In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  Elizabeth heaved another sigh. “Norfolk, you mean.”

  Walsingham said nothing.

  She pushed herself up onto her pillows. “Have you the warrant, then?”

  Wordlessly, he withdrew the scroll from his robes and handed it to her.

  She unfurled it and her eyes misted over as she read the dread words once again. “To be hung, drawn and quartered…” Well, that should not be…she would commute the sentence to simple beheading. Surely he would know that? She knew a brief moment of the same panic, anger, fear and frustration that had seized her when she had rent the other iterations of this document into pieces and thrown them into the flames. She was too weak and spent to rend this document. But she was not too weak to wield a quill.

  “All right, then,” she sighed.

  Walsingham fetched a quill from the queen’s writing desk and inked it; he brought it to the bed and handed it to her. For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and the scratching of the quill across the vellum of the warrant. She handed it back to him, and laid back on her pillows, exhausted with the effort.

  It was done; now he must distract her before she had a chance to change her mind.

  “Your Grace,” he said in his melodious voice. “I beg leave to ask a boon.”

  Elizabeth turned her head towards him; she had been staring into the fire. “Yes, my dear Good Moor. If there is ought that I can do for you, gladly will I do it.”

  Sir Francis was usually an unreadable man; but now the anxiety shone plainly on his face, and his hands were clasped as if in supplication. “There is trouble brewing in France,” he said. “My lady wife is with child; I fear for her. May I send her to Your Grace?”

  “Oh, my dear,” said Elizabeth. “Of a certainty, you may. We shall look after Lady Ursula for you until you return to us.” On the morrow they would meet and review the points of the treaty, and then Walsingham would be on his way back to France. There was no need to ask the nature of the trouble there; religious strife seethed on the Continent like a roiling cauldron just waiting to boil over. Thank God England was safe from such, due to her policy of blind tolerance; and she meant to keep it that way.

  Palace of Westminster, May 1572

  It was a familiar scene, and one that Elizabeth abhorred. She was seated on her throne, under her canopy of state, on the royal dais, overlooking a sea of faces. Beside her on either side stood her heralds and her Gentlemen Usher. The members of her Council not sitting the Parliament were ranged on either side of the throne. To her right sat the Lords Spiritual, to her left, the Lords Temporal. The Commons stood facing her, ranged behind the table where sat Speaker Bell, a known troublemaker! …and his clerks and secretaries.

  Behind her the royal coat of arms glittered, and on the walls exquisite Flemish tapestries gleamed in the candlelight. She was robed, sceptered and crowned. And all this because of Mary Stuart! But as much as she longed to be free of the Queen of Scotland, she knew that she never should be. And so it was very ironic that she would be called upon this day to defend her royal cousin, indeed, was the only person in the room not calling for Mary’s blood. It was her own fault, she supposed; if she had permitted the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, perhaps the demand for Mary’s head would not have been so great.

  Walsingham had, in a moment of weakness after she had been so ill, persuaded her to sign yet a third warrant for the execution of Thomas Howard. But even so, it took time to prepare for an execution; and as she had pointed out, there was no scaffold in London fit for use. A testament in itself to her peaceful reign! Cecil had insisted that the duke be extended the courtesy of a private beheading on Tower Green, for she had commuted his sentence to such, but at this she had bristled and refused.

  It was not until later that Cecil remembered that her mother had been beheaded on Tower Green. To cause the death of a Howard relation on the very same spot where her mother had met her end was too much for Elizabeth to bear. And so work had begun on the new scaffold, and a new date set for the duke’s execution. But in the wee hours of the appointed day, she had risen from a sleepless night in bed to inform the Constable of the Tower that the execution was to be postponed yet again. What the duke himself thought of all these delays she neither knew, nor cared; all she knew was that she could not bring herself to allow the sentence to be carried out.

  And now Parliament was in session, its sole purpose to deal with the aftermath of the Ridolfi plot. Both Houses and the Privy Council were to present their case against the Scots queen. They wanted Mary to be tried for treason as if she were an English subject; but she refused to even consider such a solution. For the inevitable conclusion of that would be the same situation in which she found herself with Norfolk! God forfend!

  All were assembled and awaiting the queen’s direction. Elizabeth sighed. Best get on with it, then. She nodded to Speaker Bell, who nodded to the Sergeant-at-Arms; the mighty rod came down three times onto the stone floor; all was silence.

  Speaker Bell unfurled a scroll, and in a voice that fully justified his election as speaker, he proclaimed their purpose.

  “We are come hither,” he said, “to petition Your Grace in the matter of Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland, in that, Item, the said queen has declared herself to be Queen of England, during our own queen’s lifetime; Item, that the said queen has seduced into treason the premier peer of the realm from his allegiance to our rightful queen, our most high and mighty and dread sovereign, Queen Elizabeth; Item, that Her Grace has further, at diverse times, encouraged rebellion in the north; Item, that she hath conspired with men strange to this realm to bring foreign soldiers to our shores uninvited, for the purpose of causing the queen’s death, and overthrowing our government. We, your faithful Lords and Commons, do hereby demand that for said crimes, the Queen of Scotland be tried for treason and the penalty for such visited upon her.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, and then the men burst forth with angry shouts and drumming of feet.

  Elizabeth waited for the hubbub to die down, and then she said, “For your love of me, I thank you from my heart. But I cannot permit the Queen of Scotland to be tried for treason in an English court.”

  The response was deafening; the cries of protest were no more than she had expected.

  The stave once again sounded loudly three times, and the men were silent.

  Speaker Bell bowed and said, “With all due respect, Your Grace, the Treason Laws were changed so that any foreigner may be tried for treason in England.”

  “Ah,” said Elizabeth. “Any foreigner, you say. But my cousin is not just any foreigner, you see. She is a queen, and has no peer in this realm save myself.”

  “But Your Grace,” cried one man. “The Queen of Scots is a husband-murderer, a papist, an evil spider nestling in the bosom of England, weaving her wicked webs! She is a monstrous dragon who seeks to do away with our beloved queen, and visit the foul practices of her popish religion upon us! Her Grace has been cautioned more than once… let the axe now be her final warning!”

  “Aye,” cried another. “The Scottish queen hath heaped up together many sins; must we name them all again? Adultery, murder, conspiracy, treason! We must cut off her head and make no more ado about her!”

  Well, thought Elizabeth, that was plain speaking, and left no room for doubt as to what her Parliament and her Council expected. And it was true that her cousin had been caught out in, had even admitted to, petitioning a foreign power to enter England uninvited, to assist her to gain her liberty; but she had vehemently denied meaning any harm to the queen’s person. Mary had also denied bearing the title of Queen of England since her days at the French court, when she was forced to do so by her father-in-law and her Guise relations. And she had ingenuously averred to Walsingham that she believed that her marriage to Norfolk was to the liking of the English people. Her cousin had wept and stormed, and demanded to be brought into the Queen of England’s presence, into the very Parliamentary chamb
er, where she would justify herself to all. Indeed, thought Elizabeth wryly. Where she should work her sorcery, to sway all in her favor! Never would she allow such a thing. When her requests were denied, Mary had raged, saying that never would she recognize the jurisdiction of an English court over the fate of a queen of Scotland. Shewsbury and Walsingham had reported all of Mary’s words to her; all in all, it seemed that the queen of Scotland was very self-righteous in her condemnation of her cousin’s treatment of her.

  Lost in her thoughts, Elizabeth made no answer to the men of Parliament. As was their wont when in session, they shouted and pounded their fists on the table, each man vehemently expounding upon his own view. Finally, Speaker Bell signaled the Sergeant-at-Arms to wield his stave, and the room went silent.

  “The presence of the Queen of Scotland in the realm of England shall continue to inspire schemes of rescue and dreams of a Catholic restoration, Your Grace,” said Speaker Bell, in an attempt to sum up the opinions of his constituency. “It is feared that many more men shall succumb to the Scottish queen’s ambition and desires. As long as Her Grace lives under the protection of England, we are all in danger.”

  Elizabeth lifted her eyes to the multitude. “Is not that danger,” she said, in a loud, ringing voice, “the very danger that we have just escaped? Think, gentlemen! If we should execute the Queen of Scots, would England not then risk the mighty backlash of Catholic Europe? If not from France, who is now our ally, then certainly from Spain and Rome? Having just escaped armed invasion by the foiling of Signore Ridolfi’s dastardly plot, should we now provoke the very same thing from the Queen of Scotland’s Catholic supporters?”

  “Then at the very least,” said Speaker Bell, “the Queen of Scots must be debarred from the succession.”

  At last, thought Elizabeth, we come to it! She nodded sagely. “If the Parliament will draft such a bill, Mr. Speaker, I shall certainly consider it.” For how was she to act justly where her cousin was concerned? Catholic Europe viewed Mary Stuart as a sainted martyr, an anointed queen deprived unfairly of her child, her freedom and her kingdom; Protestant Europe viewed her as an immoral Jezebel who had forfeited her divine right through her sinful behavior, and worse, had gotten away with it all.

  At her words, the men began once again knocking their fists and pounding their sticks, to show their approval of her willingness to consider a bill depriving Mary of the English succession, if that was all that they could get; but as soon as the noise died down, the muttering began.

  “What of Norfolk, then?” murmured the men.

  What, indeed? she asked herself. She had been so incensed at Norfolk’s utter disregard for his oath to her to have nothing further to do with Mary of Scotland that she had bade the Lord Mayor of London and the Aldermen to hie to the guildhall, and read aloud to the citizens of London his perfidious letters to the Scottish queen; letters that told of his intention to invite ten thousand Spaniards to England to free the Queen of Scots and to seize the English throne. And what was the corollary to that, but to visit the horrors of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition upon them? All had quaked at that, especially those old enough to remember the haughty Spaniards who had looked down upon them during her sister’s reign; those old enough to remember the smell of charred human flesh from the stake that seemed never to cease casting its pall over them. After that, they had all been calling for Norfolk’s blood! But three times now she had spared him.

  And all the while Norfolk was in the Tower, he never ceased sending her contrite missives, denying that he had ever meant any harm to her, and cursing the evil hour that had seen him harken to the Queen of Scotland’s siren song. Yes, her cousin of Scotland would have much to answer for on the Day of Judgment! For howsoever she was bold with mortal men, who could only judge things outwardly, Mary Staurt ought to beware of how she dallied with God! But still there seemed to be something sublime about the Scots queen; something in her words and bearing that caused even her enemies to sometimes speak well of her. What an enigma was her cousin of Scotland!

  The murmurings of the men had reached a crescendo of voices crying once again for Norfolk’s head.

  Elizabeth arose from her throne, laid aside her scepter and spread her arms wide. The men fell silent. The scaffold for Norfolk’s execution had long since been built. There was nothing for it, then. There was no one to cry out for Norfolk, as they had for Barabbas on that fateful day on Golgotha.

  “My lords,” she said, in a loud, ringing voice. “We princes, I tell you, are set upon stages in the sight and view of all the world, and duly are we observed. The eyes of many behold our actions; a spot is soon spied upon our garments, a blemish quickly noted in our doings. It behooveth us, therefore, to be careful that our proceedings be just and honorable. Thrice have I prevented the execution of my cousin, the Duke of Norfolk; but I see that the time has come to visit upon him his just desserts. Sir Peter Carew!”

  The Constable of the Tower stepped forward.

  She eyed him in silence for a moment; she waited to see if her gut was up to the task this time!

  “Sir Peter,” she said. “See to the warrant and I shall sign it. And prepare my cousin of Norfolk for his ordeal.” There would be no turning back this time.

  Paris, August 1572

  Walsingham was accustomed to the sound of bells ringing the canonical hours in Paris. It was a Catholic city, and such was only to be expected. But the sight of monks and nuns going about their business never failed to offend his eye; there were none such in England anymore. Parasites! And whilst it was true that the religious houses had often provided alms to the poor and safe lodgings to travelers, the cost of these services in Peter’s Pence and other methods the Roman Church had of bleeding a country dry was simply not worth it. And the vice in such places! Some, it was true, were good and true to their vows, but many another was steeped in the vices of sodomy and fornication.

  He awakened to the sound of bells; it was still full dark. He glanced at his candle. Hard to tell the time; but he guessed it must be near dawn. The bells had a disturbing quality about them. Something was wrong. He threw back the covers and hastily dressed himself.

  Holding his stub of candle, he opened the door and saw a wavering light coming towards him.

  “Master!” said a whispered voice. “Art thou wakeful, then?”

  “I am,” replied Walsingham. It was his body servant, Master Ellis. “What is afoot?”

  “I know not, Master, but the bells…” They met in the circle of yellow light cast by his now guttering taper and Ellis’s lantern.

  “Aye,” said Walsingham. “At first I thought it was simply the bells sounding Matins, but it is not; it is the tocsin. Go and see what you can discover. Whatever it is, we must assume it bodes no good. Go now, but do not tarry long.”

  He was prepared for such an eventuality; he had been preparing for it ever since the plans to marry the Catholic princess, Marguerite de Valois, to the Protestant Henri of Navarre had been finalized. The marriage was the culmination of years of religious wars. Many hailed the union as the key to a lasting peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots; others deplored it as vile piece of diplomacy that sullied their princess and condoned the Protestant heresy. In Walsingham’s view, there was certain to be trouble. Those who viewed the conflict as one less of Catholic against Protestant than Valois against Hapsburg welcomed the union; the more religious minded of both factions simmered with a rage that Walsingham expected to boil over at any time.

  He had done his best; he had negotiated a treaty between France and England. Queen Catherine had likewise negotiated a treaty between France and Navarre. The pope had even been convinced to grant a dispensation for the marriage between Marguerite and her cousin, Henri, in exchange for a promise not to go to war with Spain. The difficult problem of the service for a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant on French soil, Walsingham himself had solved for the Queen Mother, much to her delight; instead of the Protestant Henri himself standing befor
e the High Altar at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Sir Francis suggested to her a proxy bridegroom. An ingenious solution!

  But still, he had been worried when he began to observe the influx of influential Protestants teeming into Paris for the nuptials. Charles IX was becoming increasingly unstable; even the Queen Mother had difficulty now controlling him and his wild impulses. He was bloodthirsty, and sought to wage war against Spain. But wars were costly; defensive treaties that insulated France against the Spanish threat were far a better proposition than going to war. But to accomplish this, Queen Catherine must needs parley with the Protestants, and there were some who abhorred such tactics. Walsingham had found that Catherine de’Medici was much like his own queen, in that she held the weal of her realm of paramount importance; God must needs come second.

  But the marriage service was concluded successfully, without the trouble he had feared. Wine flowing in the conduits and free food did much to assuage the rancor that bubbled just below the surface calm. Many had been lulled into a false sense of security by the royal proclamation forbidding the carrying of arms in the streets for the duration of the wedding celebrations, and the assurances of the crown for the safety of all the Protestant Navarrese who had flocked to Paris to see their prince married.

  And then just days after the royal wedding, an attempt had been made on the life of Gaspard de Coligny, the Huguenot leader. Coligny came of an ancient, noble Burgundian family. Despite being Protestant, he had risen rapidly in favor with the weak, easily manipulated King Charles IX. He encouraged the young king in his desire to make war upon the Spanish, and whilst Queen Catherine was away from the court, convinced the king to gather forces consisting of both Catholic and Huguenot Frenchmen to invade the Spanish Netherlands. Catherine was incandescent with rage when the news reached her.