by David Field
‘Can you not enter by way of the kitchen stairs?’ Cecil protested.
Blanche would have jumped up in the air in her frustration, had her spindly legs been fit for the task. ‘She has barred that also. You must talk her out, William — she will heed your counsel, surely?’
An hour later, Elizabeth had remained silent in response to every blandishment that Cecil yelled through the locked door, to the considerable amusement of the pages in attendance in the Audience Chamber. Eventually, angry, frustrated and belittled, Cecil turned angrily to the page closest to him and yelled an instruction: ‘Ask the Captain of the Palace Guard to attend upon us.’
When the formidable looking warrior appeared at his side, Cecil gestured towards the door. ‘Can it be broken down, say you?’
The man blanched as he nodded. ‘Of course, but Her Majesty...’
‘I will bear the consequences,’ Cecil told him. ‘Have it broken down immediately, then send a carpenter to repair the damage.’
Three heavy blows with a massive broadsword put paid to the old lock and as Cecil raised a shaky leg to kick it open, the door swung inwards to reveal Elizabeth, a heavy cloak over her night attire, standing on the other side with a grim face.
‘In my younger days that would have been accounted treason, Cecil. Have a care that you do not forfeit your head in your declining years.’
‘Dear Lady,’ Cecil replied, ‘take my head as a gift, if it will persuade you to return to Council. There is much to discuss, most notably regarding affairs in Ireland and we need your guidance.’
‘What you mean is that Council needs my approval for whatever it decides to do. Let us not pretend that it is my wisdom that you seek. Were I wise, I would now have an heir of my own body to inherit my throne.’
‘And that is another matter which must be debated,’ Cecil reminded her. ‘It is, after all, your Council and it can discuss nothing without your presence.’
‘Nonsense, Cecil,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘You forget that it has met several times in the past when I have been indisposed. And the soreness within my bones today suggests that this must happen again in the future, if God will not, in His infinite mercy, take me before then.’
‘My Lady,’ Blanche urged her, ‘you must eat and then we must prepare you to show yourself again.’
Elizabeth sniggered ironically. ‘Indeed we must, for they would shrink back in horror were they to see me like this. What hour is it?’
‘It wants of ten of the clock, Your Majesty,’ Cecil told her, greatly relieved by the course that events were taking. ‘If I might suggest that I convene Council for immediately after dinner?’
‘Yes,’ Elizabeth conceded wearily, ‘do that and see that my Council are served their dinner in the Council Chamber. As for me, Blanche, perhaps a few curds. Or even fish. Certainly nothing that I might be required to chew, since both my stomach and my teeth rebel at the prospect. And now, if you would excuse me, Master Secretary, I must make an effort to once again play the part of “Gloriana” for the benefit of my people.’
Three hours later, Elizabeth stared blankly down the table, hearing the murmur of voices raised to give her worldly advice while her active brain was focused on the seat that would once have been occupied by a loyal and ever-loving Robert. In the seat he previously occupied was Robert Cecil, her ‘Pygmy’, who would before much longer no doubt expect to inherit his father’s office. Walsingham was there as usual, looking more dead than alive and her Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, who had played such an important role in securing the conviction for treason of Mary of Scotland. Elizabeth smiled to herself at the thought that Mary would always be remembered for her beauty in her mature years — preserved for all time as the gracious lady that she was when her head was removed. Not like Elizabeth, who was being forced to stumble into old age like the rest of the fossils ranged down her Council table, betrayed by Father Time into revealing the ugliness for which she would be remembered.
‘The ragged beggars, Your Majesty?’ Cecil prompted her and Elizabeth came back to the business in hand when she realised that all eyes were on her. ‘What of them?’ she asked.
Lord Chancellor Hatton realised that he would need to repeat himself. ‘They are roaming the nation, Your Majesty, begging for the most part, but — or so it is feared — they will soon become footpads and a cause for fear among honest men.’
‘Who are they and how come they to be begging?’ Elizabeth asked, to an embarrassed silence. ‘Well?’ she demanded of Hatton, who bowed his head slightly in reply.
‘They once served in your Navy, Your Majesty. The same Navy that defeated the Armada. Many of them lost limbs in the process and are now unable to work for their livelihood. Most of them also have wives and families and all are close to starvation. It is proposed that we allocate money for a relief fund of some sort, from which they might claim a few pennies weekly for bread.’
‘And have we the money?’ Elizabeth demanded, at which Hatton lowered his eyes to the table. ‘Clearly, we do not,’ Elizabeth confirmed, ‘so how can it be argued that we give what we do not have to those who have even less? And if I hear the word “taxation” I shall be sorely displeased.’
In the awkward silence that followed, Elizabeth raised her chin in challenge. ‘This is England, is it not? The proud nation that sent Philip of Spain packing? A nation of warriors worthy of the mantle of ancient Sparta. They found the courage to face Spain — now they must employ it further to fend off starvation. What next falls for our consideration?’
‘Ireland, Your Majesty,’ Walsingham chimed in. ‘Following the unsuccessful Munster Rebellion by the Earl of Desmond, some thirty thousand Irishmen and their families have died of starvation.’
Elizabeth snorted. ‘Given that we have just agreed that we cannot grant arms to our own starving, you are not seriously about to suggest that we feed the fallen of that rude and barbarous pack of Catholic dogs?’
‘Indeed not, Your Majesty,’ Walsingham hastened to explain. ‘It is merely that their perilous plight has made them even more rebellious. We burn their crops, scorch their earth and hang their leaders, but they spring up again like weeds in a water meadow. They gave sanctuary to a few Spanish vessels that made it around the north coast of Scotland last year and they remain forever a possible land base should Philip renew his attack upon us.’
‘Then we must scorch and starve them even more energetically, must we not?’ Elizabeth demanded. ‘Who commands our forces in Ireland?’
‘The Earl of Sussex was our last commander in the field,’ Robert Cecil reminded her, ‘until we unwisely allowed the Earl of Tyrone to govern his own people in your name. The Irish, it seems, will always fight among themselves and this latest rebellion arose from nothing more than a family dispute. It was not good counsel.’
‘It was the counsel of the late Earl of Leicester,’ Elizabeth announced coldly down the table, as Cecil shook his head sadly at his son’s folly. ‘He was among our finest soldiers and if you would care to undertake the mission, you would be most welcome to take yourself off to Ireland and clean up this latest mess.’
Robert Cecil shook his head. ‘I am no soldier, Your Majesty,’ he admitted.
‘Indeed you are not, Pygmy, so perhaps it was not wise of you to doubt the wisdom of one who was. You may all leave the choice of a suitable Governor General for Ireland to me. Now, since I grow fatigued, what is next on the list, Cecil?’
‘Finally, the matter of the inheritance, Your Majesty,’ Cecil replied, to faintly audible groans around the table. The Queen was displaying petulance enough, without the need for this touchy matter to be raised again.
Elizabeth glared down the table. ‘So how go our negotiations with Scotland, Walsingham?’ she demanded.
Walsingham cleared his throat of the phlegm that seemed to accumulate in it freely these days and advised Council in a reedy voice of the outcome of his latest diplomatic foray to Linlithgow. ‘Middling well, so far as can be measured. King Ja
mes seems to have accepted the death of his mother, who of course he hardly knew, but he is inclined to regard the offer of the English throne as some sort of recompense, or expiation of sin. Were he Catholic, he would no doubt see it as a penance.’
‘But he is not, else he would not be my chosen successor,’ Elizabeth retorted hotly. ‘I am merely following the dearest wish of my late father, that Tudors should rule England in perpetuity. Since his mother was the granddaughter of my Aunt Margaret, he has the most Tudor blood flowing through his veins. You say that he accepts, Walsingham? Does he also accept that he will not climb onto the English throne until I die naturally, or by whatever means God shall determine, or think you that he is minded to bring forward the date of his accession by invasion?’
‘He will wait, Majesty, and he assures me of his discretion.’
‘Good. Then, since I was advised that this was the only remaining item of business, we are done, I think. We meet again a week today; see to it, Cecil,’ she added as she rose from her chair and everyone in Council rose and bowed.
‘Sir Walter has been waiting several days for an audience’, Blanche Parry told Elizabeth as she was about to pass swiftly through the Audience Chamber to her Withdrawing Chamber. Blanche was hopeful that by diverting her attention she might prevent her mistress from once again taking to her bed and she was also embarrassed by the number of excuses she had been obliged to make to explain her absence. As a gentle reminder to Elizabeth that her time was not her own, Blanche gestured with a slight jerk of the head towards the Courtly gentleman sitting by the fire with a mug of mulled wine and chewing half-heartedly on a wafer.
The long-patient and ever courteous, Sir Walter Raleigh was a favourite of Elizabeth’s, not least because he only ever seemed to bring her glad tidings. He had served her well as one of her major landholders in Ireland, one of the English nobles granted vast tracts of largely unworkable bog in return for their efforts in suppressing the ever rebellious natives. He had been knighted partly for this, but most notably for his enthusiasm to open up the east coast of the Americas to English colonists. Although something of a dreamer, he knew how to dream in a manner that pleased his vain Queen and his proposal that any newly settled land be named ‘Virginia’ had sat well in her ears.
‘How go things across the ocean, Sir Walter?’ Elizabeth asked politely as she walked towards him.
He rose, bowed and kissed the offered hand. ‘I have much to report, Your Majesty, but chief among them is that I have recently learned of a land in the south of the American vastness that contains a city constructed entirely of gold. I am here today to request the grant of a monopoly to seek it out, exploit it and share the riches with England.’
‘Consider it granted, Sir Walter,’ Elizabeth beamed back gratefully, ‘and I will not deny that at this time England could well do with such an increase in wealth. Seek out my Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton and have him draft the necessary document. Also, please accept my sincere apology for the length of time you have been kept waiting, but there were urgent matters of State that required my attention.’
The audience continued in this polite vein for a few more minutes and was then terminated due to the desire of each of them to be elsewhere. Raleigh in order to secure the drafting of his monopoly and Elizabeth to retreat once more to her bed.
The Banquet and Ball to celebrate Elizabeth’s thirty years on the throne, even though it had taken so long to organise that it was now almost thirty-one years, was drawing to a sated, limp and sweaty close and Elizabeth could, without too much further provocation, have screamed her boredom out loud. The musicians were so exhausted that they were not always quite in time with each other, the feet of the dancers had begun to drag and the Fool had run through his repertoire at least three times without making her laugh once. She had toothache, a headache and a churning in her bowels that would soon demand a closed stool. And that idiot Essex was still prancing around like a rabbit caught on hot coals, praising her beauty to the skies and seeking to prove to all around them that he was her clear favourite. The pathetic old woman drawn to young flesh with shapely calves and a subtly stuffed codpiece. A dandy who was all mouth and no cock of his own.
She tolerated him because something about him reminded her of Robert. He was not of Robert’s flesh, but he had learned to mimic some of his carefree manner and on a good day he somehow contrived to bring alive the dear memory of the father substitute who had been twice the real man he would ever be. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, fop, braggart and painful reminder that her world was sliding into shit by the day.
She was aware of all the nudges, winks, giggles and whispered indelicacies. Of the rumours that circulated among the kitchens, outhouses and stables that Essex crept into her Bedchamber every night to replace his mother’s husband between the royal thighs. It would have been amusing, had it not been so laughable. Be that as it may, she found such ribald fantasies easier to bear than the false fawning that Essex seemed to have encouraged in all the other male Courtiers, as they pretended to be dazzled by her beauty, which had allegedly only grown with the years rather than diminished. Either they were seeking advancement by way of flattery, or they had fallen prey to a collective sickness that deprived men of their eyesight.
She was sorely tempted to challenge the worst of them to attend in her Withdrawing Chamber while Blanche and her other Ladies were preparing her for bed. Off would come the layers of rich outer clothing, the pendants, chains, rings and brooches, all to be safely stored away overnight. Then the under garments that were usually stained dark with the sweat of that certain age in a woman’s life when the flushes came and went like Spring tides. There was still a tall body underneath, but it was now stately rather than lithe, lumpy rather than virgin smooth. How could one retain one’s virginity while losing the smoothness that allegedly came with it?
Then down to the ultimate horror that would make any man’s cock grow limp at the prospect that lay before him. The flowing red hair would be lifted off and placed reverently on a wooden effigy of her head, to retain its shape for the following morning when it would again be lowered onto the scratchy grey patches that remained of her own hair, long lost to the smallpox. Finally the ceruse would be scraped off her face to reveal the pockmarks from that same pestilence, as the girls performing the task tried to ensure that they remained upwind of her poisonous breath. Altogether a far from tempting prospect for a young buck accustomed to the chubby thighs, rounded titties and false encouragements of alehouse whores.
The idiot was back by her side, kissing her hand, pawing her arm and seeking to push it back to the point at which the back of his hand could brush against her breast. She pushed back firmly but there was no stopping him.
‘Would that Your Gracious Majesty would grant me some way in which I could demonstrate my undying love of your ever beautiful and entrancing person.’ Elizabeth choked back the laughter with what hopefully sounded like a grunt of pleasure.
‘What had you in mind, my Lord?’ she asked. Something fatal, I hope, said her brain.
‘Perhaps to lead your valiant army into yet further glorious conquest somewhere abroad?’ he asked hopefully, provoking a wicked idea in her mind.
‘Your stepfather proved his valour in Ireland,’ she reminded him. ‘It has grown fractious again since his death. Perhaps you would consent to follow in his illustrious footsteps?’
‘Gladly — freely — willingly!’ Essex enthused and Elizabeth took his hand in hers, pressed it against her full breasts and summoned up a husky whisper.
‘Then, if you come back triumphant, we may see where else your success might lead.’
He bowed graciously and slipped from the presence, eager to tell his hangers-on about his latest favour from their Queen. Wondering if she had misread the fear in his eyes, Elizabeth turned to Blanche Parry, then nudged her awake where she was dozing with her elbow on the side table.
‘Time to bring this misery to an end, my dear friend,’ she muttered as
they both rose and made their way through the wilting throng of exhausted Courtiers who were smiling at the prospect that they too might now leave without offending their Queen.
I’m sorry, Robert, she apologised in her head as she passed through the double doors towards the stairs that led to her chambers, but you raised such a tiresome and brainless fool who is not worthy of even your memory.
XXII
Elizabeth picked listlessly at the slice of cinnamon manchet loaf and selected a plum while staring at the latest portrait of her on the far wall of her Withdrawing Chamber and wondering who it was meant to represent. Another false image of someone who didn’t exist. It had not captured the essential young girl underneath all the finery, because she had ceased to be visible years ago. Nor was it honest enough to reproduce the hideous hag that time had turned her into, because the artist, like most of the others who had preceded him, was either seeking to ingratiate himself with her, or was terrified of the Tower if he painted what he saw.
This combination of hope of advancement or fear of disfavour was now holding the nation together as she sought to rule alone, in the absence of all those who had died and left her to manage its affairs without their comfort, support and wise counsel. First to go had been darling Robert, then Cecil, followed by Walsingham a year later. In between the two, God had finally relieved dear Blanche Parry of her aches and pains and there was no-one among her current Ladies in whom Elizabeth felt confident to confide. Likewise there was no-one in her Council whom she did not suspect of self-interest in the advice they gave her, most of it bad.