by G Lawrence
He was as good as his word. A series of passionate letters flowed from him, sent from his ship, from France, and from the Low Countries, all extolling my virtues, with Hatton playing the part of a man separated from his one and only love against his will. It was the role all gallants played at court; that of the courtly lover who serves a mistress unavailable to him, but Hatton played it so well I was made only more certain there was an element of truth in his words. “To serve you is a heaven,” he wrote, “but to lack you is more than Hell’s torment.” In another he begged me to “forget not your Lids that are so often bathed in tears for your sake.”
In another, he cautioned me against showing favour to the Earl of Oxford. Comparing the pet names I had granted them, Hatton warned me that the boar’s tusks would tear, whilst sheep had no teeth to bite. I sometimes called Hatton ‘Mutton’ for he was as gentle as a sheep, and Oxford I had named Boar, on account of his fierceness and arrogance.
“The mutton should not be so concerned about the boar,” Oxford said when I told him of Hatton’s jealousy. “There is room enough for both dishes at the table, is there not, Majesty?”
I laughed. “I find it strange you are so sure of yourself, Oxford. You never think you will be ousted by another man.”
“No man could oust me,” he said, an impish twinkle in his eyes. “Only you can send me away, Majesty, so I fear not other men. I fear only to lose you, the sweetest lady in this land, and the fiercest.”
“Are they not opposing virtues?”
“Indeed, yet you combine them so well they become as one within you. That is your magic, Majesty, and the iron that binds us all to you, helpless in our admiration and adoration.”
I did not actually believe that Oxford adored me as he protested he did. His flattery was pleasing, but I knew it was a game of ambition and power. I played it with him, but I did not believe his love was honest. It was different with Hatton, as it was with Robin.
Gently did I write back to my Lids. I had no wish to wound his pride and love for me, but I also had no desire to offer false hope. Yet I was touched by his passion. How could I be otherwise? To hear one is adored is the greatest blessing. That one day we may sit at a fireside, crooked with age, and remember once a man’s heart strummed only for you.
But I wrote to Hatton of other matters too. Hatton had left with other instructions, secret ones. I had asked him to allow members of his household to attend Catholic Mass whilst abroad, and to show sympathy for the cause.
“You would have me make friends with Catholics, Majesty?” he had asked, nervousness betrayed by his tone.
“I understand I am asking you to put yourself in danger, Hatton, but it is important. Robin is known far and wide as the champion of Protestant causes, and all understand Cecil and Walsingham are likewise devoted to their faith. The time is fragile; great powers sit on Catholic thrones, and England is surrounded. I have many men about me who champion the Protestant cause, but would have at least one whom men may suspect as a Catholic sympathiser. It will bring comfort to secret English Catholics, for they will know there is a compassionate tongue willing to speak for them at court. After the events in France, it is only more important some hope is granted to my nervous Catholic subjects, and to rulers of other lands, who may look on England as a fine, fat prize to steal.”
Although anxious about possible consequences, Hatton had agreed. He was not to attend Mass himself, as that would lead to his enemies baying for his arrest, but he would give indication of sympathy for Catholics, enough to bestow hope.
I was grateful. Keeping one favourite who appeared to hold Catholic sympathies along with others firmly on the Protestant side, allowed me to hold fast in the middle, maintaining balance. Hatton was an ideal choice, as several members of his family were suspected Catholics and therefore this support would not seem suspicious.
Hatton’s letters set off another round of gossip that he and I were lovers, and despite Cecil’s grim warnings of the repercussions, I ignored him and the rumours. Were people such fools to think if I had not surrendered to Robin, the love of my life, that I would cede to Hatton? Of course those willing to pass on such gossip were probably amongst those who thought I had surrendered, to both Robin and Hatton, and an ocean of other men.
In truth, if there were ever proof that Hatton and I had done nothing, it was to be found in those letters. The majority of men are more passionate in addresses to women who have not succumbed, than they are to those who have. There are exceptions, to be sure, but they prove the rule.
There was, naturally, another reason I would never consider marriage, or an affair with Hatton, beyond mere moral scruples. Marriage to an earl like Arran or Robin would have debased my status enough, but to wed Hatton, a third son, a man without title, was unthinkable. As he had said, he was no match for my blood.
My little plot worked swiftly, as Hatton was soon sent a vicious tract, condemning my ministers, by a Catholic known only as ‘TG’. It was called A Treatise of Treasons, and the enclosed letter stated it had been sent to Hatton because he was the “most fit instrument” to present it to me. Well aware that to do so would earn him enemies, Hatton instead sent the tract to Cecil, one of the men most viciously attacked in the work, so he could set about finding who had penned it, and publicly denouncing it.
Hatton was clever. He could have sent the tract to me, but that would have earned him unbounded distrust from Cecil and others. In sending it to Cecil, Hatton was being careful of his reputation. He would not be marked as a traitor.
It was not only I who was thinking of reconciliation between the faiths that summer. The siege of La Rochelle was lifted. The city had withstood frequent attacks and had requested my aid. Still bound by my treaty with King Charles, I had officially refused, but had secretly dispatched a small number of troops. The siege did not end because of me, however. It came to a close when the Duc d’Anjou was informed he had been elected King of Poland. Since Poland possessed a Catholic majority, but also a significant Protestant minority, political considerations meant continuing to assault Huguenots in his own country might mean he could not claim the throne of another. And Anjou wanted a crown, any crown, apparently. He would prefer that of France, but Poland would do… for now.
King Charles, just as eager to get rid of his ambitious brother as La Rochelle was, swiftly announced his Huguenot subjects were free to follow their consciences in matters of religion. This startling statement, which in reality was made to ease the strain on the King’s purse and mind, and get rid of his brother, rather than demonstrating any real epiphany of conscience, had the desired effect. Peace became possible, and the Edict of Boulogne was signed soon after.
Swiftly, a French delegation arrived at court, breathless with desire to open marriage negotiations between Alençon and me once again.
“The Mother of the King wishes us to tell you, Majesty, that peace has been brought about for your sake in France,” gushed Fenelon.
“One would hope, my lord ambassador, that statement is untrue. I would hope peace was brought about due to the King’s love for his subjects, all his subjects, not for the sake of appeasing me.”
Fenelon’s eyes bulged as he realised his mistake, and he went on to assure me that it was, indeed, for the sake of all Frenchmen, and for the harmony desired by Christ, that peace had been agreed. “But the Queen Mother was eager to assure you, Majesty, your wishes were also taken into account. Your gentle goodness ran as a stream of sweetness into the hearts of my King and his mother.”
“How poetic, lord ambassador,” I said, my tone so dry it could have bleached bones. “I hope this is indeed the case.”
In truth, Catherine and Charles were concerned about Cecil’s negotiations with Spain. The trade embargo had been lifted, albeit subject to further negotiations in two years’ time, and relations were improving, making the French understandably anxious.
With this gnawing at their minds, they sent word that Alençon would be allowed to come to Englan
d so I could meet him. I replied, saying the Duc would have to promise not to be offended if I did not like him. They demonstrated abject desperation by agreeing I could reject him, and showed more by declaring I could decide if Alençon was allowed to hear Catholic Mass, both during his visit and if we married.
Chuckling inwardly, I told King Charles and his bloodstained mother I was merry to hear this, but would not grant permission for any visit until I was certain peace had settled upon France. I would exploit their desperation. I kept them waiting.
Not only had I no intention of taking this son of France as my husband, I also thought Catherine and Charles deserved unease and uncertainty. They had granted that, and far worse, to thousands.
One element of the negotiations did make me stop to ponder, however. Although it is hard to divine truth from the entrails of words used by ambassadors, it was stressed many times that Alençon had been one of the prime movers behind the new peace with the Huguenots. I had also heard he was fond of his brother-in-law, Henri of Navarre, and, when Death had stalked the palace itself, had worked with his sister, the alluring Margot de Valois, to save Navarre’s life. If this was true, Alençon would be worth meeting as a potential Protestant ally in a Catholic court.
But there were the feelings of my people to consider. The massacre was still high in all minds, and were a prince of France to come to England now, I was not certain I could guarantee his safety.
No, I thought. Curiosity will have to wait for a more auspicious moment.
In the meantime, I would entertain myself by keeping Catherine and Charles begging at my feet, like the little dogs they were.
Chapter Eleven
Whitehall Palace
Late Summer- Early Autumn 1573
It was a short progress I made that year, only visiting certain, select households close to London.
As we left London, we rode through its streets. It was traditional for me to say farewell to my capital. We rode with the first sunlight of day, warm as a mother’s embrace, with light reflecting upon our faces from plaster-covered, timber-framed houses. Sweet white illuminated the homes of London, their stone or brick chimneys puffing out smoke. Most roofs were tiled now, either with clay slabs or lead, as ordered by the regulations for preventing fire. In close-packed London, were roofs to be made of straw or thatch as they often were in the country, fire that took one house would spread to many more. At the edge of each house was a bucket of water. Although often a refuge for rats, and therefore smelly, these buckets were vital to the operation of putting out a fire quickly before it claimed a whole street or before grappling hooks had to be employed to pull down houses.
The fronts of all these homes were pretty, but the back ends were not. People threw refuse into their backyards, dumping entrails discarded from meals, as well as shit and plant waste, into gardens so it lay under cabbages and root vegetables. They also tossed it upon dunghills, hot, ripe and sweaty under the sun, or under cherry and apple trees, where the waste might bring fertility to their fruit crop. Yet more waste was dispatched into fields near their properties or into the Thames.
In the better parts of the city the streets were paved with cobbles, but elsewhere they were dirt, which fast became swampy when it rained. In summer, as it was now, the dirt tracks became hard and crisp, the surface cracking and flaking, so plumes of dust rose in the wake of horses and carts.
Dogs walked the streets, some leashed, wearing collars studded with jewels as they sauntered proudly beside their masters, and some running loose. Dog catchers hunted masterless hounds, as they spread disease and sometimes, if desperate for food, attacked children. Stinking alleys held the bodies of dead hounds, lost to life for want of food or surfeit of lice, and the Thames carried some away, bloated corpses bobbing past the multitude of boats and swans on the river.
We passed men throwing slippery oysters down their throats, purchased from the baskets of wandering maids, and young boys treated to dried apple rings by their fathers. Our horses clopped through markets where parsnips, carrots and turnips, brought to England by immigrants of the Low Countries, were the height of fashion. Londoners sold rabbits, caught up in bundles of four, or sold alive from captive warrens, and fish was laid out on stalls, with careful widows or maids lingering over cod, plaice, pike, carp and trout, as well as lobster, crawfish and salted sea fish. Merchants watched customers carefully, and shooed away opportunistic cats who yowled in indignation, since all cats believe they are higher beings who must be obeyed. Some sea fish was brought to market alive in barrels, and clubbed over the head when sold, wrapped in hay and placed in a maid’s basket.
We rode by nobles on their way to the Tower menagerie where they would see lions, lynxes, wolves, eagles and other exotic animals housed in cages near the entrance. The porcupine was exceedingly popular, as his spines had never been seen on another animal, with the possible exception of the much humbler hedgehog. Others were on their way to Southwick, to watch bear or bull baiting. On the street, fencers, acrobats, fools and jugglers entertained for a penny dropped in a cap, and crowds gathered, laughing, as they clustered about dancing bears, their paws whipped by their masters to make them leap higher and higher as jaunty music played.
One man was a storyteller, telling the tale of how London had been founded by refugees of Troy. He had a good crowd, for it was a popular tale. People of London were proud to call themselves the citizens of New Troy, as London was still sometimes called.
Maids were out gathering water from conduits, or buying a shoulder of mutton for their household’s dinner that night. Some looked weary, others bore a faint air of nervousness. Both were to be expected. It was hard work, being a maid. Up before the sun, they lit fires, worked in the kitchen, tended to laundry and livestock in pens outside the house, and cleaned. But there were dangers beyond long hours and hard work. Young girls were entirely at the mercy of their employer. Kind masters were rare, and often maids endured beatings for mistakes, and also had their masters force sexual attentions on them. This was forbidden, but masters were well aware in a court of law it was their word against that of the woman, and since courts were more likely to believe men, especially ones with good public reputations, abuses went on. Men could rape maids repeatedly, extracting promises of silence from them under threat of non-payment of wages, or being sent from the house in disgrace. And if the girl fell pregnant she was often thrown out anyway, blamed for being loose of morals, whether she had invited the man to her bed or not. Female servants were at more risk than men, although I had heard of masters who had abused their own sex too.
Leaving London to the cheers of my people, I stayed with Cecil at Theobalds, where we discussed my convincing pageant of almighty rage when he had gone to visit Mary of Scots, apparently without permission.
“Do you think it will draw out lords who support Mary?” I asked.
“Your rage convinced me, madam,” he said. “And I knew it was false. Let us hope others were likewise persuaded. If lords think I support Mary, they may be willing to share her secrets with me.”
In actual fact, Cecil gained little from his enterprise. Since the Ridolfi plot, Mary had lost many supporters in England, and the rest of the world. I thought her less of a threat than she had been.
I went on to Hatfield, the seat of my youth, and wandered the halls thinking sadly of Kat and Parry, of Katherine Carey and my sister. I stood in the park, under the tree where I had been first called Queen, thinking of all who had stood behind me that day. Many of them were no more. Called away to the realm of death, if they stood here it was only as ghosts.
Yet I could feel them. Feel them at my side as though they were flesh and blood. It was not just imagination; they were there. They stood in my soul, offering up their strength to feed mine. No more than ashes were these people, but from ashes do phoenixes rise.
I went to Enfield for a short visit, and then to nearby Elsynge, where I always enjoyed the armorial stained glass in my bedroom windowpanes, which cast spark
ling, pretty light on my covers each morning when the shutters were taken down.
But progress was short, for there was much that required my attention. We returned in early autumn, as trees started to surrender leaves to the wind, and I was greeted at the gates of London by the mayor and aldermen. Processing through the streets, I was assured of my people’s love. Through rebellion and dissent, betrayal and terror, I had kept them safe. They called blessings upon me, and I heard words, here and there, proclaiming I was the lucky charm of England, who kept the horrors other countries experienced at bay.
I would never allow my people to know it was not luck, or at least not only luck, that kept beasts of blood and betrayal from England; it was sharp wits, infamous double-dealing, and quick, light footwork. Politics was a dance. Only the most skilled of prancers could last to the end.
One of the matters to which we had to attend was answering the attack on my councillors, and by September Cecil had a response. A royal proclamation was produced, condemning the attack and extolling the worth of my men, most especially the Privy Council. Cecil was an old hand at refuting such assaults by now, and his response met with a positive reaction from my people.
