by G Lawrence
The truth, as ever, was somewhere in between.
But as many knew, I was tolerant compared to other monarchs. You had only to look to court to see that many of my friends were secret Catholics. Hatton’s family were, and Lord Montague, Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, certainly was. Blanche held Catholic sympathies, as did Tallis and Byrd of my Chapel Royal. These people kept faith in their hearts, and my law in practice. Some called them Church Papists, an insult, meaning they had one eye on Heaven and another on their purse, making them loyal to none, but it was not so. These people were an example to all of how a person may obey their Queen, and faith.
But some men would not keep the peace. Cuthbert Mayne was one.
He had gone to trial at the Michaelmas Sessions and was indicted on five counts of treason including the possession of the Agnus Dei, possessing and seeking to publish a papal bull upholding the power of a foreign lord over that of his Queen and saying Catholic Mass, as well as administering the host in a papal manner.
The bull of absolution was a confusing charge. Since it had expired it was of no use, and Mayne denied ever having intending to publish it. He claimed he had brought it along by accident.
Under normal circumstances, Mayne might have got away with life imprisonment, but with the census in mind, with Allen was sneaking in priests, and as Europe was unsteady, my men were determined to make an example.
No less keen, apparently, was Mayne. He was offered his life if he would swear on the English Bible I was Head of the Church. He refused, reasserting his conviction I could never hold such a title.
Mayne went further, claiming I had no right to rule the Church, and any Catholics who attended my churches were not Catholics at all. He said the people of England would be won back to the true faith, and if any foreign prince invaded with a mind to restore Catholicism, that prince should be supported by all Catholics.
Mayne was, indeed, a traitor.
“It saddens me,” I said to Cecil. “I never wanted this day to come.” For nineteen years I had stood firm, allowing no Catholic priests to be executed. Now, the first was sure to be.
“He is a traitor, madam. A man of England who has turned on his own country.”
“And it will be made clear he dies for treason, not for faith.”
On the 30th of November, Mayne was executed. I did not commute his sentence. If we were to use him to make an example, it had to be a brutal one. Hanging, drawing and quartering was a hideous death, and he suffered unimaginable agony. Mayne was dragged through Launceston, bound to a hurdle, and hanged in the market place. Whilst still alive, he was cut down, disembowelled, and his body was cleaved into quarters. His head took a slot on the gate of Launceston Castle. People flocked to witness the deed, and his remains were dispatched to towns all over the South West, to be put on display.
Grenville and others were rewarded, Tregian was dispatched into life imprisonment and I went quietly to my chamber when I heard Mayne was dead.
Allen had got his way. Mayne was the first martyr I created.
With death came change. The tide had turned. Missionary priests were to be rooted out and hunted down, and those sheltering them would be punished. As I heard the rising waters of persecution surge, I steeled myself. I would continue to fight, continue to attempt to protect Catholics against my men and from themselves, but I knew I would not always be successful.
And Catholics howled for their martyr. It was said the bull had expired and therefore was useless, and what harm was it, truly, to carry a waxen disc? No matter that he had spoken of invasion, of revolt and of treason, some thought his execution unjust. Mayne’s death confirmed to some they were being persecuted, even though he had been the first priest to die since I had come to the throne. And to those ready to rebel, Mayne became a pennant. There was a war to wage, and I was the enemy.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Windsor Castle
Autumn 1577
“Thank you, Lady Grey,” I said as my cousin handed me a new pair of gloves.
I watched as she walked away, and smiled. Restored to my friendship, Mary Grey was now a Maid of Honour. It was a junior position, but this, much like her initial liberty from house arrest, was a test. It was also, as Mary was well aware, a refusal to acknowledge her marriage. Married ladies rarely became Maids of Honour.
But Mary, if wounded by this, made no sign. She went about her duties with grace, was a good tutor to younger maids, and was pleasing to me. She was interested in theological debate, had surprised many a courtier by coming forth with learned opinions on my religious settlement, and all I had heard she spoke about made me merry. Blanche said she supported my policies with a stout heart and firm courage, and although she was known for reading radical texts, some of whose authors I frankly loathed, Mary always spoke of the benefits of moderation when it came to the state. Mary may have harboured Puritanical or radical thoughts, but in public she was resolutely my woman. Just the kind of soul I needed at court.
If only I could be as content with all my cousins. I had had word that a portrait had been done of Arbella. That in itself was not a problem, but the adoption of the Lennox motto, To achieve I endure, was another thing. Clearly, her Lennox grandmother believed her fated for the throne.
As Mary had returned to court, a man was set to leave his country. Drake was almost ready to sail.
A strange light had been seen in the skies. A comet, shaped like a Turkish sword. Such shooting stars heralded new events, and I wanted Dee to explain what he thought might come of them.
He found a court in a state of flux. With the plots uncovered that year regarding Don John and Mary, war raging in the Netherlands still, and the outbreak of plague, there had been many portents, and this comet was another.
“Does this blazing star herald woe for Drake’s voyage, or for England?” I asked.
Dee crossed himself; an absentminded gesture which spoke of his religious past. I did not admonish him. Many of my ladies still used the gesture to ward off evil. It was a sign not of rebellion, but superstition.
“Many people like to think such stars only show troubles to come, Majesty,” Dee said. “But this is not always the case. After all, what is good for one man is bad for another.”
“But will it bring peril upon us?”
“It will bring change.”
Perhaps he was right, for I had ill news not long after. My good friend, Guzman de Silva, had died.
It was a flux of the belly, I was told. De Silva had suffered a great deal before he died, but he had not lost the sense of humour I had loved so dearly about him. Before his death he jested to his servants that at least when he was gone they would have only one mess left to clean up, his body, and that would be easier than the others he had presented them with of late.
I thought of him often, sometimes gazing out of my window at the blazing star which passed over us during the course of ten days. It was as though my friend’s spirit had taken to the skies, sending me a last farewell, since he had been unable to write me one final letter.
“Is it you?” I asked the star, wondering if it was not, as many said, shaped like a curved Turkish sword, but like a smile; long and golden in the darkling skies.
For a moment, the star seemed to burn brighter, as if laughing, and I took strange comfort from it. Perhaps my friend was there. The highest reaches of Heaven were where a man as merry and sweet as Guzman de Silva deserved to be.
*
The next time we met, Dee had a startling proposal for me. “We should challenge Spain’s imperial claim on the New World,” he said.
“This is what the comet told you?”
Dee inclined his head. “It is our time, Majesty, and more than that, it is our right.”
Dee went on to explain I should challenge the division of the New World made by the Pope, basing his reasoning on the fact that the Spanish-Portuguese Treaty of Tordesillas had declared several lands to be the possession of their nations, but those lands had been claimed and colo
nised by England in ancient times, long before the treaty. In his studies, Dee said, he had found evidence that King Arthur himself, my direct ancestor, had travelled into the northern seas in the year 530.
“The great cartographer, Mercator, has charted the arrival of King Arthur’s men and estimates four thousand survived,” Dee said. “Their ancestors were found living at the Court of Norway two hundred years ago.”
Dee had many drafts of plans, all set on shifting foreign policy into expansion, exploration and adventure to form a Brytish Impire. Dee thought we should create a grand navy to defend England from piracy and stop foreign fishermen poaching in our waters. It would also discourage invasion.
It was a tempting prospect, but no matter what right we had to challenge Spain, we had not means. England was weaker than Spain in many regards. It was true Spain’s treasury was not hale; years of war, as well as exploration had stretched them thin, but they possessed the wealth of the seemingly bottomless New World. They had strong allies, like the Venetian Empire and Rome, and their Empire was vast, with many men to call upon and resources to use. This made Dee’s suggestion faintly ridiculous.
I promised to think about his proposal, and I did. Eventually I told him I would like him to go back to his books and consider what lands I might legally claim. It will, if nothing else, offer justification for my men to take to the seas, I thought.
“I would be happy to, Majesty,” Dee said, his eyes gleaming with the notion of an excuse to spend yet more time with his books.
But it seemed books were not the only creatures infiltrating his mind. At court, I saw Dee’s eyes lighting on a lady. Jane Fromonds was a lady-in-waiting to Lady Howard of Effingham. Dee’s wife had died two years ago, only a spare few months after they had wed, and he had remained a widower since. This new lady was young, twenty-two to Dee’s fifty, but they swiftly formed a bond, and were found conversing on all subjects under the light of God, and some a shade darker.
As Dee went to consult his books, Drake was making ready to sail.
When Drake came to bid me farewell, I presented him with an Iona Marble, also known as St Columba’s Tears, to protect him from dangers on the sea. “They which go down to the sea in ships, and occupy the great waters, they see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep,” I quoted from the Psalms as I tied it about his throat.
“Wonders will I see, and bring home to you, Majesty,” Drake said as he bowed.
On the day he boarded his ship, I sent a messenger to present another gift; a sea cap and a silk scarf I had embroidered myself. On the scarf were the words “The Lord guide and preserve thee until the end.”
“Godspeed, Drake,” I said as I stood at my window. I could not see his ship or the waters he would sail upon from Windsor, but in my mind I could see him, standing at the prow of his ship, hands upon the wooden banister and eyes afire with the thrill of his next voyage, and his unbreakable freedom.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Hampton Court
Winter 1577 - 1578
“So the ‘Enterprise of England’ is underway,” I said.
Cecil nodded, his face displeased. We had received intelligence that Thomas Stucley, once my spy, now Phillip’s loyal man, had been granted papal permission to bring an invasion fleet to Ireland.
“He is in possession of a poor fleet,” Walsingham noted. “My man, Hoddesdon, says it was three ships but now is only one vessel, and from reports not a sturdy one, but the danger is still there.”
“Hoddesdon is married to your stepdaughter, is he not?” I asked.
“Indeed, and a true man of England, my lady. His merchant’s contacts grant him good reason to be in many ports, and when he heard of this plan, he made his way to Civitavecchia find out more. He also thinks Oxenham, missing these many years, is being held at Lima.”
Sidney was put on alert in Ireland, but in the end Stucley got no further. The Pope, it seemed, was willing to support invasion, but not to back it with money. We held our breath for a while, but when news came that Stucley was floundering, it was released.
Whilst I was pleased this had come to nothing, there was worse news from France. “The Duc of Guise is meeting with Jesuits,” Walsingham said at another meeting. “There are plots afoot to liberate the Queen of Scots…”
“… and take my throne,” I finished for him.
“The young Duc of Guise has become her supporter.”
“Of course. Mary will always be entangled in this mess. She is a barb they would fashion into a tool.”
“If you would remove her, they would have no implement to use against you.”
“Untrue,” I said. “They would possess a mightier one; the crown of martyrdom.”
Although we continued to disagree, for this and many other services, Walsingham was knighted that December. Quite aside from the fact it was deserved, it would also enable Mr Secretary to stand on equal footing with the gentry; some had looked down on him in the past for his common blood.
Christmas came, and we went to Hampton Court to celebrate. The walls shone gold and silver, glinting from tapestry, ornaments and the clocks I had inherited from my father. Portraits of my ancestors stared down with blank eyes from the walls as we walked below. I found my old writing desk of mother-of-pearl waiting for me, along with my virginals which bore the arms of my mother.
Plays and masques were held in the great hall, where elaborate scenery had been painted on cloth and panels of wood. Under the hammer-beam roof I sat on a dais, watching my ladies perform on a stage, golden light glittering on their faces from little oil lamps strung across the hall, suspended on wires. Many came to court for the celebrations, including Lettice and her daughters. Desperate to gain my ear and talk about increasing her income, Lettice all but chased me about court.
I, where I could, ran away.
Margaret Lennox was another I tried to avoid, for all she wanted to talk about was Arbella. She told Cecil she was being forced to lease her houses, for she could not afford their upkeep. Cecil followed my lead and took to playing hide and seek with the Dowager Countess.
When Christmas Eve came, and midwinter twilight fell, stark and silver, Blanche brought back an old tradition. It had once been habit for Kat and Blanche to tell tales at the fireside when the Eve of Christmas came, and although it had gone on in a more limited fashion since Kat’s death, I had lost some enthusiasm. That year, however, Blanche brought it back in earnest, understanding enough time had passed that I might see her and other ladies perform tales and not sorrow, thinking of my lost friend.
She was right in some ways. I was utterly distracted as she and Kate Carey performed ghost and goblin tales before the fire. It was only later, when I climbed into bed, Dorothy and Blanche already nestled in the warm covers, that thoughts of my friend came swimming into my mind. I quietly cried myself to sleep that night.
Bodies we lay to rest, but there is no funeral for grief.
At the feast to mark Christmas Day, we ate roasted beef, venison, mutton and crane, as well as parsnips imported from the Low Counties, cooked in honey and collected after the first frost, which made them sweeter.
Christmas passed with happiness, and at New Year’s Mary Grey delighted me by presenting two pairs of gloves, and four dozen gold buttons, all studded with seed pearls. I was deeply touched. Lords and earls might spend a fortune on me, but they had plenty. Mary had little. Her gift cost her more.
In return I presented her with a cup and its cover; a standard gift for my ladies, but one worth more than the gloves and buttons had cost her. My Grey cousin therefore made a profit. I was glad of it.
“They are exquisite,” I said, touching the buttons.
“I know how you adore pearls, Majesty,” she said. “And they suit your pretty skin so well that I thought they would look fine on a dress or coat.”
“The gloves too are delightful,” I said. They had lovely embroidery on them, heartsease and vines.
“I purchased the gloves,” she
said. “But the embroidery is mine.”
“Then I shall take only more pleasure in wearing them.”
And I did. They were comfortable, practical and beautiful, all things I admired. Mary had done well. Her attention to my desires pleased me, and I thought most warmly about my reconciliation with my last Grey cousin. To my mind, it was going well.
“I am happy to hear it,” Blanche said. “She is a good woman, much more useful than most of your maids.”
“Well, she is a lot older than them.” Mary was thirty-three, and the youngest of my maids were just thirteen.
