His Last Letter

by Jeane Westin

  Although he was weighted with such memories, Robert had a hearty appetite, having consumed but one bite earlier in the day. He tried to eat sparingly, as Bess did, but his belly growled at him and he took another helping of apple tart, full of vanilla bean and spices, as the queen liked it.

  As usual, Bess did not neglect her cautions about his health. “You must promise me, Rob, to eat sparingly of the rich Hollander food,” she advised, frowning.

  He swallowed the last of his tart and promised, though he reminded her: “A soldier marches upon his stomach, Bess.”

  “Then you will march the entire length of that besieged country on yours.”

  He bowed his head and she covered his hand with one of hers in gentle apology for her chiding. With her other hand, she caressed the Turkish carpet covering the table, obviously loving its weave. At last she gave him her orders, the red wax royal seal hanging from it. “Promise me, Rob, you will not hazard a battle without having great advantage and good care for yourself. Do not go in front of your men.”

  “But, Majesty, I cannot play the coward while I order my men into battle.”

  “Promise me, or I will choose a more cautious man to lead them. Jesu knows, I have them about me in plenty.”

  His shoulders sagged. This was his first defeat of the campaign. “I promise to keep myself safe as I can in honor, Bess.” He leaned down and kissed her hand where it lay upon his, hoping she would not notice the less than complete promise he had given her.

  “Now go, my lord of Leicester, before I change my mind, for I sorely miss you already.”

  He did not remind her, because he didn’t need to, that it had always been her choice, never his, that he not be on the throne and in her bed at her side forever. But he could not bring himself to say it. “Bess,” he whispered, “my heart is always with you.”

  She released his hand slowly, then turned her head away from him, never able to see him close the door on her. He stood and bowed, his hand on his heart, and murmured, “My long love,” then backed away to her outer chamber, his hand still warm from her touch. He was quickly in the hall leading to his own apartment next to hers. She loves me still, though Raleigh will quickly grow in favor while I am away. Like her father, she needs, always, to feed on the thrill of adoration and the new. I must show her such victory that she will turn from Raleigh when she receives news of what I have wrought for her and for England.

  Victory seemed less likely later as he strode toward his quarters and quickly opened and read the royal charter. He was to fight a purely defensive war, ensuring that the Dutch paid for much of it. But they can’t pay for a smaller war now! He did not allow the wrathful complaint to escape his mouth. All palace walls had ears and eyes.

  Bess had also laid claim to two prosperous Dutch towns, which were to be taxed for the war and to repay her treasury. “S’bones!’ ” he yelled at poor Tamworth, as soon as he reached his quarters, where all peepholes had been plugged and all doors were guarded, by his own men, against spying. “This is a plan for total failure!” He read on with a sinking heart. Why did she do this? Was it her natural caution in war, or was it deliberate? Did she not want him to succeed? He tried to deny the thought, but doubts rose even though he struggled to hold them at bay.

  The queen had named him a lieutenant general of her forces, but he was also to endow the Dutch assembly with full powers. It was a sure formula for conflict.

  He drew in several deep breaths before he read further. We command that by no means are you to accept any title from their assembly other than the one we gave you and on pain of your sovereign’s unalterable displeasure are you to accept their throne.

  So that was her fear! She had not allowed him to be king beside her, nor would she allow him to be king in any other country. She would tie him to her forever.

  The charter also limited him to one thousand cavalry and six thousand foot soldiers against the Spanish Duke of Parma’s army, one of the largest and best trained on the Continent.

  Robert groaned as he and Tamworth immediately began to cloak themselves for travel. “She has no liking for this cause. She gives me few troops and less money and authority than I need. Victory is almost impossible.”

  “Nay, my lord, Her Majesty thinks that you of all her lords can work miracles for her because you have her in your heart. When you return to England the port of Calais that her sister, Queen Mary, lost, she will—”

  “Stop! There was ever only one thing that I have wanted from Bess and that is all past and done.”

  Tamworth did not reply, but Robert knew what his servant thought. And he thought the same. Past, perhaps, but never done.

  He dared not wait the night and risk Bess’s mind-change, for her mislike of this cause was plain both spoken and written. He would be on the road at night with torchbearers going before to light the way to London.

  With a retinue of only twenty men, he left Nonsuch in the cold night, looking back to see if Bess was at her window. He was certain she was wakeful, but she did not watch him leave, as she never had. He could not be sure that she was unhappy at his leave-taking, though she had claimed the sight of it to be beyond her ability to bear. Sometimes Robert believed one thing and sometimes the other, and he wondered if that was true of all those who loved too much and in vain.

  Once away, he heard Dee’s angel’s voice in the beat of horses’ hooves all about him: No, the other. What other? Another woman? His wife, Lettice? Had Uriel seen into the darkest suspicion of his heart and answered it?

  Robert reached London and clattered across London Bridge just as pale dawn broke over the city and river fog swirled low in the city streets. The tradesmen were out in front of their ware benches, displaying their knit caps and vests and raised pattens, the overshoes that protected expensive boots and slippers from street mud and refuse. Carters filled the streets crying their fresh fish, the last of the fall fruit harvest and fresh-baked bread, some of which was undoubtedly yesterday’s. Serving maids were at the wells filling their wooden buckets, yelling strong words at his men when their horses splattered them with street rubbish.

  They stopped near St. Paul’s to water their horses, the Tower looming nearby. Though London had almost doubled in size in the last twenty-six years of Elizabeth’s reign, little else had changed since he’d ridden behind Bess in her coronation procession down this street toward Westminster Abbey. Although she had already been queen for two months since her sister, Mary, had died, she was finally to be anointed and proclaimed England’s queen by God’s priests.

  CHAPTER 7

  QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CORONATION DAY

  EARL OF LEICESTER

  January 15, 1559

  London

  Lord Robert Dudley paced in the hall outside the royal apartments in the Tower, where every English king and queen, by custom, spent the night before their coronation. He had dressed carefully for Elizabeth in his new heavily embroidered black velvet suit, snowy white ruff and cuffs, a cuirass of polished, beaten silver spanning his chest, a fur-lined cape thrown over one shoulder and his feathered cap atilt over his right eye. Scarlet knit hosen outlined his long legs, and his feet were shod in black Spanish boots oiled to a bright sheen. The polished steel mirror at the far end of the anteroom showed his full image to his great satisfaction, reflecting the jewels on his sword hilt as they sparkled in the torchlight. He was satisfied that he would make a grand appearance that day, the most important of his life as well as Elizabeth’s.

  He waited eagerly to be summoned by the newly reigning queen of England. He had not been alone with her since they’d left Hatfield, her childhood home, where she’d received news of her sister Queen Mary’s death along with the coronation ring and tales of rejoicing in London. Bells had rung from each steeple, bonfires flared in every major thoroughfare and tables loaded with food and ale were set in the streets for all comers.

  After accepting the royal ring and thanking God, Bess had immediately sworn all to allegiance in the great hall a
t Hatfield. She named Lord Robert Dudley her Master of Horse and Revels, a position which they both knew would keep them always close.

  As he had knelt before her, she had raised him before all. “We do not forget, Lord Robert, that you comforted us in the Tower and that you sold your own land to give us money when we were kept in penury by our sister, the late queen. Therefore, we command that you be always near to us”—she lowered her voice to a playful whisper for his ears alone—“both day and night.”

  He had almost jumped up, hope rising against all experience, even against his married state, that she would say more, but the queen continued with business, naming others to high posts in the realm while he offered a quick prayer that Amy forgive him for his most private wishes. God alone knew that he wished her no harm, though he wished as heartily not to be married to her. He would be free to marry Bess, ever his real love. Although he had gained the property and income he had desired—indeed, had to have after his father was executed—he had also gained a clinging wife who wanted him to settle into being a minor country noble, always within her sight. The thought of that life left him as cold as did Amy’s bed.

  At Hatfield, Elizabeth continued her appointments in her royal voice that had seemed to arrive with the coronation ring. Her words carried to all, including the new Lord Secretary, William Cecil. “My Lord Secretary Cecil, our first decree as queen is that all our subjects, Catholic and Protestant, be free of harrying for their beliefs. We would make no windows into men’s souls.”

  She had not stopped with this queenly concern for her subjects, but had further decreed that her coronation was to be held in both English and Latin.

  Robert nearly laughed aloud. A clever compromise for those who wished her to declare herself either Catholic or Protestant, and so like Bess, who always said, “Take the middle ground.”

  Then she had announced in the regal tone that he granted came easily to her: “The word of God and His apostles should be hidden from no man.” And it was clear to Robert that she meant to change the Latin services, as she had once told him privately, to English ones in every church. She meant to return the Church to the one her father had decreed.

  The Catholics in the hall were not pleased, but they hid their consternation until Elizabeth further announced that at her own anointment with the holy oil as queen there would be no elevation of the host. Ah, this was defiantly Protestant.

  Their faces grew dark at that, but Robert knew that they did not dare challenge her right as governor of the Church of England, at least not yet. But they would. He was not the only one present to understand that this woman meant to take her father’s place in all matters of the realm. Some of the bishops present planned already to defy her in Parliament. They believed that a woman could not rule unless she was guided by men to right courses, whether church, marriage, or realm.

  They did not know Elizabeth Tudor as he did, although she could still surprise him, as she had when she named her councilors so fast he knew she must have been thinking of whom she wanted as advisors for some time, maybe for her life long.

  Robert was recalled to the present by John Carpenter, a gentleman in the queen’s guard. “My lord Dudley,” he announced in a newly ponderous voice from the doors leading to the royal suite. Upon Elizabeth’s arrival in London, she had named the former Tower guard who had once befriended her during her imprisonment to her personal retinue. Like her father, Bess never forgot a hurt or a service.

  The guard called Robert’s name again. He marched quickly through the open door and knelt before his queen, who was wearing her crown, lined with crimson velvet, encircled by a star-burst of rubies, diamonds, sapphires and pearls.

  For a moment, Robert was breathless at first sight of her in her golden, ermine-edged coronation robes. Was this his Bess, little Bess of their childhood games at Greenwich Palace, Bess of their breathless rides in Windsor Great Park and Bess of their youthful stolen kisses? Bess, who was soon to be his anointed queen?

  His throat tight and full enough to make swallowing difficult, he filled his eager eyes with her . . . the queen of his dreams and now queen of all. “Majesty, I always believed that I would see you thus in your rightful place.”

  “Sweet Robin,” she murmured, and gave him her hand to kiss. With a little laugh, she curled her fingers around his chin, stroking his mustache with her forefinger.

  He captured her fingers and kissed them one by one. “Bess, I am beyond happiness this morning, as I hope you are.”

  “Yes, Robin, how could I not be?” she asked, retrieving her hand and stretching from having posed so long. “Surely this is the Lord’s doing.”

  He grinned. “Bess, you helped the Lord as no one else could. All these years, you kept your lovely head and they could not break you even in the Tower dungeon.”

  “Nor imprisoned at Woodstock for the next year, suspected of every crime against God and my sister, the queen. Now I am in the Tower again, but not awaiting my end—”

  He interrupted. “Your beginning.”

  “Aye, Robin, where I belong, not in a traitor’s cell, but in the royal apartments.”

  Robin knew that Bess thought of one queen in particular, Anne Boleyn. But the daughter never said her mother’s name. Still, he knew with that dead queen’s daughter on the throne, no one could defame Anne Boleyn without harsh retribution. Englishmen would have to watch their tongues or have them slit. For the first time he noticed a quiet painter at work in the corner.

  “She is painting a miniature of my coronation portrait,” the queen explained.

  Robin stood and went to look at Levina Teerlinc’s work. The woman trained in Flanders had already been appointed miniaturist to the queen, and for good reason. “Mistress Teerlinc, you have captured the soul of Elizabeth, queen of England.” He looked back at the queen. “Majesty, I must have one for my own to look at when I have a sudden need.”

  Robert heard the queen laugh at his obvious meaning. Elizabeth had a liking for raucous humor and knew she could now indulge it with no one to object.

  Readjusting her coronation robes in a sweep across her lap, accentuating her small, jeweled waist, she thrust her hands through the opening, one hand holding the orb and the other the scepter. She nodded to Teerlinc to continue and he was dismissed.

  He bowed and backed away from the queen, observing royal courtesy. Before he was out the door, she said, “You will ride behind our canopied litter to Westminster. We will be content and safe when we can see you close to us.”

  He bowed at the door. She was showing him great favor, and from the warmth of her hand . . . its slight tremor when he touched it . . . he knew enough about women to sense longing. She expressed every delight in him. He wondered if she’d pull away if he tried to test her womanhood too closely. He would be careful and look for an invitation. He smiled to himself, knowing that soon he would be admired openly by the ladies at court. Jealousy was Elizabeth’s only weakness.

  Did she allow him to see her need for him because he had a wife that made Elizabeth safe from her own desires . . . safe from her own scarcely hidden fears of marriage and childbirth? All women feared childbirth, but Bess had the greatest fear he had ever known, since her stepmother Catherine Parr had died after birthing a daughter in great pain, only for both mother and daughter to die days later. It was a dread for which he couldn’t find an answer, perhaps didn’t want to find an answer. And because of Amy, his sworn wife, he didn’t need to find one. Did he? His own thoughts ran in ever tighter circles.

  If he hadn’t married in youth for a few parcels of land and a small manor house and, yes, to come to a woman in his bed whenever he liked, would Bess have been his? He doubted her brother or sister would have consented, certainly not their councilors. He pushed the question away a moment later, feeling suddenly disloyal to Amy, though they had seldom lived together and she had proved barren. She’d clung to him until his boyish affection was suffocated.

  His thoughts flew here and yon, always coming bac
k to the same question. Henry had made divorce possible, but would Amy agree to it? Would Bess? His heart seemed to skip beats as he thought of marrying Elizabeth. Would the realm accept a divorced man as their king? Not the Catholics, surely, who had never accepted Henry VIII’s divorces. And not many of the Protestants, either. Yet could anything now stop Bess from what she truly wanted?

  He acknowledged that his father and grandfather had been executed as traitors, but they had been accused by succeeding reigns they had not served, their heads offered up as retribution for past sins against the new monarch’s allies. If he could get Parliament to rescind his forebears’ sentences, or at least lift the attainders on their estates . . . He shook his head to clear such hopeless thoughts from his mind. Yet they lingered in his heart.

  Robert descended to the courtyard near the west gates, mounted and steadied his great black horse. The coronation procession needed only its queen to begin. Within minutes Elizabeth appeared and entered the chapel of St. Peter in Chains, where her mother’s body was buried—alongside her severed head—to pray alone. Bess’s father had decreed that the grave would go forever unmarked, so to Bess, the entire church was her mother’s marker.

  Horses whinnied and stomped, a light snow beginning to fall as a long retinue formed. Gentlemen pensioners, close servants of the queen and the nobles of England, including the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, who was by rank the personal protector of the queen, stood ready to form a retinue. Norfolk did not nod to Robert, but ignored him completely. Robert smiled to himself at the man’s obvious jealousy, but could not stop himself from a little bravado. “My lord Norfolk, if the queen’s train moves too fast for those of you on foot, you will cry out to slow us, if it please you.”

  Norfolk did not turn his head, or answer.

  The duke, highest noble in the realm, thought himself fully qualified to be king of England and, if not due to his already having a wife, to marry Elizabeth . . . at the very least to guide the young queen in all she did. But Elizabeth had already openly rejected his counsel on several occasions, making him the sullen man marching beside her today.