by Susan Kay
Throckmorton perished in anguish at Tyburn, but, to Walsingham’s intense chagrin, no one was able to persuade the Queen to press the vague evidence discovered against her Scottish cousin. Mary’s imprisonment became as stern and uncomfortable as her gaoler could make it, but that was all. Walsingham was tempted to believe, along with the founder of the Jesuit College, William Allen, that the Queen of England had no religion at all. And Elizabeth, if she dared to admit it publicly, would now have agreed.
In December she rode from Hampton Court to London, with the French Ambassador at her side. Men and women knelt in the thick mud, their sharp, hungry faces blue with cold as they hailed her as a goddess and clamoured for the punishment of her enemies.
She smiled and waved and called out to them gaily, slowing her horse to snail’s pace in the icy wind, so that they might all feast their eyes upon her.
It was pagan idolatry of a kind Mauvissière had never witnessed before and he found it rather unnerving. Elizabeth, watching him from the corner of her eye and knowing from Walsingham’s discoveries that he was by no means as spotless in his honour as he pretended to be, turned in her saddle and observed with quiet irony, “I perceive not everyone wishes me dead.”
* * *
Mendoza was summoned before the Privy Council. No one rose when he entered the room; he saw hostility on every icy, chiselled face and knew the game was up.
In passionless Italian Sir Francis Walsingham enumerated the Ambassador’s crimes, with his long, yellowing fingers clasped on the table in front of him and his cold, cod-fish eyes fixed on the Spaniard’s face.
“Don Bernadino de Mendoza, you have abused your diplomatic privileges. You have communicated with the Queen of Scots, encouraging her to rely on Spain and contriving for her escape. You have assisted Jesuits, corresponded with the traitor Throckmorton, and made your home a rendezvous for priests. Her Majesty is no longer prepared to overlook such preposterous interference within her kingdom and it is her command that you leave the country within fifteen days.”
Mendoza’s dark eyebrows shot up with outrage.
“I challenge you to prove these outrageous charges, sir!”
“Her Majesty feels that would be distasteful and unnecessary,” said Walsingham calmly. “In short, sir—a waste of time!”
Mendoza lost his temper and began to shriek at the top of his voice.
“Let her look to her own actions before she questions mine! She encourages revolution among my master’s subjects in the Netherlands—aye, never think we don’t know it!—she protects scurvy pirates—receives stolen goods—” His voice broke on a croak of rage and he gulped a breath. “And in any case I cannot possibly leave England without King Philip’s express command,” he added irrelevantly.
He stopped and staggered back a step as the entire Council rose to its feet.
“You,” said Walsingham icily, “are a disgrace to your King and should count yourself fortunate to be allowed to leave here alive.”
Mendoza began to sweat copiously.
“By God, sir—no one touches me without a sword in his hand!”
Walsingham made an ominous gesture and the Spaniard bolted for the door in undignified haste, muttering about the base ingratitude of women.
In the doorway he turned and looked back bitterly, his smooth olive face blotched with purple patches of colour.
“I regret, gentlemen, that I have been unable to please your Queen as a minister of peace. Pray tell her that I hope to satisfy her better in war and that I will walk barefoot over Europe to encompass it!”
The door slammed behind him on a room full of shocked, silent men, and so it was that Elizabeth’s last ambassador from Spain departed from her country, vowing publicly to be revenged upon her.
Chapter 2
Walsingham emerged from the Queen’s private apartments and walked stiffly down the length of the Long Gallery with a sheaf of papers under his arm. He was dressed as usual in cheerless black, unrelieved by bright embroidery or jewels, and his eyes were fixed and staring, seeing neither the stone and gold ceiling nor the wainscot, whose thousand beautifully carved figurines regarded him with bleak indifference. It was bitterly cold and for once the draughty gallery was empty of its jostling, gossiping groups of courtiers. No one saw the pale Secretary pass down the quiet corridors of Whitehall Palace and enter his tiny closet with measured speed, but, if they had, his narrow, sombre face would have betrayed nothing of the fierce excitement raging in his brain.
A habitual ministerial calm hung over Walsingham as he padded softly to his desk, silent in his soft kid house shoes. A medicinal draught awaited him, but he tidied his papers methodically, as was his wont, before swallowing it with a grimace. He sat and wrote stubbornly until the nagging pain became a few degrees less insistent; then he laid his pen aside and leaned his chin thoughtfully on his gaunt hands, quietly congratulating himself on what must surely be the most effective interview in all his difficult dealings with his mistress.
The Throckmorton plot against the Queen’s life had been only one of the many plots he had unearthed with alarming regularity, and he had explained the only solution to Her Majesty more times than he cared to remember, without success. But today he had to admit he had surpassed himself and for once he had managed to make her listen without flying into a rage and refusing to discuss the matter further. He sat back and savoured the memory of his own skill…
“I respectfully submit to Your Majesty that we have enough circumstantial evidence to convict the Queen of Scots many times over.”
“Evidence of circumstance may convict a common man, Walsingham—it will not convict a queen.”
It was at this point that the Secretary’s mental antennae had begun to quiver with taut anticipation. There was something in her voice to suggest she was just a little weary of playing target to every would-be assassin in Europe. Was it possible she was about to take a sane and reasonable attitude over the “bosom serpent” at last?
He hurried to drive the slight advantage home.
“Madam, the plots grow in number and cunning, and sooner or later I fear it is inevitable that one of them will succeed. Every intrigue has been in her favour though, since she has been denied all communication with the outside world, no longer in her name. However, I am convinced if she were allowed to communicate once more—under close surveillance, of course—”
“She would suspect,” said the Queen sharply. “She is not totally without guile, Walsingham.”
“I could contrive it without any suspicion, madam, be confident of that. You have said that evidence of circumstance is not sufficient—but what if I were to bring you proof in her own hand that she seeks your death?”
Elizabeth sat down in the chair of estate, pressed her fingers together tip to tip, and fixed him with an unwavering stare that made him acutely uncomfortable.
“You are aware of how I would reward forgery, aren’t you, Walsingham?”
With an effort, he met her gaze steadily.
“Fully aware, Your Majesty.”
“My reputation is of value to me,” she remarked pointedly. “I shall not use the man kindly who abuses it. Be quite certain you understand that before we proceed any further with this matter.”
“I understand, madam.” He went down on his knees before her dais. “And this time, Your Majesty—this time you will take the final act against her?”
She stared at him, her expression calm and inscrutable.
“Bring me that proof first, Mr. Secretary. Bring me the proof, written, irrefutable, and positive—then we will discuss the action.”
And that was all. She had stepped down from the dais, snapped her fingers to her little spaniel, Perrico, and walked into her Privy Chamber without a word of dismissal or a backward glance, shutting the door. Walsingham left her room too absorbed to register that mark of dislike and see that it was
directed at more than a personal level, or even to appreciate what lay behind her unexpected capitulation on the issue.
Elizabeth had not the slightest intention of delivering her cousin to execution; her feelings on the subject were as strong as they had ever been. But Walsingham was right; they could not rely on the careless bungling of amateur conspirators for ever. Sooner or later her enemies would employ the services of a professional and her incredible luck would run out. She had lived under the shadow of assassination for nearly eighteen years since her cousin’s flight into England and the constant tension was beginning to tell on her nerves. She had begun to feel of late that for the sake of her own sanity she must put an end to this increasing welter of intrigue. It occurred to her now that the only way to do it was completely to discredit Mary in the eyes of Europe. And to do that she would need hard evidence—evidence strong enough to elicit a full confession from Mary. When that confession had been released in Europe and circulated throughout England, it would then be safe to return her to a Scottish prison under the guardianship of her covetous son, King James. Remove the focus of discontent from England and the malcontents would scatter; there would be peace at last, and peace was beginning to wear an attractive guise to Elizabeth.
The knowledge that she could manipulate Walsingham’s twisted zeal to achieve this end gave her a certain private pleasure. It would be amusing to let him stalk the bird like a hungry cat, snatching the bait away at the last moment, so that he pounced on nothing and went away with empty teeth.
She sighed. He was a good servant and she wished she could like him, for she would never find another spy half so diligent. If only he were not so bloodless and self-righteous, so convinced he had been personally singled out by God to stand as the last line of defence against Satan’s forces. His attitude irritated her beyond bearing, and made her less sympathetic than she would normally have been towards his ill-health. His face was thin, the whites of his eyes faintly yellow, and his forehead furrowed with furtive lines of pain. Something burned the life force slowly out of him, eating away his strength like corrosive acid—she suspected it was his consuming hatred of the Catholic Church and its figurehead. When he died, as he quite conceivably could within a short time, she would not pretend to be sorry.
Walsingham remained in his closet for the rest of the afternoon and half the night, weaving the threads of a plan which would crown his life’s work. They had been over-zealous in cutting Mary’s correspondence after Throckmorton’s plot—now it would be necessary to contrive some means of secret communication for her. But the Secretary was not a man to let the grass grow beneath his feet—and he would not have approached Elizabeth at this point had he not already devised the apparatus for this charade.
By various ways and means—none of them too nice, but that was business—Walsingham had got his persuasive hands on John Gifford, a Catholic refugee who had been unfortunate enough to be apprehended whilst carrying a letter recommending his honesty and faith to Mary Stuart. Walsingham had had a short interview with him and discovered that those two sad little deficiencies of honesty and faith did not prevent the man from being a reasonable fellow, devoted far more to the preservation of his own life and very willing to be helpful.
Walsingham’s toneless voice had settled the tiresome preliminaries very quickly and Gifford was immediately installed in the pay of the English government. He had made himself known to the French Ambassador and then travelled down to make himself a pleasant acquaintance of the Scottish Queen, hinting broadly that he would be honoured to perform any little service she might require. It had been almost criminally easy to win her confidence and now he merely awaited further instructions.
Walsingham stared down at his papers. He would contact Mary’s gaoler, Paulet, and send down his own personal expert in cipher. The plan centred on the brewer at Burton who supplied Mary’s household with beer. Mary was at Chartley and Gifford was confident of persuading her that the brewer was her friend, ready to smuggle her letters in and out in a watertight box concealed in a beer barrel. The brewer, paid doubly by her and by Paulet, had a vested interest in the success of the venture. He could be trusted to keep the letters dry and his own mouth shut. All correspondence would pass through Walsingham’s hands en route to its destination, deciphered and resealed with a professional skill that would escape notice from the most critical and suspicious eye.
The plan was so essentially simple that Walsingham knew it could not fail. She had been months without secret correspondence, enduring Paulet’s cheerless, spiteful rule. She must be desperate by now, more impulsive, more eager to leap at any chance of escape, more reckless, surely, than she had ever been in a lifetime of reckless mistakes. She would fall into his trap like a starved mouse to a crumb of cheese; he was convinced of it.
Snow had begun to tap softly against the leaden panes of his narrow little window and caught the attention of his vacant gaze. Before the snow falls next winter, he thought grimly, I shall have her tried, condemned—and executed!
* * *
Elizabeth paced the thinly frosted paths of the privy garden, wrapped in an ermine-trimmed cloak which trailed behind her with a solitary swish. Around her shoulders was a sable wrap, a New Year’s gift form Leicester, its head and four gold paws studded with diamonds and rubies. Her fingers were enclosed in soft kid gloves, delicately worked with her cipher in silver-thread embroidery and edged at the wrist with pearls.
In her hand she held Perrico’s jewelled leash and now and then she jerked it impatiently, whenever the little dog lingered over long about a bush, sniffing and cocking his leg. He would have preferred to go ratting in freedom along the hedgerows, but he knew better than to whine and pull. She had reduced her women to jellied silence before they got out of the palace and he knew the mood that voice indicated. The hand which caressed him so lovingly when he curled up on the bed beside her was also equally capable of administering a nasty stinging blow with shocking speed.
Perrico, like everyone else in close attendance on the Queen, had suffered from her uncertain temper since the departure of the Earl of Leicester for a vital armed mission in the Netherlands, and the women who followed her at a safe distance grumbled among themselves resentfully.
The little spaniel trundled in the wake of Elizabeth’s sweeping skirts with a sort of dismal resignation. His mistress was miserable and when she was miserable she had a remarkable facility for ensuring that everyone around her should be likewise. Leicester had gone and Perrico missed that burly figure, the big gentle hands which fondled his ears and the nice, softly pillowed lap, big enough to accommodate a fat spaniel in complete comfort. There was small joy to be found on his mistress’s lap, who seldom sat still for more than five minutes put together, and was so restless, even in bed, that the little dog sneaked away to his basket by the fire whenever he wanted a peaceful night’s sleep.
The causes of Elizabeth’s ill humour, however, were more diverse and deep-rooted than Leicester’s absence alone. Alençon was dead. He had amply served her purpose in the Netherlands for a couple of years and then died unromantically, and inconsiderately, of a fever, leaving her to face the eternal dilemma of the Dutch Protestants once more. More inconsiderate still was the Dutch figurehead, William of Orange, who had got himself assassinated in his own household. She could not help reflecting angrily that it had been damned careless of him to leave the Dutch without a titular leader and herself as the head of Protestant Europe, a position she had done her best to avoid for the last twenty-five years. The Dutch had promptly offered her the sovereignty of their country, but she had flatly refused it, knowing it would be one challenge that Philip would not choose to ignore. And yet if the Dutch resistance was allowed to collapse, Philip’s troops would be safely installed within easy striking distance of England. There had seemed no alternative to the course that both Burghley and Walsingham urged upon her, namely, to send over an army under Leicester, the one man with a smat
tering of military experience and a reputation as one of the foremost Protestant supporters in England to match it. She had done so with the gravest of misgivings and Leicester had departed on the 9th of December with a martyred air, a strictly limited authority, and what he was quite convinced would prove to be insufficient men for the venture.
The royal welcome of the Dutch had put him in a better frame of mind, with bonfires and fireworks lining his route and the people cheering themselves hoarse at the sight of the man they regarded as their saviour. He had written home to tell Burghley: “I like this matter twenty times better than I did in England.”
But since then nothing much appeared to have been accomplished. The Duke of Parma, who had replaced Don John of Austria, with a new, ruthless efficiency, bided his time and bad weather struck both sides without mercy. It had rained so hard that their clothes had rotted on their backs and Leicester’s men had huddled into a church at Middleburg for shelter, hungry and cursing.
It was not an auspicious beginning and Elizabeth remained unable to shake off an uneasy premonition that the whole enterprise was going to prove a disaster. Robin wouldn’t lack for personal courage on the field, but it was the first time he had undertaken any significant campaign on his own authority—the first time he had ever really undertaken anything without her at his side, constantly telling him which move to make and when to make it. She had sent a lap-dog out to war and in spite of the confidence of her advisers, she could not help but think that perhaps it had not been the height of worldly wisdom. And yet, ironically, there was no one more suitable to send in his stead. A country set for more than twenty years on peace, absorbed in trade and commercial expansion, ordered, prosperous but scarcely Spartan, had produced no real military leader. She cursed Alençon for dropping dead in such a ridiculously unheroic manner, so that now she was forced to rely on Leicester’s ability, remembering uneasily how he had bungled his youthful attempt to capture Mary Tudor. Would he bungle this too?