He smiled inwardly. That was one hurdle leapt! The queen insisting that he stay on! The rest, if he were careful, would follow in good time.
Cecil, who was a much more ardent Reformer than he knew Elizabeth to be, relaxed in his chair. He had read his Bible in English, that Bible for which so many poor souls had perished in the flames that he might possess it. He recalled a proverb that said, “A soft word turneth away wrath.” Now was the time for soft words.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Your Grace,” he said. “I am truly sorry that you are grieved by the shortcomings of the Treaty of Edinburgh.”
The fire in Elizabeth’s eyes died. In her heart, she knew that her demands for the immediate return of Calais and for the French to pay her to make war upon them were unreasonable. Robert had a habit of always asking for more than he knew he could possibly get; in that manner he usually got at least what he wanted in the first place. It was a good tactic…in some situations. She regarded Cecil and her face softened.
“No, my lord, it is I who am sorry,” she said with a smile. She extended her hand and patted his arm. “Let us not quarrel, sir. We have too much to do ahead of us for that.”
Cecil returned the smile, and briefly placed his hand atop the queen’s, returning the pat. “Indeed, Your Grace, and now that I have returned from Scotland, I must be about that business.” He arose, bowed, and left her staring out of the window.
While this conciliatory tactic had been playing out, the part of his brain that had been wrestling with the problem of how to rid queen and court of Lord Robert’s baleful influence had fashioned an intricate puzzle, the last piece of which had just fallen into place.
Oxfordshire, September 1560
It had been nigh on dusk when Master Bowman leapt onto his horse and began the seventy mile journey from Cumnor Place to Hampton Court. He was a good horseman, as all of Lord Robert’s retainers must be to remain in his employ. But even he was unsure, as the sun disappeared below the horizon, if he would be able to make the entire journey on the same horse, in the dark of night. The moon was new and even when she did rise, would afford little light. But he must gain the palace as quickly as possible; there was not a moment to lose. He galloped wildly; thankfully, all of his attention was focused on his headlong flight and not the reason for it.
The early September days still held the warmth of summer, but the nights were closing in earlier and earlier, and had become chill with a foretaste of the autumn that was coming. Already his fingers felt cold and stiff on the reins. But he must hang on.
On and on through the biting wind he rode, always worried about inadvertently leaving the road that he could not see with any clarity, or that his horse would step in a hole or stumble on a rock. Thank Heaven that the weather had been clear of late and that the roads were dry.
He was disconcerted to realize that he had just awakened with a jerk and a start; he had actually fallen asleep in the saddle. Where was he? The horse knew the road; it was one he traveled often, relaying messages between Cumnor Place and points south towards London. And suddenly, there it was. He could see the evenness of the torches that lit the outlines of the palace. There would be guards on duty; he knew exactly which entrance would take him where he needed to go. What was the time, he wondered? It must needs be very late.
Master Bowman stopped at the side gate through which he normally entered, showed his credentials, and made his way to the stables. No matter what dire message he carried, the horse must be seen to first. He left the mare, puffing and blowing, sweating and steaming, in the hands of a stableman, and ran for the privy stairs. Lord Robert, he knew, now had rooms adjoining the queen’s in every palace in which the royal court stayed.
Lord Robert’s chambers were guarded by his own men; they recognized Bowman.
“How now, what brings you here at this hour?” cried the halberdier.
“Dire news,” said Bowman. “Where is the master?”
“Still in the hall,” replied the halberdier. “The revels go on into the wee hours some nights.”
Bowman knew that his news could not wait; he must, even in his dirty, dusty clothes, find his master without delay. He ran for the hall.
Once there, he blinked like an owl in the light of dozens of torches and blazing candelabras. The noise of the music was deafening after the eerie silence of the road, where the only sound to be heard was the pounding of his horse’s hooves. Lord Robert was on the floor, dancing with the queen. Bowman stole as unobtrusively as he could around the perimeter of the great hall, skirting the walls until he reached the raised table where the queen and Lord Robert sat when they were not on the floor.
The music ended and he watched as Lord Robert led the queen back to the table.
His news was not written; no one dared commit such a thing to paper, and there had been no time. He stood behind his master’s chair, kneading his felt hat in his hands.
“How now, Bowman!” said Robert in a lusty, booming voice. He saw the queen to her gilded chair, sat down in his own, and turned to his messenger. Something in Bowman’s eyes warned him that the news was not good; the very hour of its bringing did not bode well.
“My lord…” said Bowman.
Elizabeth turned. “What is amiss?” she asked.
Bowman looked uncertainly from Lord Robert to the queen and back again. “My lord,” he said again. “Lady Dudley…”
Robert’s eyes grew wide and his heart fell into his stomach. “What of Lady Dudley, lad?”
“My lord, she is dead. She was found this afternoon at the foot of the stairs at Cumnor Place with a broken neck.”
For a moment the lights seemed to dim and the noise abated, then everything came flooding back to his senses, over-loud and over-bright. How could such a thing have happened? And what would become of him now? For he greatly feared that no one, not even the queen, would believe him innocent of his wife’s sudden death.
Chapter 5
“The Queen of England is to marry her horse master, who has
killed his wife to make room for her.”
– Mary, Queen of Scots
St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, October 1560
T he little church was draped in black and filled to bursting with well-wishers; or so it appeared. To Robert, it seemed as if the court, crowded into tiny St. Margaret’s, were not friends come to sympathize and help him to mourn his loss, but enemies come to sneer and gloat. Elizabeth sat by his side, as always, but there was a subtle change in her. It was indeed ironic that now that he was free to marry, she was as distant from him, and as unobtainable, as the moon. Even the choice of St. Margaret’s for his wife’s London memorial service was significant; the little church, chosen to minimize the whole debacle.
The days following Amy’s death had been a nightmare for them both. Elizabeth’s immediate reaction had been to separate herself from him as quickly as possible; he was a great friend, to be sure, but for the time being, a suspected murderer. If he were guilty of his wife’s death, there must be no whisper of the involvement of the queen. They had been abruptly distanced, in that instant at Windsor when he had first been informed of Amy’s death; they had gone from being Elizabeth and Robert back to being the queen and her Master of Horse.
Elizabeth, for whom her morning toilet was almost a sacred ceremony, had kept to her rooms during that dreadful time of waiting for the outcome of the coroner’s inquest. No longer did she make a joyful ritual her daily bath (curious habit!), painting her lips and powdering her skin, choosing a gown, having her hair dressed, selecting her jewels, and then emerging from her chambers like a goddess, resembling some pagan idol, to be admired and adored by all. She had been pale, listless, refusing to eat, and unable to concentrate on anything for very long in her anxiety. When she did have to attend to state business, she did so detachedly, without emotion; this eerie calm before court and Council was juxtaposed in her private apartments by fits of weeping and rage, when she would pound her fists and kick her furniture. Ne
ver had the Tudor temper been more in evidence than during this seemingly endless time of apprehension, foreboding and ceaseless waiting.
These fits of rage were balanced by ferocious sessions on the virginals; the wild, violent sound of the queen’s playing could be heard from one end of the palace to the other.
It had been no better for Robert; he, a man of action, forced to idleness at his house in Kew, was like one of the spirited stallions for which he was responsible. He fretted, he paced up and down, alternately dreadfully fearful and then terribly angry, railing at fortune, which had dealt with him, once again, so cruelly. He had loved Amy; but then their adolescent amour had inevitably cooled. He did not love her any less when Elizabeth had begun her pursuit of him, but his feelings for his wife had by that time undergone a subtle change. And he was an ambitious man, the more so for having lost everything when his father was beheaded for treason. By some miracle, all had been restored to him, and more; but now, once again, his fate hung in the balance, through no fault of his own. At the moment, only God knew that he was innocent.
Everything, everything, depended upon the verdict that the inquest returned; his position at court, his influence with the queen, his wealth, even his very freedom. All in the hands now of twelve good men and true.
He had, from the very first moment, done his utmost to ensure that everything possible was being done to investigate his wife’s death thoroughly and impartially. When exoneration came…and it must come! …there must be no lingering doubts. He had sent Good Bowman riding posthaste to inform Amy’s family of the tragedy; he had made certain that her brothers were involved in the investigation. He was innocent of his wife’s death, but that did not mean that he had nothing to fear. Innocent men had been hung before now for crimes that they did not commit. And there were so many people against him; people who were jealous of his influence with the queen, people who would like nothing better than to see him implicated as his wife’s murderer.
There was also talk of suicide; certainly that was preferable to murder with himself blamed, but that he would not believe. Amy had been upset at having to leave the court and distressed by his close friendship with the queen, but never could he bring himself to believe that she would destroy herself.
So what had happened?
After days of dreadful waiting in uncertainty and suspense, wherein there was nothing he could do except to fret and hope for news, the verdict was at last announced.
Death by Misadventure…an accident. And what else could it have been? He certainly could not have killed his wife himself, having been far away from Cumnor Place at the time of her death. To be sure, he could have hired someone else to do the deed, but he had not. So of course the inquest had found no evidence of such a thing. And he knew in his heart that Amy was no suicide. Had she wished to do away with herself, would she, would anyone? …have chosen as a weapon a shallow flight of stairs? He thought not. Amy’s death, therefore, must have been an accident.
He had been exonerated and called back to court by a relieved, joyful Elizabeth. But things had changed. Many of the courtiers looked at him askance; few believed in the coroner’s findings. Even Elizabeth, despite her obvious relief at the verdict and his return to court, was somehow different. He had no doubt that she believed wholeheartedly in his innocence; so what, then?
Elizabeth, upon hearing the verdict, had been overjoyed. She had welcomed Robert back to court. And then she had immediately ordered the court into mourning for Lady Dudley. Amy had been buried in Oxfordshire after the inquest. But Elizabeth had insisted upon holding a memorial service in London for her as well, ostensibly out of respect for her Master of Horse.
But Lady Dudley’s death was, to Elizabeth, a disaster twice over. For she could now foresee with glaring clarity the day when Robert would, after a decent interval of time had passed, begin in earnest to press his suit for her hand, just as insistently as all of her other suitors were doing. Gone was the magic shield of his marriage. She loved him and, privately, had told him so. And now there was nothing, technically, stopping her from marrying him. But all of the other reasons why marrying him would be disastrous had not gone away, nor would they.
Amy Dudley’s mysterious death had placed Elizabeth in an impossible position. Even if Amy had died a natural death, she would still have been trapped by her own professions of love for Robert. But she would have had to wait, for oh so long a time, before even considering marriage with him. But now that Lady Dudley had died in suspicious circumstances, it was beginning to be evident that regardless of the inquest and its verdict, that pall of doubt which now hung over Robert might never be lifted from him.
And then had come the coup de grace, the blow which even if there had not been so many good reasons not to marry her favorite, was the final death knell to all her hopes and desires.
Nicholas Throckmorton, her ambassador to the court of France, had been sending constant communiqués across the water describing the reactions of the Continental courts to the sudden death of the wife of the Queen of England’s favorite. But the last one, the one she had received just before the service for Lady Dudley in St. Margaret’s Church, had stunned her. It brought home with a conclusive finality just how impossible any thought of marriage with Robert truly was.
Her cousin, her rival, Mary of Scotland, Queen of France, had remarked before the entire French court that the Queen of England was about to marry her horse master, who had murdered his wife to make room for her.
No amount of protestation from her court, her Council, her Parliament or her people could have killed her desire to marry Robert as dead as this spiteful statement from her enemy.
Orleans, France, December 1560
“This is your fault!” cried Catherine de’ Medici. “If not for you, he would never have gone on the hunt in this miserable weather.” She saw Mary wince, and thought, “Good!”
Mary sat on the edge of the great bed, holding François’s hand. It felt flaccid in her own, and burned with fever. She ignored her mother-in-law’s outburst. It was best to do so; engaging her would only provoke argument. François was her first, her only concern. And in any case, the Queen Mother’s statement of blame was patently unfair. François had never been robust, but hunting and hawking were two pastimes he thoroughly enjoyed, and at which he excelled, despite his fragility and small stature. He always enjoyed the day more if Mary rode at his side, but he would have gone without her had she not wished to ride on that fateful day.
François moaned and began to thrash in the bed; such fits of delirium alternated with a death-like tranquility. She placed a cool hand onto his fevered brow. “Sh-sh, my darling, my dear one,” she whispered. Tears welled up in her eyes; he must not die. He must not. For ten years he had been her loving companion; they had known each other practically from the cradle. And for two years and some months, he had been her husband. She had lost her father-in-law, King Henri, only a little over a year ago, he who, except for her Guise uncles, had been the only father she had ever known; she had lost her mother not six months since. And now François was sick unto death. Was she to lose everyone she loved, and who loved her?
Mary touched with light fingers the bandage, stiff with blood and pus that covered the place behind François’s ear where the surgeon had lanced it. François had come in from the hunt that day weeks ago with a terrible earache; he often developed such aches when he rode in raw weather. At first he had complained of a buzzing in his ear, and that he felt dizzy. That was on a Friday; by the following Sunday he was worse and had collapsed during Mass. The royal physicians discovered a swelling behind his ear the size of a walnut. The abscess worsened and soon François was howling in pain. The doctors lanced the angry lump, and when they did so, pus had burst out through his mouth and nose. This release of pressure had provided the king some temporary relief, but the swelling soon returned and it became obvious to all that the king was gravely ill. For weeks he suffered from intermittent seizures. Mary stayed by his bedside al
l the time, refusing to leave, even to perform the most necessary of errands. What little she ate, the brief moments of sleep she stole when she could no longer stay upright, she took in François’s chambers.
After some little time, she decided that she must share her burden; she had, in François’s quiet moments, stolen out to the royal chapel and prayed for God to preserve him. It had been weeks now, but François was no better; the path between the royal chambers and the chapel was now well-worn with Mary’s dolorous footsteps.
At the insistence of her Guise uncles, the doctors continued to bleed him and purge him; but far from easing his condition these ministrations seemed only to worsen it. Mary could see now that her uncles cared nothing for François himself, as she did; they cared only about holding onto their power, the power to rule France that was vouchsafed them only through herself as the wife of the king. If François died, in one stroke, the power of the Guises in France would be neutralized.
And if that were true, what of herself? It was something that she had never before considered, but she thought about it now. With François gone, she would no longer be queen of powerful, glittering France. With no child, she would have no role here, and little status. She would still be the Queen of Scotland, but her life in France as a petted, spoiled princess would cease to be. She loved François; but she loved her life in France, too. His death would be the shipwreck of all her dreams, in the sense that her life as she knew it, as she had always expected it to be, as she had been born, bred and raised for it to be, would be over.
Through her mind at that moment flitted the sad fate of Diane de Poitiers; she had lost her exalted position as the first lady of the realm, even above the queen herself, when Henri died. She lost all the castles, all the jewels he had given her. She retained only her own estates, those that she had acquired through her marriage with Louis de Brézé, Seigneur d'Anet. Now Mary could see that this would soon be her own fate if François did not survive. Instead of Queen Mother to a ruling son, she would be only the former Queen of France and, unless she remarried another powerful European prince, would be packed off back to barbarous Scotland.
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