The Queen's Bastard

by Robin Maxwell

  Fifty-four

  As her carriage rumbled through the London streets thronged with cheering celebrants Elizabeth found herself pleasantly plagued by a giddy lightheadedness. Her return to London in the wake of the Armada’s defeat was in all ways triumphant, greeted as she was by her people’s wild outpourings of joy and relief.

  Reports from the English fleet had come slowly. Drake and Lord Howard were at first unsure that they had even had a victory with their fire ships, and the following day at Gravelines. But their confidence had grown as they chased Philip’s devastated ships into the North Sea, assisted by the freakish storms prophesied by Doctor Dee, and by Regiomontanus a hundred years before.

  Elizabeth thought, I have a right to be giddy, for I have met the Dragon on the field of battle and slain it — I, a woman. She leaned back onto the soft down and satin cushions and smiled with satisfaction. Her mother would have been proud. She had not died in vain. “A Tudor sun shall rise from your belly and shine over England for four and forty years,” the Nun of Kent had said. Elizabeth calculated. She had only ruled for thirty years and would therefore live to see her grandfather’s dynasty into the new century. One hundred years of Tudor rule. A brilliant accomplishment indeed. Only a child of her body, an heir, was lacking for perfection. But then, she thought with a wry smile, life itself was imperfect. Always imperfect.

  Outside her carriage window a clutch of Morris dancers danced, their leg bells jingling merrily, and suddenly Elizabeth was gone from the carriage, gone from the year 1588, flown back to another time. She was a small child carried high in her father’s arms, wearing yellow satin to match his own. He held her close as they watched the Morris dancers doing their jig amidst a huge celebration, up close to his wide, handsome face, so handsome when he smiled. She tugged at his red-gold beard. He laughed a belly-shaking laugh and she squealed with delight, for she had pleased him. Oh, she loved her father! Adored him. He was the hero of her young life. And the beast of her mother’s.

  The sobering thought snatched Elizabeth back to the present, though not from thoughts of her father. She wished to forgive him his vile and murderous rages, and she prayed daily that the madness in his blood would not infect her own. How could he have ordered the arrest of a woman he had loved so desperately? Ordered her beheading? And how could he have left that little girl in yellow so terrible a legacy? Knowledge that her mother had died because Elizabeth had been born a girl.

  “Well, Father,” came the sudden defiant retort, “this girl has gone and saved England.” She allowed herself a smile. She would forgive Henry, and she would honor Anne. Together they had made her, and from their places in Heaven and Hell they were watching her now. She would allow no more painful memories nor mournful wishes that the past had been different. For it was altogether the proudest day of her life, and she meant to savor every moment of it.

  “The Earl of Leicester, Your Majesty.”

  Elizabeth could not help wincing as her old friend walked across the Presence Chamber floor to her throne. His limp had worsened considerably in the days since Tilbury, and his usually florid complexion seemed more grey than high pink.

  “Robin, don’t,” she commanded as he began to kneel. “Just come and sit by me.” She gestured for a page to bring a chair and place it next to hers. They both ignored the stares and whispering of the courtiers. What others thought of their behavior had long ago ceased to matter.

  “I heard your processional into London was very grand indeed,” she said. “Fit for a king.”

  “I am the King,” he said, grinning mischievously. “Have you already forgotten?”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “And where is your good wife?”

  “With her lover at Wanstead,” he replied evenly. “But I assure you she will appear presently to reap the accolades due her famous husband.”

  “Infamous husband,” Elizabeth corrected.

  “Indeed.”

  She noticed a whimsical smile playing about Leicester’s lips. “What is it you find so amusing, my lord?”

  “How they come and go. The courtiers. The beautiful ladies …” He nodded down at the small clusters of men and women engrossed in their conversations and gossip. There was his wife’s son, the handsome and eminently charming Earl of Essex to whom the Queen had taken quite a fancy. And William Cecil’s son Robert, dwarfish and deformed but terribly bright, who had of late taken over his father’s role as Elizabeth’s secretary. “And how we two endure, despite the plots and romances, illnesses, wars, furies.”

  “Dine with me tonight, Robin,” said Elizabeth suddenly.

  “Of course I will.”

  “And tomorrow night. And the night after.”

  He looked at her curiously. “So you desire the company of this creaky old man even now?”

  “More than anyone in the wide world, my love.” She drew her long fingers gently along his cheek, down the once angular jaw gone soft, and tickled him playfully in the hollow of his neck. “And more than ever.”

  Fifty-five

  I had always believed my self to be tolerably brave. No hero, but a man who could face that which life offered up to him in challenge, refusing to live in fear of the future, or the unknown, or those who were different from my self. But on the day I was rowed down the Thames into London, still weak from my long immersion in the sea and weakened further by the dysentery which had struck nearly every member of the English crew of my rescue ship, I found my self beset by an almost paralyzing fear.

  I had come to London with only one purpose — to reunite with my parents. To embrace my Father once again and humbly lay my self at my Mothers feet. Twas a simple thing really, and I was bound by truth and fairness to us all to do it. But despite these last years of dreaming and rehearsing the moment, as it approached I felt unprepared and worse than that, a charlatan. I had convinced Lord Leicester of my story, and no doubt he would convince the Queen of its veracity. But in my weaker moments — which were coming upon me with terrible frequency — I hardly believed it my self. I, the son of Elizabeth. I, a Prince of Royal Blood. Twas laughable. My real Father, Robert Southern, must somehow have learnt of the Fulham House kidnapping, and maddened by an intolerable life with his wife, fabricated and twisted the story in his mind to make me the Queens child.

  Even it were true, what words could I possibly conceive to introduce myself into Her Majestys life? She would have me thrown out on my ear. Arrested for treason. Tortured. Executed!

  Many times in that rowboat as it touched onto docks and landings on its way to London did I consider hopping off and waiting for the tide to turn, going back the way I had come. But something stopped me. Memories of the deep and inexplicable love I had borne Elizabeth and Leicester from the time we had first met and, too, that strange knowledge of my own destiny which, even as a young boy, I perceived to be great.

  Now I could see Saint Pauls Cathedral looming beyond London Bridge, and I knew my destination was Saint Jameses Palace where the Queen was holding Court. I could only pray that Lord Leicester would be close by for the celebrations. So girding my self against fear I pulled my self tall and straight and forced regal bearing into my posture. I forced my self to remember all that I had accomplished in my life, those great people and Princes who had recognized my qualities, so by the time I had set foot on Three Cranes landing and started up the street to Saint Jameses, I had nearly convinced my self again that I was in deed the Queen of England’s only son.

  Fifty-six

  Elizabeth and Leicester had been stricken by an uncontrollable fit of childish giggles. On this, their third consecutive evening closeted together in her private apartments, both of them tipsy on French wine, she had prescribed for him an evil-smelling potion for what had become a chronic flux. He sniffed it suspiciously.

  “Here,” he said. “You look ashen, Bess. Have a little sip yourself.” He pushed the bottle under her nose and she caught a good whiff of the stuff.

  “Augh!” she cried in disgust.

  �
��I think you have a grudge with me you have not admitted, for this will kill me more surely than the flux will. Come along, a small draught …”

  “Robin, take it away, I tell you!”

  “Just a weeee nip!”

  Once begun, their laughter soon grew far beyond the bounds of the original jest. They were still clutching their sides and wheezing when the door opened and Lady Hunsdon entered. Eyes downcast, she curtsied and handed Leicester a folded letter, then exited hastily. Elizabeth watched Leicester’s smile crumble as he read its contents.

  “Robin, what is it? Has there been a death?”

  He was very still. A hand went to his chest and his breath became a series of shallow gasps.

  “You must tell me, please!”

  But he could not speak. Could not find the words to explain. All he could do was raise Elizabeth to her feet and enfold her in a long and forceful embrace.

  * * *

  She had asked Robin over and over again who it was he was bringing to meet her, but he’d refused to answer. Now instead a tall, broad-shouldered but rather thin man in the uniform of her navy was kneeling at her feet. As he’d approached her she’d seen that the skin of his face and hands was sunburnt and weathered, and she guessed he was somewhat younger than he appeared. Still he was quite handsome, she thought, square-jawed with a high unblemished forehead and strong, even features. The hair was reddish brown and the eyes were very dark, almost black.

  She could feel Leicester at her side trembling with emotion. “You look ill,” she heard him say to the younger man, who gazed back at Leicester with what seemed to Elizabeth a look of longing, though she could not guess for what.

  “I’m recovering from some wounds I received fighting in the Channel,” he said.

  “You were there? Aboard one of my ships?” said Elizabeth.

  The young man did not immediately answer, but looked mildly confused. Elizabeth was growing irritated. She looked back and forth between him and Leicester. The two men could not tear their eyes from each other.

  “Why do you look so familiar to me?” she suddenly demanded of the stranger.

  “We met once, Your Majesty. At Enfield Chase.”

  “Enfield? Enfield …”

  “In Surrey, Madame. Many years ago. I was eight years old.”

  She looked more closely at him. “Did we ride a wild goose chase together through your father’s wood?”

  “We did.”

  “Robin, this was the young boy who performed the manège so beautifully for us that day!” But when she turned to Leicester she found his face wet with tears. Then suddenly the two men fell on each other with shouts and embracing.

  “I demand to know what is happening here!” Elizabeth thundered. “I order you to stand down from Lord Leicester, young man, and tell me who you are!”

  She watched the pair of them move apart and saw the man come to attention before her. With one last glance to Robin he pulled his gaze forward and fixed the Queen with his eyes.

  “My name is Arthur Dudley, Your Majesty. I am Lord Leicester’s natural son … and your own.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth instantly to object, but closed it again when she realized she had no sensible words to utter. She thought to turn her head and look at Robin for counsel, but found every part of her frozen in place.

  “Elizabeth …” She heard Robin’s gentle voice in her ear and prayed that he would say something that would clear the confusion in her head, unlock her paralyzed limbs, loose her jaw so that she might speak, respond to this … this …

  “He is our son. He is our own flesh and blood.”

  “Our son died,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Our son was stolen from us. That poor dead child we held between us was some other woman’s babe. Kat Ashley and William Cecil —”

  “No! They couldn’t have! They would not have dared!”

  “Oh, they dared.”

  Elizabeth stared at the stranger, fury darkening her eyes. “Prove it!” she shouted shrilly.

  “He has, Elizabeth. To me,” said Leicester quietly. “He knows too much about that terrible night at Fulham House to be an impostor. His adoptive father and Kat were longtime friends —”

  “I thought she was a friend to me!” Elizabeth cried, her face contorted with anger.

  “Kat is dead now. But your son is alive and standing before you.”

  “He is not. He is not.”

  “Show her, Arthur.”

  Slowly the man lifted his left hand and held it up to Elizabeth’s face. There in front of her eyes was the tiny nub of flesh and nail. She could only stare at the extra finger and then at the face. The eyes. The black, fathomless eyes. Her mother’s eyes.

  “Dear God, dear God!” she wailed and suddenly her arms went round the young man, and she wept. In anger and love and for lost dreams found. Then laughed. And with the feel of her son’s tentative arms finally twining about her waist, she wept again. Leicester embraced them both, kissing first Elizabeth’s face and then his son’s. And there they stayed for some good time, whispering and crooning comfortably each to the other, and finally seeking words to begin healing the great wound of their terrible separation.

  Fifty-seven

  I stayed closeted with my Parents for several days more, meals delivered by nosy servants desperate to know who this stranger amongst them was. Leicester and I slept in his apartments adjoining the Queens chamber. I think that except when we slept we did never stop regaling each other with the stories of our lives, details of adventures, truths learnt and tall tales made taller. Tis said lost time can never be found, but we put forth a valiant effort. The two of them sat riveted by my exploits as a boy, a soldier and a spy, my Mother especially keen to hear all about King Philip, her worst enemy whom she had not laid eyes on for thirty years.

  And I begged to hear their stories. My Mothers fearful childhood, her terrifying road to the Throne, her joys and woes as the ruler of England. But I was most greedy to hear of their love for each other, their childhood courtship, the passion which had created me, the sad reality of my Fathers loveless married life. Tho it was not spoken, I knew my Mother had in her way begged my Fathers forgiveness for never marrying with him. I found joy in their indelible friendship and Leicesters service to the Crown, both of which had endured thro every tribulation. I saw they still held tender secrets tween them and even, to my surprise, a flame of sexual love.

  But in the end, of all the storytelling nothing compared to my saga of sailing incognito with the Spanish Armada. They sat spellbound as I told of the terrible privations, religious mania. The foul betrayal by Parma of the goodhearted Medina Sidonia, and the terror of the English fire ships, the daylong battle of Gravelines. I recounted my close brush with death that stormy night in the Channel on my lonely raft, and the headless corpse, and my final ruse which earned me my rescue by the English vessel.

  But whilst I saw my Mother grow stronger and more cheerful with every passing hour, my Father, despite an heroic effort to hide it, became ever more pale and sickly. Finally the Queen bade him go and rest. He agreed, saying he was headed for Buxton to take the waters there. He embraced me soundly, and with promises to meet up again in a months time, he went to my Mother who stood at a window overlooking the Thames. I saw such love and so sweet a caring tween them that had not so many tears already been shed in previous days I might have wept. When, however, the Queen sternly pressed an apothecarys bottle into Leicesters hands the pair of them suddenly burst into peals of raucous laughter which I did not understand, and which they did never explain. With a final kiss and the deepest of courtly bows that his poor old body would allow, my Father departed.

  I was alone with the Queen. From across the chamber I saw her fix me with a steady gaze which was at once completely disbelieving and altogether accepting.

  “Come here to me, Arthur.”

  I obeyed and stood with her at the window for a long while, silently watching the river traffic below. Finally she spok
e in an intimate and softly edged voice. “Since you walked in my door I have never ceased thinking about you. I have listened to you, I have wondered about you. I have even dreamt of you.” She lowered herself into the window seat and gestured for me to do the same. “When I was pregnant with you I was a full grown woman in my body, but in my mind I was hardly more than a girl. I had just taken the Throne, you see, and believed I could do exactly as I wished in all things. I believed that I could whisk you away into seclusion, conceal your existence entirely until the time I decided it was safe to reveal you to the world.”

  She laughed, I think at her own naivete.

  “Knowing what I do now about my treacherous and backstabbing Court, tis certain that my bastard son would not have stayed long a secret. My name was already sullied. It would have sunk as low as the Scots Queens had, and we both know the swift and brutal punishment her people visited on Mary for her amorous indiscretions. I think I might well have lost the Throne altogether. Even had I managed to retain my Queenship, you your self would no doubt have become a pawn. Bloody rebellions to determine the succession would have been fought in your name, both to raise you to the Throne and to see you discredited. Too many men wished for a male sovereign — still do. They would have wheedled me ceaselessly to abdicate to you, driving a terrible wedge between us.” She touched my face then, and I thought I saw a flicker of the beauty that had once been hers. “You might even have been assassinated as your friend Prince William was.”

  She sighed deeply. “Oh, I have cursed Mistress Kat Ashley and William Cecil for taking my flesh and blood from me, but I look at you, Arthur, and see as fine a man as I have ever known. You were raised and educated as a commoner and I think had you been raised as a Prince of England you would not now be so fine as you are. Royal children are pampered and spoilt, ruined in their heart and soul, and hardened, as I was. You might even have come to hate me.”