Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  ‘He is lying,’ she choked. ‘Send him to the Tower and have him racked for his insolence.’ She could not control herself and kicked at him wildly. The force of her tiny foot on his ribs was painless.

  The Prince’s flush vanished. His face grew pale. ‘Have I your word,’ he asked the Countess, ‘that you and Carr have not been meeting privily at night?’

  ‘Never!’ She looked about her in a frenzied appeal to Northampton for corroboration. When she could not see him she burst into tears. Her body quivered as though about to fall.

  The Prince moved to comfort her, then stopped himself and summoned his chamberlain.

  ‘What is the truth of this matter, Sir Thomas?’ he demanded, his lower lip trembling. ‘If I cannot rely on you to tell me, then there is nobody I can trust.’

  Sir Thomas had witnessed Carey’s performance without betraying his foreknowledge of the motive. If the Prince had asked him whether Carey was lying, his honour would not have permitted him to lie in turn - even to save a friend from the Tower. Asked about the Countess, he found himself unable to answer. He could neither lie nor utter a word to condemn her in public.

  ‘Would Your Highness be pleased to withdraw to your privy chamber and permit me to give my answer there?’ he pleaded.

  ‘I would not be pleased,’ the Prince replied emphatically.

  He was even less pleased when his chamberlain responded to a renewed appeal by bowing his head and gazing steadily at his shoes. Sir Thomas’s refusal to endorse her word was a clear verdict of guilty on the Countess.

  The Prince bit his lip in anguish, and the Countess’s tears ended as suddenly as they began. Her cheeks glowed with two bright spots of anger. Her eyes became hard and brazen, refusing to waver under the fierceness of the Prince’s gaze.

  ‘The Countess of Essex has leave to retire,’ he announced when he could speak again. ‘My Lord of Rochester must not be disappointed. Let the musicians play on, for we shall not travel to Richmond tonight. Sir Robert Carey has proved a timely messenger, for I would not have it said that the Prince of Great Britain had worn a glove stretched by another.’

  He turned his back on the Countess and raised Carey to his feet. Carey pressed his lips against the Prince’s hand, which was burning to the touch.

  ‘Be mine, Sir Robert,’ the Prince commanded. ‘When I am King I shall have need of men like you.’

  2

  After his formal recognition as heir to the throne, the Prince could not be prevented from taking an increasing part in public affairs.

  On a visit to Woolwich he launched the largest ship ever built in England. It weighed 1400 tons and was named the Prince Royal in his honour. A thirty-one gun salute greeted him on his arrival, and on his departure the ships of the fleet fired a royal farewell using all their pieces of great ordnance. At the Prince’s insistence, so that he might enjoy the experience of being under fire, the guns aimed their shot over his barge while it sailed away up river.

  Adventure was his most ardent pursuit. Recklessly he practised tilting and charging on horseback with pistols. The discovery of a north-west pasage to the Indies seized his imagination and he commissioned the Resolution and Discovery to sail under Captain Button. For this he was compared with Queen Elizabeth, and every day expectancy grew that he would become a worthy successor to the fearsome Queen. Indeed, as a man he would lead expeditions himself, and other comparisons were made: with earlier Henrys who had fought and ruled in France as well as England.

  In foreign affairs, on Carey’s advice, he set out to learn all he could by establishing his own chain of intelligence agents. His secretary was commanded to collect information from all the British embassies in Europe, but it had to come direct from one of his own adherents in each city, not by way of the ambassador and the Secretary of State. By this means he became independently informed and more knowledgeable about Europe than his father.

  As the prospects of a union with Spain diminished, another flattering offer was made for his hand. The Duke of Savoy proposed a double marriage. His eldest daughter would become Henry’s wife, while his son, the Prince of Savoy, would marry Henry’s sister, the Lady Elizabeth. For generations the House of Savoy had controlled the passage of the Alps. In doing so, they had become - as the Dukes of Burgundy had once been -richer and more powerful than many kings.

  The alliance was attractive to James, and Cecil was suitably bribed, but Henry’s advisers were aghast. A leading Catholic dynasty, Savoy had as little to recommend it as Spain. Such a union, Carey urged, would jeopardize the whole of Henry’s future policy and standing as the leader of Protestant Europe. It was a plot by the King and his minions to clip the Prince’s wings.

  Ralegh, still in the Tower although long promised his freedom, roused opinion by publishing two closely argued discourses against the marriages. They became unpopular and ministers were abused in the streets. Finding the government opposed, Carr was reported as declaring in a passion that no kingdom could support two kings and there must be an end to it.

  After his discomforture of the Countess of Essex, Carey had lived in peril of his life, but the first attack came from his wife. Elizabeth Carey had been attending the Queen at the time and learned of her husband’s latest exploit with dismay.

  ‘Are you not content with the enmity of Rochester and Overbury?’ she demanded as he climbed lustfully into bed beside her. ‘Must I now congratulate you on a fine stroke of diplomacy in insulting the greatest family in the land? You were ever a rash fool, Robin, but while others grow wiser with the years your rashness and folly seem to blossom with age.’

  ‘If I were not a rash fool,’ he replied, squeezing her for-givingly, ‘we would not be married. Do you not see what I have achieved? I have saved the Prince from disgrace and won his gratitude. He will protect and reward me.’

  ‘How can he protect you against the King? Did he save Sherborne for Ralegh when Carr coveted it? Has he secured Ralegh’s release? You are deceiving yourself.’

  ‘The King is weak and the Prince grows daily stronger.’

  ‘The King is so weak that he is a doting puppet in Carr’s hands. You have made Carr’s affair with Frances Howard public. If he hires bravoes to cut you down, will the King punish him, do you suppose? Tomorrow you had best take Prince Charles to Oatlands and stay there at a distance from London until I have contrived a settlement for you. Our truest friend is the Queen; I will implore her to come to your aid.’

  They kissed and he had his way with her, blessing his good fortune. Elizabeth he valued above a thousand Frances Howards. She had been the beauty of her own generation and ever rang true when tested: pure gold, not base metal, beneath the surface glitter. Her lips were gentle, not tight with wilfulness; her eyes alight with compassion, not clouded with suspicion; her look direct, not sly; her full bosom decently covered, not thrust wantonly into view; her whole body private to the marriage bed, not common and profligate. Carey embraced her with passion, and it was hard to part at first light in the morning when she sleepily bade him go.

  Mercifully, his exile at Oatlands proved brief. The Queen expressed herself delighted to oblige Lady Carey and let it be believed that it was she who had instructed Sir Robert to deliver a false message in defence of her son’s honour. Intervention in a court scandal restored her importance and satisfied her instinct for meddling. To tease the King with unwelcome messages was one of the remaining pleasures of her life, and for the sake of peace he readily promised that Carey should not be punished.

  ‘We owe much to Sir Robert for his past services,’ wrote the King, never slow to stumble upon a cheap way of repaying an inconvenient debt. ‘But he would be well advised to act in future with more prudence. It will be at his peril if he offends us again in any matter touching my lord of Rochester.’

  Carey had reached what was the age of discretion in other men. He paid heed to the threat. Out of love he allowed his wife’s judgment to bridle his ambition, and for many months he avoided any contact with Car
r and the Howards. In his prayers he committed treason daily, begging God to make the King fall off his horse once too often while hunting. Then the Prince would succeed, and all would be well with England and Sir Robert Carey.

  One day, in the aftermath of the marriage negotiations with Savoy, the Prince summoned him. So great had grown the dislike between father and son that the sight of each other was best avoided, and in dealing with the King the Prince required an intermediary. He was reminded of Carey’s long-past missions to Scotland.

  ‘Will you perform for me, Sir Robert, the same service as you undertook at the bidding of the late Queen?’ The request was a command.

  Sir Thomas Chaloner stood at the Prince’s side and added gravely that secrecy was paramount. There must be no written record of the words the Prince wished him to convey. Carey accepted the assignment eagerly, although he knew well from experience what the absence of writing signified. It meant that if matters went awry he would be disowned, judged guilty of mis-statement. Moreover, he suspected that the deviser of this plan was none other than that hobbled old warhorse, Walter Ralegh. His wife, he foresaw, would call him a fool for embroiling himself in such an enterprise, as indeed she did when he returned to Denmark House.

  ‘The Prince may love you, Robin,’ she warned him, ’but Sir Thomas surely regards you as a rival and would not mourn your disgrace.’

  The King, as always, was out of town. On the road to Royston Carey rehearsed his words, determined not to fail his Prince, nor his own cause. He saw himself as Secretary of State to a new King Henry, the Wolsey of the new reign. When that time came, how much more justly and ably would he rule the country than a treacherous Cecil and a witless Carr!

  Inopportunely, Cecil was in the act of being assisted from his carriage when Carey rode up to the hunting lodge.

  ‘My lord of Salisbury.’

  ‘Sir Robert.’

  Time-worn adversaries, they bowed and greeted each other with bygone courtesy and masked thoughts. To such a depth had the country’s finances sunk, through incompetence and corruption, that Cecil had been forced to accept the appointment of Lord Treasurer in addition to his duties as Secretary of State. The weight of the double burden on his crippled body was crushing. Drawn grey skin covered his features like parchment. The outline of the skull beneath was sharply visible, as the old Queen’s had been before she died. Carey did his best to conceal his shock at the imminence of death, and his realization that two of the greatest offices of state would soon be vacant.

  Inside the house Cecil inquired in his usual sycophantic manner after the health of His Highness the Prince of Great Britain. He waxed effusive, enumerating the virtues of ‘that incomparable English Marcellus’ on whose brave shoulders the fortunes of the realm would in due time come to rest as securely as the world on those of Atlas.

  ‘His Highness,’ Carey replied carefully, ‘is in excellent health, but troubled for England. While ever respectful of his father’s majesty and wisdom, he shows concern about the present state of the realm, on which - you will agree - the future depends no less than on himself.’

  ‘That can only be a reflection on his father’s advisers,’ Cecil replied. He spoke without rancour, sitting hunched and strangely resembling his own father in the summer house at Theobalds. They were both reconciled to dying as well as living in the royal service. James gladly delegated the hard routine of government to his Cecil as Elizabeth had to hers, and there was no release except the grave. During the last winter Cecil had been grievously ill and had received not even a message of sympathy from his master.

  ‘The King has more than one adviser,’ Carey allowed. ‘The Prince would be the first to acknowledge that good advice is being offered by those with experience and probity.’

  With a weary nod Cecil accepted what he took for a compliment. He had come from London, jolting for hours along execrable roads, to seek royal approval for urgent business. Such was the pattern of government. At every crucial moment he could neither work nor rest, but must leave the capital and search out his monarch in some distant park or forest. All important decisions remained the royal prerogative. They were taken capriciously, dependent often on the success of the day’s sport or the night’s consumption of wine. For their failure - and the ensuing protests by Parliament - Cecil took the blame. The King was lazy and Cecil persuasive, but his influence was waning and there were other voices to be heard: Howards to be placated and favourites indulged.

  ‘My lord of Rochester is with the King, I believe,’ said Carey. They were in an ante-chamber waiting for the royal party to return from hunting.

  ‘And Sir Thomas Overbury,’ Cecil added.

  These were the other principal advisers. Their hold over the King was said now to be stronger than Cecil’s. If Cecil died before James they would become the masters of Great Britain, unless the Prince could be brought to power while his father still lived. To forestall them was Henry’s objective and the nub of Carey’s mission.

  The words exchanged had been few, but Carey suspected that from them Cecil had shrewdly gathered what was afoot. Carey, on the other hand, had been permitted no inkling of Cecil’s attitude towards the Prince’s ambition. Carr and Over-bury were his enemies too, but would he wish their influence replaced by one independent of the King? With apparent unconcern Cecil closed his eyes and yawned.

  ‘Waiting is servants’ work,’ said Carey to rouse him.

  ‘It is small hardship to me,’ Cecil replied. ‘Patience was never a virtue of yours, Sir Robert. You will not mind my remarking that you rode backwards on that day when you travelled so hastily to Scotland. To be rash at forty was foolish enough. To be rash at fifty would be unforgivable. Learn to wait, and there is still time for you to rise in the world.’

  ‘And that would be your advice if I were eighteen?’

  ‘If you were eighteen - and a Prince - I would not expect you to heed my words.’

  ‘If I were eighteen and certain to succeed, should I await my destiny or grasp for it here and now?’

  Cecil smiled, a thin reluctant smile like sunshine on frost. ‘That was neatly contrived, Sir Robert. You have earned an answer. It is this. In my poor judgment nothing and no one is certain to succeed. When King James succeeded to England, it was I who contrived it. I am too old for another such contrivance, but it is the right and duty of every man to move unprompted towards his destiny.’

  Carey thanked him for his plainness. ‘I only wish that when the King succeeded, you had recognized this right in my own case.’

  ‘That I could scarcely do, since you mistook your destiny.’

  The thin smile faded with the rebuff and they sat nodding in silence until the King returned. It was late when he sent for his ‘little beagle’, and much later when Cecil departed and Carey was granted an audience.

  He did not find James alone. Tired after a long day in the saddle, the King lay sprawled on a couch with his head resting in the lap of his lord of Rochester. Robert Carr looked ill-pleased at the sight of Robert Carey and the look was returned. Neither of them laughed as was fitting at their sovereign’s little joke about two Robins in one nest.

  ‘What is this, Sir Robert?’ the King continued, turning irritable. ‘Am I to understand that my son is giving himself such airs that he must choose to address his own father through the mouth of an ambassador?’

  ‘My mission concerns a matter of some delicacy,’ Carey replied. ‘His Highness believes that it would be your wish to give consideration to it before conversing with him. As ever it is his earnest desire to do nothing save what Your Majesty would deem proper.’

  Outwardly impassive, Carey’s voice and demeanour concealed a storm within. How well he remembered the dignity of the old Queen and the terror of a royal audience with her. His final rage at her forgotten, it angered him that this slovenly, uncouth Scot - weak, womanish and cowardly - should have succeeded to the throne of the Tudors and lion-hearted Plantagenets. Carey’s arms had been taken from him at the d
oor, but so morbid was the King’s fear for his life that two gentlemen-at-arms had been ordered to remain in the room lest the emissary of the heir to the throne had come with secret orders to attack the royal person.

  ‘A matter of some delicacy?’ the King mumbled. ‘So you have been sent about the boy’s marriage? Spain and Savoy were not good enough for him. Will he now consent to being wed?’

  France was the latest suitor. Henry of Navarre’s son, the young Louis XIII, had sent the Duke of Bouillon to England as Ambassador Extraordinary to negotiate a match.

  ‘The Duke is pressing,’ added Carr. ‘He solicits an answer before the month ends.’

  ‘We are agreeable,’ declared the King. ‘But if the King of France desires his sister to become Princess of Great Britain, it will cost him more than his paltry offer of half a million crowns.’

  ‘He will pay more. I shall see to it,’ boasted Carr.

  Carey noted his eagerness. In the Prince’s circle it had long been suspected that Carr was promoting the marriage for his own ends. Now that he had reached manhood, the Prince was anxious to make his position more secure by fathering an heir of his own. The French princess was a child, nine years of age.

  ‘A union with France,’ said Carey, ‘will doubtless bring more contentment to Protestant England than one with Spain or Savoy, but the Prince has not favoured me with his opinion on this subject. I am to speak for him on quite another, and he commanded me to do so in the strictest privacy.’

  ‘This is my privy chamber,’ the King told him. ‘We are private here. Do not eye my lord of Rochester. My old bones are weary with the chase and my Robin shall not leave me.’ He still lay stretched on his side, using his favourite as a cushion.

  Carey accepted Carr’s presence. He had no choice. But he eyed the gentlemen-at-arms instead and remained silent until James reluctantly signed them to leave. They were to stay within hearing, however, in case he were to call out. Carey smiled at the precaution. It was plain that, in the Kings’s view, his reputation qualified him to be the chosen assassin if Henry had lost all patience with his father.