by G Lawrence
“You are a trusting man.”
“I am a man in love, and have no choice but to trust the one I love will keep all I offer her safe.” He smiled. “I cannot take back my heart. It is a fledgling flown. I wield no power over it. It is yours, and always will it be.”
Chapter Fourteen
Hampton Court and Whitehall Palace
Winter 1573
“It is hardly my fault if the Sidneys cannot moderate their expenses,” I said heatedly to Robin, come to plead on behalf of his sister and her husband.
The Sidneys were in financial straits. Mary was an unsalaried member of my household and her husband had lost a good deal of wealth in service to the Crown in Ireland. But neither of those matters did I see as my fault. Men took up posts in Ireland knowing the risks, and Mary had accepted her position, understanding it came without a wage. Through careful, considered bookkeeping had I brought England to a state we had scarce seen for generations; we teetered on the edge of financial security. Were I to go about handing out money hither and thither, all that would be lost.
And I had to be careful that year. The harvest had not been good and grain prices were high. My servants had been commanded to store goods well, and I knew many in England were taking the same precautions; seething meat in vinegar with juniper seeds and salt, keeping wine and flesh separate, and trying to make more cheese, to last them through the lean winter months. I had a court to run and people to feed. I could not afford to bail out the Sidneys.
Mary had been complaining about other slights, as she called them; the confiscated chambers. She spoke bitterly and openly at court and said the faithful service she and Sidney had offered went unrewarded. This made me livid. Mary, along with most of Robin’s family, had been showered with posts, favours, gifts and positions since I came to the throne, Robin more so than anyone. If anyone was in a position to aid his sister, it was him, not me. They had been rewarded. It was not my fault if they had not enough wit to make the best of all they had been handed.
Mary Sidney was irritating me in another way, too. She had become a sighing martyr to her affliction. She had tended to me in illness, and for that I would always be grateful, but her long-suffering martyrdom, made obvious to all, especially visitors to my chamber, was wearying. If anyone gently enquired about her veil, there would be a sigh as she told them all she had sacrificed for me, out of loyalty. That may once have been true, but now Mary used her affliction as currency to gain sympathy and to wheedle what she wanted out of me.
“If she requires help, provide for your sister from the many benefits I have granted you, my lord Earl,” I said waspishly. “Family should care for family, after all.”
Robin had no wish to share his bountiful, but always quickly spent, wealth with anyone, even his sister. He left displeased, but I was not about to bend. If I did so each time I was asked, I would snap.
*
That December, Walsingham became my second Secretary. I was a little concerned for my present Secretary, Sir Thomas Smith, which is why I finally agreed Walsingham could come on as junior of the two. Smith was in the midst of his sixtieth decade of life, his throat pained him, and a canker had erupted there. All men know those growths cause Death to come calling in due time, but I could not allow Smith to retire just yet. He needed to show Walsingham the ways I wanted things done. It would not do for the man to saunter in, thinking he could dictate the way I conducted England’s affairs.
It was all too easy for a Secretary to think himself King. Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell had wended that way when my father ruled England. Not wishing to have to behead any man who got ideas above his station, with Cecil I had forged a new way of cooperation, but mine remained the final say. I was not averse to advice, but I certainly was to a man thinking he could control me.
My new Secretary became a junior member of the Privy Council, and gained the signet, the most personal of the three royal seals which authorized orders and grants to my people. Walsingham threw himself into work in a manner which pleased me. He shared duties with Smith, preparing state papers, sorting my correspondence, and meeting with me regularly. Walsingham handled matters pertaining to foreign affairs, writing to ambassadors, and gathering information… all matters he was naturally disposed to be good at, since he enjoyed them. It was a position of true trust, as Walsingham could not control my commands to ambassadors, but he did have the option of controlling what information I saw, something which could affect international politics for good or ill.
Much like Cecil, Walsingham was a man utterly addicted to quill and parchment. All information he gleaned was written down into books. In that library, as his chamber swiftly became, one could find facts on the table manners of Phillip of Spain, secret movements of Huguenot troops in France, the, rather naughty, private activities of the Duc d’Anjou, as well as copies of treaties, records of negotiations, tracts on trade and various ideas on the suppression of piracy.
In addition to all this, there were books on domestic affairs: lists of castles, fortifications, my houses, parks, forests and expenses; regulations and plans for the army in times of peace and war; naval costs; plans and expansions and, of course, lists of all known Catholics in the realm.
Cecil was a man of lists, and Walsingham followed his example. My new Secretary set himself the task of knowing all the most significant men in each shire, both friend and foe, and setting people to watch those who might be enemies. His men guarded that room with care, for in that little room were housed the secrets of England. It was the chink in the armour no one could be allowed to find.
It was a fascinating place to spend an hour. Most people were not permitted in, of course, but I was not most people. Each letter that came to court was logged in and out of the room. There were cabinets upon cabinets of papers, books and lists, and Walsingham kept one, containing the most secret of all secrets, in a smaller room. He kept the key, and there was only one, for in that room were ciphers, secret papers and letters that could ignite a political inferno.
From there, too, he controlled his spies. Walsingham had men at ports searching for suspect documents or banned popish items. He had people in the markets of all major cities, men at universities, women in bathhouses and brothels, and border guards in his pay. Travellers, merchants, Scottish and Portuguese exiles, English mercenaries fighting in France or the Low Countries, and men of science or art, with reason to visit high-standing families and record what noble customers might say on religion, or the state, over dinner or whilst sitting for a portrait or horoscope, were all employed. All these people reported to Walsingham, but few were paid. Some were patriots, and some simply souls who enjoyed the diversion of spyery; the secret joy of being a keeper of secrets, a watcher standing hidden in plain view, amongst the blindly unaware.
There were other ways to gather information. Ambassadors could be bribed, indeed many set sums for certain information, although one had to be careful about such information, as it could be false or partial. Walsingham kept in contact with English exiles who had, or whose families had, been involved in the Northern Rebellion. He made them promises of pardons and rewards I had no intention of keeping in return for information on Phillip of Spain, who had offered some of them pensions.
Walsingham became so swiftly at one with his work that hardly anyone called him by his name anymore. He became Mr Secretary.
The first seeds of Cecil’s plan to place a spy in every court of Europe and house of England had been sown, but it was Walsingham who brought them to life, feeding them with a rain of ruses and sun of spyery. I admired Walsingham’s mind, his dogmatic ways, and shrewd sense, but resented the manner in which he spoke to me, as if we were equals, and at times, as though I were his errant daughter.
We were almost of an age, so to be treated as though I were the infant and he the adult was insulting. The match our minds found in each other was the true problem. I was aware Walsingham was just as intelligent as me, and he was aware of the same. Since we had both
been accustomed to the notion of being the cleverest person in the room, to find an equal was unnerving for us both. In Walsingham, this insecurity transformed into a wish to see me as his reckless daughter, and in me it became irritation at suddenly having been offered a father-figure of which I had no need. His predilection for the Puritan way of life, and my abhorrence of that stringent, joyless sect did not aid matters either.
At first, our meetings were strained, but I appreciated the peril he had suffered in France, and his calm handling of the, frankly unhinged, King after the massacre, and told myself to muster patience. In time, I came to appreciate there were more sides to Walsingham. His humour was dry as desert sand, and often self-deprecating. Entirely loyal to his wife, he was a man in whom, once passion is planted, will never be uprooted. That was a rare quality, and I admired it. It is so easy for men to stray and think little of it. They are all but encouraged by their friends, and suffer no ill consequences for their lust. Women bear those. That some men would set aside such temptation, which carries so few consequences, and remain true to love, is not something to dismiss. Men like Cecil and Walsingham were rare, for they respected their wives.
But whilst I admired him in many ways, Walsingham did much to frustrate and annoy me. I found him rigid as a corpse in a frozen ditch on some matters; religion being one, Spain another, and my cousin of Scots the last. He wanted Mary taken care of, and much like many people, there was only one way he saw that would aid England; her death. He was also none too fond of Phillip and thought England should join the war in the Low Countries.
“I am not interested in war, Master Walsingham,” I said one day as he spoke of the dangers of Phillip of Spain.
“He is a foe, madam. We need to view him as such.”
“Perhaps so, but I will not act against any man unless he first gives me cause. This is as true for Phillip as it is for my own people.”
“Sometimes, to act first is to prevent danger.”
“And sometimes, Walsingham, danger can be avoided if one stalls one’s hand. Men are conditioned to act as though the world is their enemy, for they have known power all their lives, and fear to lose it. Women, who are denied power, understand the world is our enemy no matter what we do, and that much can be done with ambiguity. We work in shadows, Master Walsingham, and understand much that men do not.”
Walsingham, no doubt encouraged by Robin, wanted me to join with William of Orange. I would not. Aid, I had sent, but throwing England into all-out war was not an outcome I desired. Dutch rebels were frequently winning small battles and losing larger ones, and whilst they kept Alba firmly on the tips of his Spanish toes, they were no closer to winning. The prospect of a Spanish army remaining in the Low Countries was not favourable for England, and the prospect of them winning even less so, in case they thought to look across the Channel and think England a merry prize to win, but even so, interfering directly in the fate of another nation was not an easy thought for me. What if someone were to do that in my England?
“Our resources are limited, Walsingham,” I went on. “You know as well as I how much it would cost to win the war in the Netherlands, and there are other issues. The Dutch possess many fine qualities, but they are also argumentative, brash and, at times, untrustworthy. Help them win this war, and will they welcome us as friends afterwards? The French did not when we intervened in their wars, so why would the Dutch? They have fought one master for many years, and may think we intend to become a new one when all is done.”
He opened his mouth to speak, and I went on just as he had started to form the first syllable of his first word. I often waited for that moment, for, childish as it was, I saw how greatly it irked him. “And another thing,” I interjected. “Only just have we made England prosperous. Only just, Walsingham! For years I have saved and cut, narrowed expenses, mended gowns, bought all we needed for court and country at the best prices as though I were a haggling gypsy at a horse fair, and only just have I brought England out of the pit of financial ruination and despair we were mired in. I will not risk all I have achieved.”
“What outcome would please you in the Netherlands, Majesty?” Walsingham asked after a long, pointed pause.
“The removal of all foreign troops, and the return of the provinces, restored to their liberties, rights and leaders,” I said. “Phillip would retain governance of the country, but the ruling would be in the hands of Dutch nobles and princes.”
“Orange will never agree to that now, Majesty.”
“All princes learn to compromise one way or another, Walsingham.”
“Phillip will never compromise on religion, Majesty.”
“It is his right, as it is mine, to impose whatever state religion he thinks works best for his people,” I said. “And Protestants could be granted some form of religious freedom.”
“They should have full freedom.”
“Not all men get what they want, Walsingham.”
Mr Secretary sighed. “Quite aside from matters of religion, madam, the Dutch despise the Spanish. The depths of dislike between them are now so firmly rooted that sense, even good sense, as you speak, will not alter their minds.”
“So you admit my plan has worth?”
“Of course.” Walsingham looked a touch astonished.
“You speak as though I should know this, yet you have been arguing against me for the last hour and a half.”
There was a barely imperceptible twitch in the corner of his mouth. “Majesty, women so often seem capable of reaching into the minds of men, that when it is admitted such is impossible, we are always astounded.”
I put a hand to my weary brow. “But you admit my idea would be best, not only for England, but for the Netherlands, and Europe?”
“Indeed.”
“But you will not support it.”
“I support you, Majesty. If you ask me to go ahead, I will, but it will not work. The Dutch would rather die than suffer Phillip as their master any longer, and Phillip has declared he would rather rule a desert than a land of heretics. No matter the undoubted pragmatic logic in your proposal, it will not work.” He smiled, somewhat sadly. “You use your mind, Majesty, and ignore the hearts of men. Minds are logical, hearts are not.”
“What does a cold fish like you know of the heart?” I asked, but I was teasing. Although I resented being told my plan would not work, it was heartening to hear Walsingham thought it logical.
“Perhaps it is those who conceal their hearts who have the most to hide,” he said. “Those of us who by design or necessity are forced to use our heads rather than hearts, are often the ones with the deepest loves, the widest sorrows.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Do you speak of yourself, or your Queen?”
“I would never dare speak for my Queen.”
“As my Secretary, that puts you at somewhat of a disadvantage,” I pointed out. “You will have to remain silent for the rest of your days.”
“I have often found silence is where much may be learned.”
“Then you must be an avid pupil, Walsingham, for you are silent more than any man I know... Aside from when arguing with me, of course.”
“Your Majesty is not a prince who would wish her men to merely nod along and agree,” he said. “You are a wise prince, for you allow your men to speak their minds, and thereby glean all counsel, good and bad.”
“Sneaky weasel,” I said, waggling my finger. “If now I say I want no counsel, I name myself unwise. In order to be proved Solomon, I must endure you pointing out all the flaws in my plans.”
We went on arguing.
As time went on, I accepted his criticisms with better grace, understanding he had my best interests at heart, and he welcomed the fact that his prince listened to him, and allowed him to speak his mind. In other courts, Walsingham would have swung on the gallows when first he opened his mouth. In truth, although he vexed me, I rather enjoyed our debates. They were stimulating.
But I stood firm on the Netherlands, and told
Walsingham a friendly settlement was the course of action I wanted to pursue. My idea would bring about peace and grant each side at least part of what they wanted. As it transpired, my path would not be the one either side would agree to take, but I kept trying.
Uneasy portents marked our new alliance with Spain. In Northumberland, a vision of Saint Andrew’s cross was seen in the skies, with a wolf near it on the ground. The wolf was seen pursuing the largest stag in a herd of deer. Wolves were no more seen in England. Once they had been numerous, the scourge of farmers, but hunting and trapping had extinguished their light from the wilderness. Although this phantom wolf was not seen again after that night, the stag was. He was seen returning day after day to the same spot, racing about in mortal terror, as though he could see something we could not.
People said the wolf and stag were heralds of change and woe soon to come. Old gossips spun tales that the white stag was a harbinger of great change, and some spoke of Saint Hubertus, who had hunted a stag on Good Friday only to find it turning, bearing an image of the cross blazing between its antlers. Some claimed this herald of change being pursued by a wolf, a predator long thought gone from England, was a sign our country would come under threat from Spain once more, and the ways the wolf would employ to undermine us may be so subtle as to remain unseen, like the phantom predator chasing the white stag.
