Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  83

  Five more hours, and then the dawn brought in the new day. I felt purged of all emotions, as if they had been taken captive along with Essex. But that was an advantage: It meant I could act quickly, untroubled by clouded feelings.

  I ordered details of the treason to be printed up and distributed throughout the City. I summoned lawyers to study the mountain of evidence and prepare for the trials. I posted over two thousand men levied from the home counties to keep order in London—some were stationed at Charing Cross, others to patrol the pleasure grounds of Southwark, with the theaters, cockpits, and bear gardens, and more around the Royal Exchange. I could take no chances.

  In all, eighty-five men taken from Essex House were in custody. In truth, only a few of those warranted close examination or trial. Essex himself, of course, was the prime mover. After him, Southampton. Then the lesser ones: Rutland, Sandys, Monteagle, Bedford, and Blount. The commoners and servants of Essex—Danvers, Cuffe, and Meyrick—would also be held responsible for their actions.

  It was four days since the uprising, and at last I was sleeping again, unwinding like a tightly coiled spring slowly loosening. My appetite had crept back and I was looking forward to my supper for the first time since the ordeal had begun. I even agreed to have it out in the privy chamber so more people could share it with me. To chase away the gloom, I chose a red gown. But before I could traverse from my inner chambers to the privy chamber, three of Raleigh’s guards surrounded me. I tried to shake them off.

  “Gentlemen, the danger is past,” I said. “I merely go to sup with my attendants and friends.”

  “There is more danger,” one of them said, his throat rumbling, “and it was heading for your chambers.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I looked around; the corridor was empty. “I am trying to calm the court, not agitate it.”

  “Do you know a Captain Thomas Lee?” another said.

  “Yes, he served in Ireland and was Essex’s messenger to O’Neill. But he was not part of the rebellion.”

  “He is now,” said the first man. “He was caught just outside your door with a knife. He has already confessed that he meant to take you hostage and force you to release Essex.”

  “My God!” How had he gotten so close? “Where were you, then, when he sneaked into the apartments? What good your liveries, your embroidered golden roses, if you cannot guard me properly?”

  “He said he had soldierly business with you.”

  “He said you knew him well. We would never have believed him, but one of us recognized him. ‘He served in Ireland,’ he said. ‘And besides, he’s cousin to the Queen’s old master of the tilt.’”

  “A questionable member of that family,” I said. I was remembering something unpleasant about him. Oh yes. He had once sent me the severed head of an Irish chieftain, thinking it would please me. I shuddered. It had proved not only that he was uncouth but that he knew how to sever heads. “Where is he?”

  “Bound and waiting for you out here,” the tallest of the guards said, pointing to the privy chamber.

  “Very well, then, let me see him.”

  This was not the quiet dinner I had envisioned. The tables were still set, and the crowd assembled, but on his knees on the floor was the captain. The courtiers made a wide semicircle around him, staring.

  I walked over to where he knelt, two huge guards on either side, their hands on his shoulders.

  “Captain Lee,” I said. “This is the second time I have met you. There will not be a third.”

  He glared up at me. “Let him go! Set the Earl of Essex free!” he muttered.

  “Why? Because you say so? He is a traitor. And now so are you.” Suddenly I was weary of this. I did not even have the stomach for any further talk. “Take him away,” I ordered the guards. “Try him ahead of the others. His case is clear-cut. It does not require much legal review.”

  As he was dragged out, I made a show of inviting everyone to take a place at table as if nothing had happened. But now I knew this would not be over until Essex was dead. Like the Scots queen, as long as he lived there would be plots on his behalf and I could not draw my breath in safety.

  “My good friends, let us drink to health and peace!” I said, holding my goblet high. My hand did not shake.

  Things moved swiftly in the next few days. I called peers of the realm to come posthaste to London to act as witnesses in the trial—nine earls and sixteen barons. The Privy Council selected the Queen’s counsel to prosecute the trial—seven lawyers of the realm, including Francis Bacon. Lord Buckhurst would preside as lord high steward over eight judges. The trial would take place in Westminster Hall, where so many others had been held.

  If by a trial one means a way to determine guilt or innocence, this was not a trial but a hearing to determine just how guilty these men were—not if they were guilty. They would be allowed to speak and defend themselves, but the hearing satisfied the need to have all the facts presented and recorded, and punishment meted out. In years to come someone could revisit the hearing and know what had passed. That was its purpose—to marshal the facts and enter them into the public record.

  In preparation for the trial, it was necessary to prepare the minds of the public. The most efficient way of doing that was to order all the preachers in the realm to present the facts of the case in their sermons. Since attendance at church was mandatory, most people would hear the message.

  That was Sunday, February 15. As a precaution, five hundred soldiers were sent to St. Paul’s Cross, where the most important sermon would be heard.

  On Monday, Captain Thomas Lee was tried at Newgate Prison; on Tuesday he was executed at Tyburn, the prescribed traitor’s death of hanging, disembowelment, and quartering. At the same time, the Privy Council from Star Chamber published indictments of the men in the rebellion. These were that the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Rutland, and Lord Sandys had conspired to depose and slay the Queen and overthrow the government.

  On Wednesday, the lawyers put the finishing touches on their case. I instructed Francis Bacon to leave out anything pertaining to the succession or Richard II or deposition.

  “The rebellion speaks for itself,” I said. “We need not go into these peripheral matters.”

  “But, Ma’am, we mentioned them in the sermons and in the indictment,” he said.

  I looked at him. I had not seen him in many months. The strain was showing on his face, in the lines and look around his eyes. “Francis, I know this is difficult for you. It is very rare that a man is called to prepare a case against his erstwhile friend. While you had forsworn his political path, friendship is a different matter. One can still love beyond politics. I believe my father always loved Thomas More, and I am sure you will always love Robert Devereux. God knows he is easy to love—that was his downfall.”

  Francis merely stood, clutching his hat. A slow smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Your Majesty is wise,” he said. “But my loyalty is entirely yours, even as I grieve for my friend.”

  “I grieve alongside you,” I said. “You understand why I wish to pass over the deposition part. Why allow people to picture something? An image burns itself into the mind. Likewise with Richard II. It gave a vision and script to something nebulous. Treason ... abdication ... Those are abstracts. But once you have seen it enacted before you ... it becomes possible. In a sense it has already happened, and you have embraced it by watching it.” I pulled myself up. “In any case, we have a trial to conduct. Your task is to prove that Essex’s actions were premeditated. If he is mad ... that absolves him. He may have tipped over into the realm of madness, but he was in complete command of his senses when he challenged me, parleyed with O’Neill, came back to England against my express orders, gathered his followers at Essex House, and encouraged them—” I caught my breath. Reciting these things enraged me. “You understand,” I said, putting a stop to it.

  “Yes. To my sorrow, I do.”

  “Wha
t of your brother?” I asked. “How is Anthony faring?”

  “His illness progresses. I fear for him in this. He may not survive it.”

  “I am sorry to hear it. Essex’s fortunes have touched many, and dragged many down with him.” I looked at Francis. “You are not among them. Never castigate yourself for extricating yourself from that doomed man. It is no sin to survive.”

  He shook his head gently. “I thank Your Majesty for understanding. Many do not.”

  “They want to pin the Judas label on you, do they? That is simplistic. To accompany a traitor on his path is not loyalty but treason,” I assured him.

  I thought of Essex in the Tower. It would be easier if he were indeed mad. The mad see things differently than we do. He had refused to see any of his family. He refused to confess to the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to attend him. He had waved him away, insisting on his innocence.

  His innocence ... perhaps in his own mind. But his mind was disordered.

  Robert Cecil asked to see me, and I admitted him. “The earl’s wife begs us to spare him,” he said. “She has been on her knees before me.”

  “Frances Walsingham?”

  “Yes. I had always thought her marriage a political one—after Sidney, how could it be otherwise? But she is distraught.”

  How naive men are. Philip Sidney! “Sidney may not have been as good a bedfellow as Essex,” I said. “Men who write sonnets to women other than their wives often live entirely in their own poetic mind. A woman wants more.” I laughed. “You blush? Oh, Robert, if you are to wed again, you must shed your exalted vision of women. We want a man.”

  “Uh”—he cleared his throat—“would you consent to receive her?”

  This would be difficult. I could not spare her husband. Yet in charity I should hear her. “Yes, I will.” Suddenly I wondered about Lettice. She had been quiet. No appeals, no letters, for all that her husband and son were prisoners and soon to be tried.

  “Have you had any appeal from Essex’s mother?” Perhaps Cecil had set it aside.

  “No,” he said. “There has not been a word from Essex House.”

  “Is she there?” Perhaps she had retired back to Wanstead or her estates in Drayton Bassett.

  “From all my reports, she is there,” he said.

  I agreed to see Frances the next day. She came to the privy chamber and I ushered her into my private quarters. My attendant shut the door behind us and then discreetly disappeared.

  Frances stood before me, dressed all in black. Her belly was enormous. But she looked directly at me, unflinching.

  “When is your child due to be delivered?” I asked her.

  “Yesterday,” she said, then laughed. “It tarries.”

  “You should not be abroad,” I said.

  “When the pains begin, I know to start for home,” she said. “This is my fourth.”

  “Let me help you, then. Ask me quickly what you wish to ask, and then I may send you safely home.”

  To my shock, she flung herself facedown on the floor.

  “Frances!” I cried. “You must not.”

  She raised herself up on her arms. “I will do anything. I will sacrifice this baby; I crawl before you. Spare my husband! If he perishes, I cannot live, I cannot draw one breath afterward!” She burst into tears. “If the death warrant is signed, I will never live an hour past that!”

  “Frances,” I said, as gently as I could. “You know what he has done. It was heinous. The law does not permit him to live.”

  “He was misled—he did not know!”

  “Alas, he did know,” I said. “He was warned, over and over again. No one can deny that. Would that they could.”

  She sank back down and buried her head in her arms, sobbing. I bent down and embraced her. “Frances, Frances,” I said. “It is a tragedy for England.”

  “It is a tragedy for me,” she said. “England can endure. She has had many tragedies. But I shall not survive.”

  “You cannot know that.” Neither of her husbands, for all their mighty reputations, was worthy of a simple, loving woman. They loved themselves—or honor—more. “We must steel ourselves. Often it is the women who show the most bravery and endurance.” Oh, might the fates send her another husband, this one her equal.

  She pulled herself away. “As you say.” Already she had distanced herself. “You will not save him, then?” she said, standing up. “You, to whom he genuflected, whom he worshipped?”

  “Except when he tried to capture and depose me?” I said. “I as a person could overlook that. I as a queen cannot, and I told him that. Long ago.”

  She dashed the tears away with the back of her hand. “I go, then.”

  “God be with you,” was all I could say. She would need his sustaining hand.

  “Since you will not be with me, I must make do,” she shot back.

  “God is not second best,” I said. “Do not insult him. You will need him.”

  February 19, eleven days after the uprising, Essex and Southampton stood trial. I would not attend. But I received a full report from everyone involved.

  At the near end of the hall, where the stairs led up into St. Stephen’s Chapel, would sit the lord high steward, Buckhurst, under a canopy of estate, presiding in my stead. In front of him would be eight judges—Lord Chief Justice Popham leading them. Facing them were the Queen’s counsel, lawyers who would prosecute the case. Attorney General Sir Edward Coke, Solicitor General Thomas Fleming, Queen’s Sergeant Christopher Yelverton, the recorder of London, two sergeants at law, and Francis Bacon made up the seven.

  Stretching between them on each side were the twenty-five peers who would act as jury. At the far end of the hall, a long bar stretched to divide the spectators from the trial.

  Buckhurst entered the hall escorted by seven sergeants at arms and forty of Raleigh’s guardsmen, led by Raleigh. The lieutenant of the Tower had had the prisoners rowed upriver for their trial, and at nine o’clock he was ordered to produce them. The gentleman porter of the Tower marched in, carrying an executioner’s ax with its blade turned away, followed by Essex, dressed in black, and Southampton, dressed in a voluminous gown. They took their places in the middle of the square of their examiners, facing the judges.

  The jurors were called and answered one by one. Then all sat.

  The charges—plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the people to rebellion with untruths, and resisting arrest—were read out, and both men declared themselves not guilty. Then Sergeant Yelverton opened the prosecution, accusing the prisoners of treason as heinous as Catiline’s conspiracy in ancient Rome. Attorney General Coke followed, reminding the jury that merely resisting royal authority with force was treason; it was not necessary to prove premeditation. And furthermore, he orated, Essex’s plan to call a parliament was subversive, and “a bloody parliament that would have been, where my Lord of Essex, that now stands all in black, would have worn a bloody robe!”

  Next the witnesses were called. First was a statement by Henry Widdington, describing the events of the morning of February 8 at Essex House. Next, Chief Justice Popham, swapping places, was sworn in as a witness and recounted his treatment when his party had gone to Essex with the Great Seal. The Earl of Worcester backed him up in all the details. Raleigh told of his encounter with Gorges and being warned, “You are like to have a bloody day of it.”

  Sir Gorges himself testified about the conferences in Drury House planning the coup, and then claimed that he had urged Essex, the afternoon of the event, to submit to the Queen.

  Essex asked for the right to question him, and it was granted. Essex warned him to answer truthfully. “Did you in fact advise me to surrender?”

  “My lord, I think I did,” was all Gorges was prepared to admit.

  Essex almost yelped. “This is not the time to answer ‘I think so’—you would not have forgotten.”

  Southampton, the other accused, rose to defen
d himself. He made a sorry showing. First he said that although he had plotted to capture the court and the City, these plans had come to nothing; therefore he was not guilty. He also said he had had no idea when he went to Essex House that Sunday morning that Essex had any fell intentions. Furthermore, he had not heard the herald in London proclaiming them traitors, nor had he drawn his sword the whole day.

  “My lord, you were seen with a pistol,” said Coke.

  “Oh, that!” said Southampton. “I had taken it from someone in the street, and anyway, it didn’t work.”

  “You were with Essex the entire day in the City. If you did not agree with his aim, you had many chances to separate yourself.”

  “I was carried away with love for him!” said Southampton sadly. “I am a victim.”

  As further evidence, the court produced the written confessions of Danvers, Rutland, Sandys, Monteagle, and Christopher Blount. The latter had said, “If we had failed in our ends, we should, rather than have been disappointed, even have drawn blood from the Queen herself.”

  Finally Francis Bacon rose, testifying against Essex. He likened Essex’s false cries about his life being sought to when Peisistratus of Athens cut himself and then entered the city claiming his life was in danger. “But this does not excuse you. How did imprisoning the Queen’s councillors protect you against these people—Raleigh and Cobham and Grey—you claim threatened you?”

  Essex sputtered. “You! You false man! What about the bogus correspondence between myself and your brother that you arranged, so the Queen would be impressed?”

  Bacon just smiled pityingly. “’Tis true. I did everything I could to help you win the Queen’s goodwill. I cared more about you, and made more efforts for you, than I did for myself. But that was when you were still her loyal servant.”

  “I only wanted to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil.”

  “Did you need swords and violence to do that? Are petitioners armed? What man will be such a fool as to believe this was anything other than naked treason?”