The lioness proved playful, patting Mr Cecil’s memorandum to and fro with sheathed claws, finally leaving it in a corner to provide future games. Her opening remark was roguish.
‘Sir William, I am overwhelmed with offers for my hand in marriage. I’m sure there will be no difficulty in my fulfilling your wishes.’ She called him ‘Sir William’ when she wanted to get round him. When wills failed to coincide, it would be an imperious ‘Mr Secretary’.
‘What a delightful problem! So many suitors to choose from… Whom shall I have?’
‘Whomsoever is acceptable to Your Majesty personally, and is likely to prove an asset to this realm.’
‘Ah, the realm. It seems the realm cannot make do with me alone. A man is needed to guide me?’ One of her sweet-baited barbs to catch him out.
Elizabeth had never pursued the sport of fishing, but she knew instinctively the artful casting of a tempting fly, the silent patience of watching her float. The dangerous waters of government held only the wily and the predatory, and they were men. That first Council meeting, a table draped with a Turkey carpet as supple as velvet, a tableful of men. Men’s faces, grave, bearded faces, youngish, old, and ageless. Men’s hands, resting on the carpet, some powerful, some brown, blotched with age, twisted with infirmity. Men’s hands, with prominent veins and hairy fingers, fiddling with pens, surreptitiously poking at an ear or oversprouting eyebrow. Men’s hats upon their laps — no one might wear his hat before a Queen. At the head of the Council table, Elizabeth.
‘Your Majesty, there are some affairs — war…’
‘Beyond the powers of a woman? As my brother-in-law of Spain has said? Mr Cecil, I confess I often feel inadequate, and in need of a helpmate.’ Then, breaking off this thread, and casting out a diversion, ‘How is Lady Mildred, and little Tannikin?’ Elizabeth had learnt her tactics in the school of fear and desperation, and such ploys had become habit.
‘Well, Your Majesty.’ Firmly resist diversions, even on the boundless subject of his three-year-old Anne.
‘Mildred is the one woman in the realm I would concede to be my equal in Greek! A most remarkable lady.’
‘I am aware of that, Your Majesty.’
‘Hmm.’
What was that supposed to mean?
‘Of course, you know that my inclination has always been to the single life.’ Suddenly, they were on course again.
‘But if it is a question of the good of the realm, I might have to change my mind.’ Hope at last.
‘But I might even change it for other reasons!’ That arch smile again. ‘It lies in God’s hands, Mr Cecil.’
These were the last hands it was likely to lie in. Mr Cecil hoped that other reasons might not include Lord Robert Dudley. He had intended that Lord Robert should have been one of the ambassadors sent abroad to proclaim the Queen’s accession, but Elizabeth had said that she needed her Master of Horse at home. Cecil distrusted Lord Robert; of all the Dudley sons, he was the most like the father.
‘The date for our coronation,’ the Queen went on happily. ‘I sent Lord Robert Dudley to ask his friend John Dee to calculate the most favourable date, which he has done. Sunday the fifteenth of January — I think there is no impediment to making that the day. Mr Cecil, I see a frown — you had other plans?’
‘If Your Majesty favours Sunday the fifteenth of January, I can find no impediment.’ She had, of course, detected his disapproval of Lord Robert having anything to do with the matter. ‘John Dee is a scholar with whose advice I would not quarrel.’
‘Naturally. Sensible Mr Cecil — I’m sure even your quarrels are discreetly conducted.’
He would certainly have to use his utmost discretion in dealing with his Queen. She could turn him topsy-turvy as a sand shaker, and double back and forth until he felt his hair go grey in pursuit. In addition to the cares of state, God had sent him a woman ruler. Not that he would go so far as to echo Knox’s words about their ‘monstrous regiment’, but Elizabeth’s regiment would be no bed of roses for her principal secretary.
*
Men. Men were the axis of the world. But now the sun which warmed the world had the face of a woman. This deviation from the proper order of nature disconcerted many others besides Mr Cecil. Every man at court knew the value of a monarch’s intimate hours, when words might be dropped in his ear while putting on his breeches and favours extracted while lacing his doublet. The best friend a man might have was one who was involved in these duties in the King’s inner sanctum, his bedchamber. Now, men were necessarily excluded. They could no longer put in words for themselves, or their brother-in-laws, or their cousins, no longer divine the bent of the sovereign’s mind from his casual conversation. These things were now done by women — gossiping nineteen to the dozen, the Queen was an indefatigable talker — all out of reach and earshot of their masters. A sensible man now found his womenfolk useful and necessary emissaries, and that more confidence must be placed in them.
Lord Robert was a sensible man, and in this new regime, found himself with some advantages less obvious than those of his fellows better placed in rank and influence. Robert had few friends in high places; he was not one of, and could not yet aspire to, the Privy Council. Yet one of his friends, above all others, was the Queen herself. He was also on good terms with the Queen’s women friends, and set out to be on better.
Kat Ashley, most privileged of all because the Queen loved her, was now first Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber, and had favoured Robert for years. Mrs Ashley was susceptible to a handsome man, was an incurable matchmaker, and wanted her darling the Queen to enjoy herself (within the bounds of propriety, of course), which bounds Robert had no intention of passing for the present.
Robert had dear sisters Mary and Kate, who were loyal and intelligent, as Dudley women should be. Another Kate, Sir Francis Knollys’s wife, was Elizabeth’s cousin, near her in age and always close to her. Sir Francis was one of a group of men Robert cultivated as Dudley allies. Of the favoured younger ladies, Ann Russell was daughter of another, the Earl of Bedford. More Boleyn cousins, the two daughters of Harry Lord Hunsdon, must be wooed to secure their father’s friendship. Robert was aware, in more ways than one, of the importance and usefulness of women.
On the other hand, no one was more aware than the Queen of the importance of men, nor of the delightful availability of them in many capacities to herself. She had not been allowed many of them before. Now she might pick and choose. She was as determined to use and enjoy them as Lord Robert was the women. Enjoyment came in both work and play. No sooner had the Queen formed her Privy Council and appointed her ambassadors than the Christmas season, with scarcely precedented joy and revelry, was upon the court. Twelve days of feasting, and from Twelfth Day to the day appointed for her coronation was just one week.
White birds from paradise came to the Queen’s coronation. Featherless, yet like feathers, the snowflakes dusted the roofs as if cherubim and seraphim had shaken out their wings over London while heralding that glorious event.
The traditional progress on the afternoon before the day itself, from the Tower to Westminster, was the Londoners’ own show, and no less a triumph for the Queen’s Master of Horse, Lord Robert Dudley. It saw the end of seven weeks of work, culminating in the last few frantic days. There were more than a thousand horses in this procession. Ambrose Dudley had the honour to walk leading the big mule carrying the front of the Queen’s litter, while Robert rode behind it with her white horse on a leading rein. These privileges had aroused much jealousy. The organization of the equestrian side of the show had not been made easier by frequent clashes with the young Duke of Norfolk and his uncle the Earl of Arundel, who as Earl Marshal and Lord Steward were in overall charge of the event.
Robert Dudley was good at hating, and he hated Arundel for being the man who had arrested his father, turning upon him like a Judas, when a week earlier he had wished Northumberland ‘God speed’. Robert hated the Howards too, for their arrogance and ducal rank, wh
ich was, after all, only three generations old. The old Duke of Norfolk had presided at his father’s trial like some withered, savage old rat, as he had presided at so many others — Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, More, Cromwell. Howard and Arundel were Duke and Earl, while Robert was plain Lord Robert. He found his pride, when it must be swallowed, very indigestible. Yet now he would ride, gorgeous as a Prince, in cloth of gold of purple and carnation colour, on a horse as black as the Dudley reputation, and his father would begin to be avenged.
Robert’s supreme moment came when he saw the Queen step up into her litter. The bleak January afternoon was transformed without need of the sun. Elizabeth shone instead. She glistened and gleamed, all gold and silver tissue, with ermine to keep her warm. She was sun and moon both. On her head was a coronet; red vine tendrils of hair outshone the gold. She did not have the sort of woman’s hair which, when worn loose, hung long or thick, but it made up for this by its brightness. Fine as spun silk, it flew crackling in the frosty air, refusing to lie smooth, a firecloak around her shoulders. She was as showy as an explosion of squibs, not some remote goddess to be worshipped. Robert called to her as she sat down on her cushions. ‘Surely, there is None Such — has not been, and never will be again — such Majesty!’ And Elizabeth turned upon him the full beams of her sun.
It was typical that from the very first moment Elizabeth created her own pageant scenes, quite unrehearsed, though certainly not unplanned. Once settled in her litter, before the signal was given to leave Tower Green, she voiced a prayer which she had in fact written beforehand.
‘O Lord, almighty and everlasting God, I give Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to behold this joyful day. And I acknowledge that Thou hast dealt as wonderfully and as mercifully with me, as Thou didst with Daniel Thy prophet, whom Thou deliverdest out of the den, from the cruelty of the greedy and raging lions: even so was I overwhelmed, and only by Thee delivered.’
Those Tower lions, who roared every feeding time and when the guns were being fired, had suggested this apt simile. The guns were being fired now as she came forth from the den, the procession winding out over the drawbridges, up Tower Hill, Tower Street and Mark Lane to St Gabriel Fenchurch. Here musicians played merrily and a child stepped up to read a welcoming speech. Because of the noise, the music and cheering, it looked as if this would never be heard, so the Queen called to Lord Ambrose to halt her litter until the crowd could be hushed and the child heard.
‘Welcome therefore O Queen, as much as heart can think,
Welcome again O Queen, as much as tongue can tell:
Welcome to joyous tongues, and hearts that will not shrink,
God thee preserve we pray, and wish thee ever well.’
As he ended the tongues gave answer with a mighty roar of assent. Nothing could have delighted Elizabeth more. She thanked them, saying that these were gifts she would treasure for ever, and that she wanted more than anything to have her subjects’ love all the days of her life. ‘My City of London,’ she said, ‘can give me these precious gifts, needing no help from foreigners to devise shows for my pleasure.’ They roared again. At Mary’s coronation at least four of the shows had been put on by foreign merchants. Here at Fenchurch, she distinctly remembered, by the Genoese.
As Elizabeth tucked her white quilt round her feet for warmth, she also remembered how cold it had been at the coronation of King Edward VI, the streets like iron, the pavement gritted. Her nine-year-old brother had looked an angel in his cloth of silver and white velvet. Mary had worn blue velvet, like a virgin bride, but destined only for a disastrous marriage, both to kingdom and husband. Elizabeth knew her own destiny to be an indissoluble and loving union with her kingdom and all her subjects.
Their initial welcome had been a mere modest whetting of the appetite for the splendid devices to come. The first great show was a triple triumphal arch spanning Gracechurch Street, and called the Uniting of the Houses of Lancaster and York. Elizabeth had to come close to it before she could see for the first time in her recollection her mother portrayed publicly and acknowledged as her father’s wife, and herself as their undoubted offspring.
Over the middle arch were three tiers, on the first of which sat King Henry VII and his Queen, holding hands, and a wedding ring. From their throne grew a stem of red roses on his side and of white on hers, uniting on the second level, where King Henry VIII sat enthroned, Anne Boleyn at his side. Above them at the lonely pinnacle sat Elizabeth herself, Queen.
A child began a speech explaining the show. Elizabeth needed no explanation. She saw her own destiny portrayed. No show could have been devised to move her more deeply.
Harry Tudor had come out of Wales to win Owen’s crown, bringing both concord and unity, as Merlin had foretold. Elizabeth would bring these blessings once more to her poor strife-torn kingdom.
But, being Elizabeth, she had practical and immediate things in mind, as well as great, and had her litter backed up so that she could see the child reading the verses properly. Then she had a message sent ahead, asking that the crowds should be kept quiet, as she did not want to miss any of the speeches. She was best able to silence the crowd herself, by her own words and gestures.
Indeed, the Queen had plenty of her own words to contribute to each show; hers was never a silent splendour. She talked her way along the procession route, turning to listen to one and all, with an answer for most. Her hands, in golden, fur-lined gloves, were never still, waving acknowledgements, extending to receive offerings. These lay in heaps on the floor of the litter, from the gold of the rich to the nosegays of the poor. The four knights who carried the canopy over the Queen were bombarded by tumbling gifts. Children dodged between the double guard marching on either side, the gentlemen pensioners with their axes and the footmen with Tudor rose on front and back, flanked by the new gold letters, ER.
Lord Robert Dudley had perhaps the best and closest view of all this. Often, Elizabeth turned round to look for him and to smile. She kept making Ambrose and Lord Paulet halt the litter, so she might talk to people. They were, of course, ravished by her words, smiles and gestures. So was Robert. He saw in her every day, every hour, every moment, some bright new facet he had not seen shine before. How restricted, confined, and dangerous her life had been until now, denying this wonderful self the light of day. Once, in the crowd, she saw an old man turn his head aside to weep into his sleeve, and she said, smiling and weeping herself, ‘Surely, it is for joy!’ And so, Robert knew, it was.
Turning down Cheapside, Elizabeth heard a man exclaim, as he saw her, ‘Remember King Henry VIII!’ Her radiant joy at that remembrance of red hair, of the bird-of-prey profile, was nothing less than she felt at being his daughter.
The Standard in Cheapside was the place for the most elaborate show of all. Two hills had been constructed, one grey, barren and stony, with a naked, dead tree on it, signifying a kingdom in ruin and decay, the other hill all verdant green, with springing flowers and a sturdy green bay tree in full leaf, was the flourishing, well-governed kingdom. That green hill, like the green, sea-washed island of England, enshrined all the hopes of the new Queen’s subjects, put into words and pictures by the ingenuity of the London citizens, the most vociferous and blunt of Englishmen. In between the two hills, so clearly meant to illustrate the state of England under Mary’s miserable rule and the happy promised land of Elizabeth’s, was a cave, from which Father Time emerged, leading by the hand his daughter, Truth.
‘Time!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, exactly on cue. ‘Time has brought me here!’
There he was, with his great scythe and goosefeather wings; she had been spared the mowing scythe and been carried to her destiny on his wings. Time’s daughter, Truth, held in her hand a book, the Bible in English. Her godfather Cranmer’s Bible. Verbum Dei, the true word of God. Cranmer had been burned for his truth.
‘Now since that Time again his daughter Truth hath brought,
We trust, O worthy Queen, tho
u wilt this truth embrace.’
So she would.
When Truth came forward to offer the Bible, which was passed to the Queen, Elizabeth took the book, kissed it, held it up high for all to see, then clasped it close against her heart. Her words were lost in the roars of joy. She had answered the Londoners’ prayers by this pledge. The rule of Rome was over; Truth should reign.
At St Paul’s, a schoolboy made a speech in Latin comparing Elizabeth to Plato’s philosopher king, which pleased her so much that she smiled and declaimed a good few lines of Latin herself, promising the boy a reward. This display of learning brought more admiration, as it was meant to. Pleasure flowed on all sides, like wine. Robert Dudley smiled into his beard. He was amazed at the way in which the Queen sustained her rapport with the crowd, the sharpness of her eye to spot the individual. Near the Fleet Bridge, Robert saw a poor woman toss a branch of common rosemary into the litter, and Elizabeth picked it up to take a few leaves to sniff; she loved aromatic herbs.
A tall palm tree with dates arose over the pageant in Fleet Street. This showed Deborah the judge who ruled Israel for forty years of peace. Would God allow her, Elizabeth, forty years to rule England? It occurred to her that the obnoxious John Knox should have paid more attention to the Fourth Book of Judges, and pondered that Deborah, the wise and just ruler, had been a woman. It was no flattering coincidence, but a sign of deep hope, that Deborah wore a set of crimson Parliament robes very like Elizabeth’s own.
None But Elizabeth Page 14