Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  As for the villains who mocked the poor by pretending poverty in order to claim false charity, they must be exposed and rooted out.

  These were laws Parliament could be proud of.

  All this while Essex was sulking in his house, refusing to take his place in the House of Lords or to come to Privy Council meetings. He had some thirty of his adherents in Parliament to carry out his bidding but did not grace the chamber with his appearance. He was insulted that I had created Lord Admiral Charles Howard Earl of Nottingham, and that Charles would preside over Parliament as lord steward, walking before everyone else. It had been my surprise, a well-earned reward to Charles. Essex also was driven into a fury by the wording in the patent that elevated Charles, giving him credit for his action against the Armada in 1588 and also for the Cádiz mission. Essex derided Howard’s part in the Cádiz affair, thinking himself its one and only hero.

  Through messages and messengers, he demanded that I reword the patent to omit the credit for the Cádiz mission. He hinted that “trouble” might happen if he and Howard were forced to appear in public together. He called for personal combat between himself and Howard, or one of Howard’s relatives, Howard himself being obviously too old to put up an equal fight.

  This bad behavior came at a most inopportune time, as King Henri IV of France had sent an ambassador, Andre Hurault, Sieur de Maisse, to ascertain our feelings toward him since his conversion to Catholicism and his inability—or disinclination—to repay the large loans we had made him. Henri was fond of Essex—as people were who knew him only from afar. His absence from court would raise questions. Somehow I would have to placate the tiresome boy, lure him back for appearances’ sake. After the French had gone was time enough to decide what to do with him. I thought of him now as a problem to be solved; he had worn down almost all my affection for him. Only a thin veneer of it remained, like a ring whose coating has eroded from careless and rough wear.

  It was also important that I put on a good show of appearance, so that when de Maisse reported back to his master he could tell him how healthy and young I looked. It was most unfortunate that I was troubled with a boil on my face that stubbornly refused to heal. I had to resort to thicker face makeup than usual—doubling the amount of crushed marble and eggshell to convey the requisite pearly whiteness. Catherine helped me; she was expert in mixing the right proportions of beeswax and powdered cinnabar to put on my lips and cheeks and knew how much water to use in making the face paste.

  “I must look my best,” I said, “for the French notice every little thing.”

  She was in high spirits; her husband’s promotion had pleased her immensely, as I granted very few titles and seldom elevated anyone without good cause. Doubtless she felt his recognition was long overdue but would never nag about it. “’Tis said the French especially appreciate older women,” she said.

  I sighed. “They have that reputation. But the question is, how much older?” I turned the mirror this way and that, seeing how my face looked in different light. The boil was well camouflaged. I would draw eyes away from my face, in any case, with those old standbys, dazzling clothes and whopping jewels.

  “I think the Italian gown for today,” I said. “They will judge any French gown I wear with too practiced eyes, but I will get credit for my taste in selecting the latest from Italy.” She helped dress me in a gown of silver gauze, with bands of gold lace, making me all ashimmer. I called for a ruby and pearl garland to drape across my bosom. As an unmarried woman, I was entitled to wear open-necked bodices. Of course, I always filled the gap with jewelry.

  The ambassador was charming and urbane, but the French never sent any other kind. We spoke of many things, I attempting to discover exactly what Henri was thinking, de Maisse doing the same for me. The most urgent matter was the impending French peace treaty with Spain. They were anxious to have us join in, but how could we? King Philip, in spite of one wrecked Armada after another, kept sending them. It was true that our recent policy of attacking Spain overseas must now end—not from conviction, but from lack of effectiveness. But that did not mean we could afford to cease to arm ourselves against an invasion or to trust Spain.

  Irritatingly, de Maisse kept inquiring about Essex. I gave one lighthearted answer after another, all the time conferring with the Cecil father and son about what to do to bring Essex in line before the ambassador departed.

  “We cannot afford this,” I told them, after the ambassador had gone. “Do you agree?”

  Seldom had I seen both of them nod together. Young Cecil, Robert, had become more and more polished and self-assured as his responsibilities increased. Old Cecil, Burghley, had faded even in the few weeks I had not seen him. His mind was as alert as ever, but it was clear that his neck had less and less strength to hold that clever head up. As a team, the vigor was sliding toward the son.

  “Yes, the puppy must be brought to heel,” said Burghley, “before he spoils the hunt.”

  “Let us see—what brings a puppy to obedience?” asked Robert. “There are punishments. But he has already been punished—scolded and demoted. So what reward can we buy him with?” After a moment’s thought, he had answered his own question.

  “Offer something that costs you nothing and soothes his vanity,” he said coldly. I was struck by his utter dispassion and his bald way of putting it.

  “Something military, since he sets such store by that,” said Burghley.

  “We could offer him the lord admiralship,” I said. “Howard is just as glad to retire from that post.”

  “No, it would be seen as taking Howard’s leavings,” said Burghley.

  “What about Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal?” I asked.

  “Not lofty enough,” said Robert. “He likes something high sounding. What title is lying vacant? What about ... Earl Marshal of England?”

  “Horrible associations,” I said. “It is vacant because its last holder, the Duke of Norfolk, was executed for treason.”

  “He won’t care about that,” predicted Burghley.

  “Won’t he realize that, since the post has been suspended for twenty-five years, it can hardly be vital to the realm’s functioning?” I asked.

  “He is too vain,” said Robert. “He will look only on the outer trappings and not care how hollow they are.”

  “How harsh you are about his character,” I said.

  “He spent a few months living with us when he was nine,” said Robert. “I came to know him well, and the grown man has not changed from that willful child who has ever relied on his looks and charm to carry him to the highest echelons of success.” It was impossible to disguise the bitterness in his voice.

  “My son is right,” Burghley said. “Why do you think we never encouraged him to be part of our household?”

  “Earl Marshal of England it shall be, then,” I said. They were right: It was an honor that cost me nothing. In a sense he was already regarded as the military leader of the realm, so this added nothing beyond letting him walk in procession ahead of Nottingham, outranking him on formal occasions. A cheap price.

  As I expected, Essex did not immediately accept the award with gratitude. He quibbled about the exact wording of the patent. When I met with him in private, he did not bother to flatter or please. Instead, he made his conditions known—the wording in the patent must be such and such and the ceremony conferring it on him held at such and such a place and time. He was not sure about returning to the Privy Council. Unless ... I received his mother at court.

  When he made this demand, I just stared at him. His face was in shadow, his arms crossed. I could not read his expression. Was it defiant? Hopeful? Nervous?

  “Receive your mother?” I repeated.

  “Yes. She longs to be reconciled to you. And I, hating to see the two women I love in opposition, am tortured by this state of affairs.”

  “The two women you love ... your mother and your Queen? What of your wife? And I think there are certain ladies at court who believe you lo
ve them ... or you have given them reason to believe so.”

  “I should have said three women. My wife is also troubled that you are so hardened toward the grandmother of her children. She is your cousin,” he said. Now his voice had turned wheedling. “Your blood relative. As the years go on, they dwindle. Why be estranged from one of the few remaining?”

  How dare he talk about my years, and the passing of generations? It was all I could do not to smack him. Instead, I pretended to ponder his words. Everything for England, I reminded myself.

  “Yes, descended from my aunt,” I said, playing for time while I thought. I would have to do it. But how I did it was for me to dictate. “Very well,” I said.

  He leaped forward, bent on his knee, grabbed my hand, and started covering it with kisses. “Oh, thank you! When may it be?”

  “Sometime after the New Year,” I said. In the deadest time of year, when court was empty.

  “But—” he began, then thought better of it. He had wished her to come while the French were here and the court was brilliant with entertainment. Not in a thousand years, I thought.

  I drew him up. “As to your own return to court ...”

  We had him now.

  53

  LETTICE

  November 1597

  I’ve won,” Robert said proudly, his arms crossed and chin thrust forward. “She has capitulated, utterly surrendered.” A document dangled from his hand spelling out the terms of his appointment as Earl Marshal of England. Robert Cecil had notified him that the final patent, on proper parchment, would be ready in a few days.

  “In her entire life she has never capitulated or surrendered. Why would she do for you what she did not for Philip of Spain?” I took the paper from his hand and skimmed it. It was suspiciously innocent, naming Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, as Earl Marshal, the highest military commander in the realm. If I did not know the Queen as I did, I would have taken it at face value. But that was never safe with her.

  He turned to another letter on the table that had just been delivered. Breaking the seal, he read it quickly. “Yes, my victory is complete! She can deny me nothing.” He handed it to me, glee making his lips open in a wide smile.

  I could hardly believe my eyes. She consented to receive me at court. I read further. After the holidays. Pity about that. But that was a small complaint.

  “How did you manage that?” I had asked him to try, but it was a forlorn hope.

  “Oh, I had only to mention it,” he said breezily.

  I doubted that. Something else must have happened. Suddenly the rise of excitement I had felt clouded over.

  “Well, I thank you,” I said. “It seems unbelievable. It has been almost twenty years since I have been allowed to come to court.”

  “Now that she has caved in, I will return to the Privy Council and to court. I understand that the council has been all at sixes and sevens without me. Now the suspension of business can end. My absence was highly inconvenient to them, so I hear.”

  He paced up and down the chamber, like a colt anxious to escape its stall and run. “A duel of wills, and I won,” he said with wonder.

  “That may be what she wishes you to think,” I said. Knowing her since childhood, I remembered she had many ways of winning games, including the ploy of losing the first hand.

  “It’s what the rest of the court will think, as well,” he said.

  “She is willing to let people think anything they like if it serves her purpose,” I said.

  “Well, the title serves my purpose! So much for Francis Bacon’s advice about eschewing a military role. I can hardly wait to see his face when I show him this.” He smacked the paper affectionately. “I am the highest soldier in the land!”

  I hid my misgivings. Why, Lettice, I asked myself, can you not just receive this with gratitude?

  Robert returned to court like a Roman general to a triumph. His parade through the streets to cheering crowds proved that he was still the people’s darling, and his absence had merely whetted their appetite for a glimpse of their hero.

  I would be a liar if I said, even to myself, that hearing their cries and seeing him ride out, so handsome and fine, did not make my heart swell. When a mother holds her baby for the first time, does she not, in a secret place in herself, envision him a grown man, riding to splendor and acclaim? So few ever grow up to that. But mine had.

  Robert returned to the swirl of court festivities for the French embassy, and he came home with tales of the dancing, the banquets, the music. The Queen, it seemed, had gone the distance in entertaining them, sparing nothing. Robert said she had even dusted off her flirtatious behavior for Monsieur de Maisse, wearing her lowest gowns and masses of pearls, fishing for compliments on her looks and wit.

  “She even said, once, that she was never a great beauty but was accounted one in her youth,” Robert recounted the morning after a fête. He laughed. “She gave him that sideways glance, leaving the poor man no response but to proclaim that indeed her beauty had been renowned in its day, and was still dazzling.”

  “He never should have said ‘in its day,’”I said.

  “She didn’t care for that,” he admitted. “She also teased him about her age, in one moment saying she stood on the brink of the grave and then, when he expressed concern, chiding him, saying, ‘I don’t think I shall die as soon as all that! I am not so old, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, as you suppose.’ It left him quite in a dither.”

  “As she intended.”

  “She did look quite fetching,” he said.

  “I wonder how long it took to make her so? Probably hours!”

  Behind my laughter was the base of my own experience with that. I could still look the same from a distance, but ... closer took an effort, and some time.

  In the days that followed, and through Christmas, I beheld the glitter of the court from a distance, seeing it through Robert’s eyes. I had been restricted to that for a long time, but now there was the tantalizing knowledge that soon I would be standing there seeing it for myself. Next to the wonder of miraculously seeing someone who did not live in our age—King Alfred or the Emperor Constantine—this was the greatest restoration I could imagine. I began planning my clothes, and what gift I would present to her. I was almost glad I had so long to think about it. It had to be just right.

  Christopher was not particularly excited about it, but he had never had the experience of falling from favor. And these days he seemed more interested in spending his time with his seagoing companions than pining for court. There was also the delicate matter of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon to worry him. They were going to approach the Queen and ask permission to marry but were waiting for the most opportune moment. Elizabeth was pregnant and they would have to marry, permission or no. Only the Queen’s preoccupation with the French embassy had kept her keen eyes from noticing the girl’s condition, which would soon be obvious to all. Christopher was jittery for his friend, fearful he might even be sent to the Tower. It all depended on what mood Elizabeth was in. But Southampton had never been a favorite, so he could hardly be accused of “disloyalty”—what she branded any of her male admirers who dared to take up with a woman who was actually available. So probably the worst they would have to endure would be a display of temper and some unpleasant names.

  Anthony and Francis Bacon’s spy service managed to intercept and copy Monsieur de Maisse’s reports to his king. They regaled us with the ambassador’s impressions of the Queen.

  “ ‘Here she says, “Alas, that you, who have met so many princes, have come all this way to see a foolish old woman,” ’ ” read Francis.

  “I hope he did not fall into that trap,” said Robert. “The proper answer is to shower her with compliments.”

  “Yes, that is what he did. And then he notes, ‘When anyone speaks of her beauty, she says that she was never beautiful, though she had that reputation thirty years ago.’ ” He paused. “Now hear his comment to his king: ‘Nevertheless, she spea
ks of her beauty as often as she can.’ ”

  I giggled and the men burst into gusts of laughter.

  “His honest assessment of her looks: ‘As far as she may she keeps her dignity, but her face is very aged: It is long and thin.’ ”

  I had not really seen her in so long I was startled to hear her described thus. Twenty years is a long time, but like me, she still looked the same from a distance.

  “He goes on about the fact that the English will not agree to a peace with Spain—”

  “Of course we won’t!” bellowed Robert. “That would be insane.”

  Francis sighed as he read more of the copied dispatch. “Even he ends as her admirer. ‘It is not possible to see a woman of so fine and vigorous a disposition both in mind and in body. One can say nothing to her on which she will not make an apt comment. She is a great princess who knows everything.’ ”

  Gloriana, the Faerie Queen, could still cast her spell, then.

  The twelve days of Christmas ended, and a sleet-filled January descended. The distractions of the holidays finished, I could now give myself over to considering what gift I might present to her. The only appropriate thing would be a piece of jewelry. I hated it that Leicester had left her that magnificent six-hundred-pearl necklace, which should have gone to me. She had her portraits painted in it, clearly cherishing it and wearing it as proudly as a bride. So I would never give her pearls. She also had black ones from Mary Queen of Scots. No more pearls for her.

  Emeralds? Rubies? Sapphires? She already had so many. Jade? That was more unusual. But I probably could not obtain it in time.

  I must give her a jewel no one else ever had. Or ever could. Something to take her breath away, bind her to me. But I could not afford such a gem. Nor, even if I could, would it be unusual enough. Even the deepest red ruby, pulsating like a glob of blood, was seen on too many necklaces and rings at court.