Elizabeth I

by Margaret George

  “I was standing beside the block, as was my duty,” he said. “But several people accused me of gloating at the fall of my enemy, so in order to ensure peace, I went up into the White Tower, where I could see everything but not be seen.”

  “Ah, Walter,” I said. “Such petty rivalries should not have surfaced then.”

  “It was not Essex who objected, but others. In any case, he took off his hat and bowed, then proceeded to his farewell speech. He acknowledged that he deserved to die. But then he spoke wildly. Here.” He fumbled in his cloak and extracted a paper. “I will read his words. I do not want to invent any. He said, ‘My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust, and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity, and love of this wicked world’s pleasures. For all which I humbly beseech my Savior, Christ, to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this, my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me—most wretched of all.’”

  “He always had the gift of words,” I said. These were in keeping with that genius; it had not deserted him. “May God have mercy on his soul.”

  “He ended by forgiving his enemies and asking God to preserve you.”

  “He made a good ending, then.”

  “After that, he removed his gown and his ruff. Then the executioner knelt and asked his forgiveness, which he gave. Next he removed his doublet and revealed a red waistcoat underneath.”

  Was that so the blood would not be so noticeable? Or did he mean it to signify martyrdom?

  “He went obediently. He laid his head on the block and extended his arms to show he was ready.”

  “I hope it was done quickly.”

  “It took three blows of the ax, but I think the first did its work.”

  Thank God. “And he was—he is resting—”

  “He was buried quietly and respectfully,” said Raleigh. “But the executioner was attacked in the streets afterward and had to be rescued by the sheriff. People were—upset.”

  I had best keep the soldiers stationed in London for a while longer, then.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “There is one more thing,” he said. “Not everyone mourned his passing. I received this letter regarding Lord Sandys from his wife. He is still awaiting trial.” He handed it to me.

  It was short, and the pertinent lines had been marked. “Woe the day my lord was drawn into that plot. He was lured by that wild Essex’s craft, who has been and is unlucky to many but never good to any. I would he had never been born!”

  A fitting epitaph for Robert Devereux, although it would not appear on his tomb. Who has been and is unlucky to many. Above all to himself.

  85

  LETTICE

  March 1601

  Sweet England’s pride is gone, welladay! welladay! / He did her fame advance, in Ireland, Spain, and France, / And now, by dismal chance, is from us taken....”

  The faint strains of the voices drifted in to me as I lay trying to sleep. Earlier—I mean when Robert still lived—I would have found them tormenting. Now they served to keep him alive for me. As long as people were singing of him—ah, was that not a sort of life? A half life? Any tremor of life was better than none.

  “They shall make ballads of us after our death,” Helen of Troy had told Paris. And they still lived.

  I arose and went to the windows, flinging them open. A blast of cold February air hit me, but I leaned out. A small group of people were huddled at our gates, grasping the bars, peering into the empty courtyard, where hundreds had thronged but such a short while ago.

  “Abroad, and eke at home, gallantly, gallantly, for valor there was none like him before....” I could hear them more clearly now, and my ears drank in every word. “In Ireland, France, and Spain, they feared great Essex’s name, and England loved the same in every place....”

  I would send money and food out to them. They could not know the gift they brought me, confirming that Robert had been loved, and still was loved. I stood for the entire ballad, chilled through. Called “Sweet England’s Pride Is Gone,” it had appeared only hours after Robert’s execution, as songs from the people will.

  “Yet Her Princely Majesty—graciously! graciously!—hath pardon given free to many of them: She released them quite, and given them their right! They may pray, day and night, God to defend her.”

  Yes, they might pray, those eighty or so who had been arrested, questioned, and then let go. Lucky men. But Christopher was not among them. He would stand trial around March 5, five days from now. There was no hope that he would be spared.

  It was four days since Robert had been executed. I had kept vigil the entire night before. I knew the hour appointed for his death. As the time crept past it, I wondered why I did not feel a great stabbing, a riving, within my very self. How could I not? It was the last cruel surprise in all the cruel surprises of our lives together.

  Now I had a message from Admiral Charles Howard, seeking a time to return Robert’s sword. He had handed it over when he surrendered. I had been part of his life that day—my last time to be so—as Penelope, Frances, and I were forced to while away the hours with the imprisoned Privy Councillors while my son went out to raise a rebellion. The councillors were as embarrassed as we were. They were good men, gentle men, who had been forced into their roles and bore Robert no ill will.

  All of it was painful, misconceived, and this final act with the councillors was a fitting close to the whole venture. The admiral had allowed us free passage out of the house, holding their fire for two hours. Now he had the last act in this misbegotten drama to get through: returning Sir Philip Sidney’s sword.

  Robert had refused to see any of us in his last days. Frances went into labor and delivered a daughter whom she named Dorothy, but Robert was never to know of her.

  Robert had been buried in St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower. Buried with the queens and martyrs, I told myself. At least his resting place would always be preserved. And someday, someday, long in the future, all the particulars of his case would melt away, and people remember only his gifts and beauty. Time erases details, and only outlines remain. Robert’s outline was so singular the common people already felt called to make ballads about him.

  I went back to bed. I would sleep. I would think of Christopher in the morning, when the light made it easier. Christopher still lived, nursed by a tailor into whose shop he had been carried, wounded, on that fateful day of uprising; two royal guards now stood watch over him. I had no access to him, and he had sent me no messages. If I could have only a quarter hour with him, perhaps I could understand what had happened. I knew only that the laughing, ebullient young man I had married had changed into another creature entirely, and I had no inkling why. I was soon to be a widow for the third time. But never before had I lost my husband before he actually died.

  “The Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral Charles Howard.” My servant announced our noble visitor. I was ready, wearing all the insignia I was entitled to as countess: my eight-rayed coronet, my ermine-trimmed robe with its prescribed length of train. Once these things had been vitally important to me.

  “We welcome him,” I said.

  The white-haired admiral entered the hall and approached me, treading softly. I had not seen him in years and knew him only from Robert’s animosity toward him. He had resented sharing command with him on naval ventures, insisting on signing his name above the admiral’s, until Lord Howard had cut out Robert’s signature in exasperation. Ah, well, that was one of the details fading away already.

  “My Lady Leicester,” he said, bowing. “I have the honor to return the sword of the Earl of Essex, surrendered to me.” He held it out, a shining token.

  “It is my honor to receive it,” I said, taking it. “It will be kept for the earl’s s
on. He is only ten years old now. May he always use it in defense of the realm.”

  I laid it on a cushion. In some ways it was a hateful thing. I wished little Rob could stay far away from anything requiring a sword. It ended in either death or dishonor, it seemed. At the very least it meant a man could not pursue anything worthwhile but must go chasing after the French or the Spanish or Irish or whatever enemy was in fashion at the time.

  “So, my good earl, will you stay with us a bit?” I rang for refreshments before he could refuse.

  We could speak of anything except my son. Or my husband. Very well, I understood that. “I trust Lady Catherine is well,” I said: the polite, innocuous inquiry. “Is she still with the Queen?”

  “Very much so,” he said. “With the death of Marjorie Norris last autumn, she is her closest companion.”

  “It is good when blood relatives can also share our lives,” I said. Mine were all distant or estranged, starting with the Queen.

  “They may visit Hever Castle together,” he said. “Perhaps you could join them.”

  Hardly. But he was trying to be polite, poor man. And it was a good sign that Catherine, my cousin, had not spoken openly against me. Perhaps, perhaps ... No, Lettice, that is foolish. “Perhaps so. I have never been there, for all it was my grandmother’s girlhood home.”

  “I have recently seen a newfound portrait of your grandfather William Carey,” he said. “He was a handsome man.”

  If he were my grandfather, and the King were not ... Again I smiled. “I would like to see it,” I said.

  But was it not possible that Mary Boleyn had found him more pleasing than the demanding King and had preferred him, and that all this speculation about the King being the father of her children was mere wishful thinking, because having royal blood—even if the royal from which the blood comes is not admirable—was preferable to being a commoner? Again, the outlines fade.... The great bulk of Henry VIII eclipses the slender one of William Carey.

  “If they invite me, I shall surely come,” I said. Polite talk.

  He stood. I should have called Frances to receive the sword. I had meant to call her later in the visit, so as not to tire her. Now he was leaving. Too late. And I could not ask him about Christopher, nor the impending trial.

  “I take my leave,” he said. “I can only say, my heart is grieved.”

  “As you must know, I am grieved beyond words.”

  I accompanied him to the door.

  “He was a son to be proud of,” he said as he fastened his cloak. “Never forget that.”

  “It is a comfort,” I said.

  The door opened and closed, and he was gone.

  But what of my husband? Would no one console me for him, speak kind words, write ballads? Christopher was nobody, nothing to the state. He had lived, and would die, unknown. And I, his wife, must grieve for him alone.

  The trial would be held in the Tower, not Westminster Hall. Alongside him would be tried Sir John Davies, Sir Charles Danvers, Gelli Meyrick, and Henry Cuffe. Although I knew I would be turned away, I had to try to see Christopher. The authorities would not reveal the address of the tailor shop, but I did not need the authorities. I knew where Ludgate was; I knew where the fighting had taken place and where Christopher had fallen, unconscious. All I had to do was go there, and any obliging gossip on the street would point me to the nearby shop. So it proved.

  It was a small, unprepossessing shop, little more than one room. I saw the bolts of wool and linen, saw the wooden worktable through the front door. But one large guard caught me staring and rushed out. “Begone! Do not loiter here!” he yelled.

  “My husband lies within,” I said. “I wish to speak to him.”

  “The traitor Blount?”

  “There’s been no trial yet, and until there is he cannot be labeled ‘traitor.’”

  “He’s guilty as Judas and will go his way,” said the man. “Now leave. The prisoner is allowed no visitors. That was the rule in letting him stay here to recover, rather than being clapped straightway in the Tower.”

  “He is recovering, then?” I asked.

  “He’s mending well,” said the man. “He’ll be well enough to stand up at his hanging.”

  “Please!” I begged him. “For the mercy of Christ!”

  “If I let you in, I would be the next to stand trial. Now go.”

  It was no use.

  Stumbling home, passing easily through Ludgate, where Christopher had fallen, I felt worse than if I had not gone. Knowing that I could do nothing to help him or even to help myself was torture. I resolved to be there when they took him out for his trial, to at least press close to him on the street.

  I expected there would be secrecy surrounding the exact date of the trial, and starting the next day I returned early in the morning and stood watch across the street. Nothing that day. Nothing the next. Or the next. But then, on March 5, almost two months since the uprising, early in the morning (but I had come still earlier), a contingent of armed guards arrived at the house. Soon a litter emerged, with a prone figure lying on it. It had to be Christopher. The guards took their time shouldering the burden, arranging their grip, backing up. Now! I darted out from around the corner and grabbed the edge of the litter before the guards could react. I peered into it and saw Christopher’s drawn, bandaged face, with a blanket muffling his neck and body.

  He had trouble focusing his eyes and clearly did not recognize me. The jolt to the litter startled him, and then he knew what was happening. “Lettice!” he murmured.

  “Damned wench!” A guard dug his fingers into my shoulder and yanked me away. The force of his pull tumbled me onto my knees. When I found my feet again, the litter was already halfway down the street. I ran after it, but the ring of guards around it meant I could not get close. I followed it past St. Paul’s, down Cannon and Eastcheap, and then finally to the Tower itself. The ugly gray walls, which looked cold even in high summer, loomed ahead. I stopped, knowing I could follow it no farther. Solemnly, like a funeral cortege, it passed across the bridge spanning the moat and disappeared.

  I stood, catching my breath. On my left side rose Tower Hill, where the scaffold awaited. I would not be back. I would not join the crowd at the execution.

  I cast a last glance at the stone walls enclosing my dead son and now holding my living husband.

  The day was interminable. I knew the verdict was already decided and the trial but a legal exercise. Still, I could not help picturing Christopher trying to answer the accusations. Did he have to do it from his litter? Or did they lift him onto a chair? Let it be a chair with a back support, not a stool. Surely they did not make him stand.

  It was full dark when an official messenger from the Privy Council delivered an envelope to me with the pronouncement. He looked about furtively and made to leave the moment the envelope touched my hand. But I stopped him. The very least he could do was to formally tell me the verdict.

  “Sir Christopher was found guilty,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Sentenced to death, my lady.”

  “When?”

  “A fortnight from now.”

  They were giving him longer than they had given Robert. Perhaps they wanted him to recover sufficiently. “And the others?”

  “Sir Charles Danvers received the same sentence. He will suffer on the same day as Sir Blount, March 18. Gelli Meyrick and Henry Cuffe will go next week, March 13.”

  “And the last, Sir John Davies?”

  “Not sure of that, my lady.” He looked more furtive than ever, and I thought, Oh, God, they may reprieve him. Why? Why?

  “Did Sir Christopher have any message for me?”

  He shook his head. “I did not speak to the prisoner. They dispatched me straightway with this report.”

  “I thank you.” I supposed I should reward him. Reward the messenger for evil news. But it was not his fault. “Here.” I gave him some money and let him go.

  Now Frances crept into the room. S
he had barely recovered from her difficult childbirth and was moving slowly. Why had I ever disliked her? She had turned out to be the most steadfast of my daughters. She sank down into a chair and waited, her large, dark eyes fastened on the fatal envelope.

  My fingers trembled a bit, but I tore it open and started reading. Obligingly, she moved a candle closer to me on the table so I could read the hateful writing better. “We, the loyal servants and councillors of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, hereby record and testify to the proceedings of the trial of the rebels of the late uprising against Her Majesty....” At least they had the decency not to call them traitors until the verdict had been announced. It went on, detailing the interrogation and Christopher’s confession of intent to draw blood from the Queen. Their ends were to seize the Tower, hold the Queen hostage, call a parliament to force the removal of all the “evil councillors”—Cecil, Raleigh, Coke, Cobham. Who would rule in this interim they demurely avoided stipulating.

  The councillors remarked that far from seizing the Tower, it was ironic that he was now being tried inside it.

  The confessions of the others were included, but I did not concern myself with those. That was between themselves, the Queen, and God.

  Frances and I sat quietly in the room, as if in a chapel keeping vigil. She was now twice a widow, and I would be thrice one. Our fates now linked us inexorably. As battle makes brothers out of men, widowhood forged a strong bond between us.

  86

  I had no desire to leave the house and kept as secluded as a desert monk. Indeed, the house was my own monastic cell and within it were all the memento mori I needed to contemplate mortality. I was suspended between two dates—every day was one further removed from Robert’s death and one closer to Christopher’s. Carefully Frances and I gathered and folded up Robert’s clothes and possessions. Some she would keep for the children, others give to the poor, others keep for the memories. I asked only for one of his miniatures and an odd little Spanish church carving of a cherub he had brought back from Cádiz.