Mary struggled for calm. Before her stood the Lords of the Congregation, headed by her bastard brother James. Her father, she knew, had had a slew of bastard children; it was ironic indeed that both of his legitimate sons had died, leaving the throne to her, and that his bastard sons had survived, unable to succeed. It gave her a momentary, perverse satisfaction. As a child she had loved and looked up to James; but now she wondered if she could trust him. It was he who had led the effort to renounce Catholicism and establish Protestantism in Scotland, for which she could not forgive him. He had been a constant thorn in her mother’s side up to the day of her death. But he was all she had now, and she could not afford to alienate him…yet. For she had a plan; she would marry, soon and decisively, and then James and these disapproving Scots would see what she was made of. For now, however, she must bide her time.
She smiled and offered James her gloved hand from the back of her horse and he helped her to dismount. She slipped effortlessly from the saddle and came to stand at her full height in front of him. He was not surprised by her height, having been a frequent visitor to the French court over the years. But the others in the courtyard audibly gasped.
For this great-great-granddaughter of Edward the Fourth, and in the further mists of time, the descendant of that Plantagenet king known as Edward Longshanks, had inherited their magnificent stature. At six feet, she was taller than all the women and most of the men who had gathered in the courtyard. She literally towered over her brother. Heaven knew, she would need any and all such advantages if she were to rule Scotland effectively and bring her schemes to fruition.
“Good Brother,” she said pleasantly, once more offering him her hand.
James bowed over her hand and brushed it lightly with his lips, then straightened and met her eyes. French popinjay! Queen or no, He would soon relegate his haughty sister to her proper place.
Nonsuch Palace, September, 1561
The grease season was underway, and the great hall abounded with the slightly gamey odor of roasted venison. There were platters piled high with piping hot slabs of meat, and huge game pies, as big as wagon wheels, with golden, flaky crusts, were placed at intervals down the vast table. Elizabeth always ate sparingly, she was no trencher-woman, but she did enjoy watching others eating heartily. Henry FitzAlan, the Earl of Arundel, knew this, and always ensured that his table was well-laden whenever the queen visited his palace of Nonsuch.
The palace had been begun by the queen’s father, but unlike many of Henry's palaces, Nonsuch was not an adaptation of an old building; the king had chosen to build a new palace in this location, just south of London and an easy day’s ride, because it was near to one of his main hunting grounds. It was from these grounds that the venison had come. It had been a good day’s hunting; the queen had brought down two does and a stag.
In design, the palace had been made to compete with François Premier’s grand Chateau de Chambord, but French visitors to the Tudor court secretly laughed up their sleeves at this notion; French palaces were elegant, graceful, sophisticated. In their opinion, Nonsuch was an overdone caricature of beautiful Chambord, with its glaring red brick and stark white trim. The palace was still unfinished when Henry died, and Queen Mary had sold the lease of it to the earl, who completed it.
The meal was being served in seven courses, of which the flesh and meat pies were the fourth; the meal had begun with a beaker of good English ale, followed by a pottage of barley and vegetables, served in crusty trenchers. After this a course of fish had been served; there were carps baked in caudle, mackerel, picked herrings, and jellied eels, as well as a gift from the Queen of Scots, smoked Scottish salmon. Elizabeth smiled smugly to herself at that gift; it would take more than a barrel full of fish to convince her to name her cousin as her heir!
Elizabeth was still smarting from the whole issue of the succession. The Council, her household, Robert, the ambassadors of the foreign suitors who still clamored for her hand, Cecil; no one would give her any peace on the subject of marriage and the production of an heir to secure the throne of England.
Finally, the platters were removed and the table was laid with the bounty of the fall; apples, pears, and plums, fresh or candied; walnuts, hazelnuts and filberts; and a variety of cheeses. Although she ate sparingly, Elizabeth had a sweet tooth; she bypassed the heavy cheeses, nibbling on a nut, awaiting the syllabub, marchpane and sweet wafers that would be served with the even sweeter dessert wine…she was no wine-bibber, but she did enjoy her Hippocras.
Just as she was about to lift her bejeweled beaker to her lips, a commotion behind the raised dais where she sat with Robert on one side and FitzAlan on the other caught her attention. Cecil was speaking with a messenger; she watched as the man knelt and handed a sealed document up to him. Cecil broke seal and scanned the parchment. Then he looked up and met her eyes.
###
There was a small room off the great hall at Nonsuch that contained everything a lady needed to refresh herself between courses; it even had its own garderobe. Elizabeth sat in the throne-like chair that the earl had provided for her ease during her stay at the palace. She read the parchment, then dashed it angrily to the floor.
“God’s death!” she shouted. “This is all I need!”
Robert and Cecil exchanged glances. Never had two men been so much in accord whilst still being at complete odds with each other. Both men were constantly telling the queen that her troubles would be over if only she would marry and produce an heir. Robert pressed only his own suit as vehemently as he dared; Cecil pressed every other suitor’s cause except Robert’s. But both were agreed, as were court, Council and the population of England, that the queen must marry and bear a child.
“And a son!” cried Elizabeth on a sob. “Why did the brat have to be a boy? Why could not it have been a girl?” For a moment she was lost in thought; so might the opposite words have been spoken by her father at her own birth! “What is their state?”
“Both the Lady Katherine and the babe are in excellent health, Your Grace,” replied Cecil.
Elizabeth arose and began pacing the tiny room. Five strides in any direction found her facing a wall, and finally she gave up and sat down again. She drained the beaker of Hippocras that Robert had poured for her as soon as they entered the room, and set it down on the side table with a bang. “She should die of shame, to bear an illegitimate child in the Tower!”
Neither Cecil nor Robert responded, but their eyes met. The queen’s commission was still investigating the circumstances of the supposed marriage between the Lady Katherine Grey and Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford. So far, no evidence that the marriage had actually taken place had been found. But the Reformers were loud in their protestations that the Lady Katherine, whom they now referred to as Lady Hertford, was indeed lawfully married. And now she was the mother of a male heir to the throne of England. Anything but that the Catholic Mary of Scotland should be named heir!
“There is a conspiracy here, I can smell it!” cried Elizabeth.
“Your Grace,” said Cecil, in an attempt to soothe the angry queen, “I can assure you that we have found no evidence that any of this is the result of a conspiracy.” It was not a far-fetched suspicion, however; there could be men who might seek to depose the queen and place her cousin on the throne. Had not the very same thing happened to Queen Mary, with Katherine’s own sister, Jane Grey? He had, however, found no indication that there was such a plan. But who knew what men might do to avoid enduring another Catholic queen on the throne?
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes; they reflected the firelight and glowed almost red in her anger. “No, of course there is not! What we have here is nothing more than a rash, thoughtless, foolish wench who has indulged her carnal lust and who shall now be made to pay the price of such irresponsible behavior!”
Robert knew better than to say anything, especially in Cecil’s presence; he would save his comforting words for later, when he was alone with her. But he knew what lay behi
nd Elizabeth’s searing anger. Her cousin Katherine had followed her heart and risked all for love, which Elizabeth, as much as she might want to, would not do. And now the girl’s rash behavior had been rewarded with a child, and a son, to boot. He knew that Elizabeth wanted to marry him, but that she dared not. At least not yet. A year had come and gone since Amy’s death, but no one had forgotten the circumstances of it, and many made it their business to keep the abhorrent specter of himself as king of England alive enough in the minds of others to ruin his chances of ever marrying the queen.
“The stupid chit does not deserve to be named heir to the throne!” cried Elizabeth. “She is an insipid, senseless, self-indulgent fool who is not fit to rule a country! Oh, but now that she has proven herself capable of childbearing, all forget her recklessness! Well, I, for one, have not forgotten! Does my cousin expect to break the law and then be rewarded with a crown for it? I tell you this… I will see her dishonored, no matter what the commission finds! If they find that the marriage did indeed take place, I will have her unlawful union annulled and both of them tried for treason! It is treason for anyone in the line of succession to marry without the express leave of the reigning sovereign. But should the commission find no evidence of the marriage, then I will have them charged with unlawful copulation and will further try Hertford for deflowering a royal virgin! God in Heaven, if my cousin is too stupid to realize the consequences of her actions, Hertford has no such excuse! And where is the Lady Anne in all of this?”
“The Lady Anne is in the country, at Hanworth, and claims that she knew nothing about any of it,” said Cecil. There was no conspiracy, as the queen suspected, he was certain of it. But he was still on the side that fully supported leniency for Lord and Lady Hertford, which was how he now thought of Lady Katherine and the earl. He shared the collective dread of the English Reformers of Mary of Scotland being named heir. Another Catholic queen could very well spell England’s doom. Better the Lady Katherine, as silly and stupid as she was, than Mary of Scotland! But to many, either woman was unacceptable; God help England if she must face another female ruler when its current troublesome queen was no more! He audibly caught his breath at such a treacherous thought, but neither Robert nor Elizabeth noticed.
Elizabeth bounded up out of her chair and once again resumed her rapid pacing. So these were the candidates from which all would have her choose her successor! A brainless idiot or a Catholic! Had any queen ever been faced with such a choice? Apropos of nothing, she cried, “It shall be neither, I say! Men worship the rising, not the setting sun! If I were to name either of them as my heir, my own days would be numbered and numbered short!”
Both Robert and Cecil did not need to know the origin of this train of thought; was not the same issue constantly on both of their minds?
Cecil cleared his throat. “If only Your Grace would choose a husband from amongst all the most worthy princes who clamor for your hand, both the Lady Katherine and the Queen of Scots would cease to be of any importance.”
Elizabeth snorted. “It is not my hand they clamor for, sir, but my crown! And who is clamoring now, for have not all my suitors decamped to Scotland? Is not my cousin such a pretty widow that I am no longer seen as the most desirable choice in Europe for marriage?” She was still smarting from the reports that Eric of Sweden, whom she had rebuffed numerous times, had begun focusing his attention on Mary instead of herself from the moment of François’s death. Mary had also rebuffed him; he was a Protestant. But that begged the troublesome question of whom Mary would marry; because no one believed for a moment that she would not remarry.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Your Grace,” laughed Cecil, “if it is a throne that these princes seek in marriage, who would not prefer England to Scotland, that troublesome place?”
“Thank you very much, I am sure,” retorted Elizabeth. But it was true; Eric would have little chance with the Queen of Scots because of his religion, but her other suitors, the Archduke Charles, Philip’s heir Don Carlos, both Catholics, had abruptly ceased their importuning at her own court and had sent envoys to France long before Mary had sailed for Scotland. But Catherine de’ Medici, the French Queen Mother, and even Mary’s own Guise uncles, had vetoed any suggestion of a French alliance with Spain or the Holy Roman Empire.
Even Elizabeth’s own relatives were clamoring for Mary’s hand; without so much as by-your-leave, her cousin Margaret, Lady Lennox, had sent her son, Henry, Lord Darnley, to the French court, ostensibly to carry her cousin’s condolences; but in reality, the purpose of his visit had been to ask Mary for her hand. They were first cousins, and both had claims to both the Scottish and the English thrones. By all accounts, Mary had been overwhelmed by all of this; she had truly loved her husband and would not even consider the idea of remarriage at the raw moment of bereavement.
But Elizabeth was willing to bet that that would change, and soon. There were few women who had the strength to rule alone. She herself was one of them; but she was certain that her cousin of Scotland was not. Had not Mary always been dependent upon men? She had been so incensed by her cousin Margaret’s obvious scheming behind her back that she had sent both her cousin and the Earl of Lennox to the Tower, and when Darnley had finally set foot back onto English soil, he had been sent to join them. How long she would keep them there she had not yet decided. All she knew was that with Mary’s unwelcome arrival back in Scotland, she now had yet another problem to deal with. Mary’s choice of husband must not imperil England.
At that moment she happened to pass by the little table that sat next to the great gilded chair in which she had been sitting. She stopped and banged her fist down onto it so hard that her empty wine cup overturned.
“Marriage, heirs, the succession!” she cried. “I am sick unto death of the sound of these words!” She turned and faced Robert and Cecil. “Mention them to me again only at thy peril! Why, do I look so old or so sickly that I am like to die?”
The question was rhetorical; of course no one expected the queen to die. Not for many, many years. It was just that men felt better, more secure, when these things were settled.
Hampton Court Palace, October 1562
It had been a sunny day when the queen’s hunting party set out in the morning, but the shadows were getting long and it had clouded over. It was like many a fall day; beautiful and golden at the start, even a bit warm by midday, but now evening was setting in and the day had turned chill and damp.
Elizabeth galloped her horse across the last field before reaching the meadow that would take her back to the palace. She enjoyed the hunt, and could outride and outshoot all of her companions, even Robert. It was a point of pride. But today she had not felt like herself; her head ached and her ears were ringing. As soon as she gained the palace she would bathe and rest a while before the evening merriments.
She crested the hill and below her she could see the meadow, brown now instead of green; the red of a few late poppies and the purple of asters dotted the waving grass. Beyond was the palace, its red brick warm-looking even in the gloom. The gardens were still a riot of color, having been planted by an army of gardeners with all the flowers that bloomed in the early fall. The banks of blossoms seemed even brighter than usual against the backdrop of the dark green yews, all clipped to perfection into pleasing shapes. From her vantage point she could see the seemingly endless roofline, with its turrets and chimneys, all different sizes and heights; there was little that was symmetrical about it, but its very asymmetry lent it a distinct charm. She loved all of her castles and palaces, but Hampton Court was a particular favorite; perhaps because it had once belonged to her mother, who had had it as a gift…of sorts…from Cardinal Wolsey, who had built it.
But now for some strange reason it seemed as if there were double the number of chimneys and stacks than usual. That could not be right! She was having great difficulty focusing her eyes on anything distant. She simply must gain her rooms and rest.
Her bath was ready for her
when she arrived and despite the constant protests of Kat and her other ladies about the dangers of daily bathing, she sank gratefully into the warm water. Little wisps of steam rose from the surface and glided off into the room. The warmth made her drowsy; she found herself almost dropping off several times. Kat knew better than to nag, but as she scrubbed Elizabeth with the scented soap, her disapproval of the entire idea of bathing each day, sometimes twice! …was communicated by her very silence and the violence of her ministrations. But Elizabeth felt too weary to chastise Kat for her evident disapproval. She simply must lie down or she would slip beneath the water’s surface and drown.
She stood up and Kat and her other ladies dried her with her linen towels, then slipped a fresh gown over her head. She stumbled on her way to the great bed, and Kat had to steady her.
“I will rest for one hour,” she said. Her ladies withdrew, and almost instantly, Elizabeth fell into an uneasy sleep.
###
“My lord,” cried Kat, her hands clasped under her chin in her anxiety, “you must come. I cannot rouse Her Grace.”
Robert’s rooms connected with the queen’s, and he followed Kat into the grand chamber. Elizabeth looked very small in the bed. She lay on top of the elaborate counterpane. There was a roaring fire in the hearth, but she lay shivering, almost convulsing. He lifted her hand in his and placed his other hand upon her brow.
“She is burning with fever,” he cried. “Where is a physician? And douse that fire! Quickly, quickly!”
After what seemed like an age, Dr. Burkhardt, the leech in the employ of Elizabeth’s cousin, Lord Hunsdon, was brought into the room. He lifted Elizabeth’s hand and studied it. Finally he said, without preamble, “Iss der smallpox.”
In High Places Page 17