by David Field
‘Indeed, you have my blessing for that,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But once you have smoked them out, do you propose to turn the smoke into flame and burn them as heretics?’
Walsingham smiled grimly as he contemplated that prospect, but then resumed his noncommittal expression as he pointed out the disadvantages of such a policy. ‘The people of Smithfield would recoil from further exposure to burning human flesh, Your Majesty. Added to which, it might then be argued that we had returned to the horrors of your late sister’s reign and that you are no better than her.’
‘What then, Walsingham?’ Elizabeth demanded testily. ‘Since I have rarely known you come to me with a problem without also being accompanied by its solution, what have you in mind?’
Walsingham smiled at the compliment and continued with enhanced confidence. ‘Given that we may point to Catholic poison being at the root of previous rebellions, may we not enact legislation that makes the harbouring of such covert priests and their attempts to convert your loyal subjects to the heresies of Rome, in themselves acts of treason? Then you may have them taken onto Tower Green to entertain the mob with the traditional hanging, drawing and quartering.’
Elizabeth grimaced, then nodded quickly, as if wishing to end that part of the conversation. ‘Yes, yes, do that — and with my approval. Is there anything else for this morning?’
‘Yes — a related matter in many ways, Your Majesty. I wish to send agents of my selection into the Low Countries, in order to assess the plight of the Dutch and the strength of the Spanish troops that are imposed upon them. While there, it would be my instruction to them that they establish permanent contacts with those who work covertly for the overthrow of the Spanish, to arrange for various city gates to be thrown open to our forces when they invade.’
Elizabeth’s initial reaction was a look of horror. ‘As Privy Seal in all but name, you above all people must surely appreciate that we cannot afford to assemble an army at this time, however worthy the cause. And by intervening in the Netherlands we would be certain to provoke the Spanish, whose navy is well equipped to invade our shores.’
Walsingham smiled, somewhat condescendingly Elizabeth thought. ‘Indeed, Majesty, I am well aware of our present inadequacy in the matter of foot soldiers. However, as for our navy, we can thank Hawkins and Drake for the increase in ships and do they not also provoke Philip of Spain by their acts of piracy?’
‘Enough, Walsingham,’ Elizabeth growled in the warning tone that every Courtier had learned to take good heed of. ‘I will not have such fine gentlemen decried in my hearing. They bring great riches back to England by their brave efforts — riches that would otherwise be translated into yet more Spanish ships. You have my leave to enquire as to how matters progress in the Low Countries, but no further. Are we clearly understood on that point?’
‘We are indeed, Your Majesty,’ Walsingham replied deferentially as he rose and bowed his way out of the presence.
Down in the cluster of offices allocated to the Secretary of State, Cecil waved Walsingham into his company and called for wine to be served. Once the server was back out of earshot, he leaned across the desk and lowered his voice conspiratorially.
‘I have reason to suspect another plot, Francis.’
Walsingham’s eyes gleamed as he demanded further information and Cecil’s face glowed with pride as he supplied them.
‘Like your good self, I have spies in important quarters and through one of them I have succeeded in intercepting a letter from the new Spanish Ambassador, de Mendoza, to certain remaining Catholic sympathisers of the Scots Mary back in Scotland. It makes reference to plans for an element of the Scots to invade from the north, while French Catholics will land on the south coast.’
‘I had believed the Auld Alliance to be at an end,’ Walsingham replied.
Cecil nodded. ‘And so it is, in its old form. But Catholics are Catholics, wherever they may be found and, as you yourself have learned, France has become the centre for the creation of new Jesuits who then sneak across the Channel, presumably by night, as the first wave of the new infestation. This cannot be occurring without the connivance and most certainly the knowledge, of the French Ambassador. Despite the recent honour bestowed upon him by Elizabeth, the slimy bastard is believed to be acting as the go-between for the French arm of an invasion that will be supported by Philip of Spain.’
‘Dear God!’ Walsingham whispered. ‘If France and Spain unite to overthrow Elizabeth, using the influence of the Catholic faith, then we shall be hard put to resist it. Only a few moments ago the Queen was reminding me that we have no finances for an army!’
‘Then we must employ other tactics, must we not?’ Cecil replied with a grim smile. ‘But you must brace yourself for ill tidings, my old friend. My spies have kept constant watch on the town house of the French Ambassador and of late he has entertained a frequent visitor. Francis Throckmorton.’
Walsingham whistled in surprise, then after a moment’s reflection he nodded. ‘I am not totally surprised to learn of that. While I was in Paris, serving under his uncle Nicholas, I had occasion to note his invariable association with and seeming friendship for, leading members of the Catholic Guise family. I thought it then to be part of some spying activity for his uncle, but it was equally possible that he was being converted and turned inside out to become a Catholic plotter. He is well placed to work like a worm in the soil now that he is back in England.’
‘Not from where he is at present,’ Cecil grimaced. ‘I had him arrested in the early hours of this morning and as we speak he is no doubt confirming my suspicions to a gentleman in the Tower who is skilled in what he does and advised of what it is we wish to hear.’
Cecil’s confidence in the sadistic talents of the Queen’s tightener of the thumbscrews and rotator of the rack was fully vindicated within hours and the eager confession of the entire plot resulted in Throckmorton’s execution and the expulsion of the second Spanish Ambassador in succession, coupled with a stern dispatch from Elizabeth that left Philip of Spain in no doubt that no replacement was required.
The ‘Throckmorton Plot’, as Cecil dubbed it, also resulted in a change of surroundings for Mary of Scotland. Still not convinced that her cousin was sufficiently isolated from residual Scottish sympathisers and obsessed with the need to keep her under the constant eye of a gaoler whose competence and loyalty were beyond suspicion, Elizabeth had in mind transferring her to the moated manor house at Chartley along with her latest guardian Amias Paulet, of whom Mary complained so often in her ill-tempered letters to Elizabeth that the latter concluded that Paulet must be performing his allocated duties with relish. As for Chartley itself, it possessed a deep moat and was even further into the depths of the English Midlands, twelve miles from Tutbury and still in Staffordshire. It also belonged to the young 2nd Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, whose widowed mother was Lettice Knollys, one of the Queen’s longest serving ladies.
Elizabeth outlined her proposal to the two Cecils, father and son, as they sat at supper with her in her Withdrawing Chamber at Whitehall. William Cecil nodded. ‘Your judgment is excellent, as always, Your Majesty, but wherever Mary is lodged she will continue to be an inspiration to Catholic rebels and viewed from across the Channel, one county of England is much the same as another.’
‘But the further from the sea, or from any large town with adequate supply sources and signposts, the better, surely?’
‘Indeed, Majesty,’ William Cecil conceded, as his son Robert looked up mischievously from the roast pig from which he was carving.
‘All the same, Your Majesty,’ Robert chimed in, ‘one has to hope that the son obeys Your Majesty with greater loyalty than his mother.’
His father shot him an angry look, but it was too late.
‘Your meaning?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘You do not allow your Ladies to marry, is that not the case?’
‘Not without my consent, certainly not,’ Elizabeth confirmed. ‘But Lady Exeter �
� Lettice Knollys — is now a widow, is she not?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Robert Cecil replied with a well feigned expression of regret, ‘I had of course assumed that you knew, but had chosen not to punish her, give her years of loyal service.’
‘Punish her for what, young Cecil?’ Elizabeth demanded with irritation. ‘She is no longer a widow, say you?’
‘Robert,’ his father murmured in warning, but there was no stopping Robert Cecil now that he had an old enemy in his sights. He looked across at Elizabeth and replied, ‘She has indeed remarried, Your Majesty. She is now the Countess of Leicester.’
Elizabeth’s entire frame went rigid as she dropped the marchpane heart onto the board, where symbolically it broke into two pieces. She appeared to be having a seizure as her breath came in tortured gasps, but when William Cecil rose from her side in an effort to assist her she pushed him angrily back and managed a few hoarse words.
‘If you wish to serve me at this moment, Cecil, bring me Robert and Lettice. Tonight. And in chains!’
It was two days later, on a windy late afternoon, when Robert Dudley and Lettice stood, heads bowed and hands manacled, while Elizabeth’s ranting abuse rang over their heads.
‘Such ingratitude! Such disloyalty! Such — such — treason! What have you to say for yourselves, as if anything could justify your foul betrayal, before I have you consigned to the Tower?’
‘I love him, my Lady,’ Lettice muttered.
‘Speak louder, if you dare!’ Elizabeth commanded her. Lettice raised her head, her eyes blazing with defiance and yelled back at the top of her voice
‘I said I love him, my Lady — even if it means my death!’
‘And you?’ Elizabeth demanded as her livid stare switched to Robert Dudley.
‘I had never hoped in my entire life to love someone as thoroughly as I love my wife. And our union has already been blessed by God. Would you put a woman to death when she is carrying a child?’
‘You married in secret, knowing that I would forbid it were you to seek my blessing. Is that not treasonous?’
‘It has certainly proved to be foolhardy,’ Robert said. ‘But surely it is God alone who has the power to bless unions?’
‘Do not be impertinent!’ Elizabeth snapped, as her anger and grief threatened to overcome her completely. ‘I will have you both held in strict confinement in one of the guest suites on the ground floor, until my ire has abated sufficiently to determine what shall be done with you. Were Lettice not with child, you would both be in the Tower. Now get out, the two of you!’
She swept from her throne as the two were led out, still manacled and ran through her Withdrawing Chamber to her Bedchamber, where she flung herself on her bolster fully clothed. Her wails and screams could be heard downstairs in the Privy Kitchen, into which Blanche Parry was summoned by anxious cooks and scullions. She listened only briefly to the agonised noises above her, before running up the service stairs to her mistress, who was barely conscious by the time that Blanche placed a comforting hand on her still heaving shoulder.
‘I had no idea what a fool I had raised until I heard you open your big fat drivelling mouth!’ William Cecil bellowed at his son as he stormed out into the garden of the family house a week later, when advised that Robert had returned from wherever he had been hiding from parental wrath. His father was accompanied by Francis Walsingham, whose drawn face registered his embarrassment at being obliged to hear such a tongue lashing. He had only agreed to accompany his friend and close companion Cecil, at his urging, when advised that if he did not, it was likely that Robert Cecil would die at his own father’s hand.
‘The Queen would have found out sooner or later,’ Robert wheedled as he half hid behind a mature apple tree, ‘and better that it come from one whose greatest value to Her Majesty is the extent of their privy knowledge.’
‘When you have grown fit enough to continue in my service,’ Cecil yelled back, ‘you will have learned that there is both a time and a suitable opportunity to reveal one’s knowledge. The Queen is said to have shut herself away for three days, refusing audience with all but Blanche Parry and none dare approach her even now, even with routine business.’
‘And Leicester and his wife?’ Robert asked, as his father’s face grew even more crimson.
‘That is why you dropped that burden on the Queen, was it not? Something else you must learn, before I again acknowledge you as having sprung from my loins, is that one never — never, mark you? — acts out of personal spite, but only for good cause. You will no doubt be disappointed to learn that the Earl and Countess of Leicester have merely been banned from Court and sent back in disgrace to Kenilworth.’
‘So no great harm done, then,’ Robert argued, as his father’s face returned to something approaching its normal colour, although the tone of voice was still abrasive.
‘No great harm to them, certainly, but I am no nearer solving a more pressing matter in a satisfactory way. I had hoped — until you ruined the entire supper — to persuade Her Majesty that this latest uncovered plot by Throckmorton left her with no choice but to have the Scots Mary put to death. Instead of which she has gone into some sort of mourning and cannot be persuaded to consider any issue of State, particularly one that has to do with a family member.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Fortunately, as the old saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If Her Majesty wants direct proof of Mary’s ill intentions towards her, then we shall have to encourage Mary to supply it in her own fair hand. This will require subtlety, which you appear not to possess in any quantity, even small, so Walsingham and I have devised a process that will not only not involve you, but will give you cause to smoulder with inner rage, since it will involve another man of whom you seem to have made an enemy. That is, assuming that we can find him.’
XIX
William Cecil stood in the open doorway and watched Tom Ashton, stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, hammering at a plough share. Tom looked up as he became aware of Cecil’s presence, then swore as he threw down the hammer.
‘Come to arrest me, at a guess. Desertion from the royal service, or some other invented charge.’
‘Nice to meet with you again also, Tom,’ Cecil replied sarcastically. ‘The last time I was here you were merely working the bellows for your sister’s father-in-law, if I remember correctly. Now you seem to have come up in the world.’
‘No thanks to you,’ Tom growled. ‘All that shit about rewarding me with an estate if I did your dirty work spying on the Scots Mary. I came back here, rather than court death on my own impoverished estate at Knighton. Just in time for Ted Bestwick to die and for my brother-in-law Allan Bestwick to take over the forge business here. He’s teaching me all the skills I’ll need to lead an honest life.’
‘That will make a change,’ Cecil said sardonically, ‘but I didn’t come all the way to Attenborough to arrest you. Nor do I need my horse shod, as I did last time.’
‘Then what?’ Tom asked as he picked up the hammer menacingly.
‘I wish you to travel to where the Scots Mary is currently being held, in order to arrange her final downfall,’ Cecil announced, to which Tom responded with a peal of bitter laughter.
‘Ever the optimist — like your attempts to turn me into a clerk.’
Cecil sighed. ‘It is your impulsive nature and your inability to think sideways, that will guarantee that you never progress in the Queen’s service without suitable patronage. But this time it is I who can put you in the way of a bigger estate, should my information be correct. It is to test that information and by so doing persuade Her Majesty that Mary of Scotland should be put to death, that I require your resumed service. You will not be gone for too many weeks and if you return with success you will be the lord of an estate not far from your heart’s desire, as it transpires.’
‘It will be quite simple and requires only that you both play your part according to my instruction,’ Cecil t
old Tom Ashton and Jenny Spittell, who Cecil had summoned to join them at an inn just outside Lichfield on the third night of their journey from Attenborough to Chartley. Walsingham had slipped without any discomfort or resentment into the secondary role allocated to him by Cecil and was content to receive his instructions in company with Tom and Jenny.
‘Before Jenny slipped away from service at Chartley in order to accompany me to Attenborough on the pretence that she was visiting her sick mother,’ Cecil explained, ‘she was able to confirm the existence of what appears to be yet another plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and replace her with Mary. Apparently Mary is regularly receiving messages from supporters that are smuggled into the house in beer barrels; she has her own supply delivered directly, mainly for her male attendants, but unless they are all hopeless soaks the quantity consumed is suspicious.’
‘Who supplies the beer and who is sending the messages?’ Tom asked, already intrigued and with all thought of refusing further work for Cecil driven from his head now that he was back with Jenny.
Cecil smiled. ‘That part was easy, since the gaoler Paulet raised his concerns with me over the expense involved and I had the brewer’s premises watched. It soon became obvious that messengers were arriving in nearby Uttoxeter shortly before each weekly barrel delivery and it was then a simple matter of pouncing on the morning that a delivery was about to be made. We found a letter from a high noble called Babington sealed in a watertight package inside the bung of the barrel that was about to be delivered. It was in cipher, so it was hastily copied before the original was replaced and delivered. The cart driver was tortured, but steadfastly disclaimed any guilty knowledge. As for the brewer, he has been terrified into going along with our intended plan.’
‘Which is?’ Tom asked.
Cecil nodded to Walsingham, who took over. ‘You are about to convert your trade into that of drayman,’ he told Tom. ‘As yet, according to Jenny, who has contrived to always be in the Lady Mary’s company whenever a new barrel is sprung and who can therefore confirm what has been going on, Mary has never penned any reply to these letters, although she seems mightily pleased by their contents. So we shall employ a skilled forger to imitate Babington’s hand and a cipher clerk to put it into the correct code, then you will deliver a new message that requires Mary’s written assent to the vilest acts of treason. Jenny will then advise us as to whether or not there is any reply and we shall remove it from the barrel on your return. By doing so, we shall catch the wicked woman conspiring, by her own hand, in a plot to assassinate the Queen.’