The Marriage Game: A Novel of Elizabeth I

by Weir, Alison

  ‘One day,’ she told him archly, ‘I hope to give Monsieur many more fine and valuable things, but for now these must suffice.’

  Robert looked on, sighing, and wishing he was anywhere else. Yet he had to admire her audacity. In any other middle-aged woman such behaviour would have been ridiculous, but Elizabeth’s courtiers had come to regard her almost as a semi-divine goddess with the gift of eternal youth. No one else could have carried it off, but she was not for nothing her mother’s daughter, and although she was no longer beautiful or young, she had the gift of convincing people that she was. Robert himself had come under that spell. And people were clearly beginning to believe that this time the Queen was serious in her declared intention of marrying. It was hardly surprising that the court was gripped with excitement and abuzz with speculation.

  Walsingham, like Robert, deplored the idea of the Queen marrying a Catholic, although he took a more pragmatic view. Even so, his spies had uncovered disturbing intelligence about Simier, which he hastened to confide to Robert.

  ‘He murdered his brother for having an affair with his wife, and she poisoned herself just before Simier left for England,’ he said, his face grave.

  ‘Don’t ask me to tell the Queen,’ Robert said. ‘She’ll only accuse me of trying to put her off the marriage.’

  ‘She will likely say the same to me,’ Walsingham sighed. ‘No, we should say nothing, but be watchful.’ Robert grunted. He was fed up with watching the pantomime of this strange courtship, and knew it boded no good for himself.

  Elizabeth beamed at her Council. She had a paper in her hand.

  ‘A letter has arrived from the Duke of Anjou. He tells me that if I consent to marry him I will restore him to life, as he has been languishing near death, existing only in hope of serving the goddess of the heavens. Isn’t that touching?’

  God help us, Robert thought. This is the man who might be our king.

  ‘It is a fine thing for an old woman like me to be thinking of marriage!’ Elizabeth laughed, provoking the inevitable chorus of denial, that she was not old but eternally youthful – a lady whom time had surprised, as Hatton said chivalrously.

  She executed something approaching a basse dance on her way out of the council chamber, her step light; she was feeling utterly rejuvenated.

  I shall have your words of love engraved in marble, she wrote to Anjou. You may be assured of my eternal friendship and constancy, which is rare among royalty. You should know that I have never broken my word. That was stretching it, but no matter. She had never meant to break her word.

  Whenever Anjou was mentioned, her face lit up. Her councillors, her courtiers and her ladies grew weary of constantly hearing about his virtues and charms.

  ‘I now believe that there is no greater happiness in the world than marriage,’ she informed Burghley, who nearly fell off his chair in shock.

  In truth, she added, she wished she had not wasted so much time. But privately she was tormented by doubts.

  ‘Is your master interested in me for myself?’ she asked Simier when they were closeted alone together, ostensibly discussing the terms of the marriage contract. ‘Or does he just want to be king? I cannot rest until I know.’

  ‘Your Majesty, he adores you!’ Simier protested, hand on heart. ‘How could you think otherwise?’

  ‘But he has never met me,’ Elizabeth reasoned. ‘I can only find out what he really thinks of me if he visits me in person.’

  ‘I assure you, Majesty, that there is no cause at all for concern.’

  Maybe there wasn’t, she told herself. All the same, she was not marrying Anjou until she had seen and approved of him.

  When the Queen’s councillors next gathered in the council chamber, Burghley’s face was thunderous. There were no poetic metaphors now. ‘It is scandalous!’ he spluttered. ‘Her Majesty told me herself that Simier had actually been in her bedchamber and taken her nightcap and handkerchief as trophies for the Duke,’ he related, horrified. ‘She also said that she went to Simier’s lodging early one morning, and he was obliged to receive her wearing only a jerkin.’

  ‘What was her Majesty thinking of?’ Sussex asked, shaking his head.

  ‘She seems to have taken leave of her senses,’ Walsingham observed, his Puritan soul bristling with disapproval. He liked his Queen and was staunchly loyal to her, but at times like these he despaired of her.

  They all looked at Robert.

  ‘This seems to me an unmanly, unprincely, French kind of wooing,’ he said, and the mood lightened as they all had to smile. ‘God, I hate Simier,’ he went on. ‘I hate him for putting the Queen in this ridiculous position, and I hate having to be outwardly friendly towards him and entertain him at court.’

  ‘I think everyone knows you hate him,’ Burghley said. ‘It is plain writ on your face.’

  ‘And with good cause!’ Robert was not jesting now. ‘The word is that he uses love potions and other unlawful acts to procure the Queen for the Duke.’

  ‘Unlawful acts?’ Walsingham growled.

  ‘They say that he has won his way not only to her heart, but also to her body,’ Robert told him, wincing at the thought. ‘And no, my lords, I am not jealous, although I know what is being said in the court. I am her loyal and loving servant and I will not see her reputation being traduced in this way.’

  ‘Whose reputation?’ interposed a strident voice. Like guilty schoolboys the councillors turned to see the Queen framed in the doorway, blazing with anger.

  ‘Do you have a problem with my marriage plans, my lord?’ she hissed, advancing on Robert and jabbing her finger in his chest. ‘Do you think me so unlike myself and unmindful of my royal majesty that I would prefer you, my servant, whom I have raised, before the greatest prince of Christendom, in the honour of a husband?’

  ‘I did not say so, Madam,’ Robert replied. ‘It is of Simier that we complain.’ The others looked uncomfortable. To a man they were thinking that it might be preferable to face the armed might of Spain than the Queen in a temper.

  ‘Pah!’ Elizabeth spat. ‘Simier has done nothing but show himself faithful to his master, and I have found him to be sage and discreet beyond his years in the conduct of these negotiations. I wish I had such a servant of whom I could make good use!’ She glared at them all, then swept out, her skirts swishing imperiously. She could never have explained to them, if she had ten thousand years – and indeed she hardly liked to admit it to herself – that all her extravagant flirting with Simier was an elaborate ploy to preserve the illusion that she was an eternally young and eminently marriageable woman.

  It was soon clear that Robert was decidedly out of favour, and he began to wonder what would become of him when Anjou was king, for the Duke was unlikely to think kindly of the man who had preceded him for so long in the Queen’s affections.

  For all the squabbling, the negotiations were advancing well. Some courtiers were even ordering their wedding outfits. Simier went about the court with a smile on his face. But there was much opposition from the Puritans and even from hard-line Anglican ministers, who got into a froth condemning the marriage from their pulpits. One brave, or possibly rash, clergyman even dared to do so before the Queen.

  ‘Marriages with foreigners will only result in ruin to the country!’ he thundered, but that was as far as he got, as Elizabeth stalked out, then banned any sermons opposing the match. But the councillors were still divided. Even though Anjou was no fanatic, he was still a Catholic. He was also heir to the French throne until his brother had children – which seemed highly unlikely given Henri’s dubious proclivities – so it was impossible for him to embrace the Protestant faith.

  For all this, it looked very much as if the marriage might go ahead. But suddenly, as a result of one of Simier’s more naughty asides, Elizabeth woke up to the fact that Anjou was a virile young man of twenty-four who really would want sex and children, and immediately she felt very scared. Hitherto, if she had brought herself to think of those aspects
at all – and really, she had been hiding from the truth, for otherwise the marriage might never go ahead – she had been fooling herself. She had somehow deluded herself into believing that Anjou would be content with a marriage in name only; that he had not expected her to be capable of bearing sons; that theirs would be just a political union and that she would bend the Duke to her will after the wedding. But now reality was staring her in the face and making her confront what she did not want to confront. She knew she was very old to be contemplating motherhood, even though her courses still came regularly every month. And was it not dangerous, bearing children at her age? She was terrified of the risks involved, even more than before – and of facing the humiliation of a young man finding her wanting in bed, and less than desirable. And still she shrank from the prospect of surrendering her body.

  She fretted about all this for a few days and then, gathering her courage, she summoned her physicians. After some searching and embarrassing questions, they all assured her that there was no reason why she should not bear a healthy heir to England (and maybe more than one, for there was still time for that), and that her fears were unfounded. All would be well.

  Not convinced, by any means, Elizabeth recounted this to Robert, the only man to whom she could confide such intimate matters, and he took it upon himself to speak of her fears to his colleagues.

  ‘The Duchess of Savoy bore a healthy prince at fifty, and lived,’ Burghley observed. ‘I have always thought that the Queen is a person of the most pure constitution, a well-shaped woman with all her limbs – and, er, her other parts – well proportioned. Nature, I am convinced, could not amend her in any way to make her more likely to conceive and bear children without peril.’

  For all his brave words he had been worried. He had even commissioned a private report, for his eyes alone, on the risks involved, as he revealed to Leicester and Walsingham.

  ‘I questioned her physicians, her ladies and her chamberers,’ he said, keeping his voice low, ‘and they all told me that her Majesty is well formed and has no lack of the functions that properly belong to the procreation of children.’

  Robert hid a smile at the older man’s modest choice of words.

  ‘The doctors say that she has about six years left in which to bear children,’ Burghley went on. ‘And I believe that being married and having children will help to cure the pains she suffers in her face and the dolours that physicians impute to women for lack of a husband.’

  ‘The pains are due to bad teeth,’ Robert said, ‘and she carries the great burden of sovereignty on her shoulders, and it is a taxing one. Who would not succumb to dolours in her position? But as for having children, there is no guarantee that she will conceive at her age.’

  ‘I know you do not want this marriage, Robert, but I assure you that the benefits it brings will far outweigh the risks,’ Burghley said reprovingly.

  ‘I disagree,’ Walsingham chimed in. ‘Most of us fear that motherhood will place the Queen in extreme peril.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Do we dare to risk our Queen’s life?’ Walsingham persisted. ‘She has reigned over us and kept us safe from war these twenty years.’

  ‘But what happens when she is no more?’ Burghley asked. ‘She needs an heir, and through this marriage she may get one. It is her last chance. Trust me, the physicians say that all will be well.’

  Simier’s eyes flashed fire, then he stalked out of the council chamber to find the Queen, whom he discovered walking in her privy garden.

  ‘Beloved goddess,’ he cried, bowing low, ‘I hesitate to tell you that your councillors disapprove of this marriage that you desire so much. They refuse to agree that my master be crowned king after the wedding; they would deny him the power to grant lands and offices; and they will not approve his proposed allowance of sixty thousand pounds a year.’

  ‘I am very sorry for that,’ Elizabeth said, seething. ‘They need not think that I will tolerate such obstructions!’

  Furious, she sped back indoors and confronted her councillors.

  ‘How dare you thwart me!’ she screamed. ‘I will not have my careful policies subverted like this!’ And she ranted and raved at them so vociferously that she ended up having a coughing attack and they had to send for her ladies to calm her down. After that there was no more talk of limiting Anjou’s power or his income; in fact no councillor now dared say a word against him.

  Next it was the turn of the French to receive the lash of her tongue. They were making too many demands.

  ‘If they had to deal with a princess who had some defect of body or nature, such stipulations might have been tolerated!’ she shouted. ‘But considering how it has pleased God to bestow on us gifts in good measure, we may in modesty think ourself as worthy of as great a prince as Monsieur without yielding to such conditions!’

  She was gratified when Anjou himself stepped into the fray and told Simier not to insist on every condition being met. The Duke was now pressing for an invitation to come to England and meet his future wife. Elizabeth dithered. It did not do to seem too keen, yet she did so want to see this man that she might marry. After all, she had always said that she would not wed until she had met and approved of her future husband, and now here was one positively begging to come and be inspected.

  Burghley and Sussex, eager to speed her up the aisle, urged her to extend the invitation. Not so Robert. To her astonished dismay, he prostrated himself full-length at her feet and begged her not to go through with the marriage. He was so obviously convinced that she was making the wrong decision that she procrastinated and wept for three days before giving in to pressure from the other councillors and issuing the invitation to Anjou, with a safe-conduct for his journey. Stung, Robert stormed off home to Wanstead and feigned illness once more, unable to bear watching Elizabeth hurtling towards what he believed to be certain disaster.

  She followed him there, without fanfare. Her arrival caused a flurry as a furious Lettice made herself scarce and Robert raced around the house trying to remove all evidence of their life together. Then, with the Queen’s party almost at the door, he rushed upstairs and scrambled into bed.

  Elizabeth was not fooled.

  ‘You don’t look that ill to me!’ she declared.

  ‘It is my stomach,’ Robert complained, rubbing it ostentatiously. And indeed he spoke truth. When he was stressed like this he did suffer griping pains.

  ‘Hmm,’ murmured Elizabeth. ‘Methinks it is your obstinacy that does not want me to marry Monsieur.’

  ‘If I spoke out against it, it was only from deep concern for your Majesty. But I will bow to your greater wisdom, and do all honour to the Duke when he comes.’

  ‘It is no less than I expect, my lord,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Do you want some soup?’ She had once spooned soup into his mouth when he was unwell. It was a peace offering, he knew.

  ‘No, Madam, I thank you, the officers of my kitchen have their orders. Dinner will be ready by eleven. I trust that you will stay for it.’

  She stayed two days, and when she had gone Lettice emerged from the smallest guest bedchamber spitting fire.

  ‘I am the Countess of Leicester! I will not be shut away like some whore you should be ashamed of!’ And more in that vein – in fact, the pent-up results of two days of seething. ‘I am going to court whether she likes it or not!’ she raged. ‘I am her cousin, and I rank high among the foremost ladies of the land.’ She rounded on Robert. ‘This is your fault! You should have insisted that I be there at your side!’

  ‘I dared not mention you,’ Robert admitted.

  ‘Well thank God one of us has some courage!’ she flung back. ‘Get ready. We are going to court!’

  The presence chamber was crowded with gaily attired courtiers, some attendant on the Queen, many waiting for her to notice them; most were bearing gifts, in the hope that they might thereby induce her to be kind and generous. Elizabeth, however, was not looking their way. Her face concealed behind a huge fan of
ostrich feathers, she was engaged in a conversation with Simier, punctuated by playful taps and giggles. But suddenly her smile, and the fan, dropped.

  Leicester, looking as if he would rather be anywhere else, had just entered the room, and on his arm was – no, it couldn’t be, thought the courtiers, but yes, it certainly was – his Countess, like a galleon in full sail in cloth of silver with a golden kirtle, slashed sleeves, a vast train and a ruff like a cartwheel. And behind her the bravest train of ladies and liveried servants ever seen following a lady not of royal blood.

  Elizabeth stared. Her lips tightened. Her eyes glittered dangerously. Then she rose from her throne, stepped off the dais, bore down upon Lettice like an avenging angel and soundly boxed her ears. ‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘As but one sun lights the east, so I shall have but one queen in England!’

  Her dignity in tatters, and her ears stinging, Lettice fled, leaving Robert standing there helpless, wanting to go after his wife and comfort her, but fearing Elizabeth’s reaction if he did.

  ‘Madam, she has done nothing wrong,’ he pleaded. ‘She but wanted to take her rightful place here as my Countess.’

  ‘Her rightful place is out of my sight!’ Elizabeth barked. ‘Never let her cross my threshold again.’

  ‘Madam, I beg of you,’ Robert cried, noticing that the watching courtiers were not bothering to hide their glee at this unexpected drama.

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth said, glaring at him, ‘and let that be an end to it!’

  The King of France had objected to his brother coming a-courting to England, but that August Anjou came anyway, heavily disguised. His visit was meant to be a secret – hence the subterfuge – but in fact most people at court knew about it, even if they kept up the pretence that they did not.

  To ensure secrecy – or the illusion if it – it had been decided that Anjou would lodge with Simier in a silken pavilion in the gardens of Greenwich Palace. Elizabeth was now burning with impatience for the Duke’s coming; she did not cease bragging that it was her great beauty and accomplishments that had enticed him hither.