Just Flesh and Blood

by Caro, Jane;

  ‘The Commons are debating the taxation monopolies, Your Grace.’

  ‘It is always a contentious matter.’

  I had been staring bleakly out of my casement window. It was, as I knew all too well, the same window through which my mother had pleaded with my father for her life. It was not a view to cheer me, yet I sought it out deliberately. I was sitting in the window-seat, so I could turn my face away from those around me and yet seem as if I was occupied in examining the flower gardens outside. One of my ladies was playing the lute. Had you asked me, however, I could not have named what tune she played or what flowers had bloomed in the garden. Nor could I have told you the thoughts that occupied my mind. I was sitting in a great blank.

  Cecil approached me, bearing in one arm, just as his father always used to do, a great sheaf of papers. ‘Forgive me, Your Grace, but there is unrest in the Commons.’

  ‘There is unrest everywhere these days.’ And I fetched another of my great sighs.

  I still had not turned to look at my secretary of state. I wanted him to go away and handle this difficulty without me. Cecil stood his ground. ‘The Commons feel you are now taxing staples to reward your courtiers. They complain that this largesse comes at the expense of the ordinary folk while costing you nothing.’

  I turned to face him now. There was some truth in what he was telling me.

  ‘Members are listing the items that are so constrained, including currants, vinegar, lead, pilchards, various types of cloth and even ashes. One had the audacity to ask whether bread was not included and, when told it was not, remarked that given the rest of the list, it soon would be. His comments are being reported far and wide and discussed in every market square and public house.’

  ‘And discontent is growing about this?’

  ‘It is, and fast on the heels of the death of Essex …’

  ‘That traitor!’

  ‘Indeed, Your Grace, but the people loved him.’

  ‘Not enough to rise up in rebellion on his behalf!’

  ‘Indeed not. They loved you better.’

  ‘Do they not still?’

  ‘The danger has passed, and it is the way of the world that we forget how frightened we were when once again we feel safe. And so it is with the people who called for his death and then greeted the event with much weeping. Their tears have emboldened those who were already discontented, and they are taking every opportunity to add fuel to the fire.’

  ‘It is an old, old story.’ And I sighed again.

  ‘The discontented are always with us, no matter how judicious the government.’

  ‘What is your advice, wise Master Secretary?’

  ‘This is something that would be easy to fix and would earn you much good will.’

  ‘It will cost me money and you know how little I like to deplete my treasury.’

  ‘Aye, and a wise policy it is to spend only what you must. However, your care for the Crown’s resources has put you in a strong position and you can well afford to make these concessions. Surely the point of having a well-managed treasury is that you can spend money when it is right and necessary.’

  Cecil was adept at lifting me out of my melancholy. He well knew that my thrift was something I was proud of. I sat up a little straighter before I replied.

  ‘And what could be more right and necessary for a queen who loves her people than to spend money removing unfair burdens from them?’

  ‘You put the case exactly, Your Grace.’

  ‘Fetch me the Speaker, my lord. This, at least, I can put to rights.’

  And I did feel a burst of my old energy at the thought of tackling something that could and should be corrected. Most of the problems I had to deal with were much less easily solved. I also recalled the monopolies I had given to Essex and how little gratitude he had shown in return. I now felt less inclined to reward the great and the self-obsessed with sinecures.

  Cecil and I had calculated correctly. Parliament was so pleased at the cancellation of the monopolies that they sent a deputation to thank me.

  November 30, 1601 was a good day, although the weather had turned bleak. The skies had already drawn in, and the cold got into my bones in a way that it had not when I was younger. I made sure the fires in my palace all blazed accordingly. My loyal members of parliament arrived at Whitehall at about three in the afternoon and, no doubt, were pleased to stand in the warmth of the great fire crackling in my audience chamber. I saw a couple of them flip up their surcoats the better to feel the warmth of the fire on their silken-clad behinds. I could not help thinking to myself that while sometimes my MPs were hot-heads – I much preferred them as hot-bottoms. It is a remark that in the past I might have made to the courtiers standing nearest to me but now I held my tongue. Since most of my contemporaries have died, since the death of Essex, I had few close to me who I felt I could trust with my humour. Moreover, I did not want any note of cynicism to mar this day. I had made these tax concessions to increase my popularity and now I wished to reap the rewards. After all, I had paid for them.

  The Speaker’s vote of thanks was as fulsome as I could wish and the acclamations from the members of parliament gathered in my presence were heart-warming. I looked down upon the MPs from my seat on the dais with real affection. Perhaps I was softening in my old age. I had previously regarded parliament as an annoyance; now I felt a kinship with these men. When the Speaker had finished giving his thanks we of the court applauded. Then, it was my turn to speak. I did not stand, pleading my advanced years as an excuse, but I leant forward on my throne and scanned the room slowly. It was gratifying to see the men’s response. My gaze made them bashful. I waited until I had met the eyes of every man there before I began my reply.

  ‘Mr Speaker, we have heard your declaration and perceive your care of our estate. I do assure you there is no prince that loves his subjects better, or whose love can countervail our love. There is no jewel, be it of ever so rich a price, which I set before this jewel: I mean your love. For I do esteem it more than any treasure or riches; for that we know how to prize, but love and thanks I count invaluable. And, though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves.’

  As I spoke, I felt my heart swell with affection for all in that room – yes, even those I knew were quick to see fault in their queen. I had composed this speech for political reasons, but as I came to say the words, I found that I meant them.

  ‘Of myself, I must say this: I never was any greedy, scraping grasper, nor a strait fast-holding prince, nor yet a waster. My heart was never set on any worldly goods. What you bestow on me, I will not hoard it up, but receive it to bestow on you again.’

  It was as if I knew that this would be the last great speech I would make to the men of my parliament. We had experienced many ups and downs in forty-three years, even though none of the men now before me had been in their seats when I first spoke to their company. We had been through much together, not all of it easy or pleasant. But we were colleagues, we were comrades and we had prevailed.

  I thought of our past disagreements. I remembered well how one member called me ‘tyrant’ and ‘a great Turk’. I remembered my fury at their impertinence when parliament after parliament urged me to marry and give the kingdom an heir, as if I were some kind of brood mare. Yet, all of this was now past. The shape of my reign, whether it went on for many more years or ended on the morrow, was set. Semper eadem, it would not now change.

  My thoughts affected the words that I uttered. I suddenly felt strongly that I wished to speak to these men, not as queen to subjects, but as equal to equal. As I say, I did not know that this was to be my last speech to them, but if I had thought about it, I might have suspected as much. Nevertheless, I knew the effect I wanted this speech to have on those who listened.

  ‘And I am not so simple to suppose that there are some of the
Lower House whom these grievances never touched. I think they spake out of zeal to their counties and not out of spleen or malevolent affection as parties grieved. That my grants should be grievous to my people and oppressions privileged under the colour of our patents, our kingly dignity shall not suffer it. Yea, when I heard it, I could give no rest unto my thoughts until I had reformed it.’

  I even began to confide in these men – these good and honest Englishmen. I shared with them some of the ideas I had formed during my long and wearisome rule. And I suppose although they stood about me on Turkish carpets and I sat upon my throne on a dais, beneath my cloth of state, I felt, at last, that I could sit upon the ground and talk of the death of kings.

  ‘We know the title of a king is a glorious title, but be assured that the shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled our eyes, that we do not know and remember that we also must give an account of our actions before the Great Judge. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.’

  And, at the end, with my eyes swimming with tears and my heart as full as ever I can remember it, I departed from the politically acceptable words I had written and spoke directly from my heart.

  ‘There will never be a queen with more zeal to her country, care to her subjects or with a willingness to give her life for your protection. For it is our desire to neither live nor reign any longer than shall be for your good. And though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat than we are, you never have had nor shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.’

  When, at last, I stopped speaking and sat back in my chair, the room was still and silent. All that could be heard was the crackling of the logs in the great fire. Then, as one, all the people in that room broke into thunderous applause and I saw that tears were streaming down many of the faces turned towards me. I put up my own hand to dash away a tear as, like them, I was quite overcome.

  Some of the men began to call out in response to my words. ‘Long live the queen.’ ‘God bless Queen Elizabeth!’ and such-like. In fact, the wave of love and approval almost became too much for me. I held up my hand.

  ‘Mr Speaker?’

  Sir John Croke turned towards me and I could see that he was also crying.

  ‘I pray to you, Mr Comptroller, Mr Secretary and you of my council, that before these gentlemen go back into their counties, you bring them all to kiss my hand.’

  They came meekly, almost shyly, one after another. Some muttered blessings, some spoke of their loyalty and their love, some were silent, some sobbed, some crushed my hand in their enthusiasm, some treated it as if it were made of delicate glass. Some dropped tears upon it, some more noisome stuff, but I did not flinch, nor did I lower my arm, although my shoulder soon ached. As each paid his respects, so he made his way out of the room.

  I was told later that one member of parliament spoke these words to general agreement as all of the Commons made their way out of my palace.

  ‘We love her for she said she did love us.’

  Other kings may have said as much, nay, may even have felt as much, but I think that my sex has had some advantage – although there were many burdens peculiar to me due to my gender. My advantage as a woman was that I could speak of my love for my people in a way that a man could not. I think also that it became easier for me to speak of this love as I grew older and as they all slowly (albeit reluctantly) accepted that I meant what I had always said and that I would not marry or bear children. Over time, I became their loving mother and in return for my care of them, just as an infant does to their parent – despite Essex, despite religious differences, despite my lack of an heir – they loved me unreservedly in their turn.

  And yet … and yet … the love of multitudes is all very well, and I do not belittle its importance or the comfort and sense of security it gave me. But I am alone, and I have always been alone. Those few who sincerely loved me for the flesh-and-blood woman I am are gone. Now the only love left to me is impersonal. There is no one left who loves Elizabeth. Those who remain love a queen.

  Because the love of multitudes is only a thin comforter, my good mood lasted only a day or two. Quickly I returned to my sense of melancholy and isolation, to my compulsive walking and the sense of the heavy phantom chain weighing me down. Its heaviness seemed always with me, from the moment I woke until the next time I slept. It bent my back, slowed my steps and exhausted me. Its weight forced me to think of every link and every sin. The people I had hurt, the misery I had caused by exercising my power and keeping my throne safe and my country stable and prosperous.

  Maybe this is why they say ruling is not the business of women. Maybe it is true that we are made for love and kindness more than for domination and ruthlessness. I do not know if any kings ruminated over their mistakes in the way that I did. As my health and vigour began to fail, I began to go back over my sins, so I could make my peace with God.

  It was not just the great and the ambitious who suffered at my hands. Any poor soul who was close to me by blood was also a victim. It is no use me trying to pretend otherwise. I could not behave to them as I might an ordinary mortal. I could not allow them to live an ordinary life. The only comfort I could find for the destruction I had wrought on my royal cousins was that their fate could so easily have been mine if circumstances had been just a little different.

  I had not thought about my Grey cousins for years, but now that I knew there were links in my phantom chain with their names upon them I was forced to revisit cruelties I had long managed to forget.

  This business of dying is inexorable. It forces me to face things I would rather not see. At least the fate of all three of the Grey girls was not down to me. I had nothing to do with the demise of the first. It was my sister Mary Tudor who had to answer for that.

  The only sensible member of the Grey family – the ill-fated Lady Jane – was brought low by the ambition and folly of others. Her execution at the tender age of seventeen is an event, even after all these decades have passed, that I can only recall with pain. I did not like her when we were young. I competed with her and my envy of her intellect led me to delight in teasing and bullying her. I regret my foolish, mean-spirited behaviour now, but I never did her any real harm. It is not on her account that I could face hellfire. Indeed, even if it was my sister queen who was forced by circumstance to have the poor girl executed – an action I know she regretted bitterly – it was the little nun’s father, mother and father-in-law’s religious fanaticism and vaunting ambition that were the real culprits. When she died, England lost one of the great minds of our era, a fact few were ever aware of. Because her razor-sharp brain was carried in the vessel of a mere girl, no one but her teachers (and her nearest scholastic rival) ever valued her abilities. Her broad, deep and serious mind was not missed by anyone. I wonder sometimes at the waste.

  Now, as I sit waiting my turn to die I cannot help but wonder what she might have achieved had she been allowed to live. I do not believe for a moment that the foolishness that tripped up her less gifted younger sisters would ever have snared Jane. I hope that in only a little while (a few more hours only, please God) I can apologise for my childish cruelty to her. For if there is one soul I am certain stands on the right hand of God, it is Lady Jane Grey. Of the fate of her sister Katherine’s soul I am not nearly so sure.

  ‘She loves him, Your Majesty.’

  I was seated at my mirror while my ladies combed and arranged my hair. They had only permitted Robin Dudley to enter my chamber at such an early hour because many of them already knew what he came to tell me. He had come to tell me about my cousin, the granddaughter of my father’s younger sister Mary – my erstwhile lady-in-waiting Lady Katherine Grey.

  In the small hours of the night, as Robin had just finished telling me, Lady Katherine had appeared at his door and the story she had told him,
in floods of tears, was astonishing in the extreme.

  ‘Love, Robin? Love? She has no right to love or to marry where I have not given her permission. She is of blood and a lady of my privy chamber – some even tout her as a possible heir to my throne. Love is not for her.’

  ‘She carries Edward Seymour’s child.’

  ‘Aye, or else she would have kept this marriage a secret much longer.’

  I turned and commanded my nearest lady-in-waiting. ‘Fetch Lady Katherine and bid her to attend me immediately, and, once you have done that, fetch the guard.’ Then I turned back to my master of horse. ‘She has used you, Robin. She has sought to soften the impact of this news by having you do her pleading for her.’

  ‘She came to me in distress and asked for my advice, that is true, but all I agreed to do was tell you everything as soon as it was light and this I have done.’

  ‘The girl is a fool.’

  ‘In that she is not unusual.’

  I will say it again; I find it hard to have much sympathy with those who are lovesick; so many people – particularly of my own sex – are undone more by love than by hate. They follow their desires with little thought of tomorrow and then sob and plead when the consequences become all too apparent.

  I heard my cousin approach before I saw her – so loud and uncontrolled were her lamentations. When she came into my presence and saw Robin standing beside me, she threw herself onto the floor and hid her face in her skirts – her arms thrown out towards me. Her swelling belly was obvious to me now that I knew of its existence and I wondered at my own blindness in not having noticed her condition earlier.

  For a few moments, the only sound in the room was my cousin Katherine’s desperate tears.

  ‘Sir Robin tells me you have married Edward Seymour with no permission. Is this true?’