The Marriage Game

by Alison Weir

  Before Elizabeth were drawn up rank upon rank of her foot soldiers and cavalry. She blinked back tears at the sight of these brave, true men, come to defend her and the realm that they all held dear. As she advanced through their lines, calling out repeatedly, “God bless you all!” many fell to their knees, pikes were lowered in deference, and there were hearty shouts of “Lord preserve our queen!”

  “Thank you with all my heart!” she cried.

  The next morning she came again, receiving a burst of spontaneous applause so loud that it seemed like the rumble of thunder.

  “I feel as if I am in the midst and heat of battle!” she told Robert, who again was at her side. It was some time before the clamor died down, and then, at his command, the soldiers acted out a mock engagement so the Queen should see their prowess. When it was over, and they had paraded in all their bravery before her, she addressed them from the saddle, her voice ringing out over the camp.

  “My loving people,” she cried, “we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust.”

  She paused, her gaze roving over the sea of faces upturned to her, her heart full, her courage high. “I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman,” she went on, “but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already that for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you on a word of a prince, they shall be duly paid. In the meantime, my Lieutenant General shall be in my stead”—she smiled at Robert—“than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”

  There was a mighty roar of approval that reverberated around the fort, and shouts and cries of acclaim.

  “I think Your Majesty has so inflamed the hearts of your good subjects that the weakest among them will now be able to match the proudest Spaniard that dares land in England,” Robert said loudly, to more cheers. His eyes were warm with admiration—and love. It was as plain as day to her.

  Her heart was soaring as he led her into his tent, where dinner was served. While they were eating, news was brought that Parma was about to set sail.

  Robert stood up. “Your Majesty must go back to London,” he insisted.

  “Aye, madam!” echoed his captains.

  “I cannot in honor do so,” Elizabeth protested, “for I have said that I will fight and die with my people.”

  They were moved by her courage, she could see, but still they tried to dissuade her.

  “Your safety and preservation is of the utmost importance,” Robert insisted. “I fear that I cannot guarantee either.”

  The argument dragged on, with Elizabeth refusing to leave. Outside, the men went about their tasks quietly, knowing that the long period of waiting to see action was drawing to an end. How did it feel, she wondered, knowing that soon you would go into battle and might die or be horribly wounded? Her heart went out to them all.

  Dusk fell. And then came a shout of joy. “They’re not coming!”

  It was true, the messenger confirmed, kneeling breathless before the Queen and the Earl of Leicester. Parma had refused to venture his army without the backing of the Spanish navy, which of course was mostly at the bottom of the sea. Robert had never seen such emotion in Elizabeth’s face. It was radiant with joy and unshed tears.

  “This is the Lord’s doing,” she said, as she had thirty years ago when they told her she was Queen. “It is marvelous in our eyes.” And she fell to her knees and folded her hands in thanksgiving.

  It was over; the great enterprise against England, plotted over so many years, had been an abject failure. They had won! It was one of the greatest victories in England’s long and glorious history.

  Elizabeth rode back to London in triumph, looking forward jubilantly to the City’s welcome and the victory celebrations that were being planned. All along the roadside crowds gathered as she passed, calling down blessings on her, and everywhere the people were making merry. God be praised, that had sent this hour!

  She made clear her determination to reward Robert with the office of Lieutenant Governor of England and Ireland, which would invest him with more power than had ever been given to a subject.

  “Madam,” said Burghley, “I beg you to think seriously before granting this. He will be a virtual viceroy.”

  “Indeed!” chimed in Walsingham. So opposed were they to the appointment that she was forced to abandon her plan, wishing that Robert could know how highly she had wanted to honor him. But maybe his welcome by the cheering crowds in London was sufficient reward.

  There were to be great national celebrations to mark the victory. In August, Essex staged a triumphal military review in Whitehall, followed by a joust in which he repeatedly excelled all others. When Elizabeth, come to watch the tournament, appeared at a window in the Cockpit Gate, the crowds below, catching sight of her, all knelt in reverence.

  “God bless my people!” she called.

  “God save the Queen!” they roared. And they remained kneeling until she made a sign for them to rise.

  She stayed at that window, with Robert beside her, watching young Essex joust and applauding heartily. She and Robert had been much in each other’s company since his return from Tilbury, and they dined together in private every night. It was like the old times come again, Elizabeth thought, rejoicing that he should be here sharing these heady days with her.

  But tonight, when dinner was served, he waved it away.

  “I am not hungry,” he told her. “I have eaten like a horse this week and should look to my diet.”

  “Eaten like a horse?” Elizabeth echoed. “You haven’t finished a single meal. And you look tired, dear Eyes.”

  “I am, Bess. These past weeks have been very demanding for an old man such as I.”

  “Then you must rest!” She was suddenly alarmed for him. “And take that physic that I had made up for you!”

  “It is nothing to worry about, I assure my sweet lady. But I was going to crave leave to visit Buxton again to take the waters. They should restore me.” He smiled at her.

  If he was prepared to make the long journey north to Buxton, surely there couldn’t be that much wrong with him? “Of course, Robin, you must go,” Elizabeth said, “although I cannot tell you how deeply it grieves me to part with you at this time.”

  “I will be back soon,” he promised. “Certainly in time for the thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s.”

  “But that is not until November!” she protested.

  “Then I will tarry no longer than I have to.”

  “When do you leave?” She dreaded hearing his reply.

  “I thought tonight. If I go now I can be at Edgware by nightfall, and on the road toward Kenilworth tomorrow. The sooner I am on my way, the sooner the cure can be effected and I can return to you.”

  “Then God go with you, Sweet Robin, and may He bring you safely back to me.”

  Robert rose. He seemed to hesitate, then suddenly bent forward, pulled Elizabeth to her feet, drew her into his embrace and kissed her
most lovingly on the mouth. It was no perfunctory kiss of farewell, but a lover’s kiss, such as he had not given her for years.

  Then he stepped back, a smile playing on his lips. “The true joy of my heart consists more in Your Majesty’s eyes than in any other worldly thing,” he said. “I will think every absent hour a year until we are reunited.” Then he made an elegant bow and was gone.

  A few days later Elizabeth was overjoyed to receive a letter from him. It had been sent from Rycote in Oxfordshire, where he and she had often been guests of Lord and Lady Norris:

  I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending to know how my gracious lady does, being the chief thing in the world I do pray for, for her to have good health and long life. For my own poor case, I continue still your medicine and find that it helps much better than any other thing that hath been given me. Thus, hoping to find a perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my usual prayer for Your Majesty’s most happy preservation, I humbly kiss your foot. From your old lodging at Rycote, this Thursday morning, ready to continue my journey, by Your Majesty’s most faithful and obedient servant, R. Leicester.

  He was the one who was unwell, and yet his chief concern was for her health. It was typical of him. She imagined him in company with the Norrises, enjoying their good hospitality. She hoped he was eating sensibly. It would not be long now before he reached Buxton.

  She went about with a spring in her step. Already she was anticipating his return. The healing waters would do him good, she was certain of it. Meanwhile, she was planning a great portrait of herself, with the great Spanish armada—as they were calling it now—in the background, to commemorate the victory, and Hatton and Essex were busy organizing lavish festivities with Sir Henry Lee, the Queen’s Champion. There was to be a medal struck too, on her orders, with the legend, God blew with His winds, and they were scattered. Elizabeth was in such a buoyant mood that she was moved to release the hapless Davison from the Tower.

  The euphoric days of rejoicing passed in a hectic blur. Then, one warm evening in early September, Elizabeth, lute in hand, returned from a jaunt by barge along the Thames to find Burghley waiting for her in her privy chamber.

  “Good Spirit, why such a dolorous face on this glorious day?” she teased him by way of greeting.

  “Madam, I bring heavy news,” he said, his voice an unaccustomed croak.

  “Not Parma?” she asked in alarm. God could not be so cruel as to snatch the victory from her now.

  “No …” He hesitated. “There is no kind way to say this, my dearest lady. Robert is dead.”

  “No!” Elizabeth’s anguished cry came from the depths of her soul. “He cannot be! No! No!”

  “I am so deeply sorry,” Burghley murmured.

  Elizabeth had sunk down into her chair, her face cradled in her hands. Tears were pouring between her fingers. He was dead. He was dead, and all his glory gone. All his love for her, his tenderness, his care; his greatness, of which he had been so proud, and justly too—all turned to nought. She would never see his dear face again. The book of his life was closed, the story ended.

  Burghley stood silent as she wept copiously.

  “Would you like me to go?” he asked gently. “Shall I send for your ladies?”

  She struggled to master herself. “Tell me how it happened,” she stuttered, wondering how she was going to live without her beloved Eyes.

  “He was on his way to Kenilworth, but was troubled by an ague on the way. It turned into a fever and he was obliged to make for his hunting lodge at Cornbury, where he took to his bed. He died this morning at four o’clock, almost alone. There was barely anyone in attendance to close his eyes.”

  She wept again at that. All his greatness, all his wealth—and her precious Eyes had died virtually alone.

  “I am more sorry than I can say, madam,” Burghley murmured, breaking all the rules by laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He had become a good friend and a colleague I greatly respected. He will be sorely missed.”

  But by me most of all, she thought. How could Fate be so brutal?

  “Leave me, William,” she said.

  When Burghley had crept away, she went to her bedchamber and dismissed her waiting attendants. Then she locked the door. God had been cruel after all, plunging her into the deepest sorrow in her hour of triumph. She raged against Him, then stormed against those who had vilified Robert over the years, the vipers who had dragged his reputation in the dust with slurs of murder and poison and self-seeking—and all unfounded! It had been envy, pure envy, and he had not deserved it. She cried all the harder just thinking of it.

  She could not face the world. She lay on her bed for two days, weeping pitifully, ignoring the increasingly urgent taps on her door.

  “Madam, your council awaits you.”

  “Madam, your supper is ready.”

  “Madam, are you all right?”

  “Go away!” she cried, every time.

  On the third day, Walsingham came to the door. “Madam, forgive me for disturbing you at this time, but there is urgent business that needs Your Majesty’s attention.”

  Silence.

  “Madam?”

  “I am unable to attend to state affairs,” Elizabeth wailed. “I will not suffer anybody to have access to me. I am too grieved at the death of my lord of Leicester.”

  Another day passed. She was sunk in misery, her stomach empty, her mouth dry. The room smelled horrible and stale. Yet still she did not want to face the world.

  Burghley came knocking next. “Madam, I speak to you as a father, as it were. You must take care of yourself. You cannot shut yourself away like this. Life has to go on—and this kingdom and all your loving subjects look to you for a mother’s care. Will you not come out?”

  “No!” Elizabeth cried. “Go away, William!”

  There was a muttering of voices outside.

  “Madam,” said Burghley, more firmly, “if you do not come out, we will have the door broken down, out of concern for you.”

  “No!” she sobbed. She could not face the world yet.

  “Do it,” she heard him say, and there was a heavy thud, then another, and then a crash as two burly grooms shouldered the door open. Burghley and Walsingham stood waiting outside, compassion in their lined faces.

  She stood up shakily. Even in extremis, she was conscious that she had her dignity to preserve.

  “Very well,” she said, hoarse and bitter. “I see I must patiently endure my grief.” And with a supreme effort she stepped through the doorway to begin living again.

  In his will, Robert had left her a beautiful diamond and emerald pendant and a rope of six hundred perfect pearls. She wore the pearls when George Gower took her likeness for the armada portrait, in which she was gratified to see that she appeared more like an icon than a queen of flesh and blood.

  She did not attend the funeral at Warwick, where Robert was laid to rest beside his beloved noble imp in the exquisite Beauchamp Chapel of St. Mary’s Church. She spared barely a thought for the anguish of his grieving widow, who had found herself saddled with debts of fifty thousand pounds, half of it owed to Elizabeth herself. The month after Robert’s death she took back Kenilworth, and ordered Lettice to auction off all his possessions in his other houses. She was not surprised when the impoverished widow took another husband in a scandalously short time.

  What really hurt Elizabeth was that, amid the victory celebrations, Robert’s death passed almost unnoticed. No poets lauded his virtues, and the court mourning she insisted on was observed resentfully. The only person who really seemed to be grieving for him was herself.

  He would barely recognize her now, she thought. His death had aged her and mantled her in melancholy. She had run the gauntlet of conflicting emotions—ecstatic joy and desperate sorrow—and she was spent. It was as much as she could do to put on a smiling face in public.

  In November, her grief still raw after two months, sh
e went in great state to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a special service of thanksgiving for the greatest English victory since Agincourt. She rode in a sumptuous canopied chariot drawn by two white horses, and her gown—the most splendid of the three thousand she owned—was of white satin encrusted with gold. Such a glittering procession had not been witnessed since her coronation thirty years before, and the people ran to see her as she passed, crowding behind barriers hung with blue cloth.

  “God save Your Majesty!” they cried in joy.

  She bowed to left and right. “You may well have a greater prince, but you may never have a more loving prince,” she declared to them, her voice filled with emotion. Her father would have been proud of her this day, she thought, as madrigals and ballads and pageants enlivened her way through London’s festive streets. And her mother—surely Anne Boleyn would be rejoicing in Heaven now, knowing she had cause to be proud of the daughter she’d left disparaged and bastardized!

  At the west door of the cathedral the Queen alighted and fell to her knees, thanking God in full sight of the crowds. Then, to the sound of the soaring anthem “Sing Joyfully,” composed by William Byrd, one of the gentlemen of her Chapel Royal, she proceeded into the great church, which was hung with captured Spanish banners. After the sermon was preached, she read out a prayer she had composed herself, then addressed the congregation, enjoining them all to give thanks as she did for their glorious deliverance. Her words were received with a mighty shout of acclaim and loving voices wishing long life to her, to the confusion of her enemies. She wished—how she wished, the ever-ready tears not far from flowing—that Robert could have been here to share this triumph with her.