His Last Letter

by Jeane Westin

  How dared they justify their treason? “Out of our council chamber! Out of our palace and sight, the lot of you! We cannot bear to look upon such servants. And away with you, too, my lord of Leicester. Your treason is written upon your face and strikes us to our spirit!”

  They left quickly after bowing with their hands over their traitorous hearts, Rob trailing behind and turning to bow again at the door.

  “Stay a moment only, my lord.”

  He returned near her and waited silently.

  “Did the Stuart queen die quickly?”

  Rob hesitated and Elizabeth was not sure she wanted to hear the truth. But she would know sooner or later. “Rob?”

  “Majesty, not at once.”

  “How many strokes of the ax?”

  “Three,” Rob said, his own voice scarcely above a whisper.

  Elizabeth put her hands to her face to cover the horror there and shivered throughout her body. Three! Oh, God and all His saints, forgive me. I wanted it . . . but I did not want it.

  She caught a deep and steadying breath. “Now,” she said in a low voice, “don’t you wish she had been your bride, Rob? You would be the king of Scotland alone on the throne in the north.”

  “If I had lasted so long, Bess. Her husbands did not live long lives. Yet that is not the reason, on my heart. Better a dead Stuart queen than I should have spent one day apart from you.”

  He put out his hand and touched her shoulder. She could not shrink from him, not Robin’s warm hand, the only warmth she had felt that day. She remained still for a minute, then two, needing to have this memory while he was gone.

  “Leave us now, but return in a fortnight. I will have greater need of you with the others gone, for I do not wish to forgive them for a time. I shall order my court into deep mourning and I will throw myself into a fury of weeping and praying. I must not give Philip or any of my enemies cause to come against England until we are ready. They must be assured that I abhor this act and had no part in it . . . and I do abhor it, Rob.”

  “I understand, Your Majesty.”

  “I am not so certain you do, Rob. It is a sovereign’s burden alone, but it must be . . . it must always be my burden.”

  “If you will it, Bess.”

  As he turned to leave, she whispered: “Robin, I have no doubt that you did this for me and that you probably saved me from some future dagger in the breast or poisoned tart.”

  “Majesty, do not mourn so long that you forget the biggest threat building in the harbors of Spain.”

  Rob said no more, but opened the doors and left. She was certain that he would quit Greenwich Palace before she returned to her apartments, readied for her by now with all her possessions placed just as she wanted them. The Holbein portrait of her father would be hanging in her antechamber, guarding her, proving to the world that she was the rightful queen. Although he himself had labeled her bastard, she had proven her right to rule. Did he know that from his place in heaven? Did he have pride in the useless girl his Boleyn queen had given him? She would never know until she reached heaven, and she was in no hurry for that answer.

  Her mind whirled with questions and few replies. Would Rob go to Leicester House on the Strand in London and to Lettice’s bed for his comfort? She forced her mind not to admit that vivid picture.

  When she asked Kit Hatton that night, she learned the Earl of Leicester had left word he could be found at Wanstead when she required his presence. It took all her will not to send a swift courier along the north road to order him back to her.

  Hatton lingered. He was now her Lord Chancellor and principal representative to Parliament. She was not feeling receptive to reports of endless debate between Commons and Lords. And she had dismissed him with the rest of her councilors. Was he defying her?

  He did not begin a report. His bright eyes were dulled with some sickness. His kidney again? “Mutton, are you ill?”

  “It is nothing, Your Grace. My old ailment. I know I have your permission to rest at my house in London until recalled.”

  “Yes, rest yourself and it will hasten you well and back to our service in good time. I will send my herbal tonic with you.”

  “My thanks, Your Grace. I pray to Almighty God that I will yet be on this earth when you call for me.”

  Her Mutton was growing old, his blond curls and beard showing gray, his back not so straight, his belly not so flat, his feet not so fast in a galliard, no longer her Dancing Pensioner. Did he see her as she saw him, see under her whitened skin and red beeswax and cochineal lips and cheeks the deepening wrinkles radiating from her eyes and mouth? She would ban mirrors in her privy chambers. A queen should not have to see what did not please her.

  Sir Christopher stood before her, frowning, and did not take his leave.

  “Out with it,” Elizabeth said, knowing a problem to be solved when she met with one.

  “I do not wish to add to your worries, now that you are in mourning for the queen of Scots and . . .” He took a quick look at the big case clock that followed the queen everywhere in its special cart. “The prayers for the dead in the royal chapel are to begin within the quarter hour.”

  “They will begin when we arrive. Now, out with it, Kit,” Elizabeth said, a little irritable. It was not like Hatton to shilly-shally.

  “Majesty, you were kindness itself to give me residence in Ely Palace when I am in London—”

  The queen’s eyes narrowed. “And the money to do renovations.”

  “Yes, Majesty, I do not forget. But now word comes that the Bishop of Ely refuses to convey the deed to you.”

  “Refuses? Refuses his queen! That was our requirement until we are repaid monies owed.”

  “Yes, Majesty, I—”

  “Guard!”

  She was sorry to alarm poor Kit and she doubted he had been party to the Scots queen’s execution, but she could not explain every action. She would never finish in time to show herself in her chapel praying devoutly for Mary’s soul, which she thought would have need of many prayers—endless prayers, if she were guilty of half that charged to her soul.

  “Yes, Majesty,” a gentleman pensioner said, bowing, his gold breastplate swinging loose, having been untied for comfort and not retied.

  “Call my secretary, and fix your uniform if you wish to continue in your position as a royal guard. A child could penetrate your armor. We will have no guards who do not strictly observe our rules.”

  “Aye, Your Grace,” he said, bowing and tying simultaneously.

  The secretary appeared with paper, quills, a small writing desk and sealing wax. “Majesty, how may I serve you?”

  “With this,” Elizabeth said, and began to pace and dictate.

  To the Bishop of Ely,

  Proud Prelate,

  You know what you were before I made you what you are. If you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock you, by God.

  Kit and her secretary bowed low and left. She had the last word on the matter, as she would have. If all her councilors and Rob disobeyed her, the Bishop of Ely would not now or ever.

  On her knees in the royal chapel while her choirboys sang of peace in heaven, she prayed God that He would not punish England for the sins of her councilors. But Philip of Spain should take no comfort that she had sent them away. Elizabeth of England could have them all returned to her side in a day’s time.

  In mid-June, Elizabeth surveyed her council, now in their places at her council table, with satisfaction. They were all nicely humbled and more loyal to her than ever. “My lords and gentlemen, you are all the better for a rest from your labors for my realm and the fresh air of your estates. We forgive you for the wrong you have done to us.”

  All of them bowed their heads, acknowledging that they were much recovered, and grateful to have heads to bow, Elizabeth vowed. “So, my good councilors, what news?”

  “Good news, Your Grace,” Walsingham said quickly, obviously excited, his gray beard almost dancing with his exhilaration.
“Sir Francis Drake and his new ships have won a battle against the Spanish fleet gathered in ports along their coast. Would that I were with him to share in the glory!”

  Elizabeth smiled. They were all such boys with toy ships in ponds and wooden swords in the tiltyard, braving it amongst their playmates. “Yes, yes, tell us, Walsingham, since we can see you are bursting with news, although you should all know that while you were gone to rest on your estates we gave Drake permission to interfere with Spanish shipping bringing supplies into Cádiz for Philip’s vaunted Great Enterprise against England. We would make certain, Walsingham, that your spies are correct and the armada does not sail this year.”

  All her councilors looked to one another in surprise. She hid her pleasure. They thought I could not act, lacking their guidance! After all these years together, they yet think I am a weak, womanly creature who needs their advice to rule!

  The Earl of Leicester, hand on his sword like a great warlord, strode to the map on the wall behind Burghley and traced a finger along the Spanish and Portuguese coast. “Drake arrived off Cádiz late in April and cannonaded the Spanish fleet and their port city. He boarded their ships at anchor, thirty-seven in all, and took their supplies in great quantity before sinking them. He then attacked and plundered the city, throwing their land and naval forces into a panic. It was surely a glorious thing to see.”

  “And his losses?” asked the ever-cautious Burghley.

  Rob’s eyes shone as he looked about the council table. “Minor compared to the havoc he wrought among the black beards. Then he sailed up and down their coast from Lisbon to Cape St. Vincent, taunting them to come out and fight while capturing ships and destroying supplies meant for the armada.”

  “As I ordered him,” Elizabeth said, nodding.

  Rob bowed to her and continued. “One sunken ship carried barrel staves; the sea was reported full of floating staves and hoops. They will have to use green wood now on their food and water barrels, which will be sprung quickly at sea to let in air. They will live on weevils and rot ere they sight the English coast. I hope they never catch Drake, or his death will be slow and horrible indeed.”

  Elizabeth clapped her hands in delight. “They fear our El Draco and our great English fighting sailors! With such men as these we will teach King Philip a lesson no Spaniard will ever forget.”

  “Aye, Majesty,” Walsingham added as Rob returned to his seat beside her, “but there’s more to Drake’s tale.”

  “Treasure ships full of plate from the New World?” the queen asked hopefully.

  “A great carrack of a thousand tons, the San Filipe, laden with gold and silver valued at one hundred and fourteen thousand pounds.”

  Elizabeth made a quick calculation. Over forty thousand pounds for her treasury. She grinned, well satisfied. Drake’s triumph was hers and England’s, as well as his. “We will name Sir Francis Drake as vice admiral of our fleet.”

  The councilors, even jealous Hatton, even Burghley and Walsingham, clearly felt a spark of lost adventurous youth, aching for such fame and wealth. They each nodded their agreement to Drake’s advancement, enthusiastically. Even Rob’s face was alight, though he obviously felt disregarded. She knew those eyes and could see through them to his thoughts.

  “My lord of Leicester, we name you lieutenant and captain-general of our armies to guard against Philip’s soldiers landing on our shores.”

  “Majesty,” Rob said, trying to suppress a look of success, “I am honored to have your trust.”

  Elizabeth stood, bringing the meeting to a halt. “Walsingham, send our royal courier to Plymouth at once and order Vice Admiral Drake to court . . . with his gold . . . as soon as he docks.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.”

  —Elizabeth I

  EARL OF LEICESTER

  Late May 1588

  Leicester House, London

  Lettice, you must take your daughters and their families to Kenilworth, where you will be safer than in London. Parma is a general to be reckoned with and will bring his troops up the Thames to capture London . . . if he gets past me at Tilbury.” Leicester rose from his worktable in his library and moved to another covered with coastal maps. His doublet and cloak hung from the back of his chair and he had rolled his shirt-sleeves to his elbows as a sign to her that he was hard at work. “They will want to capture the queen,” he murmured, almost unaware that he uttered the thought foremost in his mind.

  “Think of your wife, Robert!” Lettice’s tone was close to hysteria.

  “Of course I think of you and your safety, Lettice. That is my duty as a husband.”

  “How sweet. I do not usually come first in your thoughts . . . or do you want me out of your sight so that you can run to Elizabeth?”

  He closed his eyes to rest from the sight of his wife in such ill humor. It took all his strength to withstand the envy of two women forever fighting for his every thought.

  “I want you and yours to be safe. Isn’t that enough?”

  She shrugged, turning aside. “How can I leave all my gowns and—”

  How like his wife to think of her gowns before her country. “Take them, madam. Whatever you like for your comfort, although Kenilworth is not without its—”

  Her face grew hard. “I shall sleep in the queen’s bed,” she announced, as if expecting him to deny her.

  “If you like,” he replied, knowing the bedchamber he’d built for Elizabeth had long ago lost any trace of her perfume. He had not been able to enter it himself for years now. The memory of her standing there with the light on her face and hair, and of those enchanted days and evenings they had spent together, the sound of her voice, her delight in the hunt, the garden and her soft, loving whispers . . . But he could not trouble himself now about what was lost. He was facing a great battle which must keep Bess and England safe. If the Spanish ships were not stopped by Drake, Howard and Frobisher, they would land with tens of thousands of King Philip’s troops. Whatever else might be, he would get Elizabeth to safety if he had to take her to the New World. His mind began to race ahead of that thought and an image of Bess with him in a savage forest, looking as they once had in their youth, riding furiously over every obstacle they confronted, throwing themselves under a tree, laughing and . . .

  “My lord husband, you are not listening to me!”

  He drew himself to his full height. Quarreling with Lettice drained him, sucked the energy from his sick body. His old fevers were upon him again and he desperately needed all his strength for the fight to come.

  Robert approached Lettice and kissed her hand, knowing that soon it would lie on the arm of another man, his son Essex’s great friend Christopher Blount, thirty-five years Lettice’s junior. She thought her husband ignorant, but he was simply and quite completely without caring as long as she was discreet and did not sully his name.

  He had to admit that she was still quite beautiful enough to attract a younger man, but her hurt pride and hatred for Bess had drawn lines on her face that had not been there when he had married her ten years earlier.

  “I will take my white carriage with its four white horses,” she announced spitefully, spitting the words into the silence between them. She knew that the queen hated her to drive around like royalty.

  “Yes, madam, do take all, if it please you.” He wanted to sit, but he refused to show even a small sign of his weariness, his constant fever. She was like a jungle animal, in that weakness made her the more fierce, and he must be away to see the queen as soon as he had good news to give her of his drawing together an army for England . . . for her. He must soothe Lettice in some way. And he knew just what would do that.

  “Lettice, my dear wife, I would have you know that I have drawn my will, leaving all my estates, but trifles, to you.” He had carefully acted the good husband, knowing that he must protect Bess’s reputation even from his grave, knowing what the rumormongers would have whispered
if he had treated Bess as his wife. God knew she was wife in his heart . . . and he, husband in hers, though she would never admit as much.

  Lettice embraced him and pressed her body hard against him. “Dearest Robert, what a good husband you are.” Then she pulled her head back and looked up at him, her eyes wide and, to her mind, innocent. “Trifles! What trifles? As your wife, should I not have all?”

  “I must recognize my servants and . . .”

  “Her?”

  “The queen has given me many estates for my service to her these thirty years. It is my duty to remember her.”

  Lettice smirked at the word service and he knew what she thought, but did not dare say. Instead she looked only mildly curious: “What is this trifle?”

  “You will know when I am no longer here.”

  As any good wife—a game she liked to play, though usually in company—she repeated by rote: “Pray God that time is many years hence.”

  He did not think she would have to wait so long, but he would seem to accept her caring, since it was so rare and he was too tired to listen to further envy.

  “Robert . . . husband . . .” Her hand went to his arm, almost caressing it, her face softening. Her mouth opened and then closed tight.

  It was unlike her to hesitate. “Yes, my dear, what is it?”

  “Nothing . . . a foolish fancy.” She shrugged, as if to emphasize a trifling thing, kissing his cheek in farewell.

  As the door closed and the sounds of servants rushing to do their mistress’s bidding replaced his wife’s retreating figure, for a moment it troubled him to think of what she could have said and he could have answered. But that moment was replaced by an image of Lettice and Christopher Blount walking in the Kenilworth garden, the garden he had made for Bess when they were still within sight of their youth.