A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1

by Jean Plaidy

  She herself danced with Robert. “You are the only one of a size worthy of me,” she told him, as she paired Jane and Edward, Catharine and Guildford.

  “You would dance well, Master Dudley,” she said, “with a little more practice.”

  “I would we could practice together,” he said.

  She fluttered her eyelashes and said demurely: “Your Grace.”

  And just to please her he said it. She was very satisfied, and so was he. It was indeed a very satisfactory occasion.

  Often he met her in the royal nursery, but one day she was not there. She had been retired, Edward told him, to Hatfield, where she would stay with her governess.

  How dull it was without her!

  King Henry died and the puny little Edward was King of England. John Dudley could view the new reign with confidence, for his standing was even higher under the new King than it had been under the old. Henry had appointed him a member of that Council which was to form a Regency and govern the kingdom until Edward was of age. John Dudley was climbing to the summit of his hopes, but there were two men who stood in his way. These were the uncles of the King, the Seymour brothers; Edward, now Duke of Somerset, the sober statesman, and Thomas, now Lord Sudeley, the handsome philanderer. The only characteristic these brothers appeared to have in common was their overwhelming ambition, and if Edward had the power, Thomas had the popularity. He was not only the favorite of the young King, but the Princess Elizabeth was said to blush when his name was mentioned.

  During this time young Robert saw his father become one of the most powerful men in England. He was now the Earl of Warwick, which in itself was significant, for that title had been extinct since the death of the grandson of Warwick the King-maker. Had a new king-maker arisen?

  The family was very rich, for the Warwick estate was now theirs. Jane Dudley was apprehensive; often she thought how happy she would have been if her husband could have been content with what he had won. In the last reign no man had been important, except the King; now there were several men all struggling for pre-eminence. She wished she could have talked freely to John; she wanted to warn him. How he would laugh if she did! He had never considered her opinion worth asking for.

  Young Robert knew of her fears and tried to soothe her.

  “Why, Mother,” he said, “my father will win. He will beat the Seymours.”

  “Your father will beat all who oppose him,” said Jane; and her voice trembled. She could not dismiss from her mind memories of that day when her father had brought John home. Such sights as John had seen on that day were often to be witnessed on Tower Hill.

  “I’ll tell you why my father will beat them, Mother,” said Robert. “He is now in command of the King’s armies, and therefore his position is as strong as that of the Lord Protector Somerset.”

  And Jane had to be content with that.

  The new Earl of Warwick lost little time in arranging advantageous marriages for his children. His eldest son John should be affianced to the daughter of the Protector himself; his daughter Mary was to marry the King’s friend, Henry Sidney.

  “Your turn will come, Robin,” said his mother.

  Robert’s answer was: “I, Mother? I shall choose for myself.”

  When he thought of marriage he thought of the redheaded Princess. Was he looking rather high? Robert did not think so. Who could be too high for Robert? Moreover she was a bastard. Yet he did not object to that. He had admired her spirit, the way in which she had commanded the children, the way in which she had cajoled him into calling her “Your Grace.” What impudence, and yet what dignity! What arrogance mingling with a certain promise of … he was not quite sure what.

  “Yes,” he affirmed, “I shall choose for myself.”

  Strange rumors were afloat.

  The younger Seymour was attainted of high treason. He had plotted, it was said, to seize the government and marry the Princess Elizabeth.

  Robert was bewildered by the news. He had, of course, seen Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley, rich and magnificent, swaggering through the Court, the eyes of the women gleaming as they followed him. All had agreed that Thomas Seymour was the handsomest man in England; but at that time Robert was yet a boy and no one had noticed him.

  The rumors were shocking, for they involved the Princess. Robert was angry when he heard of them. He did not believe them, he told himself; and yet when he thought of her, smiling at him, fluttering her sandy lashes, how could he be sure that what he heard was not true?

  His mother talked of the rumors with the ladies of her household; she would sit in the gardens at Chelsea and talk with her friends.

  “Was it true then … the Princess but a girl of thirteen and a Princess … so to conduct herself!”

  It did not help matters that the man with whom the Princess was reputed to have behaved so disgracefully was the husband of her stepmother, Katharine Parr.

  Robert heard it all, the story of the flirting and the rough horseplay; he heard of the occasion when the daring Seymour had cut her dress to pieces while sporting in the gardens of the Chelsea Dower House; there were stories of his visits to her bedchamber, of tickling and smacking and kissing while the Princess was in bed. The Princess Elizabeth had been known to ride in a barge on the Thames like a light woman.

  Robert thought of it all, pictured it, saw Seymour and the Princess in that embrace which it was said had exposed the guilty affair to Katharine Parr when she had come unexpectedly upon them and witnessed it.

  There was no end to the tales, and snatches of conversation stayed in his mind.

  “And have you heard the rumors? I had it from a very reliable source … someone who knows … from the midwife herself. Do not speak of this to any other. One dark night the midwife was awakened from her bed by men and women in masks and made to follow them, bringing with her the tools of her trade. She was blindfolded until she reached a certain house, and there she delivered a child. She was warned that if she spoke a word of what had happened her tongue would be cut out. The lady who needed her services was young and most imperious. She had red hair …”

  Robert was more angry than ever then, but his anger turned to sadness when he heard that she was taken to the Tower.

  There she was questioned, and it was said at that time that when Thomas Seymour lost his head on Tower Hill, the Princess Elizabeth would soon follow her lover.

  Robert, at sixteen, was restless for adventure.

  At that time the two most powerful men in England were jostling each other for first place; one of these was the Lord Protector Somerset, the other was Robert’s father, who suddenly found that he had the advantage over his political enemy.

  Thomas Seymour had been beheaded without being granted an opportunity to speak in his defense. This in itself was shameful, but carried out at the command of his own brother seemed ignoble in the extreme. The popularity of the Lord Protector was waning; and that of his opponent consequently waxed.

  Then came the rising of the peasants of Norfolk who were starving on account of the enclosure laws. They were marching on London when the Earl of Warwick, as General of the King’s Armies, set out against them and defeated them on their own ground in Norfolk.

  The insurrection had been suppressed with great cruelty, and trouble averted. The country was grateful to Warwick for his speedy and ruthless action. The Norfolk landowners considered themselves deeply indebted to him, and Robert, who was with his father in Norfolk, became a guest at the large country estate of Sir John Robsart, lord of the manor of Siderstern.

  Warwick returned to London, leaving his son to follow him; but Robert was in no hurry, and the reason was Robsart’s young daughter, Amy.

  She was plump and pretty—a girl of Robert’s own age—and she had never seen anyone quite so dashing and handsome as this young man from Court circles.

  Amy was the youngest of the family and rather pampered by her father and her two half-brothers and two half-sisters, particularly since the death of her mother, w
hich had occurred a short while before the Norfolk rising.

  Her brothers John and Philip, and her sisters Anne and Frances Appleyard, were not her father’s children; and Amy, being John Robsart’s only legitimate child, was also his heiress. She was used to having her own way, and she made no secret of her feelings for the handsome newcomer; and the more openly she admired him, the more good sense and charm she seemed to have in the eyes of Robert.

  He liked the country; he enjoyed life in a great manor house; and he appreciated the honor showed to him by all these people. John and Philip Appleyard deemed it a compliment when he rode with them to the hunt. The girls—Anne and Frances—saw that all his favorite dishes were served at table. All the family smiled benignly to see his friendship with Amy ripen. As for Sir John Robsart, he was fervently hoping that Amy would make a good match, but at the same time wondering if he dared look so high as to the son of the most important man in England and the country’s real ruler.

  Meanwhile Robert and Amy rode out together, hawking and hunting; her simple admiration was enchanting; she never failed to laugh when he indicated that he expected laughter; she always applauded, and she showed him in a hundred ways that he was more like a god than a man.

  Robert felt gay and merry, basking in such adulation. He felt as worldly-wise as the young Princess whose name had been tossed hither and thither by sly rumor. He assured himself that this pretty and simple Amy was in truth far more desirable; she would never scorn him; she would always admire whatever he did.

  One day when he and Amy were walking in the fields on her father’s estate, Amy began to collect daisies to make a chain. She had many pretty gestures and everything she did was with a charming innocent grace, as she now made a daisy chain.

  It was springtime and the country smells and sounds enchanted Robert. He felt suddenly that he did not wish for any other life than this. To wander in green fields, to hunt in the forests, to live a life of ease and comfort with these pleasant country folk from whom he was so different that he was something more than human, seemed to him the ideal life.

  “You are very pretty, Mistress Amy,” he said; and as she cast down her eyes and feigned great interest in her daisy chain, he continued: “Did you not hear me, Amy?”

  She raised her eyes; they were large, limpid and somewhat sad. “But you will have seen so many who are prettier. What of the clever people whom you meet in your father’s house?”

  “You are prettier than any.”

  “How can that be?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Do not ask me. I am not God. I did not make you all.”

  That sent Amy into titters of shocked laughter. It sounded like blasphemy, but it was so amusing. Robert was always amusing. She deemed him as clever and handsome as he considered himself to be. She reflected his own pride in himself. He was sure in that moment that he could be happy at Siderstern for the rest of his life. He dazzled her; he dazzled them all; and he was determined to dazzle them more than ever before.

  “Amy,” he said, “I love you.”

  She was a little frightened. What did he mean by that? Surely not marriage! He was the son of the man who was shortly to become—so she had heard her father say—Protector of England. No, Amy could never hope for marriage with a man such as Robert Dudley, even though she was the heiress of her father’s considerable fortune. What then? Seduction? What else? And how could she say No? How could she resist his overpowering charm?

  She stared at the crimson-tipped daisies because she dared not look at him, but all the same she was seeing his face—those bold eyes, the dark curling hair.

  She had heard the servants talk of him; Anne and Frances whispered together concerning Robert. They had never seen any so handsome. As yet, they said, he did not know his power, but that would come.

  Had it come? And was Amy to be its first victim?

  “Why do you not answer me?” he said; and the answer she gave pleased him more than any could: “I … I dare not.”

  He felt powerful. He was, after all, a Dudley. In him was the love of power which had raised his grandfather from a humble lawyer to be the extortioner-in-chief of King Henry VII, the same love of power which had induced his father to step along the road which had led from Tower Hill to the Council Chamber and would take him before long to the Protectorate. He felt very tender toward her; he took her trembling hand and kissed it.

  “You are afraid, Amy. Afraid of me!”

  “I … I think I should return to the house.”

  “Nay,” he said firmly, “you shall not.”

  He sensed the ready obedience in her and it delighted him. He wanted now to repay her for the pleasure she gave him. He said on impulse: “I will marry you, Amy.”

  “Oh … but how could you! Your father would never allow it.”

  She saw his lips tighten. “If I chose to marry I would do so,” he said sharply.

  “My father is rich and important, but that is here in Norfolk. We have our house and our estates, and one day they are to be mine. But … what of your father in London? He visits the King himself, and they say that even the King must do as he wishes.”

  “The King may do what my father wishes,” said Robert boastfully, “but I shall do what I wish.”

  “But it could not be.” She was too innocent to know that her attitude was stiffening his determination to have his own way.

  “If I will it, it shall come to pass,” he said.

  Then suddenly he had taken both her hands, was drawing her toward him and kissing her.

  “Robert …” she began.

  “Your skin smells like buttermilk and your hair like hay,” he said.

  “We shall be seen.”

  “And do we care for that?”

  “They will think you are a shepherd with your love.”

  He released her. He did not care that Robert Dudley should be mistaken for a shepherd.

  They walked slowly back to the house.

  She said sadly: “It is like a dream that will never come to pass in reality.”

  “We will make it come true.”

  “But I know your father will never consent. It is wrong therefore to hope.”

  “I tell you I will do as I please.”

  “But you have forgotten who you are and the grand schemes your father will have for you. You have forgotten that although I am my father’s heiress and he is considered rich in these parts, you are Robert Dudley, the son of the most important man in England.”

  “There is something you have forgotten. It is this: When I say I love, I love; and when I say I will marry, I will do so. No one shall stand between me and my desires.”

  It was bold and it was what was expected of him.

  He kissed her as they stepped into the house, and he kissed her as though he cared not who might see.

  Amy told her maid Pinto what had happened. Amy could not keep anything from Pinto.

  “Pinto,” she cried, “I am swooning. Bring a fan and fan me. I know not what is to become of me.”

  Amy lay on her bed, half laughing, half crying, while Pinto tried to soothe her frivolous young mistress.

  “Now, now, sweeting, now, now! What is it? You must not be so excited. It’s that young man, I’ll wager.”

  “Clever Pinto!” said Amy with a smothered laugh.

  “Oh, Mistress Amy, what has happened? What have you done? He is not for you.”

  “You must not let him hear you say that, Pinto. He would be angry with you. He is for me, Pinto. He says it, and he will be very angry with any who gainsay it.”

  Pinto felt sick with the horror of this. The family might think it great good fortune to have that young man as their guest. Pinto was a wise woman. She watched him often, and always with a fearful absorption. “What have you done?” she demanded. “Tell me … everything.”

  “I was in the meadow with him … making a daisy chain.”

  Pinto sighed and shook her head. “How many times has it begun thus?” she cried
. “Making a daisy chain! There is some evil in daisy chains. So simple! So innocent! Thus was Eve when the serpent came along.”

  “He says he will marry me, Pinto.”

  “Never!”

  “He is determined to do so.”

  “They are always determined at first. It is only afterward that their determination wavers.”

  “You misjudge him … and me.”

  “Then you are still my little virgin?”

  Amy nodded. “He swears he will marry me. Not even his father will stop him.”

  “A man who could deal so swiftly with the Norfolk rising not stop his son making the wrong marriage!”

  “But this is the right marriage, Pinto.”

  “Nay, dearest.”

  “He says so and he is always right.”

  “I like this not, Mistress Amy.”

  “I shall never allow you to leave me, Pinto, wherever I go.”

  “I should think not!” said Pinto.

  Pinto looked at the sixteen-year-old girl who had never been far from her country home. What did she know of the way of the world? And the young man had the air of knowing much.

  Perhaps he would go away. He could not mean this talk of marriage. Pinto would know how to comfort Mistress Amy when he went. There was no fear that Robert Dudley would marry Amy Robsart. Fear of it? Yes, fear. For if innocent little Amy married Robert Dudley, how would it end?

  Surprisingly the Earl of Warwick gave his consent to the marriage of his son with the daughter of John Robsart. Robert’s powers of persuasion were great, and his father recognized that determination which he knew so well because he himself possessed it. Robert was his fifth son, so his marriage was not the important matter of that of a first-born; the Robsarts were rich. Moreover at this time the Earl had great matters to which he must attend. Every day seemed to bring the fall of Somerset nearer and he, Warwick, was preparing himself to become Lord Protector. The matter of a fifth’s son’s marriage therefore seemed less important than it might have seemed at another time.

  Jane Dudley, who could not accustom herself to her grand title, contemplated Robert’s marriage with happiness.