“Excellent! An avalanche of patriotic plays, each one explaining that with unity, England always prevails.” Walsingham drained his cup of ale and called for two more. “This is going to be easier than I thought.”
“Would you like to read them?”
He waved a hand. “Not now. She’ll be so pleased to hear you’ve agreed. Henceforth, Oxford’s Men will be the Queen’s Men.”
Edward sat back and stared at Walsingham, trying to take in this conversation. Two cups of ale arrived.
“You’ll be touring every summer until further notice.” Walsingham drained his cup, stood on his spindly legs, and clapped Edward on the back. “If I hear her shout, ‘Once more into the breach, for St. George and England!’ again, I’ll grab a sword and charge myself.” He chuckled and then turned and headed for the door.
“Francis!” Edward struggled to his feet. “Who’s going to pay for this? Touring costs a fortune.”
Walsingham stopped. “The queen said she’ll work something out with you.”
“Of course.” He could hardly stand the bitterness in his own voice. “We’ve heard that before, haven’t we?”
Walsingham gave a theatrical sigh. “Edward, I pay for the entirety of England’s spy service out of my own pocket. Now it’s your turn.” He thought for a moment. “She did part with a thousand pounds for an anti-papist campaign. I’ll give you half.”
With that, he scurried from The Pye.
Edward returned to his seat, listening to the music and rubbing his throbbing foot. He’d alert Tarleton to get the actors lined up.
But at the moment, it was time he checked on Nan.
He reached Savoy House as Dr. Lopez emerged from Nan’s room.
“She’s having a difficult time.”
“It’s started?” Edward said.
“Yes. The midwife’s with her, but I’m worried. Usually the second birth is easier.”
“She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
“I don’t know. She’s petite but determined. She wants so much to give you a boy.” Lopez picked up his leather bag. “Now I must go to the queen. She has another migraine headache. I’ll be back this evening.”
Edward crept into the room to find Nan asleep. He sat and watched her for a while and then went to his study. The place was cluttered with scripts. He had a habit of working on several plays at once, and parchment was scattered everywhere. He wanted so much to love his wife, and for her to love him. Yet they came from such different worlds, without and within.
He sat at his desk for a very long time, and at last he began to write.
Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint?
Who first did paint with colors pale thy face?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in Court who gave thee grace?
He heard a knock on the door.
“Come.”
The nurse entered. “Milord, her time has come. The midwife is with her, and I’ve sent a message to Dr. Lopez at the palace.”
“How is she?”
“It comes hard, milord.”
“Please call me if there’s anything I can do.
“Yes, milord.”
Tortured hours followed. He tried to return to the poem and couldn’t. If she died, he’d be the proximate cause. How could he live with that?
He’d already drunk with the Wits and with Walsingham, but drinking sherry was all he could do. He tapped his cane on the rug: it made no sound. The quiet was maddening. He finished the bottle of sack, opened another, and finished that one, too.
The hours dragged. Another knock. He glanced out the window—it was dark.
“Come in.”
Dr. Lopez entered.
“It’s a boy.”
He lost his breath. “Say again?”
“I said, it’s a boy. Congratulations.”
“You don’t look pleased. What’s wrong?”
“The baby’s not well, Edward. He doesn’t cry. He just entered the world and he’s already tired.”
“Nan?”
“She’s fine. She lost a lot of blood, but she’s young.”
“Can I see her?”
“The midwife’s preparing her for your visit.”
Edward stood and gripped his hand. “Thank you, Ruy, for everything. How’s the queen?”
“Migraines are her hell on earth.”
“Please pass on our good news, will you?”
“I will. And again, congratulations. At last you have the eighteenth Earl of Oxford.”
Nan’s room was dark and stuffy, all noxious outside air having been shut out.
The midwife greeted him and then left them alone. He bent over Nan’s bed and kissed her on the lips. Dressed in fresh bedclothes, she looked pale and tired. She smelled of lavender.
She opened her eyes and managed a smile. “My prince is here.”
“How are you, my sweet?”
“Better, now that it’s over.”
“Was it too terrible?”
“I’ll survive.” She bit her lip. “I hope the baby will. Dr. Lopez is worried. He didn’t say so, but I could see it in his eyes.”
“I looked in on the young fellow and he seems fine. He was sleeping. The nurse thinks he’s all right.”
She shut her eyes. “You have a boy, Edward.”
“We have a boy, and a girl.”
She squeezed his hand. “Thank you for saying that.”
“I can never apologize enough for what I did—”
“I told you I forgave you.”
“And I’m eternally grateful. But I can’t forgive myself.”
“Give it time.”
He kissed her again.
“Edward, you’re becoming sweet.” Her brow furrowed. “And you’ve been working less. Is something wrong?”
“Not at all. The Wits elevate my mood, remind me of when I was young.”
“My mother says youth’s like a fine bragging.”
“She’s very wise.”
“Would you find my father and tell him the news?” she said. “He’ll be so pleased—a grandfather twice over.”
“A veritable patriarch.”
He kissed her one more time and headed for Cecil House.
It was past midnight as he made his way across the Strand. Spring was finally here and the air was fragrant. He must remember to order some salve—Lopez swore it would lessen the pain in his foot.
He had a son!
It was late, so he used his key. He opened the door to Cecil House to find a servant dozing in a chair.
“Milord, it’s late.”
“I bring good news.”
After a long wait, the old boy appeared at the second-floor landing in a dressing gown and a night hat.
“What is it, Edward? I was in bed.”
“You’re a grandfather again—and it’s a boy.”
Cecil’s eyes lighted up. He began to make his way down the grand stairway, one step at a time, leaning heavily on his cane.
When he reached the foyer, he pulled Edward into a tight embrace—only the second he’d ever given in the twenty-one years he’d known him. When he released his grip, the two of them stood there grinning at one another.
“How’s Nan?” Cecil said finally.
“She’s fine. The baby, too. He’s asleep. I’m sorry I disturbed you, but Nan and I wanted to be the first to tell you.”
Cecil’s eyes brimmed with tears. He brushed them away with his fingers.
“Let’s celebrate. I’ll pour something.”
They hobbled on canes to the library.
“What a sight we are,” Cecil said.
“But we soldier on, don’t we?”
“We certainly do, my boy. Oysters?”
“Wrong season, isn’t it?”
/> “These are from Belgium. My boat outran the pirates.”
They laughed.
“Could you ask cook to bring something for after the oysters?” Edward said. “I haven’t had dinner. Can’t recall when I’ve been so hungry—or so happy.”
Two days later, the eighteenth Earl of Oxford died.
They buried him in the family graveyard at Hedingham Castle. Afterward, Edward took Nan to Wivenhoe. He thought the sea air might be a balm to her spirits—his were beyond repair.
Together they stood at the shore, staring out to sea, her hand on his arm.
“When my father died, I thought nothing again could ever hurt so much,” he said. “I was wrong.”
She turned to look at him, a strange resolve in her expression he hadn’t seen before.
“When you refused to accept Elizabeth,” she said, “my tutor told me, ‘I would not have thee linger in thy pain.’ Now I say the same to you. And I promise, we’ll try again.”
He drew her closer. His son would never smell salt air, never visit the countryside, never play in the snow. He was plunged into a melancholy far greater than any he’d ever known.
After they returned to the house, he went to his study and wrote:
What plague is greater than the grief of mind?
The grief of mind that eats in every vein;
In every vein that leaves such clots behind;
Such clots behind as breed such bitter pain;
So bitter pain that none shall ever find
What plague is greater than the grief of mind.
The following month, Tom Radcliffe died. It was a heavy blow. In the seven years since Edward had returned from Italy, Tom had been like a father to him. And although the court doctors said his death was a mystery, Edward had no doubt: his uncle had been poisoned. There’d been talk again of Dudley’s marrying the queen, and Tom had come out strongly—publicly—against it.
Of course, there was no proof, but Edward resolved to take revenge—with a play. Only not yet. It was too soon.
In time, he recovered enough from his melancholy to set about preparing for the first tour. He needed to purchase wagons, hire five more actors, and dredge up some decent costumes. Every major character was a king, a queen, or a noble, all of whom had to wear silks with faux jewels. The cost would be enormous.
He’d already sold forty-seven of his father’s 103 parcels. Now he’d have to sell another.
Worcestershire blended with Warwickshire and then Derbyshire. Leicerstershire blurred into Gloucestershire, Norfolk into Suffolk. In every shire a different dialect, in every town a different bed.
He opened with Henry V. As the queen predicted, the play was wildly popular. People were on edge as more and more priests were arrested and tortured alongside the locals who tried to hide them. Confessions were followed by more arrests, and the details were terrifying, but Henry V calmed fears and inspired hope.
Edward grew weary of performing the role of Henry V on a cane. He asked Tarleton to take over the leads, starting with a new approach to Richard III.
Tarleton didn’t disappoint. When he walked on stage with a clubfoot and a hump back, the audience went wild. Before now they’d had only the faraway Philip II of Spain to hate. Now they had a real live villain in the flesh. The approach was novel, and Edward embraced it— until it occurred to him the Cecils would be offended.
“Tarleton, you clown, you can’t play Richard III with a clubfoot! Cecil will have my head. ”
“Where do you think I got the idea?”
“Nan will never forgive me.”
“It was just an experiment. I won’t do it again. But did you see how the people mobbed me afterwards?”
Ah, the people. Would he ever get used to them? The rags and filth, the belching and farting. But it was the Catholic countryside that would dictate the country’s survival. London housed only two hundred thousand people—England had three million.
When his wagons entered a town, trumpets and sackbuts blared. Tumblers and acrobats did their tricks while Oxford-tawny and blue silks flapped in the breeze. It was almost as exciting as a cavalry charge.
A dozen wagons traveled behind him, transporting the Queen’s Men and their costumes, props, and servants. Country people seldom saw aristocratic finery, so he ordered some actors to wear their costumes into town. People pointed and shouted and sighed.
The only thing they didn’t bring along was food—there were plenty of taverns on the roads and he paid his actors well. Some grumbled and a few stole, but he turned a blind eye. He had enough on his mind.
Nan was pregnant again. Would the child live? Would she?
He came home to London to find Nan in labor. This time, everything went as it should: Nan gave birth to little Frances and the baby girl thrived. When he gazed at her, he thought he saw a smile.
Soon the queen summoned him.
She smiled as he entered the Presence Room. He smiled back—she was going to revoke his banishment, he saw it in her eyes.
And make her chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
Shakespeare
Henry V
The second year of touring was easier. In 1584, Nan—bless her—gave birth to Bridget, another beautiful daughter. Cecil was so pleased he didn’t even object when Edward had to sell Wivenhoe to pay his actors and buy wagons. Wivenhoe was a gem, and Cecil was impressed by the price he got: 2,315 pounds.
The touring was even easier in 1585. Edward had come to enjoy the rough-and-tumble crowds, and when he returned to London he felt so optimistic that he invested in another voyage: five hundred pounds on Adrian Gilbert’s attempt to find a northwest passage to China across the top of the New World.
The voyage didn’t succeed, but Captain Davis explored an area he called Newfoundland.
Then little Frances, only two years old, died.
He was almost mad with grief. Nan saw him through it—she was stronger than him. Was it faith? She said Cecil taught her to persevere.
All Edward could do was see toothless Frances smiling in her crib. He stayed in bed and cried for days until Nan persuaded him to return to writing.
In June 1586, he was preparing to leave on another tour when Cecil sent him a message to come at once.
He left Elizabeth practicing the virginals and the maid cleaning up Bridget’s food, which seemed to be everywhere, and limped across the Strand. His foot no longer pained him—Lopez had concocted something that killed the pain. He was now the queen’s personal physician, a full-time job in itself, though he also continued to care for the ailing Robin Dudley and Francis Walsingham, not to mention Edward’s family and Cecil.
Cecil was in the library, a broad smile on his face. The pain from gout was constant, but his eyes were sparkling. A royal decree with red ribbons and a seal lay on his desk.
“Sit down, my boy. Sherry?”
“It’s a little early, but I believe I will.” He accepted a glass. “Thank you.”
“Edward, I have before me a resolution of the Privy Council granting you the largest stipend I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few. Only the postmaster of England received one as large, and he’s forced to account for every penny. All you have to do is write your plays. The council even approved it unanimously—now that is a rarity.”
Edward was shocked. The queen seldom parted with a penny.
“A thousand pounds a year, Edward, payable quarterly, with no date of termination. Consider it a measure of England’s appreciation for your work. Your generosity and talent earned the respect of a nation, the queen, and her council.” Cecil slid the document across his desk. “Edward, Walsingham wrote the first draft—nothing about ‘services rendered,’ no reason stipulated for the payment.” He chuckled. “No stigma of print dishonors England’s premier earl.”
Edward picked up the document and stared at it. “It seems excessive.”
“Edwar
d, thanks to you, the people—Catholics and Protestants—are finally united. Well, as united as they’ll ever be. It took time, but at last England is whole.” Cecil slid a bill of exchange in his direction. “Here’s the first quarterly installment. The queen and Privy Council took note of the enormous sums you advanced on England’s behalf. She wanted to present the document and money to you herself, but last night she suffered another migraine attack. Lopez is with her now.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Enjoy it, spend a quiet day with the girls.
“Quiet day? With the girls?”
He was climbing into a wagon to lead the Queen’s Men on the summer tour when a messenger arrived with a package. He opened it and found a book by William Webbe: A Discourse of English Poetry.
He was scanning the book, wondering who’d sent it, when a paragraph leaped from the page:
I may not omit the deserved commendations of many honorable and noble lords and Gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Court, which, in the rare devices of poetry, have been and yet are most skillful; among whom the right honorable Earl of Oxford may challenge to himself the title of most excellent among the rest.
He shut the book and stowed it in the wagon. Talk about the stigma of print—he just hoped to God Cecil wouldn’t see it.
A message from the queen found him in Derbyshire.
She’d appointed him to the tribunal trying Mary Queen of Scots for treason. The captive Queen of Scots corresponded with a young Catholic named Babington who wanted to remove Elizabeth from the throne and replace her with Mary. A simpleminded plan, and the trial would be the usual farce—no attorney, no specific charges.
His brief? To sit on a panel of noblemen and find Mary Queen of Scots guilty.
The trial took place in the dead of winter at Fotheringhay Castle and lasted just a few hours. With thirty-four others, Edward convicted Mary of treason and sentenced her to death.
Her dignity was profound. She suffered from rheumatism and could hardly walk, yet her plea for mercy was so moving he took notes.
The Shakespeare Mask Page 21