Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  Carey faced the storm of words unmoved. ‘Have I not told you what I was about? Bidding my farewells. As for your protection, George, I have lived for some years without it and not starved.’

  ‘Nor prospered. Since you crossed me in the courts I have seen no cause to secure office for you. Now, if you can behave with common sense and not place the fortunes of all your family in jeopardy, I will do as much for you as I am able. The Queen is not likely to live much longer and when she dies we must all rise or fall.’

  ‘And King James? Will he be the Council’s choice?’

  The bluntness of the question stopped Lord Hunsdon in his stride. Before replying he looked cautiously about him, fearful of eavesdroppers.

  ‘The Council will decide when the time comes,’ he answered sternly. ‘Meanwhile any such inquiry is both rash and treasonable.’

  ‘Let me answer it for myself then. It is as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise that the Council’s decision will be what Gecil has already decided, and it so happens that I know Mr Secreatary’s mind. He is for James.’

  For all his air of certainty, it so happened that he did not know Mr Secretary’s mind. Carey was fishing.

  ‘How can you know? The Council -’ His brother broke off in dismay.

  ‘The Council has only today learned of it from his own lips? I thank you for the information, George.’

  The Lord Chamberlain shook his head vigorously in denial, but the truth stood plain on his face.

  ‘I thank you, too, for my release,’ Carey went on. ‘Now I will make repayment by relieving you of the burden of my presence at court.’

  ‘Not so fast, brother. Lest you intend some communication with the King in Scotland, I should warn you that I forbid it absolutely. Your acquaintance with him may serve us well, whatever the outcome of the succession, but an ill-considered move now would prove fatal to our chances.’

  ‘You have my word that any move I make shall be one well considered.’

  ‘That is not sufficient. Do I or do I not have your word that you will not communicate with James unless in due time you are so authorized?’

  ‘No, George, you do not have my word on that. Suppose I were to learn of the Queen’s death when half-way towards Edinburgh?’

  ‘How could that be? Give me your word at once or you shall not go north at all.’

  ‘Impossible! You forget I am no longer in the nursery. My destiny lies in my own hands. I have overstayed my leave and shall not wait on your orders.’

  ‘Do not preach to me on what is and what is not possible. I have rescued you from arrest once and shall not perform the same service again. I am speaking to you now as a member of the Queen’s Council. You will remain in Richmond until I inform you that you are free to depart. Do you not understand that incalculable damage will be done if false rumours concerning the Queen’s health and the succession are permitted to spread through the realm?’

  ‘Rumours will spread without your leave. My part will be to ensure that they are true. Is it that which vexes you?’

  ‘What vexes me above all else in this world, Robin, is you. Return to your lodgings directly, stay there and speak to no man until you have learned the Council’s pleasure. That is my command. Disobey it if you dare.’

  His sickly cheeks flushed with anger, the Lord Chambeflain swung on his heel and returned towards the palace as fast as his craven dignity would permit. Carey measured the distance. He had the advantage. His lodgings stood nearby on the other side of the green, and unhobbled by dignity he could run.

  It was as well he did. That, and his precautions earlier in the day, saved him. His mistrustful brother wasted no time in calling out the guard to ensure that his orders were obeyed. An armed file was already on the march towards him when Carey urged his startled horse out of the stable.

  Abandoning the London road to elude pursuit, he galloped headlong towards the river crossing at Brentford. From there byways would take him across country to meet the great north road at St Albans. By nightfall, if the going was good, he would have reached Doncaster. Then York, Durham, Newcastle and Alnwick. On to the Border and beyond. To a man who had walked from London to Berwick, there could be little hardship in sitting on a saddle between Richmond and Edinburgh. He would stop only to eat and change horses, and to sleep if the moon hid its face.

  Once he and his horse had floundered through the Thames at the ford and reached the far bank with no pursuers in sight, his thoughts returned to his eldest brother. Timidity he despised in any man. George’s he compared scornfully with the boldness of their father, the true Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain and court lecher, cousin and bastard half-brother to the Queen, who had fathered so many bastards himself and lost an earldom through speaking his mind. As he travelled on, he could feel the approving clap of the old man’s hand on his shoulder.

  So, spurred by resolution and the promise of the sapphire token on his finger, Sir Robert Carey began the headlong journey which would take three weary days and two sleepless nights and, if his prayers were answered, would bring him fame and favour.

  2

  While Carey rode, the Council acted.

  After separating the palace from the rest of the world to prevent the news of the Queen’s death becoming known, her faithful advisers had been in no mood for haste. There was much to be decided in the passing of power. When the monster king Henry VIII had died, his thankful Council had debated in new-found freedom for three days while his Imperial Majesty’s bloated body rotted. All enquiries were blandly answered with the truthful assurance that it was as well as could be expected.

  Then, the leading Howards had been in the Tower, one newly executed, another sentenced and awaiting the axe. Now, with Cecil they were buzzing like black flies round the royal corpse, their secret secure, as they thought. The Lord Chamberlain trembled to reveal the news of his brother’s escape, but he trembled more at the consequences of concealment. At his stammered announcement Henry Howard, the most dangerous of the brood, instantly accused him of connivance and threatened vengeance on each and every Carey brother. He spoke in the gentle voice of unruffled menace, but Cecil flew into a white rage and brought their unfinished deliberations to a halt in a flurry of oaths.

  At once they all drove together in their carriages post-haste to London and there, first at Whitehall, then at Temple Bar, in Cheapside and on Tower Hill, solemnly and publicly declared that the high and mighty prince, James the Sixth, King of Scotland, had become their only lawful, lineal and rightful liege and the possessor of the imperial crown of the realms of England, France and Ireland. The proclamation was read by Cecil himself in the midst of a throng of members of the Council and other nobles, attended by trumpeters and heralds. In Cheapside, the Lord Mayor on behalf of the citizens joined the array of lords spiritual and temporal in proclaiming the new King, so that the nation should be seen to speak with undivided voice and full consent of tongue and heart.

  The people themselves were silent, greeting the proclamation without rapture or tumult, but with the night came good cheer. Bonfires were lit and bells rung. There was joy at a peaceful succession, but little respect for a monarch from the rude north. Wags who judged James’s effeminacy a poor exchange for Elizabeth’s manliness ran through the streets amusing themselves with mock-loyal cries of ‘The King is dead, long live the Queen.’

  It had been two o’clock in the morning of the same day when, as the proclamation declared, it had pleased Almighty God to call to his mercy out of this transitory life the sovereign lady, the high and mighty prince, Elizabeth, late Queen of England, France and Ireland. At nine o’clock Carey had left Richmond. By midday a messenger from London was riding hard on his heels.

  That day was the twenty-fourth of March in the year of our Lord 1603, and it was late in the evening of the twenty-sixth when Carey, mud-stained and blood-soaked, demanded admittance at the gates of the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. As he afterwards calculated, he had ridden 162 miles on the first day, 136 on the second
and 99 on the third. After leaving Norham on the last stage of the journey he had fallen from his horse not far from the place where he had knocked Kerr from the saddle so many years before. As he fell, a hoof had struck him on the side of the head and had all but kicked him unconscious. But for that mishap, he would have fulfilled the pledge made to himself that he would sup with the King on the third day.

  The guard on the gate was slow to open to such an apparition so late. They shouted that the King of Scotland would never receive him. Summoning the dregs of his strength, he shouted back that he had not travelled so far and so fast to see the King of Scotland: the audience he sought was with the King of England. The gate swung open quickly enough at that.

  ‘Is it true?’ they whispered, gaping, and hurried him within.

  The claimant to the lordship of four realms was unbuttoned, taking his post-prandial ease with a favourite on his lap. At Carey’s sudden intrusion he stumbled to his feet unabashed, pushing the youth roughly aside and bidding him be gone. In the glimpse of a departing leer, Carey recognized the pretty face of Sir Robert Kerr’s cousin. Then he flung himself at James’s shuffling feet.

  The King drew him from his knees, gave him his hand to kiss and embraced him as he would a favourite: mud, blood and all.

  ‘Is it true?’ He repeated the words of the guard. ‘Is it sure? I had thought she would outlive the sun and moon.’

  All the while Carey was describing the Queen’s mortal illness, the King still doubted, demanding to be shown the letters which he carried from the Gouncil.

  ‘I have none,’ Carey confessed. ‘How should I wait for letters, knowing Your Highness’s desire for the earliest intelligence?’ He told of his escape from the palace at Richmond and his confidence that the Council would name James as the new sovereign lord.

  ‘That I too doubt not,’ James told him. ‘In these last few months I have had Henry Howard’s word for it. And Charles Howard’s. And Thomas Howard’s. And Sir Robert Cecil’s himself. My cousin would have been sorely displeased had she known of her council’s eagerness to pledge their allegiance to me. All that is required to satisfy my heart’s yearning is proof of her death.’

  ‘That I can give you,’ Carey replied. ‘In accordance with the pact which we made and in which I joined my sister, the most favoured lady of the Queen’s Bedchamber, I bring Your Majesty a blue ring from this lady, a ring which the Duke of Lennox gave to you, and you to me, and I to her. Herein lies assurance of the truth of what I have reported.’

  The King snatched at the ring greedily, examined it closely and, in his delight, folded Carey in his arms again.

  ‘It is enough. By this I know you for a true messenger.’

  Weak-legged, he stumbled from the room in triumph, crying for his household to come from their chambers and salute him by his new titles. Hastily they did obeisance, joining him in his rejoicing without pretence of grief at the news of the Queen’s death. Carey was committed to the charge of Lord Chamberlain Hume, with instructions that surgeons should attend him and that he should want for nothing.

  ‘Sir Robert has lost a near kinswoman and a loving mistress,’ James announced, ‘but he has my word that I will be as good a master to him and will requite this service with honour and reward.’

  ‘Be sparing with your promises, Jamie,’ warned the Duke of Lennox with one of his crooked smiles. ‘If your English Council be angry with him, it may not be prudent to reward this messenger too highly. As for being as good a master to him as Elizabeth was, that at least should not be too difficult. The two kingdoms may be united, but the Border has still to be tamed.’

  These were the words Carey remembered the next morning, when he desired Lord Hume to tell the King that he felt no cause to importune him after so little service but humbly begged to be admitted as a Gentleman of his Bedchamber. He expressed his confidence that if His Majesty deemed him worthy thereafter, he would taste of his bounty. A post in the Bedchamber would rescue him from the Border, but it would be unwise to ask for the promised earldom before coming to terms with Cecil.

  As at Richmond, so in Edinburgh, he did well to move fast. Scarcely had he received the King’s reply that he should have his request ‘with all my heart’ than other news reached Carey’s lodgings. The Council’s emissary had brought letters and copies of the proclamation. The first of the letters condemned one Sir Robert Carey for acting (so Mr Secretary declared) ‘contrary to all decency and good manners, and to respect for the dead and the laws of the land’.

  On learning of this, Carey hastened to the palace to be sworn in his post by the Duke of Lennox, whose smile had grown still more crooked and who had the young Kerr unsmiling at his side. The Duke made no demur about the ceremony, however, and that same evening Carey made sure to attend to his new duties, helping the King to undress.

  When James dismissed the others for the night, he bade his newest attendant remain.

  ‘When we journey to London, Sir Robert,’ he said, ‘it were better that you did not accompany us. Better, that is, for your own sake.’

  Carey humbly protested. ‘As a member of your household it is surely my right and duty. If I do not ride with Your Majesty, men will think me slighted.’

  ‘If Sir Robert Cecil is to be believed, you have broken the laws of England. Would it not be wise therefore to absent yourself from London for a while?’ The King wagged his finger reproachfully like a schoolmaster.

  ‘Your Majesty makes the laws of England now.’

  ‘Then my wishes are to be obeyed. The Border is restless. Your duty lies there.’

  Carey bowed in submission and retreated in good order, backing towards the door. ‘May I then at least be granted the honour of accompanying you as far as my home in Northumberland? If during your royal progress you would condescend to rest for a night at my house, nothing would give greater joy to my family than to receive you and put all we possess at your service. In the park we have deer worthy of a royal huntsman. My interest too would be served: such a mark of your favour would without doubt be noted by the Council.’

  The King, who had closed his eyes as a sign of dismissal, opened them again and stared Carey in the face. They were brown and shrewd, wide and deep set in the Stuart mould.

  ‘By Jesu, Sir Robert, I knew you for a bold man, I can see that you are an ugly one, but I had forgot the full measure of your cunning. How you wheedled me over my mother’s death!’

  ‘If Your Majesty had behaved differently at that time, may I venture to suggest that you might not now be King of England?’

  ‘So I have you to thank for that? Is this your drift? By my Protestant faith, Cecil does well to beware of you. Very well; it shall be as you desire. I shall pay a visit on you and your lady for all the world to see. But if you come a step further south, it will be on pain of our severest displeasure. Now leave me and send me young Robin Kerr to bid me a sweeter good night.’

  It was a week later that the horde of Scottish fortune-seekers took the road to the promised land. All the nobility and gentry of the realm, it seemed, were following the King’s train, eager for rich and easy pickings. At Berwick, on English soil for the first time, the self-styled Apollo of the North and God’s elect on earth was greeted with ready cries of ‘Welcome’ and ‘God save King James’ from the citizens, and by a lengthy sermon from the Bishop of Durham.

  James preferred the sermon. He mistrusted crowds, however loyal. When the throng pressed round him in curiosity, he shrank back complaining that they would demand to have the breeches off him next so that they could count the hairs on his arse. The sermon he followed attentively. Along with poetry, wine, hunting and sodomy, theology was a favourite pastime. He knew chapters of the Bible by heart and disputed with the bishop to the general admiration.

  The next day, in his eagerness to hunt, his promise to Carey was kept. Lady Carey received him on her knees. Even as he complimented her on her beauty, his eye was roving the parkland for a glimpse of game. Before leaving, he killed two
deer and knighted three gentlemen. That was to be the pattern of his progress through his new domain: hunting and knighting. By the time he reached the capital the dead deer and newly knighted esquires were to be numbered in hundreds.

  While the hopeful Scots moved slowly south, the hopeful English posted swiftly north. Troops of aspirants rushed to ingratiate themselves at the new fount of place and honour.

  Sir John Harington, ingenious inventor of the flushing water closet, spoke for them all when he sent a silver gift inscribed with the words of the penitent thief on the cross: ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.’

  Cecil could afford to stand aside from the crowd, but not to delay the first audience for too long. He arranged to meet his new master in York, the northern capital. The Howards, who had already secured their positions, stayed in London to oversee the government and bury the old Queen. Charles was to be reappointed Lord Admiral and Lord Steward. Thomas was to have the disgraced Lord Hunsdon’s place and become Lord Chamberlain. The King, who had no stomach for death, wanted no part in the funeral. He would be obliged if they would dispose of his predecessor before he arrived.

  His own Queen he had gladly left in Edinburgh, after a fond farewell in the High Street. In private they were not so fond. James disliked women, and frivolous women like his wife he disliked most of all. A four-month pregnancy provided the excuse: she would follow him at her leisure. Meantime, with young Robin Kerr at his side, life would be more agreeable without her.

  The news of Elizabeth’s death had caused an outburst of disorder along the length of the Border, but Carey was not, after all, commissioned to quell it. All offices of the Crown had formally lapsed until new appointments were made and fear of what Cecil would say prevented James from renewing the wardenship before the meeting in York. When Carey pressed him, his eyes wandered and he muttered that the Council must be consulted. Instead, Carey might have the honour of returning to Edinburgh with the Duke of Lennox and helping to prepare for the Queen’s journey to England.