had given the lad that name, a sure sign that he intended him to sit upon the English throne; and if it was made clear to James that he could not have England, then would he not at least want to ensure that his son did?
But as you know, it all went tragically wrong.
Gowrie’s brother bungled matters so badly that King James was able to shout out to his courtiers, who stormed the house and slaughtered the young men upon their own stair. James had his men put out a tale of attempted regicide, the tale most of the world believes to this day; most of the world being full of the credulous and gullible. And, of course, Cecil needed urgently to suppress any hint that he might have played a part in the disaster, in case he incurred the wrath of his royal mistress. Hence his vindictiveness toward my husband, fuelled by the hostility of Horvath. Cecil must have already recruited him both to spy upon My Lord and to ensure that he did not attempt to betray Master Secretary – but why he hates my husband so, God only knows. And God only knows how it might have ended, too, had not my husband possessed the quick wits to conceal the critical Casket Letter from Horvath and Cecil. For as he told me, the moment he heard that John of Gowrie was dead, he knew he would have to throw in his lot with James Stuart –
Ah yes, Nicholas, you are quite right.
God knows how it might have ended, too, had not the Earl of Essex destroyed himself when he did, for that removed the possibility of my husband colluding once again with that fateful Lord. And, of course, the part I played, or rather the garret of Ravensden House played, in Essex’s surrender, has given me the opportunity to obtain audience with the Queen, to persuade her, God willing, that the missing Casket Letter is worth my husband’s release –
*
Grandmaman suddenly stared at me, her eyes wide, unrecognising, and I realised that her mind had returned to 1651. She no longer saw Nicholas Iles before her, but instead, the confused, concerned face of a lanky eleven year old boy. She pleaded a headache and retired to her chamber. I did not see her again for two days, giving me ample time to think upon the full import of what she had told me, and upon the enormity of the oath I had sworn. For now I possessed the greatest secret in all of Britain: the secret made plain in the next fragment written by Iles, which I pored over line by line, and now do so again.
Nicholas Iles:
The Countess held the paper in her hand, almost reverentially.
‘Queen Mary’s own hand, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘What utter folly, to commit such words to paper.’
‘Why do you think she did so, My Lady?’ I asked.
‘It was a kind of written confession, I think – perhaps to be produced when she had a child by her lover and later husband, the Earl of Bothwell, to ensure that their child would take precedence in the succession to the Scottish throne; or perhaps simply as a way for her to expiate her guilt. We papists are greatly fond of confession, as you heretics constantly remind us.’ She smiled. ‘Utter folly, as I say. An admission that her then husband, Lord Darnley, was not the father of her son James. Instead, the father was her secretary and musician, David Rizzio.’
‘Surely, My Lady, the entire world has whispered that from the very beginning?’
‘Of course it has. Just look at the portraits of King James – have you ever seen a less Scottish-looking face? A face more at home in Siena than Stirling? So, yes, the world suspects. The world suspects that the King is secretly a bastard, and that he and his children thus have no right to the thrones of England or Scotland, but the world has no proof. Except we do, Nicholas, and here it is.’
I have acted the emotion of stunned horror many times, but I did not need to act it now. Even as I shuddered at the enormity of what I now knew, though, I ached for a quill and for vellum. Oh, here was a play to end all plays, a poem to cap all poetry! But in the same blinking of the eye, I knew this story could never be written – not in a form that could ever be made public, at any rate. This was the kind of secret for which entire cities and empires perished, not just a lone poet.
And yet, amidst the incoherence of my thoughts, coherent words still formed in my mouth.
‘Then what did My Lord hope to achieve my joining with Lord Gowrie?’
‘Ah, Nicholas, he has not told me all. But I know him well enough now to have deduced it, I think. Cecil held out the prospect of restoration to command, of course, but it is much more than that. It outrages My Lord’s sense of honour that the bastard spawn of an Italian lutenist should sit on the throne of England. But the bastard spawn’s young son is a very different matter, especially when the alternatives are Arbella Stuart, a woman so stupid that she apologises to doors which close before her, and the Infanta, a proxy of the kingdom that my husband has spent twenty years fighting. And if I know my husband, he will have calculated that a long regency might create countless opportunities for such a bold and brilliant man as Matthew Quinton, Earl of Ravensden.’
I nodded. ‘Then what do we do next, My Lady?’
The Countess turned, and placed the Queen of Scots’ letter on the table behind her, next to her own quills and ink.
‘What we do next, friend Nicholas, is to follow my husband’s instructions for your safekeeping, and get you out of London before our enemies start to hunt for you. They will most certainly come here, so we need to act quickly.’
‘And you, My Lady? Will they not come for you?’
‘Not before I go to them, I think. Before I go into their lion’s den. Or rather, that of the lioness.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Dowager Countess:
A brisk breeze from the west chopped the surface of the Thames, making it heavy going for the two watermen rowing me upstream. The tide was on the ebb, too, they complained, and I had no doubt that they were going to overcharge me outrageously. But then, it was a very long passage from the Savoy wharf, and watermen prepared to undertake the voyage knew well enough that passengers bound for this particular destination could afford to pay handsomely for the privilege. Soon we had left Westminster behind us and were rowing through open country, the river banks heavily wooded and interrupted only occasionally by a village or two, such as Putney, by the grandeur of Fulham Palace, or by the various horse ferries that plied between the banks.
And all the while, it was as though a phantom hand was slowly tightening its grip on my heart, threatening to crush the worthless life out of my frame. Such was the strength of the fear I felt; a fear that grew with every sweep of the oars, with every contemptuous stare from a passing swan. I was dressed in my very finest, a farthingale beneath my taffeta petticoats, kirtle and gown. I wore the largest ruff of my life, a starched monstrosity of cambric, the glorious gold-and-ruby pendant jewel of the second Countess of Ravensden at my breast. And yet, despite all of my finery, I felt entirely naked.
We came to a great bend in the river, and one of the watermen nodded over his shoulder.
‘Just round ‘ere it is, My Lady. Nearly there, now.’
>
Above the tops of the trees, I could see smoke rising from dozens of chimneys, and the topmost pinnacles of turrets. Then we cleared the bend, and the full spectacle lay before me.
Richmond Palace was not large by the standards of, say, the Louvre or Fontainebleau, but it was magnificent nonetheless. A tall rectangular block rose directly from the river, the spring sunshine glinting from its many windows and off the gold leaf that adorned the cupolas and pepper-pot turrets. The gold and azure weathervanes sang in the breeze. Red brick walls and galleries surrounded the substantial gardens that lay to either side of the principal block; two large buildings that appeared to be halls or chapels stood a little way inland. Several boats jostled for position at the palace wharf, waiting to come alongside to discharge the distinguished personages they carried. For the royal arms of England flew from the turrets, and that symbol was all it took to attract the bees to the honeypot.
My wherry eventually took its turn at the wharf, I paid the watermen (an exorbitant sum, as expected) and found a young pageboy willing to show me the way. The great building fronting the Thames, he explained, formed the royal apartments, but he then led me through the courtyard in the middle, over the bridge across the moat, into the much larger courtyard beyond, and so past a large fountain and into the great hall, a vast space decorated with martial paintings of England’s kings in golden robes, and thronged with hundreds of people. The audience was about to begin, my pageboy informed me; and if I gave him a second coin, he would ensure I advanced a few places up the Lord Chamberlain’s list. I complied, he scurried off, and I never saw him again. I wondered if he had cheated me, and was about to seek out a liveried attendant myself, when trumpets sounded an elaborate fanfare. The entire hall fell silent. My stomach turned.
By the time we at the back of the great hall bowed or curtsied, those at the front had already risen. Thus I had no sight at all of the great Queen’s entry, for the throng was too great.
The audience commenced. Each of the solicitants was called forward in turn, but at first they, too, were from the front of the crowd. I was alone, at the back, among strangers. No-one spoke to me. The English were at their most English, laughing uproariously at the private jokes of those they knew intimately while shunning those whom they knew not, particularly if they were foreign and Catholic. And the audiences went on endlessly. The Chamberlain announced the Earl of This, or Milady That. If the Queen found the suit tedious, she would despatch it in a minute or less: as I could not see or hear her, I could judge only by the interval between the Chamberlain’s introductions. But if she found a suit interesting, an entire quarter-hour might elapse, with those at the back of the hall – in other words, all those around me – falling back into their own loud conversations. Thus it was, in the midst of a hubbub, that I very nearly missed the Chamberlain’s cry: ‘The Countess of Ravensden!’
The Red Sea parted. A great highway opened up through the throng, and the eyes of all, on either side, were fixed avidly upon me; for, of course, they had known who I was from the very beginning, and were murmuring words like ‘papist’, ‘French’ and ‘traitor’. And there, at the end of the highway, was my destination.
My fate.
My Queen.
From a distance, she seemed so very small, there upon the dais. The throne itself was dwarfed by an enormous scarlet canopy, emblazoned with the royal arms of England and its supporters, a roaring lion and a red dragon. A vast red oyster revealing the tiniest but finest pearl in all the world. She shimmered in the spring sunlight that streamed through the great windows of the palace. It was as though she was the queen of light itself, its beams streaming forth from her luminous frame. I walked forward as though in a dream, dimly aware of the murmuring all around, terrified that the warmth of the rays emanating from England’s royal majesty would melt me long before I reached the dais.
But as I came closer, I realised – yes, realised through my fear and awe – that the light was but an illusion. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of jewels were sown into the Queen’s dress, reflecting the beams shining through the windows.
And that was why I trembled no more.
For this was theatre. The royal audience had been timed for precisely the moment when the rays of the Sun in March would shine through the windows of the Presence Chamber, so as to reflect from the astonishing number of precious stones adorning the frame of Gloriana.
The very old frame. For now, as I came closer, I could see that the stunning red hair was a wig. The eternally youthful face that stared out from portraits hanging in great houses the length and breadth of England was an illusion, too: for no matter how much white paste was applied to the royal face, not even an ocean of it could conceal the wrinkles and folds upon her neck and bosom, the eternal tell-tales of a woman’s true age. As I now know too well, grandson –
But, of course, my growing confidence was yet another illusion. For as I came within three or four steps of the throne, I realised that I was committing the worst sin imaginable in the entire realm of England. My eyes were not cast demurely upon the ground, as the age-old rules of the court dictated. Instead, I was staring directly at the face of the Virgin Queen herself, Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, sovereign lady of England, Supreme Governess of its heretical church, defender of its unlawful faith. And she was staring back at me, the white mask singularly failing to conceal the hatred in her expression. Her true expression, the one that she took such great pains to conceal from the world. The one that no-one, but no-one, was permitted to look upon.
I curtsied as deeply as I could, lowering my eyes to the royal shoes as protocol dictated, and cursed my pride and arrogance. Whatever I said now, my husband was already damned.
‘My Lady Ravensden,’ said Queen Elizabeth. She spoke slowly, in an imperious tone that I had expected, but with a quivering, bordering on a croak, at the end of each phrase; the voice of an old woman trying, and failing, to conceal the fact that she is old. ‘Well, well. How surprising that you should have snared Matthew Quinton. You are too small. Too flat in the bosom. Too French. Too Papist. Nothing like the Earl’s first three wives. I liked the second one. The others were worthless.’
‘Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘I crave pardon, both for my presumption and on behalf of my husband, asking that your most gracious Majesty might show your renowned mercy towards him—’
‘Matthew Quinton has displeased me time upon time. Marrying you, of all womankind, without my permission, is but one of his more recent offences.’
I was drowning, dragged down by the whirlpool of royal contempt. Although part of me wanted to scream defiance at this crabbed, petulant old woman, another part could only admire the authority that exuded from every inch of her frame. Here was a woman who had ruled an entire kingdom for over forty years, a woman who had ridden out in armour to lead her own armies against a mighty invader, and despite myself, I could not be anything but awestruck in her formidable presence.
‘Your Majesty, I humbly beg you to consider that my husband may be many things – impetuous, often intemperate, no doubt foolish in electing to marry one so feeble and so French as I – but he is no traitor. There is no man in England more loyal to you, Your Majesty.’
‘That is not what Secretary Cecil tells me. He tells me there is a very good chance that the second witness to your husband’s treason is alive after all. And even if he is not, My Lady Ravensden, I think the Tower is the best place for the Earl to be. By far the best place. For no Englishman who is truly loyal to me would ever besmirch that loyalty by marrying a Papist.’
She raised her hand to conclude the audience. The courtiers nearest to the throne clapped at her disdainful dismissal of both me and the faith I followed. Several sneered at me. The chamberlain stepped forward. There was one chance, just one chance, and I had to take it. I reached into my petticoats, between my breasts, and produced the paper. Those immediately around the throne gasped in shock – to make such a sudden movement in the Queen’s presence was unheard of – the
guards stepped forward, their halberds levelled, fearing I was a Jesuitical assassin –
For half a moment, no more, I saw raw fear in the eyes of Elizabeth Tudor. Then I thrust out the paper toward her.
‘Your Majesty, I beg you to read this – the paper of which I notified you in my last letter –’
The chamberlain stepped forward to snatch the paper from me, but I kept a tight hold of it.
‘Subjects do not thrust papers under the nose of their Sovereign!’ cried the Queen, in a shriek loud enough to silence several of the rows nearest her. ‘You have offended us, Lady Ravensden. Deeply offended us! Guards, arrest this impertinent harpy.’
A halberdier came up to each of my shoulders. The chamberlain held out his hand, and I placed the paper within it.
‘Trust me, Your Majesty,’ I said, before they could lead me away, ‘you will want to read this paper yourself. It concerns one close to you in blood, and comes from a certain casket in which you have long taken an interest.’
