by Jeane Westin
Within two days of Lettice’s departure, Robert was on his way to Richmond Castle to lay his plans before the queen. He knelt before her on a thick Turkey carpet.
The queen sat on her raised dais, wearing a shimmering silver gown woven through with silver metal threads and like knitted silk hosen he could glimpse above her shoe. She caught the light of every candle about her. He was enveloped in the wafting scent of her sweet rose perfume as he knelt, his head bowed, but his mind was drawn back to so many strolls in her perfume gardens. Ropes of deep-gleaming pearls were draped about her shoulders and waist to dazzle all eyes.
“My captain-general,” she said, gesturing toward the carpet with a smile tugging at her lips, “I have had a care for the knees of my many faithful advisors.”
“I am certain others bless you for it, Majesty,” Robert said, glancing at Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham seated at the queen’s table, “although I have no such need.” He stood quickly and straight without pausing or wincing, though he felt his knees creak and prayed Bess could not hear them. Never would he show her that he was not fit to command her army, to keep her and the realm safe from Spain’s soldiers crammed in the holds of their armada. He was her devoted servant until his last breath, creaky knees, fever and griping stomach or no. Only God could keep him from his duty and from her side.
Bess must always think to rely on his strength, the same strength he had shown so many times in the tiltyard as she watched from her gallery, her eyes shining on him.
Realizing his body was leaning toward her, he straightened his back. “Majesty,” he said, holding up the rolled maps he carried, “allow me to show you my plans.”
Elizabeth preceded him to her chair at the table and motioned for him to spread his maps before her.
“Your Grace, Lord Burghley, Sir Francis,” he said as they crowded around while he smoothed flat the heavy vellum, “the sea-bound southern counties, here at Sussex, and here at Hampshire and Kent, should muster their troops on the coast to repel any southern landings by the armada. A series of fire posts must be set upon every hillock to be lit at the first sign of the Spanish fleet off the Straits of Dover.”
“Order it, my lord.”
“Aye, Majesty. The southeast must be readied to harry any vessels trying to land troops for a two-pronged attack, one from the south and one up the Thames. Yet I do not believe the enemy plans to fight their way north to London.” He straightened.
“Where will they strike then, my lord?” the queen asked, frowning.
He pulled another map closer to her, since her near vision was excellent. “It is my belief that Parma’s men will plan to come up the Thames”—he punched a finger at the river opening from the channel—“and thereby take London . . . and you, Majesty, the greatest prize of all. I advise Your Grace to go inland to Windsor, where you will be safer.”
Both Burghley and Walsingham muttered agreement.
The queen sat very straight in her chair. “S’blood, my lords, do you think me a shrinking girl? I will don my cuirass, take up my sword of state and fight them myself if all are killed about me. They will not capture me to parade about Europe and Rome.”
Robert held fast to the table. “Your Grace, you must keep safe, whatever happens.”
She traced a finger across the counties to the west and stopped at Wales. “Needs be, my lords and gentlemen, we will fight from the rocky mountains of my ancestors in Wales, or better yet, from my forebear King Arthur’s castle on the Cornish coast at Tintagel!”
Walsingham muttered into his beard in his dry way, “England is blessed to have such a queen.”
“Do not doubt us, sir.”
“Majesty,” Walsingham answered, bowing from his chair, “I never have and never will.”
Robert’s hand moved across the map toward Elizabeth’s to reassure her, but he stopped himself, knowing that any doubt of her strength would enrage her. “Majesty, they will never proceed so far as London as long as I live. They will have to march over my body to get to you.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Then we will remain at Whitehall with our people. If you do not fear, then we may not. If we do not, our people will not.”
Walsingham cleared his throat, becoming impatient, Robert suspected, at a drama better played at the Rose Theatre in a Christopher Marlowe play.
But the queen argued no more. Robert knew that she would do exactly as she pleased, and it pleased her to give no sign of timidity, determined as always to be her father’s heir in all things.
Baron Burghley spoke next in his reassuring way. “Your Grace, no one in all the realm doubts your courage, but your person must be secured for the sake of your people.”
The queen sighed and raised her eyes to Burghley. “My Lord Treasurer . . . dear Spirit . . . we yet hope Lord Buckhurst will be successful negotiating peace with Parma.” The words were followed by another sigh, this time of resignation, as if she knew that even a queen could not stop this war so long desired by Philip and delayed by England’s brave sea dogs.
Robert continued lest Bess weary of such caution by her servants. He jabbed at the map, ignoring Bess’s constant hope for negotiations. He knew this was no marriage contract she could complicate forever. King Philip had spent a fortune on his armada and it would sail, perhaps already had sailed. “Majesty, I will make base camp here”—he touched the map by the bank of the Thames—“at Tilbury, with a muster of twelve thousand troops and horse. The trainbands from Essex will march to London to guard the city and Whitehall. The city must provision them.”
The queen smiled. “My lord mayor will not be fond of such an outlay.”
“Better marks and pistoles spent now on good English stomachs than taken by the black beards to fill Spain’s bottomless coffers,” Robert said, his voice showing irritation that masked exhaustion. But he smiled before continuing. “Here, Majesty,” he said, pointing to the Thames estuary, “I will build a chain boom stretching across the Thames, to stop any of the armada’s ships from coming upriver.”
Elizabeth stood, motioning Burghley and Walsingham to return to their seats. She walked to the oriel window, its diamond panes spaced by rubies, and looked out upon her walled garden, bright with the late flowers of summer. Though she did not turn back to them, they all heard her words. “I mislike war. It brings uncertain outcomes.” She shrugged her shoulders as she rounded on them. “But no king of Spain and no pope of Rome may take this island from its people and its rightful queen.”
Burghley and Walsingham bowed and moved backward to the door, which was softly opened and closed behind them. Robert began to roll his maps together.
Elizabeth was suddenly by his side, speaking softly. “Rob, have you been taking the herbal potion we sent you?”
“Aye, Bess,” he said, making a face at the bitter taste, “and thinking of you each time I spoon it.”
Her voice was stern. “We order you to continue it. Good potions are not supposed to taste of confection.”
“Aye, my queen,” he answered, purposely looking a little like a naughty boy, which pleased her.
She shook his arm and smiled, then showed her most serious face. “We beg you not to place yourself in any danger.”
“I will do my duty to you, Bess.”
“I know,” she whispered, and allowed her hand to remain on his sleeve, “and that is what I fear.”
He looked down at her hand, feeling its warmth go through doublet and shirt to his skin. It was the hand that wore her coronation ring and he bent to kiss it, feeling its raised edges sharp on his lips. “Bess,” he said, his voice breaking like a hairless boy’s, “I want you to remember—”
“No, Rob!” she said sharply, clasping his hand to her breast, “I will have no leave-taking between us. You have promised not to leave me and I will have no less. Do you not know my heart at last?”
“What man could truly know your heart, Bess?”
“You want me to say it again, Rob? It should not be necessary after all the
se years.”
“Bess, after all these years, it is more necessary than ever.” He knelt and she pulled his head against her stomacher and laid her arms about his neck. Her ladies must have begun to slip from the antechamber when such intimate talk began, because he was aware of doors softly closing. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I can hear your heart beating,” he said, his ear to her breasts.
“It should be thundering,” she whispered, and pressed her body against him.
“Say the words, Bess. Let me take them into battle with me as my armor.”
She could not say the words aloud, but they came in a whisper that surrounded him. “I have loved you above all men and will . . . until my last breath.”
He stood and would have pressed her close to his heart, but she turned away, trembling.
“Rob, I cannot rue and repent now. . . . It grips my heart and I will need all my strength. Let that be enough between us, as it has always been.”
He thought, but did not say: No, never enough! Instead he bowed and backed from the room.
“Stay safe,” she said in a whisper he barely heard.
“And you, sweetest lady.”
In a sweltering, storm-clouded late July,the camp and fort at Tilbury were at last ready to repel a Spanish landing, or as ready as Leicester could make them with less of everything than he needed.
Gradually, he had forced order to emerge from chaos. He had spent weeks training the officers to drill the soldiers new-come from their fields and forges to fight for England. Although the law mandated they muster with all equipment, few common men had the means to do so and much of what they brought was not the latest in firearms. Many were equipped with ancient broad-swords, cast-off pieces of armor, a few axes, crossbows and pikes. When a man came into camp with a matchlock, or more rarely a new flintlock, Leicester immediately dubbed him a sergeant.
Today, Elizabeth’s captain-general looked down the neat rows of tents, pennants flying, men drilling in the wide alley between, and knew the troops were ready to confront whatever soldiers the armada or the Duke of Parma sent against them. Better good, stout English countrymen than all the Spanish soldiers dragged from prison to serve in foreign wars, half-starved in the hold of a galleon for a month.
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, rode up quickly, his yellow silk suit ruined by rain, sweat and dust. He knelt for Leicester’s blessing, but began speaking as he rose. “Father, the signal fires have been lit. The armada has turned from the Lizard on the Cornwall coast and is coming up the channel.”
“Are you certain of your information? All manner of rumors have been reported of late.”
Essex smiled. “Father, I was with the queen when the news came to her.”
“How is she?”
“Demands I play cards all night. I get no sleep until the birds awake.”
Leicester smiled. “Then Her Majesty likes your company.”
Essex stood even taller than Robert, if that was possible, since Leicester was the tallest man in Elizabeth’s court. “Her Grace sees less and less of Hatton or Raleigh, if I take your meaning.”
Leicester nodded, but said nothing. This was what he had planned and hoped; still, now that Essex had pleased Elizabeth, he was not as happy as he had thought to be. She knew the young earl was Leicester’s true son. Did this mean that she had forgiven him that long-ago dalliance, or did she seek to make him pay for it still with jealousy of his own child? He shook off the thought. He could not be jealous of his son, a son he loved.
“Drake is already at sea,” Essex continued. “He has three squadrons of one hundred and eighty ships in all sizes from pinnace to galleon, he in the Revenge and Lord Howard in the Ark Royal. Drake placed one squadron at Plymouth in case more Spanish come to the south coast and two squadrons at Dover. According to Walsingham’s spies, the Spanish commander, the Duke of Medina-Sedonia, is set to meet Parma and his troops off the Holland coast and then cross the channel to attack. Drake sends out ships to search the coasts off the Bay of Biscay, questioning every northbound ship. He knows the armada has left Corunna with a good following breeze and should be upon us any day.”
“Bless Walsingham. England is ready with good intelligence,” Leicester said, catching his breath on a sudden stomach pain. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the stoppered bottle Bess had given him, taking a single swallow. Since it had poppy in it, he dared not take too much. Though it dulled the pain, it also dulled his head.
“Does your stomach ail you again, Father?” Essex said, his voice anxious.
“My old fever. It is nothing to concern you.”
Essex sighed. “Then here is something that does concern me and will cause you grief.”
“Out with it!”
“We captured a Spanish spy and know what they plan for England.”
“They will impose Catholicism.”
“More, Father, they say they will kill all our people over seven years.”
“A baseless boast. Englishmen will fight them.”
“Philip expects to be greeted as a rescuer from the bastard heretic queen.”
“He was deluded when he was husband to Mary Tudor and now is a royal hermit. He knows nothing of this country, or this queen.”
“There is more, Father. The queen insists that she will come to Tilbury and fight with her troops. She was marching up and down her antechamber with a sword in her hand as I left her.”
Leicester laughed. “How like her.”
“Can you forbid her to come, Father?”
Leicester laughed harder. “Forbid Elizabeth? Easier to forbid a tempest from blowing. If I tried, she would dismiss me and take command herself! Don’t you know her yet? This is her way of showing her father that she is worthy, as if Henry would have admitted that any woman was ever fit to follow him without a husband.”
“But . . . but she must be kept safe.”
“I will ready a manor to house her and her ladies a few miles inland from here and surround it with troops. Her barge will be all times at the ready.”
Essex dug his boots into the sandy soil, his voice a little angry. “Is she mad to come among rough soldiers with a battle nearing?”
“No, not mad . . . a queen of England.” He frowned with concern. “My son, you do not know her as you think you do. Learn to know her and do not think to rule her, or it could be your downfall.”
Essex laughed the superior laugh of the young who think their elders are fashioned from old cloth.
CHAPTER 22
TO TILBURY
ELIZABETH
Early August 1588
Tilbury on the Thames
Elizabeth was impatient. “Quickly, quickly,” she commanded the oarsmen edging the royal barge up to the planked pier below a small manor near Tilbury. “Anne,” she said as her ladies gathered on the deck, “have my rooms prepared at once, for I must away to Tilbury. Can you hear them?” she asked, her voice full of excitement.
“The cannon?” Anne asked.
“Of course, the cannon. They must be fighting in the channel as we stand here shilly-shallying. Now hurry or we will miss the battle.” She ignored Anne’s look of alarm and, placing the great sword of state over her shoulder, she marched up a small hillock to the manor. At once she saw it was secure with a troop of horse surrounding it on all but the riverside, and that guarded by two demicannon with a mound of large stone shot by each. Rob ever had a care for her safety.
She walked into the great hall, which was not great at all, but would do. The owner bowed low and his goodwife curtsied. “We will trouble you little,” Elizabeth said, though she thought her ladies and guards would likely consume their larder to the last rabbit and loaf of bread. “We will have Lord Leicester send provisions to you.”
“I beg you, Majesty, give all to our brave soldiers.”
The queen smiled her gratitude. “These are my good English people,” she said, standing even taller. “Now, Anne, we must prepare for my entrance to Leicester’s camp.”<
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“This way, Your Majesty,” the goodwife said, and led them up the narrow stairs to a gallery bedchamber.
“Quickly, Anne, we must be dressed and attend our army at Tilbury.”
“Majesty, is it safe?”
“That is not a question for a monarch,” Elizabeth said, her voice sharper than she intended. Gently, she took Anne’s arm and spoke low to her. “We are the symbol of this realm, and if we are afraid, then how can our troops have the courage to face a strong and determined enemy?”
Anne curtsied and went immediately to the chest being unpacked. She returned with Lady Carey, both carrying a beautiful white gown shot through with silver thread and studded with gleaming pearls. Elizabeth stretched her arms wide to aid them in dressing her. “My cuirass,” she said, and although she saw a grim tightening about Anne’s mouth, she did not laugh at her worries, knowing they came from love of her. “Dear Anne, we will fight with our troops as our father did in France, even if we must lay down our life into the dust.” Have you all forgotten that I am Henry’s spawn? And Anne Boleyn’s . . . a name that does not pass my lips, but is forever on my mind? Who can doubt the courage of a woman who faced the ax by lifting up her long hair with a smile?
Anne sighed, but helped tighten the leather straps of the gleaming silver cuirass from the front breastplate to the back plate and added the gorget that protected Elizabeth’s throat.
“Wait here for my return,” the queen said firmly.
Anne’s mouth opened as if to argue, but Elizabeth flashed a glance at her to tell her not to dispute even for love of her. “I am determined on my course, Anne,” she whispered, and was off in a flash of white and down the stairs to the great room, calling loudly for the captain of her guard.
He knelt before her, head bowed, one hand on his sword hilt. “Majesty, what would you have of me?”
“We will take no guard with us.”
She thought the captain turned as white as her dress. “Majesty, I beg you, do not go among such numbers of new men who could harbor treachery.”