Thirty years. 1588. She had often found herself, this year, writing those numbers, 1, 5, 8, 8, in the margins of notes, on scraps of paper, as if by writing it in different ways, boldly or delicately, embroidering it with loops and curlicues, arranging it horizontally, or vertically, or like an acrostic, it would be exorcized of menace. She might pooh-pooh the prognostications upon these numbers as superstitious, or a means to terrorize the gullible, yet there was something — a stumble in the footsteps of Time, perhaps… How could mere numbers, shaped in ink by the human hand as a convenience for marking the passage of time, govern the duration of the world? Was all history from the birth of Our Lord to be computed in multiples of ten and seven, each one ending in momentous events, and in a cataclysm in this year?
Almanac printers abroad were coining money, foretelling bloody rains, monstrous births, snow at midsummer, failure of seed-time and harvest. She had seen to it that such panic-spreading rubbish was not printed in England, in case her subjects began to equate cataclysm with her own death. The French foretold the end of the English Jezebel, as the impudent frogs called her, with relish. She had ordered a sensible, scholar’s refutation of prophetic rubbish. She was determined to take warning from what the Apostle Luke said of the Last Day, when ‘men’s hearts shall fail them for fear, and for looking after these things which shall come on the world’. Englishmen would not go looking for disasters if she could help it.
There was marginally more comfort to be read into the prophecy of Regiomontanus, who had said a hundred years ago that in 1588, ‘If total catastrophe does not befall, if land and sea do not collapse in total ruin, yet will the whole world suffer upheavals, empires will dwindle and from everywhere will be great lamentation.’ Empires will dwindle… The only empire reaching out across the world that she knew of was Spanish, which was encouraging.
A dwindling was scarcely the same thing as an eclipse. Regiomontanus had also mapped the heavens for this year, and warned of three eclipses, one of the sun and two of the moon. The planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars would frown together in the moon’s own house. The second eclipse of the moon was due on 26 August, two weeks from now, and coinciding with the rule of her birth sign, Virgo. She was governed by the moon. Yet the moon lives after its eclipse; it was not the end of it, but a time of darkness, of trial, to be followed by peace and fullness again.
A time of trial. This year, this month, would see either the survival or extinction of Protestant England. In England’s history she was now the actor upon whom all eyes were fixed, more so than on the men, fighting upon the sea, the Lord Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and more still than on her Lieutenant, Leicester, mustering a short-handed army at short notice on short rations. Her Robin served her now better than at any time in his life, and she felt love and pride that this was so.
Elizabeth had already decided how she would appear to her army. As Minerva, the warrior for peace, the Virgin Queen, the Protestant armour against the forces of Antichrist the Pope. She had seen to it that a silver breastplate had been made for her, beaten with a curious design of the head of Medusa, bristling with serpents, and a helmet of antique shape with white plumes, as chaste Minerva wore. She would wear white, of course. She would ride a white horse.
One of her childish imaginings had been of a knight on a white horse, leading his army, generally identified with her grandfather, Henry VII who had, according to the chronicles of Holinshed, given a stirring oration to his troops on the field of Bosworth, that long yellow summer, which had brought him a crown. That was the very thing, an oration to the troops, to inspire not only them, but something which might be reported afterwards to give courage to all her subjects. The wonders of printing, which came to England in her grandfather’s lifetime, would ensure that her words would reach all who could hear or read them. She had congratulated herself upon the idea, and her mind had swiftly knitted up the words. She had learned early to make her voice carry… Pray that it would not rain. Soggy white velvet and Minerva’s helmet plumes like rat-tails would not do at all. It could not rain.
As if to remind a presumptuous Queen of her fault, rain began to spatter and pockmark the river, coming out of a large black cloud heading east. From its centre, rods of rain could be seen descending over towards where the camp must be. The royal party was approaching the landing stage at Tilbury blockhouse. The Queen could see the men waiting there, two very tall ones, her own Robert and his stepson, the young Earl of Essex. Her attention was caught by the rainbow, arching over all, as if the sun shone upon a million diamonds in the sky. The rainbow, a sign of peace after storms, was perhaps an omen. She came to Tilbury as Minerva, bringing peace. She hated war. The Queen shook an admonitory finger at herself for scanning the heavens for omens, but the rainbow pleased her all the same.
When the Queen’s barge touched in at the jetty, all the cannon at the blockhouse fired off a salute, making the gulls wheel and scream over the river to Gravesend. The hand which grasped hers to help her ashore was, of course, Robert’s, his kiss, so familiar, Robert’s voice which greeted her, with words so often heard before.
The Earl of Leicester. The Queen’s Lieutenant General. Sweet Robin — that was a perky, chirping sort of name, unsuitable for men of more than sweet and twenty, yet old habits die hard. Leicester was nearly fifty-seven; year by year his age had kept pace with his Queen’s, but now his footsteps seemed to overtake her. Here he was, without his hat, her sweet herb Robert’s gipsy-dark curls gone to old man’s beard that blew about, unkindly revealing his baldness. The long, lean horseman’s legs still carried him over the ground with a greyhound lope, though stiff and knobbly with varicose veins, and supporting a frame of a bulk it never used to have. Against his white hair, his complexion was more fruity than when she had last seen him — mulberry had advanced on plum — though one might allow this was caused by the wind off the Thames marshes, or the exertions of mustering an army of raw recruits. Men still called him the Gipsy, insultingly; he had never lost the reputation of a parvenu, a vagabond, a con man, a prigger of prancers, from whom no one in his right mind would buy so much as a mule, for it was sure to be spavined.
‘Well Robin, I have not altered my purpose.’
‘Your Majesty is as steadfast as the cliffs of England!’ He had known all along that she would come. She knew that her presence would do more good than ten thousand extra troops raised from nowhere, and though she might alter her mind ninety times nine a day over some issues, when she was needed to play her royal part, she would never fail. He held her hand as if it were a token of God’s aid sent to him from above.
‘I have in mind,’ she said, ‘what I shall say to them. Your ten thousand cannot all hear my words; therefore you must instruct the captains to see that everyone is told of what I have said. I also suggest that a printed letter is distributed and sent abroad, so that Europe may hear how we have defied Spain and Rome. I’ll let you have my draft later, Robert.’
Leicester, who had a twinge in his knee and a gurgle in his guts, and had been lucky to get four consecutive hours’ sleep in the last month, felt a lessening of his fatigue and bodily malaise. Once again he wondered at the Queen’s verve; she had determined to play a heroic part, and she could do it better than anyone alive. It had been all he could do to restrain her from going to Dover to watch the sea fight. She looked radiant, much less than her age, when he now felt a hundred years old. Only a fortnight ago he had been cursing her delay in ordering preparation for war, and the way he had to wring every penny spent on it from her like blood out of a stone. His own commission had typically not been sent down from St James’s, and he was all but acting as head cook and bottle-washer to the camp. But now he was exposed again to the dazzle of her sun. Indeed, the sun had come out as she had arrived, and in the last weeks it had scarcely shown its face.
‘I have arranged a show for Your Majesty tomorrow, so that you may see your soldiers’ skill in horsemanship and weapons. We will have a fine royal review!�
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‘Robin,’ she said, as they both smiled, ‘we will!’
She turned a little so that her smile fell upon her other Robin, stepson to the first. This fact pleased her only when she forgot the reason for it. The young Earl of Essex had hair like copper-beech leaves in the sun, too like his mother Lettice.
The midday sun shone in his face, illuminating the Queen’s head, making him shift from its dazzle. In doing so he saw the rainbow arching the sky again.
‘Non sine sole iris,’ he said gracefully, as if the words had dropped down the ladder of heaven into his mouth. No rainbow without the sun. The Queen was the sun.
Elizabeth preened. She liked her compliments spiced with learning.
‘Sweet Robin,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I shall ride a white horse.’
‘Your Majesty shall, as white as almonds.’ Essex had succeeded to his stepfather’s office as Master of Horse.
‘I shall wear white, and the helmet and breastplate of Minerva.’
Essex wondered briefly how a plumed helmet would fit over her wig. But of course, it would be carried before her, on a cushion, like a crown. The Queen was creating her own mask, in which her attendants — all of them men — were going to be restricted to parts in dumb show. He was amazed at how young she looked, the swift gestures of her hands, the turn of her head, as sharply arresting as a diamond slanted in the sun. Her eyes were brilliant, no longer hooded by white lids. The Queen had many faces, many ages; sometimes he thought he saw Time’s grinning skull looking out at him, sometimes, as now, he glimpsed what Leicester had seen when he had been twenty-one.
No sooner, it seemed, had the Queen set foot on land among them, than the Earl of Cumberland arrived post-haste from Harwich, carrying a dispatch from the Lord Admiral, with news of the sea fight. Lord Howard in the Ark Royal was by now anchored safe in the roads off Margate.
‘In our last fight with the enemy before Gravelines, the 29th July, we sank three of their ships and made four…so leaky that they were not able to live at sea.’
The Queen nodded her satisfaction.
‘After that fight, notwithstanding that our powder and shot was well near all spent, we put on a brave face and gave them chase, as though we had wanted nothing, until we had cleared our own coast and some part of Scotland of them. Although we have put the Spanish fleet past the Firth of Forth, and I think, past the Isles, God knows whether they go either to the naze of Norway, or into Denmark, or to the Isles of Orkney to refresh themselves and so to return. I think they dare not return with this dishonour and shame to their King, and overthrow of their Pope’s credit… All the world never saw such a force as theirs was, and some Spaniards that we have taken, that were in the fight at Lepanto, do say that the worst of our four fights did exceed far the fight they had there.’
‘So all we know is that the Spanish fleet has disappeared, like some evil conjuring. The task is only half done.’
‘We should have had a famous victory!’
Here they were, wringing their hands that a second Lepanto had not been allowed the English, Leicester thought. It was lucky to be so much as it was, and no sign of the Spanish galleons anchored in Dover harbour. So far, so good, though in all conscience it was hard to be optimistic.
‘It was only by God’s providence that our ships returned. First a storm such as was never seen before in August, then hunger and thirst’ said Cumberland dramatically. ‘The Lord Admiral himself with only beans to eat, and his sailors reduced to drinking their own piss!’
Leicester made tutting noises at this, although he suspected that Cumberland included this remarkable detail for the benefit of the Queen, who must be persuaded to spend considerable sums in revictualling the navy and in keeping it afloat until the fate of the Spaniards was definitely known.
There was a coach waiting to take the Queen up to the camp. Her ushers had already gone on the four miles to Horndon, to see that Mr Rich’s house, requisitioned for her night’s stay, was made ready. The coach had been embellished at great expense, out of Leicester’s own pocket — one more debt — but he could see from the way she ascended into it that his effort had been a hundred times worthwhile. Her ladies fluttered in her wake like so many moths in a candle flame; no doubt tomorrow she would dismiss them altogether.
Leicester had assembled his infantry to give the Queen a fitting reception. They lined both sides of the road, backed up by some cannon resting on wooden wheels. The men had been drilled to lower their pikes in unison as the Queen went by. The move went off better than could have been hoped, the fifteen-foot pike shafts going down like the crest of a wave. What had not been included in the drill was the men’s spontaneous kneeling down, their shouts of ‘Lord preserve our Queen!’, the way some of the older ones surreptitiously crossed themselves, as if confronted by a vision, like the idolatrous Spaniards before the Virgin Mary. This was something the Queen deplored, lifting a restraining hand, yet by her own devising and mask-making, deliberately encouraged. So, cheered and worshipped to the tune of fanfares, the Queen passed on her way to her lodging.
That night, special prayers were said for her, for her army. ‘Bless Thou all her forces by sea and land. Grant all her people one heart, one mind and one strength, to defend her person, her kingdom, and Thy true religion. Give unto all her councils and captains wisdom, wariness and courage, that they may speedily prevent the devices, and valiantly withstand the forces of all our enemies, that the fame of the gospel may be spread unto the ends of the world.’ And in the heart of every man, from Leicester himself to the smallest horse boy, echoed ‘Amen.’
By some miracle, the next day dawned dry. The Queen was up, and ready in full array by eight o’clock. Her ladies were a little taken aback when dressing her, thinking that she might have been more at home in the armourer’s tent than in their hands. The effect of diamond-chequered sleeves and pearl-dewed ruff emerging from a Roman breastplate was a little curious. Now that she had taken to wearing a full wig over her own hair, the tetchy business of hairdressing was largely avoided. Some of them remembered the Queen’s own hair as it had been, orange-tawny, floss-fine and flyaway, all airy fuzz and twirls. Now it sat in a scant grey pancake, flattened and hidden by wigs of splendid orange hues. Today’s was especially fiery, a beacon from afar. Nestling in the vivid curls was the great fistful of a jewel known as the Brethren; three oblong rubies without equal, and three monstrous, globular pearls.
The Earl of Leicester was also up early — he had scarcely seen his bed — and awaiting the Queen, with young Essex and the white horse. This, a large gelding (to avoid trouble) was full, unlike himself, of early morning skittishness. It was a fine animal, bred by himself, and a true white, pink-nosed and skinned. It would show up well against the black he always rode as a foil on these occasions. They had always done this, white and black, his night to her blazing day.
The Queen came out, prompt as she had said she would. She was shining, a mirror for the day, with glinting breastplate, crystal and diamond drops dewing the white velvet swathes of her skirts. She took Robert’s breath away, as if he had not seen her for many years, and then found time to have run backwards. She looked even better up on the white horse, an Amazon Queen. As well as the breastplate and helmet, she would carry a silver baton, like a general’s, or a royal sceptre; the sword of state would be carried before her.
Clearly she enjoyed the ride up to the camp. A fine, though rather misty, still morning, smelling of the damp lushness of a wet summer. Mushrooms had come up on the verges. The Queen’s horse was fresh, as she liked them to be. Robert had no inclination at all to join in her equestrian frolics. Early morning rides, races, memories… He was not a sentimental man, and now was not the time or place.
On the pimple of a hill standing out from the Essex marshes where the camp was laid out, the army had been drawn up in battle royal. The Queen was escorted to meet it by trumpeters, heralds and a macebearer. At her approach the banners and pike staves were lowered in salute. The Yeom
en of the Guard and the halberdiers were left behind, on the Queen’s insistence; today she and her brave army were as one, and she needed no guarding.
She watched from horseback while the army marched and wheeled about, and the horses showed off their skill in manoeuvres. Then she dismounted, and walked between the ranks of men, greeting them like old friends, answering their assurances of loyalty by her voice and her presence. Robert walked beside her all the time, as close as he could keep, hoping that if anyone took aim at her, it would hit him instead. But he saw only enthusiastic idolatry, not treachery. At the end of her review, the Queen remounted her horse, and announced her intention to deliver her speech.
She rode out in front of the army accompanied only by Leicester and Essex. The last few paces, they held back, and she left them behind. Leicester had agreed to this reluctantly, knowing the gloomy fears of Walsingham, but she had inevitably overruled him. She must know as well as he that it would be only too easy for some agent of the enemy, or some treacherous Papist, to skulk in the ranks, waiting to loose a bolt… He kept his free hand on the hilt of his sword, and sat tense, with narrowed puffy eyes scanning the anonymous rows of men, aware of his own helplessness should an assassin strike. The Queen would see only a pinkish blur of faces beyond the front row; never before had she so needed him to be her eyes.
As if to bring his already pounding heart to a fearful stop, the Queen drew all eyes that were not there already, to her solitary, white, shining figure, by spurring her horse forward in a sort of indignant leap, several paces nearer towards the front rank of the army. When she began to speak, she laid her right hand carrying the baton across her silver breastplate, as if daring any to take aim at this flimsy protection.
None But Elizabeth Page 33