“Gloves!” She pressed them to her cheek and inhaled. “Perfume!” She slid them on, smiling. “You knew my dimensions!”
“I’ve studied your hands.”
“Dear boy.” She patted the stool beside her. “Come here.”
He climbed the three steps to the raised platform and sat.
“Tell me all about Italy, and don’t leave anything out.” Again she pressed the gloves to her cheek.
“That might be difficult,” he said. “I was away for more than a year.”
“If you grow weary, we’ll take refreshment. Did you get ideas for plays?”
“More than I ever imagined, Your Majesty. I’ve set three in France and a dozen more in Venice, Verona, Padua, Mantua, Sicily, Illyria, Ephesus, the island of Volcano, Rome—”
“Just as I predicted—enough material for a lifetime.”
“Two lifetimes, if you count the English history plays I revised, not to mention two long poems I have in mind. I’ll need several secretaries just to keep my fingers from cramping.”
“I asked your uncle to meet with you as soon as you returned—Thomas is my Lord Chamberlain now.”
“He was a bulwark against the rebels in the north.”
“Now he’s responsible for my well-being. I told him I need plays, but drama’s not his forte. He’ll need your help.” She sighed. “Edward, the situation’s ugly. My Privy Council’s assessed a twenty-pound fine on anyone failing to attend Protestant services or traveling more than five miles from home. There’ve been assassination attempts from Rome. ”
“Rather cruel, don’t you think?”
“I tried to dissuade them. My father expelled the church only thirty years ago and half of England still adheres to the old religion. But the council was determined.” She clapped her hands. “Enough of that. I need distractions—you write the plays and Tom will stage them in the palace. Nothing religious—I need amusement that’s witty and sophisticated.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He told her everything he could about Italy except for Virginia. When it grew dark outside, they ate dinner. She seemed thrilled to listen to his every word, and he found he enjoyed retelling his adventures.
He was about to leave when she laid a hand on his arm and turned to the captain of the guards. “Clear the room.”
“Edward, go back to your wife,” she said as soon as they were alone. “Nan needs you more than ever.”
He stiffened. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“I’m your queen—there’s no such thing.”
“Your Majesty …” He took a deep breath. “Nan was unfaithful. The child isn’t mine.”
“Ridiculous.”
“It’s not. She all but admitted it to her doctor.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t believe it. There’s some misunderstanding here.”
“The child was born eleven months after I slept with her at Hampton Court—”
“The baby was born in July,” she said. “Trust me, I was informed.”
“But she wasn’t christened until September.”
The queen looked at him as if he weren’t very bright.
“We were waiting for you. Though I did tell Cecil it was wasted effort.”
He was silent.
“Edward?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“What’s this really about?” Her eyes narrowed. “What happened in Italy?”
He sighed. “I want to write, that’s all.”
“You are writing.”
“I need to be free to write.”
“You write because you’re not free, Edward.”
Again he was silent.
“I want you to think about it.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“And I want you to speak to Nan, hear her explanation from her own lips. You owe her that much.”
“All right,” he said. “But I refuse to see the baby.”
The next morning he received a message from his uncle proposing that they meet at The Steelyard at eleven, but it was nearly noon when Tom burst into the tavern, white hair flying and his arm in a sling.
Ever since Edward had returned to London, he’d been behaving like an Italian nobleman, bowing and blowing kisses from his forefinger. But when Tom enfolded him in a hearty bear hug, he felt like a boy again, safe in his father’s arms. But only for a moment.
“Come on,” Tom said, “we‘ve got work to do.”
“Since when are you in charge of the queen’s entertainment?” Edward said. “Didn’t Dudley used to handle all that?”
“Not since the queen discovered he’d married Lettice Knollys in secret. Got tired of waiting for Her Majesty, I imagine.” He settled into a chair and ordered ale for them both.
“I need plays, fast. I hope to God you have a few ready.”
“More than a few.”
“Whitehall’s got a spare dining hall we can use as a theater, Edward. Twenty by forty, enough for the queen and her courtiers—she’s down to twenty-five, you know, hasn’t appointed a new nobleman since your father-in-law.” He shook his head. “There’s an endless line of ambassadors, though. I stopped counting at twenty. Seems we get a new one every day, all to convince her to marry their man.” He drained his mug. “The long and short of it is that I’m pressed to find a way to entertain these folks. What have you got for me?”
“My Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth is ready, but the queen wants comedies. I suppose we could start with The History of Error. It’s good as done.”
“If it’s a comedy, why not call it The Comedy of Errors?”
He shrugged. “I’ve no objection. I also have one about a nobleman who’s always selling his lands and giving away the profits—”
Tom chuckled. “Sounds like you. What else?”
“Love’s Labour’s Lost, but it’s not finished.”
“Work on it.”
“And I’m outlining a dozen others set in Italy.”
“Wonderful—the queen loves Italy, talks about it all the time. Never been there myself. What are those about?”
“One’s a love story—”
“Perfect,” he said. “Her ladies-in-waiting are sure to swoon for that.” He winked. “The newest is Anne Vavasour. I haven’t seen her, but Raleigh says she’s a beauty. Her uncle’s Tom Knyvet.”
“I know him,” Edward said. “His family came over with the Norman invasion.” He grinned and refilled his uncle’s cup. “Glad to see old age hasn’t hurt your appetite for pretty young things.”
“Hah! Married twice and still no heir, you’d think I’d give up on the whole business. Hunsdon’s sired ten, only two with his wife, and he’s a decade older than me!” He sighed. “God’s balls, it’s good to see you. Up north I told myself I’d found a son.”
Edward smiled. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“How about the poems you wrote for the book, the one they printed before you left? Can you make plays out of them? The queen said she stayed up all night reading them.”
“Puritans stopped the sales,” he said. “They said the poems were pornographic. I’m bringing them out again, along with a satire on Hatton.”
“I don’t know what the queen sees in him. He knows how to dance but that doesn’t make him a captain of the guard.”
“I’m also working on a play about merchants in Venice.”
“Good, good. No one here knows shit about any place but England. One day they’re going to wake up and find the Spaniards are squeezing their balls. What else?”
“I started Pericles, Prince of Tyre. It won’t be done for a while, though.”
“Work on it.” Tom’s sword clanked against the table as he pulled himself to his feet. “Great to see you, Edward, but I’d best be off. Got a meeting to get to.”
“I’ve got a few more I’m working on,” he said. “One opens with a warning to Englishmen not to forget the ba
stard Prince Juan.”
“Do me a favor? Finish that one, fast. Don Juan’s the only one in the whole fucking barrel of Spaniards who knows how to fight.”
“I will,” he said. “There’s also—”
“Look, I really have to go. The Privy Council wants to meet about getting compensation from the Dutch for robbing you.” He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I were back in Ireland fighting Shane O’Neill.” Tom started toward the door but stopped. “Damn, I almost forgot—the queen said she’ll pay twenty pounds toward the cost of each play.”
“That’s barely enough for the actors! I can use my clothes for costumes, since all the leads are noblemen and royalty, but who‘s going to pay for sets, the musicians?”
“The queen says you will.” He grinned. “She’s tight as a mollusk’s asshole.”
“And thinks my pockets are hers, apparently.”
“She’s like that with everyone. No wonder no one wants to marry her.”
“I could make simple sets, play the music myself …”
Tom moved to one of the piss pots lining the walls. “Whatever you have to do,” he said over his shoulder. “Blast it, I’m going to be late. Look, I know it’s a pain, but we’ve got to get these things on—you know how the queen is about her entertainment.”
He finished relieving himself and marched out of The Steelyard, waving his hand over his head as if he were leading a charge.
Edward felt lighter than air. They were going to show his plays at court. Now all he needed was a place to sleep and work, somewhere far from Cecil House. Perhaps outside the city walls, near the new theaters.
While he was in Italy, he’d heard of an amphitheater a grocer and a carpenter built together in Shoreditch. It was so successful the carpenter started a second, The Curtain, with capacity for two or three thousand. Both were far beyond the jurisdiction of the Puritans.
Wouldn’t it be grand to live near theaters? Instead of courtiers and bankers, he’d have actors and musicians for neighbors.
The owners of The Bull, the Red Lion, and the Cross Keys had turned their taverns into theaters. Blackfriars’ enclosed hundred-seat theater was humming on land once owned by the church. Puritans had no jurisdiction there, either. Theater in London was finally coming alive.
When he reached Mark Lane, he saw a little girl with hair black as night standing alone on the corner. There were tears in her eyes.
“Little girl, why are you crying?” She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight.
She glanced at his nobleman’s ruff and sniffed. “Milord, my father is gone.”
“I’m so sorry.” He squatted so they were face-to-face. “What’s your name? Is your mother about?”
“Emilia Bassano.” She pointed to a house. “My mother’s with my uncles. I used to have five, but one died.” The sounds of a violin, a recorder, and a lute drifted out of the window, a mournful pavane in a minor key. A man appeared at the window.
“Emilia, time to come in.”
She gave a little wave and turned and ran inside.
Edward watched her enter the house. He thought of Nan and wondered if their daughter looked like him at all.
Of course not—she wasn’t his.
On January 1, 1577, seven months after he’d returned to England, The Comedy of Errors was presented in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace.
Edward played the role of Aegeon. No one objected to his playing the lead—why did they object to his being the author?
Cecil and Nan were there, but he avoided contact.
The next month, The History of the Solitary Knight was performed at Whitehall Palace. He played Timon. The queen smiled from the audience when Timon sold his lands to help his friends.
Two days after The Solitary Knight, he staged Titus Andronicus at Whitehall. Again he played the lead.
“Thank you, Edward,” the queen said after the performance. “You served notice on Philip.”
Then, Sir Thomas died.
For days Edward had trouble believing it. Then for weeks he mourned—he slept, drank sherry, barely wrote. In time, though, he realized how much Sir Thomas would have wanted him to write. So he picked up his pen and forced himself to work. At first it took him a half-hour to come up with a single line, but soon he became caught up in the story and characters and the words flowed.
By the end of 1578, Pericles, Prince of Tyre was almost ready. He decided to see how it felt onstage.
As soon as the performance was over, he knew the play needed work. But what most surprised him was what it revealed about his own state of mind, his yearning to finally be united with his daughter. And who should corner him after the performance but Nan.
“Edward!” A strained smile. “How are you?”
“Working.” He folded his hands behind his back. “And you?”
“I felt poorly for a long time after the baby was born, but I’m fine now.” Her expression turned pleading. “She’s a lovely child. You should see her. She looks just like you—”
“Please.” He held up his hands and then lowered his voice. “We both know she’s not mine.”
“That’s not true!” Nan looked as if she were about to burst into tears. “We waited for your return from Italy to baptize her—the vicar said we should—until he said we couldn’t wait any longer.”
“I spoke with Dr. Masters.”
She paled, then flushed.
“I was terrified. Can’t you understand?”
“I think I’ve understood quite enough.”
And he walked away.
He set Pericles aside when the queen asked him to accompany her on a progress.
Their first stop was Audley’s End, the Howard estate in Essex. He sat beside her as Gabriel Harvey, a childhood friend who was also tutored by Sir Thomas, delivered the valedictory in Latin.
Gabriel’s speech was filled with flowery phrases about the Earl of Oxford’s writing. He pronounced it equal to the best of the Greek and Roman masters. He reminded the audience of the Latin prefaces Edward had written for Bartholomew Clerke’s translation of The Courtier and Tom Bedingfield’s translation of Cardanus’ On Melancholy. Finally he pointed to Edward.
“You flatter Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of drama. You have written many Latin verses and even more in English. Thy will shakes spears!”
Edward rolled his eyes. He should have known Gabriel would do something like this, but he never dreamed he’d lay it on so thick. Since his appointment as a professor of rhetoric at Cambridge, he’d become a blowhard. Of course, he also wanted to be Edward’s secretary—maybe this was his way of applying.
The queen squeezed his hand and wiped tears from her eyes.
“Keep writing, Edward—never stop.” She pulled a roll of parchment from the leather bag she liked to carry. “Here’s the deed to the Manor of Rysing,” she said. “I confiscated the lands from the Duke of Norfolk when he was convicted of plotting with Mary Scots. They produce 250 pounds a year. Enjoy it.”
Startled, he thanked her and looked around. Everyone—Cecil, Dudley, Hatton—seemed impressed by Gabriel’s speech. Not him—he couldn’t abide the man’s excess. He decided to appoint Lyly his secretary.
The next year was even busier. In January, All’s Well That Ends Well was staged at court. He played Bertram.
Nan and Cecil weren’t there.
Humor added to the play’s success. Musicians played the “Earl of Oxford’s March” William Byrd had written for him.
He had good luck finding composers. He paid Robert Hales twenty pounds a year to compose for him, until the queen heard Hales’ music and stole him away. He then discovered Thomas Morley and commissioned him to write a song he was planning to use in Twelfth Night; or, What You Will. He used Dowling and other composers.
In 1579, he met Anne Vavasour at a court performance of A Moral of the Marriage of Mind and Measure. He could see why Tom had raved about her. She truly was beautiful—and she had the largest breasts he’d ever seen in Engl
and.
When the duc d’Alencon—the Frog—arrived from France, the queen invited him to every play. She said she wanted to impress him with England’s culture, though the duc himself seemed barely interested.
The first play Edward presented was The Jew. He played Antonio.
In Twelfth Night, Edward placed sheep’s bells around Malvolio’s neck. Hatton was mortified, but the queen only laughed.
The queen insisted she liked the Frog, though he wasn’t attractive. So far as Edward was concerned, he was a fortune hunter, no different from Hatton. Edward told her the Frog was more impressed with the Portuguese crown jewels Drake delivered to her from his last raid than with her.
The Frog sent his aide Simier to negotiate a marriage contract. When he arrived, the queen played the flirt. Edward found his frustration with her more than he could bear. He could support her marriage to the Frog—it offered England an ally against Spain—but this was too much.
It was time for another prank.
When the queen announced her intention to marry the Frog, a Puritan writer named John Stubbs dashed off a pamphlet, The Gaping Gulf, that attacked her decision. Stubbs was convicted of treason, his right hand was chopped off, and all copies of the pamphlet were burned.
Edward thought a subtler—and safer—gesture was called for.
He commissioned a costume, excessively French. The feather on his hat all but dwarfed his horse, and the brim was so broad the slightest breeze threatened to blow it off. The streets were filled with spectators. As he rode through the city, they gasped, laughed, cheered. There was no need to say anything—they all saw the costume for what it was.
When he arrived at the palace and pranced into the Presence Room, everyone fell silent. The queen said nothing, a silence that spoke volumes.
It was only a matter of time before she threw the Frog back into the pond.
Do not presume too much upon my love;
I may do that I shall be sorry for.
Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
The Shakespeare Mask Page 18