Cecil grunted. “But not in religious ones.”
“Exactly so. Until such time that I can be overthrown and the Queen of Scotland placed upon my throne! By such obscure language he hopes to avoid charges of treason being visited upon his minions.”
“But with that very declaration,” said Cecil, “the pope has made the religious political.”
Elizabeth’s eyes burned with fire. “I am not afraid of the pope or his declarations. But I very much fear the alarming number of priests entering the country. And Edmund Campion has reconciled with the Catholic Church! If only he were not involved in this! I’ve had my eye on him for many a day for Canterbury.”
Campion had been chief amongst those who had officially welcomed her on her visit to Oxford all those year ago. He was an honorable, learned man. It saddened her to think what fate might befall him should he be so bold as to give her reason to arrest him for sedition...and treason. God forfend that she should be forced to execute seditious Catholic priests for treason in numbers that compared to the burnings of Protestants in her sister’s reign. But the Anglican Church must be upheld; it was a bastion of enlightenment amongst the Protestant religions of Europe, and she must support and sustain it at all costs. A recent Act of Parliament had raised the fines to those who chose to shun Anglican church services; but that was as far as they dared to go for now.
The clouds scudded away on the wind that had risen, and the sun shone bright, dappling through the translucent leaves of the trees on the path on which they wended their way through the park. Cecil raised his hands to his eyes to shelter them from the glaring light, but said nothing of his discomfort.
War looming with Spain; conflict in the Netherlands a constant drain on her resources; the French haranguing her about her promises to marry Alençon; the pope nipping at her heels. Problems enough for any queen.
“Come,” she said. She knocked on the ceiling of the litter to signal the horseman to return to the manor. “Let us seek shade and shelter in your lovely house.” But what shelter would there be for England amidst the rising political and religious storms? Only time would tell.
Chapter 25
“For her rare gifts, as well of mind as of body, Elizabeth is the rarest creature that has been seen in Europe these five hundred years.”
-Henri, duc d’ Anjou (Later, Henri III of France)
Lisbon, Portugal, April 1581
L isbon was a colorful city, and nowhere was this more apparent than in its eclectic cathedral. There had been a religious building on the site since the twelfth century, but over the years many influences had served to create the mix of different architectural styles now in evidence in the current structure, both inside and out.
It was spring, and everywhere there were flowers; beside the altar, tall sprays of wild red gladiolus rose majestically from colorful ceramic urns, in contrast to the brilliant blues and purples of scilla and lavender. Their fragrance mingled pleasantly with the mysterious scent of frankincense. Deep green ivy trailed from unseen rafters, wrapped poetically about the smooth pale gray stone of the soaring columns.
But King Philip II of Spain no longer had an eye for beauty. He had seen too much, known too much sorrow, in his fifty-four years. He knew now what his sainted father, the Emperor Charles V, had known. It was that a crown was not the glittering thing that the men who desired one thought it was. It was power, yes, but it was also burden, onus, trial, responsibility. Any man…or woman!...who coveted a throne must surely have regretted it should their wish ever have been granted.
From the age of six, when he had been compelled to leave the safety and security of the royal nursery, he had been groomed to rule. He recalled the many times he had looked up from whatever task he had been set to see his father studying him speculatively. As he grew older, he knew that his father, who ruled a far-flung empire, desired nothing so much as to abdicate his many crowns, titles and territories and retire to a monastery to pray. He himself was pious and took his religious duties very seriously. But the desire to shut oneself away completely from the world was a concept that he did not, at that time, fully comprehend.
But he did now.
With Anna’s death had come the desire to withdraw forever from a world he simply no longer wished to inhabit. But he was inured to duty at all costs; duty to God, duty to his people, duty to tradition and responsibility.
He remembered once, when he was a child, seeing a mule pulling in an endless circle at a millwheel, its shoulders rubbed raw and bloody from the harness. Day after day, month after month, year after year, the mule would turn the wheel, until he dropped dead in his tracks; and then that mule would be dragged away and forgotten. Another would take its place, and the cycle would begin all over again. The effort, the task, was not futile; was not the result of such toil the bags of flour that men brought away from the mill, day in and day out? And what of the bread that would be baked from the flour, the people the bread would sustain? The beauty of the logic behind it all helped him, as young as he was at that time, to understand that every living creature has a role to play in the great drama that is human life. God made everything, and one must play the part that God decreed one must play; one must fulfill one’s destiny, and no one more so than an anointed king, which one day he surely would be. But not only must he fulfill that destiny, he must do it well. For even more so than most, as a king, he would be directly answerable to God. Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
His father had, in his great wisdom, perceived that the Hapsburg Empire was even then far too unwieldy, and too much for one man to rule over effectively. Thanks be to St. Michael and all His angels that his father had a brother; he had no wish to rule over such vast domains. And so piece by piece, little by little, the Emperor Charles had shed his burden. By the age of sixteen, he himself was overseeing, in his father’s name, his grandmother’s inheritance of united Spain, and his grandfather’s patrimony of the Netherlands. Holy Roman Emperor was an elected position, and although by tradition the office was handed down from father to son, an election there still must be. His Uncle Ferdinand had likewise ruled in his father’s name for many years, and so it was only natural that his uncle would officially seek to shoulder that burden when the time came.
But what man could have foreseen that the discovery of a New World would cause the Spanish Empire to burgeon into a burden of rule that would come to rival the empire over which his father, and his father before him, had presided for so many years? And yet there it was…the Americas; his namesake, the Philippines; the Spanish empire now included territories on every continent. During his reign, Spain had reached the zenith of her influence and power. The sun literally never set on his vast domains. How had it come to this? And now he must add Portugal to his realm. It was true that he had fought for his right to Portugal’s throne, but not because he desired to expand his already heavy burden of rule. It was because Portugal was his by right, and with the untimely death of her king, became part of that role, that great responsibility, which God in His wisdom had decreed he must play.
As he knelt before the great altar and the archbishops and bishops plodded endlessly through the ceremony of coronation, he permitted his mind to wander. He was no stranger to the coronation rites. But the moment he allowed his focus to drift from the drone-like responses he must make during the ritual, his thoughts were once again filled with images of Anna.
He had not wanted to marry a fourth wife; but a man must have an heir. He had, at the time of his fourth nuptials, buried three wives and two heirs. It was his royal duty to try again. With a sigh he had agreed to marry his niece. And then a miracle occurred. He fell in love again.
He had loved his first wife, his little cousin, Maria Manuela; but barely two years after they married she had died at sixteen, bringing a monster into the world. And that his son was a monster none could deny. Physically repulsive and mentally unstable, he had finally had to imprison Don Carlos until he died at the age of twenty-three, leav
ing him with no heir to his vast dominions. But how could he, in good conscience, have allowed such a one to succeed him? A boy who liked to roast animals alive, and who had once tried to force a shoemaker to eat shoes he found unsatisfactory? No. His son could not have come from God; therefore he must have come from Satan. He was evil. Had the boy not killed his own sweet mother, with his big head that had torn her body so badly that she had died bloodless in his arms, crying out his name, and begging him not to leave her? The memory of it haunted him so persistently that he had not married again until his father had insisted that he marry another of his many cousins, the Queen of England.
Mary Tudor was eleven years his senior and, according to the Spanish ambassador, past childbearing age. But not only was it his royal duty to go to England to help his cousin govern her country, it was his religious duty as well; for nearly twenty years England had agonized under heretical Reform. Queen Mary was doing her best, but England needed a stronger hand if English Catholics were once again to enjoy the comfort of their faith and the salvation of their souls. And all those languishing in the error of Protestantism must be brought back into the fold of righteousness. His responsibility was clear. To England he must go.
But the reality of it was far worse than anything he could have imagined or feared. His cousin was unconvinced of her barrenness, and so he faced manfully the distasteful task of trying to father an heir upon her. He could see that she had been comely once, if not beautiful; but now… As she approached forty, her skin was wrinkled, her ginger hair was sparse and upon her face she wore a perpetually worried expression. She was a good Catholic who took her faith and her religious responsibilities as seriously as did he, but whereas he was simply duty-bound, his new wife bordered on the fanatical.
And it became clear almost immediately how unwelcome he was in his new country. The people hated him because he was Catholic and a Spaniard. Although there were many Catholics in England who still practiced their faith regardless of the situation there, the Protestants, as they were beginning to be called, were many in number and openly hostile about a return to Catholicism as the religion of state as well as of conscience. The latter issue could be managed gradually and with patience, but the former baffled him. The English people had loved Katharine of Aragon as their queen, and few except the power mongers had been pleased with the shabby way Her Grace had been treated by her husband. But it seemed that this love for the erstwhile queen and her daughter, the present queen, did not extend to him. He soon learned that it was fear of the mighty Spanish Inquisition that fueled this hatred. Most hatred, he believed, was rooted in fear.
On top of all this, Queen Mary suffered not one, but two false pregnancies. It was too much; he had finally convinced his august father, the Emperor Charles, that his talents would be far better employed in the Low Countries, where the Reformed faith had taken a pernicious hold. Mercifully for all concerned, not the least for Mary herself, she died and he was completely freed of the yoke of marriage. Never again! he vowed.
But politics being what they were, after five years he found himself betrothed to Elisabeth d’ Valois, the eldest daughter of King Henri II of France and Catherine de’ Medici. Despite an almost twenty year age difference, he found that he could love a wife once more. However, the production of an heir, which was the first duty, after the love of God, of all royal persons, proved unexpectedly difficult. There were miscarriages and only girls to show for their efforts. Elisabeth died at twenty-three, broken and exhausted after delivering yet another dead female infant. Never again, he had vowed.
But dutiful king that he was, it became evident that he must marry again to strengthen Spain’s weakening ties with the Hapsburg Empire. In the same year he had lost Elisabeth to the childbed, his son, Don Carlos, died raving mad in confinement at the Alcazar in Madrid. What to do, then, with little Anna, his son’s betrothed? And so he found himself married for a fourth time.
Anna bore him four sons, but three had died young. His fourth son and namesake, Philip, was thriving, but he had not yet passed the age when the others had been lost. And now his treasured Anna was dead, another royal spouse worn out with childbearing in the effort to get an heir for mighty Spain. He could only pray God that Philip lived, because this time, he swore, never again. He would never take another wife. One’s heart could only be so broken.
What was it all for, he wondered? And then the rebuke sounded loudly in his ears; ironically, they were his own words to Brother Nicholas. “It is impiety, and almost blasphemy to presume to know the will of God. It comes from the sin of pride. Even kings, Brother Nicholas, must submit to being used by God's will without knowing what it is. They must never seek to use it to their own ends.” So who was he to question? If it were the will of God that his sons must die, if it was the will of God that he must marry and marry, then that was what he must do, and not question it. His life was God’s to do with as best pleased Him.
So when he woke from sleep in the dark of night with a jerk and a start, the first thought to assail him was always, “What of England?” But was this God’s will? Or was it simply his own desire for revenge against his heretical sister-in-law?
After so many years he was able to look back dispassionately upon his days at the English court. He had been there for months before Mary finally agreed to recall her bastard sister to London, back from the hinterland to which she had been banished. The first time he lay eyes on Elizabeth she had been young and beautiful. She had been reclining on the floor in front of the hearth, her long red hair and her golden eyes glinting in the firelight and reflecting the flames. In that, his wife had made a tactical error; the soft glow of the fire might hide Mary’s glaring faults, which were all too evident in the harsh light of day, but the firelight only served to enhance Elizabeth’s beauty. He was instantly smitten and from that time forward he was able to think of nothing save those long, white fingers caressing his face, those long white limbs…she was very fair…entwining with his in a bed. The idea began to obsess him. He took refuge during the distasteful task of trying to get the queen with child by pretending he was making love to her sister. His wife believed that his passionate love-making was for her; her response surprised him, even while it disgusted him. But Mary began to suspect that he was smitten and sent the girl away. It was only after Elizabeth was gone that he saw his lust for what it was and heartily regretted it. He was a pious man; there was no place in his life anymore for the fire of youth. The scales were lifted from his eyes and he saw his desire for his wife’s sister for exactly what it was: a grievous sin. The girl was evil; an enchantress. He had never forgiven her for enthralling him so, and for shaming him before God.
So what of England? There was every reason now to invade England, to use all the power, all the money, all the might that God had bestowed upon him to dethrone his heretical sister-in-law, and to make amends to God for his grievous and sinful lapse. For what other purpose should God have seen fit to give him Portugal, rich Portugal, with her vast navy? When combined with the armada he was building, he would someday possess the largest fleet in the world. And then he would win England back for God.
Oh, he knew he had once said that one should not presume to know the will of God, but he had been a young man then. Were not all the signs there? Virtually everything pointed to his invasion of England as the will of God. Even the pope had recently reiterated that the Queen of England must be obeyed in all secular and civil matters; the corollary to such a declaration was that which had been left unspoken. The situation would have to suffice until Elizabeth could be deposed and a Catholic queen placed upon the throne. It was now no sin to kill the Queen of England. Now he would be able to repay her for exciting his sinful lust all those years ago; for her constant interference in the Netherlands; for the insult of allowing her English pirates to plunder his ships and take his riches with impunity; even for the shabby way the English had treated him and his men when he was there. And all with God’s blessing. Was there, then, any other
way to look at his plans for war with England, other than as a just act and holy obligation?
Suddenly all went silent in the vast cathedral. In that moment he saw, in his mind’s eye, his great fleet sailing for England. And at that very instant the cheers of the people rang out; Portugal had a new and powerful king.
Cecil House, The Strand, London, April 1581
Bertrand de Salignac Fénelon, seigneur de la Mothe, looked about him at the grand foyer of Cecil House. Lord Burghley’s magnificent mansion on the Strand was fit for a queen; indeed, it was here to which the Queen of England had summoned them for a private audience. Beside him sat the French ambassador to the court of England, Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de la Mauvissière. He knew what to expect, if Castelnau did not; because Her Grace was as unpredictable of temperament and as changeable as a weatherock, one must be prepared for anything. He had once held the position of French ambassador to the Tudor court; he did not envy Castelnau his post. He wished heartily that Queen Catherine had not sent him back across the water, even temporarily; he had thought himself finished with England and its mercurial queen.
“A private audience is encouraging, think you not, my lord?” asked Castelnau.
Fénelon shrugged. “Her Grace of England changes her mind along with her wig each day,” he replied. “One cannot predict what she will say or do from one moment to the next. A private meeting could mean anything.”
Just when Fénelon was beginning to become irritated at being kept waiting, a door opened on silent hinges and a young man appeared. He was well-dressed, but his cloak could not hide his deformity; he was a hunchback. Fénelon cocked an eyebrow at Castelnau; this was Robert Cecil, son of Sir William.
Robert bowed and said, “A hearty good e’en to you, my lords. If you please...” He swept his hand in the direction from which he had come. The house stood on the north side of the Strand, on the River Thames. That lent it a certain dampness. As they passed from room to room, the chill and damp pervaded until it penetrated one’s very bones.
In High Places Page 85