by David Elias
Elizabeth of Bohemia
A Novel about Elizabeth Stuart, theWinter Queen
David Elias
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Three
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
For my sons, David and William, and my daughter, Wendy.
“This is precisely the moment adapted to the poet or novelist . . . that the accomplished artist has blended in her composition the strength and individuality of historical lineaments with the more touching graces of poetic expression, and breathed into the plastic forms of the imagination the glow of nature and truth.”
Elizabeth Benger, 1825
Part One
Chapter One
October 18, 1612
Whitehall Palace
London, England
Outside the grey skies shed a stinging rain to freeze upon the crusty lawns, and everywhere the damp cold crept in through the stone walls of the palace. Autumn had come so harshly to the city that my brother Henry declared it only a matter of time before the rippling waters of the Thames must disappear under a layer of treacherous ice. I let the letter I’d been reading fall into my lap and leaned forward to take in the warmth of the flames. The groom of the chamber had just been by to replenish the hearth and the fire crackled before me, yet I felt a shiver. A rogue strand of tawny curls fell across my eyes and I brushed them aside, played a finger along the length of my neck as I pondered a future both uncertain and unwelcome. There was a knock at the door and Lady Anne Dudley stepped into the room.
“Your Highness,” she said matter-of-factly, “it is time.”
“Yes.” I folded up the letter. “Yes, of course. I’m ready.”
“You’ve been ready for the better part of an hour now, Madam.”
Through the open door of the privy chamber I could see the ladies of the court in the anteroom beyond, swirling about in a sea of gossip and giggle, hardly able to contain their excitement. Seated and standing, preening and fussing, they were eager to get on with the evening’s entertainment, giddy at the prospect of this first meeting between their mistress and the newly arrived prince, come at my father’s bidding to meet his bride. They were all aflutter to think who among them might be chosen as one of a dozen or more bridesmaids for the wedding, but for all their education and erudition they were a vacuous and silly lot, and it was Lady Anne Dudley alone that had my trust and confidence.
“Another minute, if you please,” I said.
Lady Anne turned to close the door behind her and stood before it, hands folded. “As stylish as it may be for a beautiful young princess to be a little late, there can be no more putting off.”
“Yes, yes, by all means we must take our leave.”
“That gaggle out there has worked itself into a froth, I can tell you.” Lady Anne cocked her head to one side. “We must go, if for no other reason than to stop up their incessant fuss and chatter. They are worse than children.”
“I envy them their anticipation, for it is of a happier kind than my own.”
“You are uncertain of what lies ahead.”
“On the contrary, it is all laid out for me. The evening’s proceedings shall lay the groundwork for a ceremony of betrothal, soon to be followed by a wedding, after which I can expect to find myself in Heidelberg, there to bear royal children and live out my days much as my mother did when she was brought out of Denmark at the age of fourteen.” I looked up at Lady Anne, who had come to stand next to me and rest a hand on my shoulder. “And none of it my own doing.”
“I grant you deserve better treatment.” Lady Anne’s eyes betrayed a momentary depth of feeling I had seldom witnessed. “But do not abandon hope, for the fates may yet be kind.” This woman, you understand, was more of a mother to me than my own, who could not be bothered even to feign interest in her daughter’s affairs.
“What if it should go badly?”
“Forgive my confusion.” Lady Anne straightened up, reverted to her usual business-like manner. “But have you not given me repeated assurances of your desire to see it does exactly that?”
“But if it should go otherwise?”
“You speak in riddles.”
I took up the small portrait lying on the table beside me and held it up to the light. The painting had arrived some days earlier and been presented to me, along with a note I had yet to open, by the Prince’s chamberlain, a man named Count Schomberg. I had hardly given the portrait more than a passing glance, but now I allowed myself to examine it more closely.
“Look here,” I pointed, “at these cherubic cheeks and this tousled hair. The wide eyes and girlish lips resemble those of a school boy. It is hardly a man.”
Lady Anne took the portrait from me. “And yet what if this likeness is terribly out of date, and he should turn out to be handsome and manly? What if by word and deed he prove himself to be honest and worthy? What then?”
“No matter, should he appear as charming and handsome as Sir Raleigh himself it shall not move me, for I am determined upon meeting him to be as cold as civility will allow. How could I hope to be otherwise when the offence is so great? To think he had been chosen for me as though I were a foot and he a boot. Humiliation!”
“I will say he reminds me a little of your brother.”
“I don’t see any resemblance to Henry.”
“I meant your brother Charles.”
“Then it were better to close the book on him at page one.”
“You judge your younger brother too harshly.”
“If during his stay the Elector Palatine should prefer to keep company with him, he shall keep less of mine.”
“And yet after Henry, it is Charles who shall find himself one day seated upon the throne.”
“Not so had I been born a male child.” I glanced up at Lady Anne. “Do you think I would have made a good queen?”
“As good and better than even she who was your godmother and namesake, I venture.”
“You flatter as those chicks and hens in the next room. At any rate, we play at idle chatter, for it shall be Henry who assumes the throne, and I am glad for it.”
“Pray there may be no more unseen misfortune.”
“Why say you so?”
“I hardly think you can have forgotten the events that transpired at Parliament not so long ago.”
“I have done my best to forget.”
It was coming on seven years ago that a group of men had plotted to seize the throne from my father and invest me as child queen. If the plan had succeeded, my entire family would have been slaughtered save for myself. Thereafter I should have been seated upon the throne of England, my rule overseen by those who had orchestrated the coup.
“You were only ten years old, I grant,” said Lady Anne, “but you know as well as I do that there are yet those remaining who would take matters into their own hands.”
“Indeed.”
&n
bsp; The conspirators were led by a man named Guy Fawkes, but when their ambitions were foiled at the last moment and the perpetrators brought to justice, my father insisted I bear witness to their execution. Even now the images flashed into my head of men being stripped naked, their genitals cut off and burnt before my eyes, bowels removed, hearts torn from their chests before they were beheaded, all while the crowd roared and I recoiled in horror. For months I suffered crippling nightmares.
“Here, let me see to that.” Lady Anne tucked a lock of hair I had been brushing aside back into place, fussed over me as a mother might, in a manner both irritating and soothing.
“Suppose this foreign prince should declare his love for me at first sight?” I teased.
“I think not.”
“You don’t consider me worthy?”
“I say it is a fanciful notion best uttered by those who tread upon the boards.” Lady Anne crouched to pull a rogue thread from the sleeve of my dress. “A fiction if you ask me, offered up to please those gullible audiences at the Globe.”
“And yet when Romeo did confess his love for Juliet, were you not moved to see it?”
“It was not love, but mere infatuation.”
“I have witnessed ladies swoon at the mere sight of a certain gentleman. Sir Raleigh, for one,” I said evenly.
“Your mother was ever one to dissolve at his gaze. There are whispers it was that which sent him to the Tower in the first place.”
At the mention of the Tower, my thoughts turned back to the letter I had been reading. It was from my cousin Arabella Stuart, whose unwelcome fate gave me good cause to be cautious where my father’s wishes were concerned.
October 4, 1612
Dearest Cousin Elizabeth,
I hope this correspondence finds you in good spirits. I can hardly say as much for my own. I am left almost entirely without comforts here in the Tower and another winter in this cold and damp place is a grim prospect. I know I shall not be warm for even a single moment. I am afforded less and less in the way of clothing and blankets. What’s left constitutes little more than rags and will be no match for the harsh elements soon to seep in through the stone walls.
Do you remember when we were children together in Coombe Abbey, how I found the rainy days insufferable and spent all my waking hours wrapped in blankets next to the fire? Oh, to luxuriate in such comforts. I shall have no recourse for that here. To think Sir Raleigh is fortunate enough to have a fireplace in his quarters, and a small stipend of wood to burn. Give me the use of such and I should better hope to withstand these dreary ramparts and desolate hours spent lying in a hard bed or perched upon a wretched stool.
I know Sir Raleigh has cautioned we must keep our exchanges to a minimum or be found out, but I simply had to write and say that I had never thought to experience both the greatest joy and deepest sadness of my life in the space of an hour. How swiftly my heart flew from bliss to anguish. And yet I dare not reveal it. I should be grateful for your company, and for the chance to confide in you, but my advice is to forgo any more visits to the Tower. Your father has spies everywhere, not to mention that the Yeomen Warders here are a drunken and slovenly lot who cannot be trusted to honour the dignity of even a princess such as yourself. And yet I almost burst with this news!
I’m sorry to be so cryptic but I just had to write in case something happens to me. I hope yet to be released from the Tower, and I know you are doing everything in your power to try and persuade your father to be merciful, but I’m afraid I have angered him greatly.
Word has reached me of a Bohemian prince come to seek your hand, and it would seem your destiny, like mine, lies elsewhere. What a precious thing a daughter is from the very moment of its birth, even though it may be destined for a life among strangers.
Yours in best friendship and true blood,
Arabella Stuart
Arabella would surely have disclosed more to me were it not that she feared her correspondence might be intercepted. I’d heard it rumoured that her husband had come across the channel in secret to visit her in the Tower, but it seemed the hints in her letter alluded to something else. I considered how I might pay her a visit notwithstanding that I had to contend with this bothersome prince. Much as was the case with me, my father had foisted various suitors upon Arabella, including his own cousin, Lord Esme Stuart, not to mention a proposal from the brother of the Pope himself. But instead of giving in to these petitions, Arabella had married the man she loved, William Seymour, in a secret ceremony. When my father found out, he had Lord Seymour thrown into the Tower and Arabella confined to her estate. Even at that, she hadn’t contented herself to be held prisoner and instead hatched a plan to flee to France with William. I myself had a small hand in bringing the scheme to fruition, though thankfully my father never discovered as much. Lord Seymour managed to escape from the Tower, intending to rendezvous with Arabella at the port of Lee, where they would set sail for France together. Arabella donned an elaborate disguise, dressed as a man to elude her captors. I thought it was all so daring and romantic!
But things did not go as planned. The ship Arabella boarded left the harbour before Lord Seymour arrived, but worse, my father learned of the scheme and sent out a vessel of his own to overtake her. Arabella was recaptured, and this time he relegated her to the Tower of London, where she remained imprisoned even now. As I waited to be introduced to this foreign prince, I was mindful of my cousin’s fate, and though I had no intention of giving in too easily to my father’s authority, there was reason enough to fear the consequences of defying him outright.
Lady Anne gestured for me to rise. “Here, let’s straighten down your skirts.”
The chair I had been sitting on was more like a stool, as uncomfortable as the gown for which it was designed, but specially constructed to accommodate the impossibly wide skirt and exaggerated bum roll.
“This is a hideous dress,” I said.
“It is the fashion, My Lady.”
I was wearing a French Farthingale encased below the waist in whalebone with hoops that elevated the skirt behind and brought it down in front. The effect was meant to streamline my torso and accentuate its length, but it came at the expense of all practicality.
“I hope there shall be a suitable chair in the banquet hall, or I am doomed to disappear when I sit down.”
“It has all been seen to, My Lady. Shall we take our leave?”
“Listen to them out there.” I turned to the full-length mirror for a final inspection. “They are as full of merriment as I am of trepidation.” I brushed my hands down the front of my skirt. “Would one of them might go in my stead.”
“I don’t doubt they should scratch and claw for the chance,” said Lady Anne.
“More out of ambition than loyalty, I venture.”
“Come, My Lady. We must be on our way.”
“Very well, lead on.”
We entered the antechamber to much fussing by the ladies-in-waiting, who proceeded to organize themselves into an entourage which, though seemingly impromptu to the untrained eye, was in fact a carefully orchestrated arrangement that took into account who should have the privilege of walking nearest behind me, who at my right and left, and so on. Lady Anne would settle any last-minute disputes among them while I tempered my disdain for all their petty intrigues. Some were eager to accompany me to Heidelberg, where their prospects for advancement might improve, while others harboured ambitions I could only guess at and had best be wary of. I found it prudent to keep them as yet somewhat in my favour, if only to mitigate their disappointment should I succeed in sending this foreign prince back to Bohemia.
With my entourage in tow we made our way through the halls of the palace, brightly lit for the occasion with hundreds of candles. It was along this same hallway, adorned with an extravagance of ornate sculpture and ornamentation, its walls hung with intricate tapestries, that my brother Henry woul
d escort the Palatine to the banquet hall. Upon my arrival the ladies hurried to find their places while I joined the rest of my family in the vestibule. My parents and Charles stood in a trio at one end of the room. My mother, with her excess of pearls braided about her neck, bracelets upon her wrists, earrings dangling, had as usual dressed more like a costumed gypsy than a queen. My father wore his usual padded peasecod and out-of-date breeches over a pair of wrinkled pantaloons. But there, seated upon an oak Wainscot in a corner of the room, resplendent in his embroidered doublet and fashionable trunk hose, was my brother Henry. I expected him to bound over and greet me with a kiss upon both cheeks as always, but instead he remained seated and smiled over at me weakly. I grew instantly troubled.
“Your brother has fallen ill again,” my mother announced.
“Henry.” I hurried next to him and leaned down. “Say what is the matter?”
“Forgive me, sister, but it seems I have lost all my strength, I know not how.”
At these words a great weight of dread descended upon me, that the one shining light against the darkness of my uncertain future should threaten to be extinguished. In our time at Coombe Abbey my brother and I had formed a little family of our own, raised as we were away from our parents, in the household of Lord and Lady Harrington. The time we spent together there forged in us so strong a bond as naught but death could hope to sever.
“How long has he been like this?” I looked up at the others but none made to answer.
“It came of a sudden just after I’d taken lunch,” said Henry, “and I remain in hopes that it shall leave with equal haste.”
“Something you ate, perhaps,” said my mother.
“You should bring it all back up.” Our younger brother Charles offered this advice with a hint of smugness in his tone, as it was ever he that appeared frail and sickly compared to his older brother.
“I have and more,” answered Henry.
Henry, normally in the best of health, had of late from time to time been seized upon by a sudden tiredness, followed by headache and stomach pains. Even so he had always been one to keep up appearances, and as easily as I allowed myself to drift on occasion into melancholy, he took pains to remain a steady harbinger of good cheer. Where I saw fit to voice displeasure, he upheld decorum, as he was doing now, trying to disguise his discomfort, but there was no hiding it. I had never seen him so pale.