by Susan Kay
“You speak too well, sir, to be lost among this crowd again. Robin, surely you can find a place for him?”
“It would be a pleasure, madam.”
“And your name, sir?”
“Edmund Campion, madam—Your Majesty’s most loyal and devoted servant.”
“Edmund Campion, do you acknowledge me as your Queen?” The panelled room rushed back into his sight. The Queen’s voice was harder and harsher than he remembered it, as though the long years had worn away some of its musical intonation. Looking up into her face he saw she no longer had laughing eyes.
“I acknowledge you as my Queen.” He paused, and added firmly, “As my lawful Queen.”
“Then it is not your belief that the Pope may lawfully excommunicate and depose me?” she continued eagerly.
His eyes flickered but did not leave her face.
“Madam, it is not for me to judge between Your Majesty and His Holiness.”
She sighed and made a quick movement to still Lord Burghley who had leaned forward to ask the vital question upon which the man’s life hung.
“Campion, long ago I believe we were friends. My lord of Leicester showed you great favour, did he not?”
“He did indeed, madam, and I was deeply grateful for it.”
“Your gratitude has taken a strange form—defection to Rome—treason,” she said softly.
“Madam, there has never been any treason in my heart. I am a priest. My mission is to save souls, not to engage in seditious activities.”
His eyes as they rested on her face were gentle and humorous, and even now she could not quite see them as those of a fanatic or a martyr. So much wit and humour in that rather gallant frame would have brought him the Presidency of St. John’s, if not a bishopric in the English Church, had not his sudden and unlooked for defection to Rome ruined a promising career, making him an outcast and a fugitive in his native land. If he recanted now he would be a trophy for the Protestant Church. His example would weaken the roots of the entire Jesuit mission and prove that more could be gained by reason and bribery than by harsh, repressive laws which shed the blood of the guilty and the innocent without distinction.
“Lord Burghley will ask you one question,” she said gently. “Think well before you answer.”
The question, a device of Burghley’s, was to earn the title of “the bloody question” because there was no reasonable answer that could satisfy both the demands of the state and the demands of the Roman faith.
Burghley cleared his throat and Campion turned to look at him with quiet respect, then bowed his head.
“If the Pope should send an army to depose Her Majesty, Edmund Campion—what would you do?”
There was a pause, a moment of breathless stillness in the evening air.
“My lord, I would do as God should give me grace.”
Burghley grunted and pressed his lips together in vexation at time wasted on a fool. The man had signed his own death warrant and as far as Burghley was concerned there was no more to be said. Instinctively he began to tidy the papers on the desk before him and had opened his mouth to summon the guards, when the Queen shook her head and held up her hand in a quick, commanding gesture.
“One moment, my lord. Rise, Campion, and look at me.”
He did as he was bidden and she held out both her hands to him once more. Automatically he knelt at her feet, pressing her fingers fervently to his lips as though in mute apology.
“You mean me no harm, I know that, but you must recognise the threat you present to the English Church and through that, the state. I have a proposition to make to you and I hope you will listen.” Over Campion’s head she saw Burghley stir indignantly and ignored him, concentrating all her will and all her charm on the man who knelt at her feet. “All I ask is that you show your goodwill publicly by attending one Protestant service. I give you my word it need only be one and that you will be free to worship as you please after that, in total freedom. Campion, I believe you to be a good and gentle man. I am asking you to prevent bloodshed in this land we both love.”
She was clever, he admitted that, very, very clever, and the quiet, sane, pleading voice brought him to the very brink of spiritual chaos. It would be so easy to do what she wanted in the spirit of self-justification, to bend a little to the wind of necessity, and say—What does it really matter? Just once! Just once, she said, and looked at him almost tenderly, as though she really cared, with just enough weariness in her eyes to make him ashamed of laying yet another burden on her shoulders. She knew exactly how to play on a man’s feelings; she was not ashamed of emotional blackmail and he could feel himself sliding effortlessly into her trap, lured to the rocks by a siren’s voice.
He opened his mouth to agree and closed it again, seeing the rocks on which his soul would be torn asunder just in time. He would not barter his place in Heaven to buy a little extra time on earth and spend it in comfort.
“Madam, forgive me,” he said gently. “I cannot do as you ask.”
She withdrew her hands from his and let them fall into her lap in despair as the summer evening darkened steadily beyond the tall casements. The reasons of state and the reasons of faith had met and clashed and fallen apart, irreconcilable. Campion, like Sir Thomas More in her father’s day, remained the Queen’s good servant—but God’s first. There was nothing more to be said. She could not help him now.
She snapped her fingers curtly. At Leicester’s command the guards returned to remove the prisoner and in his wake the council members filed silently from the room, leaving the Queen alone with her host.
Elizabeth walked to the empty hearth, laid a hand on the chimney-piece, and leaned her forehead against it. Leicester watched her for a moment in silence, staring at the high lace collar which stood out around her shoulders, hiding her jewelled hair from view. Presently he came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t reproach yourself—you did everything you could to save him.”
She shook her head.
“I could offer him nothing he held important.”
“You offered him his life,” said Leicester firmly, “and if that’s not important to a man, I’m damned if I know what is! He’s brought this on his own head and, fond as I was of the fellow, I can’t say it surprises me. Since I first knew him he was a stubborn devil.”
“But not a traitor.”
Leicester frowned. This was exactly the reaction he had feared.
“Madam, according to law—”
“I know the law!” she said irritably, moving away from him. “God knows I ought to—I made it! And may God forgive me for it.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No—don’t humour me! Don’t cozen me with your logic. There is no way I can escape the consequences of what I have done. When I came to the throne, this land was sick with religious persecution. I hated it then and I hate it now. How many more loyal men am I to lose through this bigoted madness?”
“For every one who is loyal there may be five waiting to strike,” said Leicester patiently. “Nothing disturbs me more than your belief that the increase of Catholics in this country can be no danger to you. They are saying in Europe that the Pope has given England to anyone who will undertake to go and get it. The danger to your life—”
“Oh, my life!” She swung round upon him contemptuously. “Is my life really worth all this?”
He put his hand gently beneath her chin and raised her face to his.
“Your life,” he said slowly, “the continuance of your reign, is the only thing that matters now in England. And if it costs the death of Campion and a thousand like him, it will be worth it. You are the rightful Queen of England.”
“In English law,” she said steadily, “I am illegitimate.”
He was silent. It was something no loyal Protestant spoke of—but certainly there was
no denying what lay on the Statute Book. Uneasily he watched her toy with the contents of his fruit bowl; there was something in her expression, oddly intense and preoccupied, that disturbed him greatly.
“All the evil in the world God took and locked in an apple, forbidden fruit of a blighted tree.” She held an apple in one hand and scored its smooth skin with a sharp fingernail, squeezing till it bled a little juice on to her gown. “Such an incredible fierce desire to eat apples…the King says it means I am with child…” Suddenly she looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you know who said that, Robin?”
A cold finger touched his spine, setting the hairs at the nape of his neck on end. He knew the tale of old, how Anne Boleyn, in those very same words, had announced her pregnancy to a gallery of startled courtiers, had laughed and run from them in her ecstasy of triumph, leaving them all abashed and uneasy, knowing the break with Rome was now certain because “The Lady” had conquered. If Anne had not conceived Elizabeth so quickly after her surrender; if the King had had time to weary of that long pursued pleasure so suddenly, unexpectedly attained; if there had never been that added spur, the promise of a son and heir…
If I had never been born…
That was her thought; he saw it in her face and heard it in her voice, so full of anguished doubt and uncertainty, almost revulsion. It was a very short and easy step to the next thought: If I were dead…
Or had she already reached that conclusion? Was that subconscious desire at the root of her indifference to safety, the secret of her reckless, at times almost deliberate, courting of assassination?
He took her hands in an urgent grip.
“There is peace and prosperity in this land now where once there was discord and bankruptcy. Our status in Europe is unparalleled—how can you doubt that your power is for good?”
She shook her head sadly.
“You have eaten of the apple and lost the ability to judge. I am embarking on a reign of terror—is that not evil?”
“It is not of your choosing,” he said grimly. “Your enemies have forced it upon you.”
“Who will remember that—innocent victims like Campion?”
“God will remember,” he said quietly. “God is your only judge.”
She turned her back on him to stare out of the window and remember how she had come to the Tower as a prince, thanking God for His mercy and in His name pledging mercy “to all men.” As she looked out of’the window into a growing gloom lit by the flaming torches of Campion’s escort, she saw bitterly how she must show that mercy from now on. The prisoner, limping slowly down the sloping lawns to the waiting barge, stumbled on his crippled legs and fell down on the gravel path. For a moment he lay still, exhausted and bemused, until an impatient guard cursed and kicked him to his feet, dragging him on to the hideous death of a traitor which was all that awaited him now. She bit her lip, angry with Campion for his stiff-necked stubbornness, angry with Walsingham and his kind who had brought it to this, angrier still with herself that, for expediency, she would stand by and let it happen. She felt degraded, unclean, and faintly sick. The ruling of men was a dirty business—
Out along the dark river went the burning, orange lights, flickering and bobbing as gaily as festival torches. Leaning against the casement she watched them disappear, swallowed up in the enveloping mouth of nightfall.
Leicester put one hand around her narrow waist, twining his fingers round the gold chain, girdled with pearls. He sensed her despair.
“Let me get you some brandy.”
“Get my cloak instead,” she said, closing the shutter firmly, as though she had closed a door in her mind. “It’s late. Burghley will be waiting for us in the barge.”
For a moment he hesitated, wondering if he dared; but when at last he found the courage to take her into his arms, she laid her head on his shoulder and seemed glad of the physical comfort. He held her close, with rising hope, and remembered that once before despair had brought her to his bed…
“There’s no need for us to return to court tonight,” he said softly. “I can send word to Burghley that you’re too weary to make the journey—it will cause no surprise and little comment. Stay with me here and I will make you forget them all—Campion, Philip, the Queen of Scots. In my arms all your enemies are defeated.”
She stiffened and drew away from him. She had just sent an innocent man out to death and Leicester, who had been his friend, had the disgusting effrontery to suggest they went to bed and forgot all about it! Pretty much she supposed as her father must have done the day after her mother’s execution.
He watched her eyes harden, her hands clench into fists, and, misreading the cause of her anger, became angry himself.
“So that’s the way it’s to be, is it? Just because I sent your little French prince packing, you’ll waste the rest of your life and mine, for spite—for pure spite! You never loved him—you’d have hated him within a month! So what did I do that cannot be forgiven?”
“You killed my child,” she said softly and his anger went out like a doused candle, taking his hope with it. He understood at last that the price he had paid for his victory was to lose her for ever and he looked at her sadly.
“You accepted the challenge and you lost. Can’t you be gracious in defeat?”
“I’m a bad loser, Robin, like my father. I should have thought you had learnt that by now.”
He picked up her cloak and came to wrap it round her shoulders in a gesture of resignation.
“Come,” he said wearily, “I will take you back to Whitehall if that is really what you wish.”
Her wish was his command—always had been and always would be. And she would never change; perversity was second nature to her now. But it was a waste, a sad and wicked waste of love; and one day she might be sorry for it—
His steward lit them down the wide staircase into the Great Hall and out on to the terrace, down a flight of steps to the knot gardens, down another flight to the lawns, cut in whimsical shape, two stately figures in gleaming court costume trailing noiselessly away over the twisting paths to the waterfront. They might have been ghosts, sad and silent in the darkness.
Burghley stood as he saw them approach, but they did not speak to him or to anyone else. In silence Leicester handed the Queen into the waiting barge, joined her on the cushions beneath the royal canopy, and snapped his fingers curtly to the oarsmen.
Slowly the great barge, fluttering gay pennants, slipped away into the pitch black night.
* * *
Campion and five others stood trial in Westminster Hall, charged with plotting the Queen’s dethronement. He said with the little glint of humour which never deserted him, even at the end, “If our religion makes us traitors we are worthy to be condemned, but otherwise we are as true subjects as ever the Queen had.”
On the scaffold he prayed out loud for Elizabeth “to whom I wish a long quiet reign and all prosperity.” And in return for that prayer he was allowed to hang until completely dead, before his internal organs were slit from his body.
* * *
“…There is no doubt whatsoever who sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God’s service not only does not sin, but gains merit…”
Secretary Walsingham repeated this official edict from the Vatican with fierce indignation, but the Queen merely yawned and shrugged and went out hunting, while Walsingham went away to brood darkly on the forces of evil.
He was one of the few men in her service who had failed to get on to a warm, personal footing with the Queen. He was cold and sly and fanatical, but he was also brilliant and efficient; she tolerated him for that. She was generally unkind and often downright rude to him, but he bore the kicks and served her with endless diligence, because there was nothing he abhorred more than the prospect of Mary Stuart on the English throne. Walsingham’s few emotional needs were satisfied by the fie
rce demands of his work, his lifelong devotion to the task of crushing the Catholic faith in England and extinguishing its most illustrious flame and figurehead—the Queen of Scots; his hatred of the woman he had never seen was an obsession.
He maintained, at his own expense, a flourishing and ruthlessly efficient spy system which was already a byword in Europe. “Knowledge is never too dear,” he had once said sanctimoniously, and he had found Elizabeth quite happy to let him prove that. He lavished his personal fortune and ceaseless vigilance on this unique system and the Queen already owed her life to it several times over. His unstinting service was given without love and received without gratitude; and they were both content that it should be so.
Early in 1583, searching desperately for news of “the Enterprise of England,” Walsingham stumbled upon a new plot against the Queen’s life. His money had left a trail of corruption in every foreign embassy throughout the length and breadth of Europe. It was thus that he had come to tap the regular, secret correspondence between Mary Stuart and the French Ambassador and through it discovered the activities of Francis Throckmorton.
Throckmorton was seen creeping away from Mendoza’s house late one night and was placed under close surveillance. Walsingham’s men seized him at his lodgings at Paul’s Wharf in the very act of writing a ciphered letter to the Scottish Queen and he was removed to the Tower, where he withstood the rack three times before breaking down and revealing the internationally based plot which had embraced the Guise party in France, the King of Spain, the Spanish Ambassador, the Queen of Scots, and several Catholic nobles at the English court. The massive conspiracy was revealed in a welter of impressive circumstantial evidence based on Throckmorton’s verbal confessions under torture and Walsingham was gratified by the hysterical response his publication of the issue provoked among the Council and the English people. Burghley promptly drew up a long list of elaborate precautions for the Queen to take in an attempt to avoid assassination, which she glanced at with a wry smile, and largely ignored.