They seemed to be being carried upwards and upwards in the mysterious cloth—perhaps like Cleopatra in the rolled-up carpet being smuggled to Julius Caesar. Then Ginny and Katherine were both still. There was a more gentle rippling sensation around them. And the cloth fell away as easily as a crab’s old shell under water. Ginny wondered when she came to how many legs she would have. She had heard the English expression about legs turning to jelly. This was the sensation she had. She thought her limbs would crumble into old cloth rags if she had not had the support of the gristle and bone arms of Katherine of Valois.
At first, Ginny shielded her eyes from the bright light of the spectacle before her: a huge court of people and animals all gaping at her and, at the rear, the unmistakeable shapes of TV cameras.
It seemed they had both arrived. But where?
CIRCLES OF DECEIT
Georgie had already had more than enough history that night. He yawned—something that irritated his royal hosts who liked to think they were continuously enrapturing. Georgie sensed that the remarks he had heard so far must be leading to something bigger.
There was a sudden scurrying around by the little heraldic animals, a general hubbub of equipment being assembled, of microphones being switched on and checked. Georgie saw several TV cameras and a battery of lights shining upon four handsome mahogany chairs with curved bow legs. There was also an ornamental table with a carafe of water and some glass tumblers. The cameras carried the initials ‘RBC’.
A smiling little man with wispy, salt-and-pepper hair stood at the front. He was dressed in smart casual clothes as if for an outside broadcast or a cocktail party and holding a neat pack of cue cards. Sensing Georgie’s puzzlement, the man said kindly, “Don’t look so surprised. You don’t remember me from yesterday, do you? Never mind. Can you work out what ‘RBC’ means?”
“I know that ‘BBC’ stands for British Broadcasting Corporation,” answered Georgie. “So ‘RBC’ might be Royal Broadcasting Corporation.”
“Right first time. Excellent,” said the friendly little man. “We’re about to start tonight’s program. It will be broadcast internationally to cathedrals that host late royals. Take a pew.”
Georgie did so with the affable Sir Walter Raleigh alongside heraldic animals also working as cameramen and sound engineers and general studio floor staff. Someone called for silence and then the friendly man spoke to camera:
“My name is Geoffrey Chaucer and this is Head Start. Our program invites greats from our national past to explain why they did what they did in times of crisis. Tonight, it’s the turn of two regimen sister queens from the sixteenth century: Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, aka the forces’ favourite.”
Ever the consummate power dresser, Elizabeth now sported a jewelled gristle-and-bones version of the frock she had worn for the so-called Ermine portrait by Nicholas Hilliard: a black dress dotted with gold ornaments and studs, with grey sleeves and a tiny, affectionate ermine perched on one arm. Mary Tudor wore a reconstituted shards-and-bones version of her everyday russet-brown work clothes. Tumultuous canned applause came from somewhere or other.
The royal sisters sat side by side on two of the chairs, their glistening face masks lit so as to make them seem timeless icons like screen goddesses of the golden age of Hollywood. They were certainly lustrous. Their suddenly gleaming toothpaste smiles were most inviting. But, to be frank, two sixteenth-century farthingales set side by side made for a rather crowded visual field. However, buoyant Geoffrey Chaucer was imperturbable as he opened the show:
"As renowned historian Sir Walter Raleigh tells us, in the late 1500s dear old England faced a complex tissue of assaults: invasion, religious civil war and persecutions, and—most shockingly—the threat of conquest and subjugation by the Habsburg (or Hapsburg) Empire of King Philip II of Spain.
“I’m impartial. I don’t ask leading questions. That is for our guests to do. They ask one another questions, person to person, as they could never have done in life. So, our beloved Queen Elizabeth will ask gracious Queen Mary I to explain herself and her policies.”
Mary Tudor did not wait to be asked anything. She plunged straight into her interpretation of past deeds.
“It was my mission to return England to the Catholic fold, back to orthodox religious doctrine, aka the Truth, and to eliminate Protestant heresy after the mistaken Reformation of the 1530s, ’40s and early ’50s. My advisers, with craven insistence, assured me this was not impossible. For one thing, the earthquake of profound religious changes of the previous twenty years had exploded from dear Henry VIII’s dynastic and treasury decisions rather than from any genuine grass-roots Protestantism such as that inspired—misled really—by damnable Martin Luther in Germany.”
“But your marriage to Philip II of Spain—”
“Dearest Felipe, yes—”
“—fuelled problems for your royal authority and caused widespread misgivings among your subjects,” suggested Geoffrey Chaucer. He had not forgotten he was not meant to ask the questions. He wanted to be provocative.
“Unfortunately,” said Mary Tudor impulsively. This was perhaps her only chance to set the record straight from her point of view and she was not going to squander the opportunity. "I realised I could not simply overthrow the Protestant Reformation since Parliament—to its eternal shame—had passed enabling legislation with the assent of two kings (my dear father and my dutiful brother, little Edward VI). Even worse, some hallowed religious buildings had now been put to secular use. The horror of it!
“I was stumped—I admit it. But I was not deterred. So I had to turn to force, using old heresy laws and the stake.”
Elizabeth needed no invitation to interrupt and turn Mary’s words against her.
“In your five years’ rule, 231 men and fifty-six women were burned to death. We’ve heard of dragonflies, houseflies and butterflies but you made fire fly. Big mistake, sister dearest! Your unfortunate public burnings were very unpopular. Everyone says so. And none was more so than that of Thomas Cranmer, Protestant archbishop of Canterbury. He plunged his dear right hand that had signed the recantation you had forced out of him right into the torrid flames as a triumphant gesture of defiance.”
To underscore her point, Elizabeth wagged a choppy finger at Mary, like a firefly teasing a flame.
Mary hated being outfoxed by her upstart younger sister whom she knew was better with words than she was. This must have been a malign gift from Lizzie’s dreadful tart-tongued mother, the loathsome Anne Boleyn. Worse, Mary sensed that many of the animal onlookers in the abbey were on Lizzie’s side. It was also clear that Sir Walter Raleigh was enjoying himself as he shared some damnable tourist’s leftover popcorn with dear little Georgie on the front row.
But Elizabeth was not done yet.
“When you died, you were widely hated at home as a vindictive instrument of the pope and your equally hated husband. Your own so-charming nickname says it all: ‘Bloody Mary’.”
“Come, come,” said poet-presenter Geoffrey Chaucer. “You’re both royal sisters. Can’t you let bygones be bygones?”
Elizabeth understood (as Mary never could) that Chaucer’s seemingly conciliatory words were really intended to make the controversy even more provocative for the rapt audience. And Elizabeth was still far from finished. Now she took the high ground of political morality as she spoke to camera:
“Mary Tudor sacrificed what should have been the best political interests of our own dear England to her preferred interest—keeping her husband happy. As we all know, that was flinty-faced Philip II of Spain—a religious fanatic if ever there was one. The toll in dear human lives was about 1,000 people altogether.”
Mary I had had enough. She thought she could recapture the lost ground of public opinion, past and present. She interjected, “That number—projected, not verified—is far less than across Europe in all the years of religious tumult started by detested hateful Martin Luther. What a klutz!”
Once ag
ain, Mary had fallen into the trap of Lizzie’s superior rhetoric.
“Surely, we’re not going to have a row about the real estate of Death like the Communists and the Nazis did four centuries later? How many died here? How many died there? And how many died everywhere else? Whether it was many more or far fewer in dear old England, it was enough to get you memorialised in a cocktail of vodka and tomato juice.”
This final insult, carried off with a vocal flourish and another triumphant gesture of her spindly hand was enough for the biased audience to reward Elizabeth with a roar of approval. The little animals called out, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!”, “Give us a drink, love!”, “How about a toast?”, “Cheers!”, “Down the hatch!” and “Up yours!”
Mary grimaced. Again and again when it came to presentation before a Tudor court or a modern TV audience, she knew that Elizabeth left her at the starting post. At last, she sensed it was better to say nothing. After all, the moment of shame would pass as quickly as a famous singer’s voice cracking on a high note before an audience.
“Your subjects had plenty to say about your character,” said Chaucer to Elizabeth as if to show he was a balanced host but really to capitalise on Elizabeth’s winning way with the crowd.
“Yes, they did,” agreed Elizabeth. “Yes, some people acknowledged that I was very clever.” She patted the back of her hairpiece to acknowledge the tribute.
“To others, you were very vain,” sneered Mary still in high dudgeon.
Elizabeth could turn this around.
“Yes, but every criticism was really a compliment. They said in my politics I was cautious and circumspect—well, wouldn’t you prefer that to being called headstrong and unprepared—meaning un-counselled like dear Ethelred the Unready or—dare I say it?—your own good self?”
To head off further embarrassment, Chaucer asked Elizabeth, “How did you turn your political gifts to resolve the religious controversies at home?”
“To be candid, I had no strong religious beliefs. But after years and years of upheaval over religion, I had to decide between conservative Catholic peers who wanted a return to Roman Catholicism and the pope of Rome and a new Puritan middle class who were pushing for extreme Protestant ideas.”
“This could have led to a complete breakdown of national unity,” Chaucer prodded.
“Yes, that’s so,” answered Elizabeth. “So we, royal Elizabeth, passed an Act of Supremacy. It made us governor of the church. A second act of Uniformity told the clergy to use a moderate Protestant prayer book.”
Mary knew that Elizabeth I detested evangelicalism and had no sympathy for extremists. Lizzie’s entire tortuous upbringing had been an education in political caution. Her instinct was to compromise so far on religion but no further. And it was this that had led to the creeping political triumph of the Church of England that Mary I so detested.
“So,” said Mary, “true to your mother, you decided in favour of heresy and the Protestants.”
Elizabeth smiled ever so sweetly.
“But the conservative nature of the settlement—a compromise if you will—satisfied most people. More important, our policy decisions could also be accepted by extremists at either end of the religious and political spectrum. Anyway, everyone has to pray for me and all the royal family. That’s the most important thing. You see, I’m an unusual phenomenon: a supreme narcissist who is also a supreme realist.”
“You don’t understand these words, do you?” Mary Tudor called out to Georgie.
“No, ma’am.”
“Don’t worry. Neither do I.”
Host Geoffrey Chaucer knew he could spice up the debate by bringing on another guest, like someone unexpected entering a crime scene in a murder mystery and brandishing a revolver.
"Please welcome our next royal guest, Mary, Queen of Scots. This brings our total to three great ladies who have never been caught on camera together before. They are making their first joint public appearance ever in well over four hundred years.
“Here she comes,” he added. Under his words, a pop song cry went up from the heraldic mammals in the audience, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” To this heraldic reptiles hissed, “She’s a man-eater,” with an unpleasant lingering on the ‘a-a-an’ in ‘man’.
Elizabeth I was incensed at the notion of another woman exceeding her in this respect. She bristled with such furious quivering that Geoffrey Chaucer said to himself, “It’s as if the old dear is going for an Olympic gold in jealousy.” What he said aloud was different however:
“Gracious virgin majesty, it was you who suggested drawing together all three UK queens regimen. In that way, historians could compare you together.”
“Yes I did,” replied Elizabeth.
“So we can see if Mary, Queen of Scots, can challenge you.”
“How can she challenge me?” asked Elizabeth with a sweetness you could cut with a knife.
The new speaker suddenly among them was the most gracious skeleton Georgie had ever seen—not that he was a connoisseur of skeleton ladies with Venetian masks. (For the newcomer had already taken the third spare mask.) She was a benign presence with an embroidered kerchief tucked behind her ears.
Somehow, her plain simple dress formed out of her gleaming bones was made irresistibly attractive with tasteful embroidery that transformed a simple appearance into something refined. So apt was the cut of the clothes, so tasteful the decoration and so pleasing the colours to the lady’s complexion that she seemed graciousness personified. Indeed, Mary Stuart’s sudden appearance was so charismatic as to make the lovely décor of Westminster Abbey disappear in the eyes of the animal onlookers who gasped with more oohs and aahs.
Having listened from the stage wings to her bitter rival Elizabeth I outfoxing Mary Tudor, Mary Stuart was determined that in this afterlife, she would remain Elizabeth’s victim. Without waiting for the compere, she took the initiative and addressed the appreciative audience directly.
“Dear animal friends, I know what you’re thinking and what you most want to know. Lizzie and I have been the subject of endless speculation. Did Elizabeth and I ever meet? Was Lizzie jealous of me because I had three husbands and she had none? Was it because I produced a son and heir who became king of England after her while she never had any children?”
Lizzie countered with, “The same questions year after year!”
Mary Stuart looked plaintive and demure. But no one could miss her secret smile.
Mary Tudor said confidentially to no one in particular, “She tries to pretend butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth—or anywhere else.”
Elizabeth I gave a stage yawn, saying, “Not only that but she’s stolen our third Venetian mask. Typical!”
But Mary Stuart was not going to be suppressed. She continued.
“But we did meet in history—every time our intertwined political stories are told—not to mention every time our diplomatic manoeuvres are discussed. And now we live together in legend. Stage and screen can’t get enough of us whether it’s London or New York, Hollywood or Pinewood. And unlike some of history’s infamous double acts—Antony and Cleopatra, Marx and Engels—are you still with me? [this to the youngsters]—no matter: Stalin and Trotsky, Hitler and Mussolini, Mao and Madame Mao—forget them all. It’s we who are immortal in romantic drama. No one wants little Adolf’s one-ball game—not even in springtime. No. They want us: Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor.”
Whatever she said or however she looked, it seemed as if Mary Stuart’s outlook on the world was quizzical—accepting the world as it was and whatever fate it dealt her.
“Had Elizabeth and I no more importance in the great upheavals of our century than statues in a shrine? Well, that’s for us to know and for you to find out. And while you’re making your mind up we’re alive in your thoughts. As I said, we’re immortal.”
Then before Elizabeth could interject, Mary Stuart said waspishly, “Dearest Elizabeth, what about the things your counsellors said about you behind your back, eh? I
ndecisive; mean; procrastinating?”
“Maybe, but I did everything out of my duty and love for England and our glorious people,” replied the Virgin Queen. “My unshakeable compromises proved the tense thread on which hung the stability of England. My policies of firmness with fairness proved a bulwark against religious war.”
“Huh!” Mary Tudor said angrily. “The way you and your spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham ran England turned it into a forerunner of a modern police state. The Communists, the Nazis and African dictators—they all learned from you.” After a short pause, she reflected to general surprise, “Come to think of it though, everything Mary Stuart said against my dear sister Lizzie in their lifetimes—parsimonious, procrastinating and so on—even clever—was what his unfair critics said of my dear husband, the great Felipe II in Spain. Ah, dearest Felipe,” she sighed.
Geoffrey Chaucer thought that, if only for milking its entertainment value, he had to keep the pot of religious fervour bubbling.
“Let’s hear more from Mary, Queen of Scots, a heroine ennobled by suffering. Gracious majesty, what is your take on the political gulf between Queens Mary and Elizabeth Tudor?”
Mary Stuart began beguilingly with the same conniving show of contrition she had perfected over many years both in the public limelight and in prison behind the scenes.
“Well,” she said as breathlessly as a B film starlet, “as we never met face to face in life, I could not ask Elizabeth what I can now. Here goes: Why did you have me killed, a pure sister queen?”
No skilled modern prime minister was as adept as Elizabeth I at deflecting blame and responsibility for deeds of both commission and omission.
“Why do I have the reputation of being a bitch?” she asked rhetorically. "Well, I think we royals are at our best when we play someone opposite to our real selves. Anyone who’s ever met me knows I’m a lady not a bitch. Maybe you should peer beneath her skin and ask why Mary Stuart always plays at being a lady. Go figure.
“My first political duty was to my sovereign state of England to whom I was married,” (now turning to face Mary Stuart directly) “not to some French namby-pamby mummy’s boy, nor a niminy-piminy dissolute cousin, nor an uncouth thug.” (This was referring to Mary Stuart’s three husbands in turn). “While she was alive, Mary Stuart was the focal point of plots against us. England had long been under threat of a Spanish invasion by petty Philip II, whose hand in marriage I had turned down. Wouldn’t you?”
Midnight in Westminster Abbey Page 14