by Peter Tonkin
Then again, the number of tradesmen willing to supply the Earl as his debts became ever more mountainous, grew fewer and fewer. Especially as word went round his erstwhile citizen supporters that he had lost Her Majesty’s favour forever. They still blamed the Toad and the Council he controlled; but the truth of the matter was too obvious to be ignored. The dashing knight errant of happier days was wearing tarnished armour now and Gloriana the Faery Queene was no longer his to serve. The graffiti-writing tailed off. The sermons passed on to new texts. The only citizens who stood by him were those who shared the pauper-knights’ dream - holding firm to the faint belief that whoever succeeded Elizabeth would raise Essex up again. And do so within months rather than years.
*
One other element Poley had not foreseen was that the air of crisis in Essex House would mount so swiftly, fed by the Earl’s loud outrage and by each new arrival begging shelter from his creditors; with each new visitor bringing yet more bad news from court. With each group of desperate men going out into London in squads too large and too well-armed for the bailiffs to approach – who nevertheless always seemed to find trouble in one increasingly dangerous confrontation after another. Lady Lettice and Sir Christopher returned from Wanstead. Of course Lady Frances and the children came with the rest of them from Barn Elms, though her mother Lady Walsingham remained at home there.
The Bacons in fact had been the earliest arrivals coming downriver from Twickenham with Poley in their household the instant they were allowed to do so. And Poley began to observe matters at once, contacting Lady Janet through Agnes the moment he had anything worth discussing with her. Sir Anthony took up his previous residence. In one way his presence had added importance, for Sir Henry Wotton along with several of the Secretariat, had gone abroad and showed every sign of staying abroad – as St Lawrence and Thomas Gerard had decided to stay in Ireland with Mountjoy. Returning to the damp and dreary conditions of his rooms in Essex House made Sir Anthony relapse at once and so severely that what he could actually do became strictly limited. His doctor and his two close body-servants gathered round him, more than a little worried by his deteriorating condition.
Sir Francis came and went – carrying increasingly hopeless messages to the Queen and returning with no good news. Or rather, with the worst news possible – that Her Majesty was fit and well and had no intention of dying for a good long time yet. Or of forgiving her erstwhile favourite in the meantime. It was enough to make a man run mad - even one with a firmer grip on his sanity than the beleaguered Earl. Especially as the equally desperate men with whom he was surrounded were given license by his ravings to confront him with wilder and wilder schemes designed to mend all their fortunes at one desperate stroke, and repay the hag who had hurt them all.
Henry Cuffe challenged the Earl over his hesitation, telling his master in no uncertain terms that the time to act was ripe and he should grasp it before the overwhelming impetus arising from the Queen’s cruel action was lost and yet more of his supporters in the City fell away. The irate Earl banished him for his trouble and moved a brace of newly-arrived knights into his accommodation. Sir Gelly, the wisest of the desperate councillors, circumspectly suggested that the Earl hide away in Wales, then slip across The Channel if the Queen continued to linger even further into bitter, unforgiving old age. Mountjoy, back from Ireland to report to the Council but a regular participant in Southampton’s meetings at Drury House, joined with Fernando Gorges to push the old idea of promising to ease King James of Scotland onto the English throne as soon as Elizabeth’s bony backside left it vacant. Sir Anthony designed a letter at their prompting, a hard task for the sick man. Sir Charles Davers took it north. One faction begged the Earl to befriend Lady Arbella Stuart, while others pleaded with him to approach the Spanish Infanta Isabella. The Queen was beginning to favour the Infanta, they said; Raleigh and the Toad were already in contact with her. The Toad, after all, was still in receipt of a pension from the Spanish Court – what could speak louder than that?
The one thing that Poley never considered, never saw coming at all, was the unexpected change that overcame his place in these schemes and in the Earl’s reactions to them. But one evening soon after Cuffe’s banishment, he found himself once more in front of the Earl, and the subject of his lordly consideration. For Sir Francis had suggested that Poley would make an excellent courier should Essex wish to contact the outer fringes of Court or Council, reliably and in secret.
‘I don’t trust him My Lord,’ said Sir Gelly. ‘Neither does Sir Anthony. He’s the Toad’s man. The Council’s intelligencer, He always has been.’
‘However,’ said Sir Francis, ‘he has served in Lady Lettice’s household as well as ours and, indeed, yours, My Lord, with never a whiff of suspicion for the better part of two years. True, my brother does not trust him but, frankly, neither does he trust a number of your most vociferous supporters. Lady Lettice’s husband Sir Christopher trusts him and vouches for him – they are related by blood after all. And indeed, both Poley and Sir Christopher worked for Walsingham when he was still alive. But that was long ago and circumstances have changed in the meantime. Master Cuffe would vouch for him were he back in your favour and present. They met in the Fleet and you know the story telling why this happened. Poley makes no secret of it. He was the Council’s man when he unmasked Babbington’s mad scheme to release the Queen of Scots and when Ingram Frizer killed Kit Marlowe in front of Poley at Mistress Bull’s house in Deptford. Nick Skeres was there, and working for the Council too. Nick Skeres has also turned against Master Secretary and the Council and is currently part of your extended household, My Lord, and he will vouch for Poley as well. All the world knows Poley has been cast out. Traduced. Disgraced. He has been at the very least dismissed from the Council’s service; and so he has changed from the Council’s man to your man alone. And, were that not enough, he is, almost uniquely in this place, a man who has no debts to speak of. Who can come and go without the risk of a bailiff’s hand on his shoulder. As has been demonstrated I believe by the fact that he has been able to meet and converse with Lady Jane Percy, close relative of some of your most powerful supporters in the North and the newly arrived brothers Charles and Jocelyn Percy.’
There was a short silence. Essex turned to Poley. ‘Well, what have you to say?’
*
‘It has all been said, My Lord. I have left the service of Master Secretary and the Council. I was thrust by them into the Fleet for some reason that I still do not understand. There I met both Master Cuffe and Sir Francis, through whose good offices alone I gained my freedom. And all the rest is as they have said. I speak simple, honest truth, and act upon it. And Sir Francis is correct. I owe nothing to any man outside these walls, except a matter of shillings to a man called Wolfall. And the debts I owe you and your household, Sir Francis and his, Lady Lettice and hers, are not the sort of debts that can be repaid with gold. But only with honest and truthful advice and service.’
‘That’s the nub of the matter, Gelly,’ said the Earl with the slightest tremor in his voice. ‘If we had acted sooner on the information Master Poley brought us. Directly from Lady Percy, who is related to the Earl of Northumberland, as he said… Taken his advice into account… If I had been just a heartbeat swifter to let him stand between those two fools duelling on The Strand and stop the matter before the watch arrived… He was right in both cases and acted to my benefit. If only we had listened… Acted… Sooner…’
‘With that thought in mind,’ prompted Sir Francis, ‘Perhaps it is time to invite Cuffe back into the fold.’
‘Perhaps,’ allowed the Earl. ‘I will think on it. Meanwhile, we have Master Poley to consider.’
Poley stood, his heart racing, trying not to look Essex full in the face. Trying to make sure he did nothing to put the desperate and unbalanced man off his latest superstition. Because it seemed to him that that the Earl now found himself surrounded by sycophants who did little more than agree with him. And in t
his they simply added the weight of responsibility to everything else he carried on his increasingly bowed shoulders. So he wanted someone at his side who made a decision, argued his case and stood by the outcome, taking his own responsibility. Someone from outside his usual circle, different to those men like Gelly Meyrick, Christopher Blount, Fernando Gorges and the rest who – whether they agreed with him or not – had allowed him to lead them to the brink of disaster and then straight on over the edge. Someone who might stand as a good-luck talisman, who could be relied upon to do precisely what Poley had done in his attempt to stop the duel in the Strand. He clearly regretted sending Cuffe away for arguing with him and advocating a course of action that even quite a short passage of time now made appear reasonable. Poley might even replace Cuffe in the meantime. And Poley saw as clearly as his friend Henry Cuffe had done, as, indeed Dr Wendy had done, that the Earl needed to take some action; almost any action – or he might indeed run mad.
‘If you cannot talk to the Queen, and she will not listen to any of your friends or relatives any more than she will read your letters,’ said Poley, ‘then the next best is Master Secretary Cecil. Failing him, Captain of the Guard Raleigh. They both stand high in her regard and have her ear in all matters – for the moment at least. Which one of them fears you least and therefore wishes your destruction less?’
‘They both conspire against me,’ snarled Essex. ‘They have done since long before I went to Ireland!’
There it was again, thought Poley. That tremor in his voice. Something that could often be heard, he had been told, in Bedlam.
‘Then which of them would you trust more, My Lord, if he gave his word on some matter?’ he enquired, keeping his voice soft and soothing.
‘If I had to trust either, then it would be The Toad.’ The Earl’s tone was firmer now.
‘Then, My Lord, allow me to suggest that you occupy your own mind and those of your closest advisors in seeking a way to build a bridge between yourself and Master Secretary. While, if you have not done so already, you send in secret to the King of Scotland. I know Sir Anthony has been in contact with King Christian, Queen Anne’s brother in Denmark, asking for him to request her favour in talking to her lord the king on your behalf. And to do so especially while King James considers anything you have written to him so far. But I warn you, if you did not already know of it, that Sir Thomas Walsingham’s wife Lady Audrey has been a frequent visitor to Edinburgh and Queen Ann’s court, putting the case against you directly, woman to woman, on behalf of Sir Thomas and the Toad.’
‘I sent Sir Charles Davers with a letter,’ said Essex. ‘Amongst other things it warns against Master Secretary, Thomas Walsingham and their creatures. It promises my aid in the matter of succession if he will move to support me now. But Davers is not yet returned with the king’s answer.’ He paused for a moment, then he added, ‘And it is time I think that poor Cuffe returned. He has as much to fear from the bailiffs as any of us. Find him, Poley, and bring him back.’
‘At once, My Lord,’ said Poley, his mind racing. But as he and Sir Francis turned to leave the room, the Queen’s Counsellor whispered, ‘Fear not, Master Poley. I know where he can be found.’
*
A little more than an hour later, Sir Francis continued his explanation with a brief smile. ‘I discovered him huddled in the gardens here, freezing and starving. He was there, he said, in hope that one of the benchers would be an Oxford man and remember him well enough to do him good service. Alas, his hopes were misplaced. The only men he had seen were actors from the Lord Chamberlain’s Men preparing for the Christmas festivities. And actors as you know lack charity almost as completely as they lack morals and money.’
‘Had he no friends? No coin?’
‘He said he had approached Sir Thomas Sackville the Chancellor of Oxford in his London residence, hoping for succour and support from his old university. But Sir Thomas is also Her Majesty’s Treasurer and a member of the Council. So he would not see him or help him in any way. Then he sold all his possessions except for what he stood up in and a cloak to save him from freezing but soon ran out of money nevertheless.’
‘And you took him in?’
‘What else could I do? Besides, I thought this would be the best place to hide a man standing in danger of being taken to court by bailiffs.’ The pair of them walked out of the soggy, wintery gardens and into Bacon’s rooms at Gray’s Inn. ‘At least if anything went wrong, he would not have to look far for someone to stand in his defence,’ said Sir Francis.
‘Surely you jest, Sir Francis,’ answered Poley with a grim chuckle. ‘I’ve yet to hear of any lawyer willing to defend a bankrupt. If a man cannot pay for food or lodgings, he’s unlikely to be able to afford legal representation.’
Sir Francis grunted. ‘You’re in the right of it, Master Poley. I hope you do not speak from personal experience.’ As Sir Francis said this the pair of them entered his rooms and discovered Henry Cuffe sitting at a desk, poring over a book by the light of a short candle-stub. A platter sat at his elbow that looked to Poley to have been licked clean. He glanced up in fright and it was only when they emerged from the shadows that his face relaxed, then was lit by a broad smile. Poley was struck at once by the way his friend had been reduced almost to skin and bone during his time of exile from Essex House.
‘Sir Francis,’ said the scholar. ‘You have brought me a most welcome gift. How goes it with you, dear friend Robert?’
‘Well enough, Henry. I am come to bring you home to the Earl. I believe he regrets having been so short with you.’
‘Not straight to the Earl I beg you,’ said Cuffe. ‘Can we not stop at a tavern on the way? My belly flaps against my ribs. I am truly become a hollow man.’
Poley looked at Sir Francis. He might not stand in serious debt to anyone save the money-lender Wolfall but his purse was as empty as Henry Cuffe’s belly. The lawyer nodded understandingly and crossed to a box in the corner.
Five minutes later the two men were back out in the wintery gardens with a silver crown to share between them, though Poley had no intention of eating or drinking. Just being out on the streets with Cuffe made him feel uneasy. Although clearly pleased and relieved to see his friend and to receive the news of his reinstatement in Essex’s good graces, Cuffe was a bitter man. His view of his own importance, and his importance to the Earl, had been damaged - perhaps destroyed. But, happily or unhappily he was still Essex’s follower. And Essex was famous throughout the city so his companions were well known to many, especially to their creditors. But it seemed clear that Henry Cuffe stood in urgent need of food and drink; so he had not been made free of the bench where those studying at the Inn could eat. Probably fearful, thought Poley, that one or more of the Cambridge men at dinner or supper there would recognise him and hand him in.
*
The nearest tavern was The Fighting Cocks just behind Barnard’s Inn on the corner of Holborn and Fetter Lane so Poley took Cuffe there, calculating that Fetter Lane would lead them down to Fleet Street, parallel to Chancery Lane that led down to The Strand. Though it would also take them near the Fleet prison – a risk they would just have to accept. The tavern was dressed for Advent. There was holly above the bar, red berries gleaming in memory of Christ’s blood as shed on the Cross and ivy wrapped round some of the tables symbolising Christ’s fidelity and the evergreen promise of eternal life. Neither of which were likely to apply to me, thought Poley wryly as he glanced around. See, see, Christ’s blood streams in the firmament. One drop would save my soul. It was a line from an old play that just popped unbidden into his mind; there for an instant and then, like the play, forgotten. The tavern was busy but not yet heaving. Poley was pleased to see no familiar faces. ‘See anyone you know?’ he asked Cuffe.
‘No-one, friend Robert,’ answered Cuffe, but his attention was on the prospect of food, not on the other customers.
They sat at a table positioned to allow Poley a clear view of the door and Cuffe a clear vie
w of the great fire where the food was being prepared. They had no sooner entered than their noses told them that today’s ordinary was fish - for today was a fish day. It was hardly any time before Cuffe was chewing his way through salmon in thick lavender, wine and onion sauce laid on a trencher deep enough to soak up all the juice while the serving woman went to get change from a silver crown for a meal that cost two fourpenny groats as it included a big pewter flagon of strong ale. At first Cuffe was too hungry for conversation. But time went on, the change came in the form of some shillings, more groats and some pennies, and the food disappeared. So Poley was able to describe the current situation at Essex House in the increasing certainty that Cuffe was paying attention. ‘The Earl regrets the manner in which he treated you, Henry. I believe he sees now the strength of your suggestion.’
‘Aye. Now that it is too late to act upon it,’ said Cuffe bitterly pushing the empty platter to one side. ‘And the City is not so supportive as it once was, I fear.’ He licked his fingers, and reached for the big pewter flagon.
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ nodded Poley. ‘Though the Earl can call upon more than one hundred knights as well as other friends and supporters and thus has little need of guildsmen or apprentices. Such an army might still convince the citizens of London to join in any endeavour he wishes to undertake. But he hesitates to act upon your suggestion – or any of the others presented to him.’